«Дар освобождения», курс 21 «Ретрит радости непостоянства», занятие 6

[Speaker 2]
Okay, soften your forehead, soften your lips, soften your fingers. You might focus on your third eye, focus on the spot between your eyebrows, up a little bit, and then drill down into your head about a quarter of an inch, one centimeter. Okay, focus there.

And you can start breathing. Watch your breath, but watch it come out of your third eye. So your breath comes out of your forehead, and your breath comes back into your forehead, just about the place between your eyebrows.

And take ten nice long exhales from that. Then imagine that you're going to die before you go to bed tonight. You will die before you go to bed tonight.

So it's okay for the rest of my life. If I don't have a big position, or I'm not very famous, or people don't think I'm so amazing, if I'm sort of invisible in the world, like a person who works at a small store, or a person who cleans the floor, and if people think I'm somebody unimportant and invisible like that, that's okay. It's a good place for me to practice.

If I get famous, if people know me, it's dangerous. If I'm anonymous, I can practice quietly, very sweetly. Sit with that for about ten minutes.

It's okay for me to be anonymous in this life. One of those invisible people, people don't pay any attention to, but I'll be practicing the whole time. Please come back to your breath, three slow breaths, and you can stretch, open your eyes.

[Speaker 1]
I looked up the goose thing, and the fox and the weasel thing, and I've never seen anybody explain it, but I found an old commentary by a Kadampa Lama named Chen Ngawa, Lodro Gyangtsen. He said, there's a goose who flew to the south for the winter, and then he wants to go back home in the springtime. So in America, I don't know in China, but some birds will go back home in the spring when the weather gets warm.

They will fly back in big groups like that, and they have a long neck and beautiful white color. He talks about the goose who, he lands, he gets up in the morning and he says, oh, the weather got warm again, and he's going to fly back to Vancouver, right Connie? He's got his mind on Vancouver.

He's in Guadalajara, and he's got his mind, he's going, I'm going back to Vancouver, and he puts his long beautiful neck out, and then the fox behind the stone right here, it goes, and catches him by the neck. Then he's got his mind on Vancouver, so he, with all his power, he pushes the air, and that slits his throat. Okay, sorry.

So the fox grabbed him, then he put all his power, because he's thinking about Vancouver, and then it split his throat open, he died. And then Chendawa says, many people, Tibetans, a thousand years ago, they decide to go to India, and they sell all their stuff, like Khyunpo Nyaldra, right? Who invented Nigamayoga, or wrote it down.

Then they put on their backpack, and they get all their stuff ready, and they're thinking about getting over Himalayan mountains and into India, and they step off the step of their front step, and they slip, and they break their neck, and they die right there, okay? Like their mind is like, India, Bhogaya, Varanasi, and they look up in the sky, and they step off the step of their front door, and they break their neck and they die. It's the same as the goose, okay?

And then he says, what it means is that people have these grand ideas about tantric practice, and I will go into three-year retreat, and Vajrayogini will come visit me every day, and I'll be doing mantras, and I'll finally do something good with my life, and I hope people hear about it. Then the goose, the fox grabbed the neck. You see what I mean?

I hope people hear about it. And then they push into tantra, and it kills them, okay? Because they have this little stupid thought, you know, I hope everybody hears about my three-year retreat.

I hope everybody hears about how cruel I am. And it kills the three-year retreat from the first hour. It kills the three-year retreat in the first hour of the three-year retreat.

Then he goes into a long explanation why foxes are very good at hiding behind rocks right in front of you, so you don't know they're there. What's that mean? Yeah, your eight worldly thoughts are...

They're right here all the time, and you don't see them. They're very good at hiding. You have them, but you don't see them.

And then they ruin your practice. They kill your practice. He says weasel and foxes are both good at hiding behind rocks, so it's not that they're different.

I couldn't find out that they were different. I think it just means weasels and foxes. Sneaky critters who hide nearby and grab your throat and kill your practice.

They hide here, not in Amitabha's paradise. They're right here. That's as close as I could get.

The Tibetan was very corrupt and very old. Half the words are misspelled. It comes from a thousand years ago, and it's not very clear.

How many problems did we get? Yeah, we're on number six. So six problems of not doing death meditation every day.

The last one was you become a petty, irritable person and small things make you upset. And your cappuccino isn't quite right. And you think it's important to tell everybody in the restaurant that your cappuccino is not quite right.

So if you did a death meditation that morning and you got a cappuccino, you'd be, oh my god, cappuccino on the last day. That's so cool. I could die with a clear mind.

So if you're doing death meditation every day, small things don't bother you. Small things don't bother you. You're a more agreeable person.

You have a bigger, what do they call it? Tolerance for other people's stupidity. Or whatever.

Number six. ,GROS PA GCIG RGA RGYUR BZHIN DU, ,GCIG RGOS PA'I NYES DMIGS NI, If you don't do death meditation every day, then when death does come, you feel very strong regret. I had a chance.

I had a Lama. I had all these teachings. I had a good chance.

I had a meditation hut. I had a cushion. I had a rosary.

I had all the videos of the classes. And I just wasted my time on Facebook and Alibaba. Okay, like that.

You feel very bad at the last minute. I met people, they had problems with their parents. Like they had a fight with their mom and they had a fight with their dad.

And then they didn't talk to each other for five years or ten years. And then suddenly mom died. Or suddenly father died.

And then they feel so terrible. They feel, oh, I should have called them. I should have...

It's too late. And it's like that. You had all these chances to practice.

Everything was there. And then suddenly you get cancer. And you're like, wait, I didn't have time to finish my meditations.

I didn't do what I was going to do. PHYI BA MA BRTEN NA GCOD KYI SRUG BSNGAL TZAM BYAS PA'ANG So if you don't think about your death every day, then you can pretend to be a Dharma practitioner. You can look like one on the outside.

SRUG BSNGAL means a reflection in a mirror. And in Dharma language, it means a shadow of a real practitioner. You look like a real practitioner, but you're not.

BYAS PA'ANG SEMS KYIS SDUG BSNGAL DANG BRJES NA If your Dharma practice is mixed up with wanting to get people's attention or things like that, BRJES NA CHOS MA GRUB PAR CI BA ZHES PA'I DRA DE Then the enemy called, I died before I finished my practice. I died before my practice was successful. That's an enemy's name.

I died before I got where I wanted to go. NYIN GCIG BLO BUR DU CHUNG BA NA They come suddenly. They come unexpectedly.

I'd say about 95% of people die unexpectedly. They didn't expect to die when they died. BLO BUR DU CHUNG BA NA SNGA RDUN DU NYER BA'I RTOGS KYIS RGYU NOR SOGS GANG GI KYANG MI PHEN PAR So then all the hopes and all the work you did in your life to get things, to get people, to acquire people, friends, relatives, family, in that moment, GANG GI KYANG MI PHEN PAR you see that they are useless.

They're not going to help you five minutes after you die. All the efforts you made in your life to collect objects or money or attention of other people or even other people themselves, five minutes after you die, it's all irrelevant. It doesn't matter anymore.

