Учения Великого ретрита, часть 2. Сила самайи: достичь неподвижности на крыльях священной клятвы (2012, Боуи), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Then I thought we could start by meditating. So please sit up straight, try to be very quiet. Pull in your tummy just a little bit.

Relax your forehead. Relax your lips. Relax the corners of your mouth.

Let them be loose. Pay special attention to your eyelids. Let your eyelids fall.

Like when you do Uttanasana forward bend, you let your head go, then let your eyelids go. No muscles holding them. Where the crease of the eyelids are, let those muscles go.

Release any tension in your hands, your shoulders and neck. Let your thumb and your fingers or your thumbs just barely not touch each other. Let a little prana flow between the thumbs and the fingers.

Then please come to your breath. Start watching your breath. As you watch your breath, try not to tighten your face up again.

Keep your face loose. Watch your breath. Keep your tummy in just a little bit.

Then slowly begin to count your breaths. Exhale first half, inhale second half. See if you can count to ten without thinking about something else.

If you think about something else, then start over. Long, slow exhales. Then we'll start a Mahamudra type of meditation.

Please separate a small piece of your mind away from the main part of your mind. I like to think of it coming out the back of my head, the back of the skull, and a small piece of my mind is watching the main part of my mind. Then the main part of my mind will have thoughts, and thoughts will come to my mind.

Watch with the little piece of your mind. Watch the main mind as it thinks its thoughts. So really you're watching two things.

You're watching most of your mind, and you're watching the thoughts that come to the mind. Unbidden. Then don't try to control the thoughts or judge them.

Just watch. Try to become aware of the thoughts in your mind. This meditation is called je mi chu dun mi sup.

Keep watching thoughts. Register the thoughts. Then I'd like you to evaluate the thoughts, how many are about the future and how many thoughts are about the past.

So don't try to control them or direct them. Just see what comes up. How many thoughts about the future?

How many thoughts about the past? Like an election. Who's going to win, future thoughts or past thoughts?

Then there'll be some random thoughts, just quick flashes of thought, maybe in the present or without time. But count how many thoughts in the future and how many thoughts are about the past. I think distractions count as future thoughts because your mind's not content to be in the moment, and it seeks out the sound of the tent or the dust or the wind which is coming to it.

Now try to imagine building a wall of tiny bricks in front of your forehead. I like to make them glass bricks. Can't see through them, but light comes through, so there's not a feeling of darkness.

Still some light, gentle light coming through. And that wall blocks all thoughts about the future, so now we're controlling the mind, directing the mind. If a future thought comes, block it.

Try to feel a physical wall in front of your forehead. No future thoughts. Not even this evening or later in this talk.

Force the mind to the present. Build a similar wall behind the mind, behind the head. Clear bricks, so it's not dark, there's light.

Lots of light, but no thoughts about the past. See if you can settle in to this moment in this tent, on this day, in this moment, and relax here. Just try very hard to feel what it's like to relax and be content to be in the present moment with these people.

Make sure your face is still relaxed. Be very, very aware of this place, this moment. Try to stay very sharply aware of this moment.

If you do it well, then I think you will find some kind of a relief to be allowed to be in the present moment, not concerned with the future or the past. Then try to maintain this awareness during this talk and all the talks these next four days. Then slowly you can come back to your breath, and then slowly you can open your eyes.

Stretch. So try very hard to stay in this moment, during the talks today, the next four days. Then it seems just like a few weeks ago we were here in July, I think, something like that, and time is flying.

And, I don't know, it's been a year since the kids went into retreat, and they've been very brave, and the people all over the world are very happy and rejoice and celebrate that you've had such a strong year. Everyone, I think, except for one person, everyone has stayed in retreat, which is a miracle and very difficult. And I was talking to a certain director of the retreat center, whose, I guess I can't name names, but he said, when's the hardest time?

I said, I don't know. I think we got tired around the end of the last half of the third year. But I said the second year is like the cream.

You're all adjusted, and you know your toilet works now, and you don't have all this stress of the physical retreat, and you know your practices pretty well, and you feel relaxed in retreat. Then about a year from now you start worrying about after-retreat. If the retreat was three weeks long, you'd do it in the last week.

If it's three years long, you'd do it during the last year. So this is the cream coming up now, the second year. They call it drupje in Tibetan.

It means the fruits of your labor will become apparent, I think, especially in the second year. And people are really happy. There's a big, I don't know, groundswell of happiness about you, all over the world.

So you should know that without any details, but people are very inspired by your example all over the world, and they're very happy to hear about how well you're doing, and how brave you are, and how hard you're working, and how much you're eating. So everybody's proud of you, and keep going, okay? A lot of people are depending on you, okay?

People you've met and people you haven't met. So you have to work hard, because you affect many people by being in retreat, and I think after you come out you will be extraordinary teachers. So work hard.

This year is your big year for realizations and stuff, okay? So work hard. Then, can you hear okay?

It's all right? Can you hear okay, everybody? Yeah, okay.

So anyway, Lama Kristin and me, we were thinking about what to talk about this time, and we were thinking samaya, the idea of commitment, or vows, or pledges, and so I thought that's cool. There was a very... So then we have three speakers this week, and one is talking about vinaya vows, or the basic, mostly monks' vows, nuns' vows, lifetime layman's vows.

So one speaker is talking about that. One speaker is concentrating on bodhisattva vows, and then one will be concentrating on the secret vows, tantric vows. So in that way we cover the three flavors of commitment or pledges in the Buddhist tradition, especially the Tibetan tradition.

There was a famous week like this in Tibet. It happened around exactly 1400, and it was in a place called Namtsipteng, and Je Tsongkapa taught about vows. They did a big party.

They had a big teaching party, and Je Tsongkapa taught vows, and his teacher, one of his teachers, Je Tsongkapa, they teamed up and they taught about vows. And then another lama named Lodzawa Kyabjokpa Sangbo also taught about vows. So it was like three people teaching about vows in Tibet, in a very beautiful place, and I thought this is sort of a rerun of that event at Diamond Mountain.

So I did the bodhisattva thing. I took the most boring vows. I gave Lama Kristi the secret vows, and the other speaker, am I supposed to mention their name?

I don't know, got to do the bodhisattva vows. I got stuck with the Vinaya vows. So the idea was that we would go through and select certain ones of the vows that we felt would be helpful to you, and would sort of help your life, help you be a better person, be a happier person.

So my job was to go through the Vinaya vows, basic monks, nuns vows, lifetime layman vows, and then pick out the parts that I thought were most inspiring to me. I like vows, and I have my favorite vows. There's 253 monks' vows.

I'm not as familiar with the nuns' vows. There's 364 nuns' vows because they're more naughty. And I'm more familiar with the monks' vows because I try to check them every day.

I don't make it every day. So I started through the 253 vows to see which ones would be most inspiring for people. Also, there's a lot of ordained people here.

There's some more ordained people happening eventually. And I thought it was sort of auspicious to talk about monks' vows on Chakrasamvara Day. So, you know, I started through the 253 vows.

I got to the fourth one and ran out of... No, not really. I was looking at...

First I'll tell you, I'm just going to go through order. I wrote a lot of notes. I'm going to concentrate on the presentation of vows given by Choney Lama Darpashiru, which Lama Chukyi translated a lot of it before the retreat.

That's called the Wish-Giving Jewel, Yishin Norbu, which is also the Tibetan name for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Chintamani, the Wish-Giving Jewel, the jewel that gives you all your wishes. Then there's another commentary that I really like by a lama named Penchen Lodu Leksang. And Lodu Leksang means, like, really great and good wisdom.

