Сияющая: третья глава величайшего классического труда Чже Цонгкапы о пустоте (Аризона, 2016), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Okay, here we go. We're going to read Tsongkhapa. This book is called GOM PA RAB ZAL.

Say GOM PA. RAB ZAL GOM PA RAB ZAL GOM PA means what the Buddha really had in mind. RAB ZAL means I will clarify for you, illuminate it for you.

So, it's Tsongkhapa's most famous book on emptiness. And it's a very difficult book. And I asked my best teacher in the monastery, Geshe Thubten Rinchen, to teach it to me.

And he taught it to me privately for like eight years or something. And we finished. And I promised him I would translate it.

So, I've been translating it. I'm about, it's been about four years. I'm about a quarter of the way through.

Why so slow? I have to do fundraising and silly things like that. So, if you can help me with that, I can spend more time.

I don't think other people could translate it. So, it just needs more time. I need more time.

If you're interested to see the whole translation, me and Adam are putting it up on the internet. Every time I finish a new page, we put it up on the internet for free. So, it's called, what's the website?

The? Illuminationofthetruthought.com Illuminationofthetruthought.com Yeah. And it's free and you can read the whole thing.

And every time I finish a few pages, we put it up. So, you can follow it. It's a very difficult work and I think it's the best book on emptiness ever written.

Very difficult to translate, but very beautiful. So, because you are working so hard in your meditations and your retreat, we're going to do two classes on this book for dessert. For dessert.

Postre? Para postre. Para e postre?

Para de postre.

[Speaker 2]
Para de postre.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, for dessert. Okay. I don't know why I know the word for dessert in Spanish and nothing else.

Okay. So, he's explaining a great book by Master Chandrakirti called Entering the Middle Way. Entering the Middle Way.

So, Je Tsongkapa, in 1400, is explaining the book by Master Chandrakirti, around 650, called Entering the Middle Way. Which middle way is he entering? Yeah, what's that?

Yeah, that middle way means Nagarjuna's root text on wisdom. By the way, Nagarjuna's book is just called Wisdom. The name is Prajna.

That's all. Mula Prajna, you don't have to say that. He named his book Wisdom because he was brief and a genius.

So, his book is short and sweet and a miracle. 27 miraculous chapters. And then, 450 years after him, Master Chandrakirti explained his book with two books.

One is called Umlajupa. The other is called Prasannapada. Clear words.

Sixth hell. So, Chandrakirti wrote two commentaries to Nagarjuna. One explains the wording of wisdom and one explains the meaning of wisdom.

So, Entering the Middle Way explains the meaning and Prasannapada, clear words, explains the wording. So, he wrote two famous books. The one called Entering the Middle Way is the basis of all emptiness teachings in Tibet.

All emptiness teachings in Tibet come from Entering the Middle Way. And the best explanation of it is by Tsongkapa. Generally, that book has six main parts and those follow the six perfections.

So, the first chapter is about giving. The second chapter is about... Actually, there are ten parts because there are extra four perfections, right?

You know that, right? There's the six perfections. Let's do all ten, okay?

You can say six perfections or you can say ten perfections. Same thing. First one, giving.

Giving to people. Second one, morality or not hurting other people. Not hurting other people.

Second one. Third one, not getting angry when you should. Fourth one, enthusiasm.

It's so cool to do good stuff. Fifth one, meditation. Sixth one, understanding emptiness.

These are the six perfections. Usual six perfections. Four extra perfections are called du ngo po shi.

What's that mean? The four ways of attracting students. Four ways of attracting students.

Four ways to attract students. First one, huh? Yeah, give them stuff.

Bribe them with purses and pens. Okay? All right?

Bribe them to come to class. Nice desserts, refreshments. That's the first one.

Bribe them to come to class. Pay for everything. Okay.

Second one, NGES PAR MA'I NGES PAR NGES PAR, opposite. Praise them. Oh, that's so great.

You gave $300. Thank you so much. You're so wonderful.

I never had any student like you. Praise them. It doesn't mean you have to lie.

Praise them for the good things they're doing. Like, wow. Encourage, encourage them.

Wow, you did that so well. It's okay they did nine bad things and one good thing. Then you say, oh, that one thing you did was so great.

Encourage them. Number two. Number three is difficult.

Number three means... No, number three means try to get them to do what you taught them. Like, if you're teaching them meditation, explain how to do meditation but then try to get them to meditate.

Try to encourage them to do what you're teaching them, to practice what you're teaching them in their real life. DGON BCOS PA Try to get them to practice it in their real life. Okay.

Number four is the most difficult of all the perfections. Yeah. You must be a good example for them.

If you're teaching meditation... I went to a meditation class one time. There was one lady teaching meditation and she was drinking something and it was like this.

And then she started teaching meditation. Then one lady next to me said, I don't know what kind of meditation she's teaching but I don't want to learn it. Okay.

So if we're teaching meditation we should be a good meditator. If we're teaching morality we should have good morality. And that's the most difficult.

In English we say practice what you preach. What you're teaching, you should do it yourself. So I think that's the most difficult of the ten perfections.

So those are the ten perfections. After you become a bodhisattva you can go up through ten levels that correspond to those ten. So at the first bodhisattva level you get very good at giving.

Okay. With emptiness understanding. With emptiness understanding.

Okay. When you see emptiness directly on a bodhisattva track you reach level one. That's same time, simultaneous.

Okay. When you see emptiness directly on a bodhisattva track you reach bodhisattva level number one. So there's maybe, I don't know, very few people even on level number one, very, very few, who have seen emptiness directly.

But they are, when they do giving they use emptiness. Then when they do morality they use emptiness. Then when they do patience they use emptiness.

Then they go up to the ten levels. So if you get very good at giving with understanding kong shing, with understanding emptiness you reach bodhisattva level number one. What's the name of that level?

You could say, I don't know, what do I call it? Bliss or something. Happiness.

It's called Raktogawa. Super happiness. It's called happiness.

The name of the first bodhisattva level is happiness. That's the name of the first chapter of Tsongkapa's book. The second bodhisattva level is called hmm?

No. What's the second bodhisattva level called?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Timamampa. Vimala.

Vimala. The second chapter is called Vimala. Absolutely pure.

Absolutely pure. Immaculate. I like to say immaculate.

What's the third bodhisattva level called? Shining. Just shining.

Like me and John Brady's head. Shining. Okay.

So the bodhisattva levels have beautiful names. So today I'm going to give you some pieces from the end of the second chapter because we went that far already together. Second chapter is about what?

Morality. And it's called Immaculate. And then today or tomorrow we'll do some of the third chapter which is Shining.

How to use emptiness to not get angry. And then the second one is how to use emptiness to not hurt other people. Alright?

Got it? So is this a book about not hurting other people? We say no.

No. It's different. Is it a book about patience?

We say no. Okay. No.

And that's very important. Tsongkhapa, you have to understand something. What's BYANG NAS mean?

What's BYANG NAS? Yeah. The auto-interpretation.

What the Buddha really meant and what the Buddha didn't mean. What the Buddha really meant and what the Buddha didn't mean. The Buddha said kill your mother and kill your father.

Did he mean it? No, it means when it's time to do a ten day retreat, tell mom and dad they're not going to hear from you for ten days. He said kill your mother, kill your father.

It doesn't mean that. Now, try to understand. Try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try.

Anytime Lord Buddha gave a teaching and didn't mention emptiness directly, he wasn't talking about what he wanted to talk about. No Buddhist teaching that doesn't directly mention the implications of emptiness on that subject is what the Buddha wanted to talk about. All other schools he just was simplifying for people who couldn't get it.

All other Buddhist teachings that don't mention emptiness directly are called in Buddhism not what he wanted to talk about. But he was forced to talk about it because the people in the audience couldn't get it. He said, I got to teach these guys about emptiness but they can't get it.

Let's teach them about being nice. Let's teach them. Did he teach being nice?

Yes. But only about with emptiness. MIG MED TSE BA'I DER CAN CAN What is that?

It's a love with emptiness. No teaching which doesn't mention emptiness directly is what the Buddha wanted to talk about. Are there teachings like that?

Yes, many. Are they good? Yes.

Are they ultimately good? No. And you have to get that.

Tsongkapa spent his life trying to get people to understand that. Everything you do has to be imbued with an understanding of emptiness. Everything.

And if you don't, it's not what the Buddha taught. It's not what he wanted to teach. That's the whole meaning of BYANG NAS.

That's the whole meaning of what the Buddha wanted to talk about and what the Buddha had to talk about because the audience wasn't ready. So this book, Chandrakirti's book, Nagarjuna's book, Lord Buddha's Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, Heart Shinching, Jinkanching, they all talk about emptiness. Got it?

You'll notice it as we go through this book. This book, Chandrakirti's book is where all emptiness teachings came from. All of them came from this book.

All right. All Tibetan sects, Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma, Galupa, they all accept Chandrakirti. That's all emptiness comes from that.

So, in the reading, you will get the English tomorrow after the class. Why not today? No, I don't want you sitting like this while I'm talking.

It's a blackmail. Tomorrow after the class you get the translation. So I took out 30 pages that are super sexy and something you can use in your life right away.

