Круги света — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: глава о посвящении силы добрых дел (2002, Аризона), занятие 10

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, we'll fly through the rest of the dedication chapter, so you can fly. First verse, please. And by the goodness I have done, may every single suffering being give up every single harmful thought or word or deed, taking up always in its deed thoughts and words and deeds and virtue.

This is a very joyful section of the chapter. Master Shantideva will be describing the process by which you get a gardener to turn into Jesus, or a guy you meet on the road, or a lady behind the counter of the seven-leaved tombstone. I guess a lot of people will go tonight.

Whether you see Jesus there, or Ken Rinpoche in that lady, is up to your good karma. Master Shantideva is dedicating his book that people who have been doing harmful things to others, and saying not so kind things to others, and thinking not very nice things about others, that they should all change now and begin to think of sweet thoughts of others. It's not a naive thought.

Other people are often irritating. Other people harm us. Other people do plenty of bad things to us.

There's no argument. But if we react with hatred or dislike, or if we try to hurt them, then we only cause more bad people to come to us in the future. So, Master Shantideva is the master of patience, the art of not getting angry.

He's not naive. We have created a mess around us, each of us. There will be people and situations that we'd rather not have come to us.

But if we respond with compassion and grace, force where it's necessary, if it's for something good, then we can change normal people into holy beings around us. So the first step is to clean up our own karmic act. Second verse.

You have 57 verses to chant now.

[Говорящий 2]
May these holy beings never cease to strive to reach the ultimate goal for others, and may their hearts be swept away by the stream of loving conduct. May they abandon every sort of dark behavior, remaining in the care of every holy being.

[Говорящий 1]
You know, I have to say, I have to go to 7-Eleven. That's good. I forget the rest.

Master Shantideva gives us the second item in the list of ammunition you need to see Jesus in other people. And I'm not talking poetically. I mean real thing.

You need simply to have kindness for other people. It's not hard. Everyone in the world is suffering.

Everyone in the world is unhappy with something. Everyone in the world is on their way to death and afraid. It doesn't take an effort to feel sad for everyone else.

There's no powerful person or confident person or strong person you've met who's not afraid. So it's not hard to really be concerned for them. And when we break down the wall, it's much more fun and happy to serve others.

It's a lot more fun. I have tried in a small way to serve others. I fail very often.

But I was introduced to these holy ideas when I was young. And a small amount has sunk in. And I can honestly say that if you spend even a small amount of your time trying to serve others, you will be incredibly happy all the time.

And unbelievable things will happen to you. Then Master Shantideva mentions the code of sweet loving conduct. This is the Bodhisattva's code, six perfections.

He's sending his karma to people to learn kindness and how to express that kindness. Then he says, may people abandon dark behavior. In Tibetan it's du gyi le.

Du means devil, demons. Le means their work. Du gyi le means May the sweet people around us never be captured by the devil.

What would it be like to be captured by the devil? It only means one thing in our lineage, in our teaching. It means to be caught by selfishness.

It means to stop thinking about others. It means to focus on what we want, on our own needs. This is poison.

This is a dead end. This is the way to be unhappy every minute of the day. It's such a simple thing.

Just don't worry about yourself. Things will come that you need, more than you ever dreamed of. Try to be in the embrace of the enlightened one's means.

Try to spend your whole day in that warmth thinking about what other people need. It's a liberation in itself, even if all this karma and emptiness stuff is not true. Just the simple act of serving others is a true happiness.

Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
May every living soul enjoy a life immeasurably long, living thus forever in a state of constant bliss, so that even the very word death is never heard spoken again.

[Говорящий 1]
I tried to teach these ideas for many years. Many people told me, frankly, I like you. You seem to be sincere.

But this constant mention that people could escape death itself, I haven't heard that said a lot in books I've read about Buddhism. And I haven't heard people talk like that much. And I appreciate that you seem to believe it, but I don't really think it's possible.

