Совершенное счастье: как практиковать совершенство даяния (Аризона, 2015), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
So, I have a plan for today's class. Here we go. This is from Je Tsongkapa, about the perfection of giving.

Here he says, GYIS NI LA SHES RAB LDAN MED NA, so if you're not going to use emptiness to reach your goals, if you're not going to use emptiness, what are you going to use, okay? ZHIG RTEN PA'I LAM, ZHIG RTEN PA'I LAM means worldly path, worldly path. Why?

Why worldly path? You will stay here, you will stay in the world, you will get old inevitably, you will get sick. At my age, when you're 20, you talk with other people about the new songs on the internet.

When you're 60, you spend all your time talking about the best doctors. What did I hear in China? Eat for 20 years, pay the doctor for 20 years, something like that.

First 20 years eat what you want, next 20 years pay the doctor. Anyway, ZHIG RTEN PA'I LAM, worldly path, and the important word here is the next word, say ZHIG RAB GYIS RNAM PA CHEN, ZHIG RAB GYIS RNAM PA CHEN, ZHIG RAB GYIS RNAM PA CHEN. It's a very famous kind of meditation, okay?

You focus on your breath, you just focus on your breath, and you go very deep, and you follow your breath for a long time, for like an hour, two hours. I met a part of our Romania team, they're going out in the forest and doing it for six hours, and you just watch your breath, and you watch your thoughts, and you get calmer, and calmer, and calmer. So, ZHIG RAB, ZHIG RAB GYIS RNAM PA CHEN.

RAB means, RAB means rough form of mind, like you are busy, you are cooking, you are cleaning your house, you are texting your friends, in China it's WeChat, you are WeChatting, that's called RAB PA, it's a rough state of mind, okay? Then when you meditate, the mind gets more calm, more calm, more calm, more calm. You are watching your breath, they call Vipassana, okay?

Some people call Vipassana, it's not, but they call it that, okay? More and more peaceful, more and more peaceful. Then you just stay there for an hour, two hours, three hours, then you finish, then you get up, you get in your car, you get stuck in the Beijing traffic, and you're like, okay?

So, the mind goes down and up, and down, and up, and down, and up, that's called ZHIG RAB GYIS RNAM PA CHEN. The important thing I want you to know today, that's a ZHIG BSTAN PA'I LAM, here it says ZHIG BSTAN PA'I LAM, it means it's still in the world, okay? It's not progress, okay?

It's not going to get you out of getting old, or dying, or helping people, it's just like taking drug, get very like high, something, then drug finishes and you are back to old way. It's like drinking alcohol, and then for one hour you feel something, and then after you have a headache, okay? So, meditation shouldn't be that, okay?

Je Tsongkapa is criticizing it here, he says ZHIG RAB GYIS RNAM PA CHEN is worldly path, okay? Just to go more deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, almost the breath will stop. If you go very deep, the breath will stop for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, okay?

And you are not breathing, the body is living on karma, not on air, not on oxygen, and you just stay there, okay? That's like having a very good microscope, but you don't put anything under it, okay? The instrument is very nice, but you aren't doing anything with the instrument, you know, okay?

The microscope can go very deep, deep, deep, but they didn't put anything to look at. So, Tsongkapa system, which is the Buddha system, real Buddha system, the microscope must have some object, you must put something under the microscope. It's not enough to just breathe deeper, breathe deeper, become like drug, like you're a drug, and then come out and go back to your job and start, you know, there's no progress.

You must have some goal of the meditation, must be some content of the meditation. It's like a website with no content. All the buttons are very nice, it doesn't go into anything, you see what I mean?

Really, okay? So, Je Tsongkapa criticized that kind of meditation. For five or ten minutes before real meditation, it's good to watch your breath, okay?

The Buddha taught that, it's in the Abhidharmakosha, I think it's the fifth or sixth chapter, it's called the UG CUNG UG. Say UG, I like it, it sounds like monkey talk. UG, CUNG UG.

UG, CUNG UG. UG CUNG UG means, UG means breath, CUNG means you breathe out, UG means you breathe in. Then Vasubandhu taught that in Abhidharmakosha, but only for five minutes before the real meditation.

Then some people didn't get all the book, they just got this part of the book, and they said, Buddha said we should watch our breath for the rest of our life, you know? That's like, I'm going to go to the Olympics, I want to run in the race, but I will warm up for the whole week, you know? Then what time is the race?

I don't know, I'm just warming up. The whole week, Olympics is finished, you are still warming up, okay? That's...

it became a problem, it became a mistake, okay? It's very good, Buddha taught UG CUNG UG, watch the breath, to bring the mind down, to calm the mind down. Then switch to some important object, you have 40 of them, okay?

Use the breath for a few minutes, bring the mind calm, but that's not meditation, that's just warm-up, okay? Then you must put your mind on something, okay? The mind is a mirror, any object you put in front of it, the mind will become that thing, okay?

So, if you don't put anything in front of the mind for a long time, you will become like, where did I ... Jigme, where did I put my cell phone? Do you know where I put ...

was it in the car or was it in the ... in the temple or ...? I had it when we did yoga, okay? You will be like that, alright?

It just space out, in English we say space out, like that, hey man, what's new? Okay. I ask Chinese people, you want to go deeper?

They're like, YES! I ask some Americans, you want to go deeper? They're like, hey man, okay.

Then, if you do that for a long time, space out meditation, you can reach a place called TSIS TSE, okay? TSIS TSE means deepest breath meditation. You are almost dead, your mind almost dead, you are like ...

okay, breath stop, body stop, mind stop, then no result, okay? You just become forgetful person, okay? That's a worldly path.

ZHI RAG GI RNAM PA CHEN means moving up through discursive mental states. Discursive means your mind is still talking, your mind is still using words, okay? You can go very deep into it, but it doesn't help you, okay?