When you go back to Singapore, you can read it on the plane and when you get off the plane in Singapore, you're a halfway Buddha already. Okay? All right.

So, in the braces, in the square brackets, what's there is poetry from Master Chandrakirti. This is the original text and then Je Tsongkapa explains it. When you see the English, you will see some words are in italics.

It's because Tsongkapa is being super, he's showing off how great he is. He mixed in Chandrakirti's words in his book. Like a carpet, like a tapestry.

He mixes in every word from Chandrakirti in his own sentences. So if you don't know Tibetan, you can't see it. So I put in italics.

So you can see it's very beautiful. Every word from Chandrakirti is in Tsongkapa's book, but it's hidden. So I showed you where it was.

So you can appreciate it. All right. So here's the first verse.

DE PHYIR RGYAL BA'I I'm going to say it out loud in Tibetan because it's a good seed for your future life. DE PHYIR RGYAL BA'I RGYUN PA'I DTAM MDZAD NAS TSUL KHRIMS DRIN DRO DTAM NID ZAD PA YIN YON DANG TSUL KHRIMS ZHING DU NAM PHAL NA SBRUL BU GNAD GCOD BYAS PA MED PAR BYUR What's DTAM? Yeah, good, DTAM.

Because DTOG DGOS DTAM means belly, clothes, and what other people are saying. Here you see the word used in another sense. What the Buddhas are talking about.

When Buddha Buddha taught on this planet, the first thing he talked about was giving. The first teaching he gave was giving. He always started with giving.

Why? Why does DCI teach business? Because everybody in the world wants stuff.

Everybody, okay? Everybody needs money. I don't care how yoga you are.

Your yoga pants cost something. Your yoga mat costs something. You know, you got to feed yourself every day.

You need money. It's also an easy way to measure whether a new view of the world is correct or not. I will teach you how to plant karma seed.

For what? Let's start with money. Why?

It's easier to measure if you're succeeding or not. If I tell you I will teach you the karma seed for happiness and then six months later we have a test, are you 25% happier? It's very difficult to measure.

It's very, very difficult to measure. But if I say, I will teach you a new idea of how reality works. And you try it.

You try it. You see if you can make $100,000,000. If you do make $100,000,000, maybe, Luis CK, maybe there's a connection with what you learned.

Got it? So because it's easy to measure and because all people want it, Lord Buddha taught giving as the first of the six perfections. He always started with business talks.

Get it? Does it mean business money is important? No.

It just means to confirm the system. It helps real people if you teach it. When I taught emptiness in New York, 50 people come.

When I teach relationships, 200 people come. When I teach money in Singapore, in Johor Bahru, 1800 people come. Understand?

So Buddha tricks people. Buddha calls it DCI Business Institute. Got it?

Buddha. And it's very famous. In the sutra it says, STAM STAM PO DBYIN PA What's that mean?

The first thing, the first words out of Buddha's mouth, giving. You have to do giving. You want to prove karma works?

Try giving. If you suddenly become very prosperous in many ways, then it works. Then you can use it for nirvana.

Then you can use it for Buddhahood. But check it out first. Okay?

So, BYIN PA'I GTAM ZAD NAS But then what did he teach next? Morality. Then he taught morality.

For example, the ten good deeds. Save life. Protect life.

Respect other people's things. Respect other people's property. Sorry, partner.

Number four. Speak, tell the truth. Number five.

Bring people together with your talk. Bring people together. Number six.

Say nice things to people. Speak nice, sweet things to people. Number, sorry, six, seven.

Say things which are meaningful. Don't waste your time. Number eight.

Be happy when other people get stuff. Number nine. Be sad when other people have trouble.

Number ten. Figure out where reality is coming from. Which one is most important?

Number ten. So, then Chandrakirti asked the question, why did Buddha teach morality second? Why is it the second perfection?

And we're going to answer, the answer is here. It's called seed management. Karmic seed management.

For example, ready? If you want a boyfriend, then which should you try according to Buddha? Go to the nightclub or go online?

Which one? Which one? Yeah, first take care of a lonely person.

Go visit the old lady in the nursing home. Go visit the old lady in the nursing home. That's the real seed.

That's the real seed. Now, question. If you go to the nursing home, like when you touch the front door, I have my old lady, she has a front door.

Whenever I touch the front doorknob, I have to think a certain thought in my mind. If my thought in my mind is, I'm going to use this old lady to get a girlfriend. I'm going to use her to get a girlfriend.

Touch the door, open the door. Will I get a girlfriend or not? We had this discussion in Tsongkhapa last time.

Yeah, nothing can stop it. Nothing can stop it. Forget your motivation, doesn't matter.

Buddha asked a question last time. If a businessman uses these principles for truly selfish reasons and doesn't care about anybody else, will they work or not? Yeah, they'll work.

You open the door of the nursing home, you help the lonely person, you will plant seeds for a boyfriend. But what kind of boyfriend will he be? He will use you for sex, for money.

By the way, Chinese ladies, watch out for American boys. Okay? Don't be stupid, okay?

If they ask for your credit card, say, you use your own credit card, honey. If they ask you for an airplane ticket to China, say, no, you get me my airplane ticket to America first. If they want to have sex, say, are we going to get married before that?

Do I have to teach you this thing also? Things are different here. Things are different in America.

Your system in China is very good, very nice, very sweet, very pure, very good. They don't understand it here. So be careful.

They don't have this training. In China, the attitude is very nice. We are getting together because we want to have a family and we want to help our parents and we want to help our society.

But be careful about the boys here, okay? Seriously. Okay.

They don't have this training. They don't have this idea. They didn't grow up like that.

I'm one of them. BYIN PA'I THAMS CAD NAS TSUL KHRIMS BYIN DU BSTAM NI BRTZE BA YIN Why do you think Buddha mentioned morality after giving? Think about the old lady.

Yeah, you're going to get money but that's not enough. For example, you want to be healthy while you're having the money. If you're sick all the time and you have a lot of money.

Somebody told me a good joke in China. Before 40, serve your stomach. After 40, pay the doctors.

I heard this in China. It means to have a healthy body, to have a strong body, even for many lifetimes, you need morality. You have to treat people nice.

Otherwise, you will have money but you'll be sick all the time or you'll be unhappy. It's like the boyfriend. You will get the boyfriend but he will be selfish.

He will use you. You have to manage your seeds. Multiple seed management.

You have to have a good body to use the money that you get by giving. You have to have a strong body which means you have to have morality. You have to be generous.

You have to be kind to other people because you don't want to be a rich person surrounded by selfish, nasty people. A lot of rich people, all around them are nasty people. The only people they meet are people who want to use them for money.

I met, can I say her name? I met the daughter of George Pearl. She came to my class.

I said, people must bother you all the time for money. He made a billion dollars in one day. He made a billion dollars in one day.

He broke the Bank of England. He made a billion dollars in one day. I said, people must be asking you for money all the time.

She said, yeah, but nobody nice ever asks me for money. Nobody ever comes to me with a good project. She says rich people are waiting for a good person to come and ask them for money because they want to give.

They want to share. But we never meet nice people. All we meet are selfish people.

They just come and ask money for themselves. She said, we want to give money. We're always looking for someplace to give money but we can't meet nice people.

Got it? It means you have to manage all your seeds together. I have to be healthy to enjoy the money.

I should also have a nice partner to enjoy the money. If I have partner and money and good health but inside my mind I'm totally unhappy then that's also not good. I need a seed for that.

I need a seed for money. I need a seed for good body. I need a seed for happy mind.

I need a seed for good relationship. I need a seed for world peace. It's not fun to be rich and healthy and have a nice partner and the next country is blowing up people.

It's not fun. You can't enjoy life in America if people are cutting each other's heads off in other countries. We want everything.

You have to do multiple karmic seed management. That's the lesson of this section. Manage your seeds.

Some seeds for prosperity. Some seeds for good health. Some seeds for nice relationship.

Some seeds for inner peace. And then some seeds for world peace. Because without any one of those you can't be happy.

It's no good if you're happy and then the rest of the world is blowing itself up. But each one has a different seed. So you have to get good at planting like five seeds at once.

Got it? That's what this is about. TSUL KHRIMS BYIN DU BSTAM NI BRDZES PA YIN Why did the Buddha talk about morality after giving?

YON DANG TSUL KHRIMS BZHIN DU RNAMS PA'I NA If you plant your good seeds in the garden called morality, BRJE BU GNAD CHOS BYAS PA MED PAR RGYUR there will be no interruption in the flow of the crops. Meaning your body won't fail you. And not just one life but multiple lifetimes.

You'll be super healthy and you'll have enough money to help other people. Here we go. Here's Tsongkhapa.

GANG GIS PHYIR TSUL KHRIMS CHAL BA NI NGAN DUR GCIG PA SOGS NYES PA'I DUS MA'I GNAS SU BRGYUR PA DE'I PHYIR When you hurt other people, when you give them bad food, when you don't respect their things, when you don't respect their partners, NGAN DUR GCIG PA SOGS NYES PA'I DUS MA'I GNAS SU BRGYUR That will take you to the lower realms after you die. SDIG PA THA BAG PA'AM PAR BRDZAD PA'I RGYAL BA'I The Buddhas who have defeated all bad deeds, BYIN PA LA SOGS PA YIN RTEN CHOS MI SA BAR BYA BA'I PHYIR If you want your good karmic seeds to never wear out, for example, the good karma you get by giving, if you want those seeds to keep growing, SA BA'I PHYIR BYIN PA'I GTAM ZAD NAS Those Buddhas, after they talked about giving, DE'I GRUB THOGS SU After that, TSUL KHRIMS They talked about morality.

