Что такое нирвана и как её достичь? (2011, Багамы), занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
Hello. Good. So, tonight we'll continue our talk about what is Nirvana and how to get there.

And we've been talking for two nights about that, and I don't know, somehow for me the word Nirvana has a very beautiful feel to it. Like, the first time I heard it when I was a kid, I was like, immediately attracted to the word Nirvana. I don't know why.

I think many people are like that. Many people have been like that about the word Nirvana. So, we had an interesting question last night, and Krishna asked, can you drop out of Nirvana?

After you reach Nirvana, can you drop out of the world? And we've seen in this class, Nirvana defined in the ancient classics of Buddhism as, they call it nyundu manubhava bambisasa dharmam. It means, to repeat it means, to remove all the negative emotions in your mind forever.

Because you have seen ultimate reality directly. Due to seeing ultimate reality directly. So then there are a lot of opinions in the Buddhist schools.

In fact, I think you can say that the difference between all the Buddhist schools is what they think ultimate reality is. So, you could almost say, today we went over the three schools of Advaita, Vedanta, and then I was thinking in Buddhism, we have, there are four great schools of Tibet, but there are also four great schools of ancient India, which are different. And the four great schools of ancient India, really, they differ in their idea of what is ultimate reality.

And the point is that, if you get it right, if you understand ultimate reality correctly, which is not so difficult, then it gives you the power, as nothing else can, to remove your own negative emotions permanently and forever. And then, I don't know, I don't think everyone was here from the beginning, but the first night I was saying, you know, let's all try to identify our number one negative emotion. And I was saying, for me it was jealousy.

And I'm quite good at it, after many years of practice. Like, we have sadhanas where we try to develop positive qualities, but really we're meditating all day on our kleshas, right? So mine are highly evolved.

And my jealousy is highly evolved. So, you know, I thought, Swamiji said it's not good to talk about cookbooks if you don't taste the food. And he made me embarrassed.

I thought, oh, if I'm teaching about nirvana, maybe I should try to think about reaching it myself. And I was exploring my own mind in the last week, you know. And I was like, in a way that I never have before.

And, you know, I've been meditating for, I don't know, 40 years or something. And so I was like, oh, I have this big jealousy in my mind. You know, it's so big and it's so obvious.

The minute I started watching, I was like struck by how much of the day was devoted to jealousy. And I was talking to some people tonight, my jealousy is like this. I have a mind and it's almost like an empty skull.

And then objects come and go from my skull during the day, you know. I went to Swamiji's Sadashiva's yoga class. So I had these events of a class and there were people moving to the class.

And I was watching people being jealous selectively. And then objects were moving, objects were swimming through the medium of my mind, like fishing an aquarium up here, you know. Objects were coming and going.

And then I started to feel jealousy towards someone or competitiveness, like that. Like, yeah, are they better than me? It's possible, you know.

And then suddenly the water in the head got dark. I mean, I was just first aware of it. My whole mind got dark like a shadow, like a very sad shadow over the water of my mind.

And then for a few minutes I couldn't think straight and I wasn't happy and my breath was off in the asanas. It was noticeable. And then I realized I just live like that most of the day and I don't really notice it, you know.

So that was, I was asking you guys to try to catch your own mind and your favorite negative emotion. So I'm asking you, if you're in this talk, little talk every night, let's try. You know, like tomorrow morning when you do your meditation, just go into the history of your life and your recent mental life and see what kind of negative emotion you've been specializing in.

Because if you could remove it, or if you could get a little bit of relief from it, In Buddhism they call nirvana shanti sometimes, or shiva in Tibetan. And shanti has two meanings. One is, you know, feeling happy and contented.

But the other is to extinguish a fire, to put out a fire. And I think if you do this little exercise, try to locate in your mind your worst mental habit during the day. And just watch it tomorrow and see how many times it comes up.

And then see how it makes you feel. Just do that, okay? Just do that.

You're supposed to have done that already, actually. The next step would be, what I'd like you to do for tomorrow, is try to get in touch with what the opposite feels like. Try to get in touch with what the opposite feels like.

