«Дар освобождения», курс 38 «Становясь бодхисаттвой: шаги к порождению желания достичь просветления», занятие 4

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to the Lam Rim. This is Geshe Michael Roach. And what's that lady thinking about?

Let's go to the Tibetan text of the Lam Rim. ZHES SOGS KYI RIGS PA GCIG LAS MED PA'I RTOG DKA' LA It means, and if you think about it, I think we can feel it together, that to really believe in the path to life, it's difficult. It's just difficult.

We get wrapped up in this life and we're focused on this life and this life is so busy and there's so many things going on and it's so concrete. It's here, we can't deny it. And then somebody says, well, did you have a past life?

And you're like, look, maybe. I don't have time to think about it now. And then I think all of us, we avoid difficult ideas.

We don't like to think about things that are difficult to figure out. So I think most of us, we avoid this question of did we have a past life? And I have to say that Dharmakirti proved that there was a past life.

It was a difficult proof. There were different parts to it. But the basic idea is something to think about, is that according to Buddhism and according to truth really, life cannot be created from that which is not life.

Life cannot come from a cause which is not similar to life. You don't get apples from pineapples. Well, that's not so good.

Bananas from rice. It doesn't happen. And you don't get awareness of consciousness from something other than consciousness.

That's mainly the whole thing. That's mainly the whole idea. What Dharmakirti was saying, and it was so difficult that I think maybe we didn't feel it, was that you can't take a stone and turn it into life.

Life, there's living flesh, and flesh is imbued with life. And that flesh comes from chemicals. But the life part in the flesh comes from life.

And therefore, we must have had life just before we were conceived in this life. All right, so we're going to... Here it says, RIGS PA GCIG LAS MED PAR RTOG SKA And that's where we see the young lady having difficulty thinking about...

RTOG SKA means, look, it's difficult. And remember, he compared it to seeing emptiness. It's on the level of difficulty of seeing emptiness.

It's difficult to think. Where did I come from? DE LA DANG PO RIGS PA THA'I RIGS PA'I YA THA THUG MED DU BSGOS PAS This RIGS PA, in fact, I corrected it and then I uncorrected it.

This RIGS PA does mean your mind stream. It doesn't mean logic or clear thinking. That's RIGS PA.

RIGS PA'I YA THA THUG MED DU BSGOS You must prove, BSGOS means you must prove that your mind has had no beginning. You cannot point to a beginning. YA THA THUG MED means that you never will hit a beginning point.

THA, YA THA means if you go looking for the first moment of awareness, the first moment of Michael's awareness in history, you will never find it. And again, look at this lady's face. And it's something we're supposed to think about.

And it's difficult. It's just hard. And what I've learned in a long life is that when things are hard to understand, then you have to stop and you have to try to understand.

You have to stop. I study scriptures a lot and I work very, very hard on them. And I just, over many years time, I got into a habit that my teacher taught me and you just stop and you figure it out and you don't skip it and you don't go ahead.

And if it takes you three days to figure it out, then you spend three days on it because it's important. DE RING GI SEMS DE, KHA SANG GI SEMS PA'I RGYUN YIN ZHING DE RING GI SEMS means your mind of today. KHA SANG GI SEMS means your mind of yesterday.

RGYUN means is the flow. Your present thoughts are the flow or the stream of yesterday's thoughts continuing. DE YANG KHA SNYING GI RGYUN YIN PA NAS GSUNGS And yesterday's thoughts are KHA SNYING, KHA SNYING means KHE SNYING PA in colloquial Tibetan means the day before yesterday.

So yesterday's thoughts are the continuation of the flow of the thoughts of the day before. YIN PA NAS GSUNGS NAS GSUNGS means and you can track it back. You can track it back.

MA YIN NGEL NAS SKYE MA THAG PA'I SEMS You can go back to the state of mind you had just after you came out of your mother's womb. NGEL NAS SKYE Don't forget in Buddhism, there's two kinds of birth. SKYE One is NGEL NAS SKYE which is here when you actually come out of your mother's womb.

