Круги света — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: глава о посвящении силы добрых дел (2002, Аризона), занятие 5

[Говорящий 1]
I'm sorry it goes on a little long. I'd like to finish the whole chapter. Not tonight.

But also, we'd like to be with you. We miss you very much. And it means a lot to us that you come.

And I think all of us are sort of like to drag it on, so we can be close to you. We really miss you a lot. Okay, next verse, please.

May we gain the mystic ability to live off even the poorest of food, grow never more strong and healthy. In all our lives, may we have win the will of learning to live in solitude with nothing more than best needs. Wow, okay.

It's a very simple verse. As we start to work more and more for other people, then there should be a corresponding shrinking of our own needs. And it's a wonderful experience, even if you can do it a little bit.

But as your attitude shifts more from selfishness to giving for others, say, giving to others, then naturally your own needs should start to shrink. And the culmination, I think Master Shantideva is specifically saying, after you have seen emptiness, after you have reached intense joy, is that you start to change your body. In the years after that, your life begins to change, especially if you are trying to practice the secret teachings.

Then your own needs begin to shrink drastically. On a moral level, you should use less of the world's resources. And on a physical level, your body needs less food, less sleep.

Your needs begin to shrink because you are seeing the first stages of your body's transformation into life. And on a very gross level, people like us should begin to have less impact on our earth. We should begin to use less of her resources.

I'm not a great ecologist, but living here for the last few years, I think all of us retreatants have begun to appreciate deeply the wilderness and the wildlife, the other people who share our world. We have become close friends and companions to the local creatures. They eat with us often.

They will even come to the door and wait for us, try to catch our attention. All sorts of wonderful creatures. And we begin to sense the need to share the earth with them in a deep way.

And I think as spiritual practitioners, as our physical needs should shrink as we serve others, we should, and we do, become more sensitive to the fact that every time we use a single object, food or material object that we don't really need, every time we eat something that we don't really need, we are taking things away from the earth and from other creatures. And from our future children and grandchildren. So this verse is, I think, a very beautiful statement of simplifying our needs so we can serve others.

Next verse. We are working to achieve the goals of all the living things that are in every corner of this universe. So by this power may we learn to do every single one of the things that gentle voice is taking us to do.

It's a prayer, sending energy to ourselves, to the future, that we should learn to act like Manjushri himself. Mainly the power to see emptiness directly. May we learn to see that.

Send power ahead to yourself. And also to act in secret ways, to act around the world in secret ways. Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
And may we decide that we will stay to work to clear away the pain of every living being there is until the last day of this universe, until the very last suffering creature is changed.

[Говорящий 1]
It's a prayer that we learn to take responsibility for everyone else. And it begins with just the work you are doing anywhere. For example, if there is a teaching like this, then you stick around after it's over.

We used to serve Holy Lama during the retreats in New Jersey. They used to be ten days long. And many people would come.

On Sunday afternoon there would be a small tornado of cars leaving. And suddenly the entire grounds of the temple and the house were empty of people and full of garbage and work to do, clean up. And it's a kind of attitude that begins with small things like that.

Will you be there the day after the teaching, offering to help people clean up and put things away? Will you wait around until the real end of the virtue? And then it expands on a greater level.

Are you willing to make a commitment to stay as long as it takes to help the last person through the door? Many of you know, who have studied deeply, that it's not true that bodhisattvas must stay and suffer until the last person is through the door of enlightenment. It works the other way around.

Bodhisattva's job is to get enlightened immediately, go to nirvana and highest enlightenment as fast as you can. Because then you can emanate countless bodies and help other people in trillions more ways than you can if you wait. So it's not correct, the rumor, that bodhisattvas choose to stay in the suffering world until every other person is gone beyond.

It's the opposite. But we have to have that attitude that we would be willing to stay and suffer if we had to help others. In actuality, your job is very exciting.

You have to get to total bliss quickly so you can really help others. This is just a statement of the attitude that you should have, that you will work for others' sake. You will think of others first.

