«Дар освобождения», курс 25 «Совершенное прибежище», занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
Alright, so during this afternoon's class, two things are going to happen. The people from other countries are going to take a nap with their jet lag. It's so nice to see you have jet lag, Jasmine.

It makes me very happy. Now you know how I feel. And the other people are going to study how to do the retreat that starts on Monday afternoon.

So the purpose of this session is to talk about what are we going to do during the retreat. Three days retreat. How many people did retreat here before?

How many people didn't do retreat here before? I mean this retreat. Oh my gosh, maybe I should skip it.

Okay, well I'll teach you the meditations anyway. If you want to, you can follow. I'm going to just look at the schedule.

I guess it's in your... you got a copy of the schedule? Okay, so Monday we have our fourth class together.

Well, the fourth lam rim class at 4.45 we finish. Then you have about 15 minutes to pee pee. Then at five o'clock on Monday in the afternoon, we'll go to the Je Tsongkapa Center and we will do the closing of the retreat borders.

And then after that you shouldn't leave the retreat area. And nobody should come in unless they're on the staff. There's a list of people who can come and go in every retreat.

If someone breaks the boundary who is not scheduled to break the boundary, it hurts the retreat. So you make a promise to stay if you can. If you have a medical emergency you should go.

Some kind of emergency you can go. But otherwise you should decide after that ceremony that you're in the Dharma jail and you can't get out until the retreat finishes. You make a commitment.

I remember when I did my three-year retreat, we had a gate where the cars went through. And I remember closing the gate for the last time. And I closed the gate and I said, okay, three years, three months, three days, I won't open this door.

I won't touch this gate again. And we did a good retreat. We kept it very strong.

How many people in this room did three-year retreat? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, I think. So you're very lucky to have them with you, people who have done a three-year retreat.

Can you raise your hands again? And if you have a question about retreat or you're not sure about something, then talk to them. Talk to one of those guys.

They have a lot of experience. They did a thousand days of silence, mostly. And they know how to do a retreat.

So I think Diamond Mountain has two precious things. One is the rocks. We have lots of rocks.

People used to find heart-shaped rocks here and take them and give them to my Lama. And then finally one day he said, no more heart-shaped rocks. We have lots of rocks.

And we also have, I think, one of the largest groups of people who did three-year retreat in the world is here. So there's nine people in this room you can talk to and ask them if you're having a problem or you have a question. That's the really important resource here at Diamond Mountain.

And the director and his wife, who I'd like to thank, Michael and Melissa. Can you stand up? They're also very special because they did three-year retreat.

So they understand retreat center. They understand how to run a retreat. So we're lucky to have them.

Very lucky to have them running the place so well. Thank you for that. I think most of you know, but I think it's good to say it again, that the people who did the first three-year retreat on this land, they each built a cottage with their own money.

Before they started building, they signed an agreement or they agreed that when they finished their retreat, they would give the retreat cottage to Diamond Mountain forever so other people could do retreats here for many generations. So when you stay in a cabin here, it was built by... and they built their cabins with their own hands.

And it was very difficult, really difficult in the sun here. And they worked really, really hard. They used every penny they had.

They went into retreat, they were broke. So, I'd like to thank them for the cabins also. Okay.

So we'll close the border at five o'clock. The ceremony maybe takes half an hour, something like that. And we'll do it in the Je Tsongkapa Center because it's good to face the border.

So we'll face the front gate of Diamond Mountain and we'll do the traditional closing ceremony. During that ceremony, mainly we ask one spirit protector to help us. Her name is Khenpo Rohe.

She's like a Dharma bodyguard for you and she will protect the boundary. So she has special powers and you have to be sweet to her. She likes to have a dharma for a bribe to guard the border.

And you have to do a ceremony and you have to tell her how beautiful she is and how smart she is. Then she says, okay, I'll help you out. And she protects the border.

So that ceremony is mostly to ask her to protect the border. And those ceremonies are important. You shouldn't do a retreat without doing those ceremonies.

When I was younger, 100 years ago, I didn't like all these ceremonies and I tried to do a retreat without them and I got in a lot of trouble. I learned by having problems that you have to follow these rules. You should ask Khenpo Rohe to protect the retreat.

You should do the correct ceremony. You shouldn't make a last minute cheap offering like potato chips or something like that. She doesn't like potato chips.

She likes really good cakes and stuff. It shows respect for her. So you show respect, offer those.

Then during the retreat, you keep a torma on your altar and that's to honor her and to thank her for working for you. That's her salary. It's a torma.

And you keep it nice. Sometimes we keep them in a big jar. If you find that you have bugs getting into your tormas or something like that, you can put it inside a jar.

Upside down? Like that. Then that evening, which will be around 6 to 7 in your own cottage, you should put the protection markers up on your house.

It's tradition to walk out of the front door of your retreat cottage. Go to your left. Don't put the marker first on the door.

Put it on the wall to your left, outside. Outside the wall. So you have four protection markers.

You walk out of your cottage and you turn left and then you put it on the first side wall. Got it? So here, I don't know.

Let's say we walk out of that door. It's your front door. The first protection marker goes on this wall, on the outside.

I like to put it on the window because it sticks better. You can use tape or... It shouldn't fall down.

It's bad luck and it kind of breaks the border. You can tape it three, four times. It doesn't matter.

On that side. Then you go to the back. Put it on the outside.

Another one. Then you go to this side. Put another one.

