Живой ламрим: как жизнь Кхена Ринпоче отразила учение о ступенях пути (2005, Аризона), занятие 12

[Говорящий 1]
So his thing was, I'll give you the most precious thing, and that's Dharma. And you can have it. And he did unto you as you, he would want people to do to him.

That's the only thing he really cared about, was teaching, Dharma, right? He didn't care about money or food or anything else. He didn't care about clothes.

He didn't care about getting famous. He refused to go on these tours or he refused to be recognized. But Dharma, he said, you got to have Dharma, you know.

So I think in teaching, they say the kindest thing that a Buddha ever does is teach, right? Speak the Dharma. And I think that his mind was constantly focused on, oh, this is how I can pay back my mothers, you know, and this is how I can pay back my teachers.

You see? So he was thinking of who are the kindest people to him were his teachers, right? And then how can he pay them back?

And it's just, it's always the same shtick, right? The way to pay back your teacher is to learn it well and then pass it on. Right?

So the kindest thing, the greatest respect to a teacher's kindness is to learn it well and pass it on. So I thought, I thought we'd talk a little bit about how he passed it on, right? This is the first of the six perfections.

We're on to the six perfections, right? My idea, is sort of to finish, finish it up. We'll finish Deilam this term and we'll finish Rinpoche this term, okay?

Then the whole thing is there, you see? So six perfections. So first perfection.

I just thought to tell you how he taught, right? And what he taught and how he taught it. And I started to think, oh, I'll tell you all the books he taught us, right?

And then I got sort of this thing in my mind like, it dawned on me that you have, in the 18 courses, you have the, what he taught, right? So I don't have to, I mean it would take me 30 years to tell you what he taught, right? To teach you what he taught.

But I thought to tell you what was happening on a deeper level as he taught, you see? Because there's the subject matter that you're on that night, right? There's the details and there's the galupa lists and everything and you can go through that, but there was an undercurrent happening.

There was deeper teachings going on. Like you would get to a book of 400 pages and you'd realize that he had taught you something totally different than what was in the book. Through the process of teaching he had communicated something to you totally different than the book.

So I thought to talk about that. These kind of hidden teachings that are being transmitted while someone's talking about some grammar point or something. So I thought I'd do it in order that he taught us while I was there.

So, the first subject that every new student had to learn in the early years when there wasn't too many people to do this, he would take you personally through sūṃtāk. Sūṃtāk, say sūṃtāk? Sūṃtāk.

Sūṃtāk means, hi, sūṃtāk means sūṃjūpa and takṣujūpa means these are the earliest books on Tibetan language, grammar. Grammar. And these are what a student in the monastery would learn first.

And these are little texts that you memorize and they're left over from the 8th century. These are, sūṃ and tak are two books that are left over. The other five are missing.

But these were written by Tumi Sambhota who brought the Tibetan alphabet and the language to Tibet, written language to Tibet. So we memorize two of them and we go through them. So we went through this whole thing but what struck me during that study was the level of accuracy required in this tradition.

Every single syllable of a text has a certain explanation. Every single syllable of how you write a sentence has pages and pages of explanation. It's so beautiful and so accurate and so authentic.

Even the explanation of it or the ta, you see, there's pages about it. I was just new and he's telling us OK, look, there's 16 kinds of ta or it and these are what they are. And then you're like, wow, these people are, these Tibetans are unbelievable.

This is kind of weird. Everything is, I don't know, accurate, precise. And then later when I learned Sanskrit and I could compare the Sanskrit to the Tibetan translations.

I did the Abhidharmakosha. I checked every single syllable. There's one syllable difference, you know, where they just couldn't, you know, there's no Tibetan word that was only one syllable.

They had to use two syllables, like that. I was just, the level of truth, you see, it's a kind of level of truth that they require of themselves is so beautiful, you know, and Rinpoche had all these jokes that they use in the monastery, like lung dang kung mey ken. Say lung dang kung mey ken.

You got to do this with your hand. If your mind going, you go like this. But lung dang kung mey ken means he don't have no lung, he don't have no kung, you know.

Lung means like authority, you know, like his belief, what, about meditation, about anything, his belief about emptiness, his belief about karma. Lung mey pa. You know, no source in the tradition.

He's just making it up. Lung mey pa. Lung means scriptural source, kung means like authoritative source, like that.

Lung dang kung mey pa means he just, he ain't got no sources, he ain't got no scripture, you know. It's like in the debate ground, somebody says something, you say, ah, lung dang kung mey pa. You know, it's like, where'd you get that from?

You know, and then they say, say, ah, tsao mey bay. Lung dang. Tsao mey bay.

Lung dang. Hell, that's just auto-commentary without a root text. You know, it means he made it up.

