«Дар освобождения», курс 23 «Защита от жизни и смерти», занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
All right. So, what's the first step of Vairagyala?

[Speaker 1]
Akshun? Turn off your cell phone.

[Speaker 2]
Turn off your cell phone. Second, blow your nose, clear throat. Then come to quiet, like a stone.

Try not to move your body. No, no moving at all. No noise, no moving.

No moving. Little bit of a smile. Stomach is tight.

Tighten your stomach. Relax your forehead. Relax your mouth.

And please come to your breath. Follow your breath. Try to count 10 breaths without thinking of something else.

Exhale is the first half. Inhale is the second half. If you think of something else, then start again.

Please invite to this room one of your teachers. If you have a heart mama, invite your heart mama. And they come to sit down with you, meditating knee to knee, then try to think of something about your teacher that you admire, something you would like to be yourself.

Then make them an offering of something sweet you did yesterday, something nice you did. Now tell them something you did yesterday that you're not happy about, some mistake you made. Now try to think of something you saw somebody else do yesterday, which was very nice.

Be happy. And ask your teacher to teach you. Keep teaching you.

Hold on. And ask your teacher to stay with you. Don't leave you, even after you die.

Now imagine that you're lying on your deathbed. You're dying. Try to imagine where it will be if you died in the next few weeks.

You are lying down on a bed, and your family is looking down at you. The people you love are standing next to the bed. You're looking up at them.

They are very sad, some of them crying. Holding your hand. Imagine who will come to your deathbed, who will be there.

Then your hands and feet begin to get cold. You can feel cold. The blood is slowing down.

Very cold fingers. And your arms and legs are cold, very cold. No feeling in your hands and legs.

Difficult to breathe. Breath is getting shorter and shorter. The nostrils of your nose are drying up and they're starting to close.

Very difficult to breathe. It's getting colder, almost to your chest. Your family is crying.

Your mouth is dry. It's difficult to open. Arms and legs are white, turning very white.

No more blood. No more blood moving. Whole chest very cold now.

Cannot open your eyes. Eyes are closed. You can hear your family, but it's difficult to hear.

The crying sounds far away. Whole body is numb. You can't feel anything.

Very cold. And then you're just alone in the dark. You think about your lama, your teacher.

Wish that they could be with you. They can hear you. And they come deep inside your mind, in the darkness, like a single grain of sugar.

A small crystal, like a single grain of sugar, inside the dark. And inside the crystal is your teacher. So you are not alone.

Everything's black except the small crystal with your teacher. Inside, feel safe, feel protection. Just be with them for a moment.

Then please come back to your breath. Watch your breath. Three deep breaths.

Then you can slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, nice. Everybody was quiet. I think except two people, everybody was quiet.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. All right.

[Speaker 1]
So this is the 23rd retreat of this lam rim series. Lam rim, lam means path. Rim means steps of the path.

And we are trying to finish this whole book. It's a thousand pages. It's about a thousand pages.

It was written by my teacher's teacher's teacher, your great-grandfather. I think he was the most famous Lama in Tibet at his time. His name was Pabongka.

Do we have a picture I think? No. And then his student, main student was Trijang Rinpoche, who's the teacher of the current Dharmanama.

And his student is my teacher. And he spent, he taught this to us for about 20 years. He taught it three times, and it took about 20 years.

And I think it's the greatest book in this world. It's how to become a Buddha from beginning to end, step by step. So not complicated.

You just have to go step by step. You don't have to think too much, you know. It's like a GPS.

It talks to you, you know. Turn left now. And if you just do what it says, then you can become enlightened.

You don't have to die, and you can teach other people. You can protect your family and other people. So it's good to learn it.

My hope is that... My hope is...too loud. My hope is that you can learn it and teach it to other people, okay?

But it's difficult to learn it if you don't come. So please try to come. We are having Lam Rim retreat four times a year.

I know it's difficult to have a real job and take 10 days off four times a year, but you can do it. Change your job. Really, okay?

We are very good at making unemployed people. No, find a job that you can have a nice job and you can take off. Try to come four times a year, okay?

The next one will be in Thailand in December. We did it in Thailand because so many guests from Europe and China ask us, and Singapore and Taiwan ask us to do it closer to their country. So it's two hours and 55 minutes from Shanghai.

Okay, so no excuse. I know Beijing is very miserable in the winter. And I was there.

I didn't bring a coat. And you know, you can fly to Thailand. It's on the beach, okay?

You can swim and do death meditation. And then the next one after that will be here in March. And then in Guadalajara in June or July, probably?

July? Okay. I'm going to pass this book around.

You can look at it. It's good luck to just touch it. This was my teacher's copy.

He made notes with these yellow markers. You can see some of his notes. He gave it to me when I finished my Geshe.

[Speaker 2]
And you can play with it.

[Speaker 1]
This shape comes from the old days when, before paper, we used to write the Buddhist books on palm leaves with needles and scratch the words in the palm leaf and then put charcoal. And they last for many centuries, those books. So still they have the same shape and no binding, which means you're not going to mix up the pages, okay?

So, okay. And the paper is made from a special bush in Tibet. It lasts a long time.

So we are going very slow through the Lam Rim. I think it will take, I don't know, 12 years, something? We're doing it very carefully, step by step.

We did about six years? Maybe it'll take more than 12 years. But I'm just going very relaxed.

I'm going very carefully. I'm talking a lot about the Tibetan language. This book is the greatest book in Tibet for meaning, but it's also the greatest book for writing.

The writing is very beautiful. It's very, very unusual. Very beautiful writing.

So I like to explain the Tibetan words. And the whole year I travel around the world with Scott, Marit, and other, Peter, Masha, other people. And we teach how to use these ideas in modern life.

But I don't get to go deep. Not very deep. So in this course, we go deep.

And maybe boring for some of you, but I don't care. If you want not to go deep, you can come to DCI. If you don't want to talk about next life, you can come to DCI.

But in this room, we talk about the things that really matter in your life. Money is not so important. Things like that.

