«Дар освобождения», курс 37 «Лучшее, что ты можешь сделать со своей жизнью», занятие 12

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to Lam Rim. I'm sorry we took a long break. We were just having fun at Diamond Mountain.

Again, it looks kind of possible that we could have our next retreat in October, right? The October retreat. There looks like a good chance we could do some things here at Diamond Mountain if the virus and the vaccinations are cooperating.

We're going to do a meditation together. This is called a nyam chi. Say nyam chi.

[Говорящий 2]
Nyam chi.

[Говорящий 1]
This is a different way, a traditional different way of teaching the Lam Rim. That's where you try to elicit an emotion. We etched the silicone.

We scratched your brain. We tried to put some, what do you call it? Some tracks in your brain with all the pictures.

We finished with the pictures. That's a necessary beginning to meditation. You got to get content before you can get feeling.

Let's say we've scratched the pictures into your brain. Bhavana. Now it's time to bhava.

It's time to have an experience of those pictures. We're going to try that. We're going to try that in a meditation.

That takes more time and it takes more silence. I'm not going to talk much. I'm going to take you to a certain track that we already scratched in your brain.

Then you're going to, and I'm going to feel it. We're trying to feel what we tracked. That's called nyam chi.

That's a progression in the Lam Rim. Traditional progression. You go from idea to feeling.

Here we go. Please sit up straight. I just like to put a small smile on my face.

For me, that's almost the main preliminary to a meditation, is to feel relaxed and feel hopeful. Put a small smile on your face. That will loosen up your forehead, hopefully.

Then it'll be easier to meditate. Make sure your hands are comfortable. After 50 years of trying to meditate, I realized what you want to do with your hands is get them out of the way.

However you want to hold your hands, hold them in a way that you don't notice what they're doing. Get them out of the way. Pull in your lower abdomen.

Very, very helpful for meditation. Which strengthens your back. We're going to accomplish that tightening of your lower abdomen by taking 10 deep exhales.

You're on your own. 10 deep exhales. Keep exhaling past your normal limit to where your abdomen tights up.

That's going to be good for your posture.

[Говорящий 2]
Here we go. Now we're going to go to that first picture.

[Говорящий 1]
It was a young person who had just been accepted on a sports team. We know the picture and we know what it means. It means if we work hard, then one day, during our prayers, during our meditations, we will have this awesome experience that we are actually, in a few minutes, traveling from planet to planet.

By the way, planets, it's not like they're all lined up waiting for you to jump from one to the other. I mean a planet with people on it is extremely rare. You might have to travel many light years, many millions of miles to jump to the next planet.

Imagine planets millions of miles apart covered with living things. Remember we're not just talking about people. All kinds of living creatures, birds, things that crawl in holes under the ground, whales, fish, bacteria.

Imagine a whole planet teeming with life, millions of miles to the next one and you are sitting at home on your meditation cushion. Finally, after years of hard work with lam rim and other practices, it all pays off and suddenly you have this experience that in a few minutes, in less than half an hour, you are leaping from one planet to another. Each jump is a million miles, millions of miles.

When you arrive at a planet, you are sitting down with each separate living creature individually, one by one. Each ant, each bird, each human. You are taking the time.

If someone takes time to be with us, we feel good. If someone takes 15 minutes or half an hour to give us their full attention to some question we have or problem we have, we feel so lucky. But imagine that you are able to give your time and your full attention to a hundred billion different people in less than a minute.

Try to imagine that. Imagine what it feels to be a person who has had that experience. This first meditation, it's called in the Diamond Way, using the result as the cause.

Using the result as the cause. We are going to pretend we are having that experience and that will burn a pathway into our mind that later we will have the experience. So try to imagine approaching a world teeming with life, covered with different kinds of living beings, and imagine that you give full attention and time to each one of a hundred billion beings one by one within a minute or something.

Just try to feel it and imagine yourself doing it. That's all. It's going to be unnatural.

It's going to be a stretch. But if you imagine it, it will help it happen later. Here we go.

We'll spend about five minutes here.

[Говорящий 2]
Now imagine you've come back to this world.

[Говорящий 1]
Finish that journey sitting on your meditation cushion. Finish the classes for today. And then you just started to do all the things you have to do today.

But imagine the glow around you. Imagine the holiness around you that you just comforted a hundred billion living beings one by one with full attention. Imagine there's a very beautiful glow around you.

A very tangible holiness or power around you. Because even in your imagination you just imagine connecting with a hundred billion needy beings individually this morning. Then imagine what it's going to be like the rest of today.

You are walking around for the rest of the day. A person who just took care of a hundred billion people. When we visit someone in the elderly home, we go to the prison and we teach prisoners.

