«Дар освобождения», курс 25 «Совершенное прибежище», занятие 9

[Speaker 1]
All right, we reached the part in the Lam Rim where they talk about special qualities of each of the jewels, three jewels. NYID PAR SKYES PA'I SHES PA'I SGO NAS BSGYAMS SU RDO BA This is part of your vow to take refuge by thinking about cool things about the three jewels. So here comes a list of six cool things.

There's many, but here's six. Number one, TSE NI LAS GYUR PA'I KHYAD PAR LA means cool things about the three jewels just by definition, by the qualities that they have. SANGS RGYAS NI SNGON PAR BYANG CHUB PA'I TSE NI BYAN YIN TE Buddhas, the coolest thing about them is that they're buddhas.

Okay, that's what he said, okay. PHYIR THAMS CAD KYI GNAS THUB GANG GI RGYAL MA BRDOD PAR BYAMS PA SRID PA They see the nature of all things directly. In Tibetan it's called BYAMS PA.

Who knows what BYAMS PA means? BYAMS PA means naked, like, okay, unclothed. Just they see reality, naked reality.

It's also used for uncooked vegetables. I don't know why. BYAMS PA SRID PA BYANG ZHES So the word in Tibetan for buddha is what?

Or one of them. IS SANGS RGYAS or BYAMS CHUB. Enlightenment is called BYAMS CHUB.

Then he wants to explain the word BYAMS, which is B-Y-A-N-G BYAMS. BYAMS ZHES PAR GANG DOD BYANG BA GANG DOD means when monks practice singing out loud the prayers that they're supposed to learn. And we spend, I don't know, an hour or two every day memorizing prayers. Like the prayer we used for the border prayer.

So that's one that my Lama made me memorize. Then it's nice because you have those prayers in your head all the time. And they're just repeating in your head all the time.

Like Maitreya or Manjushri is talking in your head all day long. So it's a nice custom to memorize things. In yoga, what's the word for memorize?

Svadhyaya. Yeah, it's in the first chapter and people mistranslate it as self-knowledge or something like that. The word doesn't have anything to do with that.

It means to GANG DON, which means memorize things. You can start with the six graces, the six food prayers. Those are very holy.

Some from Vajrayogini, some from Nagarjuna, some about Tsongkhapa. That's a nice thing. My Lama made me start with little prayers.

And then later he would throw a hundred pages at me and say, memorize that. But you can start with something. So you start with those prayers.

GANG DON BYANG BA LA BYANG BA'I THA GNAD So when you get really good at something, like, I don't know, I'm kind of like... Like, you just get used to it. It's called BYANG.

So BYANG means mastered. When the student can recite the prayer quickly, it's called BYANG. It's one meaning of BYANG.

BYANG BA'I THA GNAD RTOG PA THAR BYING PO'I GRUB PA LA DE LTAR BYOD And the Buddha's understanding is BYANG. So we call them BYANG CHUB. That's one explanation of BYANG.

So BYANG can mean well-practiced. And Buddha is well-practiced at seeing all great knowledges they have. Now Dharma.

CHOS MI SANGS RGYAS BYIN PA'I BRJES BU TSE NI CHEN TE This was one of the meditations you had. And almost the defining feature of the Dharma is that it's the footprint left by a Buddha in this world. The Dharma is the footprint left by a Buddha in this world.

BYIN PA'I BRJES BU means the fine fruits of their journey here. DE YANG SANGS RGYAS KYI BSTAN ZHING CHUNG KHOR KHOR BA NA For example, when the Buddha turned the wheel of the Dharma the first time, how many times did he turn the wheel? Yeah, three.

And those are really just three different periods in his lifetime that he was turning the wheel. And what's interesting is he contradicted himself each time. First time he said everything exists by itself.

Second time he said nothing exists by itself. Then somebody asked him, well, first you said everything exists by itself. Then you said nothing exists by itself.

What do you mean? Then he gave the third turning of the wheel, which is to explain what I really meant and what I didn't really mean. And he wrote a book called What I Really Meant.

It's called Sandhi Nirmochana Sutra. I think it's exciting that we're creating a team with Stanley and Nick for American and Chinese translators to work together and translate a very great commentary on that sutra by Master Yuan Tzu, who was a student of Xuanzang, who spent 17 years in India bringing the books back to China. So I think it's exciting that we have a plan to translate eight books of his work.

I think it's cool. The subject of that work is what did the Buddha really mean? Which of the three turning of the wheel was correct and which was not correct?

Why did he teach three different things? According to the students. If you're giving a talk to a bunch of business people, you can say nothing's really empty.

And then when you get to Diamond Mountain and you can say what you really want to say, you can say everything's empty. Then if somebody sees it on the internet, you have to fiddle between the two. CHUNG KHOR KHOR BA NA SNGA DE SANGS PA RGYUD LA MTHONG LAM SOGS SPYI RIGS PA SKYE BA BZHIN The first time the Buddha taught the Dharma in Sarnath, in the deer park.

We recently had a chance, some of our students had a chance to visit there. He had five students. Who were the five?

Yeah, the mommy tiger and the four cubs that he gave his body to in his previous life. When he gave them his body, he said, you're going to be my first students when I become Buddha. I often do it with McDonald's french fries.

I'll go outside with my french fries, which is the only thing I can eat at McDonald's. I'll throw it to the birds and I'll say, if you eat it, you're going to be my student when I become a Buddha. And then they're like, you know.

SPYI RIGS PA SKYE BA BZHIN, GNAS SKABS GZHAN DU ZHING YID DBANG DU SPYIR PO There was a certain presentation he made to those five, which was designed for them. The four truths presentation. Later he did presentations on the twelve links and then emptiness, two kinds of emptiness.

