Сад (1999, Нью-Йорк), занятие 7

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, we'll start. I learned this trick. Okay.

We've been talking about the garden, and this is where a young man comes to a garden and learns about deep spiritual things by accidentally meeting one by one the great thinkers of Buddhism, the great lamas of over two and a half thousand years. And we're almost to the end. I think we'll have one more class tonight, and then there won't be a class next Friday, but the week after.

Okay, so two weeks from tonight, because next Friday is sort of a holiday with the Thanksgiving and all that. I just found out 30 seconds ago that the Friday after next, there'll be a special guest here. The first time I went to Ireland to teach, actually before that, I went into this store in a village and I said, give me the wildest Celtic music that you have.

And they gave me this thing called Emra Mayak. And I went home and I listened to it, and it was like unbelievable, like Celtic flute, like pretty wild flute music, but really, really like the best I'd ever heard in my life. So I'm checking out who this is, and it turns out, I think it's like a 23-year-old lady who lives in Ireland, and she's just some kind of, what do you call it, a wunderkind-like, you know, and very, very amazing.

So somebody said they knew her or they knew her uncle, and then as things turned out, we asked her if she'd ever play, if she ever came to New York, and it just turns out that she called us and said, I'd be available only one night, and that's December 3rd. That happens to be the last class in the seven years of our Geshe course. So I thought, this looks very auspicious to me.

So she'll play, and then we'll do Dharma in between. And I think it's a nice format. I think Dharma and really good Celtic music probably go together.

So I encourage you to come and bring your friends, and it's free, and it'll be like, I think she'll play for half an hour, and then I'll talk for a little bit, and then she'll play again, like that. She's really amazing. She's the best I've ever heard.

There's Charasia in India, and then there's Mayak in Ireland, and those two, they're amazing. So come if you can. That'll also be the last class I'll be teaching in New York for a while.

So these Friday Night Classes will continue in February, and with John Stillwell teaching, who's hiding in the back. And make sure your name's on the mailing list. The mailing list is in the back, in that box, okay?

And make sure we have your new name on the mailing list, and then you'll get a brochure, and it will tell you the times and stuff like that. Okay, we'll start this class. In this, next to the last scene in the garden, the young man is waiting on this bench in the garden, and hears this person quietly enter the garden, and he's always listening for the step of this special lady, and it's always a guy, but this time it's sort of a soft step, and it's obviously not the lady that he's waiting for, but it's some kind of beautiful step, and then he turns around and sees a short, quiet monk, very simply dressed, sort of young, maybe around 30, and looks very shy, almost, and the robes are not special, they're just sort of worn robes, and just a very natural person, very soft, gentle person, looks almost abashed or embarrassed to be there, and then comes up, and then in the course of the person approaching him, he realizes this is the Buddha himself, okay? And I think you see, when you say Buddha in America, when I was growing up, it meant a guy with a little belly, and these big ears, and a bump on his head, and everything like that, and I remember holding a little Buddha image that my father brought back from Japan when I was like 10 or something, and I remember looking at it, but really Lord Buddha was emanation as a human, and probably looked a lot like any person from East India, and quiet, and unassuming, and very gentle, and soft, I think of Jampa down in Howell, you know, so this person comes up and sits down, and this person is, you know, the young man is aware that he's in the presence of Lord Buddha, and it doesn't look like this, you know, stuck-up guy at all, it's just like a friendly, quiet monk, you know, and he sits down, and he's already learned the major perfections, but he hasn't learned wisdom yet, okay? There are two levels of wisdom, and I want to talk about those two levels tonight.

They both have to do with understanding what Buddhists call emptiness, okay? And there's two ways to understand emptiness, one is intellectual, and one is direct. Intellectual, we've been doing for seven years here, okay?

You've been sitting here, or I think there's a few survivors, for seven years hearing about emptiness as something intellectual, and that's what I call the pen thing. Oh, sorry. Okay, this is a dog.

And we've said many times that, you know, it's really just a black and white cylinder. If you're a human being in this room, then you have some kind of seed in your mind to see it as a pen, and if you're a dog—you ready? Okay.

Yeah, yeah. That's a dog. Then you have some seed in your mind to see it as something to chew on, okay?

So it's the same—by the way, both beings, the human and the dog, have a similar karma to see this as a white and black cylinder. But the dog has the additional karma to want to chew on and to see it as something to eat, and the human has the additional karma to see it as something to write with, which I'm going to do if you don't sit down. Okay.

Which one is it? Who's right, the dog or the human? Both.

Both, okay. She's cheating. She had this debate at Central Park two years ago.

She was the defendant, I was the debater, and she beat me. But the point is that both are correct, okay? The dog has a certain imprint in their mind to see this in one way, and we have another imprint in our mind to see it a different way.

It's not that one of us is more right than the other. They're both correct. For their own imprints, for their own environment, the dog correctly sees it as something to chew on, and the human sees it as a pen.

What's that got to do with your suffering? I mean, the point of coming to these classes is really that slowly, surely, inexorably, you are dying, and I'm dying. You know, I couldn't shave for a week, and all these white hairs came out, these gray...

You know, I was like amazed, because I've never had a beard in my whole life, and I couldn't shave for a week, I couldn't get time to shave, and there's all these white patches, big white patches coming out, and I'm like, oh, I gotta shave, this is embarrassing, you know? And it's kind of like, they come, and you don't know. They just come one by one, and then suddenly, you look in the mirror, and you're like, you're shocked, you know?

Or you go to the barbershop, and you look at the floor, and you think somebody else's hair is there, but it's yours, you know? It's got all these white hairs in it, and you're like, wow, you know? And I'm the age my father was when he died, you know?

Exact same age, and it just occurred to me, you know what I mean? And it'll happen to all of us. And I remember how old he looked, you know?

Now it doesn't look old to me at all. But I assume I look like that to everyone else who's 20, you see what I mean? And...

It'll come, it just comes, it's part of your life, it's part of what you do. You will die. And it's not fun, I mean, we have these little good things that happen to us, you have a little bit of a respite in the middle of your life, you have some pretty good work, I think especially if you have a challenging job, you find some meaning in life, if you have a good relationship with someone, if you've picked up any kind of halfway stable possessions, like an apartment that won't move away quickly, or things like that, then they lend you a sense of... that you've arrived, or that life is now... you sort of feel like you've found your place in life.

And that's an illusion, and it's very short, and chaos will rip it down, you know? Definitely, without a doubt, you know? All the things that you have, you will lose them one by one, they will slip away, sometimes it happens in a day, sometimes it happens in a year, it just depends on...

everything you count on, every time you take comfort in, everything you take comfort in, will just be lost, and someday, somehow, everything will be lost, every good thing in your life, whether it's your health, or your friends, or your family, or your place you live, or what you own, or even your own mind, and your ears, and your eyes, they will start to go, and then they just go, and you'll lose it. And can you do anything about it? You see what I mean?

You have to understand emptiness. The reason to come to these classes, the reason to be here, is only one thing, is to do something about that condition. You don't have to die like that, you don't have to lose things like that, you don't have to be separated from your family, or the people you love.

That's a mistake. That's something that happens because of some kind of accident that happened before, that we did the wrong thing, or we didn't know how to do the right thing, and all those things are reversible. You can stop all of those things.

And that's the real reason to come to these classes. You know, this is not a Buddhism class in the sense of sitting and meditating and feeling better. It's not a class like a yoga class, where you work out and you sweat a lot, and you feel better afterwards.

It's not a kind of class where you sit and watch your breath or something. It's not even a kind of class where you learn to be more friendly to other people, or something like that. The purpose for this class is to ask the question, is there anything to do about your death?

