«Дар освобождения», курс 37 «Лучшее, что ты можешь сделать со своей жизнью», занятие 8

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to Lam Rim. It's good to see you this morning. The crew here is very bright and very awake and shiny.

Right? Not really. We're going to go ahead through this.

We're just finishing up the part. By the way, I remember to speak slowly. We're just finishing up the part where we talk about if you are trying to get bodhichitta, if you're working on that, then less obstacles will come in your life.

Less problems will come. Here's one last statement about it and then we're going to move on to the next benefit. We're at BUD DON GNYON GAB Okay, you Tibetan guys.

BUD DON GNYON GAB They are distracted by pastries. It's cruel to eat them in front of Geshe-la. BUD DON GNYON GAB BUD DON means BUD DON RIN PO CHE What did he do that was famous?

He wrote a famous history of Buddhism, early Buddhism, which by the way, we don't have early histories of Buddhism and they don't exist. So we're lucky that he wrote something. Otherwise we won't know about India.

But what else did he do? Yeah, he put the Kangyur and Tengyur together, which is a small thing. 3,700 surviving books from India, which John Brady's project input.

The first thing they did was to input that. It took about 12 years or something. It was extraordinary.

It's really extraordinary. It has never existed like that. Okay, BUD DON GNYON GAB GNYON is the honorific for to be sick.

We say NA BA, right? To be sick. But GNYON, he's being polite.

When his honorable body was sick. GAL TSE RIN PO CHE This is again, THOG MA'I SAMBO, this bodhisattva who lived in Tibet about 700 years ago. BSTAN DRANG NAS He invited him to his room.

DE'I BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS BSGOMS PAS THOG MA'I SAMBO GAL TSE His real name is GAL TSE THOG MA'I SAMBO. He sat in the corner and meditated about bodhichitta. PHAN PA'I BLO RGYUD BLO RGYUD means there's a story that BUD DON RIN PO CHE felt much, much better by having someone in the room just meditating about bodhichitta.

This very, very famous teacher felt better. By the way, Tsongkapa didn't meet him directly and he used to complain about it. He missed him by three years or something.

Not by many years. So he studied with his students but he never got to study with BUD DON RIN PO CHE. PHAN PA'I BLO RGYUD SOGS LTAR SNOD PA DANG BAR BYED KYI MI TSUG Problems and obstacles in your life can't touch you or they will be less strong.

PHAN YIN THA YAS PA YOD I can tell you from my own experience, many, many years of trying to practice, when you get a problem, it could be like, I don't know, a new government rule or it could be a problem with another person in a group. From many, many years of experience, I can tell you, you have a choice. You cannot sleep that night.

You can be grumpy. Your sleep will be disturbed. I think so.

That's one choice. Or you can think about bodhichitta for them. It's not natural.

It's artificial. It doesn't feel natural. It's like, okay, this person suddenly joined our group.

They are giving me problems. Then you start, your mind starts making up stories about them and things you should say to them. From many years experience, I can tell you, if you just focus on bodhichitta at that moment, the whole thing goes away.

If you just try to love them like their mother, the whole thing goes away. Then 20 minutes later you start having the same thoughts again and then you have to do the bodhichitta thing again. That's just from many years of experience.

It's true that even a very artificial bodhichitta can make your life so much easier. Especially when you have troubles and problems. SEMS DI BSGOMS PA'I MI MING GI GNOD PA'I MI TSUG PA A lot of those times when you can't sleep at night because you had a problem with somebody in the afternoon are not due to that person.

They are due to preyas or people who have died already. Spirit beings. It's not a superstition.

It's real. They exist. They watch you having trouble with somebody and then they just float around you for hours.

You have to understand there's other people involved when you can't sleep at night and you're thinking about a problem or something. There's actually beings who are disturbed and they're floating around you. Then if you think about bodhichitta, especially for those troublemakers, beings, then the whole thing disappears and you have a good sleep.

Especially during the Lam Rim class. Just kidding. MTSUG PA'I MYONG BA BYAS PA'I CHOG GSUM Say BYAS PA'I?

