«Дар освобождения», курс 26 «Реальность кармы», занятие 8

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we're going to do a short meditation. It's always good right after dinner, so relax your fingers, relax your lips, small smile, relax your eyelids, stomach a bit tight, and relax your forehead. Just generally relax, have a good time, and come to your breath.

Long, slow exhales, and let the inhale take care of itself after the exhale. Ten slow breaths, and we're going to invite our teacher, but instead of inviting them in front of us, we will invite them directly into our heart, inside of a single grain of sugar. So, first try to picture a single grain of sugar.

[Speaker 2]
In the middle of your heart. And try to make it clear.

[Speaker 1]
It's a bright, it looks like a crystal rock. Now, ask your lama to come inside that single grain of sugar in the center of your heart. And you're looking through the crystal at them like looking through a windshield of a car.

And like the Buddha, their palms are facing up on their lap, and they're holding a small, we call wisdom bowl, a small monk's bowl. And I'd like you to think about the rest of this evening until you go to bed. It's maybe three hours, four hours.

And I will give you a challenge. What's the smallest good karma you can do before you go to bed tonight? So, we'll sit for five minutes.

I want you to think about the rest of tonight. What's the smallest, tiniest good thing you can do before you sleep? And when you decide what it is, I want you to offer it to your lama.

Put it in the small bowl which is inside their palms. The smallest good karma seed, it should look like a silver seed, a small seed made of silver, and it fits at the bottom of the bowl. And so you take it to your lama, you go inside the single grain of sugar, and you offer it to your lama.

And then you place this tiny karma, silver seed, into their bowl. And you bow to them and you come back. Okay, five minutes.

What's the smallest good karma seed you can create before you sleep tonight?

[Speaker 2]
Then please come back to your breath.

[Speaker 1]
Three long, slow exhales before you move. And offer this meditation to people of the world. And then slowly you can open your eyes.

Take a stretch. So, if you just had a big Mexican dinner, and you feel like you might have trouble getting sleepy in meditation, there's a meditation trick. Make everything very, very tiny.

Do the whole meditation inside of one grain of sugar. Okay? And it's a trick that helps you focus.

And I think you will find that you don't get sleepy. Maybe you get more sleepy, I don't know. But generally it's a trick you can do during meditation.

If you feel tired, then put the whole meditation in your heart inside of one grain of sugar. Okay? And then you can think about that silver seed.

Tiny silver seed in a tiny little wooden bowl in the tiny hands of the tiny Lama. Then we talked about what makes you a master of karma, right? It's not the big karmas.

It's staying very sensitive to doing small good things. So, it's a really nice meditation. You can think in the next two or three hours, what's the smallest good karma I can do?

And then if you're a master of karma, you're aware that even that tiny silver seed in your heart, it can create several days of results. Okay? Several, like a week of results.

You guys have a microphone? Anybody want to share? I have trouble making a small karma.

As soon as I think small, it gets bigger. Anybody want to share their smallest karma? Come on, Gabriel.

Wait, Gabriel. Come here, microphone. A small thing which I can do right now would be, right after the course tonight, would be to make a small video on my phone to send them to Octavian and the group in Romania about this event.

That will also promote the future event, which will be in September. Cool. He's part of a very cool group in Romania, a very, very cool dharma group, and Octavian, who helped organize it, he missed classes this time because unfortunately he got married.

Anybody else have a ... that's a pretty big one, I think. Anybody else have a smaller one?

I have a small one. Over here, I have a small one. I know you have a small one, but I'm talking about ...

I thought I could hold my baby for a few minutes. I thought I could hold my baby for a few minutes. That sounds like a big one too.

Anybody else? Oh, Alex has one. I thought about how small, like a quantum particle, the emptiness, the feeling of the emptiness of the quantum particle.

I thought about a subatomic particle and the emptiness of that subatomic particle, and the feeling of that emptiness of the subatomic particle. That's not small. Okay, Lily, Lily.

I thought of two, because ... That's too many. Okay.

I thought of two. The first, the most important one I chose was smiling at a stranger on the street. I thought of smiling at a stranger on the street.

