«Дар освобождения», курс 26 «Реальность кармы», занятие 18

[Speaker 1]
We're going to go do the lion's dance, okay? All the way to the end. So, get ready to meditate.

Okay, here we go. So, get in a comfortable position. Some place where you won't have to move for a while.

Relax your forehead, and try to keep it relaxed while you're meditating. Relax your mouth, corners of your mouth. Push your shoulders back a little bit.

That means the hands will come back a little bit on the thigh. And the fingers are relaxed. Little smile, and slowly come to your breath.

We'll count ten slow exhales. Then we'll come to desire realm state of mind. You can focus on the air conditioner, and the small noises in the room outside.

Now compare that sound to the beating of your heart. Get in touch with your heart and with the air conditioner at the same time. Now leave the air conditioner and go all the way to the heartbeat.

Leave the air conditioner completely and go to the heartbeat. First form realm. Now decide to go into the heartbeat instead of watching the heartbeat.

So no more noticing the heartbeat. No more checking the heartbeat. Go into the heartbeat.

Be aware of the pleasant alignment of your body. And be aware of what a relief it is to get quiet. Now we'll move to the third form level.

Drop the feeling of pleasant silence and go into a neutral feeling, mentally. The mind is watching very strongly to see if there's any distraction in the mind. And you're very sensitive to pulling the mind back if the mind goes someplace else.

The body still feels really good to be so straight, but the mental feeling is neutral. Fourth form level. Drop the pleasant feeling of the body.

The body becomes numb. No sensation in the body. The mind is neutral.

Feeling. And stay on a single point of focus. Now, first formless realm level.

Expand that single point to all of space. Send it out in all directions. Expand it to all space.

Second formless realm level. Drop the space. Leave the mind.

The mind is now infinite. Spread out to infinite points with no awareness of space. Third formless realm level.

Make a decision to drop the awareness of the mind. And just stay in nothing at all. Now decide for the fourth formless realm.

I don't even want to make the effort not to hold anything. Not to hold anything is a kind of darkness. Holding to something is a kind of distraction.

And I choose neither. I will go to a deeper silence. Neither holding even my mind but also not making any effort not to hold it.

Now we'll go farther into our meditation on emptiness. And for this, please bring in the image of your teacher, your own heart teacher. Bring them to your mind.

Imagine they're sitting in front of you. To help you keep your focus, you can keep your mental eye on their eyes, looking at you with love. Now think about where that lama is coming from.

Even the imagined picture of them in front of you It's coming from a karmic seed opening in your mind. Then try to picture that karmic seed opening. The small silver seed in your mind, and it opens.

And a picture made of light, a small picture made of light, comes out. And then it presents itself to your mind. And then you see your lama's face and eyes looking at you.

Try it three or four times to see the seed open and the picture coming out and showing itself to your mind. Now focus on that seed, silver seed in your mind, and relax. Hold the silver seed.

And then let your mind begin to imagine. How was this seed planted in my past lives? Start building the movie of the events that planted this seed of your current lama.

Relax. Don't try too hard. Let images come up in your mind about the past life.

And if something interesting comes up about how I possibly planted this seed in this lot for this life, then follow it and make a story about it in your mind. Be creative. Incorporate all the seemingly random images that come up in your mind about your past life.

We'll stay here for about five minutes, and then we'll finish the meditation. Maybe in that lifetime you did these meditations. Then please come back to your teacher's face and the eyes that love you.

Three long exhales to give away the good karma to this world. And then you can slowly open your eyes. You guys okay?

Not too tired? Okay. That was an emptiness meditation at the end, right?

Your teacher is not coming from your teacher. Your teacher is coming from something you did in your past life, right? And there was somebody missing there at the end.

Who's that? No, the teacher who doesn't come from you. Okay?

There wasn't any teacher at the end who didn't come from you. Okay? Okay?

Comfortable? Okay. For me, it's been a long time since I did these meditations.

And I really am enjoying it. I don't know about you. And when I was meditating over there earlier, in the next room, I was thinking, how can I keep doing this meditation?

I need some kind of system. And I remember when Alejandro taught meditation in China, I don't know if you guys were there, but he gave them a 30 day challenge. Can you do this meditation for 30 days in a row?

So I was going to propose that we do a 30 day challenge. Lion's Dance 30 day challenge. Okay, you have to start with the air conditioner, end with the incident in the past life, and then come back to your Lama's face.

