Как выполнять ежедневную практику 17 — Основы ежедневной практики (1999, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Sorry it's so hot, but try to ignore it, okay? The monk's robes are really hot. This class is for the purpose of what we call daily practice, daily practice class.

And it's different from the other classes. We have many, many courses here during the week, which are meant to teach you the intellectual background of Buddhism. Why it's true that you should study Buddhism and all about the different subjects of Buddhism.

And then Monday night is a completely different subject. Daily practice means the things that a Buddhist person should do every morning, every evening, every day for the rest of your life to really get the most out of what you're studying. We say studying is the first step only, and there have to be two other steps.

The second step is thinking about what you studied, and then the third step is actually practicing what you studied. And a lot of the practice is done in meditation. So, even if you studied a lot of Buddhism for years, if you haven't done a lot of meditation, and you haven't done your other daily practices, then it probably won't have much effect on you.

You have to have a daily diet or a daily regimen of Buddhist practice. That's the point of this class. This class is meant to just give you an outline of what you could do for your daily practice, to teach you how to have a daily practice.

There comes a time in your Buddhism, in the path of Buddhism, that one day you will reach what we call the path of seeing, and you see emptiness directly. On that day, you see all your future lives. On that day, you see your own enlightenment.

On that day, you can read other people's minds. On that day, you come into contact with the essence of a Buddha. You meet the Buddhas directly.

And all of these amazing things happen to you. That can only happen if you have a daily practice. You must be able to meditate in order for that to happen.

The goal, perhaps the most important goal of a human life, would be to try to have this experience where you could see your own future, see what's going to happen to you, meet Buddhas directly, and then know about the day of your own enlightenment. Perhaps this is the single most important thing that could happen to a person in this lifetime, in a whole lifetime. It takes about 20 minutes for the whole experience.

But to get it to happen, you must be able to meditate properly, and you must study a lot. So really, a Monday night class is about designing your own daily practice. Daily practice should have a couple of definite elements in it.

The first one is regularity. I'll keep saying it over and over, but of all the things that I'll ever say about daily practice, there's only one that's really important. You have to do it every day.

If you break it, if you only do it occasionally, if you only do it three or four days a week, it doesn't work. It just won't work. It's like a lot of other things, like certain kinds of exercise, or even certain kinds of careers, or things like that.

If you don't do it every day, it doesn't work. So I think the first thing that we have to talk about is when are you going to do your daily practice? For people, especially in New York, this is the big decision.

Let me describe what daily practice should include, and then we'll talk about designing a time for it. First of all, it should have at least an hour of meditation. Deep meditation.

One hour in which you are meditating deeply. I think this sort of distinguishes Buddhism from other religious traditions in this country right now. I grew up a Christian.

Our religious practice was limited to going to church once a week, and it was about an hour or an hour and a half. During that time, time on your knees actually praying was about 10 minutes or 15 minutes. What's nice about Buddhism, I think, is that the goal is that you do your praying or your meditating in your own home, and you have about an hour or an hour and a half a day in commune.

What do you say? To commune with whatever it is you're trying to reach. You see what I mean?

I think spending only 10 minutes or half an hour a week in communion with the thing you're trying to reach makes things difficult. I did it for most of my youth until I was about 20. I was a regular churchgoer, even when I was at college and didn't have anyone threatening me to go.

I found it very enjoyable to pray. We only had about 10 minutes of quiet or 10 minutes of silence and maybe 20 minutes. I found it to be a very profound moment.

It was one moment of your life that didn't have any external goal to it. You're not going to get money from it or you're not going to get a degree for it or no one's going to thank you for it. It's just quiet.

It's silent. It was very attractive to me. I think in Buddhism you'll find that the custom of setting up your own sacred space in your own home, having your own altar, learning to do your own service.

You see what I mean? Learning to be your own priest for that time is very precious. I think it's a very precious thing about Buddhism.

The idea is first to have some meditation time. That's part of your daily practice. I'd say secondly that you should have time for study.

We believe in Buddhism that you have to study very regularly, like every day. You should try to get maybe half an hour devoted to study. Study something.

Review something. But we believe that for a real change to take place in your mind, you have to study. You have to have some period of the day set apart for study, whether there's classes going on or not.

Thirdly, the essential part of daily practice is to observe your own behavior. Stay watchful. Stay mindful.

Track your behavior during the day. For that we have a system called Six Times a Day. It's called Six Time Book, Tundrup.

The idea is that six times a day you stop wherever you are every two or two and a half hours and you examine your heart. You examine your consciousness, conscience. You examine your thoughts and your actions for the last two hours and see how you're doing.

We believe that that combination, meditation, study, and watching your own behavior, keeping track of your own behavior towards other people on a constant basis throughout the day, then you can reach real happiness. Between these three elements you will become a happy person. If you do these three you will surely reach some kind of very contented state in this lifetime.

Much less seeing emptiness directly and meeting Buddhas and all that. If you just keep up a regular regimen, a regular schedule every day, you'll definitely become a happier person. I think if you try it...

I think any kind of new thing that you try like dance or yoga or a language or playing a musical instrument or tai chi or whatever, a new diet, it takes a month or two to start to notice much. You have to do it for about a month or two every day to get good enough at it that you start to notice things. But if you keep up these three daily practices every day for a few months, you'll find yourself getting very noticeably happier.

Whether or not Buddha exists, whether or not emptiness exists, whether or not you can go to Nirvana, whether or not you can reach a tantric paradise in this life. Just this... If the world was only what it seems to be, this practice of doing these three things makes life very beautiful.

Your life gets very contented and your mind gets very peaceful. And most of the day you're pretty happy. His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls it like a basic happiness, meaning it's a happiness which continues from month to month and year to year.

Like, you have disasters in your life, you have problems with relationships, you have problems at work, and you have downturns, you know, like that. But your basic level of happiness is very stable and very contented. And you'll find yourself just happier and just much more peaceful from day to day.

And that comes from a good daily practice. So we have to talk, I think, first of all, you, in the very first class that we have here, and the very first thing I'm going to say, you must carve out a time for this stuff, okay? You must decide on a time during the day when you're going to do these things.

If you don't, as of this moment, think about a time that you are going to reserve for these things, you won't succeed in a daily practice. It just won't work. You will struggle from month to month, from year to year.

You will struggle to do it. You'll fight to do it. It'll become a big hassle.

You won't be happy. You'll feel guilty all the time because that guy said you could reach nirvana but you're not doing your daily practice. And you just won't be happy about it.

So from tonight, decide. If you want to try this particular path, which definitely will make you incredibly happy, and definitely give your life meaning for the rest of your life, beyond anything you can imagine, you have to decide tonight. When are you going to do it?

When are you going to make the time? And for an American, that's the number one decision. And that means giving up something else.

So you have to, in your own mind, decide what will you sacrifice to do this path, to make this path. I'd say you need maybe an hour and a half to two hours a day now of your waking life to devote to this attempt to be happy and to reach ultimate happiness. And you have to decide right now, as we talk, by the time you get your refreshments.