They don't last. You have to leave them. And it's better to get ready for what comes next.

So four times a year, I teach what I really want to teach. But nobody comes. So there are three main steps that we're going to be talking about.

First one is death. What it feels like to die. Why do you have to die?

That's the first thing. In the Lam Rim, it's the first step called PHYI BA MI BDAG PA which means everybody has to die. Usually.

Then we're going to do a special class this week where I'm going to go to some other ancient teachings and teach you what happens during the death. During death. What happens in your mind?

And how does it feel to die? And what things will happen? What experiences will you have inside of death?

Because if you know them and you prepare, you can use them even to become a Buddha. So there's a teaching on what's happening inside you, inside your mind as you die. And he mentions it, but I would like to teach you in detail.

So maybe we don't finish much Lam Rim. But we will cover what happens to you inside as you're dying. And how can you use it to escape at that time, to become a Buddha at that time.

And then we'll talk about what happens to you if you don't after you die. Where will you go? What kinds of places can you go?

And then finally, most of those places are bad. Somebody asked Buddha how many people go up after they die? How many people go down after they die?

Then he was sitting in the park and he licked his finger and he touched the ground and he said how much dust is here? Those people go up. They become human or they come back to human.

Then the rest of the planet, all the dirt in the planet, every piece of dust in the planet, that many people go down. Where do they go? We talked about it in Mexico.

So I'm going to review that. Tell you what are your options. Just remind you of your options.

And then if I do a good job, you should get scared. You should start, and it's not something we can teach in DCI, right? We can't tell people you're going to go to the hell.

Don't eat animals because next week you could be an animal. We can't talk about it. But in this class we have to talk seriously about where you can go.

What can happen to you. I was talking to Anton. Where are you?

And Elizabeth. We were talking about all these courses, online courses. And then we were thinking that this is more important than all of them.

Than all the other courses. Because everybody has to die. I don't know if you're going to be a real estate agent.

I don't know if you're going to be a stockbroker. I don't even know if you're going to have a relationship. I don't know if you're going to have time to have a health problem before you die.

But I know you're going to die. So it's better to talk about that. It's something we all have to do.

This is a rental car. You picked it up at the Tucson airport. Some place you picked it up.

And you drive it for a while. You are not the car. You are not the rental car.

You are in the car. So you have to leave it. You have to take it back.

Don't get too serious about it. Or excited about it. Nobody could take a rental car forever.

Sometimes you have to take it back. So you have to use it while you have it. You have to do something good with it.

So main subjects. What does it feel like to die? What's happening inside of your mind as you die?

How can you use it? And then where are you going to go after that? And then of course, we have to talk about how can you protect yourself from something bad?

How can you make sure you don't go somewhere bad? So by the end of this ten days, we'll do a lot of meditations about how does it feel to die. We'll do a lot of meditations about what happens inside your mind as you die.

And then we'll talk about where you could go. But the most important thing is we talk about how to get ready, how to protect yourself, how to make sure you go to a good place. So we have to talk about that.

So that's the purpose of this ten days. Please come to class on time. Don't miss anything.

You spent a lot of money to come here. It's a lot of your time. It's extremely difficult to keep this place going.

All those cottages. I also don't have much time. You got all the way here.

You're here. You're still alive. I'm still alive.

We have something to do. Don't miss anything. Because you didn't get a shuttle or something.

Just find out when the shuttle comes. Get there ten minutes earlier. Relax.

Have a coffee on the road. And get in the shuttle and come down and you'll be okay. Please just do what the schedule says.

Don't try to do something special. You see? Just what the schedule says.

Just do that. Don't make special deals. Just get in the shuttle.

Come down. You'll be on time. Scott gets everywhere three hours early.

I hate it. For the first year I hated it. Now I like it.

We get there, we have a cappuccino. We can relax. We're not stressed out.

We're not nervous. Everybody knows we're going to be on time. We don't bother other people.

Just learn to be on time. It's a Buddhist thing also. You do it once in your life and you can use it for the rest of your life.

Just be early everywhere you go. It's considerate for other people. All right.

So while you're fresh, we're going to do the most important meditation. So if you die this afternoon, you'll be okay.

[Speaker 2]
So get ready to do one more meditation. Before you close your eyes.

[Speaker 1]
So basically inside your mind, after your eyes close and your nose dries up and your mouth dries up and everything is cold and your body is dead, you go through many, many processes in your mind, inside your mind. They're always the same. Everybody has the same experiences when they die.

You died already billions of times. But you forgot how it feels. So I'm going to teach you what happens after the cold comes and after the breath stops and after the eyes close.

There'll be several sections. You will start to remember because you did it many times. You just don't remember.

So some people will remember right away. You say, oh yeah, I remember that. I feel like I remember that.

And then some people will say, I don't think I ever did that. But we'll keep meditating on it. And then during your three days retreat, you'll be meditating on how you die, where you go after that, and how to protect yourself.

These three big steps. First there's a set of four steps that relate to the elements of your body. SA CHU ME RLUNG Earth, water, fire, wind.

The basic four. Say SA CHU ME RLUNG SA CHU ME RLUNG Earth, water, fire, and wind. I don't have time today to teach you the elements.

It's from Abhidharmakosha. But they are very beautiful. And if you're into Confucianism, if you're interested in Chinese medicine, you can learn a lot from the old Buddhist books.

The four elements, they're not like little pieces of, they're not like molecules or atoms. It's not like you have a little dirt in your body, or you have a little water, or there's a little fire someplace. It's not like that.

They are energies like gravity, or electricity, or momentum. They are just energies. SA Earth is the energy of cohesion, keeps things together.

Earth is the energy which keeps things together. This has more earth in it than this does. It keeps things hot.

SA Earth. CHU makes things flow. LEN GZHING GZHAN BA is the definition of the element of water.

It keeps things fluid and lubricated. That's the definition of water. So, this has more water than this has.

It has some water in it. Nothing is 100% water. Everything is mixed up.

ME means warmth. This has more ME than this does. This has more fire element.

