«Дар освобождения», курс 29 «Большой побег», занятие 12

[Speaker 1]
Anybody else have a coffee meditation they'd like to do?

[Speaker 2]
I rejoice in all these new trainings you gave us, so that we are all able to become well-trained teachers and spread the Dharma and teach others. And I rejoice that you gave us the fire puja in English. So that we plant the seed for the future to do that also.

Thanks.

[Speaker 1]
Cool. All right, Mr. Scott. Anyone else?

[Speaker 2]
I'd like to celebrate that yesterday when we were having lunch or brunch, that when we were trying to come up with solutions for how to raise $6.6 million, that the majority of the conversation among the board that was present there was how to help another organization.

[Speaker 1]
I'd just like to celebrate that if we can actually spend our time thinking like that and demonstrate leadership and success that way by having a conversation among professionals how to help another organization in order to solve our own problems and return goals, I think that's how we can change the world. Yay. Yeah, so at the board meeting we were trying to talk about how to raise money for the endowment, storage facility endowment for the college, and after that for Diamond Mountain, its own storage facility endowment, and some strange person, it was probably Sarajnya, she used to do that in the board meetings, said, why don't we choose another organization to help?

And we're all like, duh. So, Scott wants to celebrate this karmic intelligence. Okay, anybody else?

Because I never get to speak. Daniel. So, I'm very, very grateful that we've been nourished, we've had extremely delicious food, we've had an amazing group of people working for us in the kitchen, and I'm personally very, very grateful that this staff of people has been serving us from, they were here at least a week or two beforehand getting prepared for this retreat.

So thank you all very, very much for serving us. I think there were a few more people who wanted to make an offering and didn't get to make an offering, so if you guys wanted to still, you can hand it to me at some point, and I'll give it to them later. So thank you all very much.

And so let's coffee meditate on that. Thank you. Jigme.

I have to give a donation, okay? Don't forget. Later.

Okay, anyone else? For me, at this retreat, I have been, well, the words from the Lama Chipa come to mind, you do whatever it takes to tame each one of us, and this is the highest form of skillful means. And I just am rejoicing for a feeling, I guess, in my own self that's manifesting in me seeing so much harmony and beauty in our group and so much love.

And so I think of Geshe Michael, and he doesn't whip us to tame us, he shows us the pen over and over, so we're not like these whipped horses, but it's just in that letting go, there's this freedom in the taming, and I just am feeling that space opening up in my heart, and I'm really grateful. See how, again, it's a meditation object, and how can you glue your mind to it, and how can you not leave the object, okay? It's harder with this kind of meditation to stay on the object.

Harmony in the group. Examples of harmony you've seen here. Tim.

I would like us as a group to take a little time to review some of the work that Geshe-la has done in fundraising for so many people over the course of his career. I know starting over 25 years ago, you started fundraising for ACIP, and back then also the Sarah May Monks Food Fund. All the way up through our projects today, Geshe-la has tirelessly fundraised for all of us and our projects.

I think if we as a group can review and dedicate all of Geshe-la's efforts over the last quarter century or more, then we can dedicate it single pointedly towards your current goals, and may you achieve all of your current fundraising goals.

[Speaker 2]
Applause. Applause.

[Speaker 1]
Music. What time does this class end?

[Speaker 2]
11.30 I think.

[Speaker 1]
Is it 11.30?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah?

[Speaker 1]
11.30? What time does yoga end?

[Speaker 2]
1.45. Oh, I miscalculated.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. All right. Maybe one more.

[Speaker 2]
I think we can all rejoice in all of the purification we did at the fire of puja, of all of the bad karma last night, as well as all of the good seeds we planted this week throughout the entire retreat, and pretty much imagine your life throughout the next few days, weeks, and months as a result of all of this hard work that we've done. And within that, rejoice in the teachings and all the beings that helped with this, including you, Geshe Michael. Thank you so much.

I'm hoping that everything that we've done here can inspire others to come and do the same.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Thank you. Katie, we're going to finish the idims just so we don't not finish the idims.

It's from Lam Rim, okay? Next one. 54.

So, you know, it's very popular in Buddhism to talk about illusion. I know when I was a hippie, which I'm not sure I ever stopped being a hippie, but when I was a younger hippie, we liked to talk about mystical things and strange things, and we were very attracted to maya, right? Illusion.

And we thought, oh, that's very cool. And some of my friends would say, everything's illusion. You know, like, Geshe-la, you're not drinking a cappuccino, it's just an illusion.

And then as I learned more, as I meditated more, and as I studied more, then I understood the main meaning of illusion in Buddhism. Buddha's mother was called maya also, right? So, now you have to tell me.

I think I picked a pretty good picture. It took a long time. Everything takes a long time.

So, this is the next thing that we covered in the first retreat of the 29th. And we talked about illusion. I'll give you a clue, it has to do with the process of seeing emptiness.