SNGA RDUN DU NYER BA'I RTOGS KYIS RGYU NOR SOGS GANG GI KYANG MI PHEN PAR MTHONG ZHING And you see it and you regret. You regret all the effort you put into that. PHEN MED PA'I LHA SPYOD MA CHUNG BAR ZHES You understand, you realize that you didn't...

the LHA SPYOD didn't come. What's LHA SPYOD? What's...

Yeah, angel Dharma. The divine Dharma. The Dharma of the gods.

The teaching of the gods. MA CHUNG I didn't get it. I lost it.

I lost my chance. MA CHUNG There's a guy who died yesterday. His name was Steve Brzegulis.

He helped me write the first Tibetan program. The first program for printing Tibetan. He did the programming.

And he was a very dear student of Khenpo Rinpoche. And he just died yesterday. I woke up this morning and something felt very wrong.

And then I found out he just died. And he didn't get a chance to practice the way he wanted to. He kind of got distracted with computers and stuff.

And then he never came back to it. And he just died. And that's it.

He's lost his chance. He was with Khen Rinpoche for years. And he lost his chance.

GTOG DGOS BA CHOS NI MA CHUNG BAR BZHIN NAS RGYUD PA BZHIN DU MI SOS PA Unbearable regret comes up on your mind. SKYE YANG DE'I DU RANG SDUG GNYIS LAS CI SEMS PA Then when you reach that point, you just have to sit with that suffering. There's nothing you can do.

You die. You're dying. You know you're dying.

And you know it's too late. And there's nothing else to do. You just have to sit there with those feelings.

And there's nothing you can do. You sit there with those feelings as you die. Terrible way to die.

That's problem number six. DPER NA MNGON GROL CHOS DAG ZHES BYA BA TSA BA'I GNAS KYI THEBS TE PHYIR BAR GZHAN NAS RGYUD ZHIG MED PA DANG DRAG So then Pabongka Rinpoche mentions a monk from a monastery called Mngon Groling. His name was Chodak.

He got a fever, a bad fever. Then he realized he was going to die. He told his friends he was sorry.

He regretted his life. Then he doesn't tell the whole story. So I went and got you the whole story.

The story can be found in a lama named Losang Jangyong Mun Lam. He has the whole story. So I went and got you the story.

Because of John Brady's work. Thank you John. So that's where your money goes from Singapore and Guangzhou and Xiamen.

That's why we can have these teachings. Because I can just look it up in the computer. It goes through 20,000 books in about two seconds.

So I can find these stories for you. Otherwise we don't have the stories. PHYI KHAR BSGYOD PA SKYE BA MNGON GROL CHAGS CHOD DAG LTA BUR TE DE'I RGYEN DANG GI DE'I THUGS NAS So this monk that Pabongka Rinpoche mentions was involved in splitting up the Dharma group.

So he was very smart. They say in the scripture that the people who split the Dharma group are usually smart people. Because they can talk to everybody and say, Did you hear what Stanley did?

Blah, blah, blah. Then they can create a... They're smart enough to convince people that there's a problem and they split the group.

They're not stupid people. They're usually intelligent people with messed up mind. SNAM ZHIG NA KHOL TSE PA'I SNA NAS Then that monk who had split up the Dharma group got a bad fever.

NYID MA ZHIG TU NYID BLOG PAS Then he couldn't keep consciousness. He kept falling unconscious. GZHAN GYIS PHYIR DU RGYUN DRUNG PO YIN Then his supporters in the Dharma group split, complained to him, You used to be so clever and sharp and now you're just like, all the time.

YIN PA LA TSE PA'I GNAD NAG DU NYID BLOG PA CI YIN BYAS PA Why now you're so out of it? You used to be so clever and so smart and you helped us in our side. Then he said, GZHAN LA GRUNG PO LTAR BA'I NGAG PUNG My life was destroyed by people like you who told me I was clever.

See, Pabongka doesn't say what he said. But the real story is that he told his supporters, You ruined my life by believing me, by telling me I was smart, and that I had the right. PUNG means you ruined my life.

PUNG LTAR BA'I NGAG TE TZA NA CHOS KHO NA MA BYAS PA'I Now the person you see before you is not an intelligent person. It's a person who didn't practice. The person you see in the bed right now is a person who didn't practice because of you guys.

You supported me. BYAS PA'I KHAM GSUM NA NGAG LA'I RNAM PAR MI SDUG I can't think of a person in the universe who's more stupid than me. And then he died.

Like that. He just died. So he had this regret at the end.

He believed, other people told him he was really clever and he believed them. And then at the end he realized they had deceived him. KHA MA LA'I THA LTA CI BA'I JIG PA ZHIG DGOS CI KHAR MI TSE BA ZHIG DGOS PA Then Kamala said a very beautiful thing and you should think about it.

THA LTA CI BA'I JIG PA ZHIG DGOS If you're going to be afraid of death, get it finished with now. If you're afraid to die, do your death meditation and get over it. CI KHAR MI TSE BA Then when death comes, you shouldn't be afraid.

So do your death meditation, get used to yourself dying before tonight's finished. And then when the death comes, be calm and chill. Chill out.

Enjoy. Okay? MI TSE BA DGOS PA LA DBONG PO DE LAS SDOGS NA But all of us, we do the opposite.

We don't think about death. Day after day, we just enjoy our life. And then when it comes, we get scared.

Many people who are dying poop in their pants. Many, many people. You can see.

They realize what's going to happen. And they realize they didn't have anything ready. They didn't prepare anything.

Most people don't know what to prepare. And they get terrified and they poop in their pants. CI KHAR MI TSE BA NI MI'I GCIG CI KHAR DRANG LA SEMS MO BDEB And then they're screaming and crying.

In Tibetan you say SEMS MO means the nails on your fingernails. And DRANG means your chest. So you're like clawing, you know, like that.

It means scared, super scared. CI BA MI BDAG PA DI LA DANG PO GCIG CI KHAR MI GCIG PA ZHIG DGOS KYANG RANG REG DE LAS BDOG STE So the point of practicing death meditation is to get used to that fear now. Get over the fear now.

And then when death comes, you'll be ready and you'll be calm and you'll be relaxed. And that's the best way to die. ZHIG DGOS KYANG RANG REG DE LAS BSGOM DANG But we do the opposite.

THA DAG CHU BA ZHIG YONG YANG PA TZAM YANG MED PAR Nobody thinks they're going to die today. Nobody in the general public thinks they're going to die today. Almost nobody.

LO BDE MOR BDE And they're pretty comfortable with their life. Do you have enough money? No, I have a lot of credit card debt.

Is your husband perfect? I don't know, 75%? Is life okay?

It's not so bad. And they feel okay about life. They're not scared.

But they should be scared all the time. DE BA NA CI KHAR CI DAG GANG SBYAR LA THUB Then those people don't die well. People who didn't practice dying, they don't die well.

They have a bad death. And people who kept doing... when you brush your teeth, right?

Look in the mirror and say, you're going to die today. Okay. Let's cancel that meeting with that irritating old lady.

Let's cancel that one movie that's not that good. Let's do a little more meditation today. Since it's our last chance, let's do an extra 15 minutes.

Something like that. You get used to it. Then when the doctor says you have cancer, you're like, okay, I'm ready.

My mom got cancer. Bad. And my dad got cancer.

It was interesting, the difference. My mom went to the lawyers and made all the, what do you call it? Wills and got that money split up.

