«Дар освобождения», курс 23 «Защита от жизни и смерти», занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
Okay, what I'd like you to do is, I added the backside of each page is blank so you can take notes about each meditation. So I'd like you to turn to the back of the front page and let's write down the plan we made today for those how to die. Okay, so I'm going to repeat the five groups that we talked about, okay?

And I'd like you just to write down the names of them and then, you know, we'll keep doing them, but when you're by yourself in three days retreat, you will have your notes, okay, for these meditations, okay? So what's the first group of the five? Yeah, outer signs of dying, okay?

And in the book it gives five, okay? So you're going to say A, the group A is outer signs of dying. Who can tell me the first one?

Yeah, it's called chod du. Chod du means the warmth in your body starts to shrink back. Retreat, you know, the cold starts to spread, okay?

So you have to have this, write down something which reminds you that the warmth is leaving your hands, and the warmth is leaving your legs, okay? Cold is coming. That's the first one.

Second one, trouble breathing, okay? You know, you're breathing like that. Third one, your nostrils collapse, okay?

And they don't work anymore. The skin closes, okay? Number four, your mouth dries up and your lips turn back, okay?

And you close your mouth and you can't keep it open anymore, okay? No life, no water left in the body. Fifth one, yeah, dang shorwa in Tibetan means you lose your red complexion.

I have a lot, okay? Especially when I do a reach yoga. But all that healthy color goes away and just dead white, okay?

Like paper, okay? No more blood flow. All right then, what's B?

Yeah, collapse of the, yeah, gross, the elements of the body, the rough elements of the body are collapsing, one by one. Rough elements of the body are collapsing, okay? So when the earth element collapses, what happens?

What does it feel like? Yeah, remember Anton's video, okay? The mountains are falling down on you, okay?

Number one, when the water element collapses, yeah, you feel like tsunami, okay? Being carried away by tsunami. Fighting for your breath, fighting for life.

Then that tsunami delivers you in the middle of the desert and fire, the sun fire. You are like inside the fire. It feels like that, okay?

Then the fire goes away and the wind. I challenged Anton to find better noise, like find me a real tornado noise, and a real fire noise, and a real earthquake noise, you know? Try.

I mean, you know, if you want. It should be frightening, it should be loud, it should be like Jimi Hendrix or something, okay? It's not bad, what you did is good, but it should be like scary noises, you know?

Okay, because after that it gets quiet, okay? No more, the sound is almost gone, okay? Then we start the subtle four elements, okay?

And when the subtle earth melts into the subtle water, what do you get? Yeah, mirage, like water from a distance in the desert. And you walk towards it, towards it, towards it, towards it, towards it, go through it.

On the other side you see? Yeah, smoke. You are surrounded by smoke or fog.

Can't see anything, just fog, just smoke, okay? Then after that something comes in the smoke. Yeah, like sparks, okay?

All quiet, it's all quiet. Your mind is getting finer. Your mind is getting more subtle.

You are getting deeper and deeper, okay? No more french fries smells, you know? No more sound.

Everything's getting quiet now. You're going to the dead, okay? After the sparks?

Yeah, like a steady flame in the distance, and then you approach that steady flame. You get closer and closer, and then it's as big as you are, okay? Unmoving candle flame.

Write it down. I like Chinese people, they write everything down. I don't know what they do with it afterwards, but it's so nice to have somebody write down.

I like it. Thank you. Your teachers were very good in your school, you know?

I'm happy about your school. Okay, so that's the candle flame. You go through the candle flame.

Then what? Those are called the four signs, okay? Those last four are called tak shi, the four signs.

Then starts the four emptinesses, even though only the fourth one is real emptiness, okay? But they're called the four emptinesses, okay? We did sparks already.

Firefly, sparks, same thing. Number three. Sign number three, okay?

Okay, nangwa kar lampa? Daybreak, yeah? Okay, like it gets dark after the candle flame, it gets dark.

Then you look in the distance and the daybreak, the white light of the sun is starting to fill the sky, although the sun didn't come up. And then you feel like you're wrapped in the white light, okay? Lampa in this case is a difficult thing, but in my opinion, it's lam merwa, which means soft light that covers everything.

Lampa. Kar lampa means white, I don't know how to say it, soft white light that covers you, okay? Kar lampa.

