Я — Будда: каким я буду? (2012, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we'll start. I apologize for starting late. I don't like to start late.

I think it's bad manners. I think His Holiness the Dalai Lama is very careful to start on time and to end on time, and I'm sorry for that. We had a sort of an informal board meeting of all the main volunteers and board of Three Jewels New York.

The subject is the same, you know, how to keep it going without charging people. But it's going, and it's good, and we decided not to charge people more. So, it's healthy, and it's good, and I'm very grateful to Nancy and Michael Wick.

They took this responsibility in an Indian restaurant, like ten minutes before I left for Sri Rudrini. And they did a beautiful job with it, and I'm very grateful for the place. I think one of the nicest things about Three Jewels is that, you know, we have, I think at some point, I don't know what the numbers are now.

The downloads from the ACI website for courses were 500,000 a year, and due to John Stilwell's work, where is he? He had to go. But all of our sister organizations, the whole Worldview organization is churning out, I don't know, many teachers every year.

And we all think, when we graduate and we have our little Maroc certificate, then we say, now I can break into the Dharma market at the Three Jewels in New York. And Three Jewels is a place where everyone can come and get started on their teaching career, and I think it's a very beautiful thing. And then there are people teaching here, like Hector and John, who have been around since the first class in Hell's Kitchen, with people waving guns outside, you know.

And I'm very grateful for that. So this is sort of an island in the world. You don't know, we travel constantly.

We're going to, I don't know, where are we going? Hamburg, Moscow, Zurich, Bahamas. The Bahamas is really hard, and it's sort of to balance the Moscow thing.

But you are famous all over the world. This place is famous all over the world. A lot of people say this is the first place they came to, and this is where they heard their first teaching from John or Hector or other people here.

And I'm very proud of the place, and I'm very proud that it's continued, and I'm proud that you've kept it free. And God bless you, and I hope you keep it up, all right? But more people have to help, okay?

So we're going to be expanding the board. And then when the board expands, all the committee heads expand, and you're going to have to do more work, okay? Like, it's a nice place, and at a certain time, you go from student to administrator, right?

No, I mean you get the advantages of the place, and then at some time, you have to help the place keep going. You see what I mean? At some time, you graduate, and it becomes your responsibility to keep it going.

And I think it should be transparent. Probably nobody knows how much sacrifices Nancy and Michael and John and Hector are making and other people here. It's just Allison.

It's just transparent, and I think that's the way it should be. People should just be able to come here and not hear about how much it costs. Then those of you who are the more serious people, you should cover it for the other people, okay?

So do that. It's an honor. First you come as a student, and then you keep it going for other people who come, right?

So anyway, I'm not here to lecture about that. So Nancy asked me, she keeps sending me emails, what are you going to teach in New York at the Three Jewels in the afternoon? And I'm like, I have no idea.

But then we're doing a program with Pure Yoga and with Shivananda Yoga Center in New York and Bahamas. And me and the Swami down there, Swami Swarupananda, who's a very wonderful teacher. So I've been going there since 1999, I think, and teaching maybe once a year down there.

And we are, frankly, quite different philosophies. But I think we are very proud of the collaboration because we are different traditions. We are hardcore followers of our own traditions, and we love to be with each other.

And we compare notes, and it's really beautiful. It's like something that started over a thousand years ago, and we're picking it up. We are distant cousins.

Our yoga tradition, Niguma and Naropa, came from West Bengal, and so did their tradition. Probably we were practicing together a thousand years ago. So we were talking like, what can we do together?

What kind of program could we do together? And we decided to call it Nirvana Immersion. And the idea is, Nirvana is defined as, who knows?

This is her moment of, do it again. So nyun duk means your negative emotions. Jealousy, anger, desire for Pringles.

Okay, and then malupa means all of them. Pangpa means get rid of them forever. Sosatangog means because you saw ultimate reality.

In a deep state of meditation, you saw ultimate reality. That's the definition of Nirvana. So it's possible to achieve Nirvana this afternoon.

And you don't look different to other people, except you're probably never grumpy. It's not enlightenment. It's not full Buddhahood.

Nirvana comes long before that. Nirvana is when you achieve the ability never to get upset again. No one can upset you again, ever.

And you are never jealous of anyone again. Like that, all your negativities are forever. You're not even thinking about your old boyfriend anymore.

Okay, like you are beyond. That's Nirvana, okay? And that can be anytime in your life you can achieve Nirvana.

It's not the same as enlightenment. Enlightenment comes later. In enlightenment, you expand further.

And you are able, for example, to see all events on all worlds in the universe at the same time, past, present, and future. All things which have ever been. All things which ever shall be.

And all things that are now. You are able to perceive in the same moment, every moment of your life. Okay?

And then you serve on those planets in countless bodies. Nice. Maybe him or her.

So, I thought, you know, we're going to do a six-day program on Nirvana. And I really like it. The scriptures are very rich in teachings on Nirvana.

It's very, very moving, very beautiful. So I've been working hard on those. And there's about, I don't know, 100 pages of new translations and writings on Nirvana.

And we'll be doing that three nights in New York. Friday we'll fly down to the Bahamas and continue it down there in a more congenial atmosphere. They have a nice beach.

And so anyway, that's the plan. Three days here, three days there. We pick out your most outstanding negative emotion and we work on that for a week.

Mine is jealousy, okay? I can tell you. I'm very good at it.

And so you pick your main negativity. Each person picks their own. And then there are asana practices aimed at that.

And there are meditations aimed at that. And then there are teachings aimed at that for a week. So the theory is that in a week you would at least get to know how bad it is.

And then Nirvana, it's like a gang fight. We used to have small gang fights when I grew up. Not big ones, okay?

But in a gang fight you always go for the biggest guy on the other side. You go for the leader first. Then if you knock him out, the rest of the people just run away.

So that's the idea with Nirvana. You go for your worst emotion and you knock that out. And then the rest kind of collapse after that.

So that's what we're working on. But then I realized, it occurred to me that we would never get to enlightenment in that program. We won't be talking about what it's like to become a Buddha.

We're just talking about Nirvana, which is long before you become a Buddha. So I thought, finally I got this inspiration. I woke up and Lama gave me an inspiration.

