«Дар освобождения», курс 34 «Победа над негативными мыслями», занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
So get, please get comfortable. After we start, please don't move, and it will be a long meditation, so be comfortable. We're going to do a meditation called the Lion's Dance.

It's a good meditation to start the day. It comes from Master Sangha. He started the Mind-Only School.

If you want to record, you can record. If you want to record, you're very welcome to do so. Okay, here we go.

Then please relax your face. Relax your eyes. Small smile.

Relax your fingers. Forehead is relaxed. Stomach is a little bit tight.

Come in, stomach. Chest is out. Shoulders are relaxed.

In this meditation, we start by listening to the sound in the room. So, in this room, we are lucky. We have the sound of the air conditioning.

So, for a few minutes, let's focus on that sound. Please don't move. Please don't make any sounds.

Please don't move. Please don't move. Then think it would be quieter if I started to listen to my heartbeat.

So, come inside and listen to your heartbeat. If you're alone in a quiet room, you can hear the heartbeat in your ears. But this morning, it's enough if you can just feel the heartbeat.

So, leave the outer world. Go inside and listen to the heartbeat. Now, let's go inside the heart.

So, imagine inside the heart, there's a beautiful meditation room. Very elegant. The sunlight is coming through the windows.

Very pleasant, very classical room for meditation. Nice wood. And very comfortable.

Meditation seat is very comfortable. And around here, you can feel the walls of the heart. And there are beetles in the window.

Very quiet. Please don't make noise if you have to cough by the whole night. If you need to lose weight, you can experience, you can learn to hold it.

Now, please imagine that the meditation room of the heart has a second meditation room. So, meditation room at the center of the meditation room. And we go inside of that second meditation room.

Super quiet. The heart is still beating, but the beating sounds very far away. And it's much more quiet at the inner meditation room.

But it also has a lot of sunlight. Very elegant. Everything is like Hang Chow, classical wood.

Very comfortable. Very beautiful and elegant. Next to me, in the inner room, there's a small table.

On the table, there's a small pot. And I take off the lid of the sugar pan. And with the third finger of my left hand, I put my finger in the sugar.

And I take my finger out. And there's one grain of sugar staying on the tip of the finger. Then I think, I would like to put my mind inside of that single grain of sugar.

It's like I would like to open a small door in the single grain of sugar. Then I would like to go squeeze inside of that single grain of sugar. And so I put my mind inside.

And I close the door of the grain of sugar. And I step inside. Tiny, tiny, tiny.

But when I get inside, the space is again very comfortable meditation space. Lots of sunlight. Very comfortable.

Quiet. And wide. And elegant.

So put your mind down into a tiny, tiny, tiny spot. And stay inside the sugar crystal. But inside, it doesn't feel tight or crowded.

Very spacious. Comfortable. Now I think about, I imagine the whole Pacific Ocean covers almost half of this planet.

And I put the whole Pacific Ocean into the sugar crystal. Thousands and thousands of miles of ocean. Very, very peaceful.

Very blue. Very deep. All within the sugar crystal.

And that's my mind. My mind is the Pacific Ocean. I am the Pacific Ocean.

Very deep. Inside a single sugar crystal. Now please imagine the sky above the ocean.

Inside the sugar crystal is a vast Pacific Ocean. And above the ocean is a beautiful blue sky covers the whole ocean. It goes very, very high.

So inside the sugar crystal is a huge ocean as big as this one. And above it is a deep blue sky. Stretches to the end of the ocean.

Reaches up to the end of the sky. All inside the sugar crystal. Now we'd like to go more quiet.

More silent. So our mind is like a light in a room. The mind is aware of many things.

The mind is thinking many things. And what if we just turn off the mind? Like we turn off a light in a room.

So I will count to three. When I reach the count of three, just turn off your mind. Like we are turning off a light switch.

Then after that, there shouldn't be any thoughts in the mind. If you hear thoughts coming or pictures coming in your mind, then push them out of the mind. So the mind is turned off.

Okay, let's try. Last step. The mind is still turned off.

But we're going to go deeper. If thoughts come in the mind, if pictures come in the mind, just ignore them. This is not my mind.

These are not my thoughts. These are not my pictures. My mind is silent.

My mind is turned off. Just ignore those other things. Stay in the perfect silence.

Last part of the meditation. And please focus on your breath. Three long exhales.

Three deep breaths. Then you can slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch.

Have something to drink. Good, good job. It was very quiet, except for the back.

You guys did very well. You want to do more or you want to stop? More.

Okay, you asked for it. Take a good stretch. If you have to pee, go pee pee.

It's okay. But come back quietly. Okay, let's go again.

And please sit up straight. Close your eyes. And start to watch your breath.

Long long exhale. When you reach the end of the exhale, then breathe out a little bit more. Okay, so long long exhale.

