«Дар освобождения», курс 39 «Ускорь своё сострадание», занятие 14

[Говорящий 1]
Let's go back to Lam Rim. GCIG BSTAN GYIS MI LEGS PA BSTAN Okay, SON NAM LA. Yay.

All right, here we go. We're going to go back to the Lam Rim. What depressing topic were we on?

For no money. Daniel came here and was meditating like for half an hour before class and I said, I think you're trying to remember all the possible questions I might ask. Where are we?

Yeah, yeah, all the bad things that you can trace back to my personal habit of taking care of myself first. We all do. There's nobody in this room, well, unless you're in disguise, there's nobody here who doesn't do that.

We all do that. I do that. GCIG BSTAN MI LEGS PA THAMS CAD GUS KHYEN Now he's getting poetic and he's getting passionate and it sounds like a rap song if you know Tibetan.

GCIG BSTAN THAMS CAD GYIS MI LEGS PA THAMS CAD GUS KHYEN Which means that this is the guy that, this is the delivery boy that brings all the crap in your life. He's getting hot. MI GE'I THAMS CAD GYIS BYUNG KHUNG The ultimate source of all poopy things.

THOG MA'I NAS RANG NYID SDUG BSNGAL LA SBYOR BSKYEN The guy who for time without no beginning has been delivering you to suffering. GUS KHYEN PHUNG BYAS UG PA'I SGO CHEN Here's a picture. Natalia, yeah.

Okay, I don't know why, don't ask me. Oh, actually I looked it up, but Tibetans believe that owls are demons. I guess maybe they're horns.

I don't know. I like owls personally. But they call the owl, the owl, the owl.

It's a bad sign. Born under a bad sun. BYUNG KHYEN UG PA'I SGO CHEN Taking care of yourself first is a real owl.

Okay, that a bad omen that stains your every day. UG SGO CHEN DANG RANG CHEN ZIN RANG CHEN ZIN For a hundred dollars, RANG CHEN ZIN. Damn!

Hundred bucks for the banker. Talk to my treasurer. Don't wait for the last day, I might run out.

Oh. So let's leave early. Okay.

All right. And I went and found an explanation about the owl, but it's not much different. It's just an explanation that in the ancient times, Tibetans thought an owl was a demon.

Okay, all right. DE RANG GI SNYING SOS SU YOD PA LA GUL DANG LTOR MA BRGYAGS NA NI So where is self-cherishing? Yeah, in your own heart.

What's the... If you had a GPS for self-cherishing, it would say, and you said go, it would say, arrived. Okay.

Arrived. And he says, therefore, when you do retreat and you make your tormas, why take them outside? That's very cool.

Torma is a special cake that we put outside to stop spirits from bothering our retreat. He says, leave it inside. That's where the demons are.

GUL DANG LTOR MA BRGYAGS NA NI THOG TU BRGYAGS DGOS PA LAS NGES TSOR THOR BRGYAGS KYI SKABS DRAG AA MA ZHIG YIN ZER NA MA RGAN SANGS CAD KYI BRTEN DU THOR BRGYAGS BYAS PA'ANG KO BLOR BA LAS Yeah, to place your tormas anywhere else is a mistake. Okay. And here's a nice torma photo from Wikipedia.

Okay. And that's a typical, that's kind of a high class torma. It's kind of beyond our capacities here.

And by the way, that kind of torma takes about three days to make. And the trick is to have a bowl of ice and keep the butter in there, and you have to work the butter with your fingers on the ice. And it's really uncomfortable after about an hour.

And they have torma contests in Tibet at the Mun Lam Chenmo. And they get like nine feet high and stuff like that. Okay.

CHEN ZIN LA BSTAN GYI'I'I GZHUGS BSGOM NGAN DA He says, if you want to talk about evil omens, our habit of taking care of ourselves is the ultimate evil omen. And he calls it a blue-headed bird. And apparently, blue-headed birds are very rare in Tibet.

And just a blue head and a gray body. And so it was taken to be a bad sign. So he says it's a real blue-headed bird.

I like blue-headed birds. LO SBYONG LA BSGOM PO BSGOM RDZOGS SBYONG GI PHYIR ZHES GSUNGS PA'I GNAS KYIS YANG YIN And he says that's why the nickname for LO SBYONG, which is the practice for developing a good heart, the nickname is evil spirit crusher. Because the ultimate evil spirit is our own habit of taking care of ourselves first.