But technically in Buddhism, the moment of conception is the beginning of this rebirth. SKYE MA THAG PA'I SEMS So if you go back to the state of mind you had on the day that you came out of your mom in the hospital, SKYE KHA MA RGYUN YIN ZHING That's what your mind today can be traced back to the state of mind you had. SKYE KHA MA means just after you were born, at the moment of birth.

But NGEL DU ZHUGS MA THAG PA'I SEMS DE But you can also track that back to the mind you had. This ZHUGS is the past tense of ZHUGS, which means when you entered your mom's womb. So the state of mind that you had on the day you came out of your mom in the hospital is really the continuation of the flow of the mind which entered your mother's womb nine months and 10 days before.

SKYE MA THAG PA'I SEMS DE ZHUGS KHA MA RGYUN YIN PA'I PHYIR So you can trace your mind back to... All scientists would agree. All Westerners would agree that you can trace your stream of mind back to the moment after you entered the womb.

Now, if you existed before that, that's a debate. But nobody would say you cannot trace this consciousness back to the womb. All right.

KHOR BA LA THOG MA'I MTHA' MED PA'I SEMS RGYUD MGO MTSAMS PA'I RTE'O ZHES PA KHOR BA LA THOG MA'I MTHA' MED PA'I means THOG MA means beginning. MTHA' means front end. So the front end of your lives, of your rebirth, MTHA' MED.

You can't point to a certain point at which you started. Where your lifetimes in this circle started. The name for this life is samsara, which means a circle.

And it means that as soon as you finish one life, you're picking up on another life, and then you pick up on another life, and it's a circle. MGO MTSAMS PA'I RTE'O This MGO is spelled AUNG GA NA RUNG GO which doesn't mean head. If it's AUNG GA NA RUNG GO, M-G-O, it means head.

This MGO means to begin. So MGO MTSAMS PA'I means you cannot point to a certain point in time, in history, and say, that was the beginning of my mind. ZHIG GANG DO'ANG MI NYES PAS You won't be able to find it.

By the way, this find is the same verb that we use when you go looking for an object which is not coming from you. When you talk about two husbands in the kitchen, and you try to find a husband that's not coming from you, that's called NYES, same verb. You can attempt to locate.

It's called NYES. You can go looking for a husband who's not coming from you, but you won't find it. And you can go looking for a first moment of your awareness, of your consciousness, but you won't find it.

RANG GI SKYE BA LA'ANG THOB PA'I THA MA'I Therefore, because there's no beginning point of the river of your mind, therefore, there's no first birth that you ever had. Because if there's no beginning point of the river or the flow of your mind, then there's no first birth either. THA MA'I PA'I GRUB LA This is an old argument which I've described to you many times, but you know, I was brought up in school.

When I was taught in school, we were taught that things should have a beginning. And then they teach us Big Bang, right? But if you think careful about it, the idea of a first beginning is illogical.

It's not logical. And it's comfortable to us because we grew up with it. Oftentimes, when you teach people that samsara has no beginning, it feels uncomfortable to them if they learn something else in school when they're a kid.

But if you say, look, you're not a kid anymore. Now you're grown up. Now you have to think for yourself.

Does it make sense that everything has a cause except the first thing of everything? That doesn't make sense. Come on.

Once you grow up, you have to give up this idea that a beginning is more logical because it's not more logical. It's illogical. It's illogical that something which goes on in a flow for 68 years should have a beginning where it didn't have a flow.

That doesn't make sense. THOB MED THAMS MED PAR GRUB LA You can prove that there's no beginning to the flow of your mind. DE GRUB PA'I SKYE BA GRANGS KYIS MI CHOD PAR ZHIG YOD PAR GRUB PA'I And if you prove that the flow or the river of your thoughts or your awareness never had a beginning, then by implication, you prove that you have never had a first birth.

You have never had a first rebirth. GRUB PA'I SKYE BA LA YA THAMS MED Therefore, there is no beginning point to the process of you being born, die born, die born, die born, die born. There's no beginning to that.

I like this image. I was trying to... My job, part of my job when I prepare for a Lam Rim teaching is to find pictures or images that can help you remember the ideas.

