«Дар освобождения», курс 37 «Лучшее, что ты можешь сделать со своей жизнью», занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to Lam Rim. Good morning. It's early here in Arizona.

I guess it's late wherever you are or something else. We're going to start today with a meditation. I had to think about what kind of meditation to do today.

I thought to teach you guys a special thing that we do in the monastery. In the Geshe course, you have to debate on average three hours a day, four hours a day, something. It's out in the hot sun in my time and it was really hard.

Then sometimes it's under the stars and it's very beautiful. I can remember being in a debate and Orion rose over my opponent's head and it was very beautiful. You're not allowed to take any papers to the debate ground.

You have to memorize everything before you step into the debate ground. You have to memorize every day enough material to debate for two, three hours. You get very good at it.

They teach you these methods of short-term memory. Then you clear it before you go to bed and then the next day you start over again. There's a process called bhavana, right?

Bhavana. Say bhavana. Sanskrit doesn't really have a V.

It's like between a V and a W. Bhavana. Bhava comes from the root bhuhu, which means to become.

It's different from Buddha a little bit because that's a BU and this is bhuhu. Bhuhu becomes, it's the source of the English verb to be. Bhava means to be.

Then ana, when you add it to bhavana, it means to make you into something. The ana is an ER in English. We have it in English like politician, musician.

The AN, it means the person who does something. So musician is a music player like Ben Gidson or politician. Then bhavan, bhavan, bhavan is someone who becomes something.

Their specialty is to become something. That's the Sanskrit word for meditator. That is the word for meditator.

I don't know where meditate comes from. Maybe reach a medium state or something. But bhavana, meditator, meditation, means to become something, to turn yourself into something.

There's a special skill in the monastery. I haven't taught it for many years. We taught it in New York many years ago.

I think we did some kind of impermanence meditation, lam rim meditation. But there's bhavana, meditation, means you burn a pathway into your mind. So you take a new series of ideas, like a road map.

We had a road map to get, with the GPS to get down here from Sedona. We went a new way and we had a GPS. It was very beautiful.

We went the back way through Lake Roosevelt. On the GPS you get the next piece of the map. We're going to take you to Pine, and then Payson, and then Strawberry, and then Roosevelt, and then Saffron.

You get each piece of the road map. Oh, Tim, I'm going to try to talk slower today. It's just that Gyaltsen makes really good coffee.

Each piece of the road map, you get it on the GPS one by one. That's how we're taught to meditate in the monastery. You take pieces of a larger idea, and then you learn the pieces.

Then you try to visualize the whole map in your mind. So you start with pieces, like here's how to get to Lake Mary, and here's how to go to Payson, and here's how to go to Pine, and then here's how to get to Strawberry. Then slowly you start to connect them together until you can visualize the whole route in your mind.

So you learn the pieces, and then you learn to connect them. Then you do that trip in your mind over and over again. That's called bhavana, because you make the trip mentally over and over again.

Then it burns itself into your mind, and it stays. Then we can say, you learned it. It's a cool idea.

You take the pieces. You practice the pieces. Then you start connecting pieces together.

Then you practice doing the whole thing. Then you keep doing that whole thing over and over again, and it burns itself into your mind. When it burns itself into your mind, and you can close your eyes and go through the whole meditation easily, you become that.

You become that meditation. You see what I mean? Then the road becomes part of you.

It's beautiful. It's a beautiful idea. That's the first part of what I want to start today with you guys for this retreat.

I'll teach you how to burn the pieces into your mind. Then I'll teach you how to do the whole route. Then I'll teach you how to repeat the route.

Then I'll teach you how to internalize the route. Then you become that thing, and that's what lam rim is all about. In this case, you would burn the different methods of reaching bodhichitta, each part of the path into your mind.

Then you would try to repeat the whole thing. Then you would do it several times, and then it would become part of you. You would reach bodhichitta because you burned it into your mind.

That's the first half. Then there's a second half, which is mnemonics. M-N-E-M-O-N-I-C-S M-N, it's a strange word in English.

You don't pronounce the M. It's M-N-E-M-O-N-I-C-S. Mnemonics.

We use them in the monastery. Those are memory assistants. Memory triggers.

That's a cool thing. To burn the route to bodhichitta into your mind. You make a story.

