«Дар освобождения», курс 42 «Сила мечты», занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, now the text says, we should go to the bottom there, yeah. di tok nga'i gong ne hla na nga ni kye ne ngenpa mi tuwa ngepa che yin sum If you can die with the five powers, then definitely you won't go to any bad place. And in this book, it's long.

It's very long, and that's why it took so far, how many years? 13 years. And he will say something like, if you can die with the five powers, then you're going to go to a good place.

And then he's... the book is too long, so he doesn't tell you the five powers. And that's why we have the ALL database, Asian Legacy Library.

We are fortunate tonight to have the director, John Brady is here, and can you please stand up? And they have input, and by the way, Kelsar helped a lot with starting the ALL many years ago. He helped us start it.

And they have input. Total, I think it's, if I'm not mistaken, including the Dr. R, is about six million pages or twelve? Over six million pages finished, and they're free online.

And then we have to preserve the pages, and then we have to type them in. We have to input them. When you input them, you can search them.

So we have a database of about 15,000 books finished, and it took 35 years of hard work. And John's been helping all of this time. So when an author says something like, you should die with the five powers, and then he doesn't tell you the five powers, I go to the database, and I take it out of the database.

And we have an incredible search program, very, very powerful search program. And I can find it there. I'll show it to you maybe here.

I think it will show on my screen, Tim, am I right? Yeah? You can see?

No. Forget it. Okay.

Anyway, I'll show it to you sometime. I can search three million pages in less than half a second. And then I can cut out the five powers and give them to him.

And that's because of John Brady's work for 35 years. So let's give him 45. He's preta, fundraising preta.

He'd go around the world like a ghost looking for a donation for ALR. You understand what I say? So give him a donation if you can.

While you're here. While he's here. It doesn't have to be a million dollars.

I mean, the gold clubs are doing five dollars a month or something. And they reached a million and a half dollars. So give him something.

And he's still... he's 10% finished. He has to work for another 350 years.

So we should give him a little bit of tea money. Okay. All right.

RTOGS SNGAG DE'I SKAR PO GSOD DANG GI STOD So the first of the five powers is called the... Say again. The first of the five powers is called...

oh, somebody gave a donation? Are we splitting, John? No, I'm kidding.

Okay, okay. RTOGS SNGAG DE'I SKAR PO GSOD DANG GI STOD The first of the five powers is called the white seed. The power of the white seed.

So you guys know Sobhan. Bija in Sanskrit. And it's a white seed.

And I took notes here. You can read the notes. It means take care of things before you die.

And get things ready. My parents were... They both got cancer.

Both of my parents got cancer. And my dad was a big, big man. Almost as big as Igor.

And strong. And he got cancer and then he died slowly. And he said, I'm not going to die.

I'm going to fight this thing. And then he died. And it took two years to figure out his finances.

It took two years to find out where's all the money. And in the end it was zero. Completely zero.

It was funny. But it was a lot of trouble for the family. He did not prepare to die.

And then my mom, I'll never forget it. She had four sons. And she brought us into her bedroom.

And she said, I want to show you something. And she unbuttoned her shirt like this. She said, touch.

Here there's a bump. Touch it. You guys can touch it.

And we're so shy to see my mother's chest. We're like, why are you showing mom? She said, this is going to kill me.

No, I'm going to die. And I want you guys to know. I want you to understand.

This is cancer and I have to die. So let's get ready. She's like, let's get ready.

And we're like, what do we do mom? And she's like, okay, you're going to take care of this. And you're going to take care of this.

And we'll give money to the church. And we'll give money to the poor people. And she planned everything very nicely.

And then she died. And it was such a difference between the two father and the mother. In our Buddhist tradition, we really encourage you to get ready.

And don't think, oh, I'm not 71. I'm 30. I'm 40.

Hey, we don't know who's going to go first. We don't know. Nobody knows.

Some people got run over on the way home from Lam Rim. They got hit by a car. And they don't come to the second day.

It happens. So get ready. Get everything ready.

And you feel so happy. I can tell you, I do it. I live this way.

Everything's ready. Grandpa died. Everything's ready.

And it's very relaxing. And it's kind of fun. Hey, you're going to get this stuff.

This much money coming to you. You get this blue car. And then make every plan, make it clear.

And that's the Lam Rim practice. Don't make your family suffer, or your husband, or your wife. Get everything ready.

Be ready. And do it happy. Don't be like, oh, I'm going to die.

I'm going to die. Yay! And you can have my car.

And you can have the bank account. Even Rob, you can have my computer. Okay.

Oh, Geshe-la, you're not going to take it with you. Who gets your backpack? Oh, shut up.

I didn't decide that. Okay, number two, kompay top. Say kompay top.

And it means the power of good habit. Habit. Here it means get ready to die in the right frame of mind.

Practice sometimes. My teacher asked me every night when I go to bed, I do my coffee meditation. And then he said, do a little bit of death meditation.

If I die tonight, I hope I can go someplace to help people. I hope I can do something that will help people. I hope I can help all beings as I die.

And get ready that way. That's called habit, kom. That's the past tense of kom.

Kom means get used to it. Get comfortable with dying. And don't avoid it and don't be scared.

