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

[Speaker 1]
Then relax, please relax your face.

[Speaker 2]
Your forehead, relax. Lips, relax.

[Speaker 1]
Eyelids, very relaxed. Tighten your tummy just a bit. Loosen your lower back.

Fingers and thumbs almost touching, not quite. Eyes a little bit up if you like, but not with force. Shoulders down and back.

Then please come to your breath. Follow your breath. And please start to count your breath to ten.

[Speaker 2]
Don't let your face tighten up again.

[Speaker 1]
Then I'd like you to drop from your breath down to your heartbeat. Start to follow your heartbeat. Try to keep your mind up against your heartbeat, pushed up against your heartbeat.

[Speaker 2]
And please go inside of your beating heart. Look inside heart. See a room with windows, lots of windows, on a mountain.

And sunlight pouring through the windows, golden sunlight, filling the air, filling the air in the room with golden light.

[Speaker 1]
Very like soft and beautiful, but full of golden light. And the light is coming down in big shafts through the windows and covering the floor. All the objects in the room are covered with light like butter.

If your mind wanders, then bring it back to the heartbeat and then slip from the heartbeat into the inside of the heart. So let your heartbeat bring your mind back if you leave this room. Try to breathe very slow, long long exhales.

See the light in the room, very soft but full light, not bright but full in the room, golden light.

[Speaker 2]
You are sitting in the room.

[Speaker 1]
Then on the floor and ask your heart teacher, whoever your heart teacher is, ask them if they would come in the room inside your beating heart.

[Speaker 2]
Sit with you, knee to knee.

[Speaker 1]
Your eyes are closed, you can't see them, but you can feel them, can feel the warmth of their body against the front of your body. You can smell the subtle smells of a person's body, nice smells and little rustlings of their clothing as they breathe. Try to get in touch with the feeling of being in your heart lama's presence.

Then just concentrate on that feeling of the presence in a room filled with golden light that sometimes escapes from the heart, heart is beating. There's a soft but very full golden light within the heart, sometimes a little bit slips out. You are sitting inside the heart with your teacher.

Just enjoy their presence. You don't have to do anything else. Don't think of future or past.

Don't even think of coming out of the meditation. Stay in the room, very quiet, very contented to be there, not think about other things, just to be with your heart teacher. Then in your mind think that by just by sitting in silence with your heart teacher within the beating heart, the golden light, that together you are helping the whole world.

Just sitting there and being contented with them is an action which helps the whole world.

[Speaker 2]
Think about that. Then slowly come out of the room and concentrate on the beating of your heart. It didn't come up your chest to your breath and then slowly you can open your eyes, can stretch, stretch if you'd like.

[Speaker 1]
Then we didn't quite finish yesterday with the first of the ordained people's vows, monk's vows. It was to engage in sexual intercourse. I wanted to go through some of the details of it.

The more detailed you understand the vow, the more details you know about the vow, then the stronger the consequences of keeping the vow, right? If you're not aware of all of the details of the vow, then you don't get the extra karmic seeds that you could have gotten when you keep the vow. So it's nice to know all of the details of the vow.

Each of the four pambas, or pepam, each of the four primary vows that we'll be talking about during these four days, has a lot of detail to it. The more detail you know, then the more power when you keep the vow. The more power when you keep the vow, the better the seed is planted.

And in this case, the vow of a seed of sexual purity is to ... the seed creates a partner, a beautiful partner, and it was meant to, it was designed to create a partner. Those of you who don't have a partner, you have to know the details of the vow.

Those of you who do have a partner already, probably you got them by dumb luck. Probably it was your last lives, your last life, right? Lama Krishna and I had a friend named, what was his name?

Salim Lee. And he used to say that, Joe did that. That was a me Geshe-la.

And I'd say, who's Joe? I was looking for some guy named Joe. He said, no, Joe's my past life.

So if you do have a partner, then you should still know the details of the vow, because you need to keep planting seeds. Most people have no idea that their partner came from seeds. Even those who understand it, some of them don't understand that to keep a partner in good shape, you have to keep planting seeds.

You can't stop. It would be a disaster to stop. People ask me, how do I get a boyfriend?

I say, they say, should I, you know, I'm thinking to go to Sephora, should I buy Estée Lauder or should I buy Lancôme, you know? Which do you think, Geshe-la? Then I say, don't go to Sephora, go to a nursing home, right?

Take care of a lonely person. This is the seed, right? So I've had many friends in many countries try it, and many friends in many countries found a nice boy.

Then I meet them a year later, they say, oh, I found the boy. And then I say, how's the lady going in the nursing home? And they say, well, I'm not visiting her so much now because I have a boyfriend.

I don't have as much time. Then I say, that's foolish. You should take the boy and go to the nursing home, because you need to maintain a partner.

Every hour you spend with them, you are using up thousands of seeds, right? So you have to keep planting seeds, right? You have to keep replanting seeds.

You could do that more powerfully if you know all the details of a vow, of this vow, you see? And then each detail you are aware of keeping, of honoring, then the boy will have more beautiful qualities, all right? Here we go.

So I'm not going to read the whole definition, but basically it's to engage in physical contact with the sexual organ in the mouth or the anus. Probably you got them by dumb luck. Probably it was your last life, right?

Lama Krishna and I had a friend named, what was his name? Salim Lee, and he used to say that Joe did that. That wasn't me, Geshe-la.

And I'd say, who's Joe? I was looking for some guy named Joe. He said, no, Joe is my past life.

So if you do have a partner, then you should still know the details of the vow, because you need to keep planting seeds. Most people have no idea that their partner came from seeds. Even those who understand it, some of them don't understand that to keep a partner in good shape, you have to keep planting seeds.

You can't stop. It would be a disaster to stop with your mind. You must make it yours, okay?

You must make that pleasure yours, okay? Then there's a sampa, okay? Sampa means, how do you say?

Durpe sampa gyur mi chepa means, during the whole act, there must be a sustained motivation of wanting desire, of desire, of strong desire, okay? During the entire breaking of the vow, there must be a sustained motivation of wanting pleasure, of that desire, okay? And that gets into the idea of impulses, okay?

So people, monks, nuns, and everybody else, we tend to, impulses come into our mind, and then we make mistakes. Then we do negative things, all right? I guess you've noticed, if you've tried to keep a book...

By the way, if you took your initiation at Diamond Mountain and you promised Lama Kristi and myself and the other lamas that you would keep a book, you have to keep a book. You don't have a choice. You promised, okay?

Some people I know, they say, I don't feel like keeping a book anymore. I don't know. When I was a kid, they said a promise is a promise, you know?

You don't have a choice, all right? You swore to keep a book, so you have to keep a book. You can't say I outgrew that practice, all right?

I don't feel like that. If you want to stop keeping a book, you have to come to your lama and ask their permission to stop keeping a book. But otherwise, you can't just, you know, you can't swear to something and then say, I don't feel like it anymore, like that.

Okay? It's not convenient for me, no, like that. Or it was a long time ago, okay?

It doesn't matter. It was a promise at the time, okay? So anyway, there must be a sustained wish to have this, to do this act, and an impulse comes in your mind.

I don't know about you, if you're keeping a book, you've noticed that impulses come when you're tired, okay? And they come as reasonable thoughts. They even introduce themselves as reasonable thoughts.

They say, this is a reasonable thought, you know? This impulse is reasonable, Geshe Michael, you know? It's not bad.

And then it will come into your mind that it's okay to, you know, eat a whole box of Pringles or whatever, whatever it may be. The impulse, the wave of the impulse comes over you. It's preceded by a few ripples that announce themselves by saying, this looks like a bad impulse, but it's really not.

This is perfectly reasonable, you haven't eaten all day, you know, except for those three times. And there's no reason why, you know, you did a good yoga today and you deserve a box of Pringles, you know? You deserve a whole can of Pringles, you know?

And the fat thing and all that, you know, it doesn't really matter in the winter, you know, like that, you know? And now your mind will come up with an impulse. The Tibetans would call it a dungek.

Dungek means an obstructing spirit. They believe it's a living creature that passes through your thoughts and leaves you with a desire, okay? Then to break this first vow well, well enough to lose your monk's vows, the impulse must be sustained, all right, over the entire length of the act.

