«Дар освобождения», курс 40 «Магия пустотных медитаций и тонглен», занятие 12

[Говорящий 1]
All right, we're at Dabdung Semchen, I think. D-A space D-U-N-G. Yeah, good.

Who's running the Tibetan? Is that you, Sugen? Rebecca.

Okay, good. Just so I know who to yell at. ,LTA DU SEMS CAN GYI SDUG BSNGAL NGOS SU LEN PA'I ,'DI'I DA RES BYUNG BA'I, ,GA LAS PA BYUNG NYAM DU STONG NGAN BYUNG NAS ,YOD PA'I SKYE DANG NA, Now is my chance to take on other people's problems directly.

,DA RES BYUNG BA'I ,LAS PA BYUNG means I'm so lucky. LAS PA BYUNG means I'm so lucky. SNYAM DU SDONG LEN CHE NAS LOD PA'I KYI STANGS NA means stand your mind after the suffering of other people like you are sicking a dog on a thief in your house.

Okay, like you have a big mean dog and somebody breaks into your house and you say, get him. You tell the dog, get him. So your mind, when you see other people having problems, tell your mind, oh, now here's your chance.

We studied SDONG LEN for a whole week. Now go, get him. And your mind's supposed to chop up the suffering of other people.

Now here's a story and we have a picture of a boy at the beach. Okay, a boy at the beach. And there's a story behind this picture.

So let's, Rebecca, are you there? GNAD TSA, you ready? GNAD TSA.

GNAD TSA YANG BAR BYED DU MIN GYUR Even getting sick becomes an opportunity rather than a problem. DGE SBYOR PA'I RJE DU DGOS It becomes a, what do you call that? When you have a jet airplane and you have a special engine that like turbocharge, makes the plane go faster than before.

So this kind of meditation can make your progress more. If you get sick, it's a chance to turbocharge your practice. SNGAR KUN SPANG PHRAG BSGYEN PA'I LO MA RDZAS NAS CHUNG BA KUN SPANG PHRAG BSGYEN is a Lama named KUN SPANG PHRAG PA RGYAL TSEN.

Probably he lived a thousand years ago. Nobody knows his dates. He was like a Kadampa Lama.

RGYEN GYI LO MA RDZAS NAS RDZAS means leprosy. He got leprosy. So this is a disease where your fingers fall off and it's a terrible disease.

Okay. You still see it in India sometimes. RDZAS NAS CHUNG BA ZHIG KHYI MOR RDZA STENG means, KHYI MOR RDZA STENG is a place name, but it's similar to a beach.

But it has a lot of clay there, soft clay. NAS SANGS PA This SANGS, what's SANGS usually mean? Yeah, SANGS RGYAS usually means Buddha.

But SANGS as a verb can mean to clean away a disease. SANGS means to dispel a disease. RGYAS means a story, the story of his disease.

And I didn't know what it was and I was in a rush. I prefer to look it up myself because I was jealous of art and I wanted to prove I could do it. He's a translator, but I was too busy.

So I went to check his book and he said, I didn't find this story. And then I got more interested. So I used John Brady's database and it's a very difficult thing.

There's 3 million pages searchable and you have to craft the search. Like the llama's name here is abbreviated. It's like, I don't know, Rob Haggerty.

Haggerty would be Rohag or something like that. And it's complicated to search. You need proximity Boolean or you can't do it.

Right, Joe? And of course, it'd be nice to have a, what's that called? The database that you're working on.

Instead of a straight file, relational. Yeah, that would be nice. He's working on a relational database.

Anyway, I worked really hard and I didn't find it. And then we have this, we have a grab bag of 10,000 books that we didn't catalog yet. So they were typed in, they were found by John Brady in some weird library in some weird country.

And he found them, they typed them in. They don't know the name, they don't know the author. They don't know where it belongs.

We have 10,000 of those books. And it's like a very frightening place to go. And so I thought, well, what the heck?

Let me try that. And I found it. Which means we need more help cataloging the books.

That's about 30 years of work or something. And we're working on it, but it's just really hard work. It takes many hours to do each book.

And if you catalog a book in the wrong place, you will never find what you're looking for. And we're the only database, ALL is the only database of Asian literature that has those categories. So it's not just an amazing, where's John Brady when I'm bragging about him?

He's probably asleep. Tell him I was bragging about him. It's the only database where you can go by subject.

So you can say, I'm interested in lojong, or I'm interested in tonglen meditation. And you can go to a shelf in the database and all the tonglen books are there. And that takes a long time to catalog.

So we're working on that. We have a three-person team. But anyway, I found the story.

So here you go. You're the first people to ever hear it since it was first taught. You read?

Yeah. Go back up. You guys got the wrong text up here.

That's okay. We can read. You can use this one.

All right. KUN PA'AM DRAG PA GAL TSEN GYIS BLO MA Write that on here. RGYAS SHES KHAR BAR BYA'O YIN DANG KHOS SU CHEN PO BYAS PA ZHIG LA ZHIG BYUNG THOB So this person was a student of a Lama named KUN PA'AM DRAG PA GAL TSEN.

