Круги света — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: глава о посвящении силы добрых дел (2002, Аризона), занятие 7

[Говорящий 1]
So now we'll go to Master Shantideva's work, The Guide for Bodhisattvas. We're all trying to be bodhisattvas. And we get suggestions from him about where to send our good karmas, our good karmic seeds like little crystals from our hearts to other hearts, other people's hearts.

I changed the order of the verses to fit this teaching and, frankly, to fit the story of Jesus' crucifixion. But the numbers of the verses are there. And today our theme is failure.

And Master Shantideva is going to send the good karma writing his book to people who have failed in an ultimate way. Could you read the first verse? I don't know how many realms of hell there are hidden in our world.

But by this power, may every person trapped in one instead find joy and the joy of the heaven of joy. Master Shantideva begins to send his good karmic seeds out with the power of his own mind to people in the hell realms. I have to try to convince you in the next few minutes that hell realms exist.

It's not popular to speak of them. You are considered foolish by many people if you say you believe in the hell realms. Other people will say you are just following the old books.

That's negative thinking. Other people just say the world is wonderful. There can't be places like hell realms.

I keep thinking of the lady at my office in New York. One lady was pregnant. She was dealing with large amounts of topaz.

We were very concerned for the health of her child. Because the color is imparted by radiation. And the stones stay hot for different lengths of time depending on the kind of radiation you use.

But you have to try to imagine the danger of radiation. One tiny particle in a collision is freed from the substance like a small piece of gem on your finger. And it easily cuts through your skin.

And it reaches a single cell in the development of the child. And it goes inside the cell penetrates the cell wall and it hits part of the chromosomes. And it damages an infinitely tiny piece of the DNA chain in a single cell.

All cancers start this way also. It's a single loose atomic particle striking a single cell. It's the same with karma.

When the DNA chain is damaged then the child will grow wrong. And you can imagine in the time of 2 or 3 seconds in the womb this DNA has been damaged. And then for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years this baby has a defect.

A serious defect. So, the idea that a tiny infinitely small damage in a seed can cause decades of pain, real pain to the child and his family, her family it's real. It's not a made up thing.

We know these things happen. The woman's child was damaged. Karma is the same.

A tiny imprint on that infinitely small dot of consciousness in your heart. These seeds are managed by thought alone. These seeds are planted.

These seeds are moved around. These seeds' content is determined only by the focus of your own thoughts. And so if you do something very violent mentally, if your intention is very negative towards another person then a seed is planted in your heart.

DNA is damaged. Karmic DNA is damaged. And then it matures like any seed.

Takes time to grow. And then the seeds which are creating our reality this tent, this desert, this sky the earth you are sitting on the body you are in the thoughts you are having all of that energy is coming from the tiny drop in your heart and it's wearing out because it's happening. Every time an hour goes by thousands of good deeds you did in the past their energy is finished.

And when their energy is gone we call it death. Try very, very hard try hard to know death is not an outside thing. It's a change in your consciousness.

It's a change in your perceptions. That's all. The images being presented to your mind by the tiny karmic seeds wear out.

And then you see something different. You see what the next seed in line offers to your mind. And if that seed is malignant then you see a hell realm.

People try to look for hell realms or we'll dig a tunnel under the earth. It's not like that. It's a change in your perceptions.

If you can watch a clock go from 3 to 4 o'clock you can go from this realm to a hell realm. It's the same. You have to think about it a lot.

So Master Shantideva says first I send my good karma to people in the hell realms. In the hell realms time slows down. You know when you are in pain time slows down.

And so the perception of time there is a long, long time. The karmic seeds don't allow your body to die. People say what a silly idea.

You mean you could have your head cut off and then get back up? Yes. It's a silly idea.

Oh, where do you think your life came from? What's keeping this meat alive? Where does life itself come from?

How can a small bag of guts and bones outlive a car or a house? How? Where does life come from?