And is there anything you can do about the fact that you have to get old and lose everything? And you can. And I don't want to go into three-year retreat without making a big sales pitch about that.

The reason to be here, the reason to continue your studies, and there will be study classes here, there'll be nine different courses going on here. The whole reason is that you have to die. So, if you don't come back in February, or, you know, if you're busy or something, when the time comes, when you're ready, just remember that it's here.

You see what I mean? When you go to the doctor and they say you have a lump on your breast, then come back. Okay?

I mean, remember that we're here. And remember that that's why this class is here. And when the time comes, it will come.

Where the busy thing will be less important than the life thing. You see what I mean? Right now, the busy thing is a little more important than not dying.

But at some point, something happens. You get cancer, you lose somebody close to you, you lose your job and your house at the same time, or something like that. Then you'll get what we call goosebump renunciation.

Like, it stays for about a few minutes. You know, if something really bad happens to you, then for about a week or two weeks or a month, you think clearly. Then you get lulled back into the normal life.

So, remember that it's here. Okay? Remember that it's here.

And then come when you're ready. But you have to understand emptiness. Okay?

This kind of emptiness that we talked about is most applicable, like, at work. And I told you many times, somebody comes in and yells at you. I used to sit next to somebody who's here tonight, Doma, in the diamond company.

We did 30,000 diamonds a day. And we had a whole crew of about 15 people working on them. And people just picking up with these special tweezers, you pick up diamonds and you throw them into categories and thousands and thousands of them all day long.

And then the boss will come in sometimes and yell at you. And sometimes in a department there'll be one person who likes you, one person who doesn't like you, and then one person who doesn't care much about you either way. Okay?

And you're sitting there, and the boss comes in and starts yelling at you. You see it as something very hurtful. You know, for me it used to hurt my heart more than my...

I didn't get so much angry as I got embarrassed because I really wanted to do a good job. And then the boss is like, I think more people feel bad that way. You feel bad about getting yelled at because you really want to do a good job, and you can't, or apparently you haven't.

So the boss is yelling at you. And then, you know, if you're sitting in a normal department in a normal place, there's a person there who is watching this and they're kind of enjoying it. You know, like somebody who doesn't like you very much.

There's always one in the room who's not too sorry that you're getting yelled at. And then there's usually somebody else in the room who kind of likes you, and they're sort of sorry that you're getting yelled at. And then there's Dorma, and she's sitting there, she's trying to do her work.

She just wants to be quiet. She doesn't care too much one way or the other. She just wishes the boss would leave so she could finish her stones for the day.

You see what I mean? So there are three reactions to the same person. And really, even though everybody is seeing the same thing, which is a body, the three people are having three different perceptions.

One is having a good time, one is having a neutral time, and one is having a bad time. Okay? The boss cannot be good, bad, and indifferent at the same time.

So being good and being bad is not a part of the boss. We say emptiness means that. They are neutral.

They are blank. They are empty. They're just four sticks and a barrel and a basketball on top of it.

Okay? That's all. If you see something you don't like, that's not coming from that basketball, barrel, four sticks.

If you see something you do like, it's not coming from them either. They are just a basketball, a barrel, and four sticks. Okay?

That's all. That's all that came into the room. Oh, there's one more thing.

Decibels, consonants, and vowels. Really. Just decibels moving up and down, mostly up, and then there's a lot of consonants and some vowels.

Really, if you're a scientist, that's all that's going on. Whether you understand language, whether you hear them say something good or bad, that's not coming from them. That's coming from you.

Okay? If there was an Aleutian Islander Eskimo from the 13th century sitting in that room, they would be... You know, they wouldn't get upset, they wouldn't get happy, they wouldn't understand anything.

The fact that you understand is your karma. The fact... That means the words themselves don't have meaning.

You see what I mean? Words themselves don't have their own qualities. You understand something because of some other reason, and we say it's your karma.

You have something in your mind which allows you to understand what this person is telling you. You have something in your mind that makes you feel good or bad or neutral about this person. Okay?

That's all coming from your side. They are just a pile of vowels and consonants and decibels and a few sticks and a basketball and a little big hole there. Okay?

But it's nothing coming from their side. It's all coming from your side. Okay?

We say that's their emptiness. Okay? And that's why some people are having a good time in the room and some people are having a bad time in the room.

What's this got to do with your death? What's this got to do with your happiness? We say that the reason you see the boss as bad is that you hurt somebody in the past.

What did you do, by the way, to hear them yelling at you? We say you yelled at somebody else in the past. Okay?

The only karma that can create a boss yelling at you is yelling at someone in the past. That's all. Okay?

So, what are you going to do back to the boss? What's the stupidest thing you can do? Yell back.

From the mouth of bibs. Yeah, the stupidest thing you can do is yell back. According to Buddhism, the only thing that will create that thing for you in the future again is yelling back.

Okay? Now, we're in a place called samsara. According to Buddhism, you and me are in a place called samsara.

In Tibetan, that's called korwa. In English, it means self-perpetuating downward cycle. Okay?

Like, we're in a broken world. We live in a slice of reality which is dysfunctional. It's broken.

It doesn't work right. Why? What's your natural reaction when someone yells at you?

It's to yell back. What's the only way to get someone else to yell at you in the future? It's to yell back.

You see, your natural reaction will make you see that thing again. Okay? And that's true of all the bad things in your life.

Okay? Beware of your natural reactions. Most likely, they are exactly the action or the karma which will make this bad thing happen again.

Get it? And that's why you live in this realm. You are parked in this parking space because you've been acting that way so long.

Okay? It's very funny. If you live in this realm, you act that way.

And if you act that way, you've got here. You see what I mean? It makes sense that we're here.

It makes sense that everybody in our realm is acting that way because that's how you get here. You see what I mean? It's like a wheel.

That's what samsara means. It's a wheel. And your natural reaction of a person who's in this realm is exactly the reaction that would keep you in this realm.

You see what I mean? Which is to keep doing violence back to violence and then violence is done to you and then you react with violence and then that creates karma to have violence done to you. So that's how emptiness relates to your life.

That's how emptiness... We've talked about that a thousand times. Okay?

A lot of people came up to me and said it's very hard to remember when the boss is yelling at you. Okay? I myself can't do it very well.

But every time you do do it, you get less suffering. Okay? And you...

So you have control over your future. If you don't like to suffer, then change it. Okay?

Change it. Don't respond to violence with violence. Why?

Is that noble? Yeah, it's noble, but that's not the main thing. You just don't want to die and have lousy people around you all the time.

Okay? That's all. You understand the principle.

I don't have to go through it. What's this got to do with emptiness of the second type? Okay?

You've just understood emptiness indirectly. And you understand the problem I'm talking about. You know, if you stay here after the refreshments, it's because you understood the part about getting old and dying.

Okay? Is there any immediate way to do anything about that? There is.

And that's called seeing emptiness directly. And that's what we're talking about. When the Buddha comes into the garden and starts to teach the young man, he's trying to trigger the direct perception of emptiness.

Okay? This is a totally different thing than understanding about the boss, and the pen, and the dog, the dog, and everything else. Okay?

Totally different thing. Now we're talking direct experience of emptiness. You just understood emptiness intellectually.

Now I'm going to talk about emptiness directly. Okay? It's called tonglam.

Say tonglam. Tonglam. Tonglam.

I'll say it one more time. Repeat to Tibetan. What happens is, I'm planting a seed in your mind.

It might take 50 years or 100 years to grow. But it will grow. Okay?

Say again. Tonglam. Tonglam.

Okay. Tong means to see. Okay?