And the student's name was RGYAS SHES KHAR BAR. He lived about 900 years ago. YIN DANG KHOS SU CHEN PO BYAS PA He was a very great teacher, great practitioner.

But ZHES, he got ZHES. Yeah, I told you a long time ago, like this morning. ZHES, yeah, he got leprosy.

ZHES BYUNG THOB CI BYAS KYANG MA PHAN By the way, this text is a thousand years old and it's really hard to read. But CI BYAS KYANG MA PHAN means he tried everything and it didn't help. NUB GCIG NEN GYIS GANG DAG YANG MI KHYUN NAS BU PA This is really funny in Tibetan.

It says, NUB GCIG means, did you find it, you guys? Did I ever send it to you? I did?

Okay, good. Don't worry about it. NUB GCIG means one evening.

NEN GYIS GANG DAG YANG He said, the nature of leprosy is that it's just going to get worse and worse. My fingers are going to fall off. My feet will fall off.

He says, MI KHYUN means the flock of human beings. And it means humankind. MI KHYUN NAS BU PA means sooner or later people are going to kick me out of society.

And lepers in those times, if you read the Bible, for example, lepers were thrown out of the city and they had to camp somewhere and try to survive. So he said, well, I got leprosy. By the way, there's no cure in ancient times.

And he said, sooner or later, GANG DAG YANG means sooner or later, people are going to kick me out of the city and out of human people's place. They're going to make me stay out in the wilderness. BDAG BU DO, because it's very contagious.

If you touch a leper, you get leprosy. NGO ZHIG PA ZHIG CHUNG LONG BCUG GANG YOD RGYAS BYOG LA DANG Then he had this weird insight. He said, anyway, I'm going to get kicked out of society.

I'm going to have to go out in the empty place somewhere and try to survive. And I'm going to die from the leprosy. So I might as well give away all my stuff.

He had this insight. I have no future. I'm going to die anyway.

Let me use my... Let me give away my stuff. What the hell?

It doesn't matter anymore. So he gave away everything he had to poor people. He said, it's not going to do me any good.

I might as well share it with somebody. RGYI MO RDZAGS CANG YI RTZA'O DER DE LA Then he went to this place called RGYI MO RDZAGS CANG. And that's the kid picture on the beach.

He went to the wet clay sands and he smeared some of the clay on his body. RTZO LA LAM SEMS LUNGS And then he was begging for food there. And MA NI DRENG NYAMS PA CHUNG He thought, well, I'll go there.

Maybe the clay will help me. And I'll just sit by the side of the road and ask people for food. And MA NI DRENG means I'll do some monies.

I'll do some OM MANI PADME HUNS. And that's the rest of my life. I don't have anything else.

DE NUS MI LAM NA GONG CHUG KHYER BA'I That night he had a dream that he was swept away by a flood. MI DKAR PO ZHIG GIS CHOS NAS BSTAN And a shining white being came from the sky and plucked him from the waters. KHYIM MO TSAR TENG GI JAG RTENG DU And placed him on top of a mountain safe from the dangerous waters at KHYIM MO TSAR TENG.

ZHAG PA'I LUS LAS CHU MANG PO SAGS PA And then all this dirty water came out of his body. And he dreamed. He had this dream.

ZAD TZA NA means when he woke up. MEL CHUG KHYENG means his mattress was soaked with water. TSE SANG, what's it mean, TSE SANG?

Yeah, his leprosy was gone. His leprosy was gone. TSE SANG, he probably had to go back and get his money and stuff back.

TSE SANG, TENG ZER GSUNG Then he says, TSE LUS DANG BA'I DE'I NYAM THOB MA SKYE PA SKYE PA TSE LUS DANG means when you give up on your own needs, when you give up on what your plans were for your life. NYAM THOB MA SKYE PA means the realizations that you didn't have yet, SKYE PA. You get them.

You get realizations that you never had. When SKYE PA MI NYAM BAR GOGS PA'I LTA STONG And whatever good qualities you already have, they get increased. GOGS PA'I LTA STONG NYAK CIG That's the one and only way to do it.

So why is this story coming here? Now, by the way, you're the first people since Pabongka Tharin to hear the real story. But why is it here?

What were we talking about before that? Say it into the microphone, then everybody take it.

[Говорящий 2]
The moral, I think, here is that even in the horrible disease time, when that comes, you can turn it into a practice. Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, good. Any problem you have can be transformed into a benefit. You can use problems as an excuse to do something radically good.

Because what do you have to lose? He decided that he had a life-threatening problem, so he might as well just give away everything he had. And that decision cured him.

Got it? He really did it, don't let him. And that decision cured him.

And we were talking about Columbo. Who can explain it? Three steps.

Microphone. Who's Columbo? As a detective on TV that my Lama used to love.

Like Sherlock, you can say Sherlock then. What? What?

Nevermind. That was just a joke. In Paris one day.

Okay. That's funny. Anyway, this detective used to smoke a cigar.

And he would find the deeper, he would always catch the bad guy through little clues. He would trace little clues. So what's the tracing here?

What's the tracing we did? Any problem you have, like leprosy, it traces to? Karmic reasons.

To a karma which traces to? Taking care of myself first. Yeah, good, nice.