BYAS SU BRGYUR BA DE'I GRUB PA'I GTAM NYID ZAD PA YIN NO That's the GTAM. NYID, what's NYID? Yeah, but here it means that and only that.

They talked about morality. Because if you want your prosperity to continue, you must be moral. You have to plant seeds for morality if you want the seeds for prosperity to continue.

If you want the gig to keep going, you got to be sweet to other people. Not just generous. DE'I RGYUD ZIN NAS YIN RTEN THAMS CAD KYI RTEN DU RGYUR PA'I PHYIR TSUL KHRIMS NYID ZHING NGO Morality is a SHING.

A field. It's like a garden. Morality is a garden.

Plant your money karma there. Plant your relationship karma there. Plant your inner peace karma there.

Plant your world peace karma there. That's the place where you plant it. It's on the foundation of being nice to other people.

Morality is such a big word. It just means being nice to other people. Don't hurt other people.

When you're driving, don't use your phone. You might kill somebody. When you go to the public toilet, this is for the boys, try to make your aim a little better.

I'm sure if you go in the toilet in the airport, it's like an ocean. I'm sure those men don't do that at home or their wife will kill them. So, they must be able to aim correctly.

But they don't do it. Why? It's public toilet.

They don't care. If you treat public things different than you treat your own things, you're stealing. Third one, respect other people's partners.

Geshe-la, true love, I found my soul mate. She's married already, but that's okay, I found my soul mate. Yeah, okay, take her away from this other guy.

How long will it take for the karma to come back before she's off cheating on you? Duh! It doesn't take Einstein to figure it out.

Come on, it's so stupid. If you don't feel your partner is your soul mate, then plant some better seeds and that partner will change. You don't have to.

And if you quit that partner and get another partner, they're going to become un-soul mate in about six weeks. ,ZHING DER DRIN GZOGS KYI YON DANG RNAM PAR PHAL BA NA, ,RGYUD DRIN GZOGS KYI BRAL BU LUS DANG, ,LONG CHOS SANGS PA LA NYON CHOS PA'I RGYUD, ,GA'A KHONG NAS KHONG TU RNAM PAR, ,LONG CHOS SANGS PA LA NYON CHOS PA'I RGYUD, If you keep your morality while you're giving, then your health will just continue to get better and better and better and then you can enjoy the money. Then you can have your cake and eat it too.

,BRE BU TSUL PHAL ZHING, By the way, some of you think this doesn't sound very bodhisattva to talk about money and health. he's going to ask this question later. That question is coming.

Oh, DCI is not religious. DGONG NAS BSGOM TU RNAM PAR SPYOD PA'I ,'JES BU TSOGS PA'I ZHING, ,'DU RING PO RLONGS SPYOD PAR GNOD KYIS You will be able to enjoy the fruits of your karma longer and longer if you keep your morality. ,DE LAS GZHAN DU NA, ,DE LTAR MI NUS PA'I PHYIR RO But if you don't keep your morality, it doesn't matter how much seed you planted for prosperity, you won't be able to enjoy it.

It will be interrupted. ,DE NI BRDZIN PA STONG BA RNAMS KYI ,'JIN BRAS KYI RLONGS SPYOD PHUN SOGS ,'BYUNG BA'I KHO NAS TSIS MI STONG BA, ,RLONGS SPYOD DE GANG GI SPYOD PAR LUS BRTAN ,PHUN SOGS KYI TSIS DANG So people who are going to get into the karma game, the karma seed planting game, it's not enough just to plant prosperity. You have to plant a body with which you can use the money.

You got to plant both. You can't just be single-minded. Seed means you can't be single-minded on prosperity because you got to plant a healthy body to use it.

And that comes from morality. See, ,RLONGS SPYOD DE SKYE BA DUS MA'ONG BA'I TSIS KYANG, ,STANG DGOS LA, Even if you plant the seeds to have a lot of prosperity for many lifetimes, if you don't plant morality seeds, you won't have a body to use them. ,DE'I THABS KYANG TSUL BRTZOM GSUNG BA, ,BZHIN DU GAL BYAS BAR BSHAD DGOS PA ZHIG, Morality is the way to have that kind of a healthy body.

,BYANG SEMS LAS DANG BO BA'I KYANG, So here's the question. Somebody says, okay, Tsongkhapa, you're starting to sound like an economist. Is that the goal of Buddhism?

Make lots of money, be young and healthy for as long as you can. Is this the goal of Buddhism? Why are you getting off on this?

,BYANG SEMS LAS DANG BO BA'I KYANG, Beginner bodhisattvas. What do you call? Tenderfoot.

Neophyte. Rookie. Newbies.

Beginners. Just started in the bodhisattva game. Business.

Bodhisattva business. The new guys. The new guys in the bodhisattva business.

,SNGAR BSHAD PA THAR BYIN PA STONG BA LA TSUNG DGOS LA, They should focus on giving first. ,LA But, ,DE YANG PHYIR DU SBYAR BA'I SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYI DON DU, But they should do it for other people. I want to make money.

Why? ACIP needs money. Diamond Mountain needs money.

If the Deutschlanders, if the German people, didn't have money, they couldn't have offered the floor. Got it? For you to sit on, so you could listen to Dharma.

If we didn't have these carpets, do you know what your butt would be like right now? There's so many splinters on this old plywood. What's her name gave the carpets?

Yeah, Floss Barber. To hide the floor. I mean the non-floor.

,TSUNG DGOS LA, ,DE YANG PHYIR DU SBYAR BA'I SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYI DON DU, So yes, should bodhisattvas be into giving things to make more money? Tsongkapa says, yes. Why?

SEMS CAN, PHYIR DU SBYAR BA means for the purpose of SEMS CAN, for other people, to take care of other people. How much did ACIP cost so far? Five million dollars.

How much did Diamond Mountain cost so far? It's around eight. It's around eight million.

Something like that. I'm going to get an email from Rob. Geshe-la, it's 8.164. So every hour you spent in that retreat, it was very expensive. It took a lot of money. All the eight million dollars went into this place. We are paying for a few hours of real quiet.

We pay eight million dollars that you can have a quiet place to sit. Really, this is the quietest place I ever experienced. These three days, you guys did a great job.

There was no noise. Everybody was meditating. I think so.

Or maybe the people with the iPhones were. I don't know. And it's worth it.

It's worth eight million dollars to put a hundred people into a three-day retreat. You have to understand that. Because you might become a Buddha and then you help everybody on this planet.

So eight million dollars is nothing. But if you don't plant the seeds for money, you can't have this place. It takes money.

SANGS RGYAS THOB PA'I BDEN GROL GNAS STER MOD KYANG GNAS SKABS SU BDEN GROL BSTAN LA BYIN RJES MIM PA DGOS PA So right now, a bodhisattva, to be a bodhisattva, they got to have a body. Okay? Duh.

What was I thinking? My doctor was like, really, Michael, you have to stop eating 16 things, all my favorite things. You know what I'm like?

No, but I like them. And she says, look, you do a lot of good stuff. I know you travel around the world.

I know you do a lot of good stuff for people. Can you do it without a body? I'm like, no.

She said, then don't eat those 16 things. Because if you don't have a body, the rest doesn't matter. If you don't take care of your body, the rest doesn't matter.

You can be a great meditator. You can study Tibetan for your whole life. You can translate anything.

But if you don't have a body, how do you get a healthy body? Morality. Morality.

Take care of other people. Don't pee pee on the floor. Don't give people cakes if you love them.

Give them fruits and vegetables. Respect other people's partners. And then you'll always have a healthy body.

And you can't be a bodhisattva if you don't have a body. That's Je Tsongkapa's answer. I'm not a businessman.

I'm not a physical fitness freak. I'm just saying, without money, you can't make Diamond Mountain. Without a body, you can't do bodhisattva stuff.

You got to collect those karmas. DANG DE YANG KHYE BA SDUG MAR BYUNG DGOS LA Not only that, a real bodhisattva is planting the seed for future healthy bodies also. They're like not trying to be healthy this week or this month.

They're thinking ahead. I need 10,000 healthy bodies in a row until I get to Buddhahood. I got to collect those seeds.

I got to collect those seeds. So bodhisattva's reason to follow the first two perfections is different. I can't help other people if I'm not healthy.

And I can't help other people if I'm broke all the time. I can do nice things, I can't do a lot. LAS RNAMS BDAG DE BSTAN MED NA BYANG SEMS KYI SPYOD PA LA SLOB PA'I THUN KHYEN MI TZAM BA'I PHYIR If you don't have a body, perhaps you're missing something in your bodhisattva career.

He's like joking. MI TZAM BA means maybe you're missing something if you don't have a body. Or if you're sick, completely sick all the time or completely wiped out all the time, tired all the time.

Yeah, how can you help people? You got to have energy. You got to have a healthy body.