It's more warm from the inside. This also has some warmth. It's not freezing.

It has some warmth. Every object has fire. LUNG means motility, movement.

Can move. The wind has more wind element than iron. All right?

So these are just energies, four energies. So the first meditation we're going to do, after you died, you died already, your body stopped breathing. Now you're alone inside your mind.

And the four elements are going to start collapsing. They start going crazy in your body. So there's a period where four elements are going crazy in your body.

And very crazy things are happening in your mind. Then there's a more subtle four elements deeper inside the mind as you die. First four are very crazy, like loud.

Very loud. Like a car accident. Feels like that.

Four elements are breaking down. This is the first few minutes after your breath stops. Then your mind goes deeper into the four elements.

And they start to dissolve. The four elements each dissolve into the next one. So there'll be a stage which is very car accident, noisy, crazy.

Then there'll be a stage which is more subtle, more quiet. Visions. You have certain visions.

Certain... You see certain things. Because the subtle elements are dissolving.

Big elements are dissolving. It's like a car accident. Crazy.

Then it gets more quiet. And then more subtle dissolving inside your mind. Then you reach a place called the four emptinesses.

There will be four kinds of deep emptiness. Everybody goes there. Everybody experiences them.

A little bit. And we'll talk about that. So these are the steps we're going to go through.

We'll start with the car accident. This is just after you got cold. Last thing, you heard your family crying a little bit.

Then inside your mind starts this crazy stuff. Really crazy stuff. Because the elements are breaking down.

Then people ask me, Geshe-la, this is so sad. This is so disturbing. My friends who are not Buddhists, they say, why you teach that?

Teach something happy. You will be happier if you get ready. This is the real path to happiness.

You're not helping somebody if you don't tell them about it. You should prepare them. So, yes, it's unhappy.

But the real thing is more unhappy. And you have to go there. You have to, you will go there.

So, you will feel happier about the big unhappy if you have a little unhappy now. I don't care if you're depressed or you can't sleep or you feel nervous. Death is much worse than that.

Trust me and trust the Buddha. You will feel happier after these ten days and you will feel stronger and you will feel prepared. So don't, I don't care if you feel depressed after the first day.

Just come back. Keep being depressed together and you'll be happy by the end. You'll be free of this worry or this fear that you don't know what's going to happen.

Everybody's afraid of death. I don't care if you're Obama or Putin or it doesn't matter how powerful you are. Everybody's afraid of it.

Everybody has to go there. And nobody knows what's going to happen. You see, these ten days you will learn and you'll be ready and you can really help other people.

When they're depressed you can say, look, you could be more depressed. So get ready and by the end of the week you'll feel very light and you'll feel very happy because you say, I'm ready. If my plane falls down next week, I'm ready.

I know what's going to happen. Somebody asked me, if you die suddenly, do you still have all these stages in your mind? The answer is yes.

You can shoot yourself in the head. My brother did it. You still go through those steps.

You still go through the same stages. Everybody goes through the same stages. Here we go.

Let's meditate. Before you meditate, take one good look behind you. Out the windows at this beautiful valley and the mountains because we're going to use them.

[Speaker 2]
Probably your karma put them there for this class. Diamond Mountain owns all of those mountains right there. That's for your students' retreat cottages.

Here we go. Eyelids relaxed. No muscle tension in your eyelids.

Eyelids are totally relaxed. Hands are relaxed. Fingers relaxed.

Stomach is tightened a little bit. Shoulders are back and down. Mouth is relaxed.

Happy. Happy. Little smile.

You're back on your deathbed. Cold. Arms and legs are finished.

You can't use them anymore. They are broken. They are frozen.

They will never move again. Chest also feeling cold. Breath, stop.

You fought to breathe. You fought your whole life to breathe. Now that's finished.

Last breath is finished. This meat is dead. Your eyes closed last time.

And it's dark. The four elements begin to collapse. First the earth element.

And you feel like you are here. Like at Diamond Mountain in that place behind the temple. It's a valley.

There are mountains all around you. And suddenly everything goes crazy. The earth is shaking like an earthquake.

Terrible noise. Loud like explosions. The earth is splitting open.

Rocks are falling. Mountains are falling. And you run towards the entrance of Diamond Mountain.

You are running because you are afraid. The mountains falling. Earth cracking open.

Terrible noise like bombs exploding. The earth is splitting open everywhere. Mountains are falling.

You are running. You reach the entrance of Diamond Mountain. Suddenly huge flood of water coming down from the mountains like an ocean.

Waves catches you. Carries you out towards the highway. Huge flood of water like a mountain.

Like mountain waves. And you are carried on these waves. Huge waves like tsunami.

And you are drowning. You are fighting to stay up. The waves are carrying you out towards the highway.

Huge ocean moving from the mountains that are collapsing. And you are fighting to stay up. And finally the water leaves you out.

You can think the other side of the highway. The water speeds on. It drops.

It leaves you in the desert alone. And then fire. The sun gets bigger and bigger.

The heat of the sun burning your body. The flames of the sun surrounding your body. Covering your body.

You are wrapped in flame. You are burning. Terrible pain.

Terrible suffering of fire. Then a strong wind like a hurricane pushing away the fire, ripping you. You cannot stand up.

You are crawling, fighting against the wind. The wind is driving you, pushing you down across the desert. Then everything becomes flat again.

Dark. More quiet. The terrible sounds of the earth breaking.

Ocean. And the sun and the wind. Now everything gets quiet.

More quiet. It's like you are walking across the land. You are looking at the horizon in the dark.

And then very quiet now. And it's almost peaceful. And you can see dawn coming.

You see the dark sky changing on the horizon. And little by little, like daybreak, the sky is starting to get a little bit white color, like just before the sun comes up. And you are walking towards this white color of the sky.

Like before dawn, you are walking towards it slowly. Then you are inside the light. It's a white light.

Soft white light around you. You are still walking. Then you can see far away some kind of mirage.

There's like there's water far away. And you are walking across the desert towards the water. It's shimmering.