By the way, there's a famous description of how he repeated the four truths three times during the first teaching to those five people. Each of them had a different reaction. I thought you might like to hear it.

I went and got it from the Abhidharma. PHYIR BA MA BA'I LUNG DIR, DE'I SHING BLO BA LA BDE PA'I TSE When the Buddha repeated the four truths three times, KUN BYED GAL BDIG NYA So there's one student named GAL BDIG NYA.

[Speaker 2]
And you're going to meet him in the Kamalashila teaching.

[Speaker 1]
If I'm not mistaken, he was the guy cutting off the Buddha's fingers in his past nine. But we'll check. So GAL BDIG NYA is the smartest one of the five.

Maybe he's the mommy tiger. I don't know. GAL BDIG NYA MTHONG LAM The first time the Buddha taught the four truths, he achieved the direct perception of emptiness.

GZHAN ZHIG RGYUD LA BRJOR LAM And the other four got to the second path, which is called the path of preparation. They understood the pen. One guy saw emptiness directly.

Four people got the pen. Got it? BDE PA NYID PA'I TSE KUN ZHAL GAL BDIG NYA RGYUD LA BSGOM LAM The second time he repeated the four truths, GAL BDIG NYA reached the path of habituation, the fourth path.

BSGOM LAM DANG GZHAN ZHIG RGYUD LA MTHONG LAM SKYE And the other four had the direct perception of emptiness. So by the end of the second repetition of the four truths, all five had seen emptiness directly. Those were the good old days.

BDE PA GSUM PA'I TSE KUN ZHAL GAL BDIG NYA RGYUD LA MI LOGS LAM And on the third repetition, GAL BDIG NYA reached arhat, he reached the fifth path, which is the path of no more learning. And GZHAN ZHIG RGYUD LA BSGOM LAM And the other four reached the path of habituation, the fourth path. SKYE BAR BSDOD PA YOD CHOS SO LAS BYUNG BA MA ZAD Now let's go back to the Lam Rim.

We have three minutes. They always talk about the reaction of the five, and I always forget what it was. So now you can remind me.

RGYEN DU GYI CHUD DU SGRUB PA'I RTZEN NI BYAS NA What's the defining quality of the sangha? So far we have a person who knows all things, and then their footprint in the world is the dharma jewel. And then the people who practice that dharma jewel are called sangha jewel.

That's the definition of sangha. They practice the dharma jewel. That's their job.

BYIN LAS KYI BSKYED PAR NI Then there's a distinction of BYIN LAS. BYIN LAS we talked about the other day. It means the deeds of a Buddha, holy deeds.

SANGS RGYAS NI LUNG POG PAR BSTANG A Buddha's job is to teach. Why? Why do they have to teach?

We talked about it. It's some meditation we had, number two. That's the only way they can help us really.

They can't move seeds into our mind. They have to teach us and we have to make our own seeds. That's a canon of Buddhism.

That's a basic fact of Buddhism. You have to do the work yourself. Lama can teach you, then you have to do the work yourself.

Because you make karma by doing things and watching yourself do them. That's how you plant a seed. BRTZON NI SPANG BYA SPONG BA'I BSKYED PAR CAN The Buddha's job is to teach.

The Dharma's job is to help you get rid of problems that you have. SPONG BYA SPANG RGYEN DON NI CHOS NYAMS SU BLANGS I like this because he describes the job of the Sangha as CHOS NYAMS SU BLANGS PAS. It means they should set an example for other people.

That's the job of the Sangha. We spent a lot of time this year trying to figure out our teacher training program in Sedona. You're welcome to come by the way.

We have a three times a year DCI teacher training program. We're going to add an ACI teacher training program if anyone's interested. So we're waiting to ask people.

But I think what we've realized is that the best way to train someone to be a teacher is to convince them to be a good example for other people. It's not so much what you say. You can talk and talk and talk.

Any parent knows the kids won't follow what you say. The kids will copy exactly what you do. It's dismaying for people like me who teach for many years to see people follow exactly what we do instead of what we told them to do.

Then the teacher realizes, oh, I have to practice what I preach. I have to be a good example. The job of the Sangha is to be an example.

That's here. So that's DCI teacher training core principle. That the way to be a teacher is to be an example.

DCI teaches how to be successful. We advertise inner and outer success. Inside you're supposed to be clean and peaceful and well-mannered.

Then outside you're supposed to be financially independent and have good health and sweet relationships with people. So when people ask us, what's the most important thing I have to know to be a teacher? We say, be those things.

You're teaching a method of success. If you're not successful, it looks suspicious. Maybe the system doesn't work.

Or maybe you shouldn't be teaching because you haven't done it yet. DE BA THOB PA'I TSE GZHAN GYI DE MTHONG NA When other people see a person who has reached inner and outer success, here's where it comes from. DE LA SBYUG PA Then they will follow you.

They will copy you. If you got a very, very beautiful partner by visiting old ladies at the nursing home, maybe you went with the Singapore group, then obviously other people will try. Other people will copy you.

GZHAN GYI DE MTHONG NA DE LA SBYUG PA SONG SNYAM DU ROG BYED PA And in that way, you can really help people. ROG BYED PA means help people. LTAR RGYAL LA NGOS PAR MTOG BA'I DRIN LAS CHEN NO So really, he says, you can define the Sangha as people who enjoy doing nice things for other people.

RGYAL BA LAG GRO DRIN LAS That's what the Sangha's job is, is to do nice things for other people and set an example. That's all we have time for right now. How about a question when we start again?

We're a little bit tight today.