Махамудра: два мира бок о бок (1998, Сан-Франциско), занятие 1

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, this is a guided meditation at the request of Elly, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
For a while.

[Говорящий 1]
Then take refuge. I'd say in the Dharma Jewel, direct perception of emptiness. Think about what you know about it and take refuge in that experience.

Take refuge in bodhicitta, think about bodhicitta. And specifically, doing things to help other people reach nirvana or enlightenment. Invite your root lama and visualize them carefully.

Bow down to them by thinking of their good qualities. At least one or two good qualities. And make an offering to them, especially if something in your practice that you might do today as an offering to your lama.

And then purify yourself and think of some negative, specific negative thing you did in the last 24 hours. Think about how you might stop doing it today. And think about some positive thing you did, be happy about it.

And ask for teachings. And ask your lamas to stay with you. And go back to your breath.

If you have to move, move now. Then we'll do a mahamudra meditation from the first pension lama. And the object of all mahamudra meditation is the mind itself.

And that helps a lot to keep your meditation focused, because you're focusing on your own mind. So, first try to get in touch with how you feel right now, mentally and physically. Try to focus on how you feel.

And let that be the object of your meditation. So, isolate your feeling good, bad, indifferent. Try to isolate how you feel and focus on it.

There are six different ways of viewing your feelings. And these are six different versions of ignorance. And then six different kinds of wisdom connected with them.

And these move up through the different ancient schools of India. And Lord Buddha taught them from the bottom to the top. In order to help people reach a better understanding of emptiness.

So, really only the sixth one is real emptiness and real ignorance. But the first five are very helpful. And they were taught in the lower schools as being the meaning of emptiness or selflessness.

So, the first one is to focus on your feelings again for a few breaths. I usually use ten breaths. Now try to get in touch with your ignorance about that feelings.

In the sense that you feel that it's permanent or lasting. And that it's not constantly changing. So, take ten breaths.

And during that time, focus on your feelings. And try to get in touch with your instinct or your habit of thinking of them as being fixed or permanent. And not something that's going to be completely different in a day or two days.

Focus on that. That's a kind of ignorance. But it's not the ultimate ignorance.

Now, see it with the antidote, with the wisdom that says that your feelings are very fleeting. And they change constantly. You'll be feeling something different shortly.

And that ultimately you'll be feeling the feelings of an enlightened being. And view your feelings like that. Look at them as though they are very fleeting and changing.

And that there is no self there in the sense of a firm or unchanging person or the feelings of a person. Which is not emptiness, but it's helpful to think of when you're learning emptiness. And you go up through each of the six kinds of selflessness and then you reach real emptiness.

And go back to your feeling again and we'll start number two. Focus on your feelings. But don't think anything about them.

And then look at it with ignorance, which says, these feelings are something under my control, under my current control. There's something that I can change by willpower. I can feel better if I just want to feel better.

I can stop feeling worse if I want to stop feeling worse. Look at it with that kind of ignorance that sees your feelings as something under your control. You're the Lord and they're the servant and you can make them do what they want, what you want.

Now see the feelings for the kind of wisdom, which is not the perception of emptiness, but it's helpful in reaching it. And it's taught in the lower schools as a kind of selflessness. See that you cannot control your feelings and they go up or down pretty much out of your control.

You can wish that you could feel better and you won't necessarily feel better. There is no controller or owner of the feelings who can tell them what to do. You don't have that power.

Then you'll find that when you choose the mind as the object, which is one of the unique features of Mahamudra meditation, is that it'll keep your meditation sharp and clear because you're focusing on the mind itself. It forces you to be clear as opposed to visualizing a picture or something. And the third one of meditation is moving up into the higher school's version of emptiness.

So get in touch with your feelings again. And this is a mind-only school idea that ignorance consists of thinking of your feelings as not coming from the same karma as your mind. The mind-only school says your mind that's looking at the feelings and the feelings that you're looking at both come from the same karmic seed.

They both come from the same actions. You and your feelings have been produced by the same actions that you did in the past. Your feelings are a result of your own karma.

And you are a result of your own karma. And the fact that you're both there together now is never an accident. There are no accidents.

You are here and your feelings are here equally because of one thing that you did in the past or a group of karmas. But there are no accidents about your feelings. You are totally responsible for your feelings.

So focus on them now with ignorance that says, those feelings are happening to me and it's not my responsibility and it's not coming because of something I did. It's just happening to me. It's not my fault.

It's like random or accidental. Think of the feelings like that and that's the third kind of ignorance. I suggest you do each step for ten breaths.

Ten breaths on watching the feeling, ten breaths on having ignorance about it, and ten breaths on wisdom about it. So this, the mind-only school, to see the emptiness of those feelings would be to really appreciate how they're not accidental or random. There are no accidents ever about anything you meet in your whole day.

Everything is coming from a karma that has also brought you there. The karma that brought you to that place and the karma that brought that experience there or that object is always your karma and it's always one karma. It's always a common karma that you've created and there are no accidents.