It's moving like an illusion mirage. The subtle element of earth is dissolving into the subtle element of water. Keep walking.

You are walking towards the mirage. And then suddenly everything is like fog or smoke, like there's a big fire. So you don't see fire, but you are walking through smoke.

Everything is like fog or smoke. The element of, the subtle element of water is dissolving into the subtle element of fire. You keep walking through the smoke.

Just grey smoke. And suddenly you can see sparks in the smoke. Tiny sparks, not big.

Subtle, but bright red sparks, like electric sparks. The element of fire, subtle, is melting into the subtle element of wind. Just sparks in the smoke.

You keep walking through the sparks. Slowly. Suddenly you see a light in the distance.

It's like someone's holding a flashlight or there's a fire. You come closer through the smoke and the sparks. finally you come to a light which is like only as big as a candle flame.

And your mind is getting tinier and tinier. Your mind is coming smaller and smaller. And the only thing you can see, the only thing you can think of is a candle flame.

And the flame is very still. It's not moving. Just a steady fire flame like a candle.

And that's all you can see. Your whole world is this flame. Small flame.

And you're walking towards the flame. And then you're walking into the flame. And then you're coming through the flame.

And on the other side is that dawn light. Soft. Quiet.

Light before the sun comes up. The sky is painted white. Very small.

Very quiet. You are still walking towards this light. Then that light becomes deep red, dark red, like the sunset, like a very deep red sunset.

You are still moving. You are still walking towards this light. The white light is behind you.

You are moving into the red light. Whole sky, whole mind is red. Deep red color.

Mind is getting smaller and smaller. The red is tiny, but you're inside it. And then suddenly everything blinks out black.

You're in very, very dark black again. The red is gone. The white is gone.

The mind is very, very small. And you are in blackness, in dark. And then another feeling comes, another vision, like crystal, like the inside of a diamond.

So you feel like you are inside a diamond. The white is gone. The red is gone.

Even the black is gone. Everything is like ice, crystal. You are inside it.

Stay here for a few minutes. Everything is crystal. All around you crystal.

Nothing else there. Just you are in the crystal. We'll stay here for a few minutes.

And slowly come back to your breath. Three deep breaths. Then you can stretch.

[Speaker 1]
So we'll go through, I'll take you through that again many times this week. But I want you to, in your mind, just think of the structure of the whole thing. So first, there's about five things happening to your body while your family is holding your hand.

Five outer signs. You know, the body is getting cold, things like that. We'll repeat it again.

So there are outer signs. There's about five in the scripture.

[Speaker 2]
Then what happens? First, after that.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the big elements. You can call it the car accident stage. It's loud.

It's frightening. Everything's chaos. You're like, and you're running.

And everyone goes through this. How many people felt like they've been there before? Okay?

And if we do a good job this week, you will feel more like that. You'll say, I think I did that before. So four gross elements, collapsing comes next.

Outside first, like five, six signs. Breath stops. Eyes close.

Then crazy, car accident. Crazy, noisy, frightening. Super scary.

I asked Anton to make me some videos. Maybe by afternoon or evening. We'll show them.

Okay. I said, try to find an earthquake. Try to find a nice tsunami.

Let's get an explosion in there. Then what happens? Oh, by the way, I gave you the wrong order.

I started the white light too soon. I'll correct it. But what happened after the four gross elements?

Yeah, the four subtle elements, which are called the four signs. They're called the four signs. Like the sparks, or the smoke.

I'll teach you again. We'll do it again. Because you have to write it down.

And you're going to meditate on it for three days. I'm just going to review the structure. Then we're going to take a pee-pee break.

Then we'll come back and we'll write it down. So don't worry about it right now. Outer signs.

Cold. Skin turning white. Then the car accident.

The gross four elements collapsing. Earthquake. Tsunami.

Sun exploding.

[Speaker 2]
Then what happens? Then more subtle elements.

[Speaker 1]
What's happening after that? Yeah, then we have... The next four are called the four emptinesses.

So there's the four signs before that, like the smoke. And then there's the four emptinesses. We'll talk about it more.

Don't worry about it now. But that's the different kinds of light. The dawn, and then the sunset, and then the dark, and then the crystal.

We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. There's four more after that.

There's four qualities of the crystal. There's four parts inside the crystal. We'll talk about it.

That'll take some time. That's more difficult. Got the structure?

Tell me the first group of things. Yeah, outer signs. Body getting cold.

Difficult to breathe. Second one? Yeah, earthquake, car accident.

Let's call it the car accident. Then what? Subtle elements.

Those are called the four signs. Those are called the four signs. Nope, just the subtle elements.

The smoke, the sparks, those are called the four. The name in ancient books is called dak shi. Say dak shi.

Four signs. Then the next four are called the tongpa shi. What do you call?

Kong shing, yi, er, san, shi. Shi kong shing. Kong shing de shi?

Shi de kong shing. Si kong shing. Four emptiness.

The last one is what? Crystal. We'll talk more about it.

Then there's four kinds of crystals. Four things are happening inside the crystal. We'll talk about that.

I just want you to get the structure. So how many groups we have? Outside body, subtle elements, gross elements, four, I'm sorry.

Let's do it again. Outside signs, car accident, four inner signs, four emptiness, and then there's four qualities of the crystal. Five parts.

It's not easy to die. You have to remember a lot of things. All right, let's take a break.

Ten minute break. I'm going to go through the actual text that I taught you this thing from. It's a different text.

I brought it from other places. First we'll talk about, what's the first of the five groups? Yeah, outer signs.

Outer signs. These are from the Lam Rim. These are in the Lam Rim.

We've covered them in Guadalajara. I'm going to cover them again. He gives five.

He gives five. Number one, when your body gets colder, it comes this way, right? From the edges, from the fingers, and from the toes, then the hands and the feet, then the legs and arms, then it moves up, and then the last warm part is your heart.

Then the heart becomes cold. And you've done it many, many, many, many times. You just don't remember.