I always feel special for a few hours after that. But imagine this morning you comforted a hundred billion people and then imagine the effect you're going to have on people you meet today. They will meet you.

They'll say, Hey, there's Mike. There's Alex. There's Ellie.

But subconsciously people always know who's loving them or who's feeling intense love. Subconsciously people will sense that you went to a hundred billion prisons this morning or care facilities this morning. Your presence in the world for the rest of today will bless this world.

Imagine that. Imagine you are a bodhisattva and your presence in the world for the rest of the day will bless this world. This will be a better world because you are doing your normal day today.

Let's spend a few minutes there. Imagine the things you have to do, the things you have planned for the rest of today and imagine the unspoken effect you will have on the people around you the rest of today. Not because you really touched a hundred billion people but because you imagined it, which already gives you a special glow.

Here we go. Imagine going through the rest of the day as a person who just took care of a hundred billion people this morning. Imagine what it feels like the rest of the day.

Imagine some of the things you are supposed to do today.

[Говорящий 2]
Here we go.

[Говорящий 1]
Then we'll take three deep exhales and imagine golden light coming from your breath, touching people throughout this world and blessing them.

[Говорящий 2]
Then we'll take a stretch.

[Говорящий 1]
We had ten pictures, right? We went to two of them, I think. You can try that for a few days.

Alright then. Any questions about that meditation in the room here? No?

Okay, we get to go on. No questions, good. There's a few.

When you have a big war and you have a big battle and then the battle is over and people go around and take stuff from the dead bodies and stuff, it's kind of a mop-up operation. There's a mop-up operation in this section from Tsongkapa, Je Tsongkapa. I'm not going to spend too much time on it.

Somebody tries to argue, well, if it takes those self-made Buddhas another lifetime to get to their nirvana, can you really say it was a result of the teaching they got on the Wheel of Life? Tsongkapa's like, don't bother me with dumb questions. Basically, he's like, of course, it took a lifetime, but it's okay.

It took another lifetime, but it's okay. You can still say it was a reaction to the teaching they got. That's not a big problem.

It's not that it has to happen in a half hour later. Tsongkapa says, don't try to minimize the role of the person who taught them dependence, origination. They are still their father and mother.

They still gave birth to them in a spiritual sense. Even though it was a delayed birth. What do you call that?

Past term, like 10 months pregnancy. It's still a pregnancy, come on. Then somebody says, does it have to be dependent origination?

Tsongkapa says, you could say they are children of the teaching and you'd still be okay. Don't get hung up on the subject. It was the teaching that gave birth to the self-made Buddhas.

We have a picture, Pao, of a lady under a tree. He says, when you think of how Buddhas give birth to their students who reach spiritual goals, you don't really have to get hung up on the subject matter. The teaching gave birth.

The teaching gave them birth. Now we reached another big subject in Tsongkapa. You covered the first half of Chandrakirti's words of praise at the beginning of the book.

You covered the first half. That was how listeners and self-made Buddhas come out of Buddhas. But can you tell us where the Buddhas themselves came from?

The moms. The moms gave birth to twins, listeners and self-made Buddhas. But where did the mom come from?

That's the second half of this whole exercise. Which is why Pabongka Rinpoche mentioned this text in the long run. Because he's going to say you need bodhichitta.

You need bodhisattvas. You need crescent moons in the world to become full moons. You should honor crescent moons beyond full moons.

Maybe the full moons should drive around the crescent moons in the back of the station wagon. We were telling a story about the Buddhas who drive around. There's a story in scripture that bodhisattvas are so important to the process, even though they are not Buddhas yet.

They are so important in the process that the Buddhas will carry their chariots if there's no horses around. The Buddhas will drag the chariots while the bodhisattvas are goofing off in the chariot. Because the bodhisattvas are so vital to the process.

We had an example and we don't need to talk about it. Alright. Now somebody says, okay, if the self-made Buddhas and the listeners take their holy birth from the Buddhas, well, where did the Buddhas come from?

Who gives birth to the Buddhas? Then Tsongkapa quotes Chandrakirti directly and says, the totally enlightened Buddhas, we have to add those adjectives, right? Adverb adjectives.

Totally enlightened Buddhas. The full Buddhas take their birth from the bodhisattvas. That's where they come from.

Then somebody asks a question. Here it is. How can you say that Buddhas come from bodhisattvas if the nickname for a bodhisattva is RGYAL ZAD?

Child of the Buddha. If the nickname for a bodhisattva is Child of the Buddhas, how can you say Buddhas come from bodhisattvas? What?

You have a kid and then the kid has you? It doesn't make sense. Got it?

The guy is like, what are you talking about? You have a kid and then the kid has you? It doesn't make sense.