It's just your idea, right? Where'd you hear that from? So I was thinking, yeah, you was thinking.

You know, what happens if you was thinking gets spread? You know what I mean? No, I mean, in the debate ground, you can raise your own ideas and stuff, but in the end, you need some kind of authority, right?

I mean, you have to, you can't infect the teachings, you can't infect the lineage with your puny understandings. It'll get destroyed within two generations. You know, you keep the lineage.

So he was very, I was very impressed from the first day. What I learned from the grammar study was nothing about grammar. It was all about precision and truth, you know, holding the truth in the tradition.

Next thing he taught us, it's kind of like, I don't know how to say it, torcek or something. That means in the monastery, you know, you start with some shorter texts of three to ten pages each, and you memorize them at age seven, and you kind of memorize them for three, four, five years, like no text longer than five, ten pages, but you memorize them, right? And so, he started us on those texts.

I'll give you some examples. The Three Principal Paths, Namsa Namsum, Yindenshi Gyuma, which is the source of all my good. Lojong Si Gyema, the eight verses on developing bodhicitta, developing the good heart, which is holiness that Dalai Lama teaches so often.

I know that Lama Sopo Rinpoche is teaching Namsa Namsum in Malaysia. I saw that. We were there.

These are very popular to teach for new people. Lamrim Dudun, which is Je Tsongkapa's shortest Lamrim. It's just like, I don't know, it's just a couple of pages.

Heart Sutra, Sherab Nyingbo. And he taught a thing which would be fun to learn sometime, which is called Sakya Lekshe. Say Sakya.

Lekshe. These are like, it's like the jewels of eloquence of the Sakyas, Sakya Lekshe. And this is something by the Sakya Pandita.

These are sort of his aphorisms. And that was one of the first things he made us memorize. The one I in particular remember is, what was that?

How did that go? Oh, Kevalabhidunaduk Dewaduna Kemisi. Dewachunachapayi Dewachambathomiyam.

These are the first days I remember. Kevalabhidunaduk. Great scholars during their student days suffer.

So he makes us learn this first. Dewaduna Kemisi. If you want to be comfortable, you'll never be a great thinker.

Dewachunachapayi. If you get attached to what you're comfortable with, smaller comfort, you'll never attain great bliss. So like this he made us memorize 30 years ago.

And it stays with you. So what did I learn? Memorizing all these smaller texts, which is sort of a preliminary in the monastery.

I grew up Christian, right? And religion was something you did in the church on Sunday morning, right? And you went and did your thing.

You got there. There was a 7.30, a 9 o'clock, and an 11.15. We never went to the 7.30 unless we were acolytes at that one. That's all the old people.

And then 9 o'clock is like pretty serious people. 11 o'clock is where people can't get up for the 7.30. So you know, we would go 11 o'clock, do our thing, and then you come out, you get coffee and donuts, and then you get in your car, and it's over. The Christian thing is over for the week.

And I'm not saying it's bad. Whatever they did, it seemed to work out. I ended up here.

But what I mean is there was no conception of having any Christianity at home, you know, or that it would be in any way a part of your work life or your study at school. It was all something that you did at church on Sunday for those two hours. You got into communion with Jesus, and then you came home, and then you just forgot about it until next Sunday.

You know, completely. And but here this Tibetan thing is, they're making you memorize this thing. And then they're making you set up your own meditation space.

Like, he came into my room, and he laid down this carpet, this Tibetan carpet, you know, and then he had his old chest of drawers, right? He had this old chest of drawers. He said, we built him his house, so we got him all new furniture.

So he's like, I got something special to show you, you know. And I go into this little tiny room there, you know, and he says, look, I'm giving you my old chest of drawers, you know. So he's had some Mongolian guy paint it banana yellow, you know, which is like, he thought was very beautiful, you know.

And he says, and you have my bed. And it's like four and a half feet long, you know. And then he lays down this Tibetan carpet, and he says, you meditate here, you know.

And he put the, he gave me some images. He gave me one that Thich Nhat Hanh drew by hand. And so, so then you just meditate there for 30 years, 20, 25 years, right?

The idea that you could carry your practice around in your head, you know, and you could do your practice in the car, or you could do your practice in a restaurant, or you could do your practice on the way to work or something, right? Or you could practice at work, right? Like they load your head, and you carry around your altar, and you carry around your prayers in your head, you know.

And it was such a great idea, you know. It was such a big deal for me, you know, like, wow, you can go to church all day, you know, you can go to church all night, you just have the church in your head, you know. So it wasn't the books, you see, it was the concept that you could have your altar, you could have your God in your own bedroom, and you just have your carpet, right?

