Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика» — Мастер Камалашила: медитации на «Сутру Алмазного огранщика», часть третья: Слёзы арьи (Аризона, 2016), занятие 4

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we're going to start with a meditation, so please get ready. Relax your fingers, and your shoulders, and your eyelids, and the corners of your mouth. Check your spine.

Are you sitting straight? Did you reach a place of balance in your posture? Did you turn your cell phone off?

[Speaker 2]
And pull in your stomach slightly, and slowly come to your breath.

[Speaker 1]
Today let's try to count to ten breaths without thinking about something else. So, beginning with the exhale, try to focus on your breath. Count ten rounds of exhale and inhale without thinking about something else.

If you think about something else, then gently start over. We're just beginning the month of May, and tomorrow many of us will be going home. And I'd like you to think about something you'd like to achieve during the month of May in your own life.

Something you'd like to see happen during this month of May. Some change in your life, or some nice thing that you have in mind.

[Speaker 2]
Something maybe you've been working on.

[Speaker 1]
I think in my case that there's a fundraising project we've been working on. Think about some goal that you have in May. It could be with your health.

It could be a relationship with someone. It could be with your work. It could be with your meditation.

It could be something with how you serve people. And in every task there are two components. One is emptiness, and one is karma.

And sometimes we call it the marriage of emptiness and karma. And if we cover both of them, then we can be successful. So first let's look at the emptiness of this task, this goal.

In my case, this fundraising project, then emptiness means the emptiness of something which was not there, something which came from its own side. And in the case of my project, it would be the emptiness of all the things I would do to reach my goal that don't involve helping someone else to reach a similar goal. So, strategies, plans, methods of succeeding that don't involve helping someone else succeed in a similar undertaking.

So, in my case, it would be worrying about, you know, should I approach the sponsor directly, or should I wait a while, or should I be patient, or should I push, or, you know, should I make long proposals, or should I just use pictures? So, try to think of gag ja, try to think of things that you would normally try to get your goal, to reach your goal, which don't involve focusing on helping someone else achieve a similar goal. Think of all these self-existent strategies you might try, methods, and just cancel them one by one.

Those are not going to work by themselves. If I plant deeper seeds, the causes behind the causes, then maybe a proposal with pictures will work, or a long, detailed, written proposal would work, but by themselves, neither one's going to work. So, cancel those ideas you had of the normal things you try to make things happen, to reach your goal.

That's emptiness. Now let's look at karma, the brother of emptiness, and this is just the four steps of Master Vasubandhu. What are the four steps I could use to plant seeds?

In my case, maybe helping someone else with their fundraising, and then being sure to rejoice afterwards that I was planting seeds instead of pushing things that don't work. So make a decision to reach your goal in the month of May. You'll try the four steps instead.

That doesn't mean you might not make other decisions about what kind of proposal, or how you talk to your sponsor, or financial decisions, but now they have power, now they have seeds behind them. In the case of your health, you might still, of course, go to a doctor and seek one treatment or another. But if the seeds are there, the treatment will be effective, and if not, the same treatment won't.

And if the seeds are there, an alternative treatment will also work. Now we're going to go deeper, following the Diamond Cutter Sutra, where we are now. Buddha says, examine your understanding of emptiness.

How strong is your understanding that methods, strategies, plans, undertaken without seeds, can't work? And how strong is your understanding of seeds that, if you do do the four steps, then almost any strategy, well, any strategy will work. So examine, maybe the relative strength of your understanding of emptiness.

How well do you understand that normal strategies, normal methods, can't work without seeds? And that's your understanding of emptiness. And compare it to your understanding of seeds.

How strong is your understanding of the real causes, and how to plant those real causes? How does your understanding of emptiness compare to your understanding of dependent origination, of seeds? Are they both strong?

Are they equally strong? And now the final part of this meditation. What are the seeds for those understandings?

What can I do to have stronger understandings, stronger faith? And that comes from sharing as much as you understand with other people. If I share as much as I understand with other people who really want to know, not bothering people who don't want to know, if I share then I will have a stronger faith and habit of using seeds.

Of thinking about seeds and emptiness. So what can I do in May to plant the seeds? To have the strong understanding that I should plant seeds for my goal.

What plans do I have for sharing? What I've learned with people who want to know, so I can have stronger habit of understanding that without seeds strategies don't work, and with seeds any strategy will work. What are my plans for sharing?

And of course the best method of sharing is by example, not so much by talking. Talking's good if I'm an example of what I advise other people to do. Then it's always nice to check back in with your heart teacher, whoever that may be, deep within your heart, in a tiny space that's private and just for your teacher.

Then three long exhales to send the good karma of this meditation to help this world. And then you can open your eyes. Relax.

Take a stretch. That's meditation eleven. It's called not staying in nothing, and staying in nothing.

Free of attachment to the two great ideas. What are the two great ideas? Yeah, karma and emptiness, thank you.

Where'd this meditation come from? It's section 80, okay, in the sutra. I'll try to give you the section numbers.

Venerable Jigme pointed out that I've been ... I haven't been giving you the section numbers, so you don't know where I am in the sutra. Today you should get the sutra, full sutra, any moment.

It went to Tucson and came back, okay? So, you're going to get the whole sutra, and I'd like to thank Nick for arranging that. Speaking of fundraising, Mr. Dung, you're going to give me a list for ...

a squeezing list for ... after the break, okay? Here's what the Buddha said, bodhisattvas who are great beings give up every kind of conception, and they develop within themselves the wish to achieve perfect and total enlightenment.

And they develop this wish within them, without staying in any of the things that you see, nor in sounds, nor in smells, nor in tastes, nor in things you can touch, nor in any object of the thought at all. Then he says, neither do they develop ... the wish means bodhichitta right?

Within them, by staying in what these objects lack, what's that mean? Emptiness, so they don't even stay in emptiness, okay? They don't stay in their understanding of emptiness.

Obviously they don't stay ... let's take it back to the husband who's yelling at you, okay? If you yell at your husband the first day after this retreat, you really had a bad retreat, okay?

Second day is okay, okay? Vimala, we got it right? First day, it means the retreat didn't do anything, okay?

Alright, so ... you can ... one trap is that when the husband yells at you, you believe it, okay?

Like, you fall for it. Oh, he decided to yell at me, this has nothing to do with how I'm treating other people, okay? That means you got trapped in self-existence, okay?

Then ... but maybe you catch yourself, okay? And you say, wait, I just attended like 10, 15 days of retreat and ...

and now, oh, I'm supposed to remember there's no husband coming from his own side, that's emptiness, right? And ... then you have to remember that your remembering is also empty, okay?

Like, you got to remember that you need to keep planting seeds to remember. There's this famous story of a king in ancient India and the prime minister came to the king and said, there's a terrible problem. And he said, what?

And they said, this plant is growing in the water supply and it's a poison, and it's going to make everybody crazy. Everybody in the whole country will become crazy, you know? Then the king said, well make sure that I have clean water, I don't want to go crazy, I have to stay not crazy.

And the minister said, I'm sorry, it's in all ... you have to drink water, it's ... we don't have any water that doesn't have this plant, you know?

So the king, he had a sharpie, and he made a mark on his head, a big X, you know? And he said, when I see the mark, I will remember that I am crazy. He made a mark on his head, then like a week later he's in front of the mirror brushing his teeth, what's that mark on my head?

He couldn't remember, because he went crazy already, you see? So, on the second day, your husband yells at you, and you start to forget what you learned in retreat. Try to remember how you can remember, the emptiness of remembering, okay?

And that's ... that's sharing what you learned with other people, okay? So, I'm sure everybody on the plane to Singapore or Guangzhou, you will teach the person sitting next to you who's yelling at their husband, okay?

Alright? Like, share it with somebody. You don't have to say you're a Buddhist, nobody cares, okay?

Just say, you know, I heard this thing, like, seems to me if your husband's yelling at you, it might be connected to yelling at your kids or something, just ... you don't have to say it came from Dharmakara Sutra, and this is Kamalashila, 750 AD, same time as Xuantang, and Yuanzhi's teacher, and you don't have to bore them, okay? Like I bore you, okay?

Alright. So, that's the emptiness of understanding emptiness, okay? And that's the emptiness of remembering to use it.

And ... and if you forget, then you are staying in emptiness. Staying in the Dharmakara Sutra means you think it's self-existent, you think it's coming from its own side.

Even your understanding, even your remembering has to have its own seeds, okay? So, that's a pretty simple one. By the way, Master Kamalashila says say goodbye to all your wrong ideas, even about your wrong ideas, okay?

Say goodbye. So, that's the photograph. That guy's not coming home, he's leaving, okay?

He's got lunch in his hand, okay? I tried really hard to find a picture of somebody saying goodbye to their wife and going to work, you know? So, he's leaving those ideas.

He says say goodbye to those wrong ideas, okay? That's the idea. He's not coming home, okay?

Don't forget. Alright, next one. By the way, we're on schedule and very unusual.

Let's see if we can get off schedule. Now that ... I'm going to go to section 83, and again, you should have your reading by the end of this class.

I'll just keep the class going till the reading comes. 83. Buddha says why is it so?

You know, why is it like that? And he says, because, Subuddhi, the Buddha is somebody who speaks right. He is the one who speaks true.

He is the one who speaks precisely what is. He is the one who speaks without error exactly what is. So, he says four different things, okay, ready?

He speaks true, sorry, he speaks right, he speaks true, he speaks precisely, and he speaks without bubu, without mistake, with no mistakes, okay? So, he repeats four different things. Then Master Kamalashila says obviously this is referring ...

what's a famous four? Yeah, the four ayatruths, okay? Four ayatruths, alright?

And ... these are like the core of Buddhism, they're the core of the Buddha's early teachings, they are the first teaching he ever gave. They've been mistranslated as noble truth, that has nothing to do with noble.

The word is arya sattva, right? It has ... it just means arya, arya means someone who saw emptiness directly.

So, nothing to do with noble. Noble means even when someone irritates you, you do the right thing. That's a result of arya, but it's not arya, okay?

So, it's a very poor translation. It's a very misleading translation. And you probably should translate the name of the first teaching the Buddha ever gave correctly.

So anyway, arya truth, why arya truth? Because a person who saw emptiness directly, directly perceives the truth of these four things, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, after they see emptiness directly, after they come out of emptiness directly, while they are still in the same room, while they are still in meditation posture, they understand the four truths, okay? But they're no longer in the direct perception of emptiness, because some of the truths are not emptiness. Okay?

Alright. First, first arya truth, yeah, every part of normal life is pain, okay? If you let things go the way they've been going, your husband's going to keep yelling at you forever, okay?

Don't think it's like, I don't know, all the pain in the world, it is all the pain in the world, but for us it's our husband, okay? It's yelling at us, okay? If you don't do something, you will always have trouble with your husband, and that's ...

okay? It doesn't matter how good a person you are, if you don't understand the path, you will always have some trouble, okay? First one, what's the second truth?

