«Дар освобождения», курс 37 «Лучшее, что ты можешь сделать со своей жизнью», занятие 11

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to Lam Rim. I don't know, we're having trouble waking up. Happy Earth Day.

Those of you who have Vajrayogini practice, it's also Sechu. Among the two kinds of Sechu, it's a 10th Sechu, which means the moon is waxing. That's a nice crescent to bow down to, if you know what I'm talking about.

It's the best crescent to bow down to. Okay, alright. Anyway, it's a good day.

Here we go. We're going to start at She Lang Na Me. Don't forget where we are.

By the way, I always start talking fast in the early morning. It's the coffee, right Pachi? Anyway, I'll slow down.

We're in the middle of Tsongkapa explaining Chandrakirti, explaining Nagarjuna, which Pabongka Rinpoche used in his Lam Rim. Especially about who gives birth to who. We were talking about the idea of Sambara.

To wake you up for $50, who can tell me Sambara? It's not Sambara by the way, which is Chakrasambara. Close.

Oh, good. Yes, Sambara. To carry very much.

But it's the word for gewa, the ... Tsog. Yeah, the two collections.

I don't owe anybody money, right? I should pay myself. Yes, Sambara means collection.

But remember Tsongkapa says, look, the bar, the ber can mean to embrace somebody. Maybe that's what wife really means. The embracer.

I got to think about that. Anyway, the two collections means the two big piles of pure good karma that we need to make a Buddha body and a Buddha mind. He's talking about those two collections.

LA RNAMS MED PA'I BYANG CHUB, CHIN CHI MA LOG PAR GYUR PA'I THAB GYIS So when we say two collections, what it really means is to get it right. Wisdom and merit. To do them perfectly.

It doesn't mean accumulate more numbers of good deeds or something. Like if you don't get enough good deeds, you don't get your Buddha arm, you got one arm. It's not like that.

Although it feels like that, doesn't it, when you say collection? He says, please remember that the word Sambara, collection, which is the word we use for karma when we're talking about Buddhas or what creates Buddhas. Don't forget Tsongkapa says, embrace.

Embrace what? Here's the answer, DREG POR DZIN. DREG POR DZIN It embraces the final result.

If it's a collection, if it's really good karma, it will embrace a Buddha's body and mind. That's all. Why are we talking about that?

Well, for one thing, you're going to be short on your collection of something if you don't have bodhichitta. Merit. All right.

DON DE MA TSA BA NYID NI TSOGS PA PA'O There's a normal kind of collection of good karma if you don't talk about it in terms of embracing perfection. Normal people can pile up karma and we can call it Sambara, but that's not what it really means. All right.

DE YANG TSOGS KYI SKAD DER SAMBARA LA NGES TSIG GI ZHES PA'I DUS NO This is the real meaning of Sambara. Sambara. Sambara.

GSOS RNAMS DANG NGES ZHIG GI SGROS PA NYEN THOS LAS CHES LHAG PA'I PHYIR The point is, what separates even self-made buddhas from listeners is that they are better at soaking, collecting. At collecting. All right.

DUS PA GANG ZHIG YANG SRID PA THAG MA'I PHYIR Now, he's talking about even in the desire realm, in their final birth. LOB PA'I GZHAN GYIS BSTAN PA LA Now he's talking about what is a self-made Buddha. You guys know this story.

What's the nickname for a self-made Buddha? A medium Buddha or a half Buddha? I'm starting to like half Buddha.

I just started to consider that translation. So DUS PA GANG ZHIG YANG In their final rebirth, and they say in the desire realm, they don't need other teachers. The minute somebody hears that, and I've watched it for 50 years, everyone says, I don't need a teacher.

I'm this one. I'm this guy. I don't need a teacher.

I know everything. That's a very dangerous attitude. I've had it, so I know about it.

But you do need a teacher. You do need teachers. These are very unusual beings who can pretty much get to enlightenment.

By the way, consider this. It's not that they got really close in their last life and then they fell in front of a truck. It's not like that.

I mean, you feel like it should be like that. It's not like that. It's that in their last life, they finally got their collections good enough to create nirvana, but they couldn't finish.

They got their karma to get to nirvana, but it didn't go off, and then they died. They're a person who has the karma in their heart to reach nirvana almost immediately, but they died. It's not like they collected all this karma and then they can work more in this life or something like that.

It's not really like that. It's that they were about to reach nirvana and something happened, and then in this life, there's no choice. They have to reach nirvana.

That karma is called DGOS STA'A DGOS STAS BYAN MA BAS DE NYA What sutra is that? The Yoga Sutra. DGOS STA'A DGOS STAS BYAN MA BAS DE NYA In their next life.

DGOS STAS Not seen in this life. Seen in the next life. They will reach nirvana.

Got it? They got all this karma together and then they died. That's why we say they don't need a teacher in the next life.

