Живой ламрим: как жизнь Кхена Ринпоче отразила учение о ступенях пути (2005, Аризона), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
So, we were going through Lamrim, steps of the Lamrim, and I thought it was good if we talked about... It's good to learn Lamrim from a book, and it's also good just to be with a Lama who's doing Lamrim, and then you learn it by osmosis, which is really the best way to learn things, right? So, just by being around a Lama, you learn the Lamrim by how they act, right?

So, I was going through things that I remembered about Ken Rinpoche's practice of the Lamrim while we lived together for 20 years, so I had a chance to watch him and see how he was practicing Lamrim. So, then I thought, somebody should take these out of this class and make them into a little thing. I don't know, eventually.

So, think about that. Like, just little short things, not the whole thing, but just the little beautiful things, like a book of Lamrim based on... See, this Lamrim is unusual, Delam, because it's all meditation.

And then there are other Lamrims which are more technical, like Lamrim Chenmo, but to have a Lamrim that was just a book of actual actions undertaken by a great Lama, which demonstrate the Lamrim, would be an interesting Lamrim. I don't think anyone's done that in that way before. So, anyway, think about that.

So, I'll keep going for this term and next term. Then, just before Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche passed, which is 1981, he lived for 81 years, which is what Lord Buddha lived for. And Lamas tend to pass around 81, 82, 83.

And so, Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche, just before he passed, Ken Rinpoche and Art met him. I never met Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche. I lived next door to him for six months, and I never went next door, in Dharamsala, when I was first there, because I didn't want to bother him.

And students from the library would go meet him, once or twice a week, and I would say, he's too big, I'm not worthy to take his time. Rinpoche once asked me, did you meet Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche? I said, no, I didn't want to bother him.

He said, that was really stupid. But anyway, they went, and Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche said, it was a nice relationship, because Rinpoche told me, he did his prostrations, and then the first thing Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche said was, getting a little thin up top, aren't we? And then, during the course of the conversation, Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche said, well, now you're in America, right?

And Rinpoche said, yes. And so he said, well, you know, there's this book, which people call Liberation in the Palm of Your Hands. It's really a gift of liberation thrust into the palm of your hands, and I prefer that.

It's Laktsang Suttapa, which means, jammed into your hand. There it is, take it. And in the palm of your hands, in English means, it's your problem or it's your response.

It's in your hands. And it's not the feeling of the title. The title is, the Lama is coming and just jamming this gift into your hand.

Take it. But anyway, pet peeve of mine. So this book was, is a record of teachings by Pabongka Rinpoche over like 25 days or something like that.

It's a lamrim, very famous. And Ken Rinpoche taught it all the way through many times. Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche took the notes, and Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche wrote the lamrim, and it took him like, I don't know, 15, 20 years or so, but he did it perfect.

Like, if you can read Tibetan, that book is absolutely exquisite Tibetan. Like, perfect. Like, he worked and worked and worked.

So it's really a transcript. That book is a transcript. And I think it's the greatest book ever written, maybe.

It's just perfect. In meaning, it's perfectly accurate. Everything is beautiful, and the Tibetan is like the best Tibetan ever.

Everything is exquisite. So that was like a labor of love by Khyabje Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche. He wrote books.

He has a sungbum. We have it. But the most famous thing he ever did was to execute the lamrim of his teacher.

And it's just incredible. So anyway, Thich Nhat Hanh Rinpoche is sitting there, and he's talking to Khen Rinpoche, and he says, America, like they talk English there, right? Yeah, yeah.

Well, I want you to translate Liberation in the Palm of your hand, okay? For me. Rinpoche says, yes, of course.

Whatever you tell me. And Rinpoche's English was really rudimentary at that point, right? And so he came back, and we're talking, and he's like, I've got to learn English really well, you know?

We have to translate this book, you know? And then, to learn English, he had gone to... When I first met him, my first job was to drive him down to Washington, D.C. Someone had paid for him to take an English course at Georgetown University for six months, or four months, or something. So we went down there. He stayed in the Sri Lankan monastery there, Vihara. And they didn't have room for me.

I stayed across the street in a Zen monastery. then every day we went. I drove him to Georgetown, and he took English lessons.

But he had to do this in order to translate, right? In order to teach. At the same time, he had never been to a dentist.

Okay? This is 1975. And he's 54 already, right?

He's never seen a dentist before. And so he had to have like 17 teeth pulled out. And we had a really good dentist who said, he was black.

He was in Georgetown. He was in that area. And he said, this man is a preacher.

