Взять на себя ответственность: введение в практику Чё, сожжение себя (2011, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Говорящий 1]
Hi, thank you for coming. So I'd like to do a little meditation. This is a tradition before teaching.

So sit up straight in your chair. Begin by watching your forehead. Watch your forehead.

Feel any stress there, any tension in your forehead. Try to relax your forehead. Check the corners of your mouth for any tension.

Relax any tension in the corners of your mouth. Check your eyelids. Check the upper part of your eyelids, the creases of your eyelids.

Is there any tension there? Can you find any tension in the upper part of your eyelids? Any creases?

Slowly come to your breath. Just be aware of your breath. Tighten your stomach slightly.

Tighten your abdomen slightly to release your back, to relax your lower back. Come to your breath, moving through your nose. Come closer to your breath.

Focus more on your breath. Try to withdraw your mind from the outer world. Try to come to your breath.

Come from the outside. Come into the center of your breath. Now, hold your mind along the side of your breath.

As your breath goes in and out, slide your mind across the breath. Don't lose the contact between your mind and the breath. Slide your mind along the breath as it comes and goes.

Don't let your mind stop touching the breath. Keep it against the breath. Then ask your teacher, whoever is your heart teacher, could be a real person, could be imaginary, whoever you feel is closest, your own heart teacher, ask them to come and sit in front of you.

Very close, almost touching your knees, with their knees. Feel their presence. Think about something you love about them.

Honor one quality that you love about them. Make them a gift of some small good thing you did in the last day or two. It's the gift, it's the kind of gift that they really enjoy.

Some small good thing that you've done in the last day or two and offer it to this teacher, your own heart teacher. Then think of something you've done in the last few days that you're not so happy about. Myself, I get a little bit busy, then I get irritated with someone or tired.

I might say something unkind. Think of something in the last few days that you did and make a promise to your teacher that you won't repeat it today, for the rest of the day, until you go to sleep. Then think of something, the best thing you've done in the last few days, something you're proud about, something you would like to tell your teacher about.

Maybe someone got angry at you and you were kind to them and you were patient with them. Maybe you had some situation in your life that was tense and you found some kind of peace and offer this peace of mind, offer this patience as a gift to your teacher again. Then think of something beautiful you've seen in the last day or two.

Someone else who performed an act of kindness towards someone or spoke gently to someone or took their time to serve someone else. Then remember, make it clear in your mind, bring them to mind and then take joy that there is such a person in your life. Think about something about yourself which you would like to improve, something about yourself that you would like to change and ask your heart teacher to help you.

Ask your heart teacher to stay with you inside and help you become today closer to the person you would like to be. Some small progress today in the rest of the day to be like the person you would like to be, like your teacher. Then ask your teacher to stay with you, physically and inside of you, in your heart for the rest of your life and beyond this life.

These are the traditional preparations for meditation. Now we'll begin the real meditation. I would like to do a meditation called Kunlong Chöpa.

We've been working on it recently, some of us. Kunlong Chöpa means we examine why we are doing any action in our lives. Why do I have the job I have?

Why do I have the relationships I have? And then why did I come here today? Why did I come to this teaching?

So I would like to do a meditation called Kunlong Chöpa. Sit quietly. Examine your own mind.

Examine your own heart. And ask yourself why you came here today. What did you want when you took the trouble to come here today, to hear this talk?

Why did I come here? And be very brutally honest with yourself. Why did I come here?

Look inside your heart. Try to find why did I come here? Then in my own heart I find some lower motivation.

I would like people to like me. I would like people to think I'm a good speaker. I would like as many people as possible to come to my talk.

I'm hoping that people will like me better than other people. These motivations are all coming in my own heart. Then in the meditation on Kunlong Chöpa you admit those motivations and you don't try to fight them.

You just ask your heart well, what next? What will come after that? And then in that process we will develop some kind of higher motivation.

So let's follow my own motivation. Maybe you have a similar one somewhere. So if people like you and if people come to your talk then will you be happy?

How long will that happiness last? Will you be happy for a day? Will you be happy for two days?

Will you remember in a week that you gave this talk? How many times will you come to this kind of talk? How many talks can you come to?

Will there come a time when you can't get up to come to a talk? Will there come a time when you're too old? You won't be able to get out of the apartment.

You won't be able to catch a cab. What's the last talk you will come to? Where will it be?

Who will be speaking? How old will you be? What will you do when you get too old to do yoga?

When you get too old to meditate, to sit up? When you get too old to come to a talk? What will you do then?

Too old to go out to the restaurant for the Sunday afternoon paper? Too old to get up out of the bed? Too weak?

Is it possible that I will be like that? Could it happen to me that I would be too weak to get out of my bed? Too old?

How long could I live that way? Who would take care of me? Where will I be lying when I take my last breath?

Where will my last breath leave my body? Where will I be lying when the last breath leaves and I don't have the strength to draw another breath? Where will it be?

Try to guess where you'll be. What place in the city? Where will you be?

Where will your bed be when you take your last breath? Try hard to imagine where you will be when you take your last breath. And then push a little further.

Try to push beyond that. After the last breath, after my eyes close and I leave this world and I leave my friends and I leave this city and this country and I leave my awareness, my consciousness of this world. Where will I go then?

Where will I be? Try to push your mind beyond the last breath you will take in this life. Force your mind to look.

Those of you who have some training, you know that the world is coming from your mind. And you know the world is coming from how we treated others. Have I treated others enough?

Well enough? That I have seeds in my mind? What kind of world will my mind throw ahead of me as I close my eyes for the last time?

What new world can I expect based on how I've treated other people in this life? What would be fair for me to expect now, next? What world will my mind throw ahead of me that I can walk into after I close my eyes in this world for the last time?

If there's a real justice to things. If I can only eat as many meals as I have served to others. What kind of world can I expect after I close my eyes for the last time?

Is it possible for a human mind to throw ahead of me a perfect world? Is it possible for my mind to project ahead of me a world which is without war, without hunger, no kinds of conflict, violence, peaceful, contented, beautiful people, beings of light. Is it possible for my mind to form such a world ahead of me?

Is it possible to pass to a completely different world which is totally beautiful, no unhappiness there. Every being, body of light and a world of utter happiness. Is it possible?

Then suddenly jerk yourself back to this room and feel again why you are here. And it has changed. We didn't try to correct our motivation.

Geshe Michael is still here because he wants people to like him and like his talk. But then we went ahead in time and we came back to this room with a sweeter motivation, sweeter thoughts, sweeter reason to be here. Then when you're ready, open your eyes, relax.