In your own mind, you have to make a decision. And there's three kinds of people here. There's some people who after 20 years, 25 years, have finally managed to carve some time out.

I'm one of them. And even up to a few years ago, I couldn't get the time. I was fighting, struggling, constantly compromising to get the time, and not really getting the time.

You know what I mean? And it was bad. My daily practice was not so good.

So there's some people here who finally figured it out and they've carved out a certain time in their life. And it could be from 7 o'clock to 8.30, or it could be from 4 o'clock to 5.30, and we'll talk about it. But you have to make a decision.

Then there's people here who are trying to meditate, trying to have a daily practice, and it's spotty. Like they do an hour today, they skip the next day, they do a half hour the next day, something's going on the next two days, they've got to go out of town, they can't do it that day. Then they do an hour and a half, then they do three hours, then they don't do it for three days.

That doesn't work. So you have to decide from now a regular schedule. And I say one of the most important things for your...

Oh, and the third kind of person is one that just got in here, and this is your first class, or maybe you didn't start your daily practice and you've been here for 10 years or something, but you don't have a schedule yet, you haven't tried to make a schedule yet. But I say to you on the first night, this is the most important obstacle for you to overcome, is to decide on a schedule. You have to decide this hour to this hour is sacred and nothing will replace it.

And then the minute you choose that hour, in three days you'll get an offer for a great job interview, but you have to come during that hour. You know what I mean? And then you just say no.

From the beginning, from the first night, you say no. That's my practice time. They say, are you crazy?

You're going to pass up this interview? You say, yeah, I am. And just get used to it.

This is the most important thing you can do. And decide. Why is it the most important thing you can do?

I'm not trying to sell you Buddhism or something like that. Just basic fact, you have to die. Period.

It's the only certain thing in this life. Taxes are not certain. I haven't paid mine for the last two years.

Okay? It's not certain. Death is certain.

Okay? You must die. Alright?

It really is true that your mind doesn't stop when you die. Now, you grew up being told that your mind dies when your body dies. It's just simply not true.

Okay? It is true that your body will stop moving. It is true that gross, the measurable electric signs of life will go under the capacity of the instruments to measure them.

But it's not true that they stop. And it's not true that you die. It's not true that your mind stops.

Okay? That's just not true. See, people say, oh, do you believe in a soul?

I say, no, we don't have to believe in a soul because we just believe that the mind is what you thought was the soul. You see what I mean? The mind goes on.

The mind is not like the body. The mind is totally independent of this kind of physical matter. It doesn't have shape.

It doesn't have length. Some people's minds are fatter than other people's minds. It's not like that.

Mind is ineffable. Mind cannot be measured by physical means. Okay?

The idea that the mind is in the brain is just a cultural thing. The Tibetans believe it's in the heart. You hit a guy really hard in the chest, he dies.

You know what I mean? And you can feel the end of your fingers so we believe there's some consciousness there also. You see what I mean?

And things like that. I can see to the end of the room. I can see this guy at the back.

You know what I mean? My mind, my visual consciousness extends beyond my skin. You see what I mean?

The mind is much different than the body. To think of the mind as being in the brain or stopping when you die is simply a cultural supposition. It's a cultural belief that doesn't have any basis.

It just doesn't have any basis. You have to get used to that. Okay?

Your mind doesn't stop when you die. You must go on. And when you die, the only thing that really helps you is all the meditation you did and all the study you did.

The normal stuff that you spend your time on, feeding yourself, housing yourself, making sure you have clothes, trying to have some relationship with other people, they all end when you die. They don't have any meaning five minutes after they die. They say in the Tibetan scriptures that 10 or 15 minutes after you die you can't remember that stuff.

You can't remember what you were. You don't remember your name after 10, 15 minutes after you die. Much less where your bank account is or where's that house you have the mortgage Oh God, I still got four payments.

You know? It's all totally irrelevant. It's like waking up from a dream and trying to remember the dream.

And you honestly can't remember much 10 minutes after you die. Everything else becomes fuzzy. Any spiritual things you did like study or meditation, they stay with the mind.

They live in the mind. They reside in the mind. When the body gets parked, it breaks down, the mind goes on, you carry those things with you.

You must have a daily practice for that. You see what I mean? Daily practice is essential for that.

Put something in the bank for the day you die. An hour out of 24 is not so much a sacrifice considering that you have to go on with this mind forever. And considering that according to Buddhism where the mind goes could be a very horrible, terrible place.

If you don't concentrate at least an hour of your whole day on getting ready for this time, you just won't...it's just crazy. I heard a beautiful thing on the radio in the taxi today. They said, John F.

Kennedy Jr. is presumed dead. President Clinton has made a statement and here it is. So I'm expecting something like, you know, I expressed my sympathy to all the relatives and he was such a nice guy.

He helped a lot of people. He didn't say anything like that. Clinton said, he said a perfect Buddhist death meditation.

He said, this proves to the American people that life is fleeting and very short and that you and I should do something meaningful in the few days we have left in our lifetimes. This is a perfect Buddhist death meditation. It was beautiful.

It's like that. You're going to die anyway. All the other activities you do, the goal of them, the things that you get from doing them will disappear within 10 minutes after that time.

John Kennedy didn't think he was going to die on Friday. I'm sure. Handsome, successful, rich, famous.

I'm sure it wasn't in his mind that he better pull the money out of the bank on Thursday and use it because he'd be gone on Saturday. You know what I mean? He wasn't thinking that.

And you don't think that. And I don't think that. You don't really believe that.

But it's true. So anyway, you have to have a daily practice. From the negative point of view, your mind doesn't stop when you die.

And this is the only thing that affects your mind, is spiritual practice. From a positive point of view, if you work halfway regularly on this, then you can meet enlightened beings. You can see the day of your own enlightenment.

You are assured. You get a definite guarantee of everything you ever dreamed of. So why not try to meditate?

If it's only one hour a day that you're risking, then do it. So that's all. You have to meditate for positive reasons and negative reasons.

You have to have a daily practice. And to tell you the truth, I like the positive reinforcement better than the negative reinforcement. The idea that if I did this thing for less time than I eat during the day, I could meet tantric angels within a year or so, is to me a very attractive idea.

You know what I mean? I like that. I'm willing to do that.

How many people take yoga or kung fu or something like that year after year with no kind of real reward for it? And then here you got the possibility of entering a tantric paradise and meeting these beings and living there forever with them. You know, just invest an hour a day.

Come on. Less than the time you take to eat and poop. I think it's worth it.

So that's the idea. Carve out your time. And I'll say this, you have to accept the sacrifice that you're going to make.

In other words, something has to suffer. Something else that you do will have to go. And make up your mind now.

It might be certain friends that you used to meet. It might be certain books you used to read. It might be certain activities you used to enjoy.

My lama had a student who enjoyed the opera. He had gone to the opera. He went to the opera for 10 years.

