«Дар освобождения», курс 25 «Совершенное прибежище», занятие 4

[Speaker 2]
Good morning. Da shang ha, good morning. Buenas dias.

Bonjourno. Dobro utro. Let's meditate, okay?

Please relax your fingers. Pull in your stomach just a little bit. Relax your mouth.

Relax your eyelids. Try to release all the tension in your forehead and your hands. Bring your chest out just a little bit.

A little bit of a smile. And then please come to your breath. Today let's just focus on long exhales rather than counting.

So just long relaxing exhales. Then please ask your root teacher, heart teacher to come and sit with you. And it should be very personal and pleasant.

They are, I think, rather than trying to feel some sort of official respect for them, maybe just try to reach a feeling of affection, mutual affection, like old friends. You've been through many things with your heart teacher. Good times, bad times.

They're just like an old pair of jeans now. Comfortable. And there's a nice fragrance from them, like summer day or something like that.

Then in your mind just praise them for something beautiful about how they act or how they treat people. Then offer them a small gift. I think it would be nice to offer a single simple good thought that you had yesterday, during the whole day.

Just a small but sincere good thought you had, maybe about somebody else. Then open up and be honest about something you've done recently that wasn't very nice. Some small thing.

Then ask your teacher to teach you. Perhaps through the people who are here during this retreat, please teach me through the words and actions of the people around me for this week. And please stay with me.

Don't leave. And not just this life, but my future lives, wherever I go after this. I'd like you to think about the activities you did last week at work and at home.

You had certain jobs to do at work. You are supposed to finish certain things. You have to accomplish certain things.

Think about some of them. At work and at home, you have jobs to do around the house or apartment with your family. Just think about two or three of what you did last week.

I think for myself, for example, I was working in my garden a lot, because it's time of year to do a lot of work in the garden.

[Speaker 1]
Everything's just waking up. At work, as usual, I was trying to do fundraising or get support for projects.

[Speaker 2]
So for me, I can say, Oh, last week I was trying to make my garden beautiful. And I was trying to make sure that we had enough funds to do different projects. Then think about the steps you took to get what you wanted.

In my case, I ordered some special fertilizer on Amazon. And I pulled out weeds around the house outside. And I tried to write a contract or an agreement to help fund some of our projects.

Then try to think whether those actions worked. Did they work? In my case, did the garden respond?

Did more beautiful flowers come? Does it look like the sponsors will help? Did the actions work that you took last week?

Then you can please ask your teacher to come to your heart. You know what to do. Do it slowly.

Ask them to stay inside of you and influence your thoughts and words, actions today. Then come to your breath. Three long exhales.

Don't open your eyes yet. Don't move yet. Okay, now you can open your eyes.

Take a stretch.

[Speaker 1]
So we just did meditation number eight, page four. And a lot of the meditations are following the refuge vows. So we'll be talking about the refuge vows during the lam rim, in this lam rim.

And what you'll find, the point of this meditation is, are you taking refuge during your normal life every day? And a way to judge that, the temperature, a way to... a ruler for judging that is, how do you think things work?

And I don't know, the English word work is very interesting. Like, oh, this aspirin doesn't work. Or, you know, this fertilizer doesn't work.

Or this medicine doesn't work, right? We say work. And really, I think it's the most valuable thing you can learn in these classes.

In this, all these lam rim retreats, 25 retreats, the most valuable thing maybe you can learn is about how things work. Because life is about trying to make things happen. Your whole life is spent trying to get what you want, trying to make things happen.

You want your partner to be sweet. You want your garden to grow beautiful. You want your work to be successful.

And you always have a choice. You can take refuge, or you can use self-existent methods. You can marry the first husband who doesn't exist.

You can spend your whole life trying to make things happen mechanically and not through taking refuge, you see? So really, maybe this meditation is the most important one. So in my example, Pachi from Guadalajara, who lives in Costa Rica, where?

Dominican, yeah. He sent me two bags of special fertilizer called Biochar. He works for this company or something.

And then I put it on my roses and they like doubled in like one month. It was weird. It was supernatural.

And they got all nice and healthy and deep red leaves. So my human reaction is to go on Amazon and I bought six bags more. And it was a lot of money.

I sent a bag to Rob because he has a garden and I thought he and his wife would appreciate it. By the way, there's one person in the room who guided Diamond Mountains through some very hard times and helped us grow for many years and is still keeping all the accounts perfectly and honestly and keeps us legal. I'd like to give Rob a hand.

Thank you. Thank you. I put the stuff all over my garden and everything exploded.

Everything's growing beautiful flowers. Some of them are called volunteers. You know the volunteers?

It's where the plants flower. They plant themselves around your garden. Volunteers are going crazy.

So then, because I'm a human being in the desire realm, sansara, I buy more biochar fertilizer. You see? But where did the beauty really come from?

Patience. Around me. Trying hard not to get angry.

So really, if I was taking refuge, if I understood taking refuge to make my garden grow better, I would think of all the people who irritate me and try to feel more patient towards them. Then buy the biochar. You see?

It's still okay to buy the fertilizer. But whether it works or not depends on taking refuge. Okay?

So, people who have gardens, you know, it's like unpredictable. You plant stuff, you water it properly, you fertilize it properly, it grows and then some raccoon eats it. Why does that happen?

You did everything right, mechanically. But you didn't make the karma. You didn't plant the seeds.

You see? So, this meditation is maybe the most important one and it's called, don't try other things. You see, it's how...

what percent of what you did last week was done with the knowledge of refuge? Or what percent was done with the old viewpoint? Okay?

What's the old viewpoint? If I put enough fertilizer on it, me and Nick were discussing what to spray on the leaves of hollyhocks. They get this yellow...

Does your get this yellow fungus on them? Right? So, we're like, he's using...

I'm using neem oil from India. He's using jalapeno juice or something. And and then suddenly I realized, you know, it doesn't matter.

Just think of someone that you're not so happy about and try to reconcile with them. And then the fungus will go away. Right?

Maybe you don't have to put anything on it. You see what I mean? So, I think number eight, meditation number eight, which is part of the first refuge vow.

What's the first refuge vow? Don't take worldly refuge. Yeah, don't take worldly refuge.

Once you've taken refuge in the Buddha, jewel, don't take worldly refuge. And it doesn't really mean you can't respect Christian God or something like that. It doesn't mean things like that.

It doesn't mean things like that. It means, do you trust the biochar fertilizer or do you trust your patients? You see what I mean?

Okay. And we'll talk more about that later. You know.

But it's the fundamental mistake that causes the Wheel of Life. It's the first link. It's to trust the fertilizer.

You see? That's the blind man. It's to trust the fertilizer.

And for my projects, right? I was like sweating over some part of a contract. How do I make this work?

And then suddenly I had this extraordinary breakthrough. Something weird happened. Like supernatural.

