AGOL 36, Обзор курса — стенограмма

[Speaker 2]
Hi, welcome back to the Lam Rim.

[Speaker 1]
Today we're going to do a review of the whole course. It's good for me. I would like to do a review myself.

You know, this format of doing separate episodes and then doing them at separate times, you kind of lose the flow of the whole teaching. So I thought it would be nice today if we went back from the beginning and we went through the flow of the whole Lam Rim teaching that we had. Now, I'm going to do that flow based on the idims, on the idea images that we use to teach the ACI teachers.

So the ACI teachers are expected to be able to look at one of these pictures and identify the idea behind it. And I think, Tim, how many we said? Like there's going to be a thousand or something.

How many? 500 and something like that. So it's kind of easy to examine someone just based on the pictures.

So we just throw these pictures at you. So I challenge you during this review, when we throw up a picture, then I'll give you a second and see if you can remember what the picture was about. And this is a good review of the entire course that we're doing.

All right, here we go. First picture, Mr. Seiji. This picture is supposed to remind you that we are in the middle of the practices for people of medium capacity.

And what they're trying to get to is nirvana. They're trying to get out of the wheel of life, out of all suffering for themselves personally. This is where Buddha taught the three trainings that will help you to reach your personal nirvana.

The third training is understanding emptiness, understanding the pen. The second training is meditation. And on a deep level, these two can only be done in a quiet place during certain times of the day, when you're really focusing on your meditation mat.

On a deep level, these two have to be done on special periods of the day. But this one, the foundation for those two, which is being nice to other people. You can call it morality.

You can call it an ethical way of life. But in the end, it's being nice to other people. That's the foundation.

Which is always available to us all day long. So this is one of the three extraordinary trainings of Buddhism meant to help us to reach nirvana. And it's available to us all day long.

So in this picture, you can see Seiji helping Geshe Michael to figure out his computer, which is one of the nicest things that young people can do for older people. All right, next picture. See if you can remember what this picture was.

Did you guess? This lady's doing her taxes. And what does that make her?

In this lam rim system, it makes her a dharma master. So when I say dharma master, tantric master, I know the picture you have in your mind. It's some big lama up on a throne and they have a big yellow hat.

Maybe they are ringing a bell and a little drum and they are... And you think, oh, that's a dharma master. That's a real dharma master.

Or you're thinking of that old picture of Nagarjuna. And he's all kind of mystical. But really, in the lam rim, what we learned was this woman.

She has a couple kids. She's married. And she's a dharma master.

She is a real dharma master. Pabongka Rinpoche said, don't think that a dharma master has to be sitting up on a throne and reciting some tantric ritual. This lady is doing what?

She's paying her taxes. To be honest, on your taxes, it's really difficult in my country. It might take you weeks to do your taxes.

And to really do them carefully, to do them completely honestly, to pay every single penny you're supposed to pay, this makes her... She has the first of the extraordinary trainings of a good person, kind to other people, and that makes her a real dharma master. Forget those pictures you have of lamas with big hats on and ringing bells.

That's easy. Anybody can do that. But to be nice to people is difficult.

And to keep your morality, to keep your ethics is also difficult. Okay, next one. This is...

I'll give you a moment. Do you remember what this is about? The quotation in the Lam Rim was, TSUL KHRIMS BSTAN PA'I DGE SLONG DANG LDAN A person who's really keeping their vows, really keeping their Buddhist guidelines.

The ten guidelines especially. They shine. They actually shine.

A person who's making a healthy, modest, low-key effort to keep their commitments, keep the ten good karmas, be nice to other people. Then they have some kind of a peaceful look on their face. They are shining.

And when they walk into a room, you know it. Everyone starts feeling better. So, like Tim and Seiji.

So, that's a light of the world. Buddha said, those people are the light of the world. And there's a Christian expression, don't put a candle under a basket.

Let the world see your happy face. And that's a light. It's a true guiding light for the whole world.

Okay, next picture. Inum number four. Where are we?

Yeah, this is a cliff that I went on with my partner Veronica for her birthday during this lam rim. They were talking about the sun setting, which in Tibetan, the word is nupa. It's also the word for west because the sun sets in the west.

So, nupa means the sun setting. And this is a very sad verb. This is a very sad idea in the Dharma.

And the most famous place comes at the end of the Abhidharma Kosha, the Treasure House of Higher Wisdom. Treasure House of Higher Knowledge by Master Vasubandhu. And he says, the Dharma, the sun of the Dharma, the light of the Dharma, will set in this world.

We will lose the light of the Dharma in this world. This world will go into darkness. After a certain amount of time, the teachings of the Buddha will disappear in this world.

First they disappear in the minds of people. But they're still in libraries. Those books are still in libraries.

Probably libraries that John Brady hasn't found yet. And then later they will disappear from the libraries also. And then they'll be gone.

Now, I put the picture here because Pabongka Rinpoche made a special point. And he said, if you can't keep your commitments, if you can't keep nice behavior towards other people, then we can say the Dharma has left this world. The light of the Dharma has left this world inside of you.

The sun has set inside your own chest, which would be a very sad thing if we don't keep our vows. Okay, next picture. What was that?

Yeah, we called this retreat, Love in the Time of the Virus. And the point was that during a very difficult time in the world, if you keep your commitments, if you are nice to other people when things are frightening, scary, the virus is spreading, we don't know where, we don't know how, we don't know how many people will die. And if during those difficult times, you do something nice to other people, it's much, much more powerful.

