Живой ламрим: как жизнь Кхена Ринпоче отразила учение о ступенях пути (2005, Аризона), занятие 4

[Говорящий 1]
What's the next part of the Lamrim? Yeah, chiwa mitakpa. Say chiwa.

Mitakpa. That's a death meditation. So I wanted to speak about...

And notice that the topic of the reading will always be now like seven topics behind Ken Rinpoche's topic, okay? Or something like that, ahead, right? That's okay, I think.

That means next fall we'll still be talking about Ken Rinpoche's practice of the last few parts of the Lamrim. And that's another way to review, okay? So we're talking about death meditation, which is part of the path for people of lesser capacity.

Yeah, shared with people of lesser capacity. If you don't say shared in the monastery, you get wiped out. But anyway...

Rinpoche... I know he had a few life-threatening events in his life. So he was aware of death.

So first I have to say, you know, he was very aware of death. He wasn't like protected from death. When he was still in the monastery, his mom passed away, which is a very powerful...

That's the most powerful death in your life. Those of you who've had it happen. And it usually changes your mind a lot.

And as I said yesterday, his sister was there Tsering Druma at the bedside, deathbed of his mother, and then his mother directed her to support him through his studies, and she did. So he had that experience of death. And then, in your twelfth year of studies, you begin Madhyamika, middle way, Prasangika, highest middle way, after twelve years of perfection of wisdom.

And before those four years, it's traditional to do something of great virtue so that you collect karma to understand emptiness, now that you're going to get the highest version. So Rinpoche went into retreat above Sara. He went into a special retreat.

And he used to tell me that he almost died in that retreat. And then later, we talked yesterday about the bombardment of Sarame. Only a hundred monks, about a hundred and seven, a hundred and eight monks made it to India after that bombardment.

The rest were either killed or forced to disrobe. And then he had that experience of coming out over the Himalayas, and he almost died during that. So he saw a lot of death during that time.

He was aware of death very much. And he did the traditional practices very nicely, like there's a Kadampa practice that every night you clean your water bowls and then turn them upside down. And you prepare your room as if you were going to die tonight.

And now I lay me down to sleep, right? Pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake.

It's a Kadampa thing. You just prepare your room, you clean up, you put your clothes away, you clean your water bowls, you turn them over. And he was very strict with that his whole life.

Every night he did that practice to think about death. And he taught us a tantric practice which is part of the Vajrayogini practice, which we'll cover later. But as you do your sleeping yoga, as you begin to fall off to sleep, you take yourself through the death process.

You take yourself through the hallucinations which happen to anyone who dies. There's a standard set of hallucinations that you have while you're dying. And he was very adamant that we had to practice that every night.

And those are people who had that teaching. And then he did it himself. Every night he would go off into clear light by reviewing the death process as he fell off to sleep.

And so he was doing that practice. After he got to America, he was in a car. He was driving to New York City between 1972 and 1974.

He taught some in New York. And he had one student who would drive him up. And one day they got in a car accident in Perth Amboy, which is like halfway.

And Rinpoche wasn't wearing a seatbelt. And he went through the windshield. And that's what broke his nose.

That's where he had sort of a hawk nose. And he smashed his voice box. And up to that time he had been a very great chanting master.

And then that damaged his voice box. And we tried many doctors. That's why he had sort of a raspy voice.

And for years he was picking glass out of his face. We'd be sitting there and he'd be, oh God, another one. So that leads me to talk about how he felt about death and what he did about death.

And I think it's a new insight into the death meditation practice. Like yeah, he was aware that he could die. And he did his death meditation frequently.

But I think what's most crucial for Rinpoche's attitude about death was not something you read in the Lam Rim so much. And I think it's crucial. I think it's very much something that he taught us, which is that he was not afraid at all to die.

And if it was important, he would risk his life easily. And I saw that on many occasions. I think the biggest one you could say was the times he went to India after he was very old already.

And he already had severe diabetes and severe heart problems. And if it was important, then he didn't hesitate. He just went to Sara.

He just got on a plane and went. So for an 83-year-old man to go to India... We were there this last two months.

You always get sick. I've never been to India and not gotten sick. And oftentimes you get severely sick.

So it's very dangerous for a person over 60 to go to India from America. And if it was important, if he felt it was important, he didn't even hesitate. And every time he came back from India, he's like, I'm never going again.

And then after two years, he'd find out they needed him for something at Sara, and he would go. And he wouldn't hesitate. So if there was something that meant something, he wasn't afraid to risk his life.

And he did, many times. The first time he went to India with diabetes, we were running around looking for hypodermics. We were trying to get...