If things are empty, if things don't have a nature of their own, if the reality around us is a product of that tiny crystal drop of consciousness in our hearts, then by changing defects in the DNA of the small crystal, the karmas, your body and my body can change into the body of an angel. The stories throughout the history of angels are not foolish talk. Those angels didn't come from nowhere.

The many mentions of heaven in all the literature of every culture are not just fancy stories. We can go there because the world around us is empty if we can try to be good to others. And it's not hard.

You don't have to be like John Brady or John Stilwell or Winston or Salim Bayh or Badbo. You don't have to save the world. All you need is to be kind, truly kind, and truly think of the people right around us.

And then your world will start to change into a paradise and your body will change. There will come a day when all of us will be sitting around at Diamond Mountain Campfire cooking marshmallows and somebody will say, I was reading an old book, and there's this word in there, I can't figure it out. What is it?

It's death. I don't know. I think we used to know that word, but forgot what it means now.

And Master Shantideva, he's the same outright. There will come a day when the word death is not known in this world. We have to try to make it happen.

People like you and me have to work very hard on ourselves, and we have to work hard to serve others with this knowledge. And then death will vanish from the world. Next verse, please.

[Говорящий 2]
May all the places that exist in every world there is turn instantly into gardens of elegant design filled with trees that grant you every wish. And may the enlightened ones, along with their daughters and their sons, walk amidst the trees, singing out the sweet song of the Dharma.

[Говорящий 1]
It's a special word in Tibetan here called kema-tsal. Kema means a person. Tsal means a garden.

There are two kinds of gardens in ancient India. One would just be a corner of a forest that a king liked to hang around in. And the other would be when some person had come in, a gardener, maybe Jesus, would come in and shape the trees into beautiful shapes and cut the hedges into beautiful shapes.

And they would go out and find deer and bring them to the garden. And this is what they call a man-made garden. All of us are engaged in the act of trying to create our own garden.

It's a powerful word he's using. We have to create our own paradise by being good to others. In that paradise there will be the wish-giving tree.

This is a special tree, pak-tsam-ki-shin. It's like Aladdin's lamp. You say, I'd like a maple-covered donut.

And a pop! It just grows out of the tree and you pick it off and you eat it, if you can get away with it. And it's an image for kindness.

You can get anything you want if you are kind. All things will come to you. I repeat, we will all be going out to help others.

There will be hard times. I don't think as bad as the disciples, many of whom died from being stoned to death, or executed, or crucified themselves, even out of those twelve. But we may have hard times, but we don't have to worry.

There's a balance between living a long time in a well-fed body and maybe living a little shorter time in a badly fed body. But to be serving others with it, it's an easy choice to make, I think. And so Master Shantideva is saying, and I hope the lady from Southern Lebanon or other countries is walking through those gardens with her sons and daughters.

The sons and daughters in the verse are bodhisattvas and bodhisattvis. And he's saying that if your heart is clear, and it takes time, one by one, the people around you, you will see us, Jesus. I repeat, the early disciples who saw Jesus today, Sunday, he didn't look like Jesus at first, and then they saw the real being behind the form, because their hearts were cleaned by the humility of failing.

Next verse, please. And in each one of these places, may the very foundation, the earth itself, be transformed from sharp stones and the like into the heavenly ground of lapis lazuli, as smooth as the palm of your hand and soft to walk upon. It's great to hear that another time.

And it's very good to have you here. This is a reference to descriptions of paradise in the old books. The ground has been replaced.

There's no more sharp stones, cactuses, rattlesnakes. It's all like a beautiful lapis, dark blue with golden shimmering sparks in it. And even though it looks like crystal when you step on it, it's like, let's say, foam rubber, really.

It sinks under your step and it bounces back up. It's a metaphor for the way the world will become. If you try to be kind to others, if you work hard, especially in ultimate ways, in the very cause of the universe, in your own drop of consciousness, if you try hard to give away your good deeds to others, from heart to heart, your world itself, the outer world, will begin to change.

It's a wonderful feeling. It's indescribable happiness. And it's not such a big deal to be nice to others.

It's more fun. They need things. We have them.

We give them. Everyone comes out a winner. And the world begins to change into an extraordinarily beautiful place for you.

