Круги света — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: глава о посвящении силы добрых дел (2002, Аризона), занятие 9

[Говорящий 1]
We've been talking each day about a good karma that you and I may have done, that we could give away to other people, because this is what the chapter by Master Shantideva is about. I think it's my joyful duty to remind you of the good karma I have seen you do. I so often pick on you.

It's only fair. I would like to speak today about all the hard work I have seen all of you doing to help the teachings in this world. I would like to speak about all the amazing things you have done to make sure that these teachings survive in this world, and that people who wish to have a chance to drink of these teachings were not allowed or encouraged in Buddhism to proselytize, bother people.

But if people are interested, if people see an announcement for a talk and think it might be interesting and come of their own accord, then it's our responsibility and it's our great honor to have something ready for them. There are people sitting here. They came to the very first tiny classes, five, six, seven people, and this man had the wisdom to bring a tape recorder.

He said, I'd like to remember what's said, even to the first class, I think, and maybe later someone might want to know what was said. He kept bringing a tape recorder to class. People would ask him, did you get that third class?

I missed it. He would make a tape for them, and now it's been, I think, about ten years later, he continued to insist that these tapes should be made. He spent a great deal of his own time, countless hours, and a great deal of his own money.

He got better and better tapes made. He made them into beautiful packages. People in other states and other cities began asking for them.

He made sure everyone got what they needed. There was a big sign, and I hope there still is, on the front of the package that said, if you don't have any money, don't worry about it, it's free. And now, I heard, I saw, illegally, a small pamphlet in the Temple Library, that over 75,000 tapes have been distributed from the kindness of this person.

You have assured that the first great introduction of the great holy books of our lineage and tradition, which Ken Rinpoche so kindly imparted to us, are available to anyone who wishes. I have gone around the world teaching. I've seen tapes everywhere.

People come up to me, what's your name? I'm Geshe Micah. Yeah, but do you know John Stilwell?

For years, I've been listening to the tapes, and his questions on the tapes, they're amazing. And he was so kind, he wrote me a letter, sent me everything I needed. We have a small group now.

We're all listening to them. I teach them sometimes to others. This is going on all over the world.

This is an incredible service to the teachings. Each box of tapes comes with the original scriptures and the translation. And there are many people here who worked very hard to make tapes.

And we offered to, people could write back and send questions or homework. And we tried very hard to have a small group of people answer their questions, check their homework. It was extremely difficult.

There were thousands of papers. People in prisons, a big network developed. People would send in 10-page letters about their life as an answer to a simple question.

And kind students in New York would carefully answer each letter. It was all done at night, in people's free time. And then young people, really sincere, devoted, good young people came, started saying, I can help.

I want to learn to translate. I want to learn how to make these notebooks. I can help you.

It's normally a long road to become a translator. But these people were so sincere. They worked so hard.

We had several very good teachers of Tibetan helping. And within a few years they were producing very beautiful translations. Some of the parts of the courses were translated by them.

Almost all of the Tibetan was checked, printed, laid out by them. Oftentimes they spent all night working. Now in retreat and elsewhere, people continue to translate.

I think you will be very happy later. Those who are prepared will be able to read many of the secret teachings in English. One retreatant is working on an ancient commentary to our practice.

Another retreatant is working on another commentary. They've made very good progress. We are already using those commentaries.

A third young retreatant has translated all the beautiful secret rituals. For example, the beautiful fire offering that we do. And all this retreat, we have used her translations for our special offering ceremonies.

Other people, one of the caretakers in particular, produced a... I checked the other day, just so I would tell the right thing. It's about 800 pages manuscript of the entire teachings of a great Lama of about 200 years ago on our retreat practices.

There's another person here, I think, took all the tapes, recordings of all the classes we all took together in India, Serra Monastery. Spent over two years carefully transcribing them out, adding all the Tibetan in pronunciation. And has made two beautiful books of the extraordinary teachings we received on emptiness and mind only.

There is not a more than a handful of clear explanations in the whole world in any language of this difficult and important subject. This man has saved this extremely precious knowledge for all of us to share, and continues to help people with the tapes. And I think you will study this subject from him.

There are people in New York who came and said, I will make books out of the teachings. They spent years making beautiful manuscripts. We couldn't finish them before retreat.

But there are three or four extraordinary manuscripts done by several very fine writers. One Indian woman especially did the Mahamudra teachings. And a couple who are very fine poets and writers have prepared several other manuscripts.

We were approached by a company, a large book company, to write several books about Buddhism. They came out with my name on them. But you should know that they were a collaboration by several holy students here who didn't even want their names on the books.

