Любовь и «Йога-сутра» (2011, Сингапур), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
So, for Kirtan, there's one thing that I wanted to say that I forgot to say before we started, before is the tradition of Kirtan is call and response, right? So, somebody sings out and then somebody responds, and it really doesn't matter what you sound like at all, because they say when a baby cries, the mother comes and she doesn't care what the baby sounds like. So, with Kirtan, you call out and then the divine responds, but you have to call out for them to respond.

So, nobody cares what you sound like, but it's important that you just make some kind of noise, right? Because it warms up the heart, it opens up the heart. So, this time, when we sing, just everybody, just don't be afraid to sing, and it doesn't matter what you sound like, and you're all beautiful, and we'll just really say some blessings and some beautiful prayers in this space, and it'll move around our own heart chakras, and good things will happen.

Ready? Yeah. A little outlet?

Yeah. Questions? Any questions?

Any problem you have?

[Говорящий 2]
Actually, more back on the meditation.

[Говорящий 1]
Good.

[Говорящий 2]
I usually meditate to quiet the mind and don't say any mantra.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 2]
Prescriptive approach, how do you actually do this one?

[Говорящий 1]
There's three kinds of meditation. Jegum, Jogum, and Shargum. Very famous.

So, Jogum means quiet the mind, focus on one thing. Personally, I like to focus on a room filled with sunlight, and my teacher is there, and they're not saying anything, and they're not doing anything, and we're just looking at each other in the eyes. And that's called Jogum.

You just fix the mind on one thing. Then, Shargum means you review a list of things. For example, review the four steps to this meditation, and review the four steps within each step.

That would be called Shargum. Shargum means like a review of a list. But Jegum, Jegum means you meditate on a problem, and it's active, and it's, what do you call it, conceptual.

And you are forming images, and you're thinking out problems, and that's also a different kind of meditation. So, not all meditation is Jogum. Not all meditation is silent, focused on one thing.

Some meditations are more like trying to figure out a person that you have a problem with, and why this person is criticizing me, and what can I do, make a plan to stop criticizing someone else. That's a kind of meditation called Jegum. So, you need to learn all three.

We're going to spend some time in Hong Kong, I think next week. There's a beautiful, beautiful teaching on, it's about 1,200 years old, about these different kinds of meditation. I will be doing it for one long night in Hong Kong, so if you have time.

There's also, I did it for 40 sessions. There are 40 classes of two to three hours each, and they're online and they're free. And it's video and audio.

You can talk to one of these guys about the link, but you can go on the link, and it's, I don't know, it's 80 hours or 100 hours, on that question. No, and you can really, really learn to meditate well. I took a book, a famous book on meditation, and I taught it for 20 days.

And it's free, and you just go online and listen to it. And there are some good teachers here in Singapore. Tara can help you.

T-Pain can help you. Alvin can help you. Jackie.

But they've all learned those meditations. I think it's good to look at the video or the audio online, but then talk to a human being.

[Говорящий 2]
Together.

[Говорящий 1]
Together, Tara.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay, any other questions? You mentioned earlier the importance of finding a teacher, and that you should study the teacher. Don't just take the first one.

Can you mention some of the qualifications you look for? Oh, yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Dhul shin shiwa nirshi lungi chuk. These are the qualifications, traditional. Dhul shin shiwa nirshi lungi chuk.

Excuse me. Dhul means ethical. They are leading an ethical form of life.

They don't lie. They don't steal things. They don't hurt other people's relationships.

Thanks. In Sanskrit as Vinaya, they are controlled. They are nice people.

They don't hurt people. They don't say bad things to people. They don't gossip.

They don't steal things. They don't kill things. That's called dhul.

Dhul shin shiwa means they know meditation. So they're very good at meditating. Obviously they have a good meditation practice.

So they don't get upset when their event gets canceled at the Shaolin Temple. They can joke about it. They're just generally calm and they're focused.

And you can see they get things done. They have a sharp mind for meditation. Dhul shin shiwa nirshi.

Nirshi means they understand how reality works. And that means they can make stuff happen that they want to happen. Because they understand the matrix thing, and they can make switches change in reality, and they can make things happen.

They can make unusual things happen. They have an understanding of reality. And then lung gi chuk means they are well trained.

