Живой ламрим: как жизнь Кхена Ринпоче отразила учение о ступенях пути (2005, Аризона), занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, well anyway, okay. So here's my reminiscence. I'm going through the Lamrim steps that we already covered.

So we finished how to think about your Lama, and I think the main one there is how Rinpoche acted towards their Lama. You know, in those two jobs that we talked about, the Dalai Lama gives Rinpoche, in a single sentence, gives Rinpoche a job to take care of Sarame, and then for 20 years, my boss at Andean used to call it the Japanese soldier in the islands syndrome. The Japanese overrun these islands in the South Pacific at the beginning of the war, and then they put garrisons on these tiny, this is like a hundred foot across island, you know.

So they tell these three guys, you know, you hold this island against anyone who shows up. Then they leave. Then you know, four or five years later, they lose the war, everybody goes home.

These guys are still there, you know, with these rusty old guns, you know. And okay, until 1950, 1960, 1970, no one has showed up yet, you know, and just everybody forgot about them, you know. And my boss used to say some people just do that.

Well, anyway, Rinpoche did that, you know. His Holiness in 1981 says, take care of Sarame. So in 2004, he's flying there with $100,000.

You know, he's still, 25 years later, he's still like doing it, you know. And same with the liberation in the Palm of Your Hands, you know, 20 years later, he's still, with his limited English, he's trying to get it done and finish it, and you know. So those are the examples.

So now we're on to what's the next step in the Lam Rim. Yeah, opportunity and resources, okay. And I was really thinking about it.

The key word here in Tibetan is nyingpo lempa. Say nyingpo. Lempa.

Do you know this one? Nyingpo lempa. Like the len and tong len, and nyingpo meaning heart.

Yeah, so it's like, take the essence from something. And it's hard to translate into English, you know. I suddenly, it dawned on me like yesterday or something.

It means take advantage of an opportunity. Milk an opportunity, you know. Whatever opportunity you get, milk it, leverage it.

Whatever resources you happen to get, you know leverage means? Leverage means like we're leveraging Diamond Mountain. What does that mean?

We own three quarters of it. So we put that up on the mortgage market and to pay off the last corner, you know, like you you use what you have to, you leverage it to get something else done. You see, I mean, you take advantage of an opportunity.

You get the most out of an opportunity, you know. So how did Rinpoche do that? And I was thinking about his finances and his time.

Because those were the two big resources that many times we have, you know. You can say it's your body and your mind and you have the six elements and but what it boils down to in our world, two of the big resources that you have are your time and your money, right? And how did he leverage those, right?

How did he make best use of what he had? You see, because that's what Downsrow is all about. That's what spiritual resources and opportunities are all about.

We don't all have the same level of intelligence. We don't all, we're not all born with the same level of kindness, you know, but how do we leverage what we got, what we're born with, the tools we're born with. How do we make the most out of them?

You know, like if we're deficient in kindness, how do we use the amount of kindness that we do have to get more kindness? If you're deficient in wisdom, if you can't learn languages, you know, how do you leverage, if you don't have a good memory, you know, how do you leverage that or at least suck the best use out of it so you get the most mileage out of the tools you have, that you're born with. I was thinking of it in terms of Chinese medicine.

Is it Yuanqi? Yuanqi? Yuanqi.

Yeah. How do you say it? Yuanqi.

In Chinese medicine, it's the amount of prana that you're born with, right? And it always decreases through your life. If you're taking drugs and drinking alcohol, it decreases quickly.

If you're like careful with yourself, it decreases less quickly. But you're born with a certain amount of Yuanqi in that medical theory. So the, you know, you're born with a certain kind of intelligence.

You're born with a certain emotional capacity and how do you get the best use out of it, you see? And that's dandra, in my mind. So how did Rinpoche do that?

I was thinking about, let me think, well, about his finances. He left Tibet with a towel. Okay, he was born into, I don't know if you know, he was born into a low family.

He was not born into a, well, he was born into a tradesman's family, a carpenter. His father was a carpenter. And in Tibet, there wasn't much social mobility, you know, except for one thing.

If you entered the monastery, then you could shoot for a geshe and suddenly move up 20 levels in the society. But there were very complicated levels in Tibetan society of aristocrats. They're called gungo and kudas.