Every single performance of the New York opera. Two and a half hour commute each way. And you know, when he got his meditation lecture, he just dropped it.

And he didn't go again. He never went again. You know what I mean?

You just have to decide. You're going to have to give up something. And that will also lead to a little heat from your friends.

They'll call you up and say, you know, you're real schmuck nowadays. You never call me. You used to be normal.

Now you're in this cult thing. You don't show up at the restaurant. You'll get a little bit of heat from other people.

What you'll gain back is an hour or two hours of silence a day. Beautiful, contemplative prayer. Silence.

And you'll develop this whole other side of you, this whole inner life, this beautiful inner garden within you that you never knew was there, because you can't find it until you're silent for an hour or two a day. And you'll find this beautiful parallel life that you're living in addition to your outer life. And it's very, very satisfying to find it, and it makes your outer life very happy, okay?

So you decide. You have to make a time. And you have to stick to it.

Now some people go whole hog, and they say, oh great, I'll get up at 3.30 every day. They go to a meditation which I did. His Holiness told me to go.

He gets up at 3.30 every morning. We meditated for like eight hours. I'm like, man, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.

How long do you think that lasts? Until you go to your first movie and you can't get up the next morning? But it doesn't work, okay?

I'll just tell you frankly, the idea of getting up at 3.30, 4.30, a few people can do it. They start acting really weird after about six months, because they're not getting any sleep. Sleep is part of meditation.

You've got to have it. Unless you're really advanced, you have to have sleep. So make it a normal hour of the day.

If you've got to be at work at 9, meaning you've got to leave your house at 8.30 or 8 o'clock, meaning you have to eat breakfast at 7.45 or whatever it is, then you back it out and you decide what time you've got to get up. But I say don't be unrealistic. Don't say I'm going to get up at 4 o'clock and meditate every morning.

Don't do it, okay? It's better to do 45 minutes later in the morning, like at 7 or 7.30, than it is to have some fantasy that you're going to be able to meditate three hours a day and start at 4 o'clock. It doesn't work, okay?

45 minutes or an hour when you're not too tired in the morning is fine. Personally, I find that my mind is a lot clearer in the early morning for meditation. I find that if I try to meditate in the evening, then all the thoughts of the day are still running around in my mind.

I think you might think about that. I don't find that for myself. I'm also tired in the evening.

Normally you've been through eight hours a day or something like that. But what I find more disturbing is all the conversations of the day start running through my mind and things like that. If you meditate right after waking up and you have not spoken yet, I think you'll find that it's a lot clearer.

Some people are night people, they meditate better at night. But you have to find out what kind of personality you are. I also find personally that meditating on an empty stomach is much better.

And when I say empty, I mean 12 hours empty. Okay? Personally, I find that meditating early in the morning before I take anything to eat is much more powerful.

And you might want to try it that way. Conversely, if you try to meditate within two hours of eating, it's almost surely to be a lousy meditation. Okay?

If you try to meditate with less than seven hours of sleep, six hours of sleep, I think you'll find that the meditation doesn't come properly. Okay? And you just have to take care of yourself in general to meditate well.

You should have some kind of physical activity that you do, whether it's yoga or walking or jogging or dancing or anything. But your body does have to be in good condition to meditate. It's not true that you can just sit there and be a vegetable all day and then meditate well.

Your back muscles have to be fairly strong. Your knees have to be limber. Your general health has to be pretty good to meditate well.

So your body has to be in decent condition. Not muscles and all that. Just healthy.

You should be eating well. In general, in retreat, for example, caffeine doesn't work. Sugar products don't work.

All kinds of candies don't work. Everything you want to eat, you can't. No.

But generally they will disturb your meditation also. You have to take care of your body and your mind. There's another important part of meditation that I want to mention.

Even before we start talking about how to meditate, we probably won't even get to it today. Arya Nagarjuna, who is such a great Buddhist, he was called Buddha number two. He said that the key to the success of your meditation is how you live the other 23 hours.

Okay? So, you know, you have to decide when someone offers you a big dinner at 5pm, whether you're going to eat the whole thing. Because it'll decide how your meditation goes the next morning.

You see what I mean? You have to be thinking ahead for your meditation. Like you have a choice.

You know, are you going to stay out late? Or are you going to have a good meditation? And you'll be faced with those choices constantly.

Okay? And you have to make the right decision. It's not enough to get up at 7 o'clock and sit still and try to meditate.

If you have abused yourself the day before or the week before, you won't be able to meditate properly. The last thing I'd like to say about preparing yourself during the day for your meditation the next morning is that Buddhism recognizes that the most important single element for your meditation is how good a life you are leading day by day. In other words, how honest are you?

How gently do you speak to other people? How careful are you not to have bad thoughts about other people? How careful are you to respect life?

How careful are you to respect other people's property? How careful are you to have what we call sexual purity? Are you in your mind taking care of that side of your life?

Or are you into some relationship which is not proper or something like that? How careful are you with what you say to other people? How careful are you to catch your own mind being jealous of other people or being competitive with other people during the day?

This is what we call your basic level of your life. How good is your life? And this affects your meditation.

According to Buddhism, the most important single thing for your meditation is how good a person are you being the other 23 hours to other people? How compassionate are you? How much do you care for others?

How honest are you? And all of these things have more effect on your meditation than anything else. And I think that's unique to traditional Buddhism.

You don't hear, I think, in a lot of meditation classes, you don't go in and they say, did you lie yesterday? Because you won't be able to meditate today. Did you look at somebody else's wife or husband yesterday in the wrong way?

Because if you did, you won't be able to meditate. Did you kill anything yesterday? Or did you fail to serve a sick person yesterday?

Because if you did, you might as well go home right now. You don't hear that said that way, but it should be said that way. How pure you keep your mind the other 23 hours determines how successful your meditation is.

And there are many Americans who try to meditate, but their mind is disturbed because of their daily behavior, and then they can't meditate. And then they get frustrated, and they come to me and they say, why can't I meditate? I said, are you watching your mind and your speech during the day?

And they say, no. I said, do you keep that book thing? They say, no.

So I said, try it. And then the meditation starts to come. Last thing you have to know to have a successful meditation is the preliminaries, like how to warm up for a meditation properly.

If you go jogging or something, you have to stretch your legs first, and make sure your shoes are tight tight, and make sure your shorts aren't too big, and stuff like that. Before you meditate, there's a certain number of steps that you must go through, and then the meditation is successful. And if you don't do this warm up properly, it's like trying to run a very fast 100-yard race and be cold, to have your legs be cold or something like that.

So, we'll be going through the preliminaries to meditation and talking about them in the next class. And we'll be going through how to start. Tonight I want to leave the lecture part at that.

I want you to go home, decide if you're going to have a daily practice. Which is to say, are you going to die or not? Do you want in this lifetime to meet face to face a tantric angel?

Would that be something exciting for you? Would you like to enter a true paradise in this lifetime? And those things are restricted to people who are doing a daily practice well.