So for me, rarely, I will not be jealous of someone. I will actually appreciate and, what do you call it, celebrate their good qualities. Like, I don't know why, but I'm able to do it with Swamiji.

Like, I was jealous of him at the beginning. But now for some reason it has mellowed into some intense appreciation for his effort. Really, an ashram like this is not kept together by organizational things.

It's the willpower of a few people. And if they lose that willpower, the place just falls apart. It just disappears.

It's not the treasurer and the vice president and, you know, the policies and the procedures. It's not that. It's that there has to be a core of people who really believe in what's going on here.

And they hold that ashram together. It's willpower. And then sometimes you see it leave a place and then the place dies, you know.

But you have this. What I see in the Swami's here is this intense willpower. It never occurred to any of you that there might not be any programs next year.

Right? It just never occurred to you. You weren't thinking how to pay for it or, you know, how to clean up after the guests.

But you weren't thinking. It's unimaginable that these Swamis wouldn't have the willpower to keep this place going, you see. And that's all that keeps it going.

So, I appreciate that. And I admire it. And it's rare in the world.

So, imagine how, try to do the opposite, okay. If you're an angry person, you know, if your favorite affliction is anger, then try to be exceptionally patient with someone about something. And just, I want you to just observe how it feels.

Okay, I'm not asking you to keep it up or anything. I just want you to see how it feels compared to the anger. That's all.

And if you have low self-esteem, then try to comprehend that for every person sitting here and listening to these holy things, there are about 90 million other people who are not. And maybe you're a little special. Okay?

Really. I mean, just try to get a little feeling of the opposite, okay. Which is true.

In the Tibetan scriptures, the antidote for low self-esteem is to just think of the odds of you getting here, which are about zero, you know. For you to be one of the Swami Thiru Brahmacharya or Chittamayi or something, is, you are one out of what, ten million people? You know, and if you tend to have low self-esteem about the coolest person out of ten million people, it's kind of weird.

And no, in our scriptures, you're just supposed to review how lucky you are. How you're unique. Each person here is unique.

You got here. Somehow, through all the weird things in life, you got here. And you're special.

You're very extraordinary. There's no arguing with that. It's obvious.

It's statistical. You're just unique out of ten million people. So what I'd like you to do tomorrow is try to do the opposite.

If your problem is anger, then do some patience. And I just want you to observe how it feels. If your problem is low self-esteem, spend some time on thinking that you are one in ten million, which is the truth, and you can't deny it.

And just savor that feeling for a while. Feel the difference. If you are extremely jealous of every single person you ever meet, do you get jealous for someone for their sandals?

Try to just appreciate what someone else is doing, like the willpower that keeps this place going. Just appreciate somebody else's high gunas, high qualities. Tomorrow.

So that's your meditation assignment tomorrow. So I was thinking about your question yesterday, and he said, is it possible to reach nirvana, which now you know means to eliminate your negative emotions forever. The classical definition of nirvana, which is not the same as enlightenment, is lower than enlightenment, is to remove your negative emotions forever.

Which is tied up with overcoming samsara. It's the same thing really, and we'll talk about that maybe tomorrow. If we define nirvana as removing your negative emotions forever, because what?

Because what? Yeah, because you had a direct experience of ultimate reality. That's the definition of nirvana.

The first part is easy, right? Getting rid of your negative emotions. The second part is a question.

Because you saw ultimate reality directly. So, you know, if I were you, and if I were me, if I were locked up in this aquarium with dirty water all day, of jealousy, then I would be asking the question, how do you see ultimate reality? Like, what is ultimate reality?

How do you see it? Because then you could just turn off your anger. Or turn off your low self-esteem.

Or, you know, jealousy would... You'd free up 80% of your hard disk. No, really, you know how fast a computer runs when you take off half its puff?

Imagine your mind like that. Take off half... That's where people get all those cities and devotees and all that kind of stuff.

They just free up a lot of the hard drive. Because they don't have the jealousy. Like, I spend a lot of my day being jealous.

And if suddenly I wasn't spending that time, like, what can I do, you know? It'd be interesting. So, it's worth it.

We should try. We should talk tonight about what does it mean to see ultimate reality. Because the answer to Krishna's question...