And again, these are idims, idea images, and it's good for you. Traditionally in the Lam Rim, you're supposed to review three times, right? Right after you get home, after you listen to this, you're supposed to close your eyes and review everything.

Then that evening you're supposed to review again. And then the next morning you're supposed to review again. And I'm trying to find photographs or images that will help you review.

So an easy way to review the Lam Rim, which you're supposed to do if you want it to affect your mind, a great thing to do is to go through the pictures that I'm showing you. When you finish the class, right after you finish the class, go through the pictures. Do you remember what that picture represents?

Paul, what's the picture of the lady going like this represent? Or Gyelse, Venerable Gyelse. Why is she, that was the first picture today.

Yeah, she's like, she's trying to figure it out. Did I have a past life or did I have a past life? And don't say you figured it out easily because if you did, you didn't.

It's difficult. It's really, really, really hard. So when you see that picture, I want you to think about that.

Now, the picture I'm talking about now is this, I don't know, it's an ocean or something with an Ouroboros, Ouroboros. I don't know how to pronounce it, Ouroboros. Yeah, I like these two images.

I put these two images together. That snake eating its tail is called, I don't know how to pronounce it, Ouroboros? Ouroboros?

Okay, and it represents a cycle that continues upon itself. A circle, an ending which becomes a beginning. Can you keep the image up?

I'm going to talk about it. Yeah, good. Thank you, Pachi.

So I'm thinking of the water in the lake, how it sits in the lake and then it evaporates and then it becomes a cloud and then the cloud runs around and then the cloud turns into rain. The rain falls on the lake and it's a cycle similar to the snake that's eating its tail. By the way, I like languages and I looked up, what's the root of Ouroboros?

[Говорящий 2]
Ouroboros.

[Говорящий 1]
Ouroboros, okay. And it's very interesting. Sorry, boros means to eat.

And it's got a lot of roots in Russian. Baritsa means to fight with a sword. And boros comes from that because it's a sword fighter.

So baritsa means to fight with swords and chop up things. And then uru comes from urs, which became arse, which means your ass. I thought it was so cute.

So arse eater, arse chopper. Arse chopper with your teeth means the snake that eats its own tail. And I think it's a nice Irish image for things that perpetuate themselves, self-perpetuating cycles.

And I think it's a perfect picture. In the way that rain becomes lakes, lakes become clouds, and clouds become rain. DE NA SEMS DI'I AA MA YOD PAR BZHIN DU TSE SNGA MA'I MYAL SKYES DANG SGONG KHYAD NYID DE NA, therefore, SEMS DI'I AA MA There's a joke when I was trying to get into a Tibetan class when I first started Tibetan.

The teacher wanted me to be in the class, but there was this administrator to the college that didn't want me to be in the class. And so they agreed that they would test me with some Tibetan words to see if I could get in the class. And so I went into the test.

I was really nervous because I knew like five words. And the guy who wanted me in the class, he said, okay, what is AA MA and AA PA mean? And I said, mm, mom and dad?

He said, correct, you're in the class. The other guy was really irritated. Again, DE NA, AA MA YOD PAR BZHIN DU means, look, you had an AA MA, you had a mom in this life.

TSE SNGA MA'I MYAL SKYES DANG SGONG KHYAD Now he says, okay, $50 question for the advanced students in the room. He says, with reference to birth from a womb and to birth from an egg. Okay.

Why does he say that? With reference to birth from the womb and birth from an egg. Yeah, good.

Yeah, how many kinds of births are there in total? Four, okay. And okay, according to Buddhism.

And by the way, this is one of the first teachings of the Buddha and it's considered a big part of the first turning of the wheel. That there's four ways to take birth. What's the other two?

Yeah, THOS SHER LAS SKYE BA which means when mosquitoes are born from warm water and... Yeah, warm water, THOS SHER. Because they didn't know there were eggs in there.

They were too small to see. And what's the other one? Yeah, RDZUS TE SKYE You're born in a lotus or like Patanjali.

He's born in his mother's hands. Okay. So it's interesting that Pabongka is a great debater.

Although he was a very gentle person and a very kind teacher, he wasn't this kind of arrogant debater type. But he's covering his ass. He said, by the way, with reference to two kinds of birth.