And then I was thinking, oh, it's so stupid to worry about it. You know. What made it happen was sharing Dharma.

You see what I mean? The seeds from sharing Dharma created some ancient text that saved my ass in the project. Right?

Master Yuan Tse. Yuan Tse. And it's like that.

So the three days, if you're going to meditate for three days, if it's me, I'll work on meditation number eight a lot. Like where are things really coming from? How can I get the things I want?

I want my husband to act a certain way. I want my kids to act a certain way. I want my projects to succeed.

I want my garden to be beautiful. And so the DCI thing, the four steps, right? There's a joke in DCI.

You can either pay $3,300 and come to the DCI teacher training in June. June? Or if you want to, you can just learn to do this with your hand.

And then you're a DCI teacher. Somebody says, Geshe Michael, I don't know how to fix my problem with my husband. I go, Oh, I don't know how to make more money.

I have this health problem right over here. Where? Over here?

Use the four steps. Plan a scene. Vasubandhu.

Decide what you want. Find somebody else who wants it. Help them get it.

Do meditation before you sleep to make those seeds grow faster. so that's taking refuge. That equals taking refuge.

What is taking refuge? Four steps. It's just the four steps.

Two of the refuges are people and one of them is an idea. Got it? The first one is a person.

You go to Buddha. You respect Buddha. You make offerings.

Be thankful. Say thank you to Buddha. Gratitude.

I don't like this offerings. I don't like the word offerings so much. I think it should be just thank you notes.

Like flowers that are thank yous. That's the whole purpose of offering. It's, oh, you gave me something.

Thank you. That's the first kind of taking refuge. It's basically just show your gratitude to Buddha.

Thank you. Put a flower on the altar. The third one is what we talked about, Elizabetha.

Find wise friends and hang around them. That's sangha. Surround yourself with wise people, good people who understand seeds.

I was with what's her name? Katie's mom, Janice. We were trying to figure out, I forget, fundraising thing.

She's like, in the middle of this long complicated conversation, she says, well, why don't we just help someone else with their fundraising? I'm like, no, no. We got to get on it.

Then I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. Surround yourself with people who think that way, who will correct you, who will correct Geshe Michael. Geshe Michael, that's not necessarily work.

You should help someone else raise money. You know what I mean? Something like that.

That's sangha. First and third are people. The second one is an idea.

Dharma is a mindset, worldview. It's to approach things understanding that you can make things happen by making them happen for other people. Got it?

Really, meditation aid is an examination during your three days of silence of your own life and see, where do you put your trust? Where do you put your hope? The definition of, the textbook definition of of refuges, rewa chungwa, it means, very rare word, and it means put all your hopes in something.

Put all your trust in something. Do you put all your trust in biochar fertilizer? Or do you put all your trust in being patient with the people who irritate you or situations that irritate you?

How do you make your flowers grow around your house? Okay? So that's probably the most important meditation, and it's the best way to spend your three days.

Examine your life. See what you're up to. What are you trying to achieve in your life?

Are you taking refuge? Which means, are you using the four steps or not? I don't know why, but personally I have a resistance to it.

It's easier to buy fertilizer. You know? I don't know why I have this.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know Janice. I know we should help someone else. I know, but what are we going to do?

I don't know why. I don't want to surrender to this idea. I just want to order something on Amazon.

So anyway. Okay. Meditation number nine.

Before your three day retreat, I'm going to spend a lot of time on the meditations because you have to do them. Okay? And then we'll cover the same points in the book.

So, I like to... I like it when the book says the same thing I said in some complicated Tibetan sentence. And you have faith in it.

I hope. Okay, number nine. Meditation number nine, which we don't have to meditate on.

You can do it yourself. There's a famous story in the Lam Rim which we will read together. The abbot of the monastery, in my monastery, when all the monks are together, it's 3,000 monks.

Huge. Serje, Serme, Bo. Then in front, there'll be this abbot, this big guy.

Very wise and very... they have a lot of power. There's no checks and balances in the monastery.

What the abbot says happens. There's some pretty severe punishments can be given and things like that. People respect the abbot.

People live in fear of the abbot. They try to influence the abbot. There's a story that two monks were sitting together and one of them had the ability to read people's minds.

The abbot was leading a very major ceremony, like a Tara ceremony or something. The one monk is going like... Then he turns to the monk next to him and he says, you want to know something funny?

He says, what? Our abbot sitting up there, yeah? He ain't a Buddhist.

He's not a Buddhist. He said, what are you talking about? You say something like that, you're going to get whipped.

Don't say things like that. He says, no, no. He's not a Buddhist.

Why? He never took reference. He's like using biochar fertilizer.

Understand? That was a very famous conversation. The abbot believes in mechanical things and not in seeds.

The abbot tries to make more money by working harder or buying more things or selling more things or doing more advertising. The abbot doesn't understand that the way to make more money is to help someone else make money. You see?

So the abbot's not taking refuge in that worldview. So the abbot is not a Buddhist. We talked about the opposite.

What's that? What's the opposite of that? Yeah, you can teach a group of a thousand business people and I have rednecks from Florida.

Architect conference. One thousand architects. Hospital architects.

Redneck in English means in Tibet they call green brain. But it's the same thing. LAS PA BYUNG BU It means very conservative.

Like they don't want to help any foreign countries. They just want America to be strong and they don't want to help anybody. They asked me to give a talk.

At that time in the American Congress there was a vote to sell an oil company to China or not. Of course they are very redneck, conservative. They all said...

I asked them at the beginning of the talk and it was in a football stadium because each one wanted his own desk. Full size desk. I couldn't see the people at the back.

It was too far away. And they each had this big desk. So I asked them, do you think America should sell this oil company to China?

And they're all like, no, no, no, no. Then I taught them slowly the pan and the four steps. Very slowly.

I didn't say anything about oil companies. I talked for like two hours and then finally at the end I said, so let's talk about energy supplies for America. How can we guarantee energy supplies for America?

They're like, number one, energy supplies for America. Be strong America. What's number two?

Yeah, just find another country that needs... What's number three? Help them get the energy supplies and then be happy about it.

And then suddenly they all started like smiling and crying. They're like, oh, that's so nice. That's so beautiful.

That feels so good. That feels so correct. They came up, all these people came up.

They're like, give me five man, give me five. Oh yeah, let's sell the oil company. And in that moment that 1,000 redneck architects became Buddhists because they took refuge.

Got it? So the opposite is true. Sometimes the Buddhists are not Buddhists and sometimes the non-Buddhists are Buddhists.

Got it? That's meditation number nine. So you have to think about, I think most of us are Buddhists about 20% of the time.

We make our garden beautiful by being patient about 10% of the time and then 90% of the time we're digging and pulling weeds and putting fertilizer and things like that. Do you still have to... If you plant the seeds, do you still have to dig the weeds and put the fertilizer?