So they know the ancient books, and they are well trained in all of those teachings. They have some authority to their teaching. It's not something they made up.

They are part of a very old lineage, and they can help you with the authentic teachings. So those are some of the... Basically, they're a nice person.

And you know, they say satsa. Do you know what a satsa is? Do you know what a satsa is?

Satsa in Sanskrit is satya. It's a little mold for making little statues of Buddhas and things like that. So they say, be careful who you pick, because you will come out like them.

So it has to be someone that you want to be like them. Every one of their good qualities, and every one of their faults, you will pick up. So try to find...

And then there's this long thing that you're never going to find someone totally perfect. So go for the... I mean, search for a couple of years, and then go for the best you can do.

But ultimately, like everything else, the teacher is coming from you. So you can create... We don't really say you should look for a teacher.

We say you should create them. And if you want to find a teacher who is very ethical, you have to be ethical. If you want to find a teacher who is meditating well, you have to meditate.

If you want to find a teacher who understands reality, you have to work on it. And then you create your teacher, and you bring them to you. So there are whole methods how to do that.

In the end, everything around you is coming from your behavior. So you can choose a teacher, and then you can work on them. It's like a husband.

Now, if your husband is criticizing you, it's because you are being critical. And you can make a perfect teacher. And then there's nothing more beautiful.

In your whole life... This is a good thing to say on New Year's. It's the most beautiful thing to say on New Year's.

There is nothing in the world like a good teacher. If you really have a teacher who takes care of you, and who loves you, and you respect them, and you listen to them. Nobody is perfect.

If you are perfect, you don't need a teacher. So you won't respect them perfectly, and you won't be the number one student. But if you find your heart teacher, if you make it a priority to find your heart teacher, there is nothing more wonderful in the world.

There is nothing more fulfilling. There is nothing like that. There is nothing like the happiness of having a heart teacher, and being with them, and learning from them.

There is nothing that is so beautiful in the world. There is nothing. So try.

Try to find your heart teacher. It doesn't have to be a monk, it doesn't have to be a nun, it doesn't have to be... it could be anybody.

But then you serve them, and you respect them, and you listen to them, as well as you can. And then, it's the happiest thing in the world. It's the most beautiful relationship in the world.

And there is nothing like that. Okay. Any more questions?

My question was regarding mudita.

[Говорящий 2]
The idea for no death. I always thought it was kind of, like we don't want to be reborn. Is it the same thing?

Because I always thought, it's the birth cycle that's creating suffering.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, okay. Okay. It's a long story.

We'll talk more on Tuesday and Wednesday. But basically, everything around you is coming from you. So, how you behave.

So, if you criticize other people a lot, let's just give an example. If you criticize other people a lot, then in your relationship, your partner will start to criticize you. And that's coming from you.

Ahimsa patishthayam tat sali deva vairajyaga. Very famous. Yoga Sutra.

If you see violence in the world, this is also coming from you. So, if you see war in Iraq, or if you suddenly see a dictator fall because of Facebook, okay? I mean, that's also coming from you.

The Berlin Wall falling down, or big impossible changes happening in a few days. This is also coming from you. So, if you are violent.

Violent doesn't mean you're shooting people or killing people. Violent means you wish the person at work that you don't like would have some bad luck. That's also violence.

So, if you stop all violence inside. Ahimsa patishthayam means if you make it a way of life, constantly, to be non-violent, then tat sali deva means in your world, vairajyaga, you will not see violence. There will be no violence in your world.

by slowly changing your own heart, and your own behavior, your world changes. Big changes. Global changes happen.

Because you personally are not wishing bad things on other people. Even inside. And then, we say that's how you reach heaven.

You see? It's not that you go somewhere else. It's that slowly you change your own behavior.

And then violence stops in your world. And if you have no violence in your heart, there would be no death in this world. You would not see death.

And you would not have death. And there's a corresponding hatha yoga explanation, which means that when you have a thought of violence, again, violence means I hope they can't do a handstand as good as me. That's violence.

That's a kind of violence. If you think that thought in a yoga class, I wish he won't do a handstand as good as I do. If you think that, prana moves in the body.

Prana moves in a certain channel, in the pingala channel. Slight movement of qi in the, what do you call it? Jin.