Then the last one, it's like you're getting into a submarine. You back up and you put the Dharma marker on the front door and you close the door. Then you're in the Dharma submarine.

You see what I mean? Then you're protected. It should be like that.

Then we have a mantra we're going to do. There's two kinds of mantras, secret mantras and open mantras. This is an open mantra.

Everybody can do it without an initiation, which is MIG MED ZER BA'I. Tsongkapa's mantra. Tsongkapa lived about 650 years ago.

He's some kind of strange person. Very, very unusual. Well, the most unusual person on this world.

He just explained everything perfectly. Unbelievable. I can't really convince you by saying it, but it's true.

I've studied a lot of different traditions. I learned meditation from Goenka, personally, before you were born. Not you, okay.

I understand the southern tradition from that. Then I spent a long time studying the texts about things like Mahamudra or Dzogchen, Vipassana. I studied them a lot.

Then I met Tsongkapa. There's nothing like that. Nothing close.

It's a million miles away from everything else. I don't mean to criticize the other traditions. I learned a lot from Goenka, but it's nothing like Tsongkapa.

Not close. Nothing close. The Dzogchen stuff, nothing close.

Not a million miles close. It's just something you need to study a long time before you can understand it. You have to read many, many scriptures.

Right now I'm reading the greatest scripture from early China because it was translated into Tibetan a thousand years ago. More than a thousand years ago. It's available.

It's the greatest early Chinese commentary to the Sutras, which is by a student of Xuanzang called Yuan Tse. It's unbelievable. It's 2,000 pages long.

Tsongkapa's teachers respected it so much they put it in the Tingyur. It's in the Tibetan Buddhist books. They translated it.

Now the Chinese, some of it's gone. But we have the whole thing in Tibetan language from the Chinese. It was written in Chinese.

It's part of our Tingyur. It's part of our ancient books, canon. So I kind of have a feeling for how Buddhism started.

This commentary is 700 years before Tsongkapa. It's great. But it's not like Tsongkapa.

It's great. It's beautiful. I would like to teach it sometime in China maybe.

That would be cool. It's easy to read. It's not difficult to read.

We can do it. Someday we can do it. But when you read Tsongkapa, Tsongkapa used it also.

Tsongkapa used the Chinese commentary by Yuan Tse. He used it in his writings. If you do them together, it's unbelievable.

It's just unbelievable. Anyway, if we could absorb what Tsongkapa taught, which takes a whole lifetime, you definitely could see emptiness directly. I don't think you could see emptiness directly with those other things.

I don't think it's possible. I'm sure it's not possible. So to do his mantra is something wonderful.

It's great to have his mantra. Mantra means you're calling Tsongkapa, say, please help me to understand emptiness. Help me to practice.

Help me to be a good person. Help me to do everything I do with an understanding of the second husband. It's basically that.

It's not different from that. You won't see the second husband explained in those other traditions. They don't understand it.

They don't have it. They never got it. That's Buddhism.

That's real Buddhism. That will help you the most. Anyway, do the Tsongkapa mantra.

It's on page... Everybody in this room, if you're going to do a retreat, you should have this book. It's called Three Treasures.

There's a joke in English, don't leave home without it. It's Three Valuable Retreat Tools. You should have a copy.

Tim will sell you one if you don't have one. It used to be $30. I guess the Chinese was $10 extra.

Just kidding. Printing cost. By the way, we don't make any profit from these retreats.

We lost money very well on 25 retreats. Don't worry about it. It's really free.

It's better than free. We're paying you to come. Get this book.

Get one today. If you don't have one, you can't do retreat without it. Tim has copies.

If you can't afford it, he'll pay for it. We'll pay for it. Get one.

Have it with you. Now, there's numbers in it because when we add different translations, there's more pages. We can't use page numbers, we use section numbers.

There's section numbers in each of the three books in here. Section number 10, in the middle, which is the part about Tsongkapa's practice. That's the mantra for Je Tsongkapa.

You should learn them. That's the mantra you're going to do, I don't know, 10,000 times or something. I don't know.

How many mantras you did in your three-year retreat? Do you remember? Do you remember?

I was like 10 million or something. Was it? Jerome, you don't remember?

All right. I don't know. Let's shoot for something like 10,000 or something.

It's okay. I think we did about a million in my three-year retreat or something like that. Anyway, you keep your mingming.

You can say it in Chinese. You can say it in Alfdorz. It doesn't matter.

In Spanish, Je Tsongkapa will understand because he's a Buddha. You can say it in, you can even say it, Stanley can even say it in Cantonese. He will still understand it.

It doesn't matter. You say it in your own language and do the mantra in your own language. That's fine.

You can do it in English. You can do it in Canadian. What's this boot?

A boot. What's this sort of mantra, a boot? You just say mantras.

Really, what we're doing is a mantra retreat. Don't waste your time. When you go for a walk, ,MA ZHIG GIS, It depends on which copy you have, right?

Page 113 maybe? Whoa. Really?

No. Anyway. You'll find it.

,MIG MED ZER BA'I LTAR CES BYAS PA'I MA ZHIG GIS, ,SU MIG SKYEN PA'I DBANG PO BYANG gyen pan yong dubpay ma lam dyang tur sel pa ya, I just keep doing it. When you go for a walk, except when you're in the bathroom. Rinpoche told me I couldn't do it in the bathroom.

