Учения Великого ретрита, часть 2. Сила самайи: достичь неподвижности на крыльях священной клятвы (2012, Боуи), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
Okay, then we'll start. Try to be on time tomorrow, because you are cutting our meditation time. Okay, here we go.

We'll do some meditation. Then pull in your tummy slightly, not big deal, just a little bit. Let your mouth smile a little bit, slightly.

Release your eyelids, let your shoulders fall, and start to come to your breath, slowly. And start to count your breath. Then start to watch your thoughts.

Take a piece of your mind back from the back of your head. Focus on your own thoughts, without controlling them. They will bubble up from seeds in your mind, and just watch them bubble up.

If you can learn truly to listen to your own thoughts, to watch yourself as you watch your thoughts, then I think that's half of meditation. What is your mind thinking about this afternoon? Then ask your mind not to think about anything in the future, anything after this minute of time.

Block any thoughts about anything more than a minute from now. Block any thoughts about the past more than a minute before now. Settle into this place, this time, with these friends.

Keep watching the thoughts. If thoughts come up, observe past or future. Distractions you can count as future.

Noise of the tent, creaking of a chair. Your mind goes from now to that, which takes a little time. See if you can come to a feeling of contentment to be here.

We all worked hard to get here, so we may as well enjoy this moment. We don't have to worry much about what's going to happen later or what came before. One is gone, doesn't exist anymore.

One hasn't come yet. But this time together in the tent, this is where we are. Feel a sense of surrender or contentment or satisfaction to be here.

It's almost a relief not to worry about what hasn't come yet, not to dwell on what's already gone. Be here. Give yourself permission to be here.

Try to be intensely here. Now try to be more here, more intensely here. And then relax more intensely.

Please slowly come back to your breath. Then you can open your eyes. Stretch if you like.

Okay, so yesterday we were halfway through, I think, vow number two. We got towards the end of vow number two. Again, the purpose of vow number two is that if you honor it, you will always have enough, and you won't have to worry about your finances, and things will come to you.

It's one part of happiness is to not be worried about your debts or whether you'll have food or propane next month. It's part of having your mind be free to do other things, right? So if we honor this vow carefully, then the more carefully and the more details we honor, the more certain it is that we will never have to worry about money.

Then we were talking about associated vows, other vows that relate to the second vow. Yesterday we only did one. It was rimpoche la repa, which means to use money in a foolish way, to manage your money in a foolish way.

That means try to protect it rather than try to share it, right? By sharing it wisely with a full karmic path, then that's where all the money that exists in the world now came from, right? All the money that exists came from sharing and not from protecting.

To use money in any other way, not to share money, is rimpoche la repa, right? Monk's vow 106. There's a monk's vow 36, okay?

Monk's vow number 36. It's called ngun tsen chen gyi pawa. This is a vow against a monk investing money.

If some money comes to a monk, they're not allowed to invest the money and try to get return on that money, try to get interest from somebody on that money. Again, it means ignorantly, okay? In the wrong way.

It's not wrong for a monk who has money or nun who has money or anybody to invest their money. So my income in the diamond business, every six months on a certain date, the CFO of the company, his name was Esposito, he would come to my office and I'd say, he'd say, here's what your profits are for the last six months in the company. Then I would say, I would tell him who to cut a check to, which charity to cut a check to.

Then one day he came to me and he said, you know, Michael, I appreciate that you're doing all these generous things and you're helping people, but you're not going to last forever and your time in the diamond business won't be forever and you should start to take care of your retirement. You should set some money aside. You should have a 401k.

You shouldn't give away all the money every six months. You should set aside some money, invest it. Then I looked at him and this funny thing popped in my head.

I said, I am investing it. And so that led to a long discussion. But I think a person who is wise, it's good to invest.

You can invest by sharing, right? Invest the money in other places. I think to give the money to another cause is the best investment.

There are special kinds of investment funds now that are called impact investment funds. That means that some people who have extra money get together and they pool their money to do social work, right? To make investments in sustainable energy or projects like that.

And I think that's very appropriate to do that kind of investing because that kind of investing would give you a return, you see, a karmic return. That's kind of a wise type of investing. There's another vow, a monk's vow, the fortieth monk's vow.

By the way, the last one was a pangtung. We haven't had a lot of pangtungs. Pangtung means a third class of infraction which does involve giving up something physical.

So in this case, it's investments or money. The fortieth monk's vow, by the way, the nun's vows don't follow the same exact numbering, right? It's thak tu jupay pangwa.

Thak tu jupay means you go to a... a monk goes to a... like they walk into a tailor shop in ancient India and they say, I'm a monk and could you weave some new robes for me?

Could you weave some new cloth for me? And then, of course, it should be free. You see what I mean?

And so you enter, you approach a person who is normally paid for what they do and you put pressure on them to do it for you for free. It's not wrong if a tailor comes to you and says, I've woven this cloth and I would like to offer it to you. But to go to another...

to go to a party who's normally paid for something and then to pressure them to give it to you for free is breaking a monk's vow, okay? Monks aren't allowed to do that. I can think of some cases in our own sangha.

