«Дар освобождения», курс 26 «Реальность кармы», занятие 16

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Hello, hello. Good morning.

Who's sleepy? Who's tired? Yeah, me too, okay?

You're younger than me. So, okay, this is our last full day. Tomorrow you'll be whining that it's over.

So, be tough. Okay, we're going to practice lion's dance as much as we know already. I'm going to just give you a brief description of the third.

We're on the second, sorry, second of the formless, right? And I'll take you through the whole thing again in order, okay? So, don't worry about it.

This morning we'll go through everything we've done so far in meditation. So, let me describe it first, and then we'll try to do it together, okay? The first ...

by the way, the whole thing is called the lion's dance. We're starting in the desire realm state of mind, which is like tasting cappuccino, listening to air conditioner, okay? Then we're going to go through the form realm levels, form levels, focusing on our heart, which still has a component of physicalness.

We're still aware of physicality. Then we'll go into the formless, formless, four formless meditations, okay? And the first one we did yesterday was called Endless Space, okay, and it's that feeling of ...

the body is anesthetized, okay? The body is numb. No awareness of form.

And then we expand the mind as far as space, and you can keep going. It's like if you dropped a stone in the middle of this lake, and it would just keep going. The ripple would just keep going like that, okay?

Then the second formless ... oh, by the way, when you go from desire to form, you compare something to something, you see? There's this desire, oh, I don't want to listen to the air conditioner anymore.

I want to go someplace more quiet. So that's the basic idea between these realms, okay?

[Speaker 2]
And when you get to the end of the form realm, and you're deep into your heart, and your mind feels ...

[Speaker 1]
how should I say ... even the feeling of happiness is gone. Your mind just feels ...

how do you call it? Flatline. The feelings are flatline, okay?

[Speaker 2]
And then the feeling of happiness is gone, and your mind enters a plateau, a flatline, of a neutral state.

[Speaker 1]
And at the last part of the form realm, your body is almost like somebody gave it a shot, like numb, anesthetized, okay? Then you compare that body, that physical heart, to no physical, okay? So it's another transition, because you're comparing where you are in the body to where you are in the mind, to where you are, with where you could go, you see?

And that's why you move from the form realm to the formless realm. Like, even this numb body is too gross, and I want to go somewhere more subtle. And the difference between the first formless meditation, and the second formless meditation, is again a comparison.

The feeling in the first formless realm, for me, is like ... as I said, I feel horizontal. I feel like a lake, the top of a lake, and my mind is just going out in a ripple, and it's not going to stop.

It's still going. still going, right? Then in the second formless realm, okay, that's where we are this morning, I'm going to take away the image of form, and I'm just going to think about the state of mind that's riding that image going out.

You see, drop everything, just think consciousness. Consciousness going like this, not some kind of image of a lake or space, okay? When you go from the first formless realm to the second formless realm, it's because you're dissatisfied with space, and you want something more subtle, and that's consciousness, okay?

Okay, got it? So, before you dropped the air conditioner because it was too gross, and you wanted something more subtle, which was your heartbeat. And now you're ...

it gets very subtle, okay? You are dropping the image of endless space, because endless consciousness is more cool, more subtle. And again it would take about an hour to make this transition, okay?

So, we're going to pretend, we're going to visualize we are moving from first formless to second formless, but actually we're halfway in the air conditioner still.

[Speaker 2]
Are these levels a goal?

[Speaker 1]
No, okay? Don't get distracted, okay? Don't spend all your time looking at the car at the airport when you could be riding home in Susana's car, okay?

So, why are we practicing them? It's like if you're an iron woman in a Colorado competition.

[Speaker 2]
She won the competition in Colorado recently, right?

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, so you run in a lot of crazy places if you want to run in a normal place, you see what I mean? You run up and down big mountains if the race is going to be held on a small mountain, okay? So, just for training purposes, maybe you run up and down this mountain here, even though you're going to run a flat race in Colorado, you see what I mean?

There's a second purpose to practice these, can you guess? What? He says seeds.

Seeds is okay. What's a negative purpose? Now, you don't mistake it for emptiness, you see what I mean?

You don't go there by accident one day and you say, oh I saw emptiness, you know? Or you go to some teaching and the teacher describes form realm number three, and you're like, and they call it emptiness, you see what I mean?

[Speaker 2]
Then you know.

[Speaker 1]
You can say, oh yeah, I tried that, I know what it is. Our teacher took us there, and that's not emptiness, that's just a car, a fancy car. And I think if you practice these nine, right?

Ten, it's going to be ten. And then you go to meditation classes by anybody. What you hear will be in one of those ten.

And Tsongkapa starts out his summary by saying nyonmong chen gyi sam ten nam. What's it mean? Yeah, these states of meditation are still negative states of mind.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
They are still link number one.