And I thought, let's talk about enlightenment at the Three Jewels. Like what happens later, after Nirvana. So this is for next Monday.

Enlightenment, because up to then you're just doing Nirvana. So I'm going to talk about enlightenment with you. And I thought, nowadays I'm in this mood in my old age that what I teach should be relevant to people's lives.

So I thought, let's go through what you will be like when you get enlightened. Because people ask me, it's kind of weird to think about, right? Like, will I have long ears?

Will I have a big belly and a bald head? Right, Paul? I mean, when you get closer, it starts to happen, just to the special people.

But what will I be like? In practical terms, if I could become a Buddha by next year, then what would that mean as far as my trips to Starbucks and relationships and things I enjoy doing? Can I still go to Sarva Academy and do the courses there?

Do I have to stop? I think we don't think about it much. And I thought it would be nice to go through what it's like.

And you can draw these descriptions from two sources, right? One is scripture, right? The qualities of a Buddha are so beyond everything that you kind of have to go to scripture and ask, what's it going to be like when I get there, right?

But you can also draw from encounters with enlightened beings. And those occur first during deep meditation. So in deep meditations, particularly on emptiness, you can make contact with enlightened beings.

Up until that moment of the first direct communion with ultimate reality, it's all reported qualities. You see what I mean? It's just books about it.

And you can say, are you a Buddhist? You say, yes, I'm a Buddhist. And then you say, have you ever met a Buddha?

And you say, no. And has there ever been a Buddha? Yes, there was Gautama 2,500 years ago.

But you can't confirm much, right? You can't say, I met one, and this is what they're like. Giraffe, you can say.

I went to the zoo. There was a giraffe. It does have a long neck.

It has spots. You know what I mean? But Buddha is hard.

I'm a Buddhist. But I've never confirmed the existence of Buddhas, you see, directly. I've never had direct communication or encounter with a Buddha.

So all that we know about Buddhas is hearsay. It's reports about Buddhas. And over 2,500 years, reports can get corrupted, right?

We can do that game where I tell Michael something, and then he whispers it to the next person, and it goes around the room. And then by the time it gets to the last person, it's pretty weird. It's completely different, right?

This happens in my real life a lot. So there's reports about what Buddhas are like. And those I'm going to teach you today from the most authentic scriptures.

But by necessity, even in the Buddhist tradition, which is extraordinarily careful, things can get corrupted. Or they can get... If you pass on, you're talking 75 generations, right?

If for 75 generations you pass on something without having met them, without having met a Buddha, then that information can be a little academic or something, okay? And then you've got to go into states of deep meditation. You have to learn how to meditate.

Come to the Three Jewels. Learn how to meditate, or to the classes in other parts of New York. And then at some point, if you're careful, and if you're well-trained, and if you're devoted, you will have direct experiences of enlightened beings.

And then you can see the scriptures are generally correct, but not as cool, okay? So we will draw from both sources, okay? About today, okay?

So let's get started. Does anybody not have a reading? Raise your hand.

Can someone pass them around? Are there more? No.

No? Okay. All right, we'll share.

So the title of this talk is, Me as Buddha, What Will I Be Like? The advertisement said, Will I still wear jeans and will they still fit? You know?

Those are important questions. Then I thought the first verse would be nice. I'll say it in Tibetan, because it's a blessing.

TANDEN DORJE KHANDO MA KHANDO MA'I KHORLUNG KHO YOD SHING LA NUSKUD SUNYE DOR KYOB LA CHAGSAR LO Very famous, okay? These are the words of praise to an angel called Vajrayogini, okay? Diamond, the angel of diamond.

Who is a Buddha, right? One kind of Buddha. And then these are words of praise to that Buddha.

Very famous. A lot of people in our immediate lineage are practicing her tantra. And these are famous words in praise of her.

And they say, I bow down to the shining angel of diamond, empress of angels, who has the five wisdoms, who has the three bodies, who protects all living beings. So I bow down to that lady, enlightened woman. I pulled out this verse because it describes an enlightened being.

And it contains the main elements, what you're going to be like when you become a Buddha. You will have the five wisdoms, and you will have the three bodies. Then I thought if I had to describe enlightenment in an hour or two, or what you're going to be like when you become a Buddha, I thought it would be nice to take off from this verse.

So physically, you will have three bodies, and then you will have five kinds of wisdom in your mind. This is what your body and mind look like when you get enlightened. So then we'll just go straight into some ancient sources about what are those bodies and what are those wisdoms.

The bodies of a Buddha can be taught as three or four. There's an old tradition of three bodies, and then it has become a tradition in recent years, which means since 350 AD, for describing it as four bodies. They split one of the three into two, and they come up with four bodies.

So sometimes you'll hear the two bodies of a Buddha, physical and mental. You'll hear the three bodies of a Buddha, and then sometimes you'll hear the four bodies of a Buddha. So the verse to Vajrayogini was talking about three bodies, but we're going to split one of them into two, and we'll come out with four bodies.

I think it's good if you learn it as four. Then you can abbreviate it if you don't have time someday, when you're teaching it, to two or three. But we have time.

So the first one is the essence body. Let me see. Say, ngo, nyi ku.

Ngo, nyi ku. This is the essence body, the first of the four bodies. Traditionally, the essence body is taught first.

This gets into Buddha nature. This has to do with Buddha nature. Let's talk about that.

Then we can go to ngo, nyi ku, the essence body. It is said in the scriptures that all of us are a Buddha at heart. We are enlightened already.

There is a part about us which is already a Buddha. By the way, it goes without saying that one of the cool things about Buddhism is that you get to be God eventually. If you said that in my church when I was growing up, it would be a no-no.

But in Buddhism, I think it's very beautiful to point out that the goal of Buddhism is that each person will become a Buddha. It's inevitable. All of us will become a Buddha.

Those of you who are not, and I don't know who's who, I'm not yet. But everybody will be. That's just the basic principle of Buddhism.

In Buddhist practice, imagine a Christian practice where you are meant to become Jesus, not to be with Jesus, or not to be with God in heaven or something like that. The point of Buddhism is that you become a Buddha. It's almost as if you would become Jesus, or become God, or become Moses, or something like that, Muhammad.