Take care of it. If you take care of it, you don't have to be scared. If you don't take care of it, you have to be scared.

So take care of it first and then don't die. Then you're ready to die when it comes time to die. And again, it's very comfortable.

It's not depressing. What's depressing is to try to pretend that you're not going to die. That's depressing.

But if you say to yourself, okay, it's flesh and blood, it has to die. Get used to it and be ready. Get ready.

Take care of everything. I have everything ready. Everything's ready.

All the money, everything, the things. It's all take care of. I work on it every week.

And I take care of things when I die. Get ready. And then if you don't die, okay.

Everything's ready. If you're going to go to Kyoto, you're really stupid if you don't pack two days before. You know, it's very, I don't know, you feel very crazy if you have to pack the same day.

You feel stressed out, right? You have to pack the same day. So pack a suitcase for dying.

And do it while you're young. And just get it ready. And then you don't have to think about it.

And then you're ready to die. And it's a good habit to talk to your family. It's a good, my mom, she loved us a lot, but she wasn't afraid to talk about it.

She said, look, everybody's going to die. I'm getting ready. And we felt comfortable with her.

We felt, okay, mom. And we love her more than anything in the world. But we're like, okay, mom.

She said, let's get ready. Okay, mom. And we should be like that, okay?

All of us should be like that. Okay, number three, PHAN PA'I RTOGS That's a prayer after the bardo, wherever I go. I hope I don't forget bodhichitta.

Okay, PHAN PA means to project something into the future. And you project this wish, I hope after I finish the bardo, I hope I can remember my motivation, that I want to help other people. I mean, I don't, I cannot keep the car.

I cannot keep the clothes. I cannot keep the skin. I cannot keep.

But at least my motivation, I hope I can keep it. I hope I don't forget it. So make this prayer.

That's called PHAN PA'I RTOGS Projection into the future. Okay, you guys know PHAN CES KYI LAS Projecting Karma. Okay, number four, NAM PAR GSUM BYIN PA'I RTOGS We have this, this is the name of one of the four powers.

And it means the power of destruction. And in the four powers of confession, it means to, when you do your confession, you feel strong regret and you decide not to do it again. And that destroys the karma.

Okay, so NAM PAR GSUM BYIN PA'I RTOGS It means to destroy. And it means to rip something out from the, like if you're pulling weeds or something, rip them out. It's also an old word for raping somebody.

Okay, so it means like very violent ripping out. NAM PAR GSUM BYIN PA'I RTOGS And it means do a good confession as you die. Okay, and it's very, very famous that when you die, as you die, before you die, if you can confess your bad deeds.

I think all of us have a few bad deeds that we hide and we don't want to tell anybody. And it's good before you die, it's good if you can tell somebody your worst bad deeds, your secret bad deeds. It's good to tell somebody.

It's very, very powerful to tell somebody. So it's very important before you die to tell somebody. And my dad, when he got cancer, I went to stay with him.

There was nothing to do. It's too late. He's dying slowly every day.

I watch football with him many hours because he can't do anything else. And he's just in a chair and I make orange juice for him. He can't eat anything.

He's just dying in a chair. And I thought he has a lot... Here's something you should remember.

If someone you love is dying, then help them to do a confession. Help them to do a confession. And I know he killed many people.

He was in the military during World War II. And I know he killed many people in the military. And he doesn't like to talk about it.

Never. He'd never talk about it. And I thought it's better if he'd tell me before he dies.

It's better if he tells somebody what he did. So we were watching football because he can't do anything else. And I'm making orange juice for him.

And I'm like, Dad, can you tell me a little bit about the war? I said, would you kill again? Would you do it again?

I tricked him actually. I said, if you're in the same situation again, would you kill people again? And he said, no, I would never do that.

Then that's pure confession. Then he destroyed that karma, mostly. He destroyed the seed.

When you say, I will never do it again, that's number sin jimdik tok. That's power of destruction. And I was so happy.

I said, now he can die clean. So it's try to... even you have to trick them.

People, they don't want to talk about things or be honest about your own... Be ready to tell somebody your worst things. And you can get rid of those seeds before you die.

So if you're dying, who cares what you did? They're going to... let me tell you something.

They're going to forget later anyway. So tell them, tell people, don't be shy. You're dying.

So who cares? They won't even remember your name later. So tell their worst things and clean your heart.

And then you can die happily. And you can die clean. And it's very, very, very important.

If you get hit by a car and you're bleeding to death, then somebody says, are you okay? And you say, no, I'm dying. By the way, I did this terrible thing.

Just tell them. Tell somebody. It doesn't matter.

Doesn't have to be a monk or a priest or a teacher. Tell anybody. I heard one guy told his dog.

He was dying. He told the dog, I killed somebody. But he got it off.

Okay, clean your heart. Then you can die happy. All right.

Number five. mun lam gyi tok And I made the note for you here. It says, dak shing means Buddha paradise.

Pure field, dak shing. And then they say, in the lojong, in the lam rim, when you're dying, you don't say, oh, I hope I can go to Amitabha's paradise. I hope Ajoginiya can go there.

I hope she has room. Don't talk like that. The big motivation is, I hope I can take all the bad seeds of everybody else and die.

I will carry those bad seeds out of this world. And those people don't have them. Is it possible?