Yeah, perfect. So he did that. He traced it back like a detective.

And that detective used to smoke a cigar all the time. And we have to talk to my wife about how you got this. So, we went to Paris, we went to a coffee shop, there was a cigar shop.

We made a joke and we had a cigar. And that's the only cigar I ever smoked in my life. So I don't know how she got the photo.

But you got to trace it back. You got to trace it back. He had leprosy.

He traced it back to, he decided to do something. He traced it back to some bad karma. And some bad karma always traces back to taking care of yourself first.

And that's the story. That's what we're studying. If you don't remember anything else from this week, if you get a problem, I think all of us are good at tracing problems back to the first step.

Like you get sick and you say, oh, I must have ignored sick people. But then you have to go back one more step and say, was I taking care of myself first? Are you not supposed to take care of yourself?

You are supposed to take care of yourself. But equal, equal to other people. You can't prioritize.

You can't say your needs are more important than other people but you're supposed to take care of both. The habit of taking care of yourself first is the root of all bad karma. That's what they're saying here.

Okay, cool. So working backwards, it means if you ever get sick, you can go crazy and look up all the specialists in Phoenix, the only city around here, and try and find someone who can help you. But that's only tracing back the germs.

What do you call it? The sickness demons. That they never did anything anyway.

It was you. You collected some bad karma and you were watching out for yourself instead of other people. That's all.

You want to cure any disease, trace it backwards to a time when you were taking care of yourself and ignoring other people. All right. Next picture.

I have two Indonesian friends who often go to Muara Jambi. They call it Jambi for short, right Sugeng? And a thousand years ago, in 982 or something like that, Atisha was living in North India and he heard there was a Lama in Indonesia who knew about Donglan.

Okay, 800 years ago, sorry, 1,000 years ago, he was living in North India. He heard there was somebody who knew about Donglan and he wanted to learn it. So he got on a, he walked to South India.

He got on a rickety wooden ship and he sailed for 13 months to Indonesia. Most people had died who ever tried that. And he reached Indonesia.

And there's, in Tibetan, in Sanskrit, it's called Suvarna Dweepa Guru. Suvarna means the golden island and he went looking for Suvarna Dweepa Guru, whose other name is, I think, Dharmakirti, but he's not the other Dharmakirti. So there's two Dharmakirti.

But he went looking. He risked his life for 13 months to go to Indonesia so he could get a Donglan teaching. And you guys just have to go to Diamond Mountain or turn on your Zoom call.

Okay, all right. Much easier. Okay, so here's a wake up call from Jambi.

By the way, that's all that's left of Jambi, right Sugeng? I guess. There's not much else there.

Some temples. Yeah, a huge land, cleared land, and just this one small piece left. Sugeng was using it as an example for what Diamond Mountain should do.

All right. GZHAN YANG RKYEN NGAN DGE BA'I KUL MA YIN ZHES PA LTAR RKYEN NGAN means bad stuff happens to you. DGE BA'I KUL MA KUL MA means like a whip that you use for a horse or something like spur on your feet when you kick the horse with this sharp thing and then they run.

So KUL MA means like something that spurs you on, or something that makes you go faster. Then he says problems are the spurs for good deeds, good karma. ZHES PA LTAR SDUG BSNGAL MI'I BRDOD NA SDIG PA'I PHONG ZHIG ZHES PA'I LTAR BSAMS NAS SOGS SOGS DRIB BYONG NA'ANG PA'I If you don't want to suffer, you're going to have to stop hurting other people.

DAR BSAMS NAS SOGS SOGS DRIB BYONG NA'ANG PA'I Then you can start collecting good karma. Then this Lama Pabongka keeps quoting people and not telling us where it's from. And the principle of this group, ACI, we go find it.

We don't say, oh, I wish I knew what he was talking about. We dig around. We go to Mongolia and go through 300,000 books and find it.

And so we did find it. And here's the story. It is from the Lojong in Myanmar, the Seven Point Lojong.

By the way, that's the cataloging information. And then go down the Serling Bay. What's Serling Bay?

Suvarnabhidvipa Guru. Who made this quotation? It was the Lama in Indonesia that Atisha went to visit.

This is a quotation from him directly. So it's very cool. By the way, we are translating a famous book by Atisha's other teacher, which is...

Teji's working on this book. And we're translating a poem that he wrote and he gave it to Atisha. And he said, you're going to be going to Tibet and people are crazy there.

And you're going to need some help. So he wrote him a poem. Who was the author again?

I forgot. Yeah, Dharmaraksita. So there's a beautiful poem that Dharmaraksita, who's another teacher of Atisha, and we're translating that book.

Seiji's translating that book. And we're combining that poetry with the poetry of Rumi from the Arabic translation. So Rumi wrote in Persian and Turkish and Arabic.

And Seiji's wife is translating Rumi from the Arabic. And so they'll be having a program at the end of this month, two-day program. It's a poetry program about spiritual poetry.

And they decided to do something really original with it. So we have 18, 19 organizations. Each organization specializes in a different spiritual need.

Diamond Mountain specializes in retreats. ACI specializes in meditations. MSI, Meditation Studies Institute helps people learn to meditate.