Then chepa ma lampa. What's chepa ma lampa? Yeah, red, sunset.

So the white light turns to sunset light. There's no day, okay? You go straight from daybreak to sunset.

Who made sunset? Who made daybreak? Is daybreak an example for something that happens in your death, or is daybreak coming because you have that in your death?

Yeah, got it? It's not that this stage of death is similar to daybreak, it's that daybreak is similar to this stage of death. The daybreak for your whole life came from these same elements, okay?

Got it? It's not that inside of death something looks like daybreak. Inside of death something looks like sunset.

That's not it. Sunset came from this. Red element in which chakra?

Navel chakra. And where did the daybreak come from? Yeah, it's coming from here, okay?

So it's not that it's similar to daybreak, daybreak is coming from death. Okay? Nice, I'm glad we remembered to say that.

NER THOB NGAG RANG PA No. Huh? Wait, wait, wait.

What's the black part? Yeah, NER THOB means NGES BAR THOB PA Close, almost there. Almost to where?

Real emptiness at number four, right? So the third one is black, blackness, okay? NGAG RANG PA NGAG means black.

Hey? Hey? Hey.

Hey! Okay. NGAG RANG PA And then everything's dark, okay?

Is light dark better or is dark dark better? Yeah, dark dark is better. Deep dark is better, okay?

Because it's easy to go into emptiness from there. So, no, if it's more dark it's better. There shouldn't be any stars.

Or no YOG THAL. In my meditation YOG THAL goes like this. So it should be more dark than that.

NER THOB NGAG RANG PA Then what's up? What's up? Clear light, okay?

Clear light, real emptiness. So I think you now have five outer signs of death, right? You have four signs, four gross elements, then four subtle elements, then you have four emptinesses, right?

Okay? There's four more we can throw in which is inside the, well, inside the crystal something's happening. Four things.

What? SNANG BA STONG SA BA Say SNANG BA STONG SA BA STONG SA BA In English we sometimes say sheer emptiness or pure emptiness. Okay?

Sheer emptiness. It's appearing to you. From that side, appearing to you.

Okay? Sheer emptiness. Total emptiness.

NGES NGOR RANG BZHIN MED PA Yeah, how do you take it? NGES NGOR, the word is confusing. But it means how do you take it.

So from the object side, SNANG BA STONG SA BA From the subject side, NGES NGOR RANG BZHIN MED PA Okay? Second quality. You are recognizing it as emptiness.

You are recognizing it as emptiness. You have been trained. You're a well-trained Buddhist.

Where do you get good training? Diamond Mountain. Okay?

You're well-trained. You say, oh, that's that emptiness thing. Yeah, that's like that credit card in the restaurant.

I recognize that. Okay? RANG SEMS BDE BA CHEN PO Yeah.

My mind is total happiness, total fun. Super happy mind. Deeply happy mind.

Okay? It's my mind. The fourth one says, the fourth one says, that KONG BZHIN is me.

DE NGA'O DE NGA'O NGA'O It sounds like MIAO MIAO DE NGA'O That's me. Hey, that's me. Yeah, that's the new me.

I like that. That's the new me. Now, Buddha has four bodies.

This is the most important one. Okay? And I'm going to teach you that later in the week.

Okay? You're going to debate it. But the Buddha has four different bodies.

And the most important one is the emptiness of the Buddha. So, in this case, you are pointing to the Dharmakaya, the emptiness body, and you're saying, that's me. Okay?

I'm that. NGO BO NYID KU Technically. Say NGO BO NYID KU One of the four bodies.

The essence body. I'll teach you later. I'll teach you that later.

So, now you have five outer signs. You have four rough elements. You have four signs, which is the four subtle elements.

Then you have four emptinesses. And then you have four qualities of that emptiness. Yeah, of the crystal.

If you get off the subway there, you can become a Buddha pretty quick. If you don't get off the subway there, you become a dog, or you become a spirit, or you go to the hell realms. Most people, 99.999999% of people go down. So, that's the place you have to get off the subway. The subway didn't stop. The door is open.

You just jump out. It's not a scheduled stop. Only people who know they should jump to jump.

Alright. Okay. Now we're going to do the meditation.

I'm going to give you permission to do like some of my students when they meditate like this. Check your notes during this meditation. I'm going to do the meditation.