Not really. You can't do it. Buddha cannot take one seed from you.

So why you do this stupid prayer? I hope I can take everyone's bad seeds. When I die, I will be like, there was an old Christian custom, a Jewish custom, called Lamb of God.

And they will, once a year in Jerusalem, they will make a prayer, put all the bad karma into one small baby goat and go kill it in the desert. And that's where the expression Lamb of God came from for Jesus. So the idea was everyone can put their bad karma in an animal and then they kill the animal.

Of course, that's a terrible mistake. But the idea is good. The idea is pretty good.

I can be the lamb. You give me all your bad seeds and I will die. I pray I could do it.

You cannot do it. But if you pray, it will clean your seeds. Good way to die.

Good way to die is to wish you could take everyone's bad karma. Give me your bad karma, I'm dying. And give it to me, I'll take care of it.

Okay, it's a nice motivation. Sometimes you can do that. Okay, DEN GZAN SNGAGS PA DEN GZAN SNGAGS PA means of the seven-point lojong, seven-point bodhisattva practice, we're on number five.

We reached number five. SNGAGS PA means fifth. LO SBYONG BA'I TSE means TSE means, some of you guys know the word sema or pramana, which means the measurement.

And in this context, TSE means what's the point at which you have developed lojong? Do you have lojong? I studied it with Geshe-la, but do you have it?

I don't know. How do you know? There's a TSE.

There's a definition of when you have lojong. When you got it, here's... When you got this, you got it.

When you don't got this, you don't got it. That's called TSE. Yeah, and then I cut it out of the ACI course, Course 14.

It's there. If you're interested, it's there. And the point at which you can say you have the good heart is in Course 14, ACI Course 14.

And these are some comments about how do you know when you have lojong? How do you know when you got it? And here's...

By the way, if you heard it in New York in 1996 or so, it doesn't hurt to hear it again. We forgot anyway. So here we go.

I'm going to go through these. It's mainly four points, but we'll go through them. There's a dividing line picture.

Next picture. It just means what's the ultimate dividing line? Something's dharma or it's not dharma.

And I put a bold for the root text. This is the root text of Geshe Chekawa, or Lord Atisha. CHOS KUNG DGONGS PA GCIG TU DUS All dharma comes down to a single point.

All dharma comes down to one idea. Whole dharma comes down to one idea. What's that?

BCAM LDAN DE'I KHYAD CHOS PUNG CI NAS GCIG GSUNGS PA CHOS PUNG is an idea. It's one pile of dharma teachings. One mountain of dharma teachings.

And there's a measure of how many pages of dharma teachings. And it's 84,000 mountains of dharma teaching. Buddha taught 84,000 mountains of dharma teaching.

BCAM LDAN DE'I KHYAD CHOS PUNG CI NAS GCIG No matter how many mountains of dharma teaching he taught, THAMS CAD DANG CHEN TZIG GYI GNAN PAR ZHUL ZHUL is an old verb that means all the rivers reach to the same ocean. It means that. ZHUL means all the rivers go to the same ocean.

All the Buddhist teachings that Lord Buddha ever gave, they go to one ocean. And that ocean is, can you stop your habit of taking care of yourself first? All dharma teachings, all books, all scriptures, all translations, everything comes down to one question.

Can you stop your habit of taking care of yourself first? Can you stop it? He says ZHIG DU ZHUL.

BAB LA BAB means the river falls to the ocean. CHOS DANG CHOS MED PAS RNAMS TIG TIG is a nice word. We do a lot of TIGs when we draw a mandala.

When you make a mandala it's very complex and it's very precise, and you have to use geometry. And that's sometimes called TIG. You draw, we call snap a line in construction.

You hold the two ends of the string, and you have colored powder on the string, and you snap it. And that's called a thik. It's a line.

namthik means what's the dividing line between chuh and chunmim? What's the dividing line between dharma and not dharma? What's the dividing line?

nyonmong gi nyenpor song ma song If something helps you stop your bad thoughts, it's dharma. If it doesn't, it's not. That's the definition of dharma.

That's the thik, that's the dividing line for dharma. Oh, I went to a dharma class. Yeah?

Was it dharma? I don't know. Was it dharma?

Did it help you become a better person? Yes. Okay, it was dharma.

It was dharma. It doesn't matter where it was. You can go anywhere.

If someone helps you to be a better person, if someone helps you remove your negative emotions, it's dharma. That's very interesting. If someone teaches you a bunch of Tibetan sentences and it doesn't help you remove your negative emotions, it's not a dharma teaching.

I don't know. If you go to a psychologist and they teach you something nice and it helps you mentally, then that's dharma. That's very beautiful.

Right? Hey, I went to the Buddhist teaching. I didn't hear any dharma.

And then I came home and listened to my kids and they were talking dharma. It's like that. Okay?

Who teaches you to be a better person? They are teaching you dharma. I don't know, there's a lot of teachings in the Monastery Geshe course where people just get more and more proud and more and more competitive, and then that's not dharma.

They spent 25 years but they didn't study dharma. Got it? When you go somewhere and someone tells you something that makes you a better person, that's dharma.

And if you go somewhere and they talk about Buddhism for five hours and it doesn't make you a better person, it's not dharma. Got it? That's dharma.