ALL saves ancient books. YSI teaches yoga. But we don't have anything for kids and for families.

So Seiji and Noor decided to do a program for families. Parenting, how to bring up children, because that's their challenge right now. Like maybe Kat can be an advisor since Zelie came out so well.

But they're going to be doing a parenting course, how to be a good parent. So if you're interested in that, that'll be the end of this month. And they will use these two poets as sources.

Very cool. Dharmaraksita and Rumi. What's the best-selling poetry in English?

It's Rumi translation. The best-selling poetry in the last 100 years in English is not English. It's written in Persian and it's translated into English.

So we're going to do the Arabic poems, which are not so well-known and haven't been translated that much. And Noor is translating those. Cool.

And we'll mix some with the Buddhist poetry. All right. Anyway, here's some poetry from Sudrana Dvipa Guru.

RGYEN YANG RGYAS BA'I KUL MA YIN Problems in your life are spurs for you to move faster towards your spiritual goals. BRAS BDUN RGYAL BA'I CHOG TU YIN Demons who come to you and try to mess up your practice are, CHOG TU means they are emanations of the RGYAL BA, JINA, the Buddha. Did you have any demons in your life lately?

Yes. I mean, besides yourself. Yes.

Well, guess what? They're all emanated by the Buddha to get your ass moving. All right.

NA TSAG SDIG GYUR GYI CHAGS SHING STE Sickness is the, CHAGS SHING for $50. CHAGS SHING. Yeah.

$50 for 10. Kind of cruel to take the money from your own organization. CHAGS SHING means a prostration board.

Prostration board. NA TSAG SDIG GYUR People use it to purify bad deeds. Like if you yelled at your mom, you'd go through 100 prostrations on a prostration board.

So he says, when you get sick, use it as the prostration board to purify your bad karma. NA TSAG SDIG GYUR GYI CHAGS SHING STE SDUG BSNGAL CHEN GYIS YOD LANG YIN This is nice. So this is talking about someone who instigates a riot.

Like Huey Newton, right? Were you around in those days? Black Panthers?

So when me and your mom were young, 100 years ago, there were these guys who would cause riots in different cities. I was at Princeton, he went to New Brunswick, like 45 minutes away and started a riot and they burned down half of Brunswick. So what do you call a person like that?

People who start riots, okay? He says, problems in your life is the riot instigator of emptiness understanding. Isn't that cool?

The riot is understanding emptiness. The civil disturbance is understanding emptiness. And who starts the riot is problems in your life.

It takes a serious problem in your life to kick you in the rear end and get you to do something about emptiness. It's a very beautiful last line. Okay, so good luck translating it.

I don't know. Serious problems in your life are the Huey Newton of emptiness realizations. Okay, got it?

Okay, yeah. I like it. RANG RES LA SKYES NGAN PAR MA BYUNG NA I spent a night in the Trenton jail with those guys.

That was an experience. All right, RANG RES LA SKYES NGAN PAR MA BYUNG NA SNANG BA'I RGYUD DAG BYED PA'I PHYIR MI BRTEN LA Then he says, if you don't have problems in your life, you'll just be lulled by the small pleasant things in life. You'll get some good coffee and have a, thanks for the coffee, Ram.

You will just be interested in $100 coffee bags and stuff. You will get distracted by small pleasures of this life. If nothing serious bad happens to you, you're not lucky.

If something serious bad happens to you, you're lucky. Why? And SNANG BA'I RGYUD DAG BYED PA'I PHYIR MI BRTEN MI BRTEN means you won't think about the Dharma.

If you don't have problems, you don't think about the Dharma. My teacher, I don't know, he got a little addicted to TV. I don't know what he was doing because he was doing mantras the whole time.

Maybe it was for my benefit, I don't know. But he would, Rob was around, I think, he would bang on the floor with his cane. And that meant I was supposed to race upstairs and see something interesting on TV.

I wasn't allowed to watch TV, but he was allowed to watch TV. And if there was something really interesting, he would bang on the floor. And then I was supposed to run upstairs and see what he was doing.

And there was this lady in a miniskirt, Vanna White. There's this lady in a miniskirt. And in between the nightly news, she would do a lottery and she'd come out and spin a wheel.

And somebody would win $10 million. And then they would be outside the person's home with a microphone and say, how do you feel? And they're like, wow!

And my Lama really liked it. And I'm like, why do you like that so much? And he says, it's a statement on the human condition.

And I said, what do you mean it's a statement on the human condition? He says, when someone gets in a really bad car accident, they get out of the car and they say, why me? And then when they win the lottery, they're just like, wow!

Nobody says, why me? And he says, there's a deep lesson there. And I'm like, yeah.

He forced me to watch Vanna White every night. And the idea is when bad stuff happens, you ask questions. And when you win the lottery, you don't ask questions.

When stuff is going well and you're having a good coffee, I would rate it as medium. Maybe you guys can get in touch with Peachtree Cafe to upgrade the coffee here. When things aren't pleasant, you don't ask why.

And you don't make any progress. When things screw up, you start asking questions. So he says, you should pray that for car accidents and stuff like that.

What should you pray for? Kanye, gacana. Kanye means people criticize you online.