You make up a story. You base it on something you experienced already in your life. When I memorized the first three chapters of the Abhidharmakosha before I knew Tibetan, before I learned Tibetan, I could recite three chapters of the Abhidharmakosha.

In fact, I recited it for Ling Rinpoche one time in the car. The senior tutor. The way you do that is you use pictures from your life.

Something that happened previously in your life. Then each picture represents a different idea. I'm going to teach you this method that we use in the monastery to bhavana, to burn a series of ideas into your mind so deep that you become that.

It's very beautiful. It's based on mnemonics. You have to choose an event in your life.

That meant a lot to you. I'm thinking, Cat, like having your children or something. You probably remember a lot of the details.

Then you connect each one to a concept. Then you're not going to forget what happened that day. You're going to remember, this happened, the water broke, then we ran around and then we decided not to go to the hospital.

Then each event, each part of an important event in your life stands for something else in the meditation. That way you don't miss anything. Then slowly that gets burned into your mind until it becomes you.

That's the purpose of meditation. That's what meditation is for. We're going to try it for bodhichitta.

Here we go. Don't think it's too complicated. It's not too complicated.

It's really easy because you have to choose some big event in your life. It's fantastic when you're teaching. When you're teaching, it's an important tool because you actually don't need notes.

You just use your mnemonics. I would like to review the first class. I would like to review the important ideas of the first class that we had yesterday.

I'd like to do that in a meditation. I'd like to burn it into my mind. I'm going to use a mnemonic.

There were five main ideas in the first class yesterday. When you teach a class, you should try to learn to break it down into the main ideas for yourself, just for yourself, so that you don't have to keep looking at some paper or something like that. There were five main ideas in the first class yesterday which covered the first two of the ten benefits of bodhichitta.

I hate to say benefits. Ten cool things about bodhichitta. We covered two of them.

We got to two of them in the first class. I'm using mnemonics. There were five pictures I chose for you guys yesterday for the first two classes.

The pictures were... I don't know if you guys have it available, or maybe not. You do?

Okay, first picture. It was tennis player. Yeah.

The first picture was a tennis player. Second picture was a graduation. Third picture was a dad hugging his daughter.

Fourth picture was Geshe Michael. I mean a donkey. Then the fifth picture was these skyscraper makers.

That was the whole class. That was the first class. Those are the five important ideas of the first class.

If I want to meditate on the first class and burn it into my mind and then become that, which means reach bodhichitta, then how can I remember those five pictures? For me, I went to my high school. I went to my high school and I walked around my high school and I connected events to...

I connected parts of the high school to the first class that I taught yesterday. Tennis player was easy because I was on the tennis team. That was at the tennis courts.

Then I walked over to the football stadium, which is where we had our graduation. Then I walked down to where I met my parents at graduation and they hugged me. Then I walked by...

Do you know FFA? Future Farmers of America. Where they used to keep their animals.

That's where the donkey was waiting for me. Then they did some construction on my high school at the gymnasium and so I could remember the construction. I'm going to go through that.

There you have it. You have the five main ideas of the first class. You have the whole first class in your mind by connecting it to some real event in your life.

Some place you have been or you remember well. Here we go. We're going to turn it into a meditation.

You got to use your own place. Your high school probably didn't look like my high school. It could be the birth of a child.

It could be a house you used to live in. It sounds a little complicated, but it's not. Then you become an extraordinary teacher also because you don't have to look at notes.

You can actually think about what you're saying. Here we go. As usual, we'll try to relax your face, relax your mouth, relax your eyelids, sit up straight.

One way to sit up straight is to push down, which forces your chest and head up. It's always a good idea to tighten your lower abdomen. The way you do that is on your exhales.

You can use your exhales as an excuse to tighten your lower abdomen. That tightens your... that strengthens your back muscles.

You can sit up straight. You can meditate longer. Let's take ten deep breaths.

The exhales are very, very long. Much longer than usual. At the end of the exhale, your tummy tightens, which strengthens your back.

You can sit for longer periods of time. Hands are any comfortable way. The goal with the hands is to keep them out of the picture, keep them out of the way.

Just park them. I don't mind the sun. It's good.

Now let's go through our five pictures. For me, I'm going to use my old high school. I'm going to start on the tennis courts.