It has a cause, okay? It has a cause. I built a house for my Lama, you know, I inherited some money from my grandmother, I was broke, I didn't have any money, then my grandmother passed away, and I got a lot of money, then I said, I'm going to build a house for you.

He said, okay, could you build a classroom also? Okay, then I ... he had a tiny little house, he had a little tiny bedroom, and I built a big house next to it, I connected it to the old house, and every year it would leak, the roof would leak where they were connected, you know, because they're different ages, one's moving, one's not moving, and we would find water in the bathroom, or we would find water in the kitchen, and if you ever had a leaky roof, it leaks over here, and then it travels over there, and then you don't know where's the leak, you know, so, samsara's like that, okay, you have to find where's the leak, okay, it's not enough to clean up the water over here, it's not going to fix it, you see, then the water will leak somewhere else, because the real leak is over here, so, second truth, second Arya truth, find the real source of the leak, source of trouble, what's really causing the trouble with your husband,

[Speaker 2]
okay,

[Speaker 1]
what's the real cause for him to criticize you, okay, you have to find it, okay, it's not enough to say, oh honey, I'll make you a good dinner, you know, don't yell at me, okay, that's not going to fix it, that's like cleaning up the water over here, you didn't, you didn't fix the source of the problem, okay, so, that's the second Arya truth is, the source. By the way, in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, section 83, Nicole, you have good news for us? Well, let's pass it out, I mean, or you could just keep it in the box.

We had some sponsors, they want to be anonymous, let's give them a hand. I would like one. I'll find three mistakes the first time I open it.

Hey, the picture's gone on the front. Cool. There are four great languages of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the first was Sanskrit, second is Chinese, third is Tibetan, fourth is English, and now, those Russkies, not a robot, no, no, no, part of a dip for Rusk, and German, we need German, we need Spanish, okay, Monica.

Okay, so you can go to number 83. I hope it's correct. Yeah, there's the guy.

Okay, everybody have section 83? Page 19. When you translate it, keep the section numbers, okay?

Then we're always on the same page. Yeah, oh, she just wants a copy, she's not asking a question. Tahiya, Gyaltsen needs one, over here.

We need more? Oh, you can take mine, here. I'm okay, I got it on my computer.

Alright then. Okay, 83. Now, when the Buddha says, Buddha says to Sabuddhi, Buddha speak right.

What's he talking about? Yeah, your husband, the yelling husband, okay, got it? Truth of suffering, alright?

He speaks true, what's he talking about? Yeah, the cause of the yelling husband, you yelled at your kids last week, you yelled at your kids last week. Now, third sentence, he says precisely what's correct, he says exactly what's correct, which one is that?

Third truth, end of pain, okay? The truth of the end of pain. Normally the four truths are presented, result, cause, result, cause.

Sometimes they're presented, cause, result, cause, result, which is confusing, but here it's result, cause, result, cause, okay? Life is pain, there's a reason. You can get out, there's a path, okay?

So, fourth truth, path, which is what he describes, without error, okay? Got it? So, he's described ...

and then people say, you know, people in universities say, oh, you know, Buddha must have had a bad day, he didn't have his coffee, and he's just repeating himself, okay? He's not repeating himself, he has a reason, there's always a reason in the Diamond Cutter Sutra why Buddha repeats himself, okay? It's called DDPIG YIN, those of you who are translators, classical fault of composition, to repeat yourself unnecessarily, redundancy, and Buddha doesn't have this problem, okay?

Alright, now, I'll tell you what Master Kamalashila says about it, he says, this verse, this part is describing the fact that Buddha is a SEMS KYIS BU, eh eh, yeah, pramana, say pramana, pramana, pramana, pramana means you saw correctly, saw correctly, okay? And there are whole books about pramana, what's the most famous one? Pramana Vartika, Pramana Vartika, written by Dharmakirti, okay?

Dharmakirti, about 1500 years ago, okay? Logic, Buddhist logic, okay? People hate the word logic, but in this section we got to get logical, okay?

So, Master Dharmakirti's big achievement was to write a book about pramana, correct perception, correct perception, okay? How many of our normal perceptions are pramana? You can say 99.9999% okay?

Like, if it's getting dark and you see a leaf going across the road in the wind, and you slam on your car brakes, you know, that's a not pramana, that's a mistaken perception, you know? Your husband is texting somebody and he's smiling, and you have ... because you're jealous, you have a non-pramana, oh, he's got a girlfriend.

Then you check his phone and he's ordering you a birthday gift on Alibaba, okay? So, that's called a non-pramana. Under the influence of drugs, alcohol, tiredness, jealousy, you can have non-pramanas, okay?

Some husbands are cheating on you, so be careful. Alright, but that's a non-pramana. But 99% of your perceptions are pramana, okay?

How many of the perceptions you have when you ask yourself, why is my husband yelling at me, are correct? In Buddhism we say almost zero, okay? When you think about, you know, how am I going to reach my goal in May, my fundraising goal?

How will it happen? When you ask how, then about 99% of your perceptions are mistaken, okay? All the strategies you come up with, all the methods you think of are self-existent, you know?

They're not going to work without seeds. Okay, and by the way, who came first, Kamalashila or Dharmakirti? Dharmakirti by a couple of hundred years.

So, Kamalashila was using Dharmakirti's methods, okay? And Kamalashila translated or wrote about 20 of the works in the Buddhist canon, in the collection of Buddhist books. He's written a lot of books and he also translated a lot of books, okay?

So, he was very familiar with Dharmakirti and he uses Dharmakirti and the second chapter of Dharmakirti is called the chapter on proving pramana, okay? And there's an argument about the order of the chapters, but the second chapter is what is pramana? What is correct perception?

How can you say the Buddha is correct? Okay? Then, why should I believe the Buddha?

Okay? Why should I believe Diamond Cutter Sutra? Okay?

Then, in Buddhism we say you shouldn't believe what a person says unless you can prove the person cannot lie. Okay? Unless you can prove the person always says the correct thing, you shouldn't believe them.

You should not. Don't believe a book just because Buddha spoke it. Don't believe a book because it's written in Sanskrit or Tibetan or ancient Chinese, okay?

There are many bad books written in Sanskrit. There are many mistaken books written in Tibetan, okay? Not everyone who teaches Tibetan Buddhism knows anything, okay?

So, be careful. In China, people are ... if they have a red robe, people are like oh, this person is real Lama, you know?

Be careful, you know? Check what they say, okay? It's not the robe, it's what they say, right?

Be careful. How do you prove someone can't lie? Okay?

And that's the second chapter of Dharmakirti. How do you prove ... and it's ACI course four.

Proof of Future Life, okay? There's an ACI course number four called Proof ... How to Prove Future Life, okay?

And a big part of that proof is to prove that Buddha cannot lie, okay? So ... so, Kamalashila makes a classical argument, okay?

Classical argument means take a subject like Buddha, say something about the Buddha that maybe not everybody knows, okay? And then prove it with something that everybody knows, okay? Got it?

That's Buddhist logic, okay? Number one, pick something or somebody. Number two, say something about them that people don't understand yet.

Number three, prove it with something people already understand. Okay? That's just Buddhist logic, okay?

You can use it against your husband. Okay. I lived with Ken Rinpoche for 25 years.

I lived with my Lama for 25 years. We are like an old married couple. When we have breakfast, it's like this ...

You know? We know everything the other person's going to say, you know? Then ...

it's hopeless to argue with him. He beat 10,000 debaters on the day he got his Geshe. He was number one in Lhasa.

He beat everyone in the three great monasteries. To try to argue with him is impossible, you know? He will say this house is upside down, and he will prove it, you know?

I'm like, okay Rinpoche, okay. Okay. So, Kamalashila gives a Buddhist proof.

Okay, you ready? Consider the Buddha, okay? Let's take the Buddha, right?

First step of logic, you have to choose something or somebody. What's the subject? Okay, let's talk about Buddha, okay?

Let's talk about Buddha. Number two. Now, number two is what?

Something about Buddha that maybe not everybody accepts. That's called Drupje Chö. In logic it's called the quality to be proven.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Here, it's that what he says is always true. Okay? What he says is always true.

Okay? Then, third ... the logic should be something about Buddha that we can all accept, already, that we already accept, okay?

Which proves number two. Ready? And this relates to how you teach other people, okay?

This relates to how you share with other people, and that's why it's here in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay? Ready? He only talks about what he has seen himself, directly.

Okay? He only talks about what he's ... he doesn't talk about things he hasn't seen or done.

Got it? And that's why he's a ... we call a ...

a person of pramana, he's a pramana person. He's always right, because he only talks about things that he experienced himself. Okay?

Why the picture that I chose? Took me a long time to find this particular look, I wanted this particular look. What's she doing?

She sees, okay? She's seeing, okay? Talk about things you've seen, then you're a person of pramana, okay?

Well, Buddhists are everything directly, but ... I mean, doesn't have to be directly, yeah. You could prove it to yourself indirectly, okay?

But generally, a Buddhist has to be careful to talk about things that they have experienced themselves. Or you can say, I heard it in the teaching, or I read it in a book, I didn't experience it myself, but this is what the book says, okay? That's why it's so useful to follow a book, a scripture, follow something Buddha said.

That's what we're doing, we're going through the scripture, right? So, generally, the best sharer or teacher is someone who experienced that thing themselves, okay? I want to teach you ...

you're going to talk to the person on the plane, right? Let me teach you about the four steps. They're like, did you use the four steps?

Yes. How? I used to have a yelling husband, now he makes dinner every night.

Okay, he doesn't have a chance to yell because he's busy in the kitchen. Okay, sound good Connie? John doesn't yell anyway.

Okay. Alright, so, the point of this part of the sutra, the picture, she sees. She sees.

She talks about what she sees. She tried it. Okay?

She's talking about what she saw. Okay? What she experienced.

And that makes you a great teacher, okay? That's why the meditation is called the logic of truth, the four truths, speaking about what you've seen. Buddha is a person of pramana, Buddha is a person who speaks the truth, right?

Why? Because he only talks about what he's experienced himself. He tried it.

Okay? He tried it and now he's teaching it. Okay?

Got it? Alright. Then Master Kamleshila makes a joke.

He says, anyway, someone who talks about the four truths must be telling the truth, because the four truths reveal the big lie. Someone who talks about the four truths is showing the big lie. What's the big lie?

Your husband comes from his own side. Okay? That's the big lie.

Looks like he decided to yell at you, but he didn't. He had to yell at you, he had no choice. Even if he says, I don't want to yell, he will yell.

Why? You forced him. How?

You yelled at your kids last week. Okay? Got it?

What's the big lie? Your husband wants to yell at you. That's a big lie.

He doesn't want to yell at you, you forced him. He didn't have choice. Maybe he doesn't even perceive he's yelling.

How many times somebody said to you, don't yell at me mom, and you're like, I didn't yell, I was just asking you to wash the dishes. I asked you in a very soft voice. No, you yelled at me.

Maybe he doesn't even perceive he's yelling. Maybe you perceive it. Okay?