[Speaker 1]
So, if you practice them, then you can ... then if you go to some weird meditation class and they talk for a long time about something, you can ... in your mind ...

of course it's not polite to say, oh that's just a stupid mistake number three, you know? But at least yourself, you won't be attracted to just doing that. Yeah.

Okay, so let's meditate. And let's go up to second formless. Then relax your forehead.

Relax your eyelids. And have a little smile. Pull in your stomach.

Relax your fingers. And then we'll come to a desire realm state of mind. And it's very easy, we can just focus on the air conditioner.

And now compare that sound to the sound of your heartbeat. Then go into your heartbeat. Be the heartbeat.

Notice how quiet and pleasant it is, like being at Lake Chalapa. It's so quiet and pleasant compared to the noisy Guadalajara City. So, we're in the second form realm meditation.

There's no awareness of the air conditioner anymore. And even looking at the heartbeat and feeling it in a strong way is gone. And we are inside the heartbeat.

The body feels very light and strong. And there's a feeling of very pleasant to be so quiet. We'll stay here for a few minutes.

Now you think, oh, I'd like to go deeper. So now the pleasant feeling of the second form level, mental feeling, that's also a kind of distraction. It's nice to be quiet.

It's pleasant to be quiet. But I want to go deeper. The feeling of pleasantness in the quiet is a distraction.

And I want to go deeper. So we're going to try to compare the feeling of pleasure about how quiet it is in this meditation. Compare it to a state of meditation where you've gone beyond that pleasant feeling, and now your mind is just sort of numb.

And move into that place. The third form realm. No longer thinking about how nice it is to be quiet.

The body still feels good and straight and healthy. Now we're going to drop all feeling of the body. The mind is already deeper than feeling good.

And now we're going to drop all sensation of the body as if the body were numb. Form realm number four. Go deeper.

Forget everything about your body. Everything is the quietness of the mind. And there's even no feeling about it.

It's just quiet. No emotion about it. Just quiet.

Now we'll move to the formless realm. I don't want to be limited by a body.

[Speaker 2]
I will send my meditation away from a single place.

[Speaker 1]
And my meditation will cover all space. Endless space. So now expand the meditation infinitely in space.

Now think, I don't want to be limited by limitless space. My mind itself is unlimited. I don't need to be limited to even all of the space there is.

I can go beyond all place there is. I can just be my mind. Limitless mind.

Without reference to space. So I choose to go to that quieter place. Now we'll go to formless realm number three directly.

[Speaker 2]
Thinking about my endless mind, even without reference to endless space, is still a distraction.

[Speaker 1]
I could go deeper. I could drop thinking about my mind. I could drop being aware of my own mind.

And I could go to a deeper place. Nothing. We'll go there.

More quiet. Let's go to the last formless level. At the second formless level, it was a distraction to think about my endless mind.

But at the third formless level, it was a distraction to try to not think about my mind. So I will go to a more quiet place. Formless level four.

No more thinking about my mind. And no more trying not to think about my mind. Go beyond nothing, deep breath, to where nothing was possible anyway.

Most quiet place. We'll stay here for a few minutes. Then please come to your breath.

Three deep breaths. And then you can slowly open your eyes. You okay?

[Speaker 2]
No?

[Speaker 1]
Didn't get hurt? No?

[Speaker 2]
What happened?

[Speaker 1]
This tree fell down.

[Speaker 2]
Just by itself?

[Speaker 1]
Just by itself. Who can tell me what number three was? Formless number three.

Well, tell me what number two was. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Drop the endless space, and go to the endless mind.

[Speaker 1]
Without comparing it to space.

[Speaker 2]
Without comparing it to space.

[Speaker 1]
Then, I don't know, you guys were doing so good, I thought we should just go ahead to number three. Now, what's gaksha?

[Speaker 2]
The object to the night.

[Speaker 1]
It's the thing that emptiness is empty of. It's the thing we say is not there. With the pen, what is it?

[Speaker 2]
It's a pen, which could come from its own side. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
No such thing. In the kitchen, what's the gaksha? Yeah, the husband who's yelling at you, not because you yelled at your kids last week.

Okay? So, that gaksha doesn't exist. The Buddha always said it like this, doesn't exist, never existed, can't exist.

Now, somebody who was in SEIM semester number two, even the professors, I'm sure can tell me the difference between the gaksha of logic and the gaksha of the path. That's a safe ... we talked about it.

Do you have it? Let's go.

[Speaker 2]
I'll try.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, it's a short answer. If it's too long, it's wrong.

[Speaker 2]
They said they don't work by itself. Yeah, the path doesn't work by itself.

[Speaker 1]
No, no, no, different thing. Okay, we always say two kinds of gakshas. Gaksha means something you want to stop, right?