Like everyone hates you online. And they start criticizing. Kanye means criticism.

You get criticized by everybody. That's a good thing, because you'll start thinking about karma. DGOS GANG means your life savings get wiped out by a bad stock investment or something.

Like in 10 minutes. That's called DGOS GANG. What do you call that?

I don't know. It's like a financial disaster that takes your whole life savings in about 10 minutes. It's called DGOS GANG.

There's a word for it in Tibetan. Okay. The company you invested in goes under and you lose everything in 10 minutes.

That's called DGOS GANG. Then if you've been to Diamond Mountain, you should be, yay! Now I can practice Diamond, you know.

Because you'll ask yourself why. And then you'll reach bad karma. And then you'll ask yourself why.

And you'll reach taking care of yourself first. DGOS GANG NA TSA SOGS KHYAD NYAN CHUNG NA, DE YIN BYUNG KHYAD NAS MYONG BA'I LAS BLANGS PA It gets you off your rear end, gets you doing some good practice. DGE BA SBYUGS And you will get into good karma, trying to do good things for other people.

Like donating to the grants, the Donglan Grant Program. So other people can come and get a salary to serve. All right.

Oh, here's the picture for you guys. I don't know. By the way, I hate fundraising.

I don't like doing it. I have to do it every single day. And if you would just give me your money, I wouldn't have to do it.

I don't like doing it. It's not like I... I don't think anyone likes doing it.

It's just something we have to do. All right, here's the next picture, Daniel. This is a protest.

She happens to be protesting global warming or something. But what's it mean? Yeah.

Problems in your life are instigators of movements. You need a few dedicated people to make a movement happen. And the few dedicated people are diseases you get or car accidents you have, or like that.

You need some dedicated people who start the protest movement. And that's your problems. And the protest movement is you do something about your karma.

You try to collect good karma. You need these people. You need these special people.

Yeah, okay. We did a protest. We were helping the farm workers in Arizona and Cesar Chavez.

We were working for Cesar Chavez for two years. And he was a great Mexican-American leader. And he got people, what do you call it?

Better payment and better working conditions for the farm workers in Arizona. And so we were the protest people who went out and caused trouble and got people to do something like that. You need a trigger.

So the trigger is what? Problems in your life. All right.

DE'I DUNG RGYAL BA'I CHOG CHUD YIN SDUG BSNGAL CHUD NYID KYI YOD BLANG YIN So without telling you anything, Pabongka goes to the second half of that quotation that we already figured out. If you don't have John Brady's database, you don't know it's the same person talking here, which is Sarlingpa, which is that Donglan master from Indonesia. By the way, there's a lot of stories about people walking to India from Tibet to meet the great masters and learn Buddhism.

But there was a period in history when Indonesia was more advanced than India. And the great scholars, the great monks would go from China and take a ship to Indonesia. And so there was a time when if you wanted to learn Buddhism, you would go to Indonesia and not to India.

It was more... Buddhism was stronger in Indonesia than India. And you can still see those places.

And it's very beautiful. SHES PA LTAR RGYAL GONG RJE DONG SOGS KYI GNOD PA CHUNG NO If you get hurt by gongpo, which means demon, je means like bad spirit, don means evil spirit, rgyal means the government. It's so funny, evil spirits, bad spirits, ghosts, and your government.

I didn't write it. I'm just reading it. GNOD PA, if they hurt you, NGES RIN CHE MA BRJEN PA JI RTEN LA DGOS KHOR NAS I must have forgotten the Dharma in the past.

DGOS KHOR DANG means specifically to... DGOS means head, right? KHOR means circle, like SIPA'I KHOR LOB.

So DGOS KHOR DANG means to mislead other people. Especially you pretend to be a nice person or you pretend to be a religious person and then you let other people down. That's called DGOS KHOR DANG, spinning other people's head.

DGOS KHOR NAS YOD PA LA THAG GIS CHOS LA DGOS BA'I KA RIN CHEN NYAM DU BSGOM You know Karten because somebody named a book that. Yeah, okay. What's it mean?

Karten... Oh, kindness. Kindness, yeah, okay.

I specifically argued teacher, Karten. So he says here, illness, problems, disasters in your life, losing all your money is Karten. It's the kindness of your spiritual teacher.

Thank you. Thank you for messing up my life because now I'm going to think about where stuff comes from, okay? And when things are going smoothly, nobody worries about where things are coming from.

So Karten, if you want real Karten, the kindness of your teacher, it's serious illness, it's a breakup in your relationships, problems in your life, okay? They get you going in a way that nothing else does. Okay, RANG GI LOD KHYER DANG ZHES NA YOD NGEL GYIS KYANG CHEN NYID RTOG PA'I KHYEN This is beautiful.

KHYER DANG means the way your mind works. And by the way, his Tibetan here is exquisite and no one has ever matched this Tibetan. And nobody ever will.

The language is dying. It's getting indesized in India and it's getting sinified in Tibet. The language is dying.

