Нагарджуна, курс 6 — Заключительные главы (2024, Аризона), занятие 6

[Speaker 2]
Okay, 6.40, you guys, 6.40. Yeah, listo?

[Speaker 1]
6.40, yeah, good. So here are nine questions. This is not a class.

This is a Nagarjuna experiment. This is how Nagarjuna used to teach. And this is the famous last chapter of probably the most famous book ever written in Buddhism.

And you guys have finished it for the last seven years. And we're going to finish right now, in the next hour. Yay!

Yay! And it's very Nagarjuna to end the class with questions and not with answers. Pariksha, right?

We're going to examine yourself. So he's asking you to answer your own questions. So don't just read these questions, ask yourself this question.

What does your belief system say about the darkness that stretches out before the light of the now? So Nagarjuna talks about the present moment of awareness, of light. And we live in a present moment.

I like to think we are like people. So I go to San Diego to get cut up every once in a while. And there's these very expensive...

Bill Gates' house is next to where I stay. In fact, what's his name? The bodhisattva, Jim Day.

I met him in the restaurant next to my hotel, Motel. I stay in a little motel on the beach. The last California motel on the beach.

So anyway, there's these beautiful, beautiful houses there. Imagine that you buy one of these houses. Me and Nick and Rob, we checked the price.

I told you, it was $20 million. By the way, I'm not asking, okay? I'm very happy with my little house in Rimrock, the capital of the universe.

But imagine you live in this really beautiful house on the Del Mar beach and the waves are coming in. It's got 20 rooms and there's a little closet in the front of the house where they keep the brooms and the mobs and stuff like that. Imagine that you buy this house and then you go in and you stay half standing up in the closet the whole life, the rest of your life.

You never go to the bedroom. You never walk out to the beach. You just go in the closet and crush yourself in there and stay there with the mobs and the brooms.

That's what we are. We are stuck in the present moment in a mansion called all of time. We are this weird kind of animal that cannot get out of the present moment.

We live in the closet in the mansion. There's all of future time and there's all of past time. For us, it's a darkness.

We don't see it. We don't experience it. We can't communicate with it.

We live in the present moment. What is your belief system? I don't mean your culture.

I don't mean what your teachers told you at school. I'm not talking about that. What's your personal belief about what comes after this present moment?

We talked about the lady on the plane who you will surely meet, but she's darkness right now. It's all darkness. You cannot see it directly.

You can guess. You can imagine. But you cannot see it directly.

According to your belief system, what's that look like? What does it look like five minutes from now? Or five years from now?

What's it look like to you? How do you see your future? When you look into it, what do you see?

What do you believe about it? I have a lot of Chinese friends who are not students of mine. They grew up believing in fate.

They call it fate. I don't know what's the Chinese word.

[Speaker 2]
Mi zi? Mi zi? Mi zi?

[Speaker 1]
Zi? Anyway, fate. Often they ask me, can I change my fate?

Is it possible to change my fate? That's a worldview about the future. About the future.

There's an old Chinese belief that it's all set. It's all set. You don't have any choice.

That's absolutely not the belief in this room. You have complete power over the future. But examine how you feel about the future.

Examine how you feel about what's coming. Don't stand in the closet and refuse to think about it. Human beings are trained by every culture in the world to quietly suffer in the present.

They don't know what's coming next. They don't know what's coming tomorrow. You are trained by your culture.

Every world culture. You are trained to believe there's not much you can do about it. You're walking into the darkness.

This moment will become dark and then you will move into the light of the next moment. Do you believe that? Do you think that's how it has to be?

I'm not asking you to think differently. I'm just saying think about it. If you think about it, you will draw your own conclusions.

That's Nagarjuna's system. That's his last word. His last word is no word.

What's the last thing you got to say, Nagarjuna? I don't know. What do you think?

Then he says, we're done with the book. By the way, there's a beautiful last verse. We're close.

We're getting close. So the future is not completely dark. Maybe.

Keep these nine questions in your heart and think about them sometimes. What do you think about the darkness beyond now? You move through now.

You move through the light of now. What's beyond that? What's on the other side?

Second question, 6.41. Hang on.

[Speaker 2]
What's wrong? Oh, I'm sorry. The first one was the past.

