«Дар освобождения», курс 38 «Становясь бодхисаттвой: шаги к порождению желания достичь просветления», занятие 9

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, welcome back to the Lam Rim. And you're probably wondering, what is this sewer, the tops to the sewer? And I don't know, maybe I told you this story before, but once you get older, you like to tell stories more.

And also you forget which story you told people and you didn't tell people. So I apologize if I told you this story before. But, you know, I used to go to Mongolia a lot to work in the different libraries there, which have hundreds of thousands of great Buddhist books.

One of the greatest, some of the greatest Buddhist libraries in the world. And so I remember one night, we were coming home from the library, we were walking to the hotel and it was dark and they didn't have a lot of street lights. And I could see in front of us on the street, there was something moving, and I looked closer and there's this sewer lid, and it was opening.

And there was a small animal coming out of the sewer in the dark, dark night. And then the animal came out and the sewer lid fell down. And then this animal rushed past me and almost touched me.

And then I said, oh, and I asked my friend, my Mongolian friend, I said, what kind of animal is that? Is a wolf is living in the sewer or something? And they can open the sewer?

And he said, no, no, no, that's not a wolf. That's a kid. That's a human kid.

And I'm like, what? And he said, yeah, that's a kid. That's a wild kid.

We call them wild kids. And I said, what's a wild kid? And he said, well, if your parents die in Mongolia, and if you don't have any other family, you don't have money, then you will live in the sewer.

You can live in the sewer. I said, why they live in the sewer, in the stinky sewer? And they say, it's cold here, Geshe-la.

The sewer is warm. The sewer has shelter. The snow, you're not going to sit in the snow.

And the poopoo makes the sewer warm. And it's a warm place to stay. So the kids will stay there.

And I said, well, what? But that didn't look like a kid. That looked like a wolf or something.

He said, yeah, they are wild. They are really wild. And he said, don't get close to them.

They will bite you. I'm like, what? And he said, yeah, those are wild kids.

They cannot talk. They cannot speak. They didn't have parents.

And no one taught them to live like a human. So they are living like a wolf. They are living like an animal.

And if you get close to them, they will bite you. And they are like wild animals. And they don't talk.

And they steal things from people. In fact, one of our staff members had their bag stolen by one of these wild kids. And I was like, wow, that's so strange.

And then I started to think, I would be like that if my mom didn't train me. If my mom didn't teach me how to talk, how to eat, how to put on clothes, then I would be one of these naked children running around and biting tourists in Mongolia. I would be the same.

I'm not special. I'm not different from them. And that's what Pabongka Rinpoche is going to say next.

So, DER MA ZAD means not only did she take care of us and watch over us, that we talked about in the last session. Hundreds of times a day she saved our life. GANG PA RDZUGS PA TSUN CHEN She taught us to take our first steps.

And I remember, it's so funny, I remember Halloween night and my mom, or my dad is teaching me how to chew gum and how to blow a bubble. And they were so excited. My mom and dad, look, he's blowing a bubble.

And I was like, and they teach you everything. They teach you how to take your first steps. STAM MA BA means they teach you how to say your first words.

And I remember my parents being really happy when I learned a new word or something. SA STANG, how to eat with a fork and a spoon and not to eat with, or chopsticks and don't eat with your fingers. But your parents taught you that.

Even those, forget university, forget reading Cervantes or Shakespeare, just to eat without your fingers. They taught you everything. TSUN means everything from that up.

TSUN NAS, RIM BZHIN, here's the rim in Lam Rim, which means one by one, they taught you how to step, how to talk. BSLAB PAS, they taught you. THANG DAG GRO DUG DANG, STAM MA BA SOGS LA THOB PA MED PA'I DI BYUNG And that's why nowadays you and I can stand up and walk or sit down politely.

Or STAM MA BA, we can have a conversation with somebody. THOB PA MED, THOB MED, AS SANGA, AS SANGA. What's it got to do with talking or eating?