It's not that they somehow teach themselves. It's that the karma is already in motion and they couldn't avoid it if they wanted to. You see what I mean?

It's not that they are super smart, which is what people think when they hear they don't need a teacher. It's that they just died accidentally and they were going to reach nirvana anyway. So it's not that in this life they're so smart they don't need a teacher.

It's that the karma was already projected. They just died. If they don't do anything, they're still going to reach nirvana in this life because the karma was strong.

When we say they reached their enlightenment, it means they reached nirvana. When we say they are self-made Buddha, they are not a Buddha. Self-made Buddhas are not Buddhas.

Did they reach enlightenment? They reached the enlightenment of their track. That's why they go around saying words like total enlightenment, which used to irritate me.

What? You can get half enlightened? You know what?

Part of your brain gets it. Why do you say total enlightenment? In fact, the Sanskrit is samyak sambuddha.

YAM BDAG PA RDZOGS PA'I SANGS RGYAS Totally, perfectly total enlightenment. Isn't every enlightenment perfectly total enlightenment? The answer is no.

Good. RANG SANGS RGYAS SHES BYA BA RANG CHUNG SHES KYANG GSUNG NGO Therefore, when we say... By the way, the Sanskrit is Pratyekabuddha.

The Tibetan is RANG SANGS RGYAS but what it means is RANG CHUNG. Say RANG CHUNG. There's a very famous RANG CHUNG in Tibetan.

$50. RANG CHUNG RGYAS SHES RANG CHUNG BUDDHA Come on. Okay, cancel the bet.

If a stone, like a boulder, looks like a Buddha, we call it RANG CHUNG. Self... Like you pick up a leaf and it looks like a Buddha head or something.

That's called RANG CHUNG. It's a special kind of karma. Like when I was doing some deep retreats in a cave, I couldn't find a cave that didn't have snakes and coyotes in them and tarantulas.

Then I saw a big boulder that looked like my teacher's head and I said, that's it. It was getting dark and I climbed up and I found this cave. That kind of boulder is called RANG CHUNG.

Why are we talking about that? These Buddhas are self-made Buddhas. The Sanskrit is solitary Buddha.

The Tibetan is self Buddha. Tsongkhapa says the self means self-made Buddha. I don't call them self Buddhas because you'd be confused.

I always translate it as self-made Buddha. That comes from this sentence in Tsongkhapa. He says self Buddha means self-made Buddha.

The Tibetan word is RANG CHUNG. In other Tibetan traditions, the idea of RANG CHUNG YES SHES, self-made wisdom, is very important. Like, what's his name?

Who born in Padmasambhava. Yay, here we go. By the way, I have a picture of a lady making a pot.

I just feel like she's making herself into a Buddha. I think of her as the pot. It's a nice idea.

I just had this vision of a potter making herself into a Buddha. It's kind of a nice idea. Okay.

Now, the original lines by Chandrakirti, Master Chandrakirti, where he talks about who gave birth to who. He says the listeners and the self-made Buddhas came from the... But he didn't use the word Buddha.

He used Munendra. Munendra. $50.

Munendra. Sanskrit. Munendra.

[Говорящий 2]
The highest of the Munis.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Nice. $50.

Jigme, pay Jigme $50. That's self-made money. Okay, and we'll split it afterwards.

Now, yeah, so Muni means Buddha. And the Tibetans translate it as able one. Tupa.

Capable one. Like Thubten is a common Tibetan name. It means the teachings of the able ones.

Thubten. So Muni means capable one. What's it mean in Sanskrit, really?

Mauna. Yeah, Gyelse got it. Mauna means spiritual silence.

To keep spiritual silence. Which we didn't keep at all this retreat. I don't know what happened anyway.

I guess it was coming out of virus times and we all wanted to talk to each other. So anyway, Muni means... The ancient meaning is the one who doesn't talk much.

It's a famous synonym for a Buddha. They don't talk much. They don't blah blah.

Indra means Lord of the Gods. It means the one who drops the rain down. Indra means like anandade, means to drop water.

Dra is a doer. It's rain sender. Rain sender is Indra.

But it means Lord of the Gods. Number one God. So Munendra is the name that Chandrakirti gave to the Buddhas in his famous opening lines about who was born by whom.

Who was born from whom. Then the listeners and the self-made Buddhas got born from the Lord of Sages. Lord of the Able Ones.

Then who gave birth to them? Bodhichitta. Then who gave birth to the Bodhichitta?

There's three people. It's getting a complicated incestual family here. We'll talk about it.

We're going to get there. By the way, this is going on too long. We're going too deep.

That means we're going to have some extra classes. We're going to offer them as dessert sometime in the next few months or something like that. It's up to Tim.

But we won't finish what we have to finish. I'm not rushing. I like to finish it thoroughly.