The goal of Buddhism is that you become a Buddha. That's possible because you already have one part of what you will be. It's already part of you.

That's cool. It's hardwired into you. You already have a part of you which is enlightened.

And that's your essence body, monguku. And sometimes they call it sugata garba, which means Buddha nature, the Buddha seed that you have. So what is that like?

Because that's what makes it possible for you to become God, or Jesus, or Buddha. What is it about you that you already have, which is already enlightened? And there's a lot of arguments about that, and a lot of wrong ideas about that.

But it's like this. You ready? What's going to happen?

Yeah, yeah. You ready? Here it comes.

Okay, one, two, three. I'm not going to do the whole pen thing because you'll fall asleep. The people in DCI are conditioned to fall asleep when I go like that.

Okay. When I went like that, okay, when I pulled it out, I just pulled out a black stick, okay, a cylinder, it's a black cylinder. In the moment that my hand went from not visible to you to visible to you, in that moment, a karmic seed broke open in your mind.

A karmic seed broke open in your subconscious. And out of that seed popped a small picture made of light. It's just a, what do you call it?

It's like a, what are those? They put on bars the writing in neon. It's like neon.

It is self-illuminating. A karmic seed breaks open and a self-illuminating image pops out. Okay.

It's about that big. Okay. The pen image in your mind is about that big.

If you ever became aware of it in a deep meditation, it would feel about that big. Okay. It's a perfect little picture of a pen.

Okay. Then your mind, your mind is looking at that image and it's overlaid on this thing. You see what I mean?

Like, what do you call that? Transparency, the overhead transparency. The pen thing is laid upon this object.

In the millisecond that I pull it out, in that much time, a karmic seed has opened in your mind. There is no, your eye cannot see a pen. The eye can only, the rods and cones of the, what do you call that?

Retina, can only detect colors and shapes. They're not capable of making a judgment call about what that object is. Okay.

That's done by the mind, by the intellect. The eye can only detect black cylindrical. It's a black cylindrical.

Who made it a pen is coming from your mind. Okay. Why did you choose a pen and not a chew toy?

Right or both? Okay. I like to chew on the...

Is that you had the karmic seed to see a pen. Okay. You had the seed in your mind.

Who put the seed there? Only you. No one else can put a seed in your mind.

Okay. Only you can put a seed in your mind. And you can only put it in your mind by interacting with another person.

Okay. Karmic seeds, the planting of a karmic seed depends on somebody else. Okay.

If you want to plant a seed for a pen, you're going to have to plant it with somebody else. If you want to plant a seed for a partner, you're going to have to plant it with somebody else. You can't plant a karmic seed without another person.

Not... Can't do it. Okay.

Only you can plant what's in your mind, but you can only plant it by helping another person. Okay. If you want a partner, you have to help a lonely person somewhere.

Okay. If you want pens, you have to share pens. If you want money, you have to help other people make money.

Okay. That's just where these things come from. And that's cool, right?

Then you can design your life. Okay. That's kind of...

Once you understand the system, you can design how your life goes. All right. So, I see a pen, but a dog sees it as something to chew on.

Right. And it's coming from my mind. A karmic seed has opened and cracked open, and the image is coming out of my mind.

This and this are the same. Okay. This cylinder, flesh-colored cylinder, and this black cylinder are the same.

Okay. They are both... My perception of this is coming from me.

Okay. There are seeds opening in my mind 65 per second, are opening in my mind and making me see a human arm of flesh and blood. Okay.

That's just the way it is. Question for you. If I take this thing and I leave it here, and all the people go out of the room, and all the dogs go out of the room, then at that moment, is at that time while everybody's gone, and it's sitting on this chair alone, is it a pen or is it a chew toy?

You can say neither. I like people. All over the world I ask this question, and everybody goes like that.

That's shunyata. Okay. That's emptiness.

All right. And nothing else. Okay.

It doesn't mean black, black. Close your eyes. Everything's black.

Press hard. You see green dots. You know.

You're close to seeing emptiness. You know. And it doesn't mean stare at the wall and see thoughts float through your mind.

It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean everything's an illusion. It doesn't matter whether you kick me or kiss me.

Those are all dumb. They don't help you. Okay.

What emptiness means is, by itself, when there's nobody around having karmic seeds pop open in their mind, this pen is like a white blank screen. I realized a few weeks ago that blank probably comes from blank. Right?

And it's a white screen. It's a blank white screen. And whatever seeds are opening in your mind, you will see that.

You will see it as a pen. If the human walks in, it becomes a pen. If the dog walks in, it becomes a chew toy.

By itself. Which one? Then you got to go like that.

Everybody go like that. It's good yoga exercise. If you're from India, you can fudge it.

But I'm also like that. You see, my body is also like that. Right?

I have certain seeds in my mind. They are breaking open as I speak, 65 per second. And they're making me see this as an arm of flesh and blood.

Which is sort of like better than being on fire, but worse than being made of light. I'm sort of somewhere in the middle of the range of possible existences. Okay?

I'm not in a hell realm. And I'm not a Buddha. I see an arm of flesh and blood.

From the point of view of the hell realm, it's good luck. From the point of view of the arm of light, I still have some ways to go. Right?

But my seeds are making me see an arm of flesh and blood. Right? But that cylinder is blank and is a white blank screen.

It also has its own emptiness. Okay? I could be seeing...

What is that I could be having a V8? I could be seeing something else if I had planted better seeds in my mind. Okay?

I could be seeing an arm of light like the shining empress of angels. Okay? I could be seeing an arm of light by itself.

This cylinder is only a blank white screen. I'm available to become made of light. Okay?

I'm available for that. I'm open for that. I'm a blank white screen.

Okay? That part of me is a Buddha already. Got it?

That part of me will be the same when I become enlightened. And that's the only part of me that will be the same when I become enlightened. Got it?

You're already enlightened. The most important prime enlightened being you already have. It's the fact that you are a blank white screen.

You are available for yourself to see as a Buddha. Now. Already.

And you always have been. Okay? You're also available to see yourself as a dog.

Okay? You gotta be careful. Okay?

You are a blank white screen. You have an emptiness. That's your essence body.

That's your sugata karma. That's your Buddha nature. It's very beautiful.