So, the idea that he's yelling from his own side is a big lie. Anyone who talks about that lie, anyone who realizes it's a lie must be telling the truth. Kamalashila says that.

Okay? Anyone who says it's not true, it's not coming from him, already they broke the big lie.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Got it? Alright. Master Kamalashila can't let it go.

He wants to go deeper. Do you? Alright.

He can't stop there. He made a nice point. Everything's okay, we understand.

I shouldn't teach things I didn't experience myself. Or, if I do, I should make it clear to my students, I'm teaching you about this, but I didn't reach it myself, I'm trying. Okay?

Be honest with your students. Okay? The biggest lie possible in Buddhism is to lie about what you experienced.

Oh, I was talking to Manjushri yesterday. Amitabha came for breakfast. You know, that's the worst lie in Buddhism.

You can lie about, you know, how much money you have, or ... that's okay, but don't lie about your spiritual life. Be honest with your students.

Okay? I'm teaching you how to deal with people who yell at you, but I have trouble myself when people yell at me. Okay?

To be honest. Okay? Do I use it perfectly?

No. Do I understand it? Mostly.

Okay? Be honest with your students. They can smell it, by the way.

Every student can smell it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
You can't lie to your students.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
The first time you claim to be perfect, they're gonna see you get upset at somebody, then you have double trouble. You got upset and you ... your students found out you were lying.

Okay? Just ... say, I'm trying really hard, I made a lot of progress, I use the Four Steps sometimes, and when I do, I get great results, but I don't always remember to use them.

Just be honest. Okay? People can smell it.

People will follow you more if you're honest about your weaknesses, than if you try to be, oh, I'm a perfect teacher.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? Alright.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay, so Master Kamaśīla is not satisfied. He wants to go back to disembodied karma triggers.

Adam's like, I remember those. I'll give five dollars. American, not Singapore.

It's more now, right? Not sure. To anyone who can tell me what's the disembodied karma triggers in this section number 83, and I'm going to have a coffee, because you won't be able to tell me quickly.

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
Hmm?

[Speaker 2]
Hmm?

[Speaker 1]
Come on, say it slower, I enjoy a coffee. Luka. She's right.

She said, how does truth of ... how does the second truth cause the first truth if they never touch? Okay?

I yell at my kids, my husband yells at me. How does that ... how does yelling at the kids cause the husband to yell at me three days later?

Okay? By ... it's like a cocoon, yeah, it's like the cocoon.

You're right, but don't tell everybody the answers right away, that's part of teaching. She's right, yeah. So, Master Kamalashila points out there's two cause and effect chains going on in the ...

for truth, okay? Yelling at your kids, which is truth number ... two, causes truth number ...

one, which is your husband yelling at you, okay? Truth number three is your husband washes dishes and cooks instead of yelling. It's called cessation.

Okay, that's truth number three. Okay, got it? And truth number four is the path.

Truth number four is the path. What's the path? Stop yelling at your kids, right?

Follow the path. Stop yelling if you don't like people yelling at you. That's the path, the path, if you're from British Columbia, path.

Which is a boat. Okay, that's the path. Got it?

Okay. How can the path trigger the husband washing dishes and cooking instead of yelling? How can it trigger it?

It never touches it. You stop yelling at your kids on Thursday, your husband stops yelling on Saturday. Where's the connection?

By the time you're done not yelling at your kids, they're gone. That day is finished. Then the next day, your husband starts washing dishes instead of yelling.

Then how can there be a connection, you know? They cannot touch each other. Okay?

Yelling at your kids has to finish before your husband yells at you. So they can't interact. One of them has left the room already.

Okay, how can they touch each other? The seed never touches the tree. Who made the connection?

Yeah, that's also coming from you. That's also coming from you. Okay, got it?

Alright, so now you went really deep with Master Kamalashila. The impossible connection between cause and effect is created by you.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Let's do one more and we'll take a bathroom break. I had watermelon juice this morning and we're going to speed up this verse here.

[Speaker 2]
Let's see.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's not going to go very easy. Okay, alright. Now, in the next photo, I tried really hard to find this photo, I remembered it, or a similar photo, and it's 13.

It just reminds me of the middle way. On the left there's a bunch of trees, on the right there's a bunch of trees, and we're trying to go down the middle way.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, this photo is about middle way.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And, the verse by Lord Buddha, you ready? I'm going to read from ... it's so nice to have the reading, I'm sorry I didn't get it to you earlier.

Section 84. Section 84. And I speak to you further, O Subuddhi, of that thing where those gandhas reach some absolutely total enlightenment.

And I speak to you of that thing, which is the Dharma that they teach. It is not true, and it is not a lie. Okay?

The Dharma that the Buddha teaches is not true, and it's not a lie. Deception means lie.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? Deception.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? And Kamalashila gets all excited, oh, this is middle way, this is the meaning of the middle way. Okay, got it?

That's why you have this photo, so remember the photo. A middle way between truth and deception. Does that mean I shouldn't try to be true?

No. Okay? What's the third line of saying in the meditation?

Not what it sounds like. It doesn't mean you have ... don't choose truth or don't choose deception, choose something else, it doesn't mean that.

Okay? It means ... in one way, what the Buddha taught was true, and in another way, it was not true.

Okay? But don't think he's a liar, on Wednesday he lies, on Thursday he tells the truth, it doesn't mean that. Not what it sounds like.

Okay. We're gonna talk about this section ... 84?

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
In two different ways, one is ultimate, and one is not ultimate. One is ultimate, and one is not ultimate. Why did Sabuddhi cry during the sutra?

He said, you never say anything without talking about ultimate. Or maybe he's crying because he doesn't understand it, I don't know. There's always two kinds of crying in the room.

Maybe one person can cry both ways. This is cool and I don't understand it. Okay.

So, first, kamma shila is careful. He says, I'm gonna tell you one meaning of section 84, but it's not the ultimate meaning, it's just the interesting meaning. Okay, ready?

And this gets into a subject of ACI course 15, which is called drang nge. Drang nge, we talked about it a little bit. Sometimes Buddha said what he really wanted to say, and sometimes he said something lower than what he really wanted to say.

Why? The students weren't ready. The students weren't ready.

Okay? Geshe-la, this doesn't sound like DCI talk. I know, that's for the lower students, to tell you the truth.

Okay? It has a lot of big stuff in it, but mostly it's like, oh, you can make more money.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
That's not what I really want to talk about, but if I talk about what I really want to talk about, 20 people come. If I talk about money, 2,000 people come. so, does Geshe Michael only want to talk about money?

No, you just talk about money, if he has to talk about money, to get people to come to listen to the higher stuff. Okay? So, is everything Geshe Michael said true?

In that sense, no. No. You know, is the main thing money?

No. Well, why you say that in DCI number one? Because that's the audience.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Got it? So, from that point of view, which is not an ultimate point of view, we are not discussing ultimately real, ultimately unreal, we're not talking about that. Even from normal point of view, some of what Buddha said is not exactly true, it's not exactly what he wants to talk about.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And that's a big subject in Buddhism. And I told you about it before, there were three periods in the teaching career of the Buddha, there were three great periods in the long career, we are lucky, Jesus died when he was 30, he was killed when he was 30, we have about 30 pages of Christian, real real word of Jesus, we have 30 pages. Buddha, we have also, still we have 200,000 pages.

Okay? We still have, and most of it's lost, okay? So, he lived to 81, he taught for a long time, over 50 years, and he talked a lot, okay?

So, we still have those, you know, we are, we are lucky, so there are three great periods, what are they called? Yeah, three turnings of the wheel, three turnings of the wheel. In the first turning of the wheel, Buddha seemed to say, most things come from their own side, yelling husband come from his own side, and you just have to learn to deal with it, okay?

That was first period in his career, teaching. During the second period of his career, he said, nothing comes from its own side, nothing about your husband coming from him, not the sound, not the red face, not the words, not the movements, not the feeling, all coming from you, okay? Nothing comes from his side, okay?

Second turning of the wheel. After the second turning of the wheel, I guess there was a lot of complaints on the internet. Now Buddha crazy, you know, nothing exists, nothing comes from its own side.

Then Buddha thought, uh-oh, I better soften it, I better, you know, make people feel good. Then in the third turning of the wheel, he said, you know, that second turning of the wheel, I don't know, I just, I guess I didn't have enough sleep that night, I just got too radical, you know. Of course some stuff comes from their own side.

The top of the pen, the bottom of the pen, they're out there. Then, then your karma opens, because you shared pens in the past, and it makes a pen. But of course there's this thing out there, I didn't say the pieces aren't there, I didn't say that, okay?

And he taught mind only school, in lower, lower middle way, okay? Third turning of the wheel, okay? Then many people noticed, and it really bothered Tsongkapa, two of them have to be wrong.

Two of the three turning of the wheel have to be wrong. Only one can be correct, okay? He decided, Nagarjuna decided, Buddha decided, it's number ...

two is correct, okay? That means number one and number three are false, okay? So, there is truth in Buddhism, and there is deception in Buddhism, but benign deception.

Let's talk about money, okay? It's not trying to hurt those people, we're just trying to get them higher, okay? Trying to hook them and get them higher, okay?

Alright? So, it's not exactly true, the money is so important, but if you talk about it, more people will come, and then they can learn higher things, okay? By the way, money is called THU MONG GI NGOS GRUB THU MONG GI NGOS GRUB Yeah, shared, you don't give it up when you become Buddha, you still have a paradise, you don't give up your Mercedes Benz, you just take it with you, okay?

It's a higher ... there's higher thing, but you don't give up the lower thing, you can have that also, you have both, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Alright.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so in that sense, some of what Buddha said is true, and some of what he said is not exactly true, so you can say, it's okay to say the Dharma that the Buddha taught was neither true nor false. The total Dharma that Buddha taught was neither 100% true or 100% false, okay? Somewhere between, middle way, okay?

That's not the ultimate meaning of section 84, it's just something good to know, okay? What's the ultimate meaning of section 84? I'm glad you asked.

Oh, by the way, to go back to that last idea, Kamalashila says, this is drondok, to think everything ... to think that everything the Buddha said was true or literal, is drondok, what's that? Overrating, overrating, okay?

In a non-ultimate way, to think everything Buddha said is true is to overrate. It's not there, but you put it there, okay? It's not correct, but you make it correct.

In the husband example, what is overrating? There's a husband there who's coming from his own side, okay? There is no such thing, but you put it there, you make it, you make a husband like that, but there's no such husband like that, okay?

In Buddhism, we call overrating, overrating. What's underrating? Oh, everything's illusion, there's no husband in the kitchen, I don't have to cook tonight, okay?

Middle way means between those two, okay? Don't think there's a husband come from his own side, and don't think there's no husband at all. There is a husband coming from you, middle way, that's middle way, okay?

And we have a very cool project we're working on, the Buddha ... after the third turning of the wheel people got so confused, they said, which one was true Lord Buddha? You know?

And then he taught a sutra called Sandhi Nirmocana Sutra, what I really meant, what I really meant, in the sixth chapter. He gets a question from a bodhisattva called Paramartha Udgata, and the bodhisattva says, come on, what did you really mean? Which one was true?