And he was... We don't know his dates exactly. He was...

By his teacher's dates, we know that he probably gave this teaching around 1500, exactly. And he was from Tashi Lhumbo, which is the home monastery of His Holiness the Penchen Lama. So he became the ninth abbot of Tashi Lhumbo, and he wrote an extraordinary commentary on the monk's vows.

And I really like it. I think it's a beautiful... one of the most beautiful treatments ever.

So I thought we would mix those two texts. And a little bit from a commentary called Sotik, which was written in the 1200s by a lama named Tsonawa. These are three of the most famous sources about the monk's vows.

Traditionally, we're not supposed to describe monk's vows in detail to people who are not monks or nuns. And I'm not going to go into detail on all the vows, but I have sort of an agenda. Like, there are enough ordained people here and some new people getting ordained that I thought it was important that they know about their vows.

And I don't have an opportunity to teach the vows to groups, and I don't have time. So I thought I would sort of fudge between... I'm going to teach about the vows.

I'll leave out some details, but not much. And then I think this group here from Diamond Mountain and friends of Diamond Mountain, I think they are dedicated enough and serious enough to hear about those vows. I asked Ken Rinpoche once why lay people were discouraged from hearing about the monk's and nun's vows.

And he said, in Tibet, there were so many monks and nuns that there was a concern that the lay people would start to judge the monks and nuns if they knew the details of their vows. Then, you know, every fifth person was ordained in Tibet. So then there would be this intense judgment going on that it would hurt the lay people if they knew a monk wasn't supposed to blow their nose and have it land on the grass.

Then, you know, it would be bad for the lay people because they would be constantly judging the monks who blew their noses, you know? So I don't think that applies so much in the West. I think the people here are all dedicated people, serious people, and they would appreciate knowing about vows and commitment and that that would help you in your life because we can all, I think, honor the intent of those vows.

And Rinpoche even encouraged me, the first eight years I lived with him, he encouraged me to keep the vows even though I wasn't ordained yet. And I did. I kept them for eight years before he would ordain me.

So I think it's a good exercise, even if you're not ordained, to understand the vows and to try to keep them. If you are ordained, it's important to understand them in detail. So I have to accommodate both audiences, and that's all.

I think it's worth it. On the whole, weighing the pluses and the minuses, I think it's important that you know a lot about the vows of a monk. I'm not so concerned that you know the details of the vows, but that you know the principles behind the vows.

Why? So, you know, I travel constantly. I teach constantly thousands and thousands of people.

And inevitably I have to speak to a lot of them. They say, can I talk to you privately? And I sit down with them, or we sit down in small groups, and they will ask me questions about their life.

And there's basically three or four questions. There's always three or four things that people want in their life, right? And I think if you're going to be a teacher, if you're going to teach people, the purpose of Buddhism is to make people happy and that they should achieve their dreams, right?

And I think in the last few years I've really been concentrating on listening to people's dreams. And they basically come in three or four, I would say four forms. And I think even if you're a retreatant, you will be teaching a lot, I think it's important maybe in advance to think about what are people's hopes and dreams, you know?

Why do people come to Diamond Mountain? Or why do people come to a teaching? What are they seeking?

What's important to them? Because that's your job as a teacher, is to help people achieve their dreams, right? So then over many years' time I've come to notice the dreams are only like three or four.

They can all be grouped into three or four dreams that people have. I think in the world, all over the world, every country that I've been to. First dream is pretty commonly financial independence.

I don't say get rich, okay? I'm not saying get rich. But people would like to not be in debt and people would like to know that their needs are going to be met.

Even if you're a retreatant, I think in the back of your mind you're aware that there are expenses and you're hoping that you have the karma that those expenses will be met smoothly. And you get your propane and you get your food because you need that to practice. So all over the world, in and out of this valley, people are hoping that they can achieve...

I like to call it oxygen money. You just don't... it's enough money.

You don't have three Mercedes-Benzes, but you have enough money that you can practice smoothly. Your rent's paid. You're not worrying about debt all the time.

You're not grubbing off of other people. You are financially independent like that. And I think that's a common dream all over the world.

Everyone in the world would like to have their needs taken care of and not have to worry about it. So I like to call it oxygen money because people don't worry about oxygen and nobody worries about the percent of oxygen in a room. You just breathe.

And I think all of us would like to be in a state where even a retreatant, where they are certain that the funds are coming in smoothly and there's enough, and you don't have to think about it. And then you can really concentrate on your spiritual life. So I think that's a basic need for family people or spiritual people.

It's all over the world. That's a basic thing that people ask about. They ask me about.

Second thing is relationships. People would like to have a partner, right? Almost universally throughout the world, people would like to have a nice relationship.

And they would like to know how to find a partner. They would like to know how to keep one. They would like to know how to stay happy with them.

This is a basic... It seems to be a basic human hope or dream among almost all humans. They would like to have a relationship and they would like it to be smooth and ongoing.

So that's like a second. Spiritual people, especially in this tradition, they would like to have a higher relationship. They would like to have a spiritual partner.

Lord Buddha said many times that if you learn to practice with a spiritual partner, it's the fastest way to achieve enlightenment. So I think in our tradition, many people would like to have a relationship and a high relationship, a sacred relationship. And this is a basic human desire.

Thirdly, I think people would like good health. It doesn't help to have money, security, and it doesn't help to have a relationship if you are sick all the time and you have a serious health problem. If you continue to have health problems, then it's just a basic human desire around the world that I should have good health, I should feel young, strong, I should have...

Energy is important to most people in the world. As they age, they start to lose their energy or they have health problems. So it's a very basic human wish to have good health.

Even if you're in retreat, you can't meditate if your back is hurting or your knees are hurting, or if you're tired, you're too tired to do your practices. So these are three basic human needs. Even in a retreat, you'd like to have your needs taken care of physically.

You'd like to have either what they call an actual partner or a... what do you call it? I don't like to say imagine because imagine sounds dumb to me.

I would say one who comes to you unexpectedly and doesn't eat anything, or something like that, like low maintenance. No, like a divine partner who comes to you in your envisions and things like that. Those are the traditional kinds of partner.

We would like to have that, and we would like to be healthy and strong, and we'd like to have energy to do our practices. These are basic three desires of everyone in the world. Then when they get them, when they get them pretty well, if you can help them to achieve those three things, they have financial independence, controllable financial independence, meaning they design it through their spiritual practice and they sustain it.

So for the rest of their life, if they know, they will always have enough, without question, because they understand where it's coming from. So they control the process of financial independence. It's not, what do you call, by accident.

It's by design, and that makes it sustainable. It goes on indefinitely. They never have a financial worry, and they know they won't have a financial worry, period.

And they have a relationship which is sustained because they created their partner, and they know how to keep the partner, and how to keep them sweet. And then they have health, and their body feels young and strong, by design, on purpose, they can control the karma for that. That's the approach of a spiritual person.

We understand the real causes of health and having enough means to do our practice. Like a real person who understands emptiness understands how to make things happen in their world, and they're not doing anything by chance or at random. Everything is controlled and designed.

My income is by design, my partner is by design, and my health is by design. And I keep it that way. That's very beautiful.

And if you can learn to do it, then you have something to give to other people, because that's what they want. People in the world, all the people in the world, every country, if someone could come to them and show them how to sustain good health indefinitely, or financial independence, or a relationship indefinitely, then that would be a great gift to offer people in the world, because that's what they hope for, that's what they want. Then the last, I think there's a fourth human need.

