«Дар освобождения», курс 37 «Лучшее, что ты можешь сделать со своей жизнью», занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to the bodhichitta class. And we're going to continue with these cool things that will happen to you if you can get to bodhichitta, if you can have this experience of jumping from planet to planet. And if you live in New York City, and I lived in New York City for a long time, during the time I was building the diamond business, you know, people who live in New York never go to the famous places in New York.

Like, I lived near the Grand Canyon for 12, 15 years, and I've never been there. And, you know, people in New York, they never, I've never been to the Statue of Liberty. You know, it's the most famous place.

And then people would ask me when the World Trade Center was there. My brother came to visit me from Arizona, and he said, take me to the highest building. And I said, okay, I've never been there myself.

I'd like to see it. So we went to the World Trade Center, and we got up to the top. And something happened while I was up there, and it was very, very strange.

The whole building went like this. The whole building went, like moved sideways, very noticeably. And I actually thought it was falling down or something.

I got very scared. And the whole building went like this. And then I told my brother, you know, I got to go.

I can't stay up here. And he said, are you okay? And I said, I don't know.

I just felt the whole building moved like this. And skyscrapers do move a little bit, but it was different. It was like the whole building was going to fall down.

And I said, I got to get out of here. And we went down, and that's called, in Tibetan there's a special word for that. It's called SA YOD, say SA YOD.

SA means the earth, the whole earth, the planet. YOD means shh, like, hey, yo. It's like, goes like this.

Why are we talking about that? The text, if we go to the text now, it says, BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS BSKYED SKABS If one person in the universe gets to bodhichitta, real bodhichitta, if they start jumping between planets, SA YOD, you can see it there. SA YOD means the whole earth goes shh.

The earth and all the Buddha paradises go like shh. They move like this, like an earthquake. And YI SHING SANGS RGYAS THAMS CAD KYI ZHUGS SPYOD YOD Even the thrones, the teaching thrones that all the Buddhas are sitting on, Medicine Buddha also sitting on a throne, right?

And then if one person in the whole universe gets bodhichitta that day, then the Buddha's state also goes, Medicine Buddha's like, whoa, what's going on? And they say, oh, somebody got bodhichitta. Wow, cool.

And Pabongka Rinpoche, being a Geshe, he asked, why? Why does the earth move when someone gets bodhichitta? And by the way, I have a picture here that I really enjoy.

This is a very famous picture in the United States. It was taken about 80 years ago or something. And these guys are sitting on a piece of steel when they're building those first big high buildings in New York.

And this is a real picture. They were, I think it was Rockefeller Center and they were about 800 feet up and they were all having lunch on the girder. And I'm just hoping no one gets bodhichitta at the moment.

Because it would go like that. So maybe that picture will help you remember. CHUNG DE, DE NI So Pabongka Rinpoche says, why does the universe suddenly move?

And he answers his question. DE NI SRED SA CHEN PO'I DI If you think about it, the earth that we're all sitting on, even in the Buddha paradise, SEMS CAN CI THUNG GI LAS DBANG LAS GRUB Say, SEMS CAN CI THUNG GI LAS DBANG LAS GRUB The earth that we're sitting on, wherever we're sitting, even the Buddha, is created by the shared karma of all the people in the universe. All the places where people are sitting right now, you are listening to this program from different countries, but the ground that you're sitting on, even the Buddhas in their Buddha paradise, all that ground has been created by the shared karma of all of us.

We are partly responsible for the earth in the Buddha paradises. Because it exists in our universe. So you and I have partly, I mean, Medicine Buddha should be paying rent to us because we all help create that universe.

That's a common, a shared karma. And people ask me, of course, you know the answer. Is it possible for two people to create a karma together?

And sure, if you all decide to have a, to work hard, Tim and his team, work very hard to organize a special Dharma event around the world, then all the people on that team, all the translators, all the tech people, all the people who drove me here yesterday with all my stuff, we're all creating our karma together. So the world, the universe, is a shared karma. The ground that all beings are sitting on is a shared karma.

He says, BYANG SEMS BSKYED PA DE SEMS CAN MANG PO BRTEN And the whole point of bodhichitta is the desire to help countless beings on countless planets who have also created those planets. So when you have the intention to help all those beings sitting on all those planets, the planets that you created for those beings have to move. It's very beautiful.