But here is the peak of that language. LOD KHYER DANG ZHES NA means if you really understand the way your mind works, okay, KHYER DANG ZHES NA YOD NGEL GYIS KYANG CHEN NYID RTOG PA'I KHYEN LTA BU BYED PA ZHIG If you really study how your mind works when you're under pressure from problems of life, it can be a powerful, it can be a powerful inspiration to see emptiness directly. That's very cool.

What he's saying is when you have serious problems in your life and you know, LOD KHYER DANG means if you really understand your mind, if you study your mind in meditation, you can use problems to see emptiness directly. That's cool. Okay, so we have a nice picture here.

He says, okay, disasters are your friend. The disasters in your life are your friend. Financial disaster, relationship disaster, occupation disaster, they are your friends.

So I was thinking these puppies are like disasters in your life and you got to make friends with them and let them lick you. When problems come, you got to snuggle up, you know what I'm saying? Oh, I love you.

Guess what? You just lost all your income. Oh, lick me some more.

Okay, so these puppies are what? Your problems in your life. And we're talking serious problems.

We're talking, you know, your girlfriend broke up with you, or you lost all your money, or someone scratched your Tesla, you loaned them your Tesla, your new Tesla, and they scratched it. That happened somewhere that I know. Hmm, okay.

Then just snuggle up to those little disasters because they are going to help you see emptiness. Snuggle up. Come on.

Carry some dog treats around with you. What's that? I don't know.

Lam Rim, I guess. Okay. NA MTSA SOGS RANG CAN GZIN LAS BYUNG BA'I Sickness has come from RANG CAN GZIN.

In the end, sickness has come from taking care of yourself first. NAS DON NAM RANG GI DRAG TU MA THUB PA'I DRA BA CAN GZIN Then there's the second line here. DRAG TU MA THUB PA'I DRA, you know from DRAG CANG PO.

Arhat. Yeah, so DRA means arh. It means enemy.

Okay, DRA means enemy. Okay, TUL means to... TUL is the past tense of DUL BA.

Vinaya. So DRAG TUL means to control an enemy. DUL BA, Vinaya means to control yourself.

It's best ethics. It's called DUL BA. But TUL means to control your enemies.

DRAG TUL means to control your enemies. He says your problems, like sickness or financial problems, are ammunition against taking care of yourself. First, which is your biggest enemy.

And if you want to defeat the biggest enemies in your life, then snuggle up to all your serious problems and let them lick you. And get used to them and treasure them like a favorite puppy. Oh, you know, I got the serious disease.

Mmm, yummy. You know, and snuggle up to them because they're going to help you defeat your biggest enemy. BYAS CAN, ROG, DUL ROG.

ROG means they help you out. BYAS CAN YIN PAS. Therefore, they are DZIN BYAS means cut DZIN BYAS.

DZIN BYAS is the abbreviation for cut DZIN BYAS. Huge kind, super kind. Super kind, cut DZIN BYAS.

Your problems are better than the kindness of your Lama. Your problems are a super Lama kindness. Okay?

And you should treasure them like a favorite puppy. Mmm. Oh, you got a new disease.

You're so lucky. All right. Here's a nice picture for you guys.

Ta-da. This is the Grand Canyon. This is an ice fall on the Grand Canyon.

It's like a 800, 1,000 foot drop. And these idiots are going down on an icy day to walk down the Grand Canyon. I did that walk once.

Jonny O, did you ever do that? I don't know. So there's like people on donkeys going up and down and they take the inside.

And you're on the outside and you're like, oh, oh, oh. And it's extreme. I got like halfway down.

I said, this is stupid. And I have a policy in my life. This is just a policy.

And I think it's a good policy, which is why I made it to 70. I don't do stupid, dangerous things. Okay.

Somebody said, let's go skydiving. I said, you go, you know. They said it's 99% safe.

I said, you go, you know. I don't do stupid stuff. I just don't do it, you know.

I just don't do it. I don't walk down the Grand Canyon on an ice day. I don't walk down the Grand Canyon in the spring or in the fall.

I don't walk down the Grand Canyon. My sixth grade teacher fell off the cliff of the Grand Canyon. And her father grabbed her hair when she was a kid and pulled her back up.

And I don't get close to the edge. I stay in Flagstaff. That's like two hours.

Okay, got it. So here's the Tibetan. RANG TSOS RGYEN NYEN PAR ZHIG CHUNG KHAB NYAMS LEN GYUR KHYANG CHE MAS DE LTA MI CHE BAR DPER NA DRUL PA'I DRANG RDOG PAR LAS DU SAB SAB CHE PAR ZHIG You and me, when we get a serious problem, we forget our Buddhist practice immediately.

Like your car breaks down or someone screws you and your Buddhist practice goes out the window. You and me, when we get a personal problem, someone hurts us, someone cheats us, our Buddhist practice disappears immediately. He says, rather you should use those as opportunity.

When someone hurts you or when there's a disaster in your life, then use it to sharpen your Buddhist practice. Use it as an excuse to think about your Buddhist practice. And he says, when someone does something bad to you or when a major problem comes up, picture, that old picture, the Grand Canyon, ice in the Grand Canyon picture.

Again, he says, step carefully. It's called, in Tibetan, it's called DRANG RDOG. DRANG RDOG SAB SAB Say SAB SAB.