And there were these weird hats. If you have a hat like this and it has three spits coming off, then you're level 14 and you can't talk to level 12. And they were like, it was very complicated.

Like, you have no idea what was going on in Tibet before 1959. There were like a hundred levels of aristocracy. And, you know, there's the Dalai Lama's butter joke.

Do you know that? A guy would come to the base of the Potawa Palace, right? He would say, I don't know how many stories high it is.

Do you know, 30, 50 stories high? 50 levels, you've got to walk up to get to the holiness at the top. So this farmer comes up with a big goat's stomach full of butter.

They keep it in a skin, a sheepskin stomach. They tie it, they sew it up and they deliver it. And he says, I want to offer this to the Dalai Lama.

So, of course, as it moves up through the through each story of the Potawa Palace, each guy takes a spoonful to make sure it's not poisoned or anything, you know, or he might take a pound out or something like that, you know, and by the time it gets to the Dalai Lama, it's a pat, it's a pat of butter. You know what I mean? And that's how the aristocracy worked in the old days.

So Rinpoche was born into that family and then his father was so skilled that the 13th Dalai Lama, it attracted the attention of the 13th Dalai Lama, and he assigned him to be his table maker, you know, like his cabinet maker. And then he did so well that out of, to honor the family, the Dalai Lama granted them a title, you know, like the Queen of England would make you a Duke or something. So they were granted a, like a minor to middle, high title and given an estate, which means you get like five acres outside of Lhasa in a small house and you get a stipend for the rest of your life or something, like the Queen of England used to do or the Kings of England.

So his family moved up that high, right? Then he went to the monastery and his sister paid for all his expenses. So to the end of her life in India, he helped his sister.

But she put him through, his mom died during his studies and she asked the sister to help him and she did. And then when he got to America, he would always help her until she passed away. So anyway, he finished his studies.

Then he became the Gikku of Gyumei Tantra College. Gikku means debate master and chanting master. That's usually both things.

So he became the Gikku of Gyumei Tantra College. And that's an important position because that becomes just before you become abbot. And from the abbots of Gyumei and Gyutu Tantra College, they choose the Gandantipa.

It alternates. So the abbot of Gyumei is the head of all galupas until he passes away. And then the abbot of, the eldest retired abbot of Gyutu becomes the Gandantipa.

It alternates. Right now, the next one in line is my logic teacher, Geshe Tenzin Chinle Tovkey. And he'll be the next Gandantipa.

But it's the head of all galupas. Okay, so it's the throne of Jetsun Kappa. So it's a big deal to be the Gikku.

So Rinpoche was in a place like, I don't know, it would feel like being Donald Trump or something. I mean, he was all set. Then he makes a joke.

He says, I was in the bathroom. I was drying my face and the first bomb hit Sereme. They bombed Sereme drastically, really bad.

They killed most of the monks in the first day. And he ran. And he didn't realize he hadn't put the towel down.

And so he got to the mountains outside of Sereme. And then he looked in his head. He's still got this towel there, you know.

And then he said, the only thing I carried out into that was the towel and my rosary. He had one rosary. And the rosary is special.

I'll talk about it later, okay. So he ran. And actually Geshe Losantandu risked his life to go back to the monastery in the bombardment to get them some food on the road.

And that's a whole story in itself. But they ran. So here's a man who has arrived in the poorest country in the world with a towel and his rosary after walking over the Himalayas for, I think it was about a month or two months.

And at the end, their shoes were falling apart and they had to, in order, and their eyes had gone blind from snow blindness. And they walked down through the streams because otherwise their feet would have frozen. So they actually walked through the ice water all the way, on the Indian side, all the way down through the streams.

Because they couldn't walk in the snow or they would have died. And all these terrible stories. One day a plane came and they thought it was an American airplane.

They thought, the Americans have come to save us, you know. And they ran up on this hill and they went like this. And then the plane like banks around slowly and comes down at them and starts shooting machine guns, you know.

And then it's a Chinese plane and then all these shell casings are dropping down. I don't know, 50 millimeter, whatever they are. Shell casings are pouring down out of the plane, you know.