People here have worked very hard to make the teachings available to others. There's a man here who spent years trying to finalize the preparations for Godstow Retreat Center. This is a large and very expensive estate property which was donated for a dollar to our organization.

But there were major problems in the final papers and things to do with the deeds and the township and the zoning. And this man took all the responsibility because he had a vision that people might do retreats in this place for many many years to come. There was a woman, a lawyer, who spent countless hours working on this project.

And she and her husband spent countless hours working on the house and the grounds. And it's due to her kindness that we are able to serve others in this center. In New York there were 15 senior students came forth and said I will help teach.

They underwent training for about a year and a half specially. Then they began to teach others. It's very difficult to teach people in your own country if you're not Tibetan or Indian.

If you don't have a red robe or yellow robe on. If your head's not shaved or very long hair. People think you're just a normal person.

It's very hard even if you're very knowledgeable to teach your peers. I was in India. I was at Giron College, our college, the best in the universe.

And they let in an old man one day, a very old monk. And they ran to me and they said venerable has escaped from Tibet. Every year we get between 50 and 100 new refugees.

Many of them badly injured during the escape. Many die in the attempt. He shuffled in.

I spoke to him for a while. People said this is Ken Rinpoche's classmate from Tibet. He just escaped.

And I spoke to him. I was overjoyed. They said this is the last classmate alive of Ken Rinpoche.

And I spoke with him. He said, young fellow, you speak pretty good Tibetan there. How did you learn that?

And I said, Holy Lama Ken Rinpoche taught me most of the things I know. He said, oh, what's his name? I said, he's the great former abbot who's living in America, in Tibetan it's Ardhikenser Rinpoche.

He said, yeah, yeah, but what's his name? I said, his holy name is Geshe Nossantarchen. He said, Nossantarchen, that sounds familiar.

I said, well, they tell me he was your classmate. And he looks up, he says, oh, Nossantarchen. That little goofball.

I don't believe a word of what you, he couldn't ever teach nobody. Last time I saw him he was putting thumbtacks on the pathways around the monastery buildings, because monks used to walk barefoot. He was the biggest cutoff in our whole class.

He can't be that Ken Rinpoche you're talking about. I said to Venerable, how long ago was that? He said, oh, just a while back.

Maybe, oh God, it's been 70 years now. And he couldn't believe that this goofball had become an abbot of Seremey and the greatest Lama to teach all the Westerners. This is called a peer perception problem.

Anyone here who tries to become a teacher, you'll run into it. People will say, I knew Winston when he was back, just starting. He can't be teaching.

He can't be explaining, turning into people. I knew him back when. And it happens all over the world.

Geshe Thubten Rinchen's classmates commonly tell me, oh, he's just a kid. The Abbot of Gyumri Tantric College was debating with us in the debate ground, it seems, just a while back. And you have to overcome this problem.

It always happens like that. You don't appreciate the teachers who have worked so hard. You don't really respect a person who comes from your own country.

Sakya Pandita said, a wise man is never appreciated in his own hometown. Jesus was thrown out of Nazareth Synagogue. He was almost killed when he tried to teach there.

But you have to teach. This is a lineage. It happens every generation.

The other students think you're just a kid. You were in the same class as me. But that's how the next generation starts.

And I'm really proud. I think we've done it the right way. That the teaching has now passed to the next generation.

You have worked very hard. You have trained yourself as well as any monk ever did in Tibet. And I tell you, frankly, better than 95% of them.

You are qualified. You are ready to teach. And you are teaching.

And you must teach. You must go on teaching. The new generation of teachers has come.

And this is the way it must be if we are to help many people. People here who are training, who have been training, who have gone to many classes, who have done much personal retreat, contemplation, work on your own heart. You must now begin to teach.

And I heard rumors. Sometimes the teachers who come and help us with their own sweet knowledge, holy teachers, some of them here, very great and kind teachers who come and help us, it will slip out of their mouth. Oh, so-and-so was teaching in Ireland.

And I've heard that three of you at least have been helping people in Ireland. This is incredibly good karma because it's the survival of the lineage. The lineage is going on.

The lineage has passed to the next generation. This is a wild success of our work. I'm very honored and proud.

It's a very frightening thing to think that after two and a half thousand years the lineage would stop in the United States or other Western countries. It must pass on. You are doing perfect, beautiful work.

I couldn't be more happy. You have made me, you have made your teacher and all your teachers are extremely happy because you are saving the Dharma. Your teaching, your working to teach others, is breathing the life into the Dharma for the next generation.