You have to think about something, okay? So, it's a danger, it's a meditation trap, okay? So, Tsongkapa is telling us, that's ...

that's not the place we want to go, okay? Next paragraph, NYES RANG DAG CHUNG PA DE DAG KYANG DON DENG PA'I SEMS DANG PO SKYES PA'I KYANG, RTOGS PA'I DGONG NAS GZIL GYIS RNAM PAR GYUR TE, DNGOS PO RANG BZHIN MED PAR BSHAD PA DANG BRAL BA'I PHYIR RO, this starts a long argument which I cannot teach you this week, because we don't have time. But, the question ...

no, it would take a few weeks. The question is, let's say a scientist, okay? Is it possible for a scientist to understand Kongxing?

They're not Buddhist, they didn't meet any Buddhist teacher, you know. Can they suddenly discover the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? If the observer is present, the light will act as a wave.

If the observer is absent, it will act as a particle. Reality will act differently according to the presence of an observer at a diffraction gating, diffraction grating as the light's going through, okay? And the scientist, the really good scientist will say, you know what?

Reality depends on the observer, okay? The person watching the light, it will act one way. If the person's not watching the light, it will act a different way.

A good physicist can understand Kongxing, okay? They can understand Kongxing, they're almost there. Those really great physicists, they're almost there.

Oh, reality must be coming from the observer. They're almost there, they're very close, okay? So, there comes a question in Buddhism, if a person had no Buddhist teacher in this life, and they're a very great physicist like Stephen Hawking, okay?

And they almost reach a unified theory, between the theory of relativity, general theory of gravity, or the behavior of small particles, they can reach Kongxing. Good scientists can reach Kongxing, okay? It's not impossible, okay?

So, the argument in the book here is, is it impossible for a non-Buddhist, non-trained person to reach emptiness? We say yes, if they're very intelligent, okay? Scientists almost there, they are almost there.

The really good physicists say, in one room there are 13 realities, okay? They understand. When you walk across the room, you're not walking on the floor.

They understand. And Tsongkapa says yes, it's possible, it's possible, okay? Okay?

Then is the emptiness which they see different from the emptiness which Nagarjuna saw? And Tsongkapa says no, it's the same, okay? It's very cool, it's very deep, okay?

There's only one emptiness. You can see it through many ways, okay? But you don't have to be a bodhisattva to see emptiness, okay?

You can be a scientist. Bodhisattva wants to use emptiness to help the world. Scientist wants to make a bomb or something, okay?

It's a different motivation, but the reality is the same, okay? So, it's possible for a person who got good seeds from Joe, to discover Heisenberg theory of uncertainty, like these deep physics theories, they can do it, okay? Tsongkapa said not impossible, okay?

But, those Buddhist people who got wrong training, they sit for six hours in the Buddhist center, and they look at the wall, and they try not to think about anything, or watch their breath go slow and slow and slow, it's useless, there's no ... the scientist is having more progress, okay? Than the people just watch their breath, okay?

So, it's a trap. It's like warming up for the Olympics your whole life, and never do the Olympics, okay? So, that's what Tsongkapa is saying here.

Is the ... we call outshine, say SIL GYI NON PA. SIL GYI NON PA.

Start dictionary entry. SIL GYI NON PA. It's here in this paragraph, Z-I-L-G-Y-I-S-G-N-O-N-P-A.

SIL GYI NON PA. SIL GYI NON PA means outshine, outshine. Then, I didn't use a dictionary for the first 30 years that I studied Buddhism, why?

I live with my Lama, okay? They had a debate contest in Tibet, 1955, 10,000 monks debate, he's number one, okay? He's pretty cool.

I don't need a dictionary, I just ask him, hey Rinpoche, you want some tea? What's SIL GYI NON PA mean? Then he loves Tibetan tea, butter, salt, tastes like chicken soup.

I said, Rinpoche, you want some tea? Yes. What does SIL GYI NON PA mean?

Then he knows he has to give me a good answer to get the tea. Then he'll say, I was watching the news the other night, and there were six old ladies standing together. One of them is Queen Elizabeth, and she's old, you know?

But when you see the news video, and she's standing with six other ladies, she outshined all the other ones. She has NGA RGYAL, right? She has, like, she's old, but she...you can see, if someone asks you which one is the Queen, you say, that one is the Queen. She's like...okay? That's called SIL GYI NON PA, she outshined the other ones, okay? She's more shining than the other ones, okay? Then there's a very famous idea in Buddhism, that the bodhisattva outshines the scientist, okay?

The bodhisattva outshines the scientist, okay? If you put a scientist next to a bodhisattva, you can say, look, that one's Kuang-Yi, that one's Stephen Hawking, okay? You can just tell from the...okay? Then, why are they, why they look special? Why they look different? Now, question comes, you ready? You wanted a deeper teaching, I'm giving you.

Don't...see, it's all the Chinese side. Okay, America. What's all the noise?

What's all the noise? Don't wake them up. They're catching up on the sleep from visiting the Chinese cottages at one o'clock, here he comes.

Okay, I'm going to ask you a tough question, does bodhisattva outshine, does Kuang-Yin outshine Stephen Hawking, yes or no? Yes. Now comes a tough question, does Kuang-Yin outshine Stephen Hawking in understanding kongshin?

And Tsongkhapa says no, no, it's the same. If a scientist comes to understand that reality is coming from the observer like Heisenberg did, their understanding of kongshin is not different from Kuang-Yin's, because there's only one kongshin. If you see it, you see it, if you don't see it, you don't see it.

Okay, that's very interesting okay, but if not through knowledge, does Kuang-Yin outshine Stephen Hawking generally? Yeah, much more beautiful, much more shining. Why?

Kuang-Yin has bodhichitta. Kuang-Yin wants to use kongshin to help every person in the world. There's a danger that the scientist will use that knowledge to make a bomb to kill everyone in the world okay, that's different, that's different okay.

Is the kongshin the same? Yes. The motivation, what they want to do with kongshin, the Kuang-Yin wants to use it to help everybody in the world.

The scientists, they are not stupid mean people, but they make mistake and they kill people. In Japan, that American bomb killed, I don't know, a million people in five minutes you know, so it's a different ... that's why Kuang-Yin outshined the scientists, but not by their understanding of kongshin, only by their compassion okay.