And he mentioned, if you remember, a five-star Buddha paradise, which is like a perfect, perfect place. It's easy to be a good person. Everybody there is a good person.

That's no big achievement. Okay, that's not a big deal. And the seed is not that powerful.

To be nice in a group of nice people. To be nice when people are attacking you, when people are afraid, when people are not being nice to each other. To be the one person who stands up and shares things in a difficult time, then that's an extremely pure person.

That's a great karma. That's an incredible karma. Much more powerful.

So I think this virus is a very good time. It's a very good chance for all of us to show, are we really Buddhas? Are we really practicing the bodhisattva path?

Can we help others even when things are very hard? All right, next picture. This one is hard to remember.

I had trouble remembering it. I'm going to give you a second to try to think of what this picture is. Okay, Pabongka Rinpoche was quoting some books.

Very, very common ending to different books. He quoted one famous one which is BLO BZANG RGYAL BA'I BSTAN PA RGYAS GYUR CIG BLO BZANG RGYAL BA'I BSTAN PA RGYAS GYUR CIG It means, made the teachings of the victorious one, LHO BZANG BDAG PA, Je Tsongkapa, spread in this world. And then you're thinking, oh, we got to get on the internet.

We got to translate this Lam Rim into many languages. We have to try to spread the good word to as many people as we can. And that's the end of the prayer.

That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to walk out of this Lam Rim class or video and we're supposed to share the Dharma with other people and we're supposed to spread the Dharma in the world. And in this part of the Lam Rim, Pabongka Rinpoche said, look, the place you're supposed to spread the Dharma is here inside your own heart.

So don't think of spreading the Dharma means, try to translate the videos into more languages or something like that. That's a very important spreading of the Dharma. But he says, if you spread it in your own heart, then of course it will spread outside of you because the world is coming from your heart, from your heart chakra actually.

Next picture, number seven. Try to remember what this picture was about. I'll give you a second.

Yeah, and this is, I don't know, this is a favorite topic of mine. Having a personal relationship with another person, like these two people have. In my opinion, and in tantra, it's one of the happiest things that can happen to you.

It's one of the greatest things that can happen to you. Anybody can tell you, the reason the whole world is looking for a partner is that it makes people happy. It's one of the greatest happinesses.

When it's going well, it's one of the greatest happinesses you can have. But, you know, and you know and I know, when it's not going well, it's one of the greatest miseries in life. Why is that relevant to this course right here?

If your morality is good, it's the happiest thing in your life. If you break your morality, it's the same thing that's going to make you miserable. It's like having a nice woman or man who's your partner.

The same person who makes you totally happy, can also make you totally miserable. So in this case, Vinaya, your personal practice of kindness, good behavior, is being compared to a partner who can either make you be the best thing in your life or the worst thing in your life. Same person.

All right, next. Number eight, I think. This was a complicated one.

See if you can remember. I'll take a sip of my green drink. Thanks Vimalan.

Yeah. This guy, this actually represents breaking your commitments. Okay, this pulling up a weed, okay, represents breaking your commitments.

Why? I mean, destroying this plant is breaking your commitment. And if you're a gardener, you know that you should pull a weed out before the seeds are ready.

Okay? If you wait until the seeds are ready to drop off and then you pull the plant out, then you're going to spread about a thousand seeds for next month or next year. You're going to get thousands of weeds growing back.

So you have to attack those weeds early. This refers to a very radical statement that Buddha made. SKYE SLONG THAG SOGS DRANG BRAL ZHING ZHI BA NI LA'I It's better to die than to break your vows.

Why? When you break your vows, you are setting in motion seeds which will continue to fall off for many lifetimes. Okay, so if you die, you ruin one body-mind complex.

You know, if you die, you ruin one very useful temple, a physical temple and a mind. You lose one. But if you break your commitment, you lose many body-mind complexes.

You ruin your body and mind for many lifetimes. And you set seeds into motion which are going to ruin many lifetimes. So Buddha was saying, it's better to die than to break your vows.

He was not being metaphorical. He was speaking very literally when he said that. Better to die than to break your commitments.

Then there's a joke in the Lam Rim. We take a vow never to give up bodhichitta even at the cost of our lives. And there's a famous statement that, so all through our whole life, we're waiting to get put in a prison by some evil people.

And they come up with a knife and they say, okay, give up your bodhisattva vows or die today. And then we're going to say, I choose to die. And they kill us.

I think all of us were waiting for this special moment. Ever since we took that vow, we're all waiting for these guys to show up with knives and threaten us. But actually, we're the guys with the knives.

We threaten our bodhisattva vows every day. We have to make this decision every day when we decide whether or not to keep our vows carefully. Okay.

All right. It's hard to find those guys who put you in jail and say I'm going to kill you if you don't give up your bodhisattva vows. All right.

The next picture is... See if you can remember. I'm going to give you a minute to try to remember.

This was a reference to a... Okay, we have Mixed Nuts translation team. And we were translating an old Vinaya text.

Monks' Vows, Nuns' Vows. And they were talking about the vow, the tradition, that we shouldn't... When you become a monk or a nun, they give you your robes.

They give you a small Buddhist statue. And they give you a strainer. And in ancient India, you were supposed to carry this strainer around with you.