That's just my way. I think it's the right thing to do. You shouldn't rush the Dharma.

Anyway, now he wants to talk about... Oh, by the way, what are those opening lines? We got to say.

Say CHOS GYUR. CHOS GYUR Every Buddhist book ever written should start with CHOS GYUR. CHOS means offering.

CHOS PA Like Lama CHOS PA. GYUR means an offering of praise. At the beginning of every Buddhist book it's traditional to bow down to somebody.

It's traditional. It's traditional to make TSON BAR DAM BYA BA Say TSON BAR DAM BYA BA A commitment to TSON BAR. To finish the book.

Good. Every Buddhist book, every major classic will start, especially from ancient India, will start with praising somebody, bowing down to them, and promising to write the book. What's the basis of the promise, if you want to get technical?

Good, that's part of it. It's called the four connections. Do you remember?

Yeah, every Buddhist book should have four parts. One?

[Говорящий 2]
It covers a subject that helps people.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, it has a short-term goal. In this case, to learn Middle Way. It has a long-term goal, which is to reach Buddhahood.

It has useful and important subject matter. And the first three are connected, which is number four. If you study the subject matter, you learn emptiness, and that gets you to Buddhahood.

That's the fourth requirement of a Buddhist book. The three parts should be connected. DEL BA, it's called DEL BA.

DEL SOGS CHOS ZHIG Say DEL SOGS. CHOS ZHIG The point is, in discussing who gives birth to who, we are using that part from one of the most famous books in Buddhism. We are using the part where the author bowed down to some holy being.

Don't forget that it's important. In discussing who gave birth to who, which is proving one of the benefits of bodhichitta, don't forget we are in the middle of the praise by Chandrakirti. That's where it comes from.

It's important to get to the next part. Okay, here we go. SANGS RGYAS THUB PA'I DBANG PO ZHIG BYANG STE In the praise, he doesn't say Buddhas give birth to listeners and have Buddhas.

Buddhas come from bodhichitta. He doesn't say that. He says the lords of the munis, the lords of the able ones, come from bodhichitta.

Sorry, they come from bodhisattvas. The lords of the able ones give birth to listeners and have Buddhas. He doesn't call them Buddhas.

He calls them lords of the able ones, which in Sanskrit is? Munendra. Okay, good.

Yay, we got it. BYANG SEMS LAS KYANG KHO RNAMS MED PA'I PHYIR GYI DBANG PHYIR DANG PA NYES PA DANG Why do they call them lords? He says, what's the lords?

What's the lords? Why lords? Why don't they just call them the able ones or the munis or the silent ones?

Why do they call them the kings of the silent ones? NYAN RANG DANG BYANG SEMS LAS KYANG KHO RNAMS MED PA'I PHYIR GYI DBANG PHYIR DANG PA NYES PA DANG They have mastered the king of teachings. So we call them kings.

They have mastered the king of all teachings. So we call them kings. And, GANG ZAG GSUNGS PA DE SANGS RGYAS KYI BDE SKAD SPYOD KYI SRID LA SNGA RGYUR BA'I PHYIR RO When these bodhisattvas and self-made Buddhas and listeners really master Buddhism, they also have dominion over the Dharma.

They become kings. So it's not that they have kings over some government power. Why is Buddha a king?

Because they are kings who, they are the absolute lords over the Dharma. That's all. That's why they are kings.

It's not that they push people around and tax them. It's that they are the kings of the kingdom of the Dharma teachings. Got it?

That's why we call them lord. And those teachings themselves are the kings. Alright.

We have a picture here. This is a very clever picture. There's a guy, what do you call it?

Juggling light bulbs. Geshe-la, you went too far this time. He's a master.

He's the lord of the able ones. Who else could juggle enlightenments? How many enlightenments?

Three. Self-made Buddha, listener, and... Yay.

Alright, here we go. THU BU'ANG DE RNAMS LAS NYAN RANG SEMS BSKYED PA DE NA DE DAG TU MO Then it's from these kings of the Dharma that the listeners and the self-made Buddhas are born. By the way, you can't say it in English, but the verb is different.

They use the verb which is reserved for kings and Buddhas, which is DRUNG PA. Say DRUNG PA. What's the word for star in Tibetan?

Karma. Yeah, so DRUNG DKA'ER. DRUNG DKA'ER is the Tibetan word for holy being's birthday.

If you're talking about the highest teacher in Tibet, you could say, what's their DRUNG DKA'ER? Cool. THU BU'ANG KYIS NYAN RANG DRUNG TSUL JI LTAR YIN ZHES NA Hey, how does this birth go?

They go to the hospital and they go to the maternity ward. How does that work? Somebody is asking a question.

DRUNG TSUL, how does that work? SANGS RGYAS JI RTEN TU BYUNG Now there are six steps. The birth of listeners and self-made Buddhas from lords of able ones has six steps.

