«Дар освобождения», курс 37 «Лучшее, что ты можешь сделать со своей жизнью», занятие 6

[Говорящий 1]
Yay, welcome back to Lam Rim. We're just waking up here in Arizona, so don't take it too seriously. We're just finishing up something from yesterday and then we're going to move to a new topic.

It's the last sentence from yesterday. You guys see it? It says dor-na, dor-na?

M-D-O-R-N-A, M-D-O-R-N-A. dor-na sem de kun ne lang te gyewa kang che kyang Any good deed you do with the motivation of bodhichitta. Did you find it, you guys?

Yay! kang che kyang, good. de pen yin sem chen tam che kyi drang da nyam par jung sung So to wrap up from yesterday, if you have this feeling in your heart that what your ultimate goal in life is to help countless beings, and you can just try to imagine it.

Again, for me, I like to pretend I'm in a spaceship. I take off from this world. I just head out in any direction and I keep going.

There's no end to it, right? There's no skin to the bubble that you hit the edge of the universe and you have to stop or something like that. There's nothing.

You keep going. If you do small things in your life, like making coffee from motor oil, I'm just kidding. Then...

I'm really just kidding. It's quite good. If you just make a coffee or something, but it's with that motivation, then what Pabongka Rinpoche is saying here is that you can multiply that good deed by the number of beings that your spaceship is passing.

So billions upon billions. It's so efficient. By the way, I think it's probably the only way you can become a Buddha because a Buddha requires so much karma.

I guess you would have to make karma with countless beings to create it, to become a Buddha. So let's do it. All right, we finished five benefits so far.

The esteemed friends in the room who are all veteran Dharma practitioners are going to tell me the five. First of the ten benefits? You join the team.

What did you say? Yeah, you join the family. Good.

It's like joining a mafia family. You become part of the family. What's the picture?

Tennis pair. Second one?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah. Yeah, you graduate.

[Говорящий 1]
You get a degree. You are now a bodhisattva. Third one.

Oh, what was the picture? Yeah, graduation picture. Third one.

It's a little bit difficult. It's the sun and the birds. Yeah, you outshine.

The sun is more glorious than the beautiful, graceful birds. Beautiful, graceful birds are cool, but the sun is a little bigger. Okay, number four.

Let's see. What's the picture? Not too...

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah, coffee shop.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, I think that one's super sexy. Just to think that... It's a weird angle, right?

We don't think that way very often, but if we became a really good person, then all the person around us could make more good karma if they just make us coffee and stuff like that. Wouldn't that be nice? To be that good.

That's kind of an unusual twist. Number five. I'll give you the picture.

[Говорящий 2]
It's the men on the beam on the sky.

[Говорящий 1]
You keep wanting to do the men on the beam.

[Говорящий 2]
Well, it is. How about the big equipment?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, the big equipment. The men on the beam are way back like the Buddha paradises are going to shake because I forget. I even forget what part that's in.

It's like joining the family. They're thrown shakes and then they say, hey, we got a new kid in our family. SOK YANG CHEN PO DE LAG TU RDZOGS PA Super efficient way to collect more good karma.

Not picking up rocks one by one anymore. We should go out and do it just for fun. Just to give people the feeling of what it's like.

We're on number six. Benefit number six. I was going to show the planets, but let's forget it.

Which is, if you get to bodhichitta, it's extremely powerful for wiping out all bad seeds. Bodhichitta is extremely powerful as an antidote for wiping out all bad karmic seeds. Just a dream of helping infinite numbers of living creatures is enough to cancel a lot of our old bad deeds.

Those of us who have been practicing our whole life, we still do bad deeds. We still make mistakes. We still yell at people and stuff like that.

We still say bad things about coffee and stuff and hurt people's feelings. We still make mistakes all day. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some kind of powerful way to just cancel all those stupid little mistakes we make all day?

That intention or that feeling is what we're going to cover next. Benefit number six. The picture is the sun, the surface of the sun.

Here we go. It should be idim 30. Yeah, okay.

I want you to imagine that you're eating french fries in the car and trying to drive at the same time, which never happens. It's really hard to get the catch up right when you're driving. It's also dangerous.

I suppose you're also on your cell phone at the same time. But you've had this experience where you put on a nice shirt or a nice blouse and you're going to someone's wedding. This happened to us recently.

Then you spill ketchup on the blouse. It's too late to turn around and go back home. You're trying to drive and clean it at the same time.

Imagine to clean the ketchup stain on your shirt, you send it to the middle of the sun. The laundromat of the middle of the sun. Why did Geshe-la pick that picture?