SKABS KYI AA MA RE DGOS PAS You got to have AA MA RE. RE means each. Okay.

For each birth, there has to be a mom. Each birth has to have a corresponding mother. So the RE is very important here.

DGOS PAS You got to have BSTAN PA'I SKYE BA GCIG LENG PA LA Therefore, if you have one birth, which is one of those two kinds, from the womb or from the eggs, you got to have one mom each. AA MA GCIG DGOS PAS SHIN DU And by the way, in a debate, if you agree, it's like a chess game. Like the guy's going to set you up.

And in the beginning, he'll look very innocent. He'll move a pawn. And then suddenly you realize he trapped you already with the first two moves or three moves.

And so in a debate, you're like, okay, if you're born from a womb, each birth needs a mom, right? So just one each, right? And then you're already committed to countless moms.

One, just one each, right? Yeah, okay, one each. I don't have a problem with that.

SKYE BA RGYA LENG PA NA If you take a hundred births, then you got to have MA RGYA. What's that mean? You got to have a hundred mothers.

A hundred births, a hundred mothers. Hey, you agreed, one to one. SDONG LENG PA NA MA STONG Yeah, if you take a thousand rebirths, then you got a thousand moms, okay?

Therefore, GRANGS MED DGOS It must be... You know this GRANGS from Sankhya. GRANGS CAN PA The count must be countless.

SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS MA MA BYAS PA'I THABS MED Double negative. The first MA is mom. Now there's two negatives.

What's that mean? Say MA MA BYAS PA'I THABS MED MA MA MED MA MA MED There's nobody who hasn't been your mom. MA MA BYAS PA'I THABS MED There's no way anyone has not been your mom.

You agreed, one to one. One birth, one mom. Okay, countless births, countless moms.

Therefore, everyone's been your mom. I like this picture. I call it, it's just the odds.

I found this photo, I like it. It's the numbers coming out of this guy's hand. And it's just math, okay?

Do you agree that to have one... Do you agree that to be born once, you have to have a mom? Yes, I agree.

Okay, then you agree to countless moms. Everyone's been your mother, okay? It's just mathematics.

It's not Buddhism. It's math, okay? All right, DE LA DI LTAR AA MA MANG DU DGOS MOD SEMS CAN NI THA YAS PA'I DE THAMS CAD NI AA MA BYANG MI NO BZHIN NA Now, Pabongka starts to present the natural objections that come up in your mind to these ideas.

So, the minute I say, is there one mom required for each birth? Yes. Have you had countless births?

Yes. Well, then do you have countless moms? No.

And then you say, well, but you have to. And you say, no, no. Geshe-la, the Buddhism says many times that living beings are countless.

Living beings are countless. So, okay, I understand. One-on-one, I understand.

But how many for countless? Living beings are countless. So how can everyone be my mom?

All right. PHYIR RANG GI SKYE BA MANG BAR MA ZAD GYI BYED RA Then he gets... Instead of answering the question, he kills the guy with more information.

He goes deeper. He says, look, forget your question. Let's talk about the different kinds of beings.

PHYIR RANG GI MANG BAR MA ZAD Look, okay, you've had lots of moms. You want to say not countless? I don't care.

That's all right. But BYED RAG Here's BYI BYED RAG, right? At the beginning of the sentence is BYI with a R.

And then BYED RAG. So BYI means generally speaking, yeah, you had lots of moms. But more particularly, let's talk about wild animals.

RIGS BDAG means wild animals. Animals of the wild, of the wilderness. For example, SHA BA means a deer, and GO BA means an antelope.

And BU ZIN means bugs, insects, ants, grasshoppers. BU ZIN, SOGS RE NANG GI LUS BLANGS PA'ANG JANG MED CING The number of times you have put on a grasshopper body are countless. How do you say grasshopper in Spanish?

I'm curious. SELTAMONTE Huh? SELTAMONTE SELTAMONTE?

Oh, cool. What's SELTA?

[Говорящий 2]
Jump.

[Говорящий 1]
Jump, mountain jumper? SELTAMONTE Okay, cool. SELTAMONTE So you have been a SELTAMONTE.