So, the other dentist wanted to pull out all of his teeth. And this dentist said, no, we'll leave part of his teeth, as many as we can save, and then we'll build his teeth. And so they did, and it took like months.

It was really painful. But he would have teeth taken out, and then the same day he would teach every Saturday in the Vajra. And Bob Taylor was there, and people like that.

Peg Brenner was there, and people like that were already there in 1975. So, anyway, so he's like, we take him to the Georgetown. He jumps out of the car.

There's like all these 20-year-olds, right, in this class. And then he just, he's in his robes, and he goes into the class, and he's like almost 60, right? He's 50-something.

And he says, I've got to learn English. My Lama told me. So I have to do it.

And he's like, I'll do it. And who can learn a foreign language when you're almost 60? And English is a terrible language.

So he went to school, and he was determined to learn. And then he came home the first night, and he says, I got this stuff. It's called homework.

And he's like, you do it. He just hands me all the homework. He says, you do it.

And I'm like, Rinpoche, the point is that you have to do it. And he just looks at me like that, and I'll never forget this. He looks at me and he says, I'm your teacher.

And in those days he was very, very fresh out of Tibet. He was very... He hadn't been Americanized yet.

And he was like wrathful a lot. And he's like, are you kidding? You're going to refuse your Lama?

He said, I told you, do my homework. Do it. And it was very much that for the first 10 years or so.

It was like, I'm your Lama. What are you thinking? I asked you to do something.

What are you talking back to me? What are you saying? It was just unthinkable to him.

He just said, I'm your Lama. And he just shoved it in my hand. And that was it.

But slowly he started doing homework. And then he really worked hard on his English. People don't know.

After every class in Howell, and he would teach sometimes two or three classes a day in Howell. And nobody would come. So it bugs me.

When a Lama gets old, when a Lama passes, everyone rushes there and prays for them. Please come back. But then when he's there, nobody comes to class.

Or nobody works on this stuff. And that went on for 10, 20 years. Five people, three people, two people, one person.

So I don't go much in for the big ceremonies when they get old or when they pass. I'm not into that. When they're there, when they're strong, vital, teaching you the Lam Rim, come to class.

When they get old, passed, and things are set, you don't have to worry. Nobody has to worry. They don't have to worry.

You don't have to worry. Anyway, so, after class, I would go into his room and I'd have a whole list of what he said wrong. Like, this book wrote Tsongkhapa, which went on for years.

Subjects and objects. And then, like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he would claim that his English was really bad. But then sometimes he would take off onto two-hour exquisite, flowery, perfect English.

And then you got this weird feeling that he was just humoring you. And that he wanted you to listen carefully to what he was saying. And that he wanted you to have the virtue of working on his books and stuff like that.

And that he could have just as well written them in much better English than you could. Like, you got this strong sense sometimes. And I'm sure His Holiness's translators have the same experience.

It's kind of frustrating to translate for His Holiness. But anyway, so he really worked hard. And at one point I remember we heard that the same book was being translated by Wisdom Publications in London.

And I was going to be going to see De Beers. I was translating Russian for De Beers, secretly. Because the Russians had developed real artificial diamonds.

Like, genuine diamonds in a lab. And it was a state secret. And you could be executed for...

A Russian could be executed for giving out information about it. So we were trying to translate transmissions and things like that. And so I was invited to London to meet De Beers.

And so I said, I'll go see if this translation is any good or how far along they are. And I went and I met Nick Ribusch, who was in charge of Wisdom at the time. And he said, here it is, it's just about done.

And I looked it through, and it was okay. It wasn't the level that Art could do or Ken Rinpoche would do, but it was okay. So I came back and I said, Rinpoche, they're almost done.

And given that there's 200,000 books to translate, maybe we should work on a different one. And he said, he just looked at me like, are you crazy? Rinpoche told me to do this.

And I said, but it's going to take like 10, 20 years. You know, he just looked at me like, are you insane? Rinpoche told me to do this.

It doesn't matter. What else? He worked for that for 20 years.

He worked on that to fulfill his lama's wishes. So 20 years after he was asked to do it, he finished it. But he didn't give up, and he didn't stop.

And down to our right, which is our next subject, your opportunities, working with what you have, leveraging what you have, your intelligence, your physical health, your finances, leveraging it into Dharma work, right? He was so good at that, he didn't know a word of English when he got to America. And he's already pushing, he's getting on 60, right?

But his lama told him. So he did it. 20 years it took.