Mostly. Later you can do miracles. We'll talk about it.

But you still have to take the aspirin. Okay? Whether it works or not is how much you help someone else.

Okay? So you see where DCI is tying into Lam Rim and it's always going to be that way. Nothing in DCI didn't come from Buddhist scriptures.

And in the DCI manuals in the back, where nobody reads it, is where everything came from. Alright. I want to talk about meditation number 10.

We have to do 27 before you start your retreat. Meditation number 10 is called Earth, the Foundation and the Inner Essence. Refuge and Commitments.

Keeping the refuge vows, which we will cover, but the first one is what I just said. Really the first refuge vow is make your garden grow by patience and not by biochar fertilizer. Okay?

Or maybe both. Okay? That viewpoint, that worldview, that taking refuge is required for all further Buddhist practices by tradition.

Okay? You have to take refuge before you can take Bodhisattva vows, before you can take layman's vows, before you can take novice vows, before you can take medium nun vows, before you can take full nun vows or full monk's vows, the eight vows, right? Pratimoksha.

They all depend on refuge vows. If you don't take refuge vows, you can't take the rest. Okay?

In the scriptures, taking refuge, those simple vows is considered like the earth. Then all the trees, all the flowers, everything that grows out of the earth comes from that. And then Pabongka Rinpoche makes a big deal about...

I was... I planted iris bulbs. And they grow in two...

In my house, they grow in two colors. A pale yellow and a pale purple. Very beautiful, very stunning.

I'll show you a photo later. I just had to take a photo of them. They're so beautiful.

And the dirt where I live is 90% rocks. It's just like Ireland. Right, Mr. Dung?

It's terrible. I take the rocks out of a few square feet and the ground drops like six inches. And it's terrible.

The ground is hopeless. It takes about three hours to plant a rose because to dig a little hole, just to pull out all the rocks is impossible. Then I plant these bulbs, then the iris grows and these colors come out.

And I'm looking at the colors, I'm saying, how did that come out of my rocks? You know, how did the plant suck the right chemicals out of the rocks to make these colors? It's like weird.

There's no yellow or purple in the dirt. It's a terrible color. It's like brown, black, dirt, dust.

And then somehow this stupid bulb sucks out only the yellow from the ground, only the purple, and then puts it all into the flower. But only in the flower, not in the plant. It's weird.

It just seems weird to me. Pabongka says refuge is the same. You take good refuge, you understand taking refuge, then all the other Buddhist practice produces beautiful colors.

Got it? Like everything your tantra practice, you know, deep mystical things, deep meditation, you know, difficult practices, they all come from refuge. Refuge is the chemical that makes the yellow flower.

Okay? It's in the earth, so it's the foundation. So that's why I put, you know, it's the same with fruits.

I put an apple tree here in the picture. Whether the rest of your Buddhist practice is successful depends on whether you take refuge well. It's the soil.

I call it dirt and then V says, no, no, it's soil. Cat used to tell me that. Don't call it dirt, Geshe Michael.

It's the soil. You do the same thing. Okay?

So it's the foundation. Refuge is the foundation. So during that meditation, when you do it, you can think of all your practice, your meditation practice, your yoga practice, your study, and you can try to tie it into your refuge.

If your refuge is good, your yoga will be good, your meditation will be good, and your study will be good, and your service of other people will be good. If your refuge is not strong, if the earth is weak, it won't be good. I have to tell you bad news about my poop tree, bird poop tree.

Do you know about my bird poop tree? Okay, I got to tell you about the bird poop tree. The DCI people know.

People ask me, why do creepy, like, why do gangster drug lords become rich? Okay? Why do mafia guys become rich?

If karma is correct, they shouldn't get rich, but they do. Some of them. So then I said that's called bird poop.

And they said, what's bird poop? And I said, well, there's a tree that comes from China. It's called mulberry.

And you need it because silkworms only eat mulberry leaves. So to make silk, you need silkworms. To make silkworms, you got to have mulberry leaves.

That's the only thing they like to eat. They're more picky than me. And somebody brought it to Arizona.

For many years it was secret. In ancient China, it was a death penalty if you told someone about mulberry trees. And the first mulberry seeds were carried out of China in the hat of a noble woman who wanted to share them.

And she hid them in her hat. So anyway, they grow all over Arizona. They grew in my school when I was a little kid and we used to climb them.

And they're nice because they don't need much water. And the birds like them because they make a little berry, mulberry, purple berry. So anyway, I always wanted a mulberry tree.

But my gardener partner said, I don't like mulberry trees. They make mess on the ground. Then one day I went out, I was working in the garden and there was a plant about this high.

And I'm like, I asked my partner, Vy, I said, what is that? And she said, oh my god, that's a mulberry tree. She said, did you plant that?

I said, no, no, I didn't do anything. I don't even know what it is. She said, it must be a bird poop mulberry tree.

Because they eat the mulberries. And they're in a rush like someone trying to get to meditation class. And they don't digest the berries and they poop the seeds.

And then the seeds have nice poop fertilizer around them. And they grow pretty fast. So I'm always bragging about my good karma that a bird pooped mulberry tree in my front yard.

But then Vy said, I don't want it in the front yard. She said, you have to move it. I'm like, okay.

So I dug it up. While I was digging it up, I split the taproot, which is going to kill it. She said, it can't grow.

Now it will die. I said, but can I plant it anywhere in the backyard? She said, okay, you can plant it, but it's going to die.

Then I planted it and it grew. It's about three meters high now. But then the gophers came.

These are little like rats and they live under the ground and they eat the roots. So now, I don't know. So the bad news for my bird poop tree friends.

I went out to work on the tree and I touched it and it went, I'm like, oh, there's no foundation. That's what your life is like if you don't take refuge properly. You grab the tree and it goes, it just went like this.

Then I shake it and the roots are gone. All the roots are gone. This animal ate them.

So I asked her, do I have to pull it out? She said, really you should pull it out. I said, can I just try?

So you have to pray for my mulberry tree. I'm still going. It's still going.

It's trying to put a leaf out. What it means is you need a foundation. Without those roots, forget it.

Everything else is fake. It looks strong and when you touch it it goes, you get a little problem in your life and your practice collapses. Because the roots aren't good.

It's like, it was really disappointing. I touched it and it went, I pulled it and it went, like that. Your practice will be like that if you don't know about refuge.

If you don't take good refuge, your practice will be no foundation. You will collapse the first time you have a problem. Your practice will be like that.

Also yoga, stuff like that. What time is it? Let's do one more meditation then take a pee pee break.

[Speaker 2]
Alright. We'll do number eleven. So get ready to meditate.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, so that's how mafia guys get rich. They gave some money to their nephew ten years ago. They did one nice thing.

Then they killed twenty people. But the gift of a few, some money to their nephew made them rich. And it will always go away.