Your karma, personally, when you get bodhichitta, is linked to the ground everywhere. So it has to move. And then he says, SANGS RGYUD MA GSOS PAR It's too heavy for the ground not to move.

The ground can't support 10 minutes of bodhichitta. The ground of the whole universe is holding up everybody in the universe. And normally it's okay.

I can do it. I can hold up everybody in the universe. I don't have to move.

But oh, somebody just got bodhichitta, ah, it's too heavy. And the ground has to, the ground shakes because it's like you added 100 pounds to somebody's backpack. And then they're like, oh.

So it's such a powerful karma. When someone jumps planet to meet each being and commit to their happiness, that the earth cannot bear it. Literally cannot bear it.

The word bear comes from bir in Sanskrit, which means to hold up something. Burden comes from that. Birtha comes from that, which is, that's a long story.

All right. SEMS DE SKAD PA'I GANG ZHAG LAS CHUNG MA BYANG CHUB SEMS PA RNAMS KYI DPUN LTAR DGONG ZHING Each person who is able to jump planet is considered also a brother or sister by the other bodhisattvas who are already there. So they're like, obviously the Buddhists are super happy because they got new kids in the family.

And it's not that they love you more than anybody else. It's not that they're going to love you more because you're in the family. And they don't love you if you're not in the family.

They love everybody equally. But they especially love you. They especially equally love you.

And the other bodhisattvas in the universe are like, hey, I got a new brother. I got a new sister. It's like you got married.

When I got married, I got four extra sisters. I never had a sister, so it's like really cool. And I feel happy.

I feel happy to call someone sister. And so all these bodhisattvas are so happy. DGONG ZHING, CHOG CHUD SANGS RGYAS THAMS CAD LA KHOR RGYUR LA SRES SAR PA CHUNG PA LTA BU So there's a big thing.

Okay, I did watch Netflix recently. I was watching Alexander the Great Story because it's connected to the Silk Road in India. And one of Alexander's big problems in his life was he never had a son.

Or he was trying to have a son. And this is where Roxanne comes in, but that's a long story. But it's a, KHOR RGYUR means king of the world.

KHOR LO RGYUR BA, right? Chakravartin, real emperor. And they want to have a son because that's how they pass on the kingdom.

So there's a lot of pressure in the old times on a king to have a son. Now, if you suddenly get bodhichitta, then the Buddhas are celebrating because they have a son or a daughter. They finally got their son or daughter.

GZHUGS KYI LTA BU'I THUGS BSGYEPA means they get extremely happy. BYUNG BA'I RGYAL BA'I SRES SU GRO And they take you into the family. RGYAL SRES Here's the Tibetan.

SEMS DE DANG Now there's a weird comment that I don't like so much. And I don't know how you're going to feel about it. But when you're a teacher, it's your responsibility to teach everything in the text.

So here it comes. SEMS DE YANG RNAMS BRAL BA NA What happens if you lose that motivation after getting it? Can a bodhisattva be demoted or kicked out of the family?

I'd like to say no, but he says if you ever could lose your bodhichitta, THEG CHEN GYI MTHIL NAS BUD you would be expelled from the Mahayana. You'd be expelled. We had that BU.

When did we have that, Tim, recently? BUD PA Get kicked out. It was some Nagarjuna thing we had.

Anyway, it's not really possible after you've had the experience of bodhichitta to lose that bodhichitta. There are stories of people who had bad days. There are stories of bodhisattvas who had bad days.

And maybe it crossed their mind that, okay, this living being, you know the famous story, was it Aryadeva? Somebody asked him for his eyeball and he reached in and took it out and gave it to the person. And then they jumped on it and smashed it.

And for a moment, he said, okay, there's one person I don't want to save. And did he lose bodhichitta? No.

He just had a bad day. I mean, somebody took his eyeball out and smashed it. So bodhisattvas can have bad days, but they don't really lose bodhichitta.

RANG RES NGON GZHAD NGON GZHAD, NGON GZHAD RDZU CHOS MANG PO THOB KYANG Maybe you're a person who was able to get to a point where you could read other people's minds. And by the way, translators, I know I'm talking too fast. I'll try to slow down.

Here I go. Deep breath. RDZU CHOS means you can fly in the sky, you can walk on water, things like that.