But that's the main practice. The meaning of the mantras, you're just saying, Tsongkapa helped me to understand emptiness, helped me to be a good person. Okay, like that.

All right. GNYIS GNYIS TSE BA'I THA CHEN And the meaning of the mantra is here. Okay, you can study it.

All right. Then on that night, Monday night, the first session after you... Okay, the morning, normally for most people, the morning session is great.

It's clear. The afternoon session is so-so. The evening session is hopeless.

So they get shorter. The long session is in the morning. And then you start to get a little sleepy in the afternoon.

And in the evening, the minute you start doing your mantra, you'll feel sleepy. Okay, so that's the shortest one. Okay, so follow the schedule.

Some people's bio-rhythms, what do you call it? Dyactic cycles? Circadian rhythm.

Yeah, that's what I said. They're different. If you're a night person, then you can change the schedule, okay?

You don't have to stick to the schedule. But if most of us stay to the same schedule, there's an energy of doing the same thing together at the same time. So I encourage you, if it feels okay, follow this schedule.

Because then we'll all be doing Tsongkapa mantras at the same time. We'll all be doing Lama Chopra at the same time. And there's an energy to that.

All right, but you don't have to. If you have a different body clock, you do it your own way. That's okay.

All right, there's a 45-minute meditation at 8.30. Okay, and that's sort of optional. Because you'll be really sleepy. All right.

Try to get up on time, 6.30 on Tuesday. Then at 7 o'clock on Tuesday, just recite the GYOR CHOS. GYOR CHOS is the meditation song.

It's the first work in the Three Treasures, okay? It's called... GYOR CHOS means meditation song preparation.

And it was written by Pabongka Rinpoche's Lama. Okay, and it's very, very famous in Tibet. Okay, so go through, read it out loud.

It's supposed to be good luck to read it out loud because all the spirits can hear you. So you're supposed to read it loud enough that you can hear it. Okay, so you can have a soft voice, but someone sitting right next to you should be able to hear it.

Okay, if you want. Okay, if you prefer to read silently, that's okay. It's all right.

They are all Buddhas. They can read your mind. They don't have trouble to hear you.

Okay, so if you want to read it in your mind, that's okay. Okay, then if you find a section in the GYOR CHOS which is sweet to you, and you want to stop and hang there for a while, it's okay. So the practice is more important than the schedule.

Okay, like if you get to the part where you're filling the sky with flowers and you start to go crazy, go ahead. Go crazy. Do flowers for 45 minutes.

Okay, that's fine. All right, if you find something that you really get into, then don't feel obligated to finish the GYOR CHOS. Okay, if you find something sweet, stay there for a while.

Okay, and then get up. Try to not leave the Lama hanging. Like bring them back into you.

Okay, put them back in your heart. Like don't forget them. If you're filling the sky with different flowers for 45 minutes, come back to the Lama and park them here.

Okay, in a sugar crystal. Okay, inside a sugar crystal. Okay, 8.15, oh sorry, 7.30 after the GYOR CHOS, after half an hour of GYOR CHOS. By the way, you can't finish the GYOR CHOS in half an hour. Finish what you can. Tomorrow you can pick up at the same place if you want.

Okay, 8 o'clock, oh sorry, 7.30 you start your meditations from this book. There are 27 Lam Rim meditations. Then there's a meditation about dying, how to die.

By the way, if you don't learn anything else at these Lam Rim retreats, if you learn how to die properly, it's worth it. All the money you spent, all the jet lag you got, if you can learn to die properly, it was worth it. These 25 retreats, all the work to prepare them, it was worth it.

So I thought it would be nice if you had it in a book, so you could do it at home. My Lama asked me to do it every night. So I did coffee meditation and death meditation.

And you try to get to emptiness, and we'll do it together. I'll do it with you maybe this afternoon. How about right now?

In case we die, in case there's an earthquake. There's never been an earthquake here but let's do that meditation. This is death meditation going into emptiness meditation.

We all got together on Easter, was it Easter? That was so sweet. We did a death meditation together and then we came out of it just like Jesus.

That's really cool. Okay, ready? Okay, sit like a rock, sit like a rock.

Rocks don't open books and things like that. Everybody has to die normally if they don't practice well enough. Everybody has to die.

And during the death process, there's a special opportunity to see emptiness directly. So the purpose of this meditation is to practice what it feels like to die until you get to the point in death when you have a window of opportunity to see emptiness if you know what you're doing. If you don't, it'll just pass and you will be reborn someplace.

So here we go. Come, watch your body. Sit up straight.

Pull in your stomach slightly and keep it there. Just a slight pressure. Relax your eyelids.

Small Mona Lisa smile. Fingers are relaxed. Shoulders are relaxed and pulled back, shoulder blades together in the back.

Brighten up your forehead. Relax it, release it, open it. And don't crunch it up when we start focusing.

Keep it light. And your eyelids are super relaxed. If you feel sleepy, you can crack your eyelids open, but don't look.

Relax the corners of your mouth. And then slowly come to your breath like getting in the saddle of a horse. This is your getting into the saddle.

Of your meditation. Come to your breath. And start focusing on the long exhales.

Don't, the inhales will take care of themselves, or else you're dead already. And now slowly, naturally, comfortably start to follow with a counting. Each exhale is one.

Next exhale is two. And see if you can stay with your breath sliding in and out without thinking about something else. Just be here.

You're stuck here for a week. You can't go anywhere. No use to worry about your job, or your family, or the world, or what did Trump do this morning.

