Круги света — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: глава о посвящении силы добрых дел (2002, Аризона), занятие 1

[Говорящий 1]
I thought it would be good now to speak about the last chapter of the great Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, written by Master Shantideva, because we have to know what to do with our good mental seeds. We have to avoid violence to others. We have to try to burn the old bad seeds in our minds.

But I think from time to time we have to celebrate and we have to think about the good seeds we have and our special methods for making them bigger and bigger. Because we do a lot more bad karma than good karma, so we have to try to make our good seeds bigger. And it's a happy work.

It's a joyful thing to do. Then I'll say a little bit about who Master Shantideva was, because there may be some new people here. I don't know.

He lived about thirteen centuries ago. He was a prince. Early in his life he met the angel of wisdom, Manjushri.

He became very religious. He meditated a lot. When his father passed away, the king, the people asked him to become king.

He didn't want to. He wanted to go and be a monk. But he felt responsible for the people.

But on the day of the enthronement he came. He looked up at the throne. Manjushri was sitting there.

That's his teacher. You can't sit on your teacher's throne. Manjushri said, you can't sit on your teacher's throne.

So he said, well, I guess I'll be a monk. And he went. He joined the great monastery of Nalanda, which is now in the area of West Bengal in India, near Bodhgaya.

And you know the story, but I'll tell it one more time. He was a great meditator, a great yogi, a great scholar, and a great good person. He developed himself highly in the monastery, but he never showed anybody.

He got the nickname Busukku. Busukku means Mr. Three Thoughts, only wants to do three things, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. He was an embarrassment to all the monks.

They made a plan to expel him. They asked him to give a teaching in public, which the monks did on a rotation. It was designed to embarrass him, so he would fail, and they would have an official reason to kick him out.

Then he got up on the teaching throne, and you know the story, he taught the Bodhisattvas, the guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life. The monks were stunned by its beauty, as we are. The ninth chapter deals with emptiness and wisdom especially.

As he spoke it, he rose into the air. People tried to listen. Some people could hear far distances.

They had like super meditation. They heard most of the ninth chapter. He flew away.

He was still talking a tenth chapter. Very few people heard it. Later they found him in South India, far, far away.

They begged him to come back. We made a boo-boo. He said, I need to do other things, but here's the book I taught, and the tenth chapter is, I think, must be the most beautiful chapter.

It's on dedication. It's a whole chapter about how to make your good seeds grow in your mind. It's a whole chapter about giving away your good karma, because when you give it away, as soon as you do it, it gets bigger and bigger.

It's how to give your good karma away. I've asked Winston Thar to arrange people to listen to each verse as we go. It's a little long.

I'm sorry if it goes on a little long. I think we will read the first verse, and then I'll speak a little more, and then we'll take a break, and then we'll read the rest of today's verses. I think about fifteen people will come to the microphone and read a verse, and then we'll talk about it.

If Winston Thar is ready, I'd like to ask him to read the first verse.

[Говорящий 2]
Thus have I completed writing a guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life, and I pray that by this goodness every living being may take up this way of life.

[Говорящий 1]
So the way to make your good seeds bigger, the way to give away your karma, your good karma, is that there's a key. There are two steps. First, you have to think about the good thing that you did, and when you think about it, it gets bigger and bigger.

There's no expiration date on good seeds. They can wear out as you get a result, but if you keep thinking about good things you did, they get bigger and bigger, in your mind stronger and stronger. It's a very lovely practice to go home, just sit there fifteen minutes, tonight, think about the good things you're doing, the things you're doing well, the things you're doing right.

Think about them. I think you don't think about them too much, and then we'll speak about how you give them away. If you don't give away your good deeds, if you just sit and wait for the good karma to come back to you, it's a little foolish because you just get one small result.

Maybe if you were kind to someone, then someone makes you a coffee later on. All the coffees ever made in the world came from kindness. And then when the coffee is finished, the good karma is gone.

So, we have to learn how to reinvest good karma. We have to learn how to make it bigger and bigger. I always think of my boss, my holy, lovely boss from the old diamond company days, fifteen years together.

He was very wise. We started with nothing. We started with half a desk that we were using in another person's office.

We shared half a desk and a telephone. And he borrowed fifty thousand dollars from a man, a Turkish man living in England, and there were many weeks when he couldn't pay me. But every time he made a little money, he wouldn't use the money.

He would put it back into his business. So, in the beginning, we had one small parcel of diamonds that looks like a piece of toilet paper rolled up with some diamonds in it. But he kept using the money by putting it back into his business.