So focus on the feelings now with the wisdom that understands that and understands that whether they're good feelings or bad feelings, that you are wholly responsible for them and no one else. The fourth kind of viewpoint is also mind-only. And first focus on your feelings again for ten breaths and not having any particular ideas about them.

Be very concentrated on trying to get in touch with how you feel at this moment. Now look at the feelings again with the fourth kind of ignorance. This kind of ignorance says, it names the feelings something.

It gives them a name like bad or good and it thinks that that name is self-existent, that that name has to be that way, that that name is inherent in that feeling and that it's coming from its own side, that it must be called good or it must be called bad. And the meaning of bad and the meaning of good and the fact that it's good or bad is inherent in it and it's not something which I'm labeling on it. This is coming from itself.

This is called a good feeling or this is called a bad feeling. The name itself is inherent in the feeling. It must be called good or it must be called bad.

It must be good or bad from its own side. It could never have been called anything else. In Tibetan it's The last one was in Tibetan The second one was and the first one was Now think of it with wisdom that says given different circumstances, meaning different karma, I could just as well have called it the opposite and maybe somebody else would have called it something else and maybe that feeling is the opposite of what I'm naming it now.

And how much of how we think about a feeling depends on what we're choosing to call it and it's a choice and it's not something coming inherently from the feeling. We have a choice of perceiving things as good or bad or labeling them good or bad. Now we'll go on to number five.

We're moving up to the svatantrika, the rangyupa, lower half of the Madhyamika school, middle way school and what they think emptiness is. So far none of what we've talked about is real emptiness but Buddha taught them as kinds of emptiness to people who weren't ready for the sixth one and they're very very helpful for reaching the sixth one and that's why he taught them and that's why there's four schools. Mainly the difference is on this point.

Focus on your feelings again. Now look at the feelings with the fifth kind of ignorance and this ignorance says that this feeling is happening to me. It's good or bad from its side and nothing about this experience is coming from my side so I don't have any say in this experience.

This experience is something that's occurring and out there, existing out there and it's happening to me, T-O, to me and there's no participation from my side in whether this is going to be good or bad. This is an experience that has come up and it feels good or it feels bad and it's external to me and it's happening to me and there's no participation from my side. It would be happening even if I weren't doing anything.

It would still happen to me. It's the tree falling in the woods idea. The Svatantrika would say it's ignorance to think that a tree could fall in the woods and make a noise if there was no mind there to perceive it.

So look at the feeling with ignorance and the ignorance says I'm a victim of this feeling. This feeling is happening to me and there's no part of it which is coming from my side and therefore nothing that I can do about it. In Tibetan that's called yul rang gi tumo mayem be duluk gi munir drupa and now we'll look at it with wisdom.

The fifth kind of wisdom which is not really a direct... it's not a perception of emptiness but in this school it would be called that and it's very close to the lojong idea so if you're having a good feeling or a bad feeling think about a bad feeling that you're having. It can be viewed as an opportunity and whether it is or not comes from your side so it being a bad feeling or a wrong feeling or something bad is a decision on your part and you can change it.

You can think of it as an opportunity. So the content of the feeling and the function of the feeling and the usefulness of the feeling is something that you can affect by thinking of it as an opportunity so trying to see something about it that's going to be useful for you. This also leads into the tantric worldview that things are being set up for you and people are trying to guide you or nudge you in a certain direction so look on a feeling that you have, maybe a bad feeling and the svatantrika way of looking at it is that part of its content can be determined or adjusted by you.

You can think of it as a glass which is half full and not a glass which is half empty. From its own side it's neither one. Depends on how you think of it and any feeling can be viewed as useful and a starting place for more opportunity.

In the final worldview, in the end of the meditation, get back in touch with your feeling again. Watch your feeling for ten breaths and then we'll go to the prasangika view of the feeling. Then ignorance in this case is looking at the feeling and saying that's existing from its own side.

Nothing is coming from my side. It can't be due to my projections. The content of it is purely from the other side and it's happening to me and it cannot be a result of some projection from my mind and more particularly in this school it cannot be a result of my past karma forced on me.

It cannot be that this feeling is a projection of my own mind which is forced on me by my good or bad deeds in the past, by how well I kept my vows yesterday. It can't be that. It has some external, it has some intrinsic reality of its own.

It can't be that the whole event that I'm thinking right now and the whole content of my feelings are solely determined by how well I kept my vows this week. It's impossible. And that's the ultimate kind of ignorance.

And now look at the feelings with the final, sixth ma mudra viewpoint which is to see that your feelings are forced on you by your past karma, by what you did this week even, how well you thought of other people yesterday and see that the very act of the mind working right now and the content of the feeling you're having right now is all a projection from your mind onto certain basis, onto certain parts. You are having experiences and then how you interpret them or how you see them is solely determined by projections onto them from your mind. And that's completely at the mercy of what you did yesterday or last week and especially how you thought of other people.