So, anybody want to guess? What's the main period? It's called GYIS MA LTAG PA'I STIN GYIN RDZIN, the illusory period.

Yeah, cool. Wow. I thought that was going to be like pulling a tooth, but it was more like drinking a cappuccino.

So, after you see emptiness directly, while you're in the direct perception of— well, just before you see emptiness directly, you might be making a cup of tea for your teacher, and you might be standing at the stove, and then for the first time ever, you see a seed open in your mind. Like we've been practicing it during the lion's dance, but we never ever see it because it's too fast, it's 65 per second. So, we're not aware of seeds opening in our mind.

We can come to the teaching, Geshe-la can say it over and over and over, you can do it again and again and again in the lion's dance, which is why we're doing it again and again and again, watching the silver seed open, watching the picture come out. But just like in an hour or two before you see emptiness directly, you reach the end of the second path, path of preparation, and you reach the fourth part of the path of preparation, which is called something like ultimate thing in the world, meaning before you see emptiness. And then you actually see a seed opening in your mind, and you see the image coming out, and you realize the pot on the stove is just silver color and black color and straight lines and curved lines, right?

Which is all your eye can see actually. It's all the eyeball can see. And then you realize that your mind is putting an interpretation on those pieces.

So, then you go into the direct perception of emptiness. Oh, by the way, and up to that time, it looks like every pot you ever saw on the stove was coming this way, exists from its side, atoms, right? And it looked like that, causes, in the normal sense of causes, it looks like that, okay?

Then you saw the pictures coming out, you realize what's going on, and that happens just before you see emptiness directly, like within an hour or two you will see emptiness directly. And so really you see dependent origination, your mind making things, and then you see emptiness directly. And during the direct perception of emptiness, there's no discrepancy.

So, the word discrepancy is the perfect word to explain illusion. Who said that? Hey, not bad, okay?

So, discrepancy in English means it looks one way, but it exists a different way, okay? There's a discrepancy between what you said you spent on this project and the invoices I have. You see what I mean?

By the way, which doesn't exist in our organization, thank God. Rob Ressinger is perfect, I think we should give him a hand. He also guided Diamond Mountain for many years and through our hardest times he guided us, fearlessly and solid as a rock.

Thank you for that. Yeah, so discrepancy means, you know, what I heard from this person, what I heard from this person don't match. You see what I mean?

And in the sense of illusion, what it means is, it looks like it's coming this way, but actually I understand it's coming from me, okay? So, after you see emptiness directly, you enter path of habituation, fourth path, within the hour, right? And then, during that last, that's really the last path, somebody tell me why.

Yeah, the fifth path is already Buddhahood or Nirvana, okay? So, really there's only four paths, that you have to walk down. So, during the fourth path, which takes typically seven lifetimes, unless you're practicing Tantra, which you started last night, but don't tell anybody.

During that time, something weird is going on, and that's maya, that's illusion. Because things, after you come out of the direct perception emptiness, things still look like they're coming this way, because of deep, deep seeds you have, okay? For that habit, of thinking that things come this way, or thinking that you met your teacher because they drove in a car, or they moved to Arizona, or they were born, you know, they lived in a house two miles away, or something.

You see what I mean? All of those old ideas about causes, and where things are coming from. The difference is, now you know you're crazy.

Okay? So, it's an unknown in your life. Do things come from their own side?

No. How do you know? I saw it.

First I saw it on the pot, and then I saw emptiness directly. Well, why can't you stop seeing that? I want to, but I can't.

It still looks like that. Do you believe it? No.

I understand it's not that way, but it still looks like that, okay? When you stop the seeds for it to look like that, you're arhat. Okay?

If you have bodhichitta at the time, then you're a Buddha. Okay? Got it?

So, there's this weird, uncomfortable 500 years, which is nothing, right? Phil can tell you, 70 is, like, boom, you know? Okay?

Seven times that, that's nothing. Okay? So, there's a discrepancy about the way things look, and the way things really are.

Okay? So, that's the main gyumatabu. In Tibetan, they call it gyumatabu.

Like an illusion. Like a mirage. Okay?

Cool. Question, fraga. That's true too.

I mean, there's an intellectual discrepancy, right? Even before, as soon as someone starts telling you about it, you start to sense the illusion. But it's more extreme after you see emptiness directly.

But you're correct. Okay, next one. Edam 55.

One of the greatest books ever written is Pabongka's Explanation of the Three Principal Paths of Tsongkhapa. It's very, very tiny. It's a small book, but it's packed with Geshe course jewels.

Every page has extremely valuable Geshe course insights in it. It's almost like the whole Geshe course in a 40-page book. So, one of the most beautiful teachings there is about the meaning of dependent origination.