LUS BLANGS PA'ANG JANG MED The times you have been just a grasshopper, not other being, just a grasshopper, is also countless. Forget the human rebirth. The times you have been a grasshopper has been countless.

SELTAMONTE DE LTAR SEMS CAN GYI RIGS BYANG MED PA And the different types of beings are countless. The different species of beings are countless. Therefore, SEMS CAN GYI RIGS MED PA RE RE'ANG Among those countless species, you have taken countless births in each one of the countless species.

So how many births is that, please? Countless times countless. MED PA DRAG MED PA LAM PA'I PHYIR SEMS CAN LAS KYANG DRAG MANG BA'I SKYE BA SLANGS NA Therefore, you have taken more births than the number of living beings in the universe.

Because they are just stuck in one form of life now. But you have to multiply that times countless. So don't tell me, Geshe-la, there's countless beings in the universe.

I agree. But don't forget, each countless being had countless rebirths as a grasshopper. That's countless times countless times countless.

So don't tell me they haven't been your mom. Okay, it's kind of cool. All right.

DE'I TSE NA AA MA'ANG GRANGS DE MTSON DGOS PAS And each time you were born as a grasshopper, we got a bug here. We got a worm here. You got a worm?

Picture of a worm? I think so. I'm thinking about worms because it's springtime.

I'm working in my garden. I'm trying not to hurt the worms. They say they survive if you cut them.

Each half survives, becomes a worm. But I just keep thinking about, would I like to be cut in half? And it's no.

So I try to help them. And then you've had countless rebirths just as a worm. You've had countless rebirths just as a worm.

SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS AA MA BYAS PA TZAM MA ZAD Not only has every living being been your mother, but they have been your mother countless times in each of the countless forms of life. So everybody has been your mother as a worm countless times. And then multiply that times how many different life forms are there.

And that's how many moms you've had. YIN NO Then he quotes a very beautiful book by Nagarjuna. It's one of the two books I'm thinking to give a friend of mine because it's an extremely valuable book.

And it's probably the first Lam Rim, which is SHES SPRING, letter to a friend. SU HUR LEGS PA Which is really SU HUR DE LEGS PA and the D changes to L. So SU HUR means good heart.

And LEGS PA means an epistle, which comes from RIGS PA, which means to scratch something. So anyway, SHES SPRING means letter to a friend. Nagarjuna wrote a letter to a king named Udayabhadra, if I'm not mistaken.

And that would be a great text to translate. MA YI THUG MTHA' RGYA SHUGS TSIG RGYU TZAM MA YI THUG MTHA' RGYA SHUGS TSIG RGYU TZAM MA YI THUG MTHA' means establishing the ultimate number of moms you've had could be illustrated by RGYA SHUGS TSIG RGYU. RGYA SHUGS means a juniper tree.

And we have tens of thousands around here, which I like, I like them. I think they're beautiful. And they give everybody allergies.

TSIG RGYU means a small ball that you make. Like a small ball of, like if you take some mud and you make a tiny ball out of it, that's called a TSIG RGYU. So SHES SOGS KYI NGOS BSTAN MA YI MA DE MA LA SOGS PA BYA YANG Let's apply that statement from Nagarjuna.

And that statement by Nagarjuna is if you sit and you make, if you sit on the ground like a kid on a rainy day and you make little balls of mud the size of a juniper berry, how long would it take to run out of planet? All right, how long would it take to run out of the planet? And Pabongka Rinpoche says there's a tradition that you don't count it the way it sounds.

You don't say, oh, this is my mom. And then at the end of the planet, you count up everything. He says, that's not the real point.

The real point is the first ball, the first juniper berry-sized ball of mud is this mom of this life. And then there's the mom of this mom. And then there's the moms of that mom.

And then there's the moms of... So it's exponential. He's saying that's the real teaching because there is an end to the balls of juniper berry-sized balls in the planet.

But there's no end if you go exponential. BYAR GYANG SKABS DIR LAM NAS GSUNGS RGYUN LTAR KA RGYUR NAS If we adjust this statement by Nagarjuna to fit the oral tradition around that statement, GSUNGS RGYUN means oral tradition. KA RGYUR means if we adjust it.

