«Дар освобождения», курс 26 «Реальность кармы», занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, DANG PO LA LAS NGES PA'I TSUL Say LAS NGES PA LAS NGES PA LAS NGES PA means karma is fixed. And you'll see why. The second law of karma is called LAS PHAL CHE BA.

Say LAS PHAL CHE BA Third law of karma, LAS MA BYAS PA DANG MI BYAS PA Fourth law of karma, LAS BYAS PA ZHUS MI ZA BA Okay, good. Okay, so first he gives them four names. First one is karma is fixed.

If you do something good, you get something good. If you do something bad, you get something bad. LAS PHAL CHE BA means karma results multiply.

Third law, LAS MA BYAS PA DANG MI BYAS PA means if you don't do anything, nothing is going to happen to you. And the fourth one is called, okay, I have to pay how much? I have an emergency text.

I'm sorry, hang on. Jigme.

[Speaker 2]
Where's Jigme?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, fourth one, LAS BYAS PA ZHUS MI ZA BA means if you make a karma, it will never just go away. It will always have a result. So those of you who are teaching DCI, now you can appreciate more the real meaning.

And we'll do it slowly. BYAMS DANG DE'I KYIS LAS KYIS TSUL SHES GSUNGS PA Who taught these four laws of karma? Starts with BU and ends with DA.

Buddha. Taught by Buddha. DE DAG YIN PA'I GNAS BZHIN DU CHE LA So they are extremely important for Buddhist people.

DE DANG PO LAS NGES PA NI So the first law of karma, that karma is fixed. DUL BA LUNGS LAS DUL BA means elephant. Vinaya.

Who are you? Oh, she's back there. Okay.

Vinaya. Vinaya means it's one of the five great subjects of Buddhism. And it means ethical life, living ethical life.

Then he quotes Buddha's book about ethical life. KHYIN DRAG BA'I LAS BYAS PA BRAL BUR LDAN DAG SBYUNG BAR GYUR Whatever is the type of action you do, the result that you get will be of the same type. BSHES GSUNGS PA LTAR RGYUD DGE BA BYAS PAS If you do a nice thing for other people, BRAL BUR LDAN DAG SBYUNG BAR GYUR BRAL BU DE BA KHO NA you can only get a good result.

Happiness. LAS This LAS is disjunctive, but SDUG BSNGAL MI SBYUNG means it cannot come. Suffering cannot come.

RGYUD MI DGE BA BYAS PAS BRAL BU And the result of hurting other people, SDUG BSNGAL KHO NA only is suffering for you. This is called definite. Then there's lots of questions about it.

We'll talk about... By the way, today I'll take questions later on in the class. Somebody in China was having trouble with his mother-in-law.

It's very unusual. So he decided to make friends with her. So he bought her a shower mat in the shower with flowers on it.

Then the first time she used it, she fell down. Then the guy asked me, so that broke the first law of karma, right? I did a nice thing for my mother-in-law.

Now she hates me more. So we have to talk about it. DPER NA SA BON ROD TZA BA LAS BRAL BU SOGS ROD TZA BA If you plant a seed of a hot chili, like something hot, ROD TZA BA, then what comes out of that seed will always be hot.

DE BZHIN DU GAL BA LAS GAL BA GAL BA means a bitter taste. If you plant a seed from something with a bitter taste, it will always have a bitter taste. SNGAR BA LAS SNGAR BA SNGAR BA means sweet taste.

How do you ask for churro in Tibetan? KHAB TSE SNGAR MO You can ask for KHAB TSE, sweet. CHURRO Like that.

Okay. GNAS PA It's definite. Therefore, the time to be careful is in the time of the cause, and don't be careful in the time of the result.

You see? So you have to pay attention while you're planting causes. When you get the result, you don't have to think so much.

GZHAN THAG MED RANG RES NA TSA SOGS RGA SHIG LA RIM BDOD MI PHAN PA YANG RGYUN DU'I SO SOR SONG BA STE RANG RES NA TSA SOGS RGA SHIG LA RIM BDOD MI PHAN PA Some of us, we get some kind of sickness, and no matter how much treatment we get, it doesn't help. So you have to understand that causes and effects go in separate chains. Cause, cause, result, result.

Cause, result, cause, result. They never mix like this. SA BON SRID PEN LTA BU Those of you who are interested, SRID PEN The Tibetans pronounce it SRID PEN.

It means a hot chili. SRID PEN LTA BU GANG PHYIR BA ZHIG BTAB NAS SKAD ZIN NA Once you have planted chili, DE SNGAR MO'ONG THABS KYIS YAS YIN DU GUNG DRUL GANG BU SOGS THABS KYANG Then you've already planted a chili, but you don't want a chili, so around the chili you plant grapes and peaches. But that won't make the chili sweet.

So we feel like, okay, I hurt somebody, I hurt two or three people, but that was when I was young. And since then I'm just planting grapes and peaches. But he said it's not going to make the old seed sweet.

So each seed has its own result. Each seed is connected to its own result in the future, and they never cross. And you think you're being a good person, but you have some chili seeds there also.

So you have to think that those cause, connection to result, never criss-cross. It's always this one, this one, this one, this one. DE NA RGYUD DON DRA ZHIG SAGS NA BRAS BU DE LTA BU ZHIG BYUNG BA'I LAS BRAS NI BZHIN DU BRTAG BA YIN So karma, it's difficult to see emptiness, right?

But in Buddhism we say it's more difficult to see how karma works. Okay, that's more deep. The subtle details.

So he says, according to what kind of causes you make, you will have that kind of result. DE YANG NGON SRED DANG LDAN PA NYEN PA SANGS RDEN GYI LUS MI SDUG PA DANG SKAD BZHIN DU NYEN PA BYUNG BA GNYIS KA Then there was a... he gives the example of a monk in the time of the Buddha.

He had a very beautiful voice, and he was very ugly. Sometimes you see beautiful people in Hollywood who cannot sing. La La Land.