Just forget it for a week. And come to your breath. That's all you're supposed to do.

And imagine where it is you might be dying in this life if you died this month, next month. Where might you be? I think myself I'd probably be on my bed at home.

You know, I would die in my home. So think about that bed, and imagine you are lying in it, something happened. You got hurt in a car accident, or something happened and you are in your last few minutes in this world.

You are on the bed, and you will not get off of the bed alive. You are looking up, and close friends, close family are with you. Some can be holding your hands, some are holding your feet.

They might be crying. They don't want you to leave, and you don't want to leave, but death will take you. Your fingers are getting a little cold, hard to move them.

Your feet feel cold, very hard to breathe, not easy to get air through your nose or through your mouth. Family's talking softly, but it's getting difficult to hear what they're saying. The cold is almost all the way up your legs and arms.

Can't hear the family anymore. You can't move your arms or legs anymore. Your mouth closes and your nostrils shut inside, and you stop breathing.

You can't breathe. And your mind, your consciousness, starts to withdraw from the world. Your eyes close for the last time.

You can't open them. You would like to, but you can't. And the thoughts withdraw into the middle of your mind.

And you're alone, and it's dark, and it's silent. Then suddenly, it's as if you're walking. I like to picture myself close to those big mountains in Diamond Mountain, behind the retreat valley.

I'm walking down the bottom part, going downhill, and then suddenly, the pieces of rock, huge pieces of rock, the size of your retreat cottage, the size of cars, are breaking off the mountain, rolling down the mountain. You can see, if you look at that mountain sometimes, you can see where pieces of rock like that have come down. You can see the path they followed.

And they are crushing everything in their path, and you are running. You start to run ahead of these huge boulders rolling down the hill behind you. The noise is terrible, like a...

many car accidents at the same time. And you're running. The earth element is collapsing inside of you.

Then suddenly, behind the mountain comes a huge tsunami wave, like the one that took Japan. And it's moving very fast, huge, unbelievable, unimaginable, almost blocks out the sky. And you are hopeless in front of it, and you are running as fast as you can.

But the wave catches you, and throws you into the water. You are fighting just to get some more breath. You are surrounded by huge waves.

You are in the water, struggling, being dragged down. And I personally, when I do this meditation, I think of Diamond Mountain. I'm being pushed by the waves down into the valley here, past this temple.

And I'm just fighting to try to get some breath, some air. And I... just to make the meditation easier, the visualization easier for me, I imagine it carries me out 10, 12 miles through Bui, and to the other side it's just flat desert.

Then the water element has dissolved. And you're just laying. Suddenly the water leaves you in the desert, and the water drains away, and you are crawling across the desert, and the sun comes up, very, very large, filling most of the sky like normal sun.

And the fire element in your body is dissolving. And it feels terrible heat. It feels like being inside of a fire.

And you are crawling. I imagine crawling away from Bui, across the desert, fire all around me. Then the fire starts to wear out, and then this huge wind storm comes across the desert, like a Singapore hurricane tearing across the desert, and it's tearing at your body.

Things are flying past you, trees, rocks, dust. The wind is tearing at your body. This is the wind element, it's dissolving.

And then suddenly that starts to dissipate, and you are, I imagine standing, walking slowly ahead. No place to go, just alone in a empty landscape. And I'm walking ahead, and far away I can see a mirage.

And these are the subtle elements of your body are breaking down. And you see, way in the distance you see light. It looks like a lake, shimmering, but it's just a mirage.

You walk towards it, and you get closer and closer, and you actually walk through the mirage. And on the other side, in the other land, it's all just like fog or smoke. You are walking through dense smoke or fog.

There's nothing you can see in front of you. If you put your hand out in front of you, you can't see it. Everything is thick fog, smoke.

You are walking still, hopelessly driven ahead through the smoke. And then you start to see sparks in the smoke. They say like fireflies or sparks from some machine, and you can see sparks here and there in the air in front of you and around you.

These are parts of your consciousness are breaking down as you go deeper into death. Then ahead of you, you can see a very steady fire flame, like a candle flame. So the world is getting smaller.

Your world is shrinking. It feels like you're going through a tunnel which gets more and more narrow. And at the end of the tunnel, in the dark, you can see a single candle flame.

Immobile. It's burning, but it's not moving. There's no wind.

Just a steady, unmoving candle flame. You are walking towards this flame. And then you actually walk through the flame, because you are only small now.

Your world is very small. And on the other side of the flame, it's just black. Everything around you, total black.

And still you're walking. And then somehow, the black gets deeper, deeper black than the one before. So try to imagine a deeper black all around you, like ink.

And then suddenly you're into a deeper, deepest black. Total darkness. You can't see your feet.

You can't see your arms. You can just see darkness. Total, complete darkness.

Still walking. Then slowly in the horizon. And for me, I like to imagine the east side of the retreat valley.

Those of you who did a three-year retreat, when the sun daybreak comes. Before sunrise, there's daybreak. Before the sun breaks the horizon, then to the east, there's this white color of the sky.

Before the yellow comes, there's a white. And that white in front of you, behind the horizon, it begins to spread all around you. And you are surrounded by white light.

And you're still walking. And then a red light, like a sunset, starts to replace the white light. And you are walking through a world of red light.

And then slowly the red light dissolves. And you come to another darkness, black. Deeper black.

Very deep black. And then suddenly things change. And it feels like you are walking inside of crystal.