There wasn't any refrigerator at Sara Mae. We were trying to buy a refrigerator so he could keep his insulin well. But the electricity goes out for three days, and it's dangerous for him to be there.

But that was something important. But what I think is important, if it wasn't important, he wouldn't risk anything. You see what I mean?

He would hear about people who did skydiving or bungee jumping or bungee jump. And he'd say, that's just crazy. That's just totally crazy.

Why risk your human life for that? That's meaningless. And I remember, if it snowed during classes or something, we would beg him to teach.

He would say, call the people, and I would forget to call the people and cancel the class. And then they'd show up and we'd have class. And then one day, a guy got into an accident.

Mark Shirelli slid off the road and gently hit a tree. And then Rinpoche was like, okay, that's it. If it's risky in any way for someone to come to class, we cancel class.

And then that was just a really strong policy. And then he would not ever risk his body. Foolishly, you see what I mean?

He would always take... He had this detached, clinical, you know, what do you call it? Like more than anyone I've ever seen in my life, he was able to care for his body as if it were something else, someone else's.

You see what I mean? As if it were a car or something like that. So, you know, we would...

He had this relationship with his body, like he was outside of his body. And he was just trying to get it to run as long as it could pass. The most mileage he could get out of this body, he was going to get out of it.

You know, I've never seen anybody like that. So, one day we went to the... what do you call it?

Bone doctor or something. Yeah, he had bad knees. And it got very painful.

Like when he was 60, it got very painful. And we went to see about a knee replacement, like Geshe Sopo had. He heard about Geshe Sopo and he said, maybe I should do that.

So we went and they checked his blood pressure and they said... They came out into the waiting room and they said, this guy has to get to a doctor right now. You know, he's got really high blood pressure and he's got diabetes, he's got ketones.

Ketones? Yeah. He's...

Don't even... You can't stay here. You have to go to a doctor right now.

You know, so like... We took off, we went to a doctor and they gave him blood pressure medicine and they were talking... He had to start insulin.

And it was so interesting to watch him with these medicines. Like they gave him Vasotec, is it called? For his heart.

Something like that. And they said, take a pill. So he like...

He took it out, he broke it into four parts. And he said, I'm going to start with one quarter of a pill because they're lazy. They'll just tell you to take a pill.

So he tried a quarter and then he said, show me this blood pressure... Buy me one of those blood pressure things. And they use them in the doctor's office.

I said, I don't know about those things. He said, get one. And I got one.

And he's like... He reads the manual and then he's like, okay, and he's like doing his blood pressure every day and he's like, I got to get this body going. I got to keep it going.

And I'm not taking more of that medicine than I have to. So he would check every couple of hours, as if it were somebody else's car or something. And I said, okay, I can get by on three quarters of a pill or something like that.

And I said, why? And he said, because it affects your memory and it affects your mind. So I'm just taking what I have to take.

And he had this whole regimen. And then insulin... I had been giving insulin to this old Mongolian guy in the back, right?

In those houses in the back. And the doctor told me, practice on an orange for like a week and then you can do the guy. And you know, I was pretty good at it.

So I did it for like years, every morning. So I said, Rinpoche, I'll take care of your insulin. I can do it.

He said, no, no, no. I want to learn how to do it. He'd take the hypodermic and the insulin and he'd get the right dosage.

And then he'd take his shirt off while we were talking. And he's just talking to you and he's like finding a spot he hasn't done yet. And then he'd be like, you know, and I'd be like, oh, you know.

And he'd just keep talking to you, you know. And then he got the insulin thing down. Like really, really fine.

You know, like, okay, I need it twice a day. These are the best places to shoot it. And then he got this really exotic blood sugar tester thing.

And that requires that you stab yourself once a day. And then you take the strip and you smear the blood on it. And then you put that into a light thing.

And he was like, yeah, he'd be talking to you and doing this, you know. And the blood all over the place. And he's like checking it.

He'd say, oh, I can cut my insulin by another third, you know. And he's got it. He understood everything.

And the reason he was able to stay until that age, I mean, on a, what do you call it, a parent level, is that he just managed his body. And the way he ate, you know, like the doctors gave, he said, I can't, one day he said, I can't eat anything. I said, why?

He said, Tibetan doctors said I couldn't eat half the stuff I used to eat. And the Western doctors said I couldn't eat the other half I used to eat. So, but he would listen.

They called him compliant. Like he was the doctor's dream. A compliant patient, totally compliant patient.

Like he would do exactly what you said. And then, so when he ate, it was like very, very impressive. I'd never seen anyone who had no desire, well, except for a few people, totally no desire for food, as for desire's sake.