You have to try to cause that. You have to tonight. Please, in the next few weeks and months, it's a beautiful practice.

I know we're all busy with many good practices. It's important not to overload yourself with good practices, because then you get crazy. But decide on a time.

Drop another good practice for a while. And just sit back, enjoy some beautiful thing you've done. Crystallize it in your heart, simply by thinking about it.

And then send it away to help someone else. Imagine it going into their own heart. It's an easy, beautiful practice.

And it is working with the very causes of our universe. Try it tonight. Drop another practice for a while.

Ten, fifteen minutes on this practice. It's a joyful practice. You can't say you don't have any good deeds.

I think we covered everyone here in the last four days. Next verse. And, like a precious jewel, adorning this same ground, may all the secret worlds that exist, and all the goodness in them, abide atop these newfound lands, crowded with warrior angels.

You've heard the word mandala. There are many kinds of mandalas. We offer a mandala before the teaching.

That mandala is our imagination of a world which is perfect. And we offer it for the teaching. At the end of the teaching, we offer all the people in the universe living in a perfect world as a thank you for the teaching.

There are painted mandalas. And there are sand mandalas. All of the retreatants have learned to make the special mandala for our practice.

Several of them have done very beautiful manuals to help people in the future learn to make these special, perfect worlds. And I know that many of the staff of Diamond Mountain and other places have also been keeping this practice. But this mandala, secret world, that Master Shantideva is talking about, is a perfect world.

You can imagine it as floating above our world. Our world is ordinary suffering. Our world is a lot of pain.

Our world is inevitable old age and death. And above it floats a perfect world. And Master Shantideva is saying, by the power of kindness, may the mandala descend into this world.

And this world becomes the mandala. If you understand emptiness, then there is no problem with this world becoming a kingdom of heaven. This world doesn't come from its side.

It comes from us. It comes from the small, subtle seeds in your own heart. And if you could change those seeds by being kind and helpful to others, then this world would change into the kingdom of heaven.

You can call it mandala or paradise. It's all the same place. Next verse, please.

And too, may all who live and breathe hear the song of birds, the wind in the trees, the light of the sun and the sky itself, singing aloud to them an endless rhapsody of holy teachings. Just as a gardener or a guy on the street can turn into Jesus for you, any event around you can turn into the teaching of an enlightened being. When our hearts are clear enough, clean enough, when the karmic seeds are pure enough, and you can make it happen much faster by giving away your good karmas, hugging lots of people, then something amazing happens.

Even the wind in a tree can teach you these holy, sweet teachings. I like to sit near the ocean, especially in a certain sacred island, and listen to the waves coming in. And if our hearts are pure enough, we can hear the Buddha's teaching.

Even sunlight coming down, touching our bodies, we can hear it as the sweet teachings of enlightened beings. If a black and white stick can appear to you as a pen, because your mind is forming it into a pen, and if a gardener can appear to be a divine being, to a person who has enough faith, she's been through terrible times, then it's no problem for the sound of the waves, or the sound of the wind, or the sunlight, to sing to us the teachings of the enlightened beings. Next verse, please.

[Говорящий 2]
And wherever they go, may they always meet the enlightened ones and their children who strive for enlightenment. May they honor these lamas, the highest of beings, with endless showers of offerings.

[Говорящий 1]
He's talking about, he sends his good karma to people, may they run into enlightened beings, and then may they make offerings to these beings. I would like to give you a very personal instruction. It's very dear to me.

There will come a day when your heart is so clean from giving away your goodness, that you will, for the first time, meet a person and see them as a holy being. If you have the seeds to see Jesus, if that's what a holy being is to you, you will see Jesus. If it's seeds to see a different form of holy being, you will see that being.

Because your heart is only just barely pure enough, it will waver. It will come in and out of holiness. I think this is Vajrayogi.

No. And then suddenly, I think so. And then maybe not.

But you will have doubt. The doubt itself is a terrible bad karma. It is an evil karma.