You want to go deeper? At the seventh bodhisattva level, at the seventh bodhisattva level, Kuang-Yin's understanding of kongshin does outshine Stephen Hawking, but the kongshin is still the same, the emptiness is still the same okay. At the seventh bodhisattva level, ses chandrakirti, something changes.

Then the bodhisattva's understanding of reality, ultimate reality, is different from the scientist's understanding of reality. Then Tsongkapa goes off on that for many pages. You want to ...

I'll give you the bottom line, we call bottom line right? When you first see emptiness directly, it's popping out of seeds that were planted by Joe okay? Like boom, you see it directly.

Typically you're young, because it's coming from your past life, you might be 20, 25, something like that okay? And you have this experience, direct experience of emptiness okay? So, it can happen in this life, and you have this deep understanding of emptiness.

Then you're like, unbelievable, you see many worlds, you see Buddhas, you see 500 years into the future, your whole life changes okay? And your activities change, because you are working 500 years ahead. Then you're like, I think I'll do that again.

But Joe only planted enough for one, and we're too young, we didn't plant enough seeds okay? So, after that you're like, I want to do it again, you know, and it doesn't come okay? You used up those seeds, it's very expensive karma to see kongshing.

Then Joe only made enough karma for one time. Then, you can try for years, and it won't come easily, it takes a lot of struggle to see it again okay? You see it for 20 minutes, and then it takes many years to see it again okay?

But, when you reach the seventh bodhisattva level, you have so much good karma, you can say, I think I'll see kongshing right now, boom! Okay, that was good, now I'll have a pizza, eat the pizza, finish it. Alright, I still have some time before I have to go to work, I think I'll see kongshing again.

Then, you can do it at will, anytime you want, you can slide into it, and slide out of it okay? First bodhisattva level, you have to work for years to have 20 minutes. Seventh bodhisattva level, a bodhisattva can come in and out, anytime they want okay?

Anytime they want. So, can we say, you ready? Can we say that a bodhisattva at the seventh level, their perception of ultimate reality outshines that of the scientist?

Yeah, why? They can slide in and out anytime they want okay? The scientist doesn't have that kind of karma okay?

They don't, they don't, they're not practicing a path okay? Understand? You sure?

Alright, alright, come on. Yeah, it means, he's doing THAG PA'I THAGS SUM GYI RIG PA, say THAG PA? THAG SUM GYI RIG PA, a theoretical case okay?

A theoretical case. In the event that a bodhisattva reached nirvana, by doing deeper and deeper breath meditation, then you know, then the two practitioners are a listener and self-made Buddhas okay? They're scientists in my discussion, they are scientists in my discussion okay?

If emptiness, if the bodhisattva outshines the two lower practitioners, because they saw emptiness with breath meditation, then there'd be a more and more problems okay? That's all. He's criticizing breath meditation.

Breath meditation cannot get a scientist to ultimate reality, and it cannot get a bodhisattva to ultimate reality okay? Now, there's another kind of breath meditation okay? I'm going to teach you the name of it, page 34, let's go see.

You can look up second position, yes please, go again. Yeah, here okay? Let's go up to the Tibetan, corresponding Tibetan, up few, okay here.

I want to teach you this section okay? Less common argument, but it is an old Tibetan argument okay? By early Tibetan Buddhists.

GNYIS PA YANG MI RIG STE. It's incorrect to say that seeing emptiness is THOD RGYAL, THOD RGYAL meditation. So now we have two kinds of lousy meditation.

One is called SHI RAK, SHI RAK. One is called THOD RGYAL okay? SHI RAK means watch your breath, Vipassana, go deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, try not to think about anything, and then come back out, have your breakfast, then Vipassana again, go down.

By the way, the name is Vipassana, it's not real Vipassana okay? There's a real Vipassana that's different, but what they're teaching nowadays that give this name is mistaken okay? So there's SHI RAK, and there's THOD RGYAL okay?

Now I'm going to teach you THOD RGYAL, ready? BDAG SNYING LA, the old name for ... BDAG SNYING means ancient word, in English we call archaism, ancient word that nobody uses anymore.

Say NEL SHI, NEL SHI. There's only one Tibetan word that has a NA with a RATAK, and it's right here, SNARAL okay? It's only one, I think, in the whole language okay?

It's impossible, it's very rare. NEL SHI is an ancient word for THOD RGYAL, they're the same thing okay? Why is THOD RGYAL called THOD RGYAL?

I don't know, but I have a guess, and I'll tell you in a few minutes okay? RIM PA CHUD BA LA ZER, what does it mean? What does this second kind of mistaken meditation mean?

THOD RGYAL means, it's a long story, there are eight levels of meditation you can do watching your breath okay? There's eight levels of watching your breath okay? First your mind is thinking about lunch, then your mind is thinking about dessert, then your mind is thinking about the strawberry on top of the dessert, then your mind is thinking ...

like you go deeper and deeper and deeper, you're still thinking about dessert okay? There's eight levels, very deep, but it's ... you don't escape from suffering, you don't escape from samsara okay?

It's not kongshin, it's just deeper and deeper into dessert. Oh, the spot on the strawberry, like focus deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. Then somebody shakes your shoulder, say you have to go to work now, then you just finish, go to work you know?

So, there are eight levels, it's called samsuk, we can study it someday, it's a subject in Prajnaparamita okay? Called samsuk. Four form realm meditations, four formless realm meditations.

Samsuk means samten dang sukme, it's a very difficult word. Samten dang sukme, it's called samsuk, so it's very confusing, because suk means form, and sukme means formless, so the form means formless okay? Be careful, there are eight levels okay?

If you do this breath meditation your whole life, then you get hit by a taxi cab in Shanghai, and you die, you will go to a special temporary happy place, everybody's like this, hey man, hey man, hey man, okay? And you live there for like a million years okay? And then you go to the hell, then you go to hell, because you use up all your karma okay?