[Говорящий 2]
Shyam.

[Говорящий 1]
Shyam. Krishna Shyam. He used to be Krishna.

Anyway, the answer... He asked the question, can you fall out of your body? And then I gave sort of a short answer.

But the long answer, the real answer, is much longer. And I thought to do it tonight. The idea is, if you see an ultimate reality directly, which turns out to not be really ultimate, can you drop out?

You will drop out. So then there's this huge discussion of things that we thought were ultimate reality but turned out not to be. Okay?

Why would we want to spend the next, I don't know, half hour on discussing an ultimate reality which turned out to not be the ultimate reality? Yeah, we want to avoid traps. Okay?

Like, there are presentations. There are teachings that will say, here's what ultimate reality is, right? And then you get good at it.

And you master it. And you see it directly. And then it doesn't stop your jealousy.

And then it turns out not to be ultimate reality. Okay? That's where I'm trying to go.

I'm trying to say there have been many, many versions of ultimate reality in the history of Buddhism. And as an exercise, we always study the mistaken ones first. In the monastery, we always, the teachers always go through the wrong ultimate realities first.

Because then you don't, then you, if you start thinking like that, you just stop yourself. And you say, oh yeah, that was number four. And that's why it's not ultimate reality.

Okay? So, what I'd like to do tonight, it's six versions of ultimate reality. And only one of them is the real one.

And the other five are ultimate realities that you're going to flirt with in your spiritual career. And then you will remember tonight, and you will remember that you should go a little further. Okay?

So these are ultimate realities. In, in, we, we even know, I don't know how to start. Ultimate reality is the absence of something that was never there.

Okay? Ultimate reality is the absence of something that was never there. Okay?

It's a negative. It's the absence of something. Is there a two-headed, fourteen-foot, purple elephant rampaging through this room at this moment?

Yes or no? He always answers. Somebody else answers.

There isn't. I mean, nobody even turned around to check. Right?

If I had said, is there a baby elephant, gray, single-headed, you know, walking through this, you would look around. But if I said purple, two-headed, you know, eighteen feet tall, then nobody even looks around. Why?

Why?

[Говорящий 2]
Why?

[Говорящий 1]
There's no such thing. Okay? There is no such thing.

And you know it, so you're not like, frightened you're going to get trampled. Okay? You didn't even think about that.

Nobody went like this. It never existed. So, so ultimate reality is the absence, get this, of something which was never there.

Alright? And we'll give an example. Right?

Yesterday, we talked about, someone comes up to you, and says you're stupid, Geshe Michael. Okay? And then, your natural reaction is, you say, you know, you're stupid.

Okay? And then we said, that was proof that you are, stupid, as they accused you of being. Because by, by answering you're stupid, you're planting a karmic seed to have another person next week call you stupid, and that's samsara.

That's a cycle. You call somebody stupid, that creates a karmic seed in your mind, next week somebody comes up to you and calls you stupid, you answer them and say, you know, you're stupid, you plant a new karmic seed, and then they come back again, and then you respond again, and then that's a new cycle.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
That's samsara. That's the only meaning of samsara. Stupid circles.

Okay? Um, and we said that, um, when the person first calls you stupid, you could consider, and we're going to do that as a meditation later, looking at them, and, and the person you first feel bad about, right? The person who calls you stupid.

Okay, get this, okay? Listen. The person who calls you stupid who was not coming from you, got it?

Is it in your mind? I'll say it one more time. The person who called you stupid who is not coming from you calling somebody else stupid before.

What's that person look like?

[Говорящий 2]
They don't exist.

[Говорящий 1]
They don't exist, okay? In Tibet they say, what do the antlers on a rabbit look like? How long are they?

How many inches long are antlers on rabbits? You know? And then you just say, well, they don't have any, okay?

The person whom you feel angry towards doesn't even exist. They never did. Okay?

And that, thinking they exist is required to plant a proper negative karma. And that's a vidya. Got it?

That's all. There never was a person there who didn't come from you. And thinking they are not coming from you is a vidya.

And only with a vidya could you say to them, no, you're stupid. Right? Because a person with vidya would refrain from saying you're stupid because they want the person to go away.