Alright. Next picture. Ultimate sign of success.

And that's called drup tak. Say drup tak. Drup means siddha.

Drup means to spiritual goal or spiritual achievements. Tak means, in this case, sign. Sign of achievement.

Am I successful in my dharma practice or not? There's a drup tak. What's a drup tak?

Drup tak is chok. Chok means supreme. Like coin chok means three jewels.

What's the highest sign of all that you are succeeding in your Buddhist practice? SDUG BSNGAL MONGS BYAS CHUNG LA SONGS If your negativities get less and less every day, you are a successful Buddhist. If your negative thoughts, negative emotions, negative behavior, if it gets less and less every day, then the dharma is having an effect on you.

Then it's dharma and you are practicing dharma. If you become a better person every day, it's dharma. And drup tak.

Drup tak means you are a successful dharma practitioner. If you get a little bit better every day. By the way, it's not a lot better every day.

That doesn't happen. And I'm just being honest. Little, little progress every day, that's fine.

It's just like when you're trying to learn a language or you're trying to learn some business skill or something. If you get a little bit better every day, it's success. Don't expect all your jealousy is going to go away in 20 years.

It doesn't work. It takes longer than that. But get a little bit better every day and then you're practicing dharma.

And your bad habits are not going to go away in one day or one year. It doesn't happen like that. I can tell you, that's why I'm a grandpa.

It doesn't happen like that. Make a little bit of progress every day. Are you better than last week?

Yes. Are you good? No.

But are you better than last week? Yes. Well, that's good.

Then you're good. So just a little bit of improvement every year. Every year a little bit better person.

And then that's success. That's drup tak. Then you're a siddha.

Mahasiddha. Drup tak. SOGS KYIS KYANG DE MIN PAR RNAMS LA BYAGS DGOS SOGS KYIS KYANG BUR SA LA CHE BA'ANG RDZUS CHOS LA NYE'I KYANG CHO BA'I PHYIR NA DRUP DAG GZHAN LA STIG PO MED Then he said a cute thing.

He said sign of progress is that you're a little bit better person every year. Then you're making progress. Then he says, look, BYAGS DGOS SOGS RNAMS LA BUR It's not flying in the sky.

Oh, he's flying in the sky. He's success in his dharma. Yeah, but he's flying in the sky and he's pissed off at people all the time.

He's a failure. Dharma failure. So he says here, he said something cute.

He says, look, birds also fly in the sky. What's the big deal? Just because you can fly in the sky doesn't mean your dharma is success.

It's are you less jealous each year? Are you less irritable each year? Small progress.

Not fly in the sky. Some really stupid person. There was a discussion whether Geshe Michael's an Arya or not, and some really stupid person said he's not.

And they said, why? And they said he can't fly in the sky. All right.

Okay, so here it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, SA LANGS RGYI DBANG RDZOD means, look, there's a city where you can fly in the sky.

And there's a city where you can burrow underground. You can walk, it's called underground, SA'O. And you can, like you can go back to the Western Hotel underground without having to walk across the crosswalk.

And you walk through the solid earth underground. He says, ah, mice do the same thing. That doesn't mean you're a siddha.

Just because you can walk through solid rock, it doesn't mean, that's not the real siddha. The real siddha is, are you less jealous than last year? Or are you less desired than last year?

Then that's progress. But just walking through a wall, even mice do that. Then he says, there's another siddha where you can walk through water.

You can walk under a river, through the river, under the river, and go to the other side, like Nyan Walk or something. He says, ah, fish do that. Even fish can do that.

SPYOD LA GNYIS KYANG CHO BA'I PHYIR Fish also can walk through the water. It's not a big deal. If you can control your competitiveness in the business, you've made progress.

You've made real progress. You're a saint. Then you're a saint.

But just because you can fly in the sky or walk through walls, that's not the sign of a saint. Mice do that. Fish do that.

No big deal. Okay, you got it? Okay.

What's the timing, Tim? Until Q&A. 8.45 I start Q&A. 6.45. Okay, good. MO SBYONG DI LA CHOS DANG PHYIR MIN RTAG PA'I SANG DU GSUNGS PAS SANG, S-R-A-N-G means a scale. You know, like the old scale that you weigh vegetables on or something like that.

That's called a SANG. And he said the practice of MO SBYONG is the scale. You can use your MO SBYONG practice to decide, to measure your success.

MO SBYONG is the scale where you can measure your Dharma success. SANG DU GSUNGS PAS CHOS BYED PA'I LAM BRJED LA DANG CHEN TZE'I CHUNG NGOS GSUNGS MAR SDUG SNA, SBYONG BO LAM BRJED means fingerprint or handprint. DGANG BRJED is the, what do you call it?

Footprint. So print means, in Dharma teachings, DBANG BRJE means a sign of success in your practice. It's called your footprint or your handprint.

So the handprint of successful Dharma is, did your selfishness get less or not? Did your selfishness get less or not? If your selfishness is getting less every year, that's a sign of success.

That's a good sign of success. It's like the fingerprint in the murder mystery or something. Oh, someone here was a good person.

How do you know? I saw the sign. What's the sign?

They are less selfish than last year. Less selfish than last year. Sign of success.