Somebody asked a question. Supposedly it's important that these listeners and half Buddhas, God took their holy birth from full Buddhas. Kings of able ones.

How does that work? Tsongkapa says six steps. In China they go like this.

Six steps. Six steps. Here we go.

Number one, the full Buddha has to come to your planet. They have to visit your planet. We're talking about birth.

What's the birth process? Number one, the full Buddha comes to your planet. Number two, they teach the wheel of life.

They teach the twelve links. They teach dependent origination. Cause and effect.

That's important for later. They come to the planet and they give that famous teaching on the twelve links. Which Sugeng is translating Vasubandhu's commentary.

It will take 15 years or something. It's already sketched out. We finished the whole thing.

It's ready to go. Then what happens? People who are attracted to the listener system and people who are attracted to the self-made Buddha system come and listen to those teachings about dependence.

When you're emphasizing dependence, you are not emphasizing emptiness. Somehow these lower spiritual practitioners are more attracted to teachings about cause and effect than about emptiness. They have to master that first.

Then they master emptiness, which just means the absence of cause and effect. It's two sides of the same coin. They listen.

Then what's the famous three stages of spiritual growth? What are the famous three stages? THOS BSAM BSGOM Yay!

For zero dollars. THOS BSAM BSGOM Say THOS BSAM BSGOM In fact, Serame's monastery's name is THOS BSAM BSGOM LING. The real name is the spiritual center, LING, which means island, right?

For THOS BSAM BSGOM First you go to the class and you listen. THOS BSAM BSGOM SRUTTI Same root as Sravaka. SRUTTI You listen.

Then SAM In your car on the way home to wherever, Colorado. You're like, what the heck did Geshe-la talk about? You're daydreaming about it.

That's really SAM. I don't know about you, but I do my best SAM in the car. You listen to the teaching.

You get in the car. You drive eight hours home. You're just thinking about everything.

Hopefully you don't get in a car accident. Then when you get home, you sit down in your meditation cushion and you BSGOM THOS BSAM BSGOM Say THOS THOS BSAM BSGOM All Buddhist education. What do you call it?

Pedagogy? It has these three steps. This is the system to change a person in Buddhism.

This is the system to develop a person spiritually. THOS BSAM BSGOM What's Buddhist curriculum? THOS BSAM BSGOM For how long?

2,500 years. It hasn't changed. They named the monastery THOS BSAM BSGOM.

What is this place? Oh, this is where you go to THOS BSAM BSGOM. Go to class.

THOS Listen in class. BSAM Think about it on your own without formal meditation. Then do formal meditation and burn it into your brain.

We're going to do some fun meditation in the next class today. We're going to take those pictures now and turn them into an experience. That comes next.

Don't forget I said six things are happening when we want to have a baby. When a Buddha wants to have a baby. Who's the baby?

Listeners and self-made Buddhists. They do six steps. First, they come to the planet.

Second, they teach and mainly the twelve links. Then the students THOS BSAM BSGOM. They listen, they think, they meditate.

How many? We got five, right? There's got to be one more, right?

[Говорящий 2]
They're attracted to different things.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, that was part of the learning dependence. Then it works. That's number six.

It works. They reach the goals that they were attracted to, which were not interplanetary. They just wanted to develop themselves and they reach it.

That's their own nirvana. Six steps. When they reach their own nirvana, a self-made Buddha has been born.

Got it? The sixth one was they finished the BSGOM of THOS BSAM BSGOM and then they reached their goal. Really, it's this idea of five causal steps leading to a sixth step, which is the result.

Number six is the result of the first five. That's an important pattern because the next topic in the Lam Rim retreats is the seven part bodhichitta instructions where six causes and one result. I'm going to teach you something in seven steps, but really step seven is the end of the process.

It's not part of the process. All right, same thing here. Yay!

We have a silly picture, which doesn't have much meaning at all, of six steps. But if you want to review this whole teaching, if you want to check to see if you really got the whole teaching, we can give you all the pictures and you should be able to tell me what each one means. A picture like this is a little harder because there's six parts of the picture.

But if after the program on Sunday night, you want to check and see how good of a student are you, you can look at all the pictures. If you can identify them, you're pretty... I have chosen all the main ideas.

Then you got the class. You can say you're ready to go to the next rimba of the lam. Then you can say you're ready to go to the next stage of the path.

Yay! Next part. ,GAL TE NYAN THOS KYI RIGS CAN MANG PO'I SANGS RGYAS LA, ,CHOS THOS PA'I TSE DE NYID LA, ,CHANG CHUNG DNGON DU BYAS KYANG, Then this guy asks a question.

By the way, the sentence ends in NYAM NA. NYAM NA means you may think to yourself, why? It's a famous device used by Tsongkapa.

He's anticipating your questions. He builds a question in your mind. Then he says, hey, were you wondering why?