Prior to the act, going into it, and then coming out of it, the impulse must be sustained, all right? Which means that our job is to try to break it, okay? Our job is try to resist the impulse, even for a few seconds, because then it's not sustained, okay?

Like, I feel like it's like a flood sometimes, you know? Like, it's a huge tidal wave, tsunami coming towards you, this impulse to eat the whole can of Pringles, right? And then you stand up, you know, you can either just go with it and be swept away, but if you stand up and fight, even for a few seconds, okay, then it's not gyun mi che-pa, then it's gyun che-pa.

Gyun che-pa means the impulse was interrupted, even if only for a few seconds, okay? Two things happen then. If the impulse is broken, even, you know, you're in the middle of doing something you're not supposed to do, and if you just, like, cough or laugh or drop something on the floor, that's very helpful, okay?

Like, you drop a glass of water on the floor, break the glass, and then you're like, then you don't think of what you were doing for a few seconds, then you go back, okay? Then the tidal wave carries you again, you know? But it's very important for a practitioner to learn how to break an impulse if only for a few seconds, okay?

Two things happen. Number one, then it's not gyun mi che-pa, and you don't collect the full karma. It's not a full karmic path.

Then it's just random karma, all right? You didn't have a complete breaking of the vowel, okay, because you interrupted it. Secondly, the karma of putting up a struggle is very, very powerful, okay?

So, try to stretch it out, okay? Like, laugh, put on some music, Jimi Hendrix, break a glass on the floor, kick it to the side, then eat the whole Pringles can, okay? Like, every second you can stand up to it, every second you can resist, then you get extra karma.

Those karmas are very powerful. Those will allow you to break the cycle, okay? Eventually, you'll be standing in the middle of the floor, cleaning up the glass, listening to Hendrix, and you'll forget the can of Pringles, and you'll set it down, and you won't go back to it until the next morning, okay?

So, like that. It's very powerful to break your impulses. Gyun mi chepa, okay?

Very important element of a vow, okay? If you can interrupt the impulse, then you're okay, all right? You're going to make progress.

Then there's a line that says, du she tru ma tru, okay? Please don't say, du she tru ma tru, okay? Du she means, uh, it's a very important element of a karmic path, of a full karma, right?

A powerful karma. We have the four elements in the Vinaya, shi, sampa, jorwa, tar duk, right? The second one is your intentions, but it has three parts.

One is called kun lung, one is called du she, and one is called nyo mong. Kun lung means, what is your intention at the moment? Nyo mong is obvious, it means, how powerful is your negative thought at the moment while you're breaking the vow?

Are you also angry, or, you know, are you intensely desirous of a Pringle can, or just kind of desirous, okay? Like that. Then du she is very important.

Du she means, do you conceive of the object of your action as who they really are, okay? Do you conceive of the object of your action as who they really are? For example, they give the example in the text, okay?

We're not allowed, one of the monk's vows is that we're not allowed to ordain a fully ordained monk before they attain the age of 20 years old, okay? So we break a vow if we ordain a person who's not 20, right? Then there's two examples in the scripture.

It could be that they are 19, but you don't know. You asked them, and they said they were 20, and then you went ahead and ordained them, all right? Is the du she trilwa, is the conception of them mistaken?

It is. You ordained them thinking they were 20, but they were only 19, and you broke your vow, okay? But it's not very powerful breaking of the vows, because you didn't understand who they were, okay?

Then there's a counterexample in the scripture. A person is, what is it? A person is 20, but they tell you they're 19, and you go ahead and ordain them anyway, okay?

Believing they are underage. So you break your vows, but did you break your vows? Because they were already 20, all right?

Then the conception is still wrong, okay? The conception is still mistaken, and you do break your vow, because you thought they were 19, even if they weren't, okay? So almost every vow has an element of the conception must be correct.

The person with whom you perform the action, the conception must be correct, or the vow is not as strong. You don't make a full karmic path. Except in two of the monks' vows.

Out of 253 vows, there are two famous vows that don't require that you conceive of the person correctly, okay? And those are performing intercourse and masturbation, okay? Those two, all right?

Dākirchepa outweighs a correct conception, okay? So how could you not have a correct conception? You made a date with some lady to come to your room, and you decided to go to bed, and she sent her friend.

And you think you are breaking your vows with Lady A, but really you're breaking your vows with Lady B. In either case, you get a pampa. In either case, the conception is wrong.

Normally the karma should be less, and it shouldn't be a full karmic path. But in this special case, what's more important is whether dākirchepa, do you own the act afterwards or not, okay? So in these two examples, owning the act afterwards, what does owning the act mean, okay?

Dākirchepa in Tibetan means to make it my own, to make it your own. And that's the last requirement of this vow, okay? Once you break your vow, for it to be serious enough to lose your vows, you must own it afterwards, okay?

Then of course there's an argument about what does it mean to own it afterwards, all right? And there are a lot of beautiful debates that we could do, but we don't have time, okay? I took about six or seven debates out of the scriptures about what does it mean to make it your own, all right?

And here are some ideas about that, okay? Somebody found a scripture that said, an arhat once said, I'm not in any danger of that because I couldn't make it my own, all right? An arhat, a person who had reached nirvana said, I'm not in danger of breaking the first monk's vows because there's no way I could make it my own, okay?

Then there came a misunderstanding, which you can guess, you know? People said, well then if you understand emptiness well, you can go ahead and monkey around, okay? Because this quotation in the scripture, an arhat once said, I'm free of breaking that vow because I don't take it as my own afterwards, you know?

How could I ever take it as my own afterwards, all right? And then there's been a whole tradition of wrong thinking, that if you understood emptiness enough, you could go ahead and break vows, because somehow you don't see a... you can't make it your own because you're not making it myself's, myself's, because you understand there's no self, okay?

Got it? Then it became a wonderful reason for monkey business, which is pretty common in the Vinaya. Anyway, I mean in, you know, over the centuries.

So then there came to be a debate, you know, what did it mean? What does it mean to make it your own? To make it your own means I recognized that I did it, and basically it means I would do it again.

If this is my action and I agree that I did it, I admit that I did it, and I'm not sorry, I would do it again if I could, okay? Dakya chepa doesn't mean to misunderstand the emptiness of the action or something like that, okay? That said, would it...

then the question comes, well then why didn't an arhat say, I never could have made it my own anyway? In this system they said that arhat was talking from the point of view of nirvana with nothing left, okay? Nirvana with nothing left.

So the lower schools of Buddhism, which include Vinaya, okay? The lower schools of Buddhism which include Vinaya, say that after you reach nirvana you reach a point where your body melts away and you're no longer physical, okay? Because the body was created by mental afflictions, all right?

So they say an arhat doesn't have mental afflictions. Then they reach a point of nirvana without remainder and they no longer have a body. And an arhat like that couldn't make the touch of contact with a lady their own, got it?

Because they don't have a body, okay? I mean, that's the traditional explanation. And in fact, I think if you understand anything at all, an arhat would never want to break a vow, especially a serious vow.

Why? They have perceived emptiness directly and then they have spent many years internalizing that experience to the point where they understand that everything around them is coming from how they behave, right? But they understand it in a very direct manner that a person who hasn't seen emptiness directly cannot understand, okay?

So an arya understands deeply that everything around them is coming from their behavior, from seeds in their mind like the pen. They understand the pen thing in a direct way. So then slowly it becomes impossible for them to do actions which are harmful because it would just be suicidal.

It would be dumb. It would be wrong. And they understand that.

I have to respect other people's partnerships. I have to maintain sexual purity because I want a partner. And I want a high partner.

I want a high spiritual partner. So then I can't break any vows because if I do, then I'll get a partner who's really dumb or or really, you know, unaffectionate or who I lose after a year or something like that, okay? They understand that very intimately, and our heart would never want to break a vow, okay?

So no question of making it their own. All right. There's a principle in Vinaya called selva that I'd like to talk about, okay?

Don't say selva. This is spelled differently from the sel, for example, in utsel, which is clear light, okay? That's G-S-A-L, gao sa la sel.

And this sel is spelled differently. It's sa denpo se la sel. Same pronunciation, different spelling, homonyms, okay?