Lam means path. Path in Tibetan means a spiritual realization, spiritual level. Okay?

It doesn't mean a series of instructions or something like that. In this case, it means a kind of understanding. Tong means to see.

See what? To see emptiness directly. Okay?

What's the big deal about seeing emptiness directly? It's 20 minutes. Okay?

It's about 20 minutes. It takes. It's a 20 minute experience.

According to Buddhism, you've been like this for millions of years. More, longer. But you've been going through these huge cycles.

You've been in a world like this. You've been in New York. Then you were in other countries.

You were in other cities. You've been going up and down for millions of years. You have been everything there is to be.

You've been Donald Trump. You've been Miss America. You've been a serial killer.

You've been everything. Countless times. You've been through everything.

Countless times. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And it's a constant thing of going up and down.

You've been everything. You've seen everything. You've done every good thing.

You've done every evil thing. You've been Hitler. You've been Mother Teresa.

Over and over and over and over again. You've done everything. Okay?

Countless times. And you've wandered up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Okay?

Uncontrollably. Your mind uncontrollably having these emotions that collect good and bad karma. And then those karmas playing themselves out countless, countless times.

Over and over. So it's kind of, you know, it's no big deal to hope to be famous in this life or to get mentioned in the New York Times. You've been everything.

Countless times. And those people who do get mentioned in the New York Times find out it doesn't make you happy. You know what I mean?

You feel just the same a couple weeks later. Except now you want to be mentioned again in the New York Times. You see what I mean?

And it just goes on like that. Then one day you die. Okay?

I remember they said Kissinger was irreplaceable. He was replaced two hours after he left. And you're not like that.

Okay? We'll be replaced in a few minutes. Okay?

That's all. Countless times you've been doing that. Then at some point you hit tonglam.

You see emptiness directly. Okay? It takes 20 minutes of your life.

Okay? 20 minutes. 20 or 30 minutes of your life.

Then from there on it's a straight arrow up to enlightenment. Okay? Straight.

Like no more problems, no more hassles, no more anything. Okay? If you can use these classes as a trigger to cause this event which is called tonglam, the direct perception of emptiness, then you're on a direct, immediate path out of here.

Okay? No more getting old. No more death.

No more anxiety, depression, upset, low self-esteem. Nothing. All those things gone.

Forever. No anger, no jealousy, no desire, no hatred. No nothing.

Totally sweet, pure, holy, happy state of mind. Forever. So between this event...

This is the event that triggers it. Seeing emptiness directly. Okay?

And that's all. I want to describe to you a little bit about that process tonight. I won't take very long.

And then just be aware, you know, from one person suffering in this realm to another person suffering in this realm. You can get out. You don't have to be here.

In this room, maybe one or two people before they die, we'll see, will reach this level. Okay? At least I have to try to sell it to you.

You know? A few people, in their heart, something will be triggered tonight. You know?

Some kind of deng. Some kind of assurance that this thing really exists. Okay?

And it does exist. Okay? There does exist a certain thing called emptiness.

It relates to that thing I said about the pen. But if you see it directly in a deep state of meditation, then within a certain time, you are out of here. You don't have to live like this.

Thousands and thousands of people have left already. Okay? We're like the leftovers.

Alright? Now, how do you do it? I'm gonna just talk about it very briefly.

First of all, you need a teacher. Okay? You must have a teacher.

We're talking about what's happening around here. We call it the path of accumulation and the path of preparation. It doesn't matter.

So lam jo lam. There are two stages before that. First, it requires a teacher.

Someone who has seen emptiness would be ideal. Someone who has seen it directly would be ideal. Okay?

You need someone who's seen it. People ask me, how difficult is this thing to pull off? And I'll be very frank.

It's about as difficult as learning to play piano well. Okay? And the odds of doing it without a good teacher are about the same as learning to play piano well without a teacher.

You know, like, it's possible. Theoretically, it's possible. Chaurasia, I heard the other day, this great Indian flute player, he taught himself in the basement.

His father wanted him to be what was it? A wrestler. Because his family was all wrestlers.

And every time he came into the basement and caught him, he would break the flute. But then he became a great master. I mean, it's possible it's rare.

We call Pratyekabuddha, you know, someone who does it on their own. It's extremely rare, maybe one out of a million or something. Anyway, for the rest of us, you've got to have a good piano teacher.

You must have a teacher. You must find a teacher. Okay?

First, to see it directly, you've got to have someone guiding you. How long does it take to study it? You see, you have to study it first.

The person has to teach you the theory first. You have to hear the thing about the pen. And I don't want to depress you, but let's say 3,000 hours.

Okay? Something like that. It's in the thousands of hours.

How many hours does it take to become a great piano player? You see what I mean? I don't know what it would take, but to become a great ballerina or a piano player or anything, a great track star, a great athlete.

I don't know. Where's Ernie? Ernie, you figure it out, okay?

Since you were a kid, to become a professional football player, how long does it take? I don't know. Maybe 2,000 or 3,000 hours of hard work.

Okay? Something like that. Maybe more.

Maybe it's less to see Tonglam than to get into the NFL. Okay? But you've got to study.

Okay? You've got to study. All right?

There'll be nine classes going on here simultaneously next year. Get into one of them and study. You must study.

You don't have a chance without it. Okay? I don't care if you like the person or you don't like the people or if we have the money to...

We don't know if we have the money to rent the place or not or stuff like that. Just forget it. Find the person.

There's ten teachers listed there. Get into one of the classes. They're going to be intimate classes.

Twelve people each. Limited. Okay?

To twelve people. Get into one of those classes. It's only once a week.

It'll meet once a week. Get into one of them and study. And you have to study.

Just one night a week for two thousand, the year two thousand. And invest it. And sit there and talk and rip it out and find out about the thing.

You have to. Okay? That's the second requirement, I would say.

You need study. Okay? Third one is some kind of service.

Helping somebody. Okay? For free.

You know? Old person, sick people, children, someone who needs something. Okay?

And... And in some kind of tangible way. You know what I mean?

Giving up a certain part of your day for not very glorious service of somebody else. If you want to see emptiness directly, you've got to have intense good karma. Okay?

You've got to be like... Helping with classes like this is very intense karma. Helping a great lama like Khen Rinpoche or Lama Serpa or somebody like that achieve their goals and their wishes.

Helping at an old folks center. Helping at Three Jewels. Something...

People who are having a rough time. People on drugs or alcohol or some kind of other problem. But some kind of real service for other people.

Okay? You can study about emptiness a lot. You can have a great teacher for emptiness.

But if you don't have this thing like a good heart, like some kind of kindness that you are showing to people in a real way with your hands. You know, where you're really helping them. You won't be able to see it.

It won't happen. It takes a thing called Kelwa. Kelwa means...

It's a very difficult word. It means the power that a person gets from doing constant good deeds and thinking constant sweet things of other people. The power, the personal spiritual power that a person gets from having a good heart and expressing it through actual hard work for other people.

Okay? Like driving old people to the store or buying groceries for them or sitting and talking with them or sick people or something like that. If you don't have Kelwa, you can't see emptiness.

I have a lot of students have gone through these chairs in the last seven years. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students. Okay?

I'd say maybe 70% got a really good intellectual understanding. Okay? But there's this other hurdle you got to get over which is Kelwa.

You know? You have to have a compassionate heart. And it can't be just some wishful thinking.

You got to actually sit down and do something for other people or your philosophy won't get straight. You see? You'll never be a great thinker or a great Buddhist philosopher.

You'll never see emptiness directly. You'll never be a great meditator if you don't do something for other people. Okay?

It just doesn't work that way. The ultimate goal is to be of ultimate service to other people. And if on the way you're not of help to other people, it just won't work.