Personally, I try to make sure that... we have some doctors, medical doctors, or people who are normally paid to teach yoga or like that, people who do massage therapy in retreats. And I think those of us who organize those events, I think it's important to offer some money equal to what they might normally get or maybe a little less, right?

And not to pressure them to offer their service for free. I think a lot of those kinds of people turn around and offer the money back or refuse to take the money. But I think it's our responsibility to offer it if that's their normal occupation and that's their normal compensation that we should offer it.

And then if they choose to donate that back, I think that's very appropriate and it's sort of... how do you say? It's attractive for an organization to offer the money and it's attractive for the person to give it back.

And then it's just double attractive, you know? I think it's kind of noble, doubly noble. And so I think we should offer.

And that applies to a monk. So it would be a kind of stealing to pressure someone in a spiritual context to do something for you for free that they don't normally do for free. I think that applies also to staying in another person's home.

Oftentimes we have opportunities to attend teachings or we are moving to a city to maybe undertake a course of study. And then there's a tendency, I think, among our sangha to find a place to... It's like criminals casing out a bank.

And they come to a teaching and then they're looking, who has a big house? And they might have an extra room and I could stay there. I think it's okay for a short time.

It's noble for a person to offer to put someone up. It's noble for that party to wash the dishes and offer some money for the electricity. And it's noble for the sponsor to say, that's okay with the electricity, but not with the dishes.

And then it's noble to leave after a few days or a week or two weeks and arrange your own place. I don't think it's appropriate to... Really what you're doing is they pay rent, they pay electricity, they pay water bill, and then you're really, after a certain point, you're stealing from them.

Even if they seem agreeable or... It's really kind of pressure. It's a kind of pressure on them.

So I think it's appropriate. Or if you choose to stay and they seem to want you to stay, then you could pay rent equal to the value of that place. Something like that.

I'm not trying to lay down some, what do you call, moral dogma, right? I'm trying to prevent you from not having money the rest of your life. You see?

That's all I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. I'm trying to assure that you have financial prosperity for the rest of your life.

If you put pressure on people and you take things that perhaps after a while they don't really want to give, then in the future you will always have a big credit card debt or you will always have this pressure of not having enough money. So it's really to protect yourself that you are very considerate to the other people. Monk's Vow number 42.

This one's kind of interesting, jin tokpa. Don't say jin tokpa. Jin means somebody gave you something.

Tokpa means take it back. Jin tokpa means Indian giving. I was reflecting on the word.

I grew up with the word Indian giving, but I didn't think about what it meant. It meant like this land used to be owned by Geronimo's tribe and then the American government gave them some land. Then every time they find uranium on that land they take it back and that's an Indian giving.

So it's breaking a monk's vow for a monk to make a commitment to another monk of a material or even time, and then to take it back, or not honor that commitment. So I think in our times it's not so much that you would give Geshe Michael flour and then sneak into his room and take it back. That doesn't happen a lot to me.

But I think all of us commit our time. We make commitments of time. Even in a retreat you could make a commitment to do something.

Outside of retreat it's very typical in our sangha, or every sangha, or every church, or every synagogue that people promise time. Or it's typical for us to promise time to visit a prison, or to promise each other time, to promise to be on time. Then when we offer someone time we shouldn't take it back, right?

When we make a commitment to offer someone our time then we should honor that commitment. Time is money, and to offer someone your time and then not to give that time is kind of stealing, right? So be careful about that.

What you give, then give it, right? Don't make commitments easily. It's a lot easier, right?

You can make beautiful commitments but think about them carefully before you make them, especially time-wise. And I think with spiritual practices we tend to overload ourselves with sadhanas and empowerments and promises to study Chinese two hours a day. And then it's like you just don't have time.

And then it becomes a distraction to have committed your time. And it's a kind of stealing not to give it once you promise it, okay? Twenty-fourth monk's vow.

Now we're going to enter a whole series of vows which relate to being careful with funds and material that sponsors have given us. So I think it's especially relevant to all the retreaters, all the retreatants. It's a lot of money going into the retreat.

I won't say the number but you would fall off the chair if you knew. And we accept, as a monk, we are trained that the karma of not using resources wisely which have been donated to us is extremely serious. So I thought we could go through some of those vows.

Those vows are a lot of the monk's vows, relate to using resources wisely that have been donated to us. Even if you're doing a weekend retreat in someone's home and you ask them, you make an arrangement that you can use their cabin somewhere, then that's a very grave responsibility to use that cabin well and not to waste your time. It would be better to work and raise the money and rent your own place if you don't intend to work really hard, if you can't make a commitment to work really hard.

So if someone donates you miles on a plane ticket to go to a teaching or someone drives you there or someone gives you a work scholarship or something like that, then you have to work really hard because if you waste that time and you waste that opportunity, it's extremely serious karma. Meaning, you'll always not have enough money. Again, there's no God who's going to come and burn your pocketbook or like that.

There's nothing like that. It's just that the karma of not taking full advantage of the resources means that you will never get another chance to have them. So that's very serious.

So here are some monk's vows. Twenty-fourth monk's vow is called Longway Rigpe Pama. It's a pang tung because it relates to some kind of material thing.