It is the greatest evil that there is. When the time comes, and you stand before a person, and they say something, and it flashes to your mind for an instant, this could be her, this could be him. You have to stop, get down on your knees, put your head at their feet.

They will say, What the hell are you doing, guy? If you doubt at that moment, they will disappear. They will become a surprised, offended stranger.

At that moment, you must redouble your faith. Don't talk to me like that, Vajrayogini. Don't talk to me like that, Jesus.

I know who you are. You can't make me doubt. Have this donut.

I've been saving it. Strange things will happen. Your karmas, you see, I'm being serious.

Your karma is not strong. It's fragile to see them. It will slip in and out of the ordinary to the divine.

And through the strength of your faith, you have to hold on. They might hit you. They might accuse you of being a bad person.

They might say you're crazy. They might throw you out of their home. But never doubt them.

Then you will begin to see them more and more. Make offerings to them. Believe who they are.

And the faith will cause the reality to change. When the time comes, you have to be ready. Next verse, please.

[Говорящий 2]
May the lords of the sky send down the rains on time, so to bring forth plentiful harvest. May all existing governments make their decisions based on the teachings. And thus may the whole world prosper.

[Говорящий 1]
Master Shantideva is finishing his chapter. There will be three verses now, I think, which are general prayers for the whole world. In Tibet, they believe that rain was sent down by local gods, small gods, not enlightened beings, but local spirits.

And he's praying that they should send the rains down for all the earth. And that governments throughout the world should begin to change. Again, the very weather, the state of the crops in the whole world, the policies of every government in this world, are all products of a small karmic seed in your own heart.

So, as your heart becomes more pure, you will have the intense pleasure of seeing prosperity spread throughout this planet and many other planets. And you'll have the pleasure of seeing each country run by principles of kindness and compassion, non-violence. Next verse, please.

[Говорящий 2]
May every medicine come to have the power to cure. May the secret words fulfill all hopes. May the minds of gods and spirits of sickness alike be overcome with thoughts of compassion.

[Говорящий 1]
I think to understand this verse properly, we need an Irishman. John Brady has a can in his hand. He doesn't know what's in it, I think.

I'd like to ask him to start handing the can from person to person. Everyone take one of the objects inside. It could be just a jelly bean.

If our karma was better, if we had been intensely kind to others, we would see it as the nectar of the gods. Nectar. Nect means death, like necrophilia.

Tara comes from the same ancient language as Sanskrit. Tara, to cross over. Nectar means amrta, to cross over death.

Maybe this small thing, which you should pop into your mouth immediately when you get one, could be nectar for us. It could stop death itself. Maybe it's loaded with the good karmic seeds of countless angels.

It's empty, isn't it? It could be either thing. It could be either one.

So, take it. Try to remember its emptiness. That's the first step to seeing that its nectar crosses you over death.

And all medicines are the same. Medicines don't work from their own side. Medicines kill many people who take them.

Anyone who's taken a sleeping pill can tell you. Sometimes they keep you up all night. There's no power in that pill from its side.

Any power that comes, if it puts you to a gentle sleep, it's because you have served others in the past. Those who couldn't sleep, you helped them. So, no medicine has a power from its own side.

Then Master Shantideva mentions mantras, secret words. It could be a Hail Mary. It could be Sanskrit syllables.

It could be the name of your own heart lama. If your heart is clean, then you can cure others with these words. If our hearts are a little mixed up, like most of us, they would help a lot.

But they don't have any power from their own side. The power comes to them from your own kindness. What was the second half?

In ancient India and Tibet, they believed that many sicknesses were caused by the influence of spirits and local gods, local small deities, not enlightened beings. And in order to cure people, as in the Bible, you had to try to cast the spirit out of people. I think it's important, if you want to try it someday, that, and I can't do it, but I understand how it could work, that you feel great kindness for those spirits.

And then you gently and kindly ask them to leave the person. In the New Testament, Jesus casts out spirits and he talks to them. They're scared not to have a person to be in.

And he directs them to other places kindly. I think even dealing with spirits, kindness is the method. Next verse, please.