You won't be able to do it. I'm just telling you. You just won't be able to do it.

You have to do something. Three Jewels is great. Three Jewels needs volunteers.

Okay? Talk to Michael Wick. He's right there.

I mean the whole place is dedicated helping people with problems. Okay? And if you don't know somewhere else to help someone, then go there and help someone.

Okay? And he's right there. You can't say you didn't have a chance about it.

Okay? Something else. Let's say meditation.

The whole reason to meditate in Buddhism. You see, when I was growing up, I remember, I was in college, I went to my first meditation class. They said, chant this thing, close your eyes, try to see something black.

And I'm like... And, you know, I tried to see something black and I did it for a couple of weeks and I just quit because I couldn't see any point to just seeing something black, you know? And it just didn't feel right to me.

Even at that stage, when I didn't know anything, I never read a Buddhist book in my life, but they said, meditate on something black. And I was just like, well, so what? What am I supposed to do then?

And I just left because it just didn't... And it was years before I found a Buddhist, you know what I mean? And meditation doesn't mean sitting down and thinking about nothing.

Meditation doesn't mean sitting down and trying to be calm. Meditation doesn't mean trying to see some kinds of colored lights. Meditation doesn't mean trying to talk to your aunt who died three years ago or something like that.

It's not any of the above. There's... One goal of meditation in Buddhism is to see emptiness.

Period. Okay? It's to get to a point where you can see emptiness directly.

The main reason to meditate is to try to get to that twenty minutes. Okay? Meditation is like a microscope and emptiness is like the...

what you see under the microscope. Okay? Get the difference?

So when you meditate, you're really just perfecting your microscope. It's just a tool to see emptiness with. Okay?

After you've seen emptiness, maybe you can throw the tool out or something. You see what I mean? Meditation in itself is not a goal.

Meditation is an instrument or a tool that you see emptiness with. It's a power of being able to go inside, shut down your sense organs and concentrate one pointedly on an important spiritual object. Okay?

Emptiness. And that's the whole art. There's this thing about emptiness.

Tonglam. You cannot see emptiness directly unless you can reach Samden Dambun Nyerdo Mijo Med. This is specific meditative state.

There are hundreds of meditative states. You have to be able to reach this one. You have to be able to play Rachmaninoff.

Okay? Even to see emptiness. You see what I mean?

It's not seeing emptiness. It's just a state of concentration. You have to have the concentration of Donald Trump for money or...

What's that guy? McGuire for baseball. And don't think they don't have it.

They have it. I mean, look at those guys' eyes just before they hit the ball. They're like...

You know? And my Lama always watches baseball. He says, Look at those guys' eyes.

You know? They... Oh, man!

And then they interview the guy. They say, How can you hit so many home runs? He says, Just before it reaches the plate, that looks like a watermelon to me.

You know, this hundred mile an hour little white ball looks like a watermelon. And I just put the bat out there and it hits the watermelon. You know?

And... Because they're in this deep state of... They're actually in a state of Tengen Zin.

Tengen Zin Samadhi. They are in a state of meditation. Okay?

You have to be about that good in your concentration. Okay? You have to develop powers of concentration which are about as intense as a great sports figure or a great mathematician or a great architect or a great painter or a great dancer or whatever.

But you have to develop towards emptiness this intense ability to concentrate called meditation. The perfection of meditation. Or you have no hope.

You cannot see it otherwise. Okay? You have to reach this state of meditation.

The question always comes up especially in New York. Ah... Well, ah...

How much time is done? Okay? It's gonna save your life after a million years but you wanna know how much time?

It's ah... It takes about an hour a day. At least an hour a day.

Okay? I always say I'm not including futz around time. And doesn't include shifting around on your seat.

Doesn't include doing your water bowls. Doesn't include the preliminaries. Doesn't include your sadhana.

Okay? Doesn't include anything else. Straight, single-pointed concentration on an object.

Gotta be there at least an hour a day. Okay? Jogam.

You have to be in that kind of meditation at least an hour a day. Or it's hopeless. You cannot reach it.

And I'm not talking every other day. And I'm not talking four days a week or five days a week. Every single day.

Or you can't do it. Okay? You just can't do it.

And frankly, much better if you're in a very, very silent place. I mean, it's okay to start in New York. Start building up that energy in New York.

Start building up that power in New York. By about that time, Winston will be done with the cabins out in Arizona. And then come.

Okay? But in the end, sooner or later, frankly, you know, I took Sanskrit at Princeton, you know. I audited it just before, after I graduated.

And this guy got up, this old Greek professor, and he said, you know, this is my last year at Princeton. I was an undergraduate here. I was a graduate here.

I was a young professor here. I taught here for 40 years. This is my last year.

I'm gonna do it my way. You know? And he he did it really hard.

Everybody dropped out of class. Sixty people dropped out. There were two auditors left at the end, you know.

And he just did it the way he he really wanted to do it. You gotta do it like like, this is my last two Friday night classes in four years, okay? I'm gonna be quite frank with you, you know.

You gotta go find an empty place somewhere and meditate hard for a while. Okay? You gotta it's okay to start in New York.

Build up your power. Build up your strength. You know, get up to a certain level and then you gotta go some place really quiet.

Lock yourself up and concentrate on it for a while. Okay? How long?

I don't know. At least put it in the back of your mind. Simla jakshu in Tibetan means stick it in, park it in your heart.

Sooner or later you're gonna have to break out and do that. Okay? Build up your skills in your current situation.

You know, build them up as far as you can. Do all these other things here. Which you can do in New York City.

New York City is best for service. You have probably the ten best American teachers that are alive are here in this place. And you can put in the time here.

Okay? Then start your meditation here. But you're gonna need on top of that you're gonna need to sooner or later you're gonna need to meditate in a really really silent place.

Okay? Then you have to make a big effort to see emptiness. So warm yourself up.

Get doing it an hour a day. Work up to it. And then get to that point where you can meditate perfectly.

That's a prerequisite to seeing emptiness directly. You can't see emptiness directly unless your meditation is perfect. A lot of people ask me well how come more people haven't seen emptiness directly?

Well now you know. Okay? It takes this much effort.

And I'm you know usually when I give a public talk to non-professional Dharma students I don't tell them all this because they just think it's crazy. They're like who can spend that much time? Well you have to.

Between you and me if you're gonna die this is your only other option. And that's how much effort it takes. Okay?

You have to be willing to give it that much effort. Okay? Is it always fun?

No. Is it easy to meditate an hour a day? No.

Do your legs hurt? Yes. Does your butt hurt?

Yes. You know is it more fun to go to a movie? Yes.

You know what I mean? Yes to all the above but you gotta do it. You don't have a choice.

Okay? Dying is a lot worse. Okay?

And that's all... you can go one way or you can go the other way but you have to... sooner or later you will come back to this class.

You know? Sooner or later you have to come back. Sooner or later the thing the thing will happen.

Cancer, breast disease, whatever. Something will happen. And then you'll say oh god now I gotta go do something about it.

You know? You can put it off it's like dentist, you know? You can put it off indefinitely but they're just getting worse.

You know what I mean? You gotta go sooner or later. So you gotta take care of this thing sooner or later.

And it's hard. And it takes a lot of effort. And it takes some dedication.

But you don't actually have any choice. Okay? Your own life will show you that.

Sooner or later your life will show you that. Okay? Those are the warm-up.

Okay? I'd like to take a break there and then I'll actually describe how it happens that you go into the direct perception of emptiness. Okay?

Just very quickly to go through the logistics of what happens to you on the day that you see emptiness directly. Okay? This is just a quick presentation to so you can see what it feels like and get some feeling for it.