And when you drink water from a stream, you're supposed to strain the water first to make sure you don't kill any small insects. And we mentioned a famous tradition in the Vinaya that if a couple of monks go down to the water, down to the stream to get some water, then they should choose the nicest monk to check the water. Don't choose the guy who doesn't care about bugs.

Try to find a guy who loves bugs and have them check the water. Because they will be more careful. So, what's the point?

And we talked about kind of Ecology Vows where monks and nuns are not supposed to even pull green leaves off a plant because these are the homes of tiny creatures. So, it means respect even the very small vows. Take them very seriously.

Because the results multiply exponentially, then it's important to keep your morality on a very subtle level, on a very fine level. And don't get anal. If I was going to write the Bodhisattva Vows, I would write an extra Bodhisattva Vow about don't get anal about your Bodhisattva Vows.

There's nothing more irritating than than a person who's informs you they are keeping their vows and that's why they have to be an asshole today. So, keep your vows sweetly. Keep them happily.

Don't overdo it. Don't bother other people with your vows because the vows are not to bother other people. So, keep the small vows.

Keep them quietly. Keep them personally. Don't advertise it.

There's a saying in Islam, left hand shouldn't let the right hand know what it's doing. It means don't advertise your vows. Just keep them quietly and keep them on a very fine level.

Next picture. Where is that? This is the idea that being nice to other people is like planting a tree.

Oh, and today I went to a peach tree cafe to check on something. Me and Stanley and Allison planted a peach tree there when we first started the Peach Tree Cafe Morning Show. I want to tell you guys that three peaches came out this week and we got peaches now.

And so what it means is take care of your foundation practices. Take care of the root. Plant nice karmas by keeping your vows, by being nice to other people.

And then that's going to grow into a tree. And that peach tree that we planted five months ago or something, it's already giving a lot of fruit. If you didn't take care of it when it was tiny, you wouldn't have anything.

But if you take care of the foundation of your Buddhist practice, which is being nice to other people, then the fruits are going to be thousands and thousands and thousands. It'll come. It will grow into a huge...

It'll grow into a tree. It will give peaches every year. And for many years you will have peaches.

This child was protecting this sprout carefully. Protect your morality. All right, next picture.

I think if I remember correctly, there were four conditions that might cause you to break your commitments. If you took bodhisattva commitments, or you took Vinaya Pratyamoksha commitments, or even if you took Diamond Way Tantric commitments. I think it was four.

Pabongka Rinpoche reviewed... No, maybe more than that. Anyway, there were certain conditions that would help you to break your vows.

If you want to break your vows, there's a couple of special ways to do it. Here's the first one, which is if you don't know what your vows are, then that's a good way to break them. If you want to break them, then do not study them.

One of my pet peeves, I have many pet dharma peeves, is teachers who give initiations. Huge initiations, and they do not explain to the people taking the initiation that they have just taken vows. There are hundreds of vows that you just took when you get an initiation.

You're going to break them if you don't know them. It's the teacher's responsibility to train you in your vows before you get an initiation. If they don't offer to train you, I would not take an initiation from them.

So, the best way to break your vows, first way is not to know them. Read the recipe before you start cooking. That's what Veronica tells me every time I cook.

Next picture. Is a lady saying, yeah, you know, it's not such a big thing. That vow about, I don't know, not cutting green plants without a prayer.

Come on, that's a little extreme. That's a little too much. That's not that important.

I mean, a couple of bugs might be using that leaf once in a while as a roof. So, look, it's not that big of a deal. So, the second great way to break your vows is to have this attitude of like, oh, that one's not so important.

I'm keeping the big ones. All right, next one. If we get a klesha, meaning if we get some kind of negativity running around in our mind, that's a great way to break your vows.

Getting irritated with somebody else or getting obsessed with acquiring something, money, or getting attached to our Netflix at night. Those kind of... By the way, it's not wrong to watch Netflix, but I'm talking about hurting someone else because you want to get home and watch Netflix.

That's a problem. So, this is called the gang fight. And the story is what?

Go for the biggest guy on the other side. Okay? Find out who's the leader of the other side.

And don't talk. Don't negotiate. Don't yell at each other.

Walk up to him and bash him on the head. And then the whole other side will fall down. So, identify your worst bad habit and go after that one first.

And that's a way to deal, to keep your vows. Next one. If you...

And by the way, at the age of... my age, okay? I'm not telling you how old I am.

But all this young love thing is so ridiculous from the point of view of my age. And I can say it with experience because I had it. But this thing about, oh, she's the most beautiful woman in the world.

He's the most handsome guy in the world. First of all, my older brother, he said the funniest thing. He said, you like that girl?

I said, yeah. He said, you want to spend your life with her? I said, yeah.

He said, check out her mom first. Check out how does her mom look. So, I go, the mom looks terrible.

She's overweight. She looks tired. She looks terrible.

And he says, well, what do you think? What do you think she looked like in the beginning? So, think about it.

So, if you're attached to the looks of a person or something physical, something not very important about a person, that's going to change. And you will see them get sick. You will see them get old.

You will see them have diarrhea, throw up. If you're not lucky, you will see their insides in an operation sometime. So, don't fool yourself that it's worth hurting other people to get the most beautiful woman or man that you can.

It's not worth it. It won't last. It's great to have a relationship, but have it for the right reason.

All right, next. If you have a problem with anger or you get upset easily, then fantasize about giving this person something they would love to have. This is called maitri.

Champa. Love. Fantasize.

