Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика» — Мастер Камалашила: медитации на «Сутру Алмазного огранщика», часть первая (Аризона, 2016), занятие 6

[Speaker 1]
Okay, somebody asked me what's the name of Master Kamalashila's commentary. In Sanskrit it's Arya, Prajnaparamita, Vajra, Chaddaka, Tikka. Tikka means big commentary, long commentary.

Okay, so it doesn't have a separate title, it's just called Tikka, which means long commentary. In Tibetan it's Pagpa Sherab Gipara Tu Chumba Dorje Chöpe Gyatso Drelpa. So the extensive commentary on the Diamond Cutter, on the teaching of the perfection of wisdom called the Diamond Cutter.

And in Tibetan you might sometimes see Tikka or Tik. In a two word combination it gets shortened to Tik, like Kartik, Kamalashila's Tikka Kartik. So it's a little confusing.

James asked me a question. We don't hear much about the Buddha explaining Samatha or Vipashyana. He does, but it's kind of spread out.

So Kamalashila quotes, he quotes directly some sutras that explain Samatha and Vipashyana. And here's one quotation that I like, because it's brief. And this is from the third Gomrim.

De la don na shi ne ni tse chikpa nyi do You can describe Samatha simply as the capacity of single-pointedness, single-pointedness, ekagra. Then it's important to, you know, if you study a lot, then you understand that ekagra doesn't mean a state of mind. It doesn't mean like a x-ray mind, what do you call it, cosmic ray.

It doesn't mean the mind is one-pointed. One point means one object. So the agra in ekagra, the point in one point, means a single object.

The ability to hold a single object. It doesn't describe the state of mind so much. La thong ni yangdapar topao And then Vipashyana is grasping things as they are.

Chum den de kyi papa kwen chok dring la sok pe, shi ne dang hark tok yin sen yi katsel do Katsel do is a high honorific for, you know, katsel. It means to give the word, but it means to say. So when you're talking about Buddha, you say katsel.

He gave the definition of shamatha and vipashyana in many sutras, but the one that Kamalashila likes is called papa kwen chok dring, kwen chok dring, which Jigme has translated as a cloud of jewels, kwen chok dring. And I went and got it for you. So here's his definition.

de la shi ne ni sem tsey chikpao Ekagra. Shamatha is one-pointed mind. hlak tong ni yang dapa ji tawa shin du chosok sok tok pa-o To analyze one by one the way things are in a perfect way.

To analyze one by one the way things are in a perfect way. And those of you who know the definition of vana know that there's a code word in here, sok sok tok pa, which means to examine the four Arya truths one by one. So vipashyana assumes, seems to assume the direct perception of emptiness.

Because that code word, sok sok tok pa, to analyze one by one, is normally only used with the direct perception of emptiness and its aftermath, which we call what?

[Speaker 2]
Jeytom.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, jeytom. Which means the time after until you go to bed. There's a name for it called jeytom.

So you're still on the path of seeing. Seeing then is like 14 hours and 20 minutes. The 20 minutes is in direct perception.

And then the rest is until you go to sleep. And during that time you explore, I guess explore would be a good translation for sok sok tok. You explore the meaning of the four Arya truths, the 16 aspects of it.

Okay. So that's Lord Buddha's definition of shamatha and vipashyana. Okay.

I would add that, of course to correct Lord Buddha, just kidding, I would add that the ekagra always has to do with emptiness. It's not just any ekagra. Baseball players have single-pointedness, but not shamatha.

Okay. Okay. So I thought we'd do some Master Kamalashila and then we'll apply it to the meditation we've been building up.

So the first part of the meditation was watching your body to see if it was still. The second part was watching your breath. And then the third part was watching Buddha-me, future Buddha-me.

By the way, you can talk to that Buddha sometimes, okay? I used to do it in the bathroom at work. I did a lot of stuff in the bathroom at work.

Because there's a stall, you can close the door, and you can meditate. So if you're having a bad day or something, or you did something great, you can talk to your future Buddha, because that Buddha can see all time. Okay?

The Buddha that Rosa will become can see all time. So they can see us right now. And you can talk to them.

You can say, I'm sorry I messed up today. I delayed you happening. But cut me some slack.

I'm just a non-Buddha so far. Send me some strength. They can send you strength.

Okay? It's cool. You can get to know them.

Okay. So we're going to go one more step. We're going to add one more layer on the meditation.

And by Sunday, we'll have a really nice practice for you to do for a couple months. Okay? Okay.

So now I'm still in the third gong rim. Okay? The third book.

Although this information is repeated in some of the other ones. To put it briefly, all meditation practices are prone to have six problems. Okay?

Nowadays we say five because two of them are joined together. Okay? But generally, anybody who meditates, anybody, it doesn't matter who, anyone who tries to meditate is going to come to six problems.

Okay? It's good if you can recognize your enemy. Otherwise you can't have a good war.

Okay? Sometimes the enemy is sitting next to you and you don't know. Okay?

So it's very important to be able to recognize your enemy if you're going to defeat it. And so, all meditators, and Lord Buddha said, watch out for six problems. Anyone who tries to meditate will come across six problems.

Okay? Druk gyur te. Guess what the first one is.

Say le lo. It sounds like Eric Clapton. Le lo.

Le lo is one of the few Tibetan words that sounds like the English.

[Speaker 2]
Le lo.

[Speaker 1]
It means lazy. Laziness. Okay?

Here it means, I'll do it tomorrow. You can translate it as, I'll start tomorrow. Okay?

I'll start my meditation practice tomorrow. Today is Sunday. What is today?