I know that some of the staff, the caretakers, are teaching here also in this area. It's a wonderful thing. I've heard beautiful things from people.

I know that people are teaching in New York, and I think God still. Some of the teachers who come to us have blurted out things about how beautiful those classes are. It's a wonderful thing.

I was in India. I was in Sara. We were learning from Geshe Thubten Menchen.

A small group of people came to me. They said, we're your grandchildren. I said, that's not possible.

They said, no, you don't understand. We're from Australia, and we've been studying with a holy lama there, a sweet, wonderful Australian man. We got a fax from this crazy man about, I don't know, six, seven years ago.

He had seen the Diamond Cutter Sutra video, and he said, we have to bring this to Australia. He worked very hard, and it went to Australia, and then he began to teach. I asked him, I begged him.

He's too modest to teach, and he has wonderful students. You don't know what it feels like to have people come up to you and say, I have been taught by the people you taught, because it means that the work of your whole life has been meaningful. So I beg you to continue.

You have to prepare the next generation. Then you will have the same pleasure of meeting your own grandchildren later in strange places. I'd like to make it clear today.

It would be, I would be very pleased if each of the people who have taken a major responsibility, the director of ACI in New York, the director of Diamond Mountain, the director of the Asian Classics Input Project, trying to save the holy books, those of you who have taken responsibility to teach in other states or other countries, I would like to make it very clear that I consider the lineage to be passed on. It's my hope, even after three years retreat, that you will continue to serve as you serve in the capacities which you are serving.

I pray and I beg you on behalf of all of us living preachers, that you continue your work and you pass it on to the next generation and you take special care to find suitable, special people to whom you can pass on these responsibilities when the time is right for you, when the three-year retreat bug bites you. I would love to continue to teach special classes, especially for people who are prepared. I long to instruct a handful of really fine translators, more than I've been able to do.

I think Arizona is a good place to work with special classes and I think Diamond Mountain will be a special university for teachers. I think New York City is an incredible place. I think some of the most talented people in the world have the karma to pass through New York City.

If it's the wish of people or the boards of the places in New York and Connecticut, I would love to come for special teachings maybe a few times a few months out of the year. And then maybe I and Christy, we have serious practices we must finish. We are truly trying to reach the highest goals of these teachings.

We are working incredibly hard. I think it's important for a teacher to set an example and try very hard to reach the final goals of the highest teachings of our lineage. And so I would also like to continue some deep retreats, but not all at once.

And I think I would be very pleased to continue to teach special classes or events like an elder statesman. And I think the primary teaching of the 18 courses should be the responsibility of the directors and the board of, there should be strong boards in New York and Connecticut and Diamond Mountain. And they must, you people here must take responsibility that those teachings remain and are healthy.

It's been passed onto you now. And it's your responsibility to train yourself well. It's your serious obligation now to carry that baby to the next generation.

And I will teach many wonderful classes also. I can't stop my mind wandering during retreat. And I have many ideas for advanced special courses.

And we are working very hard. One of the people who is helping a lot to design courses on the higher teachings is here. I think, I don't know for sure.

He is the director of the Asian Classics Input Project. He and the two sweet holy beings who have worked so hard for many years, they are both named in the monastery, they call them Bob, Bob, Bob and Bob. They have worked very hard.

You have that good karma to dedicate to other people. What good karma? The ancient books in Tibet were burned during the invasion in the 1950s and 60s and 70s.

Thousands and thousands of books were destroyed. The wood blocks were used as a joke to parquet the floors of military buildings. Tibetan people were required to walk on their holy scriptures.

And now those things are almost lost. But there are huge collections still in Russia. There are two huge collections in Mongolia.

And the people under the holy John Brady, here, I don't know, is he here? Okay. They have worked very hard.

I want to tell John Brady a story. You have to pass it on. I don't think I've ever told any of you.

Around 1985, I went to a university. I was taking classes from a professor of Sanskrit, Holy Lama Samuel Atkins. He was a great, great scholar.

And he took me in the basement. There was a whole desk covered with odd computer pieces. And it was the first CD-ROM.

The owner of Hewlett-Packard, David Packard, was there, a junior. And he's a Greek scholar. And they had spent, I think, about $15 million to type in the ancient Greek scriptures and literature in Korea and the Philippines.

I saw all of the knowledge of Greek literature in a single little shiny piece of plastic. He told me, Mr. Packard, this will be the future of computers. These things will be able to hold the whole literature of a single culture in one or two diskettes.