CHOG GSUM He said check it out. BYAS PA'I CHOG means allow. This CHOG.

CHOG can mean ritual, like choga. CHOG can mean allow. BYAS PA'I CHOG means hey, check it out.

Just try it. Next time you can't sleep because someone's bothering you, be aware that it could be these other beings and try to love them actively. You'll see the whole thing turn around and you'll have a nice sleep.

We're moving on to benefit number nine, which is that we will quickly finish salam. Say salam. It's not Arabic.

It's what? SA and LAM. The levels and paths.

Levels and paths. How many levels? Ten.

How many LAMs? Five. So salam.

By the way, there's an open salam and there's a secret salam. What is it? Course six?

In the Diamond Mountain, Diamond Way course is the secret salam. You can finish either set of salams more quickly if you have bodhichitta. There's a picture of a person at the top.

This person finished the SA. When I think of SA, when I think of the spiritual levels and I think of getting to the top of the tenth one, then you can have this picture in your mind. DGUL PA NI DGUL PA means benefit number nine.

BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS MED PAR STONG NYID KYI MTHAL BAR BSKYANGS PAS Let's say you just focus on emptiness. By the way, we're going to have a heavy, heavy emptiness Lam Rim retreat in what month? Soon, in the summer.

Actually, it's already prepared. The whole thing is prepared. It was an incredible amount of work.

Last month, I got it ready. It's, I think, eight chapters. It's a third of the chapters from Nagarjuna's most difficult work.

It's extraordinarily beautiful. But if you just focus on emptiness and you don't think about other people, and you meet people like that. I used to meet them at Princeton.

They were in the philosophy department. Philosophy and religion, I was in the religion department, but we had to share the same building because we weren't important. We didn't make money from the government.

Like the physics department. STONG NYID KYI MTHAL BAR BSKYANGS PAS If all you do is study Nagarjuna like we are going to do this year, and it's going to be an amazing course, YES SHES LA'I SOS RNAMS KYI TSOGS RDZOGS You're only going to get the YES SHES KYI TSOGS and not the SOS RNAMS KYI TSOGS. Don't forget that's the prayer that you make every time you have a class.

The collection of wisdom and the collection of merit. The collection of wisdom creates your Buddha mind and the collection of merit creates your Buddha body. Okay, good.

The main Buddha body collector is your bodhichitta and the main Buddha mind collector is your emptiness understanding. What's he saying here? If you just focus on emptiness and you don't try to be nice to other people, you're going to have a misbalanced body.

You'll have a big head and no body. All right. TSOGS MI GNYIS LA TSOGS GNYIS You need both of them.

By the way, what's TSOGS a code word for? For $50. When you say the two collections, what's it a code word for?

What would you normally call TSOGS? Karma. We talked about it.

We talked about it a long time ago, like two days ago. Yeah, karma means dirty karma, which is what we make. The seeds we make are dirty karma.

Seeds that turn you into a Buddha body or mind, we don't call them karma anymore. We call them TSOGS. Sambara in Sanskrit.

He's going to talk about it. ZHING PA CHAGS DANG BYAS PA SPANG BA NI How are you going to collect the two collections? And how are you going to get...

Here's a $100 question. Tim woke up. What's the two obstacles?

Yay, $100 for Tim. Obstacles of your negative emotions and obstacles to omniscience. I always thought for $300, why does that seem to be a misnomer?

Why does the name seem to be a little messed up? $300. The two obstacles.

There's a problem there already. $200.

[Говорящий 2]
Because you make it wrong, you're negative. It's not an obstacle, it's two negative things. It's a negative object.

[Говорящий 1]
Good, $200 for Tim. He's making money this morning. Yay, see the karma of helping to run the whole thing?

All right, BA CHAGS DANG... Well, not helping, actually running the whole thing. BA CHAGS DANG BYAS PA SPANG BA NI To get rid of those two obstacles and the seeds.

And the seeds for the two obstacles. TSOR KUN TSOR BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS You need BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS. Here's another $100. I'm in a mood this morning.

He says, strangely, he doesn't say you need bodhichitta. He says, you need fake bodhichitta. What's a fake about bodhichitta?