Selva in the study of morality means there are circumstances which break one of the conditions of breaking the vow. There are circumstances which short-circuit the breaking of the vow, and they would make the karma less, okay? So selva means that.

It means to clear away, all right? There are selvas with all four of the traditional elements of an action—shi, sampa, jorwa, tartu. Shi meaning who do you perform the action towards.

Sampa, what are your thoughts, your motivation, your emotions, and your conceptions as you do it? Jorwa, how do you undertake the act? And then tartu, how do you feel afterwards?

So there's a selva with relation to each of those. So I thought I'd go through it for the first monk's vow, okay? Shi's selva, he gives an example.

If the—what do you call it? If the physical apparatus of either person is not complete, okay, or somehow it has degenerated, okay, maybe like virility problem or something like that, so the male can't—the male can't—their organ doesn't work completely well, then in that case there's not complete act. The act is not complete, and the karma is less, and you don't break your vows, okay?

Sampa selva means if you engaged in—if you had a sexual act without desire, then that drops down to a bombo, okay? Then why? How?

I could think of the man who first did it, right? What's his name? Bhadradatta, okay?

He was engaging in a sexual act because his mother wanted a child, and not because he desired it. In fact, he tried to resist it, right? So he—there's a debate in the scriptures, did he commit a pamba?

There are two counts he did not, okay? One, he didn't do it out of desire. He wasn't overcome by a wave of desire.

Then secondly, he—there wasn't any such thing as pamba before him, okay? He was the reason for the first pamba, okay? By the way, if you follow the history of it, they came in order.

They came in historical order, okay? There's a historical order. The first four pepams were—the order of them also follows the history of when they were created.

The first one was created the earliest, okay? But my lama told me that's not why the order is that, okay? These were not normal people.

We can consider all of the people in these dramas to have been enlightened already, and they were just causing rules to be made for our benefit. You need a partner, spiritual partner. To get that, you need to keep your spiritual purity, and you have to respect other people's relationships, and that's the only way to get a high partner, okay?

So, that's why—and that's the fastest way to be enlightened. So, that's the reason for the first vow. Jodhavayi Sarva would be, for example—and I'm sorry to be graphic, but that's the way Vinaya is, okay?

If the man—what do you call it? If he had an omission too soon, before there was contact, then there's no actual commission of sexual activity. Of that kind, of intercourse.

So, then that would be less. That would be a bumble. Then he would, luckily, he wouldn't break his monk's vows.

He wouldn't lose his monk's vows. But I'm giving these as a—what do you call it?—a pattern so you can understand the structure of a vow. Tathagati Sarva means he wasn't able to have full orgasm, okay?

He didn't have a complete feeling of pleasure. Then he wouldn't have the last of the four requirements for a pamba, okay? He hasn't committed a pamba.

I like to turn these around, okay? I would like you to consider the opposites, right? So, if I were going to try to create a spiritual partner, a good one, a one that had all the qualities that I wanted, right?

And you should be—it's like, what do you call it?—ordering a new car, all right? You should make a list. I remember Rinpoche, we drove this broken Volkswagen for many years.

We broke down on the Verrazano Bridge in the middle of winter, at the top of the bridge, and I got out and fixed it. He made me learn how to take the engine apart, because it had 400,000 miles on it. But then he had a wealthy student, and the wealthy student said, you know, Rinpoche, this is dangerous, breaking down the Verrazano Bridge in the middle of the night, in the winter, with cars whizzing by.

I'll get you a new car. And then he gave Rinpoche a list. He said, check, do you want stereo radio or what kind of radio?

Rinpoche said, Rinpoche, that was one of the worst days of my life. Rinpoche said, no radio. Then they said, we don't make cars without radios.

He said, you do it. You figure it out. I don't want a radio in the car.

Okay. They put this panel across the whole front. And then, you know, you got the color you want, and you know, you got the tires you want, and the details like that.

So, with a boy, you should do the same, okay? With a partner, spiritual partner. You don't find them, right?

It drives me crazy. People come and they say, where can I find a spiritual partner? Should I go to a yoga class, or should I go to online, or should I, what's the other one?

Should I go to a nightclub, right? I'm like, don't go online to find a boy, because the boy you find online is going to be a nerd, and he's going to be on Facebook all the time, and he's not going to want to, he won't talk to you anyway. And don't go to a nightclub, because you know the kind of boy that hangs out in a nightclub is the kind of boy that hangs out in a nightclub.

And then, you know, so you don't look for them, right? Same with everything else. You don't look for them.

In this system, you design them, okay? In this system, you must design them, all right? And we gave the example of visiting an elderly person in a nursing home, okay?

Maybe once a week, maybe every two weeks, okay? But then you have to follow the Vinaya, right? You have to say, RGYUD MA BYAS PA.

The ROG BYAS KYI STOD PA RGYUD MI BYAS PA, the desire to help the elderly person cannot be interrupted. The good impulse, the charitable impulse to help the elderly woman must equally be RGYUD MI BYAS PA, for a karmic path to form, for a full karmic path to form. You can't visit her sometimes and not visit her sometimes.

Old ladies and birds and people in jail are all similar, okay? They like to know when you're coming, and they like you to come regularly. They don't care if you don't come so often, but they want to know the schedule and they want you to stick to it, okay?

Like birds, you guys probably know by now, you have to feed them the same time every day, or they won't come or they'll make a lot of noise. So, you feed them at the same time every day, and they like that. And you can feed them every two days, but you have to feed them at the same time.

Same with the elderly women. And in prison work, they're counting on you, right? You say, I'm coming every two weeks, then you've got to come every two weeks.

The worst thing you can do to a prisoner is to flirt with them spiritually, right? Like, I'll come every two weeks, and then you say, I can't come this time, I'll come next time. And then it breaks their heart, it breaks the whole thing.

So, the desire, the impulse to do good must also be gyun mi chepa. So, you can flip around all of those requirements in the creation of a spiritual partner, which is more my... I would encourage even the ordained people to think more in terms of the positive side, you know?

I want all the elements of the vow there, because I don't want a boyfriend who's there for me sometimes and not there for me sometimes, because that's what you're going to get if you're gyun chepa when you go to the nursing home. Okay, got it? You can flip around each element of the vow.

It's very beautiful. You can design everything about your partner, and actually everybody else you ever meet, okay? Which is sort of convenient.

All right, then there's a category called tung me. Tung me means no problem. You did not...

no downfall, okay? You didn't break the vow. Or there's no serious problem.

And they give two examples. One happened when I was in eighth grade, I was just remembering it. We were fooling around in the class, the teacher went out for a second, all the kids ran up, ran around the classroom, and then one man fell on a girl by accident.

And then the teacher came in, and he was on top of the girl. And then it was a whole scandal. And then we were all swearing that he just fell, you know?

And so that's actually listed in the Vinaya as a tung me. If you happen to fall, if you slip and fall on top of a lady, you don't break your vows, okay? That's a tung me.

You get the idea, right? Chukyawa dzinpa. Chukyawa dzinpa means if a lady is being carried away by a flood, and you grab her and embrace her, then you didn't break your vows, okay?

Assuming nothing else happened, okay? Lapja is the third category. Lapja means advice for just general conditions for keeping the vows well.

And they are chak sem kyeway shi dang gyun du mi del. If you want to live a celibate life, or you want to live this kind of sexual purity life, then be careful not to expose yourself to photographs or magazines or people who are always talking about sex, okay? You'll just frustrate yourself, okay?

So try to protect your mind. I was in a certain big Asian communist country recently, and they don't allow that stuff, really. They don't allow pornography, or they don't allow explicit advertising and things like that.

And it's very pleasant to be there. I mean, it's sort of relaxing there, and people don't have that particular psychosis, you know? And the people I met and the people I taught, I thought that their minds were sharper for that, you know?

That they were sharper. They hadn't been fed this kind of desire thinking. Rinpoche, I remember sitting watching television with him one time, and an advertisement came on, and it had three small children, I think two-year-olds, and two were boys, and one was a girl, and they were at the beach, and the girl walks by in a bikini, and the boys raise their sunglasses, you know?

And they go like this. And then Rinpoche got really upset, and he said, you know, that's planting that kind of thinking in the minds of the children who are the actors. And so, if you want to keep this particular way of life, then it's easier if you don't surround yourself with those things.