[Speaker 1]
I'm sorry. The first one was the past, the darkness of the past. The second one is the darkness of the future.

Your past is also dark. You think it's gone. You think it's finished.

You think there's nothing more to do about it. How do you feel about the past? You had experiences as a younger person.

You had certain experiences. I can think of experiences I had. Someone, my sister-in-law, she's cleaning out my stepmother's desk and she found a nice photo of me and Veronica when she was 16.

I'll show it to you. Don't tell my wife.

[Speaker 2]
Hang on. Ale. Francisco.

Francisco, right? I hope I can find it. No, I can't find it.

Hang on. Hang on. It's too much.

Dang. I don't know. Yeah, but.

Hang on. Be patient. Hang on.

You want to find it on my phone? It's in here. Send it to me.

Okay, I'll show you later.

[Speaker 1]
I'm sorry, I misstated the first question. The first question is, what does your belief system say about the past? If you go into the past.

[Speaker 2]
Could you go back there?

[Speaker 1]
Could you go back there? Do you understand what happened in the past? Correctly.

Was it just a girl in the kitchen?

[Speaker 2]
Could the past change now?

[Speaker 1]
What's your viewpoint? How do you view the past? Could you be there?

Or are you stuck in the closet? Can you experience the past directly? Is it something you can experience?

You got to ask yourself that. Then the second question, I'm sorry, it's about the future. Can you experience the future?

Or is it dark? Is it something you cannot go through? It's up to you.

Those are the first two questions. And it's not... The gardener is not saying you should change your opinion.

He's saying, what do you think? What do you really think? And I think most of us think, did you find it?

Most of us think you couldn't get back there.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Somebody said, you look like Neil Young. And I said, I was trying so hard to look like Neil Young. Anyway, okay, stop, stop.

So what does your belief system say? Just ask, okay? Can you be in the future?

Or are you stuck in the present? Can you visit the rest of the mansion? Can you go out on the beach?

Could you swim in the ocean? So what's your belief system say? Second question.

How many questions? Nine.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
Third, what does the belief system say about how everything there is started? Are you one of those big bangers? How did everything start?

How did everything start? And people don't... I think most normal people would say, this is a foolish exercise, Geshe-la.

It doesn't really matter. You just have to deal with what's here, right? I don't think we sit at home and worry about how did everything start.

But to ask yourself these nine questions is enlightening. According to Nagarjuna, it will enlighten you if you ask yourself these nine questions. It's on the plane.

Ask yourself these nine. Look at these questions again. You want to take a photo?

Did you get it? You got it.

[Speaker 2]
I don't need to show them again. It's on your phone.

[Speaker 1]
Nobody said no. Okay, everybody got it. So number three is, how did everything start?

Everything in the world, how did everything start? And that's your DTAR BA. That's your viewpoint.

That's the 27th and final chapter of Nagarjuna. What do you think? And it's just questions, and it's beautiful, and that's such a great teaching method.

I'll leave you with some questions, and you decide. That's Nagarjuna. What does yours say?

And then it became Ben's book. Seriously, many years later, a few years after that.

[Speaker 2]
Number four. How does one thing cause another thing?

[Speaker 1]
How does one thing cause another thing? And I'll give you the Nagarjuna scenario.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know why.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, Sunim, I have a red ant palace at the front step of my retreat cabinet. I mean big, thousands of them. I don't know what to do when I go in the house.

I try to step between them, and it's kind of difficult. Maybe, you know there's a way, you put a welcome mat over them, and they move. They'll move to the side.

Just so you know. It's an old Arizona secret. Because to get bit by a red ant, it's an experience.

Anyway, somebody put a huge acorn on top of their nest today, and I was like, what? I have a naughty kotamundi hanging out around my house. There's this kind of monkey dog that lives around here.

They used to live near the spring. There used to be 10 or 12 of them. Then they had a fight, and one of them moved out.

I think he's still running around, because he put a welcome message right next to him. I think Adriana heard him, but didn't see him. He put a rattlesnake on her front step.

That was pretty cute. Yesterday? The day before.

Anyway, I was looking at the walnut, and I was thinking about it. If that nut could open, and then if the ants take it down to their house, and then the nut opens, and then it comes up, and it makes a tree there, can the nut and the tree exist at the same time? Yes or no?