[Говорящий 2]
No, not that easy.

[Говорящий 1]
Yay, god, you made $500 already this morning. You're so hard. We're going to repeat it again.

He says, look, if you don't want to have a misshaped body with a big head and no body, if you want to be a Buddha with a fat head and no body, then go ahead and don't work on your bodhichitta. And if you don't want to get rid of both obstacles, then don't work on your bodhichitta. By the way, don't forget that the body part comes from bodhichitta.

But then he says, fake bodhichitta. Fake bodhichitta is a word that they use because there's two kinds of bodhichitta, which Tim won the... How much was it?

Fifty cents? He won the money this morning. There's two kinds of bodhichitta.

Ultimate bodhichitta is what, Tim? The direct perception of emptiness. That's an interesting idea.

Perhaps the greatest kindness you can ever pay to other people is to see emptiness directly. Then still, you could have another bodhichitta, which we call fake or deceptive, because it's still dealing with normal reality, not because it's not real. That one will create your Buddha body, mainly.

Alright. We have a picture here. I'm in a good mood, $100.

What's the picture? What am I trying to say with the picture? Damn!

$600 for Tim this morning. Actually, I tell him all the questions before class and then we split the money. Yeah, it's a bird with one wing.

It's a very famous example in Buddhism. If you've ever seen a bird with a broken wing, they just kind of flop around in a circle. If you just worked on emptiness and didn't work on bodhichitta, you would be like a bird with only one wing.

You need both wings. SEMS DI YOD NA SANG SNGAGS KYI TSE GCIG LA TZANG RGYAL OR GNOD KYANG This is a very powerful statement. SEMS DI YOD NA If you get to bodhichitta, if you learn to jump planets, SANG SNGAGS KYI You can use tantra.

You can use the diamond way. TSE GCIG LA TZANG RGYAL You can become a Buddha in one lifetime if you have bodhichitta. If you have bodhichitta, then you can practice diamond way or Medicine Buddha or Vajrayogini or Tara.

Then in one lifetime, you will, new, you can become a Buddha. KYANG What's KYANG? But?

But? He's always saying that. But?

You can be a Buddha. But? Why?

Okay, tell me why not. DI MED NA If you don't have bodhichitta, SANGS RGYAS KYI Sorry, SNGAGS KYI You can practice those tantras. SNGAGS means mantra, right?

DAR NI You can practice mantras. You can practice secret teachings. THEG CHEN GYI TSOR LAM CHUNG BA'ANG THOB MI NUS You won't even get to the first tiny part of the first of the five paths.

You won't reach the first tiny part of the first of the five paths. There's five paths. There's five stages you go through.

There's five stages that every living being goes through in their spiritual development. Seeing emptiness is the third one. Reaching nirvana and or Buddhahood is the fifth one.

The first one is just the beginning of your spiritual career. If you don't have bodhichitta, you can practice tantra, but you won't reach here. You won't reach the beginning of the first path.

He's pretty powerful. We have a picture there. I don't know.

I was trying to find a picture of starting walking down a path. It's like your foot is in the air and you haven't stepped down on the first stone. If you try to practice tantra, but you don't work on your bodhichitta, you don't work on Lam Rim, then you'll be like a person who's always standing with their foot in the air and hasn't even stepped on the path yet.

DOR NA DGE PHYIR THAMS CAD KYIS PA'I RTZA BA BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS DI YOD PAS Therefore, we can say that the place to start for all Dharma practice is bodhichitta. Then he gives this beautiful example. SES BYA ROG SES BYA ROG LA LA Let's do it again.

One, two, three. BYA ROG LA SES KHAMS GCIG BYIN PA It means the French fry practice. Who can tell me?

For zero dollars. Go to McDonald's. Buy the only thing you can eat there.

Here's how they have salads. I said something you can eat. Don't tell Veronica.

Then break little pieces of French fries off and throw them to birds and do this prayer that they become your disciple in the future. It's really fun. By the way, Buddhism should be fun.