It will always collapse.

[Speaker 2]
Alright. Mafia guy's wealth is bird poop seeds. Accident.

So please come to your breath. You can check in with the Lama in your heart. You don't have to do the full preliminaries.

Every session, you can do it once in the morning and then in the following sessions on the same day you can just check in with your Lama sitting in a grain of sugar in your heart like a clear crystal globe. And bring your mind to the center, to your breath. Let go of the outside world.

Let go of the things happening everywhere in your life. These three days are your days. Let go of all the other things that you're doing and you will find that you do them better afterwards.

Come to your breath. Then I'd like you to think about some pretty serious mistakes you've made in your life. Maybe before you knew about karma.

And those are kind of like time bombs. Those seeds didn't come back to us yet, many of them. And some of those actions were pretty serious.

[Speaker 1]
I was involved in an abortion. I can think of that kind of when I was in college.

[Speaker 2]
So I can think of time bombs waiting for me. Some very heavy negative karmas are waiting inside of me. And at some point they will blow up and I'll get some very serious problems.

So this meditation is, the first part is a little bit difficult. We have to try to think of people that we really hurt. Mistakes like that that we made.

Mostly that. So we'll take a few minutes. Try to think of one or two grand mistakes you've made in your life.

Then think about the few things you're doing nowadays where you are taking good refuge.

[Speaker 1]
You are using the four steps.

[Speaker 2]
You are trying to make things happen by helping other people. It doesn't have to be a big thing. Maybe you are helping a friend with a relationship problem.

Or maybe you're helping someone financially. But you are taking baby steps to deal with problems and to reach goals by serving someone else. So think of two or three things you're doing which are using seeds which are serving others to reach your goals.

And that's taking refuge. Think of the times you are taking refuge. The third and last part of this meditation is to just spend a few minutes appreciating that the baby steps you are taking to solve problems or reach goals by serving others, planting seeds, actually damage the old bad seeds.

So understanding where things come from.

[Speaker 1]
Reaching goals by planting seeds, by serving other people, helping them reach their goals. The power of those baby steps, small baby steps, is very, very powerful.

[Speaker 2]
And Lam Rim says it will block or destroy even very old powerful bad seeds. So try to draw a mental connection between the small good things you're doing now with understanding, seeds, taking refuge, and draw a line in your mind back to those big mistakes you made many years ago, in my case 45 years ago, and appreciate that that new way of life is damaging and disabling the old bad seeds. And you are, again, you are protecting yourself from those time bumps.

Draw that line in your mind. Make that connection. Then watch three deep exhales.

Don't move yet. Don't open your eyes yet. Check in with your Lama in your heart and then open your eyes.

Take a stretch.

[Speaker 1]
So the picture, which you can memorize, right? Just memorize the pictures and then you can figure out what they're supposed to be about. What's the picture?

Oh, sorry, he has it up there. Yeah, like he's protecting himself from time bombs that he laid ten years ago, five years ago. Okay?

He's got an umbrella. Okay? That's why we put the lady with the umbrella on your schedule, for example.

Okay? So you are protecting yourself not only from future problems, but you can protect yourself from past bad seeds that you planted. Okay?

Refuge has this beautiful ability. We talked about it in the Wheel of Life. The second link of the wheel is...

What's the picture? Yeah, a guy making powder. And by the way, I was reading an interesting commentary, I think Vasubandhu.

He said the fact that it's a wheel is important. That the powder is using a wheel. But those are seeds that you haven't put in the ground yet.

They're not... They might not grow if they never get the necessary water and fertilizer. Okay?

Then link number ten. There's two links of the twelve which are karma. What's link number ten?

Pregnant woman. Okay? It means the seed is ready to open.

Okay? And then there's a long discussion of what causes... What takes a seed from number two to number ten?

What is it? Why didn't they just make one link in the wheel, which was karma? Why do they have two?

Because the first one is karma that's... Actually it's planted, but it hasn't ripened. And then ten, it has ripened.

And the baby's coming out, going to come out. Okay? So something happens.

Also underground, right? It's kind of a miracle. It's very, I don't know, exciting when you're a gardener.

You plant some watermelon seeds. You cover them. You put water.

You give it biochar fertilizer. And then you... Something happens down there.

Like little guys are running around in the seed line. The water wakes them up. And they're like, oh, we got to get this thing going.

Like some miracle happens when the water touches the seed, which it never does, right? Something triggers that. Something triggers the seed.

Okay? And it's not understanding seeds that takes the seed from two to ten. Link two to link ten.

So if you understand seeds and you use them, it damages your old bad seeds. Got it? They don't get the energy which takes them from just planted to ready to open.

They never get the water or the nutrients that wake up the little guys in the seed. Got it? So just the habit of getting things in your life by helping others to get them destroys the power of your old bad seeds.

See? So you killed two birds with one stone? Bad example.

You plant good seeds for your success, but by doing that, by understanding seeds, you destroy the old ones or you deactivate them. Okay? Got it?

So when you take refuge, you're protecting yourself from old mistakes, you mean. And you don't have to worry about them. They will never open.

They are planted, but they will never open. Somebody said, I don't like running around with a billion bad seeds in my head, Geshe-la, that are never going to open. I said, well, they don't take up much space.

They say on the tip of a needle you can put a billion seeds. So, okay, no problem. There's a kind of...

Some plants will... if something invades them, they will grow a cyst around the... cyst means like a hard coating around the problem and then the plant will grow fine.

You see what I mean? So what you're doing, you're putting those bad seeds, you're coating them with like steel or something and they will never grow. They will sit there forever frustrated that they couldn't grow.

And you will never get the problem you're supposed to have. Okay, got it? That's a cool meditation if you're working nowadays on obstacles.

If you're having obstacles to a relationship or your finances or your health, do number eleven. Work on number eleven. Got it?

Okay, we'll start. Okay. That side is...

I like it when you make noise because it means you're having fun. So don't worry. Or else you're yelling at each other.

I don't know. We're going to do one more meditation. Okay, you ready?

I recorded with Amazon, I recorded some of my books and you go to a special room, it's on springs and there's a window and the guy sits with the book and you sit with the book and he stares at you and if you say the slightest thing wrong he says, stop, start again. Then this guy came in with a big pillow, a lady actually, and she says, I'm ready for you. And I'm like, what?

And she tied it on my stomach and she said, we always tie a pillow on your stomach when you're recording an audio book because your stomach makes noise. So if you put the iPhone here you can get the full Geshe Michael.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, here we go. Relax your eyelids. Relax your mouth.

Shoulders are maybe still a little bit tight. Check your shoulders. Especially if you did words class yesterday.

Just slightly tense your stomach. This meditation which is number 11, I think, in this one we do the opposite from what we did last time. So I'd like you to go back in your life, even very far, when you were very young.