And it's difficult nowadays. It's difficult in our culture, okay? Just realize that our culture is stupid in some ways, and it would be healthier not to, okay?

Not to surround yourself with those things, because it just makes you unhappy, okay? I wanted to go into some related vows, okay? I'm only going to cover four primary vows, the four big vows.

If you break them, you lose your vows completely. So I thought that would be good. But I went through all the 253 vows and picked out the ones that I thought had the greatest lessons in them, and how they related to the four primary vows.

So, in theory, in these four days, you'll get a review of most of the vows of the Vinaya, okay? And you'll get them related to the four big vows, all right? So we're going to cover, quickly, okay?

Sorry. Most of what I feel are the important vows for monks or nuns, okay? And we'll relate them to the four, okay?

Why? They give you more stuff to keep. And the more stuff you keep, the more accessories you get on the car when it comes, okay?

Got it? You want to know these minor vows. You want these details, because when your spiritual partner comes, or you can also upgrade your spiritual partner, right?

You can improve them, okay? Nobody is fixed, right? Everything is empty.

If you plant different seeds, then the partner... I call it a 70% partner. 70% is really cool about them, and 30% needs upgrade.

How to upgrade the 30%? You need the other vows, the details, okay? These other vows.

So I'm going to go through a lot of other vows that can help you achieve your goal, which is the point of karma, which is the point of studying karma. You want to have a beautiful spiritual partner who's loyal, who is physically attractive, who is affectionate, who is considerate, who has a job, mostly. Like that, okay?

You know that. So here we go. Here are some related vows.

The first one is called rekpa. It's simply called rekpa. It's the sixth monk's vow.

It can be translated as touching a lady out of desire. So a monk is not allowed to make contact with a woman, even touch a woman's body out of desire, nor her clothing, nor her hair, or anything directly attached to her body, okay? And this is an idea of morality called concentric circles, okay?

Concentric circles means if you never touch her hair or her clothing, you will never touch her body. If you never touch her body, you will never have sexual intercourse, and you will never lose your monk spouse. Like that.

And if you live in a place, in a monastery, where there are no ladies, you won't be able to touch her hair, and you won't be able to... like that. So they're called circles of protection, and it keeps you from breaking the vow at the middle, okay?

So that's a hlakma, okay? Let me check. Yeah, hlakma means second category vow.

Pretty serious, all right? It destroys most of your vow if you break it, all right? It doesn't destroy all your vow, but it damages your vows badly.

Even if you fix them, they are crippled after that. The power of the vows is crippled, all right? Those of you who are lay people, you can apply this to someone else's partner.

You can apply this to someone else's partner, okay? Adultery, full adultery, would be having sexual relations with another person's man or wife, right? Or sworn partner, right?

And then, if you wanted to avoid that, and you wanted to be careful not to do that, you could be careful never to brush against a woman out of desire, right? Who was another person's partner, like that. That would help you keep it, right?

In a positive way, in a positive aspect, if you are careful with this vow, then your partner will not be the kind of partner who's flirting with other people, okay? And that's a pleasure, to have a partner who is, you know, who doesn't stare at some girl walking down the street or, okay? Like that.

This is the karmic cause. We're talking how to, how do you call it? The accessories for your partner, how to make them even better, okay?

All right, 52nd monk vow, which is the dung je ba shik, third category vow, which doesn't require material, which doesn't center around some material object. It's called phu mey la chu tunpa, okay? Phu mey la chu tunpa means for a monk to teach the Dharma to a woman in order to get to know her, okay?

It's not for her edification. He thinks she's cute, and he says, I saw a New Yorker magazine, this would be fourth-degree retreat so I can talk about it, cartoon, and there's two people at a cocktail party, and you know the New Yorker, those little illustrated, they both have a martini glass in their hand, and the woman is saying to the man, no, I don't want to know your secret mantra, you know? Like he's trying to make conversation, he's hitting on her, so that's a monk's vow also, all right?

To use teaching as an excuse to get to know a lady, and that would be improper. Monk's vow 112, which is also a dung je ba shik, a monk is not allowed to sleep in a house where any woman is sleeping, okay? Even if it's a room, all right?

Under the same roof, a monk is not allowed to sleep in a house where women are sleeping, okay? And these are the ideas of concentric circles. A couple more vows.

The twentieth monk's vow, which is a pang tung. Pang tung means a dung je, which does relate to some physical object, right? You break a vow related to some physical object.

It's called dang jo kyi pangwa. Don't say dang jo kyi pangwa. Dang jo kyi pangwa is a very complicated vow, but it means you approach a nun, a monk approaches a nun and says, would you wash my clothes for me, okay?

Just so he can get intimate with her, all right? Just, not because he needs his clothes washed, all right? And that's the thing, you know, what do you call it?

Those of you who are trying to keep a celibacy vow, those of you trying to keep this kind of vow, you send messages with your body and your behavior constantly, okay? And there's a way of sending a message that you're not available, okay? Like, if you work on it, you can get good at it, you know?

And just people stop hitting on you, okay? Because you don't look at people in a certain way, and you don't act in a certain way, and you don't speak in a certain way, and you just make it clear that you're not available, okay? So that's in a nice way, in a healthy way, which for a monk or a nun is, it's a good thing because then people can approach you and feel safe, right?

They know you're a good monk or you're a good nun, and you don't have ulterior motives for teaching them or guiding them. They know they can trust you, and there's a body language, and there's a way you hold your body and keep your eyes that says, I'm not available, but I love you. I'm available for a hug, a friendly hug.

I'm not available for any, you know, fooling around. And you can get good at it, and you can learn to do that, all right? And it's a kind of purity or innocence that attracts people, and they think, oh, this person I can trust, and this person's not out for anything else, okay?

If you ask nuns to wash your clothes and you've sort of got some other motive, then people can feel it, and then you're sending a message that you're available, and then there'll be all sorts of trouble, okay? Like that. Monk's Vow 69.

Nyi ma num kyi par du chur tenpa. It means in the monastery, sometimes monks are invited to a nunnery to teach. Then the monk is required to ask permission of their abbot to teach the nuns, and the abbot must give permission.

Then they're not allowed—this is ancient times, right? 500 BC. They're not allowed to stay at the nunnery after dusk, okay?

They must be home before dusk, because people will get a wrong impression, right? Even if the monk is a good monk, people will get a wrong impression, and the nuns will get a bad name, right? So, again, this is in the category, in my mind, of looking like you're available, of sending out vibes like you're available, okay?

What's it have to do with most people? If you send out the kind of vibes that say, I'm kind of interested, I'm in a relationship, I did make a promise, but hey, you know, you're pretty cute, you know? If you send out that kind of vibe, then people will pick up on it, okay?

These vows are about not sending out that kind of vibe, okay? And it's important. Why?

The reason to have a partner is that you don't want to be lonely. I mean, a big reason to have a partner is that even on the journey to enlightenment, you would like to have company, and you would like to be with someone else and take the journey together, right? The purpose to have a partner of any kind is to not be alone, okay?

If you're not careful with other people's partners, you are creating powerful karma to be alone, okay? You are doing the opposite. That's the irony of misbehavior, okay?

Respect other people's relationships because if you break up another person's relationship to get someone, they will leave you, and they will leave you with great loneliness, and you will not have, you will not be able to keep a partner after that, okay? The karma of that is that you will split up, and then you will have loneliness that you never imagined before, okay? So, it's good policy.

It makes sense. It's intelligent. If you want a partner or you're really attracted to somebody else's partner, then if you're really attracted to someone else's partner, then don't touch them and don't look like you're available because then you'll get a better one, okay?

Let them have their old partner because you can get a better one, okay? I'm telling you the truth. It's the truth.

Take their partner, and then you'll end up unhappy for the rest of your life, okay? It's strange, right? But it's true.

All right. If you keep your vows, you will find a spiritual partner which is extraordinary, okay? And that's the goal, right?

Lam du droy tung je, drur juk gi tung je, kyap yun la dukpay tung je. I put these three together. They are monks vows 73, 74, and 75.

They are all tung je ba shik, third-class vow that doesn't relate to some physical object. Lam du droy tung je means to walk too far down a road with a lady alone, okay, if you're a monk, okay? Drur juk gi tung je means to get in a boat with a lady alone and paddle too far, where there could be some monkey business before you get to the other shore.