Think of a young man who's happy because he just got a position on the tennis team. What that represents is the first benefit of bodhichitta, which is you join the team of Mahayana people. Again, it's not a Mahayana Buddhist school.

It's a group of extraordinary beings who have had the experience of leaping from planet to planet and meeting people, every living being on each planet, tens of billions of beings on each planet. It's a very, very special team. Very select group of people called bodhisattvas.

If I could burn this bodhichitta meditation into my mind, I could join that team. How would that feel? Next, go to a place that you remember that will remind you of a graduation.

For me, I walk from the tennis courts of my old high school over to the football stadium. That's where we had our graduation. What's the graduation picture mean?

It means the second benefit of bodhichitta. They will give you a title. You'll have a new title.

They will call you Bodhisattva Gyaltsen, Bodhisattva Alex, Bodhisattva Khadeng. It's like a PhD title or a doctor title. Now, the beings in the universe who are extraordinary, they will always talk about you as that Bodhisattva Jigme or that Bodhisattva Tim.

You will change your identity. Personally, I like to spend about ten breaths, ten slow breaths on each part of the path that I'd like to burn into my mind. The next idea we learned was that you get a second title, which is Gyaltsen, daughter or son of the Buddhas.

For me, I'm thinking of a picture where my, after my graduation, my mom and my dad came and hugged me. A picture of a father or mother Buddha coming to give me a hug and welcome me into their family. Now I'm their son or their daughter.

Of course, the Buddhas love everybody, but once you have jumped between planets and met all the living beings and made this commitment to help them, directly to them, made the commitment directly to them, each one individually, then you sort of join a new family and you are welcomed into that new family. It's a very tight-knit family and the Buddhas have a special feeling for you. Then in my high school picture, I go from the football field where my mom and dad hugged me after graduation over to a part of the high school where there were kids learning to be farmers and they had donkeys.

That donkey reminds me that we don't have to be geniuses or moral geniuses to become a bodhisattva. We don't have to be the smartest person. We don't have to be the best person.

We can be ourselves. We have lots of problems. We have lots of weaknesses.

We have addictions that we have not been able to stop. We have all kinds of bad habits. We treat other people sometimes not very nice, but still we can become a bodhisattva.

It's independent of those things. We can have that experience. We can have that dream.

Maybe the worse we are, the better we can dream. The text said even a donkey or a fish or a bird, someone without great intellectual qualities, someone who is a normal person who fails from day to day, week to week, even in our practice. But still that path is available to us.

We can become a bodhisattva. Then the last picture for me at my high school is I go to the gymnasium and they build an extra top outside the gymnasium. I imagine a skyscraper, people sitting on a piece of a skyscraper and that reminds me of this event in my life where it seemed like a whole building was moving, shaking, actually jumping from side to side.

That reminds me of what happens when any person jumps from planet to planet and reaches bodhichitta, becomes a bodhisattva. Then because the karma of the whole universe is linked together, the karma that created the physical galaxy, those karmas are all linked together. I'm also responsible for Mars.

I'm responsible for the sun. I'm responsible for Buddha paradises that I heard about. If my relationship with every living being changes suddenly, then that jolts the karma that created the galaxy and the galaxy jumps and trembles from the weight of this new kind of love that I found.

The galaxy is the creation of my mind, my karma. It serves all living beings. If I decide to serve those same beings, then the galaxy has to jump when I do.

People on some level, all people, and especially all Buddhas are aware that one of us in the galaxy just became a bodhisattva. Imagine the day that you become a bodhisattva and the galaxy trembles. Let's dedicate the good karma that everyone we know could become a bodhisattva.

Then slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch. Any questions about...anybody here in the room? Small questions. Poco pregunta.

[Говорящий 2]
My question is, when the earth shifted for you, was that your becoming a bodhisattva or some other being that you experienced becoming a bodhisattva?

[Говорящий 1]
Me personally? Oh, well. Yeah, if I felt the earth shift under me, did that mean I became a bodhisattva or did that mean that someone else had become a bodhisattva?

Bodhisattvas don't talk about it much. But if it happens, if it happens to you, you'll know and you'll be very happy. How's that?

Okay. Any other questions? Nah.

Let's get to work. Enough fun. By the way, in a practical sense, just a warning.