Gak means to stop. So, one gaksha never existed. That's a pen which comes from its own side.

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
No, yeah, the link number one, the misunderstanding of the pen, that's also a gaksha, a gaksha. We call it a gaksha.

[Speaker 2]
It's something you want to stop. Does that one exist?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that exists.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Okay, so when you go deeper in the idea of gaksha, rigpe gaksha, the gaksha which we want to deny with thinking, the husband who just yelled at me for no reason, that one never existed, but the idea that he is coming from his own side, we also call that a gaksha, but that gaksha can exist, does exist, and we have to stop it.

[Speaker 1]
Why are we talking about that? In the study of meditation, when you go through these four ...

[Speaker 2]
when you go from desired realm to the four form realms, and then you go from the four form realms to the four formless realms, there's a gaksha at each step.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? You are drilling deeper into the object, but in the study of meditative state of mind, you are always saying, oh, that's not subtle enough. I want quieter.

I want quieter. Every time you move into a different level, you are rejecting something, and you're saying, it's not quiet enough. I want more quiet.

So, what's the first gaksha we did today? What was the first thing that wasn't quiet enough?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, listening to the air conditioners.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, what about the second one?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, the heartbeat was too loud from the outside.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so we went inside the heartbeat, and it was nice to be so quiet. I just gave you a clue about the next gaksha. Yeah, you gave up ...

you said, this nice is nice, but it's too loud. I want something quieter. I don't want my mind saying, this is quiet, this is nice, this is nice.

Shut up. You're telling me how nice it is to be quiet. It's getting too noisy.

Then that pleasant feeling of the meditation becomes a gaksha.

[Speaker 2]
It's something you drop to go deeper.

[Speaker 1]
So, then what happened? What was the next thing we dropped?

[Speaker 2]
So, we were in a neutral mental state.

[Speaker 1]
Neutral feeling. Okay, I'll give you a clue, but the body still felt cool to be in the body. Yeah, then we dropped that.

How cool it feels to be in deep ... physically, how cool it feels to be totally ... what do you call symmetrical or something?

Aligned. Yeah, okay. So, by the time you got to third form realm level, you told your mind already, be quiet.

Stop telling me how cool it is.

[Speaker 2]
But you had this alignment of the body, and prana flowing well. Then you drop it.

[Speaker 1]
Then the body starts to feel numb. Like when they give you that stuff in the dentist, you know, and then you can't feel anything, right? What do you call that?

Novocaine. So, think body, whole body novocaine. Okay, that's fourth form realm level.

The mind already novocaine. The feelings already novocaine, sorry. Then, what's the gaksha when you move from the last form realm level to the first formless realm level?

That name should give you a clue.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, why should I be focused on one point? Let me be focused on all points in space.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let me expand this meditation to all points in space. What's the next gaksha?

[Speaker 2]
The platform, the space.

[Speaker 1]
Why should I compare myself to space? My mind is much more endless than space ever was.

[Speaker 2]
I'll just drop space.

[Speaker 1]
At the second formless level, I'm just in my infinite mind. Now, how to go from that to the third formless realm level? If you tell me all four, I'll let you go to their bathroom.

Why should I hold anything?

[Speaker 2]
Why should I even hold on to that effort is also a distraction.

[Speaker 1]
I will go to holding nothing. In nothing. Just nothing.

I'm not holding anything. So, there was a famous debate in Tibet in 750, let's see, 1,250 years ago, and one teacher said formless level number three is the direct perception of emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
And if you can stay there, you reach Nirvana.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? That was a wrong idea, and I would guess that the result of most meditation teachings in this world, at the best, is that. Don't think about anything.

Right? It's hard to get there, right? It's kind of hard even to get to that.

Is that the last place you can go in meditation?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, check this out. This is cool. I'm so tired of trying to decide between trying to hold something, or trying to hold nothing.

I'm going to go to a place beyond those two choices.

[Speaker 1]
In Tibetan, that level is called du she me du she me min.

[Speaker 2]
Say, du she me, du she me min.

[Speaker 1]
Not holding to anything, and also not holding to anything. Like, in my meditation, I don't even want to make the effort of trying to think about nothing.

[Speaker 2]
I'm going beyond that.

[Speaker 1]
Then whatever comes up, I don't care.

[Speaker 2]
The mind tries to hold to something, I'm not there. The mind decides not to hold to something, I'm not there either.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? Real nothing. Okay?

That's the fourth formless, okay? Now, when you do the lion's dance, and now it's starting to feel like a dance, right? You go one more, and to find that out, you have to come back from the bathroom.

Okay, see you in 10-15 minutes. Okay, what happens after you decide not to decide? By the way, somebody asked me ...

these are nine stages of meditation from Master Kamalashila. JD's got his butt in them right now. That's a 10th stage.