You have to do it by yourself during the three days. I want to make sure your notes are correct. When I do each step, you go like this.

Then correct your notes. I give you permission. Only today.

This is called peaking meditation. Not Beijing. Peaking.

Okay. Get ready. Turn off your phone.

Jiggy, I left my phone after meditation. You can send some handsome boy. Okay.

Now you've got to focus during the meditation. Clear your throat. Blow your nose.

Get settled. Yawn three times. Let me check your dentist work.

Okay, good job. If my teaching don't put you to sleep, study emptiness. That will definitely put you to sleep.

Okay. Okay, here we go. When you meditate in a group, you have to be very considerate of other people.

Even if you want to cough, don't cough. Even if you want to move, don't move. At home you can move.

Only Buddha can see you. But here you're going to bother everybody. So very quiet.

In a group, check your notes, make sure they are correct. Here we go. Relax your mouth.

Small smile.微笑 Relax your eyelids. Relax your forehead. Relax your fingers.

Tighten your stomach a little bit. Shoulders back, chest out. And slowly come to your breath.

Then imagine you're on your deathbed. Probably it's your bed at home. And some of your friends and family are standing around the bed.

They're looking down at you. Probably they're crying, very sad. They know they won't see you again.

They love you very much. And you can feel the warmth retreating, coming, withdrawing from your fingers. And your feet getting cold.

No more feeling. Very cold hands. Feet.

The legs are getting cold. Arms having trouble to breathe. Finally nose closes up.

No more breath. Mouth is dry. Lips curl back.

And your body changes color. Lighter. No more blood moving.

This body is dead. You close your eyes. Last time you can hear the voice of your relatives.

Oh, he's died. She's died. Then almost nothing.

Everything is flat. And then suddenly like you're in a valley surrounded by mountains. High mountains.

High stone and rock. And you look up. The mountains begin to shake.

Earthquake. Huge pieces of rock falling down. And you are running.

And the earth itself is splitting open. Cracking. Huge mountains falling over.

And you run and you run and suddenly there's a huge tidal wave like a tsunami. And it comes up behind you. And it crushes you.

Crashes down on you. Carries you away. You're fighting for breath.

Fighting to stay afloat. Keeps pushing you down. You fight back up.

And you're traveling very fast across this land in the water. And finally the water disappears and you are in the desert and the sun flames get hotter. Bigger.

And they reach down to the earth and to your body. Cover your body in fire. You feel like you're burning up inside of fire.

Then comes a storm. Windstorm. Violent.

Loud. Tornado. Tearing at your body, knocking you down over and over.

And slowly the wind gets less and less. Quieter and quieter. Just a breeze.

And then finally just silent. You look ahead of you and there's a mirage. The subtle element of earth is dissolving into the subtle element of water.

And it just looks like a mirage. You keep walking towards the mirage. Step into the mirage.

Pass through the mirage. Things feel smaller and you are surrounded by smoke. It's just gray.

It's not hot. It's not smell bad. It's just you can't see anything.

It's all gray, all smoke. And as the water dissolves into the fire, subtle, you start to see sparks in the smoke. Everywhere.

Sudden small sparks. Not big. Small.

Then through the smoke and the sparks you can see a steady flame in the distance. Then you walk towards the flame. It gets bigger and bigger.

It's completely still. It's not moving in the wind. No wind.

Just a silent flame. Steady. Burning.

And you come closer and you pass through the flame. Then everything is dark again. Now starts to form emptinesses.

You look off to the horizon. Everything is black. And very slowly, very gradually comes daybreak light, white light in the sky.

Fills the sky around you. You are covered in a soft white light. You keep walking ahead and then on the horizon is a sunset and starts color, red color.

Spreads through the white. Removes the white. Everything is deep red color.

Light. Thick. Deep red.

Like a sunset light. You go closer to the source of the light on the horizon. You pass through and suddenly on the other side just blackness.

Darkness. Complete. Try to go deeper in the dark.

Make darker, darker, darker, darker, darker. You can't even see your hand. And on the other side of the darkness is crystal inside of a diamond.

The feeling that there's nothing that's not coming from you. Stay there. Try to feel in the crystal that everything appearing to you is emptiness.

Only emptiness appears to you. Nothing else. Complete, total, pure emptiness is appearing to you.