And it is to pressure a sponsor for a new set of robes. Again, the word pressure is important. If you know the person would happily buy you a new set of robes, then it's okay to ask them.

If the person is happy to help but they just didn't hear about how they could help, then it's a very good karma to tell them how they can help. But when it seems like there's pressure on them, to pressure a sponsor is a different thing. So this vow relates to pressuring a sponsor for a set of robes, which is about the only thing that a monk is supposed to own.

Very few objects. So for most of us, that would be to pressure other people for things you need. The twenty-fifth monk's vow is called Pakpa Longway Pama.

I think this is a very interesting vow and a sensitive vow. It's to ask a sponsor for more... So there's a willing sponsor and a happy sponsor, someone who would like to help you, but then to ask them for more than they intended.

So they say, you say we have this project, can you give $100? And they say, I'd be happy to give $100. And it seems comfortable for them.

And then you come back and say, can you give $200? You see what I mean? And it's no longer comfortable for them.

So it's important with sponsors to ascertain what's comfortable and what they intended to give, and not to pressure them for more than that. In the end, it doesn't work. In the end, they get tired and they get discouraged and they stop.

So monk's vow number 26. I think this is also very interesting. By the way, all three were bhaktas.

SOSO NAS BAG PA LONG BA'I PHAWA Probably I don't know the langshi, but I can guess the langshi. This means, this vow means, in Buddhism, the money of a family is considered jointly owned. So the wife and the husband, once they make a commitment to be a wife and a husband or a lifetime partner in this tradition, then their possessions are considered common, shared.

Their wealth, their money, their possessions are considered to be owned by both of them. Then it's very common, you know, Diamond Mountain wants to build a new something, and we know that there's a husband who is following the Buddhist path and the wife is not. So we would tend to approach the husband for the money, you see, and hope that the wife is not around that day that we go.

And that's breaking a monk's vow, okay? We're required to present a request for help to both the husband and the wife equally, even if one of them is not particularly interested in this path, okay? So we're not allowed to...

That would create a problem in the family, right? If you took money from the husband and then the wife found out about it later or something like that. So it's just honoring the partnership, okay?

Monk's vow 27 is called kurwa pangwa. Kurwa pangwa means to harass the nirpa. Nirpa is the person in a monastery or retreat, the quartermaster, who is responsible to purchase the supplies and bring them to the retreatants or to the monastery.

So every monastery has a nirpa, okay? There's a beautiful story that... Usually it's a semi-responsible, semi-younger monk, because the older ones have too much seniority to get stuck with nirpa.

And the very young ones will blow the money. So it's kind of got to be somebody in between. There's a famous story, and that duty rotates in a monastery.

So, Ken Rinpoche was the nirpa for Gerung House. Then he had to arrange the supplies for a visiting lama who was giving a series of talks at the monastery. And I think Rinpoche was...

He was 20 years old, like just under 20. And so he got to be personally with the lama who was visiting, and that was Pabongka Rinpoche. And those were the years that where he taught the lamrim.

And so Rinpoche was in contact with him a lot during those visits because he was the nirpa. He was the quartermaster. Then there's a story that Pabongka Rinpoche sat him down and grabbed his hand one day and said, this one will be a good one, you know.

And at that time, Rinpoche wasn't such a good one. And they say that that blessing changed the course of his life, and that impossibly he became a high geshe after that. He wasn't going to be that.

So anyway, it's good to be a nirpa, quartermaster. This vow means a retreatant or a monk is not allowed to harass the quartermaster repeatedly for something they think they need. So you have to be graceful about how you request something.

And then you have to be flexible about how you get it and when you get it. That's the monk's vow. I didn't make it up for you guys.

It did get into my notebook. So I think it's important in a retreat that you ask gracefully for something that you feel you need, and you give people time to respond to that. You respect it if for some reason they can't fulfill your request.

And then you wait, you wait, you wait. And in my experience, in our first three-year retreat, was that you usually forgot that you needed it after about a week, you know. Like, maybe I don't need that 12th Sanskrit dictionary that I thought of.

You know, something like that. So give it a week or two and then make another request. Or like that, don't harass the suppliers.

That's actually breaking a vow. That's a pang tung. Monk's vow 46 is very interesting, I think.

It's a very powerful vow. It's called, ngö gyur kyi pangwa. So ngö is the past tense of ngowa.

And you know ngowa means dedication. We use ngowa in the sense of dedicating a good karma at the end of an event or something. You know, gewa di, gyewa kun is a ngowa.

This is the past tense. Ngöpa means has been dedicated. Gyurwa means to change it, which means to redirect a donation that has been given with a certain purpose in mind.

That's the ngöpa. It has been dedicated to a certain purpose. You accept the offering from a sponsor for a certain purpose, and then unbeknownst to the sponsor, without asking them, you do what's called bait-and-switch, right?

You switch it to something else, okay? And then you have broken a monk's vow. So it's not wrong to have a change of priorities after you have collected donations for something.

It is wrong not to tell the sponsors and to offer to give the money back if they don't support the new idea, okay? But we have to be careful to ask, and then it's not a problem, okay? Monk's vow 78 is yang-yang saway tung che.