And the monks are running and like, these make great butter lamb things, you know. These big thick shells with brass, you know. And they're like, wow, these are so great.

But anyway, so they got out and here's a man who has nothing. He's in the poorest country in the world. So he gets off the plane at JFK in 1972 with nothing, you know, just nothing.

He had one kaprao, they call it in English, in Tibetan. It means a needle holder tube. It's a tube with a with a top on it that you hold needles in.

He had that and he never lost, you know, he said, I got this. This was American. This is made in America.

I got this in India at some point. He's very proud of it. He kept it for a long time, you know, with his thimble and his needles.

And like that's, he's got one change of clothes and no money, nothing, not a penny. So then he like leverages, you see, and he doesn't charge for classes. He never charged a single penny for a class.

And then people would give him five bucks. The first time I went there for a class, Rinpoche goes to the refrigerator. He like sneaks into it.

He doesn't open it all the way. He pulls out milk and butter. He makes Tibetan tea for everybody.

And then everybody leaves and I'm talking to him and I and I go to the refrigerator. I open up. It's totally empty.

There's nothing left. He took out the last thing of butter and the last thing of milk and he gave it to his students. There's nothing in the refrigerator, you know, and I'm like, wow, you know, and so he didn't have anything, you know, but he just collected the spices.

And I want to teach you the difference in Tibetan. Say, runarpa. And sernachen.

Runarpa. Sernachen. Runarpa is a word.

It's totally unique to Tibetan. It means a person who is really good at managing their money, you see, in a good way. You see what I mean?

Careful. We say careful, I think, or we say thrifty or something like that. Boy Scout code, you know, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent.

Thrifty. And then sernachen means cheap. Stingy.

So it's a fine line, right? It's a fine line. On one hand you got sernachen.

People don't want to give up their money or they're always like grubbing about, they're nickel and diming you all the time, right? And then runarpa is a specific idea in Tibetan, which is that this person gets some money, then they, I don't know, they just manage it very carefully, you know. So we got to be runarpa and not sernachen.

You get a certain amount of resources in your life. And now I'm talking financial, right? And the cool thing, the thing I want to say today about Rinpoche, he never wasted a penny.

You see what I mean? Like, we're foolish. We don't give money well, and we also don't even use money well for ourselves.

We use it wastefully for ourselves. For example, when I was, went to work, Rinpoche told me go to work at the diamond business, right? And so, I don't know, at some point my boss asked me, well, is it nice to have an income now?

And I'm like, I don't know, you know, I don't much care. And he said, yeah, but now you can buy like, like what? Like magazines.

You can buy all the subscriptions you want. You have money now, you know. And I'm like, and Rinpoche never would have bought a subscription, you see what I mean?

Like, because it's just useless. You don't need it, you see. And he never wasted any of his money on something he didn't need, you see.

So I think that's just an example for us. You know, he never ever wasted money. But on the other hand, the result of not wasting his money and carefully managing his money, he could support all the monks at Serenity.

You know, at the end, he's supporting 2,000 monks. Every meal that they ever have during the day is paid for directly from Rinpoche, from the interest of a permanent trust. If Rinpoche passes away the next day, they will permanently get the food going on.

You see, he built it that way. And that's Rūla Rāma, see? And not Serenity.

So you never ever waste your resources. And then you can collect more. And then you wait for an opportunity, you know, like, oh, the monks need food, right?

And then, bam, he's there. You see what I mean? And so he would blow all his money at one time, you know what I mean?

So it's not like he kept anything for himself. He was Rūla Rāma until he got like 20, 30 grand together. And the next day that thing's wired to India.

Like that, you know? And his account's empty again. You see, totally empty.

You know, we barely have money for bread or something. And I think that's just an example for us. He never started a project that he didn't finish.

You see what I mean? People would say, people would come from other monasteries and say, oh, you're helping Sarame, can you help us? And he'd say, no.

And they'd say, why? And he'd say, I've got just enough resources to do this. I know what I can do.

And if I committed to ten other monasteries, no one would get anything, you know? So I'm... and then people said, oh, you're being, what do you call it?

Sectarian or something. No, no. He would go on tours around India and help the other monasteries.