Friday. Today is Friday. That's not such a good day.

You're right. Saturday would be better. That's stupider, I think.

Saturn. I don't remember. Anyway, Saturday is a much more auspicious day to start your meditation.

So, le lo just keeps delaying it. Okay? And it...

What did the le lo person didn't do? Yeah, they didn't do their death meditation. I'm going to die today.

I will die before the sun sets. Then it's... Instead of being depressing, it's very liberating.

I'm not going to do all those things I only half wanted to do with people I only half wanted to see. You know? I'm going to focus on what I really want to do today.

Death meditation frees you to focus on what you really want to do today. The person you promised to visit that you didn't really want to visit won't be able to call you to complain because you'll be dead. So it doesn't matter.

Cell phone won't answer. Okay? So you boil your life down to what you really want to do and to what will help you after the moment of death, what will help you afterwards.

Classically, in the study of meditation in Buddhism... So now you know this is not a Tibetan teaching. This is a Buddhist teaching.

This goes back to India. So this is Lord Buddha's presentation of shamatha. There are four corrections for lelo.

There are four corrections for lelo. So we normally say nirpanga and nyamboge. The five problems and the eight corrections.

He's got six problems because he split one of them. Here are the four corrections for wanting to delay until tomorrow. Okay?

The first four corrections, lelo, nyamboge, are the corrections for lelo. The first is called... You can say depa.

Shraddha. Sri Pataji's grandson is called... Yeah, it's shraddha, okay?

It got messed up. It's supposed to be shraddha, okay? It got messed up to shraddha.

So the Buddhist word for faith is really clarity or admiration. Or, I think that's cool. So the definition of faith in this sense, it's not like you're like this, oh, I love Buddha or something like that.

Meditation is cool. It's that state of mind that says meditation is really cool. If you think it's cool, you will do it.

Okay? You won't have lelo, okay? If meditation was really popular in your high school and you got more girls if you were good at meditation, then everybody would meditate, you know?

That's depa, you know? They say, you're really cool. Your meditation is something, you know?

You're so cool, you know? Okay, so maybe one day that will come. And I always think of it as meeting a girl in high school.

I always think of it like that, you know? First you're walking around or you see her, like at a dinner or something, and you just see her, and you start counting the things that are cool. She has nice hair.

She's really soft and gentle. She's smart. She's, you know?

So shraddha means you start counting the things that are cool, like in high school, you know? She's really cute and she's smart and she's nice. She cooks good.

Okay, like that. You start counting the cool things. That's what shraddha does, okay?

Then... Then naturally you get, you want to have that thing. Okay?

Once you have five or six cool things, it's not any effort to go to dupa. Dupa means I want that thing, you know? Like I want to ask her out, okay?

It comes in your mind. As soon as you have five or six nice things, then the next thought automatically. You don't have to work at it.

You don't have to say, I have to try to want her. You want to ask her out, you know? Okay?

That's called dupa. It means I want that thing. It's cool, okay?

Dupa ki. That's the second antidote. I want that thing.

Then automatically you get sundru. Virya. You want to work hard for that thing, you know?

In my school, in my high school, there was these lockers. Like... My high school's laid out like prison blocks.

And in the middle of each one there were lockers. So we lived in Arizona. You didn't...

It was all outside. But it was covered. And everybody had a locker.

So you figure out where her locker is. That's the next thing. That's sundru.

Sundru means you start working. You start doing the grunt work, you know? To get this date going.

You know? So you figure out where her locker is. And in my high school, we didn't have laptops.

We had textbooks like this thing. And we had six subjects. So you had six textbooks.

So you would get a big blue notebook. And you'd stack the books on it. And then you'd put your arm around it like this.

And you'd walk around like that all day, you know? So you would wait for her behind the locker. And when she's walking by with her books, you'd come out with your books.

And you'd hit her books. And they'd all spill on the ground, you know? And then you're like, Oh, let me help you, you know?

You're helping her. That's sundru. Like all that planning and...

Okay? You're working. Okay?

Sundru dzong. Dzong means you undertake. De ne sundru la ten ne, lu dang sem le su rung wa nyi du che do.

Then you ask her out, you know? You drop all her books. You say, I'm sorry.

And just before you walk away, you say, you want to go out on Friday? You want to go to a Chinese restaurant on Camelback Avenue or something like that, you know? Like, you ask her out, okay?

Then when you're out, and you get to know each other, okay? Like, you already kissed her a few times. Your brother's like, how far did you get?

I've kissed her a few times. Then when you get comfortable with each other, you get comfortable with each other, le su rung wa nyi du, that's called le su rung wa. Le su rung wa.

Le su rung wa means comfortable. Like, comfortable. Here it's lu dang sem.

With body and mind, okay? You're good enough that you work hard on your meditation, and it starts to get comfortable. Your body starts...

There's an expression in English, getting back in the saddle of the horse. So the horse has a saddle on it, a seat. And so anybody who did a three-year retreat here, you know, like you're out busy for six months, and then you come back to Diamond Mountain and you sit down on the seat, and you're like...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That's le su rung wa. Le su rung wa means like everything feels good. And also mentally.

Like your mind just drops right back into where you were almost during the retreat, and you just drop right back into it. That's called le su rung wa, okay? If you shorten that word, it becomes...

[Speaker 2]
Le rung.

[Speaker 1]
Le rung, which is the name for a one-month retreat. It's a name for a one-month tantric retreat. So you will learn to do le rung.

If you stay in the Lam Rim course to the end, you will learn tantra. And then you'll learn le rung. And so the name for a tantric retreat is abbreviated.