And then Buddha gives an answer, are you ... you want to go deeper? In that answer he says number three was true.

Because of the audience, because of the audience, okay? Then people like Nagarjuna, they said, well he really means number two, so you have to interpret what the Buddha said about interpret. That's very subtle, okay?

And then that sutra came to China, it was translated into Chinese, it's missing in Sanskrit, we don't have the Sanskrit, the Chinese is the oldest version that we have, and Master Xuanzang translated it, and his student Yuen Tse, Yuen Tse? Yuen Tse, he wrote a beautiful commentary, and it's 2,000 pages, and it's part of the ... the Tibetans like it so much, they translate it into Tibetan, and they put it in the Buddhist canon.

It's part of the Tibet books, it's two and a half big books in the tengyur, in the canon, okay? It's ... all the ...

what's tengyur mean ... kangyur means all the books we have from India that Buddha spoke, tengyur means all the books we have from India that are commentaries, except Yuen Tse's commentary got in because it's so cool. They took it from China, okay?

So, the only copy now, complete copy of Yuen Tse's commentary about this subject is in Tibetan. Yeah, yeah, because now, how did people read that sutra? Did they take it literally or not?

You want to go deeper? You sure? Lots of people who wrote about that sutra said, you know, I support what Nagarjuna said about the sutra.

So, Nagarjuna said Buddha means the second turning was correct, okay? And then there came lots of people later who said, I agree with Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna said Buddha said number three was correct.

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
What's that? Oh yeah, there's lots of clues. Now, now, now, now, now.

Maybe that chapter is empty, and maybe people with different seeds see different things there. Got it? Okay, that's the big answer.

That's the big, big answer, okay? Okay, anyway, we can go that forever. Let's read RANG TSAD sometime together, it'll be fun.

There's some ... there's really beautiful, I read some of it, and we're going to translate part of it, part of it. To translate all of it would take 50 years.

We're going to translate some pieces, okay, about this subject.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you can follow the Chinese, the important chapter, the sixth chapter, about this question, it exists in Chinese, yeah, according to Stanley Chen. Okay, I can't say myself, but it'd be cool to teach it like, maybe in some university or something in China, that would be cool. Alright, in this case, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alright, now, now, I said that wasn't the ultimate discussion of this part. The ultimate discussion is, true means come from its own side. True from its own side.

Is the Dharma that the Buddha taught so true that it comes from its own side? So real that it comes from its own side. Then we say no, not like that, that's not what true means.

Okay, got it? That's the deeper meaning here. Okay?

What Buddha said is not true in the meaning that come from its own side. Okay? If you think that's the meaning of ultimate, if ultimate means that things should come from its own side, then nothing is ultimate.

Okay, got it? Well then, now, now, you want to go deeper, you sure? Okay, I like it, I can never do this in a DCI program.

Say nam che yong che, sorry, nam che chu che, nam che chu che, nam che chu che, some things you have to establish by cancelling what it is not. Some things you have to establish by cancelling what it's not. Okay?

What's an example? I don't know, changing or unchanging? Okay?

What is ... you can define unchanging thing as anything which exists which is not a changing thing. You cut all the changing things, if you take all the things that exist in the world and you cut, cut all the changing ones, what do you have left?

Unchanging things, that's ... in logic that's called nam che chu che, okay? Cut ...

you can reach the unchanging ones by cutting all the changing ones. Assuming you have a bag of existing things, okay, you have to say that, my bag has all the existing things, I'm going to take out all the changing ones, what's left? Yeah, all the unchanging things, so, some things you have to see this way, by cutting, okay?

How do you decide what's false? You cut all the true things, what's left is false, got it? You comfortable?

If you're comfortable, I'm not teaching it very well. There's a few comfortable people here. I'll say it again, how do ...

one way to arrive at what's false is to eliminate what's true, and, okay? Somebody ... some politician gives a one-hour talk, okay?

Then, take all the facts they mention, take all the ones that are true, and throw them out. Now, what do you have left? All the lies, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Not really. No, I'm assuming you know what ... I'm assuming you know what's true, okay?

Assuming you know what's true, you eliminate all the true things he said, and you understand all the things he said, and you know what's correct, but you cut all the ones he ... he said which are true, which is what newspaper people do during the recent campaign, they actually started to count how many things the person said that was not correct, but they didn't report the things he said which were correct, because that's not interesting. So, they took out all the correct things, then they report everything else, look, this was a lie, this is a lie, this is a lie, this is a lie, okay?

They count, they have a count, okay? Now, we just said nothing's true, Buddha didn't say anything true, in the sense that nothing's ultimate, in the sense that it doesn't come from its own side. The Dharma you hear, that teachers say, is not coming from the teacher, it's coming from you, okay?

So, in that sense, there's no ultimate thing Geshe Michael is saying today, there's nothing true, true, true coming from me, it's all come from you, okay? Got it? So, is there anything ultimate which I am saying?

We can say no. Aha! So, nothing's false either.

Why? You get the false by cutting out the true, but if there's no true you can't cut it. Then you can say what some crazy person said, nothing I said was true, and nothing I said was false.

Who said that? In the diamond cutter just now, Buddha said it, Buddha said it, got it? That's the deeper meaning.

If you understand that you can go to the toilet, or if you just fake it, to get to the toilet, okay? Let's say it one more time, okay? If a politician talks for an hour, and you take out all the true stuff they said, what you have left is nam che chu che, right?

Logic principle, what you ... by the way, well anyway, take out everything they said which was true, then what you have left is what's false, okay? Got it?

So, to get to deception, to get to the idea of deception in Buddhism, you have to know what's truth, because you arrive at deception by cutting out truth, okay? But Buddha just said there is no truth, so you can't cut it, so there's no deception either. Therefore, nothing Buddha said is true, and nothing Buddha said is false.

Sa! Okay? That's maybe one of the hardest ones we had to do, and by the way, Kamala Shila gets very excited, he says if you understand this, you understand Middle Way.

If you understand what I just said, you reached Middle Way. Okay, now let's take it to the husband, okay? Let's make it real, for my life, you know Geshe-la, that's all philosophy, what about my husband?

Okay? Middle Way means, one extreme, he is the way he seems, he is the way he seems, it seems like he's yelling at me, because he decided to yell at me, I didn't do anything, I just came home, I opened the door, husband's like, bahuh, bahuh, fatong, fatong, okay? I didn't do anything.

That husband is one extreme, it's the trees on one side, you drive your car there, you will die, okay? Don't hit the trees on the side, left side, husband is real, husband decide to yell at me, that's one wrong idea. Oh Geshe-la, if there's no husband in my kitchen who decide to yell at me, then there's no husband at all, then there's no husband at all, that's the only way husband can be.

If there's no husband decide to yell at me, then there's no husband, got it? That's the other trees on the right side, that's the other extreme. Buddhist has to go down the middle, Middle Way, what's Middle Way?

There is a husband, but, he come from me, there's a new kind of husband in my house, okay? The one who come from me, okay? Why?

I planted him. When? Last week.

How? When I yelled at my kids. Yeah, so a thing that happened last week and it's gone is causing your husband now, yeah.

That's your problem, okay? That's a disembodied commentary, right? Okay, alright, let's take a pee pee break.

The rest is easier okay, I promise, but you didn't come here for easy. Okay, alright. Anton asked me a good question, he said, when you say section 84, is that the same as Master Kamalashila's sections?

No, his 18 sections, okay? Different thing, okay? And, well he said, well what section are we in?

And I said, you know, but I didn't know. But, we're still in section 13, which is not worrying about hard things in your practice, okay? Like, being able to do hard things in your practice, okay?

And we're going to do section 85 of the sutra, which is very beautiful. By the way, the section numbers in in your big book, the sutra, I'm following how Master Kamalashila cuts it, okay? And so, I decided to use that forever.

Different people cut it different ways, but he's the earliest great commentary we have, so, maybe that's a good way to cut it, okay? Okay, so number 85, subbuddhi, this is how it is, think of the example of a man who has eyes to see, but is sitting in the dark, he sees nothing at all. If a bodhisattva falls into things and then practices the perfection of giving, they are just like this man, okay?

This man has eyes, they're not blind, they're sitting in a dark retreat cottage, all the windows are shut, outside sun, Arizona sun, bright enough, okay? And they have eyes, but ... if you practice sharing your things with other people, if you're generous, but you don't know what you're doing, okay?

You don't know about seeds, then you are like a man sitting in a dark room, okay? And the sun is bright outside. Now I'll go to Master Kamalashila's commentary.

What's the picture here? It's ... looks like Jenny Wong on Orchard Road on a good day in Singapore.

Singapore is the best place to shop in the world, I don't care, there's nothing like it, you know? I like to just ... I like to shop there for my friends and things, my old lady for example.

So, it's called a blind man in a room of riches. And ... and those of you who are teaching DCI like Mr. and Mrs. Vesik, this is the verse for you. In this section, 85 right? Kamalashila goes crazy about the five goals of DCI, okay? It's like he just got back from DCI level one, and ...

he says you know ... if you know what you're doing, if you understand seeds, then you can have a nice life, why not? Okay?

You can have ... you can be independent financially, he mentions it. You can have a nice relationship, you can have good health, he mentions it specifically.

And your practice goes well, your meditations go well, you serve other people, you enjoy serving other people, it's a perfect DCI commentary right here, okay? And if you don't understand how things are coming from you, you are like a man with eyes sitting in a dark room, surrounded by cool shopping, okay? Many things that you could have, okay?

The best dress, the best shoes, the best purse, is in the room, but you can't see it, okay? Then you're just unhappy, you are sitting in the dark. Open the door, open the window, let the sun come in, look at all this cool stuff, you know?

You can have a nice house, you can have a good health, you can stay young, okay? Don't sit in the dark room, okay? Who's sitting in the dark room?

The bodhisattva who fell into things, of course that always means who thinks the husband coming from their own side, okay? Who doesn't understand seeds. Even bodhisattva, okay?

If they try ... by the way, if you're a bodhisattva, have you seen emptiness directly? Not necessarily, not necessarily.

Bodhisattva, someone who wants to help the whole world, DCI goal number five, but they don't know how, okay? That's called a bodhisattva whose sunglasses are too dark, okay? Alright?

So, we're talking about that kind of bodhisattva, they want to practice, they want to help people, they want to be generous, but they don't understand that the money you use to give away also has to come from giving, okay? You can't be generous if you don't have anything, okay? You can't really help people if you don't have anything, okay?

So, it's okay to have money, it's okay to look nice, it's okay to have a comfortable car, you know? I had an uncomfortable car, Jigme gave me her old used car, it was stolen by somebody like ten years ago, then the police in Los Angeles called her, we found your car, after three years or something, we found your car, it's a really old car, you know this purple Volvo, Volvo, right? Yeah, no air conditioning, I used to have two pairs of clothes, one is for driving the car, one is when I get out of the car, because I'm totally sweat, totally covered, it used to break every mile, you know, and she gave it to me.