[Speaker 1]
And what are the seeds that you are most proud of? When did you do the really kind things for someone else, took care of someone who was very sick, or served poor like our New York sangha doing?

[Speaker 2]
What are the moments when you really sacrificed what you wanted and served someone else? Take a few minutes and think about the highlights of your spiritual life. Now again, please think about the small baby steps you are taking nowadays to achieve your goals or solve your problems by using seeds.

The four steps to plant good seeds and the four powers to stop old ones. Think about the progress you are making, the evolution in this new view of what makes things work. And then finally draw this connection again.

Those good things you did, many of them were long before you really understood about seeds. Those old good seeds are waiting in your mind to grow. And they are watered, they are woken up by all the attempts you make nowadays to use the four steps, to use seeds, which is taking refuge.

So try to appreciate and draw a mental connection between the attempts you are making nowadays to plant seeds and the very huge old good seeds that you planted, which have been multiplying ever since then. If you can in your three-day retreat and in your meditations, if you can strengthen that mental connection between your practices nowadays and good seeds you planted long ago that have been building up lots of interest, then it will trigger those seeds and cause them to flower in your life in the coming weeks and months. And you'll see a very sharp increase in beautiful things in your life.

So draw that connection. And then try to imagine how those seeds might open if you, I don't know, helped someone financially. Try to imagine how your life will become very stable and you'll have enough to do the things you want to do to help other people.

And if it was that you served someone who was elderly or sick, you can look forward to some very good health, strong health for many years. And if it's that you helped someone with their relationship, that you can look forward to a very beautiful relationship with your partner or your family, friends. Because you triggered them.

You watered them by taking refuge and using these principles of seeds and refusing to do things that don't really work. Take three deep exhales and then you can slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch.

[Speaker 1]
I'll remind you where we left off yesterday. It's kind of technical and I apologize, but when you get there you'll appreciate it. We were talking about the first of the five paths, which is called path of accumulation, of piling up good karma, tsok lam.

And it has three parts called chung mu ding chenpo, lesser, medium, and greater. Those three parts connect to different qualities of a Buddha eventually. There are versions of qualities of a Buddha that you master early on.

Somebody asked me yesterday the four recollections, right? The four awarenesses. How come you're already using the pen if you just started the first path?

During the first path you are getting some teachings about the pen, but not the full thing. Preliminary? Emptiness teachings.

And then when we got to the greater part of the first path, I said I wasn't happy with the... I went and got you some stuff to explain it and I didn't like it. It wasn't complete.

So this morning I got it. I'll explain it to you. It's a little complicated and you'll see why.

The full name, Okay, this is complicated, just don't worry about it. It's called PONG BA'I DU BYED DANG LDAN PA'I RDZUS GRUB KYI GANG PA PONG BA'I DU BYED DANG LDAN PA'I RDZUS GRUB KYI GANG PA It's a long name. I'll give you the meaning of the name and then you'll see why I had to look it up.

PONG BA means to give up something. DU BYED means a factor or a cause or a trigger. LDAN PA means to possess.

RDZUS GRUB means miracles. KANG PA means somebody's feet or legs. Are you ready?

The miracle legs of those who possess the factors which can eliminate. It doesn't mean anything. I went and got a good explanation and I looked through a million pages of scripture because we have a database and that database is because of people like John Brady, Nick Lashaw, and Adam Andrade and I think you should thank them.

We were in India in what month? February? Giving DCI talks and we had a guest with us from Singapore and they came with us to see the people working on the ancient books.

They got all excited. Candy got excited. Those people have been working for 30 years.

This is the 31st year they are working. Some of them have been working the whole time. The project is 31 years old and they never had health insurance.

I'd like to thank Candy's taking care of that and thank you for that. She's doing a lot of stuff like that. Thank you for that.

She just squeezes people and money comes out. I don't know how she does it. You have to teach me.

I don't feel comfortable if I don't explain something which is in the book. I didn't want to do it. But he mentioned it.

I don't know if the Chinese has a footnote or I don't know. To explain the last three groups, for example. Does it?

Stanley? I don't think so. It's complicated.

Most people won't want to go there. That's unusual. Those are difficult.

Okay, good. All right, so anyway, here's about the four miracle legs. The word leg means you're collecting karma which supports the ability to do miracles.

We're going to see that again I think this afternoon. In Buddhism, sometimes you'll say this guy has good legs. It doesn't mean pretty.

It means good foundation in morality or something. They're standing on strong foundation. They say good legs.

Sometimes they call Buddha the guy with good legs. Or the lady with good legs. That's why they call it the four legs.

They are kinds of shamatha. They are kinds of deep meditation. These four are kinds of deep meditation.

I'm going to give you an explanation by... It just happens to be that the best explanation in a million pages is from the textbook writer from a monastery called Sarah May. I don't know why.

Okay. Okay. The first one is called the miracle leg of aspiration.

[Speaker 2]
Hoping to reach high goals.

[Speaker 1]
It's a kind of one-pointed mind meditation, deep meditation, and its function is to work against the five obstacles to meditation. I'll give you the first one. You give me the rest.

LAS LO Okay. I don't feel like meditating today. I'll meditate tomorrow.

That's the first obstacle to meditation. What's the second one? Not yet.

LAS LO DJE NGES is called forgetting. It means losing the object. It doesn't mean forget, okay?

It doesn't mean I can't remember what my lama told me to meditate about. It doesn't mean that. Are you warm?

You want to freeze? Okay. So, the word is to forget the object, but the meaning is you start thinking about a hamburger.

When your llama's face in the meditation slowly changes into a Big Mac. You know? Okay.

That's the second one. Third one? Yeah, dullness and agitation together.

The mind gets too high or the mind gets too low. Then number four? Yeah, you don't take action.

You forget. If your mind goes low, you don't think of something cool to bring your mind up. If your mind's too high, you don't think of death which will bring it down.

Okay? Then what's the fifth problem? Taking action when you, you know, leave it.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it's not broken, don't fix it. If the meditation's going smooth, leave it alone.

Don't keep checking. So the first of the four miracle legs is the meditation where you're able to stop those five problems. Okay.

Second one is a kind of one-pointed meditation where you are extremely, you have extremely good effort. You're able to hang in there when things are tough and you break through obstacles in your meditation. You hang in there and you work hard.

It's hard work in meditation. That's the miracle leg number two. Okay.

Miracle leg number three. It's called, it's called three different names in scripture. I think only one of them is correct.

SEMS PA, which means to think. Okay. The definition of karma is SEMS PA.

SEMS PA YI GYI LAS YIN NO Mental karma is thinking. Okay. So SEMS PA means thinking.