THOB KYANG PHUGS SU PHAN PA GANG YANG MA CHUNG PHUGS SU is a very interesting word in Tibetan. PHUGS SU means long-term, long-term benefit. GANG YANG MA CHUNG Zero, zero benefit.

To learn to read other people's minds occasionally and to be able to fly in the sky once in a while. In the long run. Zero benefit.

GANG YANG MA CHUNG DE LAS BYA CHUG LAM RIM KHO BA CHAGS PA LA DGA' BA YIN If you could get a rough understanding of the outline of the Lam Rim, it would be infinitely more useful than flying in the sky or reading other people's minds, things like that. DNGOS BYAS RDZUS GYUR GNYIS KUN LA KUN LA BDUN BYAS Say KUN LA BDUN BYAS MA YIN KUN is KUN CHOG, what's KUN CHOG? Yeah, three jewels, right?

What's the KUN mean? It means rare, right? Rare.

So he says, look, it's rare for someone to read other people's minds on a regular basis and to be able to fly in the sky or walk on water. Those are rare. KUN LA BDUN BYAS MA YIN What's BDUN, Tim?

Do you remember BDUN? BDUN, like CI BDUN, DGRA BDUN. BDUN means meaning.

BDUN means meaning. So BDUN BYAS CHEN PO MA YIN What's it mean? It's not very meaningful.

It doesn't mean much. It's going. It's going.

What's that mean? Yeah, it's rare. I mean, you can't see, people don't fly around Diamond Mountain that often.

But BDUN BYAS MA YIN, but there's not much point to it. It doesn't help anybody much. MA YIN And anyways, he says very funny.

He's a very brilliant teacher. SKYE BA REG POS DE BAR DOR You're going to get that every time you die in the bardo. So what's the big deal?

Everybody picks that up every time they die. You keep dying constantly. For a while, you can walk through walls and fly in the sky.

Did it help you so far? Did it make your life better that during the bardo you could... You can fly to other planets.

That's how planets are populated. You need bardo time to get to another galaxy to get born there. That's why formless realm people don't have a bardo because they're just born where they die.

They don't have to get somewhere. So everyone gets special powers. Every time you die, it didn't help you.

Bodhichitta is a real power. Okay, all right. We've reached the third benefit, or the third amazing cool thing about bodhichitta.

What was the first thing, you guys?

[Говорящий 2]
You become...

[Говорящий 1]
Say again? Yeah, you join a new family. You're a gyelse.

You're a jinaputra. You're a daughter or son of the Buddhas. You get into a new family.

What's the second cool thing? Yeah, you get a new title. Dr. Geshe, Mr. Bodhisattva, Michael Roach. And it sounds kind of silly, but it feels really good if it's true. It feels really, really good. It feels better than almost anything.

Okay, all right. Third benefit. SIL GYI SNGON PA Say SIL GYI SNGON PA It's a special word.

And as I've said many times, I learned all my words from my teacher. I didn't have a dictionary. I mean, I had some dictionaries.

I never used them. If I had a new word, I would just go ask my teacher. And I remember, I asked him, what's SIL GYI SNGON PA mean?

And he said, well, I'll tell you sometime. And then he didn't let me watch television. And I didn't want to watch television.

But he enjoyed watching television because he would learn English. And then he had a bell. And anytime something came on TV that he thought I should see, he would ring the bell.

And I was supposed to run upstairs fast. And so he rang the bell and I ran upstairs and I burst into his room and he said, there's SIL GYI SNGON PA on the TV right now. And it was Queen Elizabeth standing with five or six other ladies in a line.

And he says, which one is Queen Elizabeth? And I said, that one. And he said, that's SIL GYI SNGON PA.

And I'm like, what do you mean? And he says, you don't even have to know what she looks like. She has this, what do you call it?

Presence, majestic presence. And she outshines the other ladies. Like they're all wearing expensive clothes.

She doesn't have her crown on. But you can see she's different. And he says, that's SIL GYI SNGON PA.

So the third cool thing about bodhichitta is that if they put you in a lineup, in a line with a bunch of other Dharma practitioners, but you have bodhichitta, people will say, that's the bodhisattva. That's the bodhisattva. Somehow they are shining compared to the other people.

Somehow they have a glow about them. They outshine these other serious Dharma practitioners. But that one is different.

That one stands out. SIL GYI SNGON PA So you SIL GYI SNGON PA all the other Dharma practitioners. It's not that you want to be more glorious than other people, but you are.