We say no, right? Like the nut opens, and a little thing comes out, and then a tree grows. So, big question.

By the time the tree is there, and by the way, this was Nagarjuna's opening chapters, if you were here seven years ago. The opening chapters had this question. If the nut, if it opens and turns into a tree, is the nut the cause of the tree?

Has to be. I mean, otherwise the tree won't grow, right? Unless the ants take the nut down, and it starts to grow, and then the tree grows, right?

Is the nut the cause of the tree? Can one thing affect another thing if one of them is not there? Right?

So, stay with me. Don't space out. Don't say, oh, he's doing one of those Madhyamika things.

If there's a nut, and that becomes a tree, the nut turns into the tree. By the time the tree is there, where's the nut? The nut is gone, and by the time the nut is there, the tree is gone.

But the nut causes the tree. So, how can something which is not there touch something which is there? I'm not being a philosopher.

I'm asking an honest question. The kids... So, the religion department at Princeton is so small that we have to share a building with another, with the philosophy department.

And there's a line in the hallway, and they don't go this way, and we don't go that way. Across the street is the physics department, which is planning how to melt down the whole planet, and they get federal money. They get billions and billions of dollars, but we don't get a single dollar.

So, anyway, we have to share this building. And sometimes one of those philosophy undergraduates will wander into the religion department, and you're like, good morning, and they're like, I'm not sure. And you're like, you're a philosopher too.

Get out of here. The religion students at that time are like, yeah, man, good morning. Anyway, if you really thought about it, you couldn't do anything because the seed is gone by the time the tree is dead.

There can be no interaction between a cause and a result. They cannot touch each other. By definition, one is gone by the time the other one is there.

The whole idea you have of how things happen in the world could be completely mistaken, which means all science is mistaken, and all the systems before that are mistaken. It's possible. It's possible.

So here's the question. What's the big nut that made all the trees happen? What was the first cause?

What was the first cause? What started stuff? How did stuff start?

How did stuff start? Asking those questions differentiates you from an animal, according to Buddhism. The ability to ask those questions makes you different from an animal.

These deer, we had a deer run in front of the car on the way here. I think he was just showing off. We almost hit it, and he ran across the road.

I have deer in my house. They eat the pomegranates, and they're beautiful. They're very, very beautiful, but they always have some kind of wounds on them.

They have cuts, and they have sores, and maybe they're missing a leg. All wild animals are like that. They cannot think how to fix themselves.

They can't do it. If they get caught, if something cuts them, if they break something, it's broken for the rest of their life, and they can't do anything. When you really see a wild animal, it's kind of sad because they cannot think how to fix it.

They don't have the ability to say, if I put a band-aid and I put some cream on this, they will walk around with an open hole in their body, and they don't know how to do anything about it. They get used to it. The weird thing is they seem okay.

They're like, ah, it's okay. Yeah, I got a hole in me. But that's the way it is.

Are you like that? What causes things? What really causes things?

Could you fix it? Are we like animals? Do we walk around with big wounds on our body, and we just never figured it out?

What do you think is... How does one thing affect... How does a seed cause a plant?

Because it's impossible. It's not possible. Did you ever ask the question?

And you're like, Nagarjuna, give me the answer. I'm used to going to Buddhism class, and they give me all the answers, and I ignore them. But do you have any answers?

And he's like, nope, you figure it out. I like it. I'm not really attracted to it.

All right, next one Francisco.

[Speaker 2]
What does your belief system...

[Speaker 1]
And by the way, it doesn't mean what your parents told you, and it doesn't mean what your sixth grade teacher told you. It means what do you think? What do you really think?

How's it all going to end? The universe, not your life. Well, maybe it's the same thing.

I don't know. How's it all going to end? What's it look like?

What's it going to look like when everything finishes? What's it going to look like? And by the way, I think all of us, we feel guilty that we don't meditate enough.

And then when you finally get on a roll... I've been on a roll. I'm up to 29 minutes.

What's that mean? 19 weeks. Grandpa's suggestion is start with 10 minutes.

Always start back with 10 minutes. When your meditation practice collapses, start back with 10 minutes. Add one minute every Sunday.

Then you can tell. My insight timer says 29, and I showed it off to my wife. I said, look, 29, it's like 19 weeks you've kept your meditation every day.