And, you know, the different schools of Buddhism explain dependent origination in different ways. And again, it's one of the— that and their explanation of emptiness is what divides the schools. And again, the schools are not a historical event or historical phenomena.

They are stages that you and I will go through in our life, in our understanding. You see, they are a template for how your own thinking will go. So, your thinking before you met Buddhism was very Abhidharma.

Then you met Buddhism and you started to be a little Sautrantika. And then you studied more and you became a little mind-only. And then you went lower middle way.

And then finally you got higher middle way. And then you got Tantric higher middle way, okay? So, somebody tell me one of the three meanings of dependent origination.

And by the way, it's the one that the lowest school would say. Yeah, things come from their causes. Okay, that's dependent origination.

Things depend. Things rely on causes to originate. So, I don't like the word dependent origination.

And I have spent much of my life trying to get rid of words like that. But I just can't find a much better one. It means a rising independence.

And it's a difficult word because in the end it has to cover non-cause things. Okay, so... Nowadays I'm mostly putting dependence.

pratitya samudpada, right? Pratitya, relying on something else. Pratitya samudpada.

A curse, okay? It pops up. Samudpada.

Okay, so anyway, there's the lowest meaning and that's what you'll see in the Abhidharma for example. What's the next highest meaning? Yeah, things depend on their parts.

You know, you think everybody knows this stuff, but it's a great pleasure for me to understand that you think that. Because it means you learned it. You think you always knew that, but you didn't.

And it's very pleasant for me to understand that these ideas are common knowledge among Diamond Mountain people. Okay, what's the ... Oh, by the way, so if you say that dependent origination means that all things have their parts, depend on their parts, then you cover what things?

Huh? Unchanging things. Then you cover unchanging things.

Then empty space can have parts. Sorry, can have dependent origination. Okay?

If you restrict it to causes, you cannot say everything has dependent origination. See what I mean? Alright, what's the highest one?

Yeah, things are coming from my seeds. From seeds in my mind. Now, how that covers unchanging things we'll talk about in a later idim, it's coming.

Okay, so let's not talk about it now. Okay, next one. Fifty-six, okay, idim fifty-six.

An early complaint about the idea of emptiness, for example, how the people who like the first turning of the wheel might criticize the people who like the second turning of the wheel, okay? The people in Nick's text, the Hinayana people, okay? They are uncomfortable with the word emptiness.

In fact, they don't use it. They say, no self-nature, right? And we say, why?

And they say there's a basic problem with it, is that then there's no right or wrong. If everything's, if nothing exists, then we should just do whatever we want, okay? It doesn't matter if we hurt people because other people don't exist.

You know, you can steal money, you can steal other people's wife or husband, and it doesn't matter because they don't exist, okay? Then if you really understand emptiness and the question at this idim is what? Why are right and wrong more real, more important if you understand emptiness?

Who wants to take a shot? Daniel? Yeah, good.

And if the world is a blank screen, empty, okay? So, I like the word blank because it comes from blank, which is white. Cool?

White screen. The world is blank. Blank white screen, okay?

And then my seeds are projecting people and things onto it, right? If you understand emptiness as a blank, blank white movie screen, then you understand it's more important to be good to people and it's more important not to hurt people if you understand emptiness. You got it?

So, what's the original complaint of the lower schools? If nothing exists, if other people don't exist, really, then I can do anything I want. The world is open, okay?

Then the Madhyamika guys say, no, no, no, you got it backwards. It's more important to be nice if you understand emptiness. If things are empty, it's more important to be nice.

Got it? Because that's this blank screen that you project your world on and if you want a nice world, you got to be nice to other people, okay? Got it?

How does that— Okay, you want to go deeper? Jasmine. Where's Jasmine?

I got a new idea. Let's ask people the interconnection between idims. How does this relate to the goose?

You're right Daniel, but let the Austrian do it. The goose separates the meat from the flesh. Good, good.

And Daniel called it, don't throw the baby out with the water. It's an old English expression. It means if you're washing a baby in a tub, take the baby out before you throw the water out.

It means you threw away too much, right? So, if this idea is correct about right and wrong, then don't go too far. Khyap chewa, right?

Nick had it. Gag ja khyap chewa. Your gag ja is too far.

It covers too many things, okay? There do exist husbands, they're just not real the way we thought, okay? They're coming from me.

And you better be able to divide the milk from the water, okay? The husband that you want to stop is the one, I didn't do anything. I walk in the room, I didn't do anything.

You start yelling at me. Okay? That's the one, that's the gag ja, right?

Okay? If things are empty, it's more important for you to be moral. A sign that, let's flip it the other way, okay Jasmine?

I mean, you can play with these things. A sign that person, therefore, a sign that a person really understands emptiness is that they are extremely sweet to other people, okay? So, if you meet a ...