So it's not necessarily selfish. You can use karma for money and for good health out of kindness, out of compassion for others. Because you want to be able to serve.

Alright, next subject. I'm changing subjects. That's what the little stars mean.

So I didn't give you the whole book because it would take me, I don't know, 20 years to teach it to you. So I just took little pieces out. What time I have to stop?

You need pee-pee break? Anybody who needs a pee-pee break, just go. It's not impolite.

I give permission. Lama gives permission. If you need a pee-pee break, just sneak out.

And we'll keep going, and we'll keep going. JI LTAR RGYAL TSOG RO DANG LHAN CIG DANG LTA SHES NA NA MA DAG LHAN CIG BZHIN DE LTAR TSOS DANG DBANG BYAS DANG GNYIS BYAS DE'I PHYIR BA DANG LHAN CIG GNAS MIN DU Who wrote that? Who wrote the poetry?

Master Chandrakirti. Good. This is very cool.

I don't know. RGYAL TSOG means what? Ocean.

What's a RO? A corpse. Now, those of you who ever spent a lot of time on the ocean, or on the beach, like San Pancho.

No? Thailand. There's something interesting.

You can always see this. If any animal dies in the ocean, like a fish or a dog, the body will float to the beach. It will fill up with air, and it's really stinky, and it always ends up on the beach.

In the old, old days of Buddhism in India, they believed that all lakes, all oceans, all springs have a spirit living there, a dragon. A dragon. We call them Naga.

It's exactly a dragon. Water dragons. They like water.

This spring up here, this is the only spring in this part of Arizona. That's why there's a fort next to it, because they fought for the water. This place is the only place where water comes out of these mountains.

A Tibetan Lama came here and said, you're so lucky, you have a water dragon. Lives under here. That's why you have water here.

Then he did all these water dragon prayers. That's why you have water in your cottage. It comes from underground.

In ancient India, they believed that all bodies of water have a dragon living inside, a water dragon. They don't like corpses. They think they're super dirty.

They don't like dead animals, dead fish. So they push them up on the beach. That's what they believed in ancient India.

Those dragons, they don't like, they can't stand to be next to a dead body. So they always push the water. Then they push it up on the beach.

Get it out of the ocean. This is my house. Get that, ew.

Push it up on the beach. It means cannot coexist. Water dragons, any kind of dead body, doesn't matter, fish or human or dog, they will push it out of the ocean.

We don't like that. Cannot stay together. Why did he mention that?

Let's talk about it. I'm going to go straight to the commentary. There's more rude text, but I'll cover it later.

GSUM PA JI LTAR DE SPER NA RGYAL TSO CHEN PO NI The great oceans of the world. LUS SANGS DRAG CHEN RNAMS Nagas, water dragons, they are very, what do you call? They are obsessed with cleanliness.

What do you call that? OCD? I don't know.

Like everything has to be super clean. You know certain people like that. You walk in their house, they have this really nice soft carpet and it's covered with plastic.

Don't get the carpet dirty. My brother was a slob. My mom put him in the US Army.

He invited me to his house. I didn't make the bed right. He never invited me back.

That's called SANGS DRAG CHEN. SANGS DRAG CHEN means obsessed with cleanliness. By the way, you're supposed to use it when you make tormas or when you make offerings.

Oftentimes, they'll wear a mask and things like that because you don't want to make them dirty. You have to wash your hands before. When you make the fire offerings, you should wash very carefully.

That's also called ritual cleanliness. SANGS DRAG CHEN LUS SANGS DRAG CHEN RNAMS GNAS PA'I THU ROG GANG YIN LAB GYI CHUR DU PHEN PA So, because of their attitude about cleanliness, when a dead body is thrown into the water, they push it up with the waves. They create waves to push it out of the ocean.

RO DANG LHAN CUD DU MI BRAL PA They cannot sit next to a dead body. They cannot share the same place called the ocean with a dead body. One of us has to go and it's going to be you.

One of us has to go. What's the point? There's also a thing called, in Tibet and China, there's good luck and bad luck.

It's called DRAG ZHIG PA and NA NAG MA. The Tibetan is NA NAG MA. NA NAG MA means like a bad hand or something.

My boss in the diamond business, 19 years, he taught me how to hire people. The first question he'd say is, were they ever involved in a bankruptcy? I'd say, yeah, but they're really smart.

He'd say, don't touch them. They have a bad hand. What do you call?

It's like an evil eye or something. No, they can't work for us. They have a, I don't know, it's bad luck.

So DRAG ZHIG PA means, like DRAG ZHIG DE LAS, it means good luck. NA NAG MA means bad luck. They can't stay together.

A really, what do you call it? Lucky business person shouldn't stay with a person who had bankruptcy or something like that. Like we'd never stay in the same office or something like that.

We're just polite to them and nice to them, but we don't make a business partner. They have a, what do you call? Something wrong.

We don't work with them. We don't start a business with them. It's just, that's the Asian way.

DE BZHIN DU TSUL KHRIMS YOD SU BDAG PA'I DBANG DU BYAS PA'I DANG NI CHEN PO SA NYID PA And bodhisattvas on the second bodhisattva level, they cannot stay with a person who's doing wrong stuff. They cannot stay with them. Understand?

They can't. It means, be careful who your friends are. Be careful who your friends are.

DCI was approached by a very big company to do some work together. And then we found out that they had been doing some bad stuff, some illegal stuff, immoral stuff. And it was a hard decision.

We were like, man, that's a really big company. And then we just said, no, we can't. I'm sorry, bye-bye.

So it means, if you want to keep your morality, and you know this other person is not, you can be polite to them. You can be nice to them. Also be careful not to judge them.

And especially don't think you are a better person because you're not. If you had a small different circumstances, you would do much worse things. Everybody here would kill somebody with their hands if thing is bad enough.

We're not so pure. But don't hang around with people whose morality is slippery. Because you will get that habit.

It will spread to you. Be careful. Be careful who your friends are.

And don't, especially business partner or something, then check them out. Are they moral? It's better to be with a moral, stupid, incompetent business partner than with an immoral, smart, rich business partner.

Got it? Don't give up that just because they're very rich. Just because they're very rich, don't say, well, he's not exactly moral, but he's a good investor.

They will hurt you. Sometimes they will hurt you. Stick with the moral people.

They will get more intelligent later. And they will get more rich later because they're moral. So first thing, look for moral.

Hook up with moral people. And then later they will help you. No matter how rich they are, no matter how smart they are, if they're immoral, they're going to get in trouble sooner.

I had a business partner, immoral. Made hundreds of millions of dollars. And recently I took them out for breakfast.

I had to pay. They didn't have the money for breakfast. And I was waiting for this moment.

I said, this moment's going to come. I knew for years I was thinking, this moment's going to come. They couldn't pay for breakfast.

They don't have a place to stay. They lost their apartment. Hundreds of millions of dollars.

So be picky like Water Dragon. Be picky like Water Dragon. Don't get too close to people who are sneaky because they will hurt you.

Sooner or later they will be sneaky to you. The stupidest thing a business person can do is to train their employee to cheat other people. Why?

They will cheat you later. Like really stupid people hire people and teach them to cheat the customer. And then later they steal all their money.

And then they're like, wow, why did that happen? Duh. Okay.

Then he makes a comment, which I'm not going to translate the whole thing. There's a book that says, good luck can stay with bad luck in the same house. That book is by Aryadeva.

And someone complained at Tsongkhapa. But Aryadeva said bad luck and good luck can stay in the same house. He said, come on.

He's talking about a guy named Mr. Bad Luck and a guy named Mr. Good Luck. It doesn't mean good luck and bad luck can stay in the same house. Okay, got it?

I'm not even going to translate it. Next. How much time I got?

3.15. Don't forget, you can pee pee if you want to. ,GANG GIS KHA ZHIG GANG LA SPONG BYAS PA, ,GSUNG DU MIG PA YOD NA TSUL KHRIMS BDE, ,'JIG RTEN PA YI PHA ROL CING ZHES ZHES, ,GSUM LA CHAGS PA'I STONG DE JIG RTEN DE, ,GANG GIS Who follows morality? KHA ZHIG Towards whom?

,GANG LA SPONG BYAS PA And what do they give up? So let's say you're going to lie. The liar, the person you lied to, and the lying.

The liar, the person you lied to, and the lying. ,GSUM DU MIG PA YOD NA Or you can say, the person who decides not to lie, the lie they decide not to tell, and the person they decide not to hurt. Okay, got it?

The person... Okay, your boss says, did you send the shipment to JC Penney yesterday? And you did not, right?

And you're like, yeah, yeah, I sent it. You want to say yeah, because you're afraid you're going to get fired. But because you're a Buddhist, you have to tell the truth.

The person who decides to tell the truth, the truth that they decide to tell, and the person they decide to tell it to. Those three. If you think they're not coming from you, that morality is normal.

Nothing. That's nothing morality. Got it?

If you think the person who's not going to lie doesn't come from your own seeds, and if you think the lie they're not going to tell doesn't come from your own seeds, and if you think the person they're not going to lie to doesn't come from their own seeds. If you're not thinking about emptiness, then your morality is nothing. Got it?