The guy can't sing, I'm sorry. Then you see the opposite. Sometimes an ugly guy has a nice voice.

Then NGON RGYAL PO ZHIG GI CHOS BSTAN PO GCIG GZHANG Why did he have an ugly body and a beautiful voice? In ancient times, there was a king building a temple. DE LAS BYAS PA'I LA'I MI BRAL ZHIG BSKYED TE And he was born among the people who were hired to work on the temple.

CHOS BSTAN PO'I MCHED CHE BA'I KHOS CHOS BSTAN PO BSTAN PAR GSOS NAS CI BYAS Then he was complaining, it's okay if the king makes a temple, but why does it have to be so goddamn big? He said something bad about the temple. TSAR DU MI'ONG ZHES NGAN MED BYAS PA DANG Then he said, we'll never finish this temple.

RJES SU CHOS BSTAN ZIN PA NA SNGAR MED PA DE SNONG BZHAG SU CHOS BSTAN LA Then later, after the temple was finished, he went into the temple with his teacher and he confessed, I had a bad attitude about this temple. But now it's finished, it looks really beautiful. It's like, why do we have to work on this retreat?

And then after the retreat, you're like, oh, that was really nice. Then ZHAG SU CHOS BSTAN LA BRAL BU BU As confession, he offered a bell to the bell tower of the temple. BRAL BUR GSUNGS PA'I RAB This is an example that the Buddha gave for someone who had a mixed karma.

He was complaining and he said bad things, so he got an ugly body. But then he offered a bell and he got a beautiful voice. YANG SBYOR BYED BU DU PHAD KHAB Then the person who helped bring Buddhism to Tibet is named Atisha.

SBYOR BA ZIG SAR YANG SNANG MED KYIS Then, at that time, the Tibetan people didn't know about Buddhism because he didn't teach them yet. So then people used to do small bad deeds around him like by accident. They didn't understand what's correct around the teacher.

And they didn't understand that they were doing anything wrong. Then finally he couldn't teach them and they didn't understand it. There's a funny story, okay?

I told you this story, but I'll tell you again. So he came from India to teach the Tibetans. He only brought one assistant with him.

[Speaker 2]
Then this attendant was really...

[Speaker 1]
I'm not supposed to use bad words in the class. Really stupid guy, irritating guy. And he irritates everybody.

Then the Tibetans asked Atisha, you are the most famous guru in India. Then you have hundreds of attendants. Why you bring this stupid one?

Then he said, he helps me because my patience is not so strong. So every day he's testing me. He's very precious for me because he irritates me so much.

I can learn about patience. Then one day they went on a long... they have to walk and ride horses throughout Tibet.

Atisha got a small pebble in his shoe. At that time he was just learning Tibetan language. He didn't know how to speak Tibetan.

Then he said, I have to stop. And all the Tibetans said, why? He said, I got a boulder in my shoe He used the wrong word.

He used the word for a big boulder. Pabong. Pabong.

Then all the Tibetans started laughing. Then he got a little bit... excuse me, but he got pissed off at them.

He's like, okay, now I can send my attendant back to India. Understand? Okay, anyway.

So the Tibetans were always... they didn't know how to act towards a Buddhist teacher. Then they just walk around like everything's okay.

Then he told one of them, THUG GIS MA SOS means he couldn't stand it anymore. And to one old monk he said, PA LA PA LA NYIN GANG PHYIR MI RUNG Don't be so confident. LAS DE LTAR LAS DE BSAD Karma is subtle.

Karma is deep. So it means the Tibetans around him were making lots of small mistakes. But they just act normal.

They don't know what they're doing. Then he says, don't be so sure of yourself. There's a picture.

Do you have that? It's picture number six. You're going to have some meditations.

No. It's a guy who looks very confident. Yeah.

So he looks like a normal guy, right? And we don't think he's a bad person. But if he understood karma, he would be like this.

Okay? It just means like that. We are like this, right?

We're like, I'm not such a bad person. I make small mistakes, but I didn't kill anybody today. So this is a meditation that we will do together.

If you really understood karma, you would be nervous. Not like... Okay.

DNGOS RGYAS RLONG ZHIG GI RGYEN DONG GYI GZONG LDAN LA SHAGS PO BHOB TSE BYAS MA MI DGE'O PA NA PO CHEN So one monk, when they... we have like 2,000 monks in the assembly, right? If everybody brought their own cushion, it's a waste of time.

And to find your cushion would be really impossible. So we have a ZOG LDAN. ZOG LDAN means we sew a long cushion.

It goes from there to there. Work cushion. And then you get a space on the cushion.

And you eat your meals there sometimes. And he spilled some grease on the cushion. And then later he got these black stripes on his back.

YANG RGYEN RLONG ZHIG GI SPYOD DGOS BSTAN TSOS SO BA One monk was dyeing his robes purple color. So in Tibet, you buy some white cloth and then you make it purple color. And he put the robes in a big pot outside on a fire and he was making them purple.

Then a bunch of guys ran up and the police are with them. And the guy says, I think it was him. And the police said, let's check.

And they take a stick and they reach in the water and a piece of cow comes out. He's cooking cow. And they say, he stole my cow.

And he's cooking my cow. Then they beat him. This is a famous story in Tibet.

He wasn't cooking a cow, he was boiling his robes. It wasn't a cow when he put it in the water. And then when they checked, it was a cow.

And it's because he stole a cow in his past life. So, if even cloth can change to cow because of your karma, then if people, if you try to do something nice for somebody or people misunderstand you, you shouldn't be surprised. They don't see you the way you see you because of things you did in the past.

So, it happens many times in our life. We do something neutral or we do something nice and then a lot of people misunderstand us. And they see something different.

They see a cow. And it's a real cow. So, karma is that strong.

How people see you comes from what you did in the past. The reality will change because of your seeds. Very interesting.