SEMS means mind. SEMS PA means thinking. So the third miracle leg is called thinking.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
But it has a specific meaning and it means to build on your meditation ability each time you meditate. So based on the success you had last year at Diamond Mountain in your three-day retreat, you work again this year and you keep building, and your meditation gets better and better. You keep coming back to Diamond Mountain, you know, to see the Mr. and Mrs. Don, and your meditation gets stronger each time you come back. That's the meaning of number three. It's called, it's called thinking, but what it means is building on what you, on the meditation you did before.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And if you don't meditate regularly, it doesn't happen. But if you do meditate regularly, even though you may have bad days, it builds on each other. And a year later you're much better.

Okay, the fourth one is called meditation where you act correctly. Okay, it's called meditation where you act correctly. Act correctly means you can think about the emptiness of things correctly.

Okay. You start to analyze things. And that has eight qualities.

Okay. So when you explain the four legs, you have to talk about the five problems. We finished that already.

That was in the first leg. And when you get to the fourth leg, you have to talk about the eight good things that are triggers for giving up things. Okay, so now we got that.

That word was part of the name, right? Of the four. They were called miracle legs which help you to give up, which are triggers that help you to give up negative things.

Okay. So it comes in the fourth one. Okay.

That's why I was having trouble yesterday. All right. I found a lazy author who just gave it that long name.

I didn't know what the heck he's talking about. Now I found the Serenade Lama. He's from 1500s.

Okay. And he said... So he says, you want to know the eight?

Okay. He gives them. He's very thorough.

[Speaker 2]
You will recognize the first four.

[Speaker 1]
SDUG BSPA'I RTZO BA BDE PA BZHIN BYANG Anybody? Trigger anything for anybody? SDUG BSPA'I RTZO BA BDE PA BZHIN BYANG Those are the four antidotes to the first meditation problem.

They're famous. That's why there's more antidotes than problems in the study of meditation. If you took DCI level three, you should know this.

Right? Eight antidotes, five problems. Because there's three extra antidotes for the first one.

Okay. I like to call it the high school girlfriend. Okay.

In the discussion of the first meditation problem and the four antidotes to it, I like to talk about the high school girlfriend. Why? First one, DUN PA and I can remember this.

I can remember every day I had to leave one class. The school decided I could write the school constitution instead of going to class once, one class a day. So I would go to the cafeteria and write.

And then I'd always pass this classroom and there was a really pretty girl inside. I just like run into doors and stuff. So I was just thinking, you know, I'd like to take her out or something.

That's called DUN PA. That's the first meditation correction. What's the first meditation problem?

Yeah. No, it's not really laziness. It's...

Yeah, it's like, I don't feel like doing it today. I'll do it tomorrow. You can say the first meditation obstacle is I'll do it tomorrow.

For sure. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll start my diet tomorrow.

You know, for sure. I'll do yoga tomorrow. Today I'm just a little tired.

Okay? I just don't feel that good today. Okay?

So the first correction is to want it. You know? I want it.

It's like the girlfriend, you know? She's not the girlfriend right yet. She just look into the window and you're like, I want that.

You know? Okay? So think of that.

Or a boyfriend, okay? In high school. He's like, I want that.

That looks nice. One. The ability to meditate well.

That looks cool. I would like that. Okay?

It's like some kind of attraction. Okay? I want that.

Okay? That's number one. Then TSUL BA.

TSUL BA means move your ass. Do something. TSUL BA is similar to TSUN DRU.

Okay? Do something. In my case, I did the classic thing at Washington High School in Arizona.

You hang out near her locker. And then when she's coming around the corner you bump into her and drop her books. And then, you know, you pick up her books and then you talk to her.

You say, I'm so sorry. What's your name? Are you busy on Friday?

You know? Okay. SDUG PA TSUL BA Actually, he has them out of order.

I'm sorry. I have to change it. SDUG PA He has them out of order.

The first one is SDUG PA which is I like it. The second one is BSTAN PA which is faith. Which is, you know, I believe it will help me.

Okay? I believe in it. Okay?

BSTAN PA Shraddha. What do they call Guruji's nephew? Sharad.

It's a corruption of Shraddha. Jiva Mukti. Sri Patel rejoices.

The person in charge now, his name is corrupted from Shraddha. So, the second one is BSTAN PA which means you see the good qualities in it. You're always counting her good qualities.

So, SDUG PA means you like her. BSTAN PA SDUG PA It's totally out of order. I'm sorry.

BSTAN PA means it would... you have... you like it.

Faith. And you would... Sorry, can we start again?

BSTAN PA BSTAN PA SDUG PA TSUL BA BZHIN BYA He got them way out of order. Sorry. Okay.

BSTAN PA first. BSTAN PA means in meditation you understand the good qualities of meditation. You have faith that this can help me.

Okay? That's first. I'm sorry.

So, cancel everything. He's got them out of order. I apologize.

BSTAN PA is the first one. And that's where if somebody says what's cool about her you can make a list. Okay?

It's a... what kind of meditation? Shargo.

Shargo. Oh, you want to know what's cool? She looks nice.

She's got a good car. You know. Okay.

You can make a list. She had a good car. So, those are the...

You can make a list. That's first. Okay?

Sorry. Let's start again. BSTAN PA And it's called faith but it's not really faith.

It's just I can tell you five good things about meditation. Or I can tell you five cool things about this girl. Okay?

BSTAN PA SDUG PA means I would like to take her out. I want that. Okay, that's the second one.

He's got them out of order. BDE PA BSTAN PA Then TSUL BA Then drop her books. Do something.

Move. Okay? TSUL BA To get meditation.

Okay? And then SHIN BYANG is what? Yeah, SHIN BYANG means you got good at it.

You took her out three, four times. You know how to get her to kiss you. You know, it's all...

Everything's going good. So, SHIN BYANG means you get good at it. Because you do it a few times.

Okay? You did it enough times that you get good at it. SHIN BYANG is divided into two.

What are those? SHIN BYANG is divided into two. Physical and mental.

Okay? Your body gets used to meditation posture. And your mind gets used to meditating.

Okay? So, those are the first four of the eight. Got it?

You know these four because you studied DCI level... Three. Okay.

And those are all going to overcome your... Those four together fight LAY LO. And that's why there's eight antidotes and only five problems.

Because there's three extra in the first one. Okay? No problem?

Okay. Then he says CHEN PO. What's CHEN PO?

Recollection. ZHES BZHIN? No, he's got it reversed again.

I don't know why he's doing that. They should go ZHES BZHIN first and then CHEN PO. Okay?

What's ZHES BZHIN in meditation? It's the fire alarm. Do we have fire alarm?

It's the thing in your mind that goes beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Okay? When you're meditating.

And suddenly you realize your lama's face turned into hamburger. You know? You're meditating on lunch.

You're thinking about what you're going to have for lunch. And slowly, without noticing it, your sweet lama's face turned into a hamburger. And you've been meditating on a hamburger for like three minutes, four minutes.