You know what I was thinking. I went home. We started to type, me and a guy named Robert Lacey.

In a year, we had finished a 50-page book. Then a great man named Ngawang Tenduk Ngarki. He is the greatest Tibetan linguist in the world.

He is the biographer of the Dalai Lama. He lives with His Holiness. Every day, he writes down what His Holiness has done that day.

He's on volume 58 or something. He's pretty old now. But I told him, we have this dream.

We would like to put the Kanye and the Tengyur, our holy books, four and a half thousand books, a million pages. We would like to put them onto these special disks and give them to everyone for free. He said, extraordinary.

He said, say that into this tape recorder. And we sat down and we made a tape for His Holiness. And Kulo La is his name, special name.

He took the tape to His Holiness. And we got a message back that said, please try to do it. I recently got an illegal message.

They just come in the lunch box. Kristi reads them and I refuse. And she tells me what they say.

And it said, it looks like we finished the Kanye and Tengyur. It's almost 20 years of work. Thousands of Tibetan refugees have been trained, helped, hundreds, not thousands.

And many monks have worked. There are many Tibetan refugee women working. And you should know, John, you should tell others that His Holiness' dream has been fulfilled.

Someone should tell His Holiness. We offered His Holiness almost the whole thing a few years back. He was extremely pleased.

So this is another example of a lineage. These people took over this work. John didn't know Ka from Ka, but he agreed to take it over.

The project, as usual, wasn't done. There were large salaries that were owed to refugees. Very embarrassing.

Hard to admit. They kept going. They refused to stop.

They didn't get paid. I left it like that for John. He, like so many, he took it over happily.

It's extraordinary work. And in Russia and Mongolia, I believe over 100,000 books have been checked and cataloged and free catalog made for everyone in the world. And the discounts of the scriptures are given to everyone for like a dollar or 50 cents.

This hasn't been done in the last thousand years. The last person to try to finish a congregation tenure was the 7th Dalai Lama. He had a thousand woodcarvers working for 30 years.

And then recently, people in places like this in Godstown have made sure that other people could start doing long-term retreats. You are passing on the teachings of Lord Buddha in this important way. I hope that the people in charge of the retreat centers will continue to work hard to provide retreat places for people.

You should know that the retreatants have worked very hard to prepare materials for people who do long retreats in the future. One of the holy people sitting up here has prepared an hour and a half script of visualizations, what to do each few seconds as you go through the sadhana, how to visualize each step. She worked on it for almost two years now.

Another retreatant worked very hard to produce a manual of problems we have run into in retreat and solutions that we have worked out by necessity. Another retreatant has gone through the entire sadhana and illustrated it in a very beautiful way and continues to work hard to make even more beautiful illustrations. There are people here who are working to make a dictionary from the several thousand pages of translations that have been done by the other people here.

It will be online. You can just type in the word you don't know and it will jump you to the ancient book where that word was used in its most important way. There are large numbers of people working on that.

One of the retreatants was the pioneer who started that project. I wish you well. I hope you will work for a lineage of people to continue this work.

And so, all of you, you have this extraordinary good karma. Even talks like this have come out. People working hard making books.

People went to Mongolia. I believe one of the, I shouldn't say one, I should say the person in Mongolia who had the idea to bring teachings to hundreds of thousands of Mongolians. This man just appeared, I guess, after a talk one day.

He said, I'll take responsibility. You just send people here to speak. I'll make sure that everyone knows.

Tens of thousands of people attended those talks. Hundreds of thousands of people saw them on Mongolian television. This is one single man's dream.

One man's vision. And he worked. Without any support, none of these people ever got paid.

Or if they did, it was worked out to ten cents an hour or something. But he has done extraordinary work to spread the teachings. There are people here who taught even special private small groups in New York meditation every morning before work.

And I believe that every person here has been a teacher around a coffee table somewhere. Teaching people the best way, quietly, privately, one-on-one, two-on-one. They're asking questions about these ideas, karma, what's emptiness.

And you have been teaching many thousands of people. You have this karma. This kind of transfer of the holy dharma from one country to another hasn't happened in a thousand years.

Lord Buddha predicted that this transfer would occur at this time. You know if you studied the Diamond Cutter. You are in the middle of the transfer of the greatest knowledge of mankind to one of the most influential countries, several of them in the world.

People in this country and other western countries, many people really want to know these things. Anyone who's suffering, anyone who's had a friend or a loved one die is questioning how these things happen. You have the knowledge.

You are opening the window from the holy lamas of Tibetan India, Mongolia. And you are letting those ideas come into this country. You have extraordinary good karma.