And that's the only thing that's creating this feeling. There's no other feeling independent of what's being projected by your mind as it's pushed around by your own thinking of the day before or the week before and see that that's what's really causing all of the feelings that you're having. So we'll review the six very quickly and go up through it.

It's what Lord Buddha spent his whole life doing, presenting these ideas from the simplest viewpoint all the way up to the most subtle. The most subtle being the only real true emptiness, but it being very useful to think of things in those first five ways. The first kind of ignorance thinks things are unchanging and that there's some solidity to things.

And the first kind of wisdom sees that that's not the case and things are flying by very, very ephemerally and they will change constantly and not to be too worried about it. It's going to happen. Number two is to...

Ignorance number two thinks that things are under your control in the current time, in the present time, that anything you... that you can affect the object around you and make things happen in the current time, which is not correct, it's not true. All the events happening around you are determined by what you did even in the last week.

And by the time they're happening to you, you have no control over them at all, although you think you do and that causes a lot of your suffering. And then wisdom number two sees that that's not the case and that really in the current time you don't have any control over what's happening to you. But you do have absolute control over what will happen to you tomorrow and the next week.

And number three... Ignorance number three is related to number two. It looks at objects and can't believe that this is a result of my own karma.

This is... There are no accidents. Everything that ever happens to me is solely and exclusively my fault and my credit.

And then wisdom number three looks at those objects and says these are occurring because of my karma. Everything around me is coming from the same karmic seed as I am and I have planted both of them. Ignorance number four labels something good, bad, this or that and believes shortly afterwards that that label is intrinsic and that it must be called that and it will always be called that and everyone in the world calls it that and it's a source of much friction between people.

Everyone thinks that the name they give to a feeling or an object or another person should be the one that everyone else gives because it's inherent in the person. And then wisdom number four says no, I'm giving these names from my side. I'm applying these labels.

Judging comes from me and by nature other people may not judge that the same way which proves that that thing is not, for example, good or bad from its own side but could have been called something different and probably is by someone else with a different set of karmic seeds and I shouldn't struggle with other people to impose my name for the thing instead of their name for the thing. Number five, ignorance number five, we're up to svatantrika, looks at the mind and your feelings and says those are exclusively coming from their side. For them to exist does not require any participation from me.

The tree in the forest, if it fell, would make a noise whether I was there or not. That's svatantrika, ignorance number five. And then wisdom number five says an event can only occur with my participation.

Something does come from the other side and then 50% comes from me and we meet halfway and then an event occurs. So this is useful, this is the basis of the lojong teachings. If you look on things with worldview number five, wisdom number five, you can say something bad is happening to me today but I can choose to see it as an opportunity.

I can make an opportunity out of it and I'm not just being artificial about it. All events are that way. All events require some kind of interpretation from my side and then they become that.

So I will choose to think of the accidents or bad things in my life as opportunities and I'll turn them into opportunities and I'll find a way to turn them into something good, to make something good out of every problem around me. And this is very useful for tantra later. Worldview number six says all of the worldviews that came before are useful, all of them have their place, they're all true in a way, they're not quite complete.

Ignorance number six says things are happening to me and they have some existence from their own side. And wisdom number six says they have no existence from their own side. Everything about them is coming from my side.

Worldview number five of the lower Madhyamika school is wrong. It's not that the object comes halfway and then the subject comes halfway and something happens in between. Worldview number six says everything is coming from me and it's not a matter of willpower, it's being forced on me by my past karma.

So everything around me is impermanent. I cannot control my present circumstances. I have created this thing from my karma.

I am naming it myself one way or the other. It's not intrinsically named that. I have a choice of the names I use.

I can look at this event in a different way and actually alter its reality. Those are all first five in a nutshell. And then you get to number six and it says if I could keep my vows properly and especially think of other people in the right way, kindly, purely, then in the future and not now, but shortly, then I wouldn't have any more suffering and no more bad things would ever happen to me.

Now you have to turn off the tape recorder. One thing. Bring the Lama up into the air.

Ask your teacher to come up in the air and get smaller and smaller. And then turns around, faces the same way as you and comes down gently on the top of your head about three inches high. And then comes straight down your central channel to your heart.

And the heart, level of your heart, in the middle of the heart chakra, right in front of your backbone, about an inch, inch and a half. And stays in a tiny capsule like a pea inside the central channel at your heart chakra. And you can feel the warmth of it and kind of a golden light.

And they're inside that little capsule and they're very happy and pure and they're on a beautiful flower. And they sort of smile at you and it pledges to stay with you during the whole day. And then send the light out from that, starting from that point, out to all directions.

So little tiny strings of needles of light going out in every direction from that little pea of golden light. And then on the tip of each light, a teacher to teach these things to people emanated to all over the universe.

[Говорящий 2]
You want to do a prayer, okay? That's cool.