SA CHEN PO DI RGYAL ZHUGS KYI TZIG RGYUD TZAM GYI RIL BOR RGYAL ZHUGS KYI TZIG RGYUD TZAM GYI RIL BOR BYAS If we make tiny balls of mud equal in the size of juniper berries out of the whole planet, SA CHEN PO DI RANG GI TZAM GYIS MA And then we say this one is my mother in this life. And the second ball is my mother in the life before that. And the third ball is the mother I had in the life before the life before.

RIL BOR And if you put those balls, ZHAG means if you put them in a pile, RDZOGS TE You would reach an end, right? The planet would, the dirt in the planet would run out. But MA YI TZAM GYI RGYAL STONG GI CHA YANG MIN DRO BA'I RGYAL CHA STONG CHA means one one-hundredth or one one-thousandth MIN DRO.

It wouldn't represent a tenth of one percent of your mothers you've had. You would run out of planet and you wouldn't reach point zero zero one of the mothers you've had. Therefore, SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS MA MA BYAS NA MIN DANG BA DANG BA means to be sufficient.

DANG BA means DANG GI BDUG BAS OM MA DANG GI BDUG BAS Do we have enough milk to give all the monks tea? DANG means to be sufficient. And he says, you wouldn't have enough balls to represent all the mothers.

You would run out. It wouldn't... SEMS CAN KUN GYIS MA DANG MED RE MA BYAS NA MI DANG BA Unless every living being in the universe has been your mother countless times, the math doesn't work out.

The math doesn't work out. The math is weird. Unless every living being has been your mother, not once, but countless times.

All right, SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS RANG GI MA BYAS ZHING RE RE BSKYENG MANG DU BYAS TE SEMS CAN DI LUS MA LANGS BYA BA MED LAM PA LA GRANGS KYIS MI CHOS TSUL BSAM SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS RANG GI MA BYAS You got to be... So Tim, in this Lam Rim section, you have to be careful with the math because generally they mean not. But here they mean mom.

But some of them mean not. So you got to be careful. So here, SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS RANG GI MA BYAS Every living being has been your mother.

RE RE BSKYENG MANG DU BYAS TE And each one has been your mom countless times. SEMS CAN DI LUS MA LANGS BYA BA MED You cannot say there is a body of a life form that you have not taken. There's no life forms body which you have not lived in.

You have dressed in the body of every kind of insect, every kind of whale, every kind of bird, every kind of bacteria, every kind of COVID virus. You have been. LANGS BYA BA MED LAM PA LA GRANGS KYIS MI CHOS TSUL BSAM And there's no number.

There's no count of how many times you took on each of the different bodies. DE YANG MI KHYER BA LAM PA LTA BUR TSOS NA Then he says, you want to get deeper? You guys want to go deeper?

He says, okay, you've been every kind of bug countless times and there's not enough mothers to be your mother for those bugs unless it's been everybody in the universe. The math doesn't work out. Moreover, DE YANG, moreover.

Let's just talk about the times you were born as a human. MI KHYER BA LAM PA LTA BUR TSOS NA LING DI SA SBYOR BDE MA SKYE BYA BA MED You cannot point to a square meter on this planet that you have not been born in that square meter. You cannot point to a square meter in any country on the earth of this world where you have not been born.

You cannot point to one. SKYE BA LA MED SKYE PA LA GRANGS KYIS MI CHOS And in fact, I don't know, pick a place in Guadalajara. We talked about all those neighborhoods, right?

So the corner of the street that Allah lives on, that meter, you have been born there countless times. You have been born in that square meter of this planet countless times. SKYE BA LA GRANGS KYIS MI CHOS DE BZHIN DU ZHAR LHO NUS BYANG East, south, west, north.

I don't care what directions. I don't care what country. Forget countries.

There's not a square inch where you haven't been born before. Countless times. And by the way, okay, this world only lasted, I don't know, five billion years or something.

It doesn't matter. He's talking about the dirt that you were born on. You've been born on that dirt countless times.