It's just a dead end okay? It's not somewhere you want to go okay? Now, why are we talking about that?

If you're very good at meditation, you can jump. One, three, five, seven, six, four, two. Okay?

Dessert, strawberry, strawberry spot, strawberry paste, sugar, flour, come back. Strawberry, dessert, flour, sugar, strawberry spot, come back. It's like a special dance, it's like Alisa's dance, we had to do the toe first, and then we had to do the ...

I don't know, I already forgot, but I'll remember tomorrow. But first we did skipping, and then we were supposed to do jumping, and they were supposed to mix, we're supposed to alternate skipping and jumping, so this meditation is called alternating skipping and jumping okay? You don't go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, you go two, four, six, eight, seven, five, three, one, okay?

You go patatatat, dededatat. Just, it's like when you play sports in high school and your girlfriend comes to the game and you want to show her you know, you jump and you, you know. I have a friend, he fell in love with a girl in Israel, and he went to Jerusalem to see her, and I heard from my Israel friends, he's so much in love with her, he tried to impress her, so he was doing headstand on the street.

Jerusalem street is old, stone, like this, like Diamond Mountain Road, okay? And to do a headstand on a Jerusalem street is very difficult, right Scott? Sorry, okay.

So, it means when your girlfriend's watching, you can do many strange things, afterward your head hurts, okay? And so, it's like jump from to, look, I can jump to deep, deep meditation, come back, jump deeper, come back, jump deeper, go half deep, quarter deep, three quarter, that's called tugya, okay? The old name is?

Nelshi, snrelshi, okay Nelshi. It just means like meditation acrobatics, okay? I can go deep, come back, go deeper, come back, halfway, go deeper, I can do in one minute, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, many levels of meditation.

It doesn't get you free, okay? It doesn't help you, okay? It's not emptiness, okay?

It's just meditation gymnastics, okay? So, he's criticizing it, out of order. Rimpa chulwa, rimpa you know because you know lamrim, stages, chulwa means messed up, out of order, okay?

What's sutram chulwa? Messed up morality, okay? You're like, oh I don't have to, I can mess around with another man's wife if I'm a Tantric or something like that, okay?

Chulwa, messed up, mistaken, okay? Chulwa, la ser shing, DE'I DE'I SGO LAS STING NGES ZIN LA SGRUB PA GRUB MAN CHE LA MED ZHING SDUG PA NAS YOD PA LA ZHIG BYED MED PA'I PHYIR RO, Then, there's no reason why that would be why people at the seventh bodhisattva level outshine the scientist, okay? So, that's another bad argument.

Somebody said, I know, I know. What? I know why seventh level bodhisattva outshine the scientist.

Why? They can do 1, 3, 5, 7, 6, 4, 2, they can jump around in their meditation. Tsongkapa says, come on, she je me, there's 350,000 pages of scriptures from India, okay?

This is the, that's why I chose Stanley when he was young. I need a young one, okay? To translate, to help direct the translation of 350,000 pages, it's difficult, okay?

It take a long time. In those 350,000 pages, no one ever said at the seventh level they outshine the scientist because they can jump around in their meditation, okay? Come on.

Who's Tsongkapa criticizing? Other Tibetans, other Tibetans, okay? In his time, there was still some weird ideas.

Buddhism wasn't too clear in Tibet in 1407, okay? It wasn't so, there are still a lot of weird ideas, because they weren't, they didn't learn Buddhism yet, okay? When I first started to study Buddhism, all the Buddhist books in English were ridiculous, okay?

My teacher asked me, first day, he said, do you understand emptiness? I said, yeah, of course I understand emptiness. What's emptiness?

I read an English book about Buddhism. Oh, what does it say? Close your eyes, everything's black, this is Kongking.

Then he said, I don't believe it, who wrote this book? Lopsang Rambha, okay? It's like some hippie, other hippie.

Then later they wrote a book, Close Your Eyes, Don't Think About Anything, you know, it was ridiculous, okay? Now, there was one teacher, frankly, there was a teacher from another country, I won't say which country. He said, Geshe-la, I want to teach in your New York Center, can I come to New York and teach in your center?

Then I said, yeah it's okay, you can come, you're my friend, but I warn you. He said what? I said, those people studying deep for 20 years, they know the Geshe stuff, they 18 ACI courses, 18 Tantric courses, they studied 14 years, the deepest scriptures, okay?

Then, are you going to come and teach them? Then he's like, maybe not this year, okay? Yeah, because you just, you don't have training, okay?

You don't have that training, okay? So, sometimes people come from other traditions, can I teach in your center? One guy came to my Lama, he's from Japan, okay?

Japan has great Buddhist teachers, but this one came to my Lama, he said, I'm a Zen master, Roshi, you know? He came to our kitchen, and my Lama was finishing his lunch, then he said, the Japanese master said, I'm a great Japanese master. Then my teacher said, okay I'm very happy to meet you, and then the Japanese master said, can you give me Geshe degree?

Then my Lama said, excuse me? He said, can you give me Geshe degree? He said, yeah, if you study 25 years with me, I can give you.

No, no, can you give me here at the lunch table? Then my Lama said, yeah, okay. Then he said, I'll give you Roshi degree, you give me Geshe degree.

He said, okay if you want. Then he took a napkin, you know? Geshe degree.

He gave him. Then the guy was very, thank you, then he he also wrote Roshi degree. Okay, see you later, thank you very much.

Then he left, he's like, you know, what do you say? Arigato gozaimashita. Then afterward my Lama, he didn't finish his lunch, you know, and he said, Mike, he called me Mike, Mike bring me 20 napkins.

Then I said, okay here's 20 napkins. He said, today you are all, you made me such a good lunch, I'm going to give you all Geshe degree, you know. He gave to each person, okay.

Then it means in the early years in Tibet, there were many strange ideas, and in America also. When the Buddhism first come to a place, or the Buddhism wake up again after many years, there are some strange ideas, and then people come to learn the real thing, and then they don't believe those books. I have many students, they will buy a book, some Buddhist English book, and they'll read it, you know.