Like there's a crystalline feeling to the world around you. You are surrounded in a kind of crystal or the air is crystal, like diamond, as if you're walking through diamond. But you can breathe and you can walk.

But the world around you is like diamond. And in this point of death, your central channel is broken open. All the chakras are broken open.

And the prana is flowing freely. With no obstacle. At this point your physical body releases pee-pee, poo-poo.

But you're not aware of it because you are deep, deep, deep inside. And at this point you can grab this small few minutes of opportunity to think about emptiness. You can think about how nothing you see is not coming from you.

Everything you see around you, everything you're experiencing, every thought, every feeling in this moment is coming from seeds in your mind. And there's nothing around you which is coming from the outside. It's all coming from inside you.

So, cancel the idea that anything's happening to you. It's all happening from you. And hold that.

And we'll stay here for a few minutes. Try to stay in the feeling that everything you thought was there coming from its own side never was. And that's emptiness.

Then you can start to come out of that emptiness. I like to come out standing on the sky as a Buddha and suddenly come out of death. Not to rebirth, but I come into a Buddha and I'm standing above a planet, looking down.

Maybe it's night time and it looks beautiful with all the lights of the cities. This is the world that I have to take care of and be there. Serve them, guide them.

I like to stand there with my teacher who in the Diamond Way teachings, Vajrayana, is my partner. And we are sort of like mommy and daddy looking at a world, thinking we're going to take care of it. Then follow your breath for three breaths, three deep exhales, to get ready to come out.

Just relax. Don't get too excited about coming out. Then slowly open your eyes on the last inhale.

Take a stretch. It's good when you meditate to take stretches. That's what yoga was originally for, right?

Any questions? When does the class end? When does the class end?

When does it end? Six? Okay.

Hang on a second, we got a microphone here. Then everyone can hear.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. My question is about the onion skin and the layers, because I think in our system, the center is seeds, right? In the center of the onion.

I don't know, I just was thinking about the emptiness of my own body during this meditation and that the heart suture came up. There's no part of you that sees. There's no part of you that's aware of what you see.

Say that again? There's no part of you that sees. There's no part of you that's aware of what you see.

Isn't that in the heart suture?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 2]
And I know different schools say the center of the onion is awareness, and ours says seeds. Could you talk about that a little?

[Speaker 1]
Well, all the experiences that you have in the death process are coming from seeds and they're always the same. So, some people say if things are empty, they should always be different. Like Neil Young's song, everyone hears it a different way.

So, it seems like if things are empty, they should always be different to different people. Because we always say, that dinner you cooked last night, that proves emptiness. You know?

She loved it and she hated it. So, that proves emptiness. One thing is experienced in two different ways according to the seeds of people.

But, given all the possible combinations, everyone always has the same experience when they die. So, people always go through the same flow. Seeds, the pattern in which seeds are collected throughout your life, always ends this way.

They always create this dissolution process the same way. So, it's still the case that you, the things you're experiencing and your awareness of them, are coming from your seeds. Yeah.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. If it's an existing thing, it's coming from seeds.

Some people then have a problem with emptiness, because emptiness doesn't change. So, how can it come from seeds? You see?

And then the classic answer is like the water in a fountain. It's, the seeds are producing an unchanging form. You know?

It looks like, it still looks like a fountain, but it's a flow of seeds creating the same outline. You know? So, like that.

Any other question?

[Speaker 2]
I have a question. In the crystal death period, death part, and I think, can I think? Everything has come from me.

I'm wondering at that part, can I think?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yeah. You're going to. Her question is, how can I have like complicated thoughts in the middle of dying?

You know? Like, I'm dying, things are crystal. How can I pause and think, oh, Geshe-la said do this, and then Geshe-la said do that.

Because your mind is dissolving. That's why we have to practice it many times. That's why we do retreat.

So, it becomes instinct. It becomes natural. You don't think about it.

So, if you do it many, many times, you know, that's the purpose to do a retreat. You get used to it. And then when it really comes, you say, oh, I recognize this.

This is what Geshe-la took me through. Oh, next is going to come the fireflies. Oh, there they are.

You know? Then that's what's, that's called getting ready for death, you know? So, it'll be burned into your mind.

It'll be automatic. Like, Vivian's a dancer. First time you dance a dance, you can't remember left foot, right foot, three steps, four steps.

My dance teacher gave up on me. But if you dance many times, many times, the same dance, then you don't think about it. So, the word in Sanskrit for meditation is bhavana in Tibetan is gom, which means get used to it.

It becomes natural. It becomes automatic. Oh, next I'm going to see the red light.

Oh, there it is. I knew it was coming. And next it's going to get black.

Oh, there it is. You know? Yeah, just like they said.

And the crystal is difficult, okay? The crystal is like, in the scripture, it says, think of an autumn, a harvest moon, okay? And how it makes the darkness of the sky look crystal.

So, it's a very delicate thing. It's not like a window. It's a crystalline quality to an autumn night, okay?

You got to cook that. Any more questions?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you Geshe-la. My question is actually about the crystal part. When we arrive to that section of death, I mean, I imagine everyone can see that crystal, right?

Whether they've meditated or not, right?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, everyone goes through it. So, I like to call it the stop on the subway. It's like you're stopping at 4th street in the New York subway.

You got three minutes to you know, then the subway goes to a bird or a dog or you know, and then you got, the door opens and you got like two minutes to see something. And if you don't see it, the door shuts and you go to Brooklyn.