I think I was going to a wedding and spilled ketchup on my shirt. Then I was trying to think of some extremely powerful way of removing a stain. I looked it up and I forgot what it was.

But the temperature at the middle of the sun, I don't know, so many, 50 million degrees or something. That's the chance that your bad seeds have to survive bodhichitta. That's the chance that your bad seeds have to survive bodhichitta.

If your bad seeds come close to bodhichitta, it's like ketchup stain in the middle of the sun. I think when we originally taught this, it was during the heavy virus times. We were talking about removing bad seeds with bodhichitta.

Here we go. SGRUB PA NI, SDIG PA BDAG PA LA'ANG, SDI LAS LHAG PA MED TE Forget collecting good seeds, but for cleaning away bad seeds, there's nothing better than bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is number one.

LHAG PA MED TE, CHUN GZUGS LAS, CHUN GZUGS says, what's CHUN GZUGS? For three dollars. BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I SPYOD PA LA'ANG GCIG PA Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

It says, and he keeps using this text. SDIG PA STOB CHEN GZHIN TU NI ZAD PA, DE NI RDZOGS PA'I BYANG CHUB SEMS MIN PA, RGYAS GZHAN GANG GIS, Silky number here. They'll silky number for twenty dollars.

[Говорящий 2]
Outshine.

[Говорящий 1]
Yay! Twenty dollars. Twenty dollars for Janice.

But silky number here means the bodhichitta silky number, the ketchup thing. See the big difference, right? The bodhichitta outshines.

It overwhelms the little bad deeds we did all day long. Or the big ones also. Who is it?

Who's talking? Master Shantideva is comparing bodhichitta to something which outshines completely your bad deeds. They don't stand a chance against your bodhichitta.

Even the worst bad deeds, he says here. GZHAD PA LTAR GZHAD PA GZHAN GYIS MI BDAG PA'I SDIG SDUG BZHIN DU CHE BA'ANG There may be things we've done in our life which were so serious that even if we use the four powers, it's difficult to remove them. It's difficult to freeze them, freeze-dry them.

DE'I KHYAD PA'I ZAD PAR GYUR TE But if you're able to just think about helping countless beings, ZAD PAR GYUR those bad seeds will be finished off. ZAD PAR, finished. BAP PA THOB MED KYIS Then he talks about Arya Sangha.

BAP PA THOB MED LO SPYUD GNYIS SU SGRUB PA'I DGE BA LAS He practiced in the cave, as you know. And here's his picture with the dog. Item number 31.

He practiced for 12 years in a cave, as we know the story, because we've been studying the lion's dance, which he taught after learning it from Maitreya. After he was able to see Maitreya by taking care of a dog. Taking care of a wounded dog.

ZAD PAR BAP PA THOB MED KYIS LO SPYUD GNYIS SU SGRUB PA'I DGE BA LAS He practiced in the cave for 12 years. But SNYING RJE LEN GCIG true compassion for a single minute was more powerful for him. He spent 12 years in the cave doing Maitreya's mantra and asking Maitreya to come.

And then a few minutes with the hurt dog on the highway ended up being more powerful for him. So he's comparing that moment of compassion for the dog to a moment of bodhichitta could clean away your bad deeds faster than doing the four powers over and over again. By the way, those items have numbers, you guys.

Number 31. I'm on number 31. 37 and 31.

Okay, maybe I forgot the same thing. SNYING RJE LEN GCIG SKYES PA SDIG SDIG SBYONG BA NAS CHAD LHAG PA CHUNG CHAD LHAG PA means much more powerful. Yay!

Okay, SHEN YANG. SDIG PA BZHIN DU Here's another quotation. And he likes quotations.

There we go. There's the Sangha. Arya Sangha.

You had him. Oh, sorry. Okay.

SDIG PA BZHIN DU MI ZAD CHEN NA YANG SPA LA BRTEN NAS JIG PA CHEN PO LTAR GANG LA BRTEN NAS YUL KHYAD GRUB RGYUD BA DE LA BAG CHEN RNAMS KYI CI'I MI BSTAN SDIG PA BZHIN DU MI ZAD CHEN NA YANG Even if you make big mistakes in your life, and we all did make big mistakes in our life, SPA LA BRTEN NAS JIG PA CHEN PO LTAR if you're in a very dangerous situation, but you have a friend who is extremely powerful, it's like you can just turn to them and say, help me out.

I remember I was in college, and one of my friends said, hey, you want to go to mountain climbing? And I'm like, yeah, sure. And he was a very expert mountain, big, big guy, and an expert mountain climber.