Emptiness means, close your eyes, everything is black, throw it out, you know. They said, Geshe-la, is it okay to throw out a book, Dharma book, if it's ridiculous? I said, yeah, it's better to throw it out.

Can I give it to the Goodwill store, used store, used thing store? I said, no, maybe somebody will read it, you know, just throw it out. Generally we cannot mistreat a book, in Buddhism we cannot put a book on the floor for example, okay, any book, any writing we cannot put on the floor, and especially we cannot throw a book in the garbage, but if the book says Kongxing is black, black, black, black, black, throw it out, okay, don't let people read it, okay, it's just ...

so, Je Tsongkapa is criticizing people. Okay, how much time I got, half hour? Half hour more?

Thirty-three, okay, let's go. I'll teach you one more wrong idea about emptiness because Je Tsongkapa talks about it, okay. In the monastery, when you teach people, you go, say, GZHAN LUGS DGAR PA, RANG LUGS SHAG PA, RDZOD PA PUNG, GZHAN LUGS DGAR PA, RANG LUGS SHAG PA, RDZOD PA PUNG.

So, when I studied in American high school, we are ... how old are we? 15 to 18?

Something like that. Then we will go to the ... like, I enjoyed mathematics, and they will teach us algebra, and geometry, and then calculus, you know, this is the usual, and they get up and they say, here's the lesson for today, this is how you ...

the cosine of the triangle, and you know, they will teach you something like that. Now go home, study it, tomorrow we have a quiz. That's American university system, and I like it, I had a good experience with it, but Tibetan system is different, Buddhist system is different, okay?

GZHAN LUGS DGAR PA means, the teacher will teach you all the wrong ideas first, okay? IS GONG ZHING mean, go deeper, deeper, deeper in your breath, and then come out, come out, come out, come out, and go deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, and come out, come out, then the teacher say no. Then second wrong idea, is GONG ZHING jump from one meditation level to another in breathing, right?

And go up and down, and like gymnastic, you know, is this GONG ZHING? No. Then I'll teach you another wrong one now, that's the Buddhist system, we always teach the wrong one first, why?

Why? Yeah, so we don't think the wrong thing, okay? Because you read some bad book, or you heard some bad teaching, so first we talk about all the stupid ideas.

GONG ZHING isn't close your eyes and think black, black, black. GONG ZHING isn't don't think about anything. My teacher said, if seeing emptiness means don't think about anything, or watch your thoughts go around in your mind, try to stop your thoughts, then it doesn't take 25 years.

Just buy three bottles of Tsingtao beer, okay? And, okay, Dos Aquis, Dos Aquis in Mexico. Larger or light?

Okay, don't, you don't have to tell me. Drink six very quickly, you know, with or without lime. Then, then my teacher said, you can save 24 years and 364 days.

If emptiness means don't think about anything, you can save so much work, just get really drunk, and then you're like, you know, you don't think about anything, it's automatic, SHUN YOD TA, GONG ZHING, okay? And then they teach us, some people say everything is illusion, nothing matters, if someone slap you, or someone kiss you, it's all the same, don't be happy, don't be sad. In English we say, just be a vegetable.

Vegetable means like that, someone hit you, someone kiss you, you know, just look at the wall, nothing's real, nothing matters, there's no good, there's no bad, okay? So, they will teach us the wrong ideas about GONG ZHING first, emptiness. And then we don't make those mistakes, you see?

You learn all the mistakes first. GZHAN LUG BSGAGS PA, stop the wrong ideas, GZHAN LUG BSGAGS PA, second step in the ancient system of learning in Buddhism, which may have come from Greece, from Agora Marketplace on the Parthenon Mountain, brought to India by Aristotle's student named Alexander the Great. Okay, that's a long story.

Second part, GZHAN LUG BSGAGS PA, then tell the student what's correct, then tell the student what's correct. First teach them the wrong ideas, so they don't make those, teach them all the mistakes they might make, and then GZHAN LUG BSGAGS PA, teach them what's correct. Then this system has a very cool third part, TSOS PA'I DBANG BA, say TSOS PA'I DBANG BA, let the other guy come back and get, re-criticize us, and let him try to prove again why, hey, hey, hey, hey, black, black, black, why that is kongshing?

He gets to come back, he say, TSOS PA'I DBANG BA, you criticize me, you say Vipassana, breath meditation is not kongshing, but I'm going to fight you again, he gets to come back and fight again. I think that's a cool system, okay? We don't just say the bad idea, beat it, teach the good idea, he gets to come back again, and these guys are not stupid, these are great Buddhist teachers of India, and they made small mistakes, okay?

So, Tsongkapa respect them, he listened to them, okay, explain to me why breathing is kongshing, then they get to explain again, and again, and again, and he will keep fighting them, okay? If you are in Tsongkapa lineage and someone asks you difficult questions, you're like, give it to me! You know, don't ask me simple questions, ask me the hard questions.

Tsongkapa ignored all the easy parts of Buddhism, you cannot find a Tsongkapa commentary on the easy parts of Buddhism, he didn't waste his time, he said give me the tough question, you know, give me the real deep question, then that's all he wants to talk about, okay? That's why this book is so impossible to translate, Stanley. Okay, so now we have a ...

now we have another wrong idea, okay? Now I'm going to teach you one more. I hope we have time to get to the right idea.

Yeah, okay, page 42, let me see here. I'm doing Tugel on this text, what's that mean Ben Kramer? Tugel or Nelsi?

Yeah, I'm jumping around, I'm creating a presentation by jumping around, okay? But that's okay. If you teach Yoga Sutra, you have to do the same thing.

I think so. I'm just gonna, you know, we don't have a lot of time, so I'm gonna summarize the other guy's position here, okay? There's a thing called ...

okay, you wanted a deeper class, this is a deeper class. If you're tired and you don't know what I'm talking about, you can check out mentally. Like, keep your face like that, but you can think about what you're going to do when you get home on Monday, okay?