[Speaker 2]
So, that's actually the second part of my question. How do you go into seeing empties? Do you decide?

Just by thinking about it?

[Speaker 1]
During the retreat you're going to say, okay, and by the way, don't take a long time on the getting there. I mean, just keep moving steadily because what you'll learn if you do a three-year retreat is that the real sweet spot in meditation is amazingly brief. You know, you're in retreat for a whole day and you maybe have 15 minutes of super sweet spot and you got to use it.

So, the minute you hit your sweet spot, like rush everything up and get to the crystal part. And I put photographs in here for you. And I'm not really happy with some of them.

I worked really for a long time on it, but there's a... It's page 14. And again, you can memorize the photos and then you don't have to look at the book, you know, so.

But not in the meditation, but when you actually die. Oh, when the real thing happens? Yeah, how do you start perceiving emptiness directly?

Like, just by remembering it? It's all... It's more than memory.

It's like body memory when you did a dance maybe. It's like the way you move your hands many times. Or the way you drive your car.

You don't think, oh, I'm going to move my hand to the left, I'm going to move my hand to the right. It becomes automatic. When you drive for a few years, you can talk to somebody and your hands are on automatic pilot.

So, that's why we have to do the meditation many, many times. My Lama asked me to do it every night for many years. Because he wanted me to get used to it.

So, of course, you're going to come up against this thing in Buddhism where your Lama told you to do 26 things just before you go to bed. So, you have to be reasonable. Don't get anxiety attacks trying to do everything your Lama said to do before you go to bed.

Just calm down. Let some things go. Geshe-la gave us 10 things to do before we go to bed.

I'm tired. I'm falling asleep now. Pick one, fall asleep.

Don't have an anxiety crisis. Don't let Dharma become another thing to be anxiety about. Like, just take it easy.

Okay, I'm not going to die tonight. I mean, I'm not going to do my dance meditation tonight. I'm tired.

I feel like a little coffee meditation. Light coffee meditation. And it's the same with retreat.

Many more people have an anxiety crisis during retreat than the people who are lazy. Lazy people about 20%. 80% are worried they're not doing enough.

And then they ruin their meditation because they're like, I'm not doing enough. I'm in retreat. I'm supposed to be enlightened.

And I just feel tired. So, don't press it too hard. The idea is to...

The best thing for me when I do long retreats is I make a hot cocoa. I sit in a chair. I curl up with my hot cocoa.

And I do a little coffee meditation. It's perfect. You don't have to be at nine o'clock at night.

It's not going to happen. So, I just curl up with a hot cocoa and I do my coffee meditation. So, the main thing in retreat is don't waste your time.

But most people have anxiety during retreat. Oh, I'm not... I didn't get enough mantras done.

Nothing's happening. I didn't see any Buddhists this afternoon. So, just relax.

The main thing is to think how lucky you are to be here. How lucky you are someone built this place and these crazy people live here and take care of it. God bless them.

And just relax and have a good time. I want to do some more of the meditations. So, that's the dying meditation.

And I'd like to go... We have another half hour, right? Do you need a pee-pee break?

Yes or no? Yes. Okay.

Let's take a 10-minute pee-pee break. Okay? But please come back at 540.

540. Okay? Be sitting down.

Quiet at 540. And we'll do 20 minutes more. Meditation number five, page three.

Meditation number five, page three. Okay. By the way, I'm going to...

Again, the plan is I'll go over all the meditations with you. Then you'll do your three-day retreat. And then, as we go through the scripture, you'll see them coming up.

But maybe some of them don't come up till after you do your retreat. So, I have to teach you all the meditations first. Meditation number five refers to SANGA SBYOR.

We finished Buddha SBYOR this morning. We talked about Buddha SBYOR. We finished Dharma SBYOR.

Dharma SBYOR means understand the pen is Dharma SBYOR. Very simple. Understand the second husband is Dharma SBYOR.

If you think about the second husband when someone gets mad at you, you have taken refuge. And you're a Buddhist. Now there's one more refuge which is SANGA SBYOR.

So, what's the SANGA SBYOR? It's people who understand the pen. It's the community.

So, the real division in this world is not between ordained people and non-ordained people. It's not that people who wear red robes are SANGA. Stop talking back there.

It's not the case that people who wear red robes are the real SANGA and the rest of us are not SANGA. That's not the real division. The real division is who understands the pen and who doesn't understand the pen.

Who understands the second husband and who doesn't understand the second husband. People who understand the pen, people who understand the second husband, they automatically become a community in the world. Whether they're from Guangzhou or Jaipur?

I don't know. Indus River Valley. Or Guow.

Guow. Jerome lives in the only town in the world that sounds like a sneeze. And it doesn't matter where you're from.

If you understand the pen, you're part of that club. And if you don't understand the pen, you're not part of that club. So, SANGA means people with eyes.

That's the meaning of meditation number five. Meditation number five is called a person with eyes and heart. Heart means they care about you, they love you, they want you to come live in this town called SANGA.

They want you to be part of that town, so they run around the world repeating over and over the pen every time they get a chance. Let's try another one. That was too fast for me.

Okay, one more time. What's this thing? Yeah, pen.

If a dog come in here and take it in and out, they see it as a chew toy. Who's right, the human or the dog? Yeah, why?

They can use it. No, they can use it. It's okay.