You have to try to pull it off in this lifetime. Okay? And you can.

If you got this far, you probably can. Okay? Here it is.

Chö chok. Say chö chok. Chö chok.

Chö means, in this case, means thing. Dharma sometimes means thing. Chö means the best, highest.

And it's the best thing that can happen to you if you haven't seen emptiness yet. Okay? So it means like next best thing.

Alright? This happens maybe an hour or two before you see emptiness directly. So this is some kind of sign.

You have to be meditating a lot. You have to be thinking specifically about mental images. Okay?

And I'll just run over with you really quick. In the garden... Did they get that reading?

I don't know. Yeah? In the garden you have...

Lord Buddha at this point holds up a rose. He teaches the student emptiness with a rose. And says...

Basically he's saying see it as a pen. Okay? First see it as a pen.

Okay? Used to it? Got it?

Now I'm going to hold it up again but I want you to pretend that you never knew what a pen was and you don't know what a pen is and... you don't have to be a dog yet, okay? Alright?

Just see it as a green and white cylinder. Okay? Pretend you don't know what a pen is.

Okay, ready? You're going to see the same thing again but you're going to think of it a different way. Ready?

See, you can imagine that. In your mind you can imagine it. Now I'm going to take it away again.

Now this time think of it as a pen. Okay? The minute I hold it up say...

Oh, pen. Ready? Pen.

Okay. Now just a cylinder, okay? Don't think of it as a pen.

Promise me you won't, okay? It's just a white and green stick. I wonder what they use that for.

Ready? It's kind of pretty. I mean, I don't know what they use it for.

Okay. Once more, pen. Ready?

Okay. When you look at it as a pen you're really looking at a picture in your own mind. Okay?

Now you can appreciate that the idea of pen is something that doesn't exist on this cylinder. You see what I mean? Otherwise you couldn't take it away and put it back and take it away and put it back.

The pen... The pen-ness of it, the vision of it as a pen, thinking of it as a pen is something that you apply to it and you can remove from it and then you can put it back and then you can take it off again. That's like rose-colored sunglasses.

You see what I mean? That's something on your eyes. It doesn't exist in this thing.

You see what I mean? You're thinking of it as a pen. It's like this...

I don't know, where is that thing? Oh, it's here. Sorry.

Okay. Okay. That was not on purpose.

It's like there's this green and white cylinder and then you... Your mind... It's just a green and white cylinder.

It's not a pen yet. Okay? And then your mind goes...

Pen. Okay? No.

And you put it on it. You see what I mean? And you can take it off and you can put it back.

You see what I mean? Your mind is doing that. It's not coming from...

It's not coming from this. Okay? Don't blame this.

It's not coming from this. If it were coming from this, then even a dog would run up and take it and start riding. You see what I mean?

It's not coming from this. It's coming from... Your mind comes along due to your past karma.

Due to what you did in the past. And it says, pen. And it decides it's a pen.

It's coming from you. It's not coming from this object. This is just a green and white object.

You're the one who makes it a pen. Okay? It's you.

And get used to that. Your mind is... Keeps putting...

Putting that idea onto it. Okay? That's what they mean in great Buddhist texts when they say, Oh, is the pen its pieces?

Or is it all the pieces together? And they say, Ha ha, neither one. You see what I mean?

And then you're supposed to go... You know... It doesn't mean that, okay?

Is it the pieces individually? No, you can't write with the top. Okay?

Is it all the pieces together? No, because... That's not a pen yet.

Okay? That's all that... It's a trick question, okay?

That thing, Is the pen all the pieces together? No. Why?

You left out a piece, the most important one. What is it? Thinking of it as a pen.

Then it's a pen. You see what I mean? So that's a trick question.

Nagarjuna was faking everybody out. He said, Is it its pieces? No.

Is it its all pieces together? He said, No. Everybody for two thousand years is like, What do you mean?

It's just... You didn't think of it as pen yet, so it's not a real... It doesn't work as a pen until you think of it as a pen.

And the proof of that is that a dog can't use it as a pen. Okay? That's all.

What's that got to do with my ultimate happiness, etc.? Okay? The point is this.

At Chod Chog, at that meditative state, you're standing there. This doesn't happen in meditation. Okay?

You're standing there, you're making a cup of tea on the stove for your lama, which is the service part, right? And you're standing there, and suddenly you realize that you're only looking at some silver. You're looking at a little silver thing here, and there's a stick there, and there's another curve here, and then suddenly your mind has organized it into a pot, and called it pot.

You see what I mean? That's all done by your mind. The only thing there is a couple of flashes of silver, some black, and some roundness.

And then your mind makes this beautiful, perfect picture called pot. You call it in your mind, you say pot. And you make a picture in your mind called pot.

And you're only looking at the picture your whole life. You've only been looking at those little mental pictures. Okay?

You can't see a pot. What are you talking about? You're looking at the top of the bottom.

I don't know, I'm kind of just looking around, you know. Well, you can't see the whole pot at once. Why?

You have to look at the top to see the pot. I know that. But how can you look at the bottom when you're looking at the top?

Well, I look at the top, and I look at the bottom real fast. That doesn't work. There's only pieces of pots that you're looking at.

You see what I mean? You never see the whole pot. You can't see the whole pot.

Why? Because you can't see the pot unless you look at the top of the pot. But when you look at the top of the pot, you can't see the bottom of the pot at that same instant.

You see what I mean? So really, your eye is switching around, going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then your mind says, pot. And it makes a beautiful pot.

You can even see the back of the pot. Okay? No, it makes this beautiful thing called pot, and you mistake that for a pot.

You are living in a world of that. You see what I mean? That's Chod Chok.

Chod Chok is this big realization where you realize every single object you ever saw is just your mental images of an object. Okay? What do you see?

You only see little pieces of things, and then your mind puts it together and calls it pot. Why did it call it pot and didn't call it Aladdin's lamp? You don't have the karma.

Okay? Karma glues it together into an object. Okay?

Karma decides whether you see a pen or... Now do your thing. Yeah, okay.

Okay. Karma, karma, your karma decides. By the way, if you have the karma to see it as a pen, you are a human.

If you have the karma to see it as something to chew on, you are a dog. That's what makes you a dog. Dogs are...is anybody who sees this as something to chew on? Mainly. Okay? Human is anyone who sees this as a pen.

Mainly. Okay? That's all.

Your karma is making you organize this object into an object. Okay? What's that got to do with anything?

Okay? Next you go into a deep state of meditation. Okay?

Maybe an hour later, you go into a temple. You're about to do something which you have not done for a billion years, or actually more. Okay?

You've been alive. You've been going through these worlds. You've been in this realm for millions and millions of years.

You go into the temple. You sit down. Three thousand hours of instruction are in your mind.

You have a great lama who's guiding you. You're able to go into a deep state of meditation. You've been helping other people, serving other people, serving the Dharma, serving poor people, everything.

All that energy triggers the direct perception of emptiness. Okay? What does it feel like?

Can't describe it to a person who hasn't had it happen. Okay? Why?

For twenty minutes, your mind can only see ultimate reality. There are two realities going on. You are living in what we call like an unreal reality or a deceptive reality.

And then there's this higher reality going on. For twenty minutes, your mind is in the higher reality. How many things exist in higher reality?

One. Emptiness. Okay?

So, is there any higher reality in this room? Not that you can see right now. Okay?

So, during those twenty minutes, can you be aware of your body? No. That's not ultimate reality.

Can you be aware of the building you're in? No. Can you smell, hear, taste, feel anything?

No. Okay? You're only focused on higher reality, ultimate reality.