Try to remember how nice it is to give someone something they love and something they want. And try to have this attitude. If you feel...

If you don't feel friendly towards another person, then do some fantasies, which means meditation, about giving them something they really like. All right. Next one.

I'm going to give you a moment for this one. I bet you can't remember what this one is. Tim's cheating.

He's looking ahead. What was this one? This is about pride.

Pride is also going to be an obstacle to keeping your vows. One of the most common types of pride in a monastic situation, which is where this book was taught generally, is how much you know about the scriptures. How many facts have you collected in your lifetime?

And this is something I really enjoy, is obscure Dharma facts. And the more you collect, the more you feel like you are special. Then Pabongka Rinpoche said, look, all the Dharma you ever learned in your life, all the things you memorized, all the things you debated, all the Geshe degrees you could ever have, compared to what there is still left to know, you don't know nothing.

You are like a worm on the bottom of the ocean. And sometimes go out and look up at the stars. Many of those stars have planets around them.

There's people on those planets. There's things to know about those people. There's the things we know that we're so proud about knowing is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what you could know.

All right. So don't have pride. Next one.

One of the big motivations to break your vows or your commitments, your morality, which is going to stop you from reaching nirvana, which is going to stop you from reaching the second level of the lam rim, personal nirvana, is to understand emptiness, study emptiness. If you realize that the mean things that someone else is doing to you are coming directly from what you did last week, then you're not going to make big mistakes. So the more you can study emptiness, the more you can study cause and effect, dependent origination, which means this person's coming from my seeds, then the easier it's going to be to keep your vows.

Easier it's going to be. So study, study, study. I had a teacher, he said, an old inner Mongol teacher, very old, with tuberculosis.

He used to say, well, it's very good. You are so proud. You have such a great amount of pride.

From Princeton and later, the Geshe thing, that's very helpful, very helpful. So you will push yourself harder just to look smart. That's lucky.

But later on try to give it up, okay? Just study to be a good person, okay? It's not very funny.

He gave me Adam's text on his deathbed. I remember this. Okay.

Next one. The fourth, this is technically the fourth cause. Or is it?

No. Anyway, one of the causes of breaking your vows or losing your commitments is that it's very hard in the modern world to keep your mind on your vows when you're very busy, okay? When things are moving very fast and there are a thousand things to see on the internet.

And life is moving so fast and it's hard to keep that self-awareness of, am I breaking my vows? Am I doing anything to hurt someone? So you kind of got to slow down, come back to your vows, and keep some kind of awareness, sensitivity, to the fact that you have commitments not to hurt other people, okay?

So, the busier things get, the more careful you have to be. It's easy to get, it's even easy to get irritated with your partner when you're very busy. They're trying to tell you something and you've got ten things going on at work and and you're like, look, I don't have time to listen right now.

I got, I got, my boss gave me ten things to do, you know? And then, those are the times you have to slow down and come back to your vows and don't forget your commitment to be nice to other people, even when you're very stressed, very busy, okay? It's better to break a few business commitments than to get nervous and stressed and be not nice to people.

It's better to to not pay a bill or miss a business meeting or or not do as well as you could in your job if it means keeping your mind clear, okay? All right. Next picture.

This is a lady buying a useless thing in a store. See if you can remember this story. She said, oh, this box is so beautiful.

She went to the department store. She bought this. What is it?

What's that home thing, place you buy stuff? Crate and barrel. She went to Crate and Barrel in America.

She got this. She said, oh, my husband's going to love this box, you know? She doesn't have any clue where she's going to use it for.

But she's going to take it home. Then, when she gets home her husband's going to say, are you crazy? This is a worthless little box.

We have enough junk in our house. Take it back. Get your money back.

Now, should she go to the gas station and try to give it back? No, that's not where she got the box from, okay? I mean, it's kind of obvious, but we have to say it.

If you buy a stupid box because you like it and you think your husband's going to like it, which he won't, and he talks you into taking the box back, you know, don't take it back to a different place. Take it back to where you bought it. What's that mean?

Ah, yeah, you guys should pay me. When it's time to confess, when you broke a vow, then try to get back to the person who gave you the vow. You know, try to confess in front of the person who gave you the vow.

Is it okay to confess at home by yourself? Not for vows that you took from other people. Okay, in general, if you didn't take a vow from someone else, then maybe it's okay at home to confess in front of a Buddha statue or something like that.

In extreme cases, it's all right. But in general, if you can get back to the person who gave you your vows and confess to them openly, be shameless, okay? We're shameless all day.

So, be shameless about your vows. You know, just say, oh, what the hell. Go straight to your teacher and say, I broke this stupid vow.

And your teacher's like, wow, you're a really bad person. And you're like, yeah, I am. And get it over with.

And then you feel so clean. You feel so nice. So, you can be shy about lots of things in your life, but don't be shy about your vows, okay?

If you break a vow, go tell somebody. And that's the way you get rid of it. You get rid of the problem, okay?

If you hold it and hide it, if you spend more work hiding it than confessing it or keeping it, then it's just dumb. And you won't feel nice. You won't feel clean, okay?

Just be open with your teachers. I have this problem. I have this bad habit.

And the karma gets crushed. The seed gets crushed, okay? All right.

And you know, your teacher's going to say, okay, okay, I heard that before. You told me before. But be persistent, okay?

Keep telling them. All right. Next picture.

This is about... Wait, do you remember? Again, this is about honoring the small details of vows.