People like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, I think Buffett is worth $30 billion, Gates is around $40 billion. Warren Buffett, I can tell you some news, okay? It's not going to distract you.

Warren Buffett just willed all his money to $30 billion. He didn't die, okay? He left his money already in a will to Bill Gates, the second wealthiest man.

Why? Because Bill Gates knows how to give it away. Bill Gates has a foundation.

He just gives money away. He goes to Africa with his wife. They meet sick children.

They buy 200,000 doses of malaria medicine and they hand it out. And I think it's a human... So Warren Buffett decided there was no better person to give his money than to Bill Gates.

Even his kids aren't getting any, and I saw a video with them, and they're quite upset. But I think once you reach a certain degree of financial independence and health and you have your relationship down, then the mind turns to helping the world automatically. All human beings, when they have enough, their desires turn to helping other people achieve enough.

Everybody, even the creepiest person, if they get enough, they start to want to share it and they start to want to help other people. It seems to be a fourth basic human need to help others and to make the world a perfect place. And it's a beautiful thing to see when people get extraordinarily wealthy that what they turn to is serving the world and that that's the natural way that a human soul goes when they have enough, right?

So, really, I think a lot of our work around the world boils down to helping people achieve these four things, right? People want... everybody wants those three things, and they don't know they want the fourth, but once they get the first three, they find out, right?

Everybody would like these four. I think you can boil down the desires of everyone I've met in the world, around the world, boils down to these four basic human needs. So, as a Buddhist, you're like, what's the karma?

What's the karmic seed to have those four met, you see? How could you help? Your job, in retreat or out of retreat, your mission is to make people's dreams come true.

That's your, you know, that's your job description, right? You're supposed to make people's dreams come true. Those are the four things that people are dreaming for.

That's what they want, right? Then you have to become a karmic seed expert, right? You have to explain the pen thing, right?

Which you all know, and I'm not going to do it again, okay? Like I say, what's this? You say it's a pen.

Then I say, if a dog comes in here, what would they do with it? You say they would chew it. Then I say, wouldn't they see it as a pen?

No, they would see it as a chew toy. And then you say, if I left this object on the throne and all the dogs left and all the humans left, at that time, which one is it? A pen or a chew toy?

And then you say, all over the world, in every language, people say, nothing. And that's emptiness, right? And then I say, well, why am I seeing a pen and the dogs seeing a chew toy?

I must have a seed in my mind to see it as a pen. Who put the seed there? You must have.

How? I handed a pen to somebody else. I watched myself hand the pen to somebody else.

That planted a seed in my mind to see more pens in the future. The dog doesn't have that seed, because they didn't plant that seed. So if you want to get those four things in your life, you're going to have to supply them to other people, right?

That's the basic Buddhist shtick, right? If you want those four things in your life, if you want those four dreams to come true, you're going to have to plant those four kinds of seeds. And people all over the world are dying to know how.

Everybody. I mean, that's the rest of your life, is helping them to do it. How do you plant those four seeds, right?

For a partner, you would have to maintain a high degree of integrity in your relationships, right? To have the wealth, sorry, let's, yeah, to have wealth, then you would have to share a lot, and you would have to respect other people's things, right? And to have, what was the other thing?

Health. Then you would have to help other people be healthy and respect other people's health. Help them that way.

And then if you wanted to be able to teach people how to serve the world, you would have to have a high degree of spiritual realization, especially integrity in your spiritual life, okay? That would be the four seeds for the four goals that everyone in the world wants, and those are the first four monks' vows, okay? It's very beautiful.

Then all the other vows, all the other 249 vows, you can include them in the first four. If you understand the first four vows, all the other 249 vows, they fit in somewhere in the first four vows, okay? So, I think it's really cool that Lord Buddha made the first four vows the seeds for the dreams that everybody in the world has.

The first four monks' vows are the karmic seeds to achieve all the dreams that most people have, including saving the world, okay? That would be number four, okay? So, what I thought would be cool is if in these four days we did one vow a day, you know?

We'll try. I mean, might have to squish a little bit into the first vow into tomorrow, because we're moving on here. I'm just going to go straight, okay?

I'm not giving you a pee-pee break or anything, okay? Because we don't get much time together, especially these guys. They're hard to find.

So, I thought we'd just truck through the first four vows and relate it to people achieving their dreams, because your job, whether you're in retreat or you're out of retreat or you're going to be in retreat and then out of retreat, your job in your life is to help people achieve their dreams, right? That kind of implies that you have to do it yourself. I mean, it's kind of weird to advertise yourself as a dream fulfiller if you can't do it yourself, okay?

So, it's kadampa, right? Kadampa, sharwa, all these teachings, as I go, I'm going to try to apply it to myself, and then you try to apply it to yourself. There's a temptation to apply it to the person next to you.

They're probably doing okay. Me too. I have to try as I go through the four days.

I'll try to apply the teaching to my own situation and my own mental affliction configuration this week, okay? And we'll do that, okay? So, this teaching should be applied to each of us by ourselves.

It should be applied in, and then with the intent that later we can be an example to help other people, okay? So, we're going to go through the first four vows. And I'm going to keep to some kind of actual structure here, which is unusual for me.

All right. I thought I'd give you a little bit of a background on the general structure of the monks' and nuns' vows. There's a thing, and I'm going to throw in a lot of Tibetan because I think the people who are taking vows or who have vows should understand them.

There's a thing called denga, which I would ask you to repeat, but you're not allowed to. So, denga means the five classes of vows. There are five classes of ordained people's vows and the vows come in five different groups.

For a fully ordained monk, the first one is called pepam. Pepam means... I got the Sanskrit for you.

It's parajika, parajika, okay? Para means the other side, like paramita, right? And ajika means defeated or beaten, okay?

So, there are four pepams. The first four monks' vows are set aside as a separate category called pepam, which means wiped out by the other side, wiped out by the bad guys, okay? Wiped out by the enemy is the name of the first of the class of four vows, okay?

And para, by the others, ajika, destroyed, right? What does that mean? It means if a monk or nun breaks a pepam, their vows are destroyed, okay?

Then there's nothing left. They're not a monk or nun anymore. If they break one of the first four, their vows are destroyed, okay?

Then they have been defeated by the bad guys, okay? So, the big four, the first four are called pepam, beat by the other side. The second four are called lhagma and there are 13 of them.

The Sanskrit is avashesha, okay? Avashesha. Avashesha means, lhagma means there's a little bit left over, which means if you're really careful, you can restore your vows, okay?

When you break one of those 13 vows, if you confess it carefully and if you follow the ways of restoring your vows, then you can restore your vows. They will be damaged, but you're still a monk or a nun, okay? You have a little bit left.

You have a little bit, what do you call, when you fell off the cliff and you're hanging on to that little root of a tree, there's like a little handhold left and if you milk it carefully, you can restore your vows, okay? Those are 13, very serious. Sometimes they're called gendun lhagma.

Gendun lhagma means sangha lhagma. They are committed mostly with regard to other members of the sangha, okay? Towards other spiritual practitioners.

So they're very serious, okay? The second group of 13. The third group is called dunwa.

And there are two... Dunwa means to fall down, but the active verb dunwa chepa means to cause somebody to fall down. And the reason they're called dunwa chepa means if you commit them, you must take a birth in the lower realms after you die, okay?