And it's beautiful. And again, the big point here is that there are sincere and very, very advanced people. We call them, the technical name is listeners and self-made Buddhas.

That's the technical name. But what it means is great meditators, great practitioners, great, kind people who help other people. There are amazing people in the world, but if you have jumped planets and made a personal commitment to billions of living beings, there's no comparison at all.

With all the nice people you ever met in your life, there's no comparison at all. And it's not a competition, but wouldn't you rather be the cool person on a billion planets that could help billions and billions of people directly? That's the point.

It's a whole different level. It's beautiful to help other people. It's beautiful to save the lives of animals.

It's beautiful to serve charities and feed people. It's a beautiful thing. It's the reason we exist.

But then to do it directly for billions of people at the same time is just a whole other level. And we should hope for that. We should try to get there.

You can. You have the capacity. You just don't know.

It's good to run a charity. It's good to do things in your neighborhood. But if you could do it on billions of planets at the same time, that's sexy.

I don't know. It's just like amazing, beautiful. And you can.

Your mind has the capacity. Because of emptiness, your mind has the capacity. You just have to wake it up.

SEMS PA NI SDONG PO DGOS PA'I SDONG NAS There's a sutra called, people translate it as Stalks in Array, which is, it actually refers to the house surrounded by the jewel trees, which is a better translation. So someday you guys should learn that. RGYA MTSO NOR BU DZAM PO LING GIS PHYING BU They are comparing RGYA MTSO.

What's RGYA MTSO? Ocean, NOR BU? Jewel.

So in Tibet, especially because it was a landlocked country, they had no access to the ocean. To get to the ocean meant six months of dangerous travel. So there are lots of myths about the ocean.

The ocean was like a mythological thing for them. And they believed that all precious gems came from the bottom of the ocean because of coral. Coral was one of the few gems that you could get in Tibet because it came through the Bay of Bengal or something.

So anyway, there was a tradition that all the great jewels came from the bottom of the ocean. Then he says PHYING BU. There's this glass trinkets that people bring from, I don't know, Iran or something.

They're just glass. They're not diamond. They're not sapphire.

They're just trinkets. I heard that Manhattan was bought with $24 of glass, pieces of glass. So he said, compare the glass trinkets to gems that you get from the bottom of the ocean.

And that's the difference between bodhichitta and other emotions, similar emotions. THAMS CAD GZIL GYIS RNAMS PA It's GZIL GYIS RNAMS PA. Jewels that come from the bottom of the ocean, GZIL GYIS RNAMS PA, glass trinkets.

Cheap glass trinkets. Plastic nowadays, you'd say plastic. BZHIN DU, BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS RGYUD LA SKYES PA DE In the same way, a person who gets bodhichitta outshines every other kind of spiritual practitioner on this planet.

It doesn't matter, or every other kind of person who's working to help other people in charities or something like that. Just the person who has 20 minute experience of jumping planets and making the sacred connection with each being there, if you compare them to all the do-gooders of this planet, that person's 20 minutes is more valuable. Infinitely, no comparison.

I have a picture here, a sapphire ring. The sapphire is beautiful. I spent many years trying to buy good sapphires.

This one is probably, certainly from ancient India. And the new sapphires come mostly from Australia. They're cut in Thailand.

And they don't have this color. This is called a royal blue. And you can't find it anywhere nowadays.

Very difficult to find. So that sapphire is quite valuable. Maybe it's, I don't know, two, $3,000.

But the diamond, each diamond costs more than the sapphire. Each diamond around the sapphire is more valuable. Be it much, much more viable.

So that's a comparison of a diamond against any other gemstone. There's no comparison. I mean, 10 carats of diamonds could be millions of dollars.

And then 10 carats of anything else is going to be a few hundred dollars. As a gemstone dealer. Okay, all right.

And that comes from a famous sutra called the House of the Jewel Trees. Next paragraph, BYAMS PA'I RNAM PAR THAR PA'I MDO NAS Then there's a sutra called the Liberation of Maitreya, which can also mean the story of Maitreya. RGYAL PO ZAD GCOD NGOS RNAMS PA'I RTZOGS RGYEN PO RNAMS KYIS KYANG ZIL GYI RNAMS PA So this is a very famous comparison of bodhisattvas to other kind people in the universe.