And they were talking about... It's actually a vow for monks should brush their teeth with a stick. There was called a SO SHING.

And it was a stick that you were supposed to use to clean your teeth. And you just cut it off a tree and you use it, you know? And it's a toothbrush.

And it said monks should have their toothbrushes and you should brush your teeth. And it might seem like a small thing, you know? Wait, I'm trying to keep my tantric vow to go to Amitabha's paradise and protect all living beings.

And Buddha says, yeah, but in the meantime, could you just please brush your teeth, okay? Everything. And you're like, but that's not a very big vow.

Yeah, but it's the small things that make the Buddha paradise, okay? It's the small things that bodhisattvas do that are nice to other people. Of course, everybody in the world is gonna, you know, I don't know, stop a nuclear war or something if they can.

I mean, that's obvious. But are you a good enough person that you don't even want people to smell your breath if it might hurt them? You see, if you're very sensitive about tiny things that might hurt other people, then we can say you're keeping your morality.

And then, it's the small details that put the finishing touches on your Buddha paradise, which you see in the next picture. This is this person decorating a Christmas tree. I don't know if, I don't even know if you have ever done a Christmas tree, but those of us who grew up in Christian traditions, our parents had us do Christmas trees.

And there's something cool about putting on the last ornament, you know? Like, everybody's looking at the tree and they say, is it done? And they say, yeah, it's done.

And they say, wait, there's one more we should put right there, you know? So, this Christmas tree ornament is the brushing your teeth, okay? It's the small final details that you put on your Buddhahood, okay?

It's the small things that make Buddhas. It's not the grand things. It's not the big things.

It's attention to the small details of making other people happy that creates a Buddha, okay? All right. Next one.

See if you remember this one. I'll give you a clue. Yamantaka.

Yamantaka. This is a famous Lam Rim story. So, monks and nuns are supposed to go twice a month to SO SBYONG and confess the mistakes we made to each other.

And openly. And the teacher said, they struck the gunty, okay? They struck the gunty, which is a special piece of wood.

It looks like a two by four. And you hit it with another stick and it goes, dung, dung, dung. And that's a bell.

That's an ancient bell. Before metal was common. And they will hit the plank.

And when you hear that, you got to go to SO SBYONG. And they still do it. I made a gunty with my teacher.

He wanted one. And we made it to the right. There's all these rules about it.

So, when you hear the gunty, you hold it here. You hold the gunty here and you hit it like this. And then all the monks and nuns are supposed to come for confession.

So, this teacher said, hey, they struck the gunty. Let's go. And the student said, no, I'm not going to confess today.

And the teacher's like, what? Because that's one of the main commitments of a monk, you know, is to go to SO SBYONG. And the teacher, what are you talking about?

He says, I don't have to go today. And the teacher said, what do you mean you don't have to go today? He says, you forget you gave me a yamantaka initiation yesterday.

I'm yamantaka. I'm a Buddha. I don't need to go to SO SBYONG anymore.

And the teacher grabs him by the hair. He says, yeah, what the hell? You're yamantaka.

Yamantaka's going to SO SBYONG with me right now. So, what he means is that don't give me this stuff that you're a great tantrica and you're beyond morality. Now you have higher vision.

That's a completely mistaken idea. If you got a secret initiation then you should be going to SO SBYONG every morning or something. You should go more than other people.

Because that's what gives power to your tantric practice. It's being nice to other people and confessing when you make a mistake. Okay, next.

This is a sad image. We always think of morality as being the roots of our practice. The foundation of our practice.

But Pabongka Rinpoche kind of flipped it around. This is a perfect picture. He said, imagine an apple tree and someone sliced it in half.

Actually, he used a palm tree. Somebody sliced it and they cut that top off the tree. So you're not going to get leaves.

Even a single leaf is not going to come out. So therefore you're not going to get flowers and therefore you're not going to get the fruits which always come from the flowers. You're not going to get anything.

Okay, so a person who is not nice to other people day to day, hour to hour, they chop off any chance of of getting those beautiful fruits of practice. Alright, next one. This was an idea of something that my teacher asked me.

Sorry, that I asked my teacher. And I don't know if you remember, but I asked him, you know, the first of the five paths, path of accumulation, you reach it when you have a personal tragedy. But, if you're on the bodhisattva track, you reach it when you get bodhichitta.

So I said, I don't understand what's tragic about bodhichitta. And he said, no, no, no. It's still a theme of tragedy.

It's just the tragedy of every being alive. Every being in this whole universe is having the same tragedy. And so really that communal tragedy is the beginning of the five paths.

Thinking about that tragedy is the beginning of the five paths for a bodhisattva. So really it's the same. The puppy's having a hard time, but now all the puppies in the basket are having a hard time.

And we're all in this together. And that's the beginning of bodhichitta. Okay, alright.

This next picture is a guy shaking hands with somebody in their office, right? And I don't know, I imagine the lady is introducing them. This is Joe.

He works in the advertising department. This is Sam. He works in the computer department.

And they shake hands. Do you guys remember what this is? Nah.

It was a very, very cute exercise where we were supposed to close our eyes and think of the person who irritates us the most and see if we could get ourselves upset. The problem with this kind of exercise is after about 10 minutes you forget it's an exercise and you really do get upset. You're like, let me see if I can get myself upset.

Okay, how are you going to do it? I'm going to think about this guy who gave me a hard time this week. Okay, go ahead.