Got everything ready. She sold her clothes. She split up the house.

She got everything ready. Then she just died very calmly. She was a very religious person.

She died with a Bible in her hand. Her heart broke open with blood. She had a Bible in her hand.

She was like... She drew a beautiful painting of Jesus just like a week before that. She had a Bible in her hand.

She was very calm. Then my dad, who was not religious, he was super scared. He's this big, brave hunter, can shoot everything.

He was terrified. He kept saying, no, no, I'm not going to die. Then when he died, it was a big mess.

It took us like a year to figure out where were his bank accounts, or how much money did he owe. He didn't get anything ready. He was terrified.

My mom was like, okay, I'm going to die on this date. The doctor says about this date, you get this, you get this, you take care of this, you take care of this. Is everybody happy?

Everybody okay? So you should be like that. Get ready.

PHYI BA ZHIG DBANG SNYAM PAR BSAM YANG MED PAR BLO BDE MA RGYUN YANG PHYI GANG NI BCUG PO ZER PHANG BA RGYA You may have a hundred storerooms filled with gold on the day you die. RGYAL PO YOD THAMS CAD KYI BDAG PO'ANG If you're the old type of king in India. So when you say Lord Buddha was a king or a prince, Siddhartha, right?

Or Lord Atisha was a king. Asanga and Vasubandhu were of king's royalty. King in the old days wasn't like Obama.

King means you own everything and everybody in the country. You see a girl you like, she's yours. You see a car you like, you just take it.

Somebody just made a nice cherry pie, you walk in their house and take it. Because you own the house and you own all the people in the house and you own the cherry pie that she just cooked. That's a king.

That's a real king. Not like these politicians. So that's pretty powerful.

If you walk into somebody's house and tell people kill her, they have to kill her. That's it. You own everybody.

You own every house. You own everything. That's a real king.

Then RGYAL PO YUL THAMS CAD KYI BDAG PO'ANG A king like that, DE'I DUS SU'I PHUN PA'I DON PO CHUNG ZAD KYANG MED PAS Then they have nothing. They die with nothing. Empty hand.

STONG PA STONG PA KHO NA STONG PA KHO NA Nothing but empty handed. You die naked. You go back.

Doesn't matter who you were. RANG RE YANG PHYI KHAR PHAN NGES PAS BLO BDENG CHA SA GCIG KYANG MA GRUB PA'I NGANG NAS Then if you do your death meditation and you have a good, daily, modest Dharma practice, then you have what's called DENG. Say DENG.

Not DUNG. DENG. DENG means insurance policy.

You have a guarantee. Written guarantee. DENG means written guarantee.

You're okay. You can die. You're okay.

You got your karmic seeds. You got your practice. You're set.

But if you don't do your death meditation every day, DENG SA GCIG KYANG MA GRUB if you didn't work on that, LO BUR DU BYIN NAS GROG PA GSUM PA and suddenly you get a bad cancer or something, which happens to everybody. Don't think you're different. Everybody thinks they're not going to get cancer.

Anyway. DE'I TSE DAG LEN MA ZHIG TZAM ZHIG BYUNG NA BRTAN NAS BYUNG NGES PAR BYED NYAMS MA Then the doctor says you're going to die in a few weeks. Then you're like, Oh, I wish I had had some time.

I wish I had had some time to get my stuff together. I wish I had time to do my death meditation. I wish I had time to prepare.

But now I don't. MOD KYANG DE'I TSE CI TSA'I BA YIN TE It's too late. When they tell you you got cancer, it's too late to do your death meditation.

Because then the real one's coming. TSE RANG LA YAG TU LOG TU YOD PA'I TSE SA RGYUS MA CHU BA We were on the boat in Varanasi. They made me get up at four o'clock or something.

Look at this super polluted pool. They said there's 17 septic sewers. 17 city sewer systems are emptying into the Ganges.

Do I want to dump my head under it? I'm like, no. Then we were watching this guy on the shore and he bought a nice loaf of bread.

He was carrying it. You don't carry bread on the banks of the Ganges because there's these big huge monkeys and they're very strong. They come and grab it.

We watched this stupid guy. I'm like, watch this. Then monkey comes and runs away.

While you've got the food in your hand, while you've got the YOD CHAO, CHU RO, Dunkin Donuts. What's that guy's name? Tim Horton.

While you've got the Tim Horton donut in your hand, eat it. Bite it while you've got it. Don't like, ugh.

And then CI SEMS PA means a dog runs away with it. Who's the dog? The Lord of Death.

You've got it in your hand. Eat it quick. That's it.

It's time. You've got time now. Use it.

Don't sit there and say, I'll practice tomorrow. Then death will come. You won't get the Tim Horton donut.

If you don't know what's Tim Horton, you have a bad karma. It's the best donut in the world. I'm sorry.

Better than Beijing YOD CHAO. GYIS KHYER BA'I SOS SOGS PA'I SA BA SEMS KYANG After the dog has run away with your Dunkin Donut, it's too late. MI PHEN PA It doesn't matter how much you wanted to eat it.

That's number six. We finished the six problems of not doing your death meditation every day. Tomorrow, in the morning, I'm going to have asked somebody to get up and tell me all six.

So get ready. Talk to each other tonight. I'm going to embarrass somebody in this room.

And it's not going to be me. So I'm going to ask you to stand up and tell me what are the six. All right?

Ready? If you're not sure what they were, talk to Uta or someone. Next part in the study of death is to think of how cool it is if you do do your death meditation.

So in Buddhism, we always try to sell you on the positives. Like, this is how cool you're going to be if you do death meditation every day. So these are the cool things that are going to happen to you.

Number one. DON CHEN BA'I PHAN YON NI, PHYI BA BRTEN NI, BRTEN NA NI BRTEN BYAS TE BRTEN PA'I MDO If you do your death meditation every day, it's extremely powerful. It's extremely important.

It's big bang for a little buck. What do you call it? More bang for your buck.

You spend 15 minutes on death meditation every day, it's worth like two hours of emptiness meditation. It's powerful. It's good stuff.

When I get to emptiness, I'll say the opposite. You know that. DON CHEN BA'I PHAN YON NI PHYI BA BRTEN NA NI BRTEN BYAS TE Very important to do it compared to other things you can do with your time.

15 minutes of death meditation every morning will make your life extremely happy. That's why Tim called this retreat The Joy of Impermanence. BRTEN PA'I MDO NYANG DE CHEN POR There's a famous sutra called The Great Nirvana.

I believe a lot of the sutra is Lord Buddha giving a teaching after he knew he was dying. We went to Dunhuang and in the cave there's a Buddha laying down. Very beautiful, very huge, like 100 meters, huge.

Very, very beautiful. In a cave. So parts of this sutra, he gave while he was dying.

BYAS THAMS CAD KYI NANG NAS PA LANG GI BYAS DANG Of all the tracks in the mud, the track of a Mahe. Mahe is an Indian bull, those big Indian ox. Then they have big feet.

When they step, they leave a big footprint. The footprint of the ox is the biggest thing of all footprints. Those of you studying Tibetan, it's je, which means afterwards.