Push out the last part of the breath. In-breath is automatic. Here we go.

Ten long out-breaths. Try to be quiet. Try not to move.

If you feel like coughing, try to control it. Mouth is relaxed. Face is relaxed.

Now I'd like you to think about one of your teachers. Could be your great teachers, your father and your mother. Could be your favorite school teacher.

Could be spiritual teacher. Could be the person who taught you your job. Could be one of the great teachers of history.

Confucius. Laozi. Buddha.

Jesus. Muhammad. Could be any great teacher.

Please ask them, please come and meditate with me. Let's sit together. Let's meditate together.

And they come. Very happy. They come to sit in front of you.

Don't think of a picture of the teacher. It's the real teacher. They're alive.

They're especially happy you're meditating. Your eyes are closed. But their eyes are open.

They're looking at you with very great love. And very proud of you that you are meditating. You can even feel the warmth of their body.

You can feel the fragrance from their body. And you are meditating together. Make the picture real.

Now think of one beautiful teacher that you love the most. Maybe they are very cheerful. Maybe they are very peaceful.

Maybe they like to help older people. Maybe they enjoy helping sick people. Maybe they never get angry.

Always peaceful. Choose one quality you like about your teacher. I am seeing this quality in my teacher because of something I did in the past.

So, maybe in my past life I was very patient. Or I enjoyed helping old people. Or I enjoyed helping sick people.

So, let's have fun. Let's go back to our past life. Just in our imagination.

We cannot see directly our past life. But we can guess what we were doing. Oh, I must have been a very patient person.

Oh, I must have been very helpful to other people. We can guess what our personality was. What country did we live in?

What did we look like? What was my job? How many hundred years ago did I live?

When I was patient. Or when I was helpful. Was I a man or was I a woman?

Maybe even I was a bird or a fish. We cannot see directly. But we can imagine.

Oh, maybe I was like that. Maybe I was this man or I was even woman in a different country hundreds of years ago. Just imagine.

Anything you can imagine. You have seeds for that. If you have seeds for it, maybe it's a little bit true.

So, have fun. Make a movie of your past life. Let your imagination go wild.

This meditation won't be very long. Then we're going to stop for the day. So, relax.

Be patient. Have fun. Write the story of your past life.

When you were a very good person and you planted these beautiful seeds. Okay, here we go. Not very long.

Please come back, teacher. Look at your teacher. Oh, this is why I see such a beautiful teacher.

In my past life, I helped many people. I worked very hard for other people. I was very peaceful.

I was very happy. I was very kind to other people. Because of that, I have a beautiful teacher.

I have good seeds. Then we're going to take three deep out-breaths. Push all the air out.

Here we go. And slowly open your eyes. Take a nice stretch.

Okay, we'll start again. If anybody has a question about the meditation, then please raise your hand. We'll do general questions this evening.

Any questions about the meditation? I can see one. You guys have a microphone?

Hello, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 2]
I have a question about I feel drowsy and headache when I focus on meditation. No matter what time I do meditation, I just want to sleep. The more single point I focus, the harder headache I feel.

I want to ask how to overcome and how to be passionate on meditation.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
Good question.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So, we're going to do the mandala after the questions. Okay.

So, one by one. If you have headache during meditation, oftentimes this is caused by too much chi. So, meditation increases the chi.

And you can get headache. You can get tight here in the chest. You can get some pain in the chest.

You can get little shaky hands. Then, these are all signs that you didn't meditate correctly. And you got some problem with the chi.

And there's a very simple way to fix it. Two things you can do. Number one, during the meditation, exhale should be very long.

So, when you breathe out, breathe out very long. Then there's a natural pause in your breath. And then the inhale starts.

Okay, so you breathe out. Then there's a pause. Then the inhale starts.

So, most people's breath has three parts. Exhale. Pause.

Inhale. Since you're a baby, this is natural way to breathe. So, when you meditate, you have to push out more air.

When you reach the end of the breath, and you pause, then push a little more air out. There's always some leftover air in our lungs. And during meditation, this leftover air increases.

And the breath is not the chi. But the breath is connected to the chi. So, if there's too much air left in the lungs, the chi will increase also.

What's the sign? You might have pain in your chest. You might feel nervous.

Maybe your hands are shaking. And a special kind of headache. They say, gong na gam gam.

It means a dry headache. I don't know why. But it feels here.

Some kind of headache. It means too much chi. So, you can fix it very easily.

Just breathe out. A little bit extra. Whenever you meditate.

If it gets pretty serious, you should stop meditating for a day or two. And it helps to eat some heavy food. So, greasy food.

Lots of protein. No sugar. No coffee.

No tea. Then the chi will calm down. Then you can start again.

It's important to do something when you get the headache. Because it will hurt you. So, right away you should start to do this special breathing.

Eat more healthy food. More protein. More oil.