So LO SBYONG that we're learning, we're learning the seven step one, right? Its nickname in Tibet is the evil spirit crusher.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah, picture here. Thanks Nathalia.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, this guy's just, I don't know, his hair looks like somebody I know, right? But that one's blonde. I want to talk about demons and evil spirits.

Somebody asked me in a Q&A, do you believe in evil spirits? I have met three, I think, in my whole life that I kind of felt were for sure evil spirits. So I'm not some kind of yogi who can see evil spirits running around.

People tell me there are spirits here from the violence that was done here. I believe it, but I haven't met them personally. I don't have that power.

But I have met a few in my life. The one that I, the real, the worst one that I ever met, here's a picture, that picture of the hmm. So I had a special experience.

I went and sold my car. I got $100. I bought a diamond.

I brought it back. I put it secretly in the temple. I hid it on the altar.

It was a private offering between me and Buddha. My teacher found it. He said, good job.

He understood everything. I was like, wow. How you find a diamond on a big, it's a big altar.

It's a huge altar. He found it. He said, I'll take care of it.

He gave it to Cikjung Rinpoche. Then I met a friend of mine at a bus station, I remember. A bus, where you stand in the snow to take the bus to New York?

Which I did for 19 years. Cold. He was standing there and he said, I heard about this weird story that you sold your car.

I said, yeah. You sold a sports car for $100. I said, yeah.

He said, and you bought a diamond and you offer it in the temple? I said, yeah. He said, that's weird.

That's kind of weird. Then at that moment, okay, you got that picture? He doubted me.

He doubted that. I thought, and for a second, I saw his face as a demon's face. Just for a second, I saw this normal friend guy as a demon, as a real demon, who wanted to make me doubt that action.

You see what I mean? I believe in demons. I believe they're probably like a pan.

They're probably coming from you. They're coming from some deep seeds in your own mind. But at that moment, I thought, now I've met a demon who tried to get me to doubt an offering that I made to my teacher.

That's a real demon. So I believe in demons, and I've met a few. Probably there's a lot more that I didn't recognize, but probably Netflix is a demon.

But anyway, I believe they exist. And the worst one is taking care of yourself first. So they do exist.

It's not some kind of metaphor. I don't think so. Okay.

SNGAR BCOS PA ZHIG MTSAN GYIS GNAS SA GROG STE DES PA'I DRUL GYIS There's a practice called GCOD, and maybe you heard of it. And it's, what do you call, what do you call GCOD? Ritual murder, or something like that.

They call it GCOD. They mispronounce it GCOD in some parts of Tibet. But it means, the real meaning is ritual, is to murder somebody or something.

And it's a very popular idea, and it's a very dangerous and easy way to go to the hell realms. But anyway, there was a GCOD practitioner who used, he's like a magician, and he used his power to steal a spirit's territory from the spirit. DES PA'I DRUL GYIS GNYIS GCIG GCOD PA'I DRIN DAG GNYIS THAR TSOD CHUNG BA NA And then one day, the GCOD practitioners, two sponsors got in a fight with each other.

GCOD PA DE DRIN DAG LA BAR SDUM BYAS PAR SONG BA'I Then the tantrica, this is a weird tantra, not good, weird, and not proper. But he didn't want his sponsors to fight. So he's like, hey, you guys, come on, settle down, calm down.

And they stabbed him to death. And DAG GIS BLA MA RUM PA BYAS SUNG So he said, he said it was the self-cherishing of that practitioner that caused him to be murdered by his own sponsors. Okay, cool.

DAG GIS BLA MA RUM PA BYAS My teacher told us that story. Who's talking? So his teacher was DAG PO BLA MA RUM PA BYAS, who wrote one of your three treasures.

Okay, good. DE LTAR BAR SPYOD ZHI BA SOGS KYI RTZA BA'I LEN TSA'I YANG RANG CHEN DRIN GYIS KHO NA LA THUGS CA'I So even in a tragedy where someone is killed almost by accident, according to Buddhist belief, it goes back to some bad seeds that you planted yourself when you were hurting other people, and you were watching out for yourself. So even like a car accident or some other kind of accident where someone is injured, or an argument where some bystanders hurt, in the end it's because of their own self-cherishing.

Here's a typical, looks like an accident, but so therefore there are no accidents really. And when you see a banged up car or you drive, what do you call that? Rubbernecking.

When you're driving by a car accident, you can reflect that someone just used up their seeds from taking care of themselves first. And you can think of car accidents in a new way. DRIN DRIN LAS KYANG Then he quotes Master Shantideva.