If your Buddhism is not fun, you're doing something wrong. It should be fun. Even using Buddhism with irritating people should be fun.

BYIN PA TSUN GYI DGE BA KUN SANGS RGYAS KYI DGOS SPANG GI RGYUD KHO NOR RGYUN NI NUS PAS Then everything you do, if you have bodhichitta, just giving a French fry to a bird is your daily practice. That's daily practice. You don't have to work so hard.

Just go to McDonald's and eat French fries and throw them at birds with bodhichitta. You're just one bird, but I'm doing this for all the birds. NUS PAS SA LAM YOD DU RDZOGS PA'ONG If you act that way, if your Buddhist practice is fun, and if you keep doing it in every part of the day, even when you're relaxing, I'm going to watch this Netflix movie for all living beings.

Then okay, it's practice. SA LAM YOD DU RDZOGS You will complete the levels and pass. He stops after only a page and a half or something.

That benefit, he doesn't talk more about it. I wonder why. Sometimes I wonder why.

Sometimes you see something in the Lam Rim and you're like, some of those cool things, he spent 10, 15 pages on them. Here he spent like half a page. Is it not important that this can help you complete all the levels and pass?

Why did he short it? I think the internet went out. I mean you never know, right?

You never know why stuff happens in a scripture. It could be something like that. I don't know.

They ran out of Tsampa or something. Tim and Jordan had to go to the grocery store in Wilcox. Sorry about that.

And I'm very grateful by the way. All right, so he finished that section. Here's a picture of a baby bird.

I don't know. I feed a lot of birds at home, especially during COVID because I don't have much else to do. Sometimes I get a baby bird falls out of a nest.

There's whole instructions online how to feed them with an eyedropper. I was doing that and drop by drop going in and I'm like, okay, you're going to be my student. So I didn't have French fries and I was using water.

You can do that. Next benefit. Number 10.

This is the longest one. I think we're halfway through the retreat or roughly. Then this is the longest benefit.

This is going to take the rest of the retreat. All right. The word is very beautiful.

It says, you will become the garden where all living beings grow their happiness. You will become the garden. I have a garden.

I finally went on my first vacation as an adult. Gyelse came and watered at the garden. You become a garden for other people's happiness.

You become the garden. You become the earth which feeds all the other people. Here's a picture.

We've been talking about that idea, especially because Pachi is here and he's the biochar master of the universe. When you look at this picture, you just think, oh, it looks like a nice little farm or something. But I want you to think about this black soil beneath the harvest, beneath the crops that you see in this picture.

Beneath these green fields is a hard-working biochar. Here's the soil. It's doing all the work.

The crops is not the big deal. The soil is the big deal. The soil is working for everybody.

Try to get that in your mind. We all eat. Much of what we eat is grown by farmers.

But somebody else is behind the scenes. That's the dirt. That's the soil.

We think about it in Arizona because we don't have any. We just have rocks. But if you think about it, this black soil under the plant is quietly feeding everybody.

If that soil were gone, we would all die. Nobody gives credit to the soil. Nobody goes and picks up dirt and says thank you.

They just sweep it out of their house and complain about it. But the soil is keeping us all alive. Bodhichitta is like that soil and it's keeping everybody alive.

Bodhichitta is what runs the universe behind the scenes. If you get bodhichitta, you become that quiet, fertile soil which feeds the whole world. It's a very beautiful picture.

You have to try to get it in your mind. I used to think all food was grown at the grocery store. But anyway, if you meet a gardener, they will teach you about it.

SBYUGS PA NI SBYUGS PA LAS NYAN THOS You got to repeat this one. You ready? Take a deep breath.

Just repeat the words. Don't sit there silent. One, two, three.

NYAN THOS SANGS RGYAS DRING RNAMS THUB BU'ANG RGYAS SANGS RGYAS BYANG CHUB SEMS PA LAS BRTUNG ZHING Good. Opening lines of entering the middle way. The opening lines of entering the middle way.

UMMA LA SBYUGS PA Say UMMA LA SBYUGS PA In Sanskrit? What's that? MA RGYA MA RGA'AVATARA MA RGYA MA RGA'AVATARA Entering the middle way.