But I think in this week maybe you will remember. Second one, you have trouble breathing. Like, you can't breathe very well.

Third one, your nostrils will close and you can't breathe. That will be your last breath. Then this will close.

Dry up. Then the mouth dries up. You can't open the mouth.

And your lips turn back, like this. Dead people, lips go like that. And your mouth dries up.

You cannot open your mouth anymore. And the last one that Pabongka Rinpoche mentions is your skin turns white. Because the blood is not moving.

So the skin turns all white. Okay, the four... We're going to call them the car accident.

Are you ready with that video? You ready with the video? Okay, Anton made a video.

Okay, it's just the first try. Okay, I'm sorry. He made it last night.

I don't think he slept much. But maybe it gives you some feeling. Then I want to make a better one.

But here's the first part. These are the gross elements.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So he's going to work on the next four. So the four gross elements can also come from Pabongka, from Lam Rim. Are you ready?

RIG PO REL BA DANG He just says the mountains are tearing apart. The earth is tearing apart. And SA CHEN PO'OG TU NON PA means you feel like you are being crushed by landslides or by stones.

Okay. CHOS KYER BA means carried away by tsunami or something like that. MED PAR BA'I LONG DU TSOS PA means you feel like you are wrapped in fire.

And then LUNG GI KHYER BA GCIG RTAGS SANGS RGYAS MI KHYAB PA an inconceivable frightening wind like a tornado or hurricane, something like that. That's all. That's the source of those.

[Speaker 2]
We have some time. And I thought, what's the next group?

[Speaker 1]
Subtle elements. The four signs. In Tibetan?

RTAGS ZHIG RTAGS ZHIG Like RTAGS, RTAGS, RTAGS. LAK BZHIN NA in Sanskrit. LAK BZHIN NA Okay.

SA CHOS LA THIM PA'I So I'm just going to read you the Tibetan because I like it. I like to see it's real and there's a lineage. By the way, the source of this is DE CHOG What's DE CHOG?

What's the source of DE CHOG? You can say here, Luke, also. RGYUD BU LHA NGA RGYUD BU GANG DUG PA DAS system.

It's about 1,200 years ago. GANG DUG PA DAS The system of GANG DUG PA DAS in India called the five deities. LHA NGA Okay.

So this description comes from that. Very famous. Higher teaching.

Very famous higher teaching. If you keep coming to long rim, I will start putting in secret teachings. Okay.

There are people in New York and other places waiting for the secret teachings and not coming to the long rim. So they will never get the secret teachings because I'm going to sneak it in the long rim. So this is part of the secret teachings.

Big part. Very important part. So those people waiting for tantra, they're going to wait forever.

And the people who come to long rim are going to get tantra. You see? That's the way it should be.

All right. SA CHU LA THIN PAS When the earth element dissolves into the water element. Subtle.

Subtle. MI RGYU LTA BU NANG BA MI RGYU LTA BU NANG BA MI RGYU means mirage. So Anton, you have to find...

You know, like off in the distance, and it's kind of like... It looks like water, but it's not water. Mirage.

Okay. That's the first one. Second one.

By the way, this is connected to the dissolution of the VAM letter. If you know about it, you can appreciate it. But I'm not teaching you that now.

CHU ME LA THIN PAS When the water element dissolves into the fire element. Subtle. DU BO LTA BU NANG BA DU BO LTA BU NANG BA means smoke.

It looks like smoke. Or you can say fog. Okay.

And again, you know, Anton tried to do this thing where you feel like you're going... It's like you're drilling down. Okay.

Your mind is getting more and more subtle. So it should feel like you're in a tunnel. And it's like Hong Kong tunnel.

You know. And things are getting more and more narrow. Okay.

So you feel like you're drilling... You're moving forward through these mirages. Okay.

Mirage. Well, earthquake, tsunami, sun, fire, tornado. Going deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper.

Then you start to see the mirage. And then you see the... What?

Smoke or fog. Okay. We had a big fire here.

This is one of the Diamond Mountain legends. There was a big fire in the desert. And it burned for...

How many days? It burned about three or four weeks. And it came here.

Huge. Many miles. And it was moving towards Diamond Mountain.

These guys were in a three-year retreat. And we got a big bus ready. And the police were all in a line.

And we were ready to take them out. We were waiting. And the satellite shows the fire coming, coming, coming.

Then we did all this. And it stopped. It never touched the Diamond Mountain property.

It destroyed the property next door. It reached next door. It burned it.

But the smoke covered everywhere. So they're like, what's going on? Don't worry about it.

Just meditate. Everywhere smoke. You can smell, you can feel it everywhere around you.

So it's like that. You're drilling down. And everything's getting smaller.

And now you're surrounded by this smoke or fog. It's mostly visual. What's the sound like at that point?

What does it sound like? Pretty quiet. This stuff is noisy.

Mountain falling down. Tsunami is noisy. Hurricane.

Nice Singapore hurricane. These things are noisy. But when you start to get into the...

It starts to get quiet. Things are getting more quiet. What comes after the...

Okay, next one. ME LUNG LA BTIN PA'I When the fire dissolves into the wind, say, MED KHYER Say MED KHYER. MED KHYER Sometimes it's called Simbu MED KHYER It means firefly.

In the night time, there's some kind of bug that shows a little light. You can see them in the dark. It's like a mosquito or something.

But their body is light. So you can see. Or you can say ISGRA Spark.

What's happening? Why the sparks? Your synapses are short-circuiting.

This electricity in your mind is breaking. It's like... And you see the sparks.

It's the little electricity in your mind. And you see sparks in the fog, in the smoke. So they didn't have electricity in Tibet a thousand years ago.

They say, Oh, it looks like a firefly. MED KHYER LTA BUR NA BA Next one. LUNG RNAM SHES LA THIM PA'I MAR MED BAR BA LTA BUR NA BA LUNG means wind element.

RNAM SHES LA THIM PA means dissolves into the element of consciousness, which is the fifth element. Consciousness, the mind. And then you see what?