They're called father downers. And they're very serious and they cause you to take a birth as an animal or a hungry spirit or a hell being after you die, okay? There are two classes of dunwas.

Sometimes they're even treated separately. One is called pangdung and one is called dungje ba shikpa. There are 30 pangdungs and there are 90 dungje ba shikpas, okay?

So 120 father downers in total. The first half are called... How would you say it?

Pangdung means you broke a vow with regard to an object which you should let go of, okay? For example, if a monk keeps cloth, extra cloth beyond two sets of robes, if a monk keeps extra cloth for a certain number of days, they broke their vows. Then they can restore their vows or they can not break the vow if they get rid of the cloth.

So the first half of the third category are vows that relate to something that if you got rid of it you'd probably be okay, okay? Pangdung. Usually it's extra stuff, okay?

Pangdung. Then dungje ba shikpa means... Ba shikpa means you guys know Kevala, right?

Like Kevala Kumbhaka or something like that. Fourth chapter of the Yogas. Kevala means just that or only that.

So the second kind of the third kind of vow means you just break it and it doesn't depend on keeping something or not keeping something. There's no stuff involved. Normally it's a kind of behavior, okay?

That doesn't involve an object like extra clothes or an extra bowl or something like that, okay? Dungje ba shikpa. So those are the two kinds of the third kind of vow and there's 120 of them total.

The first kind have 30 and the second kind has 90, okay? You want the Sanskrit. Lama Kristi likes Sanskrit.

Nai sargika pati. The first kind, okay? Nai sargika means you got to get rid of something.

Pati means you fell down. A pati means you fell down. Like Patanjali's name means fell down in the Anjali, right?

Ba shikpa is called patayantika, patayantika, okay? Just that. Antika means just that.

It's just that. You don't have to get rid of any stuff, okay? You can't answer me.

We covered three groups of vows, okay? 120 plus 13 plus 4, which is 137, I think, so far. Luckily, we have mathematicians on this side.

It's probably the first time we used this since then. Okay. Group number four is called sorsakpa.

The Sanskrit is pratidesha jnana. Sorsak means to be confessed one by one, to be confessed individually. But if you look up the meaning in the scriptures, there's a process called tulwa and there's a process called shakpa.

When you make a boo-boo, you've got two jobs. One is tulwa and one is shakpa. And it's very famous in the Vinaya.

tushin shakta da dewa la reypa neypa gyur kyi ma tul ma shana dey da man gyewa lak so. Okay? Tushin shakta means if I tul and shak both, dak dewa la reypa gyur kyi, I can live in peace and happiness, contentment.

tushin shakta da dewa la reypa neypa gyur kyi ma tul ma shana dey da man gyewa lak so. But if I don't tul and I don't shak, it ain't going to be that way. Dey da man gyewa lak so.

It won't be like that. So it's very famous when you're confessing as a monk or a nun, you must tul and you must shak. Tul means you admit what you did.

And that's very difficult. I made a promise to myself that with a certain bad thing that I would tell Rinpoche every time I did it. That's tulwa, like I will admit it to Ken Rinpoche.

And then the first time was really hard, and then the second time was really... The third time I went up and I said, I got the tulwa, he says, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear about it.

Just go. Then sometimes I'd wait till he was watching TV, really engrossed in TV, and then I would mention it. That's tulwa.

Tulwa means you admit that you did something. Shakpa means you purify it, right? Like the four powers.

So tulwa, shakpa, the fourth category of monk's vows, the name of them is you should do both. The name is you should do both. You should admit them and you should purify them.

You can admit without purifying and you can purify without admitting, but it's hard to purify without admitting. It's good to admit it to someone that you respect. When you break a vow, it's very powerful to admit it to someone that you respect.

People all over the world ask me, even recently, would you give bodhisattva vows or would you give tantric vows or would you give an empowerment or blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, no. And they're, why?

And I said, I don't live next to you. I don't live around you. I don't live in Argentina or I don't live in Alaska and you should have your local teacher give you your vows.

Then when you break them, you can go to someone that you know, that you respect, and you can tell them directly face-to-face and then there's an intense power to that. So I think you should take vows from someone that you are going to be around. And I think it's desirable to give vows to people only if you are in a position to be available for them to do their confessions.

There are four soshaks. There's only four. So we're up to 141, am I right?

Something like that, yeah. Then the fifth category, the last category is called nyeje. Nyeje means duskarta.

Duskarta means I did a bubu. Dus came into English as dis, as in dysfunctional or dysentery. It means bad.

Karta means did. So duskarta in Tibetan is nyeje, I did a bubu. There's 112.

So hopefully we have 253 now. 141 plus 112 is 253. That makes 253 monk's vows.

Those four categories. Then I was investigating why do they make four categories? And I think you would guess that the first group is more serious and then the second group is a little less serious and then the third group is less serious than that, okay?

Generally speaking, that's the way it is, but not exactly, okay? From a karmic point of view, a vow in a lower category can be more serious than breaking a vow in the highest category. For example, causing a schism among a group of spiritual practitioners, if it's done with a certain amount of awareness, is much more serious than killing a human, for example.

So you can take a vow from the lower groups and if you do them in the wrong way, they become more serious karmically, okay? So generally you can say that the higher groups are more serious, but it has to be amended by certain factors, okay? I'm going to say some of those factors.

[Speaker 2]
Let me see.

[Speaker 1]
Five kinds of factors that might make it more serious when you break a vow. One is called by the essence of the vow or the essence of the deed. And the five categories are listed by essence, okay?

So generally speaking, first category, a defeat, is more serious than a leftover. Second category, a vow, okay? Generally.

And a sangha lists them that way. Second category is by how you do it. So if you did it in a certain way, a lower vow would become more serious karma than a higher vow, okay?

Here we go. He gives the example that a vow broken with great disregard and disrespect to the teachings and to the Buddha, if you broke it flagrantly and with sort of high disrespect, then a very low vow, a small vow, would become more serious karmically than a high vow. Disrespect means, you know, you're almost like laughing at the vow as you break it, okay?

So if you did that, then a smaller vow would become a heavy karma, heavier karma than a higher vow, okay? Nyo mon wangway means if you did a lower vow with many mental afflictions, you could promote the vow, okay? All right?

And that's called jing. Jing means disrespect has a greater ability to raise a vow up, the karma, than just you're under the control of your desire or your anger or your jealousy, okay? Then mi shey pa dang bag mey pa means if you don't know the vow, if you don't understand the vow, if no one taught you the vow correctly, or you just kind of slip and you make a boo-boo because you're not being careful, then that would raise the vow a little bit, but not much, okay?

Then that vow, a lower vow couldn't get to be a higher vow just because you didn't know the vow well or you did it carelessly. You would just kind of slip. You made a boo-boo, okay?

Tsunpa yukte. Then there's a difference in the object, okay? Like in general, killing is a serious offense.

To kill a human is more, is considered more serious than killing a... They give the example of an animal, okay? So, a lower vow, if it regarded an animal but you killed a human instead, that would become more serious karma, okay?

You can promote a vow by who you do it towards, right? Then there are other categories. One is the strength of your mental affliction.

Are you very angry? Are you just sort of angry, okay? One is, did you do a double...

What do you call it? Double dip? Did you break two vows at once?

Then that gets pushed up higher, okay? Then there's an interesting discussion, okay? Dengi go ne chiwa means the gravity of a karma is affected by the person who commits it, the quality of the person who commits it, all right?