So I guess short rides are okay. I think nowadays cars are very similar, okay? To be in a car alone with a person of the opposite sex, there's possibility of monkey business, right?

You have to think like that. Then the third one is kyap yun la dukpay tung je means a man and a lady, a monk and a lady are not supposed to stay under the same roof, even not overnight alone, okay? To stay with a lady alone in a room is breaking a monk's vow, okay?

Because something could happen, something could go on. You have to relate it to other people's partners, okay? Don't get into a situation where something could happen.

Avoid situations where something could happen. Are you an evil person? No.

Are you immoral? No. Is God going to strike you down?

No. Will you have a partner who fools around with you and then breaks up with you and you spend the rest of your life lonely? Yes, okay?

So it's just good sense, okay? Keep these vows for good sense and then you have a real, really beautiful partner, fantastic partner, okay? Like your wildest dreams, more than that, okay?

The vows are not to punish you or God's mad at you or to keep you from doing things that you want to do. They are to allow you to do the things you want to do, okay? They are to bring you the dreams that you have, okay?

By keeping them, okay? Yikes, okay. NYAL PO BYAS PA'I KHYIM NA SDUG PA, NYAL PO BYAS PA'I KHYIM NA BRDANG BA, okay?

This is the last vows that I wanted to discuss with relation to the first vow. Then we'll go on to the second monk's vow, okay? NYAL PO BYAS PA'I KHYIM NA SDUG PA means a monk is not allowed to sit in a house where other people are having sexual intercourse, okay?

A monk is not allowed to sit in a house where two people are making love. They're also not allowed to stand in a house like that. So it's two different vows, all right?

So it doesn't help if you sit down. You'll probably just break another one. I guess you could stay standing up.

My teacher, when my teacher got to this vow, and then they started, they went off on something that I think is very beautiful, okay? The point, it's similar to pornography, like on the web or things like that, which is very common nowadays. And it's a kind of, it makes people weak in a way.

My Lama said it hurts people's sexual energy. It dissipates your sexual energy, and then you don't, you can't use that energy for higher purposes, okay? And then in this vow, my Lama said that what happens in this vow, what the intent or the point of this vow is that don't make the act of union common, like don't treat it as an object itself, you see?

It's one thing to treat a person as a sexual object. It's a different thing to treat sex itself as an object, you see what I mean? Don't treat physical union with another human being lightly, and don't make it an object of entertainment or an object to be watched or an object to gossip about or something like that.

My Lama was, this is a holy thing. When two bodies go into union, then two souls, spirits, go into union, right? Then to treat it as something less than that, to treat it as an object of entertainment or titillation, right?

To treat it as a common or a dirty thing is a terrible mistake, okay? This kind of union between two people can lead to the highest spiritual goals, so treat it with honor, treat it with respect, and don't degrade it to something common that is sold on the internet or something like that, okay? Like that.

It's too holy for that, right? Okay, last little vow I threw in there, Monk's Vow 126, which is a dung je ba shik, is to drink alcohol, okay? Use drugs, drink alcohol.

The scriptures talk about it, the scriptures say alcohol made from grain or alcohol made from chemicals or drugs made from chemicals. The scriptures from two and a half thousand years ago are very, what do you call it, clear that any kind of intoxicant is covered. A monk is not to take intoxicants of any kind, okay?

And no quantity of them, right? The Buddha was asked whether it was okay to drink alcohol. The Buddha pulled a piece of grass out of the meadow he was sitting on, held it up and said, whosoever drinks the amount of alcohol you could put on the tip of this blade of grass or who offers it to another person, don't call yourself my follower.

You can say you're on some spiritual path or you can do what you want, but don't say you're a follower of me, okay? If you drink that much, okay? Then we have rituals, we did one, what, the other night?

Last night? I don't remember, maybe we had, no. But we also did a ritual where we did lama chupa and we all took a little drop of the mantra, the substance, the holy substance.

That's meant to be like wine in a church, okay? And you can't imagine walking up to the altar in a Catholic church and kneeling and having the priest offer you a sip of wine and then saying, hey buddy, could I have the whole thing, you know? Could I just drink the whole cup, you know?

I want to get a buzz or something like that, you see? Like no one would have, I don't think it has happened, maybe, I don't know. But we also have to be careful, okay?

We use wine, we transform it in our practice, but we have to be really careful. Why? Alcohol makes you mindless, okay?

Alcohol makes you careless. I ran a red light the other day, the first time in 35 years I got a ticket. I felt really bad.

I felt really bad, you know? Actually, I was late to meet lama and I figured it was okay. And there was a motorcycle cop and he said, he pulled me over and he said, you know, normally I wouldn't pull somebody over.

You were kind of close, it was kind of close, but you were in front of the police station. And people would think I was on the take. If I don't stop you, they'll think you bribed me or something like that.

So he said, you know, I have to give you a ticket, you know? So like, then I had to do driving school, okay? I could get off my record if I did driving school.

And then I did driving school, which is kind of interesting. And it is, if you take a ... no, they show you these films, and if you take a glass of alcohol and then you drive a car, you are four times slower in your reactions.

You're four times more likely to kill somebody from one glass of alcohol, right? So the same with vows, okay? Like if you're trying to keep your vows carefully, you're trying to position yourself in the world that you don't get in a situation where you might hurt somebody else's partnership, for example, in this first vow, right?

So you, like, being careful how you get in a car, being careful where you sit, being careful who you sit next to, being careful how close you get to a lady. I used to have trouble on the bus or on the subway, right? So I'd be, like, crushing 40 people to not touch a lady.

And then if you drink some alcohol, you will lose that awareness. You will lose the ability to keep your vows carefully, okay? Then does God strike you down?

No, okay? You just make little mistakes, because you're giggly and you, like, you, like, touch some girl on the subway and you're, like, hee-hee, you know? And then your partner becomes a creep, okay?

Then your partner, you lose your partner, okay? Oh, you're telling me I'll lose a partner from touching one lady's scarf on a subway? Yeah, I mean, seeds are small, right?

Small seeds make big results. Someone who wants to create a partner and not look for one, you don't want to spend the money on a good one, right? Then you have to be really, really skillful at karmic seeds, right?

You have to be a karmic seed expert. And once you take some alcohol or drugs, then your ability to be an expert is lessened by four times per glass or something, okay? Then you make mistakes, you make little mistakes.

You can't afford little mistakes if you're going to make a high spiritual partner. You have to be really, really good. And that's your motivation, okay?

It's not like someone's going to lock you up, or God's going to step on your toe, or I don't know. It's not like that, okay? Your partner will have small problems with them.

If you drink alcohol and say something inappropriate to someone else's partner, that will multiply, that seed will multiply. And then your partner will become less than trustworthy, okay? And you don't want that.

It's not worth the giggle with the guy at work, or something like that, okay? All right, we're on the second day now. We have 34 minutes to go.

I'm sorry it's getting cold, so bundle up, okay? Don't get sick until you get home. You should be well here.

The second vow is ma jin len, okay? The second monk's vow is ma jin len. Ma jin len means to take that which was not given, all right?

And there are, what do you call it? There are details for the vow, right? There are components for the vow.

Yenlak, right? First, I thought you'd like to hear the leng shi. This leng shi is kind of funny.

The next one's really funny. Oh, by the way, I have a piece of paper here with a pen. Any retreatant who needs an appointment or didn't get an appointment to see me, please write your name down now or we won't be able to meet.

I may not be able to meet with everyone, and I'll do the ones who contacted me first first, okay? But I'll give it a good shot, all right? It may be two in the morning or something, all right?

Okay? If you're not sure if you're on a list, put your name down. Okay, if you don't want an appointment, I don't care either, all right.

Just kidding. Dönpo ni, da chak gi dunpa sanggye ne lo chok sum la bappa na. Thirteen years after the Buddha became enlightened.

I went back and checked, okay? Yesterday I told you it was six years after he became enlightened, in the seventh year, right? And it was 13 years after he left the home life.