You can only do about five scenes at a time. Don't try to do 10. Don't try to do 20.

You'll get weird. You'll get nervous. You'll get overloaded.

You'll get grumpy. Do five pictures well. Choose a high school or some event in your life and do the five well, and the next day do them again, and the next day do them again.

In the meantime, this course is going to keep going and we're going to cover many other pictures and you won't have time to do all of them. So don't get frantic. Don't be one of those frantic meditators.

It's like, I'm not making enough progress. Just calm down and do your five pictures and learn them well and burn them into the mind and skip the ones you didn't have time to do and then pick up on the five pictures like three days later. That's okay.

Then you're going to forget the first five pictures when you do the second five pictures. Then you'll feel frustrated. You'll feel like, oh, I'm not making progress.

I already forgot the five pictures I started with three days ago. Don't think like that. When you go through five pictures, you are burning something into your subconscious and it will always stay there.

It will always stay there. The second time you do it, it will come up very fast. Years later, you'll be teaching Lam Rim at Diamond Mountain and something you burned in there 40 years ago will come up and that means it's part of you.

Everything you think of becomes part of you, whether you're conscious of it or not. So nothing is wasted. No energy is wasted.

Newton was correct. Here we go. We're going back to our class.

I'm at D-E-S-N-A CHOS C-H-O-S That's where I am in the text. I guess Tim will get there. Don't worry about it.

D-E-S-N-A CHOS PO'I RGYAS CI ZHIG STONG GI SNYING PO SNGON DZIN NA, DE NYID LAS MED SNGON DZIN is an interesting word. Say SNGON DZIN. SNGON means the face of something.

DZIN means to hold it. SNGON DZIN means to identify somebody or recognize somebody. He says if you want to SNGON DZIN, SNYING PO What's SNYING PO?

The heart. If you would like to identify the heart of the RGYAS CI ZHIG STONG. RGYAS CI ZHIG STONG means 84,000.

This is a tradition from the Abhidharma that says that Lord Buddha taught 84,000 PUMBOS, SKANDHAS, mountains of Dharma. How many teachings did Lord Buddha give? We have 990 books in John Brady's database spoken by Lord Buddha.

But that's about 1 84th of what he taught on this earth. So he taught 84,000 different mountains of teachings. Why 84,000?

For $100.

[Говорящий 2]
There's 84,000 in the middle. Yay!

[Говорящий 1]
$100 to Janice. Yeah, there's 84,000 different negative parts of your mind. So Buddha had to teach 84,000 different heap.

There's a big debate about what's a heap of scripture. One opinion is that it's the amount that a magical elephant could carry called RAB BSTAN. That's a big story.

Long story. Anyway, he says if you wanted to identify SNGON DZIN, the essence of the 84,000 mountains of teachings, millions of pages of teachings, DI NYID LAS MED It's nothing other than what I just taught you. It's the five scenes at your high school.

You want the essence of every sutra and tantra ever taught? It's bodhichitta. It's to be a bodhisattva.

If you had to choose one teaching from the 84,000 huge groups of teachings that was the heart of the Buddha's teachings, DI NYID LAS MED you wouldn't find anything better than those five pictures. SBYOR BA BYAS LHA GCIG GIS KYANG, SEMS DI LOD THONG, BYAM SNYING RJE BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS BSGOM BYA BA, KHO NA GSUNG BA YIN Somebody asked Lord Atisha, which here is called SBYOR BA BYAS, which means the Lord. They also call him LHA GCIG.

Who can guess? LHA GCIG Yeah, the one angel. Nice.

20 bucks. Cat. Jigme, don't forget.

I was going to say 20 bucks. I just didn't have time. LHA GCIG means the one divine being.

Sometimes Atisha is called LHA GCIG. He's called the one angel. It's a beautiful name.

LHA GCIG GIS KYANG He said, look, SEMS DI LOD THONG Give up on this life. Focus on BYAMS PA, and SNYING RJE, and BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS, which we're going to talk about in the next retreat. Focus on the steps to getting to bodhichitta, which is love, compassion, and then bodhichitta.

KHO NA Just focus on that. Don't get distracted by anything else. Just do that.

I think it's important to say what does it mean when Atisha says give up on this life. I remember, I've seen so many strange things in Dharma teachings. I've got like 50 years of Dharma teachings that I've been to.