And then part of your mind should go beep, beep, beep. And you're like, what's wrong? He said, did you look at what you're meditating on?

Oh, oh, it's a hamburger. Yeah. Then CHEN PO comes in.

It pulls your mind back to the lama's face. Okay? It says, forget the hamburger for a while.

Pull the lama back. Because that's CHEN PO. Okay?

Bringing the object back to the mind. Okay? Then he's got SEMS PA and he doesn't explain it.

SEMS PA means thinking. Probably it's continued thinking about the object. And then DANG NYON means attitude of equanimity about the object.

You know, you don't feel hatred and you don't feel desire. You enjoy it, but you don't, you wouldn't hurt someone to get it. Okay?

That's called equanimity. Okay. Those are the four miracle legs.

Okay? More than you wanted to know. But I like to be thorough.

Okay. And that's the only place you can get a good explanation of it. I didn't find anything else in all the Tibetan literature.

Oh, the last four. Now you're going to make me work. Recollection, watchfulness, thinking and equanimity.

Those eight together are the fourth leg. What thinking about he doesn't say. Nobody says.

Huh? DANG NYON If you're interested we could go into the word DANG NYON. There's three classic meanings.

Just briefly, although it's not the subject today, it can mean equanimity between hatred and desire. It can mean karma, which is neutral. And it can mean a kind of meditation.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Alright.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, here we go. We're back to the scripture. Why did we talk about all that?

We were talking about the first path. Why are we talking about that? We were talking about somebody on the first track.

Lowest motivation, lowest path. Minimum Buddhist. Okay?

Minimum Buddhist. So, according to that idea, what do you have to have to be a Buddhist? You have to be on the first path.

How do you get there? You have a personal disaster. Okay?

Your mom has to die on your arms. Your brother has to commit suicide. Something like that.

Okay? And I have a very interesting list of all my close friends. What was it that got them to Buddhism?

And it's kind of an unbelievable list. Okay. Yeah.

And we're talking about this because we're talking about taking refuge in the Sangha. Exactly. And this is the lowest of the five.

Yeah. And he's going to expand on it and tell you this is minimum Sangha. But look at all these other cool Sanghas.

Okay? They're good points. So now we know where we are.

He's talking about Sangha Jewel. Minimum person. What's the motivation of a listener chat?

Yeah, basically I just want to get to Nirvana. I don't really care about the whole world. I don't want to be unhappy.

Okay. DGRA BCOM PA THOB NA DGRA BCOM PA THOB NA But if that person achieves arhat, KYANG YON TAN RGYAL BYAS TE they get much more cool qualities. GZUGS MANG PO'I MYUNG BAR BYAS PA DANG They can take many outside objects.

Like I have here only five things to drink this morning. you can, an arhat can go like this and they all become a little drop in their palm. And they can drink it and they get five drinks.

Okay? They have this power to take multiple outside objects and turn it into one tiny thing. Like that.

BSAD PAR SA CHU ME RLUNG RNAMS SKYES MTHING DANG RDZIN GYIS SGO NAS CHU RGYUR MANG PO'I BRTAN PA Okay. This is another very, very difficult subject. I don't like it.

Because when I did my pre-geshe exam somebody asked me this question and I didn't know the answer. And it was very embarrassing. So I don't like this subject.

But just for you I went and boned up on it. there's called BSAD PAR GYI SKYE MCHED Say, BSAD PAR BSAD PAR GYI SKYE MCHED GYI SKYE MCHED The thing which triggers many things to the end. Okay?

It's a Buddhist concept. Okay? The thing which triggers many things to the end.

It's a Buddhist concept. There are ten different ones. For example the four primary colors which Adam can tell us easily because he translated it.

Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Okay.

Anyway. The four primary colors are four of them. The four main elements are four of them.

SA CHU ME RLUNG What's that? Earth. SA CHU Earth.

Water. Fire. Wind.

Okay? And then there's one called NAM KA Space. And I think there's consciousness.

So these ten. And what it refers to is the ability to change those things in an object. Okay?

So like if I have power over the earth element, I can make this metal melt just with my meditation. Okay? Or I can, if I have SRED PAR GYI MTHING YIN ZIN I can turn water solid and I can walk across a lake.

If I have that level of prayer or that level of concentration. So we believe what Jesus did is real. It's SRED PAR GYI MTHING YIN ZIN.

There's a word for it. He turned the water element into earth and he walked across a lake. Okay?

Or I saw it in some other movie. Hidden tiger. Crouching tiger.

Whatever. Somebody runs across a lake. Okay?

We believe it's real. We believe it's possible. If you have a high meditation, you can adjust the elements in an object.

Okay? Or colors. Which basically means you can make a cell phone turn into a watermelon.

Okay? Jigme, I need more watermelons. Where are you?

Okay, don't forget. You can turn things into other things. Okay?

That's... Now why is it called to the end? It means anything.

But it's a very confusing word in Buddhism. So anyway, it's a meditation that allows you to emanate objects. You know?

You can make an elephant appear in the room. real one. You can change water into solid.

You can run across it. Like that. Okay?

You can climb into the sky. Like that. Okay?

Why is he talking about all this? He wants to show how cool the Sangha is. How cool is the Sangha?

Okay. GON NAS THUG RGYUR MANG PO You can emanate anything you want. DUL BYA GANG YOD SAR ZHAG PA SOGS You can travel through the sky to teach students in different countries without an airplane.

Without United Airlines. I'm embarrassed to say my airline isn't United. But they already started acting better.

It was pretty bad. NYAN THOS DRA BCOM PA'I YON DANG YANG PHAG TU MED PA LTA BU YOD DE All these are good qualities of an arhat on the lower chart. On the lowest chart.

Listener chart. I think Shariputra was considered in Modgalyayana. They were considered lower arhats.

PHAG TU MED PA Good qualities. Inconceivable. BSTAN PA DE BYAS After the Lord Buddha passed, DGA' BA MUD TEG PA LTUL NAS ZHAG BSTUN KYI RING LA His student named Nanda, who we're going to hear from if you go to Indonesia.

So we have a program August 23-24 at a place called Borobudur in Indonesia. Basically it's a mountain that was carved into a mandala. A very high mountain.

The whole mountain was carved into a mandala. It has two and a half thousand panels about the size of this wall of the story of all the Buddha's deeds and all the Bodhisattva's deeds. We're going to go there August 23-24.

I'm going to teach some of the panels that relate to how the Wheel of Life was first painted. If you have time, talk to Jenny. You're welcome to come.

Anyway, that's just one story of how the Wheel of Life was painted and there are two other stories. This monk named Nanda was involved in the second story. The third story is about a very beautiful lady who complained about the lack of women's rights in Buddhism during the Buddha's time.

That led to the third painting of the Wheel of Life. So it's a beautiful story. Very powerful story.