He would never spend it on himself. He lived very modestly. And he didn't show off his money.

Every time he made more money, he and his beautiful wife, they would put the money back into the business. They wouldn't be like pigs and just eat it and use it and then be without. We have to be like that.

The good karma we make, don't use it up. Give it away. Reinvest it in the best place, the universal bank, other people.

Give it away to other people. Later on, we bought a little safe. We hid it in the closet.

One night, someone broke into it, stole everything. Later, we had a safe that was about four feet high, filled with diamonds. Later, we had a small room, armored room, filled with diamonds and gold.

He kept putting it back into the business. Later, we had a very large room with armor plating and fancy alarms and 24-hour guards. And it was filled with gold and diamonds.

Later, we had two rooms like that. But if you keep putting your good karma back, reinvesting in the universal business of helping other people, giving it to other people, it gets bigger and bigger. In Sara Monastery, in the early years in India, the students, we all had to go and plant the corn, 50 acres of corn, walking in the sun behind an ox and a man with a wooden plow.

And it was terrible work. It was extremely hard. And the monks were very careful.

They didn't eat all the corn. They always set some aside. There's a special building called a bhangdha.

And you would keep a large building full of corn for the next year's crops. You have to replant it. And every year the fields got bigger and bigger.

Because they didn't pig out on the corn. They didn't use it. They invested it.

So we have to do the same with our good karma. And then you have to decide where you're going to invest it. Who will you give it to?

So I thought first to talk about the good karma you do, that I know about. I think it is a teacher's job to remind the student, very rarely, about how good they're doing. I beat up these people all the time.

It's not a joke. It's very hard for them. But every once in a while, it's a teacher's job to tell you all the great things you're doing.

So each day I will take a different group and embarrass them. I think the first group, fittingly, should be the people involved in the three year retreat. I just want to remind you of your good karma seeds.

And then we will read from Master Shantideva and decide where to invest them. Who to give them away to. It's been two years now.

This month is two years. And the retreatants have done, you have done very well. Very bravely.

And very well. I think it's because you did so much good karma before the retreat. I want to remind you what you did.

Because then you can dedicate, you can give away those seeds to others. Just remembering them makes them bigger. They crystallize in your mind, vasana, bhakta, in the heart chakra.

And they get bigger. And then you appreciate them and remember them and savor them and then you give them away. So I'd like to talk about the good karma you did before the retreat.

I'll probably forget a lot of things. Please don't mind. And I don't know what has happened exactly in the last two years.

Especially with other people. Nowadays the retreatants only see each other three times a year during three months of the year. One of you came to me and said, we talked together.

We said, let's start a small school for other people. You said you would be happy to help. You said you would give up a large portion of your income.

And we got a small apartment in a very dangerous place in the health kitchen. And we started classes there. You paid a large part of all of the rent also for the classroom.

You were working in a major nasty diamond company. You used to come home every day exhausted. They worked you many hours of overtime.

You were an executive there. You did the accounts for J.C. Penney, 30 million dollars a year. And you said, I'll give it to the students.

I'll help start the school. And you moved out of your comfortable apartment. And you thrust yourself into public life.

Which is hard. It's very hard. You don't have any privacy after that.

And you didn't have any privacy after that. But you took care of all the students. There were, I think, seven or eight at the beginning.

You came home exhausted. You made them soup on cold days. You made them iced tea on hot days.

And the classes began. And now thousands of people, I think, if you include Mongolia, maybe hundreds of thousands of people have listened to those classes. And it was because of your hard work in the very beginning.

We didn't have any help. It was very hard. And you did it.

And you didn't complain. And you helped everyone. Later on, you opened a beautiful little bookstore in the village.

You struggled to pay the rent. I know you didn't have any money for food. I remember you used to go and get a bag of french fries to have something for dinner.

But you served other people for free. We started out with the idea to have a coffee shop. But she couldn't bear to charge people.

She started to give away everything. It got bigger and bigger. It attracted people who needed somewhere to go.

There's nowhere in New York where you can go and sit quietly and read a book and have a free tea and talk to someone for six hours in a row. Except the place that you started, the Three Jewels. Many, many people came.

I think you saved many lives, actually. I think just your pet dog saved more people than many classes. And you gave up your very fancy job.

And you became a nun from the holiest lama in the world. And since then, you have conducted yourself in a beautiful manner. Your face has changed.

It looks like the sun. And with that karma, you have entered retreat. You have to give away that karma now to other people.