SAB SAB means take it easy, be careful. SAB SAB means be careful. When something bad happens in your life, someone hurts your feelings, someone takes something from you, SAB SAB.

SAB SAB means walk carefully. And DRANG RDOG means the narrow way. There's a book called the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The real name is DRANG RDOG MYUR NAM. It's called the Narrow Dangerous Cliff Path. The Tibetan Book of the Dead real name is the Narrow Dangerous Cliff Path.

And it compares the bardo to one of these paths on a cliff, on a cliffside. And by the way, that book is wrong. That book is false.

The book was made up by somebody. Don't read it. Don't use it.

It's wrong. Called Tibetan Book of the Dead or something. I had a friend who went to a mental asylum because of this book.

So just forget it. If you were interested about bardo, what happens to you in the bardo, what to do in the bardo, talk to Sugeng. He translated the real book.

All right. Which is Vasa Bandhu. So DRANG RDOG, step, step.

When you get to an icy, narrow cliff path, step, step. Walk carefully. It means remember your practice.

Don't give up your practice. Don't give up your practice every time you have a hard time. Learn to turn your practice on when you have a hard time.

Let hard times be a reason why you should practice instead of being a reason why you should forget your practice. And then when you get in a bad situation with another person, sub-sub, step carefully. Don't slip and fall off the cliff.

So use problems as opportunities. And when you approach a problem, when you first get into a problem, when your girlfriend says, I'm leaving, that's the moment that you have to sub-sub. You have to turn on your dharma and say, oh wait, this could really upset me.

I better step carefully. I better step carefully on the ice. So get used to, make it a practice.

Make it a habit that when bad stuff happens, you remember to be careful. Step carefully. And then make it an opportunity.

Turn the problem into an opportunity. And they always are. If you're a well-trained Buddhist, every serious problem you get, you can look back later and say, this is when I made the decision that made me super successful.

It's the problem times that, and I'm talking from my personal experience, 70 years of suffering. And every time I had a major problem, it became the greatest opportunity of my life. So every time you think you're having a major problem, use it, use it, turn the energy around, and you will find out that these are the times when you make the most progress.

And there's nothing like a major problem to change your life. It gives you an opportunity to change your life. When you run into a major problem, you get a unique opportunity to take a new path.

You are released from your old life. And you're not having a choice back then. Then it's time to find something new.

And I've done it many times in my life. And I can tell you each one is an opportunity. And you will look back and you will say, I'm so grateful this person broke up with me, or I'm so grateful that this person screwed me.

I'm so grateful that this person took my position and I had to find something new. And you will look back and thank them, with great gratitude. So use problems as chances to change your life.

And you will keep progressing. You'll keep climbing. Timothy, Q&A, if you want.

We got 10, 12 minutes. Can you raise your hand and try to get the box from somebody? Nah.

The reason we throw the box is to wake up the people that get hit on the head. Okay, go ahead.

[Говорящий 2]
Thank you Geshe-la for all you're doing. I'm very grateful for that. I have a question.

It's always in my mind. And we say, or whether you say, when some things change, it's most coming out of my mind. Why we say that?

[Говорящий 1]
If things change, it's coming from your mind? Yes.

[Говорящий 2]
Why is that? It's most coming out of my mind.

[Говорящий 1]
When things change, it must be coming from your mind.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
Why we say that? Oh, yeah, it's the pen thing. And the pen is a very, very useful thing.

You know why I chose a pen? Anybody have a pen? Yeah, yeah.

25 years ago, I chose a pen because we always have pens around. I didn't know the cell phone was going to be invented. And actually, it's hard to find a pen sometimes nowadays.

But I thought at the time that everybody would always have a pen around close by. And then all of this stuff about dependent origination, all this stuff about cause and effect, all this stuff about emptiness, you can understand it completely in two minutes. Okay?

Or you can study scriptures for 25 years. It's up to you, okay? But there's nothing more than the pen.

That's it. I have studied for 25 years and I found out it's just a pen, okay? So if you understand the pen, you can save a lot of time and money.

So, and it's so simple that it feels stupid. But the goodest truths are the simple truths. And the complicated truths are usually mistaken.

So if a dog sees this, they will chew it. If a human sees this, they will write something with it. That proves, indisputably, by all the logic of the universe, that this is not coming from its own side.

Okay? I'll say it again. How long did that take?

I think we got to 25 years down to 30 seconds or 10 seconds. Okay? If a dog sees this, they want to chew it.

If a human sees this, they want to write with it. That proves, forget all religions, forget all traditions, forget all universities, forget all cultures. That proves that this is not coming from its own side.

Nobody can debate it. It's not possible. If it's possible, then the dog has to write a poem.

Okay? Or a human has to chew the, I have chewed the pen. I mean, seriously, chew the pen.

Okay? So, no one can prove me wrong. And no one has ever proven me wrong.

One guy in Florida tried. Of course, it was Florida. He said, well, I don't...

He said, no, but really, it's a pen. And I'm like, get out of here. It really is nothing.

Really, it's neither one. Anyone, a child can understand that. Okay?

If a dog sees it one way and a human sees it another way, validly, and they can chew it fine, or they can write with it fine, it proves the world is coming from you. It proves it, indisputably. Nobody can argue it.