You already have the raw material to be a Buddha. You're already enlightened. Part of you is already enlightened.

Okay? Because you are coming from your mind. You are available to be something else.

If you just plant different seeds, there's room for them to do their thing. And that's your essence body. And you already have it.

Okay? It's very beautiful. And that's your Buddha nature.

Okay? It's nothing else. There's not like a little seed in you that's a Buddha or something.

Like you have to do an operation, a heart operation, somewhere inside under the pericardium there's a Buddha or something. That's all dumb. Okay?

You're empty. You are a blank white screen. And so you're already enlightened from that point of view.

That part of you is already enlightened. Okay? That's your essence body.

Now, traditionally, they divide that body into two parts. Lobo nam dak gi ngo nyi ku. And I forget the other one.

It's here. Oh, rang shin nam dak gi ngo nyi ku. Means there's an emptiness hanging off of every object in this room.

Okay? You've got to get used to that. How many emptinesses in this room?

As many as there are objects or parts of objects. It gets a little weird. Like one hair on my head has thousands of emptinesses.

The tip has its own emptiness. The next part has its own emptiness. Okay?

What's that mean? Every object in this room is like a blank white movie screen and could turn into anything else if I had the seat. Okay?

That's the emptiness of every object in this room. Okay? Every person in this room could be divine if I had the right seat.

I would see you as divine. Okay? So everything has its own emptiness.

Emptiness is hanging off of everything in the world. Alright? Now, those emptinesses are divided into two.

Okay? The kind that are hanging off of things already all the time. Okay?

Like, every object has its own emptiness, right? Pure emptiness. But the thing it's hanging off of could be pure or not.

Okay? Okay? The Buddha's emptinesses.

The emptiness of a Buddha's hair is hanging off of something which is pure. Okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

By the way, you can hang emptiness on emptiness, but that gets a little touchy. It's true. But that's...

Don't go there. Your head will explode. So emptiness can be hanging off something which is pure or something which is not yet pure or something which was impure and is now pure.

Okay? So the essence body of a Buddha is divided into two kinds. One is the part which has always been pure, which is...

which is the emptiness that you already have. You already have the pure-by-nature Buddha body is already part of you. Okay?

But the emptiness of a Buddha, of the parts of a Buddha which used to be impure and are now pure, we don't have that one. Got it? We are impure.

We are mortal. And we are limited to the present moment. Right?

Our knowledge is limited to the present moment. We are impure. If we practice hard, we will become pure.

Okay? Our physical body will change and our mental being will change and they will become totally pure. The emptiness of those things which were impure and are now pure is half of the essence body and we don't have that one yet.

Okay? We don't have the emptiness of the things that used to be impure and are now pure. Okay?

Sometimes you can call it the absence of the impurity, which is technically not emptiness. All right? Those of you who care.

Okay? Anyway, to summarize the first of the four bodies, just because we don't have three weeks to talk about it, there's a piece of you which is already enlightened and will not change. And that's the fact that you are available to be anything if you have different seeds.

Okay? There's a part of you which is available to be anything and that you're going to carry all the way to enlightenment. That part of you will not change and that's the reason you will become enlightened.

It's inevitable. Okay? Because you have that seed in you, you have that emptiness, you must become a Buddha.

In time, every living creature, from amoebas to humans, every ant, every bird, every mouse, every whale will become an enlightened being. It's inevitable. Okay?

That's your essence body. So I like that one. Like if you die in the middle of a class, at least you heard that one.

Okay? Right? Somebody told you you're already part of Buddha, part Buddha, and proved it to you.

Okay? Right? It's the same.

Okay? You have that body already and it's very beautiful. Okay?

You're already partly divine. Okay? And that's, that's the reason you must become divine eventually.

Okay? If you practice. Eventually all beings change.

Okay? That's one of my favorite things about Buddhism. Okay?

Alright. Body number two. Page two, at the bottom.

I'm quoting different lamas. Okay? I pulled out Choney Lama, who's from the 1600s, and went to the greatest monastery in the world, which is Serra Mae, not Jay.

The half of Serra that I went to, he wrote the textbook for our monastery in the 1600s. Okay? Late 1600s.

Master Kedav Dambadarge is the other textbook writer from Serra Mae. He lived in the 1500s. Okay?

He, I selected a piece from him for the wisdom body. This is all in the car coming back from Princeton yesterday at midnight. Okay?

But it's beautiful. That's because we have the database of one million pages typed in by Tibetan refugees. This year is the 25th anniversary of that project.

Mark Trippetti is working very hard on that. G is working very hard on that. Where are you?

Mark went to go meet with another organization that's working on it. But it's only possible that you can have these things because of their work. And we should have a big party in New York like in the fall or something.

We should have a big reception, 25th anniversary. Okay? Probably they'll just give you some cheap Apple sparkly stuff and hit you up for a donation.

Okay. When you become a Buddha, you will have a wisdom body. It is the ultimate wisdom where all impure nature of your mind has transformed into a pure nature.

Then there are 21 groups of qualities. I'm not going to go over them with you because we don't have time. Now, the first paragraph on page three, I mean, listen to me before you read it, okay?

Because you'll get a headache. This is the body they split to get four. Okay?

They split the wisdom body off from the essence body. All right? Technically, the essence body is the emptiness of all the forms of wisdom that the Buddha has.

Got it? So they chose to split off the emptinesses from the wisdoms that a Buddha has and lump all those wisdoms together and call them the wisdom body. Okay?

It's jnana-dharmakaya. Okay? And, you ready?

They split the mind of a Buddha from the emptiness of that mind. You already possess that emptiness. Okay?

But you don't possess that mind, the omniscient mind. So try to imagine what that mind is like. Well, we're going to get there later.

Right now, we are confined to the present moment. You don't think it's so bad because you never saw anything else. You've lived in a closet your whole life and you like it.

You know? I can move around and I got three coats in here. It has a nice feeling.

You know, I got a knob on the door. You know? No, you've never experienced anything else.

Your mind has the capacity to not be limited to the present moment. Okay? The present moment only lasts for one-sixty-fifth of a finger snap.

You are confined. You are in prison in the present moment. You don't get to be in the future in the present moment.