You're like, yeah. Actually, he set it up. He brought your mind to a question.

Then he says, hey, maybe you're wondering why. You're like, yeah, of course I am. You set me up.

Here's the question. Look, many listeners achieve nirvana in that same life that they got the teaching on the twelve links, dependence. Many listeners reach their goal of nirvana in the same life where they got the teaching on dependence.

But, what's he going to say? It's so common for the self-made guys to lag behind by one life. It's so common for them to finish and then they don't get to be a nirvana until the next life.

Why? $100, $300. Why is it more common for self-made Buddhas to lag behind by one life?

What's the sign?

[Говорящий 2]
Nope.

[Говорящий 1]
Nope. What's the evidence that they are often laggers? How much $300?

Yay! It's like, I don't know, I was studying this last night. It's like, duh.

Duh. Now the question makes sense, right? I'll say the question again.

Those of you who lost $300. Tsongkhapa says, maybe you're wondering. Listeners get the teaching on dependent origination and they reach listener enlightenment, meaning nirvana, right?

On the listener track. Then these self-made Buddha guys, they're always lagging. Why?

Because they're self-made Buddhas. Got it? Which implies that they did it on their own in their last life.

Which means they didn't do it in the life that they learned how to do it. Got it? They're always like, I don't know, retards.

Oops. That's probably really bad karma. They're always lagging behind.

The other guy says, why is that? Aren't they better than listeners? Why are they always one lifetime behind?

Do they tend to get hit by trucks more? It's a good question when you think about it. Why do they always lag behind?

Why do you think they lag behind? Because they reach it on their own. That implies they're lagging behind.

They should have reached it in the life that they got taught. Got it? TSE RDZIN NA RANG GI BYANG CHUB NGON DU MI BYAS PAS DE DAG GIS THUG PA'I SEMS PA'I BRTZON LA THOS TZAM GONG SEMS BYAS PAS RANG GI BDOD PA RDZOGS PA MI THEG DO Then it's wrong to say they were born from the Buddhas.

Because there was such a tragic delay. How can you say they're born from the Buddhas if there's a whole lifetime delay? They have to go through a whole bardo thing.

They got to get squeezed out of their mother's birth canal again. Their head has to get flattened out. Why are you saying they got born from the Buddhas?

They had to go through another samsaric birth. They had to go through a very painful birth again. Why are you calling them so cool?

Got it? You all right? When you get this quiet, I worry.

Either you're asleep or you don't understand. All right, here we go. BRTAN DAG GSUM PA NYON PA'I KHO NA LAS DON DANG RTOG PA LA SKAD PA CHUNG YANG CHOS THOB PA'I MTHONG CHUG GI KHYER BA DE KHO NA LA RANG RGYAL GYI GNAN NAS MI THOB MOD KYANG They do get teachings on the Wheel of Life, the Twelve Links.

They do, therefore, here's an important connection. Because they got teachings on Sugeng's Wheel of Life book, necessarily they had insight into something also. Emptiness.

You can't get a good teaching on the Wheel of Life and not start understanding emptiness. He says, look, they got great teachings on the Twelve Links. We can say they already understood emptiness because the first stupid link is not understanding emptiness.

If you learn that you don't understand emptiness, you already learned some emptiness. Got it? All right.

You guys okay? It's kind of early to do this. CHOS THOB PA'I MTHONG CHUG GI KHYER BA LA MTHONG CHUG, say MTHONG CHUG.

MTHONG, like MTHONG LAM, right? What's MTHONG mean? You ready?

There's only two English cognates for DUR ZHUGS. There's only two English words that I know of, there's probably more, that come from DUR ZHUGS. Okay?

One is the name of a famous mountain range. You're looking for anything that has a DUR sound in it. DUR, DUR Huh?

$300! $300! Yay!

We have a mountain range near here where I did my three-year retreat, which is called the Dragoons. Dragoon comes from a soldier who wears a red outfit that was supposed to suggest a dragon. So dragon and dragoon are the only two words in English that I know of, there's probably more, that come from the same root as?

And the real root is DURG. Now, why is a dragon called DRAG? Evil eye.

They traditionally had an evil eye. If you looked into a dragon's eye, you would turn to stone or something like that. So dragon means evil eye.

Got it? The word dragon comes from DUR ZHUGS to see. Like MTHONG LAM, the path of seeing is called DUR ZHUGS.

Why are we talking about that here?

[Говорящий 2]
Because of the first thing.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, what's that again?

[Говорящий 2]
Because of the first thing and not...

[Говорящий 1]
No, sorry. This durshita means seen in this lifetime. A karmic result which is seen in this lifetime is called durshita.

Dragon. Seen in this life. Why are we talking about that?

We were talking about the time delay for... Yeah, for half-Buddhists. Good.

Their enlightenment is not durshita. They don't see it in this lifetime. It's what Patanjali calls adurshita.