And so I said, yeah, I'll go. And so we went, and then he climbed up a cliff, a very high cliff. And I was down at the bottom, and I'm like, like this.

And he got up at the top, he climbed over a negative incline and got up over the cliff. And then he's like, hey, Maya, come on, let's try it. And I'm like, I said, no, I don't want to.

Then his girlfriend was with us, and she's this small lady with blonde hair, kind of like Katie. And she says, oh, I'll do it. And she climbs up with no rope, negative cliff, gets up to the top.

I was like, I can do that. Then I said, oh, I can do that. And he said, well, you better rope, I better rope you.

And so I climb up. And he's holding the rope around his waist somehow, right? And I fell.

And I fell at the negative part. And he was holding me with one hand. And he was like, ho, ho, ho.

And I'm like, ah. Anyway, it's exactly the image here. You're in a dangerous mountain pass, and then you're in great danger, and then there's one big powerful guy who knows what the heck he's doing, and he saves you.

Who's that? Bodhichitta. ,GANG LA BRTEN NAS YOD KYI GROL YUR BA, If you ask them for help, they help you.

YOD KYI means in a moment. In the moment of trouble, they hold the rope, and then you don't fall. ,DE LA BAG CHEN RNAMS KYI CI MI DANG, If you are any kind of a wise person who knows how to take care of themselves, then why wouldn't you ask them to hold the rope?

If you're not a fool, you'd say, oh, please, hang on to that rope. Hang on to bodhichitta. Thank you.

And then Pabongka Rinpoche explains, I'm talking too fast, right Tim? That always happens in the morning. I slow down later.

,CHE GSUM PA LTAR SEMS DE YOD NA, If you have bodhichitta, ,DIG SDIB DANG DE'I BDE BU, you can escape the tongue, ,JIGS PA'I DANG, ,BYUNG DRUG, This is an interesting expression, ,BYUNG DRUG, because it's the title of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. So the real title of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is Saving Yourself from the... I met a guy who climbed Mount Everest, and I didn't know about it, but when you get to the top, the last five yards, the last five meters, is a ridge of ice.

To get to the real top you have to balance. The last thing you have to do at the top of the world is to balance on a ridge, and it's like six inches wide, and it's 30 feet or something. It's like 10 meters balancing with a full 100 pound pack on oxygen.

That's the only way to get to the top. That's called BYUNG DRUG. The real title of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is Trying to Cross the Last Knife Edge.

It's called the Knife Edge in the Top of the Mountain. It's the real name. Knife Edge, meaning the bardo.

By the way, that text is famous for being mistaken, so I don't suggest it, and I don't think you should study it. I know people have been hurt by studying it, but the name is very cool, which is the Knife's Edge at the Top of the World. In this case, you need someone who's got the robe, who brings you up, and that's Bodhichitta.

That's what Pabongka Rinpoche says. Master Shantideva is talking about. Who is the first person up the mountain?

Hillary. It's called Hillary's Crest. Well, he doesn't count because he was...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's called Hillary's Crest or something. All right.

DRIM NA YANG, SROG PA CHEN PO DANG NYON DU SROG PA LTAR JI PA MI BYUNG If you have a big guy helping you up, you don't feel so scared. All right. I think we have a picture there somewhere.

Yeah, there we go. Who's the guy in the blue jacket? Bodhichitta.

Yeah, good. And then you don't have to be so scared about big mistakes you made in your life. That's the cliff.

That's the mountain cliff. Cool? And the Bodhichitta will take you up past that.

DE NYID DU DE MED ZHIN DU CHEN RNAMS SKAD CES GCIG GIS NGES PAR ZEGS PAR BYED Say DU TE? MED So this is the TE. TE is the TA in TAR CHEN.

What's that mean? TAR CHEN. Yeah, the end.

DU means like DUNG KHOR. KALA CHAKRA DU DU KALA Time, yeah. So this is called the fire of the end of time.

The fire at the end of time. And this is like a nuclear fire that destroys this planet. It's actually when the sun goes supernova.

So Buddhism, the Abhidharmakosha third chapter describes at the end of this sun it will supernova and it will consume the earth. It will envelop the earth in flame. And then some texts say it'll be a war, some kind of incredible weapon which burns the entire earth.

So anyway, Bodhichitta is similar to that flame. In the way that the sun can supernova and melt this, it will, according to Abhidharma, it will vaporize this earth. So you got to get the idea that your bodhichitta can vaporize your bad deeds.