[Говорящий 2]
May no single living being ever again feel a single pain. May they never again feel afraid. Never again be hurt by another.

Never again be unhappy.

[Говорящий 1]
It's very simple. I don't think this verse needs any commentary. But being long-winded, I will give it.

I have a good Christian friend. I grew up with him. He's very dear to me.

One day he came after I had finished a retreat in a holy cabin north of this place. I described to him the ideas of karma and emptiness and how it seemed to suit Christ's words so well. He said he only had one concern.

He said, if I accept what you say, then because I am pure, my world will change. Because I have been kind, then slowly my own world will change into a paradise. And by that, you mean that all the people around you, you will see as totally happy, enlightened beings.

And I said, yes. And then he said, but what do they see? I said, it's a difficult question, but if you understand emptiness well, they could be seeing anything else.

Do you mean to tell me that I could look at a person here, say a gardener, and see him as Jesus, truly see him as Jesus? Are you telling me I could look at any person at Diamond Mountain and see them as Vajrayogini? Yes.

But how do they see themselves? That's up to their karma. Are you telling me that the gardener could be a suffering, dying human being, to himself, and be Jesus to me at the same time?

Yes, that's emptiness. But what is he actually? You have to get used to the idea.

There is no actually. There is no actually. He will seem to you, he will be to you, Jesus, if you are pure enough.

And even to himself, he could be a suffering being. So Master Shantideva is anticipating this question, I think. We have to be able to reach heaven ourselves, and then we have to show others how to do it.

It seems like a paradox. You would have to be teaching the gardener as he appeared to you as Jesus. I don't think it's a paradox, really, but I think it takes a lot of thinking to grasp it.

In the end, everyone would appear as Jesus to others, and appear that way to themselves too. Master Shantideva is praying for this day. Next verse.

And when anyone ever longs to see him, or ask him even the slightest question, may the shroud which covers their eyes be torn away, so that the High Protector, Lord Gentle Voice himself, instantly appears. This is a very, very famous verse. I think the most famous verse in this chapter, so I put it last.

It's a prayer that each of us would be able to have a personal lama, someone we could have around all the time. And any time we need help, we could just turn and ask them, what should I do right now? I have a problem.

Can you help me right now? Tell me what I should be doing. We should pray that this kind of lama would appear in our lives, and eventually, if our karma is pure enough, they would be living at your side all the time.

And any time you had a problem, you could just turn and ask them. Frankly, honestly, I know it's hard to believe, it could be the person you live with right now. It's the same as the gardener, isn't it?

Your husband or your wife or your child, your parent, someone at work. If your heart is pure, if you give away your good deeds constantly, they will change because they are empty. And then you will have the highest bodhisattvas living in your own house.

You can turn to them. It's not true you have to go to a cave or a yurt to practice. Your own family, your own home is the ultimate place to begin.

And if your heart is pure by being kind, by giving away your goodness constantly, I believe that the first person you see as Jesus, or Baji-yogini, will be the people you live with. And so Master Shantideva is sending a prayer that all people should try to reach this. There's a great thing happening here.

In the past, in other countries like Tibet or India, the common forms of Buddhism were restricted to monks or nuns, professional holy people. And something else is happening here in the western countries. It's what Lord Buddha really wanted.

When Lord Buddha taught the secret teachings, he didn't give them mainly to monks or nuns or priests. He gave them to the common people. He gave them to family people.

He gave them to business people. He gave them to government workers. The secret teachings were all designed for people to reach paradise in the context of their own career or family.

They are the highest form of Buddhism. And you can easily see why. I think it's extremely auspicious and beautiful that in our countries, it looks very clear to me that the great yogis, the great meditators, the great saints will be regular people living in their own homes, having regular jobs with their family.

And because of the intensity of their knowledge and their holy practice, they are living in a paradise. They reach paradise or heaven in their own homes. This is the way that it will happen now.

And the great teachers will be people like you. Believe it or not, that's all I have to say. I think it's important to dedicate this very teaching.

It's a good chance to practice sending a good karma to others. I think we should send this karma to our teachers. We are very blessed.