I remember, we were in New Jersey, and we were kind of out in the countryside. There was like a few acres of woodlands, swampy woodlands across the street. This is called Freewood Acres in New Jersey.

The rest is all gasoline refineries, but there was this one little probably polluted swamp. One student in the class, Ken Rinpoche said, SEMS RGYUD LOD THANG Give up on this life. He packed up his house, and he moved across the street into the forest.

He lasted about two days. Rinpoche was so funny. He just said, Leave him.

He'll be back in a day or two. The guy struggled back after two days. He said, I need a house.

I need a bed. I need a refrigerator. It doesn't mean quit your job, or divorce your wife, or tell your kids to go away.

It doesn't mean that. Give up on this life means, look, your projects, all the projects you do. Alex has a new project.

Look, guess what? Sometimes it's going to go good, and sometimes it's going to go messy. Sometimes it's going to be smooth.

KLUG RDU RO RO Sometimes it's going to be very fun, and then sometimes it's going to be a total headache, and nothing goes right. LOD THANG Give it up. Just relax.

Look, that's the way it goes. That's the way samsara is. You try to raise money for stupa.

You have a mess in Buddha teaching. Then suddenly everyone's confused, upset. You're like, okay, just relax.

Everybody just relax. Things mess up in samsara. That's the way it is.

Just relax. Have fun. LOD THANG Give it up.

Focus on whatever happens in your project. Things go well. Things don't go well.

The only thing that matters is do you love the other people in the project? That's all that matters. Maybe the money will come.

Maybe the money won't come. Maybe we'll succeed to buy the stories. Maybe we won't succeed.

But the main thing is, the only important thing is, love the other people in the project. Then it's successful. Because it's never going to be smooth.

It's never going to work all the time. Just get used to it. That's what it means to give it up.

Give up this idea that success is the project makes money and there's a big stupa. Give up this idea. Success means the people in the project are feeling deep love for each other.

That's success. That's what Atisha said. KHO NA That's all.

We have reached the fourth benefit. Who can tell me the first three?

[Говорящий 2]
I can tell you number two.

[Говорящий 1]
Come on. Where did the high school start?

[Говорящий 2]
In a tennis club.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, you joined the team.

[Говорящий 2]
Second.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, you got a name. And that one importantly includes a hug from your parents. And then what was the third one?

No, it was something else. No, we only covered the first two benefits in the five pictures. There was another benefit.

Yesterday. Yeah. Yeah, but what was the third benefit?

Good, yeah, outshining. Silky number. I'm sorry.

A bodhisattva outshines millions of nice people. Nice people are nice. But a bodhisattva, I'm sorry, it's just different.

It's a different level. They're jumping from planet to planet, directly helping billions of people. It's nice to fundraise for someone.

That's nice. It's a good thing. But a bodhisattva is a different, it's a totally different level.

It's billions of times bigger. And it's more efficient. If you could reach that, you could help billions of people, and not just a few.

So that should be a goal. And you can do it. All right.

So now it's the fourth benefit. We have a picture from, Pao Pachi, I don't remember who it is. Yeah, and I like this picture because I'm trying to open a coffee shop.

I'm loving all the county inspectors. Nothing is going right. What's this picture represent?

So burn it into your mind. This is the fourth benefit. It's that if you do become a bodhisattva, this is so cool.

I have to say it correctly. If you do get to be a bodhisattva, tiny little things that other people do for you who don't even know you're a bodhisattva become extremely heavy karma for them. So you're just a powerful karmic object and nobody knows.

Somebody makes you a coffee, it's going to take them to Buddha Paradise for a hundred lifetimes. You can't go telling people that. They're going to think you're an egomaniac, right?

Oh, thanks for giving me a hundred dollars. Now you're going to go to Buddha Paradise for a thousand lifetimes. You can't say that to people.

They'll think you're just trying to collect a hundred dollars. But the fact is, if you become a bodhisattva, then tiny little things that people do for you, you can have the pleasure of knowing that little things that people do for you are going to cause them intense lifetimes of happiness just because of who you are. It's very sexy, right?

Because of who you are. You can't tell people, right? They'll just say, oh, you're just trying to get more coffee.