Either the bodhisattvas are the children of the Buddhas, RGYAL ZAD, or the Buddhas come from the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas are the children of the bodhisattvas. But you can't have it both ways, Tsongkapa. It's weird.

Someone has this problem. We have a picture of a father. Who's the child in the picture?

Did the guy with the beard come from the girl with the smile? Or did the girl with the smile come from the guy with the beard? Or did they come from each other?

Which is what you seem to be saying, Chandrakirti. If you say Buddhas come from bodhisattvas. Got it?

It's weird. Who's the parent in this picture? All right, good.

BYANG RZAD RNAMS RGYAL BA RGA' ZHIG GIS ZAD YIN PA NI BSTAN MOD KYI Look, I agree, RGYAL ZAD. I agree, RGYAL ZAD. I agree the bodhisattvas have to come from Buddhas.

I agree. DNGOS KYANG RGYUD TSE NYID KYI BYANG SEMS RNAMS SANGS RGYAS NANG GI RGYUR RGYUR RO But still we can say bodhisattvas are the cause for Buddhas. From two points of view, he says.

Okay, got it? Yeah, I admit that bodhisattvas are produced by one or more Buddhas. Individual bodhisattvas are produced normally by one or more Buddhas.

Any bodhisattva in this planet has been produced by Shakyamuni Buddha, directly or indirectly. But from two points of view, from two points of view, all Buddhas are also products of bodhisattvas. Anybody want to take a shot?

[Говорящий 2]
You have to be a thousand years old. To be a Buddha, you have to be caused by a bodhisattva.

[Говорящий 1]
In what sense? She said, to be a Buddha you have to be caused by a bodhisattva. But in what, how?

By what process?

[Говорящий 2]
Because the process of becoming, you first have to become a bodhisattva.

[Говорящий 1]
Good, yeah. I like to call it the evolution theory. To turn into a Buddha, you got to start by being a bodhisattva.

Only bodhisattvas can turn into Buddhas. With regard to a single person's spiritual evolution, they always go through the stage of bodhisattva before they hit the stage of Buddha. You got the first one.

You got the easy one. In that sense, bodhisattvas always give birth to Buddhas. So in a sense, Buddhas are the gyel se and bodhisattvas are the mom.

But there's a second sense in which bodhisattvas cause Buddhas. That's more difficult. Oh, dang, that's too deep.

That's a third one.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, that's called dakpa gyu. To call someone a parent, the kid has to come out first. Yeah, that's true.

You guys are giving a very negardian answer. But there's an easier one.

[Говорящий 2]
Why not? Because they embrace the two collections?

[Говорящий 1]
Let's go through it, okay? It'll be sexy. You'll like it.

You'll like it. I really enjoy Tsongkapa's explanation, which is, here we go. Here's the first one, the one that you said.

Spiritual evolution demands that we go through the stage of being a bodhisattva before we reach Buddhahood. In that sense, in that first sense, bodhisattvas have born Buddhas. So here we go.

BYANG SANGS RNAMS RGYAL BAR ZHIG GIS ZAD YIN PA BSTAN PA SKYES DE LA GNAS SKABS KYI KHYAD PAR NAS BYANG SEMS If we talk about period of time in a process, if we talk about a period of time in a longer process, then in that sense, BYANG SANGS RNAMS SANGS RGYAS RNAMS KYI RGYUR RGYUR TSUNG bodhisattvas are the cause of the Buddhas. So they beget the Buddhas. They give birth to the Buddhas.

DE BZHIN SHES PA'I GNAS SKABS NI BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I GNAS SKABS KYI BDE BU YIN PA'I PHYIR RO The stage of Buddhahood is a spiritual result of the stage of being a bodhisattva. In that sense, bodhisattvas give birth to Buddhas. The kid in the picture gave birth to her father.

All right. DE NYID SANGS RGYAS KYI GNAS SKABS THOB PA GANG YIN THAMS CAD NGOS LAM DU BYANG CHEN BYANG SEMS KYI GNAS SKABS KYI RGYUR PA KHO NAS THOB PA YIN NO Then he's quoting a scripture that says all Buddhas are preceded by a period as a bodhisattva. He quotes, who does he quote?

I don't remember. I think it's Chandrakirti's auto-commentary. RGYUR PA'I NYER LEN GYI RGYU That's a NYER LEN GYI RGYU.

What's a NYER LEN GYI RGYU? Material cause. In the growth of a tree, it's the seed.

Good. Two kinds of causes, Tim. For $100.

Material cause. You don't even need the Tibetan. I just need the English.

There's the seed that turns into the tree. But what's the second thing that makes the tree grow? The what?

The biochar. The fertilizer, the water, the sunlight. Those are called RGYEN.