We have had the greatest teachers in the world. Khen Rinpoche, Holy Lama, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. You should know, we are not doing amazing, but we are struggling.

His Holiness often comes in the dreams of people here. We don't make it a special practice, or we didn't anticipate that, but he seems to be jumping from head to head. And Holy Lama Supra Rinpoche, so precious in this world.

And I think the other great lamas who have taught us, Geshe Thubten Rinchen, Holy Lama, Geshe Losantang Lue, those of you in Australia, Geshe Thubten Tinzin, who taught us, these and other great lamas have helped us and taught us. I think we have a special responsibility to make sure they are comfortable, to make sure they have basic needs filled as well as we can. And I would like to ask especially the directors here, including the Australian one, please keep in touch with these holy lamas if they have any special needs.

I know we don't have great resources. I'm proud of that, actually. But if they have some special problem or need, we should be in touch from time to time and make sure that we help them and keep them well, each of the lamas I mentioned.

And then it's common to overlook the teachers who are close to you. We have beautiful holy teachers who are coming here and helping us. They aren't Tibetan or Indian, so it's easy not to treat them properly.

But if a teacher is helping us, if a teacher has come to you for a day or a few days or a month, and if they personally put their hands on you and help you, then you have a responsibility towards them which is equal to the one we have towards His Holiness or Khen Rinpoche. If we treat the teachers who are close to us and who look like our same age or same nationality, if we treat them as normal people, then we will never advance much. We will never grow.

We will never see heaven. And I urge you who are studying with other teachers here, you must respect them, treat them with all the respect that you would give to His Holiness or Khen Rinpoche, and then the result of that will be your own success. Also, people teaching here should consider the other teachers with the same respect.

It should be felt an honor to sit in another teacher's class and listen to the Dharma spoken. If you don't do that, then you will fail. If you look at the person and not the Dharma, you will fail.

Each person here teaching, and most of you will now or have become teachers, should learn from each other too and respect each other as much as you would Khen Rinpoche, or else you don't understand the Dharma. And I ask that to prepare people for the special teachings later in the next year, the classes in New York or Diamond Mountain or Australia or any other place, Ireland, people must be prepared. To be prepared, you have to try very hard to make available classes in all of the 18 courses.

Every person who comes to us should have an opportunity within, say, 4 or 5 years to take all of the courses. There should be living teachers, not tape recorders. They should be available in as many places as possible to teach even classes of one or two people.

Each of the courses, within a 4 or 5 year time, you have to work very hard, especially the directors, to assure that this is available for people who wish it. It's very bad if the classes break, if the lineage breaks down. If every 5 years the classes are not being held in many places, the lineage has broken down.

So, we'll dedicate our karma. Please sit in meditation posture. Think of one of the lamas I mentioned.

It could be Holy Lama Khen Rinpoche. It could be His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It could be Lama Sepa Rinpoche.

It could be Holy Lama Geshe Thubten Rinchen. It could be any of the other people here who have taught you any kind of Dharma. Try to get them clear in your mind.

Imagine the small tiny drop of consciousness at the heart crystal drop. Bring your mind to your own heart, to the tiny crystal drop of consciousness there. Imagine you enter the drop.

Deep inside the drop, among many other crystal jewels, is a tiny, beautiful, flawless diamond. This is the karma of all the effort you have put out at this teaching, and the effort of the many people who worked so hard to give us such a beautiful chance to be here together. The diamond is the words of Master Shantideva.

The diamond is the story of one incredibly holy being who died and then came. Imagine dropping that diamond in a pool, and ripples of beautiful crystal light start to spread out from your heart, and they touch the heart of your holy heart Lama. They give that Lama strength, long life.

They make offerings of bliss to that Lama, and emptiness. We offer our whole life's effort, and our failures also, while we were trying to be good. Then the Lama changes to a beautiful, healthy, sixteen-year-old boy or girl, an angel.

They are smiling at you. They are incredibly happy that you are trying so hard. Lama Tsongkha Rinpoche chants Lama Tsongkha Rinpoche chants