,'BYUD KUS PA'I KHAR NGAN CHUNG NAS, ,LTA BAR THUGS KYI YON TSUN DU, ,DUG DGOS They put him in the jail for six months. ,DAN NGON RANG RGYAL, ,SNYAD MED CIG LA, ,BYUD KUN KHAR BSKYAL NAS, ,NYING SHA THUGS KYI RING YUL DE, ,RGYAL PO MTHUN GANG DU, ,CHUG PA'I PHRAD PA GSUM PA DANG, And there's another story of an arhat who had stolen a calf earlier. And he was put in the jail for six days.

So, we'll be doing a meditation called Boiling Robes. And it means if you have the karma, even if you do good things, people will see you as doing something bad because of your past karma. What happens from the new karma?

Next time you steal a cow, they think you are boiling your robes. No problem. ,GNYEN YOD NA There was a city called GNYEN YOD.

Why is this city famous?

[Speaker 2]
The Sanskrit root for GNYEN is shru.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Shravasti. This is where the Buddha taught the Diamond Cutter Sutra. ,LON PO RI DAG ZIN GYI, ,MA SA GA LA BU SKAD GYI, ,RIG GSUM GYI RTZA NYID YOD PA, There was a there was a noble man.

His name is Mergada. He had a relative named Vishaka. And she had given birth to 32 children.

Healthy, very healthy children. Then there was a king named Prasenajit. His ministers caused some trouble.

,RGYAL PO BU DE THAMS CAD ZAD DE, And because of that, the king killed the 32 children. Then he took their heads and offered them to the mother to hurt her. And this had to do with something that the 32 children had done in the past life.

And they had stolen, 32 of them together had stolen a cow and killed it. ,RANG GZOD SKABS KYI GNAS TZAM KHYIM LTA MO DE, ,SA GA MA RANG NYID DE RAB GYAS SU MER, Then at the time she was the wife of a bed and breakfast owner. And she did something to encourage them.

So, that's his stories, that's his way of teaching the first law of karma. What you do comes back to you, and it's always the same. So in DCI we talk a lot about people who pay money to come to DCI, they are nice people.

Bad people don't pay money to come and hear pen. So all the people in the DCI most of them who come to hear DCI, they're nice people. And they're spiritual people.

And they try to do good things for other people. Then they try, for example, to help somebody, then something bad happens. So in this system you have to understand that comes from something you did before.

No connection to doing good things. I think in my life when I try to do something good and then there's a very bad result, I feel like I don't want to try anymore to do good things. And you have to understand good makes good and bad makes bad.

And if you try to do something good for somebody and something bad happens, you shouldn't believe it came from doing something good. And you should never get discouraged. You try to do a retreat and something goes wrong.

Don't get discouraged. Try to understand where it really comes from. Okay, now he's going to talk about karma multiplying.

The law of karma number two. NYID PA LAS PHAL MTHIL BA NI Now, how karma expands PHYI RGYUN DRE LAS NANG GI RGYUN DRE PHAL BYED There is a way that results grow from seeds in the outside world, in nature. And there's a way that results grow from seeds inside your mind.

PHAL BYED So, he says the inner ones multiply more. So, he's explaining the Tibetan here. He says multiply more.

That's the name of the second law. The second law is multiply more. But the way he's explaining it is inside causes make more results than outside causes make results.

GANG PO'I ZLA BU'I TSUL KUR CHUNG NGO GCIG LAS ZHING SDONG CHEN PO If you take the pit from inside of a peach and you plant it, it will make a big tree. We talk about it in DCI a lot. In America, in North America, there's an acorn.

It weighs five grams. The result is five tons, five thousand pounds, three thousand kilos. My Lama, when he taught this, he was eating a peach in New Jersey.

It used to snow then. There's no global warming, but it used to snow then. It doesn't snow now.

Understand? Anyway, he went outside and he planted the pit. That day he planted the pit.

If you go to see our temple now, it's a pretty big tree in front of the kitchen door. He planted it. You can go see it.

BLO LTAR ZHING BLO BRAS BU RGYA STONG TZAM CHUNG BA ZHING PHAL CHEN PO YON NA DE LAS KYANG SNANG GI RGYUN RAS PHAL BYED PAS Each tree makes many seeds. From the trunk of the tree comes branches, from the branches come leaves, from the leaves come flowers, from the flowers comes fruit. BYUNG PA'I DE NYA'I GRO DA'I GRONG KHYER DU PHAD PA'I TSE Then Lord Buddha went to a special city.

The name of the city is NYA'I GRO DA. NYA'I GRO DA is a special tree also. This is a eucalyptus, I think.

But NYA'I GRO DA it grows like that and then it plants itself again and then it grows like that and plants itself again. It can go many miles. It's a very cool tree.

Then there was a woman there who offered him, probably it was a churro, I don't know. They call it LAD DUS. LAD DUS means sweet pastry in Tibetan.

GANG PHU BA'I gave him a handful of those sweets. PHU MA'I DE MA'ONG PA NA RANG SANGS RGYAS LEGS MUN SHES SKYE BAR LUNG BSTAN Then Buddha said, you will be an arhat later. And the name of the arhat will be Supramihita.

Supramihita, yeah. Then her husband got upset. He said, Buddha will say anything for a few churros.

BRDZUN MI STON PAR ZHU ZHES KUR BA LTA PA Then he criticized the Buddha. He said, you shouldn't lie just to get a few churros. Then the Buddha took him to the Nyagrodha tree.

How big is the seed for this tree? And the husband said, it's the size of a ... YUNG BAR means mustard.

Then he said, how big is the tree now? By the way, this is where the DCI five ton thing comes from. This sentence.

Then the husband said, recently we parked five hundred wagons under this tree and the wheels didn't touch. And Buddha said, inside the mind the seed is stronger than that, more powerful. Then the husband said, okay, now I believe you.