If you get a little bodhichitta, you can vaporize big bad deeds you did in the past. They will just turn into air and disappear. BYAS PA LTAR GDIS PA'I PHUNG PO JI LTAR BYAS YANG No matter how big is your PHUNG PO of bad deeds, don't forget that PHUNG PO can mean heap of leaves from a tree, but it can also mean a huge mountain.

Even if you have a mountain of mistakes you've made in your life. GAL PA'I MA'I BU BZHIN SREG PA BZHIN If you took a piece of dry wood and set it in the middle of the sun, BZHIN DU BDAG PAR BYED PA it would be disappeared. Those bad seeds would just disappear.

DE PHYIR BDIG PA BYAMS PAR BYED PA LA'ANG Therefore, if what you want to accomplish is simply to remove your own bad seeds, SEMS SDI DANG MA BRAL BAR SDIG SBYONG GZHAN LA BLO RGYUR TSUN PA LAS You can spend a hundred years doing the four powers, but, DI NYID MTHUN GCIG BSGOM PA CHOG YIN It would be better for you to spend one meditation session on bodhichitta. Okay, let's say it again. You could do four steps for a hundred years.

Or he says, DI NYID MTHUN GCIG BSGOM PA CHOG and he doesn't say better, he says, quite supreme, infinitely better to spend an hour on trying to think about bodhichitta. Yay. I don't know about you, but me, I don't know.

In that hour, I will also collect some new bad seeds. I don't know. Anyway, it's like a sand castle.

Okay, so we're on to benefit number seven. What was the picture from benefit number six now? What picture are we going to use for our meditation later?

Those were in the presentation, but what was the main picture? About the du te may. Yeah, the sun.

Putting a ketchup stain in the middle of the sun. All right, now here's another picture. This is from Shenzhen.

These are all the buildings in Shenzhen. I don't know. Shenzhen is one of my favorite places in the world.

It's kind of what New York used to be in 1970s or something. It's extremely vibrant and beautiful. The city didn't exist until 1970s or something.

Now it's 25 million people and it's all new and it's all incredibly beautiful. They have done a lot to make sure the city is beautiful. For every skyscraper there's a park and it's amazing.

It's really beautiful. It's the center of innovation for the world really right now. So anyway, all of your wishes come true.

Benefit number seven. If you develop bodhichitta, then all of the wishes in your heart come true. Let's go see what the text says.

SDUG PA NI, SEMS DE'I SKYES PA NA, GNAS SKABS DANG THAR THAG GIS BDUN THAMS CAD BAS MED DU GRUB If you're able to spend some time every day thinking about helping not just people in your country or people in your family or not just people. The big thing I think is we have to move beyond imagining helping all the people in this world because that's not many. It's only a hundred billion or something.

All the living creatures. So it's a lot more important. You got to break through from this planet to other planets.

It's foolish to think that if life can occur on one planet and if the planets are infinite, then there's not infinite planets where there's life. It's just foolish to think that way. We haven't met other planet's people yet, but maybe they don't want to meet us.

I don't know. There's a pretty easy explanation. Somebody in your office says, I don't know why nobody ever asks me out to lunch.

You're like, well, it's kind of hard to explain. Maybe you should brush your teeth once in a while. Okay, anyway.

You got to break out from the limitations of this beautiful blue planet and you got to put your mind further. It's pretty simple. It's easy to break out from one town to another town.

It's easy to imagine helping people from another country. But if you're going to play this game, you got to break out from this planet. You got to go to...

You got to admit that there's countless other planets. In fact, there are countless planets on which some guy is teaching Pabongka's Long Rim. At this sentence, there are countless planets where some guy with no hair on top is teaching Pabongka Rinpoche's Long Rim.

Right now, this sentence. There are countless planets where somebody who looks just like Geshe Michael, and by the way, he's not Geshe Michael, but he's teaching this sentence right now. Logically, because it's infinite.

So the odds are infinite. If you roll the dice a billion times, you'll get every number. SEMS DE SKYE PA NA GNAS SKABS DANG THAR DU SKYES BSTAN THAMS CAD PAS MED DU GRUB If you're able to break out past this one world, then GNAS SKABS means stuff you want to accomplish today, this afternoon.

We have a book publishing meeting after the class. Something you want to accomplish this afternoon. Or THAR DU SKYES BSTAN, your pursuit of total enlightenment.

MED DU GRUB You can accomplish these things without any hassle at all. Not much work. BRDUN CHOG TU GYUR PA SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS MED DUG PA'I SDUG BSNGAL POR BA NA And then eventually you can get to the highest goal of all, which, what's that?

Help every person in the universe get rid of all of their trouble and pain. And, BRDUG PA'I DE BA GRUB PAR BYED PAS Help them get everything they want. If you just have this, if you're able to break out from this one world to all worlds.