Now it's the same author and he's saying a different thing, so don't think I'm crazy, all right? There's some boo-boo there somewhere, I'm not quite sure. DGE SLONG SANGS RGYUN LA BRTEN NAS MI SANGS SPYOD'I SPANG BA'I BSLAB PA BYAS PA YIN LA That was when the Buddha had to make the vow about not having relations with a woman, right?

DE NAS DU RGA SHI GYI TSE RTZA RKYEN LAS RAB TU CHUNG BA'I DGE SLONG Then after some time there was a monk who had been a ... what do you call those guys that make pots? Potter.

There was a monk who had been a potter previously, before he became a monk. His name was Norchen, which means ... it could mean wealthy one, or it could also mean mistaken one, I'm not sure.

LA BRTEN NAS MA BYIN LEN PO'I BSLAB BYA' DU BYED PA'I So Buddha had to make a vow about not stealing because of this monk's monkey business. Monkey business, okay? What did he do?

DE LENG SHI, you want to know the story? DE LENG SHI. LUNG RNAM RJE LAS CHUNG BA NI.

It's found in the ... what's it called? LUNG RNAM RJE, anyway.

BRTEN PA RGYAL PO'I KHAB GYI'U MA'I RTZAL DKA'LAN BDAG SKYES NAS LA ZHUGS SO The Buddha, Lord Buddha, was staying in a certain garden near Rajgirha. DE TSE TZAK KHYEN DAG LUNG NOR CHEN DGON PA'I CHIL BOR NAS SO Then this monk called Norchen was living in a little hut. They used to make little huts like ...

they didn't have building codes, okay? These were just little tiny huts made out of branches. He was staying at a little hut in the monastery.

DE NAS DGE SLONG DE CHUNG DU CHU YOD DU ZHUGS PA NA He went to the town to ask for his daily food, right? ZHUGS PA NA, BA LANG TSIS DANG BCUG LA SOGS PA'I CHIL BO CHUM NAS A bunch of cowherds came along with some wild cows and they broke up his hut. CHUM NAS SHING THAMS CAD KHYER RO And they carried off all the branches, all the lumber.

DE LTA BU LEM GSUNG BYAS PA NA, DGE SLONG GI BSAM PA'I SKYE MA SDUG BSNGAL TE This happened three times. Then the monk got discouraged and said, SKYE MA means, whoa. SDUG BSNGAL means, this is a problem.

BDAG PA'I SO BA DANG LAS LA SKYE PA YIN PAS GNAS GANG DANG PHYIR RTZA LAS PHYIR TE Ah, I will make an adobe hut. Like a cone. Okay.

Since I was a potter, I could probably do that. MED TO BAN DU RDZIGS RGYI BA'I DGA' BA'I ZHIG SGRUB PA'I He built a little meditation hut that was exactly like a BAN DU RDZIGS flower, which I don't know what it looks like, but she probably knows. SGRUB PA'I BYAS SU BRTUM PA'I SKYE ZHIG SO But subsequent to that, the Lord Buddha declared it illegal and asked them to destroy it.

For some reason it wasn't appropriate. Maybe it was too pretty. DE NAS DGE SLONG NOR CAN GYI RGYAL PO MA SKYE DE ZHING GSUNG BA'I MI NA CHEN PO LA MED PA Then this monk, Norchen, went to the RGYAL PO, Ajatashatru, a very famous king.

I believe he's the king who killed his father and an arhat. I think he did a very serious thing. Anyway, the monk went to the people who were guarding the forest.

So in those days the forests were owned by the royalty. They were used for hunting and other people weren't allowed to cut trees there. But he went to the caretakers of the forest.

MED PA, RGYAL PO MA SKYE DAG DAG LA ZHING DAG BYIN PA BRTAN PA'I DAG LA ZHING The king said, I could have some wood, I could cut some trees, so let me cut some trees. DPAG PA, they addressed him as DPAG PA. So in the ancient times it was an address of honor.

All monks were called Aryas by the lay people. So they said, DPAG PA DE LTAR NA JI BDER NOM ZHIG, if that's the case, then please take whatever lumber you would like from the forest. gelong gyi shing nam drangpa gyelpo tong de, shing su may na chenpo bud te, shing dren di chi shay mey pa dang.

Then the king saw the monk walking by with a big load of lumber and called his forest guardians and said, What's going on? gelong nor chen la gyelpo nangwa de nyidro shay sope. The monk told us that you had given him permission to take the wood, they said.

gelong nor chen bu shik. You called this this monk, de de bu. They did call him.

Then gyelpo mey pa. The king said, pakpa shing ma jinpa len du rung gam. Oh Arya, is it proper to take wood without permission?

To take things without permission, ma jin len, right? Oh, phla. Phla was the old address for royalty.

Royalty were called a god. They addressed kings as god in Tibet. Oh God, mi rung go.

It would be improper. Oh na kyu kyi chi chir lang, then why are you walking off of my lumber? le jinpa da lang go.

Oh, you gave it to me. Oh, gyelpo nare. De mi nge mi dren no.

I don't recall giving it to you. Oh, gelong nare. Da kyi gongpa gyo.

I will remind you what you said. phla gyel rik gi wang chu la wang gyur ma thag tu nga ri na. Then just after you became king and you were coronated, just after your coronation, I want to say ordination, but that's a different thing.

yupe ge jong don tramsay rang shin sama. You said any spiritual practitioner who had a good heart could come and take anything they wanted out in the forest. shay mey pa dang.

gyelpo ma kye da shindu tre de. The king got angry. trel par drad sa sum drang shing.

He got the three lines bulged on his, what do you call? We don't have a word for that. These three lines started to bulge out.

tro nyer du shing gyur. mik de, then his eyeballs popped out, you know. Like I can't quite do it.

lak trel di de, and then he went like this. And he said, if you weren't a monk, I would kill you right now. Right here and now I would just crush you.

But since you're a monk, song la chun che de dra ma che chik. Leave my presence and don't do that kind of thing again, because I never said that, okay? de tar gyurpa gelong nam gyurim shin tun ne, dunpa la suwa dang.

All the monks told Lord Buddha what had happened. I think there's a tattletale bunch of monks. tunpay gelong norten la gyur gyi, dey ra chepa de, den nam tsumba medok.

Then the Lord Buddha told Norten, you know, what you did was not honest, and not tsumba. Tsumba means what? Like jetsum.

Like not honorable. Not a holy way to act, okay? tunpay ne kyi ngar shepa tar gen dun duwa sok gi nampa chus.

The Lord Buddha again saw ten reasons why it would be useful to make a vow, and he created the second vow. Okay? You will not steal, okay?

Monks will not steal. Here's the definition of stealing, okay? I think it applies to everybody, okay?

Why are we doing this, okay? You're not, most of you aren't monks, or maybe they all are, you wouldn't know. Why are we talking about this?

You want financial security, okay? You want... Do you know how nice it is to have all your credit cards paid off, your house is paid off, your car is paid off, money appears in your bag randomly, and you have trouble cleaning it out, okay?

And just anything you need, you have, okay? It just comes, okay? You don't have to think about money.

And you can practice, and you can help other people, you can devote your life to helping other people, because you don't have to worry about money. Money just comes, okay? Why?

The seeds are there, okay? Then you're like, well, I don't have those seeds. Well, here you go, okay?

No, that's what we're, that's the exercise. We are learning how to plant the seeds, that you wouldn't, you just always have enough, and you wouldn't have to think about your finances ever again, okay? Food, housing, car, gas, just taken care of.

Just plant the right seeds, and your life will be like that. You waste so much time that you could be doing cooler things, trying to collect money, right? So, listen to these vows, and then learn how to turn it around, right?

Then you can reach a place where money just comes to you, randomly, very sweetly, in an honest, beautiful way, okay? Then you can also give away a lot of money, which is another very fun thing to do, very, very fun thing to do, okay? Chen den gey long kyi.

Here's the definition, okay? I didn't do it in the case of the first vow, because it was too graphic. I thought you'd all go home.

But the second one's okay. Here's the definition. Chen den gey long kyi.

It can only be committed by a monk who has vows, active vows. What's that mean? Some monks have destroyed their vows, and they don't even know, okay?

They lost their vows already. To commit the second pamba and lose your vows, you have to have your vows, okay? So it can only be committed by a monk who possesses monk's vows, okay?