Chongqin. And then there's a slight movement of qi. And that damages your body.

The movement of prana in the pingala channel, by thinking, by wishing that someone else wouldn't do such a good handstand, damages your body. And it contributes to your death. It makes you a little older.

So every thought you have of wishing someone else's prana, it damages your body. And it makes you older. If you could stop that kind of inner violence, you wouldn't die.

It's very beautiful. So, when you reach that state, when they talk about rebirth, they're talking about, yes, suffering rebirth. But there are intentional rebirths, where you come into a world to help people.

So that's not suffering. That's not a bad thing. That's intentional.

Okay, one more question. I have a question about karma. Question about what?

I have a question about karma. Okay. When you have certain kind of not pleasant thoughts, and you didn't know, way before learning this, you don't know over the years, kind of like that.

So where those thoughts, karma, collects in your body? Like you just said, it might go to the gene, it might go to your body, it might be your hips, it might be your shoulders, your knees, it might be a part of your body. So, can I say that in a certain way, we're not the absolute, relatively speaking, the things like our body, is it tight here, pain here, problem here, there, we have certain percentage of collection of such negative thoughts, which collect in the body, which cause today's problem, joints and everything.

Exactly. All of them. Every little stiffness, every little pain, every little getting old of the joint, it's all caused by negative thoughts.

All of it. Because the negative, there's a principle, they call LUNG SEM CHUPA CHIPA. LUNG SEM CHUPA CHIPA means the mind, and the prana, the chi, they travel together, they always travel together.

If the chi moves, the mind moves. If the mind moves, the chi moves. So, all collections of chi in the body, what do you call it?

Obstruction of chi in the body. It creates some problem in the body. It always creates some problem in the body.

So, if we're having more happy thoughts and meditating, what we leave, what we leave, it kind of tightens us up. They change them completely. We'll have forgiveness, resolve, and all those things.

They say CHI NAM THAB LA TSOR BA very important in the yoga system. CHI NAM THAB LA TSOR BA means move the prana with the mind, and move the mind with the prana. So, when you do asana, you are moving the thoughts by moving the body.

And when you do meditation, you are moving the chi by moving the thoughts. So, then there's a joke in the monastery. They say, which one's better?

Which one should you do? And the answer is, if you say one or the other, the teacher will hit you. This rosary, you think it's for counting prayers.

It's a bad joke. And if you answer the question, you say, oh, asana is, yoga is more important than meditation, then they hit you. And then if you say, meditation is more important than yoga, they hit you also.

And you have to say, both are important. And you move the thoughts by moving the body, and you move the prana, the chi, by moving the thoughts.

[Говорящий 2]
But the asana goes before the pranayama?

[Говорящий 1]
Yama ni yama asana bhaktya in pranayama, in the ashtanga, right? Traditionally, pranayama is more difficult and more dangerous, and you must have a teacher. You cannot do pranayama without a teacher.

It's very dangerous. So, usually, in the list it comes after asana. Yama ni yama asana pranayama.

In the ashtanga. One last question. We only have time.

I understand some beings have ended the cycle of rebirth, which implies to me the cycle of rebirth once had a start. What was the start of the cycle of rebirth? It's a great question.

It's a difficult question at the last of the class because people are tired and it's a little hot. But I'll tell you the real answer and then you have... My teacher used to say you have to chew on it.

We grew up in a culture which is not religious. I mean, in western culture or even the whole world now, same culture. It's global now.

Because of the internet and movies and satellites, we... Our belief system is science. In the end, you believe in science.

You think that cancer can be... Cancer is caused by some chemicals in the body and if we found it, we could kill cancer. And so our beliefs are the beliefs of science.

Really. You can say I believe in Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or it doesn't matter. But deep down, you more believe in science.

You'd rather go to a doctor than go to the church if you are sick. Deep down, you believe in science. Science says everything has a cause.

This is the fundamental belief of science. All things have a cause. You can kill cancer if you find the cause.

And that's the premise. That's the founding premise of science. And therefore, the founding premise of our civilization, world civilization.

We believe that. Anything can be affected if you find the cause. And anything can be cured.