YID GYUR RANG BDUN BYAS DON PAS GAL PA PHRAG MA'I DE YOD KYANG NGAL BA CHEN PO DE LTA BU'I GYUR GYI SDUG BSNGAL BA ZHIG SGRUB Then he's talking to his mind. YID GYUR means, oh, oh my mind. He's talking to his own mind.

Oh my mind. God, you've been spending countless eons. Eons is a billion years.

I mean, billion isn't enough, but call it a billion years. GAL PA And he says, oh my mind, my heart, you've been working for a billion years to take care of number one, and all you got was trouble. Aren't you tired yet?

Didn't you figure it out yet? You spent your whole life, every hour trying to take care of yourself, get what you want, and didn't you figure out that it just brought you all the crap in your life? How long are you going to keep doing that?

How long are you going to keep trying to take care of number one? Didn't you get it yet? It's kind of pitiful to watch you taking care of number one and cutting yourself up over and over and over again.

When are you going to figure it out? Shantideva's talking to his own heart. Cut.

When are you going to figure it out, man? He's like that. That's an interesting conversation.

I call it the exhausting effort to serve yourself first. I saw this picture and I said, that's kind of what it feels like when you spend all day trying to get something for yourself and you ignore other people and it doesn't work out. And then at the end of the day you're just exhausted and you have no joy because taking care of yourself first there's no joy in it.

And so you're exhausted and you're joyless. If you take care of other people you can be exhausted but joyful. You can feel good about it at the end.

If you take care of the Ukrainians, you really take care of them. And I told Nur, I said, the one thing, Nur, I want to see that money go into your hand and go out within an hour. I don't want you to spend two weeks and decide who to give the money to.

These people are desperate. One day is very important for them. One hour is very important for them.

Yeah, it's exhausting to take care of people but it feels so great at the end of the day. Then you know that's what life is for. That's why you're alive.

It's something important. So don't hesitate. Get in.

Don't let it stick to your fingers. It wants to, doesn't it? BDAG CAN RDZIN DANG, DANG RDZIN NI SO SO YIN YANG Thousand dollars.

Thousand dollars. There it is. I don't have to repeat it.

It's in the blue. Thousand dollars. Translate, even badly.

[Говорящий 2]
Daniel, come on, man. Say it louder.

[Говорящий 1]
Oh, Gibson, he's the new word smith.

[Говорящий 2]
What?

[Говорящий 1]
Good, I'll give it to him. 500 each. Okay.

I'll repeat it. $500 for Seiji and $500 for Gibson. I guess word is asleep still.

What it says is, taking care of yourself as number one is not the same thing as believing you have a self-nature. DANG RDZIN which means believing you have a self-nature and BDAG CAN RDZIN which means taking care of yourself first. They are not the same thing.

Then there's a YANG, RGYANG, RDAG GIS, BA, LO SBYONG LAS In the LO SBYONG tradition, GCIG RTAG PAR GSUNGS they say, come on, they're almost the same thing. They're just about the same thing. Now we got to talk about it.

So when we say the pen is not itself, what does emptiness mean? It means the pen is not the pen. To say it clearly.

The pen is not the pen. Okay, what's that mean? Don't get weird.

Don't go crash your car because it's empty. I mean, this is all it means. There's no pen here which is not coming from you.

That's all. Double negative. There's no pen in my hand which is not coming from you.

I'm coming from you. If you don't like what I'm teaching, remember, it's coming from you. The rest is coming from me.

Just kidding. Okay, so RDAG, atman, self-nature. It's too complicated.

The pen is not itself. What's that mean? The pen is not a pen that's coming from its own side.

What's that mean? The pen is dependently originating. What's that mean?

The pen is coming from you. The pen is coming from your seeds. That's that whole dependent origination.

I hate that word. I worked for 30 years to find a better word. Anyway, what's dependent origination?

The pen's coming from your seeds. What's emptiness? There's no other pen in my hand.

There's no pen that came from a factory. There's no pen that was made from petroleum. There's no pen that was purchased at Office Max.

No such thing. The pen only came from sharing pens in the past. Only place it could come from.

It did not come from oil. It did not come from a factory in Japan. It was not sold to you by Office Max.

This pen only came to you because you were generous with your pens in the past. That's the only way to get a pen. Got it?

Let's go deeper. What happens when this runs out of ink? What's really happening?

The seeds for the ink are running out. So then you have seeds for a useless thing, which is probably, I don't know how you get those seeds. We can discuss it someday.