Footprint of success or handprint of success. Okay, next picture. That was the, that's supposed to be the justice scale.

All right, next picture. I planted all these peach trees in my house and all of them died. Then two friends came from Shenzhen and they came to my cafe and they planted two trees and they grew like crazy.

I even sold the peaches and I did not give them any money. Anyway, it was Stanley and Allison and this is one of the trees. They planted it at the cafe.

Good job you guys. I don't know what they put there. Next picture.

DBANG PO NYID KYI RTZO BAR MDZIN The Lojong text, the text about bodhichitta attitude, it says mainly keep the two judges. Keep the main one of the two judges. DBANG PO means witness or judge.

Okay, DBANG PO. It's a little bit unusual word. These words are a thousand years old.

So it's a little bit difficult. It's one of the seven languages, eight languages. DBANG PO means witness or judge.

He says the main judge, keep the main judge. Who is it? Did I mix up the two pictures?

I don't know. RANG BZHIN GYI DBANG PO NYID DE RANG NGO NYON NUS BSHAD PA MED KYANG TSUL KHRIG BSGYUD So if there's two witnesses to your behavior, if there's two witnesses to your mental state, which one is more important? You or other people?

Who knows your mental state better? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we tend to try to look good to other people.

Like we don't care if we look good to ourselves. Our mind is dirty and we live with it. It's fine.

But we want to pretend to other people. Geshe-la wants to look very holy in the teaching and then he goes home and watch Netflix all night or Korean soap operas. He wants to look nice.

So this ancient Mojong text says, who should you impress? Who should you impress? Should you impress the audience who comes to your teaching?

Or should you impress yourself in private? Which is more important? Yourself.

You're the one who knows who you are. Don't try to pretend to other people. We tend to try to look good to other people.

And we don't care how dirty we look to ourselves. And he said you should switch it. There's many, many famous teachers who didn't take a bath for a week just so other people don't judge them wrong.

But inside they're very pure. To themselves they are pure. To other people they don't look pure.

They're happy that way. They like that. So don't try to look good to others.

Try to look good to yourself in your own heart. You should be able to look at your own heart and say that's a beautiful thing. That's really beautiful.

Instead of how much makeup... what do you call it? Sephora.

Expensive also. You guys don't go to Sephora in Kyoto. You can't get out of there in less than a hundred dollars.

Impossible. I don't care what I'm going to say. It's expensive.

It's much cheaper to put makeup on the inside. You should be beautiful on the inside. On the outside, maybe we're beautiful, maybe we're not.

But be beautiful on the inside. You're the judge. You're the ultimate judge of your beauty, not somebody else.

You decide whether you're beautiful or not. Not other people. Got it?

Cool. By the way, if you look inside and you're beautiful, you are really beautiful and you feel beautiful. The outside beauty, it's very difficult to keep it.

It lasts for a few years and then you got to use more and more makeup. Then it's like ridiculous. It's like a whole bottle of makeup just to get out in the morning.

So take care of the inside. Be sexy on the inside. That's really sexy.

And then outside, it's going to fall apart. All right, Pabongka Rinpoche. GZHAN GYIS TSAD DU RDZIN GYANGS Other people tend to judge us.

TSUL KHRIMS SANGS RDOG KA LA SANGS PA'I TSUL BA MTSAMS CHUNG YANG You and me, we tend to kind of put on a false appearance to other people, like we're better people than we really are. Sometimes I like to just mess up in front of other people and then the pressure's off. Geshe-la's an idiot.

Then it's so relaxing. I don't have to try to look smart. CHUNG YANG DE TZAM NI AA MA'I BDE BU'I PHYIN NANG MIN MA MIN RIG SHES GSUNGS PA Nagarjuna's letter to the king, Udayabhadra, one of his two letters to the king.

He goes off on mango fruits. It's a big subject in India because once a year the mangoes come out. I was there in mango season.

The first week that the mangoes are ripe, they're like $10 a bag. Second week, they're $8 a bag. Third week, they're $4 a bag.

Sixth week, everyone's trying to give away mangoes. They're high. They grow very high.

Then they're hard to judge from the color. It's hard to judge whether it's ripe or not. You pay a kid to climb up the tree and squeeze it for you.

They're a very famous example for what? Is a person really a good person? We don't know.

People are like mangoes. Some people look really nice on the outside and they're really lousy on the inside. Some people look really lousy on the outside and they're really pure on the inside.

There's so... Nagarjuna used to say, people are mangoes. I'm so tired of trying to judge the mangoes.

Who knows? Some people look sweet on the outside and they're really bad on the inside. We don't know.

So he says, PHYI LAS MIN NA SNANG NA MIN NA BRAL BA'I PHYI LA SBYAB PA'I YOD TU CHEN DE LTA BU LA PHYIR GZHAN MI SHES PA'I THAG GIS SANGS PAS PHRAG TU TSEN PA MNOD PHYI LA SBYAB PA'I YOD TU CHEN What is that khyel sang? PHYI LA SBYAB PA'I SBYAB PA means hiding? PHYI LA is in a mouse or a rat?

PHYI LA Oh, PHYI LA is a rat, I think. TSIS KYIS NGES MA KHAMS TE DONG Okay, he agreed. Yeah, he said rats tend to hide in the hole.

