«Дар освобождения», курс 36 «Любовь во времена вируса», занятие 11

[Speaker 2]
Hi, welcome back to the lam rim.

[Speaker 1]
We're on episode 11. It's called, Making it on the Tennis Team. We're going to start out with a story from the lam rim about chok sung.

Chok means supreme and sung means a pair of two people. This is an important word in secret practice and I can't tell you about it. Anyway, chok sung means the big two.

This refers to two of the most famous disciples of Lord Buddha, which is Shariputra and Maudgalyayana. We know Shariputra because he's the hero in the Heart Sutra. He gets to ask a question and because of his question, we get to hear the whole Heart Sutra.

By the way, it is traditionally taught that these two disciples of the Buddha became arhats. They reached nirvana, but they reached it on a lower track. They're in this category.

Both of them are in this category of people who have reached a very high personal space where they are in complete bliss and they are not so interested in the bodhisattva ideal of trying to meet every living being and give this promise to them that I will take care of you. Traditionally, they're having too much bliss in nirvana to think about that much. It happened one day that Lord Buddha came to these two.

I don't know if he shook them awake or I don't know how he did it, but he said, I want to teach you guys about this higher thing where you take care of everybody. I want you to have this personal experience where you meet every living being. I think it would change your life forever.

He encouraged them. The reply by these two arhats was, MOT SAR BA GDUG KYANG MOT SAR BA GDUG KYANG in the second line here, Seiji probably. MOT SAR BA GDUG KYANG Wow, that sounds amazing.

To meet every single living being. Yeah, that would be something special. KYANG, but, BDAG CHAGS NI SDOM DU MED TSIG PA BZHIN DU GYUR PAS Ever since we reached nirvana, we've been like a bump on a log.

It says here, an inert tree trunk burned by fire or something like that. What it means is, we're just totally out of it. That sounds wonderful Buddha, but don't teach this stuff to us.

We're already in this kind of spaced out place and we're going to be here for millions of years. CI BYAR MIN GDUG We're not the people to be teaching this stuff because we're already wrapped up in our personal nirvana. You're kind of wasting your time with us.

There's this incident where even this great arhat who requested the Heart Sutra was staying in this kind of space and told Lord Buddha, maybe you shouldn't waste your time on us because we're in a good bad place and we can't really do it. MIN GDUG BYAS GSOL BAR GSUNGS PA PHA PA SHAR RI LTA BU CHUB PA'I NYAN THOS Then Pabongka Rinpoche comes to Shariputra's defense. He says, look, Shariputra, this Arya, he was just faking it.

He had not entered a selfish personal nirvana. He was just faking it. The answer he gave, don't waste your time on us, was for the benefit of other people.

NYAN THOS RANG MTSAN PA GZHAN LA BSGOM NAS GSUNGS This BSGOM means he was faking it. Shariputra was faking it. He was trying to be a good example for the other potential nirvana seekers in their group, in their student group.

He was trying to say, don't make the same mistake I made. Don't become immune to the higher teachings. Don't make this mistake.

I made that mistake. You guys don't make it. But he was just faking it.

He's one of those people, like in the Heart Sutra, that by tradition might even be considered a Buddha, asking another Buddha question. Who's the other Buddha in this case? For zero dollars.

Avalokiteshvara. Or Bodhisattva. RANG MTSAN PA GZHAN LA BSGOM NAS GSUNGS PA BZHIN MTSAN RGYAL BA LA PHA BYAS CHE Any way reaching this lower nirvana is a big obstacle to MTSAN RGYAL BA, which is the verb for Buddhahood, to become a Buddha.

DE NA Therefore, RANG RES NGAN CUNG GI BLO LA NYON BA THON PA NA Should we skip all the stages of the lam rim, which are meant for people of lower capacity or medium capacity? Are you telling me that we should just skip those lower steps? The answer is no.

NYON BA THON PA means get good at being sad about the state of the world. Get good at being sad about the state of the world. Get good at it.

And then, THEG CHEN GYI LAM LA NGES PAR BYUNG DGOS You must enter the greater way. You must seek this experience where you meet all the living beings in the universe and personally commit to them to help them. RGYAL PO'I SBRING DANG THON PA'I LAM LA SBYONG BA NI NGES BYUNG DGOS LA SKYE BA'I PHYED YIN GYI The purpose for studying the steps of the path for people of medium capacity is to get this kind of state of mind where we are tired of all the kinds of life you could live in this samsara, in this suffering life.

Even a human life. Even a wealthy human life. Even a wealthy human life with lots of scriptures around.

Makes nuts. Even those we don't want. We want to go beyond those.

LAM NGOS LA MDO'I PHYIR MIN NO But, it's not the real path. Wow. It's necessary to get to the real path, but it's not the real path.