But, GSUM LA CHAGS PA'I STONG But if you understand the emptiness of the truth, and the person who decided to tell the truth, and the person they decide to tell the truth to, if you understand the emptiness of that, THEN GCIG RTEN BDE your morality is super morality. Your morality is Buddha-maker morality. Got it?

So there are two kinds of morality. There are two kinds of morality. When you decide not to try to take the other person's boyfriend or girlfriend.

There's two reasons. There's two reasons. Number one, Oh, Lama told me not to do it.

Number two, If I do it, they're going to leave me. Okay? Which one is better?

The second one. Because that person will not be immoral no matter how far they get pushed. You cannot push that person far enough to break it.

It's like super glue that gets harder every half hour. Cement, right? You have to cure cement.

Every day you leave cement it gets harder. For 20 years, for 30 years, every day it gets harder. It burns inside and it gets harder and harder.

That's the morality of a person who understands emptiness. It just gets harder and harder and harder. Why?

Yesterday I understood that if I take this person's partner, I'm going to lose them. Today, I also still understand that. Tomorrow, I will also still understand that.

It doesn't get weaker and weaker. It gets stronger and stronger. The more you understand, the more you want to be a good person because that's the only way to get things.

Got it? Dalai Lama calls it enlightened self-interest. Enlightened self-interest.

It's good. I must be nice to people. I don't have a choice.

Why? The guy's wife is also coming from me. If I break them up, I will experience that a hundred times.

It's intelligent morality. Intelligent morality is called jikten le depa. Takes you beyond the suffering world.

Morality which is not intelligent is called jikten gyi. Sutra which means what? It's stuck in the suffering world.

It's stuck in the suffering world. If you're moral for the wrong reasons, because Lama told me, because it's illegal not to do that, it will fail. If you get pushed far enough, you will fail.

If you understand you shouldn't do something because it's going to hurt you more, you will never do it. Got it? Nobody can push you hard enough to steal something.

The harder things get, the stronger your morality becomes. Got it? If you understand emptiness.

Got it? Who said that? Chandrakirti.

Got it? Let's see the commentary. ,GANG ZAG GANG GI'I SPONG BA DANG, ,GANG ZAG GANG GI ZHIG SPONG BA DANG, ,SEMS CAN GANG LA SPONG BA, The morality you decide to keep, tell the truth.

The person you decide to keep this morality towards, I won't lie to this person. Okay? The person being moral.

Me. Okay? ,SEMS CAN GANG LA SPONG BA, Those are called korsum.

Say korsum. Korsum. I call them the three elements, the three elements in an act of giving, or the three elements in an act of morality.

What are the three elements in an act of giving? The person giving, the person receiving, and the give. In morality, it's the person who decide not to lie, the lie they decide not to tell, and the person they decide not to lie to.

It's a little more difficult. It's always negative. The person they decide not to hurt.

Those are the three spheres. If you keep your morality because you understand you're helping yourself, then that's emptiness. And then that becomes ,'BOD ROL BO LAS MI DO, ,BOD ROL BO LAS MI DO, That's the meaning of ,BOD ROL BO LAS MI DO.

Perfect. Perfect morality. Because you understand why.

That's Chinese for ,BOD ROL BO LAS MI DO. Okay? All right.

,RDZAN DANG BA'I TSUL KHRIMS, ,JIG RTEN PA'I BAR DO CHEN PO'I ZHES ZHES LA, But a person who understands the emptiness of the person who didn't tell the lie, and the emptiness of the person they're not lying to, and the emptiness of the truth they're going to tell the other person, who understands those three kinds of emptiness, that's perfection of wisdom. That's ,BOD ROL BO LAS MI DO. ,CHEN PO'I TSUL KHRIMS, ,DE SNGAR BSHAD PA'I GOR GSUNG DU, ,RDAN PAR MIG PA'I CHAGS PA'I STONG PA, Because that perfection is STONG PA, empty of CHAGS PA, of grasping to the reality of those three things.

That morality is STONG PA, empty of CHAGS PA, grasping to the true existence of those three things. True meaning from their own side. If you think the person you're not lying to comes from their own side, you're mistaken.

If you think the lie you didn't tell comes from its own side, you're mistaken. If you're thinking the person who chose not to lie is coming from their own side, you're mistaken. And then it's not morality.

It's not real morality. Why? It will fail.

Pushed hard enough, it will fail. ,SAGS MED KYI SHES RAB, That's called Vimala Wisdom. That's stainless.

,SAGS PA MED PA, ,GZHES PA ZIN NA, ,JIG RTEN LAS BDAG PA'I PHAR BAR DU CHEN PO TSUL KHRIMS KYI GNYIS, So there are those two divisions. Morality which causes you more suffering and morality which takes you out of suffering. Morality which causes you more suffering is I won't take this guy's wife because it's illegal or something like that.

The reason is wrong. So what's wrong with that? If you don't take a guy's wife because you know you feel it's wrong, what's the karma?

What karma will happen? What's the result of what we call dirty good karma? It wears out.

Got it? It wears out. So it's still in the suffering world.

So there's two kinds of good karma. Dirty good karma and clean good karma. There's dirty good karma and there's clean good karma.

Dirty good karma says I won't take this guy's wife because the church told me not to. Will that guy enjoy a long happy marriage? Yes.

But then they'll both die. There will be an end to it. So that's still in the suffering world.

Then the other guy says I'm not going to take this guy's wife because if I do, I will lose ten wives. Then he doesn't take the guy's wife. Then that guy will have happiness for endless.

That's called clean good karma. So there's dirty good karma and there's clean good karma. Good karma done without understanding kong shing, without understanding emptiness, is called dirty good karma because it wears out.

Good karma done with understanding emptiness keeps recycling itself and it never ends. Which one's better? The second one.

Clean good karma. Okay. I like to call the next verse...

Oh, wait. Where is that? That song's called Harvest Moon.

Why am I talking about that? The next verse is called Harvest Moon. What does Harvest Moon mean?

Harvest means the time of the year when people collect the crops. It's the autumn, the fall. It's called the moon.

I don't know why. There's some astronomical reason. I don't know why.

But the moon looks much bigger in October or September. The full moon just above the horizon looks huge. That's called Harvest Moon.

,RGYAL ZAD BDAG BA LAS CHUNG ZHIG MIN SRID PAR YI, ,'PHAL GYUR PHYI MA DANG PHYAL, ,PHYI MA MED DI'ANG, ,SDUG BSKYED DUS KYI LTA BA, ,'OD NI JI BZHIN DU, ,'GRO YID KYI SDUG PA GSAL BAR BYAS PA YIN, If you keep your morality because you understand emptiness, how does it affect the people around you? How does it impact on the people around you? That's the next subject.

It's called Harvest Moon. ,JI LTAR SDUG BSKYED DUS KYI LTA BA, ,PHYI MA DANG PHYAL BA YI, There's a special light that comes from the full moon in the autumn. There's a special light that comes from that moon.

According to Buddhism and ancient India, ancient China, when that moonlight touches you, you feel cool and calm. If you're having a fight with your husband and it's a full moon, go outside. When the light touches your body, it's supposed to have this effect on your body.

It's supposed to calm you down. We had a nice full moon the last few days, right? Did it make you feel more peaceful?

I don't know. Sometimes wake me up. I'm like...

But they say in the... You can feel it if you're in the country like this, empty place, with a strong moonlight. It changes all the animals.

All the animals in the desert change. They become more peaceful. It's very strange.

When the light touches your body, you feel... If you go out and stand in the moonlight, you feel some peace. Those are more sensitive when you're outside of the city.

So maybe some of you never been outside of the city. But when you come here and you do retreat for one week or two weeks or three weeks, you can feel these natural things affecting your body. You can't feel it in a city.

,'JUG GI BDAG PHYI MA DANG, ,DE BA SKYE BA'I SDONG BA GSUNGS PA BYAS SHING DU, So moonlight, especially in the fall, has this automatic calming effect on people. When the moonlight touches your body, you feel more calm and pure. ,RGYAL BA'I SRAS SANG NYID PA'I BDAG BA LA'I CHUNG MA'I, ,CHAL KHRIMS KYI MTHIL MA DANG, ,BRAL BA'I TSUL KHRIMS, The light that comes from a person who understands emptiness and is keeping their morality is the same.

There's a spiritual light that's coming from their body. And when people get close to them, they feel happy. Because that light is touching other people.

I have a friend in India. His name is Duru. He's one of the most moral people I know.

Extremely moral. We had dinner with him, right? In India.

He's like a little Indian guy. He looks like just another small Indian guy. But his morality power is like a sun or like a moon.

And when you sit next to him, you're just like, wow. He's just super. When you sit next to him, you feel happy.

It's a weird thing. It's like, what do you call it? Halo.

Like an invisible halo coming off of him. And just to sit next to him, it feels good. Every time I go to India, I go to sit with him.

I will fly 24 hours just to sit with him. So he looks just like a normal Indian guy, but he's like a moon. Just, when you sit next to him, you feel happy.

,'OD DANG LDAN PA'I, ,GSA GNYIS PO'I KHRID MA MED PA'I ZHES PA'I, ,TZAN DON DANG LDAN PA'I DI YANG, The bodhisattva who has the morality based on emptiness fulfills the meaning of the name of the second bodhisattva level, which is Vimala. Totally pure. The light that comes from them is Vimala.