For a hundred dollars. What's the middle way in this case? Come on.

Okay, cancel the bet. Middle way here is a nickname for Nagarjuna's wisdom. It's not the middle way philosophically.

It's the book called The Middle Way, which is a nickname for the most important book ever written on emptiness, which is called Wisdom. Prajna. That's what we're going to study in the next retreat.

It's amazing. It's a miracle. You get to study the mother book of all emptiness.

It's hard and it's beautiful. No one ever understood it since 1800 years ago. What happened?

Somebody wrote a commentary called Getting Into the Middle Way. How to get into the middle way. Kappa wrote a commentary to that called The Sea of Emptiness.

Then Choney Lama had to write a book called A Ship for Traveling on the Sea of Emptiness. You got four books. Got it?

Here's Middle Way, which is a nickname for wisdom by Nagarjuna. Then Chandrakirti comes along about 450 years later and says, hey, I'll help you get into it. Then Tsongkapa says, uh-uh, it's like an ocean.

I'll show you. Those 27 short chapters of poetry are really an ocean of wisdom. He writes a huge commentary.

Then Choney Lama... Oh, by the way, Tsongkapa is, I'm going to call it 750 years after Chandrakirti, who wrote this one. Then Choney Lama comes along 275 years after Tsongkapa and says, look, you need a boat for that ocean or you're going to drown in Tsongkapa.

We're translating it. I'm working really hard on translating it. We've done about 600 pages.

I'm finished. So you people kvetching at me about other work I didn't do. I'm busy.

If I don't do it, no one's going to do it. Stop kvetching at me. But anyway, nobody's going to stop.

These are the opening lines. We got a picture, I think, of Chandrakirti. For $20, what's the most common mistake about Chandrakirti?

$20 question. It must be kind of easy. They mix them up with Dharmakirti.

There's two kirtis. There's actually three. For $50, who's the third one?

Sumatikirti. Which is? Tsongkapa.

There's three kirtis. So don't mix up the first two kirtis. People do it all the time.

In fact, the Library of Congress used to mix it up and I used to laugh about it. This is the main library of the United States and they constantly mix them up. Anyway, Chandrakirti, which means as famous as the moon in the sky.

How many people see the moon on the full moon? It's famous. The audience is big for the full moon.

So they call it Chandrakirti. Chandra means moon, right? And who's Dharmakirti?

He's another guy. He wrote the most important book on clear thinking. I don't like to call it logic because it scares people.

Clear thinking. It's more a book about clear thinking. So Dharmakirti wrote that.

Me and Ben Kramer just started the greatest commentary to that, which is a modern commentary. We're going to finish in 56 years. It's going to take 56 years.

We have a schedule. It's already scheduled. So we have to live at least 56 years more.

So let's take a picture. Let's look at Chandrakirti again. He wrote this book to explain Nagarjuna, which we're going to do this next retreat.

We're going to go deep. We call it deep dive. Pabongka Rinpoche uses the opening lines of his explanation called getting into the middle way.

How to get into the middle way. And they are very, very important. The opening lines of Nagarjuna are extremely important and we're going to spend a lot of time on that.

But here we go. Here's what they say. NYAN THOS Listeners.

SANGS RGYAS DING Medium Buddhas? New word for you guys. Medium Buddhas.

Listeners and medium Buddhas. THU BU'ANG SKYE They come from the lords. The lords of the able ones.

Let's say it again. Listeners and medium Buddhas come from the lords of the able ones. The capable ones.

And SANGS RGYAS. What's that? Buddhas come from BYANG CHUB SEMS PAS Bodhisattvas.

Two people come from Buddhas. Well, where do Buddhas come from? They come from Bodhisattvas.

And that's supposed to be the opening lines of the greatest commentary to Nagarjuna ever. So why? What's he trying to say?

Let's look at it again. Listeners and medium Buddhas come from the lords of the able ones. And the Buddhas come from the Bodhisattvas.

So he quotes BYANG CHUB SEMS PAS Why? I personally like to take a vacation inside a retreat. So I get into retreat.