Other nice people in the universe. Compare a bodhisattva to other beautiful, helpful, charitable people in the universe. Then you could compare it to the birth of royalty in ancient India, the birth of royalty.

So I have a royal son here, picture. His name is Maitri. This is my new grandson.

I'm very proud of him. He's extremely handsome. I told his mother, Noor, that he's this, what did I call?

I said he's the next handsome Aral in the world, which is his father's name. So she sent me a picture of a lady holding a sign that said, who was sick to this stomach for six months? Who carried this 50 pounds around?

Who got their guts torn up to have the kid? And now you tell me he looks like the father? And so I have to say, he's a beautiful combination of Syria and Japan.

And the point is, if a child is born into royalty in the day of his birth, he is far more important to the country than even the wisest of the officials of the government. In ancient times, in ancient times, that child, when he's, by the way, Maitri was three months old yesterday, that he's already much more valued by the people of the realm than the wisest of the government officials, just by virtue of who he is. That means once you have been, once you have had the experience of traveling to billions of planets to make a commitment to each person there, then you are already silky nimba, all of the nice people in the world, all of the good practitioners, good meditators, good yoga practitioners, kind, kind people.

Even the first hour after you got bodhichitta, you surpassed all of them by billions of times. All right, and that's one of the examples used in ancient Buddhist literature for a new bodhisattva who was just born. They're already more important than the nice people who've been nice their whole life.

All right, kadding, kadding, here it is. Okay, that's a very good kadding name. Kadding means Garuda, bird.

Very similar to the Western idea of a phoenix bird, magical, mythical, glorious, shining, fire bird. Here's a picture of a phoenix, by the way. So I grew up in Phoenix.

So I remember asking my mom, what's Phoenix mean? And she said, oh, that's a special bird that's born out of fire and ashes of before. A new bird comes out of the ashes of the old bird and comes up in flame, in fire.

kadding gi thugut kyang jayin sok shen silky nirnpa Here's silky nirnpa. As soon as a Garuda or a phoenix bird is born, they are already more glorious than all the birds on earth. If you compare one phoenix to all the seagulls, all the sparrows, all the other robins, blue birds, there's no comparison.

A phoenix bird is two miles high, made of fire. And then compare them to all these little beep, beep, meep, meep, no comparison. That's the idea.

Even when that bird is first born from the fire, they outshine all these other birds. BYA CHUG GI SEMS RGYUD LA SKYES PA'I BYAMS SEMS LAS DANG PO BA LAS DANG, say LAS DANG PO BA LAS DANG PO BA It means like a freshman in college. LAS DANG PO BA means a neophyte, a beginner.

A rookie, yeah. A rookie bodhisattva is already more important than all the nice people on this planet. For the universe, for the whole universe, a person who just got bodhichitta for the first time is more important to the welfare of the universe than all the nice people on this planet who are doing good things for other people.

NYON RANG GI TSOG THAMS CAD GZOGS KYI RNAM PAR GSUNGS PA GSUNGS means, that's not my opinion. The Buddha said that. DE YANG LHAG PA'I SRAM PA'I STOB GYIS YIN And Pabongka Rinpoche, being who he is, he wants to explain why.

He wants to explain why. He can't stand to not tell us why. He says GSUNGS means, look, that's not my opinion.

The Buddha said that. That's the LUNG in LUNG RIG. That's the scriptural authority.

And now he gives the logical backup. Okay, listen, it's not my idea. The Buddha said it.

You don't believe me? Still, I'll prove it to you logically. You don't need to believe the Buddha's scripture.

I'll tell you logically why that bodhisattva is more important. LHAG BSAM Come on, Tim, $100.

[Говорящий 2]
LHAG BSAM They're taking personal responsibility.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, taking, good. $100 for Gyelse, Jigme. $100 for Buddha's daughter.

Okay, $100. LHAG BSAM means, because they have taken personal responsibility for every living being. Every living being.

How many? Countless. No number.

There's no number. How can you love countless people? It's a mystery.

How can you meet countless people in 20 minutes? That's another mystery. Because you never get to the last one and the 20 minutes is up.

But it happens. It works. You can do it.

You do do it. That's what happens in the direct experience of bodhichitta. You meet people who have no number and you LHAG BSAM.

What's that? I'll take care of you. Each one.

You spend a few minutes with each one to explain to them why you're going to take responsibility for them. Mr. Wu was talking about calling mom. Why does mom keep sending you money?