It's fluent. We don't have to think about it. You just start talking.

THOB PA MED, AS SANGA. This THOB PA MED means, how do you say that? Without any hesitation.

Yeah, you can just start a conversation. That's all due to them teaching your first words. And the fact that you can THOB PA MED walk downstairs and get in your car is because they taught you how to take your first step.

So don't forget. THAR RANG GI NGUL KHAR TZAM LA'ANG Now they're going to talk about a special subject which is the financial burden that you were for your parents. And it's bad.

It's a lot. I was coming here to the college. I saw a lady driving out of the parking lot.

She had two or three kids in the back and the car was messed up. The car was old and broken. And I feel a little bit offended.

I'm like, why you drive this stupid car? And then I look at the kids and I realize, that's why you drive this stupid car. Because you have kids and you can't afford it.

You're not like me. I can buy a nice car, but she can't. Why?

I think the average cost of a kid in the United States is $30,000 a year. You get three kids in the car, I don't care what kind of job you have. You can't have a new car.

You can have a junky old car. Because that's 90,000 years sitting in the back. That's unbelievable.

And of course, young people don't think about that before they have a baby, but it's expensive. It's extremely expensive. And you can't say, don't eat this week.

Or you can't say, we're going to send you to school without shoes. You don't have a choice. You have to spend that money.

So DNGUL KHA'I GANG TZAM LA'ANG To make a single dollar. DNGUL KHA'I means a single silver piece, piece of silver. She did whatever she had to do.

And I remember, you got that next picture Seiji? Where is that? Yeah, it's the garbage truck.

I remember my mom, I remember what she did to make money. So in my mom's time in America, my dad was not there. My dad, they split up.

And my mom, suddenly she has to make money. And she never made money before. And she didn't know how to make money.

Because this is 1950s, 60s housewife. She's not supposed to work. Then suddenly she has to make money and she's like, oh my God.

And there's two jobs for women at that time. It's a secretary or a school teacher. So she decided to be a school teacher.

And the pay is less than a garbage man. I remember one day, we're complaining, me and the four brothers, we are complaining. Mom, why can't we have the more expensive breakfast cereal?

And she's like, we can't afford it. And we're like, mom, why not? Our friends have expensive breakfast cereals.

She's like, and then the garbage truck came by and she said, look at that guy in the garbage truck. And we're like, yeah? And she says, he makes more than a school teacher in America.

You understand? She said, I'm doing my best. This is the only job I can get.

And I'm struggling for every single dollar. And that's the way it was. DNGUL KHA GANG TZAM LA'ANG SDIG PA And moms will do anything they have to do to make that money, including prostitution or whatever they have to do.

Doing any bad thing, they will do it. For their kids, they will do it. There's many stories in the sutras of mothers who turned to prostitution to support their kids or stuff like that.

A woman will do any kind of degrading and disgusting job if it means that she can give money to her children. And your mom did the same thing and my mom did the same thing. SDIG PA DANG GTAM NGAN She doesn't care what people say about her.

She won't listen to other people's opinion. If she can make a dollar for you, she will make a dollar for you. SDUG BSNGAL KHYAD DU ZE And she doesn't care how hard she has to work.

My mom worked, oh my gosh. She came home from teaching all day and then she had about three hours of work after that to check the papers. She didn't go to bed until midnight or something.

And then she got up in the morning and did it again. And they don't care because they care about you. They don't care about themselves.

I think my mom killed herself working and she did it for you. She doesn't care. She'd work herself to death just for you.

KHYAD DU ZE NAS BSAGS PA'I NOR RANG GI ZHAG LAS PHYIR PAR GSUNGS NAS And then when she gets money, she just thinks about spending it on you. She doesn't think about spending it on herself. I remember in the summer, we went to the ocean.

I said, mom, I need a surfboard. She's like, are you kidding? We don't have any money.

And I'm like, mom, I want a surfboard. And she's like, okay. I don't know where she took the money from buying her own clothes for work or something.