And dedicate the karma. Then my friends do this kind of thing on WeChat or Whatsapp. I just figured out Facebook recently.

But I was thinking, maybe somebody who understands WeChat or Whatsapp, I don't know what's popular in Mexico. Whatsapp? So if somebody figures it out, I promise to keep with it for 30 days on Whatsapp.

Like we can report to each other our progress or something. I'm going to start the group right now. And you have to show me how to use it?

Okay, how many people agree if 30 days on Whatsapp? No pressure, okay? If you don't have time, don't raise your hand.

Wow. No pressure, okay? But if you commit, you have to commit.

I think Alejandro did some bribe thing. If you fail, you have to send him $10 or something. Okay.

Alright, we'll see you on Whatsapp. Yeah? You have it in China?

It's okay? Yeah, I'm going to start also the WeChat group if you want. But can they see each other?

Can they see each other? No, we cannot cross-pollinate yet. That's true, but you can use Whatsapp in China?

You have Whatsapp? Okay. I'll start the group now.

Okay. But it's called Danza de la Leona because it's in Spanish, Chalapa. Why don't you call it Chalapa group?

Chalapa, okay. Okay, Chalapa. It's a secret word.

Nobody knows what's Chalapa. Okay, it starts tomorrow. We'll do it together tomorrow morning.

Then Thursday, you're on your own, okay? How much time? Do the eight?

Thirty days, right? Yeah, but anybody can do it. No, it doesn't matter.

No. Just go through ... start with the air conditioner.

Go to the meditation on your Lama's face. Through the four and the four. Then dessert is to keep building the movie of what happened in the past.

My movie's getting very interesting. I'm not going to tell you about it. There's a romance.

There's some fighting. There's horses and elephants. Okay, so keep building your movie, okay?

And then like Bertha, at some point you will hit the truth, you know? Okay, all right. Bertha tomorrow, I think.

She's going to translate, but I think tomorrow's better. Because there's not much time left. In the morning.

We'll do it one more time together in the morning. So if you want to record it, let's do it tomorrow. And maybe we'll put it online somewhere?

ACI website, something? If you want to follow it for the first few days, first four or five days, you follow it, okay? Then you do it on your own.

And then every once in a while on the WhatsApp, you can tell us, you know, who's the new characters in your movie? How did the romance work out? Okay?

I wanted to say before I forget, many people asked for a few minutes with me to talk about their personal stuff. And I didn't have time to talk to everyone. I have some time tomorrow.

Mainly between one o'clock and three o'clock. So if you need some time, talk to Jigme. And she will schedule you.

It could be personal questions you have. It could be personal stuff. I'm also very interested in anybody in Latin America who wants to do some DCI stuff, or things like that.

I think we have to wake it up now. We'll just talk about it, okay? All right.

We have like, what, 15 minutes? Let me check something. I suggest we do this last part of the ways that karma is heavy.

We had five, we have one more to go. And then tomorrow we'll do a review, and also the four flowers come next. The four ways that karma opens.

I didn't expect to reach that, but since we did, I think it's good to go through it if we can. So we'll finish the sixth way that karma is heavy tonight. Oh yeah, I mean, you want questions and answers, what you really want.

Let's do, yeah, if you count the air conditioner as one, and then four form, four formless, and then the whole dependent origination of your lama. Which is why we're doing the lion's dance.

[Speaker 2]
Remember?

[Speaker 1]
It was connected to the Wheel of Life. Dependence. Where did this lama come from?

Where did this lama not come from? That's the emptiness of the lama. The lama didn't take a plane from Phoenix and land in Guadalajara Airport and drive to Chalapa.

Even now, the lama who's telling you to watch how your lama came out of your mind is coming out of your mind. From some seed you planted in the past. In the past.

Let's just do some questions. Anybody have any other questions? You guys have a microphone.

If you don't have questions, Stanley offered to sing another song.

[Speaker 2]
Just kidding.

[Speaker 1]
Just kidding. Hi. Good evening.

Thank you for letting me ask my question. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to ask a question.

I thought I was going to leave without asking it. We are in Mexico and it's a majority of Catholics. My teacher, since I have memory and who I learned from is Jesus.

And I saw you have a book where you talk about him and I'm going to read it. But I would love to hear about you. Algo de mi maestro.