YANG RGYAS RUNG ZHIG GIS GZHAN LA KHYOD KYIS YANG NI KHYIS GSOS PA DANG BRAL ZER BA DANG BRAL PA DANG BRAL ZER BA DANG RGYUD DANG BRAL ZER BA TZAM GYIS YANG RGYAS RUNG ZHIG NGAN BYAS DANG MED PA DANG BRTZON PAR Then there was one monk who criticized another monk. When you sing a song, it sounds like somebody stabbed a dog with a knife. But not all the time.

Sometimes you sound like a frog. But not all the time. Sometimes it's just like a monkey screeching.

Then after the monk died, he had three rebirths as a dog, as a frog, and as a monkey. And the point of that is very famous in Buddhism. It's not unusual during the day that we will say a small bad thing to people five or six times.

And each time you slip and say a small thing, it can create a whole rebirth. 70 years, 80 years. From one small slip.

SNGAR RGYA NA LTOS CI GYI DANG TZAM GYI SKHAS PA RNAMS SBRUL RANG BRAL BA ZHES PA SBRUL PA'I RTEN CHOS In China, he mentions in China, somebody wrote a book called Book of People Who Are Like Snakes. In the book, he criticized other Buddhist masters of his time. He said they are all like snakes.

TZAM PA'I RTZON PO PO RANG NYID RNAMS SHIG LUS LA SNA TZAD MED PA BYUNG NA Then later he got some kind of strange disease, the author. And the skin started to grow between his arms and his body. And his head started to look like a snake.

MTHU'I SGO MTHUNG PO TSE GYIS GNYIS LA MTHU'I MNGUS SU GYUR PA DANG And then the lama said, I have seen a person become a snake in one lifetime, without dying. He wasn't reborn. Voldemort.

Don't say his name. NGON RGYA RGA NAS NYA BA SNGABS SKYES NYA CHEN PO'I SGO CHOG SKYES YOD PA ZHING BRTA BA'I SEMS PA We talked about this story before in India. Some fishermen were fishing and they caught a big fish like a whale.

And 500 of them have to work to pull in the net. And the whale had 18 heads. This is a very famous story.

SANGS RGYAS KYI MTHONG MNGON SHES BU ZER KYA GYUR PA NA Then the Buddha came to the beach and people asked him, what was his karma? What was the karma of this fish? And they don't tell the whole story here.

I told you the story about five years ago. So, I don't have to tell the whole story again. But briefly, Buddha says, you don't have to ask me what he did.

Then he did some kind of magic and then the whale can talk. AA MED KUL TE RGYEN DANG LA KHYAD NI KHYI DANG RANG Then his mother was, in his past life, his mother was not a nice person. And she encouraged him to tell certain monks that they were like dogs.

And then because of that he was born into this body. CHOM LDAN DE LA LAS KYI GYUR BA LUNG LTUNG PA'I PHYIR BYUNG PA NA Then Buddha, when he heard the fish was on the beach, he decided to go to the beach because he saw that he could tell the fish to tell his story. Then he was criticized for going to the beach because they said he just wants to see something strange.

He's wasting his time. So NGAR SBYOR CHUG SKABS RGYAS PAR ZHUS ZIN PA LTAR I told you back when we were learning the preliminary practices. DE DAG KYANG TSIG BSNGAL PA CHUNG ZAD MED PAR LAS GZHAN MI ZAD MI ZAD LTA RGYAL LTA BU GANG YANG MA BYAS There's an expression in Tibet.

It's called MI ZAD LTA RGYAL Say MI ZAD LTA RGYAL Shoot the rider with an arrow and then drag the horse down. It means really hurt somebody. Like shoot somebody ten times with a gun, something like that.

Then he says, look, nobody in this room is going to go shoot somebody with a gun. But we say small criticizing words to people. Like, that was really stupid.

It just takes a few seconds to say it. MI ZAD The tongue is soft and bone does lack, but a stroke therewith can break a man's back. Okay, that's Benjamin Franklin.

I'm sorry. The tongue is very soft and it's not like a stick, but still it can break a person's heart. With this soft thing here.

Anyway, he said the same thing. It's not like you're killing them. You just say a small thing.

But it really hurts them. GZHAN YANG RGYAS RLONG MA UD PA LAS BDOG CHEN ZHES PA SNGAGS RTAG MA CHUNG KHOR MDUG BU'I PHYIR CHUNG NI GYIS BSKYED PA CIG GCOD KHYER Then this story I told you when I taught you Kamalashila, I think. It's a long tragic tale about a woman who was ...

her husband forced her to eat her baby. And that was the beginning of her troubles. Then her story is unbelievable.

And then she had two children. One of them was ... after that she had two children.

One of them was carried away by a flood. One was eaten by a wolf. One was ...

sorry, her husband was killed by a snake. And her mother and father died in a fire. YANG KUN DU RGYUD CHIG GI CHUNG MA BYAS TE Then later she married a sadhu, one of those wandering yogis.

BU GCIG BSKYED PA'I SKABS GAL KHYIM THAG DE GZHAN ZHIG NAS BYANG GI GNYUD TE DBANG DE BUS TE DE DE SHA MA LA SAR BCUG Then the husband ... they had a baby and the husband went and went to a drinking party with his friends. And he got drunk.

DBONGS PAS BU DE ZAD NAS And when he came back he killed the child and he forced his wife to eat the flesh. Then she went crazy and she ran away. KHYIM THAG GZHAN ZHIG GI CHUNG MA ZHI BA DANG THUGS TE YANG KHYIM THAG TE CHUNG MA BYAS Later she recovered.

She met a rich man whose wife had just died and he agreed to marry her. DER YANG GAL ZHIG DE YUL CHUD KYIS KHYIM THAG GI RO DANG NYAM BUR DUR DU BAS In that time in India it was a custom to kill the wife when the husband is buried. And they still do it sometimes.

When they burn the husband they will put the wife on the fire. A lot. So she was buried with her husband.