And these are completely different, okay? These are like getting rid of ... these are good Buddhist meditations.

Overcoming sleepiness. Overcoming agitation, and developing your toolbox until your mind is very strong.

[Speaker 2]
The highest part of the chart, you can see the monk is flying in the sky, and they have achieved shamatha.

[Speaker 1]
Then they join it with vipashyana, which is the direct perception of emptiness. So the shamatha, or the deep meditation, is the platform from which you can see emptiness directly.

[Speaker 2]
Now I'll tell you something interesting.

[Speaker 1]
That shamatha of that monk having a very perfect meditation and flying in the sky, traditionally they say it's between the air conditioner and the sound of your heart. First form level. First part of the first form level.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So that's a different thing. That's the state of ... that's developing the first part of the first form level.

[Speaker 2]
Then vipashyana means to see emptiness directly. After you reach shamatha, which is the monk flying, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then there's a teacher from Burma who uses the word vipashyana. He used the Pali word, which is vipashyana. I studied with this teacher.

It's Goenka. Goenka. I took a long retreat with him 42 years ago.

Okay? And so that's a different thing.

[Speaker 2]
They are mainly watching their breath.

[Speaker 1]
And they are trying to get the mind quiet. And he also spoke a little bit in the class ... in the course I took, he spoke about suffering also.

So I don't know where you would put it in what we just studied. I think, you know, somewhere in the form realm levels. Okay?

They don't teach emptiness at all, as far as I know, or correctly. Okay? Okay, so this couple days class has not been about this.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
If you want to study that, come to DCI level three.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so let's take that down so we don't get confused. Now, we're going back to the lion's dance. So what happens ...

why are we doing these eight ... well, nine states of mind now, if we count the desire realm? It's just to sharpen the mind.

And it's also to recognize what's not emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? It's quiet.

[Speaker 1]
And it's a good karma. Why? Mainly because you can't do any bad karmas while you're thinking about endless space.

Do these eight have a good result? Yeah, you can be born in a higher realm than human. Well, including human and higher.

But you cannot get out of suffering. They are still in the wheel of life. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
So, a bodhisattva uses these eight and they go to a ninth one. Okay, so you have desire realm state of mind.

[Speaker 1]
Then you have four form realm states of mind. Then you have four formless realm states of mind. And then a bodhisattva will, on the first bodhisattva level, although there's a debate about that, they will go through the nine really, right?

And then they will do something at the end. After drilling down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. They will go into what we call gope nyom juk.

Say gope nyom juk. So, gope nyom juk, the word means meditation on cessation, stopping. Meditation on stopping.

Then there's two explanations, well let's say it this way. Depending on your motivation, number nine can be two different kinds of meditation.

[Speaker 2]
If you have a lower motivation, not bodhisattva, okay? When you reach the ninth one, gope nyom juk, cessation meditation, all of your feelings and sensations, and all of your thought process, suspended temporarily, okay?

[Speaker 1]
And then they mistake this for an important goal. Why does it happen?

[Speaker 2]
Because you've been quiet, and you've been nice, and those seeds cause you to reach this super peaceful place, where your feelings stop, and your thought process stops.

[Speaker 1]
So if you're not a bodhisattva, you hang out there. What happens after that?

[Speaker 2]
Those seeds wear out.

[Speaker 1]
Then you pop out. You can't stay there because the seeds wear out. And then normally you go to a lower birth, okay?

So that kind of cessation meditation is not something we want to do. We don't want to reach a meditation where we're not thinking about anything. Now here's how we explain a bodhisattva cessation meditation, okay?

And for Stanley, I took this from a lama called Sera Jetsun Chuky Gyaltsen. Sera Jetsun Chuky Gyaltsen. There's two Chuky Gyaltsens.

[Speaker 2]
One is the first Panchen Lama.

[Speaker 1]
This is not that one. This one is the most famous textbook writer from Sera. Textbook writer.

And he was born in 1469.

[Speaker 2]
He passed away in 1546. His student wrote the textbooks for my monastery.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, here's his definition. You want to find this you guys? You can search for B-Y space.

B-Y space. No? Okay, let's just go on.

Got it? Yeah, that's it. Okay.

,'ONG NA CI BYAS SGOS PA'I NYOMS SBYUG BYED BYA BZHIN NA, Why do they call it cessation meditation? For a bodhisattva. ,SA GRUB PA'I NYAMS SHA' YOD SHES SPYOD YOD CAN, For example, let's take the emptiness meditation of a bodhisattva on the sixth bodhisattva level.

,GYUR LA SGOS PA'I NYOMS SBYUG SHES GRUB PA'I GYUR TSE NYOD TE, There's a reason why we call it cessation meditation. Then you know the punchline. What they call cessation here is emptiness.