You think you're just a few wacky people. You think it's just a few little dharma books or tapes. It's not like that.

Ideas which can prevent people's death, ideas which can prevent people's suffering forever are entering our culture. Because people like you are working so hard. You can't dream of the effects that your actions are having for the future.

You are like the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem sitting around a dusty little temple. And you're teaching a few people. You have no idea what will happen.

It won't be limited to this world. It will go beyond even this planet. You are sitting at a crux in time.

The karma you have in your mind is intense. It will continue to grow. People who work on the books to save the books, you can't imagine the books that will come to you yourself in a few years.

Just drop out of the sky. Books you've never dreamed of. Instructions for places no one has much gone to.

Because of your work, these things will start to happen to you. You have to take care of those beautiful seeds in your mind. How?

First, try to crystallize them. When you go home tonight, think, I'm sitting at a moment in history. I'm sitting at the window.

Ideas which could help millions of people are passing through my hands. It's extraordinary. You have to give away those karmas.

On a dry cement level, you can make books, hand them around, help people, talk to people. On a half-dry cement level, you can bring these projects up to a certain stage. As they approach their goals, you give them away.

You give the credit and the karma of the finishing to other people. This is Bodhisattva's way of life. And then, on a deep level, deep inside the crystal drop of consciousness in your heart, you must look inside.

You must imagine incredibly powerful karmic seeds like neutrons about to explode into an atom bomb. And you have to try to give them away to other people with your own thoughts, with the power of your own concentration, with the power of your meditation. You are then working at the causal level.

The results of your prayers, the results of your dedication, will touch countless planets. You can't believe it. You don't really believe what I say.

But I beg you to try. Work at the causal level. Even just imagine those karmas I mention that you have done and continue to do.

And go into them. Work hard. Imagine them.

In your mind, give them away. Give away every sweet thing you have done. Please remember one thing.

Those karmas don't expire. Every time you remember a good thing you did, another karma is planted. You can reinvest this karma, like my old diamond company boss, just by being happy about the incredible things you've done.

It could be ten years ago. It doesn't matter. If you just remember and are happy about something you've done, extraordinary new karmas grow in your mind.

Then you think about them and you give them away. And you think about the pleasure and happiness of giving them away. And they grow bigger.

It's a blissful path to bliss, says Master Shantideva. Please remember these methods. This is working at the level of what has created our universe itself.

There's another holy practice called the hug. I'll tell you the secret way. You put your arms around a person.

It might be the guy who made the tapes in the beginning. It might be the guy who has the headache of this incredibly beautiful tent and these teachings, who has worked so hard with his wife. It might be the caretakers who have devoted their whole lives to extraordinary service.

You can't imagine the service we receive. We are ashamed to know that people are working so hard and so beautifully. It's like living in a paradise already.

I'm not exaggerating and I'm not just being complimentary. It's true and every retreatant knows it. You can hug the guy who just finished the konga and the tengya.

He probably knows Ka from Kabra now. You can hug the guy who's trying to run God's town. You can hug the guy who's creating a dictionary that people can use for centuries.

You can hug all the people who helped so hard here and other places to serve the Dharma. You can hug that lama from Australia. You can embarrass the sweet Mongolian men who reached out to hundreds and thousands of others.

I probably forgot a few holy beings here. So I think it's wiser... Oh, you can hug the teachers who have come here to help us.

It's probably safer to hug everybody. When you put your arms around them, you touch their back between their shoulder blades, where their heart is, and you imagine that you are touching their holy crystalline drop of consciousness. Then when you put your chest up to their chest, you imagine that you dedicate to them all the holy power of the good deeds you have done, even just in the last four days.

I know they have been long. Don't waste any opportunity. In the highest teachings, we don't touch another human being without thinking of the deep channels of energy and sending through the power of our thoughts energy into their channels.

So a hug is not a simple thing. Every time you touch another person at all, you have to remember the crystal drop in your heart. It's very holy practice to open that drop and send your crystal good karmas into the heart of the other person.

Whack them on the back. So I'd like you to do that practice now while you have refreshments, and then we'll try to finish sort of quickly. One thing, it doesn't hurt to whisper in their ear, I'd like to get in on that good karma you're doing.

Can I help you? Can I serve you? I heard you did a conjure ten years.

Did Geshe Michael tell you there's a hundred thousand more books to do? I know you might need some help. I'd like to help.

So if there are people here who, if something sounded exciting to you, then try to meet the person, give them a hug, and offer them your help.