It's totally pure. And when it touches you, you feel happy. To be around a very moral person automatically makes you happy.

,TZAN DON DANG LDAN PA'I YANG, ,CHAL BA'I TSUL RIM GYIS BSKYED PA'I SBYOR, ,YID KYI SDUG BS SOGS SBYOR, Even if the other person wants to do some sneaky things or dishonest things, when they get next to a bodhisattva who has immaculate light, who has this clean light, they kind of don't want to do bad things anymore. So we should try to hang out with super moral people. They may not be handsome.

They may not be famous. They may not be rich. But if you hang out with them, your life will be blessed.

Much better. Much better. So if you have a choice to hang out with powerful bad people or little good people, hang out with the little good people because they will give you power.

Understand? ,SA NI SPA BA NI, ,'KHOR BA KHOR BA'I GONG SU MI RTOGS PAR, ,SRID PAR KHOR BA MI NYON, Then somebody asks Tsongkapa a question. Has a person on the second bodhisattva level seen emptiness directly or not?

Yeah, that's how you get to the first bodhisattva level. The moment, the millisecond that you start to see emptiness directly on a bodhisattva track, you're a bodhisattva. First level.

You reach first level bodhisattva. Same moment. In the same moment.

Has a person on the second level seen emptiness directly? Much more. Much, much more.

Many times more. Many times more. ,KHOR BA So can we say they are in samsara or not?

I'll drink coffee. You will think about the answer. Are they in samsara or not?

When that question is asked in Buddhism, the meaning of the question is are they creating new causes for samsara or not? Not really. Not a person who's understood, a person who's seen emptiness directly can make small slips, but nothing that can keep them in samsara.

So we say, traditionally in Buddhism, we say they're not in samsara. They're of samsara, they're not in samsara. Like that.

First level also. Then the question comes. Somebody asked Tsongkhapa, how can the Vimala light from this bodhisattva affect someone in samsara?

Because they're not in samsara, aren't they? How can that harvest moon light make other people feel cool? Because how can they be in the same world with other people?

,MI RTOGS PA'I SRID PA'I KHOR BA MAN YANG, The bodhisattva's not in samsara, but the effects of their light touch people in samsara. Got it? They're not personally in samsara in the sense of creating more.

But their behavior can pour out, the light of their morality can touch other people around them who are still in samsara. ,YIN NAMS PA NI RTZOGS PA THAMS CAD BYANG SEMS, ,DE'I RJES SU SGROR BA'I PHYIR DANG, ,SEMS CAN GYI SDOD NUS DMAN RLANG GI DBANG GIS, Also, those bodhisattvas have already made very powerful prayers that everything they do should impact on others. So that also makes the moon light spread to other people, even though they're kind of on different levels.

For example, it's not unusual for that kind of bodhisattva to be a leading political figure. It's not unusual for high bodhisattvas to become kings or princes or presidents or like that. It's possible.

It's not always the case, right? But they have such powerful karma that it's possible. I think the current president of the United States, and I do think Xi Jinping also, they have a high degree of morality.

I believe that. I think Obama and Xi Jinping are similar in that way. I mean, they're not perfect, okay?

But in general, they have a high degree of morality. I believe that. Integrity.

They both have integrity. I think so. Which is normal for the karma that gives you that kind of power is also the karma to be a good person, generally a good person.

They make mistakes, they do bad things, but generally they're quite moral, I think. They both have integrity, I think. It's not true of the candidates, but...

I'm pretty gentle, aren't you? Okay. Which leads a Buddhist to ask, why?

All right. Half an hour more, you can take it? You okay?

All right, then. We're going to go to the third bodhisattva level. What's the name?

Just remember me and John. ,GZHAN BYAS BU ZHING MA LUS ZEGS PA'I MA'I, ,'BUR CHUNG PHYIR NA SA NI GSUM PA DI, ,'BUR BYED PA DE'I DE SHES ZAD PO LA, ,DE TSE NI LTAR BSANGS DE SNANG BA CHUNG, ,GZHAN BYAS BU ZHING means... BU ZHING means firewood.

BU ZHING means wood, right? BU ZHING means firewood. If you stay at Diamond Mountain in the winter, BU ZHING will become one of your most important things.

I didn't know how to light a fire until I got to that. I mean, not really. GZHAN BYAS BU ZHING Here, he's comparing all the things you've ever experienced to BU ZHING.

The people you see, the things that happen to you, the land you see, the sky you see, the stars you see, the thoughts you have in your mind, they are all BU ZHING. Firewood. Then third level Bodhisattva's wisdom is like a match.

It's like a fire. It's like gasoline. The wisdom of third level Bodhisattva is like gasoline, torch.

And everything in the world is like BU ZHING, firewood. Third level, we're on third level. So their knowledge of emptiness is so powerful that it deconstructs everything they ever see, immediately.

BU ZHING Problem. BU ZHING Irritating people. BU ZHING They have this light, burns everything.

There's nothing they cannot understand. Their mind is like a powerful fire. And everything in the world is like toilet paper.

BU ZHING Just burns up like that. You can call it toilet paper level. Forget the firewood.

It's like an atomic bomb next to some toilet paper. It's that burning power. ZHES GYIS BU ZHING MA LUS TEG PA'I MA'I DGOS CHUNG That fire burns from their mind.

So we call this level shining. The flame of the toilet paper roll exploding is shining. DE ZHIG SREG PA LA So that son or daughter of the Buddhas, at that time, there is a light that comes from them, which is SANG DA.

Say SANG DA. SANG means copper. Is there copper in here?

Kind of that color. Yeah, that's nice. This vent color.

Copper, copper color. So at the third level, the Bodhisattva is supposed to have a halo of this kind of copper color. It's supposed to be the color of the sun when it first breaks the horizon in the morning.

I don't know. Like Arizona flag. BYANG SEMS KYI SANG NYID GSUM PA'I STI LA NI A Bodhisattva of the third level, DGOS BYAS PA ZHES BYAR It's called shining.

CI PHYIR DGOS BYAS PA ZHES BYAR ZHES NA Why do you call them shining? DE NYID TSE DAM DANG THON PA YIN TE Because they resemble the name shining. SA GSUM PA THOB PA DE TSE ZHES BYAS BU ZHING MA LUS PA ZIG PAS YES SHES KYIS MI They have a fire in their mind which puts on, sets afire all the objects they see.

Rips them apart. Burns them to nothing. Understands them totally.

Like that. NI DGOS X-ray, cosmic ray. ZAS PA YES SHES KYIS MI NYID NANG GIS SPYOD PA KUN All appearance that things are coming from their own side burns them.

NYAM BZHAG During NYAM BZHAG, SMAGS PA DE Yeah, during meditation. During deep meditation, their wisdom burns all those things. Incinerates all objects.

ZHI BAR CHEN GNYUD PAS DANG NYID CHEN Because they have this power, they are called shining. The level is called shining. So it's not exactly like they are just shining in a light.

It's more like during SMAGS PA DE, during deep meditation, their understanding incinerates all objects. DE YANG SEMS GSUM PA It should be CANG SEMS GSUM PA SEMS GSUM PA SKYES PA'I DE BA SHES PA'I SRED PA DE LA DE LA SA GSUM PA DE TSE NYID MA CHOG PA LA SKYES PA'I DUS SU The light of their wisdom resembles the color of the sun when it first breaks the horizon. SONG DRA BA'I SNANG BA CHUNG BA LTAR It's a copper color.

CANG SEMS DI LENG YES SHES KYIS SNANG BA CHUNG NGO The brightness of their state of mind is similar to that color. So it doesn't mean that you should check their head and see if there is a copper color. BDIN NI SA DER BYED THUB TU DUS MA PO'ANG MA SRED GYI KUN DU BSKYED PA'I SNANG BA CHUNG NGO But, says Tsongkhapa, during BYED THOB, That's after you see emptiness directly.

So seeing emptiness directly the first time takes about twenty minutes. And then after that, for twenty-four hours, you have amazing experiences. You have amazing experiences.

During the jade talk, during the twenty-four hours, U NAM, they do have this light. They do shine with this kind of light. Okay.

RIN CHEN THAMS BA, he quotes RIN CHEN THAMS BA. Yeah, only for third level. Yeah, yeah, it's still called NGON TSUM DANG BRJES RTOGS.

The real thing and the aftermath. RIN CHEN THAMS BA RAT NAMS MA LA The book by Nagarjuna, okay, the String of Jewels. SA GSUM PA NAS DGOS BYAS PA'O Bodhisattvas of the third level are shining.

YOD ZHIG ZHI BA'I YOD CHUNG PHYIR YOD ZHIG ZHI BA'I YOD CHUNG PHYIR The light of peace comes from their mind. But the word in Sanskrit for peace, which is shanty, also means to burn something up. YOD ZHIG ZHI BA'I YOD CHUNG PHYIR SEMS DANG LON CHE SKYES PA DANG They get deep meditation.

They get clairvoyance. DGOS BYAGS SHES DANG YONGS SU'I PHYIR They burn away their desires, their anger, and their ignorance. DE RNAM PAR MIN PA'I NA And because of the karma of that, SOS DANG GSOS DU LHAG PAR SPYOD They gain exceptional patience and enthusiasm.