And people who are not doing a daily practice cannot reach those places. In the Christian tradition, you know, when I was in college, we had to read, I forget all their names, but, you know, like the great saints, St. Teresa, things like that, the contemplative saints. And we read their books and they're very inspiring.

The experiences they had during prayer or meditation were just incredibly inspiring to me. And I think there's sort of an idea you have in your mind that you couldn't do that in this life because you're not a nun living in 1200 AD or something like that. It's not true.

You can be a normal New York person. You can have a normal job. You can have a normal family.

You can have a normal house. Everything normal. And if you just do your daily practice properly, and if you're trained to do it properly for an hour a day, hour and a half a day, all of these things are within your reach.

All the miraculous things that happened to great Christian saints or other people that you read about, they can happen quite frequently to people who just keep up a normal, steady daily practice. It doesn't have to be an extraordinary thing where you go off to Antarctica and give up all your clothes and sit in the snow. You don't have to do that.

Normal New Yorker, but persistent every single day. Not one day off. Never miss a day.

Do it steadily. Do it in moderation. Do it with good training.

Then you can have all those experiences that you read about in those books. And you will have them. Conversely, you cannot have them if you don't do a daily practice.

They will never happen to you. There are certain things that take 10 years of certain kinds of behavior to see certain amazing things. Like keeping certain vows for maybe 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

And only then can you see certain things. You see what I mean? Which I'm not saying you have to do it for 15 years.

What I'm saying is that there are certain experiences that are restricted to people who have led a certain way of life for a certain amount of time. And people who haven't done that will never ever see them. And you have an opportunity now.

You can learn how to do it. You can start off on this path. And if you just keep it up for 2 or 3 months, I think already you'll see some amazing things happening to you.

Okay? In return, you must make a daily commitment of time. You have to decide tonight.

Don't come back next Monday night class. Is it next Monday? I think so.

Don't even bother to come back if you're not willing to spend an hour a day or an hour and a half. Really. Because it won't work.

I mean, it might be interesting to hear about, but it just won't work. You have to go home tonight. That's all I want you to do tonight.

Go home, look at your calendar, look at your schedule, and just ruthlessly block out the time and say, nobody's touching that time. This morning I was doing my practice. Somebody came to my door, banged on it twice.

Stood on the front steps. Another person came and sat on them. And I peeked out.

Sorry. And I went up and did my meditation. And it's more good for them too than answering the door.

You see what I mean? And you just decide. Unplug the phone.

Lock the door. Close it. It's time to meditate now.

And nothing takes it. I have another guy. There's a guy in Brooklyn who might give us a large donation.

Ask him for $100,000. He's leaving tomorrow at noon for Bombay. Will you meet him in the morning?

Guess what I said. He said, no, I can't. And that's it.

See you next time. And that's all. You got to decide.

This is the most important thing you can do. It really is. I'll stop there.

You figure it out by tomorrow or next Monday. What's it going to be? And then set a time.

Make a time. The next week we'll start discussing what to do during that time. And that's a very beautiful thing.

It's a very happy, beautiful way to live your life. I'd like to take a break there. Have some refreshments.

Come back in like 10 minutes. And we'll have a short question and answer. Think of some really smart questions, okay?

It's bad when I say, okay, questions, and nobody raises their hand. Okay? All right.

See you in 10 minutes. Hi. What is this thing?

[Speaker 2]
This is something that's been in my heart and mind for 14 years.

[Speaker 1]
Wow.

[Speaker 2]
Do you want me to read it?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, sure.

[Speaker 2]
I was waiting to find a private board.

[Speaker 1]
And I know it's not the highest of our priorities, but I want to play in the sea, and I'd like to be the one that does it, and I'll do it. And I've been making other lists, too. Oh, I see.

Oh, that's nice. Is this something you've been working on? You know, I had a record company back in the mid-'80s in Mississippi.

[Speaker 2]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
My partner is in town, and he said, let's get it off of Marvin Gaye. And I said, actually, I'm going to invite you to work for him. He just started a foundation.

[Speaker 2]
And when I was there, and I've always been into children, and it struck me that there should be a way to get wonderful ideas across to them. And I was struck that this was the oldest all-black town in the country, and I was the only white citizen. And when I went to the board, because you were appointed the mayor in 87, they had me on the news.

[Speaker 1]
The board said, in the 90th year history of the town, I was the first white person to vote. And they said, political history was made today. But I saw, you know, in important areas, you see the extended families and the generations.

And I saw the reason that the Arizona people can pass on to the community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a principle in Arizona.

[Speaker 2]
Right. And so, I mean, you know, I see you, I see this as being a, you can represent anyone.

[Speaker 1]
And you can bring all different people in, and you can do it, you know, in your parables, in your storytelling, you can always do it in kind of projects.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
And I just think that it's a way to be funded. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
I like it. Yeah, I like it. Good.

[Speaker 1]
Let me read it carefully. Okay. Okay.

Where is he? Oh, my mom's there. Oh, is she?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
In Soquel, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
For your son.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I will. But I need to know the exact day and time he's getting married, and I'll do it wherever I am. That day, what day is it?

[Speaker 2]
July?

[Speaker 1]
Fine, that's a good day. I'll be actually in retreat. I'm doing a weekend retreat.

Personal retreat.

[Speaker 2]
So that'll be a good day.

[Speaker 1]
Talk to her. Yeah, talk to her. I think it's possible.

Maybe the whole committee is working on it. And then... Yeah, I'd like to do that.

That's okay. For, like, making sure all the classes are properly advertised and stuff.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, that's fine. Try this. I had no idea, but it tastes okay.

This one's no good.

[Speaker 1]
This one's spoiled. You should tell them. Tell them the orange juice is no good.

But don't yell it. Tell somebody to run up, okay?

[Speaker 2]
I think it's wonderful.

[Speaker 1]
You know, my life has never been the same since I started doing this. It was the most intelligent thing I ever did. And I get up at 7, and I practice for 6 hours.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. You should have some. Sure, it doesn't taste right.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 2]
It's also good to have partners. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Because when I don't feel like it, then they push me, and when they don't feel like it, I push them.

[Speaker 2]
So, like, some studying, exercise, and then meditation, you think is the best thing for me?

[Speaker 1]
I think meditation should come early in the day because already your mind is spinning by the time...

[Speaker 2]
I need like an hour and a half, I think, because it takes me like an hour to get to a preliminary.

[Speaker 1]
It's too long. Cut it to 15 minutes.

[Speaker 2]
Cut the preliminary stuff. The section of meditation should be how long?

[Speaker 1]
Sorry?

[Speaker 2]
How long should the section of meditation be?

[Speaker 1]
The whole meditation, I think start with an hour and work up to an hour and a half. And maybe take breaks.

[Speaker 2]
You said early in the day, you mean earlier than 10.30? Like 9 to 10? 8 to 9?

[Speaker 1]
When you still haven't spoken yet to a lot of people and stuff like that.