Then one guy came to steal the jewelry from the husband and he found the wife in the box. And he took her away and forced her to marry him. This is her story.

YANG BYAS DE KUN PUN GYUR DE RGYAL BU ZAD NAS And then one day the grave robber was caught by the king and killed. Then they tried to bury her a second time. CHUNG BA YANG BUG PA LAS BDOG SEMS NGON MAR RGYAL PO ZHIG GI TSU MO CHEN MOR GYUR PAS SKABS And all of this was because of her own karma.

In a former life she was the what do you call it? Main queen of a king who had many wives. And she was jealous of one of the younger wives.

And so she made up some stories about the younger wife. And all of this was a result of what she did. It was actually, I think she murdered the younger wife's child.

By the way, the end of her story which they don't talk about is she became completely insane. And then she met the Buddha. And he spent many years to cure her, to heal her.

And later she became an arhat. In the same life. She became a nun and she became an arhat.

So that's a really nice story actually. I would like to stop there and do a small meditation. And then we will take a break.

So let's do a meditation. Tim, can you put up image number two? And it's a husband doing what every husband should do.

He's not only washing the dishes, he's smiling. This picture, when you get your reading tonight or tomorrow or some other century, I want you to remember the pictures, okay? The war picture is easy.

That was the first one. You're going to remember Syria. And there was a woman thinking, right?

About her seeds. And then there was a boy holding the father. It means the boy is learning karma, which is the real protection.

Now this is the second meditation. You have thirty, okay? This is the second one.

What's the story of this picture? Can you guess from this morning? Huh?

Yeah, small ... well, yeah, that, but also the Pabongka Rinpoche said it's not enough to be an expert in the Buddhist books. It's not enough to be a three-year retreater.

It's not enough to talk about emptiness all day. You also need to do nice things for other people. Sometimes it's very irritating to be around Buddhist people.

In my Lama's house, every two weeks he will invite all of his students to come for dinner for sechu, right? And me and the other attendant, the young Tibetan guy, we hate sechu. All the Buddhist students will come.

They will eat for like three hours. Then they all say, I'm busy, I can't help to wash the dishes, I have to go. And sometimes we don't finish cleaning until two in the morning or something.

And I did that for twenty-five years. And I got so tired of Buddhist people. They talk about emptiness during the whole dinner.

They can describe all the strange ideas about emptiness, but they don't know how to wash the dishes. So what he said, if you understand karma, you have to do something. It's not enough just to study all the time.

I was in Shanghai. I think her name is Tina Lu. We were having a debrief in the pizza parlor.

And she said, oh Geshe-la, I came to an ACI retreat. And I almost became Dharma junkie. I said, what's Dharma junkie?

She said, you know, have to come to retreat, have to come to retreat, have to come to all the teaching. But forgot how to wash the dishes. So, we're going to meditate.

Think about it. What's your practice? Study Buddhism.

Do your yoga. Do your meditation. And help people.

Wash the dishes once in a while. So, we're going to do a meditation. And in the last two, three days, what practical things did you help with?

Did you help clean up? We just left a big mess in the music room. That was pretty epic.

Then the Buddhist teacher has to go quickly to the class. I don't know who's going to wash it. Somebody has to wash the dishes probably when they get home tonight.

So anyway, I'd like to ... we'll start a meditation and then I'll lead you through it. It's just five minutes.

Then we'll take a pee-pee break. And I want you to think about am I helpful? I'm knowledgeable.

I'm doing my practice, but am I helpful? Because the lama in the book said if you really understand karma, then you should be helpful. Dishes and cleaning, all the dirty work for a retreat.

She's going to need help starting with now. She's preparing a fire offering. Two?

Two or one? Two. Two fire offerings.

It's a lot of work. It's fun to throw in the stuff, but it takes many days to prepare. So you have to think about it.

If you really understand Buddhism, then you understand karma. If you understand karma, then part of your life is to serve other people, help other ... just help with the small things.

And a person who says they're a great yogi or they're a great meditator, but they don't know how to wash a dish is suspicious. My lama forced me to wash the dishes. I washed all the dishes for eight years.

Sometimes two or three hundred people will come. My secret initiation was a dish initiation. And I think it was helpful.

I think it made me a better person. Sometimes I wish I could do it to you, but I don't have so many dishes. Okay, let's meditate.

Ready? Then we'll take a break. So please relax your hands.

Relax your forehead. A little bit of a smile. Pull in your stomach just a little bit.

Shoulders down.

[Speaker 2]
Forehead is smooth. And then come to your breath. And watch your breath.

[Speaker 1]
We'll watch your breath for a few minutes. Try to relax. Try to let go of the outside world.

[Speaker 2]
And come to a single point in your mind. Then it's a very simple meditation.

[Speaker 1]
What can I do to help at this retreat? How can I be helpful? Not just meditate.

Not just study. Not just do yoga. But how can I help the people who are organizing the retreat?

How can I make those small karmas which actually make the meditation successful? How will I serve this retreat in the next few days? Okay, we'll stay here for just five minutes.

You will think about other things, and then try to bring your mind back. And make a plan.

[Speaker 2]
How can I help with this retreat? Then please come back to your breath. Three deep exhales.

Then you can open your eyes.

[Speaker 1]
My lama forced me to cook. I was to cook for all the monks for eight years. Every meal.

I just wanted to learn philosophy. And he said, no, you're going to cook. My hands got hurt.

They used to bleed a lot. I had special gloves. He was very tough on me.

I had to do all the cleaning in the house. All the laundry. All the lawn mowing.

Take care of his stupid flowers. It's still going on. Not stupid.

But he just forced me to work so hard. And now I understand it is a great thing. So I encourage you.

The ones who are lazy and are doing philosophy and aren't helping with the dishes, they won't hear what I'm saying right now. It's some kind of magic with the ears. But you will never succeed in your meditation.

And in your understanding of emptiness, if you don't help with the dirty work, it's not going to happen. And I thank my lama. Nancy met him before I did, I think.