NANG BA MTHONG BZANG BA And from your side, NGIS MNGOR RANG BZHIN MED PAR you understand this is emptiness. You recognize it. This is higher reality.

This is the absence of anything that's not coming from me. Then feel strong joy, strong emotion of happiness. The mind which is the best tool for seeing emptiness is happiness, joy.

Strong instrument for holding emptiness is joy. Deep joy. And that's me.

That emptiness is me. That's the new me. I would like to be that.

If that was me, then I could help billions of people. I could be anyone, anywhere to help other people. That's a good me to be.

Stay in that feeling. I want to be this Buddha. Help countless people, countless worlds forever.

Stay here for a few minutes and please come back to your breath. Three deep breaths. Don't move yet.

Don't move yet. Okay, nice. Very good.

Open your eyes. Stretch. Very nice.

Good job. Very nice group. Oh, I wish I had you many years ago.

I know your notes are perfect now. You can have a few minutes. You can correct your notes or make any changes.

Okay? Take a few minutes. You just missed the train, JB.

Oh, you heard it? Okay. Whole thing?

She has emptiness in her mouth. Yeah, I know. Okay, if your teacher comes in, you should give them a nice place to sit.

That's better. Alright. I'm going to take questions and you're going to raise your hand and Harlow is going to or somebody is going to run around with a microphone.

And Tim, since he's such a nice guy and I'm going to get a nice cabin next time. I mean, did you have a question? I do have a question.

Okay. Thank you for teaching tonight. My pleasure.

You had mentioned earlier in the afternoon session about nirthabhanga Na klampa that there's a mantra associated with it. That's a good question. We're going to do that mantra.

After questions, we'll do the mantra. Okay, thank you. There is a mantra.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la, for the teaching. You're welcome. I have a question here.

Just because for the death, if the death for the animal, would they also have the collapse of the four elements?

[Speaker 1]
Same.

[Speaker 2]
So they will go through the whole process?

[Speaker 1]
Yep.

[Speaker 2]
And what if the animal, they will get rebirth to be a human being? And what would they... Like, they have no training of emptiness.

Then how can they go to a better place?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. Good question. Because they collected many good seeds in their maybe five lifetimes before.

And they used up the bad ones by being an animal. So they spent all those bad seeds. Animal debit card is finished.

And now just in the bank account there's some old money from grandpa. And then they become human. Like that.

And they don't have any... They see the emptiness but they don't recognize it. So for a human being would they also debit their own bank?

Yeah, yeah. So... But hopefully during your life you fill up your debit card again.

So you are spending old money by being alive. But you are making new one.

[Speaker 2]
So that means there is a seed that we can plant to go through this process better.

[Speaker 1]
In a good way. Yeah, exactly. That's what we're doing right now.

Now, that's a good question. So how can I make this seed stronger to remember when the time comes what I'm doing? The best way is to share this with other people.

But in Buddhism we're not supposed to... Why we do this mandala is you have to ask for teaching. So I'm not allowed...

I'm not supposed to teach somebody if they don't ask me. Or if I see they are very interested I can teach them without asking. But I'm not supposed to bother people.

This is real strict in Buddhism. That's why we... When you do this thing in the class it means I want a class.

Then I say, okay, I'll teach. But we don't have this custom in Buddhism that we bother other people. Look, I know what's going to happen to you.

Listen to me. Because then they get angry or they don't want to. Then they...

When they see you coming they lock the door of their house. But gently, if it's your good friend or you know this person or maybe they have a serious cancer or something people who get serious cancer suddenly become religious and they will listen to you.

[Speaker 2]
You mean to share the whole lamrim?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, whole lamrim but also this teaching. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Speaker 2]
I want to ask how long the four elements of the real death process will last including how long we should stay in the crystal and then come out. If we stay in the crystal for a long time we will become Buddha. Where do we come out from So for the actual process when the gross elements are dissolving how long does it actually take?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's a good question. And then when you mentioned that we are staying in the crystal how long does it actually take? And then again if we are reborn as a human being then in which process exactly after we stay in the crystal we get to be born as a human again?

Okay, good question. Hard question. Some question which we would like a good answer is not in the jing.

It's not there. I never saw my whole life I'm reading this jing every day. We catalog 141,000 jing but I never saw a jing which give a time.