And he just kept plugging away at it. And he finished it. The other thing like that is that I think he was on the same trip in 1981.

He met His Holiness in his quarters in Dharamsala. And His Holiness said, do you know there's some monks from Sara down in South India trying to start Sara again? And Rinpoche's like, well I heard some stuff, but I don't...

Actually his brother had been a government official in South India and had found the land for Sara. So I heard to my brother something, you know, who passed away later in a car accident. I heard something about that.

And so Dalai Lama leans over and says, you are going down to hell. You know, and Rinpoche's like, whatever you say, you know, I wasn't in my plans, but I'll go. And he just, he cancelled his ticket.

He went down to South India. Art went with him. And at the time the monks were living in tents.

I mean those of you who've been to Sara, that was a jungle. There were wild elephants there. And the monks, some monks were hurt by the elephants trying to protect the first fields they planted.

And it was a very wild place. And so they just by hand started pulling out trees and clearing the land. And they were living in tents and there was no water.

There's one dirty stream. Like I was there during those days. There was no wells.

There was no fresh water. Just this muddy, dirty stuff. It was all brown.

It looked almost like coke. And that's all you had to drink. And everyone was getting sick all the time.

And there was lice everywhere. And everyone had these big, huge open sores from malnutrition. And there were flies in them.

Everybody was sick. Everybody had TB. So I went down there and looked around and said, it was 100 guys survived out of like 8,000?

108 guys made it to South India from Sara. And they started the monastery again. So Rinpoche went down there.

I remember Ard came back and said, I will never go to India again. And he never did. But Rinpoche said, we have to do it.

So we started like with we sponsored five monks their expenses. And you know the story. So he spent 20 years with nothing.

He came to America with nothing. He couldn't speak a word of English. He didn't have a dollar.

And he would not charge for a class. So how is this guy going to help Sara? And he would not bother his students.

He just, people gave him five dollars. He would set it aside. After he retired, he got Social Security.

He would never take that money. He always put it aside for Sara. So he would get this check from Social Security and he would put it on his altar.

And it would be there for like a week. And then he would put it aside for Sara. And then it would drive me crazy.

I'm the cook, right? And we would go to the grocery store. He wouldn't go unless he had those, what do you call those?

Coupons. We don't go to a store unless we got coupons. And I'm like, Rinpoche, you're going to save like three cents.

And he said, it's for Sara. We have to save the money. He never spent money on himself.

Nothing. Never. Ever.

For himself. He would like take the five dollars and he would buy like some cruddy old bread from the three day, you know, what do you call it? You know, like old bread corner in the store.

And then we would eat that and then he would save the money. So he built up this money. Now that fund, you know, it's a success story, right?

25 years later it feeds about 2,000 monks every day. Okay? And he he just did what his Lama asked him to do.

You see what I mean? So the thing is, even after the Lama would pass, right? For 20 years he's still there trying to do what his Lama told him to do.

You see? It's like unbelievable. And he built most of the buildings at Sara.

He paid for them. They were bankrupt. They were on the verge of bankruptcy in about 1983 or something like that.

They were ready to close the monastery. And the temple was owned by other people. The main temple had been mortgaged and they had defaulted.

And so the main temple was going to be lost to just some local people. so Rinpoche organized three people, gave up all their money, every penny they had. And he un-mortgaged it.

And so that, you know, he kept doing stuff like that. And even up to the last year, when he went the last year to Sara, he presented them, I think with a hundred and something thousand dollars that people had donated to keep the food fund going. So, he just struggled like that.

I remember one day, someone gave him ten thousand dollars. He just took it. He flew to Sara.

We went to Sara. We sat down. We opened the door of the scholarship office.

And we said, any monk who has a medical need, just come. And this was a line of like five hundred guys. And anyone that had a receipt from a pharmacy or a doctor, would just get reimbursed.

And we spent the whole day, from morning up to night, each person, he sat down with each person, he reviewed their case, he got all the receipts in, you know, if you don't have a receipt, you don't get any money. And then he reimbursed each monk for their medical expense. And he spent ten thousand dollars in one day.

And they just flew back to the United States, you know. So, you know, just that determination with his language, right? To learn, because he has to learn this to execute his lama's wishes.

And then twenty years of dogged determination to finish the thing, right? And then, with what? His Holiness just said it off the top of his head, right?

Go down and help them. It takes one minute to say that. And for twenty years he worked on it, you know, and he made sure that they were taken care of, you know.

So, that's how his guru yoga, right? That was how his, how he thought that you should behave towards your lama, right?