And they are meditating on that emptiness. And that's why we call it cessation meditation.

[Speaker 2]
What stopped? The pen that came from its own side.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, got it? Now, in the lion's dance meditation, that's where you park after the fourth formless realm meditation. You're like a lion.

You are showing off your power. Look, I can do this one. I can do this one.

I can do this one. I can do this one. All these eight, nine states of mind.

So, the first nine are really kind of just showing off. You know, look, I can do air conditioner. You want me to do air conditioner?

I can do heartbeat. I can also do endless space. I can do nothing at all.

I can do neither something nor nothing at all. But after all those mental meditation strengthening exercises, I use the instrument for something important. I think about the pen.

And does the pen come from its own side? Okay, in terms of the ... Okay, DCI has five goals.

DCI talks about five goals.

[Speaker 2]
DCI has five goals. First one, financial freedom.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, I don't want to get rich. But my goal is to not think about money. I don't want to waste my time thinking about money.

I want the money to show up in my backpack. So it's there when I want to buy something. But I don't want to think about it.

[Speaker 2]
I don't want to waste my life thinking about money.

[Speaker 1]
Worry about money.

[Speaker 2]
That's financial freedom.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, number two. Yeah, I would like to have nice relationships. It's lonely to be rich and not have friends or family or partner.

And I would like to be healthy. I would like to feel energy of a young person. There are many rich people who used up their body to get their money.

They wanted to buy ... What's that car Scott? No, the other one.

No, yeah, the other one by that same person. No, there's another one.

[Speaker 2]
Maserati. Maserati.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, yeah. Lots of males in their hormone period from 15 to 96, they think, I want to get a Maserati. Then all the girls will like me.

[Speaker 2]
So they work, work, work.

[Speaker 1]
They have ulcer.

[Speaker 2]
They have heart problems.

[Speaker 1]
They finally make enough money to get a Maserati. And then they walk to the Maserati like this. Then none of the girls wants to go in their Maserati anyway.

So oftentimes we use up our strength to get money. And a person with money but no physical strength is a sad thing. So we'd like to have good physical health.

[Speaker 2]
Those are outside things.

[Speaker 1]
Inside we would like ... yeah, a peaceful mind. Like we're meditating all the time.

Somebody says something to us, angry, we're like, okay. There's a bad traffic.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Nothing makes you upset.

[Speaker 2]
Then to have those four for yourself, and live around many, many people who don't have any of them, it's lonely.

[Speaker 1]
It's like going to eat in a big restaurant by yourself. There's a restaurant me and V go to in Scottsdale. This is a rich part of Phoenix.

And you can see these wealthy divorced people who don't want to cook. They come and spend like a hundred dollars for dinner. They order their dinner there every day.

And they're super lonely.

[Speaker 2]
And you can feel it. So to enjoy all those things by yourself, and other people don't have them, it's just not fun.

[Speaker 1]
So the fifth goal, spread it to other people, share it with other people. What's the best way? Yeah, get the first four yourself.

And then people will ask you, how did you do that? Pau, how did you do that?

[Speaker 2]
You don't have to put up an advertisement for your teaching.

[Speaker 1]
People will come because you got what they want. Why am I talking about all this?

[Speaker 2]
The reason to go to this ninth or this tenth state of mind, the reason to see emptiness directly, this is the way to achieve these five goals.

[Speaker 1]
So if someone teaches you some spiritual path, especially if they say, I'm going to teach you emptiness, then they teach you to stop thinking. They teach you formless number seven, formless number three, right?

[Speaker 2]
Stop thinking.

[Speaker 1]
Will it bring you those five goals?

[Speaker 2]
No, opposite.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, the karmic result of doing those eight as a spiritual practice, I'll show you on my phone. Hang on. I just heard, this is the most frightening moment in a modern person's life.

Actually, it's here, okay? It's been here. Why did I do that?

[Speaker 2]
The karmic result of these eight meditations is you become forgetful. You lose your car keys. You can't find your phone.

[Speaker 1]
You can't find your phone. You walk halfway through the room and you stop because you can't remember where you're going. John Brady and me, we call it a senior moment.

By the way, if you're forgetful, it doesn't mean you are meditating a lot, okay?

[Speaker 2]
But if you just do those spaced out meditations, the karmic result is that you lose things.

[Speaker 1]
You become forgetful. So it doesn't help you get these five goals.

[Speaker 2]
No connection to the five goals. It's a waste of time.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, cool. So, when a bodhisattva does the Dance of the Lion, the first eight steps, the first nine, right? If you count the air conditioner.

It's just kind of a mental warm-up. And showing off, like those jet pilots who do ... We have a friend, John Foley.