It's impolite in the class to go like this. First time I taught in Shanghai, it was in a movie theater, and it was in the summer, and the air conditioner broke, and the first row, every person's asleep on the next person. Then I thought, I'm gonna go down there and pull the first person.

Anyway, okay, we're gonna go deeper, okay, ready? All right. One of the most famous teachings in Buddhism is called the Four Truths, the Four Truths.

They're called Four Arya Truths. Arya means higher, higher, okay? It also means noble, like a very nice person.

So, the early English translators of Buddhism made a big mistake, and they called it Four Noble Truths. And still, if you go to a teaching by the highest lamas in the world, they are talking about Four Noble Truths. It doesn't mean that, it never meant that, it was some lazy British translator, okay?

It has nothing to do with noble, okay? It's a Four Arya Truth. Why?

The person who sees emptiness directly is called Arya. Arya means higher person, okay? So, after you see emptiness, directly, for 20 minutes, when you come out, and we're gonna teach it in Taipei, level 7, in what?

January? January. I will teach about the Four Truths, okay?

And you see four things when you come out of kongshing. You see four groups of understandings. You have four big groups of understandings.

Each one has four parts. So, how many total? 16, okay?

It's called, very famous, the 16 Aspects of the Four Arya Truths. They are true, because an Arya knows they are true, and only an Arya knows they are true, okay? Then, those are very famous, especially in Hinayana Buddhism, lower Buddhism, in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, nowadays, okay?

They survive in those countries. Of the five Geshe subjects, which the Chinese translation and the German and Russian translation teams ... can all of Buddhism, there's a lowest is Vinaya, monks, vowed morality, then Abhidharma, higher knowledge, then logic, pramana, then lower middle way, then higher middle way.

These are the five great subjects of Buddhism. Only two reached the South Buddhist countries. These three didn't reach there.

These three got lost. In China, the fifth one got lost, never reached. The strong one never reached China, because Xuanzang came before it was taught widely, okay?

So, we have to translate more of those books, because they are super sexy, highest teaching, and all Tantra is based on this one. So, you need this one, okay? To practice Tantra correctly, you need highest middle way, okay?

So, in these two schools, they are the lowest, which only survive, it's the only thing which survive in those Southern Buddhist countries. They say, if you study the sixteen truths, sixteen aspects of the four higher truths, okay? If you study them, you can, you will see emptiness.

I'll explain it to you in Taiwan more, okay? I don't want to confuse you, you're tired, I'm tired, you are more tired than me. It's ...

it's easier to talk than to listen, I know. I spent 25 years on the floor in those refugee camp, the roof is leaking, duck, duck, duck. I cannot move, all the monks crushing me, you know, duck, duck, duck.

Then the teacher is going on for six hours, seven hours, no pee-pee break. I'm wet up and wet under, and then at that time I made a vow, when I become teacher, I will make the students suffer. That's you, okay?

So, actually those four truths, which is the core of all Buddhism, is something you see after you see emptiness directly, okay? But someone can teach them to you before that. They can say, look, everything is suffering, everything changes, you can't hang on to anything, everything is ugly in this world, okay?

Everything is going to die, okay? Like that, everything you ever get, you're going to lose, you know? Your body is going to fall apart.

These are some of the four truths, okay? SDUG BSNGAL LDAN PA, KUN BYUNG LDAN PA, GOS PA'I LDAN PA, LAM GYI LDAN PA, these are the four. You want to know what they are?

Okay, we got to go fast. Okay, SDUG BSNGAL, this is the traditional way to teach them, there are other ways to teach them. GNAL ZHIG, yeah that's another story.

SDUG BSNGAL LDAN PA, everything is pain, everything is pain, everything in this world is pain. A headache is pain, death is pain, ice cream is pain. Whoa, whoa, wait, Geshe-la, wait, ice cream is pain?

Yes, why? It has to finish, okay? I tried, I had a Tibetan doctor with me, and purposely I ate three big bowls of ice cream in front of him, then he's looking at me like, it took about an hour, he's like, you're going to get sick, nobody can eat that much ice cream, you know?

I said, I just did, you know? Then, but if you eat a fourth bowl, you'll get suffering, okay? So, even the good thing can cause suffering, okay?

So, that's the first truth, everything is suffering. Second truth, KUN JUNG LDAN PA, it comes, it comes from someplace, there's a source, it comes from someplace, okay? That suffering comes from not understanding the pain, not understanding the pain, that's the source of pain.

For example, if you come home, and your boyfriend is there, and he call you stupid for no reason at all, why didn't you object? There's no such thing as for no reason at all, there's no such thing, okay? When your boyfriend criticize you, it's because you criticized your kids last week, or something like that, okay?

Or your mother, or your somebody, your teacher or something, okay? Your friend, okay? But when they ...

if you don't understand that, you will call them stupid, that's the second truth. You planted a new seed to have the first truth, okay? Second truth is the seed for the first truth.

Second truth, you call your ... when your boyfriend call you stupid, you say no, you are stupid, that's the second truth. Then next week you will experience the first truth again, why?

He will call you stupid again. Then you will make the second truth again, no, you are stupid. Understand?

Second truth is the seed, first truth is the pain, okay? Alright, third truth, you can stop it, you can stop it, you can stop it, okay? I like Buddhism because you can fix your boyfriend without telling him.

You just change your seeds, then he will change. I like it, Buddhism is so cool. You don't have to tell your boyfriend you are changing him, you just change him, okay?

Your boyfriend doesn't want to wash the dishes, ever. So, you do the four steps to make him wash the dishes. None of the four steps requires that you tell him what you are doing.

Then after one month he will start washing the dishes, okay? Because he's coming from you. If you plant the right seeds, he will wash the dishes.

Who can tell me the famous philosophical problem that Geshe Michael sometimes talks about at this point? Huh? Nope.

Scott? Yeah! Gen Gen, I bow to your feet.

Okay. What if the husband and wife come to the Dharma class together? They both hear about the four steps.

The husband plant the seed never to wash dishes, and the wife plant the seed for the husband to always wash the dishes. I call it Titanic and Iceberg. Wife's karma is approaching husband karma, you know?