You guys are getting into retreat. We've been here for four or five days. Me, three.

Seems like. Four days. And we're starting to get deeper into retreat.

At least I am. I don't know about you guys. Probably you're just working harder.

But we're at Diamond Mountain. People have done heavy retreats here. Three-year retreats here.

You can't come to Diamond Mountain and not feel like you're in retreat already. And I look forward, I hope in the fall we can open up Diamond Mountain to everybody again. I think it's possible.

So, you can't be here without feeling like you're already kind of in retreat. Right? Don't you feel like that?

It's a very powerful place now because of all the hard work that people put here to do retreat. It has that flavor now. Then you start to think about you start to think about these lines.

What does it mean when you say that where Buddhists come from? What does it mean when you start talking about where the Buddhists come from? So, I thought that since we're at Diamond Mountain and since we reached these lines let's do a mini retreat.

Geshe-la, what do you mean? Let's jump into Chandrakirti for a few days. For fun.

Geshe-la, the Lam Rim already took 10 years. Why are you adding time to it? What you're going to learn about Lam Rim is that you never finish Lam Rim.

When you finish one Lam Rim you just start over again. So, my opinion and my style, let's go deeper. We reached these lines of Chandrakirti.

Pabongka Rinpoche thought it was important to teach them in the Lam Rim. We're in a retreat mood because we're at Diamond Mountain. Let's go deeper.

Let's leave the Lam Rim and go take a bath in Chandrakirti for a couple days. Okay, agree? You can feel what's Chandrakirti.

We're going to use Tsongkapa's commentary. We're going to jump in the ocean. Rigpe Gyatso.

It's called the Ocean of Clear Thinking actually. We're going to explore these lines because that has been done for 2,000 years. For 2,000 years when people got to this part of explaining Nagarjuna, they stopped and they went deeper.

We're going to follow this tradition. I'm sorry. It means the Lam Rim is going to take longer than it was supposed to.

Here we go. What book of Tsongkapa are we going to use? We're not going to use his commentary on Nagarjuna, which is what we're translating nowadays.

That will be 1,200 pages. We are not using that commentary. We are going to GOMS PA RAB ZAL.

What's GOMS PA RAB ZAL? Clarification of, illumination of GOMS PA The true thought. The illumination of the true thought.

This is not Tsongkapa's commentary on Nagarjuna's wisdom. It's Tsongkapa's commentary on $50? No.

On Chandrakirti. He explains getting into the Middle Way. We're going to go to that book.

I'm working on that book. It'll be 3,000 pages or something. I looked it up this morning.

I started eight years ago. I'm one halfway through. Something like that.

If you're complaining to me that I couldn't do what you wanted me to do this week, it's because I have to finish that book. You have a choice. You can give me little things to do and you'll never get Tsongkapa's book.

Or you can help me work on it. Give me a couple hours a day. That's all I need.

Just give me a couple days off per day. A couple hours off per day. I can give it to you.

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. We are going to Tsongkapa's commentary on Chandrakirti.

Why? Because Pabongka Rinpoche started the trouble. He quoted Chandrakirti.

Got it? Here we go. Don't think this is all repetitive and don't think they all cover the same thing.

They don't. They are extremely beautiful and deep. If you want to see emptiness, this is a very tasty way to do it.

Here we go. I still gave you the text though you guys, right? DE LA GNYIS You got DE LA GNYIS there?

DE LA GNYIS No, I think I just glued it in. I think you go straight on. It's in the projection text I think.

I hope so. DE LA GNYIS Look up. DE LA GNYIS It's right after...

Okay, good. DE LA GNYIS We are going to cover this emptiness in two parts. DE LA GNYIS Can you show it you guys?

Yay! DE LA GNYIS SNYING RJE'I BYANG CHUB SEMS KYI RTZO BA'I RGYUR SNYING RJE'I BYANG CHUB SEMS KYI RGYUR BSTAN PA He is going to prove that to get to bodhichitta you have to get to compassion. That's a reference to the seven steps to reach bodhichitta, which is the next retreat we are going to do after that other retreat.