Yeah. It's a candle flame, but it's everything in your world. Because you are drilling...

It's this big, but it's your whole world. And it's steady. There's no...what? Yeah, the element of wind is finished in the mind. That energy is gone. So the candle light is not moving at all. It's like very steady.

It's not going like this. It's very steady. And you're just looking at it.

And you feel like that's your whole world. So you can start with a candle flame like 20 meters away. And then you get closer, closer, closer, closer, closer.

Then you're inside the flame. You're drilling down. You have to keep this...

Anton did it with the film, right? This video. You're like moving down into it.

You're drilling down into it. Your mind is getting more and more subtle. So that's the four dak shi.

What comes next? They call it the four emptinesses. They're not all emptiness.

Only the last one is. They call it the four emptinesses, but only the last one is emptiness. But they're just called the four emptinesses.

Here's what the first one looks like. THOG MAR CHU'I RTZA' KHO BZHIG PA'I BYANG SEMS DKA' PO PHA PA'I SNANG BA GAR LAM PA THOG MAR means the four emptinesses began when... CHI WO means here.

The top of your head. There's a chakra here. There's a...

Inside that chakra, there's a special... like a liquid. It looks like milk.

Cream. It looks like heavy cream. Like honey, but white color.

It's called BYANG SEMS DKA' PO. BYANG SEMS DKA' PO means white element. You can call it white honey.

In Buddhism, we give that substance, we give it the name BYANG SEMS, bodhichitta. We give it the name bodhichitta, wish for enlightenment, but it's not. It's like a honey.

It's like a white honey, and it stays here, usually. There's a white... I have lots of it, I guess.

Usually it stays here. DKA' PO. BYANG SEMS DKA' PO.

White body element or something. I call it white honey. Because it moves like honey.

It doesn't move very fast. It's not like water, but it flows slowly. BYANG SEMS DKA' PO.

CHI WO TZAK BOR ZHIG PA When you're dying, this chakra dissolves. This chakra breaks, like a wheel, like a bicycle wheel breaking. And it breaks down.

This connection here breaks. And that liquid comes out. And it starts to move towards the heart.

Down your SBYONG MA'I SBYONG MA'I? Central channel. Down the middle channel, SU BZHUNG NA RGYUD DI comes this white honey moving down, very slow, like honey.

DKA' PO means it starts to come down. Then it's very famous, the first emptiness, NAM. If you want to learn some Buddhist words, you should learn it.

Say NANG BA DKA' LAM PA NANG BA DKA' LAM PA That's the name of this first step. What's the vision? What's the hallucination?

The dawn. Daybreak is more accurate. Like the way the sky starts to get lighter, but the sun didn't come up yet.

The way the sky starts to get lighter. That's called NANG BA DKA' LAM PA NANG BA DKA' LAM PA Like a subtle, soft white light of the sun before it comes up above the mountain. Okay.

The sky starts to change. Then remember, you are like a screw, and your mind is getting more and more small. So you have to keep up this feeling that you are moving forward into this.

You go through the, what was the last thing? You go through the candle light, and then you're into this soft white light all around you. You can start with the horizon, and it's getting whiter and whiter, and then you're in the white light.

That's called NANG BA DKA' LAM PA I did it too early this morning. I'm sorry. I'll do it correctly this afternoon.

Then I corrected myself. We'll do it many times. My teacher asked us to do it every night.

Maybe after coffee meditation or something. In Buddhism, you get more and more responsibility, more stress. Anyway.

DKA' LAM PA Now, next one. DE NAS DE BA'I TZA' KHOR Spelling mistake. DE BA'I TZA' KHOR ZHIG PA NA Next, the navel chakra breaks down.

Behind the navel, right? It's not on the navel. It's not painted on your navel.

It's in front of your spine. But it's on the level of the navel. So we call it navel chakra.

But don't think it's in your belly button. It's not. It's back in front of your spine.

This much in front of your spine. There's a wheel. There's a design of of nadis, of channels.

And that starts to break down. When did it form? Yeah, no, when you're in the womb.

If you studied Niguma Yoga in DCI, you know all this stuff. Okay. So that chakra breaks down.

Inside that chakra is a kam marple. Kam marple is another name for cheongsam marple. It means red honey.

Like red honey, red color honey. Okay. So that honey is released.

And RGYEN DU BAR RGYEN DU BAR means it starts to come up. But the word they use for coming up is like the word for the way that fire comes up. Okay, like it comes up like that.

BAR BA And very famous word BYAS PA MAR LAM PA Say BYAS PA MAR LAM PA BYAS PA MAR LAM PA So far we have NANG BA GAR LAM PA Now we have BYAS PA MAR LAM PA You should learn those words. If you're not sure, I have Nick teach you.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So BYAS PA is a very unusual word. It's very rare. And it's only used in a few places.

KU BYAS means twins. Like Asanga and Vasubandhu are KU BYAS. Sometimes they're called KU BYAS.

So BYAS means So I did a retreat near Flagstaff, northern Arizona, many years ago. One month retreat. And there was another fire.

And it came. I smelled the smoke and I thought, oh, there's a big fire coming. And they sent many firemen to stop it.

And 17 guys went to the hospital. The fire jumped over them. They go under the special cloth and they just wait and the fire jumps over them.

And the fire was jumping from tree to tree. It wasn't touching the ground. And it came down as fast as a man running.

And I was like, whoa. It was going It was just coming down the mountain like that from tree to tree. That's BYAS PA.

That's the meaning of BYAS PA. BYAS PA means fire like flying fire. Something like that.

It means multiplying crazy. Then I did a mall. Should I run?

And the mall said, no, don't run. Just stay here. Then I got scared and I got my suitcase and I ran.

I ran to the highway. I hitchhiked to the town and got a hotel room. Next day I came back in a rental car.

The other rental car. The owner of the house was... I rented the house for a retreat and he was sitting there in front of the house.

Everything's burned but the house is fine. He says, I don't know what you Buddhist guys do but thank you so much. But I didn't trust it.