But my belief is that time also coming from your mind. When you are in a dentist chair time slows down. When you are kissing your girlfriend time speeds up.

So time also coming from you. So my belief is that maybe it feels like many hours or maybe like a day in the water and it feels like several days in the fire. I didn't see in the jing.

This is my feeling. On the outside it might only be a few minutes but inside your mind I think it feels very long time. But I didn't see it in the jing.

And the same when you reach the four kinds of when you reach the four parts of the crystal I believe that how long you stay there depends on you. If you have good meditation good study good life nice to other people then you can stay there longer. The subway slowed down slower easier to jump off.

So again it's coming from you. The time is coming from you. Then how it feels to go into a human rebirth we'll talk about it tomorrow.

We'll talk about we didn't reach that place yet. We call samjorwa. Say samjorwa.

What's sam? Sam means the borderline of a retreat. So after Monday you cannot go out of the sam.

It's the fence of Diamond Mountain. You cannot leave the sam. I hope.

But in when we study rebirth samjorwa means when do you make the crossing? When do you cross to the next life? It's after the crystal.

Then you cross. Samjorwa means you cross that bridge and then you're an animal. Or you cross that bridge and you're in hell.

So we have to talk about that. I'll give you a clue though. You can reverse the four visions.

You come out of the crystal into the black to the red to the white and then you're a dog. Like that, it's reversed. Because the mind is waking up again.

The rough mind is coming back because of karma. So you go from the crystal into the black into the red into the white. In Buddhism we call lung dok.

Lung dok means yeah the seeing rebirth. You come out to an animal birth or hell or something. Good questions.

One more question. And I'll take questions every afternoon, so don't worry. And I love questions and if you ask questions I'm happy.

Tough questions make me happier.

[Speaker 2]
I have a question about the four things you do inside the crystal. Assuming that's the direct perception of emptiness then how does your mind grasp the fact that you're seeing emptiness or any of the other things that you're supposed to be thinking about because you can't think when you're in direct perception of emptiness?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good question. When you're in direct perception of emptiness you can only see higher reality. You cannot see anything else.

Not possible. When you're focused single pointedly on emptiness it's not possible unless you're a Buddha to see other things. Anything of deceptive reality you cannot see.

Not possible. Any kind of conceptual reality you cannot see. So her question I think is for example, we said that RANG SEMS BDE BA CHEN PO the state of mind which sees the emptiness is phat, is happiness, is joy.

What she's saying is an old tantric question. How can you feel joy which is normal reality and see emptiness at the same time? And my answer is the joy takes you into that perception and then after that you're not aware of the joy anymore.

It's not that you are feeling joy during the perception of emptiness but as you go into that perception the joy takes you in. Then when you finally see ultimate reality you cannot feel joy at that moment. You cannot feel any normal thing.

You cannot even say to yourself I did it. That comes afterwards. When you come out RJES RTOGS RGYAS BZHI there's a name for it.

When you come out it's called afterwards. Afterwards wisdom. RJES RTOGS RGYAS BZHI Then the first thing is like wow, I just saw emptiness.

Then you're not seeing emptiness anymore. So my answer for you is during the process you cannot be aware of the joy but in the beginning of the four emptinesses, the four steps it's joy or bliss that takes you into it.

[Speaker 2]
So then the first thing is actually the joy and then when you come out again then you're...

[Speaker 1]
We're going to talk about it. I'll give you a clue. I'll give you a clue.

Two clues here. Ready? Nod your head if you may.

This is a famous tantric question. How many of those four can be experienced by a person who's not a bodhisattva? How many of those four?

SNANG BA STONG BZANG BA NGES MNGOL RANG BZHIN MED PA RANG SEMS BDE BA CHEN PO BDE SNGA'O How many of those four can be experienced by a person whose motivation is not to save the world? Because people who are not bodhisattvas can see emptiness. They can.

But can they... Do they have all four of those experiences? I'll ask you.

You can tell me tomorrow. Then there's another question. How many of those four are experienced by a person who never studied tantra?

Who never practiced tantra? How many of those four can they achieve? Who never got any initiations?

Those four. What appears to you is emptiness. How you take it is emptiness.

The state of mind is bliss. And that's me. I'm that emptiness.