DE BA GRUB PAR BYED CHIN GZUGS LAS He quotes CHIN GZUGS. Good, if you guys didn't get that right, you would have to pay me $100. That's where all this thing is headed.

You think I'm being generous. I'm going to flip it someday. DE NYID TSE MED KYE BA'I TSOR RNAMS KYIS DE MCHOG DE LA GNYIS DU MTHOGS PAR SEMS The Buddha said that you can easily help countless beings if you just break out of this world, just break out of this one world to the idea that you could help all beings in all worlds.

[Говорящий 2]
All right.

[Говорящий 1]
Let's see. GZHAN YANG SEMS KYIS RGYUD LA SKYES NA RGYUD DE SOGS NAS SHES PA'I RIGS NGAG DANG LAS TSOR MI PHAL DANG PHAL GYIS MI GRUB PA THAMS CAD KYANG TSE MED DU GRUB MOD He says, look, lots of people trying to practice tantra. Lots of people say, I'm going to practice Diamond Way.

I'm going to do Vajrayogini or I'm going to do Medicine Buddha or I'm going to do Amitabha. Lots of people trying to practice mantras to succeed in these higher secret practices. SEMS KYIS RGYUD LA SKYES NA If you enter those practices with just a little bit of bodhichitta imagination, like I'm breaking out from this planet.

I'm helping everybody on all planets. If you approach your mantra as your daughter-niece with this kind of feeling in your heart, then SHES PA'I RIGS NGAG you will succeed. TSE MED Say it, TSE MED.

TSE MED means no hassle. TSE MED means hassle. It's a cute word.

TSE MED PA, easy. So just get this motivation a little bit. Study Lam Rim, study bodhichitta, then go do your Medicine Buddha mantras, your daughter-niece, and super powerful.

Then they will work. They will work for you. And they won't work.

MI PHAL DANG PHAL GYIS If you just have normal thoughts, normal worldly thoughts, and you're not breaking out of this world to help others, that's called, here it's called normal normal. He says, if you're just a normal normal, PHAL PHAL, PHAL DANG PHAL, by the way, it's not the other PHAL, which is glorious, right? If you're just PHAL PHAL, if you're just like stuck in the everyday world, MI GRUB, your mantras won't work.

It won't work. MI GRUB means it won't work. What's the famous person whose name has GRUB in it?

DUN GRUB Siddhartha. Siddhartha. Whose name means the Prince Siddhartha, who was the Buddha.

His name means you get things done. And he says here, if you don't think about breaking out of this world, if you just sit there and do mantras, MI GRUB, A SIDDHA, you won't reach your goals. The mantras won't help you.

You got to have this gasoline in the car called bodhichitta. Then the car of secret practice, Medicine Buddha, Vajrayogini, Amitabha, Tara, it will work for you. Yay!

And we have a big machine, I think, somewhere. What was that machine? Yeah, I was trying to find a big machine.

This is what tantra looks like to me. I mean, Vajrayana, Diamond Way. It's this huge, powerful machine.

It's got to have electricity. And it doesn't matter how powerful the machine is, if it doesn't have electricity, it won't run. What's the electricity?

Bodhichitta. All right, we're going on to class six, which is where we're supposed to start today, I think. If I'm not mistaken.

Geshe-la is a little behind. It's very unusual. All right, class six.

NGES PHRAD RDOG DANG RGYUD DE BIR BUM SOGS LAS SHES PA'I BYAMS PA Now he's talking about Buddhist practices that are supposed to get you things. Like little Buddhist practices. Like you're supposed to get money, or you're supposed to get over your asthma or your allergies, or your mother-in-law is supposed to suddenly love you.

There's specific little Buddhist rituals that I haven't spent time with you, teaching you. But there are little books called Overcoming Baldness or Wrinkles. These are little books.

There are little books like that. We haven't studied them. But he says, look, there's little practices.

The examples he gives is BYAMS PAS, which means making it rain in a desert or something like that. That would be useful for the carbon offset project. BYAMS PAS SER BSRUNG That's sera, protecting from sera.

Hail, hailstones. These are called CHEN GZEGS. CHEN GZEGS means, CHEN GZEGS is kind of a put down.

Little miscellaneous Buddhist rituals. Little miscellaneous rituals. CHEN GZEGS NAMS KYANG SHES PA BZHIN MIN SGRUB PA People like you and me, we read the, GNAS TSUL means us guys.

RDO, we read from sutras. RGYUD, we read from tantras, from secret teachings. And RGYUD BUM, RGYUD BUM means like chronicles.