But you have to think about it often, what beautiful things you have done. There's another retreatant who was a college student, I think 19 or 20. She heard a class.

She came. She said, can I do something to help? You were going to the most expensive college in the United States on a full scholarship.

And every day you took a train into New York. First you helped in the bookstore. Then later there was a crazy guy who said, I think these tapes are great.

We should give them to other people. You told John Stilwell, oh, I'll take care of that. And so you rented an apartment in New York in addition to your college classes.

You rented out all the other rooms. You slept in the living room on a couch. And you turned it into a factory for sending out tapes to people who wanted them, especially people in prisons.

Then you said, how do you do all this stuff? How do you make these classes, these notebooks? We said it's all on a computer.

You said, show me how I'll help. You couldn't even turn on a computer. But within a year, you were translating some of the classes from Tibetan and you were doing all of the notebooks.

Later on, you were a glutton for punishment. You said, I'll take care of all the travel problems. Many troops around the world to teach.

Later on, we were all trying to keep our vows nicely. You said, I think it would be good to keep them in a book. We discovered this was the ancient custom, especially in the secret teachings.

And so the custom of keeping a book came from your ideas. You helped write The Garden, a small book which many people have... It has helped people, I think.

There's another retreatant who also... You moved to New York. You didn't have any money.

You didn't have any job. John Stilwell took care of you. You said you wanted to help.

You took responsibility. For helping to preserve the ancient books. You went to Bell Telephone, I think.

Worked with a beautiful woman there and a specialist. The first book we ever scanned was done by that way. You took responsibility.

It is the single greatest book of the second turning of the wheel of the Buddha. It's the 8,000 verses on wisdom. You got the whole thing beautifully scanned.

It took many months. There are inside that book, very rare book, a thousand drawings, wood carvings of all of the great lamas of our lineage. You went to a very difficult, wealthy man, talked him into sponsoring the work, and hundreds of those drawings were put on the web free.

I saw a book yesterday from a yoga tradition which had many of those wood carvings there, and I was very happy because we made a point of giving them away for free. You did all of the work. The CD is free.

People all over the world use those thousand beautiful carvings of all our great lamas. Later, you volunteered to go to Russia and do the same thing with about a hundred books from our monastery which were burned and lost. They never made it out of Tibet.

There was one copy in Russia. You went there. You didn't know the language.

The Russians were very difficult at that time. It was very hard, and you did it beautifully, and now we have all of those books back in our monastery. When you people here studied the Heart Sutra, when you studied the Diamond Cutter Sutra, it was those commentaries we used.

Later, we found out there were precious books in Mongolia. You said, I'll come and help. It was very hard.

We didn't have any money. The libraries in Mongolia were asking for a huge sum of money to even look at the books. But you helped.

We got the money. We paid them. Then we went to the library, and they told us to leave.

I left. You stayed. You said, I'll talk them into it.

You used your charm. Within a single day, you had all of them wrapped around your finger. I remember they asked you to eat some of their most difficult food, and some very terrible things to drink, and for the Dharma.

You did it. You came back and laid on your bed for two days. I remember you were very ill, as was your assistant.

Now, I have received illegal word that those books are being cataloged very nicely. The library is open. It's very successful.

Books that were burned, lost forever, are being found. You did all of that work. You have to rejoice.

I think more than any other retreatant, you inspired the rest of us in many ways. Some I don't want to embarrass. But I think especially in the joy of sacred movement, you taught us how to start in Mongolia and in India with the Tibetans.

We trained. You really inspired us to do those things. There are many other things.

One retreatant came after those other three. She said, I want to help, too. At first, she handled all the finances.

At that time, there were 10 or 20 centers in India paying Indian Tibetan refugees to save Tibetan books by typing them into computer and then giving them away to everyone free. You handled the finances, which is to say, you kept the centers going with no money. They would write desperate telegrams, letters, faxes.

We haven't paid anyone for months, but she would write back, it's coming soon, and kept it going and helped find the sponsors. At one point, you came and said to the big American lama, you're killing yourself. You don't sleep.

You live off pizza and ice cream. You're not doing your meditations. You teach meditation to thousands of people.

You don't make time yourself properly. You go on retreat and get distracted by other things. You have to straighten out your own practice.

She forced the issue, continues to force the issue, and you did a great service to all of us, I think, and you inspired us all to practice seriously your deeply devoted to the highest practices. You are like a dog that won't let go, and you insist on that standard for others, especially me, and it's a great service to all of us. You have great karma to give away.