Anyway, that's BYAS PA. Fire like multiplying like crazy. So BYAS PA means that.

So the red sunset. So you drill down through the through the daybreak and then suddenly you see like a sunset. Like a deep red sunset.

New Jersey. 19 years I took the bus through New York every day, four hours round trip through the gasoline fields and the pollution is unbelievable. They call it Cancer Alley.

Every day I went through Cancer Alley and the pollution is so bad that the sunset is very beautiful. It's all beautiful red because there's so much pollution. It looks very beautiful.

That's BYAS PA MA RLAM PA BYAS PA MA RLAM PA Next one. So that's when the navel chakra breaks open and the red honey comes up, shoots up. MA RLAM PA SNYING RGA' BDOD PA LA BRTEN NAS SNYING RGA'I GANG RGA' MAR SEMS MO BDAG CAG DKA' BYAR LTA BU'I DUS SU SNYING SEMS BZHIN DU MTHAR BA YOD PA DE MTHUN PA LA BRTEN NAS MTHUN PA LA BRTEN NAS NYER MTHONG NA LAM PA RNAMS RIM BZHIN BYA DE NYID, those two honeys SNYING RGA' BDOD PA means they join at the SNYING RGA' at the heart.

They both arrive at the heart. SNYING RGA' BDOD PA LA BRTEN NAS SNYING RGA' GANG RGA' MAR GANG RGA' MAR Then usually in your heart chakra there's some white and red. Tiny.

The size of a pea. You know a pea? You can split it.

There's always two halves of a pea. So inside your heart chakra there's a tiny, it looks like a pea. And the top half has this white color and the bottom half has this red color.

So there's a small amount of two honeys there. And then the other come and meet them. RGA' MAR SEMS MA BDAG CHAGS BDAG CHAGS means two halves of a sphere joined together.

KHA BYAR means joined together. LTA BU'I DUS SU In the middle of that, LUNG SEMS SHIN TU PHYA BA is a very subtle chi and mind together, mixed there. Very, very subtle.

That's the last part of you which is still alive. Inside the heart chakra there's a tiny part of you still alive. Just a little bit of chi, prana, and a little bit of consciousness living there.

Very subtle. Now your mind came down to most subtle. BYA BA YOD PA DE TSIM PA LA THUB PA LA BRTEN NI GNYER MTHO NA LAM PA There's a mistake in the Tibetan and I have to check it.

LA BRTEN NI Say GNYER MTHO. GNYER MTHO GNYER MTHO GNAG LAM PA GNAG PO means what? Black.

So now everything's black. Everything just goes... The red light blinks out and you're in darkness.

They say it's not... What do you call it? Total darkness.

Complete darkness. Like someone hit you very hard and you're unconscious. You become unconscious, totally unconscious, totally black.

There's a joke, the Lama joke. If you get hit by a big guy at this point, you're lucky. If you go completely unconscious, deep, deep unconscious, it's easier to see emptiness.

No, really. So at this point, black. Na klampa means black.

You're very close to see emptiness. If you are trained by somebody to die right, to die skillfully, you can, right at this moment, you can try to see emptiness. You see?

No, you have to go through them. But when you reach this unconsciousness, that's a good place, that's a very subtle state of mind. It's almost like someone seeing emptiness directly.

You are very close. And the name of that is the almost black. Nyer top means almost there.

The name of it is nyer top means almost there. It means, if you know what you're doing, you can use that moment to try to see emptiness directly. Very subtle.

The deeper you are unconscious, the easier it is. Okay, got it? And we'll talk more about it.

Don't try to do it tonight. Rim shin char means these things come one by one. These are the four emptinesses.

But we're on the third one, right? Then this author, who is Quicksilver. I think it's Quicksilver.

No, it's a student. No, it's Quicksilver. His name is Quicksilver.

This writer says, ,'DI RGABS CAN MED DU RGYAL TE RGYAL SAB CHED ZAD RGYON MIN, ,DE DANG YON NYAMS PA'I OD SREL PHYAR BA, He says, the deeper you can go unconscious, the better. And his student also said that. Who's his student?

Yeah, Yangchen Dukudanje. So those two are famous grammarians and famous tantricists. So they both say the same thing.

RGYAL SAB CHED means, this RGYAL is spelled differently from RGYAL SAB. This RGYAL means unconscious. Like lose consciousness.

To lose your consciousness. SAB means to a fiercer degree. SAB is a very rare word.

RGYAL SAB CHED means total unconsciousness. Deep unconsciousness. RGYON MIN No male when he.

Very good. He said, more unconscious?

[Speaker 2]
Better. Okay, ready?

[Speaker 1]
We still didn't do number four. DE YANG MI MED PA MTHONG BA SONG BA NA LUS BYAS KYI RGYEN GSUM DANG PHRA BA'I THAMS CAD MTHONG PAS OD SREL PHYAR BA LUS BYAS KYI RGYEN GSUM means very difficult expression. And it was so difficult that Lama quits over.

He had an interview with a student to explain it. And I found that interview. It was written about 300 years ago.

So, I can give you a good explanation. The first time I went to teach at Mind and Medicine Buddha. I found that many years ago.

LUS BYAS KYI RGYEN GSUM LUS BYAS KYI RGYEN GSUM means very difficult. It means three pollutions. Three pollutions.

LUS BYAS means... What do you call that? It's like a pollution.

And RGYEN GSUM means three types. Three ways in which your mind can be polluted. DANG PHRA'O means you break through those three.

You break through those three. You go through those three. You don't have them anymore.

BYA BA'I THAMS CAD MTHONG PA Then everything becomes GONG ZHING. Everything empty. Everything emptiness.

And the other name for that is OS SO The clear light. OS SO Clear light. BYAR BA means the clear light rises.

Why? You reach GONG ZHING. Why?

You broke through those three pollutions. Are you confused enough? I'll confuse you more this afternoon.

Buddhism is deep. Buddhism is really deep. And I like it.

Anyway. So what are the three pollutions? Any trace of the first three emptinesses are called the three pollutions.