Meaning you can't judge a person from the outside. DE LTA BU LA PHYIR GZHAN MI SHES PA'I THAG GIS SANGS PAS PHRAG TU TSEN MNOD Sometimes there's a person who's really mean on the inside, but we think they look really nice on the outside. BDEN DAG BA BDAG MI BYA ZHING Don't be the kind of person who pretends to be a holy person on the outside and is rotten on the inside, or cruel on the inside.

GZHAN YANG NANG MIN LA SPYIR He's giving the possible, what do you call it, permutations. Mango looks good on the outside, lousy on the inside. Mango looks good on the inside, looks lousy on the outside.

Mango is lousy and looks lousy, and mango looks good and is good. It's the four famous mangoes. GZHAN YANG NANG MIN LA SPYIR MI MIN means sometimes the mango is ripe on the inside, but it looks on the outside, it looks like it's not.

So sometimes the person on the outside looks kind of mean, but they have a big heart on the inside. Outside looks like a bad mango, but inside is a good mango. MIN PA'ANG MIN PA'ANG CI DU BA'I GZHAN GYIS PHYIR MA BRGOS PA GZHAN GYIS PHYIR MA BRGOS PA PHYIR LYE, what's that?

PHYIR LYE NGO MTSAR YOD PA and PHYIR LYE, but say NGO MTSAR. PHYIR LYE NGO MTSAR Say NGO MTSAR. I don't really care whether you say it, I'm trying to keep you awake.

NGO MTSAR PHYIR LYE Okay, these are in the Abhidharma Kosha and there's all virtuous states of mind are accompanied by two states of mind in the Abhidharma. Stanley, what are they? Yeah, we can say shame and consideration.

In the Abhidharma Kosha system, all good, every time you do a good deed, there's two mental states going on. One is you do care what other people think of you. I don't know, a lot of times, Geshe-la will not play Netflix in front of the audience, but when he goes home, he will play Netflix.

So in the public, he doesn't play Netflix, but when he gets home, he plays Netflix. That's called PHYIR LYE. I care about what other people think, I do care.

I always try to get home before I watch Korea soap opera. Then NGO MTSAR means you have a chance to watch Netflix in your own hotel room. There's nobody there and nobody will know if you watch it.

But you say to yourself, this is not who I want to be. This is not who I want to be. According to Abhidharma, there's two kinds of virtuous states of mind.

One is, this is not who I want people to see me as. And that's okay, that's healthy. That's healthy.

I don't want to look like a bad person. Then NGO MTSAR YOD is even more powerful, and that means in the privacy of my own home, when nobody can see me, I still want to be good to myself. Because I care.

I care about my self-esteem. I don't want to be a bad person, even in my own room, where nobody else can see me. So here he's talking about SNANG DROD BA'I RANG RGYUD NYA NAMS KYI BCUG PA'I PHYIR TZAM SNANG TZAM We want to be pure on the outside and pure on the inside.

Good mangoes. Good peaches. Peaches are pretty easy, I think, because the outside is pretty honest.

All right. BYANG CHUB SEMS PA RNAMS NI DRAG PA NGANG PA PO MI BYAS BYAS PA LTAR CI KUN GCIG KYANG DRAG PA NGANG PA'I ZHIG RNAMS SPANG PA'I BSAD PA'I RTZO BAR RANG RGYUD RANG MI MTHAL BAR ZHIG GAL CHES GSUNGS Bodhisattvas, DRAG PA NGANG PA PO MI BYAS means if they get some kind of bad reputation in the world, that's not their main... they don't think about it mainly.

That's not what they're mainly worried about. If somebody's... what do you call that on the internet?

Trolling them on the internet. They don't waste the time to defend themselves. They're like, okay, DRAG PA NGANG PA PO MI BYAS means I don't care what people say about me.

In a good way. It's like, okay, people say I'm a bad person. I'm not.

DRAG PA NGANG PA PO MI BYAS They don't waste their time trying to prove to everybody on the internet that they're a good person. They just be a good person. CI KUN GCIG KYANG DRAG PA NGANG PA'I ZHIG RNAMS SPANG NAS BSAD PA'I Their main interest is not trying to look like a good person.

It's to be a good person. Their main effort is to be inside a good person. And their main effort is not to look like a good person.

Although they care about it. I mean, we should care, right? We don't want people to think we're a bad person.

And it's important for a good person to think about that. But the most important thing is to be good on the inside, no matter what people think about you on the outside. And if you're going to spend time either to fight the trolls in the world, or to fight your own mental afflictions, probably you should work on the afflictions and the trolls will take care of themselves.

And that's my philosophy. I don't want to waste time trying to prove I'm a nice person. I think I'll just focus on being a nice person.

Sooner or later the internet will catch up. That's my philosophy. BYA BA ZHIG GAL CHES GSUNGS Very important.

Okay, next one. Smiling guy. YID DE BA ZHIG RGYUN DU BRTAN Be joy alone in an unbroken stream.

Tim, what time am I supposed to Q&A? Now? Whenever I like.

Tomorrow. I think it's now, right? Okay, that's a good place to pause.