You see? R-J-E-S RLA BYA DU BYA DANG MA BYAS SA BYAS So we should put that in the dictionary. RLA BYA DU BYA DANG MA BYAS SA BYAS which normally means anu in Sanskrit or afterwards.

It can also be a noun that means an afterward, meaning a footprint. Like when the Buddha presses his hands and his feet in the stone, that's called the je of the Buddha. THAMS CAD KYI NANG NAS PA LANG GI BYAS DU SHES THAMS CAD KYI NANG NAS MI RTAG PA DANG CHU BA'I DU SHES CHOG TU GSUM The biggest of all Dharma ideas you can have is death meditation.

The biggest footprint is the ox. The biggest Dharma thought is I'm going to die today. Who said that?

Lord Buddha. When? Yeah, he was passing from this world.

CHOG TU GSUM PA LTAR CHI BA CHEN PAS CHOS SHAMS PA BYAS PA'ONG If you think about your death every morning, then your practice that day will be really sweet and pure. The Tibetan word for that is SHAMS. SHAMS KHA'O SHA'A SHAMS It means sweet and pure. It's a nice word.

It means your practice is going to be sweet and pure. If you remember, you're going to die every morning. SHAMS PA BYAS PA'ONG STE PHYI MA BSTAN SANGS THOB PAR BGYUR NAS BYIN PA DANG BA TSUL KHRIMS LA BA SOGS DANG MTO NA SKYES BU GSUM NAS GSUNGS CIG GI BAR GYUR NAM GYI RIM PA THAMS CAD DI DRAN People who practice death meditation every day, they get inspired to practice the six perfections.

They want to give money to other people. They want to be nice to other people. They want to keep their patience with other people.

They want to do sweet things for other people. They want to meditate and they want to understand emptiness. What are those?

That's the six perfections. So people who meditate about death every morning, they get interested in the six perfections. They think they're cool.

All the way from that up to SKYES BU GSUM NAS, from the three motivations or the three levels of the Lam Rim, up to GSUNGS CIG. What's GSUNGS CIG? GSUNGS CIG means the combination of the two and it's the Tantric word for enlightenment.

So in Tantra we don't say become a Buddha or we don't say get enlightened. We say become the combination of the two. That's the Tantric word for enlightenment.

What's the two? RGYUD MU and U SO. Say RGYUD MU.

U SO Clear light, which means super understanding of emptiness. And RGYUD MU which means rainbow body of an angel. Angel's rainbow body.

Body and mind of an angel. GSUNGS CIG GIS PAR GYI LAM RGYUD RIM PA THAMS CAD DI DRAN If you spend just five, ten minutes every morning thinking that you're going to die today, then you can practice Tantra. Then you can practice everything.

The whole path. You have power. You have that kind of power.

And if you don't, you don't. THAMS CAD DI DRAN BYAS MED LA YANG YONG DON GYIS BYIN DAG ZHI BA'I RKYEN BYAS TE CHOS LA KUL So Milarepa wasn't always Milarepa. Milarepa was a lazy dude.

And he wasn't so interested in Dharma. And then his teacher's name was Yong Don. And that teacher's sponsor, one of his sponsors died a very bad death.

And Milarepa watched him die. And then Milarepa got religious. After that Milarepa got religious.

Milarepa's student was Gampopa. The doctor, the physician, Gampopa. He was married originally.

And then his wife died. Her uncle came to express his condolences. And Gampopa was having a party.

And the uncle said, What the hell are you doing? My niece just died. Your wife just died.

He says, Yeah, but now I'm free to practice. And the uncle threw dirt in his face. It's very famous.

Of course, that's not exactly a pure thought. The best way to practice tantra is with a partner, with a spiritual partner. So you should have one, if you can.

Okay. DRIB CHEN MANG PO DRIB CHEN MANG PO RGANGS RIM DANG THOD POR SOGS RNAMS PA What's RGANGS PA mean? Not RGANGS.

RGANGS PA RGANGS PA, not RGYANGS PA. RGANGS PA I'll give you a clue. A tree is called a RGANGS THUNG, foot drinker.

RGANGS means foot. RGANGS RIM means a flute made from a RGANGS. What's it mean?

You take this bone, thigh bone, and you make a flute out of it. You play Dharma songs on a human bone flute. You clean out a human bone and you make a flute.

Or you can get a THOD POR. THOD PA THOD PA means a skull You cut this part of the skull and you make a cup and you drink out of it all your tea, all your water, all your Cheerios. Who did that?

Je Tsongkapa. Whose skull was it? His mom.

And he loved her. He loved her so much. It's all over his stories about how much he loved her.

He loved her so much. And when she died, he said, I'm going to use her skull for the rest of my life. So I can remember, I have to die and I have to help people now.

So he used her skull. It's kind of scary. So NAM PAR BYED PA MI LTA BU DRAN GZO BYAS YIN DRAN GZO BYAS means they used the bones and skulls of people they loved to remind them that they had to die.

As an aid to remember death. CI TSUL KHRING BA MI DRAN PAR BYED YIN SDUG BSNGAL NAS CHAGS KHANG DU KHYEN GROL KHYI BA SOGS GSUNGS PA'ANG DE YIN In the Vinaya, even in the Vinaya, which is the lowest foundation teaching, in the Vinaya we are required to draw a Wheel of Life in the froyer, in the place where you put your shoes, in the temple, where you come into the temple. Every temple is required by Lord Buddha to have a Wheel of Life in the front.

And it should have skeletons drawn on it. And it's supposed to remind you of death. Like every time you walk in a temple you're supposed to look at it and say, I'm going to die.

Do we have one in there? Okay, I guess I didn't look at it. CHEN LA RIN PO'I PHYIR DAG LA NGES MI LTAG PA PHYIR RE MA BSGOM NA DE NYID MO SRED GYI BAR DO BA RNAMS Then a Lama named Cheng Awa, who lived around 1100, said, every day I forget to do my death meditation, I waste a day.

Every day I forget to do death meditation in the morning, I waste a day. So Michael, we're thinking about creating a Diamond Mountain toothbrush that says, I'm going to die today on it. And a special toothpaste that only has one day of toothpaste in it.

I'm just thinking of ways to make money. SRED GYI BAR DO BA RNAMS PHYIR DAG, ZHANG TSUN YOD PA'I KYANG, SNGA DOR MI LTAG PA MA DRAN NA, NYID MA BYAS PA RTZEN GYIS PAR CHA Then there was a Lama named Zhang Tsun YOD PA and he said, every time I forget to think about my death in the morning, I waste the time up to noon. NYIN PHYIR LA MA RGYAS NA And if I forget to think about death at noon, GONG MO PHANG SRED GYIS PAR CHA I lose the evening.

I waste the evening. SRED GYIS PAR BSRUNG NA, CI BYAS CHOS SU MI BRAL SO Then I start thinking about all the things I need in this life. Then whatever I do is in Dharma anyway.

We said that before, right? You can be doing all the Dharma stuff, yoga, meditation, helping poor people, studying. But if you have any kind of feelings like, I hope people heard about how cool I am, it ruins it.

It just ruins it. If you do death meditation every morning, you protect yourself from death. Okay, a little bit more.

You guys okay? Half hour? Okay, you're tough.

I like it. Probably those Germans.

[Speaker 2]
Americans are like... Sorry.

