«Дар освобождения», курс 40 «Магия пустотных медитаций и тонглен», занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, here we go. We're going to do a backtracking gratitude meditation, and then we're going to go deeper. So this meditation has two meditations.

All right, ready? Here we go. Let's start with 20 breaths.

Once a day I'd like you to do the seven limb puja. If you're not sure, ask Kat. So please take one piece of food, or here at Diamond Mountain in the morning we all get a green drink, or a fresh juice, and pick something.

A juice, or some piece of bread, or rice, or whatever.

[Говорящий 2]
Who brought it to your home, or to the temple here? Thank them. Try to imagine what they look like.

Then imagine where they brought it from, maybe a store.

[Говорящий 1]
Try to imagine these people working to put the food out on the shelves for you.

[Говорящий 2]
They are working all day, hard work. Somebody took your money.

[Говорящий 1]
Somebody made the money. Somebody made the paper money. Somebody made the credit card.

Somebody did the work for the programming, for the payment online. Hundreds of people maintaining that.

[Говорящий 2]
Somebody brought the vegetables or fruit from the farm to the store.

[Говорящий 1]
I used to do that work in a truck in college.

[Говорящий 2]
It's very difficult work. Somebody harvested those vegetables or fruit.

[Говорящий 1]
Somebody picked them for you, packaged them.

[Говорящий 2]
Extremely difficult work. Somebody watered the field. Somebody fertilized it.

Somebody plowed it. Somebody cleared it. We owe them already our time and our body.

[Говорящий 1]
They have a right to some of our time.

[Говорящий 2]
They have some right to what we do with our body.

[Говорящий 1]
The thought that we have to thank them, the thought that they have a right to some of my time, also has its history. This is a second meditation that I'd like you to do today.

[Говорящий 2]
This idea to think about the idea that someone, that other people might have an equal right to some of my time. How did that idea start?

[Говорящий 1]
What's the lineage for that idea? Oh, well, I heard it from the Lam Rim. Then I'd like you to trace mentally, not physically, the train of thoughts that led you to this point in time mentally.

Your mind is considering today the possibility that other people already have a right to your time, that we already owe them some of our time. If we respect the idea of people's rights, that everybody has certain rights in this world, then those people already have a right to some of your time because they are feeding you. They are giving you their time and they are making your clothes and they are making your house and where did this idea come from in the first place?

Who said they have an equal right? Why am I hearing this right now? Oh, well, I heard about this Lam Rim.

Okay, and then you had a thought, right? Yeah, I was thinking I'd like to hear that course. I'd like to hear more about that.

Then what were you thinking before that? Oh, I was curious. I was looking around.

I feel like there's improvements I could make in my life. I heard about this Buddhism stuff and Lam Rim stuff. Where did that thought come from?

Well, I guess when I was in college I heard about Buddhism. I wasn't learning it, but I heard about it. I was thinking about it.

What happened before that? Well, I was thinking to go to college. I was thinking to go there.

Then what happened? Well, that come from my family when I was thinking about what my mom and dad used to say about going to college. Then that was sort of an extension of my grade school times.

I remember thinking about history and about the rest of the world in my grade school times. I can remember those thoughts. I can remember the thoughts of going to the first classes in my school.

I can remember, especially things that went wrong in school. I remember how I felt. I remember being curious about the books and about people, what they had to teach.

I remember the first days before I was old enough to go to school. I remember what it was like to be with my mom or my dad, my family. I remember things we talked about and thoughts I had, tracing back my mental process.

I remember a day in my crib touching a blanket and feeling how soft it was and being attracted to the softness. I remember thinking about the softness. So what I'd like you to do is two different meditations today.

One is physically pick something you ate, something you wore, something you drank, a house that you stayed in, and trace it back to the people who made the materials, who planted the... to the people who passed on the knowledge of building houses for 50,000 years and thank them. Go back and find new excuses to thank more people.

Thanking is a very healthy, happiness-creating exercise. Then I want you to notice in a second meditation today, and by the way, that should be your fresh time. So those of you who've done retreat, you know there's a prime time of day and you know there's a dull time of day.

So prime time, for me it's mid-morning. Trace it back. Trace back your thoughts and see how far back you can go.

If you work hard, you can trace back to the few years after you were born. You can trace back to when you were an infant, a baby. It's possible to trace your mind stream back.

And then eventually you can break through the current life and go back into the darkness of the mushroom places before this birth. It's possible to trace your thoughts go in a flow. You never stop being aware.

For all time you will be aware. You have a recording in your mind of past lives. You just haven't tried to access it.

So while you're working on tracing back your house or your food or your clothing and being grateful, then as a deeper meditation, when you're feeling fresh, trace back your thoughts and see if you can trace your thoughts back. That's a very, very deep meditation and it has big, big impact on being able to see emptiness. The exercise of tracing your thoughts back and you'll get better and better at it.

The first day it's kind of clumsy. It's like trying to ride a bicycle. Then after a week you should be much better at it.

That has a lot of power in being able to see emptiness directly. So we're going to do two different kinds of backtracking meditations. One is a gratitude backtrack based on a piece of fruit or a house or a car.

Then the other one is a parallel meditation where you backtrack your thoughts and try to see what thought came before the last one. You can't trace back every single thought, but you can trace back with gaps. You can say, oh, I had this thought 10 years ago and I had this thought 12 years ago.

Then if you practice, you can work back before this life. It's a lot of fun because you remember all the Dharma thoughts you had. Okay, open your eyes.

Take a stretch. Take a drink. Timothy, any announcements?

Yeah? See you tomorrow, 6 a.m. World Central Time, which is Bowie, Arizona. It's fun to be with you guys.

Thank you for coming online. I can see your smiling, beautiful faces. Thank you.

Especially thank you Francisco and all the staff. Thank you for working so hard, especially translators. We'll see you tomorrow at 6 a.m. Bye.