Monk's vow 80 is called hlakpa lenpa tung che, and I think they're obviously related. They're both tung che ba shikpa, which means they don't relate to some physical thing in a certain way, okay? Yang-yang saway tung che means in traditional Buddhism, in the ancient times, monks weren't allowed to keep food, and then they had to go every day to ask for food to the town.

So like I worked in Bangkok, you know? I built an office in Bangkok to buy rubies and sapphires and things like that. Then oftentimes workers wouldn't show up on time, and then I would say, you know, why are you late?

And they would say, I was standing on the porch with the lunch cooked, waiting for the monks to come, and no one came. And I had to wait, and they came late, and that's why I'm late to work. And then, you know, after about two years, I learned that that's what they always say if they're late, because the boss is always saying, oh, you're so nice to wait for the monks, you know?

So, yang yang saway tung che means to go to a person's home, ask for food, right? Leave, eat it, and then come back again, in the same day especially, all right? So basically you're overburdening the person, okay?

You should take... By the way, the monks' bowls they use, I did it in Sri Lanka, I went with the monks begging, okay? And the bowls they use are...

it's enough to have a small feast in. And they even put like four ice cream bars in the top for you. And you can't eat the whole thing, and you're supposed to eat the whole thing, so all the monks are kind of chubby.

But anyway, but to go again and again to the same sponsor. The 80th vow, lhagpa lenpa tung che means you ask for extra at the same time. So basically you're just...

you're putting a burden on it. The sponsor is willing, the sponsor is a spiritually-minded person, and then you just overburden them, okay? I think that's pretty common.

I think... I get a lot of requests to raise funds, and I have to be sensitive, right? I can't...

I don't feel it's proper to, at an event, to ask for 20 things, you see? It's just... it just makes people feel guilty if they can't give.

And those who wouldn't want to give feel angry. So I think you have to be sensitive to that. Okay.

Monks Vow 128. My text was a little bit defective. I think it might be ngato, or it might be chitro, or it might be just tro, but it's a tro dong gyuway tung che.

This is an interesting vow. The leng shi, right? The original incident was that some sponsor offered to have...

I believe to cook a meal for a sangha, right? Five monks or more, for a gengun. And then on a certain day at a certain time.

And then one of the monks decided they could get more if they went out on their own at the same time. So then the rest of the four monks couldn't go to the sponsor's house. The vow means to cause the sangha to miss a date with a sponsor.

Okay. What it means in our context, I think, is that oftentimes... I don't know, especially during travels, we encounter people who are willing and happy to help a major project such as Diamond Mountain Retreat or the project to save the Buddhist books, right?

And then we have a meeting and we have a long lunch with the person and they really want to help and they are wealthy and they make some kind of commitment to help in a major way. Then afterwards, one of the people who is with us might go to that sponsor and say, by the way, I need a new car or something like that, right? It happens a lot, okay?

So I think we have to be very careful in that it's taking away attention and it's taking away focus and it's taking away funds from a larger purpose like Diamond Mountain Retreat or something like that to approach that sponsor later and say, you know, I need a place to stay. Can I stay in your extra bedroom or something like that? It hurts the larger effort.

So this vow relates to hurting the larger effort for your own purposes, all right? So we have to be careful about that. But it's better to go without for yourself and work for the larger purpose.

You see what I mean? It's better to not have a good car and to direct all the attention to the larger projects. And you'll feel happy, okay?

You'll feel happier than if you try to distract some of the money to your new car or something like that, okay? Monks Vow 140 is called LHAB BRAL TE KHYIM DU SBYUG PA So in the old days it was a custom that the monks would come back to the monastery and one of the monks would tell the other monks, look, you know the fifth house on Third Street? Those people are tired.

They're overtaxed. They're having some financial problems. They can't give anything this month.

So they would make an announcement in the monastery and they'd say, we request that all the monks don't go to this house for another month because they're having a financial problem or somebody's sick in their family and we request that the sangha members don't approach them even for a charitable purpose. Please don't approach them until they get back on their feet or something like that, okay? To ignore such a request is breaking that vow, okay?

The sangha has asked you to not put pressure on the sponsor and then you just ignore that request, okay? Monks Vow 172 and Monks Vow 173, the first one is called MA SGOS PAR BSTAN LA SDUG PA means... These are...

We're getting into NYE BYAS, okay? We didn't have any NYE BYAS yet. NYE BYAS is the lowest type of infraction.

Just a bubu, right? DUG ZHIG KUR TO And there's a lot of them, okay? NYE BYAS RGYAL DANG GCOD NI 112 of them, okay?

And they're just little ones, okay? But one of them, a lot of them relate to how your comportment, how you behave around other people who are not in the sangha, okay? So, how do diamond mountain people behave?

When they're out shopping or when they're dealing with the health food stores in Tucson or whatever, then a lot of the NYE BYAS relate to how do you behave. How do you represent your sangha with other people, okay? A lot of the NYE BYAS are that.

MA RGOS PAR BSTAN LA GDUG PA means you go to a sponsor's house and you sit down in their home without being asked to, okay? And you see that. I mean, you see...