Cool. Anybody else? I thought I would just clean up the room before I went to bed, so it would be nice for my roommate.

There's a bunch of pequeños over here.

[Speaker 2]
Mark? Having gratitude for all the angels I'm surrounded with.

[Speaker 1]
That's a big one. I'm hungry. I thought about being ready fast enough to go to bed so I don't disturb my roommates and be the first to turn off the light.

Yay. One more.

[Speaker 2]
I have one.

[Speaker 1]
These three guys. Oh, sorry.

[Speaker 2]
It's okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, kind of. Just giving someone a nice pat on the back. Okay, good.

A nice what?

[Speaker 2]
Pat on the back.

[Speaker 1]
Give someone a nice pat on the back. Monica? I thought I like to sometimes see if around me there's maybe some cups or kleenex and pick them up before we leave.

Yeah, good. Cool. Good.

Spread it different. I thought about giving her a cushion meditation so she feels more comfortable. Cool.

Xiaoping?

[Speaker 2]
I'd like to thank my roommate Kay for her hard work in translating and taking care of me.

[Speaker 1]
Vivian? I think after the class I will bring some medicine to Kay because she has a little bit of pain here.

[Speaker 2]
In the stomach.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
You got one?

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Kiss, kiss, kiss.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. You're going to translate? Welcome.

Kiss. Okay, okay, okay, kiss is good. Kiss is good.

Okay. Let's go to the book. Amen.

Now that you've got a kiss. So we were talking about getting other people to do bad things for you. For example, if you buy meat in a store, you get the karma of killing the animal, and you also get the karma of involving all the people in the supply chain.

DE NA RANG RES NGU GSUM MA SRED PAS SOGS BCUG GI SDIG PA MED BSAM SKYEN YOD KYANG So maybe there are people who think, if I don't kill the animal with my own hands, then I don't make any bad karma. SDIG PA YOD PA'I MI TSE DAG DUNG GSOS PA BCUG PA SDIG PA BYED Not only is that not true, you do make a bad seed, but you get the extra bad seed of making someone else make a bad seed. SNGON DGE SLONG DGE MTSOGS DGAR NAS RA LUS BLANG GSUM RA' GOR DU LTAR Then he told a story, Lama told a story about in Tibet, there were some monks and novice monks, they caught a goat, a sheep, and a cow, and before you kill an animal in Tibet, you tie its horns to the corral, so it won't move.

You tie the horns to the fence. GSOS PA NYE BA NA And they were getting ready to kill these three animals. RAB PA'I GZHAN NYID NA DAG CHAGS GSUM GSOS PA'I MDUG BYED MED PAR And the goat said, it looks like they would like to kill the three of us.

LANG GIS DI NYID RE ZHING BSKYAMS ROL GSUNG ZHING The cow said, I don't think so. And the goat said, why? He said, this morning they were singing the refuge prayer, SANGS RGYAS LA RGYABS SU CI YOD You know?

And they did the four immeasurables. SEMS CAN THAMS CAD DE BA'O DANG DE BA'I RGYU DANG LDAN PAR GYUR CIG May all living beings have happiness and the cause of happiness. They're not going to kill us!

And they held their hands in a very religious way. And they were in deep concentration because their eyes were like this. There's no way they're going to kill us.

LUS KYIS, the sheep said, KHONG SANGS RGYAS KYI BLO MA BRTAN PA LA ZHUGS TSE KHYAMS DUR BLOB BYA SOGS PAR KHYER NA These guys are Buddhists. And when they first became a Buddhist, they took refuge. And they took the 14 refuge commitments.

The main one was, don't hurt any living being. So you guys don't have to ... It's decided.

You don't have to worry. Definitely they're not going to kill us. GNYIS DROD TZAM LA MI NOG GZHAN PA GZHAN PA GCIG MTSON PA And the sun came up in all of its glory, and it was a glorious crystal morning.

Then a strange man came, a very evil looking man. And he approached the monks. And so the ...

which one was it? The goat eavesdropped on them. The goat tried to listen, what are they talking about?