But if you didn't have this, if your seeds didn't run out, the ink would never run out. You see what I mean? The fact that the ink runs out means that it's coming from your seeds.

The seeds wear out. When I use this pen on a piece of paper to write a new book, like Karchen, the prequel to How Yoga Works, when I write it, who wrote the Diamond Cutter Sutra? You did.

Congratulations. Does the pen put the words on the page? No, your seeds put the word on the page.

When you read this lam rim, who wrote this lam rim? You did, congratulations. If you're hearing it now, if you're seeing it now, you wrote it.

So let's say I have a desire not to share my pen. I only have one. I kind of need it today.

Someone else might need it, but I don't want to share it with somebody else. That's dak chen dzin. That's not holding to a self.

That's taking care of myself first. Are they related? Yeah, they are related.

Why? If I understood that this came from seeds, I would never take it first. I would never take it first.

Are they the same action? No. Misunderstanding the pen and wanting to get it first are not the same thing, but they are certainly married.

Those two crappy thoughts are married. You can't be selfish if you understand emptiness. It's not possible.

I'll say it again. You cannot take care of number one first if you have any understanding of emptiness. And a sign.

Lots of people go around saying, I understand emptiness, and they're mean, and they're stingy. Then that's proof that they don't understand emptiness. I got it?

The more someone understands emptiness, the more they understand that nothing's not coming, not not coming from seeds, then the more generous they are. I have an intimate relationship with donuts. I can tell you the word for donut in six languages faster than Daniel.

Yo chow, pornchik, churro, donut, and patissier. Because I love them. Which means I have to supply them to others.

I have to. I don't have choice. If there's only one donut left over at the Je Tsongkapa Center, which I haven't had any.

If there's only one left, then what would I do if I'm self-interested? Yeah, give it to someone else. That's Buddhism in a nutshell.

That's all Buddhism. There's a deep relationship between not understanding emptiness and selfishness. There's a deep, deep relationship.

They are not exactly the same thing, but they feed on each other. You can't be selfish if you understand emptiness. It's not possible.

So what's a sign that somebody understands emptiness? They share. They share more.

I've been struggling for many years about how to translate dana paramita. People used to say generosity. I didn't quite like it because it also refers to giving dharma or giving emotional support.

It's not so much that you give a lot. To me, that's what generosity means. I don't like to call it the perfection of generosity.

So for a long time I called it the perfection of giving. And then lately I've been thinking the perfection of sharing. Sharing.

I think that's closer to dana, to giving. Sharing. Share what you have.

By the way, sharing what you have doesn't mean that you're supposed to go without. My first teacher, a Japanese Buddhist scholar from Princeton, he said, in my thesis defense, you have to write a thesis as an undergraduate at Princeton, so then you have to defend it. And he said, he said, I have one question for you.

I'm in his office, I remember. I got one question for you. I'm like, yeah, what?

He said, are you one of all living beings? Yeah, I am all of one living beings. Are you sworn to take care of all living beings?

Yeah. So are you sworn to also take care of yourself? Yeah.

So can you have a donut if there's enough for everybody? I'm like, yeah. He says, you pass.

He said, I pass your thesis. Get out of here. Then he got me honors.

I got honors for this answer. So, cool answer, right? You're also one of all living beings, so you got to be kind to yourself also, but not just to yourself, that's all.

All right.

[Говорящий 2]
So, yeah, and here's a, here's a picture, okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Even Daniel won't figure it out. You guys are close to the Mexican border here, right? If you ever want to have some fun, if you ever kind of bored at Diamond Mountain, I know it's difficult.

There's always another room to clean. By the way, thanks for cleaning mine. I'm going to leave you, it's not too dirty, but I'll try to clean up a little bit.

But if you ever have a free day, drive down to Douglas, which is very similar to my town, Rimrock, and go to the border station, especially if you're a boy, okay? And you'll understand. Go to the border, put one foot in America and put the other foot in Mexico.

Straddle that line and look down the line and try to see a line. Try to see a line. It feels a little vulnerable.

And there's no line. There's nothing there. You got that picture again?

The dirt on one side is the same as the dirt on the other side. You see what I mean? And there are some distinctions like international borders, which are not very real.

And if you go there, it's fun. Go down, then go to Douglas on the Mexican side. What's it called?

Agua Prieta, which is dirty water. And it is. And have lunch, get some diarrhea, come back.

And, you know, and what you'll find is despite all the laws about visas and stuff, there's not much difference about the dirt on either side. Daniel, why did I pick that image? $100.

Sometimes a $0 offer gets a $100 answer retroactively. So another, add it to your... I hope you're keeping real track.