Dog can chew, enjoy. Human says, why are you chewing on my pen? Dog says, why don't you enjoy chewing it?

Okay, it's equal. Okay. Then if I put it here, all the people go out, all the dogs go out, at that time, is it pen or chew toy?

Nothing yet. Okay, then if the dog comes back first, it becomes a chew toy. If the human comes back first, it becomes a pen.

Therefore, the pen is coming from my mind, not from the pen, okay? There's something from my mind, okay? What?

There's a seed opening in my mind, okay? Who put the seed there? Yeah, only I can put a seed in my mind, okay?

How? I shared a pen with somebody, yeah, okay? Or I shared my chew toy with someone, okay?

Then I put a seed in my mind. Then when I look at this thing, the pen seed opens in my mind, small picture comes out, it becomes a pen, okay? And then the four steps, I can get anything I want with the four steps.

There's a guy named, there's a company called Spiritual Gangster. They make yoga clothes. They started with two people near here in Phoenix, just a man and his wife, and they started with nothing.

Nothing. Recently, they were interviewed on the morning, Good Morning Show or whatever, I never, I don't have a TV, for half an hour, a free free interview on the most important morning show in the United States, half an hour, they explained why they're now the most successful yoga clothing company. And they said, it's this thing called the four steps.

And they explained it on American television to the whole country, you know. For half an hour, they gave them a half hour, which is, usually the interview there is three minutes, four minutes. They talked for half an hour.

Then he came back. I had dinner with them. I said, congratulations, you know, that's amazing.

They said, Geshe-la, we just did what you told us to do. And then he says, Geshe-la, can I ask you a personal question? I said, yeah.

He says, how come your students don't do it? I said, I don't know. Okay.

He actually tried it and he runs his company that way, and he only uses the four steps. And they got very famous now, and they're doing really, they got bigger, they're in Bloomingdale's now and big, big company now. So, it's exciting.

Heart means, share it with other people. Do it yourself, share it with other people. You have eyes, which is your knowledge of the pen.

And then share it with other people. I can't get, I'll have to get the dog to get the other one, okay? All right, so meditation number five.

Think about Sangha. I want to be Sangha. What, Sangha jewel, okay?

I'll tell you something cool. If you understand emptiness, okay, I mean, up until recently, Buddhism was the biggest religion in the world. There were more Buddhists than anything else, okay?

If China is Buddhist, it's the biggest religion in the world. It's 1.4 billion people. We got everyone else outnumbered, okay?

So, up until now, I mean, pretty much it's the biggest religion in the world. 1.4 billion people minimum, right? Something like that.

Don't count the American Buddhists, okay? 1.4 billion people. They were mostly, historically, they are Buddhists, okay?

Then, every morning they're supposed to get up and go namo buddhaya, namo dharmaya, namo sanggye. They're supposed to take refuge, right? I, you know, sanggye la gyep su chiyo, chu lo gyep su chiyo, gen du na gyep su chiyo.

Buddhists everywhere are praying every morning to the three jewels, okay? Now, I'll tell you something cool. If you understand the pen, they are praying to you.

That's cool, right? One billion people asking you for help every morning, okay? Then you are sanggye.

You are sanggye jewel, okay? So, anyway, that's sanggye jewel. So, during this meditation, think about who's sanggye jewel.

Think about you're sanggye jewel, okay? Think about being the person who protects other people by teaching them about the second husband that protects you from unhappiness, okay? So, you are sanggye jewel.

Think about it. Spend some time on it, okay? Be, be happy.

Be proud, okay? By accident, you heard about the pen. Then suddenly you got to be a very, a VIP, Dharma VIP, you know?

Now you're like a very special person because you can really help people, okay? You teach people the four steps, you're like, I don't know. It's like you're creating a world, you know?

A whole planet, you see? If you teach anybody the four steps and if they, like this guy, if you ask Ian, that guy's name is Ian, if you ask him, are you a Buddhist? I think he'll say no.

but he's, he took refuge. He's using the four steps and it worked for him. Then, it's cool, okay?

Then you're sanggye jewel. And think about it. And I think it's great that we called the New York Center three jewels.

It's cool. We even got the, the web address, right? Because it was so long ago.

we should thank Anipama if she comes back to class. Okay. So during meditation number five, you're going to think about how I'm the sanggye jewel.

And be, in this meditation, you should feel some kind of healthy pride. Like, James Brown said, I'm so cool I could kiss myself. So just, in this meditation, you're supposed to be like, yeah, I'm pretty goddamn cool, you know?

I understand the pain. I can help people. I got something to share, okay?

Be happy. This meditation is 100% narcissistic. You're like, I'm so cool, you know?

Okay? All right. Number six.

Then, you know, how do you know you're a special person? Like, meditation number six. How do you know you're a special person?

Because you know the Diamond Cutter Sutra, or you know the Heart Sutra. You met it in your lifetime, okay? You met the Diamond Cutter Sutra, jing kang jing.

You met hsing jing in your life, okay? Then you must be amazing. You must be special, okay?

Because you made it. You made the Diamond Cutter Sutra. You made the Heart Sutra, you know?

You can't go home ever again and say, I'm not a very good person. I'm not a very special person, you know? I'm always sad and unsure of myself.

I have anxiety all the time. Okay, that's true. But you're also special because you met, you created the Buddhism on this planet.

You created jing kang jing. You created hsing jing. You created DCI.

You created Diamond Mountain. It's all come from you, okay? So have a little appreciation for yourself, okay?