That's all you can sense at that time. That's all you can see. Period.

Can you tell time is going by? No, that's not ultimate reality. Here's the punchline, you know.

Can you think to yourself, I did it! No! That's not ultimate reality.

That's a thought. Thoughts are like way down on the level. Okay?

Thoughts are way down there. Okay? You're in direct communion with ultimate reality.

Okay? And you can't even think to yourself, I, which is not ultimate reality, saw, which is not ultimate reality, ultimate reality, the word of which is not ultimate reality. Okay?

You can't even have that thought. You're just in it. You see what I mean?

You're just perceiving it. Twenty minutes, like that. Then you come down.

Okay? Then you have all these things happen to you in the next three, four hours. Okay?

If you saw emptiness in the morning, this goes on the whole day until you go to bed. Okay? I'll give you some of them.

Okay? This is worth everything. And these classes have gone on for seven years.

There's been literally thousands of hours of teachings here for seven years. It's only for that twenty minutes. Okay?

It's only for that twenty minutes. Okay? First thing.

You want the sexy ones first? Okay. Read other people's minds.

Okay? For the length of that day, for much of that day, you can read other people's minds. Okay?

Is that some big spiritual attainment? No. We say you can read it before.

It's fun. Okay? I mean, it's something amazing.

Okay? You can actually read other people's minds for the whole length of the day. You see your own enlightenment.

You see into the future, and you know how long it's going to take, and you know that you will be a Buddha. Okay? You know the day of your own enlightenment.

I mean, not specific date, but you know how long it will take. I mean, to tell you frankly, often seven lifetimes is a very typical time. Okay?

Are you a Buddhist? Oh yeah, I go to Buddhist classes. Do you believe in future lives?

I'm supposed to. Have you seen your future lives? No.

Are you sure they exist? I think so. On that day, you don't have to answer like that anymore.

Yes, I saw them. I saw my next seven lifetimes. And after that, I saw that I will be enlightened.

I will be an enlightened being. I will be a Buddha. Okay?

You're just absolutely positive. You see it directly. By the way, a nice other thing.

I'm not crazy. Okay? I'm not kidding.

You have this secondary perception that you're not crazy. And it's important. It's like a confirmation perception.

You know what you saw, and you know you're not crazy. It doesn't matter if everybody in the universe came to you and said you're wrong. For the whole rest of your life, what would it feel like to know...

You know there's 200,000 Buddhist books? There's 200,000 important Buddhist books left in this planet now, today. After being burned, you know, 2000 years of being burned, lost.

We have still 200,000 books left. In that 20 minutes, you understand everything in those books. Period.

No more to learn from those books. Period. Okay?

You know everything that's contained in those books in that 20 minutes. That's all. You see it directly.

You know it. You see what I mean? So you know they're true.

And you know you're not crazy. Okay? We can say the books are true.

I mean, think of it. Every single line of 200,000 ancient books. Every single sentence.

Absolutely true. All the things you ever heard about a Buddhist book. Absolutely true.

Okay? You saw your future lives. You saw a Buddha.

People say, are you a Buddhist? You say, yeah. Do you believe in Buddhism?

Yeah. Do you believe Buddha walked this earth? Yeah.

Do you believe Buddhas are watching us right now? Yes. Are you sure?

No. Okay? I mean, how do you really know there was a Buddha?

You see what I mean? Maybe it's a big plot that we started in 1930. Before we were all...

You know what I mean? Who knows? It seems to be that, you know, there are all these old books around and stuff, and people talk about Buddha.

You do see the Buddha directly. Okay? What part of the Buddha?

There's like three main parts, right? Their body, their mind, or their emptiness. You see their emptiness.

Okay? Which is, when you saw emptiness directly, you saw what we call the Dharmakaya of a Buddha. So you know.

It's like... Did you ever see the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, when he was still a good guy? And he runs out to this bush, and the bush is burning, and he sees God.

And he... What does he do? He throws himself on the ground.

You know? That's exactly what it feels like after tonglam. Okay?

That's exactly what it feels like. You throw yourself on the ground. Why do Buddhists do all this stuff?

Mainly it's that. Okay? On the day that you meet an enlightened being, there's only one thing you do.

You throw yourself on the ground. I'm not worthy to stand in front of this thing. You see what I mean?

You're down on your stomach. You know? That's where prostration came from.

It was a little bit inelegant in those days, you know? Wah! You know?

Throw yourself on the ground. Okay? But that's the real meaning of it.

You see? On that day, when you see that thing, like if Jesus or Moses walked in this room, and if you understood who they were, you know, if you truly saw them as they are, then you would just throw yourself on the ground. You know?

And that's... Maybe that's, you can call it, your first prostration. And you do it.

Okay? By the way, there's a whole bunch of stuff. I'm just gonna give you some of it.

Ultimate reality is ultimate. Okay? Think of the biggest of anything.

Is anything the longest of anything? Is there a longest thing? No, because you can always add another inch.

Okay? Is there a shortest thing? No.

You can always cut it. You see what I mean? Is there a hottest thing?

Is there a coldest thing? Is there a longest time? No.

You can always add another day. You see what I mean? Is there an est of anything in our experience?

And they say, yeah. The closest thing to an est is hardest. Okay?

What's the hardest thing in the universe? Diamond. Okay?

And in that moment, in that day, after the twenty minutes, your mind is like searching. I need something in my world that can remind me of what I saw. Okay?

Because you can't sit around pulling out ultimate reality whenever you want. Okay? After you have that experience, it's not like you can just trigger it anytime you want.

It's very difficult to have it again. So you're like searching, you know. What's the thing in the world that's the closest to what I saw?

And you always come up with the same thing, which is diamond. Okay? And then, you would want to be around diamonds frequently.

Okay? Like, you would want to be near them, touching them, seeing them, looking at them. You know, if you had to go work in a diamond business for twenty years, it'd be worth it, even if they didn't pay you.

If you had to pay them, it would be worth it. Just to be around them, just to see them, to remember what you saw. You see what I mean?

It'd be incredibly important to have a diamond, and to be around diamonds. Okay? Because it would remind you of that most important twenty minutes.

That twenty minutes, and you're out of here. That twenty minutes, and you are on like a conveyor belt to enlightenment, to being a deathless being, living crystal being. Okay?

You're on your... That's why they call it what? Stream-enterer.

You're on your way out. Okay? If it had been nowadays, they would call it a conveyor belt enterer.

Okay? No, because it's like, you start here, it goes there, you push the button, it goes there. You see what I mean?

No possibility of anything else. You're on the conveyor belt, it only has one stop, someone pushed a button, nobody can turn it off, and you're on your way. And you'll just be there.

Okay? Those are things that you understand at that day. Oh, seven lifetimes, great teachers, parents, homes.

Everything set up for you. Everything perfect. Okay?

For seven... Okay, you gotta come back seven times. But all...

You can't avoid having the greatest Buddhist teachers around you all the time, the best teachings, pure home, pure family life, living in a pure country, living in a comfortable country. You will always be comfortable. You will never want anything very much.

Okay? So think about how it feels for this person. Think what it feels like to know what's gonna happen to you for the next five hundred years.

Clearly. And to know what's gonna happen to you afterwards. And to have done all those things.

And to know that you're not gonna be like this anymore. You're not gonna die, not gonna get old like that. You know what's gonna happen for...

And you know what the end of the process is. You know everything. Okay?

Everything is clear. So... So what kind of trouble you're gonna have after that?

You see what I mean? What does it feel like to know you'll be a Buddha in seven lifetimes? You know, what does it feel like to be sure what's gonna happen to you until then?