It means you've become too familiar with these other people, and you should be more respectful, okay? A person who's representing a spiritual group of people should maintain a decorum and a respect. Like if people come to do repairs at diamond mountain or things like that, then you should, rather than becoming too familiar and almost taking advantage of them, you should be very respectful to them.

Rinpoche always made me make tea for any repairman who came to the temple, you know? And I had to give them a... NGES PA means a little...

I had to slip them a tip. And that was just the way we did things, you know? Nobody came ever to the temple to work on the heater or air conditioning or the grounds without getting offer of a meal and some tea and some money slipped to them.

Okay? And that's the way it should be. Okay?

Like that. MA RTAG PA GDOD PA This is a funny one, okay? I know the langshi.

MA RTAG PA GDOD PA means to sit down at the sponsor's house without looking down at the chair. Okay? Okay?

I'm not going to make you guess why. I'll tell you the langshi. There was an infant in the chair and the monks just plopped down on the sponsor's chair without looking.

And I believe the infant was okay, but Buddha had to make a rule. And it means don't get too familiar with the people who are helping, right? Like honor them, respect them, treat them special because they are.

Like don't try to start to treat sponsors or students as if they were just... what do you call it? Tools for your spiritual goals.

You see what I mean? You should treat them with respect and honor them because they are worthy of honor, right? They are doing a beautiful thing.

We wouldn't have Diamond Mountain without them. Monks' vows, 181 to 209, I grouped them all together, 19 plus 9, 28 different vows. These are all nye ches, okay?

The nye ches are divided into groups according to the theme of the vows. So the 112 minor infractions are grouped into different groups. I believe it's eight different groups, okay?

One of them is called sekye detsen. Sekye detsen means minor rules for monks that relate to eating at a sponsor's house. And then hlung sekye detsen means rules that relate to your begging bowl, okay?

They all relate to not behaving honorably or gracefully in front of sponsors, okay? And I remember one of the vows, okay? A monk is not allowed to go to the sponsor's house and fiddle with the food.

And in particular, you're not allowed to take the rice in your bowl and play with it and make it into the shape of a stupa, okay? Then you're breaking a specific vow. So I guess people were doing that.

But they all have to do with how you represent your organization, right? You should be graceful and you should be polite. You should be thoughtful.

You should be considerate, right? And it breaks my heart. We have an event somewhere and the chairs are not set up and someone will go scream at the caretaker of the place who doesn't know anything about us.

And then they're like, I can see the person's face and I know they're saying, I hope these guys never rent this place again. I hope they never come back here again. I think we have some members of the group who are well known to be the opposite.

They take care to learn the names of all the staff at a particular location where we have an event. They take care to make sure that they're happy. They talk to them.

They joke with them. They help them. If the chairs need to be moved, then all the people run over and help move the chairs and they don't wait for the local people to do it.

That's a monk's vow. You're under vows to be graceful and considerate when you are interacting with other people other than your sangha. Especially when you're representing your sangha.

You are under vows to be graceful and considerate and thoughtful. Monk's vow 43, monk's vow 45. So basically you're getting a review of almost all the vows.

So don't ask me to teach you vows again. I mean, count them up. I think you're getting about 80%.

The other 20% I'm just holding for ransom. 43 is tepe le chungway pangwa. 45 is rey chen changway pangwa.

Tepe le chungway pangwa means every summer in the time of the Buddha, the monks would do a summer retreat. It's like they would do a long lay room together. Not necessarily together, but in their own cabins they would do a long summer retreat.

One of the main purposes of that retreat was not to harm insects because there would be more during the summer. And if the monks were wandering around then they would crush more insects. So in the high bug season they would hold a retreat.

That also coincided with the monsoons which is a nice time to stay indoors. Tepe le chungway pangwa means they would give you certain retreat supplies for the summer retreat. If you go to the storeroom and take your supplies early or you keep them later than was intended by the organization then you have broken this vow.

Basically if you take supplies and use them during a period when they were not meant to be used by the organization then you have broken this vow. Especially rechen changway pangwa, the 45th vow. Monks were assigned an oil cloth, a raincoat.

So in addition to your normal shawl during the summer retreat you were given an oil cloth so you could walk around in the rain. If you keep that too long or you give it back... you take it too early or you give it back too late you broke the vow.

Those are nye ches. No, sorry, pang tungs. Those are pang tungs.

Monks vow 61. Ne me le gyurway tungwa. This is a famous vow.

This is very interesting. The leng shi was that all the monks had a woven sleeping mat. They didn't have mattresses.

They slept on the floor and they were given a mat made of woven wreaths. That was called ne mel. And then they would have...

it would be raining during the monsoon a lot. And then the monks had to go to town, they had to walk to town to get their lunch. Their only meal of the day.

They're required to finish eating before noon. And then fast until the next morning. You're allowed to have anything liquid, okay?

I was in Sri Lanka. I stayed in a... Anyway, this old, old man...

It was beautiful in Sri Lanka because I was walking through an arboretum, a huge forest in Kandy. Very beautiful. Very, very beautiful.

The trees are... The trees are the highest living things you've ever seen. Higher than redwoods, okay?