So it's obvious that if you killed a Buddha it would be more serious than killing a rabbit who wasn't a Buddha, okay? But the killer, if the killer is a higher being or a lower being, then that affects the gravity of the karma, okay? And then this commentator, Lodro Leksong, he says, I want to get it straight, someone who understood emptiness well and broke a monk's vow has committed less karma than a person who doesn't understand emptiness well and breaks the same vow.

Why? The idea is that they can recover quickly and they understand that they should... They understand that...

Like the reality of their partner is coming from whether they are keeping the first monk's vow or not, okay? If I don't purify this karma quickly, breaking the first vow, which is to have sexual intercourse, okay? If I break the first vow and I don't clean it quickly, I will never get a partner.

I will never have a partner, you see? So it's very important for... In this system, a person who understands where reality is coming from has a better chance of making the karma less.

And someone who doesn't know where reality is coming from, if they commit the same action, the karma is heavier, okay? The karma is heavier. Then there's a debate, you know?

Somebody starts a debate. They said... Earlier in the text you said people who didn't know what was going on collected heavier karma.

And people who... Sorry. People who did know what was going on collected heavier karma than those who didn't know what was going on.

Now you're saying the opposite, okay? So, does a person who understands what's going on collect more grave karma or one who doesn't understand, okay? If it's a person who understands reality, where reality is coming from, less, and they break the same monk's vow, their karma will be more serious, okay?

If it's a person who just never got taught the vow, never learned the vow properly, and there's another person who learned the vow very well and they decided to break it, then the one in the know is making a more serious karma. Got it? So, the one in the know, as far as understanding the conditions of the vow, if they go ahead and break it, then that's a more heavy karma.

than someone who never was taught their vows properly, okay? In the monastery they don't teach you your vows till the last few years of the Geshe course, okay? You can be a monk for 25 years before you get the vows explained to you properly, which is really, I think, is dumb.

If your house teacher is a good teacher, they will take you aside and start teaching you the vows earlier. So, a monk who breaks a vow because they don't know the conditions of the vow makes less karma than a monk who understands all the conditions of the vow and decides to break it, okay? But a person who's more in the know as far as where reality is coming from, if they break a vow, it's less karma because they are more likely to clean it, okay?

Successfully, all right? Got it? Okay, we didn't get to the vow yet.

I'm running out of time. Let me see. So, each of the vows has...

Each of the monks' vows is defined very carefully, okay? It's very beautiful. There's a definition of each vow.

So, the sinsam, where you break the vow and where you don't break the vow, is very clear, okay? You can't say, maybe I didn't know or I didn't know that was breaking a vow or something like that. Each vow, each vinaya vow is defined very carefully, okay?

And they might have from four to seven or eight elements or components of the vow, okay? And that's important in all moral activity. You should know the limits of a vow.

If you steal this, it's a level two karma. If you steal this, that's a level one, like that. You should know them, right?

So, they're defined very clearly. If a monk breaks one of the big four, right, but they leave out one of the conditions of the vow, if they're able to not commit one detail of the vow, then it drops down to the next category, which is important. Like, if you feel you're going to break a vow, then at least, for example, you should not...

It's called dakya chepa, okay? Dakya chepa means after breaking the vow, you're glad, you don't regret it. And you say, I would do it again.

If, you know, Tartu, I would do it again. You know this, she's Sampajaura Tartu, right? I would do it again if I could.

Or, I own that. In Tibetan, it's called dakya chepa. I make it mine.

Dakya chepa. I make it mine, okay? So, that's very important.

If you understand that, then you get in a situation where you go out of control, your mind goes out of control, and you're breaking a vow, at least you should regret it immediately. You see? I don't want to associate with that.

That's not me, okay? And then it drops down to the next category. So, that could make a difference between losing your vows or not losing your vows.

Destroying your vows and not destroying your vows, okay? You're out of control for 95% of the time. Then the last 5% of the time, you're like, damn.

And then the damn drops you down to the next category, you don't lose your vows, okay? Like that. So, that's very useful information.

Okay. That's called a na me. Na me, okay?

One of the required components of the breaking of the vow is incomplete, and then it gets demoted to the next category. Then there's a che na me, means two or more of the required elements are not complete, and it drops down further. You get more of a break on the karma, okay?

So, if you can avoid two of the required elements of a monk or nun's vow, then you're doing better. And obviously, this applies to all morality and all karma, right? I like to turn it around, okay?

And I'm going to talk about that, probably I'm going to waste the whole rest of the time. We have like half an hour, so hang in there. I prefer in my personal life, and when I help other people, when I counsel other people, I'm like, look at these vows as ways of achieving your dreams, and don't sit there and worry about, am I breaking this or that, okay?

Like, look at these vows, consider each element of the vow as cementing your financial security or your partner or your health, right? Like, don't look at each component of the vow and say, I hope I don't break that, or I hope I don't break that. Learn the components of each vow and appreciate how each of the components brings you one more part of your dream, right?

And I prefer, and I think it's a lot healthier for everybody, turn it around, turn the whole thing around, you see? Like, don't say, did I commit such and such, you know? Just say, did I leave out a little piece that's going to make my partner loyal also, okay?

Like, am I leaving out a piece that could make my dream more complete, you see? You want your dream to be complete. You have to learn all the components of each vow because each component has a karmic result in making your financial security more sweet or making your partner more perfect, right?

So I like to turn the whole thing around. I want to know all the components of each vow because I want my karmic result to be perfect, like that. I like it that way, okay?

And that's how we're going to go through it, okay? I don't want my karma to be demoted because I left out one of the required elements of the vow, okay? You should learn the elements of the vow and then you should keep them, like that.

With the idea that you can achieve your goals in your life, okay? I don't know anybody who would like to have huge credit card debt and student loan debt and be at its mercy and think that I'm going to be stuck there for the rest of my life, right? It disturbs your practice.

If you have a big credit card debt or you're struggling, right? I think it'd be very sweet for all of us to be financially independent and not grubbing off of other people, right? And you can do that.

You just learn the karma and you design it and then you don't have to worry about it. You just never have to worry about it anymore. And that's the way it should be.

Then your partner should be like that, you know? Should be a sweet partner and you fix all their warts karmically, okay? Then number three, like health.

You should have good health and you should know how. So we're going to go through the elements of each vow and you should know them because then you can make your dream perfect, especially number four, right? You can be a world saver.

You can become a world saver. You don't know because you're in deep retreat. But each superhero movie has been done number four, number five, number six, okay?

They haven't stopped. They make the most money. Millions upon millions of people around the world are going to these superhero movies.

That's all they care about. Wait till you see the one that I can't tell you the name of. No, and he's just a nerd.

The guy's just a nerd, you know? And every time they do the, what do you call it, the newest version of the movie, number four, number five, he gets the girl again. And then he gets the car again.

And then he saves the world again. Okay, so we have a fixation with that and I like it. I think we're supposed to have a fixation with that, okay?

So get your first three dreams and then get your fourth one. You got to know the vows though. I want to know the elements of the vows.

Monks and nuns have a better chance to get those things than other people because their vows are more complicated and they have more parts, okay? And they can make more karma out of doing the same thing that people who aren't monks and nuns do because they know all the elements of it, okay? It's very interesting.

I want more vows. I want more components. Restrict me further, you know?

No, because it's not restriction. It's like, it's another thing to keep. And every time you keep something, you get something more.

Something more karmically beautiful happens to you. It's very smart. Okay.