Le su rung wa is abbreviated to le rung. And it means if you do this retreat, which is usually about a month or six weeks, you get really... you get really into the groove.

Le su rung wa could be translated as in the groove. In the groove. In English we say in the groove.

It means like everything's just flowing just really well, okay? Once you've had that experience pretty regularly of being in the groove, you're not going to have...

[Speaker 2]
Land load.

[Speaker 1]
Land load, okay? You won't avoid meditation. You'll be like, oh yeah, I want to do some today, you know?

It's like yoga, I think. When you do your first... When you first want to do a second practice of the day, you got le rung.

I mean it hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm just... You know, when you're like, oh, I'd like to do another 20 minutes, you know, in the afternoon. I think I'll do some Dharma yoga wheel rolls or something, you know.

Then you start getting le rung, because it feels so good you want... You find excuses to do a little more in the day. Then you got le rung, okay?

I'm still waiting as far as yoga. Okay, so that deals with the first obstacle, which is I don't want to... I don't feel like doing it today.

I don't feel like it today. We're not going to practice that today, because you're already here, and you can't get out. I got Michael and Adam on.

Adam's guarding the door, so you can't get out. So we don't have to deal with that. You're going to meditate today, whether you want to or not.

Le rung. Second... And he has a more clear word for the second problem, which is he...

In general, in Tibetan, it's called je nge. Je nge. But he has a better word.

His is more clear. It's called mikpa je pa. Mikpa je pa.

Mikpa je pa, okay? Je pa means to forget, okay? Or to lose it.

And mikpa means the object of your meditation, okay? Mikpa means the object of your meditation. What's the mikpa in the first of the three levels of meditation we've been doing?

Your own body. Okay, that's the mikpa. What's the mikpa in the second?

Your breath. Good. You switch from body to breath.

And what's the third one? Mike Buddha. Future Mike Buddha, okay?

All right. So every meditation has to have a mikpa, okay? The idea that you can meditate without a mikpa is like saying you can use a telescope without a star.

I mean, you can, but... Okay? Meditation is a tool, a focus tool, and there has to be something in front of it, okay?

It's not like you can just not have one. Then that's like using the telescope on the black stuff in the sky. You might as well go to Gyelse's outhouse and look down the bottom.

It's also dark, you know? You know, it doesn't help you, okay?

[Speaker 2]
You're looking out the door.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but I mean, that... You could be looking up at outer space or down into an outhouse. It's the same.

It doesn't help you, okay? So mikpa japa means to lose the object, lose the object. It doesn't mean to forget, okay?

Some people have wrongly translated it as as forgetting what your teacher told you to meditate on. It's not that easy. And the New Tibetan, I mean, nowadays, in the last 500 years, they say je nge, which means definitely forgetting, but it's not clear.

This is more clear, mikpa japa, to lose the object, okay? We're going to practice that today a little bit, okay? I'm going to set the alarm, the timer, and then we're going to be meditating on future Buddha, me.

And when the alarm goes off, I want you to check to see if you were on Buddha or you were on breakfast or... Where was your mind focused, okay? So it's kind of sneaky.

It's going to go off at random times. And then at that second, you know, what were you focused on? What was the mikpa?

Okay, those of you studying Tibetan, Tibetan doesn't have tones like, you know, dao, dao, dao, dao. It doesn't have tones. But in a few words it does.

So mikpa is one of them. If you say mikpa, mikpa, it means the verb to focus. If you say mikpa, da, da, it means the object in the focus.

So the spelling is the same. So it's only differentiated by the accent. Okay, not too common in Tibetan.

Okay, mikpa japa, you forget the object. Not, you forget the focus. Okay, how you fix that, okay, the antidote for the second problem, yeah, how you fix it is drenpa, drenpa.

Drenpa is a noun meaning remember, or bring it back. But it comes from a verb, drenpa, drenpa, which means to pull it back, okay. Like pull the object back, okay.

Like with a rope, okay. Oh, I was supposed to be meditating on a future Buddha, but I'm meditating on pancakes. Instead of a future Buddha, I got three pancakes sitting there.

And then you got to look for that Buddha, move the pancakes. You know, I can't focus on it, and then they'll be there. There's this little tug-of-war goes on, you know.

By the way, that verb to pull, yeah?

[Speaker 2]
You could feed the pancakes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's what we're talking about, a skillful means rather than direct, what do you call it? Direct, direct attack. Rather than a direct attack on the pancakes, Gyaltsen says, you can use the pancakes, feed them to the Buddha, and then you've got a Buddha there, and the pancakes are gone.

Okay, so. That verb drenpa is also the tongue in tongue-ay. What's tongue-ay?

Yeah, figurative means you have to pull the meaning, like it's not obvious, okay. Buddha said something like kill your father, kill your mother. Very famous example, kill your mother, kill your father.

It means when you go into retreat, focus on where you are. Love your mother, love your father, serve your mother, serve your father. It is one of the greatest, highest karmas there is, period.

You should. But at certain times, like when you're focusing on Buddha, you can't have your mom and dad popping up, okay. You don't want to feed them to the Buddha or anything.

You know, you have to. So, we're not, you know, obviously Buddha didn't mean literally you should kill your mom and dad. It just means that don't focus on them when you're focusing on something else, okay.

And then when you get home, if you're a real meditator, you will serve them more than other people. You will be more interested in serving your parents. Okay, so that's drenpa.

Drenpa means pull the object back, okay. The third problem is the biggest problem, okay. And he splits it into two, which is interesting.

You know, that's a cool thing. Some graduate student at the Sedona College should... There should be all these graduate student essays they can write.