I was going to say asshole, but my Lama asked me not to say bad words. If you meet a person who's really irritating, okay? It's on ...

who really bothers other people actively, it's unlikely that ... it's less likely that they saw emptiness, or they understand emptiness, okay? Got it?

So, people ... the more you understand emptiness, the more gentle you should become. Okay?

It's just more logical that that person should become more and more gentle, okay? And avoid doing negative things. Does a person become perfect the day they see emptiness directly?

No. You got billions of years of bad habits. I'm sorry, it's not going to happen, okay?

You start working on them effectively, okay? You have more ammunition, but you're not a perfect person, okay? Don't think that, okay?

Somebody told me, if a person can't fly, they didn't see emptiness. And I'm like ... A high Lama told me this.

Okay. Alright, idim 57. I tried to find a photo ...

Okay, I started out in my idim career by picking photos of country roads with ditches on each side because of an experience I had trying to teach a monk to drive in a country road in India. And he found both of the ditches. Then I thought, oh, I should update it and put barriers on each side, right Michael?

That we're going to build here. You know, because some of the new roads are kind of ... If you are talking to somebody, you're going to go to Nirvana and they're going to need guardrails.

So, I tried to find a photo with two guardrails. Then I saw this photo and I said, oh, it doesn't have two guardrails. But then I thought, it's better.

It's a better photo, okay? Tell me why. Good.

Yeah, good. So, there's two extremes. There's two wrong ideas and they're opposite, okay?

And the middle way is the goose. Goose like the middle way. Geese like the middle way, okay?

So, if you had to make up a story about this photo, what would the rock be? You don't want to crash into the rock. Yeah, things exist the way they seem.

They're hard, they're solid, okay? My husband has to be the way he is. Too lazy to wash the dishes regularly and happily.

I'm not saying Nick's that way, I'm just saying an example, okay? So, you know, that's kind of a hard husband, like a cliff rock, okay? He's that way, nothing's going to change him.

You know, I'll just have an unhappy marriage, okay? Or less happy than if I could change him, okay? So, that's called the YOD PA'I LTAR.

What's that? Yeah, the extreme that things exist, meaning the idea that things exist the way they look. So, that's the rock, okay?

What's on the other side? Thin air, okay? You're going to drop to the beach or something, okay?

Just empty air. What extreme is that? MED PA'I LTAR, which means if things don't exist the way they look, they don't exist at all, okay?

And therefore, I can do whatever I want because I'm a great Tantrika and I understand emptiness. I can do any kind of mischief I want, okay? Alright?

Two extremes, got it? I love this picture now, okay? If you sincerely try to teach other people for a long time, what happens with pictures?

They come to you. Like you're looking for a different picture and you see this picture and you're like, and you think you're smart, but you're not. It's just seeds opening, okay?

That's happening with the ACIP stuff. We keep getting awesome books. Oh, Nick's like discovered this book by K.W.J. Oh, Geshe-la, there's a book missing in the database. I say, yeah, there is. Oh, it happens to be the greatest one. Oh, duh.

Okay. Now we get more difficult. Pabongka Rinpoche, in his presentation on emptiness, okay?

He doesn't do the easy stuff. He goes to the hard stuff. And that's a sign that you are a follower of Tsongkapa, okay?

That was his life story. Forget the easy stuff. Let's go for the hard stuff, okay?

His commentaries are frustrating because he's like, I don't care about the easy stuff. You guys go read some other book. I'm just doing the hard stuff.

Word's text is called Difficult Ideas of the Mind-Only School. And I thought, oh, that's a sweet, you know, let's do that one. Luckily, we found a commentary that just showed up.

Okay, anyway. I like the emptiness of the books, okay? Okay.

Anybody want to explain to me why thoughts are empty but in the context of ... I got another one here. Okay, see Jasmine, my suggestion is we mix them up.

Like, if the person looks like they're doing well on the examination, we say, oh, today we're mixing them and we mess them up. Wait, I got it. Somebody gave it to me.

It's a condition, meditation condition. Number 14, idam 14. Somebody tell me how idam 14, and there's another one I don't remember, connects to idam 50 ...

What are we on? Don't say it's so easy. No, yeah, okay.

That's fine. That's the emptiness of your mind, by the way. So, idam 14 is a demonstration of the emptiness of your mind.

It doesn't mean you can't remember the answer. That's a different emptiness of your mind. Okay.

This one is ... This one is ... Okay, idam 14, and there's another one after that, I don't remember.

Oh, you know. I'll give you a clue. No, I won't give you a clue.

Tell me another idam, okay Jasmine? You can have a lot of fun. What is it?

What is it? What are you proposing? What's the thing?

Thing, I don't remember. What's the picture? Huh?

There's three idams that have to do with this subject. One is ... What's 47?

Yeah, nice. Very good. Tsongkapa, I call it Tsongkapa's letter.