What's he talking about? The karma of being at the third bodhisattva level triggers the fourth one. GSOS DU LHAG PAR SPYOD PHYA'I DBANG CHEN KHYAD PA STE They are the lords of gods.

BRDOD PA'I BDAG GIS BSDOD CHAGS RTOGS PA YIN They have turned back desire. We still have time. It's okay.

You don't mind? Katie made a really good, I see. You okay?

Question? To make light, shining. How patient can a bodhisattva at the third level be?

How patient is ultimate patience? Do first level bodhisattvas have patience? Yeah, but at the third bodhisattva level, it goes to boom.

Their patience takes off. Does a first bodhisattva level person have patience? Of course.

Does a second bodhisattva level person have patience? Yes. But when they hit the third bodhisattva level, boom.

It's like a billion times greater. That's why we call it the third bodhisattva level. So how patient do you have to be to be at the third bodhisattva level?

What can they put up with that I can't? ,YOD ZHIG GI NGANG BA DE LTAR BU NYES PA'I BYANG SEMS, ,DE LA If you reach this kind of light, this kind of shining, ,GSOS PA'I BAR CAN LHAG PA BSTAN PA'I PHYIR, they reach a new level of the perfection of patience. ,GAL TE ZHES MOD GSUNGS ,SNGAR BSHAD PA'I SBYIN PA DANG TSUL KHRIMS LHAG PA DANG, ,DE LA YANG LDAN DU YOD PAS, The automatic effect of reaching the level of generosity that you get at the first bodhisattva level and the level of morality you reach at the second bodhisattva level is that it triggers a higher form of patience.

,DE BAR CAN LHAG MA RGYAS KYI NANG NAS SOGS PA LHAG PA'O, How many perfections are left at this point to be supercharged? Seven, seven more. Okay, got it?

We're talking 10 perfections, 10 bodhisattva levels. So at the third level, you have seven to go. But it's patience which kicks in at this time.

Super patience. ,RGYAS KYI NANG NAS SOGS PA LHAG PA'O, ,LHAG LUGS NI GSOS PA'I BAR CAN GYUR NYAMS NAMS BUD DU BYUNG BA, Say LHAG PA. It means take it to a new level.

What's another word for that in Tibetan? Yeah, BOGS BYIN PA. We had a meditation course here for many years and the teacher asked me, what should I call my course?

I said, call it BOGS BYIN PA. It means take it to a new level. LHAG PA.

You take your patience to a new level. ,BAR CAN GYUR NYAMS NAMS BUD DU BYUNG BA TZAM, ,LHAG MA DON LA DUS MI BYUNG BA, They take their patience to the new level, but not the last seven yet. Not the last seven yet.

What are the last seven? Enthusiasm. I'll give you the first one for free.

Enthusiasm, meditation, wisdom, bribing your students, encouraging them, encouraging them to do what you teach them. Doing it yourself. It's harder.

Okay. So those seven still haven't been taken to a new level yet. ,DE YANG CHEN CHEN GSAN GSUM PA BA NI, They have a special kind of patience in ,GZHAN GYIS SEMS GSUNG BA'I PHYIR DANG, Say GZHAN.

GZHAN. GSUNG. GZHAN.

GZHAN. GSUNG. In DCI language, which is a special language that you have to learn, it's called crystal lakes.

What does that mean? It means your mind at any given time is like a lake in the evening when it's very calm. Everybody has this lake in their mind.

Everybody's mind is like water inside their skull and normally it's at rest. Now, if I come up to Kelly and I'm all upset because John Brady said something to me and I'm like, and my mind is like this, then when I start to relate to her, what will happen? I will disturb her mind.

The opposite of that is called GZHAN SEMS GSUNG, protecting other people's peace of mind. If you're having a bad day, go to the retreat cabin. Have it by yourself.

Don't mess up other people's minds because everything about your body language, you just got upset with somebody, you'd be like... And then already it upsets the other person's mind. You see what I mean?

The people around you. So GZHAN SEMS GSUNG is a kind of patience, like, I don't want to mess up your mind. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

I'm having a bad day. Okay. So we're going to turn to ZHES BYAS BU ZHING ZHES PAR ZHES BU LTA BU ZHES YOD ZHI ZHI BA ZHES So they have a special wisdom.

GZHAN DAG GIS KUN NAS GNAR SEMS GYI ZHI This is a very, very, very famous Buddhist teaching. You can see it in the Abhidharma also. It's an ancient, ancient Buddhist teaching.

It's called Reasons to be Pissed Off. KUN NAS GNAR SEMS GYI ZHI KUN NAS GNAR SEMS means pissed off. And ZHI means reasons.

It's a teaching called the Reasons to be Pissed Off. There are three. Ready?

They hurt me or my friends yesterday. Number two. They're hurting me and my friends today.

Number three. They're going to hurt me and my friends tomorrow. Very famous Buddhist teaching.

Very famous Buddhist teaching. How do you feel about those people? I hate them.

Why? Oh, last year they hurt me. Last year they did something to me.

How do you feel about those people? I hate them. Why?

Right now they're messing with me. Oh, I hate those people. Why?

They're planning to mess with me and my family next year. I know. Then these are three reasons to hate other people.

They hurt me or my family or my friends. They are hurting me or my family or my friends. They are going to hurt me or my family or my friends.

In Buddhism, these are called the three reasons to get upset. They're very famous. They're very, very famous.

You can read them in the ancient books. They come in the Abhidharma. ,'DI DAG GIS NGAN LA, ,GNOD PA SNGAR BYAS SO, They hurt me and my family before and my friends.

,DE DAG DAG BYAS DO, They are hurting me and my family and friends. ,MA DBANG PO NA BYAS PAR RGYUR RO, They will hurt me and my family and friends. ,RTOGS PA CHEN DU, This kind of stupid thought.

,DE LTA BU'I SGO GSUM GYI RJUG PA, ,'NGON DU BYAS PA MIN PA'I PHYIR, ,KHONG MTHONG BA'I GNAS MIN PA ZHES, ,KHYAD PA DU BYAS SO, These are called GNAS MIN PA. Say GNAS MIN PA. Bad place to go.

Bad place to go. It means not a place, right? GNAS MIN PA But what it means in Buddhism is not a good place to go.

Not a good place to go. Don't let your mind go there. ,DE LTAR YIN KYANG GAL TE, ,BDEN DAG LA GONGS SPROS PA RGA'I YID, ,BYANG SEMS DE, Now, here comes...

What was our question here? How patient do you have to be to get to the third level? What kind of patience do these people have?

Here it comes. ,GAL TE BDEN DAG LA, So if somebody else has those three thoughts, he hurt me, or I don't like him. And they come to the BYANG SEMS, to the bodhisattva, and they take the loo of the bodhisattva, the body, and they start to cut the flesh from the bodhisattva.

Then it says here, MIN PA, MA YIN PA, KYANG PA KYANG PA means only, right? We had it today. I think it was a couple hours ago.

Not just the flesh, but the RGOS, the bone. They cut to the bone. They take part of the bone.

Cut to the bone. ,GZHIN DU BYAS PA MI SPYOD PA, But they don't go like this. They don't cut you in one slice.

They go, piece by piece, bit of bone by bit of bone. They take their time. They take like an hour.

They don't just go, they don't cut you like that. Like cut a little out, cut a little bone. Does that hurt?

Yeah, okay. Let's do it again. Okay, okay.

,SANG RE RE GNAS, ,SANG RE RE means pound by pound, ounce by ounce, gram by gram. ,RGYUN CHI LAS MA SPYOD PA, They don't do it quickly. They take their time.

,DUR CING, ,DU LTUNG BA LA SPYOD PA ZIN PA MI SPYOD PA, And they keep it up for hours and hours. ,SPYOD PA PO DOR LA GZUGS PA, ,SEMS SPYOD PA MIN CHUNG, The person getting cut, who's the third level bodhisattva is. MI SPYOD PA means they don't feel upset at all.

Nothing. This isn't someone who cheated you out of $50. This is not your boyfriend called you stupid.

This is somebody cutting your skin for hours, piece by piece. And if you are a third level bodhisattva, why? What gives them the power to be like that?

,TSAM DU MA ZAD KYI, ,DIG PA DE'I KHYEN GYI NYAL BA LA SOGS PA'I SDUG BSNGAL, ,RIGS SPRING GZHAN LAS ZHAG PA NYUR, Not are they just calm. Inside they are crying. For whom?

For the other person. Inside they are crying, weeping for the other person. Oh, I can see what's going to happen to you.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. That's all I can think about.

The other person. You're a bodhisattva. Someone attacks you.

Do you get angry? No. You're just thinking, oh my God, the karma of attacking a bodhisattva, which we're going to talk about tomorrow.

The karma of attacking a bodhisattva. And all the bodhisattva can think about is, oh, oh man. Oh, what's going to happen to these people?

So they don't get angry or they don't defend themselves. Okay? They don't try to, they're just thinking about, oh, it's going to hurt so much.

Their feeling of what's going to hurt the other person is much stronger than their own pain. Okay? They can't even feel this pain because they're so much feeling the future pain of the other person.