He flew the ... He was one of the pilots in Top Gun. And they do all these things, you know, rear, rear, rear, and then they go rear, rear, rear, rear, rear, rear, rear.

[Speaker 2]
He does that.

[Speaker 1]
Like that. It's like that, okay? You are just exercising your mind.

Okay? When you're finished with all of those donut meditations, okay, sweet, sweet sugar, I could tell you were attracted to them. Everyone told me, Geshe-la has such a great class.

Those states of mind are like sugar. They're addicting, okay? Because they're very quiet.

They're very pleasant. But they're not the goal, okay? The goal of a fighter plane, you know, this guy is very nice.

John Foley is a very sweet guy. He got the doctorate in the Senate, right? The Congress of Mexico.

[Speaker 2]
Because he did all these things, you know.

[Speaker 1]
But the real purpose of his airplane is to kill people. He told me he was sent during the Kuwait war. I said, did you ever kill anybody?

And he said, well Geshe-la, they sent me on a mission. These small fishermen boats were dropping mines in the water to blow up the American ships. So they got instructions on take off.

If you see these small fishing boats, kill them, sink them.

[Speaker 2]
And they don't really know which ones are dropping the mines or not.

[Speaker 1]
Then he's like, yes sir, you know.

[Speaker 2]
They fly.

[Speaker 1]
And he saw a boat, you know, and he go over it to check, you know. The guy's like waving to him, you know, hi, you know. And then he turns around, he gets ready, you know.

Then they got a radio announcement. The war just finished. Everybody stop.

Everybody stop. That's his karma. He's a sweet guy.

But our goal is not to stop. We learn all these meditation tricks, you know. Then we have to blow up what?

Yeah, the Gaksha. The pen that comes from its own side.

[Speaker 2]
The husband who's yelling at you who is not your fault.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, that one we have to blow up. And these exercises, these eight, nine exercises, they help you blow up they help you in your mission. The plane is faster.

Okay, cool. So, tomorrow we'll do one last meditation.

[Speaker 2]
We'll go through all eight. We'll go to number nine. Then we come back down.

[Speaker 1]
You blow up the enemy and then on the way home you just show off, you know. And that's not the end of the lion's dance. If you want to do the post-lion's dance, there's a traditional exercise after you come down.

And we'll talk about that tomorrow. Okay, so the dance is not just to go up to eight, then nine, then come back down to eight. That's like the main dance, but there's more.

We have 20 minutes. I'm going to do some karma because we should finish. Why have we been spending so much time on the lion's dance?

[Speaker 2]
Anybody remember?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, because the next Buddha to come in this world, he taught a sangha 1,700 years ago.

[Speaker 2]
All of those meditations prepare you to see the twelve parts of the wheel directly. Directly.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? And the whole story is about someone who already saw emptiness directly.

[Speaker 2]
In the hours after that, as they understand the four truths, they are understanding the wheel. And because of that, they escape the wheel during those hours.

[Speaker 1]
They can never again make the karma which will keep them in the wheel. Okay? That was the extra class.

This is not the real class. Okay Tim, can you go back to the lam rim? Or jigme?

We were talking about the tenth bad deed. Jigme, you can go to B-C-U space P-A space L. B-C-U space P-A space L.

Search for B-C-U space P-A space L. No? There you go.

Stop. Stop. Yeah, no.

There you go. Okay, good. CHUG PA LOG LTA'I ZHIG NI We said that you do number ten ZHI BSAM PA YOR BA THAR TUG, right?

What's the raw material? Like in the act of stealing, the raw material is something that belongs to somebody else.

[Speaker 2]
The act of sexual misconduct, the raw material is somebody else's partner.

[Speaker 1]
In number ten, the raw material is spiritual truth. In general, truth, yeah. There are many examples.

Here are some examples of spiritual truth. If you want something, help someone else get it first. If you want something, help someone else get it first.

That's called karma. That's true.

[Speaker 2]
If you don't believe it, or you don't live that way, you broke number ten.

[Speaker 1]
Then somebody asked me, somebody who got it freaked out on me. Geshe-la, what you're really saying is that every time I try to get something, without trying to get it for somebody else first, I'm breaking the most serious of the ten karmas. Yeah, sort of.

And all of us, all of us do that all day, whole day. When I want a cappuccino, I just tell Andriana. But how should I really get a cappuccino?

Yeah, I should sponsor them for everybody or something. Okay, this afternoon I sponsor for everybody, okay? You have a choice.

I will order half cappuccinos and half fresh orange juice, okay? That's the real way for me to get cappuccino. Okay, but we don't do that all the time.

By the way, who's going to take care of that? Who's going to order that from the hotel? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Sophie?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So, I don't know how many people, divide by two. At ...

what time is the afternoon class? 3 to 5.30? Let's say 4.30. 4.30?