There are many students, and I do it myself, we say we're working for all living beings, and then when there's only one donut left in the box, we eat it ourselves. We do that. It's a sign, it's an indication, it's a danger signal that we don't have bodhisattva's attitude.

It starts with small things. You can't claim to be a bodhisattva or studying bodhisattva's way of life if you can't give away a cup of tea or the last donut. We have to start with those things.

We have to start with small things and give them away to other people. May every single pain that is coming to any single being there is ripen now upon me instead. May the great community of bodhisattvas go forth and spread through all the world to work for the happiness of all.

This is an ancient practice of trying to take other people's bad karma away from them and swallow it ourselves. It's so important. I would like to leave it, if you don't mind, for tomorrow.

What was the second half? There's a beautiful Sanskrit verse. See if I can remember.

Kanda Yidva. It means, Kanda Yidva means those holy beings who are walking around on this planet in disguise. Among the mass of people.

In the Dake, it starts the Jine Dorje Kandoma. However many you may be, I don't know. Kala Dandam means, Kala means time, but it's a word for the lord of death.

Danda means a club, a stick. It means those who have clubbed death to death. It's a beautiful word, Kala Dandam.

Those who have murdered death. Because they have moved beyond this kind of body. They have entered a state beyond death.

It is the goal of all of us, and to take other people there. Brahmande means the egg of Brahma. It's a word for the universe.

Vicharantite means those who wander around the world in disguise, helping the rest of us. And Master Shantideva's prayer is the same. I send the energy of writing this holy book, Bodhisattva Charyavatara, I send it to all those secret agents, bodhisattvas, who are all over the place.

May you continue to wander through our world and help people secretly. Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
The teachings of the enlightened ones are the one medicine that can cure the great sickness of living kind. They are the one ultimate source of every form of happiness. And so by this power may the teachings remain long upon this planet with all the support they require and all the respect they deserve.

[Говорящий 1]
Master Shantideva is praying that the single medicine for all suffering should remain in this world. Says the teachings of the enlightened ones. It boils down to one thing.

Serve other people. Take care of other people. Take care of other people.

It's the whole teaching in that one sentence. Take care of other people. If people continue to take care of others, then the teachings of all religions are staying on this planet.

And they are the one medicine for all pain in this world. And anything that contributes to keeping that idea in this world, send your good karma to that. Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
And lastly do I bow myself down to the one with a gentle voice, the one who has been kind enough to teach me the ways of virtue.

[Говорящий 1]
Thus last do I bow myself down to the one who is kind enough to raise me up from childhood. I bow to you my spiritual guide. In the actual chapter, this is the final verse.

I've rearranged the verses for this teaching. We all come to our teachers like children, small children. I remember, I think the first day I came to Holy Lama Ken Rinpoche, I was, I think, 22.

And one of his senior students sat me down and said, I'll be honest with you. It's a lot more trouble to have you here than not to have you here. It will be more trouble for Rinpoche.

He was called Geshe-la at the time. Your very presence here is trouble for Rinpoche. I was very new.

I was sort of blown away. And I went home to my little room and I thought about it. And I thought, I'm going to try not to be trouble.

But I was. And still am. And it's hard to bring up a student.

It's a lot of pain. It's a lot of work. It's not, you can't finish this in a year or two.

It takes a lifetime. And that relation remains for many lifetimes. And in a sense, our teachers have taken us like a child in a basket left at the door.

And they take responsibility for us. And we fight them. We struggle against them.

We can't listen to them. If we could, we wouldn't need them. It's true.

It's by definition, rangi-teni-gi-dupa. We don't know enough to even be a good student. That's why we're students.

And so, the last verse is a prayer. Sending whatever little good karma we have to our teachers. I'm sorry for being such a difficult case.

And I pray that you will stay with me. I pray that all my teachers, my many teachers here, will not give up on me. I pray that you will continue to try to guide me.

Even when I'm crazy and I'm fighting you. Even when I don't listen to you. Even when I refuse to see who you are.