Then slowly the person starts shaking. You're like, what's going on? I got upset.

The experiment worked. Then if it's your lama they'll say, okay, check it out how that feels. When you first start thinking about this person.

How does it feel? What comes up in your heart? I don't know about you, but I get this little glitch in my heart.

I start to feel some kind of discomfort here or here when I think about a person who's been bothering me or a problem that's been bothering me. I can purposely generate tension inside of myself. So he says, let's do an exercise.

Try to trigger some tension in your heart and then look at that tension and get to know it. As if you're shaking hands with somebody. Get to know what it feels like when a mental affliction, negative emotion, is first coming up in your heart and keep practicing it.

As soon as you feel better and you forgot about this person, then think of them again and see if you can get upset again. See if you can start to get upset again and try to get familiar with what it feels like. Shake hands.

Hi, this is Geshe Michael. Hi, what's your name? Oh, I'm starting to get upset about this person.

Oh, nice to meet you. Now I know what you look like. Now I can look out for you.

I can avoid you in the future. Alright, next one. It's called visiting the middle of the sun.

The theme of this lam rim, which was loving the time of the virus. The virus is a big thing. It's spread across this whole world.

I've lived a long life and I thought I saw everything. I thought, I kind of entered my 60s and thought, well, now nothing new is going to happen. I'm pretty set for anything that will happen.

I've seen everything and nothing can upset me too much. Then this virus shows up and threatens everybody in the world and I'm like, wow, that's a big thing. That covers the whole planet.

I don't know if it happened to you, but it happened to me. It's probably bad deed number nine, which is ill will. Being happy when someone else has a problem.

And when I heard that famous irritating people were getting sick, I was like... I didn't want them to die or anything, but I was like, yeah, see? I told you it was bad to be bad.

And then I caught myself thinking like that. So, it feels like a big thing. It feels like this problem has spread all over this planet.

And it feels like something that it's difficult for me to cope with. But we have just entered, after 10 years of Lam Rim study, we have just entered the path for people of greater capacity. And we're going to open that study with the idea of bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta. What is bodhichitta? It's not enlightenment mind.

Forget that lousy, incredibly bad translation. It's the wish that I could become a Buddha to help countless living beings. And there is a direct experience of it in the same way that there's a direct experience of emptiness.

There are parallel experiences that we must get to in this lifetime. And again, you should be in meditation. So, we describe an extraordinary...

What do you call it? Breakthrough? Threshold.

Threshold experience. Where you go into a deep state of meditation. And because time and space are coming from seeds, if you can mess with these seeds, then you can compact time and space.

In a meditation that's not longer than a half hour, you could actually visit each person in the universe, including animals and bugs and birds and fish. And you could communicate with each one. Individually, within a half an hour.

And to each one, you could make a commitment. I mean, you meet them. You see each one is suffering.

Each one is having a difficult life and worried about the future. And you could go to each one separately and say, I got it covered. Just take it easy.

I had a guy... I used to work... When I was in university, I got a scholarship.

But they said, you just have to work a few hours a week. And it turned out to be 30 hours a week. And I had to drive a truck.

Actually, first they put me in a cafeteria and they said, you're going to mop the floor in the cafeteria. I quit within like 10 hours. I quit on the first day.

And then they said, okay, you can drive a truck. I said, that's fine. I'll drive a truck.

So I drove a truck for five years. And we had a guy, a permanent university employee named Big John. His name was Big John.

He's this Polish guy, seven feet tall. Huge Polish guy. And everyone was afraid when they saw him.

They're afraid of him. But he was extremely sweet. And he would bring donuts to work.

And he was from Trenton, New Jersey. In Trenton. And then he would do the nicest things for us.

And he would cover... One day we broke a truck in half. We hit a tree with the truck and we broke it in half.

And he covered for us. He's like, oh, the screws weren't very tight. I don't know what happened.

The truck fell apart. Don't blame these guys. Don't blame these young guys.

All they did was driving it. And then he'd wink at us and say, I got you covered. I got you guys covered.

I always think of him when I think of bodhichitta. You're going to meet each living being in the universe directly. And you're going to say, oh, Big John got you covered.

I got you covered. Don't worry. Don't worry about it.

I got you covered. So that's bodhichitta. And you should have that experience.

You should work for that experience. You have to meditate. You have to study about bodhichitta.

You have to study the Lam Rim about bodhichitta. You have to do all those steps, like exchanging yourself and others. And then one day you will have that experience and you will meet every living being.

And you will say to them, I got you covered. Don't worry. I got you covered.

Big Mike's taking care of you or Big Tim or Big CJ. Don't worry. Don't stress out.

I'm on it. And that's exactly what it feels like. It's a personal commitment.

All right. Why are we talking about... Oh, you're going to do that on countless worlds.

When you do it, on the day you do it, you will do it on countless worlds. An action which is committed directly with every living creature on countless worlds doesn't have trouble taking care of a single virus on a single world. It's nothing.

A virus that endangers seven or eight billion people is nothing compared to bodhichitta. It's like we said, if you spill ketchup on your shirt and you deliver that shirt to the middle of the sun for 25 million degrees Fahrenheit, probably the ketchup stain is going to disappear. You probably don't have to worry about the ketchup stain.

Work on your bodhichitta and you will destroy the virus by the way, by accident. All right. Not a big thing.

Next picture. Don't mess around with other paths. Learn bodhichitta.