I have no idea. But they decide, the bodhisattva in 20 minutes makes that commitment to countless living beings who are infinite in number. Somehow the bodhisattva gets to the last one where there is no last one.

It's amazing. It's a miracle. Yay.

All right. So I guess that karma might be pretty strong. DE BZHIN DU MDO RJE RIM PO CHE CHAGS KYANG MDO RJE RIM PO CHE SNYING YANG MIN DOR Now he starts to talk about, let's look at the next picture.

This is diamonds. I have trouble finding pictures. I'm having trouble finding good pictures of Dorje Sekhmar for $100.

Dang. Who said it first? Okay, 33 bucks each.

Okay. Dorje Sekhmar, very, very important Buddhist term. Sliver of diamond, sliver of diamond.

As I've said many times, you can't cut a diamond with anything in the universe. You can't scratch a diamond with anything in the universe except another diamond. But you can smash a diamond.

That's a different thing. With a hammer. And you will get many Dorje Sekhmas, slivers of diamond.

So now Pabongka Rinpoche takes the conversation, and by the way, Shantideva, Master Shantideva takes the conversation to slivers of diamond. So let's say you had a diamond and you hit it with a hammer, and now you have pieces of diamond. Dorje Rinpoche, chak means break it.

You can smash a diamond. Dorje Rinpoche, ming yang min dor. But that doesn't mean you can't call it a diamond anymore.

The pieces. You can smash a diamond into many pieces, but each piece retains the name of diamond. Ming min dor means it doesn't lose its identity.

It's still diamond. You can smash a diamond, but those pieces are still pure diamond. 100% diamond.

And you know the importance of diamond. What is the importance of diamond? How do we explain it in the Diamond Cutter?

When we explain the name of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, we talk about the power of each piece of a diamond. Yeah, everything in this room has its own emptiness. There are billions of emptinesses in this room.

I like to say the last hair on your eyebrow also has its own emptiness. I was teaching that so long, my eyebrows got longer. So anyway, each piece is still diamond.

Dorma. Then he goes off onto a famous explanation of what those pieces can do for you. And at first he says, ser kyi gyen, sil kyi nun.

Each piece of, each piece, sliver of diamond, sil kyi nun, what's that? Outshines ser, gold. Yeah, okay.

And here's the next picture. I think there's a picture. Yeah, so I was in the jewelry business for 19 years.

It was my job to find the diamonds. Then they sent them to a factory. They put the gold ring.

They put them in the gold ring. And we didn't even have a special department for buying gold. It was just a commodity.

You go to another bank, they sell gold. You buy bars of gold, you bring it home. There's no special thing about gold.

The gold in this ring is worth about $20. The diamond is worth, could be worth $20,000. You see what I mean?

So sil kyi nun, the diamond. Sil kyi nun, the gold. Is the gold precious?

Is it good to be a nice person in this world? Is it good to have a charity? Or is it good to feed people?

Is it good to even be an advanced meditator? And is it good to have overcome your negativities to a great extent? Yeah, it's like gold.

It's extremely beautiful and valuable. But compared to the diamond, it doesn't really, there's no comparison. It doesn't mean it's unimportant.

It doesn't mean gold is unimportant. It means gold is beautiful. Gold is extremely attractive.

But compared to the diamond, it's nothing. And they go together. That's a big point.

How do you get to the diamond? You go to the gold. Gold here represents great meditation ability, serving other people day to day.

And then suddenly you graduate to bodhichitta. You get to the diamond. All right.

ZER GYI RGYEN GZIL GYI GNOD U LHA ZAL U LHA means brokenness. The condition of being broke. Like you were in, I don't know about you, in my 20s I was U LHA.

I was very good at U LHA. So, me and Veronica, we often say we were lucky because we grew up quite poor. We grew up in big families with no money.

And that's U LHA. Poverty? Relative poverty.

ZAL BA The diamond still removes poverty. Even if you have a piece of a diamond, it still removes your poverty. That's going to be a metaphor for something else.

And we're getting there. Don't worry. And BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS RGYUD LA SKYES TE Bodhichitta is the same.

Now, let's see what the metaphor stands for. We have about five minutes left in the class. Right, Tim?

We have time to explain the metaphor, right? All right. Next paragraph.