[Говорящий 2]
Alright?

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, got it? You ready?

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So you have to understand. You have to get that sense. And I know it's late and I know we all had a hard day and it was hot.

I don't care what Swamiji said. We all experienced it the same. Try to wrap your mind around this thing.

Ultimate reality is the absence of a person who calls you stupid, who's not coming from you. Comfortable? Is it comfortable?

In the monastery they say, Devadvaya means asti sukha. Is it comfortable? You okay with that?

Ultimate reality is the absence in this room of anyone who's not coming from what you did last week. Got it? Okay.

And does that help you cope when a person calls you stupid? That's the whole point of studying ultimate reality. Whatever ultimate reality is, it should help you cope with a person who calls you stupid and eventually remove all your anger completely.

You see, if you really defined ultimate reality correctly, it should be something which immediately helps you to be a happier person. Got it? If you understand that ultimate reality means that the guy who calls you stupid came from you calling people stupid last week, then that will make you a happier person.

Because you'll stop calling people stupid and it'll make the people around you happier too. You know you've got the real ultimate reality when it's helpful. When it makes you happier.

So now we're going to go on a little trip among the lower ultimate realities that have been taught in Buddhism. Who first taught them? Who first lied and taught ultimate realities that weren't ultimate realities?

Guess. No, which historical person? Buddha.

No, Buddha. The Buddha taught five ultimate realities that weren't in different scriptures. He described five versions of ultimate reality that were wrong.

Why? Why would somebody say perverting Marga is the only way to go? You had it in class today.

Excuse me? Why would somebody say perverting Marga is the only way to go? Because people weren't ready for the perverting Marga.

Okay, that's all. So Lord Buddha himself taught five things as ultimate reality which are wrong. Because he was trying to...

Swamiji was speaking very beautifully today about Lord Krishna wanting to get to use Karma Yoga to get Arjuna's mind to a point finally where he was ready for Jnana Yoga. Okay, got it? He just taught lower things to Arjuna until finally Arjuna was ready to hear the real thing.

Got it? So in Buddhism the same holds. You speak to your audience and if you don't, you have done a bad deed.

You see? You morph to your audience. So Lord Buddha was very good at it.

So here they are. Ready? These are five versions of ultimate reality that are not.

But you will hear them. And the next time you hear them you're going to say, no, no, I've got to go farther. Ready?

Here's the first one. Say, dhāt, dhāt, jī, jī, rāngwāng chen, rāngwāng chen, kitā, kitā, dhāt, dhāt, jī, jī, rāngwāng chen, rāngwāng chen, kitā, kitā. Okay, that means a person who's yelling at you who's going to last forever.

Okay? A person in your life who regularly calls you stupid who is going to be around forever. Is there such a thing?

[Говорящий 2]
No.

[Говорящий 1]
I mean, luckily all the bad people you've ever met I mean, most of them have died or gone away. They just do that. We all get old.

We all move out. Nothing lasts forever. Okay, you ready?

This too will pass. Abraham Lincoln was in the middle of the Civil War. And somebody said to him, is there anything good about this war?

And he said, only one thing. And he said, what? He said, this too will pass.

This will also pass. This thing will pass. So, tāc chī, rāngwāng chen, kitā means is there a person who calls you stupid who's going to be around 50 years from now calling you stupid?

Hopefully. No, I mean, people are torn apart by events and karma and you know, you can't stay with the ones you love. And luckily you can't stay with the ones you hate also.

They just go away, you know. So, to perceive the ultimate reality of a person who's calling you stupid in the lowest school of Buddhism, which is Abhidharma school, is to say the person who's going to last forever calling you stupid, is there such a person? No.

No, it's exactly the same as a two-headed purple elephant running through this room. Got it? Got it?

Ultimate reality is the absence of something which could never be. And in the lowest school of Buddhism they say ultimate reality is the absence of a person who's hurting you, who's going to last forever. Because they always go away.

You know, sooner or later they always go away. Question, two questions for you. Ready?

These are important. Two important questions for you. Number one.

Is it helpful in a stressful situation with someone who's criticizing you to think, this too will pass? Is it helpful? It's helpful.