He never wash the dishes, he always wash the dishes. Then, boom! Who will win?

Both. Why? Why?

Because one thing can be two things in the same room, no problem. Will he wash the dishes or not? Yes and no.

Will he not wash the dishes? Yes and no. In whose reality are you talking about?

In the wife's reality, he will always wash the dishes. In the man's reality, he will never wash the dishes. Do the dishes get washed or not?

Bad question. I'm not kidding, okay? I'm not kidding, okay?

Jenda, jenda. Really. Okay.

There was something else. Oh yeah, I'm gonna—okay, so, oh, fourth higher truth is there's a path, there's a path, okay? Those are the four truths.

Number one, there's pain. Number two, there's a seed that causes it. Number three, you can stop it.

Number four, there's a method, the path, okay? Understand the pen, all things are—all pain is stopped. The pain of washing dishes is stopped, okay?

That's a real suffering, if you ask me, okay? I was trying to plant seeds that I don't have to clean my house, especially under the bed. I hate cleaning under the bed.

Every—there's the fuzzball, fuzzball, then you put the broom under there, the fuzzball goes boop! Then you go—then the fuzzball goes boop! Then, you know, you spend like ten minutes under the bed.

When you get older this is not very pleasant. Then I planted special seed. Then Jigme and Scott and Orin, they bought me—I call him Garbanzo.

Who—oh, Christine, his name is Garbanzo. Garbanzo is a special bean, but it's a small robot. Now I just push the button, and I keep translating, and I can have breakfast, and he will clean the whole house, you know?

And I'm like, thanks Garbanzo! He's like, and he cleaned the whole house. I had a dream about him during retreat, on the first night or the second night?

I was on a high roof in New York, and I was trying to fix this metal roof, very difficult, very high, dangerous. I'm trying to fix it, you know, I decided I'm going to fix it. Then Garbanzo came, and I'm like, what are you doing?

And he said, he pushed me, he said, let me, let me take care of this, you know? Then I'm like, what are you going to do? And he goes, and all these metal pieces came out of his mouth.

He fixed it in one minute. Then I'm like, Garbanzo, what am I going to do? You fixed everything in one minute.

Then he's like ... then he left, he went down to the first floor, and then I got stuck on the roof, you know? I'm like, how do I get down now?

You know, and finally I got down to the bottom floor, then Garbanzo changed into a big bed, like a big, those bed with the four poles on it, and beautiful bed. Then he's like, get on! Then I'm like, okay, and I got on, and he started to travel through New York City, and I'm like, thanks Garbanzo, you know?

Then he took me into a special room, and I met my special angel there, and then I can't tell you the rest, okay. No, but we, it was very beautiful, the angel took care of me, very beautiful dream, okay. Okay, last thing.

I'm going to tell you a story, it's a very beautiful story, and then we'll be finished. It's about the four truths, it's about the four truths. Is it enough to explain to somebody about the four truths?

Do people really understand the four truths if they didn't understand emptiness? Okay, you just teach them four truths. Are they going to save their life?

Then the Buddha gave an answer, and I like the answer, okay. You can say, begins his music, begins his music, okay. And this is from the Buddha, this is a sutra, okay.

Okay, good, there. This is quotation by Buddha, okay. So, there's a magician, magic guy, he knows how to do magic, and when he plays a special guitar, he can create magic, you know.

So, he plays a special guitar, he plays a special song, and the song creates a woman. So, the woman's not real, okay, the woman's not real. Just like animation or something, okay, like hologram, hologram, like very beautiful woman, okay.

Then there are other people sitting there, and they see this beautiful woman, and they they want to ask her out for a date or something, they get all excited, you know, they're like, oh so beautiful, you know, and they jump up to ask her, you know, you want to go to a movie tonight? Something like that. You want to see Ant-Man with me?

You know, jump up, and then suddenly, when they get close to her, they see actually she's ugly, and they understand she's not going to last, she's going to get old, and then suddenly they understand to be with her might be some pain, and then finally they understand she's not even real, she's, sorry, she's empty, okay, she's empty. They still don't understand she's a hologram. So, in the beginning they try to get her, later they get close and they say, oh wait, she is ...

MI RTAG SDUG BSNGAL STONG PA BDAG MED, say MI RTAG, SDUG BSNGAL, STONG PA, BDAG MED. These are the four parts of the first truth, these are the four, I told you 16 parts right? Four times four.

MI RTAG SDUG BSNGAL STONG PA BDAG MED. Oh look, she's changed, she can get old, maybe she will get old. MI RTAG SDUG BSNGAL, to be with her is suffering, she's probably going to ask me to wash the dishes.

MI RTAG SDUG BSNGAL STONG PA, she's like, kind of not real, they don't understand that she's not real, they just think she's not what she seem to be, she's not what she seem to be. BDAG MED, she's not like really who I thought she was, okay? These are like the four parts of the first truth, okay?

But they still didn't understand she's not real, okay? They still didn't understand she's not real. This is like people that you teach the four truths before you teach them the pen.

Everything, you can't have a good relationship, any boy you meet is going to disappoint you, you know? It's not possible to have a good relationship, any money you make you'll lose, okay? Any house you buy is more stuff to clean if you don't have garbanzo, okay?

And then there's a kind of Buddhism, Hinayana Buddhism, lower Buddhism, it says just go live in a cave, forget everything, you know? It's impossible to meet a good husband, it's impossible to have a good job, it's impossible to look nice, forget yoga, it's just a waste of time, you know? You're going to lose this body, everything is negative, negative, negative, negative.

It's not possible to have a good marriage, give up marriage. It's not possible to have a good house, give up a house. Anything you buy is going to fall apart, give up all those things, you know?

Go to the mountain and stay by yourself, and this is happiness. But if not, these are all Buddha paradise pictures, okay? Buddha paradise picture, okay?

Do they look unhappy? Do they have nice clothes or not, you know? Are there pizzas in Buddha paradise?