I would love to hear from you something about my teacher, Jesus. Okay. Good.

So I grew up in a Christian church. And I really loved the church. So I grew up in a Christian church and I had a good church.

And we had very good priests. Then I was a, what do you call, altar boy for many years. And our priests were very cool.

Sometimes I think about it where I grew up in a culture which had the Ten Commandments. Almost the same as the Buddhist Ten Commandments. And after you learn all of this karma stuff, if you read the New Testament, I like to read the red print.

I like to get a copy where Jesus' words are in the red print. And if you read the red print after you study karma, you will start to think he was a Buddhist. He talks about you don't get figs from thistles and thorns, grapes from thorns.

This is the first law of karma. Then he talks a lot about planting seeds in a good soil and not on a rocky soil. He talks about treating others the way you would want to have something treated yourself.

This is basic, first law of karma. And so I think personally, I was supposed to be a priest. I was signed up for the seminary when I graduated from college.

Then I told the priest, I just want to go to India for a few weeks and I'll come back and I'll become a priest. And I had a position in the seminary. Then I just got delayed by 25 years.

And I'm still very close to the priest. And I still go to the church. My old church I go a lot.

I met my partner at the church. I have more faith in Jesus than I had before. I think you can do this meditation about why did I meet Jesus in this life?

Why did I grow up? You know, I studied the Mongolia history for a while. Genghis Khan He became king of the whole world at that time.

All the way to the Middle East. Vietnam. Afghanistan is a mess now because Genghis Khan purposely destroyed the watershed and the grass.

It used to be a It used to be a very fertile Buddhist kingdom. Then how did Genghis Khan conquer the whole world? Why was he so tough?

When he was growing up there was a custom in the country, Mongolia, that you will invite your neighbor to dinner and then you will poison them and kill them and take their wife and take their house. This was the way that neighbors treat neighbors in Mongolia 700 years ago. Then there's no Ten Commandments.

No Three Commandments. No One Commandment. Just whoever is strong and can kill the other one is king.

No moral code. Nothing. Then we should think about that.

What we call democracy in Mexico, in North America. This is a direct result of Christianity and Judaism. Democracy came out of our religion.

The idea that people have rights came from Moses and Jesus. If you really study it, I think sometimes you can think about it. Without that moral code of Moses and Jesus, we would be like Mongolians right now.

I would be sneaking over to your room and trying to kill you and take your wallet We would be like that. So I think we had a good karma to be born in a world those of us who were born in a Christian country, to have that moral code. That's how I feel about it.

I feel very grateful. And I feel like I understand the Bible better. Any other questions?

Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you Geshe-la for these beautiful teachings. My question is about the direct perception of emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
Previously you told us about a person that has the direct perception of emptiness can get enlightened in this life or a maximum of seven lives.

[Speaker 2]
If one person has the direct perception of emptiness in one life what happens in the following seven lives?

[Speaker 1]
Does he have the direct perception of emptiness in the second life after that? Good question. So when you see emptiness directly during the direct perception of emptiness you cannot see your future lives.

You cannot see your future life because your future life is not emptiness. During the direct perception of emptiness you can only see emptiness. Ironically you cannot even think I'm so cool, I just saw emptiness.

Because me is not emptiness. So all of those happiness about seeing emptiness it has to wait until you come down out of that meditation. And coming down out of that meditation and going up into that meditation feels just like the angel's dance.

Sorry, the lion's dance. Okay, we didn't do the coming down yet. But if we have time tomorrow we will come down the eight levels.

Then when you come out within the next 45 minutes or something one of the things you see is your own Buddhahood. So you see yourself how you will look when you are a Buddha. And it's very clear and it feels like it's right there.

And you are watching the future. And then at that time you understand it will take seven more lifetimes. The one you are in is number one.

And then you have some future perception about the content of those seven lifetimes. And one of the things you see is that you will be born into a country where they have this kind of moral code and things like that. And when you are reborn even as a baby you will be surrounded by very high teachers.

And then they will guide you. And then there's a thing called BAG BZHAG BSAD PA I've seen it. It's the opening of past life seed.

Often times, normally it's around sixteen or seventeen years old. And that's when these reincarnated lamas start to remember their past life. So then at that age you will remember what you saw in the past.