Does it stop your anger forever? No. It'll work for a while.

We call it a band-aid. It's a temporary solution. You can stare at this person.

I do it all the time. Somebody's like yelling at me. Unreasonably.

Always unreasonably. Which if you think about it would mean I don't deserve it which is not possible for a Buddhist or a Hindu. There's no such thing.

Anyway, it is always undeserved. And the person is in my face and they are like growling. And then I'm like sometimes the best I can do the farthest I can go in my view of ultimate reality is okay, he's gotta stop sooner or later.

He's gotta have lunch.

[Говорящий 2]
He's gotta go to the toilet.

[Говорящий 1]
At some point he'll stop. I just have to stand here. If I just stand here and let him down he has to go to the bathroom or something.

Sooner or later he'll, this too will pass. That's all I can do. I can't think anything higher than that.

That's okay. That's a lower reality. It does not take you to Nirvana.

It does not stop your anger forever. But it helps. One more point.

This is very important. One more point. These lower versions of ultimate reality keep you out of trouble until you can get to the real one.

Got it? They are useful. At least they keep you from yelling back.

And then you make a few more karmic points that might put you in a position where someone can teach you to yell back. Yoga. Got it?

Roger, yoga. Okay? So they're good.

They're temporary relief, like an aspirin. And they also kind of keep your mind chitta, shuddha? Swamiji said shuddhi.

They keep your mind pure enough that if someone taught you the real ultimate reality, you would get it. Okay? Because you were in the place of the lower one for a while.

Got it? That's number one. Number two, I don't have much time.

This is a race against the clock. Say ranga tube jeyuki toha ranga tube jeyuki toha This means when a person is in your face yelling, if you want to go a bit higher on the ultimate reality ladder, the versions of what ultimate reality is, just think, where is the other person whose actions I could control at this moment? Where is the person calling me stupid, whose actions I could control at this moment?

It's the question of control. How much control do you have? As a karma is ripening, as a sanskara is flowering, in the moment that sanskara is flowering, how much control do you have about the situation?

You can control the next week or the next few days. You can say, I'm not going to get angry. I won't plant a new seed.

Next week there won't be anybody in my face. But no school of Hinduism or Buddhism would say you could control it in the moment. You cannot.

Once it has opened, once the karma has opened, nobody can control it. You can take refuge. That's a Buddhist refuge, right?

You can take comfort in the fact that one, kyautei chosu yunani, say kyautei, chosu yunani, delia miga, chishi yunani, kyautei chosu, yunani, delia miga, chichi pen. Very, very famous quotation by Master Shakyamuni in the Bodhicharyavatara, engaging in the deeds of a bodhisattva. What's it called?

[Говорящий 2]
The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

[Говорящий 1]
That's a good translation. He said, this is really original, right? He said, look, if you can do something about it, do it.

Then what did he say after that? If you can't do anything about it, just chill. If you can't do anything about it, just chill.

That's worldview number two. Alright? That's ultimate reality number two.

This is out of my control. The karma is opening in my mind at this moment. I don't have any control over that.

I can't stop it. So just relax. If you can talk the person into believing you're not stupid, then you're so calming.

And if they won't listen to you, then just let it go. Is that helpful?

[Говорящий 2]
Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
Will it stop your negative emotions forever? No, you know that. You've tried it.

I still have mine. So, that's ultimate reality two. The absence of a person who can be controlled by you in the current moment is ultimate reality version number two.

You don't have, given that karma is rightly, we don't have current control. We have future control. Heyang dukkham.

Anagatam. It's only future suffering I can deal with. Anagatam.

The stuff that hasn't come yet, I have control. But not the stuff happening right now. That's the point of that shloka.

Of that verse. Number three. I think I'm going to make it.

Namaste. Se sung tam. Sung jin gi tse ma.

Tse sheng gi.

[Говорящий 2]
Tse sheng gi. Sung tam.

[Говорящий 1]
Sung jin gi.

[Говорящий 2]
Tse ma.

[Говорящий 1]
You guys are stupid. It's easier to teach than sit down. Se sung tam.

Sung jin gi.

[Говорящий 2]
Tse ma.

[Говорящий 1]
Tse sheng gi. This is delicate. Who put...