And you don't get to be in all the past time that has ever been in the present moment. But when you become a Buddha, that limitation is dropped. Okay?

And it's cool. It's really cool. Then, we have another limitation.

Even if you could expand my presence in time to five minutes long, if I could be downstairs mentally getting out of the car and be here at the same time, you couldn't handle it. People would call you crazy or autistic or something. See what I mean?

If you really could perceive all the moments from the time you got out of the car until the time you got here, it would be confusing. Okay? You'd be unsure where you were.

So, one of the cool things about a Buddha's mind is that you are able to organize all past time and all future time and be completely present in each moment at the same time. That's cool. Okay?

You can witness Lincoln's assassination and you can see yourself becoming Miss America on planet 23 10 billion years from now. You've been Miss America countless times, even the guys. Okay?

And you will be again countless times. And you can enjoy them all at the same time. The moment when they open the thing and you're like, Yay!

You know? You know? A Buddha can experience all of them at the same time and not get confused.

Okay? That's... Maybe it's lucky we're limited to the present moment.

Some of us have trouble even being there, right? So anyway, that limitation drops. I don't know how to describe it to you, but try to imagine.

Okay? When you see emptiness directly and when you first have a direct experience of bodhicitta, for a short time, maybe 10 minutes, you will have an experience similar to that. And you are capable of seeing countless beings at the same time.

Okay? For 10 minutes in your meditation, after you see emptiness directly, when you come out of that, you are able to see the faces of countless beings at the same time. And that experience, once you've had it, you are changed forever.

You can never be the same. And your priorities can never be the same. Right?

You're talking countless planets and you know that you will take care of them. Part of the experience is you know that you will take care of them, those planets and each of those beings. And you see them all at the same moment.

You see the faces of every living being. Animals, birds, fish, you know, amoebas, humans, gods. You see them all in the same moment.

Okay? Your mind has this capacity. When you become enlightened, that becomes a permanent state.

You are that way all the time. Okay? It's...

Try to imagine what your priorities would be if that ever happened to you for five minutes. You know, could you worry about not getting your latte in the morning if you knew you had an appointment on a billion planets? You know, shortly.

Okay? Like, that's a huge blessing to have that experience. If you come to the Three Jewels, I'm doing a sales job, if you learn to meditate, really, you can have that.

I... You can have that experience sitting in this room where you are now. That can happen to you if you play your cards right.

Right? Come, make it a regular practice. Do your meditation regularly, quietly, modestly, no big fuss.

Just come, do your meditation. That will happen to you. And then, and then your life has some kind of special meaning, right?

So anyway, your mind has that capacity. Why, why, sometimes they say jnana-dharmakaya, right? They mix the wisdom of a Buddha with the emptiness of that mind.

What's the emptiness of the mind mean? I can imagine I can go like this and say my arm is the same as the pen. But I can also go like this and say my brain is the same as the pen.

Okay? The way you experience your own mind is coming from little pictures popping out of little seeds that were planted in your mind by you last week or last month. I was unkind to someone who was sad.

They needed some help. I ignored them. That planted seeds in my mind.

Those seeds are opening this week. I feel depressed. You're not thinking the depression.

You're listening to it. You're a witness, right? Are you the thinker of the thoughts in your mind or are you the person listening?

Because you can't be both at the same time, right? You're actually a, what do you call, victim slash witness. You don't have a choice.

You have to hear what seeds open in your mind. You know? Michael Wigg, are you here?

Yeah, he used to go up to see Ken Rinpoche, our teacher, right? And I used to go up to try to translate or take them tea or something. He used to come like once a month to see our Lama.

And I remember one day Ken Rinpoche was yelling at him and Michael was having some personal crisis about something. I don't remember what it was. Probably about where to park your car or something.

And Rinpoche was yelling at him and saying, Just be happy. Just be happy. You know?

And then Michael laughed and then I went upstairs and I said, Rinpoche, what kind of advice is that? Tell somebody just be happy. If they could be happy they wouldn't come to have an appointment with you.

You know? And because you're only listening to what seeds are probably opening your mind you don't have a choice. It depends on how you treated people last week is what you will hear your mind being.

Your mind is also empty. Your mind is also blank. And you will experience your mind in exact accordance to the seeds that you have planted with other people.

If you've been kind to people who were sad or depressed then you will hear happy thoughts. And if you haven't been you will hear depressed thoughts. Okay?

So that's also coming from you. So you have your mind that you're listening to as seeds open and then you have the emptiness of that mind, the blank white screenness of your mind. Okay?

Got it? Sometimes those two for a Buddha are lumped together. Their state of mind which is knowing all things and then the emptiness of that state of mind which is that they used to be not a Buddha and now they're a Buddha and they collected enough seeds that they get to see their mind as being a Buddha's mind.

Got it? The closet mind went to the billion planets mind. Alright?

Did it change? No. Did the seeds change?

Yes. The mind is the same. Same mind.

Okay? Same thing, right? Pen or chew toy.

Same as the mind. Human mind, closet mind or billion planet mind. It just depends on what seeds you have.

Okay? So in our tradition for the last, I don't know, 17 centuries we have split those two into two. The mind of a Buddha, the mental state of a Buddha and the emptiness of that mind.

The emptiness is part of the essence body and then the wisdom body is the mind of a Buddha. So, so far we have two of the three big parts of any creature. There's your physical body, there's your state of mind and there's the blank white screen-ness that lies behind both of them.

Okay? You have your blank white screen-ness that lets you be anything. Then you have your mental part and then you have your physical part.

We have finished this blank white screen-ness part with which body? Essence body. And then we finished the mental part with the wisdom body.

So now we can go on to the two physical parts of a Buddha. Okay? The top of page three, what he's trying, the point he's trying to make is that we like to separate the wisdom of a Buddha from the blank white screen-ness of that wisdom because the wisdom of a Buddha produces the two physical bodies of a Buddha.

Got it? It triggers the two physical bodies of a Buddha. You get enlightened first.

A millisecond later your mind sends out bodies. Okay? Technically, in the first moment of enlightenment you are deficient.

You don't have a physical Buddha body yet. The wisdom mind, the mental state, creates two bodies within a millisecond after that. Okay?