[Speaker 1]
BAB PHYIR BA'I PHYING YIN NI Okay, second. So first thing is, it's very important. Like death meditation is high priority.

That's number one. It's a high priority. Number two is, it's very powerful.

I don't want you to get confused. Number one is super important. Number two, extremely powerful.

THOB PHYIL BA PHYIL BA MI BDAG PAR BRTEN NA NI BRTEN NA MI MTHAN CHOG DUR BYOG GONG DROG SO BYONG PA DANG Thinking about death every morning automatically reduces or destroys your tendency of desire or anger. This is second one. First one was high priority in your life.

Very important. Second one is very powerful. But they're kind of mixed together, right?

TSUL RDZOGS PA LA THOB PHYIL BA DANG Any good karma you do on the day that you did death meditation is more powerful than if you didn't do death meditation on that day. So even if you do good karma on that day, but you did a nice death meditation in the morning, the karma of the good deed is more powerful. NYON MONGS DANG GNYIS PHYIR THAMS CAD PHYIC CHAGS SBYONGS PA'I MTHO BA It is a Thor hammer for destroying your negative emotions and your bad deeds.

It's like Thor's hammer. MTHO BA means the hammer of Indra, or big hammer for smashing planets. MTHO BA DANG BRAL BRAL BAR GSUNG Third one.

Third, fourth, and fifth are mixed together. Six good things happen if you do death meditation. Three, four, and five are pretty much mixed together.

I made them into one meditation, which was meditation number 12. It means if you do a good death meditation, you don't start things easily. Once a Dharma person starts something, they finish it.

Dharma people are very picky about what they agree to. Would you like to write a foreword for my book, Geshe Michael? No, I don't have time.

Look, Geshe Michael, I got this time. Yeah, put it in the box over there. But you don't start things that you think you won't finish.

If you're doing death meditation, when you start something, you take it seriously. Then you sustain it. That's number four.

You sustain it. You don't give up. You don't start things easily, and when you start them, you don't give them up easily.

You sustain. I'm going to do the cottage adopter program. Once you decide, then, if you've done a lot of death meditation, you weigh it before you agree.

You say, is this worth my time if I'm going to die halfway through? And then you agree. Then you say, okay, it's worth my time.

And then you don't give up. Death meditation keeps you going. Number five, what do you guess number five is?

Yeah, you finish things. You wrap things up. You complete things.

Because you're doing death meditation. I don't have time. Somebody asks you, will you do this project?

You say, okay, I know I might die in the middle, but knowing that, I agree. Then you start with a lot of energy, and you keep going with a lot of energy, and then you finish. You don't give up until you finish.

That's a real Dharma person. Dharma people don't agree to things easily, and after they agree, they don't give up. There are many books in the Tengyur.

We're cataloging Tengyur. It's 3,700 books. So we have to, Phil's doing all this work.

You get to the end of the book, and it's supposed to have a translator, and who wrote the book. So there's a few books in the Tengyur that just stop in the middle of a sentence. What happens?

It's always the guy died. In the middle, he was writing a sentence, he's... Okay.

But he didn't quit. He didn't give up. He died in the middle of the sentence.

Okay, so... In a Buddhist book, it's traditional to make a promise at the beginning. I will either finish this book, or I will die.

But there's no other option. ,CHOS LA TZAM PA'I KHUL BA'I, ,CHEN PHYI ROL THAR BSTAN PA BYAS, Okay, so those are 3, 4, and 5. You don't start things easily.

You continue them, and you finish them. Because before you agree to do them, you weigh it against your death, because you did death meditation this morning. ,GCIG RGYAL RGA BZHIN MTHRO BZHIN DU, ,CHI BA'I PHAN YON NI, Number 6.

When you reach the moment of your death, ,MTHRO BZHIN DU, ,CHI BA, you die with great enjoyment. Like joy. ,MTHRO BA, ,MTHRO BA means joy, right?

You're like ready. Super ready. There's a song, I'm so ready to die.

,PHAN YON NI, ,PHYI KHAR YANG, ,SNGAR SHES BYAMS PA BYAS PA'I, ,BLO BA'I DANG YOD PA, You have the DANG from having practiced your whole life. ,BSHAMA, You have the DANG of practicing your whole life. ,BSHAMA, ,BSHAMA means pure and sweet.

,DANG You have a guarantee. You got a written guarantee. Who wrote it?

You did. While you were meditating every day. Doing your practice every day.

Every day you did your practice, you got a written guarantee that things are going to be cool after you die. ,YOD PA, ,BLO, You can show that slide, Scott. It's number, I don't know, 13 probably.

13. ,BUD PA, ,BUD PA KHYIM DU MDO'A, ,BUD means child, son or daughter. ,PA means parents, ,PA MA ,KHYIM means their home.

It's like you're coming back home to see your parents. Like you're happy. That's a good feeling.

If you can die like that. Oh, I'm going back home. I'm going to see my parents.

And you feel very calm and very happy. You die with, you die happily. And some kind of satisfaction.

I used every moment of my life well. And I'm ready. I didn't waste my time.

,LONG DU LAMA RUNG PO CHE, ,SNGAR LA MI DAG PA BYUNG NA MIN JIG, ,SNGAR DROG DGE SLONG RGYEN PO, ,PHYI ROL LHA'I LUS SU PHYIR, ,YI YIN ZHES GSUNG PA BZHIN YIN, There was a great Lama named LONG DU LAMA. He was very controversial. He had very controversial ideas about emptiness.

And he was a great cataloger of books. Very famous. And he said, I'm not afraid of impermanence.

,SNGAR LA MI DAG PA BYUNG NA MIN JIG, I'm not afraid. If impermanence shows its face to me, I'm fine with it. Why?

,SNGAR DROG DGE SLONG RGYEN PO, In the morning I will be an old monk. ,PHYI ROL LHA'I LUS SU PHYIR, In the afternoon I will have a deity's body. No problem.

Just flip me over. His practice was so good, he knew what was going to come. Yeah, trade out an old man's body for an angel body.

I'm ready. Kind of cool. ,PHYI ROL YIN ZHES GSUNG PA BZHIN YIN, ,THEG NA SPROD PA RAB, ,PHYI BA LA GROS, ,RDUG MI PHYIR, ,THAM ANG RGYAS PA MED, So there are three levels of when you die.

What kind of state of mind you have when you die. RAB. What's RAB?

Yeah, the best is ,PHYI BA LA GROS I'm so ready to die. Oh, god damn. It's going to be so nice.

Okay. That's best. That's the best one.

If you practice tantra and stuff really well, and you're like, ha ha, now it's coming. ,PHYI BA LA GROS ,RDUG Yeah, RDUG means, MI RIM means MI PHYIR. You're not scared.

At least you're not scared. You're like, okay, I'm okay with it. I can do this.

I can do this. ,THAM ANG RGYAS PA MED, ,THAM ANG Lowest. ,RGYAS PA MED I can die with no regret.

I'm not happy about it, but I don't have any regrets. I didn't do anything really bad. And I tried my best to do my practice.

Even when John Brady taught yoga, I went. Or Kili. Kili Ten.

Or Orit. What do you call? What do you call that?

Dandasana Orit. She puts you in plank pose and forgets your dare for like 15 minutes. And then she's like, oh, are you still in plank pose?