We are going to study the seven step method of reaching bodhichitta. This retreat we are covering the ten cool things that will happen to you if you get bodhichitta. That's what we are doing this retreat.

This retreat is a sales job for getting bodhichitta. Then at the end of this retreat you are supposed to say, okay, I want one. Like a new Tesla, what do you call those things?

Butterfly wing Tesla? Yeah, I want one. Then the next retreat is to tell you how to get one.

We are just doing a sales job. The next retreat we will be talking about the relationship between compassion and bodhichitta. We will get there.

Here we have Tsongkapa saying, look, I am going to prove to you that to get to bodhichitta you have to think about people's pain. You have to think about people's pain. That's the last thing you have to do to get to bodhichitta.

You have to think about other people's pain. And, BYANG SEMS KYI RGYU GZHAN NYID KYI YANG RTZA BAR BSTAN PO He is also going to prove that there are two other causes, two other things you need for bodhichitta, but still compassion is still the root. Thinking about other people's trouble is the root of bodhichitta in many different ways.

Let's put it that way. We are jumping into that weird thing about people being born from different things. We are jumping in there at compassion.

We are jumping in at compassion. Here we go. DANG PO LA GSUM NGAN RANG NYID THUB BU'ANG LAS SKYES TSUL DANG SANGS RGYAS RNAMS BYANG SEMS LAS CHUNG TSUL DANG BYANG CHOS GSANGS PA'I RGYU'I RTZO BO GSUM BRTAN DO Don't forget this progression.

Don't forget these three points. I know it's difficult. I know it sounds complicated.

I don't care. You have to know. You have to discipline yourself.

You can't say, Geshe-la, it's too much for me. Can't you just teach something simple? Give me something to recite.

Yeah, I can. It will take you a million years to get to Buddhahood. It's up to you.

It takes hard work. What was the image for $100 that we had? Yeah, but we had a picture.

No, hard work. It takes 12 years. We were talking about Atisha.

There was two 12 years, by the way. Don't forget. One was Atisha took 12 years where?

In Indonesia with his teacher, Suvarnadvipa of the Golden Isle. And then? Arya Asanga sat in his cave for 12 years.

What's the point? It takes time. It takes hard work.

Don't tell me you can't sit through. Yeah, there you go. She's not going to learn to do high dive after a half hour mantra initiation.

It's not going to happen. You need hard work. It takes many years of hard work.

For mantra to work, requires many years of hard work. Then a mantra will work. Anyway, here we go.

Stay with me. Don't be lazy. Don't say, ah, it's too much.

It's a lot. Otherwise, it wouldn't take a genius 12 years. Who had Maitreya sitting next to him?

I don't even know if he... He didn't know he was sitting next to Maitreya, right? Seems to be a problem.

DANG PO LA GSUM NYAN RANG NYID THUB PA'ANG LAS SKYE MCHOD How is it that listeners and self-made Buddhas, that's what medium Buddha stands for. You learned something new this morning. There's a thing called a self-made Buddha who's not self-made good.

A nickname for them is medium Buddha. A medium Buddha. We're going to talk about it.

It's important to understand. Then there's NYAN MTHOS SHRA BA GANG Listener. There's three levels now we're talking about.

Listener, self-made Buddha, and bodhisattva. Listener, self-made Buddha, and bodhisattva. Three ways you can go through your Buddhist practice.

Three ways. You can go listener way. You can go self-made Buddha, also known as medium Buddha.

Or you can go bodhisattva way. Three different ways to go through your career as a Buddhist. He says the first two come from Buddhas.

They are born from Buddhas. If you want to get to be a listener, you need to find a Buddha mommy who can get pregnant and give you birth. Seriously.

If you want to be a medium Buddha, you got to find a real Buddha mommy to give you birth. But now the big question comes. Where did the mommies come from?

Bodhicitta. Yeah, bodhisattvas. Buddhas come from bodhisattvas.

Buddhas come from bodhisattvas. Buddhas are born from mommy, which is bodhisattvas. Where did those lower practitioners come from?

They come from the Buddhas who got born from the bodhisattvas, who got born from the bodhicitta. Yay! Okay, it's important.