There's another retreatant who is doing retreat in a small island of retreat land near Santa Cruz. It's a special extension of our retreat. It has been from the beginning.

You undertook a very special kind of practice. We spent a long time discussing, designing how to become a yogi in the middle of a family life, and you have worked very hard at it. You are an example for all of us.

We feel your energy and your goodness. You had many classes at your home for people. When the books on the CD-ROMs were sent out, you spent months and months designing a beautiful book.

I think it was over 500 pages long of instructions for people, free, and it was exquisite. People all over the world use it. People came up to me in places like Bodhgaya, the lamas I had never met.

They said, tell the person who made that design. It's so beautiful. It's so wonderful.

Later, you took responsibility when we were teaching how to do purification of bad karma. You prepared special kits for people to do special fire ceremonies. You did all the work at night, in addition to a part-time job and more than a full-time job with your children.

But above all, you have perfected the yogi's life within a family, and we are all inspired by you. Later, you prepared thousands of pages of prayers for the retreatants. We still use them three or four times a day.

We think of you often. You are an important link in this retreat. You constantly inspire us.

You send us helpful things that we need. There's another retreatant here. You went to one of the greatest lamas in this world, Lama Suparambhoj.

He was immediately impressed. He made you the director of, I think, the greatest retreat center so far, Winston, in the United States. Hundreds and hundreds of people have been introduced to great teachers there and great retreats, and you did a beautiful job to make it even better with beautiful cabins.

You had great teachings there. Lama Suparambhoj was so pleased. He made you the director of the international FDMT.

This is, I believe, thousands and thousands of students in, I believe, over 30 or 40 countries. It's a thankless job. These people don't get paid anything more than survival.

It's 24 hours of e-mails. You did a beautiful job. You pleased your lama so much.

Then we had an idea. I usually have the ideas, and other people do the work and pay for them. We offered to Lama Suparambhoj the Diamond Cutter Sutra printed onto silver plates with some gemstones embedded in them to be put into the heart of the greatest Buddha statue in the world that he is making.

And you said, I'll take care of all of that. And recently I illegally saw the silver plates. They just come in the food basket.

Really. I didn't know what to do with them. I sent them back.

And I believe they are being offered to Rinpoche. So you have done a very beautiful karma. All of you have so much good karma to give away now.

I know you have many teachers. You all have great, wonderful teachers. Holy Lama Khen Rinpoche, Lama Suparambhoj, Geshe Thubten Rinchen Rinpoche, countless other great teachers.

But if I have taught you anything, and if you sometimes think I am teaching you, then all of the retreatants, you should know. You have pleased your teacher. I couldn't be happier.

I think it's important for you to know it. I couldn't be happier or more proud of you. And during the retreat, you have all, those who are here, those who are on extensions, you have conducted yourself with great bravery.

It has been very hard. Physically, it's quite hard. Emotionally, it's very hard.

Spiritually, it is extremely difficult to fight with your mind twenty-four hours straight a day. And you have stuck it out. You have done beautiful things.

Everyone is expecting us to come out with smiling, sunny faces. We got old. People look tired.

They have new wrinkles, more gray hairs. But you have done a beautiful retreat. You are an example to thousands of people that we've never met yet.

And I thank you. The care ladies, I'm going to pick on you now. Before the retreat, you did intense good karma.

One of you, you were running a section of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's office in New York. You were arranging for His Holiness's plans to be in New York. You were running for film.

You were working very hard. At the same time, you were serving your Lama. You were living on nothing.

You were making beautiful books. You have made, I think, an 800-page book of the ancient texts that we use in our retreat. You did astounding work.

I sometimes take it out. I look at it. I can't believe it.

You gave up everything you owned. You had a house. You sold it.

You dedicated that money to all of the retreatants, not one, to all of them. Then you said, that's not enough. I'll be your slave for three years.

And you have worked. I know how hard it is. We couldn't be here without you.

And you have continued to do more and more things. You have unbelievable good karma. You can expect some shit to come.

I'm not kidding. Okay? You're attracting great forces.

As another care person, care deity, she was working as taking care of children in a very large school system, a religious school system in New York. I remember you came to class one time. You were crying.

A child's parents had killed themselves. You had spent days trying to help them. You did that kind of work for years without any much pay.

You worked hard. They didn't have enough help. This powerful karma you have.

You both became nuns. This powerful good karma, you have to give it away. The third principle care person, you came quietly in your quiet way.

You preferred to be anonymous. You did many good things. You went to the retreat centers, connected with the Vatican.