It's the seeds, karmic seeds, they can do anything. It's not crazy to believe that you could be cut into pieces in a hell realm and then come back into another body, a whole, and be cut up again and again and again. Because you're here.

You're alive. Your body is as much an impossibility as those bodies are. Really read a modern physics book.

Stephen Hawking's great book, Brief History of Time, is classic. You should read it. One of the holy teachers made me read it.

I didn't want to read it. But he's very honest at the end. He says we can't explain why things happen.

There are contradictions which are impossible. Particles move like, light itself moves like a particle sometimes, and then moves like a wave sometimes. It almost acts as if it were two contradictory things at the same time.

We can't tell you even the position of a particle and tell you its speed at the same time. This is called uncertainty principle. It's a fancy way of saying we can't figure it out.

Einstein himself introduced an idea called the cosmological constant. It's a made-up fiction. And he admitted it to explain things he couldn't explain.

It's a big part of the theory of relativity. And it's frankly a fiction. And he said it's a fiction, but it has to be there or my idea is wrong.

Modern physicists threw out the cosmological constant and replaced it with their own fictions. And they read his book. He's very frank.

These are fictions we don't understand. How can life be produced? We don't know.

The forces which exist in balance to create human life are beyond possibility. The very energy of an electron in relation to the other particles, if it were a millionth of a percentage different, life would be impossible. We can't explain why it came out like that.

So, how realms exist. I could give you the historical argument. Oh, Christians also say that.

The Jewish scriptures also say that. The Muslim scriptures also say that. Dante's description and Arya Nagarjuna's description are the same.

But I think if you are an intelligent person, it's more powerful to explain the real cause of hell, which is the seeds in our own minds. Then Master Shantideva says, may their seeds be changed. May the hell realms become the heaven of bliss.

This is a Buddha paradise. Enlightened realm. He sends his good karmas to them for that.

Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
May those who freeze in the cold of hell be covered in warmth. May the infinite showers of gentle rain fall from the vast bodhisattva clouds to cool the searing pain of those who live there in fire.

[Говорящий 1]
Thank you. Nice job. I'll tell you some tantric secrets.

What the heck. We have three principal subtle channels in our bodies. The two smaller ones on the two sides and a larger one in the middle.

Running roughly down the area of the backbone. All your experiences of something hot, of motion, are ultimately triggered from the channel on the right side. Your perception of a sun is being emanated by the energy of the channel on the right side.

Those of you who have studied emptiness deeply, you know the idea of grasping to things as self-existent. The idea that things might come from their own side and not from us. Every time you think that in a certain way, then that energy on the right side is moving in a certain malignant way, a wrong way.

And ultimately that has created all our perceptions of moving objects and the sun itself, the heat within our bodies. On the left side, the other half, ignorant ideas about the nature of our own minds, triggering forces which have created objects like the moon itself. Your perception of the moon is an image presented to your mind through the influence of this channel due to mistakes in the past.

If these subtle energies are disturbed in a serious manner by a serious negative wishes towards your fellow man, then those same energies create two forms of hell realms. One, the hells which are extremely hot. They are huge dark caverns filled of screaming people running across iron ground which is red hot.

There's nowhere to go. They just run and scream. In the hells of caverns above that, you can't find them.

No one made them. Do you think Lord Buddha was a fool? Do you think he thought some construction company went underground and built these places?

They are being produced by your own mind. And they are real, therefore. In the upper caverns, people just sit in snow and ice and scream, whimper in pain.

So Master Shantideva is sending his good karma. May the people in the cold hells be blanketed in a sweet warmth. May the people in the hot hells, may this beautiful rain descend on them.

From where? From Bodhisattva clouds. What's a Bodhisattva cloud?

It's the simple action of taking care of other people. It's the simple action of destroying the ignorant selfishness that ruins our lives. Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
May the forest of falling leaves of knives turn for those who live there into a pleasure grove of shady bowers. May the daggers of the trunks of the trees of Shamali sprout as the wish-giving tree instead.