He was tough, right? Just remember that. Don't make people ask you to help.

There's certain people are always there. They're just always ready to help. And they're just always waiting.

And then there's other people, they're just, when it's time to clean up, just suddenly they disappear. It's like magic. You will never succeed in your practice.

If you don't help with the normal stuff. Then you can become a great yogi. There's not, you can't do it otherwise.

Okay? Alright, have a break. Who can you help?

It's Olga, where are you? She's probably working. Oh, come and stand up.

Ask her if you need a job. Don't make her ask you. If you ask her, it means you understand the class.

Okay? We need translator Mike. I did take a shower this morning, but Monica needs, she needs the support.

Okay, DE DAG SNGON BYUNG BZHIN DU MANG BA'I Are you okay? Are you with me? LAS DE KHYAD TSUL DU'I STONG NI LAS KYANG CHA ZHING PO DKA' STE There are many, many stories I can tell you, but you should understand that to really understand karma seeds is more difficult than understanding emptiness.

So there's the quotation. Afterwards someone has to give me the internet code, okay? STONG NI SKYI BSTAN CHA SHIBS NYAN RANG DANG BCOM PA'I KYANG STOB ZHING BSTOD NUS NA STONG NI SKYI BSTAN Even a person who didn't reach bodhisattva, they can understand emptiness.

They can teach emptiness. BSTOD NUS NA LAS DE KHYAD TSUL DRANG MO SANGS RGYAS KHO NA'I SPYOD YUL But only a Buddha can teach emptiness perfectly. SPYOD YUL Good.

LUNG TSE TSE MA KHO NAS GZHEL DGOS PAS NA So people like you and me, we need to use logic and study to really understand karma. GZHEL DGOS PAS LAS DE DE BZHIN DU THAR BA'I SDIG PA CHUNG NGO NAS TSEMS DGOS TE Then he starts to talk about doing small good things and small bad things. The test of if a person understands Buddhism, they will avoid even very small mistakes.

Like small lie or small cheating somebody. That's a sign that they are real Buddhists. Then he quotes a book called TSOM, TSOM means collection of stories.

SDIG PA CHUNG BYAS BDAG NAS KYI CI ZHING MI YONG MA SEMS ZHIG Don't think that someone's going to forget all the small things you did to hurt other people. CHU'I SDIG PA GSUNG BA'I YID GNOD CAN GANG BA DE BZHIN DU If you put a big pot under the kitchen faucet and it's leaking and it goes SDIG, SDIG, SDIG, then in, you know, one or two days it will be full. CHUNG ZAS SA PA'I SDIG PA'I KYANG PHYIR DO DRAG TU GANG BAR GYUR People who have not seen emptiness directly, normally they are doing small drops of bad deeds.

And that's what hurts them. I always call a blue topaz question. So, I was in the diamond business for 19 years.

Every day we do, we checked 300,000 diamonds every day. That's half of the department. The other half is doing other things, other gemstones.

And we were looking for a nice blue clear gemstone. There is no natural blue, light blue clear gemstone. Sapphire is too dark, right?

And a light sapphire is very rare. So, we heard some guy in Hong Kong, he found a way to make a blue gemstone. We call it topaz.

In nature, topaz is a brown color. Ugly. But if you radiate it in a nuclear reactor, it will turn very beautiful blue.

And nowadays you can see it everywhere. So, we heard that he invented it. But he was keeping secret.

And I figured out how to do it. We found a reactor in Switzerland. And I sent them like 50 stones.

And they made them blue. Then I said, well, you can ship them to me. He said, yeah, in 934 years I can ship them to you.

They have a rough life. The radiation drops by half every 10 years or so. He said, forget it, you will never see those stones again.

Then I found out there's a place you can buy, there's a special stone from Sri Lanka that doesn't get radiation. So, after three weeks you can use it. Then I, I have a lot of pregnant women in my department.

Similar to the Mexico virus. And so I'm worried about them. So I called the Nuclear Regulatory Agency.

This is the American government. Then I said, is this stone safe? They said, yeah, we approve it.

We gave approval. One stone is okay. Then I said, no, I'm not talking one stone.

My people, they, we have bags like this. We are doing 5,000, 10,000 stones. Then the guy said, oh, that's a problem.

So, one stone is, it won't hurt you. But 5,000, 10,000 together. Small bad karma is like blue topaz.

One is not going to hurt you. But you, usually we do 10, 20 every day. And like water dripping into a pot, it will destroy you.

It will destroy your life. The small karmas, not the big ones. So, he's going to talk more about it.

By the way, it's also true of small good karmas. If you keep washing the dishes at the retreat, do small good things, three or four every day, that will make you a Buddha. So, it's not the big glorious good deeds that make you a Buddha.

It's the small ones. It's many small ones. We read in the books, you know, all these monks went to the cave and didn't eat for 12 years and met Maitreya or something like that, right?

But I washed, I was my lama's slave for 25 years. And I've had many students of my own. So, 40 years I've been watching students and it's the ones who do the small good karmas.

They become amazing people. And then the ones who say, I don't want to do small good karma. I want to do three.

I don't want to do weekend retreat. I want to do three-year retreat. It's the ones who wash the dishes who become bodhisattvas.

So, try to, that's what he's saying here. It's the ones who help the retreat and miss the class who become bodhisattvas. I didn't say you should miss a class.

NGON SANGS RGYAS SHAL ZHUGS SKABS DRAM ZAD GYUR ZER YID BYAS PA LAG PA NAS ZER MTHAMS ZAD MI SHES PA CHUNG BA Buddha had a student, better than Dr. Wu. He's one of our big sponsors. Buddha had a student, every time he'd go like this, gold would come in his hand.

Just come into his hand like this. His name was Mr. Gold. ZHES PA LAG NAS ZER MTHAMS ZAD MI SHES PA CHUNG BA Why did that happen to him?