Any trace of the first three are called the three pollutions. What are the first three? SNANG BA GAR LAM PA The white light, the daybreak light.

Then BYAS PA MA LAM PA The red conflagration. And then the GNAG PO GNAG LAM PA GNYER THOB GNAG LAM PA Almost there blackness. GNYER THOB GNAG LAM PA When you reach crystal, which is free of any black, red, or white, you reach number four.

There's no blackness. There's no redness. There's no whiteness.

Pure crystal. Pure crystal. He has a nice explanation of that crystal.

There's also a mantra you can use here. I'll teach you today sometime. Maybe at night.

Someone gave a nice explanation of... Anyway, in the autumn time, the moon is bigger, right? There's a crystalline feeling on an autumn night.

I think Aaron's going to sing this song, Harvest Moon. But there's a sort of crystal feeling. So this afternoon we'll talk more about that quotient, about the crystal.

But I want you to understand one thing. Okay, ready? Listen.

Hold up your left hand. Point your finger. Ready?

These guys people know what we're about to do. Okay. Point to one thing in this room that's not coming from you.

That ding! That's the crystal. Okay, it's not a picture.

It's not a diamond picture. It's not something you can see. It's like that.

Okay? You tell Nick and Aaron you're going to take them out to Cucina Rustica, the most expensive restaurant in Sedona. And you're very, you know, you just got paid by DCI once a year.

Just kidding. Not kidding. Then you're like, I'll pay tonight.

Then you reach into your pocket for your credit card and you realize you put on your other pair of pants because you're going to a nice restaurant. That's crystal. Okay?

That's what crystal feels like. It's not some kind of color. Okay?

It's not like glass. It's like, ding! No credit card.

[Speaker 2]
Ding!

[Speaker 1]
Okay? That's crystal. Just get used to it.

It's not a picture. It's not something you can see with your eyes. It's a feeling.

Oops! Not there. What's not there?

Anything didn't come from your seats. Anything didn't come from your seats is not there. Then you're just like, that's the fourth emptiness.

That's the real one. That's the only real one. Okay?

The first three are not. Number three is nirtho. Almost there.

Number four is the real thing. Crystal. But it doesn't mean something you can see with your eyes.

It's something you feel with your mind.

[Speaker 2]
Ding!

[Speaker 1]
No credit card. Okay? Okay.

Nothing here. Not come from me. Okay, I'll take questions.

We have about seven minutes. And I'll take more questions this afternoon. Do you have a question, Hasso?

Wait for the microphone, okay? Thank you, Geshe-la. So, how is it that, according to this, if I understand well, every time we die we go through this process?

Yeah. So then, apparently, every time we die we perceive emptiness. You get a feeling for it, but you don't see it directly.

It's because you don't understand it, maybe? Something like that? You don't know what's going on?

You don't recognize it. And then, what happens if you are able to perceive emptiness at the moment of your death? Do you become an Arya, of course?

At least an Arya. But, okay, but then you could become a Bodhisattva, but do you have rebirth or Arhat? How does it work?

Aryas have rebirth. Seven more. Usually seven more.

Okay. And if you become an Arhat, because I love the text, you can overcome rebirth, that cycle, just by perceiving it. But to go from Arya to Arhat is a big thing.

Normally 500 years. Seven lifetimes. But it's possible.

It's possible. At the moment. If you practice, what's going to happen?

Okay, they say, okay, me and Aldo are going to breakfast right now, and Andyana is going to make us real food, not this hippie food. So, we're going to have toast with this much butter and real coffee. And it's not a little butter, it's this much butter.

Like you can't see the toast under the butter. Okay? Then, the lamas say, when you start to die, when you reach even the smoke, and when you reach even the earthquakes, you should start putting the butter on.

Okay? What's it mean? The white, oh, that's coming from me.

The red, oh, that's coming from me. Even the black, oh, coming this way. Okay?

You're not drilling. Your mind is throwing the next thing, and you're going, see what I mean? Your mind is like a tunnel making machine.

Then go inside. Then go inside. Your mind is, this talk, your mind makes each next thing.

Okay? I'm not doing anything. Okay?

Your mind make Geshe Michael nine o'clock. Then your mind make Geshe Michael ten after nine. If you like, sorry, if you don't like this talk, it's your fault.

Okay? If you like it, it's me. Okay?

Your mind is throwing the next thing. So, during this whole death, if you're a Buddhist, if you're trained at Diamond Mountain Retreat Center, you're putting butter on everything. Oh, earthquake, ha ha, coming from me.

Oh, tsunami, ha ha, coming from me. Fire, coming from me. Okay?

What in this life can help you to remember that? Okay? Why do we say pen protect you?

Yeah, the emptiness protect you. If you think about the pen every day, if you go to a DCI talk every day, and Geshe Michael only teaches the pen again. I went to Singapore, that guy, I'm not going to say his name, he's like, he got angry.

He said, Geshe-la, you forgot, you taught the pen last year. You also taught it the year before and the year before. I pay money to come to this talk.

I'm like, I'm sorry, I forgot. Okay? You have to think about the pen.

While you're alive. Because when the earthquake starts, you're scared. You have to be...

It has to be automatic. It has to be, oh, coming from me. He says, put the butter on the whole experience.

From the beginning of the earthquake up to the crystal, you are covering it in gong shing. Oh, gong shing, gong shing, gong shing. Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness.

Like everything. To do that, you have to do it before you die. Because when you die, you can't remember.

It's like being in the middle of an automobile accident. You can't remember your bank account when you're in the middle of an accident. Something like that.

So you have to practice all the time. Pen, pen, pen, pen. Coming from me, coming from me.

That's why it's good to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Because they make you so irritated. And you can say, oh, coming from me, coming from me.

Coming from me. That's why it's good to have a boyfriend or girlfriend before you die. You can practice gong shing.

Can anybody make you upset? You say, oh, coming from me. All right?

So put the butter on. So I have to go. Me and Aldo have to go.