The world is coming from your mind, from seeds in your mind. That's all. Okay?

And the pen that you're used to think was there, which was made in a factory or something, made from oil or petroleum or something, it's not there. And it was never there. And that's emptiness.

And there's nothing else to say. You know, that's emptiness. There's nothing else.

You can read Nagarjuna for the rest of your life. And I did. But there's nothing else to say.

Okay? There is no pen in my hand, which is not coming from me. That's all.

That's emptiness. That's the total meaning of emptiness. And you can study for years and years.

Why? RIGS PA THA YED PA'I BSGOM NAS Intelligent people want multiple proofs. Okay?

And that's fine. But in the end, it's that simple. Okay?

Everything is coming from your mind. Obviously. Or the dog would write a poem.

Obviously. There's no question. Okay?

And that's all. That's all. Everything is coming.

All your problems are also coming from your mind. And the solutions are coming from your mind. That's all.

All right. One more question? Sure.

By the way, I don't know how... I want to say indisputable logic. The pen is...

No one can disagree with the pen. No one who's not drunk or crazy can disagree with the pen. And that's all.

And by the way, that's the only purpose of 500 years of Buddhist logic. Okay? To prove the pen.

That's all. So, you can't say it's not true. Nobody can say it's not true.

That's all. That's emptiness. You don't need to...

In the end, that's all there is. All right, Timothy. Who's pen?

I don't want this karma. So, this is a question for online. It's about taking a challenge and turning it into a wild success.

And it has to do with, how can I turn the challenge of finishing the 18 ACI courses into a success? Because the main question is, it takes a long time.

[Говорящий 2]
They're very challenging. There's times where we don't understand what's in them. How do we...

We know what the long-term goal is, but we have challenges to get them done.

[Говорящий 1]
Can you help us with some seeds for that? Yeah, good. I'll tell you some...

Last night, I was doing the fire offering. And there's this part that you recite, right? And at some point, I learned it probably 30 years ago or something, 40 years ago.

I was at a fire offering. My teacher would do fire offering. And they would go fast.

You know? Da, cha, pa, lo, yin, zhu, kuo, de, she, te, ma, mi. You know, like this.

And I'm like, and then I thought, I will never be able to do that. And then one day I made a decision. I'm going to do it.

I'm going to memorize. And I'm not going to avoid it anymore. Okay?

I'm not going to avoid it anymore. I mean, either you learn it or you don't learn it. If you decide to learn it, it's hard.

And it takes hard work. And I said to myself, is it worth it to you? And I said, yeah, it's worth it to be able to offer to Vajrayogini this offering.

It's worth it. Then my head said, then God damn it, you got to work hard. And you got to do it.

And that's the only way to do it. There's no magic way. It's just hard work.

And there's a feeling about hard work. When you hit hard work, there's a decision you make. Are you going to do the hard work?

Are you going to give up? You got a choice. You have a choice.

You hit something difficult. And I remember the decision. I remember the moment on the fire offering.

I remember the moment. And I said, I'm going to do it. I don't care.

I'm going to do it. And I'm going to keep cracking my head until I can do it. And it's a decision.

You just make a decision. And there's no easy way. It's just hard work.

And the hard work comes from a decision. You have to make a decision. I want to learn that.

I'm going to learn that. And it hurts. And it's difficult.

And I said, I don't care. I'm going to learn it. I made a decision to learn it.

And you can't gain anything valuable without those decisions. It can't happen. It never happens.

There's times in your life when you're going to have to work really hard to understand the deeper details of emptiness. It's just hard work. And you got to make a decision.

You can watch Netflix, or you can give up Netflix and do hard work. And it's a decision. And by the way, I watched Netflix.

I watched last night. I went home and watched Netflix a little bit. And that's fine.

When you need to rest, rest. When you need to relax, relax. But take it from an old man.

The valuable things in life, they need hard work. They take hard work. And you have to decide, I'm going to do the hard work.

And if it doesn't take hard work, it's probably not that valuable. Got it? So don't ask me, is there an easy way to do the 18 courses?

I'm kidding. Don't ask me. You're asking the wrong person.

All valuable things take hard work. And that's only a decision. It's just a decision.

Anybody can master the Geshe course. Anybody can master the 18 courses, 36 courses. Anybody can do it.

You just have to work hard. So you're asking the wrong person. If you want an easy way, then I don't know.

Watch TV all day. That's easier. But you don't get the rewards.

It takes hard work. And I'll tell you something else. If you get in the habit of facing up to hard work, it becomes easy.

If you get in the habit of attacking difficult things with gusto, with joy, then that becomes a habit and you get good at it. And then you can do really difficult things because you're in the habit. So from an old man to a young kid, get in that habit of attacking hard things.

And leave the easy things for other people. Leave the easy things for lazy people. But attack the hard things.

And it's worth it. The rewards are worth it. The rewards are endless.

The rewards are unbelievable. It's extraordinary. I can't even start to tell you how sweet it is.

Your whole life will open up like a, I don't know, like diamond mountain sky. But you got to have a different attitude about hard work. And that's all.

Okay. I'm taking a break.