And she'd buy a surfboard and I'll never forget it. We didn't have the money, but she took it from someplace and she found it. They will always find the money for their kids.

Okay. PHUS BU MO LA KHYIMS SBOGS PA Then later, and this is very common all over the world. Someone told me yesterday, what was it?

Oh, yeah. It's a good friend of ours. He's already planning for his son's house.

His son is two months old. He's like, yeah, we're going to buy a house. We're going to buy him a house.

We're going to get a mortgage. We're going to take care of the mortgage. He's going to have a house.

When he gets to 30, we'll give him the house. I'm like, oh my God, the kid was born two months ago and the parents are already planning the mortgage just for the kid, just to give the house to the kid. Okay.

So your mom, KHYIMS SBOGS PA means they set you up with your own house for your own family. SNGA MA'I RDZANGS PA means for girl children in Tibet, they arranged for your husband. They got you married to a good one, like my wife.

RAB TU CHUNG BA'I GOR CHUG Or they took you to the monastery and made you into a monk or a nun. In Tibet, it was one out of six people was ordained. A million people were ordained by the time of the Cultural Revolution.

RANG LA GOS KA GANG YOD PA'I DKA' DRIN GYIS BSKYENG They took whatever money they had and they spent it on you. So try to... I know in the modern world, there's a lot of people who feel like their parents let them down.

They didn't treat them nice. Their parents were... Why do you think your parents were fighting?

They were stressed out. Why? Because they're trying to make money for you.

Yeah, they fought. Yeah, they drank alcohol. Yeah, they smoked cigarettes.

Because they were exhausted taking care of you. So don't be so righteous about your parents. If they were tired and grumpy and fighting and drinking, it's because of you.

So if you don't have anything to feel bad about, you can feel bad about them. All right. DOR NA RANG GI ZHES TSE DANG NUS TSE Your mom used every ounce of her brains and every ounce of her physical energy to find food and housing for you.

That was her thing. She didn't do anything else. Most of her time was spent trying to find these things for you.

TSE DANG NUS TSE GYI PHAN DE GANG YIN BAS PA'I GRUB She just struggled to do that. GNAS PA DANG SDUG BSNGAL ZER BAR BYAS PA SOGS KYI DKA' DRIN ZER And on the other hand, she's trying constantly to protect you from yourself. Don't take those drugs.

I don't know. Did you have this lecture from your mom? Look, you can have a girlfriend.

Okay, you can have sex, but please learn about birth control. And she tried to protect you from yourself. Like with the drug, my mom would say about drugs, she'd say, look, no, you can't hurt yourself.

I don't want you to hurt yourself. So anyway, DE BZHIN DU PA SOGS SEMS CAN GZHAN THAMS CAD KYIS KYANG DRIN GYIS KYANG Then there are other people in your life. Your father did a lot.

Your uncles and aunts, your grandparents, your school teachers. Start to expand the awareness of how many people took care of you and tried to keep you out of trouble. KYANG PAR BRDAN DANG DE LTAR SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYIS MI BRTEN LA RAG GI MA BYAS PA GCIG PO'ANG DRANG GI MI CHOD Even if you don't count all the times that you were in a different body, like a bird or a fish, even just in your human bodies, your human mom and your human dad took care of you countless times.

And they purposely and voluntarily took on the struggle to support you. And of course, it's an emotional struggle. Of course, it's a physical struggle.

But it's a financial struggle also. And they decided to do it. They decided to have a baby, mostly.

DE TSE YANG THA DE MA BZHIN DRIN GYIS KYANG And even THA DE MA BZHIN, in those past lives, your present mother did the same thing. My mom, who struggled in this life to make money for me in this life, also struggled to make money for me in my past lives. DE BZHIN DU SBYOR BZHIN GYIS MA BYAS SKABS KYANG RIGS DAG Then you can start going, expanding the circle of your gratitude to the times when this same woman took care of you in a different body, like a horse, or like a deer or something.