[Speaker 2]
That could be any time. I could just say I'm not going to talk for a while.

[Speaker 1]
But I'd say, for me, maybe within an hour or two after waking up is best. Personally.

[Speaker 2]
This is just like opinions. I know I'm just asking, but like waking up at 7?

[Speaker 1]
I find it to be... I'm not a morning person and I don't like to lose my sleep. But 7 seems to be a good compromise.

It means I have to get to bed by midnight. For me, it's good. I try to go straight from here and do my late night stuff.

I try to... You know, I try not to fool around after class. I try not to go anywhere after class.

So I think that's a good thing.

[Speaker 2]
And the study can be like doing my homework study? Yeah. Also, do you have a family's house?

[Speaker 1]
Personally, I reserve it for my deep study. My tantric study. I reserve the prime time for that.

For my lifetime study. But I think at this point, that's okay.

[Speaker 2]
You know, I screwed that up.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know about that.

[Speaker 2]
I didn't understand that you couldn't just do one of the tantric initiations. I went to Chakrasamvara and he said, I'll just do one. And then in between Chakrasamvara, I found out that they were together.

So I told Khenpo Rinpoche. He said, you can just come Saturday. And that was the show that I took to go to Europe.

So I couldn't. So then I went and I saw him three days ago and I told him, I said, do Timbuk. And that was fine.

So I've been doing that since then.

[Speaker 1]
Well, if I were you, I'd devote a little part of the day to studying Timbuk and trying to understand Timbuk.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
See, I do it as opposed to... I do that part of my study as opposed to more intellectual study. I do the stuff that's very important for...

[Speaker 2]
How can I understand the vows in Timbuk?

[Speaker 1]
Ask Rinpoche.

[Speaker 2]
I asked him if there was a book I should read because he said I needed to remind him.

[Speaker 1]
He's about to come out with one. He's imminently. I think it's going to the press next week.

[Speaker 2]
He said to me to read the Three Principal Vows in the middle part, but I wasn't talking about Tantra. I was just talking about... He just told me that in general because he said I needed to remind him.

So ask him if there's something I can do to learn the vows that I have. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but to do a daily practice like that is very sweet. It's very good. Be very strict about it.

[Speaker 2]
I just want to thank you for being there for those process. I felt good the whole day.

[Speaker 1]
I felt good the whole day. I don't take them that often, frankly. My Lama didn't emphasize them that much.

But we did take them three or four times a year. At Michael's. I'm going out.

We'll do about a half hour of questions. And... It's just totally open.

Totally whatever you want to ask about. If you don't want to ask anything, I'll run away. Great.

All right.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Okay. We know we had this debate this weekend.

I'll... I thought I was finally over with it. Is there a pen or a wash?

Wash is okay. The basic thing is this. I'll go through three emptinesses that this pen has.

Yeah. The question is, I understand how a pen is empty of pen-ness. I don't really get how a pen is empty of existing.

And doesn't that imply that other people are also empty? So, okay, we're going to get into that. And it depends on what audience I have.

You know, if I'm doing a thousand people or something, I don't talk about the pen's not a pen. Okay? I just say, look, how do you feel about this thing?

And I say, how many people like the pen? And then they raise their hand. And then I say, how many people don't like the pen?

And some other people raise their hand. Okay? And then I say, how many people don't care about the pen?

And then all the rest of the people raise their hand. Okay? And then it's easy to see that this thing is empty of having goodness or badness about it, pleasantness or unpleasantness about it.

It's easy to see that there's nothing inherently pleasant or unpleasant about a pen. Depending on your own state of mind, you will find the pen pleasant or unpleasant. So we say, the pen is empty or blank.

I think blank might have been a better word, I think. But it's blank. Meaning, if you find it pleasant or unpleasant, that's because of your state of mind.

What's the proof for that? If this thing was pleasant from its own side, then everyone would find it equally pleasant. If this thing was unpleasant from its own side, everybody would find it equally unpleasant.

That's easy. That's a good, simple way to introduce people to the idea of emptiness. By the way, the next step should always be, and why does your mind think it's pleasant or unpleasant?

And then you say, karma. And that's why we have to be good. That's why we have to be good.

Because things are empty, we have to be good. And you must lead people from one to the other immediately. The reason it's important that things are empty is that you can change them if you're good.

So that's easy. Now what about its pen-ness? A dog cannot conceptualize this as a pen.

A human can. We say that's also a result of karma. A dog doesn't have the karma to be able to understand this as a pen.

And a human does have the karma to be able to understand it as a pen, perhaps by conditioning early in their life, perhaps by some kind of explanation, or something like that. But only a human is responsive to conditioning or training. You can talk to a dog all day about this being a pen, but they don't have the karma to conceptualize it as a pen.

So that's the pen-ness of it. Even the pen-ness of this— now it's a black cylinder, right? Even the pen-ness of this black cylinder is something coming from your mind.

And you have to get used to that. That is the existence of the pen. So don't separate those two.

That's the answer to your first part of your question. Its pen-ness is its being a pen. You see what I mean?

You can go one more step. Is there a black cylinder here in and of itself? Basically that question is to say, would every being who ever entered this room perceive this as a black cylinder?

Or is even something so basic as blackness and cylindrical-ness coming from your mind? What do you think? A blind person comes in here, they don't see a black cylinder.

We say they don't have the karma to see blackness and cylindrical-ness. Even that requires some kind of former seed in your mind. It's very interesting.

Why is a blind person blind? Because they can't see it. You see what I mean?

They won't see it because they don't have the karma to see it. It's very interesting. How do you say?

If you carry that to its wildest extreme, is the sun that comes up every morning, is it really there? Independent of our perceptions? No.

If there's someone who has the karma to see the sun come up, the sun comes up. If there's no one that has the karma to see the sun come up, the sun doesn't come up. Well, come on, everybody has the karma to see the sun.

No, not blind people. Not people in prison underground. You see what I mean?

Not people living in other places. You see what I mean? Even the sun coming up is only a result of a perception forced on you by your past karma.

Now, I don't want to get deep into that. But we had the question then, came up on the weekend. Somebody said, if everything I see is only a result of my karma, and if basically any object I perceive is really just the karma of my own mind ripening, then how can there be other people?

Then who's Ali? Is Ali just a figment of my imagination forced on me by my karma? Or is there any Ali?

You know what I mean? And then the argument where this comes in scripture, they say, why are you working for the good of all living beings? Because there are no other living beings.

You know what I mean? Or why are you learning to be a Buddhist logician when you have no one to prove anything to? You know what I mean?

There are two arguments. Two answers were given to that argument. Whether you're completely satisfied with them or not, that's another question.

But here are the classical arguments from scripture. You can think about them and maybe next week we go further. First argument says, it's true that, by the way, this is not the highest school.

It's true that the colors and shapes and sounds that come to me from Ali are only projections of my own mind. I'm really only seeing another part of my own mind. It's presenting these colors and shapes and things to me.