RGYAL ZAD KYI SPYOD PA LA BLO MI NUS KYANG Even if you are incapable of practicing the six perfections, even if you haven't got to the six perfections yet, which are giving, ethical life, not getting angry, joyful effort, having fun, doing good stuff, meditation and wisdom. Even if you haven't got there yet at all, BLO MI NUS, like it's too much for you. I can't do that yet.

RGYUD KYIS SEMS RGYUD THOS But if you have that intention, that motivation, to jump many planets and help countless people, RGYAL BA'I ZAD BYAS PA'I MING MIN DOR We still call you a bodhisattva. Okay, it's like smashing a diamond. Each piece is still a diamond.

A defective bodhisattva is still a bodhisattva. An incompetent bodhisattva is still a bodhisattva. Yay!

DGE BA'I TSOGS KYI RIM PO CHE THAMS CAD LA'I MCHOG TU BRGYUD PA Even a honey cart, incompetent bodhisattva, anything an incompetent bodhisattva does is still greater than any good deed done by anyone else in the world. Any small good thing a bodhisattva does, GZIL GYIS RNAMS PA Every good deed that could be done by anyone else in the world. Pretty radical statement.

MCHOG TU BRGYUR MCHOG TU BRGYUR, he says, infinitely more benefit. NYEN RANG GI TSOGS KYI ZER GYI RGYEN YANG GZIL GYIS RNAMS PA Even those great listeners and self-made Buddhists, meaning great meditators, deep insight into emptiness, but still, they are the diamond compared to the gold. GNAS DE, KHOR BA'I ULWA SEL BAR GSUNGS SOGS And finally, the Buddha himself said that if you get this diamond, you can remove the poverty of Khorwa, of the whole samsara, the whole suffering universe.

You can remove their poverty if you have this diamond. And again, he says, SPROD PA LA BLOG MI GNOD Incompetent bodhisattva. Cannot do anything right.

Just having bodhichitta is more valuable than what everyone else is. All the nice things that other people are doing, it's more viable. All right, so we'll continue that tomorrow.

I wanted to say, this always comes up. It's always my job to talk about it. Today we offered the class for free.

Everyone was welcome to come for free. My teacher gave all his teachings for free. He never charged anybody for, I don't know, 60 years that he taught.

He never charged anybody once. And then people ask me, why do we have to pay for this Lam Rim? Do we have to pay for this Lam Rim?

First of all, you don't have to pay. If you'd like to take the rest of the course for free, you can click on a link here and you can take the main course for free and you don't have to pay anything. There's also a link for paying for the course.

And that money doesn't go, nobody gets rich. Nobody has a huge house made of gold or diamond. It's just that when I take an airplane, yesterday we drove here to Diamond Mountain.

It was how much, six hour driving? And we stopped and we have to fill up the gas in the car. And I went to the gas station guy in Payson, Arizona.

I said, I'm teaching bodhichitta tomorrow. Do I have to pay for the gas? He's like, huh?

He said, yeah, you do have to pay for the gas and get them out of the, I'm like, okay, okay. So listen, I'm sorry. It's just things we have to pay for.

There's electricity and people have to travel here. We have to, Powa and Pachi keep eating. I don't know what's wrong.

There's just some stuff we can't get for free because the whole world's not Buddhist yet. So personally, I'd like to say I really appreciate when you do help pay for things. It helps us a lot.

We have to pay for the gas. We have to pay for food. We can't get here otherwise.

I have a computer, it's expensive. I need it. And so you're very welcome to take the course for free.

If the guy would give us the gas for free, I'd be happy to give you the course for free. You could still have the course for free if you really want the course for free. But I think it's cool and I think it's responsible and to help pay for stuff.

It's just, I've learned in my life, my long life, that when you help pay for things, you feel better and it's more honest. But if you really don't want to, that's fine. And you're welcome to come for free.

And I'll always give you that option. We'll always give you that option. It's hard for us.

It makes things hard for us. So everybody chips in a little bit. It's helpful.

All right, I'll see you tomorrow for the next story about bodhichitta. And I don't know. I'm telling you, if you don't do anything else in your whole life, if you can have 20 minutes of real bodhichitta, then you lived a real life and your life had meaning.

Then your life had meaning. And I tell you that from my personal life. Your whole life is worth something if you can have 20 minutes of real bodhichitta.

All right, see you tomorrow. Yay.