GZHAN PA DE NGES MI KHON PAS GZHAN LA GSOS RO Then the strange man, who was a butcher, he said, look, I just don't have time today. Try to find somebody else. He kept like insisting, try to find somebody else.

Then the monks said, look, if you don't take care of this now, how are we going to have lunch? SKYE RANG GIS, DE'I GSUM, DE RING RANG GIS, KYANG GSOS RO Please kill these three today, for sure. U TZUGS KYI MED PA NA U TZUGS means insist, insist, please do us a favor, kill these three now.

GZHAN PA DE SKYE RANG DGOS PA CHUNG DE And then finally the butcher had to agree. GSOD RGYUR THAG CHOD PA MTHON NAS GZHAN NYID LA MED TE GSUM NYA NGAN GYIS PHYI MA GZHOR BZHIN YOD PAS SKABS And then it was decided to kill the three animals. And when the goat heard about it, he told the cow and the sheep.

And the three of them began to weep. DGE SLONG DE LHAG PA'I PHREN BA BRAN CING, KHYAM GROL NAR MA NI DANG BZHIN PA, RA LUGS LANG GSUM ZHAG YAG MI RGYAG LTA BA'I PHYIR RONG PA NA Then one of the monks came up to the three animals. And he had a rosary going.

And he was like, OM MANI PADME HUNG, OM MANI PADME HUNG, OM MANI PADME HUNG, OM MANI PADME HUNG. Then he came up to the three animals, checking how much meat is on these three. With this hand he's doing OM MANI PADME HUNG, and with this hand he's checking how much meat these three got.

Then the three animals, they tried to use their animal speech to talk to the monk. BRTZON PA'I SEMS CAN GSOS MI RUNG, Oh venerable one, it's wrong to kill animals. And it's even worse to get someone else to do the killing for you.

RAB NA BDAG CAGS GSUM MI GSOS You know, the best thing would be just to let us three go. GAL TE GSOS NA If you're going to kill us, DGE SLONG RANG GI SOS PAR ZHUGS KYANG It's better you kill us yourself. MA RNAMS BA'I SMOD NAS GZHAN PA LAS TE Then the monk didn't agree.

GZHAN PA LAS TE DE GSUM GYI GANG LA DANG THAG GI DAM The butcher arrived. He bound the animal's legs with rope, and he took a large hammer, and he hit the cow in the middle of the forehead, and he crushed its skull. KHRI NUS PA'I RANG LUGS KYI GRANGS PAG BZHAG STE KHO BAR Then with a sharp knife, he split open the chest of the sheep and the goat, and then he reached into their chest.

He found the main artery of their heart, and he pinched it until they died. The three animals had indescribable pain. RANG GI NYAM THAG PA'I SKAD BSTAN PA While the cow was dying, he started screaming.

CHOG CHUD SANGS RGYAS THAMS CAD KYI SEMS TE The Buddhas of the universe heard the scream. YUN DI DAG ZHIG NA TSUM PA'I GSUNG NYEN GYIS SHES BYA BA There's a such-and-such a planet, and in such-and-such a country, and in Tibetan they say a shadow of a monk, meaning not a good monk, like a shadow of a monk. They say the shadow of a monk, but they actually mean a bad monk.

MA RGYEN SEMS CAN GSOS DU CHUG PA'I DUS SKYES DON PAR DE He has carved these animals to cry out. These mother beings who have been our mothers, he has caused this cry. This monk has caused this cry.

CHOS KYI RGYAN SEMS GNYIS The flag of the Dharma has been torn down and thrown into the mud and trampled. SANGS RGYAS BYANG SEMS THAMS CAD BZHIN DU Sorry, DUS KYI RGYAN SEMS DRENG The flag of the demons has been raised. SANGS RGYAS BYANG SEMS THAMS CAD BZHIN DU THUG MOD PA CHUNG The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the universe are crying.