Learn to have this experience. Don't waste your time. Don't focus on other things.

Focus on bodhichitta. Then you don't have to do things twice. We talked about doing things twice.

This lady's in a rush. She says, I don't have time for this bodhichitta stuff. I'm going to go straight into tantra or you know.

Well, you're still going to have to come back and pick up that thing you forgot. Which is bodhichitta. So work on your bodhichitta first.

Don't have to drive back home and pick up the bodhichitta and come back. All right. Then this was a radical example.

The next picture. And this is a hard one to remember.

[Speaker 2]
I'm going to give you a second to think about it. I don't know if you remember this but this is kind of complicated.

[Speaker 1]
A group of 60 guys and girls was about to achieve nirvana just by seeing emptiness directly and without bodhichitta. Lower nirvana. And then Manjushri shows up and teaches them about bodhichitta.

Maybe he taught about this experience we just talked about. They were all irritated by Manjushri. They're like, don't waste our time.

We are close to nirvana. We can feel it. We can taste it.

We all saw emptiness already. Don't waste our time. Don't talk to us about this stuff.

Then because they had disrespected a teaching on bodhichitta they went to the hell. They didn't get to nirvana. They dropped to the hell realms.

But they burned it off and they became humans again after many millions of years. Deep down inside was this teaching that Manjushri had given them about bodhichitta and they remembered it. They got to be bodhisattvas and they became buddhas.

And that would take less time than going into a lower nirvana without studying bodhichitta. It would be faster to go to hell and come back and start over again with bodhichitta than if you didn't use bodhichitta and you went to a lower nirvana. This is a picture of somebody sending somebody the wrong way on purpose.

This lady is asking, where's that super highway that goes to the store I want to visit? And the guy knows the highway is blocked. So he tells her, listen, don't go that way.

That highway is blocked. Go the other way. And she insists, no.

Tell me where's the highway I want. Then he lies to her and he says, oh, take this way. It's actually the long way that he wanted her to go anyway.

So this is a story about skillful means. Okay, next picture. This is warming up before you run a race.

Usually we use this image about what? Do you guys remember? It's a breath meditation.

Usually we say, look, breath meditation is just warming up. Don't think it's the race. They don't have in the Olympics a contest for stretching before the race.

You don't get a gold medal for stretching. But in this case, we're not talking about breath meditation. We're talking about it is good to do the three principal paths in order.

Get sad about this world. Struggle to have that bodhichitta experience directly. Then see emptiness so you can help everybody.

Warm up with the first feelings of sadness about this life. Now, next picture. We're almost done.

I think we're very close. Are we close? Not that close.

Do you remember who these guys are? They are a very lousy band. I guess you met them in shopping malls or something, singing bad songs.

They're called the Opening Act. The steps of the path for lesser capacity, trying to get to a higher rebirth. The steps of the path for medium capacity, trying not to come back to this world at all.

Then the steps of the path for greater capacity. These two levels are just the Opening Act and this is the main thing, getting to bodhichitta. What's above bodhichitta?

The six perfections. So, check it out. Steps of the path to keep your rear end out of the lower realms.

Steps of the path to get to nirvana. And then we got bodhichitta, this experience of meeting every living being and making a commitment that, I'll take care of it. I'm going to take care of you.

And then up here is the six... Okay, this is six in Chinese. Up here is the six perfections.

Now, which of these is the big thing? Which is the real band? Which is the Opening Act?

Okay, these guys obviously, lower nirvana, not such a big deal. But what's interesting is Pabongka Rinpoche says, that experience with every living being is the main act. That's what I want you to focus on.

I want you to try to have that experience. If you have that experience, we can talk about the six perfections, including number six, which is seeing emptiness. Okay, let's talk about that later.

Come on, I want you guys to focus on having this experience. By the way, a good way to have that experience is to imagine that experience. Try to listen to the description of it.

And pretend you can do it. And keep pretending. Keep doing it.

And you know, it feels like a slot machine. I like to say it feels like a slot machine. So when you push a slot machine, these pictures roll up.

Cherries, right? And other things. And not that I ever played a slot machine, okay?

Well, once with my dad. You push the lever and then these dials come like this. So just imagine that.

Your mother's face comes up. And you say, mom, you look worried. And she's like, yeah, I'm worried about life.

And you say, don't worry. Big John's got you covered. Just calm down.

I got it. I'm on it. Then your dad's picture comes up.

Not just a picture, the person comes up. And then it feels like that in meditation. So try to imagine it.

Try to practice it, okay? And it will trigger the real thing. It will trigger the real thing.

Bring people up one by one. Look at how they feel. Make a commitment.

Don't worry, I got you covered. I'm on it. Then they pass.

Then bring up another person. And practice that way. You can do five or six people.

And then it'll get faster. Because time will change, okay? All right, and Pabongka Rinpoche is saying that's the main show.

That's the Rolling Stones. The rest is just new bands that aren't very good. And then, I don't know, who's at the end?

Do they have an ending act? Not usually. Anyway, the rest is just leaving the stadium or something.

Don't worry about it. Okay, all right. Now we crossed over into the 10 cool things about getting bodhichitta.

We will only have time to do the first one in this lam rim. And the first cool thing about getting bodhichitta is, if you have been a nerdy kid playing tennis in the school and your dream was to be on the team, then next picture. No.

Yeah, then here's Geshe Michael in the middle. On top, okay? Not the weirdos below.