You know, like, he just looked at it, Arya Nagarjuna has this verse, this from Surleka, it's a letter that he wrote to a king, called, it's called, it's a grace that you do before you eat. It's kase mendang dawa rikpa. Say kase.

Kase. Mendang. Mendang.

Dawa. Rikpa. Rikpa.

Yee. And then there's another three lines, duja she du-meb-bu-teng-gi-gya gyak chen-ma-la-tsen-mi-chu sak chen-ma-la-la-nu-mu lunay-bha-sik-chir. Lunay-bha-sik-chir means, the whole thing means, look upon food as medicine.

It's just fuel, and it's just going to run your body. And in lunay-bha-sik-chir, it's only to keep yourself alive. No other purpose to eat.

You see what I mean? And I've met very few people in my life who really ate that way. And Rinpoche had it, he was perfect.

He would sit there and look at a tray of food, and you could see he was thinking, what do I need to keep my body alive? What's the best thing for an 80-year-old man with diabetes and high blood pressure and all this other... And then he would just look at it and take three bites of that, and then six bites of that, and then he would just take it away.

And he didn't have any desire, craving for food. But I want to say, he could enjoy food. You see, it's a difference.

There's a craving, and there's an enjoying. And in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, they call it Mano Bilashita. It means a yogi...

First, they give a huge list of foods that a real yogi doing Dzogrem should avoid. Then they give a list of foods that you should take. And then they give...

Then there's a blanket statement at the end, it says, then eat what you like sometimes, you know, just enjoy, you know. Because that's also an important part of a yogi's life. So, like he would go on New Year's and make his kapse, right?

His Tibetan pastries. And this was a big deal, you know. And there's no nutritive value.

It's just fat and butter and, you know, milk and flour and sugar. But kapse is a different thing. This is enjoy.

You're supposed to have a good time. You make a really nice plate, stacked a huge stack of them, to Vajrayogini, and stacked them all on the altars. Then you just go in and you eat as many as you can, you know.

And that's a different thing, you know. Like he knew how to enjoy things. So, I think there's this distinction between enjoying and then craving.

Like I never saw him crave food. But when it was time to party, he could party with the food. I've seen His Holiness eat like that too.

They know how to enjoy. I've seen His Holiness eating a bowl of cereal, and he's like, enjoyed it, you know. So, I think you have to have all that capacity.

So, he's just looking at his body like a machine, and he's thinking really hard about how can I keep it going. And he had exercise, you know. When I first came to study with him, we would go out cham cham.

Cham cham means go out for a walk. It's a custom in Tibet, in the evening, after your evening meal, like at Drebung in India, the old guys walk to Ganden and back, which is like a mile or something. And you see the old monks, or they do circumambulation, parikrama around the monastery.

But that's exercise and then do some virtue at the same time. Then later Rinpoche had Dieter make him a prostration board, and he would do prostrations for an hour or something like that. And then later when his knees got bad, he went to the doctor, what can I do?

And they said, try this walking machine, which is a big, huge thing, you know. I mean, it'd take up half this room or something. And he didn't have any embarrassment about it.

He said, I've got to keep my body healthy. The doctor told me this was important. So, we shluck off to New York City.

I don't know what's the big sports store there. Paragon, yeah, yeah, yeah. People said you had to buy one at Paragon.

Okay, so we went to Paragon and we bought this huge thing and we brought it back. And you know, most of us would feel shy that people knew we were doing it. He put it in the foyer of the temple.

You know, you had to prostrate to it when you couldn't get into the temple without walking past this huge walking machine. And he wasn't at all embarrassed. He just said, no, the doctor told me I'm trying to keep my machine going.

And he was religious. He'd put a scripture on the front of the walker thing and turn it on and then he would walk on it. So, it's this totally innocent, non, what do you call it?

Vanity, yeah. Non-vain attitude. Well, I have to keep my body alive.

I have to do this. This is my doctor's sentence. So, he had this really beautiful relationship with his body and with death.

You see what I mean? So, he wasn't afraid to die. We went up in August.

We went up to see Rinpoche and one of his very close students came down and he looked like 30 years older in one day. And I was like, something's going on, you know? Because he just looked really, really bad.

And we went up and we found out that Rinpoche had liver cancer. He had gotten back a positive test that he had liver cancer. And he was like, that's okay, you know?

He was in pain. He was obviously uncomfortable. And he was like, well, tell me how that mountain's going.

I heard you're going to do some, up on the mountain, you want to do some crazy thing, you know, this consecration thing. Yeah, and I said, yeah, we wanted to ask if you had any advice. He said, yeah, yeah, I know, I got everything ready for you.

And he got this really rare text from Gyumri Tantric College and he puts it out and he says, I marked it here for you and you're going to read this, then you got to do this, then you got to do this. He says, remember what I said? He said, take it, use it, don't lose it.