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Can we get some black coffee in there?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, special coffee orders, talk to Sophie, okay? He wants black coffee. Okay.

Or, the fact that you are doomed in this life. This life can go nowhere. Our culture, our world culture, it encourages us to work hard, make a family, get a nice house, get a car, but any fool can see it's going to end badly.

You will lose your family that you create. You will lose every object you work for and you pay for, and you will lose the body that you used to make the family and collect the objects. Anybody can see that.

Buddha, his great teaching was, hey, anybody can see that! That's his four truths, okay? That's his big teaching, hey, guess what?

I don't know if he should be such a great religious leader. He just said what everybody can see. But he did say, and he did explain the way to stop it.

Do you mean Geshe-la, I can have a family forever? I can never be separated from my loved ones? Do you mean I can have a body that never gets old?

Do you mean there's a place where I can earn house, earn car, and those things and keep them?

[Speaker 2]
The dogs had a meeting.

[Speaker 1]
They're all sitting around. And one smart dog, like a Buddha dog. Then all the other dogs said, I don't think so.

I never saw anybody use a tooth toy like that. Understand?

[Speaker 2]
Okay. When you get close to having that kind of a body, when your practice goes well, and you're close to becoming an angel, you start to see them.

[Speaker 1]
So, do you have to go to Veracruz to meet an angel? Do you need to go in a Virgin Galactic rocket ship to see heaven? If the pen is correct, then you could see heaven in this room.

Okay? So, okay, to think that's not possible, I don't think so. I don't think so.

I mean it sounds good, but I don't think so. Okay? That's number ten.

It doesn't mean you have to reach it. That's later.

[Speaker 2]
But you have to understand it's possible.

[Speaker 1]
If the pen is coming from me, then this room can be heaven. And all the people here can be angels. Then there's always somebody in the room.

Yeah, I can understand how everybody could be an angel, but Nick? But Nick?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, anyway, you understand.

[Speaker 1]
Again, konjok means the three jewels. The three jewels, it's not a complicated thing. Buddha is somebody who sees emptiness all the time.

[Speaker 2]
Directly.

[Speaker 1]
Dharma is the state of mind which sees emptiness directly. True Dharma. Sangha, community, that's just all the people who have seen emptiness directly, whether or not they are monks or nuns.

Okay, these things exist.

[Speaker 2]
To think they don't exist, is number ten.

[Speaker 1]
DE MED PA LTA BA LOG LTA DANG So number ten means to believe those things are not possible. And he adds MED PA MA BA KUN BDEBS MED PA MA BA means tell other people they don't exist.

[Speaker 2]
You tell other people that the three jewels don't exist.

[Speaker 1]
DE YANG PHYI ROL PA'I DRANG SONG GANG MI GYIS So there was an Indian sage in ancient times. His name was Akshaya Pada. Who knows what Akshaya is?

Who knows what Pada is? Pada is easy.

[Speaker 2]
It means foot or leg. Pedal comes from it.

[Speaker 1]
Pedal, pedestrian, they all come from that. Yeah, now Akshaya means eye.

[Speaker 2]
We had a guy with a Virupa Akshaya last week.

[Speaker 1]
No, he had one here.

[Speaker 2]
Virupa. Virupa Akshaya.

[Speaker 1]
This great yogi. People said, you look funny. His name is, his name is you look funny.

Because he had a third eye. He was a great yoga teacher in ancient times. Anyway, this Akshaya Pada is a famous Indian from ancient times.

The story I heard was that, if I remember correctly, somebody's wife tried to hit on him.

[Speaker 2]
She was like and then he's like he kept his eyes on his feet. So everybody called him eyes on his feet.

[Speaker 1]
But in this story, he's a bad guy. Okay, I'm sorry. RANG GI PHU MO LA CHAGS TE He had desire for his own daughter.

DE DANG LHAN GCIG CHUN DUG GI He wanted to have sex with her. GCIG RTEN SNGA GCIG MED PAR BSHAD PA'I ZHUNG LUS BUM PHRAG DANG So he wrote many, his daughter said, well isn't that a bad karma? We'll both go to hell.

And he had so much desire for her that he spent a lot of his life writing books explaining why there's no hell. And he wrote famous 60 wrong ideas in his book. Then he's denying something because he has desire.

SDU BZHIN NI GUR BA BDAG PA'I SDOD NA BSTAN PA RGYU BSHAD PA LA GZHAN DANG Then the conception has to be a misunderstanding. This karma doesn't exist.

[Speaker 2]
This karma doesn't exist.

[Speaker 1]
Or angels don't exist.

[Speaker 2]
Or I can't become an angel.