Then you can be on the team. And it's cool to be on the team of bodhisattvas. Work to be on that team.

And it's so cool to be on that team. Because that team stretches across the universe. And it's all the cool people in the whole universe.

So it's nice to be part of that team. It's sweet. Okay, that was the first benefit of bodhichitta.

Now, next picture. This is a guy visiting an art museum and he talked about the two levels of tantra. First level, meet angels.

Second level, study from them how to be an angel and become an angel. And in the first level, we're supposed to actually meet real angels in person. And it's not like standing in an art museum and looking at a statue or a thangka of a person.

It's meeting the person directly. And that's a totally, completely different thing, right? If you try to practice tantra without that bodhichitta experience, then it will be like looking at pictures of buddhas instead of meeting buddhas.

They don't like to talk to people who don't have bodhichitta. They feel more comfortable around people who have this experience. So try to have this experience and then tantra is going to work for you.

And if you don't have this experience, tantra is going to be difficult. It's going to be like looking at pictures of buddhas instead of hanging out with buddhas. Alright, next one.

If you try to practice tantra without bodhichitta, you might have bad results. And we talked about the first nuclear test in modern times. And the scientists admitted that this explosion might start the whole world on fire.

So they were just trying to do something cool, but they were taking a chance of a huge disaster. That's tantra without bodhichitta. That's like setting the whole sky on fire by accident.

You will mess up. Alright, next one. Even small, neutral karmas become powerful for a person with bodhichitta.

A person with bodhichitta can feed a bird, make a prayer about it, and it affects millions of people. They have this power. Next picture.

Even small bad deeds like stealing a french fry and giving it to a bird could be powerful if done by a bodhisattva. But it's dangerous practice. Did you hear that?

No. And we had a picture of a fugu fish. People in Japan, macho guys, they eat this fish.

It has very, very poisonous parts of it that can kill you immediately. Fifty people a year die in Japan. But people still go to the restaurant.

To serve this fish in a restaurant, you need three years of special training or you will kill somebody. That's the same with stealing a french fry to give it to a bird because you want to help the bird. We are not at that level.

Don't try to eat fugu fish if you are not trained. Okay. Then we had a nice picture of Nick and Erin with their boss, their big boss, which is Amalie.

Hi Amalie. Amalie represents the Buddha. Nick represents the father, which is bodhichitta.

Erin represents wisdom, which is the direct perception of emptiness. In a certain way, somehow, I don't know what this belief is in Asia, but in a certain way, the dad is irreplaceable. Something special about the dad.

I don't know what it is. But anyway, emptiness you can see on different levels, right? On all three tracks.

But bodhichitta, you got to be a special person. You can only see it on the highest track. It defines you as a higher track person.

Okay. You need both to have your baby, which is Buddhahood. Next picture.

Yeah, we said THUGS DAM GYI MTHIL, which Tim correctly identified today as. What's your main practice? What's the thing that's number one in your life right now?

Until the next Lam Rim, the Medicine Buddha Lam Rim in October. Look, I want you guys to treat this as your main practice. Try to have that experience of meeting countless beings.

Try to have that experience. I don't care if you sit there hour after hour and nothing happens. Just try.

Just pretend. Just go over it in your mind until the next Lam Rim. Let's make a deal like that.

Make it your main practice. Alright, next picture. If that practice wasn't so important, then one of the greatest Buddhists of all time, Lord Atisha, would not have sailed for 13 months at the risk of his life to get the teachings on bodhichitta that you just got on this video.

And you didn't have to go anywhere. If Atisha thought it was worth risking his life for 13 months in a tiny ship on the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, then maybe it's important. Maybe it's worth it.

Alright, next picture. I think the dumbest thing you can do in your whole life is to go to Paris and not buy a croissant. I'm just saying.

Probably there's other dumb things you can do in your life, but to me, the ultimate dumb is to go to Paris and not to go to a boulangerie. Or at least buy a crepe on the street with... What's that chocolate sauce stuff?

Nutella, yeah. Don't have a Nutella crepe. Like, go to Paris and don't have a Nutella crepe.

Then that proves you're like crazy. So, if you're studying Lam Rim, if you got this far in the Lam Rim, and Geshe-la has been teaching it for 10 years, and you finally get to the croissant, which is the bodhichitta experience, don't be crazy and leave Paris without eating it. Don't leave Lam Rim without getting this experience.

You'd be an idiot. All right. We're finished with the croissant.

I think you want to make a presentation? No? I was guessing there might be a croissant in that bag.

Okay, Tim Lowenhaupt is going to make the formal presentation to Geshe-la. My payment of... Oh, it's a pandu.

Pandu. What do you call it? Seiji.

What's that called? Pandu chokla. Pandu chokla.

Okay, here. You got to split it into three parts. And give me all three.

I mean, no. Just one thing. Okay, so I got the pandu chokla.

This is what you give to your teacher when they teach you about bodhichitta. Okay, so let's make a deal. For the next couple months, work on that experience.

Do the dedication chapter in your meditation of shantideva. And try to work on having that experience. The worst thing that can happen, that at least you will plant seeds in your mind to have the experience.

Okay, so just pretend. Just sit down and fantasize about it. Fantasizing is good meditation.

Fantasize that you had this experience of meeting, one by one, every living being. And you made a personal commitment with each one to take care of them in an ultimate way. All right, see you in the next lam rim for Medicine Buddha.

Yay!