Dark green vegetables. And that will help a lot. Then you will feel better during the meditation.

And you're hungry for meditation. It will increase. So, today we did a long meditation.

That's because we all came to Bali. We have a good chance to meditate here. But normally, my suggestion is to start with ten minutes every day.

Don't meditate more than ten minutes. Do ten minutes this week. Then each week, increase.

Every Sunday, increase one minute. So, no one ever follows the teacher's advice. You will try to meditate for one hour.

You will fail. You will quit meditating. So, my advice, ten minutes from today, just start with ten minutes.

Enjoy. Ten minutes with a good focus is much better than one hour with a bad focus. Bad focus becomes a habit.

So, this week, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, ten minutes. Next week, on Sunday, increase to eleven. Next week, increase to twelve.

Like that. Then you won't quit. And you will enjoy the meditation.

Then time passes quickly. In one year, fifty-two weeks, you will be meditating for one hour. And that's perfect.

That's fine. Please don't try one hour this week. We are doing in the group because you came to Bali and we have to push hard.

But when you get home, just ten minutes, then you will enjoy the meditation. I asked my teacher, when I don't feel like meditating, or it doesn't seem like fun, what should I do? And his answer is very strange.

I'll tell you what you can do. You watch the people die around you. One person.

I got an email this morning. We have a good friend in Sedona. You guys know her.

Her name's Vimala. Her father suddenly got a serious cancer. And I'm afraid he will die in two weeks or something.

Then why are you meditating? The goal is not you feel very happy. That's not the main goal.

We are trying to kaladandha. Kaladandha means we are trying to kill death. The only one way to kill death is to see kongshin directly.

The only way to see kongshin directly is a one hour meditation every day. After one year, start with ten minutes. We are not meditating for fun.

We are not meditating to become peaceful. If you cannot meditate for one hour, you cannot see kongshin directly. If you don't see kongshin directly, then you will die and the people around you will die.

So, that's the motivation. Meditation is not really for peaceful mind. That's a side effect.

And you will become peaceful. You will be happy. But to be honest, it's not the main goal.

DE BA CHUNG LA CHAGS PA YIN DE BA CHEN PO THOB MI SRID Shantideva You get attached to the small pleasure of a small meditation, but you don't reach the big pleasure. When you kill death. So, Geshe-la, if I don't enjoy meditation, what should I do?

In my teacher's time, easy. Watch other people die around you. Then you will get interested in meditation.

Okay? It's a hard answer. But meditation isn't always fun.

It's not. Exercise is not always pleasant, but we have to do it. So, be tough.

Breathe properly and you won't get headache. Why to meditate? It's to kill death.

No choice. Okay. Next one.

You guys choose. Choose a good one. Drink, drink, drink.

Drink, drink, drink. Okay. Geshe-la, I want to ask you about the process of this meditation of Lion's Roar.

During the process when you take us, I feel some kind of sadness. I don't know why. Let me say a little bit about the process.

There are two parts to the Lion's Dance meditation. Who taught this meditation? We have it in a book from Asanga.

We have it in a book from Asanga. Very famous. Why we do this Lion's Dance?

It has two parts. First part, there are eight meditations. Not counting the air conditioning.

After the air conditioning, watch the heart. Go inside the heart. Go inside the middle of the heart.

Go inside the sugar crystal. Go to the ocean. Go to the sky.

Stop the mind, but block the thoughts. Stop the mind and leave it alone. Eight preliminary steps.

If you count the air conditioning, that's nine. Now, something funny. Who taught those?

Maitreya. Taught them to Asanga. In Maitreya's heaven.

Then Asanga taught it in this world. Those first eight or nine meditations, they are not meditation. They are just warm up.

When you go to the Olympics, and you run in the Olympics, first you have to, one hour, stretch your body. If you try to run without warm up, you will hurt yourself. Now, in the meditation, lions dance.

In Sanskrit, the name is Sinhavijjambhita. Yeah, it means a dance of the lions. Those first eight steps, they are not meditation.

Don't do them as meditation. I don't want to hear you sit down for one hour and stop your mind for one hour. It doesn't help you.

That's just to stretch the mind. If you go to the Olympics for running, and every other country's runner, they start running, and you are still warming up. You won't win a gold medal.

They don't give a gold medal for warming up. So, there are two parts of this meditation. Those first eight steps, these are just to stretch your mind.

So, please don't do it for two hours. It's just warm up. It's not meditation.

When does the meditation start? When your teacher comes. That's the real meditation.

And then you go to your customer. So, two parts. And think of it that way.

What was the question? Oh, feels bad. I think then it's important if you feel sad, focus more on the teacher's good quality.

What makes you happy? What makes you feel inspired? What's the beautiful thing you see in your teacher?

Maybe it's fun to go to the past life. What beautiful thing you see in your teacher is coming from you like the pen. Anytime you see something beautiful in your life, that's coming from you.