We read these little, we read about these rituals, like making it rain or stopping hail or stopping the wind at Diamond Mountain. CHEN GZEGS NAMS KYANG SHES PA BZHIN MIN SGRUB PA But they never seem to work. Like we go get a book, we translate it.

It's how to make things rain. We do the whole ritual, as the book says, and then nothing happens. And he says, guess what?

Yeah, BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS MED PA'I LEN MED PA'I LEN means the problem is you don't have bodhichitta when you did those rituals. Don't think those little ritual books are mistaken. They're not.

They're correct. They work. But you don't have bodhichitta, so it's not going to rain.

You got to have, it's also the gasoline for the little engines. And I think we have a picture there. I don't know.

I see it like a bunch of gears and one of the gears is broken. And that's your bodhichitta. The whole machine is fine.

The texts are fine. The ritual is fine. It should work.

But there's one gear that's broken, which is your motivation. You don't have this motivation beyond this small world. DE NA, RANG BZHIN GYI NA LTA SOGS BAR BYED ZAL ZHIG GNOD PA BYED BAR BDOD NA So if you want to do things like removing people's cancer or helping friends to get over serious diseases, things like that, fix their eyeballs, stuff like that, SEMS SDUG BSKYED DGOS You got to have this motivation when you do those rituals.

When you say those mantras, when you do those dharanis, if you don't have this motivation, something's broken in the machine and it won't work. DGOS YANG GIS LAS MI SGRUB PA DE DAG LAS TSUL KHRIMS PA'I MED NGAG GIS MED If the LAS MI SGRUB means, here it means if the ritual doesn't work. DE DAG LAS TSUL KHRIMS PA'I MED NGAG GIS MED It's not a problem with the translation or it's not a problem with the text.

It's not that John Brady got the wrong book in the Mongolian library. Don't blame John Brady. Although he's generally responsible for everything.

NYAMS PA LTA BU BYA MI RUNG NYAMS PA means don't think like that. Don't think John Brady got the wrong book for making it rain. He got the right book, but you didn't have bodhichitta when you did the ritual.

Don't think that Dr. Woo didn't get the right Medicine Buddha ritual and it's not working for you. It's your motivation. Then we have a picture of a lady going for a MRI in the hospital.

Yeah, I don't know. I had one of these done. It's frightening, right?

I don't know. They put you in this tube and I think it's, somebody told me it's like 5,000 x-rays or something, which doesn't sound healthy. If you really want to cure a cancer or something, then those rituals can work.

Medicine Buddha mantras can work, but you got to have the electricity. You got to have the motivation, which has to be more than fixing one person. All right.

DER MA ZAD I don't know, I don't like PHAT because it sounds like fat and then I always think I'm eating too much. But anyway, PHAT is, what do you call it? Threatening gesture for PHAT in a Buddhist ritual.

SNGAGS means Dharani or mantras. ZAD means you make some secret liquid or something to help you with a ritual. ZAD SOGS LA BRTOS MI DGOS KYI That's not the secret ingredient.

It's the bodhichitta. If you don't have HUNG HUNG PHAT PHAT and you forgot your SNGAGS SPYOD, don't worry. Just replace it with some bodhichitta and you're fine.

If you don't know how to make all these things, don't worry about it. The thing you have to make is from your heart. Cool.

Then ZAD TZAM GYI SGRUB TE Then he says something very, very powerful. He says, do an act of truth. Do an act of truth.

This is very, very famous in ancient India. That classic example, who can tell me? Make the Ganges River flow backwards.

The Ganges River, if you've never been there, especially if you're on an Indian bus, it can take an hour to cross it on the bridge. It could take an hour to cross the river in the flat parts. Like if you're going to West Bengal, if you're going to Bangladesh from West Bengal, then it can take an hour.

It's very fun because there's holes in the bridge and the bus has to go like this. It takes about an hour to get across that river. Imagine a spiritual practice where you pray that that river should flow backwards towards the Himalayas, back to the Himalayas, up.

Backwards to Mount Everest because of your prayer. Like billions of gallons of water are going to turn their direction and flow up the Himalayas back to the snow mountain. This is called an act of truth.

It means, you always say, if it's true that I, if it's true that I made a coffee for Geshe-la with my best motivation this morning, then may the Ganges River flow backwards for half an hour or something. Then it was a big disruption in ancient India. All these guys doing acts of truth.

Their farms don't get their irrigation. The Ganges River is flowing backwards. If it's true that I did the tag or the translation for the Lam Rim with a fairly good motivation, then may the Ganges River flow backwards today.