What do you call them? Dissertations.

[Speaker 2]
Dissertations.

[Speaker 1]
It will come. If we're successful, it will come. If the Sedona College is successful.

In three or four generations, people will write graduate papers on why did Kama Shida split number three and four, okay. So that's chingwa and gopa. Chingwa and gopa.

It's the elephant and the monkey, kind of, in the meditation chart, okay. Chingwa means you get sleepy. Chingwa means you get sleepy in the meditation.

You can say, kind of a dullness, or heaviness, or darkness, or... When you say darkness in meditation, okay, get this. When you say darkness in the study of meditation, it doesn't mean the object is in the dark.

It doesn't mean the Buddha... It looks like dusk is coming, and the Buddha is getting darker, or something like that. When you say darkness in meditation, or fogginess, it doesn't refer to the object.

It refers to the brightness of the mind, the brightness of the focus, okay. What's a very bright focus is when you're in a movie, okay. Like, you can have chingwa.

You're watching Star Wars, and it's the same old white guys running around with white helmets. And you're like, they already showed that, you know. And you're eating popcorn, you know.

And then, I don't know. They start to have their first kiss. Like, what's his name?

The old actor. Yeah. Harrison Ford, and what's her name?

They're about to have a kiss, you know. And everybody in the audience just goes like... At that moment, the mind is bright, okay.

The mind is bright. Not the object. The object is the same.

It's a movie, you know. But at that moment, the mind is locked in. That's called bright.

And when you're just looking around the theater, because there's just more white guys shooting each other. You're just like, what's going on in the theater? That's chingwa.

So, chingwa means like, it's getting a little bit boring. And then, clarity. It doesn't mean the clarity of the object.

It means the clarity of the state of mind. How bright is your mind? How turned on is your mind?

Oh, I love this. Wow! Like, your eyeballs get bigger, you know.

It's always just before two people kiss in a long movie, for the first time. And everyone's like, blah, blah, blah. And then they're like...

Like, nobody's talking in that moment. Nobody's eating. Popcorn is here.

Then if you have too much clarity, you get guapa. The mind gets too turned on, you know. So, it's like driving a car.

If the mind gets too turned on, then you start thinking about everything else. You're like, oh, I remember. I have to call my friend, you know.

Something like that. I have to text my friend. Then the mind starts getting too stirred up.

And you start thinking all the things you have to do, and plans you have. You start thinking about different things. That's called guapa.

So, nowadays, when they teach five problems, they put them together. Dullness or agitation. But Master Kamalashila, and I think very coolly, he split them, because they're really separate problems.

One is dullness, and one is agitation. The correction for those two is not the correction. That's an old Buddhist joke.

Who can explain it to me? The correction is not the correction. If you studied shamatha, like in your tantric class, third year, what's called the correction, but it's not really the correction?

Yeah, sheshin. Okay, sheshin. Detection.

Smoke detector. You're supposed to keep a smoke detector in your head. And when it sees, when it detects dullness, or it detects agitation, it's supposed to go, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

But does the smoke detector put out the fire? Okay, and that's the point. You see, that's an old Buddhist joke.

You can debate. If you want to debate meditation technique, that would be like a real, you know, 6th grader debate in the monastery. They go like this.

If you really debate, you gotta be like a cobra. So those 6th graders are, ooh, ooh, ooh. It's like doing a fire offering, okay?

Okay, now wait. Okay, so, you can say, you know, is the, is the 3rd or 4th in his system? 3rd, 3, 4.

It covers 3 and 4. Is it the correction or not? And you say no.

It's not. It's not male. It's not really the correction, okay?

It just detects it like a smoke detector. And, and installing that smoke detector in your mind is a big step in your Buddhist career. You know?

To buy that smoke detector at the teaching and learn to put it in your mind is a big step forward in your Buddhist progress. You know? You can't get anywhere in Buddhism without a good capacity of meditation.

You can't have a good capacity of meditation without that smoke detector. So if you can spend, you know, a couple of days now during this retreat to install the smoke detector and to get, get, get familiar with it, get used to it, you made big, big progress. That's big progress, you know?

On Sunday, you know, we can say everybody who has a smoke detector can go home. Everybody who doesn't have one has to stay. Okay?

Like, you can't get out the door unless you have a smoke detector. And you have to develop it. It's not something you were born with.

It's not something they told you about in high school. Okay? It's something that an adult has to install.

So these next few days I want you to focus on that, okay? Like, is my smoke detector working? And we're going to help you during this meditation today.

So first I'll do like four rings for is there a... Am I still on my object? That's like...

There's a joke in Buddhism. You can't have problem number two unless you fix problem number one. What's that mean?

If you're not meditating, you're not going to have agitation. That's the other way to avoid agitation. Just never meditate.

If you keep problem number one, I'll meditate tomorrow, I'll meditate tomorrow, you will never have the other problems. That's one way to fix them. Okay?

You will never have dullness if you never meditate. Okay? That's an old Buddhist joke also.

You can debate that, you know. Okay? So...

You got to have a smoke detector in your mind. Okay? And what's the most difficult thing to detect?

Like carbon monoxide. We can call it carbon monoxide. What's the most difficult thing to detect?

Subtle dullness. Here's subtle dullness. Okay?

You're not moving. You're not thinking about lunch. But you're spaced out.

In English we call spaced out. What do you call it in Chinese? I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Fang kong.

[Speaker 1]
Fang kong? Sounds like fan dong. Fang dong, fang kong.