Chen den gey long kyi. Mi shen gyi sungway tse. The object in question must be something owned by another person, okay?

It must be something owned by another person. Rinpong tsangwa. It must be of reasonable value, okay?

You don't break your second monk's vow if you swipe a pen from Rob Ressinger's office. It's probably some kind of fourth-level infraction, okay? You do make a bad karma, but it's not something that he would miss, okay?

Or something that he would feel bad about, okay? What is rinpong tsangwa, okay? And that's a big debate in Vinaya, you know?

What does it mean, reasonable value? Rinpoche used to say, what's the cost of a decent sweater in America? And we'd say, I don't know, if you wanted kind of a bad one, you could get it for ten bucks at a minimum ten bucks, right?

Then he'd say, that's the value. If a monk steals more than ten dollars, then they have broken the second pamba, and they have lost their vows, okay? That's so, rinpong tsangwa, reasonable value changes from country to country, from time to time, okay?

They point out in the Vinaya that in times of, in bad times, in bad economic times, less would be stealing, got it? And when things are going better, then more would be stealing, all right? Mmm, you want more?

Yeah, you want more detail? Because you want to become financially independent. Whose country do you calculate the value in?

Okay, the thief or the person who got robbed? Okay, like if, if we go to Mexico, let's say you're from Brazil, I'm from Arizona, we go to our prieta, and I steal something of yours, okay? Stuff in Brazil is more valuable than it is here, okay?

It's harder to get stuff in Brazil than here. People in Brazil have less money than here, in general. Okay, so we're going to count Brazilian dollars, and we're going to count American dollars.

They say, if the countries are equally distanced, the victim's currency is considered. If the, if we're closer to America than Brazil, then you have to consider American currency, okay? Something like that.

Even if I'm the stealer, the thief, got it? That's a, you know, that's detail. Okay, you don't care about that.

What if a group steals from a group, okay? What if an investment banker knowingly loses the money of a large number of investors, right? Okay?

Then, then they say you have to divide the amount of the loss by the number of investors, and if it comes to less than ten dollars, and the investment banker is a monk, they didn't break the first monk's vow. Okay? It's very interesting, all right?

You have to steal per person. Okay? Like that.

That has a lot of implications. I'm not going to go into it. Dushe Matruh.

In this case, the, the, the conception must be unmistaken. Meaning what? If you thought it was your pen, and you took it, you don't break the vow.

Okay? Got it? If you thought, like I, I was teaching a certain scripture in a certain large eastern seaboard city recently, and so I bought a certain monk a copy of the scripture, so that he would have a copy, and I would have a copy, because he was doing a lot of the work for me.

And then they looked the same, because they were the same book, and then I ended up taking his copy a couple times, and like that, okay? I thought it was my copy, but I'm not stealing his copy, okay? Because the conception is mistaken.

I thought it was my copy, okay? Kun long du trok che du gyur mi che pa. There must be a sustained desire to steal, okay?

There, there has to be an impulse, which is not broken, okay, by, by a moment's, you know, stopping that impulse, okay? So, so, a lesson for all of us. Stick up to bad impulses.

Try to, try to resist them, okay? Even for a few minutes, even for a few moments, okay? And when you have an impulse to give money to somebody else, hold on to it, and don't let it be cut, you see?

If you want a powerful path of karma, and you decide, I'm going to share money with someone who needs money, don't lose that thought, and don't let doubts come in between. Don't let them break the flow of the generosity, okay? Don't let, don't let yourself have a second thought in the act of giving away a lot of money.

Okay? Because then it, it really ruins the karma, okay? You got to go for it, like surfing down a big wave, you know?

When you hesitate on a big wave, you, you die. Just fall, just let it go, okay? And give, and don't, don't hesitate.

When you decide to give, you got to follow through, and follow your, follow your instincts, and never hesitate, because then it breaks the path of karma. It's not a path of karma, okay? Mmm ,'GYOR BA RANG RNAMS DGOS PA GANG RUNG GYIS, okay?

That's important. The commission of the deed can be by yourself, or by someone you have appointed to steal it, okay? If you hire someone else to steal for you, you get the same karma, all right?

You actually get two karmas, right? That's a discussion in the Abhidhamma Kosha. They say, I live in a country which is making on, you know, insane wars against other countries, okay?

Then if a soldier on the front line, if an American soldier on the front line shoots a person from the other country and kills them, do I get any karma, okay? Do I, do I, do I accumulate any karma? The Abhidhamma says, yes, you do, under two conditions, right?

You'd like paying taxes, right? Your taxes were used for the bullet, and your taxes were hired the soldier, and your taxes were used to buy the gun, right? If you don't object to the war, you collect the same karma as the soldier, okay?

If you don't make it known to your legally elected representatives, this is Abhidhamma Kosha, that you don't support that war, then you collect the same karma as the guy who pulls the trigger, all right? That's important to know, okay? It means at least, at least express yourself, at least say something, at least write an email to somebody, okay?

You probably Obama, sorry, something.com, and then just send a random email that says, I don't support that war, okay? But the Abhidhamma goes further. It says, think about it, you paid some foolish young man who thought he was going after the glory of war, right, who gets his leg shot off, but anyway, he's killing because you paid him to, so you collect double.

You get double the karma, okay? So in the case of stealing, you get double the karma if you, if you get someone else to do it for you, all right? What I want you to do, and the reason I'm teaching this, is I want you to turn it around, okay?

I want you to learn every element of this vow and turn it around. Let's do an experiment. I mean, I'm not too clear on it myself.

Let's go back to the elements, okay? A person who has a vow, okay, this can only be broken by a monk who has vows, right? And that Rinpoche was adamant, my teacher, my Tibetan teacher was very adamant that if you have a vow to help others, it's more, it's more powerful karma than doing it just because you feel like it, okay?

So take, if you get a chance to take bodhisattva vows, if you get a chance to take tantric vows, then jump on it. Take a vow. The same generosity by a person with vows is infinitely more powerful than a generosity with, by a person without vows.

So take them. Take a vow to be generous, and then be generous. It's more powerful.

mi shen gyi sungway tse. Be careful only to give away, I'm reversing the vow, okay? I'm reversing the vow.

Why? I want you to be financially independent. That'll make my life easier, too.

Okay I'm reversing the vow. You can only give away things that you own, all right? You cannot give away things that you don't own, all right?

It's wrong to exceed the credit card limit, not pay your credit card interest as you promised to when you took the credit card. Declare bankruptcy, for example, is really bad. You can't give away money that's not yours, okay?

And family money, you have to have the permission of your spouse, okay? You can't, if you're in a partnership, if you've committed to a partnership, and if a financial sharing is part of that partnership, if in agreement, then you can't make a donation without consulting the other person, okay? So you can't give away stuff that's not your own, all right?

If you're in large debt and being generous, the diamond mountain would mean that you can't repay your debt as you promised to. You don't own that money. You can't donate that money, okay?

It's not yours to donate. I'm trying to give you guidelines to help you reach financial independence, okay? I'm not trying to be creepy or, what do you call, make you unhappy, okay?

I'm trying to make you financially independent. It's nice to have everything paid off, and everything is clear, and you have money to give away. You can sprinkle the world with money like sprinkles on a...

I'm getting poetical... on a Dairy Queen clone, okay? It's a lot of fun to walk around the world sprinkling money everywhere, okay?

It's just cool. And you can't do that if you don't know these things. We got a few more minutes left.

RIN DANG TSA MA Give enough, okay? Give generously. Don't give somebody $10 and then make a big deal about it, you know?

I was sitting with Ken Rinpoche. Pope... I think it was John Paul came to speak at Giant Stadium to 60,000 people, right?

He got up and Rinpoche said... he yelled at me. He had a bell, or he would stamp on the floor, and I had to run upstairs and watch TV with him.

So he would ring the bell, and I'd run upstairs, and sometimes I would miss the thing because I was too slow. But he said, look at this. Look at this Pope guy.

They call him, by the way, they call him Pope, Pope. Look at the Pope, you know. I'm like, what's he doing?

He said, listen to this guy. It's so cool. You know, I'm like...

and the Pope John's gets up, and he says, don't give people your extra money, you know? Like, if you're going to give away money, don't give them your excess money, you know? Give them substantial money.