Okay, very nice. Very, very nice. Okay.

So, the emptiness of your mind is that ... and the way I like to explain it in DCI, you want to take a shot with that? I usually go a certain way.

It has to do with listening. Yeah, good. When you hear your own thoughts, okay, which we all do all day, I'm assuming, because I do.

This is an old Buddhist argument, you know. My mind, Geshe Michael's mind, is blah blah all day. Mostly about, what are we going to eat next?

And there's a little Buddhism in between. So, you know, so I'm getting, you know, and it irritates me because I can't stop it. I say, shut up, and he says, but what are we having for lunch?

So, your mind ... and this has to do with depression also. When you tell your mind not to be depressed, it gets more depressed, or something.

So, your mind doesn't listen when you talk to it. Why? It relates to the emptiness of the mind because of the dependent origination of the mind.

Got it? Who's talking in your mind? Your seeds.

Your seeds are talking. Your seeds are talking. So, don't get frustrated.

You know? When you're meditating and your mind wants to talk about, what am I having for lunch, Androna? Or your mind wants to talk about people you don't like, or something like that.

Okay? Then, then you should think about the emptiness of your mind. What's the emptiness of your mind mean?

You are not thinking your thoughts. You are a witness. You are watching seeds open.

Okay? And you don't have a choice. Those seeds were planted last week.

If you don't mind, if you don't like the way your mind cannot concentrate, even in a perfect silent retreat cottage that Michael Dunn fixed up for you, if you're frustrated by sitting in Diamond Mountain's incredible total silence and your mind still can't shut up. Okay? You should have taken care of it the week before you got on the plane.

Got it? That's the emptiness of your mind. Is it?

Geshe-la? Nice. What's going on with your mind?

I don't know. Okay. I like it because he's been around so long and something's sinking into this.

I won't say. Yeah, exactly. Okay?

So, that's actually the dependent origination of your mind. It's that when you hear your mind talking, you're observing seeds opening. Okay?

What's the emptiness of your mind? You want to go deeper? What's the emptiness of your mind in the first flavor of emptiness?

RTAG CI DGRA BANG PHYIR Oh, sorry, second. I guess second. I guess it's the second.

Huh? What's the second flavor of emptiness? Yeah, you don't have control.

Okay? If Geshe-la says, how'd your retreat go? You can say, it was terrible, but it's not my fault.

It's the emptiness of my mind, Geshe-la. Just related to the dependent origination of my mind, Geshe-la. You know, I don't have control over my mind.

You taught that just before we went into retreat. Okay? Alright, got it?

They're all tied together. If you do a really good exam with idims, jazz, the Kadampa's called it tumbleweed. There's a special tree here.

It grows like this. Everything's connected to everything. Okay.

Alright. So, that's the emptiness of your thoughts. We can go a little deeper in idim 59 to emptiness of time and distance.

I could have put the other photo, but I was shy. Who's going to tell me? What's the other photo?

Making out at the drive-in movie, which is the story of me and Veronica who will be here today. We were making out in this drive-in movie. You drive your car there to watch the movie?

Nobody watches the movie? And the guard came and told us to leave. And we're like, why?

He says, everyone else left like three hours ago. I have to close the game. So, sometimes time goes faster, right?

Than it's supposed to. That's a sign of the emptiness of time. And sometimes it goes slower at the dentist and you come out of Dr. Bacon's office to see Scott and you say, let's go to lunch. And Scott says, we don't go to lunch at nine o'clock. And you say, no, it's noon. And he says, no.

And you say, no, I've been in there for three hours. He says, you've been in there for 15 minutes. Okay?

Now, if you're really smart, you'll be able to tell me how this time and distance thing relates to the aftermath period of the direct perception of emptiness. Yeah, that's how you can see countless worlds in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, okay? Because of the emptiness of time and the emptiness of space.

Space contracts. Einstein was right. He just didn't know why.

Okay? It's not gravity. It's not mass that is bending time.

It's karma. Okay? All right.

IDIM 60. Now, IDIM 60 is a response to a classical question in Buddhism. Who wants to take a shot?

Yeah, good. If dependent origination means things come from their causes, or even more deeply, if coming from seeds is the ultimate meaning of dependent origination, then things that don't come from causes, how can they have emptiness? What's the answer?

And the DCI people know, because I took something, a picture from Rome. Wow, I'm going to... No, he's there.

Yeah, a fountain. Okay, explain please. Triveni fountain.

It has a certain outline, a fountain. Triveni fountain in Rome has a certain shape. It looks a little bit like a mushroom.

Right? And the shape is constant. The shape doesn't change.

Got it? Is it unchanging? The shape is unchanging.

As long as the water pressure is exactly the same, the shape will not change. But the seeds are opening, opening, opening, opening. Okay?

They create space. Space is an unchanging entity. But it's still created by seeds.