You're just spaced out. The problem is you can stay like that for an hour. I believe that Westerners who sit in a Zen center for four hours and they hit them if they move, I think 90%, I'm guessing, 90% are just spaced out.

It feels okay. It doesn't feel bad. It feels pretty good.

Okay? And that's a big danger. Why is it like carbon monoxide detector?

[Speaker 2]
Because it's hard to detect.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, carbon monoxide is odorless. You can't tell it's there. I know a nun who died in a retreat cabin in Colorado.

She died in a retreat cabin. The propane got out. So they make propane with a special chemical that stinks bad.

But if they didn't, if you smell that, you have to understand what it smells like. Then you know you're going to die in 20 minutes or something. Okay?

It's true. If it's a big leak.

[Speaker 2]
If it's a big leak.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I had it in one retreat. I got these terrible headaches.

I didn't know what it was. And the refrigerator was leaking propane. But it doesn't smell.

It's invisible. That's why we have special detectors. So that carbon monoxide detector has to be subtle dullness.

Subtle dullness. The problem is your body's perfect. It's not shaking.

You have no agitation. And you're just kind of like... Okay?

It's like you had two glasses of wine or something. Okay? You're like...

And it feels good. So you've got to have a carbon monoxide detector and a smoke detector. You've got to install both.

If you can install the second one this week, you're doing good. Let's have two. Okay?

One is, I'm getting sleepy or I'm starting to think about lots of other stuff because I'm tired. By the way, he's going to give a suggestion what to do when you get tired. Okay?

It's kind of cool. But... And then the other detector is like I'm spacing out.

I'm having a good space out. Okay? What's the danger of that space out?

Disneyland 1 and Disneyland 2. Form realm and formless realm. Okay?

You... Why do you go to Disneyland if you have a space out meditation?

[Speaker 2]
Because you're not doing bad things.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. That's... It's a default mode.

Default mode means normally our mind is judging people constantly every few seconds. You know? You can say you're not doing it, but I don't believe you.

I'm doing... I know I'm doing it. At least I've got that kind of progress.

You know? Every moment you're like, oh, I like her dress. I don't like her nose.

You know? I don't like what she said yesterday. You know?

You're just judging all the time. And then when you're in a space out meditation you're not judging. So for the first time in your whole life you're not judging everybody every second.

And that's a good karma. That's a default good karma. Okay?

Like you don't have time to think I don't like her. Or she said something to me yesterday. Normal people are doing that every second.

But if you're in a space out meditation you're not having those thoughts. So by default you go to a better place. But Disneyland always ends.

If you ever took your nephew or niece to Disneyland I threw up. I took them to Disneyland. At first it was okay.

Everything was fine. You know? And then it just got so oppressive.

And I ran in the bathroom and threw up. They were standing outside. Thank God nobody took them away.

You know? And I couldn't stand it. So that Disneyland always it always goes bad.

It always turns bad. All right. So, oh, sorry.

Number five. Number five means you don't take action. You don't take action.

You don't do anything about it. Your smoke detector went off. Beep, beep, beep, beep.

We got agitation here. We got sleepiness here. You finally had enough self-awareness to say, I'm getting sleepy.

Or the quality of my focus is not so good. The quality. So today we're going to talk about quality of the focus.

Is it kissing the movie quality? Or is it, you know, looking around the movie theater because the white guys are shooting each other again? I don't know.

It's like two hours of it in that movie. And they're always great guns. And they're always like, oh, look.

There's 20 guys with a gun on Harrison Ford. And then he's like, And they're like, I can't do shit. I don't know.

So not take action. Not take action. Smoke alarm went off.

If you ever had a smoke alarm go off in the middle of the night, you know what it feels like. You're like, oh, man. I'll do it in the morning, OK?

Then it's like, beep, beep, beep. And you're like, I understand. There's a mortal danger.

I might burn up to Chris tonight. But really, I need some sleep. First, you get up there and you pull the battery out.

Then you go back to bed. Second, you get up there and you tear the wires out. Then you have a news fire danger.

All these wires. It's true. You did it, right?

I know. So not to take action. You're like, I'll deal with it in the morning.

It's probably, it's probably just, just a smoke detector. You have all other sides of battery except that one. Then you can unscrew the little cap and separate the wires.

And if you don't do it well, the house will burn down anyway. OK? So, guess what's the correction?

[Speaker 2]
Take action.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, do something. OK? Mitsuwa means you don't do anything.

You don't do anything. Oh, look, I have dalmas. OK.

Oh, look, I'm thinking about a hamburger. I wonder if I got mustard in the house. OK?

[Speaker 2]
OK?

[Speaker 1]
OK, that's not taking action. OK? Last one.

We should be on six by now. You're in the groove. The meditation's going really good.

OK? You're like, you're like, I don't know, you're like on the Shanghai monorail, the Shanghai bullet train to the airport. I sat down and, OK, it takes like an hour and a half to get to the airport in Shanghai from downtown.

But if you get on the bullet train, I sat with a friend of mine, he was showing me a thangka. So we sat down and he unrolls the thangka and then the policeman comes over and says, you got to get off the train. And I'm like, we're just doing something.

And he's like, no, you got to get off the train. I said, why? He said, we reached the airport.

I'm like, we couldn't reach the airport. It takes an hour and a half. I don't know, it's like six minutes.

It's unbelievable. It's like, boom, you're there, you know? And that feeling, you're on magnetic, I don't know, it's really cool.

That train is something. You're like, then if the meditation is going like the Shanghai airport bullet train, leave it alone. In my company, in the diamond company, we used to make jewelry, you know?

