Круги света — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: глава о посвящении силы добрых дел (2002, Аризона), занятие 6

[Говорящий 1]
We've been talking about sending your good karma to other people. But we have many more failures. We have many more mistakes.

And we can use them. We can use our mistakes. Holy Lama Ken Rinpoche, when he first gave the secret teachings in this country that I know of, there was a small group of disciples.

One woman raised her hand. She said, Rinpoche, are you going to give us secret vows? Rinpoche said, yes.

She said, I heard that if you break those vows, you can go to the lowest hell. Rinpoche said, that's true. And so she said, then why do you give us these vows?

We can't keep them. Rinpoche said, that's true. She said, then we'll go to the lowest of the hells.

He said, well, if you do, you can tell all the other people you're there because you broke your highest vows. I'm not like you other slobs here. I'm not here because I murdered someone, or committed adultery, or stole from people.

I'm here because I broke my tantric vows.

[Говорящий 2]
And you can say it proud.

[Говорящий 1]
Then he said, come on. When you fail in your spiritual practice, it's because you've been practicing. The Kalmyk Mongolians have a saying.

I don't remember it. It's a kudmus uga, moha uga, something like that. It means that people who never do any work can't make any mistakes.

We can't make mistakes in our practice if we're not practicing. We are trying to be good people, and we are failing often, more times than we succeed. We try to practice the perfection of patience, one of the highest bodhisattva commitments.

I will tell you openly and honestly, I listened to the wonderful Asian Classics Institute tapes of this same book, Bodhisattva Charvatara, The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. Christy and I listened to them on Sundays. I was inspired by this lama, this American lama, describing the perfection of patience so well.

We turned off the tape recorder. We got up to prepare something like a meal, and I got upset and angry about some stupid small thing. Then I thought, you just got through listening to two long hours of patience, spoken by yourself, and so inspiring.

And then you can control your own heart in the next 15 minutes. I tell you honestly, I have gone to Sojong. This is the holy ritual prayer for cleaning our bad karma.

And I sit down among my other fellow retreatants, and I start to think of maybe a time that I got angry. And just thinking about it during the ceremony of purification, I get angry. You get angry purifying your anger.

We're hopeless. I'm not kidding. We say we're going to practice giving.

We go to our yurt. Someone dear to us is in town for a few days. We dig through the junk that's been piling up.

The best things we keep on the altar, because they're ours. We know that we will get to keep them, if they're on the altar. And then the stuff we don't like so much goes in a bag down on the side.

And when a friend is in town, you dig through the bag. We can't be generous. We have obstacles in our hearts.

We can't give the things we really like. Holy Lament, I watched the Pope on television one day, speaking at a large stadium near New York. He said, don't give people your extras.

Don't give people the things you don't like. Give them what's dear to you. Give them the major part of your income.

Rinpoche was amazed. He said, oh, that's perfect. We can't do it.

We say we're going to respect other people's things, and then the first time we need something, we take. We live in a country where no one needs anything much. We have everything.

But the minute there's a shortage, I remember the gasoline shortages. I was in India. I watched people fight over half a gallon of turpentine for their stove kerosene.

I said, Americans never do that. We are more noble. I came back during the oil crisis.

People were shooting each other in the gasoline lines. We are generous as long as we have extra. We don't steal as long as we don't need.

But the minute we need all the ethics,