But based on that, I can extrapolate or I can deduce the existence of another mind which is motivating those sounds and actions which she sends to me. You see what I mean? So the fact that she speaks, even though the speech, the sound of the speech is in a sense something is almost like a part of my own mind, there is someone behind that sound trying to make it at me.

And there's motivation for that sound. There is another mind stream saying, I want to speak to Michael Roach right now or I'm going to hit him right now. So when that thing hits me, I'm like, there must have been a mind motivating that.

You see what I mean? So we extrapolate only through deduction the existence of another mind stream. That's the first answer.

The second answer is in a state of deep meditation, for example, when you first come out of the direct perception of emptiness, you can read other people's minds directly. So those two methods, the second one being extremely rare, are two ways of establishing the fact that even though this world is a projection of my own, forced upon me by my karma, there do exist other beings. And they are thinking.

Oh boy, that's a lot of questions. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
In meditation, what was the problem? And in a half hour of study, what was my study?

[Speaker 1]
Great question. She said, if I decide to do a daily practice, which I haven't decided yet, I'll tell you next week, if I do an hour of meditation and a half hour of study, what should I focus on? Now, you see, there are some schools that say, Buddhist schools in America, who say, just watch your breath.

There are some schools that say, just watch your thoughts float by and don't attach to them, don't own them, don't think about them. And that's meditation. And the traditional schools of Buddhism, the Buddha himself, never taught that, never said that.

Breath meditation is a preliminary that you do to learn to focus your mind for about five minutes or two minutes before you meditate. We assert, the very first assertion about meditation is that whatever you choose to meditate on must be a meaningful object, must be something connected with goodness. You see what I mean?

Something about that object must be good. And watching the breath is a neutral meditation. You see what I mean?

It's a good method of getting your mind down, calm down, and then you must switch the object, switch the focus to something meaningful. We are adamant about that. This debate took place in Tibet a thousand years ago between an Indian scholar named Kamalashila and a Chinese monk named Huashan.

And they debated this in public. And the final decision of the public who listened, they had to vote. Huashan was expelled from Tibet, and his viewpoints were expelled from Tibet.

And ever since that, Tibetans have said that when you meditate, you must meditate on a meaningful object. There are three kinds. You can do a che gom.

Well, let's start with shar gom. Shar gom is where you just do a review of a bunch of steps of something. It's almost like an intellectual review.

So let's say you've learned nine steps to a death meditation. First one being, oh, everyone has to die. Something like that.

Second one, no one knows when you're going to die. Third one, you never know. Nothing else can help you except your spiritual study.

You know, something like that. And you go through the three reasons. To go through that kind of meditation step by step by step by step over and over and over again is called shar gom.

So that's called a review meditation. But you see how the object is something meaningful? If you keep doing this meditation for a couple months, you'll give up the New York Times, which is a big achievement.

You see, I mean, really, I'm down to the front page, the front half of the page, when the Indian newspaper dealer is not looking. You know, I just read it real fast, you know, keep walking. But, I mean, you start to give up all the things in your life that are not very important.

And concentrate on the good things. So that's a shar gom. Cher gom means, second one, analytical meditation.

And this is where you take a problem that you're having, and you set it center stage in your mind, and you pick at it with different kinds of reasoning until you're satisfied. It might take a day, it might take a year. But, you know, like somebody said, like emptiness, okay?

Like somebody says everything is empty. So you're like examining this question from many points of view. You argue with yourself about some kind of important idea.

And then you keep picking at it until you make a decision. What we say in Buddhism, take all the parts of Buddhism that you doubt and do a cher gom on them, one by one. Knock them off one by one.

Listen to the arguments on both sides. Hey, there's no future life, forget it. People die, they stop moving.

And then the guy on the left side has to say, yeah, but wait a minute, just because they stopped moving doesn't prove that the mind is dead. And then you can have your argument with yourself. And that's called cher gom.

The last kind of meditation is called jo gom. It's called fixed meditation, fixation meditation. This is where you might take a picture of a holy being, give it life, give it death, give it worms, give it fragrance, and then be with it.

You know what I mean? And concentrate on it for like an hour. Just sit there and be with this holy being, which is in your imagination.

We say that those are very powerful because later they'll become true. Very powerful to imagine because later the seeds of that will be planted in your mind and cause you to meet them directly. Meditations like that, or if you can come to some intellectual realization of emptiness, that you focus on it.

Single pointedly. That's called jo gom. All three are different kinds of meditation and you can have all three different kinds of objects for your hour.

It's best to start out with a jo gom. It's best to start out with a visualization. And we'll do that.

And it just helps you center your mind and focus your mind. And then later you can use that for the other two kinds. You see what I mean?

As far as study, the holiest thing is emptiness. And the book always says, what does it always say? It's two parts to the sentence.

If you have 20 minutes, think about emptiness. Read something about emptiness. To the best of your ability.

You know what I mean? If all you understand about emptiness is what I said in the last 15 minutes, well then meditate on that. Or if you've been working on it for 30 years, then meditate on that.

But it always says at the end of the sentence, whatever your personal ability is at the present time, don't worry that you haven't seen it directly or you don't understand it very clearly. If you have 20 minutes free time, think about it for 20 minutes. It's the best thing in the universe for getting enlightened.

It's the best thing in the universe for removing all bad karma from things you did before you heard about karma. Okay? It's the most powerful thing.

Secondly, compassion. Secondly, some kind of compassion for other people. Study it.

It's something that you can learn even if you don't have a single compassionate bone in your body right now. You can learn to be compassionate. That's a big deal in Buddhism.

If you just study for half an hour a day, you can learn to be a Mother Teresa. Even if you're like the cruelest cold-hearted person you can imagine right now, just read every day, study, think about it, and you'll start to change. We believe that.

The human mind has an ultimate capacity to become compassionate. It's like playing scales on a piano. You just have to practice.

The idea that a person who's not kind at all or not compassionate at all could end up like Mother Teresa through a couple of years of meditation every day is very beautiful. That's great. That's really nice.

Because everybody would like to be like that. That's a human craving to be like Mother Teresa. To have that capacity to love other people that much.

It's just practice. It's just plain old like practicing violin. We believe you can get it about as easily as learning to play violin.

But you have to practice every day. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
There must be something...

[Speaker 1]
Motivating them.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, so like here's the thing that's motivating that at what point if you shift over you're already like... at what point would you stop or would you keep that in mind?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think they would say, I'm not sure, okay, but I'm almost certain they would say colors and shapes and physical objects are namulik. They are kunshi. They're coming out of the kunshi.

They're coming out of a part of your mind which you are observing. I call it the guy shooting his toenails at night. You keep seeing a ghost at the end of your bed every night.

These two eyes looking at you and then you get under the covers and they disappear. And then finally one night you get a shotgun and you wait and the moon comes up and comes through the window and reflects on your toenails and you blow off your foot. They say that whenever you see colors and shapes you are actually only observing another part of your mind.