So now, recognizing that in a human body, she struggled for the money for you in a human body countless times. Let's start going to the other bodies in which she did the same for you. And Pabongka Rinpoche takes the example of a wild animal, like a deer.

In that wild animal's body, DE MAR BYAS TE She served as your mom. BYAMS PA'I LAS THA NA'ANG And she showed you the same kind of love that the human mothers did. THA NA'ANG, even down to, BYAS BDAG PA means to lick your body with her tongue.

And we have a picture of that, I think. I was looking for a picture of a cow licking her calf, but I ran into this camel picture. And it was kind of more powerful.

So this little camel was just born. And the mom is licking the liquids off of the baby just after birth. She has this instinct.

And so try to think of how many millions of times your mom licked the afterbirth off of you as an animal. BDAG GSOS BYAS KYI BYAMS PA KYANG And that was the beginning of her career of affection for you for a whole lifetime as a camel, for example. BYA LTA BU'I MA BYAS SKABS Let's discuss times when your mom took care of you as a bird.

You were a baby bird and she was a mama bird. MA BYAS SKABS KYANG LTA BA GCIG TZAM ZHOG PA'I RUNG She spent a month keeping you warm, both as an egg and as a chick. So in the nest, she laid there with her wings purposely covering the egg even before you were born.

Then after you were born. RUNG here means like, what do you call that inner fire? DUM NGO, it means DUM NGO.

She kept you warm with her body warmth. Both as an egg and after you came out of the egg. MI YUL PA SOGS KYI And I remember this.

So I had a kid who lived next door to us when I was a small kid and he was bad. He was just a bad kid. He was a mean kid.

And he would say, let's go kill birds. And I went with him once and he would take a small gun, BB gun or something like that. And he would go find nests and he would shoot the bird.

And if the bird had kids in the nest, she will not fly. She will cover the babies and she will die. She will purposely die.

She knows she's going to die, but she will cover the babies and she will wait for the gun. And so that's what he's talking about here. SBYAR BYED PA RNAMS Even if somebody comes up to threaten the bird with a YUL PA, YUL PA here means DUN DA.

This is the Tibetan for DUN DA, YUL PA. If someone comes up with a club and threatens to kill the bird. BDAG CAN NA RANG NYID ZHOG PA YOD PAS BUR NUS The mother herself, RANG NYID, has a ZHOG PA.

She has wings. She can fly away. BUR, but she stays and she covers the baby with her body.

BU LA BYAS NAS Here's the BYAS in RANG CAN GZIN, Tim, in the words, sorry, Sejiste, which is? Self-cherishing. Yeah, self-cherishing.

BU LA BYAS To the child. She has self-cherishing for the child. SOGS KYANG YANG BA'ANG DOR YANG BA'ANG DOR means she will abandon her own life if it means protecting her child.

Even a bird will do that soon. CI NAS BU GCIG LA MA NYID If you both survive long enough and she can't find food and she finds one worm. And here's our picture.

Dun dun dun dun. BU GCIG LA MA NYID means even if she finds a single worm, if she can't find any more than a single worm, RGYUN NAS SOGS PAR BYED She will give it to her child. She will give it to the baby and she will go hungry.

A mother bird will go hungry and she will give the single bug to her kid. What's this SO mean, you guys, you nuns? She will sow the child with the bug.

RAG ZHIG PA RAG ZHIG PA Sustain. And this is the SO and SO SBYONG, which means to fix your vows or sustain your vows. All right.

DE LTAR YANG THANG RE THANG NYID TZAM LIM PAR It's not that your mom did that for you once. It's not that your mom protected you once or twice at the cost of her life. GNAS SKABS THAMS CAD DU DRIN GYIS BSKYANGS PA LA DRANG GIS MI CHOD Every single lifetime that she was your mom, she protected you.