LUN MAR SHING SONG DU GYUR KHAB ZHIG DU ZHING RIM ZER MTHAMS CHEG CHUNG BA RTZA'I BU MA CHUG KHA BA'I He sold a tree in his previous life. He got one gold coin. He put it in a pitcher of water.

I don't know why, don't ask me. And he offered it to the last Buddha, before our Buddha, whose name was Kashyapa. And because of that, his hand always made gold, like that.

Then there was NAS RTEN ZER RGYUD CHUNG PA NA DE DANG LHAN CIG RDZUGS BUG TU ZER GYI LAM PO BSTUN There was an elder monk. His name is Kanaka Vastu. It means golden baby cow.

And when he was alive, then in the storeroom in his house, seven golden elephants appeared in his house. Okay, here's the good part. Every time they peed or pooped, gold came out.

Then he got rich. Then there was an evil king named Ajatashatru. Later that king killed his own father.

But he tried, he stole the elephants seven times. Took them to his palace. Put them in a special room.

Then they will sink into the ground and disappear. Then they will show up in the same guy's house. Seven times.

And the evil king couldn't steal the elephants with the golden poop. SKYE BA SNGA MA ZHIG LA SANGS RGYAS ZER THUB GZHAN GYIS BYAS PA LANGS CAN GYIS BGRA BU'I JIM LAS BYAS PA LA ZHIG GSOD BYAS And the reason he got those golden cows, in a previous life, there was a different Buddha called Kanaka Muni. He used to ride around on an elephant.

And someone made him a small model of his elephant out of clay. Then someone broke the clay model elephant. And this guy fixed the broken trunk of the elephant.

And he covered it with a gold paint. Not real gold, just color gold. And because of that little tiny karma, he got the seven gold pooped elephants.

DGE SLONG MA'I KHAR MO There was a nun named Suchi in the time of the Buddha. She came out of her mother's womb dressed in beautiful clothes. Later she became a nun and those clothes automatically changed into nun's clothes.

She didn't have to buy them. Why? In a previous life, she was the wife of a man and they were both very poor.

They were so poor that they only have one piece of cloth to wear as clothes. If you've been to India, you'll understand. It happens.

So on Tuesday he will wear it and do his stuff. She will stay home. On Wednesday she will wear it and he will stay home because they only have one piece of cloth.

They're so poor. Then this same Buddha, Kanakamuni, they offered him the cloth, even though it was very cold. And because of that, she was born with automatic...whoops! GONG NYID POR TSE DE LA YANG RGYAL PO TSU MO DANG BYAS PA'I KHOD DER NAS Also, there's a called, say, TONG RGYUR GYI LAS TONG RGYUR GYI LAS So, some kinds of karma, you will get the result in this life. Even before they died in that life, the king gave them some fancy clothes. DGE BA CHU NGU LA'ANG MA NYED PAR GRUB DGOS TE So, the point is, if you get a chance to do a small good karma, like make a cappuccino for somebody else in the class, not me, okay, I already have. Do it for somebody else in the class.

Or make a tea for them. Or open the door for them. Or give them your cushion.

Or move out of the way when they cannot see the teacher, or something. You should always look for small chances to do tiny good karma. So, the sign that somebody is a great Buddhist yogi, they are looking for a small chance to help somebody.

Just small things. That's a sign they understand karma. Because it doubles every 24 hours.

Then you can make a lot of karma by just doing small things. MTSOMS LAS, same book, that collection of stories. DGE BA CHUNG CHE BDAG NYID KYIS CI SHIN MYONG MA SEMS ZHIG We did this one.

He quotes it again. If you do small good things, don't think it's not going to come very much back. If you put a big water pitcher under a leaky faucet, it will fill up.

I think the last verse was about bad deeds. This verse is about small good deeds. CHUNG TSE BSAGS PA'I DGE BA'I'I, BSTAN PA RAB TU KHO BAR GYUR Wise people collect little karmas like that.

Those of you who are learning Tibetan, here it's B-R-T-A-N B-A-O-R-R-A-T-A-T-A-N-A TEN TEN means a stable person. Before the word was what? Do you remember?

I'll show it. It's B-Y-I-S. BYA TE CHAG GI GUS CI ZA'I PHYI What's that?

There's an interesting word in Buddhism. It's called SHIBA. Say SHIBA.

We have a translation team in Arizona. We do many, many hours every day translation. And I asked some of them to talk about the book which they are translating.

So two of them are Spanish speakers. Seiji Arao Takahashi and Nick Lashaw. So I asked them, during this retreat I usually take a few classes off, break.

Also my partner is coming from Arizona, so I have to go to the airport and pick up the boss. So Nick will give one class about his book, which is a very cool book by Nagarjuna, which he's been translating. And then Seiji is translating a book called Crown of Knives and some sweet people from Austria.

They asked me, can you translate a book about karma? All the connections, karma connections. Then there's a long list in a book, it was written a thousand years ago, by Atisha's teacher.

And Seiji is translating that. So he's going to give a lecture about that. Anyway, this word came in our books.

Shiba. What's it mean? Yeah, you can translate scholarly way.

It means a baby between one year and two years. Shiba. Nicholas is a shiba.

But in English, colloquial English, American English, North American English, they say, you acting like a two-year-old. It's exactly that. That's a synonym for someone who deals with karma.

You didn't see emptiness directly. You're acting like a two-year-old. Okay, so anyway, he's talking of two-year-olds collect bad deeds like drops of water.

And Buddhist wise people, they collect good karmas like drops of water. Serve one tea, open one door, carry one box, and by doing many small deeds, they become a Buddha. So, everybody's waiting for something big to happen.

But it's the small things. Do many small things, and that way you become a Buddha. Okay, LAS NGES PA DANG PHAL CHE BA'I BDI NYID KYI SKABS SKYE BA NGES PAR DUS PA NGES PO PO'ER THAG BCAD PA DANG Even if you just learned the first two of the four principles of karma, the four laws of karma, already you should be excited.