Ad is negative, right? Like atheist or apolitical or apathetic. Adurshita.

It's not seen in this lifetime. It's seen in the next lifetime. So Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra calls it not seen yet.

Yeah, adurshita. Adurshita. Got it?

Which is why we don't call ananda ananda. Why? Yeah, ananda would mean the unhappy disciple.

It's so funny. Everybody says ananda and I'm like, oh, poor guy. He's ananda.

Say ananda. Yeah, that means, an means very happy. He's probably ananda and not ananda.

Okay, it's a pet peeve of mine. All right, here we go. Get back to the subject, Geshe-la.

CHOS THOB THOD PA'I MTHONGS SPYOD KYI KHYER BA KHYAD LA RANG RGYAL GYI NGAN NAS MI THOB MOD KYANG Look, I admit that nirvana for the self-made guys is not...

[Говорящий 2]
Ananda.

[Говорящий 1]
No, it's not durshita. It's not seen in this life. It's seen in the next life.

Durshita. It's a durshita. Got it?

You okay now? $300 lady. Now you can take a visit to the dragoons today and have a pygmy.

There's a great hotel in... What's it called? That little town over there.

The mining town. Below tombstone. Huh?

Huh? Bisbee. Has a great...

For $300 you can go to the dragoons at Bisbee and have a nice lunch. All right. SANGS RGYAS KYI BSTAN DANG BSTAN PA'I RANG RGYAL GYI DUS PA BOS MYONG NGE'I KYI LAS BSAGS PA'I Okay.

Now say MYONG NGE. MYONG means to experience. NGE means definite.

MYONG NGE is a special kind of karma. It means definite to give you a result. Probably you cannot avoid it.

Even if you do your four powers or whatever, it's going to be difficult to get out of. It's a karma you cannot get out of. It's a karma you cannot get out of.

It happens to be a dusta. Next slide. What's the karma you can't get out of?

Yeah, that self guy, the self Buddha is going to get to his nirvana. MYONG NGE in the next life. All right.

Sorry. MYONG NGE means with certainty. Certain to be experienced.

DE BU MA MYONG YANG RGYAL BA GZHAN DU NGES PA NYONG BA LTAR They won't experience it in this life, but they'll experience it in the next life. I have a nice picture. I like this one.

Cat will appreciate it. When you talk about a self-made Buddha, you're talking about a tree which regrows itself after a long period of time. I love the picture.

The picture is perfect. The tree was there. It got caught.

Then it came back. That's the whole idea of a self-made Buddha. You were a powerful practitioner, big tree, in your last life.

Then there was a subtle, unavoidable seed at the center of the trunk which grew again in the next life. Got it? Cool.

All right. By the way, we'll go back to the easy part. Don't worry.

Don't turn off your Zoom. We're going back to the easy part. Sometimes it's nice to stretch your brain.

By the way, if you keep stretching your brain every day, it's incredible. What happens to your brain is nice. But it's like doing a hard yoga every day.

All right. CHEN GYI'I GNYENG DE MA THOB KYANG Maybe they don't reach nirvana in this life. TSE RAB GZHAN DU NGES PA KHO NA They were 100% sure to reach nirvana in their next life.

THOB PA'I PHYIR DANG, SNGAR SANGS RGYAS KYI PHYIR BSTAN PA LA GNYEN TZAM GOMS SUM They did the THOS TZAM GOM, three-step process of Buddhist education. Pedagogy? Pedagogy?

Pedagogy. GNYEN TZAM GOMS SUM, JI LTOS PA RDZOGS PAR BSHAD PA NI They got what they wanted. By the way, there's an irony in they got what they wanted.

Explain. There's an irony in saying they got what they wanted. Yeah, all they wanted was nirvana.

All they wanted was to take care of themselves. It's a tragedy that they got what they wanted. Got it?

All right. BSHAD PA NI, TSE DE'I KHOR BA LA BSAM NAS BSHAD PA MIN PA'I PHYIR ROL Okay. To say they got what they wanted, for them, it's always a two-step process, meaning this life and next life.

It's always delayed until the next life. All right, cool. Then Chandrakirti, sorry, Je Tsongkapa quotes Aryadeva.

Who's Aryadeva? Yeah, the only thing you can say about Aryadeva is, oh, he was Arya Nagarjuna's student. Yeah, he's the one who gave up his I.

Because he was frustrated. Oh, then he got frustrated. Okay.

Anyway, his most famous book is called the 400 Verses. Okay. Who's Nagarjuna's teacher?

[Говорящий 2]
Rajesh.

[Говорящий 1]
Sarakni. Sarani, as you say. Sarakni.