That's called an act of truth. Why does it come up here? He says, you want to know the best act of truth you could do?

It's bodhichitta. If it's true that this morning, during Geshe-la's talk, I actually tried to break out of this one world, this one planet, and I spent at least 20 seconds trying to imagine helping people in another world. If that's true, then I should get a good breakfast after the class today.

Something like that. Some glorious act of truth. He says, if you want to go do that act of truth thing, which is really fun, then bodhichitta is the best one you can choose.

If you can claim that you tried to have bodhichitta for a few minutes this morning, then you can make miracles happen. Based on that truth, you can make miracles happen. Now, Pabongka Rinpoche says, it's like the story of the bodhisattva who's called crying all the time.

Sada Prarudita. His name is Mr. Crying All the Time. There's a very, very famous story and it's in the 8,000 verses on the Perfection of Wisdom.

BOR BA LA MI DOR 8,000 verses. There are many Prajnaparamita Sutras. There's 100,000 verses.

There's 15,000 verses. There's 25 or 20,000 verses. There's the Heart Sutra, which is two pages.

And there's the 8,000 verses. The 8,000 verses version happens to be extremely sexy. I love science fiction.

I love to read science fiction. I read science fiction every night. I can't eat unless I'm reading science fiction.

I definitely can't go to bed without, or I'm supposed to do coffee meditation, but usually it's mixed. But that 8,000 verses is much more beautiful than science fiction. It's like the ultimate science fiction.

If you really like science fiction, I recommend the 8,000 verses. It's not a Madhyamika treatise. It sounds like that, right?

Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. But when you really read them, they are like detective novels. They are like very exciting stories, true stories of cool things.

Anyway, there's a story in the 8,000 verses called the Bodhisattva who couldn't stop crime. I always thought it was because he was compassionate. When I heard about these stories, I always thought he was sitting in his retreat cabin at Diamond Mountain, crying all day out of compassion for other people.

Then I read this story. I read this story, I actually taught it to a student in 1983. How long was 1730?

Anyway, a lot of years ago. We translated it. It's like 35 years ago, 40 years ago.

It was over 40 years ago. It's an extremely beautiful story. Pabongka Rinpoche says, this bodhichitta is also, while we're on the subject, that bodhichitta gets you your wishes, helps you make your wishes come true.

You should try and act of truth with bodhichitta like the bodhisattva who couldn't stop crying. Like the bodhisattva who couldn't stop crying. Then he goes on.

Then he goes on to another subject. I don't know about you, but I'm like, what's the story? You didn't tell the story.

He just said, oh, it's like that story. Then I feel frustrated. I'm like, dang, we don't know what these stories are.

Don't think we know. Don't assume, Pabongka Rinpoche, that a bunch of foreigners in 2021 are going to know these stories, because we don't. I have a proposal.

I gave it to Tim this morning. I went and got this story. It's extraordinary.

It's one of my favorite Buddhist books of all time, and I have a lot of favorites. But that story is something, it's extremely beautiful. So we decided this usual lam rim blackmail technique, that if you're a volunteer, or if you agree to be a volunteer in the future, for Tim, and for ACI, and Tatyana, all those guys, if you agree to be a volunteer, we'll have a special session this week for you guys, and we'll cover that story.

We'll go through that story. Some people like Pabongka Rinpoche, you're already in. Everybody here is already in that group.

But I would love to tell the story. Actually, we don't have time in this class to do it. We'll get too far behind.

It takes about a half hour, something like that. And someday we should translate the 8,000 verses, but it would take about 50 years to translate it. But it's extremely beautiful.

Somebody should work on it. So that's a little Dharma blackmail. I'm going to skip the story, and get in touch with, Tim will tell you how you can join that class.

It's a bonus class. We'll put a link in the chat right now. Okay, cool.

So, Pabongka Rinpoche only says, BYANG SEMS BDAG DU DNGOS misspelled in the carving. They say BDAG DU. You should refer to the story of the bodhisattva who couldn't stop crying.

And why he couldn't stop crying has nothing to do with compassion. And that's a secret. And you got to come to the half hour class to find out.

BSTAN GCIG GI KU LUS GSOD He used an act of truth in the 8,000 verses. Then he goes on. He just skips on.

So I'm going to skip that story, which I have written out here. The story is about, it takes about a half hour I think. LHA SA BCANG Then he goes on to another example of an act of truth.

So Pabongka Rinpoche goes on to another example of an act of truth. And I think we all, I'm hoping that all of you will teach Lam Rim. That's the whole point of teaching the whole thing for 10, 15 years.