She asked, the police said we're going to auction it, she said, well how much I have to pay? They said, it's worth $50, she said, I'll take it, she gave it to me, okay? Then it was just trouble, okay?

You can't help people if you don't have anything, it's difficult, you can't ... you can't go somewhere to teach ching khan ching, okay? You don't have a car, or your clothes are all sweaty, nobody wants to learn ching khan ching from you, okay?

Alright, so, Kamalashila says, a bodhisattva who has eyes, who gives things to other people with eyes, meaning with understanding seeds, then even they will get material and emotional success, stable health and body, and of course, the ultimate wealth, which is Buddhahood, okay? The ultimate wealth. And he says, if they don't work on their view of emptiness, they will forfeit what they could have had.

They could have had cool things, and they won't get them. They're like a man sitting surrounded by beautiful things, golden, beautiful things from a car that has air conditioning up to Buddhahood, okay? They're surrounded by it, but they can't see it, okay?

They will forfeit it, and then he says they will get discouraged, and they will give up giving. They will stop trying to give things to people, because they don't ... they don't understand how it works, they don't follow the four steps, they try to be a nice Buddhist, but nothing happens.

So, then they quit, okay? And that's ... the worst problem of not understanding emptiness, is you will quit, you will get discouraged, okay?

This is not working. I've been generous ... how many thousands of people told me, Genji and I have been generous for ...

for 15 years, I've visited the old lady for ... for five years, nothing happened. Did you do the four steps?

Yes, yes. Did you do number four? No, no.

What's number four? Yeah, kha fe min shang. Be ...

be happy. The seed won't grow if you're not happy about being nice, okay? It won't grow, okay?

Don't complain to me if you can't do number four. Most people have trouble with number four, because we're good people, and we don't want to be proud, we don't want to say, I'm a good person, but that's okay, you have to, okay? Alright.

Then they will suffer forever, and they will have the third kind of problem. This ... we were ...

this whole section's about patience, we're still in patience. Patience about ... what was that?

People who bother you. Patience about ... inconveniencing yourself for your practice.

And then ... the bigger kind of patience, which is about samsara.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Alright.

[Speaker 1]
And then Kamalashila says, and Buddha says, the next section says, let me read it for you, this is section 86, and now Subuddhi, think of this man, a man with eyes to see, as dawn breaks and the sun rises into the sky. Think how he then sees a whole variety of different forms. This is a bodhisattva who understands what they're doing when they give the things to people, okay?

Then ... Master Kamalashila says you can read it two ways. Number one, the sun ...

the sun has always been out. The ... the opportunity of wisdom is always there, okay?

It's like, you're sitting in a dark retreat cottage at Diamond Mountain, but the sun has always been there, outside, okay? Wisdom has always been available, you didn't get it, you didn't take it, okay? Or he says, you can think that the sun came up, you know, the guy was sitting at three o'clock in the morning in his retreat cottage and then the sun came up, and he said, I like that one because it ...

it ... you get the feeling of a war between light and dark, okay? It's a war, okay?

He says, I like the sunrise one, you know, it's dark, dark, dark, dark, dark in your life, the sun starts to come up and you start the war, it's called Dharma, okay? Alright? Then ...

it's a war, okay? When you go home and you have jet lag and your husband says you are stupid for going to Diamond Mountain, then ... because you're tired, you'll forget and you'll get upset.

Half an hour later, in the bathroom, you will remember. After he went to work ... you see what I mean?

It's too late, but you'll remember, it's a war, okay? Remembering emptiness is a war, it doesn't happen in one day, you don't win this war in one day. It took you a billion, billion years to ...

to mess up, don't think you're going to change it in one retreat, okay? But I'll tell you this beautiful thing, I told you many times, Geshe study takes 20, 25 years, on the last day, last day of the exams, they give a Geshe hat to everybody, good luck. They give every ...

even the little eight-year-old monks, they get a big Geshe hat, the hat goes like ... you know, and ... everybody gets a Geshe hat, then they hold it, and they're waiting, you know, actually, they put it on, and then there's the final question of 25 years, it's always the same question, that's how you know you're almost finished, because the debate master will ask the last question, you know, is there an end to pain, or not?

Will ... will the pain in this world end someday? That's the question.

Then you say, yida, it will, it will end, okay? Then he says, why? And he ...

and you say, when truth meets false, truth wins, okay? When there's a fight between understanding your husband and not understanding your husband, understanding always wins. When ...

when you ... just bring up the idea, oh, I yelled at my kids, okay, yell at me, go ahead. He yells at you, then you say, okay.

Then, if you remember, the understanding will always beat the anger, okay? If you remember. Sometimes you remember half an hour later, okay?

I used to get in fights at my work and then I'd go to the men's room, I have a special meditation toilet, I'll sit in there when I'm upset, I don't even do anything, you know what I mean? And ... and I will ...

I'll think, gee, I should have remembered emptiness, I shouldn't have gotten in a fight, you know? Okay? So, like the sun, when the sun comes up, the dark has to go, forget it, okay?

If you let the sun come up, if you struggle to understand that things are coming from your seeds, how you treated other people, okay? It will definitely beat the dark, okay? It never happened that the sun came up and went back down right away, okay?

Oh, it's too dark, you know, let the sun come up, ooh, it's too dark, I'll go back, it doesn't happen, okay? If you ... the sun is your wisdom, right?

The sun is understand seeds, then darkness cannot fight against that sun, not possible, okay? Alright, he likes that one, I like that one, okay. We're almost ...

getting close to nearly finished, for today. This is the longest one, because ... I don't know, tomorrow ...

it's hard to focus tomorrow, right? And you can't meditate on it, in retreat, okay? For Anton, Gospadin Kratasyuk, we reached ...

Kamalashila section 14, which is SANGS RTE'I RGYI ROL NYANG BA DANG REL BA means ... don't get attached to meditation sensation, don't get attached to the feeling of meditation, use it as a tool, but don't get attached to it. The goal is not meditation, meditation is like a ...

telescope to see the star, but it's not the star, okay? It's just a tool, don't get attached to the tool, don't spend your whole life talking about meditation, working on meditation, and ignoring other people, okay? Don't go in retreat and ...

for the sake of retreat, going to retreat because you want to use it when you get home, okay? Don't become one of those people who's always in retreat and doesn't like people, okay? That's not the point.

So, the whole section, don't get attached to retreat, don't get attached to meditation. Keep in mind, your ... retreat is a tool for helping the world, okay?

That's his ... that's how he describes this section, okay? Alright, here we go.

Then ... it's called the morning time of day, okay? This is the most fun meditation here, okay?

And ... I'll just give you the easy introduction and then I'll give you the hard part, okay? Here's the easy part.

There are five points made in the sutra which relate to don't get hung up on your meditation. It's only a tool. Okay, there are five points about not getting hung up on your meditation.

Understand that meditation and retreat are tools for serving others. Don't get hung up on the tool and forget to serve others, okay? Then he's ...

of course we have to meditate every day, but it's a tool, okay? Then he says, well, what happens if you have that correct understanding? You see, meditation is just a tool for you to be a better mother, for you to be a better husband, for you to be a better business person.

What if you succeed and you use meditation, you integrate it into your real life and serving other people? Five cool things will happen to you. Five cool things will happen to you, okay?

Number one, and this is from the sutra, and we'll get to these five. Number one, the Buddhas love you. They're looking at you all the time, oh, Vivian's so cool, look, she meditates quietly at home, then she goes to work, and she is so cool, god damn, you're so cool.

You know, gongpa means they ... they're just super attracted to you. Man, that's what I always wanted, a mother, a business person who's using the meditation in their real life, okay?

They get excited about you, okay, that's the first one. Number two, you make zillions and zillions of good seeds, okay, if you combine meditation with real life, with real service of other people, okay? Number three, we should just all praise you, you know, we should all tell you how cool you are.

Buddha, other Buddhists, if we see a person who is combining meditation with real life, real service of other people, retreat, they go and retreat so that when they come home they can serve people. Those people we should praise, you deserve praise, okay? We should make song, we should make rock and roll song about you, oh Vivian, oh Vivian, meditate, meditate Vivian, you know, we should sing your praises, okay?

Number four, naturally, all the beings respect you, they honor you, you ... like even devas and and all the tantric angels and other bodhisattvas, when they see you using meditation for real life, they're like, oh bow down, bow down, I bow down to you. Even other bodhisattvas, other Buddhas, they bow down to you, okay?

Number five, it automatically cleans away your old bad seeds, it automatically purifies your old bad seeds. If you use your meditation, don't get attached to the meditation, don't get attached to how cool it feels, use it, in real life, for your job, for your family, for your health, okay? Then, doing that cancels a lot of your old bad seeds, okay?

So, keep in mind these five parts, alright? Now let's go to the first one, I'm going to read you ... here's the sutra, okay?

I'll read it to you for good luck. You don't mind that we're going on, like, okay? Right?

You didn't want to do yoga anyway, that's why I'm teaching so long. Okay, section 88, section 88, basa ba ... he he, basa bandhu, okay ...

I say to you further, sabuddhi, suppose some man or woman gave away, in a single morning time of day, their own body, the same number of times that there are drops of water in the Ganges River, billions and billions, okay? And then at midday, they did the same thing, and in the evening, they did the same thing, okay? And suppose they did this for billions and billions of years, okay?

What's he going to say next, do you remember? Come on, take a guess. Yeah, it doesn't compare to the karma of sharing ching kang ching, it doesn't compare, okay?

Okay, that's coming later, you know that. But, Master Kamalashila stops here, and I warned you about this part, okay? He says, oh, look, he said morning, wow, you know, okay?

He said morning time of day, do you get it? You get it? And then we're all like, no, he's just talking about morning, you know?

Then he talks about noon, and then he talks about evening, I mean, it's okay, don't get excited. You know, he says, no, no, he's talking about emptiness, he's talking about emptiness. What do you mean?

What are you talking about? Why did he use three words when he could use one? Why did he say morning time of day?

By the way, I changed my old translation, because I just said morning. But, but, okay, we're going to go to the Sanskrit, mostly so I can impress you. Where is the Sanskrit?

Yeah, in Tibetan it's ,SNGA RTOD RGYUD TSE, which means morning time of day. The Sanskrit is ,PHUR BA ,AG NA ,GA LA Okay, ,PHUR BA, say, ,PHUR BA Sanskrit doesn't really have a V, they kind of go, ,PHUR BA ,AG NA ,GA LA ,GA LA ,GA LA ,GA LA ,GA LA is easy, time, right, like Kala Chakra, okay. L's changed to R's in Sanskrit, in English, so, car comes from that, because it's moving, it's constantly moving, chariot comes from that.

Okay, ,AG NA means day, and ,PHUR BA means early, early time of day, okay. What's ,PHUR BA LTAR NA SA NA? Early side, what's ,PHUR BA LTAR NA SA NA?

Which asana is that? Forward bend? Seated forward bend?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Huh? Oh, okay, anyway, it relates to that somehow. Anyway, morning time of day, okay.