SOGS TSUM PA DANG RA LUGS LA'ANG GSUM GYIS BAL THAMS This is from a special book. It's called The Conversation of the Goat, the Sheep, and the Cow with the Monks. The subtitle of the book is A Few Monks Have Lunch.

LAS CHUNG BA LTAR RGYAS PAR RTZAL TE Then the Lama went on about this book. He said, DE LTA BU LUS BSTAN PA'I CHOM KUN PA YIN PAS NA People like this are stealing the beauty of the Dharma. Therefore, all of us, we should try to avoid killing.

BDAG GIS BSKYAB DGOS LA MA RIN PO CHE Then the Lama who taught this book, which is Pabongka Rinpoche, he said, my own precious Lama, whose name is BDAG PO LA MA RIN PO CHE, GZHAN SOGS SPYOD SPANG BA CHUNG BA GZHAN SOGS SPANG BA CHUNG NA, DGE MTSOR GZHAN LAS LHAG PA NANG GI YOD The thing that made my Lama happiest was whenever he could talk someone into stopping killing animals. KHO BOS KYANG GAM LA GROG SKABS Also, when I myself visited East Tibet, SOGS RTZEN LDAN GON PA He visited this monastery called SOGS RTZEN LDAN Then they used to have a tradition of killing all the animals for meat on the same day, almost like a festival. Even now there's a festival in China for killing dogs on a certain day, for meat.

LO LTAR SOGS PA'I SOGS CHUG GI RGYUN CHEN PO'I MANG PO CHOS THUB PA I was able to talk the monks out of doing this ceremony every year. SEMS DE'I CHOS GRAG ZHUGS YIN YANG PA I think it's the most spiritual act I ever did in this life. Okay, that's a hard story, right?

Okay, now that you're depressed about killing, we can be depressed about stealing, okay? So, we'll go on to killing. I'm sorry, stealing.

What four parts will we do? ZHI, BSAM PA, BRAL BA, THAR THOB And maybe we'll do, don't say three, give them to me. KUN LONG, DUS SHES, DUS SHES KUN LONG NYON MO DUS SHES KUN LONG NYON MO CONCEPTION, MOTIVATION, and EMOTION, FEELING.

NYID PA MA BYIN LEN LA The Tibetan word for stealing is to take something which was not given to you. And I was walking with a great Lama in New Jersey one day. His name is Ngawan Tundrup Nakyi.

He taught me how I teach the alphabet. Nakyi, yeah. He got PhDs from Beijing University, and from Indiana University, and from Potala Palace in Linguistics.

Many, many years ago. He's very old now. But anyway, I stopped and picked a leaf, a small leaf off a tree.

And he just looked at me like I'm crazy. And he said, BYIN DU BAS Did someone give you that? I said, well not really.

He said, MA BYIN LEN Then you have taken what was not given, am I right? Which is the Buddhist word for stealing. Okay, anyway, that's a joke.

ZHI NI GZHAN GYI BDAG TU GSOS BA'I NOR The object, which is the lam rim meaning of ZHI, right? The object involved, is anything which belongs to another person. Don't forget, in Sanskrit, in Tibetan, person can also be an animal.

So that's the ZHI in lam rim language. The Sampa, the thought, it has those three parts that we talked about this morning. DUS SHES NI MA KHRUL BA DUS SHES MA KHRUL BA means the conception.

DUS SHES MA KHRUL BA means how you conceive the object. It must be accurate. In other words, if you steal something but you thought it didn't, if you take something but you thought it was yours, Veronica and I were going to the airport last week.

I put my laptop in a bin. We went through security. Then we went through security and she's following me with my laptop.

Then I'm like, what are you doing? She said, I have your laptop. I said, no, I have my laptop.

They were like, we both turn around. Way over there, there's this guy. He's going.

Did she have an unmistaken conception? No, you see, she didn't realize it belonged to another person. Did she make a karma?

I mean, if she's a normal person, we have to say yes. Ask the guy whose computer it was. But is it a complete karma?

No, the second step is missing. KUN LONG He says, MA BYIN BZHIN DU LEN DU The motivation is to take possession of the thing even though the other person hasn't given it to you. The emotion can be all three.

