Как выполнять ежедневную практику 18 — Ключевые элементы успешной ежедневной практики (1999, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
So, get ready to meditate. Back straight.

[Speaker 1]
Of course, you've already swept your room, blown your nose, done your altar, done your prostrations, made your seat properly. You know all that stuff now. Shoulders equal, head up.

Left hand down first, right hand down on top of it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
When you're meditating at home, right foot on top of your left thigh. Eyes open or closed as you wish, but if they're open, aim them downwards and don't focus on anything. Then we begin by watching your breath.

The very first step after you take your position is to watch your breath. Try to count 10 breaths out and then in as one breath. Okay, so the out breath is the first half, the in breath is the second half.

Try to count 10 breaths without thinking about anything else. If you think about anything else big time, go back to one and start over again. If you're really honest, you might not get past three, but let's try.

Some people go to 16 before they realize they didn't stop at 10. Okay, so here we go. First count your breath out and then in as one breath.

[Speaker 2]
Don't force it, don't try to do anything with it. It should go through your nose. The first preliminary is you take refuge.

And to do that you can think about the qualities of a Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Buddha, enlightened being, can see the future. They can read the minds of all the people in the world at the same time. They know what's best for people.

And they're able to send out clones of themselves all over the world to help people. So, you know, two of the people on the subway today could have been Buddhas. And they have that ability.

So, we say you can take refuge in those beings and believe that they're around you. And also take refuge in the fact that in the future you will be that being. What I like about refuge is you can take refuge or you can imagine how it's going to be in the future when you have this ability.

[Speaker 2]
And that's the first step. The second step, second warm-up is to think about bodhicitta or ultimate compassion.

[Speaker 1]
The most compassionate thing you can do in the world is to become an enlightened being yourself. Yourself, so you can help other people. So imagine, think about committing yourself to doing what you have to do to become an enlightened being and help other people.

And the third step is to invite an enlightened being to sit and meditate with you. So you imagine, whoever it is, it could be Buddha, it could be Dalai Lama, it could be a woman Buddha like Tara, it could be Jesus if you feel more comfortable. But ask an enlightened being to come and sit in front of you and meditate with you.

Next step is to, it's called bowing down, but you do it in your mind. Think of one of the great qualities of an enlightened being. Like the ability to show up anywhere someone needs you.

Or the ability to read each person's mind. Or the capacity of ultimate love. And think about that quality and admire it.

And that's a mental prostration. Just admire. If you want to, just think of any normal person you know.

Like I met this rancher in Arizona. He's not a Buddhist. But extraordinary honesty, extraordinary personal character.

And just think about those people and rejoice that they exist and admire them.

[Speaker 2]
That's a mental prostration. The next step is to offer this holy being a gift.

[Speaker 1]
And you can either think about what you put on your altar like flowers or fruit. Or you can think about an imaginary offering like filling the sky with flowers. Or the beauty of the ocean or the sunset.

Something beautiful. And picture it in your mind and offer it to them. The highest offering is something about your own practice.

Like some little effort you made not to get angry today. Some little effort you made to study emptiness. Something like that.

Something you're going to do this evening to advance your own practice. And think about it and offer them that.

[Speaker 2]
Any beautiful thing you can imagine. Next step in the warm-up is to think about some bad karma you did.

[Speaker 1]
Something you said to somebody. Something you did to somebody. Some lousy thought you've had recently.

And play back the tape. Watch it carefully. Remember where you were, who you said it to, what their reaction was.

And feel sad about it. Feel sad about the bad karma you made. Feel sad about what's going to come back to you.

And pick the one, especially in the last 24 hours, that you can remember the most. And play the tape back.

[Speaker 2]
Next, do the opposite.

[Speaker 1]
In Buddhism, it's very important to do the opposite. Which means, now go back to the last 24 hours. And find the most beautiful thing you've done.

The best thing you said to someone. The most honest thought you had. Some kind thing you did for someone.

Go through the last 24 hours and find all the sweet things you've been doing. And be happy. And understand that these are going to build stronger and stronger and make you a Buddha.

And be glad. A lot of Americans, they think that it's wrong to think about your good thing. It's only right to think about your bad qualities.

It's not true. Think about all the good things you're doing, all the right things you're doing. The next warm-up is to request teachings.