Then, okay, this is Kamalashila's thing, when a child is born in, let's say France, okay, a child is born in France, did you ever wonder why kids can learn their own language so fast? You know, like, I tried to start Chinese 15 years ago, some of my friends had kids during that time, those kids learned Chinese in three years, four years, blah blah blah blah blah, I'm like still trying to say ni hao, you know, xie xie, and the kid is talking Chinese already, okay, then is it old people are stupider than young people? No, your seeds, yeah, your seeds were to be born in China, and those seeds helped you to learn your own language faster, okay, because those seeds created China for you, and those seeds created Chinese language for you, and then some kids have extra seeds, like Stanley, okay, and they watch a few American movies and then suddenly they're talking, hi Geshe-la, how you doing?

What's up man? You know, okay, some people have extra seeds, okay, I don't, for Chinese, not yet, I'm still trying to wake them up, okay, so, this idea of learning is a little bit wrong, okay, this idea that you are learning a foreign language is a little bit wrong. The idea that you recognize a car because your mom said that's a car honey, you say mama, what's that?

Mama, ji gu shu shu ma, then mama said, how do you say car? Whatever, that's a car, then you say, she said try to say kwa, no, car, kwa, no, car, car, yeah, that's right, this is a car, okay, we call this car, okay, mommy, mommy's teaching you, actually the whole learning come from their past life, some kids cannot learn, they don't have seeds, the mom said the same thing to two kids, one kid remember, one kid doesn't remember,

[Speaker 2]
okay,

[Speaker 1]
so, that's how we learn things,

[Speaker 2]
okay,

[Speaker 1]
now, difficult part, Buddhism says the whole world is like white noise, okay, English has a word white noise, white noise means like on the plane, you're going to experience it today, all the way to China, or Germany, or wherever you're going, just noise, random noise, beep beep, hmm, kwa, hmm, khu ku chu chu ku, you know, we call white noise, it's not anything specific, just white noise, whole world is like blank white thing, everything, there's nothing out there, nothing out there, okay, there's also no morning time of day, okay, there's nothing, there's no time, you know, in Tibet the time was 60 drops of water from a cup with a hole in it, that's one hour, then maybe it's 24 minutes, maybe it's 110, it doesn't matter, you see, your mind makes time from the white noise, okay, your mind made morning time of day, okay, who decide morning, evening, who decide that? Okay, if you live in my office in New York, you divide time differently, there's a work time, and there's coffee break, okay, your mind cut the day differently, and the second one is much more important, your mind cut the day differently, okay, if you're a mom, you have to pick up your kid at five o'clock, five o'clock is important ten minutes in the day, more important than the rest of the day, you know, I can't forget to pick up my kid, the school will call you, we called you ten times already, you're late, your kid's the last one, he's waiting here, the teacher's pissed off, they have to stay, because of you, so, you learn five o'clock to five ten is important part of the day, your mind divide the day differently than people who don't have kids, they don't care if it's five o'clock, okay, got it? Time of day, morning time of day, when a bodhisattva man or woman give away their body a billion times, it's random, and the ... you want to go deeper?

The word is random, the word is random, you could call it evening, and you could call the evening morning, it doesn't matter, there's nothing about MA O R NGYIS RNGUB that belongs to that time of day, there's no connection, who made the connection? You did, okay? So, Kamalashila goes crazy, he's so happy, I'm so glad Buddha said morning, MA O R NGYIS RNGUB I'm so happy, because he's talking about emptiness, okay?

Everything coming from you, even the time, even time coming from you, okay? He gets so excited, so, don't forget, if you ... we can have ...

there are diamond mountain jokes, kind of cool diamond mountain jokes, like, tomorrow ... no, sorry, Wednesday Michael will get up late, and Melissa will say, good morning time of day Michael! Then he'll go, emptiness, yeah, I remember, there's all these diamond mountain jokes, we can do it in China, you know, good morning time of day Jenny, and then you're like, oh yeah, I remember, okay?

Don't be attached to ... don't think those things are coming from themselves, they're coming from you, okay? Even morning, even PUR BA'A GNAG DKA' LA is coming from you.

Then, this is what Sabuddhi was crying about, right? Not that it was difficult, he was crying about how cool it is that Buddha doesn't let a single word come without meaning, okay? Why do you say morning?

Why didn't he just say they give their body? Why he said morning? Okay, it's because it has meaning, he's talking about emptiness, okay?

Alright, you want to go deeper? Sure. There are no times of day.

Then a silver karmic seed opens in your mind. Out of the seed comes an idea of morning, okay? Probably because ...

I don't know, you made your husband get up in the morning too much or something, but you have a seed for morning, it opens. Picture comes out, pen also, right? This is not a pen yet, it's just a thing.

Then, seed comes out of your mind because you shared pens with other people in the past. And, and your mind cuts a pen out of the white noise. Your mind defines pen ...

pen. Okay, it makes a pen out of the white noise, okay? So, some people like to say your mind ...

MING DA'I RTAG TZAM your mind is labeling things, they say your mind is labeling things with a name, okay? But it's deeper than that. Your mind is creating things with name, and name means the picture, got it?

It's not the word pen, the real name is ... the real name is the picture, okay? Got it?

You didn't create this thing with BU'I'I'I okay? What do you say in ... JongWen?

BU'I'I, okay? BU'I'I You didn't make this thing with BU'I'I you made it with a picture, okay? So, if you ...

what's the real name? It's the ... it's the picture coming out of your seat, okay?

The world is created by words, the world is created by names, but it's the pictures, not the words, not the sound, got it? You okay? Tina looks confused, I finally got her confused, it took me so long to get you confused.

Oh ... you sure? Is it a very good question?

I think so. I just wonder if there's any place in the sutra they actually use the word picture, all I see in the sutra are just names of ... Yeah, put names on something, something like that.

MING DA, MING in Tibetan, MING DE, they call it name picture, name picture, they say it real fast, name picture, okay? So really, when we say the world's created by names, it's not created by names, if I say pen, it's not going to make a pen. If I share pens with others, put the seed in my mind, picture comes out, that's pen, that creates pen, that cuts pen out of the ...

nothing, out of white noise, that cuts the pen, you see? It's the same thing, but it's a deep point, it's a deep point. Yeah, good, name and language, but in the end, they are both pictures coming out of your karmic seeds, so don't get confused.

When Buddha said name, or Buddha said pictures, or name and pictures, he meant coming out of your mind, oh sorry, name and language means pen picture, not pen word. The word cannot make a pen, okay? The picture makes a pen.

What's the Christian Bible? What's the first word in the Christian Bible? Yeah, in the beginning was the word.

That's the first word of the Christian Bible. And then everybody's like, what does it mean? Okay, it's very cool.

Yes. I just mean ... I'll play you something, hang on.

This is really cool. It's the physical, it's a physical thing, but you say it cut from ... not physical cutting, yeah, conceptual cutting.

And let me see, I want to play you something. You ready? I don't know if it's going to work, let me see.

Okay, here we go. Listen carefully. Nah.

Anyway, I was recording the bird last night. There's a bird who sings at night, right? He goes, it's quiet and he goes, beep, and it's quiet and he goes, beep beep.

I think it's so cool, he's singing at night, everybody else is asleep, he's like really quiet, shhhh, beep, shhhh, beep beep, shhhh, holding, I don't know, for hours, right? That beep, that shhhh, is the white noise. The world is just vague, nothing.

Then, beep beep means morning time day, morning time day, it's cutting, cutting morning from nothing. Okay, got it?

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Alright, let me see ...

[Speaker 1]
Kamalashila says, I know, I know, I know, Buddha talked about it before, he already said, you can give away your body or you can cover planets with gold, but it's better karma to read this sutra. I know, don't think Buddha's dumb, he forgot he said that already. Okay, there's a reason why he repeated it.

You want to know the reason? The last one connected to the antan section about not being attached to outside books. What's an outside book?

Any bad explanation to emptiness, could be Buddhist. Okay, so that's a different subject, this one's talking about not being attached to pleasant meditation. Now you have to decide why, okay, that's your problem, I'm not going to explain it.

Last thing I'll say about this one is ... those of you who want to take, someday should take bodhisattva vows, there's a primary bodhisattva vows and there's secondary bodhisattva vows. One of the secondary bodhisattva vows is what?

You old yogis tell me. Yeah, yeah exactly, he must be doing his book. 94, it's 94 total vows, I'm not saying ...

if you count all your vows. Considering the pleasant sensation of meditation to be an important personal attainment, that's breaking a vow, you break a vow, you break a bodhisattva vow. Is it bad to have good meditation?

No. Is it important to have good meditation? Yes.

Do you need good meditation? Yes, you can't see emptiness without it, okay, but don't get attached to it, don't spend all your time talking about retreat, talking about meditation, ignoring other people, okay, you know, someone really needs you, help them, okay, then do your meditation, okay, that's alright.

[Speaker 2]
The meditation is for helping people, okay, alright.

[Speaker 1]
Are you warm? No? Let's freeze, chun dzong, you want to turn on the air or not?

No? You feel ... how many people hot?

Raise your hand. How many people not hot? Raise your hand.

Okay, you win. By the way, section 92, it doesn't have Sanskrit, because the Sanskrit comes before 91, so I didn't want to cut it up that way, so, all the Sanskrit for 92 is in 91, so don't stress out about it, okay. We're on meditation 16, what's the photograph?

What's the image? Yeah, a dad is carrying his son on his shoulders, okay. Let's go to the ...

section 92, section 92. Those people who learn the Diamond Cutter Sutra possess good seeds which are inconceivable, beyond all comparison, cannot be measured, beyond all measure. Any person who studies Diamond Cutter Sutra ...

Let's go to enlightenment, okay dad, okay, and they're carrying you. Okay, Buddha promised, Buddha made promise, you study Diamond Cutter Sutra, I will take you on my own shoulders to enlightenment, I'll pick you up. And Master Kamalashila says, don't forget, this relates to the very first part of the answer that Buddha ever gave to Subuddhi in the beginning.

Subuddhi said, what do you want me to do? What did Buddha say? Yeah, what's the short answer?

Yeah, nirvana science, we got to make a rock and roll song, you got to nirvana science people, nirvana science, take them to nirvana, get those people to nirvana, that's what I want. So, Buddha talk about taking us on his shoulders, but the meaning is, you have to take people on your shoulders, okay, that's ... he's just giving example, okay, you have to take people on your shoulders.

Anton, how does that relate to this section? What's this section? Yeah, don't get attached to retreat, don't get attached to meditation, use them!

Does it mean you shouldn't do so many? No, it doesn't mean that, do as many as you have to, to carry people, to learn to carry people, okay? Alright.

Which reminds me, unfortunately for you, our fundraising drive is not quite finished, and me and Michael Dunn, we worked out a new plan, it's called the four. It's not the four Arya Truth, it's a new four, okay? The first one is the sound dampening equipment for the Je Tsongkapa Center.

We hang these things from the ceiling and it gets quiet when you have a conversation, and you don't have to yell to hear the person next to you. It makes the room more ... it makes the room better for quiet conversation, even when there's many people, okay?