It is a good place. It's a good place to stop. Okay, and the next one, the next advice is about focusing on having fun.

And I don't know, a lot of Dharma people are too serious for me. They're all like, oh, money, baby, oh, money, baby, oh. If you know what's going to happen after you die, if you know where you're going, then okay, relax, have fun, go out.

We went out last night, right? We had a good time. Somebody said, Geshe-la, you should go to the hotel from the airport.

Maybe somebody's waiting for the flowers or something. I said, no way, I'm going to go out and have a really good dinner. So I kidnapped everybody and we went out.

We live in Rimrock. There's no restaurants there. If you get to go to Kyoto, go to a good restaurant.

I'm going to go to the restaurant. So have fun. Life is short.

And I think if you really practice good lam rim, you should have fun. I don't mean fun like you go gambling or alcohol, I don't mean like that. I mean, relax and have some fun.

Life is so short. If you're too serious, I think your Buddhism is weird. Have some fun.

If you're really doing good Buddhism, you should be in a good mood, right? I think so. And then have some fun.

It's okay. Good fun, clean fun. Okay.

All right, Timothy, questions.

[Говорящий 2]
My question is how to correctly understand the famous verse from Nagarjuna, which is no starting, no stopping, and no staying. We slightly touched this by DCL level 12, like 210, which is saying that it's not the seeds cause the result. In fact, the seeds and the result are existing at the same time.

So that means right now me and the whatever the dream me is already existing at the same time. Also from level 11, we learned that the time doesn't exist really. So that means everything existing at the same time now.

So me and the perfect me or the dream me existing now at the same time. Then why all of these? Or what is the direct fast track for that perfect me?

And also we learned in DCL level seven, everything's coming from the seeds. Everything have emptiness. So that means emptiness also have emptiness.

And the seeds principle also have emptiness. But in level two, we learned that the seeds principle is just like the gravity. It's applied to everyone.

So in this way, how to really understand the seeds principle also have emptiness. So that's basically my question. So thank you very much.

[Говорящий 1]
Wow, that's kind of... I think three translators just had a heart attack. No, that's a good question.

And I just finished a book. I was working on a book. I work on books all year.

And I was working on Nick Lashaw's book. Nick's coming, which is exciting to me. And he translated Nagarjuna's 60 verses on proving nyaya, on proving emptiness.

So he translated that book. And in that book, Nagarjuna has a very, very big emphasis that he's kind of saying, if you really understand cause and effect, ingo, if you really understand it, then that's emptiness. And technically that's not correct.

So there's a big, big argument. I'll say it again. Nagarjuna in the 60 verses says that ingo, that the fact that causes cause results, is dependent origination.

It is emptiness. That itself is emptiness. And that's not true.

It's not true. Emptiness cannot change, for example. But a cause has to change to produce a result.

It seems like he's saying something contradictory. And then Tsongkapa, about 1200 years later, he says the same thing. Oh, the greatest thing Buddha ever taught was, what?

Dependent origination, because it is emptiness. So that's confusing. I'll say it again.

Mental seeds create your world. And that's changing. Every time a seed opens, it's destroyed.

When the seed turns into a tree, the seed dies. Has to. The seed dies by giving a tree.

So seeds and results have to change. Seeds have to change to produce a result. Otherwise there won't be a result.

The seed has to disappear. If the seed is still there, the tree cannot be there. Once the tree is there, the seed has to be gone.

The seed has to be destroyed to make the tree. It has to be. It's always like that.

Then emptiness shouldn't change ever. Emptiness should always be the same. And I'll give you an example.

You ready? Do you have mice in your kitchen? Mice.

I don't. I mean sometimes I do, but not right now. Do you have mice in your kitchen?

I said no. Did you ever catch a mouse in your kitchen? I have a Mongolian mouse trap.

It's very cool. No springs, no nothing. It's one stick.

Two sticks. Three sticks. Three sticks.

You can catch any mouse. I don't care how smart they are. And it's very cool.

The Mongolian guy taught me. So if a mouse is in your kitchen but you take the mouse out of the kitchen, then is there a mouse in your kitchen? Yes or no?

Is there an emptiness of mouse in your kitchen? Is there absence of mouse in your kitchen? Yeah, there is.

Okay, I'll say it again. When the mouse is running around pooping on everything, you have a mouse in your kitchen. Then when you catch the mouse and you take them out, then you create...

Did you create? Then you have a thing in your kitchen called no mouse in the kitchen. Absence of mouse in the kitchen.

Does the absence of the mouse in the kitchen ever change? It cannot change. Why?

You can't have half a mouse in the kitchen or something like that. Either mouse is in the kitchen or mouse is not in the kitchen. There's no other choice.

Okay? So when the mouse comes back in the kitchen, where does the absence of the mouse go? It just disappears, okay?

It doesn't get smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller. When the mouse's nose comes into the door, then there's less mouse. There's less no mouse.

It doesn't work like that, right? When the whole mouse is in, then no mouse went away. But when the mouse's nose is in, I don't know.

Is there a mouse in the kitchen? Not really. So either a mouse is there or a mouse isn't there.

You can't say half mouse. It's not like that. So it can go out of existence, but it cannot change.