I'm like, yeah. We feel like we need to meditate, and we don't really know what to meditate about. If you want something to meditate about, learn these nine.

You can go like this. Write them down.

[Speaker 2]
And then when you meditate, it's like... You can peek, okay? You want to try?

Like this. What does the belief system say about the end of the universe?

[Speaker 1]
I'm not asking you to memorize nine things. Truly, it's okay. Peek.

Look at the next item. You want to do serious meditation, or you want to watch your breath for the rest of your life? Watch your breath first, and then meditate.

Here's a meditation you can do for the next... I usually do one for about six weeks or something like that. For the next six weeks, you can use this list of nine things.

By the way, I have all nine on one slide at the end, but I won't tell you that, otherwise you won't take a picture. Okay, so that's number five. How's the universe going to end?

If you worry about these nine things, you will come to some answers. And you will realize that everything you know is not very important. It's these nine things that are important.

If you don't ask these questions, you're an animal who's getting hurt and you don't know what to do and you walk around with it. You're just walking around with it. And that's a terrible thing.

It's a terrible thing to see a beautiful doe with three fawns and she's got this big hole in her side and she doesn't know how to do anything. You could go out and say, stand still, I'll put a band-aid on it. And she's like, what?

Even Rimrock deers will run away eventually.

[Speaker 2]
At first they're like, you got any food?

[Speaker 1]
Number six. What does your belief system say about the smaller endings of things? Not the universe.

Like people or organizations or relationships. All people will die. All countries will die.

All cities will die. All ACIs. All five houses will become four, three, two, one, zero.

The day you make the five houses, you're starting something which will die. And by the way, there's a skill to that, of not getting depressed and not giving up. Are you going to start the five houses?

Yes. Will they end? Yes.

That's not a problem. Somebody has to. We have to do it.

We have to start the five houses. They teach us how to stop things from ending. But they will end.

And that's a very powerful thing in Buddhism. The Buddha, the day he gets enlightened, he says, hey, by the way, I'm going to die. That's so honest.

There's so few presidents. When they get elected president, they say, someday I'll be an old guy who can't remember how to finish a sentence. It's refreshing to meet an honest person.

But what does you... Do you really believe your country is going to last forever? Do you really believe your body is going to last forever?

Do you really believe your family is going to last forever? Do you really believe you'll be able to see your wife and children later? No, you go by yourself.

It's not to be depressed and it's not to get divorced. It's to know what the hell is really going on and then love other people. Then you can really love them.

[Speaker 2]
Number seven. I like this one.

[Speaker 1]
Is there any justice in the universe? What's your viewpoint? Will good people get their reward eventually?

Will bad people get their punishment eventually? Is there something... Is there a rule in the universe that good people succeed and bad people fail?

Is there such a thing? Or can you just take other people's countries and kill their people without anything happening to you? How does it work?

If you're just bigger and stronger and more violent than the country next to you, can you take it? Or is there some kind of... You can say God, or is there any rule, karma?

Is there anybody watching and saying... When I was in... I don't know.

I was 20-something years old and I was teaching a kids class in the Mongolian community where I lived in New Jersey. I taught that class for 15 years to clean a bad karma I made in college. I had an abortion with a woman.

So I wanted to clean that karma. So I asked my teacher what to do. He said, teach a kids class.

So I taught a kids class. I said, how long do I have to teach the kids class? He's like, until the karma finishes.

Then I'm like, how long is that? He said, mmm... So I started and it went for 15 years.

It was fun. One of them came here last year. He's 50-something.

He was the baby of the group, by the way. Now he's a famous rock and roll guy. Anyway, so...

One day, just to have the kids have something to do, I said, let's do an oral history project of your people. They are Mongolian. They came from Mongolia in the 13th century and they took over parts of Russia.

Then in World War II, they escaped the Germans because they were being put in the concentration camps, the same as Jewish people, because they were Asian. Some of them escaped. The toughest, craziest ones jumped over the fence and they came to my town.

Like 400 of them. They're the roughest, toughest, craziest of all the Mongolians. I said, let's do an oral history project with the kids.

We got cooperation from the local school. They said, okay, do it. We'll give credit to the kids.