Got it? That's a third level bodhisattva. TZAM DU MA ZAD GDIGS PA'I DE'I KHYEN RGYUN YANG BA LA SOGS PA'I SDUG BSNGAL This person will go to the hell realms because of this.

RIGS DUN GZHAN LAS LHAG PA NYON BAR MIG PA'I And other things of the same kind are going to happen to them. People will cut them endlessly. People will cut them endlessly.

And the third level bodhisattva can see it. They can see it. And it's much stronger than this.

They don't even think about this. This is nothing compared to what's going to happen to the other person. Why?

Which law of karma? Second law. The DCI people know that.

GZHAN LAS LHAG PA BYANG SEMS LA SPYOD BYED DE LA MING NAS BYAS LHAG PA GSOS PA Their patience, their ability not to get upset derives from focusing on what's going to happen to the other person. Got it? DE NI GSOS PA LHAG PA'I LHAG TSUL YIN PAS RAB DGOS SOGS SANGS NYID PA GSOS LUS BYAS PA LA RGYUD MI GRUB PA YOD KYANG It's true that a person at the first bodhisattva level and the second bodhisattva level, if someone hurts them, they also stay pretty calm.

But GSOS PA LHAG PA SKYE BA MED PA SEL BA'I They don't have this much patience. GSOS PA LHAG PA NI SANGS RGYAS NAS GSUNGS KYI BYUNG BA ZHIG PA BYA'O It's only at the third bodhisattva level that you take the patience to a higher level. We got one more thing to cover and we're done.

I got nine more minutes. There are two reasons why the bodhisattva at the third level can keep their patience. That was the first one.

That was the first one. They're focused on what's going to happen to the other person. Okay?

By the way, after we cover the two reasons that a bodhisattva at the third level can keep their patience so well, we're going to cover reasons why normal people should also keep their patience, even if you're not a bodhisattva. Okay? We're going to have a whole couple of pages tomorrow about how normal people like us or whoever can keep their patience at the gas station or in the Dharma group kitchen, places like that.

He's going to get to more normal people stuff. He's going to say, come on, let's do some normal people stuff too since we're all here. Okay.

Here's the second reason why. What? A bodhisattva at the third level can sit there and watch somebody cut their skin off, their bone, down to the bone, slowly, ounce by ounce.

,BDAG MA'I MTHONG BA'I BYANG CHUB SEMS PA LA, ,GANG ZHIG GANG GI GANG ZHIG RGYUD RTOG, ,GANG ZHIG CHOS KYANG DE YIS SU, ,GNYEN LTAR MTHONG BA DE GANG DE YIS SU, I'll go straight to the commentary. ,NYAL BA LA SOGS PA'I SDUG BSNGAL LHAG PA LA MING NAS, So when they focus on the future suffering of this person who is hurting them, ,GSOD PA LHAG PA RGYUR BA ZHIG DU, the bodhisattva can keep their patience. ,MA ZAD Not only that, it doesn't end there.

,MA ZAD It doesn't end there. Why? Because there's another reason why they keep this level of patience.

Here's the second reason. ,GANG GIS PHYIR BDAG MA'I MTHONG BA'I BYANG CHUB SEMS PA, A bodhisattva who understands emptiness, ,GONG ZHING BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I LUS LA GANG GIS PHYIR PA, the person cutting them, ,GANG ZHIG PHYIR PAR BYA BA, the flesh they are cutting, ,'DU GANG GIS TSO'I TSUL JI LTAR SPYOD BA'I, and the whole incident of the cutting. The cutter, the flesh, and the cutting.

The incident, how they cut, when they cut, all those details, those kor sum, those three parts of the incident, ,GSUM GYI CHEN RNAMS SA GSUM, but that third level bodhisattva sees it as being like a suk nyen. Suk nyen means an illusion. An illusion.

Suk nyen literally means a reflection in a mirror. That's a Buddhist word for an illusion. The reflection in a mirror.

Yi looks in the mirror in the morning in the kasita, nicer bathroom, right? And she sees Yi in the mirror, but that's not Yi. Got it?

The one in the glass is just an illusion. It's not Yi. If you tap it on her nose, nothing will happen.

She doesn't feel anything. It's just a reflection of the real one. They see the cutter as being a reflection.

They see the cutting as being a reflection. They see the cut skin as being a reflection. Of what?

Their own past. Everything you see around you is a direct reflection of how you've been behaving in the last few months. I'm sorry.

Every asshole you ever meet is you in the mirror. Okay? Every irritating person you ever saw in your life was the person that you were watching while doing your death meditation.

Okay? Alright? So the third level bodhisattva is very sensitive to that.

What? The reason they're seeing this person cut them is what? They hurt other people in the past.

They're super sensitive. The moment the person starts cutting all they can think about is the person they hurt last week. They lose track of the person cutting.

Their mind goes directly to last week. Oh, I shouldn't have hurt that person. I'm so sorry I hurt that person last week.

I shouldn't have done that. Okay? So their perception of the reflection is so strong they don't have time to hate the person.

Okay? They don't have time to get angry. So there are two distractions for a third level bodhisattva.

Number one, they can see this person in the hell realms a year from now and they can't stop thinking about it. They're so strong focused on that they can't be aware of the cutting. Or they are so focused on the fact that this person's behavior is an exact reflection of what they were doing last week.

And they're so caught up with thinking about how they hurt somebody last week they don't feel anything anymore. Okay? So it's not like they have patience.

They can't feel it. They're totally focused on what they did last week. Or they're totally focused on where this person is going to be next year.

And they don't feel anything. Got it? That's real patience.

Good luck. LTA BU'I SNGON TSUL DU MTHONG BA NA'I ,LTA BU'I SNGON TSUL DU MTHONG BA NA'I ,BDAG DANG BDAG GIS KUN BDAG ,BDAG GIS BA'I KUN BDAG GIS GYI ROL SHES DANG BRAL BA So they're not even thinking about me or mine. BYANG SEMS DE'I GSOS PAR MNGAL And that gives them as well the power to be patient.

The as well means what? First they were distracted by seeing the person in the hell realms and they couldn't feel the cutting. And now they're distracted by thinking about how this is exactly what I did last week to somebody.

So they don't feel the cutting anymore. Okay, question, Daniel? He doesn't say, I don't think so.

He seems to be saying either or. They are distracted by one or the other. So they don't really feel the cutting.

So actually, what it comes down to for these high bodhisattvas is they're not being patient at all. They're not even aware of the cutting. They're just so focused on where this person is going to be next year.

Or they're so focused on what they did last year that they don't feel the pain. So it's not really that they're patient. I can say more radically that they have no more capacity for patience than we do.

They're just not aware of the cutting. Geshe-la? Yeah, you got two minutes.

It better be good. Didn't Je Tsongkapa just say earlier that that's not morality? Because it's not actually focusing on emptiness.

It's focusing on the dependent origination. Oh, it assumes it. It assumes it.

You're correct. They're focusing on what caused it. But he used the word reflection, which in Buddhism means, in a way, it's unreal to them.

The current appearance that someone has chosen to cut them is unreal because it wasn't their choice. It wasn't the decision of the cutter. And they're looking at that and thinking that's an illusion.

The other person didn't decide to cut them. What happened? Their own cutting is coming back to them.

It's not the other person's volition. The other person didn't make a decision to cut them. That's an illusion.

You can only get pissed off if the person wants to hurt you, right? Last question? Nope.

Okay, let's stop. Is it good? Okay, Earl has one more question.

[Speaker 2]
You were talking about sakne kyi sherab and I'm wondering what the difference is between that and the collections of merit and wisdom, if they're the same or if they are different, what the distinction is.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Okay. Immaculate wisdom you mean?

Or dirty wisdom?

[Speaker 2]
Good, good karma.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, good, dirty karma? We still call it sherab, okay? We call it a kind of intelligence, mati in Sanskrit.

It's still a kind of intelligence, but it's not stainless. It's not... I mean to want to do a good deed is still a kind of intelligence.

To want to do a good deed because you know you have to is a higher intelligence. But they're both called intelligence. LOD DRO The ability to distinguish and make decisions is a SEMS RGYI SA MANG It means one of the ten mental functions which accompanies all states of mind.

All states of mind have some degree of intelligence, even insects. All decisions are based on some kind of logic, even if it's faulty. So we call it mati or intelligence.

All sentient life has some degree of intelligence at all times. If the decision making is based on understanding emptiness, we call it wisdom. It goes from intelligence to wisdom, okay?

In Buddhist parlance, in Buddhist language, okay? It's okay. So there can be decision making.

Ants can decide to turn left or right depending on what's hot or what's cold. But it's not based on understanding that the hot or cold is coming from what they did last week.

[Speaker 2]
So you were talking about when we're creating karma with the understanding of emptiness, that that karma is going to perpetuate itself.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it has the capacity to be reinvested.

[Speaker 2]
So is that the same as the collection of merit or wisdom? Yeah, you can say that.

[Speaker 1]
I would say that a text would say if it's imbued by the desire to save the world. It has to be imbued by the desire to save the world. So it goes a little further.

It has to be SEMS SKYES KYI SEMS PA. It has to be imbued by the desire to save the world. And then it becomes the TSOGS NI.

Ready?