500 образов для медитации на шагах пути к просветлению, занятие 67

[Speaker 1]
I helped to invent this stone, and I'll tell you the story in a minute. I'm going to read to you from the beginning of the Lam Rim. This was about six or seven years ago.

Again, we started the Lam Rim eight years ago. But the first two retreats, we just covered the meditation part and the emptiness part. So now we're actually going back to the beginning.

Okay, and I'm just going to quote the very cool parts, and these are things you should remember 20 years from now when you teach your students, okay?

[Speaker 2]
These are the parts I remember from my teacher, starting about 40 years ago, okay? Okay, here we go.

[Speaker 1]
DIG ZER BA MI ZAD LTA RGYAL LTA BU RTOGS CHEN NI CI YANG MI NYAMS CHE YOD MOD KYANG. We tend to think, I never did any such big thing like murder somebody. I never did something like that.

So, when I think about my future life, I'm guessing I should have a mildly pleasant future life. You know, I didn't murder anybody.

[Speaker 2]
I didn't steal the whole country's money like some people do.

[Speaker 1]
YOD MOD KYANG. Okay, I admit you didn't do that. LAS PAR MA RTAG PA'I RKYEN YIN, but you haven't really understood what the situation is.

SANGS ROR ZHES TU DANG DANG NGAN DOR DOR MI DOR RANG NA RANG BA MED. If you really think about it, you are probably going to the hell realms. Why?

Karma increases, okay? If you ... like every spring I plant five or six semillas sandias?

Semillas de sandias?

[Speaker 2]
Every spring? I plant like five or six watermelon seeds.

[Speaker 1]
And then I get ... I get usually about, I don't know, 12 watermelons? And inside each one is two or three hundred seeds.

So, if you count, I get about 4,000 seeds from six.

[Speaker 2]
And mental seeds are more powerful. So, it doesn't help that the bad things we did were small.

[Speaker 1]
Many small bad deeds are worse than killing a person. So, we're in trouble. Okay?

We're actually in trouble.

[Speaker 2]
We don't know.

[Speaker 1]
PHAR MTSAN NA RGYAS THUGS LA LTA BUR DAM ZHES ZIG GCIG STONG NA'ANG ZHES DANG DRAG PO DGOS NAS LONG For example, if you just ...

[Speaker 2]
if the teacher just called their students stupid, sometimes in the teaching the Lama will confess indirectly.

[Speaker 1]
For example, if you yell at your student, you know, in time that becomes a pretty big karma. Okay? Then, that's why we're talking about this.

So, what does this idim mean? So, when I was in the diamond business, we actually did many many different kinds of precious stones.

[Speaker 2]
We did hundreds of kinds of precious stones.

[Speaker 1]
Diamond was the main one, then we did all these other kinds of stones. And we were having a meeting one day, and we said there's no beautiful clear blue stone available in the market.

[Speaker 2]
There's a sapphire, but these are dark blue.

[Speaker 1]
And at that time the Japanese were very powerful, and we had a meeting with the Japanese. Actually, we were going to Japan and we decided we should have ... what do you call ...

pastel colors.

[Speaker 2]
Light pink, light green, light orange.

[Speaker 1]
Then we said, but there's no light blue stone. Then I heard about a certain process in ... I have some gemology degrees, and you get a brown topaz from ...

[Speaker 2]
it has to be from Sri Lanka.

[Speaker 1]
Then you put it under ... in a nuclear reactor, and it will turn a very beautiful blue. This is produced from a nuclear reactor.

So, you know, we did our first test. We bought the black ... the brown stones from Brazil.

[Speaker 2]
This is called Swiss blue because the reactor is in Switzerland.

[Speaker 1]
So, we sent the stones. They put them in the middle of the reactor.

[Speaker 2]
Then, after like six weeks, we called them, you know.

[Speaker 1]
How's the color? The color is fantastic.

[Speaker 2]
When can we have the stones? 900 years.

[Speaker 1]
Half-life, they call ... in radiation, they call half-life. 900 years, the radiation will drop in half.

It's not safe. So, we said, okay, forget it, you know, just keep them. Then we found out if you buy them from another country, they don't get so radioactive.

And the government, American government, which is pretty strict about this thing, they said, we found a way to do it, and they said, okay, that's legal.

[Speaker 2]
Then I had some doubt, you know, and I checked the stone myself.

[Speaker 1]
I have a ... what do you call it? Geiger counter?

Radiation counter.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And it's safe, you know. Then one day, they brought a whole bag of stones like this, you know. Then I was thinking, maybe a big bag is dangerous, you know, all together like 10,000 stones maybe.

So, I called the Atomic Energy Commission. These are the ... these guys worry about nuclear weapons.

I'm calling them, you know. I said, you know, I have these stones. They are measuring this on the Geiger counter.

Is it safe? The guy said, you want official statement or unofficial statement, you know? I said, let's start with the unofficial.

Yeah, one stone is safe, no problem. You know, the number is very small. Then I said, how about 10,000 together?

He said, that I cannot tell you officially or unofficially, but you shouldn't keep them near your male parts. Your voice will change later. Then I like, I got them all out of the company.

I said, no, no, no, we can't have these things, you know. So, anyway, why am I talking about that? One word to your student, you know.

You could say to your student, you know, Jigme, where's my coffee? You know, I ordered ... no, where's the sheets I ordered for the massages?

[Speaker 2]
It's like the third time I ask you.

[Speaker 1]
Then, it's just a small sentence, you know, but small sentences are like topaz. You know, all together, in a whole month, all those small sentences become like the topaz.

[Speaker 2]
All those sentences together become radioactive. I will go to a special hell where I have to wash massage sheets all day.

[Speaker 1]
Understand?

[Speaker 2]
So, we didn't reach the lam rim yet.

[Speaker 1]
The teacher is just ... he's just introducing the teaching. This is in 1921, right?

He's not telling the super depressing thing yet. He's just getting warm-up depression. So, what he's saying is, even if you're a pretty good person, and you only do small bad things like yell at your assistant about the massage sheets, like radiation, it's accumulative, you see?

And just the habit of saying small bad things to your kids, or your husband, or your workers, it's enough to go to the hell realms, okay? Got it?

[Speaker 2]
So, it's not enough to be a nice person. You have to be a saintly person. And it's more fun.

I heard. Okay.