That's meditation number six. The fruits of a visit, which is the name of meditation number six, it means, we don't live in a time when we can meet the historical Buddha. Gautama Buddha left this world, okay?

But we can enjoy the fruits of his visit, okay? We have the Heart Sutra. We have the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

We have a tradition which has not been broken for two and a half thousand years, okay? ,RGYAL BA RGYAL TSOGS RIGS DANG, ,MDOR BYED CHOS, ,RGYAL BA YUM CHOG, ,MDOR BYED NYAMS SBYANGS MA, ,RGYAL TSOGS RIGS DU BO, ,SNGAGS ROL LTAS PA'I ZHABS, ,TSUL BA DEBS SOGS DANG, ,DGE YOD ZHIG RDZOGS, Every two weeks we recite the lineage. You are part of an unbroken lineage, okay?

The teachers are there. It's never been broken. You are part of a...

You are the next link in an unbroken chain since the Buddha, okay? Then be a little happy about yourself, okay? The fruits of a visit means the fact that you have the Heart Sutra, the fact that you have the Diamond Cutter Sutra in your world is the fruits of Lord Buddha coming here, okay?

Got it? So, proof that we are blessed. So these two meditations, meditation number five, where you understand you are the Sangha Jewel, meditation number six, where you understand you had enough karma to live in a world where Buddhism is still alive.

These two meditations are supposed to make you happy about yourself and your life, okay? So if you do these two meditations well, when you get up out of that meditation, you should like swagger a little bit, like, Oh, yeah. Oh, cool.

Yeah. You should be a little happy about your life, okay? Because only one creature in a billion can have the Heart Sutra or Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay?

You are special. You are special. You are extremely rare in the universe, okay?

You are at the top of the food chain, Dharma food chain. You are up here. You have all these teachings.

You have the pen. You have the four steps, okay? You're extraordinarily special in the universe.

You are the most special people in the universe. You got to, if you succeed at meditation number five and number six, you should come out of your, you know, get up and make lunch, like, you know, I'm pretty cool actually. Okay, you should feel happy, okay?

Okay, I'm going to do number seven because I guess I'll do some more tonight, okay? But number seven, as we will see in the Lam Rim scripture, I was in Thailand, you know, in December, right? And we were studying refuge.

So I gave refuge vows for the first time in many years, I think maybe 20 years or something, to a large group. And everybody was excited. It took me many, many nights to do the names.

You know, I didn't get much sleep and Stanley, Adam, they were all going, you know, we didn't get sleep and everybody was so happy. And they got their refuge vows and they got an explanation of them. And by the way, we're going to do that again in the scripture, but everybody felt like, oh, now I'm, I got my Buddhist name, you know, I took refuge.

You didn't. You did not. Okay, that's not refuge, okay?

Refuge is when you're sitting on the couch with your wife or your husband and they start yelling at you and you remember the pen. And Pabongka Rinpoche says in the Lam Rim, you didn't get refuge when Geshe Michael did the big ceremony and gave you a secret name and, you know, we all threw flowers or something. That wasn't the real ceremony.

The real refuge vow ceremony happens on the couch at home when your husband says something bad to you or your wife says something bad to you. Okay, you're so lucky if your wife says something bad to you because then you can do the real refuge ceremony. It's right there.

That, that, that's the moment to celebrate. Oh, I took refuge. What happened?

My wife yelled at me. I didn't say anything because I know she's coming for me. Oh, you just took refuge.

You just got your vows. Who gave them to you? You did.

Okay, got it? So that's the meaning of this meditation number seven. Pabongka Rinpoche says, the real ritual, the real refuge ceremony, you got your holy dharma name on the couch.

It was stupid. Okay, and then you didn't answer. Okay, because you understood you didn't want to see it again next week.

Okay, and you understood the person who called you stupid wasn't there. Got it? Okay, and that was your refuge ceremony.

That's the point that Pabongka Rinpoche is making in this meditation. So when you're doing meditation number seven, I would like you to think about bad moments in your life. Five and six are supposed to make you happy.

Seven is supposed to make you miserable. Okay. Oh, what's the most difficult moment I had in the last few years?

Oh, it was that night when my wife told me how stupid I really was. And then, you know, I felt bad, and I felt a little angry, and I felt hurt, but then I remembered that even that person was coming from me. Okay, like I don't know how I planted it.

It's probably a million lifetimes ago, because I'm not that mean now. But I was smart. I took refuge, you know.

She called me stupid, and I didn't try to explain myself. I didn't try to prove she was wrong. I just shut up.

I said, you know, I got a pee-pee. I'll be back. And I went in the bathroom, and I sat on the special place, and I spent 10 minutes thinking about how I planted that.

And then by that time I was calm, and I came out, and I, you know, we continued dinner together. And I took refuge, and I had a refuge ceremony in the toilet. Got it?

Okay, so this meditation, number seven, you're going to think about a difficult time in your life when you did the right thing. You stopped yourself from getting upset, and you said, this is coming from me. It's really hard with ex-wives, ex-husbands, ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends.

I mean, ex-bosses. Okay? It's really hard.

If you can do it with them, you can do it with anybody. Okay? So in this meditation, pick some of the most tense and unhappy moments in your life with another person.

And forgive them because they're coming from you. Okay? Let it go because they're coming from you.

And then you took refuge. Okay, got it? Forgiveness.

Okay? All right.