And we had this factory, we had like 800 people making jewelry. And his favorite saying was, he's this big guy named Kenny Lautman, he's like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You know?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it's not broken, leave it alone. Okay?

If the factory is going okay, then just go have a coffee or something. Don't mess with stuff. Okay?

Leave it alone. Okay? If the meditation is like the Shanghai bullet train, then the correction is, don't take action.

It's the opposite of number five. Don't take action. Leave it alone.

Don't check too often. Don't check. Because the checking will also disturb the flow of the train.

Okay? So don't check too much. Okay?

If you're going good, don't check. Don't, like, hey, do you have dullness? Do you have agitation?

You know? You're like, just leave me alone. It's going good, finally.

I got, it's like a piece of flat land at Diamond Mountain. I told Veronica, we got to the bottom of the hill and up to the llama house. I said, enjoy it.

This is one of the only pieces of flat land in a thousand acres. You know? Just, then don't check, you know?

Don't bother. Once you're going, leave it alone. Okay?

Learn how to leave it alone. It takes some skill. Okay?

It takes some skill. Then Pabongka Rinpoche, when he got to the end of this teaching, he said, I can't teach it to you. You have to try.

You have to see it for yourself. You can read about meditation for five years, but you won't understand what I'm talking about until you try. Okay?

So, what is dullness exactly? What is agitation exactly? What does it mean to ring the smoke alarm exactly?

You have to feel it. And no one can give it to you. My yoga teacher used to say, what's an apple taste like?

You know? I don't know. You just have to eat one, you know?

It's kind of crisp and juicy and sometimes it's sour and sometimes it's sweet. And then you're like, you've got to bite one. Certain poses, you have to get into them and then you know what it feels like.

But, okay? So meditation, you can only do so much teaching about meditation. Then you have to try.

And it'll be exciting for you to say, oh, I got dullness. Yay! My smoke alarm went off.

Oh, that's subtle dullness. Hello. Okay.

I'm going to just do a little bit more then we'll actually try to bite the apple. Okay? Here we go.

If your mind goes into dullness and you don't take action, you're not going to get the passion. Yeah, good. He didn't say shamatha.

He said, you won't be able to see emptiness. Okay? If you're in dullness, you won't be able to see emptiness.

Sure. What does it feel like to get dullness? It's like you're blind.

Things are getting dark. Okay? Not the object, the state of mind, the quality of the mind, the quality of the meditation is getting dark.

Gyur-o. The goal is to get an equal state of mind. What do you call it?

[Speaker 2]
Equal poise?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, like a balance, you know? Because there are... Does he get into that?

Let me see. He gets into it elsewhere, but I'll give you the corrections. Okay?

For dullness and... The correction for dullness is called seng-thupa in Tibetan. Seng-thupa.

Sorry. Seng-thupa. The word in Tibetan for an award, for something good you did, is also called seng-thupa.

Seng-thupa means... Cheer up your mind. Cheer up your mind.

Okay? Seng-thupa means cheer up your mind. You know?

How do you do that? If you're getting bad dullness, you're allowed to have a controlled agitation. You're allowed to go on a controlled distraction.

Like pancakes. Okay? Like you're just so dull.

Like you're meditating in the morning and your mind's not so sharp, and you can say, how would you like a pancake right now? Yeah! Then you come back from the pancake and go back to the Buddha.

Okay? Okay, so... So, something that will cheer you up.

Something... Seng-thupa means like cheer you up. The classical seng-thupa is...

It can be your lama, or it can be your future Buddha. You know? Okay?

Like, it's going to be so cool if I learn to meditate because I'll be a Buddha. I can help my family. I can help ten million other families equally.

You know? So, to think about how cool things are going to be is a classic seng-thupa. Or you can think about anything which makes you happy.

Your partner, or a blue lake, or the ocean, or the... You know? Anything which makes you happy.

You're allowed to be distracted for 30 seconds and bring up another object. Go to another object that makes you happy. Anything that makes you really happy.

Like, you think about your children or something. You just bring them to mind purposely for a minute. You know?

I don't know how it is that I got the most beautiful children in the world, but I guess it just happened that way. You know? Every parent I know, they rush over, and Ben, you know, is like, look at this photo.

I mean, I don't know what it is, but she's like the best, he's like the best baby I ever saw. You know? And everyone tells me that in all complete seriousness.

And I'm like, yeah, you're right. I've never seen a baby like, that's weird. You would have that baby.

You know? Okay? So, something that makes you happy, bring it to mind.

Okay? That's called Sanktipa. To uplift the mind.

Uplift the mind. Then that's the correction. Then that gets to be distracting.

The kids, you love your children so much they just stay in front of your mind, and you're like, okay kids, I'm already Sanktipad. You can go now, but they won't. And then you start thinking, what did I buy them for Christmas?

It's only nine months away. You know? Like, you start getting distracted.

The antidote becomes a distraction. It's like when you're driving, and you go too much to the left, and then it becomes a problem. Okay?

So you have to come back. How do you bring the mind down in a healthy way? Death meditation.

Okay? Death meditation. If the mind's too, if the mind is struggling against you like a wild horse, okay, you know what it feels like.

If you try to meditate, you know what it feels like. Wild horse meditation. The mind is like, rrrrrr, you know, and you're like, shut up, and you're like, rrrrr, you know, and you know, it's just galloping somewhere else, you know, and you can't stop it.

Then, think of one person you loved who died. Okay? In my case, my mom or something.

And then, in two seconds, your mind is, whoosh. The horse goes, whoosh. Okay?

Like, just, immediately, your mind will come down. Okay? Oh, I remember the ultimate Sanktipa.