Mouse in the kitchen or no mouse in the kitchen. No mouse in the kitchen can disappear when a whole mouse comes in the kitchen. But it doesn't get bigger or smaller.

You can't say I have 50% no mouse in my kitchen. You can't say that. Either there's a mouse in your kitchen and there's no mouse in your kitchen.

So no mouse cannot change. You cannot have half mouse. Or something like that.

It doesn't work like that. I have half mouse not in my kitchen. It doesn't work like that.

So emptiness cannot change. Absence cannot change. It can go away.

But it cannot change. So that's the difference. Seed and result.

The seed disappear, disappear, disappear, disappear. Stop. Results grow, grow, grow, grow.

Tree grows. But absence. It's either total or it's not there.

Absence has to be total. Therefore, absence can change, but dependent origination... Sorry, absence cannot change, but dependent origination can change.

So why did Nagarjuna say emptiness and dependence are the same thing? Because it's not true. One is never changed.

One always changed. Then why did he say something's not true? And I'll tell you, okay?

You got to read Nick's book when it comes out. It's a very, very, very sexy book. So in Buddhism, there's two divisions.

We call Hinayana and Mahayana. Lower way, higher way. Sometimes Hinayana called Theravada, which means the true way.

If you belong to Hinayana, you call Hinayana Theravada. It's okay. So there's a lower way and a higher way.

There's two kinds of Buddhism. People say Lord Buddha, in his first turning of the wheel, in his first teaching period in this world, he taught Hinayana and that's true. He taught Hinayana.

And then 700 years later, Nagarjuna came and he taught Mahayana. Okay? He changed everything.

He said emptiness is deeper than that and we all have to try to be bodhisattvas. Before that, no one talks about bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is mentioned once in the Abhidharmakosha.

It's a different thing. There's no such thing. Everybody say, oh, Nagarjuna is so cool.

He started the Mahayana. In Nick's book, Nagarjuna says, I didn't start the Mahayana. It was always Mahayana.

Okay? It's so sexy. He says, don't blame me.

I didn't start this emptiness thing. Buddha did. You just didn't understand it.

Okay? He was talking Mahayana all along and you guys didn't understand it. Dependence is emptiness.

First teaching of Buddha is dependence. The first big teaching of Buddha is dependence. Then later Nagarjuna started talking about emptiness.

And then Nagarjuna said, in the 60 verses, he said to the Hinayana people, you guys don't understand. Buddha taught emptiness from the first minute. You just didn't understand it.

Don't talk about Hinayana, Mahayana. This is ridiculous. He always teach Mahayana.

You're Hinayana. He's not Hinayana. Got it?

His dependent origination teaching is goddamn emptiness. Don't you understand? But he's not saying changing thing is unchanging.

He's not saying that. He's just saying if you really understand dependence, it's emptiness. And if you think it's different, if you think some guy came along and started Mahayana later, you're mistaken.

It was emptiness all along. He just didn't, you just didn't understand him. And then in the 60 verses, he uses all of their ancient books to prove that they are Mahayana and they don't know it.

It's very cool. Anyway, I suggest you read Nick's book. Then I think you have a question.

It's a very beautiful question. It's a big question. By the way, we did a cool thing in that book.

And I have to brag about it because Geshe-la likes bragging. We went through the whole book, 60 verses. It took seven years.

We went through the whole book and we made a list of the most important ideas. Okay, cool. So far, cool.

Then we went to John Brady's database and we checked how many of those ideas survived and how many didn't survive. And it's very interesting. So some of the greatest ideas in Nagarjuna did not survive.

Okay, they died. Someone forgot to teach it. And you can prove it with his database, statistically.

We put percentages on all the ideas. We got the statistics for all the great ideas in Nagarjuna. And it's very interesting.

You can show, statistically, from 1800 years, that some of the ideas he wanted to teach disappeared by bad luck. And it happens in the monastery. The teacher gets sick that week.

And they don't teach that topic. And then the students, the Geshes, don't learn it. And then those Geshes don't teach it to their Geshe students.

And the idea disappears. And you can statistically show which ideas disappeared. It's very interesting.

And then it seems like what he wanted to happen didn't happen because he wrote verses that nobody ever used them after that. Nobody understood them after that. You can prove that some of his verses nobody understood them for 2,000 years because they never used them.

They're missing from the data. They're not in the data. You can prove it statistically.

And then I was thinking, maybe he knew that. I mean, at the end of the whole thing, it took me like a year to do the statistics. And then I'm like, wait a minute, maybe Nagarjuna is tricking us.

Maybe he wants us to figure this out. And he's hoping we'll teach those things and wake them back up. You see what I mean?

Like, if he's really an Arya, then maybe he can see that this idea will have a, what do you call it? A renaissance. There will be a renaissance of certain ideas after John Brady.

I really like it. So you can read it when it comes out. I'm sure Rosa is going to get it out quick.

Okay, are we done? No, but when did you want me to be done? No, I don't want to go too late.

I mean, you should be fresh. You know, we did a lot today. And you've been very good.

And it's hard to listen to this stuff. You don't know how many times I suffered in the monastery. You know, the teacher's like, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, come on, you're strong. I always made a promise to myself, when I become a Geshe and I start teaching, I'm going to kill the students in the same way. Good.