That's called sound dampening system, okay, that's one of the four, okay, got it? Then there's three that go together, like the last three truths, okay? Each one of these is a translation booth, okay, so we need four things, we need one sound damping system, and we need three more translation booth.

We're gonna buy the professional kind, which is more comfortable, and you can fold it up and you can take it to Sedona and you can use it there, okay? So, ACI can use it, Diamond Mountain can use it, okay? So, there's ...

how many total? Four, each one costs ten thousand US. No, forget it, it's true.

Nine thousand, I'm calling it ten thousand, it's okay. Tax. Anyway, me and Michael decided, four things, ten thousand dollars each.

My suggestion, make a team, you make a team, okay? Make four teams, like, one team is South China, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, one team is Europe, you know, Germany, Russia, okay? One is America, Mexico, US, Canada, okay?

So, I'm in the America's team, I will give two thousand, okay? I'll give two thousand, we need eight more, okay? So, you guys make your own teams, okay?

My suggestion, if you are the person who gave all the money last time, don't give more, make other people give, okay? One person gave 80% of the money last time, it's not fair, okay? We should all share, okay?

So, don't worry you have lots of time before tomorrow afternoon, but I will give two to the America's team, okay? So, let's try to hit ten. Maybe it takes a couple weeks, I don't mind, okay?

Let's do it, okay? Just do it, okay? So, what do you need money after Diamond Cutter Center, okay?

Alright, you always get more, it'll always come, use it while you have it, if you die in a car with lots of money, then you wasted your money, okay? Alright, then he says something cool, he says, don't forget, this sutra is all about bodhisattvas, it's about carrying other people to enlightenment, and he says, I'll tell you one more thing, are we Hinayana or we're Mahayana? Mahayana.

What's it mean? Greater way, greater way. Then he says, no, it's not the greater way, it's the way for greater people.

Okay, got it? It's not Mahayana, it's maha people like this yana, okay? People with big hearts go for this one, that's why we call it big way, bigger way, okay?

It's because big people are attracted to it, big hearted people, big vision people, they like this yana, that's why we call it Mahayana. Those people who want to carry other people on their shoulders, who agreed to do that, those are big people, and the path they follow is big path, Mahayana, okay? By the way, technically this is part of the praising part, he's like, you are so cool, I will carry you, okay?

You are ... if you do meditation and integrate it into a normal life, you are worthy of my praise, I hold you up, okay? Then ...

Kamalashila is like bothered, he's like, I don't get it, Buddha said immeasurable good karma, immeasurable sins, then he says, I decided what it is. If you hired all the beings in the universe and they work together to measure this karma, you give each one a ruler, you know, you give billion, billion, billion people a ruler and say measure this karma, even if they work together they can't do it, that's all. Okay?

The karma is too big. Alright, I know you're tired, I am too, but it's easier to talk than to sit. What's the next ...

how many more we got? I think we got one more. Well, we got a few more, okay.

What's the next picture? Members only, only VIPs. Okay.

Then there's a weird explanation, Stanley wrote me an email, what's it mean Geshe-la? Omniscience of exclusion. Exclusion means you don't let other people come in, that's exclusion.

VIP lounge at the airport, only if you know Dr. Wu can you come in, I learned that. I go to the VIP lounge, they say, are you VIP? I said no, but I know Dr. Wu. They said, oh come on in, come on in. Okay, so what's it mean? Buddha said this sutra is not for lesser people, he said that.

In the sutra he says, this sutra is not for lesser people. This sutra, I designed it for bodhisattvas, and other people cannot come into this room while I'm teaching it. It's like Kamalashila at Diamond Mountain, okay, we're kind of strict about people who come into this class, okay?

Which is another reason why you have to teach when you get home, because people cannot come to Kamalashila 4, which is the coolest one, unless they come to the first three, so you have to teach them, okay Saragni, you guys, okay, you got to help people get ready. Okay, chun dzong. So, somebody comes up to Kamalashila and says, I have a question.

They say, what? They say, so Buddha's prejudiced, right? Like Buddha plays favorites, if you're Mahayana you can come to my class, if you're not, you can't, okay, and in my opinion, then he's not a Buddha.

Buddha should love everybody equally, okay, Buddha should invite everybody to the class. Why Buddha says only bodhisattvas can come to this class? It seems like a non-Buddha thing to do, it proves he's not a real enlightened being, okay?

Somebody makes a complaint, they send a complaint to the airport authorities, you know, why you only let some people come in the VIP lounge? You are not Buddhas, you guys must not be Buddhas, okay? Got it?

Okay. Because he's not free of ... what do you call it?

Prejudice. Yeah, he has prejudice. You can come, you cannot.

Au contraire. On the contrary. Is that right?

I don't know if I spelled it right, I just ... it popped into my head, may I have a French thing in there somewhere? Kamalashila says, the fact that Lord Buddha excludes some people from this teaching proves he's omniscient, proves he knows everything, because only a fool will try to teach the same teaching to different people's levels, okay?

Only a non-omniscient person, only a non-Buddha will say, everybody come, I'm going to explain deepest Kamalashila, okay? Because half of them will leave the next morning quietly, Geshe-la I have stomach ache, Geshe-la my mom's calling me, I have to go home, okay? Got it?

If he's omniscient, he will say, if you're not a bodhisattva don't come to this class, okay? If he's not omniscient, he'll say everybody come and then half the people will leave because they're confused, okay? It means when you teach, check your audience, check your audience, what's their level?

Be sensitive to your audience. It's very typical, a DCI teacher, ACI teacher, they will prepare 20 pages of complicated notes, you know? And then they'll go to the class and everybody's new, and they're like, but my notes are so cool, they won't understand anything, but I spent so long and make this ...

then they just go ahead, they teach it anyway, and people don't come back, nobody comes back, okay? It's like, I don't know why, ten people came to my class, second time only three, maybe there's a good movie out? No, you taught the wrong level, okay?

They weren't ready for it, okay? So, it often happens to me, you know, DCI level 7, level 8, the first time I taught level 8, I cut like 75% out, I said this is too much, you know? People can't handle it, you know, I just cut it.

Okay, so you have to have that skill, or ... you're going to teach level 1, you know, and then all these people come, and they're ready for level 2, or they're ready for level 5, teach level 5, it's okay, okay? Fit the audience.

If you don't, you're not a Buddha, okay? Alright. Then, Master Kamalashila says, people with a lower motivation, right, who are not ready to carry other people, if they come to this diamond cutter teaching, when Buddha asked them not to, okay, they will not be able to hear it, okay, they will not be able to hear it.

Jesus said many many times, if you have ears, listen. Then people said, why you keep saying that? He says, some people aren't ready for it, okay?

Then Master Kamalashila says, what does it mean when you say they cannot hear? It means they cannot understand it, and more importantly, they cannot use it in their real life. They can't use it in their family, they can't use it in their work, okay?

Those people shouldn't be in the class. What you teach, they cannot use it. It means they cannot hear, means they cannot use it, okay?

They don't understand it, and they can't use it. Okay? Then Kamalashila says, by the way, if you're in this class, if you heard the Diamond Cutter Sutra, if an omniscient being who can see 2017 in 500 BC gave you a copy of the sutra this morning, you must be cool!

You must be someone who can carry people, otherwise the sutra wouldn't come to you, okay? You wouldn't get the sutra. Nicole would ...

did Nicole drive to Tucson? Yeah? Where are you?

No, did you do the dirty work, or who did it? You did the dirty work, let's thank Nicole, yeah. It's like a four hour trip to pick up your ...

Geshe-la, why don't you build a retreat center next to Tucson? We built the retreat center here so you can't get to Tucson. Okay.

Alright. So actually, Kamalashila says, Lord Buddha is praising you guys. Implied?

Praising you, you know? If you made it here, you must be the kind of person who likes to carry other people, okay? What does it look like to carry other people?

This came up in DCI, you know, we have DCI teachers, we take them on DCI tour, right? This is a new DCI teacher, you know, we say, can you come on the tour? They say, oh yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Then you get to the airport, you say, carry those 20 bags over there, and they're like, no, I'm a teacher, you know, I came on the tour to teach, you know, and you're like, yeah, that's what teachers do, they carry the luggage, you don't understand? They're like, no, I just want to teach big groups of people. Yeah, but a DCI teacher, we got to start that Scott, we can go like this, you know, you have to carry people.

Being bodhisattva is not all about teaching in front of large groups of people, okay? Getting red envelopes, everyone writes you a poem, you are so cool Geshe-la. There's more luggage carrying than teaching, okay?

There's more cord wrapping up than luggage carrying, okay? There's more cleaning rooms than cord wrapping up, okay? Right?

Those of you been on a tour, Kandy, Jenny, you know, they say, Geshe-la, I'm ready, I say, okay, here's 12 suits, iron them in five minutes, you know, and they're like, no, no, I mean, I'm ready to teach, that's part of teaching, okay? That's a big part of teaching. So, a bodhisattva teacher, just getting into dirty work, I said toilets here, okay?

Like Rinpoche was really big on teaching me how to clean a toilet, he spent, I don't know, a couple years teaching me to clean a toilet, that's not clean. Rinpoche, it's better than my mom used to do, I don't care, it's not clean. Clean it some more, you know?

I cooked countless hours in Rinpoche, I was the cook for eight years. He said, let's have a hundred people over for momos. I'm like, no, please, no, I want to study Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Yeah, this is Diamond Cutter Sutra, get used to it, you know? Do you know how long it takes to make 500 momos? You know, he would invite all the Mongolians to dinner, they can eat, they like to eat.

I'm just like, they're like, more momos, more momos, momo is, what do you call it? Yao Tzu? Making those little dim sum?

Like that, it takes a long time. Okay, anyway, so I just want to say, this section ... what is it, 94?

92, it's all about real bodhisattva way of life, cleaning toilets, raising money, you know, washing the sheets, you know, fixing the cars, it goes together, okay? Don't be a princess bodhisattva, okay? We fired all the DCI princess bodhisattvas, I remember one, I'm not going to say her name, might even be a boy, but we're like, carry that suitcase, she's like, she looked like the suitcase has some kind of disease on it, she's like, what?

I said, carry that suitcase over there. No Geshe-la, I'm a teacher. I said, well yeah, that's what teachers do, they carry suitcases, okay?

Alright? And sometimes you're tired, and you get up and you carry suitcases, okay? Sometimes you don't feel like it, you're tired, okay?

That's okay. Don't hurt yourself, I mean don't ... it's important to get some sleep, right Scott?

I asked Scott, did you sleep last night? He says, I slept really fast Geshe-la. Okay, it's important to take care of your health, but bodhisattva, just give me more work, give me more work, you know, I can handle it, I'm Mahayana, okay?

Give me the dirty work. It goes together, okay? You will never be a great teacher if you can't clean a toilet.

You will never be a great teacher if you can't wash the dishes, okay? And if you leave dirty dishes for somebody else to wash, you're not a great teacher either, okay? That's why all our great teachers work in the kitchen after they graduate from three-year retreat, okay?