That's where we're going now, in the Lam Rim. I didn't take us there. Pabongka did.

We're just going deeper because we're at Diamond Mountain. This is what we should do at Diamond Mountain. BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I RGYU RDZO BA GSUM STE That's the first thing we're going to study.

Then we're going to study how is it that bodhicitta is the mommy, or bodhisattvas are the mommies of the Buddhas. Then we're going to look at what's the main thing you need to get to be a bodhisattva. Here we go.

Then Tsongkapa quotes Chandrakirti. Get used to the names. Don't tell me you don't have enough memory to remember these three guys.

You can do it. There's Nagarjuna. There's Chandrakirti.

There's Tsongkapa. Then there's Choney Lama. It's okay.

You can remember. It's not that hard. Nagarjuna wrote the mother book called Wisdom.

Then Chandrakirti wrote Entering the Middle Way. Then Tsongkapa wrote The Ocean. Then Choney Lama gave us a boat.

It's funny, when Choney Lama starts his book, he says, you're going to drown in Nagarjuna. Sorry, you're going to drown in Tsongkapa if you don't have my ship. He does a sales job for his ship.

We're translating all of those. We're translating Chandrakirti while we translate Tsongkapa. We're translating Nagarjuna while we translate Chandrakirti.

We're translating all four right now. If I'm not available to do something smaller, please bear with me. I'm making, what do you call it?

Priority decisions. Should the world not have this or should the world not have this? Those are decisions I have to make.

But don't hassle me. You can remind me that I didn't do what you wanted, but don't get too serious. I do have a plan.

I have a master plan. Do you know this song? We'll play it.

Oh, we can't play it. Dakrena has a master plan. A famous jazz song.

DANG PO NI YANG DAG PA'I I got three more minutes. Okay, I am watching the time. YANG DAG PA'I DANG NGA GZHAN NAS NYAN NAS Why do we call listeners listeners?

Why do we call listeners listeners? Say Shravaka. Shravaka is the Sanskrit.

Shravaka means listener. Someone who is listening. That's the first of these three kinds of practitioners.

We call three tracts, right? Listener, self-made Buddha or medium Buddha. Good.

Then bodhisattva tract. Why do they call those guys listeners? There's the classic explanation and then there's the traditional explanation.

So we'll get there. Don't worry about it. We'll get there.

Here's the traditional explanation and later we'll do the classical explanation. Which one is more important? Both.

I'd say the classical one, which I have taught you before. But here's a traditional one. YANG DAG PA'I DANG NGA GZHAN NAS NYAN There are people in the world who listen to good teachings from other people.

YANG DAG PA'I DANG NGA They listen to good teachings from other people. BSGOM PA'I BDE BU Then they meditate on those teachings. As a result, BDE BU BHA LA As a fruit of that hard work, they reach listener Buddhahood.

You can call it listener enlightenment. It's not full enlightenment. It's called listener enlightenment.

So there's three kinds of enlightenment. There's an enlightenment for each one of these three. Which is the real enlightenment?

The Bodhisattva one. But we still call the other two an enlightenment. Actually they are just kinds of nirvana.

THOB PA NA DON DE GZHAN LA THOS PAR BYED PA'I NA They can be an instrument for other people listening to those same teachings. So we call them listener. They learn good teachings.

They practice them. They get to nirvana. And they help other people listen to them.

Therefore, they are called listeners. Got it? So it's a little more complicated than you might guess.

What's a listener, Geshe-la? They get teachings. They practice them.

They reach their own enlightenment, which is nirvana. Then they help other people listen to those teachings. Then that's why they are listeners.

Got it? That's the traditional explanation, but not the classic one. Classic is higher than traditional, right?

In my opinion. They don't say rock traditions. They say rock classics.

Okay. That's all we're going to do on that. Listen, I know it's complicated.

I know it's not easy. But if you really want to do something with your life, you only get a little time to do something with your life. Trust me.

Right, Jigme? You only get a little time here to do something cool. If you learn these things, you can really help other people.

You can do something cool with your life. All right.