When a person is calling you stupid, who put you there? You. By your karma.

By your actions sometimes. Who put them there? Who created the interaction between?

Subject, object, and interaction of the two. Who created the subject? Geshe Michael getting called stupid.

Who created that? Geshe Michael. Who created the person calling you stupid?

[Говорящий 2]
Geshe Michael. Geshe Michael.

[Говорящий 1]
Who made person number two bump into person number one? Geshe Michael. Everything about the interaction.

All the whole... We call it the three spirits, right? The three elements of an interaction are all being created from one karmic seed.

And that's a big teaching of the Mind-Knowing School of Buddhism. They call it sen-sam-pa or chitta-matra. They have a very interesting belief.

Try to get this, okay? You call someone stupid in the past. My elbow is the past, okay?

And then time goes on. And the seed, the samskara ripens in the vasana, ripens in the mind. And then it comes out.

You can do vishnu mudra. I always forget it, but when I come back I remember. Swamiji makes us do it.

Then it ripens. The seed ripens, right? Into what?

A subject and an object. One seed, one karma, one action splits into an object and a subject. Geshe Michael and...

The person called me stupid, okay? The stupid person. I'm kidding.

[Говорящий 2]
I'm kidding.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, got it? One seed. When it opens, it splits into me and the person called me stupid.

Who brought him to me? Geshe Michael. Okay?

Now, I have to also say that in this school, they believe that's all happening inside the mind. There is no outer God. There is no...

It's just all one seed that... What do you call it? Split within your own mind.

Is it helpful to think like that? I brought the guy here. I brought the guy into the room.

And I brought who into the room?

[Говорящий 2]
Me.

[Говорящий 1]
One person forced Geshe Michael into the room. And one person standing at the other door pushed the guy into the room. Who was the both people?

It was me, okay? And then we're forced to have this interaction. Unpleasant interaction.

Right? Who's the... I don't know.

That guy. It's me. Okay?

I planted that seed. I made him come to me. I forced him to come to me.

Okay? Think about that. Is it helpful when someone's screaming at you?

Yeah, I mean, you don't blame them. It's the water on the bathroom floor syndrome. Right?

As long as you know you're the one who spilled the water there, it's not so bad. Am I right? You know?

I mean, you spill water on the floor and you're leaving the bathroom because you're in a rush to get to somebody's talk. And you look down and you see the water and you say, well, you know, a little bit's not going to hurt anybody. I mean, is it true?

And then when you step in and step in that water, you're like, who's this stupid person? And then you understand it was yourself, then you're much more forgiving. Because it's you.

Got it? So, what were we on? Number three.

Okay? The person abusing you has stood off from a single seed which also created you inside your own mind. Now the inside your own mind part is wrong.

Okay? That can be disproven. And that's the wrong part of this view because the rest is not so bad.

The rest is pretty good. Say again? We're getting there.

He asked, how can you disprove that? We're going to get there. Okay, we're up to number four.

Kyu kyu shibe tanitabe taktun mayimba. Say it, kyu. Kyu yimba.

Shibe. Tanitabe. Tungi.

[Говорящий 2]
Tonga. Not that one.

[Говорящий 1]
It's an old Sanskrit. I'll give you an example. I worked at a huge corporation.

I built a huge corporation. We had 800 workers in New York. We had 10,000 other workers.

It started with nothing. And there were many cases when I would be sitting in my office and somebody like one of the owners of the company would burst into my room and say, Michael, you're really stupid. And I'd say, why?

And they'd say, you forgot this order for Jason Penney and 10,000 diapers. They already have the advertisement in the New York Times and they don't have any diapers because you didn't buy them yet. The stores don't have what they're already advertising in the New York Times.

And it's your fault. I feel upset. And then there's all these other vice presidents in the room who are very jealous of me.

So how do they feel? They're like, finally somebody figured out the truth.

[Говорящий 2]
And...

[Говорящий 1]
So there's almost there's almost no bad thing that ever happens to you that someone else might not perceive as desirable. Right? As long as you talked about it today.

About the heat. And that someone who's flying in from you know, Pittsburgh might think it was quite nice here today.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Because they've been cold for a couple of months. Or years. I don't know.