All right. Now, we have tsawa shi, right? Even in your tantric vows, you have tsawa shi.

Tsawa shi means the basic four, the foundational four. There are four foundational vows that every Buddhist has to keep. It doesn't matter whether you became a Buddhist yesterday or you're doing some high tantric practice.

It's a very, very high foundational practice to keep the tsawa shi. Tsawa shi means the four root vows. And you have to know them.

The order in the Buddhist Ten Commandments, right? The order of the basic four is the first four vows, right? Don't kill, don't steal, don't commit sexual misconduct, especially adultery, and don't lie, okay?

So, these are the first four of the ten Buddhist Ten Commandments, okay? And the order kind of feels natural to me. I don't know about you.

Like, I'd rather not be killed than not be lied to. Yeah. Okay?

Am I right? Yeah. So, it makes sense that killing would be first, and then stealing people's stuff is not as serious as killing them, but it still hurts them a lot.

And then messing around with someone's partner is, you know, I'd rather have you mess around with my partner than steal my Camaro. I'm not sure, but anyway. So, basically it seems pretty natural.

And then if you lie to me, then lying would be number four, like that, okay? So, that order seems pretty intuitive to me. I don't know.

There's three of body. They get a little bit less serious. And then there's one of speech, which is kind of less serious than punching somebody, right?

Now, in the monk's vow, it's a different order, okay? The tsawa shi, the root four, are presented in a different order. And I want you to struggle with it, okay?

Like, think about it. The first monk's vow is don't have intercourse, okay? Don't have sexual intercourse, okay?

That's the first monk's vow, okay? And I sat with some high lamas, okay? And I asked them, I said, why does that come first?

Murder, killing a human, is third, okay? Killing a human being is third. Having sexual intercourse once for five minutes is first, okay?

Then why, you know, why would that be first, you see? And I got a very beautiful answer, all right? A very, very beautiful answer from a very great lama.

And they said, what's the fastest way to get enlightened? And I said, in our tradition, it's to have a spiritual partner, right? To practice with a spiritual partner, which could be in a vision, or it could be in flesh, right?

The physical spiritual partner or spiritual partner who comes to you in visions, right? Either one is considered the fastest way to get enlightened, okay? Then the lama said, well, what's the karma to have a partner, a good partner?

And it's sexual purity. It's to keep your vows as far as sexual purity, okay? It's very beautiful.

So they said that's why monks, the first monk's vow is sexual purity, okay? That would be the best karma to collect to create a spiritual partner, which is the fastest way to get enlightened, okay? It's very beautiful.

So the most important vow for a monk relates to tantra. The most important vow for a monk is to keep your sexual purity, and then you will have a perfect partner. It's very beautiful.

It's very nice. And that applies to everybody, right? It applies to making goo-goo eyes at somebody else's partner, or things like that.

We want, as a Buddhist, you want to become enlightened fast. That means you need a perfect spiritual partner, and that means you have to keep your sexual purity. So then it becomes a very high practice to respect other people's relationships, right?

It's very beautiful. So that's the first of all vows for a monk, okay? I thought you'd like to know the leng shi, okay?

Oh, you can't say. I'll pretend. Say leng shi, then you go, leng shi.

So, this is the only place in the world I go... Oh, he's going like... Sorry, he's going like this.

Okay, stop that. Just do it psychically. I like leng shi.

Leng shi is a beautiful word. Leng shi means the original incident. The original incident.

In every monk's vow, all 253 monk's vows have a leng shi. And leng shi means some monk was naughty, and then Lord Buddha had to make a rule, okay? So there's always a story behind each of the vows.

There's a story about the first monk who was naughty. And then, originally there were no monk's vows, okay? But then it was necessary to make a rule, because somebody was being naughty, okay?

And then the rest of us got stuck with them. Okay, I thought I would read you the leng shi for the first monk's vow, okay? I like it.

I think it's a beautiful story. I'll read you the whole story. Lord Buddha had left the home life twelve years before, and six years after he attained his enlightenment, okay?

So six years after he left the home life, he became enlightened. Six years after that, okay? I'm sorry.

Six years after he became enlightened, he created the monk's ordination ceremony, okay? Up until that time, it was all miracles. Lord Buddha would go like, come here, and he would do his finger like that, and the guy's hair would fall off.

I think he did it to me halfway. And then the guy's hair would fall off, and then suddenly he'd be in robes. For six years, he ordained people through miracles.

But then he created, six years after enlightenment, he created the ordination ceremony, okay? So Sariputra, a disciple of Lord Buddha, who's the hero of the Heart Sutra, right? One of the heroes.

He ordained the first person, after six years. So he was the Khenpo, he was the ordainer, and then he ordained the Charka. I think Charka's a naughty person, but anyway, I won't tell you about that.

For those first six years, until the time of the first ordination, nobody acted up. Everybody was really good. And it wasn't necessary to have rules, for the first six years, after enlightenment.

Lo Chosumba Lhagpape would say, in the thirteenth year, after he left the home life, right? In the seventh year after he became enlightened. Gelong Sangjin, the monk named Sangjin, in Sanskrit, is Bhadradatta.

Tsangpa Chepa Lattene, Mitsang Chukyi, Phampe Chepa Dzepa Yinla. Because Bhadradatta did a boop, he did something naughty, Lord Buddha found it necessary to make a vow, about the first monk's vow. He found that because of Bhadradatta, because of his actions, it was necessary for Lord Buddha to create the first monk's vow.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
De Lengshin Ni, then this author, which is Panchen Lodro Laksang, he says, do you want to know the story? Sangye Jambudde Yul Pongche Sangye Jambudde Yul Pongche Na Kalantake Trong Na Shuk So So Lord Buddha was generally living the homeless life, going from place to place, but he ended up in a town called Kalantaka. De Tse Kalantake Phu Sangjin Shejawa YONGS SU LONGS SPYOD CHE ZHING YONGS SU GSUNG BA NAM STONG GI BU LA BRAL BA ZHIG SDUG PA STE Then there was this son of a merchant, and the son's name was Bhadradatta, right?

He was very wealthy. His wealth, what do you call it? It was the equal of, what's his name?

Namtse. Namtse is like, who's the lord of wealth? We used to make jokes about that lady.

Bhakula? No. I don't remember.

Anyway, rich person. A very famous demigod who's known for his wealth. Hebuka?

Buhaka? Something like that. Okay.

BU LA BRAL BA ZHIG RIG NYAM PA LAS I can't read that far. RIG NYAM PA LAS CHUNG BA LANG STE Then he was able... Lama Kushti and me had a joke.

We called this lady this name. Oh yeah, Kubera. Okay.

Anyway, he was the equal in wealth to Kubera. Then he married a girl from his own caste who was just as wealthy. LANG STE DE DANG GANGGUR CHUD DO And they had a good time.

DE NAS DE DE PA CHE BA'I KUAN GYUR GSUM LA RGYABS SU SONG NAS Then the boy got very interested in Buddhism and he took refuge in the Buddha. RGYABS SU SONG NAS LHAS PA'I ZHI NGA LANG ZHING He undertook... LHAS PA'I ZHI...

LHAS PA'I ZHI at that time meant... He undertook to keep the advices of the Buddha because there weren't any vows yet, okay? So he undertook to keep the five advices of the Buddha.