You helped make that place ready for many, many people. You became very ill from the work. You had tremendously painful treatments.

You never told anyone. I found out. And you continue to serve us humbly, anonymously.

You have incredible good karma. If you three were hoping to please your Lama, one of your Lamas, you couldn't have done better. You couldn't do anything better than what you are doing.

It's extraordinary. If people remember what the retreatants have done, they must remember what the care people have done. I think it's probably more difficult than what we are doing.

And now I should pick on the director. You and Mrs. Director, you gave up everything. You had a fat job in one of the biggest companies in New York.

You were teaching at Columbia University. We couldn't run the classes in New York. We couldn't afford the places where we gave the teachings.

Suddenly checks started to come. I never heard of this guy. Later on you turned your house into a factory for tapes and notebooks.

You sent out thousands of them. You produced thousands of them. I didn't even know much.

I heard about it. You were working full-time. Mrs. Director was having a child. You just did it. You both did it. You took responsibility and you did it and you helped.

Hundreds of people got free notebooks in New York. They didn't come from outer space. Someone was working over a full-time job and coming home, and he and his wife were producing them and paying for them, much of the cost.

Then you gave up everything. You arranged for this land to do the retreat. You have taken responsibility.

You have cared for us like our parents. Anything we need comes. It's like magic.

It's embarrassing. Sometimes before we ask, it comes. So you can't waste those karmic seeds.

You have to reinvest them. You have to sit down tonight, and I hope you will do it for a few weeks, and think about all the wonderful things you are doing, all of you. It's extraordinary.

There isn't anything going on like this. There are a few dedicated people who have done these kind of retreats, but not many. I tell you honestly, when we went to Sarah Mae Monastery and we met with high lamas to ask advice, they looked at us with a strange look.

Three-year retreat, no one has done that for a long time. It's like going to a Christian church and saying, I want to learn to walk on water. I know you teach that.

That was the old days. The reaction was the same. They stared at us.

They said, three years? Are you sure? So you are reawakening an old custom.

It's beautiful. I think we have done that in many things, but you have all set an example. I tell you honestly, not just for the Westerners, but even the Tibetan Buddhists are very happy.

Likewise, there are many people, I think many here, who gave a lot of their funds. They just freely gave them as much as they could. Without that, we couldn't stay here.

We are not naive. We know someone is paying for everything, and we know it's expensive. You have that karma.

You have given it so freely. You haven't even cared if we know. Other people came and built the places where we stay.

You have that karma. Other people send us beautiful, exquisite things that we need. We need ancient books.

People, especially in Boston, people, especially one amazing American Lama in Howell, New Jersey, have been sending us all the things we need, ancient books. One of the people here, I think, is paying for many important ancient texts that we are using. You have these good karmas.

You all have this amazing karma of these first two years. You have to think about it. The rest of you who have come here, we feel you a few weeks before retreat, it becomes almost unbearable.

We don't sleep at night because you are three hours ahead. We feel your prayers. We feel your wishes for us.

We know that people sit in coffee shops and remember us. We feel it, and it helps us go on. It has been a great inspiration to us.

We don't have psychic powers. We feel your thinking and praying for us. I think everyone here, in their mind at least, is hoping that we will do well, and we feel it.

So you have this karma. Everyone here has the karma of the three-year retreat. You have to think about it.

Don't be shy. This is a holy practice. The Lord Buddha told us to do this practice.

Think carefully tonight while you are driving home, while you are sitting in your tent or your motel room. Think about all the good things you have done to help this holy retreat. We are not great people, but we are trying very hard, and we are maybe some of the first to try this.

It hasn't always been easy or successful in every way, but it is a statement in the universe. This small group of people have decided to really try to reach enlightenment in this lifetime. So of all the people on this earth, at least we are trying very hard.

You are helping us. Everyone has an extraordinary good karma. You have to understand that.

You have to think about it, and now you have to give it away to other people. First, you have to clearly admit that you are doing some really goddamn heavy good karma, and you have to pat yourself on the back. It is always a little mixed up with negative emotions and lesser motivations, but it is extraordinary karma.

It is like an atom that is about to explode into a nuclear bomb. You are making that kind of karma as we speak. You have been making that kind of karma.

You must think about it, even if it is just a little bit. Even when you focus your mind on that karmic seed, it gets bigger. If you just remember what you did before retreat, or while you are here, if you remember what you have done for this retreat, the thinking of it awakens that seed.

It makes it stronger and stronger. Then it is ready to give away. I would like to take a break, and then we will talk about how to give it away, and who to give it to.