They're unbelievable. And they were planted... There's a photo of the day they were planted, like 150 years ago.

And it's very beautiful to think that someone cared enough to plant these trees for us. But now they're beautiful. And I was walking through the arboretum.

A guy came up to me on a bicycle and he leaped off the bicycle and he threw himself on the ground, you know? And I was... That's the first time I was ever treated like a monk, anywhere.

And I was like, this is cool, you know? And so then I went to the caretaker's house and they said, oh, you're a monk, you know? And I said, yeah.

And he said, well, it's afternoon. You can't have any food. And I said, yeah.

And he said, it's too bad I made you a big dinner, you know? He's got all this stuff, like avocados and all this stuff, you know? And then he says, he's very old.

And he says, oh, but not to worry. I know what to do. He got this big blender, you know?

And he threw everything in the blender. And then he just blended it a little bit. And then he said, let's see if it'll pour.

He said, oh, it pours. You can eat it, you know? Anyway, it gets kind of corrupt, right?

Anyway, then one of the monks is given the job of taking the mats out to hang them in the sun because otherwise they'll get mildered, right? Then there was a langshi. The monk who was supposed to hang the mats out, he hung them on the line.

And then he went, I don't know, he went and goofed off somewhere else. And then a big rainstorm came and ruined all the monk's mats, okay? And then there came to be a vow which relates to respecting communal property of a religious group, okay?

Respecting the communal property of a religious group, right? So, like Diamond Mountain or any place else, there are things which are owned by the whole group, right? There are supplies, there are tents, there are cabins that are owned by the group, right?

So then we have a responsibility to make sure they are well taken care of and not to let them be hurt, okay? Like that. There's a...

I like the next vow because it's very relevant to modern times. It's Monk's Vow 62. It's called, ,SDING BA LAS RGYUR BA'I STONG BA, ,SDING BA LAS RGYUR BA'I...

,SDING BA you know, ,SDING BA is a little seat that monks and nuns get when they're ordained, this little purple cloth. So in the old days you carried it around and if the ground was wet you would put your dingwa down and you'd sit on it and then you wouldn't get your butt wet and stuff like that, okay? So everybody has a dingwa.

Then you bring it to the tsok. When you have a... When the monks assemble every morning in the monastery you are required to bring your dingwa.

And in the old days they would spread hay on the floor and then you would put your dingwa on top of that, okay? Then when the ceremony is finished like three hours later and then when you leave the ceremony you are required by your vows to clean up after the ceremony. Every monk is required by their vows to make sure that the temple is as clean as when you got there.

Assuming it was clean when you got there. Okay? And I think it's very relevant for us, okay?

We tend to have a... I don't know. Where I grew up in New Jersey at the temple, every time we had tse chu me and Jampa would just be...

we'd grimace, you know? We'd count the people because the more people the more mess, you know? I don't know, for some reason high tantricists are more willing to throw cakes on the floor than normal people who visit your house, you know?

And then we would really... all the tantricists would leave at 10 o'clock or something after this holy tse chu and then we would clean for two or three hours. We would scrape the crushed cookies off the floor.

I don't know why, but people in a communal situation... You can take the example of a Starbucks bathroom, okay? You do things in there that you would never do in your mother's bathroom or even in your own bathroom, right?

I don't know why it is. If something is owned by a group of people, somehow we feel more comfortable to mess it up and leave it dirty, okay? Then this vow, you are under vows.

I'm sorry to tell you all these details. They should tell you before you take robes, right? You break a vow if you leave an event without assuring that everything is cleaned up.

Okay, it's very interesting. It's a great vow. I like it, okay?

So basically, we shouldn't leave a place disheveled and dirty and messy. And that also applies to staying... Those of us who tour a lot or travel a lot, we stay in people's homes.

You should never leave a home with a single thing dirty or out of place. If a sponsor has been kind enough to put you up at a place, okay? There shouldn't be a single unwashed dish.

There shouldn't be any mess left in the fridge. The garbage should be taken out. The first question you should ask a person when you go to visit, when you're staying at their house on a tour or something, you say, where do I throw the garbage out?

You should ask that. Where's the garbage bags? Then I have friends who have been going to the same house for years and I say, where do they keep the garbage bags?

And they're like, I don't know. And then I'm like, that means you never took the garbage out. Then that's really, you break your vows, okay?

These are vows that, what does it mean you broke your vows? It means somebody will trash your stuff a thousand times, okay? Which is not fun.

People will trash your house a thousand times or a thousand times worse than you did. It should be spotless and it should be left beautiful, right? And if you've been there three days and you drank all the orange juice, then on the last day you should go out and buy three containers of orange juice and fill up the fridge, right?

And don't leave an empty fridge, right? It's just bad manners, much less monks and nuns, okay? All right.

Or if they have spent their money for the groceries, you should offer to pay them back or you should hide money. You should do bodhisattva stealing. You know bodhisattva, what do you call it?

Purse snatching. Bodhisattva purse snatching. Snatch their purse and put some money in it and then put it back and don't tell them, okay?

And you should do that, okay? We should all do that. Okay.