KHON KHRID With anger DGRA BA'I NOR GROG PA You can steal things from someone you see as an enemy. CHAGS PA'I GZHAN GYIS NOR RDZAS YID YONG DU MTHONG STE BYA BU'I SKU BA SOGS DANG Desire because you're attracted to something that somebody else owns. You can steal it out of stealth.

Quietly, you steal it. You don't beat them up. You sneak into their house and you take it.

Ignorance because you're attracted to something that somebody else has. Then there was a tradition of some religions in ancient India that if someone is a high caste, high social caste, if they have need, it's moral for them to steal from lower caste. If they have need, it's ethical for them to steal something from lower social caste or lower caste people.

Very similar to the new banking laws in the United States. Exactly the same actually. GZHAN GYIS NOR GROD BA NYES MED DU BRDZIN PA LTA BU'O Then it's ignorance to believe that it would ever be okay to steal someone else's things.

GROD BA NYES, okay, like GZHI SANGS PA GROD BA, right? The GROD BA or how you commit it, how you commit the action. BRTZEN MOR SBYAGS NAS GROD BA LTA BU NGES PAR MI DGOS KYIS It's not necessarily the case that you have to sneak into somebody's house and steal something out of their house.

Then there's a custom called RGYAS, say RGYAS. RGYAS means ... Me and my teacher, we used to do it a lot.

So our monastery at that time had about 1,500 monks, and we will offer like $3,000 and we'll say, you know, give everybody a share. Then they'll like start with the monks over here, you know, and they give them $2, then give this one $2. When they reach Nick, that one walks over here.

So that's called taking a double get. And that's like taking ... making them give you twice what actually only belongs to you once.

DPON PO MI YOD PA'I NYES BYAS RGYAL BA Or if the court or the government or the police basically, what do you call it, ask for a bribe. PHRAD LOGS BZANG LOGS KYI NOR STONG LEN BYAS PA Or to mess around with the weights or the measurements of ... like they did it to me in the diamond business.

People throw in a zirconium or something and the whole parcel gets heavier and you pay more money. It's like that, cheating with weights and measurements. Those are all different kinds of stealing.

There are countless kinds of stealing. DUS DE RNAMS NAS BYAS PA BYAS PA NA Then he ... in the monastery, there are special punishments for misbehavior.

For example, in my monastery, we were out in the countryside, right? In India. It's about a 45 minute walk to the nearest small tiny town.

But, there's a guy, a smart guy in the town. He has a small room. He has a TV and lots of videotapes of Hong Kong police movies.

He has a TV and lots of videotapes of Hong Kong police movies. Then he has special show for the young monks, because we don't have any television in the monastery that we know about. Then you have a disciplinarian, a debate master.

He's in charge of disciplining the young monks. Then the abbot caught like five young monks at the movie theater, because everybody knows about it. And the traditional punishment in our monastery ...

and by the way, he's from my college. Pabongka Rinpoche is from our house, our college. He's your lineage teacher, the one who wrote this Lam Rim.

The teacher who wrote this Lam Rim, Pabongka Rinpoche, is from the same university where I studied, and you are from the same lineage of that university. CHAGS ZAL BA BYED DU BCUG BYED DU BCUG means traditional punishment is when they come in the morning prayers. The debate master will say, okay, two hundred prostrations each to the other monks.

Full prostration. Two hundred. To fifteen hundred people.

It's painful. It's very painful. Then my debate master, he was special.

Most of them, they will hit you with a rosary. He uses an electrical cord, a big one. Then he got upset.

He yelled at the abbot. The debate master can yell at the abbot. He's allowed to yell at the abbot.

What are you doing letting these guys, these slackers, have the honor of prostrating to the monks? This punishment is wrong. Then I was there.

The abbot said, well, how do you want to punish them? He said, I have an idea. He had it ready.

It was this long tube. We're all like, oh my god, what's he going to do this time? He opened up the tube, and he had these huge Indian movie posters.