Could you just put your knee up on your elbow? Like, oh. Her yoga sequences are written by Stephen King.

Now she's going to get revenge on me next week. Geshe-la, did you remember what you said in the club? Did I?

Okay. ,CHOS LAS PO BYED RGYUD DANG, ,CHUNG DAG SHI YANG LA, I had a good chance to practice. I gave it my best.

I gave it my best. And now I'm okay. I can die.

,DAG SHI YANG LA LA means okay. Compared to Orit's class, death is like easy. That means I tried really hard in my practice and now, in English we say piece of cake.

It's a piece of cake. It means super easy. Super easy.

You have something in Chinese like that? We say piece of cake.

[Speaker 2]
,GAL DAG YIN, ,GAL DAG YIN, Vegetable.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, nothing is so easy to me. Now, Dina, you may give us your own thing. Then he quotes Milarepa, okay?

Milarepa said, ,SNGA PHYI BA'I JIGS NAS RIGS LA PHRAD, I ran away to my mountain cave because I was scared of death. I ran away to the mountains to do my meditation because I was scared of death. How old was Milarepa when he started his major retreats?

49, 50, okay? So don't say, Geshe-la, it's too late for me to do a long retreat. The greatest retreater in Tibet who ever lived started when he was 50.

It doesn't mean, Yi Yi, that you can wait until you're 50.

[Speaker 2]
I didn't say that.

[Speaker 1]
I just mean, those of you who are 49, you're still home, okay? All right. So I ran to the mountains to do my meditations because I was scared of death.

,SEMS NUS MED MED LUGS STONG POR RTOGS, And I saw the ultimate emptiness of the mind itself. In my cave, I saw the emptiness of my mind itself. That's not the emptiness of mind you're going to show me tomorrow when I ask you for the six problems of not doing death meditation, okay?

I don't want to see the emptiness of your mind, okay? ,LUS MED MED LUGS STONG, ,LTA PHYI BA BYUNG RANG SNYAM SNGA MED, Now I'm not scared to die anymore, okay? I saw emptiness and now I'm not scared to die anymore.

,CHE'I GSUM PA LTAR ROL, I went fast through the classes, I think two reasons. We didn't have to translate. We had people translating simultaneous, which is much faster.

And so I'm ahead of myself and I'm going to keep going. But you've finished all your meditations now, I think. I mean, we'll practice them together.

Oh, you have one more. You have number 14, okay? So we're going to start number 14.

What did I say about meditation number 14, do you remember? It's the first one. Okay, the first 13 are just warm-up.

They're not death meditation. They're just warm-up. They're just warming up, okay?

Now we're going to start the real death meditations, okay? Those are warm-up death meditations. So we're lucky, you know, you didn't die before you got to the first one.

,GSUM PA PHYI BA BYUNG RANG SNYID, So there's two parts to death meditation. Now we're on the real death meditation, okay? And that's good, maybe we can get pretty far.

,PHYI BA DGU CHUGS SU BSGOM PA DANG, To do the... it's called the nine-step death meditation. Nine steps.

There are nine steps to death meditation, okay? Real death meditation, not just the warm-up. It's complete in nine parts, okay?

Did you find that book, Jingmei? I translated this from the Lamrim Terminal like 20 years ago. You didn't find it?

Oh, try to find it. I translated the whole thing from Tsongkhapa. Okay, you look for it, I'll look for it.

I translated the whole thing from Tsongkhapa many years ago. ,PHYI BA DGU CHUGS, Say, ,PHYI BA DGU CHUGS, DGU CHUGS means the nine-step death meditation. And it's very, very, very beautiful and it's very logical and it ties together very sweet, very clean.

,DGU CHUGS SU BSGOM PA DANG, ,PHYI BA'I RNAM PAR BSGOM PO, And then after we finish the nine, we will go into how does it feel to die. How does it feel to die? That's the second part.

,DI ZHIG BYA YANG, ,GA DAM GOMS PA RNAMS MED PAR, There's not a lot of detail on the nine steps in the Kadampas, the ancient Tibetan lamas, 1,000 years ago. ,JES TSONG KHA PA'I GSUNG NAS, ,BYUNG BA'I MED NA YIN, So I took it from? ,JES TSONG KHA PA, Who's talking?

Pabongka Rinpoche. I took it from ,JES TSONG KHA PA. ,BYUNG BA'I MED NA YIN, ,BYUNG BA'I MED NA YIN, Then he starts advertising how cool is ,JES TSONG KHA PA, which I think is very smart.

,JES TSONG KHA PA, First of all, as far as lineage, ,JES TSONG KHA PA, followed precisely the lineage from Buddha up to ,JES TSONG KHA PA. very strictly followed the great teachings of two thousand years. Very strictly followed this beautiful, clean, pure teaching.

First, NYON RANG NAS DU GAR LUGS And then he actually practiced it and he got results. So he's not just a book scholar. He went to the meditation.

He did long retreats and he mastered those things. GAR LUGS Then, SA BYAS MA GRUB PA And when he presented those teachings, he didn't present them all mixed up. There's a logical order.

Do this, do this, do this, do this. It's called SA BYAS MA GRUB PA And you have to be a great master of hundreds of scriptures to do that. Otherwise you're going to mix something up.

There's an order to enlightenment. And if you follow it, you get there. And if you don't, you mess it up.

Like when you fix a car, you have to do things in a certain order or you will screw up the car. You will ruin the car. All the things you do are smart and they're all correct, but they're in the wrong order.

So Tsongkhapa kept to a certain order. It's an order for developing an enlightened body and mind. MA GRUB PA SOGS GZHAN DANG MIN DAG LA SREBGYAS KYI DANG PA'I MANG There's nobody who compares.

No one compares with you. Really. I keep saying it and I don't care if you think I'm, what do you call it?

Biased? I don't care. Neil Young is the greatest musician.

Hendricks is number two. Ben is number three. Tsongkhapa is the best lama.

I don't care. The more you know, the more you understand that he's off the... It's unbelievable.

I can tell you for a couple of days about it. I will at the end of the week. DE NA PHYI BU GUR GZUGS SU BSAM PA LA Okay.

The way the nine, the way we design the nine is three sets of three. Okay? Three sets of three.

So I'm going to give you the names of the three sets and then we'll go through the three and the three and the three. Okay? First set is called the meditation that death is certain.

Death is definite. You have to die. Okay?

Number one. Death is positive, certain. You must die.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Number one. And there's three reasons. We're not going to talk about it yet.

Second set of three, it's not definite what day you're going to die or what time you're going to die. That's not definite. Okay?

So death is definite, but when it's going to come it's totally undefinite. Number three. Oh, there's three reasons for number two.

Okay? We're going to get into that. Number three.

PHYI BA'I TSE CHOS MA STO GANG GI SKYANG MI PHAN PAR When death comes for you the only thing that can help you at all is your Dharma practice. Okay? Nothing else can help you.

Okay? Nothing else can help you. It's the only thing that will help you.

All those crazy trips to Arizona to burn yourself in a retreat cabin was the only good thing you did in your life. It was the only smart thing you did in your life. Okay?

Alright? Got it? TSA BA GSUM Those are called the TSA BA GSUM.