Got it? That's difficult. That's also an answer to the question why there's exactly five kinds of rebirth, six kinds of rebirth.

But I'm not going to cover that today. Peter can explain it to you later. Alright, we're up to item 61 because that's good, because a lot of us have to pee pee.

Who wants to take a shot? Of course it's the last one in the review of Pabongka Rinpoche's treatment of shamatha and vipasyana, shamatha and vipasyana. Emptiness and emptiness.

Who wants to take a shot at the emptiness and emptiness? Who made emptiness? Yeah, I did.

Okay. So, are you saying different people have different opinions about emptiness? Different perceptions of emptiness?

Yeah, it's called the history of Buddhism. Okay, got it? That's one example of the emptiness of emptiness.

There are other examples. Okay. Why did I put the diamond in the rose?

Is it tonglen meditation? No. Okay.

It's, again, it's a little ... When you see the rose of this last photo, you're supposed to think about the seeds that open into emptiness itself. Okay, emptiness itself.

And schools go all through, all kinds of gymnastics trying to explain the dependent origination of emptiness itself. And a lot of them can't do it. They make up some weird stuff.

Okay. But in the end, an arya who sees emptiness directly is watching seeds opening from their mind. Okay, got it?

Cool. That also explains the question of how ... You got that, Nick?

Is it in your head? No? It also explains how a changing instrument can observe an unchanging object.

Okay, which is a more difficult point. So, these are all tied up with the emptiness of emptiness. Okay, it's enough to say when Jasmine examines you, you can say, Geshe-la said it would be okay if I just said fountain.

I don't know why it's okay, but fountain. Okay, pee-pee break. See you in ten minutes.

We're going to have a small musical performance after that. So, please come back on time because we don't have much time left. Okay.

Okay. YEN LAG RNAM RE RE DOD PA NA'ANG SDUG BSNGAL LHAG PO RE RE YOD When you're in your side, your mom's womb, and the limbs start growing, the arms and legs, then it ... each time there's more growth, it's too fast and it hurts.

Okay? It hurts a lot. Okay.

AA MA'I MTHUNG BA TZAM MO MTHUNG BA DANG RGUL RGYUD BYAS PA NYAL BA SOGS TSAD CHU TZAM DU TSOS PA DANG LUNG GI KHYER BA DANG RIGS CHEN PO NUS PA LTA PA SDUG BSNGAL MYONG AA MA means AA MA. Okay, when your mom drinks something hot, like hot tea, it feels like you are being boiled in a pot of water. The temperature of the tea coming down your mother's esophagus is sensed by the child, and the child is super sensitive.

RGUL RGYUD BYAS PA If the mother just moves a little bit, it feels as though they are being blown away on a windstorm, the child. NYAL BA SOGS TSAD And when the mother shifts in her sleep and puts pressure on the baby, RIGS CHEN PO NUS PA It feels like someone is crushing the child under a mountain. DE DAG GIS SKABS KYANG SLOB DRIN LAS A different epistle of ...

What was that Ashamugosa? SHIN DU MI ZAD PHYING RANG MI TZAM PHYAL BA'I DGARG RAB TU THOB PA MUN LAG THEG PAR DUG PA YID NYAL NAS NYAL BA LTA BU NANG DU DE ZHUGS NAS LUS YONGS KUM LA SDUG BSNGAL CHEN PO Not good. So, SHIN DU MI ZAD PHYING RANG MI TZAM PHYAL BA'I DGARG You are packed into a tiny space with an incredible amount of stinky other stuff.

RAB TU THOB PA MUN LAG THEG PAR DUG PA YID It's very dark in there and it feels too tight, too narrow. It's claustrophobic. NYAL NAS NYAL BA LTA BU NANG DU DE ZHUGS NAS Once you have entered the womb, the tiny space of the womb, it feels like you went to hell.

LUS YONGS KUM LA SDUG BSNGAL CHEN PO Not good. So, the body is all crunched up, you don't have room to move and it's extremely painful to sit in the darkness there. ZHES GSUM PA LTAR SPER NA RANG BA'I CHAGS KYI DPON PA MI TZAM BA NA TSOGS KYI GANG BA ZHIG TU ZHUGS NAS If someone stuffed you into ...

Okay, I have a real story. When I was in high school, I don't know, did you have this Phil? It's called Letterman.

It means you're athlete, high school athlete and they give you a special coat and it has stripes on it. How many years you're ... varsity football?

Okay. But I was tennis player. So anyway, they didn't like tennis players.

Most of them were football players. So, they had an initiation and it's very secret and disgusting. But one of the things I can tell you, they fill up a barrel with cold water and dog food and you have to get in and you have to put your head under the water and that was the easy one.