And I kept it there, 25 years I kept the carpet there, you know, I didn't move it. And that whole thing that, you know, you can have your religion in your own head, and you're authorized to conduct the service, you know, anytime, you know. That was so...

That's what I learned from those texts. That was the underground teaching, right? I'll do one more, maybe then we stop.

Then, Rose, if you would. The first major text, right, the five great texts, we call shung chenpo la. Say shung.

Chenpo. La. These are the Veda Geshe studies, right, five great texts.

And this is an ancient custom, very ancient custom. The five great texts, the first one we learned, I learned them out of order, okay, why? The first couple weeks I got there, it was mostly just me there, and Rinpoche said, we're going to Washington.

Why? I'm going to study English, you know. And his English was really rudimentary, I mean, very, very rudimentary.

And then, so we went to Washington and he started studying English. Then there was this professor at, I think it was George Washington University or American University, I think American University. So he said, Rinpoche, would you teach me Abhidharma?

And specifically he wanted to learn the first Dalai Lama's commentary, which is considered useful because it's short, it's only 400 pages. Like that's the briefest commentary you could ever do on Abhidharma and still understand it. You see?

And most of the commentaries are like a thousand pages or more. So he said, this would be really useful for Western people if there was an, if this, if this commentary was translated. So I said, Rinpoche, you know, can I sit in on the sessions, you know?

So he said, yeah, okay. And so he gave it in his room. He taught this professor in Washington in his room at the Sinhalese Vihara, the Sinhalese monastery where he was staying.

And then I got like to sit in the back and listen, you know? So I was like making notes and then after about six months this professor drops out. He just disappears, you know?

So I'm like, Rinpoche, can we just keep going? And he did nothing else to do. He said, okay, we'll just keep going.

So eventually we went through the whole, that's called Zatikthalam Salje, which means light on the path to freedom, illumination of the path to freedom as an Abhidharmakosha commentary, because there's another one. And then he's taught us Cimza. Cimza is an ancient Sakya commentary on the Abhidharma.

It's huge. It's like 1,200 pages before Jetsun Kappa's time. And he taught us that.

And then he taught us Gyalwang Tzu, which is this is a ceremony commentary and it's fun because it was written by someone who attacked Jetsun Kappa. I think he was in Nyingma. And he attacked Jetsun Kappa very, very fiercely, I think in the 17th century or something.

And then later when he understood Jetsun Kappa he regretted it. And then as an act of purification, he wrote Jetsun Kappa's great biography, which is like 800 pages. And then he wrote an Abhidharma commentary.

And then he attended ceremony. So he's called Gyalwang Tzu. So we studied those commentaries mostly.

So what did I learn from Abhidharma? The first 50 pages of the first Dalai Lama's commentary, he has all debates about stuff that you don't learn about until later. So the first 50 pages is all debates about totally obscure ideas, like 343rd level some kind of weird meditation.

Well, how does it differ from that? That you don't even know about yet. It comes later in the book.

So the book is backwards. You know, this commentary is backwards. All these weird stuff, all these weird arguments about stuff.

It's arguments about stuff that you don't know anything about, that you never heard of, and which you can have no personal experience of. There's one line in the Abhidharma that I understood because it related to something that had ever happened to me. The rest of the whole Abhidharma had never happened to me.

The rest, like 399 pages, was talking arguments about stuff that I never even heard of. And I never heard of anybody ever hearing of. It's like some level of meditation that you'll never get to in this lifetime.

But it's different from this other level of meditation that you'll never get to in this lifetime. And then there's these debates. I was really frustrated.

I was like, I don't understand anything, Rinpoche. You talked for two hours. I understood what you said.

And I got this book and I went home. I used to sit for hours and hours and look at it. I said, I don't understand anything.

I don't know what's going on. And the whole thing is backwards anyway. The whole book is backwards.

And then I learned from that experience. In the monastery they say, just go. Just sit there.

The Lama will take care of you. You don't have to worry. You don't get a word of it, no problem.

And it's so against an American thing. Like an American won't walk out of a classroom unless they understand what the guy was talking about or they won't come back. And he's like, that ain't the way it works.

You don't have to understand a thing. You just sit there and you listen. And you don't question how the Lama's presenting it.

You never think about that. And I got this thing. It's so weird to me as an American.

You don't question your teacher. They know what you need. They're doing it in the right order.

It's backwards, because you need it backwards. You know what I mean? And there was this guy, I remember.

Rinpoche was doing the Vajrayogini Sadhana, the Dakye. And we were going through it and there's like 50 people there. And then he skips to the wrong page.

And it's so confusing. Why don't they just write it down in the right order, Rinpoche? Everyone had these Excel spreadsheets.