It is a part of the steps of the path, but it's not the path you want to get on in the end. All right. SNAM GYIS MNGOS BZHIN NI, SKYE BU CHEN PO'I BYANG CHUB SEMS SBYONG STE Then he says something kind of radical and I've seen people misunderstand this statement.

How do you say it? He says, can you show the next picture? I like this next picture.

I don't know about you, but, and I haven't gone to a lot of concerts in my life, but in this next picture, you see, okay, who are these guys? They're playing pretty bad, I'll tell you that. They're the opening act.

They're the opening act. I don't know, like, you buy a ticket for a great band, you want to go see them live, in person. It's a two-hour, three-hour concert.

And when you get there, there's some other dumb band playing, who are not very good, and they're called the opening act. In English, they're called the opening act. These are, I don't know, somehow they got this job to play for an hour to waste time so the real superstar guys could relax in the back.

And you have to sit through these guys for an hour. What's that got to do with anything? And then sometimes, by the way, the superstar comes on, plays two songs, goes away, and the bad band comes back.

That's what's happening with the lam rim. The first part we studied, the first part we studied, the steps of the path for people of lesser capacity or medium capacity. People who just want to stay out of the lower realms.

Or people who just want to stay out of any rebirth in general. All of those people, they're not the real practice. They're just the warm-up band.

They're just the opening act band. They're not the... What do you call that?

You call it opening act? There's another name. Anyway, these steps of the path that we spent years on, that's not the real thing.

That's not the real concert. That's not the music of the lam rim. That was just to warm you up.

And by the way, and then he says something radical. Are you ready for this? The six perfections are also the opening act coming back at the end.

The six perfections are also opening act. They're not the main thing. It's an incredible statement.

The steps of the path to get out of a lower birth or to get out of birth in general, they're not the main thing. And the six perfections are not the main thing. So what's that leave?

Yeah, it's the experience of meeting everybody in the universe and committing to each one individually. I will help you. Pabongka Rinpoche is making a very radical statement.

That's the main act. That's the rolling stones. That's the thing you've been waiting to hear.

And that's what I want you to focus on. Very extraordinary statement. If you're a real Buddhist practitioner, you're like, wow, that's pretty heavy.

All right, DE NA SKYES BU CHEN PO'I BLO'AM LA BLO PA LA STONG PO MTHO'I SKYES PA'I PHYIR DU Great Lamas have written advertisements for this studying. Studying this greater way. Studying the path of a bodhisattva.

Great Lamas in the past have done a sales job for this bodhichitta. For trying to get this bodhichitta. Trying to have this experience.

One of them is the great Fifth Dalai Lama who lived 1617 to 1682. No one got that? He wrote a book called BYAMS PA SHAL LUNG which we have studied already.

It's called The Word of Manjushri. BSRUNG PA BZHIN He lists cool things that are going to happen if you get this experience. If you can just get to this experience.

By the way, which you have to do in meditation. If you can just get to this experience of meeting all these beings. Just get to that.

SNGON DU SNANG NAS BYAS PA BYANG RLEN DU BSRUNG PA BZHIN Ten different things are going to happen to you. Now, they are not listed so clearly in that short lamrim. But in this lamrim, they are covered in detail.

SNGON DU SNANG NAS BYAS PA BYANG RLEN DU YOD PAS DE LTAR ZHES PA So, ever since the days of the Fifth Dalai Lama, it's been a tradition at this point to introduce the students to ten cool things that are going to happen to you if you can reach this peak experience with every living being. Let's go through the list briefly and then Pabongka Rinpoche is going to go into great detail. In fact, the great detail that the Lama goes into of these ten means that we are not going to finish the ten during this retreat.

We'll have to finish them in the next retreat. But we'll get part way through the list. So, ten different amazing things.

Number one, if you have this experience with every living being, ten special things are going to happen to you. Number one, THEG CHEN GYI SBYUG GO SEMS BSKYED KHO NAR BSTAN PA It's the only way to enter the path of the bodhisattvas. It's to have this experience.

There is no other way. You have to have this experience. There are many systems like RGYUD NAS DMAN NGA'I DUN the seven step method or BDAG CHEN YAMS RJE, exchanging self and others.

But they are methods to get to this experience. When you get to this experience, only then can we say you're on the Mahayana. Then you're on the higher path and you don't have to go back to pick up your lunch or something that you left in your house.

Second, RGYAL BA'I SRED ZHES BYA BA'I MING THOB I love this. From the moment you have that experience and Buddhists talk about you, they will say, Tim, my son. Or Seiji, my son.

They will start to refer to you as their son or your daughter. That's such a sweet thing. When the Buddhists start talking about you as if you were really their son or daughter.

Of course they love all living beings. Of course they love all living beings equally. But those living beings who are very close to joining the family of enlightened beings, they have a special feeling about them and they say, my son.