And then I said, well, how about getting it back to you? He said, next time, like next life. And I knew what he meant.

He's just like that. And he wasn't at all worried and he wasn't afraid. And he's just saying, but I take it also as a sign that he will come back in that emanation, so we have to watch.

Yeah, we have to look for that. But he's like, next one. So I kept it, right?

We held it, so we have to wait. But no fear, right? So I think that's a sign that someone has really practiced well the death meditation, you see?

So I think you have to have both sides of that equation. It goes back to opportunities and resources, right? As long as you have a body, take good care of it.

He refused to drive in a car with that student after that. You see? No, he just said it's not safe for my machine.

You know? And he had a list of people who could drive him, you know? So on one hand, he's very practically this very detached clinical view of his machinery.

Like, I must take good care of this machinery. Eat well, care for it well. He educated himself about all the medicines he needed and everything.

More than any American would ever dream of. He had all those treatments done, you know? But on the other hand, when the time comes and you know it's coming, he was like very playful.

He's like, yeah, yeah, you know, you go joking around and he's in pain, right? And he's just like joking around and, yeah, yeah, don't move, you know? And he's totally without fear, you see?

And that means you've done your death meditation for a whole lifetime, you see? And Je Tsongkhapa says the same thing. The function of a death meditation is not to scare you.

It's to allow you to die peacefully because you've practiced your whole life. Every night you've evaluated your karma and what you've been doing. And if your practice is healthy and everything's...

then you just can die peacefully and well and that's extremely important for where you go. You know, to die happily, contented, at peace. A person who is most interested in keeping their machine going for the right reasons, like with yoga.

You can look at yoga both ways, right? You can be worried about how it helps your appearance or you can just be thinking, I can practice Dzogchen better if this body's channels are opened. And every morning...

Well, death meditation. Every morning you get up, you know, I can do yoga. Keep it going.

Keep it going. You see what I mean? And not some kind of...

You do it for the right reasons. You do your yoga because you can help people longer, you'll be healthier, you can sit in meditation better, your channels are opening, and you do it for all the right reasons. Then when something breaks or you hurt your neck or you tear something, you're like, okay, no upset at all, no worry at all.

You know, I've seen both kinds. I've seen master yoga teachers, they got hurt and they're like collapsed. Mentally they collapse.

Oh God, yesterday I could do this, now I can't do it. Now I can't even do this, you know. And they're obsessed with this thing, you know.

Oh, now I can't do this anymore, you know what I mean? And then there's these other people, if you're really into yoga, if you're really doing it for the right reasons, tear something, rip something, next morning you're up doing your yoga, like this, you know. You're doing everything with one arm.

Everything you can do with one arm, you're doing. This arm doesn't work anymore. No, you're not worried, you're not upset, you're not like complaining.

This arm is not working right now. So you do your whole normal yoga thing and then you should do it that way. You see, if you're sick or something, it will help you.

Like people tend to avoid it when they're sick. No, you should do it. Just adjust it and don't get upset and don't get off balance.

Okay, I'm sick today. You know, my arm is not, this arm is not working today. We did that in Sri Rinpoche retreat.

There were days when, okay, this arm, I can't even lift this arm today. Let's just go ahead and do everything we can do with the left arm. And then, because you're interested in the machinery, in a detached way, in a clinical way.

So he would do that and he kept doing that. So I think that balance, you know, then you're not afraid to die. Then you can die peacefully, happily, you know, no problem.

And it's a test of, that's sort of a test. As you do your yoga, you'll get to a point, or you'll get older, and there's certain things you can't do anymore. And then just gracefully, happily, you say, okay, I'll give that up.

I'll let that go, you know, and I'll do other things. And you have to do that. Rinpoche kept, when he was scaling down his exercise, you know, to what his body, what the machine could do, he would do.

And he didn't like come in and whine about he couldn't do the walking machine anymore. You know, he got to a point where he couldn't do the prostrations anymore. So he threw the board out, you know.

Then he got the walking machine. Then he couldn't do that anymore, he threw that out. You know, and then he wasn't complaining or whining about it.

He's like, okay, machine needs something lighter now. And like that. Not like this, what do you call it?

Macho thing, you know, like I got to keep doing this, you know, I'm not too old to do this, you know, and something like that. It's not like, he's like, oh, best thing for the machine right now is this lighter thing, you know. And it was very beautiful.

Very beautiful. It was really good to watch. Really good practice, okay?

And the food thing. To treat food as a kind of medicine or a fuel. But then be able to enjoy it also.

But not crave it. Get the difference, right? Okay?