A high tantric yogi. All right. The 400 Verses say, DE NI SHES PA'I GAL TE'I NDIR NYAN NGAN BDE PA MA THOB KYANG SKYE BA GZHAN DU BAS MED PAR NGES PAR THOB PAR GYUR LAS NGES PAR THOB GYUR LAS GZHAN NO Okay.

If you understand emptiness well, even if you don't reach nirvana in that life, you will, without much hard work, reach nirvana in your next life. It's like that kind of karma. And he doesn't say what kind of karma, but there's a kind of karma called certain to be experienced in your next life.

So, he's quoting Aryadeva to prove that self-made Buddhas can happen. All right. Next picture I think.

I'd like to talk about something. We have time. Another reason to see emptiness in this lifetime.

Another reason to see emptiness directly in this lifetime. And we don't talk about it much. And the scriptures don't talk about it much.

But seeing emptiness directly is a kind of NYON NGAN GYI LAS It's a kind of karma that will always have a certain result. Seeing emptiness directly always triggers a certain event in your next life. And what's that?

You meet your teachers young. You meet your teachers young. When you see emptiness directly, you plant the seeds to never again be without a direct teacher who knows what they're talking about.

From birth, from childhood. You meet them age five, age six. It's incredible.

That's the idea in the monastery of the word choku or tulku. And that word gets thrown around. People don't know what it means.

There's arguments about whether this guy is a tulku or not. Sometimes two guys get to be the same tulku. Sometimes it's possible they're the same tulku.

But the point is the cool thing about being a reincarnated lama is that after you die and you get to the bardo and you come into this life screaming and pooping, you have a teacher waiting there for you. People don't talk about it. But imagine what it's like.

Try to imagine what it's like. Within a year or two, or within a few years of being born, you have surrounding you these high lamas, these great masters. That's guaranteed.

It's very similar to the self-made Buddha's karma. It's part of the self-made Buddha's karma. Anyway, you are surrounded by great teachers.

Of all the karmas in the universe, the karma to meet a really great teacher is extremely rare. Extremely rare. So here you are, you're born and they're sitting waiting for you to be able to talk.

It's awesome. I'm just saying it's one of the cool things about seeing emptiness that they don't talk about much. But here they talk about it.

It's so wonderful to have a guarantee that after you die and go through that sucky rebirth thing, on the other side of the fallopian tube, there's going to be some people waiting for you who know what they're talking about. To feel that, to know that that's true. Okay, you could get virus.

You could die. Yeah, I know, but what the heck? I already got them waiting for me.

I'm okay. I'm alright. Yeah, I could die from the virus, but those dudes are waiting for me to pick me up, to pick up where I left off in this life.

That's one of the beautiful things about seeing emptiness directly, is that. He mentions it here. I'm happy he finally mentioned it.

,'OD MA LAS KYANG, ,RDZOGS SANGS RGYAS RNAMS MA BYUNG ZHING, ,NYEN THOS RNAMS KYANG SRED PA NA, ,RANG SANGS RGYAS KYI DGE BZHIN NAS, ,RTEN PA MED PAR RAG TU CHUNG, The wisdom of a self-made Buddha springs back after rebirth. Basically, that's the point. The book he just quoted is The Middle Way.

Who wrote that? Who wrote The Middle Way? It's a nickname for wisdom.

It's a nickname for Nagarjuna's book. Sometimes Arya Nagarjuna's book is called Root Text on the Middle Way. Sometimes it's called Wisdom.

Sometimes among people who know, it's called Middle Way. I just read Middle Way. You're like, what?

Nagarjuna's Wisdom. Which is the next, or the two retreats from now, we're going to go deep into Nagarjuna's Middle Way. Which is really fun and confusing.

You should try. Don't avoid. By the way, in Buddhism, it's a tradition to study stuff that is hopeless.

In Buddhism, it's a tradition to study things that there's no way you're going to understand it because it pulls you up. It forces you to stretch. It's like your soccer coach says, I used to do rowing.

They would say, run up and down the stadium 20 times. In the winter, because the ice was covering the lake, we couldn't row. They say, go out and run up and down the stadium 30, 40 times.

It was in the middle of winter in New Jersey. You get to the top, you throw up. Because it's so hard.

Then you run down and you run up again and you throw up whatever's left. At the end, in the spring, guess what happens? Down at the bottom.

No. It's a terrible smell. Everybody in the football team is like, what's that smell?

Anyway, to push yourself spiritually is really cool. It's like yoga. Sometimes you just push yourself.

Alright. Next thing, if you see emptiness directly in this life, your next life is going to be a picture pal. Nah, there's a picture.

Yeah, there you go. I just love this picture. It feels like a lady taking her some deep book.

I'm thinking of that book you guys gave to Veronica. Speaking of whom. What is that?

The Daily Altar. She treasures that like unbelievable. She's like that all the time.

She has it in her hand all the time. Every morning. If you see emptiness directly in this life, in your next life you're always going to have this book in your hand.