And that dirt has wandered around to different planets countless times. GCIG RTEN RE RE LANG GRANGS MED PA The worlds you have been born on are countless. RE RLANGS PA'I SEMS CAN LAS KYANG MA BA'I PHYIR The number of planets you've been born on countless times exceeds the countless number of beings.

Therefore, you have been everybody's kid countless times. All right. I made this little picture.

You guys ready? Yeah, I like this cute little picture of our world. Somehow I got it with animals on it, which is cute.

And then I like to read science fiction. I'm reading a science fiction book right now about a trip to Sirius, which is my next trip. It's a star that's not too far away.

Blue star. Anyway, it's Piero, right? It's the dog.

So I tried to put the stars. Imagine that this world is located at each star. And then imagine that you have been born in every corner of every planet, in every square meter of every planet.

MA BYAS PA MA ZAD MI'I BRTEN LA AA MA MA BYAS PA'ANG MED PAS Not only has everyone been your mother, everyone's been your mother just in your human rebirth. Therefore, SEMS CAN THAMS CAD AA MA CI'I KYANG YIN MNYAM DU BSAM So it doesn't matter. AA MA CI'I KYANG YIN It doesn't matter what they are now.

Insect, virus, elephant, it doesn't matter. MNYAM DU BSAM Think about it. Just think about it.

DE LTAR BSAMS KYANG MA RKYED NA Then it's interesting. He says, DE LTAR BSAMS KYANG MA RKYED NA means, look, if you do all this logical flow I've been teaching you about mothers, and you don't get it. MA RKYED NA, it's cute.

He says, okay, everything I taught you today, forget it. If you don't get it, you don't get it. What the heck?

MA RKYED NA I got another approach. I got another choice. RANG LA MA BRTEN NAS MED DAMS ZER NA Then you draw up your hands and you say, oh, god damn.

I'm starting to doubt whether I even had a mother in this life. Not only you don't get what I'm trying to tell you, but you start to doubt your own mother in this life. MA RKYED NA SKYE BA'I DI MA SNGON GSUM DU YOD NYAMS PA'ONG BA'I He says, go back to your mom in this life.

You don't get all this logic. It's too complicated for you. It's giving you a headache.

It's too convoluted. Okay, let's go back to basics. Just go back to your mom in this life.

You had a mom in this life, right? You can picture her. Maybe she's still alive.

Let's just go back to there. When this meditation gets too much for you, touchstone, go back to the touchstone. Go back to your mom in this life.

You can remember her face. You can remember beautiful things she did for you. Just let's take it back to your mom in this life.

YOD NYAMS PA'ONG BA'I DE SKYE BA'I DE'I SNGA MA SOGS KYI MA LA BYAR TE SPOGS CHOG BYA Then focus on her having been the mom in your previous life. So don't try to see all living beings have been your mom. You already have an attachment to your mom in this life.

So ride that attachment. Forget all the other living beings. Forget all the grasshoppers.

Your mom in this life. MANTIS RANG NYID DANG SALTO MANTIS If it's too much for you, just take your mom in this life and imagine that maybe in a past life she was also your mom. You can do that.

That's not so hard. BYAR TE SPOGS CHOG BYA SPOGS here, the word SPOGS means BYAS SPOGS MTSAN MA which means deduction. This is the verb and it's very unusual.

So SPOGS means use your logic. Use your logic, but don't go to all the insects and whales and elephants. Just go to this mom and she was your mom before.

Can you handle that? Yeah, I can handle that. I love the next sentence and it means a lot to me.

And we're going to close with that sentence. MAR SHES BSGOMS SOS DI DAG Now this method of meditating on MAR SHES, what's MAR SHES? Yeah, realize.

SHES means realize everyone's been your mom. MAR SHES BSGOMS SOS DI DAG Okay, this whole thing I taught you in the last two days about seeing that people have been your mom. It's only presented briefly in the classical lamrims.

And he mentions two of them. DE LAM, Path to Bliss, which Venerable Gyatso was written by?

[Говорящий 2]
I'm sorry, what was it?

[Говорящий 1]
Never mind. Okay, first Penchen Lama. First Penchen Lama, 1565-1662, Penchen Losang Chukgyi Gyatso, which is part of the Diamond Mountain Advanced Course for ACI.