Skip to page 48. Go to page 37. If you're only with boys, don't do this part.

And it's like this. And so we got it all down. Dr. Taylor made a spreadsheet, you can guess, right?

And we knew what we were doing. And then we finally figured it out. And then Rinpoche's going through it one night and he skips to a different page.

And like this guy raises his hand, you know. And there's this crucial moment with the Lama, you see? You can say, this Lama is taking me on a magic trip.

You know, something special is happening. He skipped to a different page. You know, there's some special thing going on here.

You know, he's taking me, like maybe he'll take me into the Mandala right now. You know what I mean? There's a kind of student who's just like, Wow!

Wow! He skipped a line. Or he explained it the wrong way.

Or he misspelled these three words, you know. And there's a certain kind of student, they'll say, My God, he's taking me somewhere, you know. Let's see where he's taking me, you know.

Then some guy will raise his hand, right? No, he'll say, Rinpoche, break the ceremony. You know, right in the middle of the ceremony.

Rinpoche, what? You know, and they don't have Guru Yoga. You see, they don't understand Guru Yoga.

Oh, you skipped to the wrong page. And he's like, I didn't skip to the wrong page. He just said it like that, you know.

And then every time after he skipped to the wrong page, for 30 years, he skipped to the wrong page. You see, after that night, he always skipped to the wrong page. You know, for 30 years.

So you don't question your lama. You see what I mean? What do you think you know?

You see what I mean? He's like, what, you know what pages skip to? You know what I mean?

Or you think I don't know how to spell? Or you think I don't know how to explain this? You think I'm not trying to point something out to you?

It's like, and there's kind of, that's what I learned from my Abhidharma. You know, I'm like, this book is written backwards, Rinpoche. And he's like, just do it.

You know, just sit there. Just go through it like that. That's the way it's supposed to be.

And you'll get to a certain point of Guru Yoga where every mistake is like a revelation. You know, every mistake your lama makes. Explaining some simple word and they make some obvious mistake.

And 90% of people in the class are like, you know, I like this, you know. And then the 10% who understand, they'll be like, what's happening, you know? What's he trying to tell us?

And you've got to be like that. Is he really trying to tell you, or is she trying to tell you anything? Is she intending anything?

I don't know. Does it matter? You know, I don't know.

You see, where is it coming from? So, it doesn't. You can ask them.

You can try to get it out of them. Did you do that on purpose? You know, are you trying to tell us something?

You know, it doesn't really matter, you see. All right. I'd like to invite Rose Medina to come sit here.

And she had a special dream about Rinpoche. And if you don't mind to say what, Manny? No, I don't mind.

Okay, so please come. It's a custom.

[Говорящий 2]
During your teacher, Rinpoche's passing, we came and spent some time here. And we slept in the dome. And it was a very amazing time with rainbows.

Vivid, vivid rainbows. We were all looking for signs of Rinpoche. Well, the rainbows were very vivid.

Very colorful. But one night I had a dream. And I had a dream that I was on a mesa and somehow I was hanging on a ledge on the mesa.

And barely my eyes were over the ledge on the mesa. And I kept looking to my left. I would look down and it was like I was in the Grand Canyon.

There was no way unless I fell to get down. And I kept holding on and I kept feeling I'm going to be left behind. And I would look down.

It seemed like for hours. And I heard a laugh. This beautiful laugh.

To my right. I looked to my right and there he was. Rinpoche.

He was laughing at me. And he says, just let go. And I'm like He says, look, look, look below you.

And I did. I was inches from a ledge. I mean, all this time clinging.

He says, just let go. And this beautiful laugh. And I did.

I let go. And I was fine. And I wasn't left behind.

But it reminds me of a story that I recently read that Sharon Salzberg I think that's her name, wrote. About letting go. She was in New York with this heavy, heavy suitcase.

And she was carrying it in an elevator. And she thought, all I have to do is put it down. Let go.

And that's when she says, don't strive to be better than anyone. Don't strain to get over something. Just don't live life in a demanding, controlling way.

Just use each moment to let go. Let go. And in that letting go, there will be kindness.

And I think that is so true. We have to let go of all the burdens we carry. Because otherwise, we won't get that.

That awareness, that enlightenment that we seek. And Manny also had something very important happen to him. One night, he was walking.

At that same time, we were seeing rainbows and dreaming of Rinpoche. And he said he was walking near the stupa. And he saw this big cloud, like a fog come.

And it just seemed to collect in one place. And then it just came down the mountain. Like it had a form to it.

A consciousness. And it went into the stupa and disappeared. And that was the same time then.

So, thank you for letting me speak.

[Говорящий 1]
We'll take a break. Okay? See you in about 10-15 minutes.

Or whatever.