What was that? The ultimate Sanktipa in texts is, I'm one in a billion. If you want to, you can try that.

I'm one in a billion. How many people in China are 1.3 billion? Something like that, 1.4 billion. It goes up point something every day, I think. It's like 1.4 billion people. Okay?

How many are here today? How many made it to Diamond Mountain, to the dome, to hear Kamalashila, after Diamond Cutter was in China for over 500 years? You see what I mean?

Who made it to hear, the first time people heard Kamalashila's commentary, the only great commentary from India, a Chinese person heard it, you are one in, you are one in 500 million or something. Out of 500 million people, you are one. Then that kind of, you start to feel like, huh.

Then the dullness goes away. That's another uplifting, that's another way to sanctify your mind. Okay?

Just think how special you are. Okay? No matter how bad your meditation is, you know, no matter how mean you are to people, no matter how many bad habits you have that you cannot fight against when they come, you're here.

You made it to Diamond Mountain. Okay? You are definitely one in 10 million people.

Okay? At least, you are one in 10 million people. And you really are.

I'm not just saying that. Okay? You have the karma to be here.

I don't know what we're going to do next time. I mean, we can't fit more people in here. Okay?

But you made it. You know? You are incredibly rare.

And you are very special. Okay? Of all the people in the world, if you die today, you're set.

You're taken care of. And nobody else. You see?

The rest are just hopeless. You know? They will go somewhere terrible.

Okay? And you're like, your life is taken care of. You made it to Diamond Mountain.

You must be special. I don't care what you think about yourself. You must be special.

Okay? All right? It's irrefutable, undeniable.

You are here. You couldn't get here without being one in 10 million people. You are one in 10 million people.

Without question. Okay? To have that strange desire to go out in the middle of the desert and sit in the rocks and the cactuses and think about Kamalashila, you are, you are off the charts.

You are, you are more special than President Xi or President Obama. You are more special. Definitely.

Okay? Like that. Okay?

Cool? That's the, that's one of the famous Sangthopas in scripture. You know?

If you count the animals in the world, you know, you are one in, in billions and billions and billions. Okay? If you count all the living things in the world, you are, you know, you are not a cockroach.

You are not a Kodamundi. You are not a Javelina. You made it, you made it to human, and among the humans, you made it to Daimon.

So you must be special. You must be something. Your past life did a really good job.

Joe? We say Joe, right? Past life.

My last life was Joe. Probably Joe Xiaoping. Your last life did a really good job.

Okay? We didn't do anything in this life, right? It must be Joe.

Joe. Last thing, and then we'll meditate. If you find, after a long struggle in a meditation, that your body is getting tired, and your mind is just exhausted.

Okay? Some people told me they're, after two weeks here, they're exhausted. I love you Geshe-la, I like Daimon, but I'm tired.

You know? This is, this is hard work. You know?

To fight your mind all day is hard work, and it's tiring. It's exhausting. Okay?

It's worse than having relatives visit you. Okay? And you're just exhausted.

Okay? You have to clean the floor and everything. He says, if you feel exhausted, get up, walk around, okay?

But don't waste your time. JIG RTEN THA DAG LA STE LA Look at the objects of the world, look at the world, look at the stores, look at the people, look at the traffic, you know? Look around the airport, that's okay.

But, RGYUD MA LTA BU See it all as an illusion. See it all as an illusion. This is not what it looks like.

This is not what it looks like. So don't waste your time. Okay?

While you're, I don't know, working at Diamond Mountain, doing maintenance on plumbing, like, just think, this pipe is unreal. You know? And, no, I mean, whatever your career, whatever you do, just, you know, you work in a stock exchange, you're like, this is unreal.

This whole thing is coming from, this whole thing coming out of my seats. Okay? So, that's an hour-by-hour meditation.

You know? Don't, he says, don't waste your time. If you get tired, of sitting, then get up, walk around Diamond Mountain, but when you look at a mountain, when you look at the sky, when you look at the stars, think, this is all coming from me.

Okay? This is all coming from me. Don't waste your time.

Okay? RGYUD MA DANG MI LAM It's like a dream. It's like a dream.

CHUN DA CHU NDA WA It's like a reflection of a moon in a lake. Like, you look down and you say, what's the moon doing in that lake? But it's not the real moon.

CHUN DA And MI GYOR MI GYOR means, like a scarecrow. It's a pile of rocks that Tibetan farmers put in their fields that looks like a person. They put, pile of rocks and they put two sticks on it.

And then, it scares the crows away. From the food, from the crops. It's called MI GYOR.

DA BUR RTOG PA Just think about it. Okay? So, when the meditation gets too hard for your body or it gets too hard for your mind, you just get exhausted, then okay, walk around.

Go take a walk around Diamond Mountain. Watch for snakes. Like, one eye is down but one eye is like...

By the way, never run at Diamond, just walk. Walk slowly and keep it, just stay aware where you're going. And, think that things are like an illusion.

Okay? Alright, let's try it. Let's, let's try out this horse.

Take a drink if you have some water. Anybody want... Blow your nose.

Geshe Michael. There's two reasons why I blow my nose so much. One is to get ready for meditation.

The other is to irritate Jigme when she tries to listen to the recording. That's another correction for dullness. You actually edit them out?

Maybe you should leave them in. People listening to it will wake up. Okay.

So we're going to do the, those layers of meditation. First, check our body, watch our body. We're going to watch our breath.

And then we're going to go to future Buddha. Inside of future Buddha, I will interrupt you three or four times and ask you, is your mind on the future Buddha or is it on a hamburger or something? You don't have to tell us what your mind is on, okay?