Okay? TSA BA means three what? They're like three foundations or three roots.

Each of the three root ideas, each of the three foundation ideas has three reasons. So there are how many reasons total? Nine.

Nine. Okay? Three principles.

Each one has three reasons. Alright. TSA BA RE RE LA RGYUD TZAM GSUM GSUM TE KUN LAS How many does that make?

Nine. Okay, just checking. Okay.

Number one. TSA BA DANG PO NGES PAR SPYIR BA'I SANGS PA LA GSUM So here are the three reasons for why it's definite that you are going to die. Okay?

Number one. DANG PO CI DANG NGES PAR DBANG LA RGYEN GANG GIS KYANG RDOG TU MED PAR Death will come someday for you without a doubt. When death comes, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Okay? Death will come without a doubt. And when it comes, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Nobody. That's the first reason. That's the first of the nine.

GANG GIS RDOG TU MED PAR SANGS PA NI NGES PAR SPYIR BA'I You will definitely die because RLUG CI BDAG BU DANG NAS GANG DU SPYIN PA No matter how strong your body is, no matter how many handstands you can do. Okay? No matter how many handstands you can do.

NAS GANG DU SPYIN PA No matter where you go. Okay? Like, people feel safer in, I don't know, Los Angeles than in Mumbai.

But when death comes for you, it doesn't matter whether you're in Los Angeles. You know? It doesn't matter whether you just drank a big bottle of dirty Indian water or, you know, you just drank some Avion.

When death comes, that's it. It doesn't matter where you are. You can't go anywhere on the face of this planet that's better than any other place.

You're going to die. When death's ready for you, it doesn't matter where you are. NAS GANG DU SPYIN PA DANG THABS CI DAG PA'I KYANG CI DAG RDOG TU MED And it doesn't matter what kind of doctor you have or what kind of medicines you have or how much money you have.

Okay? If you really want to suffer while you're dying, get some good doctors. You know?

Expensive doctors. And they will radiate you with everything and they will cut everything off and they will give you medicines that make you die nice and slow. I swear, rich people die a lot worse than poor people.

Because they get all these treatments. They like die really slow. CI DAG RDOG TU MED Those are all number one.

Those are not three. That's just one. When death comes, nothing can stop it.

Doesn't matter what you do. Doesn't matter how strong you are, how many push-ups you can do. It doesn't matter.

By the way, that doesn't mean you have to quit yoga. Everybody's like, Oh, Geshe-la said we don't have to do yoga anymore. I didn't say that.

John said today when he started class that possibly your yoga will help you not die. Okay. GNAS GANG GI CHEN PO So it doesn't matter where you go, what you do, or how strong you are, you're going to die.

When the time comes. That's number one. Number two.

Oh, wait. We're still on number one. DE YANG ZUL LUS SANG BA'I MI RDOG TE MI RTAG PA'I TSOMS LAS So it doesn't matter how strong you are, how healthy you are, how many supplements you're taking.

MI RTAG PA'I TSOMS So there's a famous book in the ten-year written by an Indian master called MI RTAG PA'I TSOMS It means The Book of Impermanence. It's called The Book of Impermanence. And it's in poetry.

So here's the poetry. GANG YANG SANGS RGYAS RANG SANGS RGYAS SANGS RGYAS RNAMS NI NYAN THOS KYANG DGUL DU DE NI DBANG MDZAD NA SKYE BA PHAL PA SMOD CI DGOS If Buddhists can die, if Arhats can die, if Shravaka Arhats can die, if those kind of people pass from this world, then people like us, duh! SMOD CI DGOS means duh!

If Buddha have to pass, and all those Arhats have to pass, and bodhisattvas have to pass, then what? You think you're going to survive? SMOD CI DGOS ZHES BZIN PA LTAR DOR BYED KUN YOD SANGS RGYAS BYAMS DIN DE The Buddha historical Buddha, Gautama, achieved the diamond body.

GSUM RDZU NYES PA And there are many great Lamas of India and Tibet and China. GRUB RTOG MANG PO They reached enlightenment. THAR DAG THAMS SHES PA NA YOD YOD DANG NANG YANG DON DU NYANG NAS DE SEMS Then we talk about Nagarjuna, and we talk about Chandrakirti, and we talk about Lord Buddha, and we talk about Je Tsongkapa, as if they were here, but they're not.

They died. If they died, you think you're not going to die? NYANG NAS DE SEMS By the way, we don't say die about a high Lama.

We say NYANG NAS DE. What's that mean? They passed into Nirvana.

Okay. So after you become a Buddha, you don't have to die. But it helps people if you pretend to die.

Okay. They get some... They start thinking about their own death.

BSTAN PA LA SOGS PA'ANG DOR BYED KUR ZHIG NAS DE TSUL BRTEN NA If even the Buddha thinks it's important to pretend to die, BDAG CAGS DANG PO'I CI CHOS MI PHYI You think you're going to survive? You think you're going to be the first person not to die? BSTAN PA'ANG NYANG NAS MED DAG BAR NYAL BA NA When Lord Buddha was close to death, DNGOS LA SHAR RIG POS SOGS KHOR CI THAR MA MUD DANG BYAS TE Then a lot of his disciples died.

They died because they thought he was going to die. They thought, oh, Lord Buddha is dying. And they were so sad they died.

Before he finished dying, a lot of his students died because they were so sad. SHAR RIG POS SOGS MA MUD DANG BYAS PA DE'I RJES SU STON PA'I SA CHOG GRUNG NA Then Shariputra, for example, died before Buddha. He died from grief that Buddha was dying.

Then the Buddha went to a place called Sa Chog, which is called Kusha in Sanskrit. There was a city called Kushnagar. There were two trees and he had a bed between them.

He said, you can take my dead bed down now. It means he knows he's going to die before the evening. LA GSUM GYI PHAR SEMS DE'I THAL MA BZHOM You can take it down now.

ZHIG GSUNG NA, DO BYED THAL MA PHYIS ZHIG RGYAL PO RAB DANG PHYI ROL PAS KUN DU NYID DE LTU His last words, which was, you can take my bed down now. I don't need it anymore. They were meant to help two of his last disciples who were still alive.

Those two disciples are called Gandharva Raja and Subhadra or Sushuba. These were his last two. They were late students.

They came late in his life. To teach them, to train them, to make them think about their own death, he told, you two take my bed down because I don't need it anymore. I won't need it tonight.

NYANG NGAN LAS BDAG PAR BDAG PAR MA SOS NAS RAB BSAM BDE MA THAG TE One of them, Subhadra, died before the evening because he didn't want to see his teacher die. So he died. He died first.

So all these arhats, Shariputra, from the shin ching? Sharipu? Sharipu, right?

Sharidzu. They all died because they didn't want to see him die. They knew he was going to die tonight, so they died.

DUN PA DUN PA DUN PA DE BA NYID MA NA KU DUS KYI SNABS SA SEL DE BZHIN GSHES PA NI MTHONG BAR DKA' BA'I THOS ZHIG PA KUN NAS DUS SUNG GI THAMS MA MI LTAG PA NYID LA MIG PUG NAS So the Buddha, as he was dying, he opened his shirt. He dropped his monk's shawl. DE BZHIN GSHES PA NI MTHONG BAR DKA' BA LA THOS ZHIG Look upon the Buddha who is so difficult to see in a human life.