And you cannot count the times that she died for you. All right. MA'I SGO SLOG GI BYAGS PA ZHIG SGO SLOG is a place in East Tibet famous for bandits.

And SGO SLOG, which is a tribal name, it almost means bandit. And BYAGS PA means a bandit. Someone who robs travelers.

That's their specialty. BYAGS PA RTA ZHIG LA GCIG BTAG PA They were having a fight. He stabbed somebody's horse with a big knife.

And RTOG BA LA THEBS TE RTE'U means a baby horse. What do you call? A foal.

SONG BA This is the SONG BA that you see in the monks and nuns vows, which means downfall. SONG BA or SONG BA So what happened to the colt? The foal, SONG BA.

It fell out of the womb. The bandit cut open the stomach of another guy's horse and then a baby foal came out, colt. ZHIG KHA MA means in the throes of death.

While she was dying, the mother horse was licking the baby as she was dying. She was worried that the baby wouldn't be clean or something. So she's dying and she's licking the baby.

RTE'U LA BYAS BDAG There's the same BYAS BDAG we had before. Lick with her tongue. BYAMS PA She had BYAMS PA for the foal.

[Говорящий 2]
She showed her love. MTHONG NAS When the BYAGS PA MTHONGS that, he SPYOD PA DOR BYED SPYOD PA His BYAGS PA'I LAS His career as a bandit. He stopped his career as a bandit.

[Говорящий 1]
He said, God, this is mean. I can't do this anymore. So I guess in Tibet it's a big deal.

I guess it's like a car salesman starting to tell the truth or something. But he's like, I can't do this anymore. He gave up his BYAGS LAS, his bandit career.

SPYOD He gave it up. SPYOD Pabongka Rinpoche loves to tell little stories that he's heard around Tibet. And I think if you're teaching Lam Rim, you should also tell your own stories.

That's part of the tradition. Whatever stories happen in your life that you can use to illustrate the Lam Rim, like the Mongolian wild kid story, then use it. It's okay.

It's good. It makes it more real for your audience. They don't have robbers on horseback to talk about.

I hope. DE'I DUS BSTOD DE RANG YIN LA What if that baby horse was you? What if the baby horse that the Golok bandit chieftain saw getting licked was you?

LTA DE GZHAN DI MIN NGES PA'I PHYI YOD MIN NGES PA'I PHYI YOD means there's no certainty at all that you were not that baby horse. You yourself was not the baby horse that Pabongka Rinpoche is talking about. There's no certainty that you and I were not the baby horse.

And there's no certainty that someone around you now was not the mother dying horse who licked you. There's no certainty that we are not the horses that Pabongka Rinpoche is describing in his story. CI YOD, DE LTAR TSEN GYI MED RANG NA THING GI JI LTAR BSKYANGS PA LTAR So we've established that you and mom struggled to take care of you financially, emotionally, educationally, logistically in this life.

SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYI RGYAL DRIN DE BZHIN DU BSKYANGS PA BSAM You have to contemplate how every other living being has also done the same for you in many lifetimes, in countless lifetimes. It's a sweet meditation to do. It's a sweet practice to do.

Sometimes we feel depressed. I was depressed yesterday. I was sick.

Stuff happens in our life and we feel depressed. We feel kind of sad about life or things aren't going so well. And it's always a nice...

You have the option, if you're a Lam Rim participant, if you've studied Lam Rim or if you've heard Lam Rim, you always have the option to just sit and think about the horse and the baby horse and to think that everybody around you has licked you at their baby horse. And I think you'll find that these Lam Rim meditations will make you very cheerful and grateful to other people. So then the Lam Rim has an immediate effect.

When you're feeling depressed or you feel low self-esteem, just imagine getting licked by everybody in the room when you were a baby horse. And it's true, you were. And try to cheer up a little bit.

I mean, we have all taken care of each other. We have all given up our lives for each other countless times. So life is not so serious and life is not so bad.

Okay, see you in the next Lam Rim.