You see a very wise teacher. You see very good people. You see beautiful people.

They all come from you. Then you should be happy. Then you shouldn't be sad.

You cannot see beauty unless you are beautiful. My teacher didn't make this meditation. Think about the most angry person you know.

Then go to your past life. Think about how you were angry and sad in your past life. That's not the meditation.

Think about the bad person you know. The most beautiful heart person you know, that comes from you. Think about the past life.

What did you do to create this person? So in this meditation, only thinking about beauty, only thinking about beautiful things, then you won't be sad. One more question.

You guys.

[Speaker 2]
I'm not sure if this is a muddle. How to deal with muddle? Except eating less or drinking less, what else can I do?

Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
I couldn't remember what happened, like I lose my memory, or I lose my consciousness. So, why is that? Besides having more healthy diet, besides drinking less alcohol, what can I do?

Okay, good question. There's a famous, famous teaching about meditation. Then, of course, your body, of course the people you meet, they are coming from you.

That's easy. If you meet an angry person, it means in the past you were angry. I have a friend, he will say, there's a famous English expression.

I'm surrounded by idiots. When he says that, all of his friends, we say, yeah, that's true.

[Speaker 2]
That's true.

[Speaker 1]
Why? People around you are a mirror of yourself. The kind people will only meet kind people.

The patient people will only meet patient people. The idiot people will be surrounded by idiots. So, what we see is a reflection of a mirror.

And even the weather, things, the traffic, it's also coming from us. So, I worked for 19 years in New York City. Some days the traffic is unbelievable.

I will be one hour late to work. I will leave my house at the same time as my friend will leave their house. We live in the same town.

They will reach work early. I will reach work one hour late. Even the traffic comes from you.

Each person's traffic is different. Why am I talking about that? What you hear inside your own mind also coming from you.

Reflection of your own mind. So, if the mind is very busy, it comes from what you did last week. It comes from your behavior last week.

Your own thoughts, your own meditation also coming from seed in your mind. People ask me, should I sit on a soft seat or should I sit on a hard seat? Should I hold my hands like that?

Should I hold my hands like that? I'll tell you, should I close my eyes? Should I keep them open a little bit?

What's the answer? It doesn't matter. Okay?

It doesn't matter. I have a friend. He always meditates lying down on his bed.

And his meditation is great. Okay? I'm not telling you to do that.

But just an example. So, what's a special seed to have a good meditation? Oh, Geshe-la, ten minutes of meditation, I can focus.

If I do the whole lion's dance, then at some point the mind starts to wander. Mind becomes blank. I lose my meditation.

Maybe ten, fifteen minutes later, I'm like, oh, I lost my meditation. Why does that happen? It comes from what you did to other people last week.

If you want to have a good meditation next week, plant the seeds today. Then you will have a good meditation next week. If you want to have a pen next week, share your pen with other people today.

It takes time for the seed to open. And also inside the mind. It takes time for the seed to open.

So, the real secret of meditation, people always ask me, Geshe-la, one teacher told me, always put the left hand down first, then put the right hand. So, one person told me, always put the left foot first, then put the right foot. They say if you put the right foot first, and then put the left foot, you will always have disturbed meditation.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You planted your meditation last week.

You planted those seeds last week. The wife in the kitchen planted the fan tong lao gong. Last week.

She yelled at her kids last week. You planted your meditation today. You planted it last week.

So, the real answer, the slow answer to your question, MC, he's our MC. China Sokong. Thank you.

You did a great job. The real answer is don't disturb other people's mind. This week.

That's like yelling at your kids. If you yell at your kids this week, next week the seed will open. Your husband will yell at your kids.

If you say things that upset other people this week, then next week when you close your eyes, you lose your meditation. Okay, understand? Meditation is come from you like the paint.

Like the husband in the kitchen. You have to plant good meditation seeds this week. How?

Be careful what you say to other people. My teacher told me never lie. Never tell a lie.

Then I said, I have a special question, teacher. If my mother I have a stepmother. If she buys a dress in the store and it's very ugly color is ugly shape is ugly then she comes home.

She said, Mike, I want to show you my new dress. Okay, put it on. She go to the bathroom, come back.

She said, what do you think? Then I asked my teacher, do I have to tell the truth? He said, no, to your mother you don't have to tell.

Oh, it's so beautiful. Understand? Be careful not to upset other person's mind.

If I tell my mom color is ugly shape also ugly then it will hurt her feeling. Then next week my meditation will lose my meditation because I hurt my mother's mind. Mother is the most powerful karma object.

Mother and father. If I upset my mother's mind next week my meditation will be bad. Actually my teacher said don't lie directly.

You can say, oh, the price was very good. Okay? Make mother happy.

Okay? Then you plant the seed for good meditation. Okay, we'll do more meditation questions tomorrow.