RGYUN RGYEN Contributing factor. There's contributing factors. Biochar, rain, sunlight, the effort of the farmer.

Then there's the material cause, which is the seed. Material cause is defined as the thing that turns into the tree. The farmer doesn't turn into the tree.

The sunlight doesn't turn into the tree. The seed turns into the tree. But the rest of it helps make it happen.

Okay, cool. In a material cause sense, bodhisattvas turn into Buddhas. Bodhisattvas are like the tree seed.

Then Buddhas come out of that seed. Right? The tree.

But is there a way to... Now, here's the big question. Sexy question.

Is there a way that a bodhisattva acts as a contributing cause for a Buddha? He says... Here's Tsongkapa's answer.

This is a beautiful story. It's a nice place to end today. Historically, if you go back to a time of which even Buddhism has no good records, in the life history of this Buddha on this planet, there was a time before recorded Buddhism.

Like forget everything we know. Before that. Go back billions of lifetimes.

There was a guy named Manjushri. At that point, zillions of lifetimes ago, he was not a Buddha. He was just a really cool bodhisattva.

He met a guy who was destined to become called Shakyamuni. Got it? A bodhisattva named Manjushri met a normal dude who's going to be called Shakyamuni and he taught him the Dharma.

A normal bodhisattva who wasn't a Buddha yet. By any scripture, according to any scripture. Tantra says Manjushri is already a Buddha.

Sutra says he's just a bodhisattva. But forget that. Back in the days when he really was just a bodhisattva, according to everybody, he wasn't a Buddha yet.

He taught a dude who was going to become Shakyamuni and Shakyamuni got there first. Okay, got it? This guy named Manjushri taught a guy who's going to become Shakyamuni who wasn't a bodhisattva.

The bodhisattva taught the guy who wasn't a bodhisattva, but the second guy worked harder and he passed the bodhisattva. He became a bodhisattva. Then he became a Buddha.

Now Manjushri becomes the contributing cause for this Buddha. Got it? It's cool.

In that sense, this Buddha was born from a bodhisattva, less than a Buddha. A full Buddha was born from someone who's less than a Buddha as a contributing cause, meaning sunlight. What was the sunlight?

He taught him. He taught him the Dharma. Manjushri taught our Buddha the Dharma when our Buddha was just a plain schmuck.

Got it? Isn't that a beautiful example? That's the second sense in which a bodhisattva can give birth to a Buddha.

That's the second sense. What was the first sense? Everybody goes through bodhisattva hood before they get to Buddha hood.

That's like the seed for the tree. But everybody also who becomes a Buddha ran into bodhisattvas, maybe even back when they were hell beings and was influenced by them to become who they are now. In that second sense, all Buddhas are also children of bodhisattvas.

Cool? You can think this classic division into material cause, the stuff that turns into the tree, and then the contributing causes, the fertilizer, the sunlight, which are the other bodhisattvas hanging around the universe. Got it?

All right, let's see here. Then a guy comes back, he says, I still don't like it that the same kid can be the parent of their parent. It's still uncomfortable for me.

It's still uncomfortable for me that the kid could be the parent of the parent. Tsongkapa, he spends time saying you have to look at it from two different points of view. That's all.

As you guys said, the existence of a child defines someone as a mother. In that sense, the mom has to wait on the child to be the mom. In that sense, the mom has been born from the child.

Always. It's always like that. That's very Nagarjuna.

Let me see. I'm thinking we can... We're going to go on and we don't have to stay with the Tibetan, but we only have zero minutes.

I'll leave you with something to think about. I know it's... We aren't even supposed to be studying this.

It's not part of the Lam Rim. We just decided it was a good place to go because Pabongka Rinpoche used these lines in his Lam Rim to talk about the importance of bodhichitta. It creates Buddhas.

Okay, $100 question. Why did Chandrakirti mention this topic at the beginning of his book? Yeah, good.

He was bowing down to... Yeah, you're supposed to bow down to somebody at the beginning of a book and that's always a big decision for a Buddhist author to make. Who am I going to bow...

Which bow down will be most relevant to my book that I want to write? He chooses someone to bow down to and he bows down to the bodhisattvas. Last question, then we're done for today.

Who else agrees that it's important to bow down to bodhisattvas? Who drove the station wagon? Okay, good.

You got to get in this mood that bodhisattvas are so important that Buddhas will shine their shoes. Bodhisattvas are so important to the welfare of this universe that Buddhas who already went beyond that will come back and do their laundry or something. Got it?

Okay, cool. So bodhichitta must be important. If the Buddha will come back and do your laundry, bodhichitta must be something cool.

That's all. That's the whole retreat, right? We're trying to advertise bodhichitta.

Okay, we'll see you guys tomorrow.