Like my teacher did to me, is that I'm hoping you will teach it. And then you have to understand the style of teaching Lam Rim. So Lam Rim, as you can tell, it's a lot of stories also.

And you never forget the stories. I heard these stories first time 45 years ago. And I still remember the stories.

You don't forget the stories. You forget Madhyamika, but you don't forget the stories. So here's a story.

And when you teach Lam Rim, you should use your own stories from your own time and place. But here's a story from Pabongka Rinpoche's time and place. In Tibet, they're in the Himalayas.

There's a lot of snow. There's snow mounds. Tibet is laced with rivers everywhere.

You can't walk two miles without having to cross a river. And there's no bridges at that time. So the rivers were dangerous.

And they were cold. So you had to find a good place to cross. LHAG RTZAR TZANG CHUD So there was a river that goes near Lhasa, through Lhasa, called TZANG CHUD.

SHOR BA GZUGS KYANG SDOG MA NUS It used to flood. There were flooding seasons when it would over, what do you call it? It would overflow the banks of the river and destroy houses and things like that.

SDOG MA NUS PA Nobody could do anything about it. One time, the river was flooding. JE MNGON LAM SPEL There was a Lama called JE MNGON LAM SPEL.

MNGON LAM SPEL They said, can you help stop the river? He said, yeah, easy. Just act the truth thing.

It's just an act of truth thing. Come on, just do an act of truth. They said, well, what's your act of truth?

MNGON LAM SPEL BAR BYANG CHUB SEMS PA YIN NA I guess you go like this. We got a picture, right? Yeah, this guy's doing an act of truth.

I don't know why. He looks like a high Lama to me. He's like, if it's true, and this Lama named MNGON LAM SPEL, he said, if it's true that I'm a bodhisattva, if it's true that I have bodhichitta, then the river should go back and stop flooding.

The river should turn back to the banks of the river. BYANG CHUB SEMS PA YIN NA BSTAN PA SDIG BY THIS TRUTH SPYOD GYUR Hey you, water. Hey you, river water.

PHAR GNOD DU RDOG Get your ass back to the banks of the river. It's very colloquial. He's talking to the water.

Get yourself back to the riverbed. What are you doing here? If I'm a bodhisattva, you have to go back.

They wrote it on a stone and they put the stone on the riverbed. SPYOD DANG DU SKYE BA'I DE MA THAG TU Immediately SPYOD PAR LOG The river moved back to the riverbed and stopped flooding Lhasa city. CHUNG DBANG LDAN TSIG TZAM GYI RDOG PA YIN It was turned back by the power of bodhichitta.

He swore that he had bodhichitta. He swore that he had that name, right? That title, bodhisattva.

So the water didn't have a choice. The water had to go back. All right.

DE PHYIR SDUG GI RTZO BA THAMS CAD KHYEN PA'I DGOS PHAG NAS MA THAG LAS RTZOG PHRAG MO ZHIG YIN CHEN GYIS DRUB And now he's wrapping up benefit number seven. Now he's wrapping up benefit number seven and he says, therefore, to conclude, we can say that you can get the whole range of stuff you want to happen in your life, you can make it happen with bodhichitta. Starting with, I don't know, may I get a good breakfast this morning?

Up to, may all beings in the universe be happy. Starting from breakfast at Diamond Mountain up to all the beings in the universe being happy, bodhichitta is the key to get everything you want. Bodhichitta is the key to get everything to happen.

From this up to that. We have three minutes. We have finished a major section.

What should we do? Use the three minutes to go on. We will do Q&A, we do have Q&A time.

Let's just talk about benefit number eight. By the way, why we're on benefit eight out of ten benefits and we're not like a quarter finished with the classes, you can guess benefit ten is big and it's going to take a long time. It probably takes as much time as all the other ones.

Number eight, obstacles can't touch you. That would be nice. Like all of us are trying to do Dharma projects.

We're trying to fundraise. We're trying to save ancient books. We're trying to help hungry people.

The Vietnam group, 6,000, how many was it? 16,000 students in the Vietnam group and they are building houses for poor people. They've built, if I'm not mistaken, it's 400 houses or something like that for poor people.

You get obstacles when you're trying to do big projects. You get obstacles. If you are trying to do something good to help other people and you keep running into obstacles, then the next section is for you.

You can stop all the obstacles to your cool projects by doing a little bodhichitta meditation every day. We're going to cover that next. That's all I have today.

Tim, do you have anything for anybody? We'll take a 10 minute break and do the necessary as my teacher used to say. We'll see you in about 10 minutes.

Thank you.