We're losing a lot of time. Dang, you're not going to get to killing. Monks vow 131.

Monks vows 132. 131 is called kabrel chepay tung che. 132 is called trikang chepay tung che.

131, kabrel is a weird word. It means that in the old days a good needle was priceless, okay? To produce a good needle in a bronze era society is difficult and a good needle is very valuable in ancient times, okay?

So monks had a thing called kabrel. Kabrel means it's a metal tube that you keep your needles in, okay? Because they were rare and they were very expensive because you couldn't fashion a needle with a file before foundry was invented, okay?

Anyway, trikang chepay tung che means to use a seed which is unnecessarily fancy, okay? Both of these vows get into the question of how do you use the earth's resources, okay? How do you use the resources of Mother Earth, right?

Do you suck out the last oil during your generation, right? And for unnecessary, what do you call it? Comfort, right?

Phoenix, Arizona, 97% of the houses in Phoenix, Arizona don't have a solar hot water heater. Every new house in Beijing has one and there's no sun there, okay? And it's just stealing.

It's stealing from future generations, okay? It's just... It's stealing from people who come after us, okay?

So we have a... In the monks' vows it's built in that you have a responsibility not to use resources unwisely, okay? The 58th monk's vow I think is one of the most beautiful, okay?

It's a tung che basik. It's called sabun jikpa. Sabun means a seed.

A mental seed is called a bak chak. Physical seeds are called sabun, okay? Sometimes it's shortened to sun.

Jikpa means to destroy a seed, okay? A monk is not allowed to destroy the seed of either an animal or a plant, okay? How did I learn this vow?

I was eating an apple in front of Ken Rinpoche and I took a bite out of the core and he went ballistic. And he's like, what the hell are you doing? And I'm like, what do you mean?

I'm eating an apple. And he's like, you bit the core. I'm like, yeah, I like it.

And he's like, that has a seed in it. You can't destroy seeds. You cannot render seeds unviable, okay?

Then you broke a monk's vow. And a monk is not allowed to castrate an animal or to cause an animal to be castrated. What it means is that we're supposed to respect life to a high degree, all kinds of life, plant life and animal life.

We're not allowed to render the earth unfit for any kind of plant life or animal life, right? So that gets into taking good care of the earth, making sure the oceans are clean and the rivers are clean and the air is pure and leaving it that way for other generations. We're not allowed to cause the destruction of the environment because there are thousands of generations to come.

Who are we to destroy the ozone or destroy the oceans? I saw a presentation recently. I was a guest speaker at an event and someone gave a presentation about the state of the oceans and it's very sad.

I think 80% of the life in the ocean has been killed. It's very strange. It's very terrible.

There are new kinds of nets which they go along the bottom of the ocean and they rip up all the coral and the plant life in order to get the last fish there. And they're destroying the ocean literally, making it a desert underneath. So I think every Buddhist and every spiritual person, that's like a grand kind of stealing.

To steal from all future generations is a grand kind of stealing, stealing on a huge scale. So we have to be very careful with that. If we want our world in general to be covered with poverty, then to destroy the earth for future generations would be a very good seed to plant.

You see? Okay, two more and then we'll get to killing. Sorry.

Monks vow 251. That's like, there's only 253, right? So we're getting down there.

Don't say I didn't cover most of them. This is also a ngeche, which means a minor vow. A fully ordained monk is not allowed to defecate or urinate close to a stream because that water is used by all life, animal life and human life.

We are not allowed to destroy the environment. We're not allowed to pollute the environment. That would apply to vehicle emissions and destroying the ozone and hurting the oceans.

These are vows. We are under vows not to pollute the environment and hurt other living creatures that way. We are stealing when we do that.

When we pollute, we are stealing. Monks vow 252. It's not as serious.

Basically, you're not allowed to make... How do you say? Living plants are not allowed to be damaged.

We're not allowed to damage living plants without great purpose. If you're building a house, if you're building a retreat cabin and you have to clear the land, that's okay. That's allowed.

You're not allowed to carelessly destroy green living plants. The example they give is you're not allowed to blow your snot or other things on the plants that would hurt the plants. And we're not allowed to cut them without great purpose.

And then the explanation in the scripture is that you are destroying the homes of tiny creatures. Hundreds or thousands of creatures live... If you dig up an agave, for example, here, you'll find dozens of little creatures living in the roots and feeding.

They have little cities. They are living off the roots. And if you destroy a living plant, you are destroying the homes of...

In Buddhism, the word for an animal is person, kang-sok. And the word for a human is kang-sok. They don't differentiate.

I mean, the word people extends to all living creatures in Buddhism. They are just different tribes of the human race. They are smaller.

They have more legs. But that doesn't give them less rights to a home, you see? They are also kang-sok.

They are people. And they belong to... Prejudice towards an insect or an animal is the same as prejudice towards people in our own race, right?

Human race. It's the same. They have rights to have their homes and to be protected to live in their homes.

I think it would be cool someday... I don't know. I drive a lot sometimes on the highway and I see dead deer or dead coyotes or things like that.

And I think if they were children of humans, they would have figured out a way to prevent it, right? They would have been some kind of fencing or something on the highways and like that. So I think there will be...