The first three courses, right? That lamrim. And then there's a commentary.

There's a lamrim which is like a commentary to it. Pabongka Rinpoche says like a commentary to it by His Holiness, the second Penchen Lama, who's Losang Yeshe called Nyorlang, which means quick path, quick path. So he says, look, if you go to those two classical lamrims, you won't find all these arguments that I gave you.

They just give a very brief presentation. Everyone's been your mother, it's logical. And they go on.

He says, so where did this explanation come from? ,BDAG GIS, LAM MED DON DU DKA' BA BYAS PA'I LANG BYAS, I spent a blank load of hours learning this from my teacher. And DKA' BA BYAS PA means, and I worked my ass off.

It was hard. DKA' BA BYAS PA means, I worked my ass off learning this from my Lamas for year after year after year after year. LANG BYAS means, this is just the footprint of that effort.

The presentation you heard in the last two sessions is just the shadow or the sign of the thousands of hours I spent learning this stuff and trying to understand this stuff. That's just the mere shadow of the effort I put in. DKA' BA BYAS means put in.

Effort. ,MED NA LTAR GYI SA BYAS DI RGYAS SU LTANG BA YIN PAS, I've written this presentation. SA BYAS DI means this presentation or this outline of the logic for how many moms you've had.

RGYAS SU LTANG BA YIN PAS I expanded on it based on the thousands of hours I spent learning it from great teachers. And I worked hard. And I'm offering it to you.

Like free. ,RGYUN DU NYAMS NA'I ZAD KYI'I DANG, If you're a person who's keeping up their Buddhist practice pretty steadily, if you're the kind of person who's responsible about their practice, okay, look, nobody's perfect. You're not keeping your six times book.

You're meditating, but you're not keeping your six times book. Or you're doing yoga, but you're not meditating. Or you're, come on, when can we do all those things?

But it says if you're a pretty steady practitioner, or BSTAN PA'I GUR ZHIG PA This GUR we discussed in the Abhidharma class recently because it was on an elephant and it related to the 84,000 heaps of dharma. GUR means a load that you put on an animal. So sometimes the number of teachings given by Lord Buddha is defined as the number of small books you could load on an elephant the size of this building, which is 84,000.

Anyway, that's GUR. Here, BSTAN PA'I GUR ZHIG PA Are you the kind of person who is going to take responsibility to keep these teachings alive? Are you going to be an A-L-L gold club?

I don't know what they call it in Mexico. CLUB DE ORO Yeah, gold club, CLUB DE ORO. Are you going to be the kind of person who takes responsibility to make these teachings survive on this planet?

Are you going to join all those gold clubs and jade clubs and club clubs? And if you're the kind of person who keeps up a decent practice, okay, not perfect. And if you're the kind of person who says, I'm going to make sure these teachings stay on this planet, I take responsibility.

I will raise money, Guadalajara. It's tough in Guadalajara. It's not like New York.

So I take responsibility. If you're that kind of person, Charlotte, I charge you. I give you the responsibility.

Don't let this teaching get lost. I worked hard to learn this from my teachers. And I give you responsibility to don't let this mom teaching get lost in the world.

It's very beautiful. He's like, please, please. I worked so hard to get it straight.

Please keep it. Take care of it. This Lama will go, that Lama will go.

But each generation has to say, yeah, okay, I'll keep this mom logic. I'll be the mom logic keeper. The Gold Club of Guadalajara will be the mom logic keeper.

I take responsibility. SKYES BYAS BA YIN means, that's a big deal. That's a big deal if you guys can do it.

Keep this teaching, this precious teaching. Keep it well because... Then I like the picture.

We can close on the picture of taking care. I don't know, me and Pachi are working on this carbon sequestering, hey, I remembered the word, program. And it's a big, big thing now.

It's in all the newspapers now, suddenly. I never saw sequester before. Now it's everywhere.

And can we take care of these plants which will store that knowledge? And that's our responsibility. And so Pabongka Rinpoche is begging us, please take responsibility to take care of this mom logic teaching.

So you guys please also take responsibility and we'll see you in the next class.