Oh, I want to make as many good karmas as I can. I like to hear Buddhist people correct themselves when they are talking. Somebody asked me how many people came to Singapore to talk.

Then in my mind it was only 1,200 people something. I will make it 2,000. I say almost 2,000.

Then a real Buddhist in their mind will come, oh, almost 2,000. Well, actually it was only 1,000. So they are correcting themselves auto-correct?

Every few minutes. They try to make what they say is very true. They are trying to avoid the small bad karmas.

THAG BCAD, you should make up your mind this is what you want to do. I'm going to stop there because he's starting the third law of karma. I promised you question and answer, but as usual I didn't do it.

So let's do 10 minutes of question and answer. When we start this evening I will start with question and answer so Geshe Michael won't talk too much. So we will do your question tonight if we don't do it now.

Inshallah. Thank you Geshe-la for the most amazing teachings ever. Although I always say that about any teachings.

I have two questions. One is what's the karmic reason for dullness in meditation? If there is a karmic reason for that.

[Speaker 2]
Special karma for?

[Speaker 1]
Dullness. Dullness. Falling asleep.

Oh, I thought you said donut. I don't know why I... I must be thinking about it.

Don't buy me a donut. It's not good for me. Why?

Someone asked me in a DCI program recently, what's the difference between the meditation you are teaching and the meditation we hear in other places? Like Vipassana or something like that. What's the difference?

And the difference is very interesting. And it relates to Ronit's question. In the higher schools of Buddhism, all outer things are coming from karma.

That's easy. But inside things, the thoughts you hear inside your own mind, there's a famous question. Are you talking those thoughts or are you listening to those thoughts?

Because you cannot be both. Are you the talker inside your mind? Or are you the listener inside your mind?

Which one? The Buddha said you're the listener. Well, who's the talker?

The seeds. Nice. I'll kiss you but you're too far away.

I always tell my students that. Don't worry. The guys, if they have a beard, they're safe.

I said, yeah, those thoughts are coming out of your seeds, you see? I don't like this class. This class goes too long.

This guy talks too much. Why doesn't he stop? That kind of thought coming in your mind is because you talked too much last week to your friends.

Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are like, they want to say something but they don't get a chance. Then you plant many blah, blah, blah seeds.

Then next week you're in a retreat. Geshe Michael said, think about the nice thing you're going to do for Olga. Then the mind just goes blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, about other thing.

That's called agitation during meditation. There are two big enemies of meditation. First one, too much blah, blah.

[Speaker 2]
Second one, this is the obvious one, okay?

[Speaker 1]
You are like this. Then the worst one, you are like this. But inside, you are spaced out.

They are like, and you can sit like that for two, three hours, and no progress. You are hurting your meditation. Meditation should be like a Star Wars movie.

Or like, let me just say, meditation should be like, you know. People, I don't know your country, like Paraguay, I don't know, but in America, because the people are so skinny, they have to eat corn during the movie, with lots of grease on it. And they go to the romantic movie, and they are eating during the whole movie.

Then, you know, in the beginning of every romantic movie, the boy doesn't like the girl. Then I learned, the movie maker, after one hour and three minutes, there should be a kiss, first kiss. After one hour and three minutes, the boy who didn't like the girl, they should kiss each other.

So, everybody knows it's coming. And it's always very slow, like that. Then all the popcorn stops.

That's good meditation. Mind is like that. Not like that.

So, her question, that sleepy mind, spaced out, we call it in English, American English, we call it spaced out. What do you call it? I don't know.

People mistake it for good meditation. Because you can sit there for one hour, and you're not sleepy. You are just like, you're not thinking about anything.

So, it's a big problem in meditation. So, Ronit's question was very wise. Geshe-la, what's the karma that you make that when the seed opens in your mind, you are just like spaced out.

Well, sleepy is worse. Sleepy is spaced out, we're spaced out. And I have an interesting suggestion.

Make other people's lives more interesting. I'll give you a famous example from DCI. So, I have a list in my mind, I have a list of most boring jobs in the world.

Number one on my list is you are working at the airport parking lot to take people's money. In a small airport. Then every half hour comes one car.

They're like, how much? Two dollars. Thank you.

Have a nice day. Then wait for half an hour. That's like most boring job.

To work in a grocery store is similar. These people are dying. Their soul is dying.

So, say something to them. Don't treat them like robots. Say, hi.

I have a favorite trick. Buddhist trick, it's called upaya in Sanskrit. It's called Buddhist spiritual trick.

I will stop my car and I say, how much? Two dollars. I will keep the two dollars like this.

I'll say, excuse me, I have to take my wife to a movie tonight, but I have no idea what's a good movie. Can you help me? Did you see any good movies?

Don't give them the money, okay? Then they're like, someone talking to me. They say, yeah, everybody saw a movie, right?

I saw Transformers yesterday. Was it good? Yeah.

What happened? Then there's like six cars behind you are waiting. They're like, what's wrong with this guy?

You're like, what happened? Oh, this boy, he saved the world six times. Then let them make the other people's life fun.

Then your mind won't get sleepy in meditation. Your mind will be bright in meditation. And it doesn't take a lot of effort because small drops can fill a big pot.

So even if you feel tired, even if you feel bored yourself, try to make other people's life more interesting. And your meditation will improve. So what's the difference between this meditation and other systems?

We believe if you have a good meditation or not, it doesn't depend on what kind of cushion. And some people told me in India, if you don't put the right foot up first, if you put the left foot up first, you will never become Buddha. And some people say, you have to sit like this.

No, no, you will never become Buddha. It has to be like this. Or it has to be like this.

Or you have to look at your nose. And our system, you have to give other people peace last week. Then you'll have a good meditation this week.

Because meditation is coming out of seeds in your mind, which you planted last week at the parking lot attendant booth. Okay? That's the difference.

We believe everything comes from karma, including your meditation. Okay.