«Дар освобождения», курс 25 «Совершенное прибежище», занятие 17

[Speaker 1]
Meditation number 17 is ... the mind goes automatically to it, and part of taking refuge is to keep pictures and statues and books around your house, okay? I like Gyelse's house because it's a very Buddhist house, everywhere under everything there's some Buddhist thing, there's pictures everywhere, there's a Tsongkapa on the heater, little Tsong ...

if you look close you can see Tsongkapa, he's in the heater, you know, and I was like, hi, I can see you, you know, and so, you know, there's a part in the long rim that's ... you know, we're neo-Tsongkapians, we don't ... I mean, we'd rather go to a DCI event than go to a temple and wave incense, right?

But, it's a very good custom to keep lots of Buddhas in your house, okay? So, Mr. Wu, there's no room to sit in his house because there's all Buddhas, you know, and that's a good habit, okay? Jewish people have a custom to put a special thing at the door, right?

What's it called? I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Huh? Mizuta? Mizuta?

Mizuta. Mezuta.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, they have this thing, and I decided I want a Buddhist one, so I got a little Buddha from Sarnath, where Buddha first taught. You gave it to me, or no? Candy gave it, no?

Xiaoping? You gave me in Varanasi a little Buddha, who gave it to me? From where Buddha first taught.

Then I carved a hole near my door and I glued it in there, you know? So, every time I come and go I have to see this Buddha's looking at me, you know? In the long rim it says that's a very good custom, okay?

Why? When you have trouble you will think about Buddhas, okay? So, generally it's important ...

Jewish people have another good custom, you're not allowed to make a statue of God, right? Like, in their temple there's no images, because they say it's impossible to make a picture of a holy being, not possible. So, you're not allowed to try, but ...

and I used to think, you know, I don't need all these Buddhas around, you know, I just have to clean them, right? So, I'm like, I don't need them ... I used to have them, they got dusty, my Lama said clean them, I said I don't want to.

Then, you know, I decided I just won't have any, you know? But, what the long rim says about refuge, it's part of refuge to keep Buddhas in your house, okay? It could be Tara, it could be Chinggang Yudjomol, it could be anything, okay?

But just keep them where you have to see them. I put one on the refrigerator because that's my real altar, you know, I'm always going there for refuge, and ... you know, so I put one of those magnetic one on the refrigerator, it's always looking at me, okay?

So, it's a custom. So, the idea is, and if you have books all over your house, Buddhist books, you know, it's a tradition to keep some above your head where you walk into your house, on the inside, above the door, and there's a custom to keep them above your head where you sleep, okay? And it's a custom not to keep them where your feet are pointing on your bed, okay?

So, not at the end of your bed. No books or Buddha pictures where the feet of your ... when you sleep, your feet are facing them.

Put them on the other side, near your head, and maybe someplace where you can see them when you fall asleep, right? So, I have some images, you know, in my bedroom, and there ... I have Choney Lama's collected works above my head, I figured that's the best thing, and then I have all the Buddhists around that, and Tsongkapa is right there, okay?

So, it's part of going for refuge, to keep images around you all the time, because when you die it will stay in your mind, okay? It will stay in your mind. When you get in a car accident, when you get cancer, when you're lying on the bed in the hospital the last time, your mind will go to that, you see?

Your mind will go to what you saw your whole life, okay? So, keep lots of things around. It's not Buddhist home decorating, okay?

And it's not a competition. My Buddha is more valuable than your Buddha, you know? Mine is silver, mine is gold, yours is just wood, you know?

It's not like that, okay? But keep them around. We have a nice image of my teacher there, Anton from Moscow helped us to make it, and so it's nice to have your teacher's face around.

There's a Tsongkapa over here, and there's a Tsongkapa here, and some of my teachers are here. So, keep images around, keep books around, little stupas, okay? The pictures represent Buddha, the books represent Dharma.

Sorry, the stupas are Buddha mind, body, mind, and speech. In Tibet language, we don't say altar, we say the place where Buddha's body, speech, and mind live, okay? So, body is image, speech is you keep a book there like Ching Gang Jing, and in mind is you keep a small stupa there, and then that's a good altar.

It has three things, body, speech, and mind, okay? So, during this meditation, you can just think about part of retreat is to make plans for after you get home, okay? Part of the experience of retreat is to make plans for when you get out of retreat, okay?

So, when I do retreats I keep a journal, I always bring an empty journal, and maybe in the evening I sit down with my hot chocolate and I write ... if I have good ideas, you know, like oh, I need a Buddha over my ... my front door, or something like that, then I make a note, because I will forget when I get on the airplane, you know, I'll forget everything.

So, keep a journal. You shouldn't talk during these retreats, any retreat, you shouldn't talk, even if you're staying with other people, try not to talk. If someone talks to you, just go like this, okay?

Don't talk back, alright? And ... it helps the retreat.

I did, I don't know, many many many one-month retreats during my business career, and ... the first time I felt a little bit nervous, I thought, oh, I will ... my business will get worse, you know?

If I go away for one month, then my business will get worse, you know? I was worried about it, and I waited for a long time, then I finally I did my first retreat in a bedroom next to my Lama's bedroom, and I stayed in the bedroom for one month, and some other monk brought me food and stuff like that. Then, when I came out I had all these ideas about ACIP, to create ACIP, to save all the books, and now it's 31 years, right?

So, you don't waste your time in retreat, okay? It feels like you are gonna get behind in your work, all the other people will get the good position, and your work will be worse, or something like that, but what I learned was all my cool ideas came during LERU, during retreat, one-month retreat. So, I encourage you to do it, and bring a journal with you when you do this retreat, okay?

Don't forget, okay?