But you can enjoy deeply the pleasure that because you're a bodhisattva, when somebody else helps you or even somebody, I don't know, puts gas in your car or something, that they're going to go to some paradise for lifetimes because they did something for you. Because you have had the experience of helping billions of people. So you're a much heavier karmic object than their parents or anything like that.

And that's just fun. It's just fun to be a person like that. Then you kind of find excuses to have nice interactions with people because it helps them.

You see what I mean? So somebody tries to cheat you or screw you or something, and then you just find a way to turn it into a nice interaction. And then it helps them.

It's really fun. Somebody tries to cut in the line in front of you and you say, yeah, go ahead. It's nice to see you.

And that gives them intense good karma. So it's nice to be that kind of a special karmic object anonymously. You can't tell people, but you can quietly rejoice all day.

Just for, I don't know, politicians who create your internet or your roads or strange people. You can rejoice in strange, what do you call that? Politicians who want to be famous, who only want to be famous, but they're still helping you.

And then you can enjoy that they're helping you because they're making such good karma. You see what I mean? Like that.

Here's the text. ZHIG PA NI, BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS RGYUD LA SKYES NA If you're able to get the bodhisattva's state of mind, bodhichitta, JIG RTEN LHA MI'I BYAS PA'I CHAGS BYAR GYUR You become someone who is worthy of the, people should throw themselves on the floor around you. It would be appropriate.

But that's the fourth benefit. You become this kind of person. LHA MI'I means even the devas, even the superheroes from Marvel comics should be throwing themselves on the floor.

CHAGS BYAR GYUR Okay, $50. Worthy of prostration. Sanskrit.

Worthy. Come on. ARKHAD ARKHAD ARKHAD Okay, all right.

There's another, okay, for another $50, there's another way to read ARKHAD. ARIHAD ARIHAN Yeah, animate the story. Yay.

Okay, $50. Jigme, pay Jigme $50. Bow down to yourself while you're at it.

Okay, BYAR LHA DANG BYAS PA'I CHOS PA'I SHING CHOG TU GYUR You become SHING CHOG. SHING CHOG means highest person in the room that people could make offerings to. Again, of course, you don't announce that.

You don't run around and say, Hey, anyone who gives me a pizza is going to Medicine Buddhist Paradise. It doesn't make you popular. Okay.

Next picture, you guys. By the way, now you see why I like to use pictures because I use them for my meditation and I use them as meditation triggers. Memory triggers.

This is a lady, professional diver, professional Olympic level high diver. There's a cute story why I met this lady. When I went to Princeton, I didn't know anybody outside of Arizona, nobody.

I got off the plane and I went and asked someone, How do I get to Princeton from John F. Kennedy Airport? They said, You have to take a private plane.

They cheated me. You actually take a bus. I took a private plane.

It cost me, nowadays it would be like $2,000. I was so naive. I lost half my money the first day.

Then I showed up in a suit, in a green suit, that my mother said everybody at Princeton would wear. Everyone was dressed in tie-dye and they had long hair. It was the hippie times.

I took the suit off in like five minutes. Then I remember I went to sign up for my room. I got an assignment to a room.

They said, You're staying with three other people in a suite. I said, Okay. I went there and I knock on the door and these three beautiful girls come out.

I'm like, Is this my room? They said, No, no, you can't stay here. I'm like, No, look, it's my room.

They were the Olympic divers going to Princeton. I got a scholarship to Princeton. Anyway, unfortunately the school figured it out that it was a mistake.

But I never forgot the professional diver thing. Why are we showing this picture, Geshe-la? Come on, get to the point.

,GA DAM GOMS MED KYANG, GOMS RGYUD LA GZUGS NAS DANG, He starts to talk about how much hard work and discipline it takes to have the bodhisattvas experience. He starts to talk about how much hard work and discipline it takes to have the experience of jumping from planet to planet. I think it's important that we get this lecture from Pabongka Rinpoche.

Look, it's fun to jump from planet to planet. It's fun to be the kind of person, when someone offers you a coffee, they're going to go to Buddha paradise for like 10 lifetimes. That's all beautiful stuff.

But look, and it's like the warning on the cigarette package. It's hard work. You don't get there easily.

It takes years of hard work. People ask me, Geshe-la, I just want to do mantras. I don't want this hard work.