[Говорящий 1]
Surrounding the caverns of hell, there are other hells like concentric circles. People on the hot hells, they see at a distance, trees. And they believe that they could run there and find some comfort.

They run under the trees. And then the leaves become like large knives, like razors. And they drop down, and they cut the people's bodies, cut off little chunks.

It is a creation of former very evil negative thoughts about others. People came to you for protection, and you failed them. You refused them.

I want to be clear that if you are really trying, and you fail to give help and protection to others, you don't have to worry. The malignant seed won't be perfect. This seed can only come if you give up the wish to help.

This seed can only happen if you fail, and you don't care that you failed. Those of us who fail and go home and feel bad, you don't have to worry. The pureness, the purity of your sadness will clean that karma.

So really, we just have to keep wishing we could protect others. And try as hard as we can, and not refuse anyone, up to our capacity. Then we fail, and we know we're in the market.

There's a tree in the house called shalmali. Shalmali means a kind of a dagger. If you've ever seen palm trees up close, they have these sharp daggers of wood pointing up near the top.

People are being chased across the hell realms, floored by wild beasts like large German shepherds. They have iron teeth. They are ripping the people's legs open.

They see a tree. They try to climb it. The branches, which are like swords, they turn downwards, and they cut the people open.

You have a choice of climbing up against the swords or dropping to the dogs. When you get to the top and the dogs go away, you want to climb down the swords' reverse. This means the karma of promising help to someone, giving them hope, and then changing.

Someone comes to you for help, and instead you take advantage of them. Again, this seed can't be planted for this hell if you are struggling to be good. We are all trying, struggling to be good.

People here, all of us, who sit at night in our yurts and wonder why we can't be better people, just the wondering, just the wishing we could be better changes the karmic seeds of failing others, and they will produce a sweet result. Next verse. May the caverns of hell suddenly echo forth with the soft, sweet song of the dove and the nightingale, ruby-throated sparrow, graceful swans, birds of every kind drawn to the gentle waters that spring up instantly there, covered with lotuses whose delicate fragrance fills the air.

Perhaps the worst thing in the hell realms is the sound of millions of people screaming, and the poetry is very powerful. The idea that suddenly the screaming stops, and people are listening, and suddenly they hear these beautiful songs of birds, every kind of sweet song of a bird that you can imagine, and some of them are the songs of birds which are only attracted to lakes and ponds. And then suddenly, in the middle of the fire, a pond appears, and beautiful trees, and birds are landing in huge flocks and singing beautiful songs, and the fires are receding, and beautiful huge lotuses are growing out of the cool water.

Master Shantideva is manipulating mental images in his own heart chakra to try to actually change the reality of hell. It's a very powerful action, more powerful than anything any of us can do externally. Next verse.

May the heaps of burning embers of fire become piles of precious jewels, and the red-hot glowing iron floor the ground of a new world sparkling in crystal light. May the mountains that slam together, crushing the crowds of helpless people between them, turn to the palace temples of heaven filled with blissful Buddhas. So, Master Shantideva, he is going into his own heart chakra.

He is entering his own drop of consciousness. He is manipulating infinitely tiny karmic seeds by focus itself, by the act of focus itself. And he is imagining that the embers and the hot coals in hell turn to jewels.

There are special mountains in the hells. People are herded in huge masses between the mountains, and then the mountains slam together and crush them. The mountains open again.

The people rise again. The mountains crush them again. I think many of our very basic phobias, like afraid to be in a small place, or afraid to be in a high place, I think they are vestiges of our former hell lives.

We have basic instinctual fears, even of death, which I believe are driven by a deep unconscious knowledge of what can happen after. And so he is praying that these huge mountains should turn into beautiful crystal palaces, and inside there are just Buddhas singing, and hell becomes a paradise. The very act of imagining it changes seeds in your heart chakra.

The world begins to change itself. It's an incredibly powerful way of helping others. Next verse.