Anyway, why am I talking about that? RANG RE BYAG GI BUD PA MI TZAM BA NA TZOGS KYI GANG BA ZHIG TU ZHUGS NA If somebody stuffed you into a barrel full of something very stinky, KHA DAM DU BYED DE and then they closed the lid and locked the lid, BYED DE SNYING TZAM GCIG ZHAG NA If you had to stay in there for 24 hours, DUD TSUD THAB YAS MED PA It would be totally impossible. You would go crazy.

LTAR MA YIN RNGAL MTHOGS CING MED PA NAG LA But staying there in the darkness inside your mother's womb, MI TZAM CING AWA'I NANG DU You have to stay in there with all that stinky stuff for nine months. DANG NGO CHU means traditionally in Tibetan medicine it's nine months and ten days. CHOS RING SDOD DGOS DE NAS DU SHES NGAG SHAR TE NGAL NANG DU GYUG DRO BA'I NAM PA'I CHOS DON DOD CHUNG NAS NGAL SGO NAS CHOS SKYE BA'I SKABS KYANG DE NAS DU SHES NGAG SHAR TE Then you get five conceptions come in your mind, I didn't look them up, I have to check.

NGAL NANG DU GYUG DRO BA'I NAM PA'I CHOS DON DOD CHUNG NAS You feel like you would do anything to get out of this disgusting place. NGAL SGO NAS CHOS SKYE BA'I SKABS KYANG So, as soon as it's time and your mother's dilates, right? And you see some chance to get out, you're like, yay!

Then what happens? BLOB SPRING LAS Same book. DE NAS RIM GYIS BRTIL MA BYAS SA BA'I DE NAS RIM GYIS BRTIL BRTIL BYAS SA BA'I TSUL BA LTAR BYED NAS DE LTAR BYED Anyway, it feels like being crushed in a coffee grinder.

Okay? Like the pressure on your head and your body to come out of a space which is too small. It feels like someone's crushing you in a grinding machine.

So, you thought it was going to be better, but to get out you have to go through this crushing. BSHAD PA LTAR RANG GI LUS BRJOL MIG NAS DRANGS PA LTA BU'I SDUG BSNGAL DANG So, the invention of wire was a big thing on this world. Metal wire.

They used to make wire with a hammer and a piece of copper, and you would just hammer all day. Then somebody figured out how to draw wire. You take a piece of iron, you make it sharp on the edges, and then you pull metal through the hole.

And that's how wire is made. Okay? In case you didn't know.

So, it feels like you're in a wire-making machine. Okay? Your body is being squished through a tiny hole.

DRANGS PA LTA BU'I SDUG BSNGAL DANG TSE PA'I SKABS PHA RANG GI PHA PA MA ZHUGS BYED PA LTA BU Then, TSE PA is the ancient word that we should put in the book, in our dictionary. TSE PA means to come out of the womb. So, in Tibetan, in Buddhism, we don't call it birth.

Birth is when you are conceived. Okay? When the semen meets the egg, this is birth, in Buddhism.

TSE PA means nine months later you come out to the outer world. Okay? But you were born nine months before.

Okay? In the vocabulary of Buddhism. TSE PA'I SKABS PHA RANG GI PHA PA MA ZHUGS BYED As if you had taken a...

So, in Tibet, in other society, and in our society, the way you make leather is you peel the skin off of a cow. Okay? But your body, as you come out, looks like a cow that had its leather peeled off, skin peeled off.

You look like this piece of red meat. ZHUGS BYED PA LTA BU Parents are always showing me their pictures of their... the birth of their kid, you know, and they say, oh, it's so beautiful, you know, and I'm like...

Anyway. My brother once showed me the movie, and he thought it was so beautiful. BSTAN CI TZAM BYAMS PA'I BSTAN DU ZHAG RGYANG When you take the newborn baby and it doesn't matter where you put them, BRTZER SDONG DU GYUR PA LTA BU no matter how soft the cloth is, it still feels like they are being thrown down into a hole filled with cactus.

Okay? You don't remember. You blocked it out.

PHYIR ROL GYI RLUNG GI REG PA NA PHYIR TSUN GYIS BDEG PA LTA BU DANG Even when the air outside in the delivery room hits your skin the first time, it feels like someone's stabbing you with a knife there. MA YIN LAG PA GSUM DEG KHYER BA NA PHYIR PHRAD KHYER BA LTA BU DANG PHYIR PHRAD KHYER BA LTA BU DANG And when your mother picks you up with her hands, it feels like a sparrow being grasped by a falcon. KHYER BA LTA BU, PHYIR PHRAD KHYER BA LTA BU And it's scary.

It's frightening when your mom picks you up. GZHAN YANG TSE SNGA MA'I YIN BSTAN THAMS CAD SBRIB NAS To me, this is the worst one. And GZHAN YANG, moreover, TSE SNGA MA'I YIN BSTAN THAMS CAD All the education, all the training, all the meditations you did in your last life, SBRIB They are veiled.