KUN NAS SUNG GI THAMS MA MI LTAG PA NYID And then he died. His last words were, look upon a body that won't be here tomorrow. Look upon the body of a Buddha that won't be here tomorrow.

MIG PUG NAS DE NYID BSGOM PA TSOR BA CHE BAR BSTAN PA'I PHYIR The reason his last words were, look upon the body of a Buddha who will not be here tomorrow. The reason he said that last was because he wanted his students to know that the most important practice is death meditation. He wanted his last word.

They're going to remember the last thing he said, right? Then he said, look upon the body of a Buddha who will not be here tomorrow. So his last words are, do your death meditation.

THAMS CAD MI DANG DE NYID BSGOM PA TSOR BA'I PHYIR DU BYED THAMS CAD MI DAG PO DE NYID DE BZHIN GSHES PA'I SUNG GI THAMS MA' O And his last, last words were, he said a poetry. He said two lines of poetry. Everything that starts dies.

And that's the last thing I have to tell you. He said, everything that has a birth dies. And that's my last word.

And then he died. GSHES SUM PA'I NYA NGAN LAS DE DE DGOS NA CHOS DANG CHOS SU YOD PA'I RANG RANG THOB PA'I DGRA BCOM PA PHAL CHOS ZHIG So when they heard that Lord Buddha had died, most of the arhats in India died. Because they had the power to stay or to leave and they decided to leave.

Buddha, their teacher, died and they decided to leave. SNGAGS RGYAL LA CI KYI MA TSA' BAR GYUR PA YIN And that's why shortly after the Buddha, there was only 499 arhats left in the world. There used to be thousands.

But they all decided to die after he died. DER MA ZAD BSTAN PA'I DE RAB BDUN SOGS DANG Then there were seven great holders of the Buddha's throne after he died. Their names are Kshapa, Ananda, Shanakavasi, Upagupta, Dittika, Krishna, and Maha Sudarshana.

Seven great throne holders of the Buddha after he died. Patriarchs. In Chinese you have this word, right?

Patriarch. DER RAB BDUN DON GRUB CAN SKYE CHU The 80 yogis. Very famous tantric yoga practitioners like what's his name?

Fish gut eater. RIGS PA RIGS PA They also died. RIGS PA RIGS PA There's a group of Indian masters called the Six Jewels and the Two Supreme.

These are very famous early Buddhist masters. The Six Jewels are Nagarjuna, his student Aryadeva, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, and Dharmakirti. The Two Supreme are Gunaprabha and Shakyaprabha.

These eight lamas from ancient India, they pretty much wrote the Geshe course. When you do a Geshe course for 25 years or something, you study their books. RGAGS RGYUD PHEN GRUB NAMS DANG All of these great people from India.

PHOS KYI GAN LOG CHOS SUM GAN LOG CHOS SUM Then there's a group of famous three Tibetan lamas, early lamas. One is called Shantarakshita, whose name was also Bodhisattva. His name was Bodhisattva.

One was his student, which was Padmasambhava. And one was the Dharma King Trisong Detsen. Also Lord Atisha and his student Dromtuje.

Janvan Sankarpa, Yab Tse Sok, Lord Sankarpa and his two disciples, Kheru Je and Gyaltsab Je. Detsen, they all died. All those great lamas, they're dead.

Detsen ne, tatta tam tsam ne me na Just we have a few words left from them. Tam, there's the use of tam meaning not same. See, in this case tam means we can still talk about them a little bit.

So tam literally means to talk about somebody. So we can talk about Sankarpa. We have his little biography, and that's it.

That's all that's left. Dharmakirti, we have seven books left, small books. That's it.

That's all we have left. They're gone. tatta tam ne me na, rang chak mi chiwar kha ne du So what are the chances that you aren't going to die?

That's his... He's making a joke. He lists every great lama in history and they're all gone.

Not only they're gone, we just have a few words left from them. So what do you think? You're going to not die?

Duh! ngun se chok leng lama yong zin rungpo che lam rim kha chu sungpa na tsokpa nam tong trak mangpo ye kye kyang tatta la lok tsa ma chi kyang ma shupa dang So in Pabongka Rinpoche's time, there was a great teacher of the Dalai Lamas called Se Chok Ling. He was a generation before Pabongka.

He was very famous. He used to teach especially the lam rim to thousands of people, many thousands of people at a time without a microphone. And Lama Tsanggya, nobody's left from that group.

Nobody's left who was in those teachings. They're all dead. That was in Pabongka's time.

Such a dear young, chesang lam rimpo che sok gi tatta shin chen nyen dze kye kyang tatta tam tsam lay ma lu And even in the Dharma hall where we are giving this teaching tonight, there's a great Lama called chesang rimpo che who taught many, many students. They're all dead also. They were in this room.

They're all dead. Ready? What's he going to say next?

tat te chur del du yuppa nam kyang lo gyat su na tam je chi dro Everybody sitting here in the room tonight, a hundred years from now, not one will be left. Not one person from this teaching will be left in a hundred years. And it came true, right?

It came true. They're all gone. The people who attended his teaching are all gone.

He said to them, we're all going to be gone. And now they're all gone. And here too, in this room also.

den drak chung, shepay tam tsam she All that's left is some people say, or people said, the Lama said, that's all we have left. The people are gone. der ma se gyab po hur sung tsam ring na tat ta yupe de rin kye pay chi pa tsun che kyang mi yong dzok lo gyat sam sum na chi kyang mi duk par Not only that, but all the people in all the nations of the world at the moment that we are having this teaching, in a hundred years, those seven billion people will be dead.

Okay? The ones who are out there tonight, drinking or eating or sleeping, they're all going to be dead. Seven billion deaths.

de rin kye pay chi pa tsun che Including all the kids who were born today in the world, they'll also be dead in about a hundred years. tsam chik kyang mi duk par ching yin na If that's a definite thing, you think you're some kind of exception? You know, out of seven billion people you're like, not me.

shepa dang mi duk par ching yin na rang chak mi lhag pa tong chu yin tong chu means you can see it. You can see it. It's happening.

People die off. People die off. You don't have to...

I don't have to convince you. You can see it. tong chu yin I think we'll stop there.

It's such a happy place. We have this strong, strong tendency not to think about death. And it's impolite.

In America it's impolite to talk about death. Especially around old people. You're supposed to say, you look so young.

If you're going to be a Dharma person you have to break that kind of thinking. You have to get comfortable with you're going to die. And then your practice gets very fun and very cool and very pure.

And you don't do useless crap. You become a very... what do you call it?

A real person. So it's not to be depressed or something like that. If you do death meditation every day you become a really powerful person.

And a good person. But you've got to break this you've got to break this thing in your mind that says I'm not going to die today. You've got to whip them into...

you've got to smash them. You've got to break it. Otherwise you'll always be unhappy.

It seems contradictory, right? If you convince yourself you're going to die you're going to be much happier. Got it?

But it takes years. It takes years to change your mind. It takes years.

Every morning you have to get used to it. And then someday it comes and you feel so free. Yeah, I'm going to die and I'm doing the right stuff.

Okay? Cool?