In the moment that I speak, may the great rain of putrid filth and stones of solid fire, knives and spears, transform into a soft, steady shower of fragrant flower petals. And in the hells of anger, where people snatch up rocks and sticks to gnash one another open, may they instead gather up armfuls of petals, laughing, tossing over each other. There's a special part of hell.

It's one of the easier parts of hell. When you are born there, you just assume a body, maybe like ours, and the minute you open your eyes, there's someone running at you with a stick or a rock, and they are trying to beat your brains out. And due to your karmic seeds, you are filled with anger.

You search. You try to find any kind of a stick or a stone, and you pick it up and you fight back. And you can imagine a vast, plain, burning, plain, dark, huge groups of people just trying to bash each other's brains out with rocks all day, all night.

No rest. No stop. When someone dies, they just get up again.

That's impossible. Your life is impossible. It comes from anger and violence and competitive thoughts towards each other.

Why are vowels number eight and nine of ten, the ten non-virtues, why did they make it into the top ten out of 84,000? Number eight is being unhappy that other people have gotten something nice. Number nine is being happy that trouble has come to other people.

We must be having some version of these thoughts about a thousand times a day if it's in the top ten. And if you truly examine your heart, you will find those thoughts there, even at this moment. And so, in a way, we are already picking up rocks and trying to smash each other's hands.

But just the intention, just the wish that other people should have problems, which I openly confess I have all the time, creates a malignant seed and it ripens into this hell realm. If you fight it, how? With your book, with your diary, with watching your vowels and your own heart from hour to hour.

It doesn't take much. Just write down the truth. I had a thought about this other person that I'm envious of.

I was hoping they would have a little trouble. The very act of focusing on the true condition of your own heart with honesty ruins that nice evil seed and makes it into a beautiful seed. Do your diaries.

It doesn't change us overnight. You don't have to be 100% sincere. You can be tired and scribble down something half-true.

But the very act of looking at your own heart, the very act of going into your mind and admitting that we don't wish well on others ruins that nice hell seed and becomes a seed for our bodhisattva. I send the awesome power of the good deed that I've done as well to all those trapped within the river that cannot be crossed. Wrapped within the hell flames there with all the skin and flesh ripped away from their bodies, the bones jutting out in the glistening white of freshly fallen snow.

May this power grow their bodies back in the form of divine angels. One of the last of the surrounding hells is a special kind of river. It doesn't flow with water.

It flows with fire. Inside the flowing fire are small creatures. The closest thing in this realm is like a piranha.

People are running to escape from the dogs, the very evil birds that peck at them, the special beings, guards of the hells who are trying to cut them open. And they run into this river. They can't ever reach the other side.

No one ever reaches the other side. And every time they put their foot down, the fire and the creatures rip the flesh away. When they raise their leg, their bones are jutting out.

And in the time it takes to lower their leg again, the skin has grown back. Master Shantideva says, when their leg comes up, may they turn into a tantric deity and fly away. He is praying for them.

I think this is a statement on how we treat others who are at the very end of their realm. People come to us for help. As a bodhisattva, we have a special responsibility when another person has nowhere else to go.

If you have a knowledge that a person has another option, if you know that a person has someone else to turn to, then your bodhisattva vows allow you to refer them, direct them to another person. But if you honestly know that this person has come to the end of their hope, if you are honestly aware that this person has nowhere else to go, if you know that everyone else in the world would reject them, waste of time, hopeless, too much trouble, incredible trouble, maybe even crazy, then you have to take them in. We have to take care of them especially.

And they have reached the river at the end of the hells. We don't always succeed. You know, I know.

People have come for our help. They have been maybe difficult people, people with major problems. And we have tried to help them, maybe not as much as we could, but we really tried.

And it failed in the end. But if you truly wanted to help, if you truly tried to help, to your capacity, our capacity is not very big, we're not perfect, but make a special effort to help people who are beyond help. You will never have these seeds.

We can fail gracefully. I'd like to take a break there and we'll finish shortly. Now I listen to the old tapes from New York.

He always says, we're about done. And I know dinner is an hour away. Okay, we'll take a break.