They refer to them as my son or my daughter. It's very sweet. If you've ever had this relationship.

I had this relationship with my heart teacher, Ken Rinpoche. When people met him, he would refer to me as his son. It was a very deep love, deep thing.

When you have this experience, then the enlightened beings of the universe start saying, oh, he's one of my sons. She's one of my daughters. Benefit number three.

NYAN RANG RIGS KYI SGO NAS ZAL GYI SNGON PA Then you join a family. You join a select family and you are completely different from other people, especially people who are on lower paths. You are totally...

I like to think of it as you are at an evolutionary higher level. You are no longer even in their league. You are in a different league.

You are in a different family. Number four. CHOS PA'I ZHING CHOG TU GYUR BA Something cool happens.

I don't know. This is kind of sexy. If you have had this experience and people respect you at all for that, they get incredible good karma.

That's kind of a nice reason to have the experience. Then after that, if you are a nice person and people think you are nice, then they get like 10 billion more seats by thinking of you well. It's kind of a strange benefit.

Or they give you a cup of tea. Then for them it's like giving a thousand cups of tea or a million cups of tea because you are a different person. You are a different being.

It's kind of fun to be a person who if other people get to know you, then automatically they are making great karma. Number five. TSOG RGYAL CHEN PO DE LAG TU RDZOGS PA It's easy for you to collect massive amounts of good seeds.

When you have that experience, you get a number of seeds in your mind which is unimaginable. They will carry you to amazing places. And you know that.

You see that. SDIG SDIG MYUR DU BYANG BA Of course, every bodhisattva still has a lot of old bad seeds. And every bodhisattva even who has seen emptiness directly or had this bodhichitta experience directly, they still have a lot of bad seeds in their mind.

They still make mistakes. They have not eliminated the mental afflictions. They are not arhats yet.

They still have a lot of problems. But, they can clean their mind out relatively faster than other people. Number seven.

CI BSAM PA GRUB PA Any goal, spiritual goal you set your mind to, you can achieve it. I would like to learn Master Sanskrit so I could help more people or something like that. I don't know.

I'd like to be able to tell the future and then I could help people more. So whatever you dream of, you are able to achieve it. Number eight.

GNOD PA DANG BAR BYAS KYI MI TSUL PA You don't get extraordinary obstacles. They avoid you. By the way, each one of these has a long explanation which is coming.

I'm just giving you the ten quickly. SA LANG THAMS CAD NYOD DU RDZOGS PA You can move up through the bodhisattva levels. You can get through the five paths very, very quickly and reach the end.

Number ten. SBYOR BA'I BDE'I KHYI MA LUS PA BYUNG BA'I ZHING ZHAG DGYUR BA'O You become a farmer's field in which all of the wishes of every living being can grow and be eaten. Yummy.

Yummy? Later. Something like that.

All right. We're going to talk about the first one. We still have some time.

We're going to talk about this first. We're going to talk about the first of the ten cool things that happens to you if you can get to this core experience. DANG PO NI I like to think, when I was a kid, my parents got divorced and my mother had no skills and no money.

She went to school. At that time, the only job a woman could get was a secretary or a school teacher. She went to school and became a school teacher.

She had four boys, no money. It wasn't like we were hungry regularly. Once in a while we were hungry.

But we had to be careful with money. I remember one day she said, okay boys, we're going to have a family meeting. We all got there and she said, look, we don't have so much money so we're going to make this democratic.

We either have money to go see movies once in a while or I have money to put you in the tennis club. You can learn to play tennis in the tennis club. Then we said, mom, we will let you know.

All four brothers, we went to another room and we were talking it over. Let's go see movies. Who wants to play tennis?

Yeah, let's vote for the movies. My older brother said, no, mom's trying to trick you. We said, what do you mean?

She wants you to vote for the movies because it's cheaper. The tennis club is more expensive. We said, but we don't want to learn tennis.

She said, you deuce. Deuce means dumb guy. You deuce.

The tennis club has a swimming pool. You can go swimming anytime you want. She didn't tell you that because it's more expensive.

Vote for the tennis club. Then we get to go to the swimming pool anytime we want. We all voted for the tennis club.

Then my mom decided we had to learn tennis, to swim in the pool. We learned tennis. She thought, I think if yoga had existed, it would have been yoga.

She said, this is something that will keep you fit for the rest of your life. It's not like football. You do football until you're 20 years old.

Then you hurt your knees and you stop. Or soccer. Tennis you can play.

She played tennis until a few weeks before she died. She said, this is good. This is going to be good for your whole life.

We learned. But in my youth, tennis was considered very wimpy. Only weird kids, weird skinny kids, like, don't show this one yet.