Right? Okay. Did you wonder about it?

By the way, one day when I was kvetching, anybody ... it's a Jewish word, kvetch? It's complaining.

It's ... Rinpoche's like, wash those dishes, I'm like, no, Rinpoche, I want to study Diamond Cutter Sutra. This is Diamond Cutter Sutra.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Then I said, I'm going to time it. How long does it take to wash a big pile of dishes? It was six minutes.

Okay? All those jobs you think are dirty and hard, you're just lazy. You know, they're not dirty and hard, you're just lazy.

Six minutes, come on. You spend that much time in the bathroom with your science fiction novel, or more. All right.

Let's see. Where are we? Okay, last one for today.

Very sexy. In this section, five things will happen to you if you integrate your meditation and your retreats into real life with your family and your work. Okay?

What was the fifth one? What was the last one? Huh?

What? Yeah, it cleans away your old bad seeds. This is a very very famous part of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Okay? Those people who studied DCI, you know this part of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
The word old often gets attached to bad seeds, because you're so nice now. Okay? The bad seeds you collected in the past.

People ask me, Geshe-la, when did you make your worst seeds? When I was 16. That 16th birthday to 17th birthday, I made 90% of my bad seeds, in one year.

I remember. Okay? Can you remove those bad seeds?

No. That's a law of karma. Okay?

It's the third law of karma? If you don't do something, you don't get a result. If you do do something, you do get a result.

You can't stop it. Okay? If you give away money, money's going to chase you.

You can't escape. If you hurt somebody, problems are going to follow you. You can't escape.

They say, like your shadow. It's like asking your shadow not to be a shadow. Stop being a shadow.

Don't do that. Got it? Don't show a shadow there.

I don't like it. Okay? But you made the karma, you will get the bad result.

But, you can pull out the wires of the bomb. Okay? I like ...

I always tell people a story about ... there's a very poor movie by John Travolta called Broken Arrow. It's a really bad movie, don't watch it.

But, there's one part I just can't forget. He's deep down in a salt mine, he's trying to pull the wires out of a nuclear bomb, and he sits on it with his legs on either side. If you're a boy, you know what I'm talking about.

He's straddling a nuclear weapon. Like, can't he just sit on the side? You know?

He's got this thing up close to his important stuff. And he's pulling wires out. He's like, I hope this is the wire, you know?

You know what happened. He survived to make another bad movie. Maybe it would have been better if he blew up.

But anyway, he didn't carry the bomb and throw it in the ocean. Okay? He didn't destroy the bomb, he just pulled out the wires.

Okay? And that's what we're doing when we do the four powers. Okay?

When you do proper confession, purification, you don't destroy the bomb, the bomb stays inside of you, but it will never blow up. Karmic ... all the karmic seeds, billions, billions, billions in your mind, fit on the top of a needle.

You don't have to worry about one more is in there that's going to be there forever. Okay? The bad seed will be there, that's a law of karma.

But you can fool around with it. Okay? When you fool around with a bad seed, it opens too early.

Okay? That's how you get rid of your bad seeds, you don't really get rid of them.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
If I have a watermelon seed, shikwa du jong tsul, and I put it on my table here, and I soak it with a wet paper towel, it will open too early, and it will die within an hour, or three hours. It cannot survive in that environment. It's supposed to be in the ground.

Okay? What's the environment that a seed needs to survive? You have to misunderstand your husband.

That's the soil, that's the fertilizer, that's the sunlight. The seed cannot survive in a mind which understands husband. Okay?

That negative seed, your husband yelling, cannot survive if you start understanding he come from you. Okay? Seed cannot live in a bad environment called wisdom.

Okay? It will open too soon. Then what happens?

Yeah, you get a headache, you were supposed to get cancer, but you got a headache. Okay? Was the law of karma respected?

Did something bad come to the person who did something bad? Yes, but it's sure better than cancer.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, here we go, last meditation today. OSO BUDI, section 95. Any son or daughter of noble family, what's that code word for?

Male or female bodhisattva. Okay? Who takes up a sutra like this, or holds it, or reads it, or comprehends it, they will suffer.

They will suffer intensely. Okay? Why?

The seeds will open too early, because they're in a mind of wisdom, which is a hostile environment for a seed, for a bad seed. Okay? Cannot survive there.

It'll open and it will die. Okay? So, we heard many stories, you know, you have ...

I like to tell this story, I ... I taught the Diamond Cutter Sutra for many years, and one lady was driving in her car, she bought a CD of me teaching Diamond Cutter Sutra. She was listening to it in her Volkswagen van, driving down California Highway.

She got to this part, and the ... and the van started to burn. It caught on fire, and she jumped out, and then it goes ...

and she wrote me, she said, I have two things to tell you Geshe-la, number one, it worked, you know, my car caught on fire, I'm so happy, you know. I said, what's the second thing? She said, can you send me a new CD?

The old one melted. Okay? So, something small bad thing will happen.

I'll tell you an important question people ask me. So, how do I know when the headache is just a plain old bad seed, or the headache is I'm purifying a cancer seed? Like, is there a difference between the two headaches?

The answer is yes. After the headache, after the headache, if you feel some very unusual lightness, like you just lost 15 pounds, okay, and you just feel light, yoga is light, talking people is light, work is easy, family is smooth, then the headache was a purification.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
If the headache finishes and you still feel bad, it's probably just a normal bad seed. Okay? Okay?

So, you will feel light.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And, and it's the lightness of a person who cleaned their bad seeds. And you feel it also when you confess, when you open your heart to somebody. Okay?

I used to, I had a deal with myself, I'm going to tell Rinpoche, I had a bad habit, and then I told, I told myself, I'm going to tell Rinpoche anytime I have it, you know? So, first time I went out, I said, Rinpoche, this happened, you know, he said, that's disgusting! I'm like, yeah, I know, I'm sorry, you know?

He said, this is terrible, get out, you know? And I'm like, thanks, you know? And then, but I went downstairs and I felt so light, I felt so happy, you know?

I got rid of my ... I told the Lama the worst thing, you know? And then, two weeks later, I opened his door, I'm like, Lama, he says, I know, get out!

Okay, okay, you know? Okay. But you feel so happy when you clean a seed.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
You feel light.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
That's a sign. Non-fatal headache, okay? It means you didn't get cancer, you got a headache, okay?

Now, Kamalashila says, yeah, you will get headaches, you will get ... your cars will catch on fire, etc, etc, but ... most common, very common, people will criticize you for being a Buddhist, or people will criticize you for your beliefs, okay?

He said that's one of the most common openings of a negative seed, okay? People say, why you go to Diamond Mountain? Why you waste your time?

You know? You're so stupid, you know? This whole idea, seed, seed, seed, get real, you know?

Go to work, work harder, stop giving away money, you give ... I used to give away half my income, but I had to deal with my company, they will give away the money, that way I don't have to pay tax, and then the boss like it because they get tax break, so, every six months I will get ... I will go to the accountant, CFO, and I will say, okay, it's time to cut the check.

He say, how much? I say like, I don't know, 50,000. Then he will make a check, then I will take it to the boss, they'll sign it, I'll give to the ...

donate to the John Brady, or something like that, ACIP. So, one day the accountant, CFO, he said, he said, Mr. Willis, you know, sit down. I said, yeah, okay.

He said, you know, this is nice, you're giving away money, that's a nice thing, you know, that's a good thing, but it's kind of stupid, you know, you got to have a 401k, you have to have retirement plan, you can't work forever, you're going to get old someday, then you don't have any money, you know, be reasonable, you know, put some money in the bank. I said, goddammit, I did put it in the bank, I put it in the karma bank, you know, the other banks can fail, karma bank never fail, you know, I'm putting my money in the safe place, okay? So, you will be criticized, people will talk about you, you know, oh, she ...

that Lama take advantage of her, you know, she came home without much yuan, you know, yuan-less, she came home without much money, that Lama made her luggage much lighter, you know, they will take advantage, they will say you are stupid, okay, then that's common ripening, early ripening, or worse, he says suffer intensely means, right? The end of the sutra says you will suffer, not just suffer, you will suffer intensely means maybe people kill you, or maybe people put you in jail for what you believe, okay? Then don't freak out, okay?

You will get heavy criticism if you follow this path, that's what Kamalashida says, okay? Jesus said something similar, right? Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, be glad, like that, okay? Be happy.

Oh, I must be practicing, people are criticizing me. But, I think it's important to say that if someone's criticizing you because you're doing something bad, that's not the same thing, okay? If you are hurting people, stealing money, you know, hurting your students, and people criticize you, you shouldn't hide behind the sutra.

You say, oh, that's just my karma, you know, I must be practicing really good, I'm getting so much criticism nowadays, okay? In English we say grain of truth, small piece of truth in most criticism, okay? When people criticize you, you know, usually there's ...

if your wife criticize you, 1% truth. If your friends criticize you, 2% truth. But there's always some percent truth, okay?

Oftentimes, okay? So, when you're criticized, don't hide behind this verse, don't say, oh, Buddha said, I must be a really good diamond-cutter person because I got many criticisms. Don't think like that.

Think, people criticize me, there must be something I'm doing wrong, okay? I will try to find it, I will try to stop it, okay? Like that.

So, people criticize you, they help you. If you don't have any criticism, you have a problem, okay? They help you identify your weaknesses and your faults, okay?

Alright, mmm ... Last thing, Master Kamalashila says, the vacuum that's left when a bad karma opens early is the best place for the seeds of enlightenment, okay? I'll say it again.

The vacuum, the empty space that's left inside of you when you get that headache and the headache's gone, and suddenly there's an empty space inside of you, the bad seed's gone, you purify it with DZIN GANG CING, then there's some kind of empty space in you, that's the best place to put a good seed for enlightenment, okay? Purify a bad seed, it leaves a space. The seed's gone, and there's a space, you know?

Gyaltsen knows, there's some kinds of weeds in your garden, big ones, cheat grass, it's called cheat grass. You have a big one in front of your door, it's got those ... those many seeds on the end of the stem, it's called cheat grass, it means it looks like nice grass, but later it just chokes everything.

So, anyway, when you pull those kind of weed up, it makes a really nice hole for putting a new plant, okay? Some weed you have to fight them, this one no, you just pok, it goes pok, and there's a perfect hole to put a good seed, you see? You don't have to dig, you just pull out the weed, and then there's this beautiful little round hole, just the right depth, put the good seed there, cover it, okay?

Same with diamond cutter purification, okay? When you get your headache, when your car burns up, you have a space in your life, and that's the best place to put a good seed, okay? Then do something cool, okay?

Do something good, and that seed will grow faster. In the ... in the sadness left when you destroy a bad deed, okay?

There's still some kind of flavor, right? You still feel a little bit sad about the whole thing, but that space is a good space to plant good seeds, okay? The space of purification, okay?

Alright, I'm happy to say you're on track, we can finish Kamalashiva 3 tomorrow.

[Speaker 2]
Yay!