Your own mind. And I don't believe they would say in the mind only school that another person's mind stream would be something you'd perceive in the kunshi. Yeah.

Yeah. They don't go as far as the Madhyamika Prasangika. They don't go that far.

They don't say that everything is your projection. And this argument only comes out between the second school and the third school. Nobody comes up to the fourth school and says, hey, what about other people?

Oh, yeah. No Buddhist school says that all minds are one. You know?

No Buddhist school says that. Every Buddhist, the lowest and most basic Buddhist schools say that the concept of an individual or an individual consciousness or the difference between my mind and your mind, you see what I mean? They are in, they are throughout eternity they will be separate.

Even after I get enlightened and you get enlightened, if you're not already, your mind and my mind will be separated. Why? Because that's the nature of karma.

You collect the karma to experience your mind in a certain way ten minutes from now. And I've collected the karma to experience my mind in a certain way ten minutes from now. And I cannot collect karma for you because I am the stream of my own past actions and deeds.

I'll never become you. And even though all Buddhists reach the same state of omniscience, they're all separate beings. And they all live in their own paradises.

There is no such thing as a cosmic consciousness or something like that because you are the result of your own past deeds. You see what I mean? And I can never be the result of your past deeds.

That's just the way it goes. Okay? Yeah.

I don't mind.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I mean, frankly, the question is this.

[Speaker 1]
What are the odds of taking a lower birth? No.

[Speaker 2]
If there is such a thing as a life after death. Yeah. We'll talk about it.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, understanding. Understand the question. In other words, what are the odds of...

Suppose Buddhism is true. Suppose you do have a future life. Suppose you will go somewhere else two minutes after the breath stops.

Then what are the odds that you'll go someplace horrible and what are the odds that you'll come back someplace nice? Because in America up to now only the National Enquirer talks seriously about past lives. Kid from Kansas remembers past life as Napoleon.

And then there's a picture of him with a hat. Karma is only spoken about in terms of remembering a former human friend or being another human in your next life or something like that. According to...

So, what are the odds of that? According to the classical teachings of Buddhism the odds of coming back as a human are against you on the order of billions to one. Okay?

The odds are against you on the order of billions to one. Lord Buddha, the classic reference, he did it many times. Somebody asked him this question.

He took his finger. He licked it. He touched the ground.

He said, Ellie, you see any dust on there? I mean, my eyes are not so good. There is some there, yeah.

And he said, you know, count the number of dust particles on this finger compared to the number of particles in the planet itself, down to the core of the planet. And these are the number of people who maintain a human life. And the others don't.

And then Mucchidamabhadra in 1770-something is asked this question by his students. We have a record of it that was carved like a tape recorder but much slower. Did Buddha really mean that?

I mean, was he being literal? And he says, yes. Okay?

And that's all. Now, you know, is it some horrible thing where I'm trying to get up here and scare you so you'll make a donation at the back or something like that? It's not like that.

That really is the odds. The odds are terrible. The odds are really, really bad.

Now, as long as the Dalai Lama doesn't get up and say that in front of 10,000 people because everyone would just go home and say he was crazy and not come back again and then he couldn't help them. So he'll say, you probably could meet your sister in the next life if you were a good person. And he does say that.

And the Buddha said stuff like that. As you know from the course on interpreting the Buddha, we had a whole course on it because Lord Buddha himself told different stories to different people to lead them further on and only one of the stories was technically true. So yeah, the odds are quite bad.

Now, can you assure that you won't take a lower life? Is there any way to do that? I've heard stories.

Lamas say, keep this book over your bed and you don't have to worry about going to a lower life. Do one circumambulation around this holy object and you don't have to worry about going to a lower life. I don't believe it.

I frankly don't believe it. Having read scripture, being well acquainted with the various scriptures and the odds and things like that, having read thousands and thousands of pages, I don't think so. I really don't think so.

If it was that easy, Lord Buddha would have just spread these scriptures around the planet. There'd be one over everybody's door. Nobody would have ever gone to a lower birth.

It's just not that easy. It has to be an inner spiritual level that you reach. It must be.

It can't be, oh, $25, I'll sprinkle some water on your head, you won't have to go to a lower realm. It's not like that. We reject that idea in Buddhism.

You must study, meditate and reach a certain spiritual level or you are eligible to go to a lower realm. What is going to a lower realm? Got that pen?

That's the pen. It's not the pen. It's just a perception.

It's just a perception. If you really had to go down to the earth's core to go to hell or something like that, that's technically impossible. It's just a change in your perceptions.

It's a radical change in the way your mind is perceiving reality in any given 15 minutes. I always say you can be driving down the New Jersey Turnpike with a smoothie in your hand, not paying much attention because you're down to the bottom. And you're looking and you don't notice this gasoline truck.

And then three minutes later your body is on fire. And you're looking at your body and just before it was a smoothie and now it's fire. Your body is covered with fire.

This happens to people. You know it happens to people. We say it's just a shift in their karma.

It's just a slight shift in their karma. It's a slight shift in their perceptions. And going to a lower realm is that easy.

It's not like the scriptures say what do you think, some acme construction company got this big order for 200 billion tons of cement, dug a big hole in the ground, built hell, everybody came back sweaty. They say forget that. It's a perception.

It's a state of perception. And if you can go from a smoothie perception to a fire covering your body perception in 10 minutes which you must accept is possible. Which happens to people every day.

The other perception is no big deal. To see yourself in a realm which is much different than this one, it's not only conceivable, it's probable. You know, come on, don't be so parochial.

Is this the only public school in the United States? You know what I mean? Of course there's other realms.

Of course there's other ways of being. And of course some of them are great suffering. And of course people go between them.

And you might go. Now, last part of your question. If you achieve the level in the second path called sattva, which is mastery, you'd never have to go to a lower realm again.

What is that? First you have to get renunciation. Okay?

First you have to decide this is not going to work. This world is basically defective. They should have recalled it.

The Christians are right about that. Original sin or whatever you want to call it. This world is defective.

It can't work right in its present condition. It doesn't matter how much you exercise or what vitamins you take or which health food store you go to. During the time you're in the health food store you are half an hour closer to your death.

Period. You can't fix those. This samsara is broken and it will kill you.

You can't fix that. That's spiritual level number one. Spiritual level number two getting more and more compassion and then you start understanding emptiness in an intellectual way.

Okay? Once that intellectual understanding reaches a certain sophistication it's impossible to take a lower birth. Okay?

And that's long before you see emptiness directly. Okay? And you don't have to be on Bodhisattva track to get that.

You can be an uncompassionate renunciate who has intellectual understanding of emptiness and you will not go to a lower realm again. You know? That's pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I got it. Yeah. I can understand that...

We got to borrow your pen again. I can understand that it's really just a black cylinder and my mind is... My past karma is forcing me to think of it as a pen.

And I understand that when a puppy dog comes in here, their past karma is forcing them to see it a totally different way and they just get slobber. They're like, something to chew on. You see?