But you have to come to Indonesia or you don't get to hear it. Okay. RGA'O MUD DE'I PA'A LTOS NAS So this, after the Buddha passed away, Nanda defeated some other scholars in debate.

He taught for seven days, shaktun. He got 80,000 people to see emptiness directly. In seven days of teaching he got 80,000 people saw emptiness directly.

And his lowest level, arhat. Got it? His lowest level arhat.

So, the Sangha must be pretty cool. That's the idea. He wants to say about that.

I like this story and I think we have time to tell it. No, we don't. We can cut yoga shorter.

Let's tell a story. What the heck. So, there was a...

I believe he's a Hinayana arhat named Upagupta. In Tibetan it's called Nyerbe. Okay, Upagupta.

He was teaching... Now, I'll teach you the lamrim version and then I'll teach you the real story. Okay, from the sutra.

So, here's the lamrim version. CHOS GSUNGS SKABS He was teaching dharma. DUS GDIGS STOGS CAN By the way, GDIGS STOGS is a very weird word that means evil.

So, there was an evil demon and he wanted to interrupt the teaching. So, he caused a rain of food. Like, I don't know, french fries.

And then people in the audience stopped listening and they started catching the french fries. Then when they got tired of that he started dropping money. And they were like, oh, oh, oh.

And they stopped listening to Upagupta. And then after a while people started to listen again. So, he emanated as a beautiful girl dancing.

And BAR PA'I MED DOG GI MTHIL BA Then he didn't like it. He got irritated with the demon. He was an Arya.

So, he took a flower garland and he put it over her head. And suddenly she looked very ugly. Like a demon or something.

She showed her true form. And then everyone started listening to the Dharma. Everyone started to listen.

They're just showing the power of even a Hinayana Arya. Now you want to hear the real story? So, it's in a sutra that Nick was teaching in Guadalajara, I think.

Which is called? Yeah, it's called The Sutra of Wise and the Fools. Some are wise men and some are fools, but I need a little something.

There's a song. It's called The Sutra of Stupid People and Smart People. DOG DANG LUNG Here it goes.

DBUG TU DGOS PA NI CHOS MIN RDOG PA'I BRAL BU THOB PO He achieved... Now they make it clear. He achieved non-returner.

Non-returner. Which means almost darhat. He doesn't have to come back to the desire realm.

DE NAS YA SHES KYI KHYEN DAG DE LA GZHON NUS LANG NAS RAB TU YONGO From a young age he left the home life. KHYIM BDAG GIS KYANG DE BZHIN DU BU NAS TSUL LA GANG DU CI DE And his parents gave him to the monastery. KHYIM CHUB PO PO He started taking layman's vows.

DE NAS BLO GNYIS ZHUGS SONG BA NA SONG BA NA When he reached 20 years old he was allowed to take vows. You're not allowed to take full vows until you're 20. GNYEN POR RDZOGS SO He took full vows.

GNYEN POR RDZOGS TE GSOS BA DANG ZHIG LAS KYI GNYEN POR RDZOGS PA DGRA BCOM PA RGYUR TO And then after that he became an arhat. RIG PA GSUM DANG SNGON PAR BSHAD PA GDUG DANG BSTAN TE He understood the three knowledges and the six kinds of clairvoyance. MA BA LA PO PA SEMS MI BSHAD PA RGYUR He became a consummate teacher.

Dharma teacher. NAS MI MANG PO'I DUS TE CHOS BSTAN PA BYAS And many people would come to his teachings. DE TZE'I DUG SDIG MTOGS CHEN GYIS KHOR MANG PO'I SNANG DU ZER GYI SRONG TSE SRONG TSE CHAR BZHIN DU PAS Then this demon got irritated that he was having such big classes and he dropped money on the audience.

CHOS NYAN DU MED PAR BYAS SO Everyone stopped listening and tried to grab the money. DE PHYI SNYING KHOR MANG PO'I DUS TE The next day he was teaching again. CHOS BSTAN PA BYAS LA He was teaching.

DUG SDIG MTOGS CHEN GYIS Then the demon dropped flower garlands from the sky. CHAR BPAS PAS KUN GYI SEMS GRUG SO Everyone got distracted by these beautiful flowers. DE MTSE DE MTSE PHYI NYIN KHOR MANG PO'I DUS TE SPYOD DANG PO'I SPYOD PA LAS Next day he was teaching again.

DUS KYI RGYAS POR RLAM PO'I PHYED DUS KYIS RGYAS POR RLAM PO'I PHYED LTUN BRTIM GANG THAG DAG NAS The demon emanated as the king of elephants in a dark blue color. SPYOD PAR GRUG With six tusks. SPYOD PAR RIGS LA LI ANG RIGS LA LI ANG RDZING BU RE RE He's so big that each tusk has a lake on the end of it.

A lake, a whole lake, on the end of the tusk. There's a whole garden. He's so huge that there's a garden on the end of the tusk.

And a lake. PHYIR LA'ANG ZING PO RE RE YOD PA ZING PO RE RE NANG DU MED DO DON DON Each lake has seven lotuses, huge lotuses growing in it. MED DO RE RE NANG NA GSHEL GYI PHUNG PO DON DON And each lotus has a woman made of crystal dancing.

Did I say one? Seven. Seven crystal ladies dancing in each flower on each lake on each tusk of this elephant.

That's more distracting. PHUNG PO DE DAG KYANG SO SOG NAS RUNG PO BYAS TE Each one was doing a beautiful dance. BLANG PO CHEN KHONG PA BRAL GYI KHOR And even the elephant was going like this.

MI LTAR ZIN PA LTAR BA'I DRANG LA MI DON DANG MI LTAR ZIN PA LTAR BA'I DRANG LA MI DON DANG Then everybody just wants to watch the elephant and the dancing. DON DANG DE'I PHYI NING KHOR NAM DU DE Then next day he was teaching again. BYAS PA LAS SDUG GI RGYAL PO NAS NA CHUNG SANG MO BZHIN TU TSE ZHING BSANG BA'I KHOR GYI NANG DU DBANG PO CHOS NAS Then the demon emanated one, a single very beautiful woman who walked through the teaching and distracted everybody, especially the boys.

CHOS BSTAN DO KHOR ZHIG GI NANG DU DBANG PO CHOS NAS MI KHON LA DE MIG MI RDZUN PA LTAR MIG MI RDZUN PA means they couldn't stop. They couldn't even blink. They are like that.

MI RDZUN PA LTAR CHOS GNYEN POR BYED DO They forgot to listen to the Dharma. DE MA BDAG DU Then Arya, he went like this or something, and she changed to her skeleton. Then everybody is like, Ewww.

Then they start to think about death and then they said, Please teach, please teach. Okay, end of story. That's the real story.

He showed her skeleton. He made her look at her skull. Everybody forgot how beautiful she was.

Okay, alright.