That's the bunch line. Yeah, only weird kids. You got to show the last one.

This little boy with buck teeth. This looks like Seiji when he was a kid actually. Yeah, only weird kids who want to play tennis.

Why are we talking about that? Later, when I got to high school, they had a tennis team. If you made it on the team, there were only five guys allowed on the team.

Six. Only six guys allowed on the team. If you made it on the team, you got a special jacket.

If you had the special jacket, it was very easy to get a girlfriend. We all wanted the special jacket. Leather jacket?

We all wanted one. I'm like, yeah, I know tennis. I can get on the team.

I was trying really hard to get on the team. That little guy with the tennis racket is me. I want to get on the team, mom.

Okay, here we go. SDANG PO NI DE LA THEG CHEN GYI MTHIL DU SPYOD MI SPYOD KYANG BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS KYI RGYUD LA SKYE MA SKYE GYIS BYAS PA YIN The question of whether you get on the team called bodhisattvas depends on whether you have this experience or not. Got it?

If you want to get on the tennis team, meaning if you want to be on the bodhisattva team, you have to have this experience. That's the first benefit of having this experience with all living beings. If you haven't, you're in this special club.

You get this special bodhisattva jacket. All the bodhisattva girls fall in love with you. Or the boys.

It's a long stretch, but just put up with it. BYAS LA MED KYANG CHOS THEG CHEN GYI MED MI CHOG GI GANG ZAG THEG CHEN PAR TSOD PA ZHIG DGOS Even Tsongkapa said, I don't care if the book you're reading is a bodhisattva's book or not. Seiji's supposed to translate the bodhisattva's way or not.

Tsongkapa's like, I don't care. I want to know if you'll join the club or not. THEG CHEN PAR TSOD means, are you one of those select VIP people who has joined the bodhisattva club, who has had that experience?

That's the only thing I want to know. I don't care what book you're reading. I don't care what books you're studying.

I don't care if you're translating Mahayana books. I want to know have you had that experience or not. THEG CHEN PAR BYED PAR YANG BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS NYID LA RAG LAS PAS Whether you've joined that club only depends on whether you've had that experience.

SEMS DE DGOS PA TZAM LAS MED NA THEG CHEN LA YANG LDAN DANG LA If your experience of that experience is just Geshe Michael telling you about that experience, then you are also that kind of bodhisattva. We just talk about you like a bodhisattva, but you're not. You're not on the bodhisattva track.

You just can repeat what someone said about it. DE DANG DRAG LA ZHES SOGS GSUNGS PA BZHIN Je Tsongkapa said that. BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS DE DGOS LA MED NA Suppose you don't have this experience.

RGYUD RGYAL means the king of all tantras. THAR THUG, the ultimate king of all tantras. BEL TZAM BA SDUG PA, GU HYAS SU MA BYA which was one of Tsongkapa's favorite tantras.

His real favorite was Vajrayogini, but that's secret. SDUG PA LTA BU SKYES RDZOGS NYAMS SU BLANGS KYANG You can practice the two stages of tantra from the highest tantric book there is. But, KYANG TZANG RGYA RGYU LTA ZHOGS That's not going to make you a Buddha.

THEG CHEN SOGS BLANG TZAM DU'ANG ZHUGS MI THUB That tantra won't even enable you to enter the first of the five paths on the bodhisattva track. So forget the tantras. Try to have this experience.

Do what you can to have this experience. How to have it? Study the two methods we have.

Exchanging self and others. Exchanging and equalizing. Equalizing and exchanging yourself and others.

And then the seven step method taught by Lord Atisha. We're going to study it. All right.

DE'I BAR ZHOGS THEG PA CHEN PO'I CHOS SU'ANG MI BRAL LA If you're studying Mahayana and you haven't had this experience, then I would question whether you are studying Mahayana. That's kind of heavy. SEMS DI YOD NA But if you have had this experience, MA NI TSA'I GCIG STON PA'ANG THEG CHEN GYI CHOS All you know how to do is OM MANI PADME HUM, OM MANI PADME HUM one time around on your rosary.

That becomes the study of the Mahayana teachings. THEG CHEN GZUGS SBYOR YONG SANG RGYAL BA'I RGYUR GYUR BA'I That one time of reciting that mantra on your rosary will be enough to get you enlightened. Okay, last thing to show you is this picture.

You ready? I found it today. Me and Veronica found it.

Anyway, I did make the team. It was cool. That guy in the middle with the hair.

Sorry. It is possible to make this team. Whether or not you make this team, it just depends on learning those methods.

Equalizing and exchanging yourself and others. Then just keep trying. Just keep doing it sincerely.

You will have that experience. Then your life has been valuable. Then you have had a good life.

If you just have that experience, you have a good life.

[Speaker 2]
See you then in episode twelve.