How many of those can be experienced by a person without training in the highest teachings? And then how many of those can be experienced by a person who's not a bodhisattva? My lama used to say, cook it.

I'll tell you later. I'll tell you the official answer later. Let's go to this mantra.

Thank you for reminding me. Yeah, we don't... Okay, let me get this for you.

What was that? Was that joy? Okay.

Deda, I'm going to read you straight from the text, okay? Who's the author? His name is Lama Quicksilver.

Muchu Dharmabhadra. His dharma name is Dharmabhadra. But he's not Indian.

He's Tibetan. Very, very famous lama. Very great.

I think 1760s or something like that. I think. Nick can look it up for me.

Dates of Muchu Dharmabhadra. I'm going to read you straight from his text, okay? Ready?

Here's the mantra. Everybody likes mantras. Now you will get the mantra.

DE DAG THAMS CAD MTHONG NYID KYI TSUL BZIN PA GAL BYAS It's very important that during all the steps you just wrote down, you smear emptiness butter on them. Okay? Every step.

Mountains are collapsing. Huh, coming from me. Tsunami.

Wow, look at that, coming from me. Okay? So he said that, not me.

He said, if you want to know the word for spread the butter, it's called TSIS BZIN PA. TSIS means like honey or sap or sticky thing that you cover. TSIS BZIN PA GAL BYAS, very important.

Each step you have to remember the pen. Oh, tsunami and pen. Oh, earthquake and pen.

Oh, fire and pen. Oh, look, tornado and pen. Okay?

Don't forget. Okay. 1773 to 1851.

1773 to 1851. 1772 to 1851 is his birthday. You know, this lama.

250 years ago. DE LTONG YER MED KYI NA RGYAL BSTAN PA'I PHYIR If you want your experience of joy and emptiness to be strong, if you want your experience of joy and emptiness to be strong, LHAG SBYOD PA LEGS It's great if you practice this mantra. It's great if you practice this mantra.

Then he gives you the mantra. You ready? I'm going to write it down.

Hang on just a second. I'll give it to you. When you get a mantra from a lama, you should repeat it three times.

Ready? I'm going to say it the way my teacher said it. Here we go.

Just three times. Listen carefully. Say it as good as you can.

Don't worry. Write it down later. Okay, ready?

Just listen. OM SHING NYA LTAR SNYANA VAJRA SUBHA BA ATMA KO HAM OM SHING NYA LTAR SNYANA VAJRA SUBHA BA ATMA KO HAM OM SHING NYA LTAR SNYANA VAJRA SUBHA BA ATMA KO HAM Okay, good. Now let's write it down.

I'll just write it simple way. This is the mantra. It's not in the text.

Secret. You won't find it in the book. OM OM SHING NYA LTAR S-H-U-N Y-A-T-A Good.

OM SHING NYA LTAR Okay. SNYANA Let's try J-N-Y-A-N-A SNYANA OM SHING NYA LTAR SNYANA VAJRA The next word is SUBHA BA But we say SUBHA BA S-U-B-H-A-V-A SUBHA BA This is the pronunciation, not the spelling. Don't say Geshe Michael misspelled it.

It's just the sound. SUBHA BA ATMAKO A-T-M-A-K-O ATMAKO A-T-M-A-K-O ATMAKO ATMAKO H-A-N-G H-A-N-G H-A-N-G H-A-N-G H-A-N-G H-A-N-G H-A-N-G I'm going to say H-A-N-G. Let's say H-A-N-G.

ATMAKO H-A-N-G Now let's talk about the meaning. If you don't know the meaning of a mantra, it's powerful. If you do know the meaning of a mantra, it's a hundred times more powerful.

OM There's a book about OM. I translated it like 30 years ago. It's a nice book.

I gave it to one person so far, two people. But it's called NGAG GI DGO BREN It means it should be the first syllable in every mantra, normally, usually. OM Starts a mantra.

Three parts. A-U-M Say A-U-M OM OM That means I would like to act like my teacher. I would like to speak like my teacher.

And I would like to think like my teacher. Perfect teacher. Not Geshe Michael.

OM A-U-M All together, OM That's the meaning of I would like to act nice, talk nice, think nice. That's the meaning of OM. GZHON YOD DA GONG ZHING Emptiness GZHON YOD DA SNYA NA The Russians pronounce it correctly.