And this can be a request for formal spiritual teachings from a formal teacher. Or it can be a request for those informal teachings that you get from the people at work that you don't like. Or from members of your own family.

Or the inspiration you get from certain good people around you. And ask for those kinds of teachings. It's appropriate tonight to ask that we get teachings.

Mentally, send a message to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Please pay us the honor of coming to our city and teaching us later this week.

[Speaker 2]
Send that message mentally. The last part of the warm-up is to think about the great teachers in the world.

[Speaker 1]
Think about the great people around you, Buddhist or not, who are inspiring in a spiritual way. And think about even your fellow students, the ones who help you in your spiritual journey. The ones who support you.

The ones who give you inspiration. And think of all of those people. Think of two or three specific ones.

And pray for their long life. And pray that they stay close to you. One good Dharma friend who stays close to you often is worth a lot of teaching.

[Speaker 2]
And pray that those people stay close. That concludes the preliminaries.

[Speaker 1]
When you're actually meditating at home, this is a good place to shift around, or scratch your nose, or adjust your seat.

[Speaker 2]
Whatever you like.

[Speaker 1]
Then when you're ready to start the main meditation, which is right now, go back to your breath. Start counting your breath again. To bring your mind back.

Ten breaths. Watching your breath means be aware of the feel of your breath on the inside of your nose as it goes out and comes back.

[Speaker 2]
So try to count ten breaths without losing your thought to something else. Now we'll start a basic meditation.

[Speaker 1]
This is a very good meditation to do for a couple of months every morning. And then in October we'll start another one. This is called DONG REN.

Very basic. Very, very, very important.

[Speaker 2]
It's important all the way up to Tantric practice.

[Speaker 1]
You start by trying to think of one person that you know who's having a serious problem, mentally or emotionally or physically. So try to imagine that you are in their room and you're sitting in front of them.

[Speaker 2]
They can't see you.

[Speaker 1]
And you can see them and try to picture them sitting there having their emotional problem or their physical problem. Try to get the room details correct and how they look and how they feel.

[Speaker 2]
Go to their room now. They can't see you but you're there.

[Speaker 1]
Now imagine that all their problems have turned to like this black poison in their blood veins.

[Speaker 2]
Like ink.

[Speaker 1]
And then draw all of that ink to the center of their heart into a little round black ball of blackness. That blackness, about the size of a marble, represents all of their pain, mental or physical. So picture that now coming up through their body to their heart.

[Speaker 2]
It's a black ball of pain. Now we're going to take that pain out of them each time you take a breath.

[Speaker 1]
So we'll go back to watching your breath. Every time you take an in-breath, draw a little bit of that blackness out of their heart, up their throat, out of their nostrils in a thin black stream of smoke. Draw it across the room towards your own nose but draw it into a ball of blackness in front of your nose.

Don't let it touch your face. So with your breath acting like a pump, you are slowly drawing this pain out of them. But don't let it touch you yet.

Collect it into a ball in front of your nose. Take about 10 breaths and draw it out slowly, like rattlesnake poison or something.

[Speaker 2]
Now we're going to destroy that pain.

[Speaker 1]
By burning it up. And you're going to burn it in a special flame. And that's a flame.

Try to picture in your own heart, in your chest, a flame.

[Speaker 2]
A red flame about an inch high. And that flame represents your selfishness.

[Speaker 1]
And it's in all of us. All normal people have it. It's based on ignorance or self-belief and self-resistance.

But it's not the same thing. It's a derivative called watching out for you and ignoring what other people need.

[Speaker 2]
And see this flame at your heart.

[Speaker 1]
Now when I say go, when I say go, you're going to breathe in one deep breath. All that black pain from the other person, emotional or physical pain, is going to come into your nose like smoke. Down your throat.

And then it's going to come down and touch the flame at your heart. And the minute they touch, it's like gasoline and a match. And there's this huge burst of white light.

It fills your body. It starts out like a flashbulb, but it stays. And everything is gone.

The red flame is gone. The black pain is gone. And just there's this beautiful nectar filling your body, this white light filling the whole inside of your body.

There's no stomach anymore, no large intestines anymore. It's just beautiful white light. And it feels like honey in your body.

And you've destroyed their pain. And they say in honor of that black ball and that dirty red light, you should see this wisp of gray smoke just dissipating into thin air. And it represents that everything is gone.