[Говорящий 2]
That's Montreal.

[Говорящий 1]
That's like closer to North Pole. So... When the persons are screaming at you right?

You can always think that maybe their wife loves them. Maybe their wife finds them lovable. Someone would find this enjoyable.

I have this theory that any way you could destroy a dish in cooking any way you could abuse a dish is probably the way it's cooked somewhere. You see what I mean? I always tell people like they burn my dog.

And it tastes like charcoal. And I say I'm sure there's a planet where good mothers burn the dog. Right?

Somebody would find it taste good. I think so. So would that comfort you when someone's calling you stupid to think that somebody loves them?

Is it true? Would it help to think well somebody finds them lovable? Everybody finds somebody lovable.

I mean everybody is found lovable by somebody. Right? So does that help to think it that way?

That's okay. If you want to know the literal meaning of the term kyu-kyu shi-bi-ta-ni-bi-ta-bi-ta-tu-tsu towa means nothing is named what it is naturally. Names are not applied by nature.

They are inventions. They are artificial. The way you perceive an event is not natural.

It's being concocted by your mind. Someone else might be perceiving the event as a quite positive thing. Because they have different karmic seeds.

No event is bad by nature. It's perceived that way by somebody. Because of their own karmic seeds.

That's number four. We're almost there. We're going to make it for sure.

Are you ready? Are you ready? me ne du luk su dru pe.

towa. Number five. Lower half of the middle school.

Which are almost correct. How to say this one? No demand.

No demand means a state of pamana. A mind which is not affected by other circumstances such as drugs, alcohol, extreme anger, a mind which is perceiving its object correctly. Nirmala, nama-yogini, an object appears to that kind of a state of mind.

Saksa-mayimba, that's not all it takes for a thing to exist. It's just to appear to an unaffected state of perception. There's more.

What? That thing must have some nature of its own. That thing must be one way or another on its own.

There has to be both. There has to be your favorite song. The best rock and roll song in the world.

Just think about it. Cowgirl in the sand, by Emilio. Am I right?

It's the best rock and roll song in the world. Is there a song there? Is it a song?

I mean, it is a song. It's not its first album. Or second, I don't know, second.

Does everyone perceive it as the best song?

[Говорящий 2]
No.

[Говорящий 1]
It's just education. It's a lack of education. Is there a song appearing to me when I play the song?

Yes or no? Do I interpret it as a good song? Myself?

[Говорящий 2]
Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
I do. So they say both of those things are necessary in an activism. There must be something there.

Like 50% must be coming from inside. A song. A song is really there.

Right? We can say that. A song is there.

How you take the song is coming from your side. But it takes 50-50 to make a song. A good song or a bad song, doesn't matter.

It takes a song appearing and then a mind which takes it to be good or bad. Is that right? This is their position.

Almost correct. There is something appearing. And then, in a way, we have a choice on how to take it.

We could work with Geshe Michael and learn that it was the best song. You know? Like, you could change your perception of the song by working on it.

So, the big thing in this school is using bad things that happen to you as a path. Okay? They say anything can be turned into a path.

You know? Any bad thing that happens to you, you could look for some good in it. That's their big deal.

Okay, the guy is yelling at you. He's calling you stupid. That's alright.

You know? That's undeniable reality. There is a guy.

He is saying the sibilants and the dentals and the sliding vowels that make up s-u-u-b. You know? He is...

There is a guy saying words. And he really exists there. And then you're taking his words in a certain way.

But you have some leeway there. You could think, well, maybe I can learn something from this guy. You know?

Maybe occasionally I am stupid. You know? You could think I could learn something.

You could... There is that big thing of using suffering as a path. Using suffering as a path.

Wouldn't you want to be there forever? Just using screw-ups as a path. You know?

I mean, in my mind, I would rather that they just never happen. So then I don't have to be creative about making them into a path. You see what I mean?

Like, wouldn't it be better if the guy just didn't exist? And then I'm not in a position of trying to find something useful about it. You see what I mean?

So we take that as a lower school also. Ultimately, that's a lower view of life. You can, you know, with a lot of what do you call it?