Okay? YA SNYA YOD In Russia, they pronounce it correctly. Russia is closer to Sanskrit than almost any country.

So, SNYA NA Some people in India say GYA NA but it's SNYA NA SNYA NA SNYA NA It's like a Z-N-Y SNYA NA Z-S-N-Y-A-N-A In Russian, they still say YA SNYA YOD Okay. Vajra, you know. Vajra is a diamond.

Diamond Understanding the path Wisdom SNYA NA I'm going to give you the meaning Well, I'll tell you the meaning. I'll give you the meaning after I tell you the meaning of each word. SLA BA BA means nature The nature of something What is the nature?

Yeah Quality or nature SLA BA BA Atmakha Atmakha means combination Okay Combination of two things or three things It can also mean person Atma can mean person What do you call a big person? Mahatma Like Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi Maha Atma Mahatma Atma means person but here it means combination HAM HAM is AH HAM The word is AH HAM But after Atmakha it loses the A and the word before it ends in O It's called an elision So, the real word is aham. A-H-A-M.

Aham means me. Ngao. Okay, it's the Sanskrit for that's me.

Okay, aham. But the A drops out, the first A drops out after atmakas, okay? Sorry.

So now let's do the meaning of the mantra. Aham is like may I act, and may I speak, and may I think like my teacher. Like my perfect teacher, not my imperfect teacher.

Shanyata is the object which my mind sees is sheer emptiness. Got it? The object appearing to me from the object's side is emptiness.

So that's talking about the first of those four qualities. Coming this way, what appears to my mind is emptiness. So what's the next one mean?

Yeah, how do I take it? Jnana. I take it intelligently.

I take it with wisdom. Oh, I recognize you. You're emptiness.

So the mantra is giving you all the pieces of this practice. Shanyata is appearing to me. And I have jnana, which is recognizing it.

So if we hold to that parallelism, what should the diamond represent? What's the third quality? Joy.

The diamond is joy. In this case, the diamond is your state of mind is fun, super fun. Well, this emptiness stuff is super cool.

That's my German person imitation. Super cool. I love this thing.

So the vajra here represents the bliss. I got to correct that. I'm sorry.

I'm going to correct it. I made a small mistake. The diamond means your joy and that emptiness are combined.

What do you call it? YER MED PA means cannot be divided. You cannot divide your mind from that emptiness.

Your joy. So why they call the joy diamond? They say nothing can break a diamond.

So your joy is holding on to that emptiness. And nothing can separate them. Nothing can divide them.

They are stuck together. Got it? NYES MI ZHIG PA SVA BA BA means that's their nature.

ATMA KA means, and the combination of all those things is AH HAM SNGA'O SNGA'O That's me. So the mantra contains all the parts of the experience of emptiness. SVA BA BA means nature.

The nature. My nature is the... I am the combination of all those qualities.

Emptiness appearing. Wisdom recognizing. Happiness connecting them.

My nature is all those things together. Yeah, that's me. The new me.

You can, after you do this meditation or before, you can do a few hundred mantras. AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO HUNG AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO HUNG Tibetan will say DMIGS GO They don't have AT, but you're going to say DMIGS GO AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO Let's say it together. Ready?

AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO HUNG AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO HUNG One more time. AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO HUNG That's me. You can get a new name card when you meet people.

You can say, AUM BZHI NA NAS YAN NA BA GYUR SU BA BA'I DMIGS GO HUNG Okay. That's your new name. Okay, let's do five minutes of text so I can say I did some texting.

Adam, I think we're at DER KHYAB KHYEN NA So you can go to SKYES NA Good. That's it. So spirits have a hangout.

They have a clubhouse. They have a headquarters. There are spirits everywhere on this land, in the old houses.

They stay in those old places. But they have a city where they live, where most of them live. DER KHYEN NA Where do you go?

Where do they live, most of them? DIN NAS BAG TSE BSNGABS KYA If you go 500... YOD JIN NA means 750 miles.

I don't know how many kilometers that is. Probably about 1,000... 1,200 kilometers, something.

If you go down in the earth, you will find them. There's a city in there. YID BDAG GIS GRONG KHYER In Tibetan, the name of that city is SER KYA.

In Sanskrit, it's KAPILA. KAPILA KAPILA BYA BA means called that. NAS DER NI SPANG You won't find any parks there, or grass.