So the first millisecond is sort of dicey. It's a big subject of debate in the monastery. Oh, first millisecond of a Buddha.

Are they a Buddha? Yes. Are they a full Buddha?

Yes. Do they have all the bodies of a Buddha? No.

You know, like that. People love to argue about that. Okay?

All night long. It doesn't go anywhere. So anyway, in the first millisecond after your mind becomes enlightened, you start getting bodies, physical bodies, different kind of physical bodies.

Here we go. Body number three. Choney Lama.

When you become a Buddha you will have a paradise body. I'm on the second half of page three. Okay?

And it's called ngepa nga den. Say, ngepa nga den. Ngepa nga den.

Ngepa nga den. Okay. It's defined as the physical body of a Buddha which has five things about it which are absolutely certain.

I call it certainty just because it sounds cool. But when you become a Buddha you will have a body, a physical body that has five qualities that are always the same. So it's that physical form of a Buddha is defined as the physical form of a Buddha that has the five qualities which are always the same.

They're never different. Okay? They are fixed forever.

All Buddhas have those five. Okay? This is the body you hang out in in your paradise.

Okay? You have a Buddha paradise and you hang out in that body there. Okay?

Then you have other bodies that you send to planet Earth. Michael Wick bodies take care of the fundraising. Nancy Karen bodies sent from Buddhas that are hanging out somewhere else like a Cosmic Starbucks.

And then they are sending bodies here to pay the bills at Three Jewels so we can have this talk. So we're going to go through the five certainties, the five things that you will definitely have when you get that body, the first of the two physical bodies. Number one, it is certain to be adorned by the marks and signs of the body of an enlightened being, and these will be perfectly distinct.

Okay? There are 112 marks and signs of an enlightened being. Okay?

I pulled them out in case we had time to start them, but it's not going to happen. But maybe next time. Okay?

It's cool. All right? For example, if you look carefully at a Buddha image, they will have this little dot here.

Right? And that's a part of their physical body. Only Buddhas have it.

Those weren't, they weren't put on those paintings, but other cool things were. And this particular thing, it's weird, okay? There's a little hair here that grows on an enlightened being, and it can stretch to the end of the universe, and it represents their ability to see to the end of the universe.

Okay? The karma for that sign of an enlightened being is helping your own personal teacher get to where they need to go. Okay?

Isn't that interesting? Like Rinpoche would say, who wants to drive me to the airport? And there'd be like 100 people, like, I want, I want to take you, you know?

We would fight over taking him to the airport, because then you get this thing. You know? So each, and this allows you to see the needs of countless people.

Okay? It's a special ability to see the needs of countless people. I want that.

So, you know, you have to like go on, what's that? Cheap air tickets or something? What's the other one?

Orbit? Yeah. For those of you who spend half your life on orbit trying to find cheap flights from Bahamas to Moscow, really, that's a good cause of that.

Okay? Don't feel sad. It's going to all have a result.

You might have to shave it once in a while. Then, so there are all, all, all beings who get enlightened have special marks. You have Dharma wheels imprinted on your palms.

Okay? Like that. You have, your body is made of gold, like, like that.

There are 112 marks. 32 and 80. Then, other beings in the world have special karma.

There's a thing called karlagiri gyalpo, which means, like the karma to be elected President of the United States. Obama has this karma right now, right? So, in certain cases, those people will start to get the, the, the wheel on their hand.

They will start to get lines on their palm that suggest the wheel, right? But they are not distinct. They are not clear.

Like Buddha has them on the soles of their feet and the hand, and the palms of their hand. Clearly imprint of the Dharma wheel, right? Meaning that they will teach.

So other beings have them, but not distinct. So that's why he wrote here perfectly distinct, okay? So, if there's a spoke missing, you're not there yet.

Okay. Quality, so it's definitely you will have those 112 qualities, okay? Physical qualities.

Second, the body is certain to be surrounded by nothing less than aryas or bodhisattvas, okay? Sorry to use Sanskrit, but it was easier. Arya means, in, in Sanskrit, anyone who has seen emptiness directly, right, is an Arya, okay?

Then there are Aryas who are not bodhisattvas, and there are Aryas who are bodhisattvas, okay? It's possible to see emptiness directly and not have ultimate compassion, okay? I think certain scientists might qualify like that.

I read a book from, by a scientist who said you never touch the floor. When you walk across the floor, you're never touching the floor. You know, the electrons keep them apart, and you never really touch the floor.

People like that are close to having some kind of breakthrough about emptiness, but they're not concerned about all the people in the world, right? They're just sort of into this mental space about, hey, it's cool that you never step on the floor. So, in this case, we're talking about Aryas who are bodhisattvas, okay?

They saw emptiness directly, and in the hours following that experience, when they came out of that meditation, while they were still on their meditation cushion, they had that experience of seeing countless beings and knowing that they will serve them, and that's bodhicitta. They, they, they developed the direct experience of bodhicitta, okay? So, we're talking about Aryas who are bodhisattvas, and once you get to be a Buddha, you never meet anybody else, okay?

You just have that karma, nothing less. He says nothing less, right? Yeah, nothing less than an Arya who's a bodhisattva.

You hang out with special people, okay? This gets me into another subject, okay? This doesn't all happen in five minutes, okay?

This happens slowly over thousands and thousands of lifetimes, right? This happens slowly throughout your body. If you practice Tantra, it can happen in one lifetime, which is the point, right, of doing that, but, but normally the process is very slow and gradual.

What I'm saying is, slowly, as your practice gets better, as your meditation gets better, as your study through the ACI courses taught by Hector and John progresses, you will meet one special person, you know, and they will kind of hang out with you, and then another will come, right? Like two of the people you know are special, and then you meet another person. I was with, where's Sharon, Cheryl Prattstein, I forget, yeah?

Okay, we were joking about how she got into the Dharma, and I remember the story. We had a friend named Tom Kiley, who was, he's the irritating voice on the first few ACI tapes, if you wanted to know, but he was a cab driver at the time, and she got into the backseat, and he said, where do you want to go lady? And she's like, I have to rush uptown, I'm late, you know, and he's like, well, where are you going uptown for?