You can't see them anymore. You have them, but you can't see them. Okay?

SBRIB NAS GZHAN YANG SHES RAB SOGS YANG MED PAR And you know nothing. LTA BU'I LA RAGS ZA You start again from beginning. To me, that's the worst thing about rebirth.

You have to start the whole thing over again. You got to learn everything over again. You have to learn how to talk over again.

SOGS YANG MED PAR GANG YANG MED PAR SA NYAL DROD DU TSUNG BYAS Starting with how to eat, starting with how to sleep, starting with how to walk, you have to learn everything over again. TSUNG BYAS ZHES NAS This ZHES NAS is not the ZHES NAS that means shamatha, which is a high tone second syllable. ZHES NAS This is ZHES NAS.

Huh? Yeah, it's an idiom, and it means after the fact. Okay?

So, ZHES NAS means you got to start all over again. Okay? ZHES NAS You know, you have to ...

What's the English word? If someone promises you a transfer into your bank account to finish your roads, okay? And then it takes month after month of haggling, then ...

which I don't know, but ... it's possible. Then when it comes, you say ZHES NAS.

It means finally. Okay? So, here it means like, okay, only ...

only then can you start learning again. All right. LOB DGOS You got to learn everything over again.

That's why in your meditation sheet there was a baby learning to walk. It represents ... you can do some lamrim meditations on the plane, or tomorrow while you're having a really good dinner in Tucson, you can, you know, do some meditations in the car, on the plane about how much work it would be if you had to start over again.

Okay? You'd have to go to 29 more retreats. Okay?

Somebody be bothering you about the nine levels and the five problems and the eight solutions, you'd have to start all over again. It's better, it's easier to get enlightened than to start over again. All right.

SKYE BA'I SDUG BSNGAL DGOS MA NA'AM ZHES NA BAR BSTEN MO LTA BU MA YIN PAR This is a very famous genre of advice in the lamrim. And it says, you know, now you've reached a place in the text where you're supposed to be meditating about how painful it is to be in the womb and to come out and to have to start over again. But don't do it like BAR BSTEN MO LTA BU Any guess?

NI BAR BAR TSUL BAR TSUL BAR ROL DU BYIN PA Yeah, so, don't do the meditation as if you are a spectator. Okay? You're the actor.

Okay, so don't think about these sufferings from the point of view of an onlooker. You are the one going to... Do it from the inside.

Okay? Don't meditate about baby coming out of the womb. Meditate about, oh, there's a hole, let's go there.

And then... Okay? From your own side.

Got it? So, the lamrim meditations are not meant to be spectator meditations. They're meant to be personal experiences.

Okay? Alright. So, BAR BSTEN MO LTA BU BSTEN MO LTA BU means to...

like a spectator of a play or a drama or something like that. LTA BU MA YIN PAR Don't do that. RANG NYID DE LTA DUG BSKYED NGES PA DANG Meditate on yourself going through it again and meditate on how the odds are against you.

Okay? The odds that you will have to do that are about 99.9. Okay? The likelihood that you will have to do it many more times is very high if you don't see emptiness directly.

SKYES PA BZHIN GYIS NYAMS BSTOD TE NYAMS BSTOD TE means try to recreate how it felt to you the last time. NYAMS BSTOD means, you know, recreate the real sensation of it in your meditation. RGA BA'O NYALS SBYUG GI RDOG LAS There was a sutra, there is a sutra called Nanda Entering the Womb and he says, if you really want to do a good birth meditation go read that sutra.

So, probably next student will translate it. OM MANI PADME HUM Okay. Then he says, he's so funny, he says, I know what you're thinking right now.

You know, what? Oh, I already went through that. No problem, you know.

It's over. I forgot it, you know. Why think about my ex-husband?

You know. The pain, that pain is gone, you know. Let's leave it.

Why do you want me to meditate about something that was so disturbing? You know. DBANG YANG Yeah, you can think like that, but, KHO ROL BA'I PHYI THAG MA BYUNG GI BAR DU SKYE BA'I SDUG BSNGAL GCIG PA THAMS SBYANGS SGOD PAS Try to think of the millions and billions of times you have to do it again, in front of you, in the future.

Try to get a sense that that's a description not of what you went through, it's a description of what you will go through, of the future. It's not a description of what you went through. GCIG PA THAMS SBYANGS SGOD PAS NYONG BA'I SOS GANG TSOR SOGS GSUNGS And the point of doing that meditation is that you reach a point where you say, I couldn't take that again.

I couldn't do it again. And then you will meditate harder. You'll do your lion's dance more strictly.

That's a good place to stop because we're at the next subject, which is the suffering of aging, constant aging. So, we'll pick up there in Guadalajara and then we'll keep going, okay?