ZHI NGA LANG ZHING RIM GYI RAB TU CHUNG ZHING NYAM PAR RDZOGS SO And then over time he left the home life and he became a fully ordained monk. DE NAS DU GZHAN ZHIG GI TSE ME SANGS PA NOR LONG CHUG DI RNAM DAG BYAS PA'I RANG GI BU ZHIG DGOS PA DUS NYAM PAS SANGS CAN RANG GI KHYIM DU'ONG PA NA Then his mother got concerned that there would be no one to inherit all the money if her son was a monk, right? So one day when the son came home to mom's house on a visit, she said to him, DA NI GNAS PA'I CHOG LAS PAR GNYED DO NYAM DU SANGS NAS BU LONG CHUG DI KUN LA LONG CHUG PAR GZHAN MED PA'I BU GCIG SKYE GCIG BYAS MED PA NA You've achieved your highest goals.

You have found the thing of greatest value. But what's going to happen to our family wealth? You should create a son.

You should make a son. Okay? SANGS RGYUN GYI DE'I TSIG YAL BA POR TE MA NYAN PAS Bhadra Datta didn't listen to his mother, and he refused.

MA NA RE BYAMS DE DE'I KYI BRAL DAG BYAS PA MA RGAGS PAS Then his mother, you know how moms are? She was very persuasive and she said, look, the Buddha hasn't made any rule about monks having sexual intercourse, okay? I know that Lord Buddha hasn't made any such rule.

MA RGAGS PAS ZHES NYEN CHEN MED PA NA And then she kept insisting and insisting and insisting. So SANGS RGYUN GYI DBU'EN PA ZHIG TU RANG GI NGON GYI BU MED LA BYAS DO So finally he, what do you call it? He gave in and he went to some isolated place and had relations with his former wife.

DE NAS DGE SLONG RNAM GYI RIM GYI THOB PA BYAMS DE DE'I DE LA SOGS PA NA Then the monks heard about it and they reported him to Lord Buddha. BYAMS DE DE'I KYI SANGS RGYUN LA GYUL GYIS MI BRDZE PA DI LTA BU BYAS PA DE RNAM And the Buddha said, is it true that you have done such an unbeautiful thing? SOGS PA GSOS PA MED MA BYAS SBYOR PA NI BYAMS DE DE'I KYI Then he said, yes, Buddha, I did.

I did do that. GOS PA RNAM PA'I CHOS SIGS NAS Lord Buddha then saw that there were ten good reasons to make the first vow. Lord Buddha perceived that there were ten good reasons to make the first monk's vow.

MI TZANG CHUG GI BSLAB PA DI BYAS PA YIN TE And then he created a vow. He created the first monk's vow. You're probably wondering what the ten are.

That's a long story. I think we'll skip it. And if you're ordained, I'll tell you.

That'll be like a carrot. But he saw there was a reason to make the first vow. We don't have much time and we're getting into details of the vow that I don't think are appropriate for people who are non-ordained.

But I'll just make some general comments about it. Generally, when you describe a vow, there's yinlak. So please don't say yinlak.

Yinlak, yinlak. Yinlak means branches, right? And it means components of a vow.

There are yinlaks to the vow. As far as the first monk's vow, they are divided into... Don't say, ZHIGS BSAM PA SBYOR BA THAR THUG Sound familiar?

A lot of you have been working on those lately. And they're very, very important. Don't say, ZHIGS BSAM PA SBYOR BA THAR THUG This gets into a thing...

It started in the Vinaya. It came into Abhidharma. It gets into the difference between a karma and a path of karma.

In Tibetan, le and le kyi lam. Don't say le and le kyi lam. Karma and karma marga.

The difference between committing a karma and creating a path of karma are different, right? Why is it relevant to us? I really encourage you, as you teach people throughout the world, make it positive.

Go positive, you see? Don't get into this, oh, if you break ZHIGS, you're a bad person. If you break BSAM PA, you're twice as bad.

And if you break SBYOR, you're three times as bad. I don't think it's... It doesn't work.

People need positive reinforcement, right? My boss could never get me to work late. I never once worked late, after a certain point in the job.

And then he would cut my pay. I'd say, I don't care. He would punish me.

I'd say, I don't care. He'd cut my lunch hour. I'd say, I don't care.

Then one day he grabbed me, pulled me into the room. He said, he said, he said, he said, we got this huge order from JCPenney, like 30,000 diamonds. I'm like, yeah.

And he says, we can't make it without you. You're the man. You make this company run, you know?

You just, we gotta have you tonight here, you know? We're all dependent on you. I'm like, I'll do it, man.

I'll take care of it, you know? And, it's like positive reinforcement, right? Right?

So, what's a śīśāpa-jorwa-tārthuk? Karmic path. You know lots of people who do nice things, okay?

Like, in your life, you know generous people. And you know people who are... You know people who are good people as far as other people's relationships.

They respect them. They're very careful around other people's husbands or wives or partners. And they're very good at that.

And then... Or you know people who are very generous and they're always giving money away. Or you know people who help the sick.

Like doctors, really good doctors who help many sick people. But they are poor and they never found their partner. And they have all kinds of illnesses, okay?

Then people don't believe in karma. Then they say, that doesn't seem to be true. That you get financial security by sharing your money.

Or you get healthy by serving the sick. Like that. You get a nice partner by respecting other people's partners.

It doesn't seem that way. I've seen the opposite many times. They say that to you.

I know creeps who never share their money, they're rich. I know people who are always hitting on other people's wives and they got the cutest girl, you know? And like that.

So, it's the difference between a karma and a karmic path, okay? Karmas can be random. We make karmas constantly.

All day long we are making karmas. Karmic path is different. Karmic...

Someone who just randomly gives away money in kindness to other people without understanding a karmic path won't have the same results, okay? And that's based on the Vinaya. The Vinaya says that.

Shri Sampajor Tartu, okay? There has to be some pre-meditation. There has to be planning for the karmic act.

Then during the karma there has to be a high intention like bodhicitta, okay? During the commission of the karma there should be a high intention like bodhicitta. After the karma is committed there should be an acknowledgement or an ownership of the karma, okay?

So, I thought I'd go through that and then we'll finish up the first vow a little bit tomorrow. Why is this important? What's the point of this?

Your... Your job as a Buddhist or a Buddhist teacher is to remove suffering in the world. People want happiness.

Your job is to make people happy. The reason you're doing a three-year retreat is that you can make people happy and you can help them fulfill their dreams. So, teach them about a path of karma, right?

It comes from Vinaya. It's very profound, okay? Somebody comes to you and says...

I had this recently, okay? Somebody came to me and said, our family had two miscarriages in the last two years and we want a child, you know? Then how do we...

how do we have a child? Tell us the way to have a child, right? So, I'm like, then you need a karmic path.

You have to understand how to create a karmic path, okay? They were even worse than that. They said, we already have a girl, we want a boy.

We have a healthy, beautiful girl and we had two miscarriages, now we want a boy. Geshe Michael, what's the karma for a healthy birth of a boy, you know? So, I'm like, whew, you know?

Okay. Śrī Sāmbhājor Tattva, right? Then...

what I encourage people to do first, write down what you want, okay? Make a clear proclamation, this is what I want, okay? And don't deny people stuff.

People come to you for a child, don't tell them that's not religious, you know? You will get zero. You won't get anywhere.

You see what I mean? Don't say, you should be praying for all beings, you know? Don't want a child, you know?

It's not... it's not a good answer. You should, if what you're advertising is true, if you understand how reality works, then creating one single child and making a world of peace and happiness, it's the same thing, right?

If you can't do one, I don't see how you can do the other, right? I don't think you should tell people, oh, it's a lower wish to have a child. I think you should build up on the wish.