I don't want to study for year after year. Here's Pabongka's answer. The greatest lama of the past century, I would say.

Kadam Gomekyang, the first Buddhist in Tibet, the Kadampa, called Kadambas, they used to say, the reason people are practicing tantra, diamond way, with a special Buddha deity and jen gyur ngak, a special mantra, the reason we gave those people a tantric Buddha to meditate on and a mantra to do is because they were not capable of learning the Dharma. I didn't. BSAM RGYUD CHU ZHIG MED TE LEN The problem was they couldn't meditate.

So we gave them that. You see what I mean? Now, of course it's an exaggeration.

Of course it's an exaggeration. That's what teachers do. They try to shock you.

GZUGS MED DRANG MED PHYI MED ROL MED RIGS BYA MED There's nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to smell, nothing to taste. Of course there's something to see. There's French fries.

But they try to shock you. So the early Buddhists used to say, why is this guy spending all his time on some secret tantric Buddha and some mantras? And they said, well, it's easy to explain.

He didn't have anything to meditate on. So they gave him that. He didn't have a practice.

So they're criticizing that. It can be laziness, right? They're saying, look, if you want to be a bodhisattva, which you should be, it's hard work.

And it takes a lot of hard work. It's like being an Olympic level athlete. It takes hours of hard work every day.

It doesn't come easy. If it came easy, then everybody would be jumping from planet to planet. It's fun.

And it takes discipline. It takes practice. You've got to practice.

You've got to work hard. DE NA SEMS DI LA BAG CAG SBYOR THUB TZAM CHUNG YANG GNAS BYAS TE And he says, every chance you get to hear a little bit more about the bodhisattva, every chance you get to hear a little bit more about what is a bodhisattva, you should grab it. If you have a choice between running to the bathroom during this class or waiting until the class is over, wait until the class is over, even if you're uncomfortable.

Because during that pee-pee time, you might miss some seeds, some bag chags. Try to get every little sentence you can about how to be a bodhisattva. Because it's never wasted.

CHOS MI SA BA One of the four laws of karma is that everything you ever experience has an indelible effect on you at some point. So try to expose your mind to high words, high ideas every chance you get because they will have an inevitable effect on you to become a bodhisattva. So keep trying to learn more and be disciplined.

THOS PA TZAM CHUNG YANG GNAS BYAS TE Extremely important. Tim, I know I have one more minute. I'm on it.

SNGAR SANGS RGYAS KYI GSUNGS KYI DRA THOS PA TZAM GYI SNGON PA SNGABS KYA LHAG BSKYED NAS BSTAN PA MTHONG Every little thing you expose your mind to in the Dharma, every sentence from the Lam Rim, every time you do another mantra, you are planting... Somebody asked me a... I don't know, it's a silly question.

If I say mantras, am I planting seeds? If you go to the bathroom, you are planting seeds. Mantra is a little bit better.

Of course you are planting seeds. Very powerful seeds. Extremely powerful seeds.

SNGAR SANGS RGYAS KYI GSUNGS KYI DRA He gives an example. There was a flock of 500 ducks flying over the Buddha when he was giving a teaching one time and they heard his voice. Because of that, it planted a seed in their hearts.

They were born as devas in a temporary paradise and they all saw emptiness after that because they didn't go to the bathroom during the class. They heard that one more sentence from the Buddha. They heard him speak.

They were attracted to the sound of his voice. They didn't know what he was saying, but they thought it was beautiful. It sounded like another goose or something making nice quacking or something.

Because of that, they put seeds in their mind. He says, work hard. Every single opportunity you get to hear something more, take it.

Without getting nervous and... What do you call that? Stress dharma people are the most unpleasant thing.

Don't be a stress dharma person. Relax. Sit in the class.

I had a person who loved to lay down in the class. If you be in the class, it's better you lay down than you not be in the class. You'll hear something and that will put seeds in your mind and they will inevitably affect you later.

You have to work hard. Don't think Lam Rim is a waste of time. Studying Nagarjuna gives me a headache.

Of course it gives you a headache. But I'll tell you something from 68 years old. There's nothing valuable in this world which doesn't come with hard work.

To get something valuable, to get something precious, it takes hard work. It takes discipline. See you in the next class, guys.

[Говорящий 2]
Take a break.