He'd say, no, I only have the capacity to help this monastery, you know what I mean? Like, if I committed to help five more monasteries and didn't help anybody, or I had to stop after two years or something, it wouldn't help anybody. You get it?

We don't do that. I don't do that. You see, he was very foresighted, farsighted.

Like, he would choose a project carefully, and then he would commit for his life. And he did. You see what I mean?

20, 30, 40 years helping Sarame. Didn't poop out. We poop out, right?

Didn't get off on 14 other projects, and then that project failed. He like, saw it through to the end with the resources that he had. The biggest thing he could do with the resources that he had, and then persistence.

You see what I mean? And really honor. What do you call it?

It's like honor, but it's integrity. Now, he made a commitment to Sarame. And until he passed, until the day he passed away, he's like honoring that commitment, you know?

And he didn't like poop out after a year or two years or he didn't promise to do 20 things that he couldn't do, or it's very, I like that. See, that's dandrara. That's opportunities and resources.

So I just think of it as an example for us. Okay, financially. You know, and then on the other, and then no wasted effort, and no wasted money, ever.

You know what I mean? People would say, like with his time management, right? No wasted effort.

Like, and I want to talk about that. Because I think this is all part of spiritual resource and opportunities. It's not like, oh, I wasn't born as a hell being.

I'm happy. That's part of it, yeah. But what are you going to do with the yanci you got?

What are you going to do with what you're born with, you see, and what you have at this time? You know, garner it, nourish it, protect it, build it up, and then give it away. You see what I mean?

Give out something that's substantial, you know, like build it, build it, build it. And then just before sarnacan sets in, right, give it all away. And he kept doing that over and over, you see what I mean?

And I really like that. So, with time, he wouldn't waste his time. And that's a very good example for us, I think.

And that's again his observation of this lamrim, his personal embodiment of this lamrim, right? So, he would never come out of his room before like noon or one o'clock. And, you know, I'd go up and serve him breakfast.

Even he would eat like, we got to talk about that sometime. But, I mean, breakfast was one piece of toast, one and one half piece of toast, you know, exactly one and one quarter cup of tea with exactly this much milk in it. And don't waste the bread, you know, don't waste the tea.

That's all I need. And, you know, and I'd go up and serve him. He'd be up.

And then, you know, if there's a phone call or something, I'd go in and give it to him or something to interrupt him that was major. So, I could spy on him a little bit. So, I knew what he was doing a little bit.

But he was, you know, people consider this mandala practice like to be too basic for them. I'm working on Majjhimika, what did Aryadeva think? I don't got to do this little rice thing, you know.

And no, he would do that every day, very regular, you know, he would be doing that. And he had a very set practice. And he kept leveraging his intelligence.

Like a lot of Geshe's, we call it, say Geshe Tung. Geshe Tung. Tung has two meanings.

One means to do your Geshe. But the other one means to junk your Geshe. It's a joke in the monastery.

Oh, he Geshe Tung. Which one? Oh, he finished his Geshe.

It means he did his Geshe. But then Geshe Tung sometimes means, yeah, he got his Geshe and then he dunged all his books. He took down all his books and just threw them out.

I got my Geshe. That's it, man. I'm not looking at that stuff anymore.

You know, and then some people just want to get through it. Then they could, now I can go to Omaha and start a center, you know. And people think like that.

Some people think like that. So, he didn't do Geshe Tung, okay. Like every day he was studying something furthering his education to the last day.

You know, Krishnila and I went in August to see him. And I'm just curious, you know, what's he studying and what's he up to? If you were in his room, the table next to him was always stacked with current books being read, you know, half open scriptures.

And, you know, his eyes had been lasered like 16 times and there were days when he couldn't see anything. But he still got this pile of books there and he'd never stopped his education. He never wasted his time.

You see what I mean? So, you know, 47 years after passing his Geshe, he's still sweating over the something he needs to learn to teach his students and stuff like that, you know, his first practice. So, that's kind of amazing.

Never wasted his time and would not let other people waste his time. So, people would come up and say, Rinpoche, I want to ask you about this apartment I'm thinking about buying, you know. And he would say, he would give him the dine thing.

Okay, say dine. Dine. Dine means, then what?