Give them the money that you really wanted, you know? Like, don't give your extra money away. Give your capital away, you know?

Then that's really giving. Rinpoche was like jumping up and down, and he was all excited, you know? So anyway, don't be cheap.

KU DRANG BYAS PAR TZAM Oh, sorry, I skipped that one. DU SHES MA DRUL, that's easy. I mean, it should be your money.

Make sure it's your money, that's all, before you give it away. Now I'm going back to the text, okay? I'm going back to the vow.

RANG DON DU means you must steal it for yourself, okay? For a monk to steal in such a way that destroys their vows, they must steal it for themselves, okay? They're not stealing it for retreatants' food or something like that, okay?

If they steal money for the retreatants' food, they get a BOM PO. They get a lesser infraction. They don't lose their vows, okay?

True stealing must be for yourself, okay? KU LONG DU GROG CHE'I DU RGYUR MI BYAS PA The desire to steal must be unbroken stream. SBYOR BA RANG RNAMS KUN PA'I Assign yourself or somebody else.

KU DROG BYAS PAR TZAM ZHING You must undertake to steal and THAR THUG THOB BLO SKYES PA NA You must complete the stealing, and then you must have a THOB BLO, okay? Don't say THOB BLO. THOB BLO means THOB BLO means mind, right?

THOB means to receive something or to gain something. THOB BLO means the state of mind that says, I got it, okay? That's the end of the act.

I stole the money. You know, you're in your car driving away from your office, and you have all the money of the company in the car, and then you get THOB BLO. THOB BLO comes in your head.

I got it. I did it. It's in the bank heist movies.

They get THOB BLO at the end. They're driving away, and they got all the money in the car, and they're like, we did it! You know, and they're like giving high-fives to each other.

That's called THOB BLO. In an ordination, when the Lama snaps their fingers, you're also supposed to get THOB BLO, okay? That's also called THOB BLO.

It's kind of sweet. That means, I got the vows. You know, you're like, I got them.

They snap their fingers, and then you're supposed to THOB BLO. You know, THOB BLO is like, I did it, you know, I got them, okay? All right.

I think we got about five minutes. If I'm right, nod your head. Five minutes or so?

Okay, all right. We'll go a little further on the... I think I'll skip that part.

Other related vows. Okay, let's talk about some other related vows. Monk's Vow 106 is a LTUNG RJE BA ZHIG, and it's called RIN PO CHE LA REG PA.

RIN PO CHE, you know, means precious one, right? It's an address used for a high Lama. But it also means anything of value, and it was an old word for money, okay?

Before the invention of money, it was called RIN PO CHE. Okay, it could be gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, etc., okay? RIN PO CHE.

REG PA means to touch. So the 106th monk vow is that a monk is not allowed to touch money, or to use money, okay? A monk is not supposed to use money, all right?

But then the vow says, GDOD PA DANG BYAS PA out of desire, okay? Out of desire. A monk is not allowed to use money out of desire.

And then they get into what is desire, and maybe that's a good thing to end on today, okay? What does it mean to handle money out of desire, all right? What does desire mean in Buddhism, okay?

Is it wrong to want to be financially independent, all right? Is it wrong to want to be comfortable, you know? As a Buddhist, am I required to be uncomfortable, right?

If I have a comfortable chair in my house, should I put nails on it, or something? You see what I mean? Like, is that more spiritual, that I should be uncomfortable, you see?

Desire doesn't mean that you want things. The word attachment doesn't mean that you don't want to lose the thing that you like, okay? Desire in the sense of wanting something which doesn't hurt anybody else.

Attachment in the sense of not wanting to lose something beautiful that you have. They are not wrong, okay? They are not wrong at all.

They are healthy states of mind, okay? It's a healthy state of mind to want a nice place to do your practice in, like a nice apartment or a nice house, live in a yurt with mice, or that the roof leaks for the first year of the retreat, or, you know, try to stay in a cave with spiders crawling all over you and rattlesnakes visiting you. It's not good for your practice, okay?

It's not wrong to desire a comfortable place to live, which is your headquarters for your virtuous activity. You see what I mean? From that—what do you call it?

From that—what do you call it? Base? Home base.

It's your home base for helping the world. It's not wrong to have a comfortable place to live where you can keep your computer and you can email people and you can send wire transfers to charities, and that's not a wrong thing. You should want a nice home base, okay?

That's not desire. And for a monk to handle money in the course of helping like Diamond Mountain or something like that, this is proper. You should want.

You should want things so you can help other people. You can help other people more if you have more, right? That's a bodhisattva's activity.

So why does it say with desire? What does desire mean? Desire means to undertake to acquire objects in the wrong way, okay?

I want this. I want that boy, but he's already somebody else's partner, okay? Then to want that boy is wrong, okay?

Why? Because it doesn't work, okay? It's not wrong because God said it was bad, and it's not wrong because Lord Buddha made a rule or something like that, okay?

Desire for an object, which involves hurting someone else to get that object, is only wrong because then you won't have that object for the rest of your life, okay? If you take that object, that person or that possession immorally, then that's desire, okay? What's the opposite of desire?

You can say wisdom, okay? What's wisdom? I would like to be financially independent.

I'm not now. I struggle. I'd like to be able to fly around the world, go to all the teachings, go to French restaurants every night, you know, and have my debts paid off.

I would like that. Then, therefore, I'm going to follow these vows carefully, okay? I'm going to create the karmic seeds that I will always have enough.

Teach me more about the second vow, Geshe Michael. I want to be financially independent. Give me more details, you know?

Put me to sleep with those details, okay? Because then I'll get my financial security faster, right? To want financial security with wisdom, which says that I will be financially secure if I share with others, and I help others be financially secure.

That's not desire. That's wisdom. And the money that comes in that way, you can use to help the world.

And that's fun. It's not fun to be in debt all the time and hurting other... When you're in debt all the time, then you're always grubbing off somebody else, or, you know, you come to...

you walk up to somebody and they walk to the other side of the street because they're afraid you're going to borrow some money or something, right? It would be fun to be the opposite, to just be financially secure. How do you do that?

Keep your vows, okay? Never steal eensy-beensy things, okay? Like, get really good at it, all right?

Like, borrow somebody's pen and then if you drive home with it, drive back to their house and give it back to them. Did they miss the pen? No.

Would they care if you kept it? No. Will it make you much more financially independent if you take the pen back?

Yes. Take it back. Be crazy honest.

Be crazy honorable with your finances. And then you'll always have enough. Money will come to you.

You can't stop it, okay? People say, I don't want the result of my karma. Karma palat yaga.

You can't avoid it, man. It's going to come, okay? You can give it away again if you want, but you can't stop it, all right?

If you're generous, it will come. You can't stop it. But you can give it away again.

Then you'll have to deal with that karmic result, okay? Which is a lot of trouble. All right.

Tomorrow I'll give you some more vows that relate to respecting other people's things, being careful with other people's things. And then we'll go on to the third, we'll cover the third vow tomorrow, which is killing a human, a human being, or a human fetus, okay? That's the third monk's vow, is never to cause the death of a human being or a human fetus, okay?

We'll do a mandala offering. Venerable Chandra will lead it silently. Okay, good.

I leave you with one last sentence, okay? It seems selfish, Geshe Michael, to keep this vow because I want to reach financial independence. I mean, I should keep the vow because it's the right thing to do, right?

Like, what's the proper motivation I should have when I'm keeping these vows, right? I say think of the chain reaction effect, okay? Always think of the chain reaction effect.

If I go to a Buddhist teaching and they teach me to respect other people's things, and because I'm really anal about it, I reach my own financial independence, then my friends will be interested in how I did it, and I will teach them, and then they will teach their friends, and they will teach their friends, and in that way the whole world will have enough, right? There can come a day, through my individual actions, that the whole world has prosperity and no one's hungry, okay? So as you keep your vows, have that bodhichitta, that's bodhichitta, have that in the back of your mind.

People will see that I have reached this financial independence by keeping my vows, and then they will start to keep vows, and then the whole world will have enough to eat because I kept my vows today and I took the pen back, okay? That's bodhichitta while you're keeping these vows, and it keeps it from being selfish, okay? Which is very important.

Okay. See you later.