Any problem can be solved if you find the cause. Then, you know, from a deeply Buddhist point of view, then you go to a scientist and you say, well, what caused all things? What is the first cause?

And they say Big Bang. And then you say, what caused Big Bang? Because this is the most important event of the universe.

This event caused the universe. So, that's the most important event that ever happened was the Big Bang. So then you say to a scientist, what caused the Big Bang?

And they say nothing. That's, it's a, what do you call it? Event come.

Singularity event. It happened once, by accident, with no cause. And then you sit with a scientist, you know, and you're like, run this by me again.

Your system says all things have a cause. Your system is based on all things that have a cause. But the most important thing that ever happened didn't have a cause.

Is that what you're saying? And then they have to say yes. It was a singularity event in an event cone.

You know, something happened from nothing. And then Buddhism says that's ridiculous. It just says flatly ridiculous.

Totally untenable. Totally ridiculous. To base your whole system on cause and effect and then say the most important thing that ever happened just happened from nothing is undefensible.

It's completely wrong. Completely mistaken. So then what's the choice?

The choice is that something happened to make the Big Bang happen. I read in a science magazine recently there's a second Big Bang before the first Big Bang. But then you're going to have a third one.

So in this system and in Hindu system, in India and in China we say there was no beginning and everything has a cause. And if you track backwards everything has to have some... there has to be an impetus to cause something to happen.

Nothing can happen without an impetus. Something had to move that. So it's simple and it's not wrong to say there was no beginning.

And that applies to your mind and to yourself also. You didn't have a beginning and you will not have an end. Your mind will go through countless changes but nothing can destroy a living being's mind.

The body can be destroyed. The mind cannot be destroyed. The mind will find a new body.

And then you have to chew on that. Because now your teachers in school told you since you were five years old, since you were three years old, they told you there was a beginning or it doesn't make sense. But what the truth is it doesn't make sense if there was a beginning.

And you just have to get used to that. You have to work on that. Nothing can come from nothing.

Nothing ever could. So the assumption in my question that if you can end a cycle of rebirth it means there's a beginning of a cycle of rebirth. That assumption is false.

Rebirth referring to suffering, a forced rebirth that you don't have control over, that has an end. But life has no end. I guess my first question was incorrect.

My question should be if forced rebirths can have an ending, does that mean that forced rebirths had a beginning? And what was the beginning of forced rebirths? Good question.

This is, by the way, the Geshe course, it takes 25 years. No, the Geshe course takes 25 years. And it's hard.

And a lot of people go crazy or they quit or they just die. No, I mean I had 16 guys in my class. Only four finished.

And they either died or they quit or they went crazy. It's tough. And it's relentless for 25 years.

It's like really hard. But the last day, the last question in the examination is what you asked. And no.

And they say, was there a beginning to suffering? You know, 1,500 monks are watching. You're up on a stage and someone's drilling you, grilling you.

And the last question is did suffering have a beginning? And you say no. And then they say, will it have an end?

And you say yes. And then everybody goes wild. Like everyone applauds and cheers and they throw that hat.

Everybody throws their hat. Then it takes like an hour to find your hat. And then they say, really the last, last question is why?

Why does suffering have an end? And they say because people can figure out what they're doing wrong. Given time, people will figure out that what's happening to them is coming from how they treat other people.

People will figure it out. Given enough time, everybody will figure it out. That the reason my husband criticizes me is because I criticize somebody else.

And they'll stop. And then the husband will stop criticizing and then that will be the end. Everybody will figure it out sooner or later.

And then everyone cheers and you're done. And you go home and you just relax for the rest of your life. It's really a beautiful way to end the class.

Okay, thank you. Come Tuesday or Wednesday if you have time. T-Pain, is your event still open?

Is that event still open? To the SME? There's a business event, I guess it's on the 9th?

In the afternoon. Talk to T-Pain if you're interested in that. Mainly for Chinese speaking community business people.

Anything else? That's it, right? Okay.

Yeah? Good night. Thank you.

And I'd like to thank Harper and the crew at Pure Yoga for organizing this. It's always a pleasure. I hope we have many more.

If some people were waiting to ask a question, can we take a few minutes? If you have a question that you were waiting in line and you didn't get answered, you can come. So please can I get your sign at the end?

And can you get me your name last time?