She says, I'm going to hear the Dalai Lama speak, you know, and then he turns around and says, you're going to hear the Dalai Lama speak? And he's like, yeah, you should meet my Lama, Ken Rinpoche, you know. So that's how she got started, right?

So she had enough karma to meet this first person who was special, you see what I mean? And as your spiritual journey progresses, as you meditate more and more, do more yoga, study more, you will start to attract spiritual people around you, okay? Actually, you're not attracting them, they are, right?

Your mind is changing. This season, your mind is changing, and the schmucks around you are turning into tantric angels, okay? All right?

Got it? You're making them special, and by the time the process is finished, you never get to meet anybody else than an extraordinary spiritual being, okay? It's cool, it's cool.

So I don't know, in my own life, I'm not like a great practitioner, I have lots of failings, weaknesses, but I do, I'm starting to see this karma develop, you know? I'm surrounded by extraordinarily wonderful people all the time, you know? And I have people helping me with all my projects, I have my two attendants, they are, I have other people taking care of all my things, and I'm just surrounded in this bubble of beautiful people, and that will get better and better as you practice, okay?

You will start to meet special people because you're creating them, and it will get hotter and hotter and cooler and cooler until finally you're in this Buddha paradise, and you never meet anybody who's not a bodhisattva and an Arya, okay? Got it? I like that.

Just understand that all these things are going to happen gradually, you know? One person will come, and then two people will come, and then you'll meet five people, and then you'll be friends with them, and then you'll hang out together, you'll do yoga together, and then it will get better and better, okay? That's your career path, and it's pleasant.

It's called Devala Devalam, a blissful path to bliss, okay? I think it's almost more fun not to be a Buddha yet, because you get to have all this progress going on. You get to have more and more cool people show up in your life.

Then it gets out of hand, you know? Hundreds and thousands of cool people, and you're like, where were they last year, you know? Okay?

It's a very nice thing to look forward to, okay? If you practice sincerely, modestly, quietly, humbly, then you will be surrounded by cooler and cooler people, and that in itself is the reason to meditate, you see? Okay.

I'm almost there, and I'm really appreciative of that. I appreciate all the beautiful people around me, you know? I'm very lucky that way.

Okay, number three. The body is certain to remain without pretending to pass into its final nirvana until the last living being has departed from the cycle of pain, okay? So, why they say pretend is that a Buddha doesn't have to die, right?

The Buddha who came to this planet two and a half thousand years ago, we called nyang-en le-depa. Say nyang-en, le, depa, su, denpa. Nyang-en le-depa means nirvana.

It's the Tibetan translation for nirvana. We'll talk about it tomorrow night at Pure Yoga. But, by the way, you can drop in, they rob you, but hey, it's worth it.

It's not my, I'd rather do this kind of thing, but anyway. They're doing what I asked them to do, but, you know, anyway. I wanted them to, for yoga, I wanted, anyway, I wanted people to make a living, but they're making a living, okay.

But, I like the ones who don't make a living better, okay. Anyway, both are okay. Anyway, we'll talk about this one tomorrow.

But, su-denpa means to pretend to die, or to pretend to leave this world. So, in Tibetan, for example, you don't say, uh, Lama Shi, Shi Song, you don't say the Lama died. Especially about your own teacher, you say, Lama, uh, Gompa Dzog, okay, Gompa Dzog, say it, Gompa?

Dzog. The Lama's wishes were fulfilled for the time being, okay. They don't say died, they don't say Lama died, so they say they left this planet because it was the right time or something like that, which I don't believe in.

But anyway, uh, they shouldn't leave at all, right? Okay, so that's Gompa Dzog. Uh, anyway, this body refuses to disappear, uh, until the last being is enlightened.

They promise to hang around. That's the fourth, third quality of that body. That body will stay in its paradise until the last being is enlightened.

And it will not withdraw its form from our experience. Yay! Okay, that's lucky.

Alright, number four, round page four. This body is certain to utter only teachings which belong to the system of the greater way. So this body is always talking about emptiness.

This body is always, to the people in that body's direct circle, right, the Arya Bodhisattvas, all they do is talk about Mahayana. They only talk about cool stuff. How can we save the world, you know?

Which city do we have to go to next? Which obscure city doesn't have Dharma programs yet? You know, they talk about going to Sofia or Kiev or Zhuhai.

Like that, okay? Like that's all they do. They hang out and they talk about flights to weird new cities.

How can we make this world perfect? Okay? They're just talking Mahayana talk.

They have the vision. Mahayana means they have a vision of a world where there's no hunger and there's no war and there's no poverty and they're always blabbing about how to pull that off. Okay?

That's all they really want to talk about. Sometimes they talk about Ohio State football games, but it's all in the context of enlightening the world. Quality number five.

This body is certain to reside only in the paradise known as below no other. It just means you will never leave your paradise. You will always live in your paradise.

Okay? Where is the paradise? Where is the paradise?

Where is your Buddha paradise? It won't be a different place, okay? Apollo will never find the Buddha paradise.

Okay? No, you think that, right? In your mind, you think sometimes other planet, right?

Buddha paradise, I mean, your child mind takes over. When your parents taught you about God when you were a kid, and you automatically assumed he was up in the sky somewhere, I don't know why. They say God in heaven, and then you have this picture of a guy with a big white beard, and he's up higher than the other airplanes go because you've looked out the window in the airplane, you know?

No, I mean, when you're a child, you think like that, and I think that stays with you. I don't think you ever outgrow that. You feel like, oh, Buddha must be up there somewhere.

Buddha paradise must be up there somewhere, and then the in heaven part gets confusing, right? Even in Buddhism they say in the heaven, you think it must be somewhere else, right? I don't know about you, but I don't know, when I got to be a teenager, I started to perceive the world as, what do they call those Russian dolls?

What do you call it? Matryoshka? Matryoshka.

So, it's a doll within a doll within a doll, so then you start to see the world as, maybe there's realms that I can't see, like onions layers, and Buddhas are in the fourth layer out, or something like that, but you still think you need a plane to get there, or something like that. When you get more sophisticated, when someone teaches you well, then you have to realize your Buddha paradise will be right here, probably three jewels, okay? So you better pin her in, okay?