Gymnastics. You can try to see something good about anything. But wouldn't you much rather have the thing never have happened anyway?

To have to try to make it into something good. And so the highest school of Buddhism, Prasangika, Madhyamika, the highest school of Buddhism, they say, look, why don't we just try to work it out so bad stuff never happens in the first place? Why don't we just stop things from happening that are bad before they happen?

And then you don't have to try to pretend that something is useful about this guy. Wouldn't it be better to make him say, ma'umba, ma gili, chö chö, a future event which never happens. This guy.

Wouldn't that be nicer? To turn him into a ma'umba, ma gili, chö chö, a future event which never occurs. The next time you meet, I'm talking about.

The next time you meet is a future event which never happens. Okay? I mean, that's what Nirvana is.

That's what Nirvana is. So what is the highest school? What do they say?

This is difficult, okay? They say the guy. It's not that the guy is calling you stupid, and you have to interpret him in some way.

It's not that there's a real guy there who's talking, and you only have latitude to interpret him in a certain way. Everything about him has come from you. Everything about him is already your interpretation.

Hearing his vowels and consonants as criticism is already interpretation. The fact of his colors and the shapes and his body are already you. You're already making those.

It's not that you're taking him in a certain way. He is the creation of your mind. And then they say, but he is projected outside of you.

Catch this. This is delicate, okay? Your karmic seeds are opening and throwing an object outside of you.

A perception of a guy who's separate from you. And there are whole books by Dharmakirti written to prove that there exist other people who are not part of your own mind. And your mind, they didn't come from karmic seeds in your mind, but your mind, the seed in your mind has ripened as an outside event.

They are outside of you. They're not in your head. You're not living in your head.

You are creating all the people around you, but they are around you. And they are not inside you. You are creating all the people and things you see, but they are not inside you.

You are creating them as outside of you, so therefore they are outside of you. So what would be the highest way...

[Говорящий 2]
Now we're at the end.

[Говорящий 1]
We have one more minute. Not really. What would be the highest viewpoint to take when a person is calling you stupid?

What is the viewpoint that could get you to Nirvana fastest? Because that's what we want to talk about. How could you remove your anger forever?

What viewpoint of the person who's criticizing you would allow you to remove them forever? Just understand that I created them. How?

How? In the case of someone calling you stupid. I must have called someone something similar in the past.

If you want to... If you don't like them, and if you would like to get rid of people like that in your life, what would be the only way? Stop calling people stupid.

Or similar types of words. And that's all. That's the end of the story.

What happens? What happens if you stop responding? Slowly, one by one, the karmas, the saskaras, which create irritating people in your world, they'll just wear out.

And there's no one to replace them. There's no new ones. And then slowly, one by one, you become surrounded by beautiful people.

And that's Nirvana. That's Nirvana. There comes a point, because you haven't responded, because you didn't want to plan a new stupid guy, that you work yourself to Nirvana.

And then you're just happy all the time. And you're just surrounded by beautiful, extraordinary people all the time. And you make it that way.

Got it? That's the highest viewpoint. So, that's all.

Tomorrow you have an exam. Which was... Oh, you were going to see how it felt to do the opposite, I think.

Am I right?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
So I'm going to, for example, in my case, I'm going to be jealous of somebody. I'm going to catch myself being jealous. And then I'm going to try to think about something about them which I would celebrate.

And then I would compare how that feels to being jealous. How it makes me feel for the next few hours. Got it?

That's your assignment. I don't have to check to see if you've done your assignment. I just see how happy you look.

If you don't look happy, I know you didn't try. Because it makes you happy. It's like automatic exam.

The more grumpy people, the less people will listen. Tomorrow, I think we're going to do... We're going to talk about...

What does it mean to stop the wheel of rebirth? If nirvana means I'm not reborn anymore... I was talking to Jing Mei.

She said the first time she heard that she got scared. She said, well, where am I going to be after that? And I think most of us...

That's across your mind, right? If nirvana means the wheel of rebirth stops, then why else to get your mind going? I might prefer just to stay.

What does it mean to stop the wheel of rebirth? And where will you be after that? Where do you go after that?

We'll do that tomorrow.