I understand that, she says. I even understand that this cylinder and this cylinder are the same. I understand that the reason I see this as an arm and not as a roach leg is that I don't have the karma to see it that way.

I understand that. I understand that if my karma shifted radically this evening, Franz Kafka's nightmare could come true. You know?

And I would wake up in the morning and see a roach leg. I understand that, she says. But this thing about the mind being the same as these two, that...

What's the raw material, I think you're asking? What's the raw data? Where's the raw data that I'm labeling mind onto?

Here it's a black cylinder. Here it's a flesh-colored cylinder. But are my thoughts that I hear in my mind also work the same?

Do they work the same? Is that also just something I'm hearing because of my past karma is forcing me to hear that? Yeah, okay?

The thing you call unhappiness is your own mind taking your own thoughts and forcing you to interpret them unhappily. And that's unhappiness. It's very interesting.

Unhappiness itself is created in the same way that the pen and the arm are. It's a karmic result of not taking joy in other people's achievements or successes in the past. And then, you must hear your own mind in a negative way.

Okay? And if you had had better karma, you would be hearing sweet things from the same thoughts. Get used to it.

It's also just an interpretation. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. By the way, this is just another projection. And at that point, the karma changes not only to see a different physical thing, but to hear a different mental thing.

You're like, food, wet, nice. You know what I mean? That's a roach mind, okay?

No, and that's... And again, it's the same thing as this. It's exactly the same thing.

You're having thoughts, and your own mind is forcing you to hear them as primitive. It's very weird. It's very sad.

That makes it totally feasible for you to be a roach in 10 minutes from now if you got hit by a cab. Yeah. By the way, the lower schools, Abhidharma school says that's not true.

Physical objects are a result of karma. Thoughts cannot be. They just couldn't handle it.

That's why they're the fourth school. No, seriously. They said, come on, that's too much.

You're telling me whether I'm happy or not as a karmic result? You see, get the difference between... I always think of it as a difference...

What's the karma to be rich? What do you have to do to get rich? Be generous.

What's the karma to be contented? Actually, take joy in other people's happiness. Oh, you got the promotion before me.

That's great. You know, and really mean it. And notice that there are different karmas.

So you can have wealthy people who are contented. You can have wealthy people who are discontented. You can have poor people who are contented.

And you can have poor people who are discontented. So the idea that wealth brings discontent or poverty brings content or vice versa is just wrong. It's two separate karmas.

One is a mentally ripening karma and one is a physically ripening karma. Get used to it. That's why people can be unhappy who are rich.

And that's why people can be happy who are rich. Because you either get both the karmas right or you don't get both the karmas right. But get used to it.

All the attitude karmas are ripening in your mind. Especially worldview. Worldview begets worldview.

It's the only karma where exactly what you think is exactly what you get back. You know? To continue to see this world as something wonderful, glorious, you know, shining thing begets the wrong idea tomorrow and begets the wrong idea the next day.

You see what I mean? To change that karmic cycle is the hardest of all. Because your view of the world karmically causes you to continue to have that view of the world.

And that's really nasty. That means to get out of that cycle is almost impossible. To really break your worldview and to say it makes perfect sense to me that to give away everything I have is the smartest way to get rich.

To really believe that is extremely difficult. You know? Because we are in the desire realm.

We are here because we are imperfect. You wouldn't be here if you were perfect. You just wouldn't be here.

You are in a defective realm because your mind is defective. Because your mind creates this realm. You see what I mean?

And to get out of the worldview that keeps you here is the most difficult of all. Because the karma to have that worldview is simply having had it in the past.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
And how do you break that cycle? Only through the kindness of a teacher. Or somebody who can knock your worldview off the...

[Speaker 2]
Oh!

[Speaker 1]
One more question and then I got to go. Maybe wrong. And then we'll do some more next week, okay?

Don't be discouraged. We'll do more next week. It's endless, as Rinpoche would say.

I'm sorry? Okay. He asked, I'm not clear about how to go about getting into deep meditation.

There are shallow meditations. There are sleepy meditations. There are distracted meditations.

There are jealous meditations. How do you get into a deep meditation? A whole bunch of factors.

Number one, lead a good life. Don't have anything on your conscience. Every spot on your conscience is a huge roadblock to your meditation.

Every little thing that you still have on your conscience will prevent you from going into deep meditation. So that's a, above all, that's the number one. Secondly, what we call Chö Lam, like Chö Lam Khyen Nyang Chö.

How do you live your life from hour to hour? Are you eating too much? Are you too busy in a bad way?

Are you jealous of other people? Are you constantly distracted by music or books or useless junk information that you're filling up your mind with as you fill up your body with useless junk Starbucks stuff? You know what I mean?

And then you expect to meditate the next morning? You know what I mean? That's all.

I mean, those are the main things. To lead a life from hour to hour which is totally honest. And you can honestly say, I don't have any big bad thoughts about other people.

I don't have any things about my vows that I'm not doing properly or something. To be able to say that and look somebody in the eye and say, yeah, I'm not perfect but I'm keeping my vows very honestly and very strictly and very sincerely I'm watching them. And I don't have anything.

If I was going to die right now, I could die because I'm clean. And to be able to look somebody in the eye and say that, then it helps your meditation a lot. And then also sleep.

Get enough sleep. Very important. Lastly, personally, go into it gradually.

Meaning, I find that watching my breath at very subtle levels gets me down there. So, that's why Master Vasubandhu said, that's what breathing meditation is for. It's meant to get you down there and then you can stay there.

So, really to get attuned to your breath. And, you know, they say count to ten breaths before you start meditating. I think that people who don't get into deep meditation are not doing that part correctly.

Meaning, they get lazy. They get complacent. Oh, I got to seven, that's okay.

What were the first five? Oh, I don't quite remember. You see what I mean?

They're not really strict with themselves on the breathing meditation thing. I found that when I'm really strict with myself and I say, No, Geshe-la, you only made it to three. You got to start over again.

Five times. And I get frustrated. I say, come on, let's go to meditate.

And they say, no, you can't go there unless you finish ten. You see what I mean? If you meditate perfectly, then your mind will be down there.

By the time you get... Don't be very strict with yourself not to give up, not to go on in the meditation until you've got ten breaths, perfectly concentrated breaths. What we say is if your mind goes off onto another thing while you're counting out the first ten breaths, you must go back to one.

When you're beginning, that can take an hour. And then you find yourself getting to fifteen and sixteen. So, it takes practice.

What I say is be ruthless with yourself. Say, Rob, you don't get to meditate until you get ten perfect breaths. And I don't care if it takes a week.

And then your mind will be down in there. So, try that. It's not so much important to regulate it because when your concentration is good it will regulate itself automatically.

It's more important to stay on it than it is to control it. At the beginning, the whole story is to stay on it and not to control it. Okay, we'll do a short prayer.

We'll do more next week. It's fun. We'll do half the class of daily practice and then we'll do questions and answers.

We'll do a short prayer.

[Speaker 2]
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