We don't offer interest. All right. You want to say it?

I'll give the answer that Daniel said. The difference between taking care of yourself first and misunderstanding yourself you almost can't tell them from each other. And at some point they kind of come together like that invisible border called Mexico and US.

And just because it's invisible doesn't mean it's real. People on one side of that line are dying from overeating. And people on the other side of that line are dying from undereating.

It's a real line, but it's made by karma. It's not made by some government person who was meaner and tougher and took more land than the other one. Apparently.

Okay. DOR NA DE NYID KYI NYES PA KUN GYI RTZA BA LTA BU STE But you can say that those two states of mind are the source of all problems. Taking care of yourself first and misunderstanding where stuff is really coming from.

GCIG GIS SNGAGS SNGAGS NYAMS DU SNGAGS BSTAN DUG TU GSUNG ZHING GCIG GIS SNGAGS LUS MA MTHONG BYAS PA One state of mind says, me, me, and doesn't appreciate that me comes from serving others. And the other state of mind says, me, me should get all the best stuff. I hope I get breakfast first.

Cat, you can have breakfast, but I just get mine first. I don't mind if you have breakfast, if there's leftovers. That's that kind of idea.

All right. DOR NA NYES PA THAMS CAD NGAG DE BA ZHIG DGOS SHES BLO BUG GSUR ZHAG PA DE LAS CHUNG To put it briefly, everything, every unhappy thing that happens in our lives comes because of that attitude which is installed in the bottom of our heart from millions of years ago. There's a deep, deep, deep, at the core of our being is a desire to take care of myself first.

And it's very, very hard to overcome. You can sit up here and teach it and still have it. You could have it, you could be teaching because you have it.

It's a terrible, terrible, tricky thing. All right, okay. That said, here's another picture.

[Говорящий 2]
What is that? Yeah. Sorry.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Anyway, that's self-cherishing. We've covered that.

Let's do the next picture, Natalia. $100 just as a joke. Who can guess what this is?

It's a joke. Too complicated. Okay.

I'm sorry. You'll never get this one. Let me just tell you.

This is called cooking the books. Okay. Cooking the books is an expression in English for cheating on your accounting.

It's called cooking the books. I charge them $20 for idioms. You haven't paid me for a while.

You know you're going to be poor in your next life. Okay. Cooking the books means...

Why did I say that? There comes a question in the lam rim here, which is a very important question. Is it wrong to take care of yourself?

Is it wrong to take care of yourself? No, it's not wrong. You are one of all living beings.

By the way, Princeton sent me a letter recently. They said, you can now order your own thesis from 100 years ago for $100. Huh?

Yeah, but I don't know. I was thinking, it may be good to have a copy just to remember that last 10 minutes with my teacher. He's the one who gave me the car, by the way, for free.

Really nice sports car. The last one I ever had in my life. So, is it wrong to want to be happy?

No, it's not wrong. Okay. So what's the line?

How do you know when your self-cherishing has got out of hand? Now go back, Netanya, to that picture. Yeah, when you would cook the books to make money, your self-cherishing's too strong.

When you would hurt someone or do something illegal or improper or immoral to get to take care of yourself, that's the sign that you went over the line. When you would hurt someone else to take care of yourself, then that's self-cherishing. So that's the sign.

By the way, it's impossible to cross that line if you understand emptiness. It's impossible to cross that line if you understand emptiness. It's impossible to do something illegal, immoral, harmful to someone else if you understand emptiness.

You would not want to cook the books. So are you allowed to make money? Gosh, yes.

In fact, I'll tell you something. The more you understand these laws of the universe, the more money will come to you. I had a fight yesterday.

Ali, tell them what the fight was. Somebody want to send me $5,000, just because. And I'm like, no.

Give it to the construction project we have for the baby monks. Give it to them. And we had a fight online.

I'm like, no. She's like, yes. I'm like, no.

She's like, yes. I'm like, no. Send it to this email.

And she did, she sent it. This morning I got another $5,000. She said, I thought I'd give you $5,000 anyway.

Is this an acceptable compromise? I'm like, yeah, that's a good compromise. You send $5,000 to the...

And she did. She sent $5,000 to house the baby monks and $5,000 to... I said, okay.

I'm not going to fight anymore. I'll take it. So then I got a...

Did I get a nice room in Phoenix? Thanks. I will.

Okay. All right. I was going to treat myself and my wife to a nice room in Phoenix.

I haven't seen her for 10 days. Okay.