You know, and it's a conversation stopper in Tibetan. You know, someone comes in and goes, oh, I've got this and this and this. Dine.

I said, well, I was thinking of this and this. Dine. Well, and I was thinking about this.

Dine. And it's just like, yeah. And then what?

And then after like 10 minutes, the person's like, all they're getting out of here is dine. You know, and so they leave, you see. They're not getting any conversation out of here, you see.

They're just getting, well, yeah, what happened after that? You know, so he would dine the people in English, right? He'd be like, and this happened all the time.

People come, make some worldly decision for me. And he's like, yeah, then what? Oh, yeah.

Then what? You know, and then I'd watch him doing this dine to people, you know, and then because he'd have me there in case they get stuck on English, right? I guess.

And then he'd dine them for about 10 minutes. Then he'd lean over and say, you know, I taught you the whole Lam Rim, right? He said, yeah, yeah.

I came to the classes. He said, well, that's all I got to say, really. You know?

You know? And you know the Lam Rim, right? You've been through the whole Lam Rim, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you decide what to do about your apartment, you know? You know, you know the rules.

You know, you got all the information. Now you make the decision, you see? Because there's this thing where Lamas, they used to go to the Lamas in Hau, who were all Mongolian, and they would take sheep knuckles.

It's part of a sheep's foot. I don't know how you get it out, but after they die, and you boil it, and they make good dice, and they either land on the cup or on the flat part, right? And then, you know, they would come to the Mongolian Lamas.

When I got there in Hau, there were like 10 Mongolian Lamas still alive. And they would, laymen would come and lay people and ask, do a mo, you know? Tell me if my son's going to get married next year, you know?

And they'd go, you know? And then they would interpret the sheep knuckles, you know? But Rinpoche refused to do that.

He said, no, I don't do mo's, you know? I taught you Lam Rim. You know the whole Lam Rim.

Now you do what's ethical and beneficial for others, you know? Don't ask me to decide whether to sell your apartment or not, okay? You know?

And then he would just kind of gently get them out of his room, you know? And go back to his practice, you know? So that's like conserving his time in a good way, right?

Teach them Lam Rim, and then when they come up with his silly questions, tell them to go think about the Lam Rim, right? But he knew how to relax, too. And I think that's part of your resource management, right?

You need to know how to relax. Swami in the Bahamas? Vasudevananda?

Vishnudevananda. Swami Vishnudevananda, he has the seven Rs or something. I like this one.

One of them is relaxation. A spiritual person needs to know how to relax, right? And so I think that's part of the management of your yuan-chi, you know?

That you're not always just pouring it out, you know? You can be doing all the financial bookkeeping for Diamond Mountain, you can be teaching half the courses, you can be doing all the maintenance, too. But you've got to know how to relax, or else you break down.

And then you can't serve anybody. So Rinpoche was really good at relaxing, you know? And then I would get home from work and then he'd say, come on up.

And we'd watch the Yankees, and he would have Jampa make some popcorn and tea, you know? And we would have tea and popcorn and watch the Yankees. And, you know, he knew when to relax.

So that's part of your time management, too. That's not wasting time. So wasting time doesn't mean that you have to be busy with every possible minute.

You have to know how to relax, too. You have to know how to take care of your health, mental health. So he was really, really good at that.

But he always had his rosary going, you see? And it was very interesting. I remember one time we went to...

He said, we got to relax. I said, yeah, let's relax. He said, well, the Gikku and Sarame, you know what they do if you get caught watching a movie?

I said, yeah, I know what they do. In Sarame, if you get caught sneaking into the village Kushalnagar, if you get caught watching a movie, if somebody reports that you saw a movie and the Gikku catches you, then they get a movie poster about eight feet by two feet, and you have to hold it up for half a day in the assembly room, in the main assembly hall when all the monks are doing their prayers. Like, you'll be holding up the next Harry Potter poster.

For like four hours, like that. You can't put your arms down. And I said, yeah, I know.

And he says, well, you saw the Gikku here, right? And I said, I don't know. And he said, okay, yeah.

Well, I say we should go to a movie. What do you think? I said, well, yeah, let's go to a movie.