Then we went to all the grandmas and we asked them, tell us what you remember when you were a kid. We wrote a nice history of the comic Mongol. It's a beautiful piece of work.

Why am I talking about that? We studied the history of Genghis Khan. When he was a kid, maybe Ezra's age, I don't know.

His father was invited, their family was invited to dinner by the neighbors. The neighbors wanted his horses. The neighbors poisoned the food.

His father was killed by the poison. The son and the mom escaped. They ran away into the forest.

They lived in the forest for 12 years like wild animals. They learned to live like a wild animal. That's why Genghis Khan was so hardened that he could take over the world.

He took over the whole world at that time, all the way to Russia. He killed 400,000 Austrian troops in one day. You should be speaking Mongolian.

That's another story. Why am I talking about that? Imagine a world where if I like Rob's watch, I try to kill him before the class is over.

There's no... What do you call it? There's no social rule against it.

If you can figure out a way to kill him before the end of class, you can have his watch. I'm like, hmm, hi Rob, what's up? What's that thing over there?

Imagine a society where we all live like Genghis Khan's neighbor. Maybe I'll just invite Rob to breakfast after class and I'll poison him and then I'll get his watch. Why not?

What prevents you? What holds you back? Why don't you do that?

Why are you so nice to the people next to you right now? Why aren't you biting each other trying to get the blood or something? What's keeping you back?

Almost all... I guess you cannot have a society unless you have some kind of hesitation to hurt another person. And then there's bad people.

There's people who just attack another country, just kill the people because they want the land. There is people like that. There is such a thing.

So what do you say? Does the universe reward goodness? And does the universe reward evil?

Is there such a thing or not? What do you really believe? And how strong is it in your heart?

Is it strong enough to keep you from cheating on your taxes or something like that? All right, number eight. What does your belief system say about the world's prospects for complete future happiness and peace?

Is it even possible? I don't know how you feel about it. Or do you think about it?

I don't know. Are things getting better? Is there less war?

Is there less violence? Is there more possibility? When you were born, how much war was there?

And now how much war is there? Are things getting better? Are we on an upward possibility or what's going to happen?

Are we getting better as a world? Is this world improving? Are human beings less violent than before?

A hundred million people died in World War II. A hundred million. Fifty countries killing each other.

A hundred thousand Japanese died in the last week of the war after the two nuclear bombs in Tokyo. Tokyo was firebombed after the two nuclear bombs and they killed an extra hundred thousand people, cooked them to death after blowing up two cities with nuclear bombs. Are people getting better?

Is it getting better? What's happening? What's your system say?

How do you feel about it? Is it even possible that we will change? Are things getting better in your lifetime or not?

Last question. Number nine.

[Speaker 2]
Number nine. The older people understand. Why am I alive?

What am I supposed to do here?

[Speaker 1]
I don't know about you. I had this when I was younger. When I was like, I remember, ten years old.

Right, Ezra? When I was ten, I used to worry about why I was here. What am I supposed to do?

I don't know. Does Ezra ever talk about it? I don't know.

Why was I brought here to this world? I had a clear idea at that age. I lost it after that.

I was pretty sure I was supposed to do something special or something. Why are you here? Why are you personally here?

What are you supposed to accomplish? Is there some plan for Gibson in this world? Or is it just Adams from the Big Bang made Gibson and they're going to fall apart after a while and Gibson's not here?

Is there some reason why Gibson happened here? How do you feel in your heart? Deep down, do you feel like there's something you're supposed to do here?

Is there some reason why you're here? I think as children we feel it and then later we... I think later, I don't know, I think later you stop thinking about it.

So there's nine questions. That's the 27th chapter of Nagarjuna. Here's the whole list.

I'm sorry it's so small.

[Speaker 2]
But probably you could blow it up I guess. And that's the 27th chapter.

[Speaker 1]
I promised you the last verse.

[Speaker 2]
And I like it. Here we go. It's 6.50 you guys.

[Speaker 1]
6.50. There is one who was overwhelmed by heart love and gave up every way of viewing things. This enabled them to teach the holy dharma. I bow myself down to Dalai Lama.

In the Tibetan, there's a kind of poetry that starts with GANG. GANG GYI LO GRU DRIN GNYIS DRIN DANG Like that, very famous. I'm thinking of somebody, GANG.