No, I mean, it's just a pen thing, right? What you saw as normal, and what you saw as a room in New York City, you will see as a paradise, okay? That's all.

You don't go anywhere, right? I like to think that in New York, there will be a lot of Buddha paradises. I think New York is a good place for that.

I love New York. I think it will be a place like that. There will be many Buddha paradises in this city.

This is a special city. Special people are attracted to this city, and I think it will be nice. Okay, anyway, those are the five qualities.

They don't change. Now we get to the fourth body of a Buddha, okay? This gets a little weird.

Ketub Dhammadaggay defines the nirmanakaya, right, the body of emanation. This body, when you become enlightened in the second millisecond, your karma is so powerful that bodies appear on countless planets. Countless bodies appear.

I like to think of it as a Michael Roach body appears on every bus in every city on the planet. Like I'm in a bus in Gujarat State, India, and I'm on a bus in New York, and I'm on a bus in Hong Kong, helping the person next to me, all at the same time. Try to feel, get the feeling of that, okay?

You are emanating countless bodies on countless buses to sit next to countless depressed people and cheer them up, you know? If you're nimble, you're going to pull out a Snickers bar, you know? Like, you want to share the Snickers bar with me, you know?

Like, he's going to have all these Snickers emanation bodies. And like that, just make people happy, okay? Try to imagine that.

Try to imagine what it would feel like to be on, to suddenly appear, to get on a bus and sit down next to every lonely person on the planet at the same time, okay? Because that's what happens. That's the emanation body.

How do they define it technically in the scriptures? It's any body that you send out which is not the one with the five certainties. So that kind of covers it, but I think it's kind of cheating to define it that way.

But it's not bad, right? By the way, at that point you have the capacity to emanate bodies which are not living creatures. You can emanate as a tree for a person who needs a cool, quiet place to sit under.

And you can emanate as the sound of the waves for a person on the beach, okay? And you can sing to the people from nature, okay? You are nature.

You can emanate as nature, and you can sing to them from the sea, and you can sing the sound of the waves to people sitting on the beach, okay? If it would make them happy, okay? It's very beautiful, right?

So that would be wonderful, right? To do that on countless planets, okay? At the same time.

That's all. We have like ten minutes. Let's save the five wisdoms, okay?

It's like in Buddhism, you're not allowed to prostrate at the end of a class if you're going to not be with a teacher in the next few days, like that. And then there's something left undone, and then there's a reason to get back together. There's something, what do we call it, unfinished work together.

It would take about two hours to do the five wisdoms. Let's save them as a good luck that we have to meet again and do the five wisdoms together, okay? So I promise to come back and do the five wisdoms, okay?

Thursdays too. We'll see. I think I'm pretty much mushed up, but let's do this from time to time.

I like it. We'll do this from time to time, like smaller groups, and then we'll do a couple. I owe you the rest of Chöd, right?

We're getting into the secret part, so I was kind of holding out, but maybe next time I come to New York. What is that? Oh, she's trying to get me to, okay.

We'll keep going, okay? We'll keep going with this and we'll keep going with Chöd. I think after that I'd like to do the 112 marks and the karmas that create them.

It's at the eighth chapter of the Avisamala Ankhara. We had to memorize it in the monastery. It's very beautiful because the whole text of Maitreya goes at a certain rhythm, and then when you hit the 112 qualities, it goes into a chaotic rhythm.

It goes into a psychedelic rhythm. It's very striking. You recite for like half an hour, and then suddenly it's going, and it all goes off into some enlightened rhythm.

It's very beautiful, the 112 marks. So maybe we do that after the Five Wisdoms. Okay?

Maza? Any questions? We've got like seven minutes.

I don't know if anybody has any questions. No?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
There's a donation basket back there. Michael, hold it up again. Okay?

I'll put in a hundred bucks, okay? And you guys put in something on the way out, and let's keep the place open for it. I love that it's free, and I'm very grateful to the people who are working here and keeping open, Alison especially, and to the teachers who are teaching here, and I think it's really beautiful, and all over the world people love this place.

People talk about it everywhere, so you don't know how many people you touch here, so I encourage you if you live in New York to come here and help volunteer and things like that. Talk to Alison. Where's Alison?

She's working to have money to work here. You can talk to Nancy, okay, and put something in on the way back. So we'll do a dedication, okay.

Did you have a question? You've got two minutes, three minutes. Try to freeze time.

Oh yeah, this gets sticky.

[Speaker 2]
I know what you're going to say.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Did everybody hear the question? I'll repeat the question.

Do Buddhists only perceive Arya Bodhisattvas around them all the time? Then the classic question is, well, how are they going to see all the rest of us, and how are they going to take care of us if they can't see us, right? I had the honor to question Pabongka Rinpoche number three for his Geshe exam.

I was the first examiner because he's from our house. So I asked him that question, and it started a four-hour debate. You know, why would a Buddha have the karma to see someone suffer?

And if they don't have the karma to see someone suffer, how are they taking care of me? Because I'm suffering. I went to the dentist last week, you know, and somehow you have to reconcile.

It came up recently with a lama at Diamond Mountain, okay? I mean, a lot of us had to reconcile. Are we going to see this person as needing to be disciplined?

But they are a lama, right? So how are we going to do that? How can we handle that?

And the answer is that one, right? You have to be able to if the world is a blank white screen, then things you would normally think are contradictions are no longer contradictions, okay? It's not contradictory to say it's a pen and a chew toy at the same time, okay?

And it's not contradictory to say you can see your student as a divine being and discipline them because they did something naughty, okay? You have to be able to go to that place. Sooner or later you've got to be able to go to that place.

It's true everyone around you is divine already. But if you see somebody mugging somebody else, you've got to stop the one divine mugger, you see what I mean? And you have to still try to struggle to see them as divine while you're stopping them, okay?

So that exercise, that necessary exercise in emptiness becomes necessary even now. Forget later, okay? They see us simultaneously as Arya Bodhisattvas and as suffering human beings and they do what they have to do and it's all divine, okay?

Then you've got to work on that. My Lama used to say, right? Michael used to say, chew on it.

You've got to chew on it. That's a good place to stop I think, okay? Let's, Nancy, can you lead that?

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. See you later.