And you work again and you see it again. So during that second life you keep working on seeing it and getting deeper into seeing it. And that keeps ...

each time you see it you cancel more of the 84,000 negative thoughts. And each time you see it again there's this meditation, direct perception, meditation, cool thoughts, and then cool 24 hours, strange things happen. You have these three experiences.

Direct perception, then coming down and seeing amazing things like your future life, and then having an extraordinary day. So that repeating experience in the next seven lives it's called SEMS SBYOR BA SEMS SBYOR BA SEMS means peak experience. So, we teach five paths to become Buddha.

First one, lowest one, what happens on the first one? You have a personal tragedy. Your mother dies in your arms.

Something terrible happens. Then you become spiritual. Then second path, somebody teaches you the pen.

Okay? Big thing. If you reach the second path and you understand it clearly, you cannot be born again in a lower realm.

Ever. In all the future. Pen is cool.

Third path, you see emptiness directly, but that really takes a whole day, you see? It has three parts. Direct perception of emptiness, then come down but still in meditation.

That's when the bodhisattva does the lion's dance. Then you stand up and walk around for the whole day. And by evening you're on path number four.

So path number three lasts less than a day. Path number two lasts, I don't know, you can say in a good life, maybe twenty years, thirty years. Path number one, to get to path number one, billions upon billions of years.

Then fourth path, you continue to see emptiness directly and use it to clean out your negativities. That experience of seeing emptiness directly during third, fourth, and fifth path is called semu jorwa. Semu jorwa means peak experience.

The coolest thing in that life. So on path number three it happens once. On path number four it might happen many times.

On path number five it's happening all the time. Peak experience. That's a long answer.

One more question. I'm sleepy. I was up late at a party last night.

We were burning some stuff. It's very short. In the formless realm meditations, do I watch my mind like the ...

meaning watching it dissolve to empty space and then only consciousness? So do I see myself as a witness from the outside like in the second formless realm? Okay, good, yeah.

Did you catch the question? Okay. Okay, so in the ...

okay, well let's start ... the answer is going to start with the air conditioner. Desire realm state of mind.

It's constantly moving between the bad pop song in the grocery store and the fantastic Jimi Hendrix bass line. Okay? Your whole life in the desire realm.

Either your mind is just noticing things, or it's drilling down like this much to get the details of the song, or this kiss, or this food. Then you go in ... when you start the form realm meditation, you still have these two very primitive states of mind.

Noticing the music in the store, and then going deeper into it, slightly. You don't stop in the desire realm, you don't stop in the store and go ... Not like that, okay?

Now, when you start the form realm, there's actually three steps I didn't tell you, but you use those two states of mind to make the transition, okay? From desire realm state of mind to form realm state of mind. You use noticing and checking.

In Sanskrit, vittarka and vichara. The first one, vittarka, just noticing things in your life. And then vichara, going deeper into them.

When you cross from desire realm to form realm state of mind, you're going to keep using those two for like half an hour or something. Why? The vittarka looks at the air conditioner.

Notice the air conditioner. Noise. The vichara is looking at the heartbeat more subtle.

And the vichara decides, I don't like the vittarka anymore. This air conditioner, this food, going to work on time, these are not so cool. I want more silence.

Then you go into a noisy heartbeat. After you make the transition, the main state of mind is the vichara. I'm deep into this heartbeat.

And there's not much awareness anymore of the air conditioner. We left that behind. Each of these levels has a gaccha.

Each of these levels has something that you are rejecting. I prefer the quiet sound of my heartbeat. And I'm leaving behind the air conditioner.

And the vittarka is focused on the air conditioner bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye. The vichara is welcoming the heartbeat. I like the peace.

I like this peace. Now the answer to your question. When you transition from first form level to second form level, the feeling is I became the heartbeat.

No more observer of the heartbeat. You become the heartbeat. So, we can say vittarka and vichara exist at the first form level.

The vittarka is just used for looking back at the air conditioning and saying, that sucks. The vichara is enjoying this new peace. But when you move from the first form level to the second form level, you drop both of them.

And the feeling, the sensation is I am my heartbeat. Okay? Nobody can hear you.

You need a microphone. Stage number 4, 5, 6 and 8 I'm looking at my mind becoming space, becoming mind, becoming nothing, becoming ... The sensation is not so much that you are observing.

The sensation is that I am inside those things. You lose that sensation of observing after the first form level. After that, you're in it.

And I'm in my bed. Okay.