That's personal. But you do have to tell us that my mind... We're going to have a vote, okay, at the end.

I'll interrupt you five times. How many people were on the meditation object five times, four times, three times? Zero.

Okay? After that, I'll say we're going to switch now and I'm going to interrupt you five more times. But I'd like you to tell me how's the quality of your meditation at that point.

Do you have more ching wa or do you have more gupa? Are you more sleepy or are you already thinking about what you have to do in Guangzhou? Okay?

Or are you actually on the object, which is rare? Is your mind, is the quality good? Is it bright, as bright as the kiss in the movie?

Actually, just before the kiss. Like, what's that movie, Gone with the Wind? You know when the kiss is coming because they like look at each other and you say, I think it's coming.

Then they move like this, they go like... And they're like, it's definitely coming. So during that time, your focus is...

Just about the kiss in the movie focus. After the kiss starts, it's not so interesting. Okay.

So relax your forehead. Relax your mouth and try to smile a little bit if you can. A meditating Buddha with a scowl would not be very pretty.

Relax your fingers and pull on your stomach slightly and come to your breath. Now ask your Lama to come and sit with you. Now make an offering to your teacher.

Best offering is your attempts to practice whether they're successful or not. Then confess to your Lama anything negative you did, especially in the last day. For many of us in retreat, it's negative thoughts about somebody.

Then tell your Lama about something nice you did yesterday or something nice you saw somebody do. Ask your Lama to teach you. Continue teaching.

Ask them to stay in your life. Now please come to your body. The object of meditation is your body.

And you are scanning it from top to bottom. Is anything moving? Am I moving anything?

Aside from the natural movement of the breath, am I as still as a statue? We'll stay here for five minutes. Are my fingers moving?

Are the muscles of my face moving? If you find that your position has... you've lost your position, your chin is down, it's okay to move to bring it back to a normal position.

That kind of movement is okay. Now please come to your breath. Long, slow exhales out your forehead.

You might want to find the place in your forehead first. Move around, move your focus around like a flashlight and find the place that feels good and helps you focus. It's a small chakra below the skull, above the spot between the two eyebrows, drilled down into your skull slightly.

Move that flashlight around the flashlight of your attention, your focus, move it around. Go left, go right, go up, go down, go in, go out and see if you can find the sweet spot where your focus is very enhanced by focusing on this spot. Try not to tighten up your forehead, like focus, but keep the forehead loose and relaxed, airy.

Find that spot and then start to breathe out. Exhale from that spot. Long, relaxed exhales.

Comfortable, happy, contented. Don't scrunch up your forehead. If something's starting to fall asleep in your hands or fall asleep in your legs, just let it go.

Don't worry, it won't hurt you. Start using the lower abdomen to push the air up and out your forehead. Pull the navel to the spine, towards the spine.

Don't tighten your forehead. Now start to become aware of the inhale from across the breadth of your shoulders. Moving down your shoulder blades, narrowing as it reaches the bottom of the spine so that now we have a cycle of breath.

Inhale from the back. Move your shoulder blades closer to each other. On the inhale, the angel's wings are flexing and the shoulder blades are moving together.

The chest is coming out. And then on the exhale, the lower belly is moving towards the spine. And go through that cycle of exhale from the forehead.

Inhale from the shoulders down the back. And then the lower belly pushing the air out the forehead. We'll stay here for a few minutes.

On the exhale, the shoulder blades come together, chest comes out. Inhale, sorry. Try not to move otherwise.

Okay, now we'll move to the real meditation object. You are observing from above the atmosphere of the earth. Below is the bright blue of the earth.

Above is the blackness of this outer space. You are looking across and you are seeing yourself, the Buddha, future Buddha. You can also picture your teacher with you or your partner and just enjoy this beautiful being ultimately loving, ultimately wise and with a face to match.

Beautiful golden light. I'm going to start a timer. And when you hear the bell, check and see if you're still watching that Buddha or you're watching a hamburger or something.

Did you lose the object or not? There'll be one bell to start the bell. And don't fight to stay on the object, just enjoy the object so much that you don't want to go someplace else.

Was your mind on the object or was it someplace else when the bell rang? We'll try again. Was your mind on the object or not when the bell rang?

The bell will ring and then we'll start. Was your mind still on the object? We'll try one more time.

The bell will ring and then we'll start. Stay in meditation. Now we'll check the quality of the meditation.

I'll start the timer. The bell will ring. And when the bell rings again, check if you are sleepy or your mind is a little agitated, you are thinking about something else or are you on the object with good quality of meditation?

Here we go. How was the quality of your meditation? Was it sleepy?

Was it sharp and clear? Enjoyable? Or was it busy and you had trouble holding the object?

We're going to do one more time. When the bell rings the second time, how's the quality of your meditation? How was the quality of your meditation?

Were you sleepy or were you engaged and having fun? Or were you tired or thinking about other things? Come back to your breath now for three long breaths.

Dedicate this meditation up on this mountain for the whole world below. Then you can release your meditation and take a stretch. Good.

Nice. Ring three times for are you on your object. How many people were on all three times?

Come on. How many people twice? Yeah, those are the honest ones.

Okay. The bell rang twice for quality. How many people had good quality during each bell?

Good quality. Good attention. Engaged.

Enjoying. Okay. How many people felt like they were wandering?

Yeah, good. Honest people. How many people were just sleepy, tired, exhausted?

All the Diamond Mountain people. Okay, good. I think we'll take a break there.

Okay? So have a juice break. When you come back we'll do Kamalashina.