Of course, of course, best pizza, Chinese pizza, pineapple, cheese, they give you a plastic glove to eat it, okay? Okay? Of course, Amitabha paradise is not ...

it has place to stay, it has nice clothes, the boy angels and the girl angels get together, they like each other, of course, it's a very beautiful place, okay? They misunderstood the goal of Buddhism, okay? They misunderstood the goal of Buddhism.

It's not true you have to lose everything, it's not true you have to get old, it's not true you can't have a good relationship, okay? If you understand the partner who calls you stupid is coming from you, then it's possible to have a wonderful marriage, okay? You will change them.

If you don't like the partner doesn't wash dishes, just change them, okay? That's the goal, you can't avoid other people forever. Then everyone should dig a cave here and live by themselves until they die, this is supposed to be Buddhism, you know?

No, you're supposed to have everything, Amitabha paradise, Amitabha paradise. By the end of this teaching, you're supposed to be in heaven, you're supposed to be in heaven, you don't, you never lose anything, your father and mother are there, they never get old, they never die, your husband or wife is there, your children are there, the children are perfectly behaved, they never cry, the little ones never cry, that's what I'm waiting for. Those babies who cry on the airplane to China, oh my god.

Okay, now, so the lower, the lower Buddhism heard about the four truths, but they don't understand the pen, okay? If you understand the pen, of course you can have as much money as you want, doesn't have to end, no, just keep sharing, keep, what do you call, reinvestment, you know? Is it possible to have a good relationship?

Of course, I had my relationship for 48 years, we're still, we're super happy, better than last year, better than, better than, better than, better than, better than, okay? It's unbelievable, it's like heaven, it's better than, anyway, you can have all those things, that's not a problem, okay? That's not the goal of Buddhism, they misunderstood the four truths, go to a hole, stay there, don't talk to anybody, you know, you're gonna die anyway, you don't have to die, okay?

If you understand seeds, you don't have to die, you don't have to, you don't have to get old, you don't have to die. Okay, last thing, the dogs had a meeting, I heard something, what did you hear? I mean it's just a crazy idea, what's the idea?

I heard you can use this stick for something else, what? They say you can communicate with other people, you take off the top, you write, I don't understand, do you think that's possible this thing can you use for writing something? No, no, why not?

I never saw that. Geshe-la, it's impossible people don't die, Geshe-la, it's impossible people don't get old, Geshe-la, it's impossible you have a beautiful relationship forever, okay? It's not possible Geshe-la, I never saw it, I never saw it, okay?

Understand? Okay, you didn't see it because you didn't make enough seeds yet, okay? Someone can experience this room as Amitabha's paradise, okay?

Other person can experience this room as you know, lots of problems and fundraising and things like that. Who's right, the dog or the human? Both, okay?

There's two realities in this room. Now, last question, would you rather be in Amitabha's paradise or would you rather be fundraising and lots of problems at Daimon? You choose, yeah you choose, okay?

It's up to you, you plant the seeds, okay? You can have either one, but this idea that Buddhism means everything is sad, there's no such thing as a good boyfriend, all boys are bad, all women you can't trust, you know, that's just stupid idea, okay? That's a lower Buddhism, okay?

We are Mahayana, we are bigger vehicle, we ... we know ... we want perfect world, okay?

We are ... that's what this is, okay? When you offer it before class, you're offering perfect world.

Geshe-la, here's the world I'm going to make by what you are teaching in class, at the beginning of class. At the end of class, here's the world I'm going to make, thanks for the class, okay? You ready?

DANG RAG. Mahāndalāt. Peter?

[Speaker 2]
SANGHE SHINGDU MIKTEK HUWANG GI DROKUN LAM THAG SHING LA SHUG PA SHOK YIDAM PURU RANG LAM LAM DANG LAM GYUR GYUR YATTA YANG NI DIGS KYI DROKUN SON NAM GYUR SHES TSOR TSOR SHING SON NAM GYUR SHES LAS BYUNG BA'I DANG PA KUN NYID THOB PA SHOK Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, four truths means, suffering, truth of suffering, first one means, if you don't understand the pen, your body will die. Everything you earn in this life, you will lose. All relationships will end.

One, the man or the woman will die first, and then the other one will die, okay? That's true, but if you understand the pen, you can change it, and that's our job, okay? So, don't believe people who only got the lower Buddhism.

They're like, Geshe-la, nothing's gonna work, no relationship can be successful, no lifetime can be truly happy. They didn't get the emptiness part. Nobody taught it to them, okay?

That's what Je Tsongkapa is saying here. They are studying the Four Noble Truths, they didn't understand the Four Noble Truths themselves have GONG ZHING, okay? Very deep.

They are studying the Four Noble, sorry, Four Arya Truths their whole life, and they didn't understand those truths are GONG ZHING. They have GONG ZHING. You can change them, okay?

They think the woman is ugly, but they don't understand the woman's not real, okay? You go to a movie, there's a famous actress in the movie, and you run up to the screen to kiss her, and you kiss the movie screen, and then you say, she didn't use chapstick, she didn't use lip balm, you know, her lips are so rough. Then you say, oh my god, you saw suffering, but you don't understand that's not a woman, that's a movie screen, it's not the woman in the movie screen, it's not real, okay?

That's like trying to kiss a movie screen, okay? To misunderstand the Four Truths is trying to kiss the movie screen, okay? They're complaining about her lips, they're so rough, they don't understand they are kissing a movie screen, okay?

Try to think about it, okay? Think about it, okay? Alright, so next time I'll try to finish the next chapter, or some good part of it.

What's the next chapter about? Second Bodhisattva level, perfection of ... you can say morality, I like to call it being nice to people, okay?

When someone's being immoral, I like to say, hey man, that's not cool. Messing around with someone else's partner, that's not cool, okay? I don't know, when you say you are immoral, it sounds kind of weird, you know?

I like to say, hey man, that's not so cool, you know? It's not happy, okay? So, second Bodhisattva level, how to perfect being nice to other people, okay?

Don't hurt other people, okay?