You know? Imagine what it feels like. You don't have anything sure in your life at all right now.

Nothing. Nothing is sure. You don't know if you'll be here tomorrow.

You don't know if you'll be in this city tomorrow. You don't know if this shirt won't be worn by somebody else tomorrow. You don't know if you'll have your eyeballs tomorrow.

You don't know anything. You have no assurance of... Everything in your life is frightening.

Everything in your life is unsure. Even your life could be taken away from you tonight. You know?

Nothing. You can't count on anything in your life. Suppose you could count on everything.

Suppose you saw directly what's gonna happen to you. And you knew everything. You know?

Then what... How would it feel to go through life that way? You'd probably be a really cocky son of a gun, I guess.

But... No, but feel... Try to sense what it would be like to know like all the lottery numbers in the country or something.

You know what I mean? What would it be like to know what's gonna happen to you? And to know that at the end you'll be a perfect enlightened being and you'll be helping countless people.

You'd be able to send copies of your body throughout the universe to help people. In a moment. In a moment's time.

Think of what it would be like to know that for sure. And not to doubt it. You know?

Okay, question. Yeah. What happens...

Oh. Okay, he asked a couple of questions. First of all, can you screw up after that?

No, you can't. It's called Mindokpa. You can't screw it up.

Okay? Is it too far? There's too much momentum.

You know? Nothing can stop you at that point. It's called Mindokpa.

It's a certain threshold of momentum. And nothing can stop you. There are lower parts of the Buddhist path that you can suddenly screw up.

There's a flowchart called Gennunyishupa. The 20 permutations. It's actually a flowchart.

And on this... Once you're up to this point, you're out of it. Okay?

That's the neat thing about it. There's no turning back. You can't really screw up after that.

It's impossible. Okay? You can speed it up if you practice Tantra.

Okay? You could go from seven lives to one life. Okay?

If you had a good teacher about both levels of Tantra, then you could shorten it to one lifetime. Okay? What's the other part of your question?

Oh, that's the main thing. Usually what people ask is... So, when next life, if I'm two years old, am I gonna remember all this stuff?

You don't. Okay? Bhaktakshepa means it's stored in your continuum, in your mind.

And then about the age of like 16, 17, something like that, it comes back to you. Yeah, the experience. You may not have the direct experience again, but the whole knowledge of the experience comes back to you.

But it's called Bhaktakshepa. It reawakens in your mind. And then you know everything again where you were.

And between zero and 16 years old, you're leading like a perfect life. Okay? Because of the influence of what you saw and what you know.

Okay? Yeah. Just an example.

Say 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Only when you come down. You have a physical experience of coming down. You look at the clock and you say, Wow, that was amazing.

It's 30 minutes. Okay? You know what I mean?

Okay. Like that. But otherwise you have no...

You see, every other thing, the feel of the air on your skin, the thoughts passing through your mind, your own awareness of yourself, your awareness of the room you're in. Those are all not ultimate reality. So you can't see them at that time.

They say a Buddha can perceive both this room and ultimate reality at the same time. But not a normal person cannot do. No, I don't mind.

He's pointing out that it wouldn't really be very fun to read other people's mind. And it's not. Okay?

It's not... I mean, it's fun to know that you can do it. It's not fun to hear what the minds are holding.

You see what I mean? And that's all. That's all I meant.

It's amazing to know that it can be done. It's amazing to confirm that you can do it. It's amazing to confirm that a normal person can read another person's thoughts.

But it's also very depressing. The content of those thoughts are not pleasant. Okay?

If it's a normal being, it's quite depressing. Not depressing, but it's just... it's sad to read.

Because the thoughts are normally quite... you know, sad. Sad thoughts.

Sad thoughts about cheating other people or lying or things like that. But to know that you can do it is amazing. It doesn't last.

It lasts about a day. Yeah. It's still a projection of your own mind.

That doesn't mean it's not real. You see? People ask me, if something's just my mind's projection, then it's not real, right?

And I say, go stand in front of an unreal New York taxi, you know, barreling down the street, and let it hit your unreal, illusory legs, and write us an illusory postcard from the illusory hospital. You see what I mean? They are all illusory, but not...

that word doesn't mean what you think it means. All it means is that it looks like this pen is a pen from its own side, but that's an illusion. You're actually making it a pen.

But that doesn't mean that you can't write with it, or if I poke you in the eye with it, you won't say, Okay? Yeah, even the knowledge of another person's mind is something you're hearing due to your own karma. But that doesn't mean you're not hearing them.

In fact, Buddhism would say that proves you're hearing them thoughts. That's another point. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
He asked this. He said, The way you've described it, it sounds like you'd just be a Buddha forever. You'd be an enlightened being forever.

That's true. But Buddha also said, Nothing lasts forever. Nothing's permanent.

And that's also true. So, it sounds like a contradiction. This is a very, very important and very bad translation of an important word called Mitakpa.

Mitakpa Anitya, in Sanskrit. It's just a huge mistake in translation that was done 50 years ago or something and we're stuck with it. The Buddha said, Nothing is unchanging.

You see what I mean? He didn't say nothing lasts forever. There are many things which last forever, but which change constantly.

You see what I mean? A Buddha's body is changing 65 times a second. Okay?

The color, the shape is changing. You know, I think it's 72 frames a second gives you the illusion of motion, or it's a minute or something, gives you the illusion of motion. In Buddhism, two and a half thousand years ago, Lord Buddha said, Well, it's 65 per finger snap.

Now you figure it out. But you are, your body is changing 65 times a second. Okay?

That's what we mean by the word impermanence. You see, when a Buddha walks, when a Buddha talks, when a Buddha thinks, 65 frames a finger snap are going through his mind. And you are seeing it like that.

It gives you the illusion of time and motion. Okay? That's what we mean by impermanence.

But that state is eternal. You see? To be in a body which is perfect, rainbow body, you know, is eternal, it lasts forever.

But it's changing every second. You see what I mean? But the fact that you are an enlightened being lasts forever.

You see what I mean? His emptiness is not changing. His mind is changing.

And his body is changing. And we call that the unchanging state of Buddhahood. You see what I mean?

It's a very basic simple thing in the monastery. You clear it up in about two minutes in the debate ground. And it's just due to a bad translation.

Okay? Buddha is eternally enlightened. And his mind and body are changing 65 times a finger snap.

Okay? Yeah. I didn't...

When I said illusion, I meant... She said, well, why did you say the illusion of time passing? Illusion meaning time is not passing externally.

That's what I mean when I say illusion. Time isn't something that is passing because the New York Times comes out every morning. It's not something that's passing because a thing is moving around a circle.

It's passing because your karma is forcing you to see things that way. You're making time pass. Time is not passing external of you.

There is no time outside of your mind. Okay? You got to get used to that.

Is it real? Yes. Will you get older?

Yes. Is it what you thought? No.

So we call it an illusion. Okay. I think we'll stop there.

One last thing. Okay? Direct experience of ultimate love.

Okay? Ultimate bodhicitta. Real bodhicitta.

Okay? They talk about bodhicitta. They talk about ultimate love or compassion.

Blah, blah, blah. People talk about it. Okay?

People say, he's a bodhisattva. You say, why? He says, he got me a pizza yesterday and he didn't eat any of it.

And he gave it all to me. That's a bodhisattva. You know what I mean?

And... And he must have bodhicitta. I can't believe anybody would give a pizza like two boots pizza.

You know? Okay. It's not like that.

I mean, bodhicitta is very hard to get. Ultimate compassion, ultimate love is almost as earth-shaking as seeing emptiness directly. They often come together.

You often have the first direct experience of ultimate love within a few hours after you see emptiness directly. Okay? Can it happen while you're seeing emptiness directly?