[Speaker 1]
SBYOR BA NI GUR BA BDAG PAR MTSOMS SHING The action, okay, ZHIS BSAM PA'I SBYOR BA is when you start to doubt this truth. And the THAR THUG is MED PAR THAR BCAS PA When you finally make up your mind, okay, I don't believe, these things don't exist. Karma doesn't exist.

We have two more minutes and we can finish the ten deeds if we spend two more minutes. Okay, ready? SDI NGOS SHES RANG RES BYUNG BYUNG DBYUNG DKA' It means, look, we're all people who like to go to lam rim retreats.

It's difficult for us to have these viewpoints. You know what he's going to say next, yang, but BSOD NAMS MEN PA Those of us who don't have a lot of good seeds, SDIG SROG GI RWONG DU SONG BA SDIG SROG means hang out with bad friends, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Bad friends. And in Buddhism, this is an important concept. Once you understand karma, then it's very important to be careful who you hang out with.

[Speaker 1]
Like, if you're always around people who eat meat, and you don't have a lot of strong good karma, I have a doctor, she's like, you need to take fish oil. And I'm like, and she explained it to me for fun. She saw I'm not going to do it.

She can see my face. And she says, it's not an animal, it's a fish. I'm like, and then she's like, it's just in a pill, you don't have to kill a fish.

And she's a good doctor, and I like her. And I'm like, yeah, okay, okay. And my friends told me, you should listen to her.

And I almost did it. I almost took the fish pills.

[Speaker 2]
It's just a pill.

[Speaker 1]
It's not swimming anywhere. Then I'm like, what am I thinking? How can you get healthier by killing something?

It's not logical. So, who you hang out with. And in the Buddhist books they say, they are not going to have long teeth, and like this, and a tail, and a red skin.

The demons, are a reasonable, intelligent, pleasant, good looking, medical doctor. Those are the ones, see? Demons aren't stupid.

Just before they come to the earth, they take off these teeth. And the horns, they take off the horns. They wear a doctor's outfit.

Come on, just take these pills. Anyway, we had a nice debate about it. We compromised on flax milk.

She said, flax seed milk.

[Speaker 2]
Linasa.

[Speaker 1]
And now I have it every day. I just throw the seeds in the blender. I'm lazy, you know.

[Speaker 2]
One handful of seeds.

[Speaker 1]
Throw them in the blender.

[Speaker 2]
Go outside, cut the spinach.

[Speaker 1]
I hate yoga, I hate vegetables. But I found out if you drink them, the pain is shorter. So, anyway, that was the ...

She said, okay, that's okay, that's the same thing.

[Speaker 2]
Omega-3s.

[Speaker 1]
Omega-3s. She said, okay, you don't have to take the fish oil. But it was nice to talk to a reasonable doctor about killing animals.

And she's not stupid. Anybody can understand that it hurts the animals. So, anyway, be careful who you hang out with.

It's not the ugly, stupid, violent people that you have to be careful with. It's the intelligent, beautiful, sensitive people who kill animals.

[Speaker 2]
You see what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
Sorry, are you finished?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
DE NA Last sentence, then you finish the ten. Then we're going to go on to what makes some karmas heavier than other karmas. DE NA DE DAG LAS PA NGO SHES PA BYAS TE BRTZAN BAG CHA BA GNAS BYAS GSUNGS Seiji can tell me what GNAS DU NUS PA means.

Seiji. Because his book, we got to give you a different name. Let me see.

Like Nick Arjuna and Stanley Bandhu.

[Speaker 2]
Nick Arjuna and Stanley Bandhu.

[Speaker 1]
What's GNAS DU NUS PA?

[Speaker 2]
To strike the killing point.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, strike the killing point. In Sanskrit it's ... what is it you guys?

Marma Hatha. Marma means the killing point inside an animal or a plant. If you touch this point, the thing dies.

[Speaker 2]
Marma means the killing point in an animal or a plant that if you touch it, the animal dies.

[Speaker 1]
The Sanskrit root is mer and it means like murder, or mortuary, or mortal. It means to die. Like amrta means don't die.

Hatha comes from the verb root han. Hatha? Hatha comes from han.

[Speaker 2]
H-A-N And han means to hurt somebody.

[Speaker 1]
It's the root of the word ahinsa. And the word gun comes from han. Anyway, he says that the killing point for a Buddhist is to be careful with these ten deeds.

This is the crucial point. You never graduate from the ten bad deeds. Okay?

You don't move on to tantra and give up the ten bad deeds. You see what I mean? The core of tantra is to keep these ten.

[Speaker 2]
You can't see angels and you can't learn from angels if you're hurting other people.

[Speaker 1]
So actually a tantric practitioner is more careful about these ten than normal people.

[Speaker 2]
So if you're a tantric practitioner, you're more careful about these ten than a normal practitioner.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.