Then those five guys have to hold them up for three or four hours like this. Anyway, it's a lot of fun in the monastery. CHAGS ZAL BA SOGS SPYOD DU BCUG PA'ANG So you can punish ...

when you punish people for behavior like taking two shares of the money, DUN DE NYES PA MI CHUNG BA'I GNAD GYIS YIN The point of the punishment is to try to prevent people from making bad karma in the monastery, because bad karma in the monastery is much more powerful. And the goal of this kind of punishment is to prevent people in the monastery from making bad karma in the monastery, because it's much worse to do that. MDOR NA BAR BUS PA LUS MA THONGS KYANG RANG NA SNGON TSE DE DANG DE MTHONG DU GYIS BSAM PAS YOD GYI THAB RNAMS PA NA TSOR BRTEN NAS KHOS MI BSTER RANG BA MED PAR BYED DU RANG NA THOB PA CHUNG BA'AM MA JIN LEN DU BRAL BA'I Even though the other person in their mind hasn't released the object to you, like they haven't decided that they want you to have it, and then because you desire it, you use different tricky ways to get it. RANG NA THOB PA CHUNG BA'AM And when you make it your own, and I want to pause there, okay?

Say BDAG KHIR BYAS PA BDAG KHIR BYAS PA It means to make something your own. BDAG KHIR BYAS PA BDAG KHIR BYAS PA means me. BDAG means me.

BDAG KYIS means my. BDAG KYIS RUR means make it your own. BDAG KYIS RUR means make it your own.

And this is a special idea in Buddhism, and it comes up in two places. that comes out in two places. One is in stealing.

The moment that you feel in your own mind, now it's mine. Now I got it. That plants the karmic seed.

It's not while you're stealing it. It's at the end when you say, this is mine. And then in Buddhism, that word, same word, dak yur chepa, it came to have a second meaning.

I make that action my own. That's me. I'm a thief.

If somebody says, who stole it? And in your mind you think, me. Then you're taking possession of two different things.

Number one, you are taking possession of the other person's property. But what's more important, is how do you feel about that? Do you take satisfaction about it?

Are you proud that you got something? And the function of regret is you start to release that second kind of ownership. You start to release the ownership of the action.

Tim, number 27. And if someone says, did you steal this thing? You think in your mind, yes I stole it.

But that's not me. Okay? In American English, that's this guy.

He's like, yeah I stole it. But you know, I'm not really proud of having done that. It's not who I want to be.

So, there's a negative tar tuk. There's a negative coffee meditation. We always talk about coffee meditation for good seeds, right?

In DCI, we never teach you coffee meditation for bad seeds, because it's hard enough to get you to do any coffee meditation. I don't know why, but all over the world, every country, people resist being happy about their own good actions. I don't know why.

But it's the same all over the world. Now, now we're talking about the opposite of coffee, opposite coffee meditation. It's probably green drink meditation.

Understand? And that's where you say, I did it. You know, I was trying to cheat on my taxes, you know?

And me and the accountant, we did this, this, this, this, this, you know? And the government audited me. And they didn't catch it.

So, it's that feeling of pride, that feeling of ownership, of a negative karma. It's important not to do it. Okay?

I wanted to steal this thing. I couldn't control myself. And I stole it.

But, that's not who Michael, that's not who Michael is. That's not me. That's not who I want to be, you see?

So, it's very important if you do a bad karma because you cannot control yourself, it's very important that, that night, you do a green drink meditation. Okay? I stole the money.

I cheated on my taxes. It worked. They didn't catch me.

But, try to have some hesitation about it. And you can do a meditation where you say, that's not the real Mike. That's not the real Michael.

That's not who I want to be. And then, what happens if you do that? The bad seed doesn't get water.

You see what I mean? It's very cool. That's not me.

I'm not happy I did it. Okay? The word is, take possession.

It comes in stealing, and it comes in how you feel about mistakes you made that you couldn't control yourself. Okay? Cool?

All right, so remember, you know, if you make a mistake, if you can't control yourself, at least in English, American English, we say distance yourself from that. That's not me.

[Speaker 2]
Cool? Okay. Time to go to bed.