No. Why? Because it's always focusing on other people.

And they are not ultimate reality. You see what I mean? You can't tell time.

You can't think. You can't feel anything. You can't see anything.

And you can't think about other people. Because you are in a state of direct communion with ultimate reality. But when you come down within a few hours, within the first hour, you have this ultimate...

you have the first direct experience of ultimate love. Okay? And that is focused on every living creature in the universe.

You have a rough perception of every living creature in the universe. You don't see like ten million faces in five seconds or something like that. It's not like that.

You have a direct experience of living kind as a mass. And then you have this direct feeling of ultimate love coming out of your chest. Almost like in a stream of crystal or something like that.

Very strong, very direct stream coming out of your heart and focused on all living beings. For the first time in your whole... According to Buddhism, in millions of years, you have a direct perception of all living kind and you have an ultimate feeling of love for all of them.

And you know that for the rest of your life, you will dedicate every moment, waking, sleeping, eating, walking, pee-pee, anything, every single moment of your existence will be dedicated to helping those people see what you saw. You see what I mean? And saving the books that teach that.

You see what I mean? Then for you those books become an obsession. You must save them.

They must exist in the world. They must be there for people to read, to reach this place. You see what I mean?

So these are... And you perceive that for the rest of your life and lives, you will be just all the time working for that. Working to help other people reach that place.

And that's the other amazing thing about that experience. So in one day, you cover millions of miles of mileage. And what I want to say, and then I'll answer your question, is that you can have this experience.

It's not some kind of thing that only Milarepa had or Tsongkhapa had or Buddha had or something like that. You have everything you need. You need to be reasonably well-educated.

You are. You need to have access to those holy books. You have ACI 18 courses.

You need to have good teachers. There are 10 teachers here who have been trained for years and who are really good at it. You need to be meditating.

You live in a country where you can meditate your ass off all day. The government will probably pay you. You've got no excuse.

If you do, they'll probably give you some kind of thing where you're half crazy and you can have Social Security or something. You have no excuse. It's not true that you have to work 40 hours a week to feed yourself in this country.

It's just not true. 20, 15 hours, fine. Cut your expenses down.

No problem. Live in a room. Go rent some stupid room from somebody.

$50 a month. I paid $50 a month for 20 years to live in this stupid little room in Howell, New Jersey. And they were happy to get the money.

It was half the temple income. And don't tell me you can't find a room like that. Don't tell me you can't find a job that will give you a couple hundred bucks a month.

And you have everything you need. You have the great teachers are here. You have time.

You're educated. You know what to do. You have lots of Dharma friends, which are very important.

There are limitless miserable people around you to serve all day long. You know, everything you need is there. You just have to do it.

And you can do it. What I want to say is, you don't have to be a Tibetan monk with a big fancy hat and ringing a bell and anything like that. You can be a normal American, male or female, old or young.

You have everything you need. If you don't pull it off, it's your fault. The only choice is to go to a nursing home and die.

I mean, if you live that long. I mean, you got two career paths. You know, do this one or do this one.

Can you have a normal life and see emptiness? Of course you can. Do you have to be ordained?

No, not at all. Do you have to have tantric initiation? No.

Can you have a family? Yes. Can you have a normal job?

Absolutely. Okay. It can't be a 60-hour job, okay?

But just a normal American under normal circumstances, even from Canada, can... There's just no problem. You don't have to be some big yogi or wear a weird hat or shave your head or say alms or anything, okay?

You can do it. Every person here can do it. You've heard about it.

You've heard a correct description of it. It's up to you to try, okay? And it's about like learning piano.

And sooner or later you got to do it, okay? I'll take one last question, then we'll stop. Okay.

She said, what if you do it and you only get one minute or ten minutes? The nature of the experience is always 20 or 30 minutes. You can't...

Nobody... It just wouldn't happen. You see what I mean?

That you got this kind of moment... Do you get a glimpse? No.

People come to me and said, I think I got a glimpse of emptiness. If you saw it, you know it. All these things would happen to you.

Okay? All of these things must happen to you. There's no one who ever saw emptiness directly who didn't see all these things.

Can you have slight glimpses into it or slight intimations of it or brushes with it or something like that? You can do all that. But the direct perception of emptiness is like this and only like this.

And if you're not sure, you didn't see it. Okay? If you have any question in your mind, you did not see it.

You see what I mean? If you didn't see all the things I just said, then you maybe had a flirt with it or a glimpse of it or something like that, but you did not see emptiness directly. It's...

Oh, no. It's very... There are many good signs and many nice things that can happen to you, but if it's not exactly like what I just said, it's not the...

It is not the direct perception of emptiness. She said... Suppose you have some kind of insights, like scary insights into things where they seem kind of illusory or not quite there or anything like that.

Any good teacher who teaches you emptiness is teaching you about good karma at the same time. Morality, bodhisattva vows, compassion, no violence to others, no sexual misconduct, honoring other people's possessions, never telling lies, always being sweet to other people, always being compassionate, always serving others. If you...

If your emptiness understanding grows in this wonderful atmosphere, you see, this fertile soil of compassion and keeping your vows strictly, serving other people, thinking of others all the time, you can't go wrong, you know? If you try to flirt with emptiness and you don't have these other things, yeah, maybe then you could have a problem. So a great lama would never push you into emptiness without giving you the other sweet conditions, which are keeping your vows sweetly, keeping your morality sweetly, serving other people, learning compassion, meditating on compassion.

You know, all of these are... It's like a terrarium with... You need the soil and the water and the warmth and everything.

All those things have to be there or you won't see it anyway. And you can't have a problem if you have those other things. If you are being...

If you know the ten Buddhist virtues, how to be good towards other people, if you know the bodhisattva vows, you can't screw up like that. It won't happen. And if you don't know those things, yeah, then you could have a problem.

I should talk about after the experience. After the experience you got seven lifetimes, right? What's the rest of your life like?

During the rest of your life you are using what you saw to eliminate the bad emotions in your mind. Ngyun dip ma lupa pa me, so so thang ko, nyan de gyi tse nyi, ngyun bi ye chö. Okay?

It means what you do for the next few decades is that you use what you saw to gradually and carefully remove all traces of negative emotions from your mind. So imagine after ten, twenty years can't get jealous, can't get angry, can't get depressed, can't have an anxiety, just can't, you know? It takes that much time though.

It takes decades afterwards of practicing what you saw. Somehow that twenty minutes information and the next twenty hours or so gives you the power to overcome every negative thought you could have. And then towards the end of that process you're just flying all the time.

You know, I took mesclun when I was eighteen or sixteen or we used to wander around canyons in Arizona, you know? And and I vowed to myself I would find a way to do it without mesclun, you know? And that's it.

Okay? You know, really, you know, it's unbelievable. It's just, everything is, every day gets happier, pure, cleaner and your whole reality is like everything you ever dreamed of.

All those Jesus stories are true. That whole New Testament thing is true. He did all that stuff, and you can do it.

You see what I mean? It's really cool. All that stuff you heard about, I saw Joan of Arc the other day, The Messenger.

That night I had all these incredible dreams about pure beings and stuff and you can be that yourself. Go see the movie. Okay, she's not that great an actor, but but you get the point, you know what I mean?

Like, just to be a pure being. You can do all that. You will be that.

You'll be better than Joan of Arc, you know what I mean? Everybody here can do that. You just gotta study, okay?

And meditate. We'll stop there. Okay, see you in two weeks from tonight.

And we'll have some music and stuff like that. Oh, we have to do prayer. Seamus told me.

[Говорящий 2]
Hang on.