You're going to spend your whole life with this wisdom. Just surrounded by wisdom all the time. Isn't that cool?

Those are for you, V. Nice thing. Alright.

First of all, there will be people waiting for you. Secondly, the books will be waiting for you. The wisdom will be waiting for you.

That's another reason why I really encourage you to try to see emptiness directly. There will be people waiting for you as soon as you're born. There will be wisdom waiting for you.

It's a guarantee. It's connected to the idea of a self-made Buddha. It's a guarantee.

It's impossible that it doesn't happen. Cool? Tim, are we doing a lottery?

Oh, okay. Here we go. By the way, that's a good place to end it.

The idea of a self-made Buddha is wrapped up in the idea that you die, you come back, and there are wise men and women waiting for you personally. They have all this wisdom to hand to you and share with you as soon as you... John Brady is waiting there on the other side.

You see it. You see ahead. It's such a comfort to know the babysitter is there and John Brady is there with the books.

Then you're like, okay, so I catch virus. It's okay. I know where I'm going and I know who's waiting for me and I know what's waiting for me.

Cool. Tim.

[Говорящий 2]
Thank you Geshe-la. We were unable to get our lottery winner online, but we have their question.

[Говорящий 1]
We're having trouble getting these guys online.

[Говорящий 2]
Thanks for the amazing teachings. I've had many aha moments, but there's still something going on in my mind. How is it that Buddhas actually help us?

I'm trying to develop the idea of bodhicitta in my own heart, but I'm struggling a lot because I intellectualize everything. I become a real bodhisattva and then a Buddha. Who are all of these countless beings that I'm helping?

Okay. How concretely? How do I teach them?

Then how do I receive those teachings from them?

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, cool. It's an interesting dynamic. First thing I'd like to say is that the process of tsultrim gom, what's it mean?

Learning, thinking, and meditating. Much of it is intellectual and it's not a bad thing. It's kind of like Einstein on steroids.

It's like the goal is to be super intelligent because then you can help more people. Super intelligent with compassion. Imagine Einstein with, I don't know, Christ loving his heart or something.

Imagine somebody who's a combination. A physician who is both technically skilled, excellent at what they do, physically dexterous to sew up your operation, and at the same time ultimately compassionate. I'd rather have a compassionate being who knew how to do the operation.

You see what I mean? It's not a bad thing. In fact, it's the goal in Buddhism that you will become super intelligent, like much beyond Einstein.

Then you will become super compassionate. If it seems like you're spending a lot of time thinking in these classes, that's a good thing. There's some kind of prejudice against that nowadays.

I don't know, in some countries or in some communities, you shouldn't think too much or you're overthinking it. In this tradition, it's not possible. The more you think, the better.

The more you understand, the better. You can't understand if you don't think. Thinking in this tradition is highly desirable.

You want a surgeon working on your heart who has thought about how to do it. Seriously. And you want them to have love.

That's the first thing to say. The second part of the question was, what's the dynamic? What happens?

This is the beauty of the Buddhist path in the diamond way. It's that your karma gets so good that all the people around you are teaching you. Everybody.

Everybody you meet is teaching you. Your karma gets so powerful towards the end that you never meet anyone who's not teaching you something. I keep thinking how we drive back to Tucson from...

Diamond Mountain is in the middle of nowhere. If you drive to the next big city, there's also nothing between here and there. You try to get a good meal, forget it.

There's one shop on the highway called The Monster. For $3 you can go in the shop and they'll show you The Monster. I never wanted to spend the $3.

I think you also have to swear not to tell anybody what he looks like if you pay your $3. I don't know. I never paid the $3.

I'm not asking. I don't want to break the faith. The people you meet at The Monster is a weird thing.

I have stopped at the Burger King at The Monster. I have because I was hungry. They said they are advertising a veggie burger.

I'm like, you guys got veggie burgers? They're like, yeah, we got veggie burgers. I'm like, I'll take one.

God. I didn't know you guys out in the middle of nowhere in cattle country, you're selling a veggie burger. The guy said, yeah, we got veggie burgers.

He unwrapped the hamburger and he took out the meat and he re-wrapped it and handed it to me and charged me more than the hamburger. The kind of people you meet in those places who came to see The Monster for $3, you're like, must be some poor uneducated person. You think that.

You really do think that. I know it's prejudice, but you think that. What I'm saying is, when you get to the end of the practice, you're going to learn a lot from the poor uneducated hamburger cook at The Monster.

That's how it happens. When you get close to the end of your... When you get through your Diamond Way practice, it should feel like that.

It should feel like you don't have to wait till next life that there's three sages waiting for you to teach you. You find them in The Monster Burger King and they start teaching you. They start telling you something.

You're like, oh my god, the Buddha is hanging out at The Monster Burger King. That is the process. It comes from overthinking.

That's how you get to The Monster Burger King.