Let's get a child first, and then you can help all the people in the universe. How's that? And they say, okay, that sounds good.

Okay, so let them choose what they wish, right? You're supposed to be a cintamani, right? Yeshe Norbu.

The first four monks' vows are Yeshe Norbu. They are wish-giving jewel, anything you want, right? So, we want to have a child.

Good, write it in one sentence. We want a boy child to keep our girl child company. Good.

Then drop sampa. What's premeditation, right? Don't just throw a seed on the ground.

Don't just throw a pumpkin seed on the sidewalk. It won't grow, right? Or it'll grow a little bit and it'll die, right?

It needs soil. It needs premeditation, okay? So, you have to plan how you're going to plant your seed, right?

How you're going to plant your seed. So, they said, what seeds should we plant? I said, go to a children's hospital and take care of sick children, right?

And then they're like, we don't have time. And then I'm like, I respect that. You know, people have jobs.

They have lives. But the cool thing is the seed can be smaller than the result. Like a watermelon seed is relatively small compared to the watermelon.

I checked online. An acorn weighs a half a gram. And oak tree, a mature oak tree weighs 250 tons, right?

So, it's okay. You go to a... You go help sick children in the hospital once every two weeks for a couple of hours.

And that's enough. Because the seed can be infinitely smaller than the result, okay? That's okay.

But it has to be with premeditation. Then they're like, what's premeditation? You have to sit at home and think about which hospital.

And you have to think about the children that you're helping over and over again, okay? You have to think constantly about the children you're going to help. It has to be on your mind all the time.

Next week, on Friday, when I go to take care of the children, I'm going to take some toys and I'm going to buy them from this place. And the kid with the red hair is going to get this toy. And the other kid with cancer is going to get this toy.

Why? She's sampa jor tattu. Why sampa?

You are planting seeds equal to the seed of helping the children all the time you are planning to help the child. You see? It's very interesting.

Sixty-five per finger snap. While you're sitting in your car in traffic, think about the kids you're going to help next week and what you want to buy them and what you want to take them. Because every time you think about it for a second, you can make more seeds before you go to the hospital than at the hospital.

And that's what people don't understand. People don't know about that. That's the difference between a karmic path and a karma.

So, mull it over beforehand. By the way, this is all from Vinaya. I'm taking this from the first monk's vow.

It's very beautiful. Premeditate your karma. Okay?

Then... Then what? Oh, I got like...

Oh, I got to do it fast. But you were late. I can go over five minutes, right?

Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. I'll go fast.

I'll go fast. Okay. Step number three.

Go to the hospital. All right? Go and help them.

That's jorwa, right? Jorwa means you have to actually do it. Most people mistake jorwa for the whole thing.

Like, if I go to the hospital, it's enough. It's not enough. You have to premeditate.

You have to think about it before. And that makes it infinitely faster. If I just do jorwa, will the karma come?

Yes. But it won't come fast and it won't come strong. And if it doesn't come fast and strong, you won't remember what you did.

Okay? So, go to the hospital. Then there's people come up to me and they say, Geshe-la, that sounds really selfish.

You want me to go to help in a hospital just so I can have a kid. Or you want me to give money away just so I can get some money. It sounds like a business deal.

Where's the compassion here? It just sounds crude. I'm going to help your sick children if I can have a boy baby.

You know what I mean? It sounds like a deal. It sounds crude and selfish.

Then there's a style, there's an intention that you have to have at the hospital. When you go to the hospital, there has to be a certain intention. Okay?

What's the intention? If this karmic seed thing works, and if I can create a boy child by visiting sick people in a hospital, and if I succeed, if a child is born to me and my wife, our friends will know. Our friends will ask, you had two miscarriages.

What happened this time? What procedure did you have? And then you're going to say, we went to help the sick children at the hospital.

That was our procedure. We didn't do in vitro or ex vitro. We did the karmic way.

We used the karmic way. We created a child the karmic way. Right?

Then they're going to copy you. I mean, two out of ten will copy you. Two people will say, people who are really desperate probably, they'll say, well, I'm going to give it a try.

What the hell? What can we lose? Let's go try.

Let's go help sick children. Let's see if it works. Then they'll have kids.

Then people will see those two, right? And then four, and then eight, and then sixteen, and then it becomes a... the children's hospitals are crammed with people who want to have children.

Right? I'm serious. As you walk into the hospital for the first time to help a child, that must be in the back of your mind.

I will start a movement. I will start something global. I'm at ground zero.

People will watch us and imitate us. And then other people will watch them. And other people will watch them.

Eventually, everyone in the world who wants a child will have a child. And there won't be any children lying alone, sick in a hospital. That has to be in the back of your mind to make it a path of karma, right?

For it to be a path of karma. That motivation has to be in the back of your mind. And that motivation in Buddhism is called bodhicitta.

And it's nothing else than that, okay? Like sitting in your room and making prayers, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, zang gi chen na, dzog gi chen na, jang gi pari dan, zang gi chen na... That's not bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta is the vision that if I were able to perfect myself, the world would be perfected. I could perfect the world. You see?

I will be the example. I will succeed in my practice. And people will see me succeed.

And they will imitate me. And I will create a perfect world like that. That's practical.

That's for real. You can do that, okay? Wow, I did that in less than two minutes.

Step number four, dhartuk, right? Shi sampajor dhartuk. This is from the Vinaya.

Dhartuk means, dhaggir cepa means... I'll talk about it more tomorrow, but basically you have to spend a lot of time when you come back from the hospital, remembering the faces of the children you helped, and remembering the faces of the mothers whose child was helped, and remembering the faces of the staff who watched you and knew that you were just coming to help a sick child, right? And remembering the reaction of the children, you see?

And you go over it in your mind over and over in a healthy way, you know? I'm proud. I did something good today, you know?

There's two versions of number four. One is, you know, I helped a sick child today and I'm happy for that. But more importantly, I undertook a new method to achieve my dreams today.

I undertook a new method to achieve my dreams today. Rather than, you know, going to a new fertility doctor, or rather than going to a new clinic, I went to help sick children. And that was a statement that I'm trying a new system called planting karmic seeds, right?

I'm going to go at the baby thing from a different angle, you know? I'm going to create a baby from karmic seeds, you know, by helping sick children. And that's a statement in itself, to go to the hospital to help a sick children, rather than going to a new clinic and shelling out new money to a new doctor who has a different way to poke you in your private places.

I'm going to try a new way of creating a dream. And you see, then that's wisdom. That becomes Prājñāpāramitā.

You are celebrating that you are approaching life in a new way. You are planting seeds for the things you want, okay? The end of the story and the end of my time.

The boy was born in November, okay? He was born healthy, full term, big fat. I can't tell you more about him.

Maybe I can. Anyway, I'm proud to say there's another Irishman on the planet. All right, and...

Okay? And that's the power of a karmic path. And the karmic path system comes from the first monk's vow, okay?

The Śrī Sāmbhajoratārtha was introduced with relation to creating a partner, okay? That teaching came from the teaching on how to create a perfect partner by honoring the first monk's vow. It's very beautiful, okay?

And that is the best way to get enlightened. All right. So we'll stop there.

I think we do a... Let's do a silent mandala offering. Ernie can lead us.

I mean, sorry, Chandra. I mean, if there were a monk here. Okay.

Okay. And again, congratulations on a good year. A very inspiring year for many, many people around the world.

Good job. Good job.