It's like Diamond Mountain. SHING You won't find any trees there, like Diamond Mountain. CHU You won't find any water there.

CHUNG SREG BSKYANG MED Not a drop. Not one tree. Not one piece of grass in that place.

SA SHI THAMS CAD SANGS SGOG The whole surface of the ground is like a piece of copper. Red metal. The whole ground is like red metal.

Not a nice place to live. SA SHI THAMS CAD SANGS SGOG NYID MED TSIG PA It's heated by the sun. Like the hottest air is on the sun, and the ground is made of copper.

There's nothing else. LTA BU ZHIG YOD YID BDAG GIS LUS DANG YAN LAG RNAMS KYANG BZHIN DU CHA MI NYON PA Their body is not... CHA MI NYON PA means not proportional.

Like the head is too big, and the body is too skinny, and the stomach is very big. So they look strange. They really do look like Gollum.

YID BDAG GIS LUS DANG YAN LAG BZHIN DU CHA MI NYON PA DGOS BYAS Their head is too big. ZHA ZING BA You got that picture of Gollum? Yeah, that hair is correct.

It's like... Really, it's like that. It's like all stringy.

So the guy who made that drawing, he remembered something that he saw before. DGOS BYAS ZHA ZING BA SDONG NYER MED KHYA BA Their face is covered with wrinkles. Like a very old person.

Many wrinkles. SKAD HA JANG PHRA BA Their neck is too skinny. DGO'O MI THEG PA And it cannot support the head.

So their head is like... They can't hold up their head very well. THEG PA LUS RI LTAR BYED LA GANG LAG BYANG MA THAR PHRA BA Even if their body is as big as a mountain, their legs and arms are like the thickness of a blade of grass.

So their bodies are very big and their arms and legs are very skinny. LUS MI THEG PA They don't hold up their body very well. RANG RES MI YUL GYI RGANG KHO RNAMS BYIN PA'I LUS PO MI THEG PA'I RGA LAS LUS So he says, here in the land of humans, old people have trouble staying up.

Their legs are not strong enough to support them. Like my old lady lives in a nursing home and we got her this walker. If she tries to walk without it, she will fall down.

Two days ago I got a video of my grandnephew. He's learning to walk this week. He walks just like my old lady.

He's like... So they are like that. RGANG KHO RNAMS Like the old people on the planet Earth, on the top of the planet, their legs cannot support their body and they have trouble walking.

LAS RGYA RGYUR RGYA RGYUR Hundred times worse than that. RGYA RGYUR means hundred times worse than that. The spirits have trouble walking.

They are like always falling down. RGYUR KYI CHE BA YOD Much more problems. YAN LA RNAMS KYANG RANG MANG MYUN MI MYONG And then sometimes there's a wrong number of hands and arms and legs.

Like three legs, one arm. Or three arms, one leg. Like that.

They have trouble. They have a problem. One more sentence, we'll finish.

Right? In star time. Right?

NGO MANG PO'I KHO MA NYES PAS They can go many years looking for something to drink and not find anything. LUS LA PHRAG DANG PHYUS ZER SOGS LEN CUNG ZAD TZAM YANG MED PAR Their bodies are like dried paper. They have no blood, no lymph.

SDONG SDUM GANG POR They look like a dry tree, chunk. KHO BA MAR GANG GI LTUN PA That you wrap skin around the tree. Tree is dry.

Then you wrap leather around that tree. They look like that. RGYUD PA DANG RTZA SOGS GAM PO Then they have, you call this, this, what do you call?

Tendons. Ligaments. This is the meaning of the Tibetan.

They are just like pieces of wood tied together with string. GAM PO BAG PA GAM BU YOD PA GUL GYUR BYAS PA NA GANG LAG GI TZIG RTAG PAS When they move, it sounds like a skeleton moving. It's like cracking all the time.

Like me when I do yoga. TSE BZHIN GAM THA PA DANG It's like pieces of wood hitting against each other. Or pieces of stone hitting against each other.

DO THA PA LTAR GHOG LTA MING When they walk, it's like DANG MED DAG MAR TSUD TSUL BYAS PA YOD When their bones hit each other, there's little sparks. If you see somebody like that, it's a spirit. They are like and little sparks.

We're going to stop there tonight. All right then.