And no posters or anything. And I remember we went to a Steven Seagal movie. He liked adventure movies.

He said, people would say, oh, Rinpoche, there's this meaningful, thoughtful, sensitive, spiritual movie out. And then we'd go see Dirty Harry. Because he said, no, no, when I relax, I don't want to know about that spiritual, sensitive stuff.

Let me see some shoot-em-up. So we went to the movie, and I always thought he was watching the movie, right? And this happened several times.

He said, you need to relax. We need to relax. So we go to the movie.

And then it's done, and we leave. It's like a late show. And we get in the car, and he says, oh, God, I can't find my rosary.

And you got to understand this rosary. This rosary he carried out of Tibet, right? And it had this little vajra and this little bell made out of steel.

And one time I asked him, how did they cast it that well? He said, this wasn't cast. There's this old woman in Lhasa.

She's like half blind. She's like half crazy. She's like a half crazy woman.

She takes blocks of steel, and she carves them. And she carved this for me. And it's this little vajra and this little bell.

Later on, I asked his permission, and we made a mold out of it. And we cast them in silver. And we made one in gold and sent it to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

But I'd like to make them for everybody. I think it'd be cool. They're the counters, right?

It's 20 counters and this little vajra. So we'll make another mold. And we should all have one.

It's like Pranam Rinpoche. It's the only thing he got out of Tibet. He didn't get any books out.

He got his towel, and he got his rosary. So here we are in the car outside the movie theater. I lost the rosary.

And he says, go back in the theater. Go get my rosary. I'll stay here in the car.

It's warm. So I run back. Everyone's gone.

All the cars are gone. And the front door's locked. So I'm like, oh, God.

So I go around the back, and the door where you get out is still open. So I sneak in. It's all half dark.

And I'm crawling through the popcorn, every row, throw this trash on the floor, and the spilled cokes and everything. And I'm looking for his rosary. And the projector guy caught me.

And he comes. He said, what are you doing? And I said, I've got to find this rosary.

It's the only one in the world. So I'll help you. So we're crawling down every row and looking for this.

We can't find it. It took like an hour and a half. And then we go back to the car.

And I'm like, Rinpoche, I got bad news. He says, no, I got bad news. I found it in my pocket.

And then I'm like, what are you doing in the rosary? He says, oh, nothing. But then after that, I noticed in every baseball game, and people thought he was watching TV.

He wasn't watching TV. It was very interesting. He's like making us feel comfortable, because Americans feel comfortable around televisions.

If the TV's on, you feel comfortable. So he's like doing his prayers. And then we would drive down to Washington every month.

To teach the people. He would teach. I would drive.

And he'd say, don't waste the time. Let's do Abhisamankara. And we would recite it all the way down.

It's like four or five hour drive. And he would nod off. But he would never stop the rosary thing.

And we would chant Abhisamankara all the way down to, it's like 50 pages or something. And then he'd say, okay, don't waste the time. So he didn't waste time.

And I think that's a really good, he did really relax. He knew how to relax. But he didn't waste a moment.

He never wasted any time. He never wasted any effort. Every effort that he, every project he undertook was fulfilled.

You see what I mean? And he turned down a lot of projects. He'd say, I don't have the resources to do that one.

You know what I mean? I mean, use what you got. You show up in America in 1972 without a penny.

And then you send like, I don't know, total million, million and a half, two million dollars to Saramay, over the length of his career. And just by pinching pennies, you know, in a nice way, in a good way. And he was still generous with people.

You know, he'd still go out to dinner and pay for dinner or something, but he wouldn't waste money. So I think your time and your money, your yan chi, you know, what you come into this life with, then leverage it. Use it wisely.

Harbor it. You know what I mean? Garner it and take care of it.

And then when you have a chance to be generous, like, blow it. You know what I mean? Like, then you got something to give, you see?

And you haven't just fiddled away your money on magazines and jumped, you know? You've managed your resources well, and then you can do something major with it. And there are people here who do that.

There are people in this room who've been doing that. I know one person who's helping with the temple that way. And they're just, they're rungarpo.

I've been watching them. They have this rungarpo thing down, you know? So I admire that.

Anyway, Rinpoche thought it was important, an important quality, okay?