Like somebody who has got this incredible love in his heart. They have their heart in there. And they gave up nine views.

And because of that, they were able to teach the dharma. Then there's this. It's a poetry device.

You say, I'm thinking of somebody who... I'll give you a clue. What's the clue?

They got so much love. Okay, what else? And all those nine viewpoints, they don't have the nine...

where they think they came from. They know where it came from. They see the views, the real views, because they know it came from them.

They know the world they are in, and the nine opinions of their world come from them. Oh, my culture is so stupid. They don't think about justice.

People can just poison other people. People can try to take other people's countries and kill them. Kill them with missiles that they can't control.

They bomb schools, hospitals, kill kids. This is the kind of world I live in. Nine bad viewpoints.

Then this verse says, who do you think made the viewpoints? Where did those nine viewpoints... Why do you live in a world where you kill your neighbor?

You invite your neighbor to dinner and you poison them. Because we still do. We didn't improve.

It's going on in several countries right now. Here it says he gave that up. What's it mean?

He stopped thinking it was somebody else. He stopped thinking someone else made up the nine rules. He stopped thinking that they just happened.

What your culture believes, and what you were taught in school, and what your parents said is coming from you, and you can fix it. If it wasn't coming from you, you're in big trouble. If it is coming from you, ha, easy.

Just change your seats. Got it? If it's not coming from you, there's no reason to have a class and we don't need Diamond Mountain.

There's a pizza place in Wilcox finally. Kendra Bend. Pretty good.

Then we should just go there and eat pizza. There's no reason to suffer in these classes. Got it?

But it does come from you. Because they figured that out, they were able to teach the Dharma. Then this is this riddle poetry.

In Buddhism we call it riddle poetry. I'm thinking of someone who has got big love. They realized all the viewpoints, nine viewpoints in their world came from them.

Because of that, they're able to teach very sweetly. Cool, who are you thinking of? GAL THAMS MA GAL THAMS MA It's only recently I figured out what the hell is GAL THAMS MA.

GAL means cow. GAL means cow. THAMS MA means best.

In Tibetan we call KHYOD CHOG. Say KHYOD CHOG. KHYOD CHOG means when you have a big bunch of cows and there's one, what do you call that?

Ape type person? There's an alpha cow. There's one cow that thinks he's the boss of all the cows.

Where that cow runs, the other cows will follow. In Sanskrit that's GAL THAMS MA. Number one cow.

So GAL THAMS MA, that's what GAL THAMS MA means. That's the personal name of our Buddha. That's the name of our Buddha.

Nagarjuna says, who would have that much love? Who would have that much knowledge of the nine viewpoints where they come from? Who would teach about it?

I got it. GAL THAMS MA. I bow down to GAL THAMS MA.

And you are officially finished with the greatest Buddhist book ever written. What's next? Honestly, I got to think about it.

I got to think about it. We finished a seven year project today. In Kyoto we'll finish a 14 year project, Lam Rim.

And Tim's asking me, what do I put on the next poster? And I'm like, give me a few minutes to think. So let me think about it.

What's next? But we'll do something sexy. How do you want to do this?

Do you want to wrap up? Do you want to say goodbye to everybody?

[Speaker 2]
Is that a good time for you? It's not good luck to finish. Let me think of a sexy verse.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, ready? BUD RDZO RGYAS LA'I PHYER BA'I DUM PA'I DGOS DA'I DROG BA'I GNAS BAR GONG BA'I ZIN MA LA ZHIG RJE GYI GZHAN GZIG PA'I DUR BZHAG NYID TSOR BA DE LA SPYOD PA PO BUD RDZO RGYAS LA'I PHYER BA'I DUM PA'I DGOS Your body was created by a billion good deeds. BUD RDZO RGYAS LA'I PHYER BA'I DGOS DA'I DROG BA'I GNAS BAR GONG BA'I ZIN MA LA ZHIG RJE GZHAN GZIG PA'I DUR BZHAG NYID TSOR BA DE LA SPYOD PA PO It answers the questions of countless beings.

BUD RDZO RGYAS LA'I PHYER BA'I DGOS You happen to know everything in the universe.

[Speaker 2]
BUD RDZO RGYAS LA'I PHYER BA'I DGOS I bow down to Shakyamuni.