All the pain is gone. All your selfishness is gone. You were willing to take their pain into you and destroy it.

So when I say go, take that one deep breath. Bring in all the black. Let it touch the flame.

The black and the flame disappear and the whole body fills with white light like honey.

[Speaker 2]
And think clearly about what the pain is. Think clearly about your selfishness. Okay, go.

And continue breathing now, but watch the white light in your body. Enjoy it.

[Speaker 1]
And now focus on that person like you're in their room. You're like their guardian angel. They can't see you.

They just took away all their pain. And focus on how happy they feel. And what a relief they feel.

They have no idea where all this help came from, but suddenly they don't have that problem anymore. Miraculously, they don't have their problem anymore.

[Speaker 2]
And just enjoy how good it feels to them.

[Speaker 1]
Now imagine that the white light in your body, that a ray of white light comes out of your heart and goes out towards them and brings them the opposite of their problem. Let's say they were sick before and you took away their sickness. But now make them 16 again.

You know, make their body young again. Make them happy, light, buoyant, vital. Give them strength that they've lost.

So instead of leaving them just a person who's not sick anymore, you do the opposite to them. Now you make them full of youthful energy and beauty. And if it was an emotional problem, like they were upset about a broken up relationship or something, now give them the sweetest relationship imaginable with some fantastic, perfect person with whom they can practice Dharma or something and also have their love together.

And just give the person the opposite of what their problem was.

[Speaker 2]
And keep sending that white light out to them, giving them this gift from your heart.

[Speaker 1]
That concludes that meditation. Now the way you close your meditation, properly, which is also important. First of all, we think it's good to bring that holy being into your heart.

So you ask them mentally, please come into my heart. And they agree happily.

[Speaker 2]
They rise up in the air slowly. They get smaller and smaller. They come down and rest on the top of your head.

[Speaker 1]
Right now they're about two inches high. And they're facing the same way as you are now.

[Speaker 2]
They've rotated around to face the same way. Now you ask them to come down into your heart.

[Speaker 1]
You prepare in your heart like a beautiful little chamber about the size of a pea right in front of your backbone, about a half an inch in front of your backbone. A little pea-like chamber. And from the outside, it looks like a pea.

When you go inside, it looks as big as Yankee Stadium. And it's this huge, beautiful flower, and this huge, beautiful cushion, and jewels thrown. And then on top of that, that holy being is going to come down and rest in that.

You bring them down like an elevator shaft from the top of your head, in front of your backbone.

[Speaker 2]
Feel the warmth of them as they come down. And impart them in that little pea.

[Speaker 1]
And they're beautiful, happy, radiant, shining. They're smiling. They're madly in love with you spiritually.

And anytime you need help during the day, you can think of that little chamber, that little secret chamber, and go inside there and be with them, and ask them for strength.

[Speaker 2]
And they stay there. So imagine them there in your heart. The last thing you do before you stop the meditation is a dedication.

[Speaker 1]
Think about all the good karma you did. Meditating is very, very, very heavy good karma. If you keep it up for months, every day, that half hour in the morning has a profound effect on your whole day.

You are a much different person for the whole day after you've been meditating just a half hour in the morning. And then slowly it makes you into some extraordinary person. It doesn't seem like meditation, it doesn't seem like a half hour or 45 minutes like that every morning should change you so profoundly, but it does.

So take that good karma and mentally give it away to people who need it.

[Speaker 2]
And that's the best way to invest that good karma. Mentally give it to people who need it, need spiritual help. That's the end of the formal meditation.

[Speaker 1]
Personally, at the end, I always add something, which is sort of my spiritual game plan for the day. And I found it a very useful time. So I try to think of what's the most important challenge I'm going to have today or what's the worst habit I have and I'm going to work on it today.

I spend a few seconds and try to plan what I have to work on in my own life. Before I get up. Because after you get up, the world starts again and you're too busy.

So I personally, you know, maybe the worst emotion I had the day before, I make some plan for dealing with it today better than I did yesterday. Before I get up from my meditation seat, I think that's really an important part of your daily meditation. Because you go into the busy day with some kind of plan.

It doesn't have to be very complicated. Personally, I just think of the one emotion, like jealousy or irritation, that I'm having trouble with. I think of the person I'm having the most trouble with.

And I just make a little plan for dealing with it today. Before I get up.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, then relax.