We should think about that in the future. They have a right to be here also. This is also their home.

So I... I love that. I love those vows.

I think they're very beautiful and I think they're very enlightened, okay? Then we should know them or we should honor them, right? Okay.

Okay, we got half an hour to do killing. Killing is called sok chö. It's the third monk's vow, okay?

Sok chö. The story of how it was created, why the vow was created, I think it's very beautiful. And I think there are a lot of lessons in that leng shi, that original story of why the vow was created.

So I'm going to read you the leng shi, okay? Maybe it will take up some time, but that's okay. It means we'll just have to do more later together.

Yeah. Okay, here we go. This is the leng shi from Lodur Lekson, Penchen Lodur Lekson, for the third monk's vow.

Oh, before I say that, I just thought I'd say, I asked my Lama why they thought killing would be third and not first. They said if you think about it, in a monastery, if you kill somebody, they go missing, you know? Like it's very obvious when you've killed another monk, or are retreating.

Like you have seichu, and there's one missing, right? So, you know, it was less frequent than messing around or stealing, which are done in private, usually, okay? So, I mean, it wasn't as...

people weren't as likely to do it because it was so evident. All right. That's my Lama's thing.

Okay. Dey dey du re shik kyi tse. Turme gelong kyi gendun mongpo dang che.

This is... the first sentence is important, don't forget it. The Lord Buddha was staying with many monks, okay?

That's important. Yul pong che na. Of course, they didn't have any permanent home.

Chulung yong den gyi tsam gor shing gi tsel sep na shuk so. So, they were camped out at the side of a river in a forest, okay? All together.

Dey tsey tumpe gelong tak mi dukpa gom shik. At that time, the teacher said to the monks, he taught the monks a meditation on the... mi dukpa means the...

the ugliness of the human form, okay? How it's full of, you know, vile liquids and it ages and it falls apart and it's like thousands of parts to keep in, what do you call it, sync with each other. The human body is very fragile and it quickly ages and it's full of poop.

I mean, you cut open a human body and you got to put a mask on because it stinks. Human body dies, you have to... you have to bury it.

It's not... you have to bury it within a day because it starts to smell so bad, okay? So, he started to teach about the uncleanliness of the human body.

mi dukpa mandu gom bar che na pe yen chenpo gyur she sungpa dang Then he taught how many... how useful it was to meditate on the impermanence and the uncleanliness of the human body. It's not...

by the way, it's not meant to depress you or make you, what do you call, disrespect your lovely human form. It's to get you to upgrade it as quickly as possible, okay? By honoring life, okay?

By honoring life, this body, which is full of poop and urine and it's liable to fall apart at any moment because there's too many parts in it that have to interact, right? Many more parts than a car and it will fall apart. So, then you have to respect life so that the body will change into a higher body, okay?

That's the idea of the vow, okay? I would like to have a higher body, a body made of light. Therefore, I will respect life, okay?

So, that's why Lord Buddha was teaching about the uncleanliness of the human body, but the monks didn't get it or they took it the wrong way, okay? DGE SLONG BDAG GIS MI GDUG PA BSGOM PAS They meditated on the uncleanliness of the body. Then RANG RANG GI MI TZAM BA'I LUS DI LA GYI LUGS TE GYI LUGS is not GELUGS, okay?

GELUGS means Dalai Lama's Literature, right? GYI LUGS is an ancient word for to be depressed or to be sad. The monks got GYI LUGS from meditating on the uncleanliness of their bodies.

Then RANG LA SMOS they began to have a... they began to have a very negative impression of their own selves, like an extreme low self-esteem something, a dangerously low self-esteem. TSUN DRIN Some of them took knives and cut their bodies.

THUGS SA Some of them ate poison, took poison. THAG PA'I PHYING Some of them hanged themselves. YANG SAR CHUNG NGO Some of them jumped off cliffs to kill themselves, okay?

YANG DGE SLONG ZHIG GI RI DAG DO DGE SBYONG BAS LA TSOR SHOG Then there was one monk who knew of a spiritually minded person. I believe that person didn't have vows, okay? I believe it was a lay person.

His name was RI DAG DO BAS His name was BAS and he was known to have a complexion similar to that of a deer, okay? Then the monk said to him, Will you kill me? Will you free me from this body?

He asked BAS, Will you free me from this body? I'll give you my monk's bowl, I'll give you my robes, and please kill me, okay? Let me out of this unclean body, okay?

DE'I DGE SLONG DA'I SREG NAS He did kill the monk. DE'I RJE DANG DUN PAR DGE SLONG MANG PO'I KYANG DE BZHIN DU MED PA DANG Then many other monks asked him to set them free. And he obliged, and he killed 60 monks, okay?

Who were sincere practitioners, and they thought that this was a way to escape the unclean human body. Of course, we know that the karma of killing yourself is particularly serious, and it would only cause you within 10 seconds to take a much worse body, in a much worse realm. So don't think about it, okay?

It's dumb. It's jumping out of the fire pan into the fire. You have another body within 10 minutes, and it's in a much worse world than the one we are in.

You might as well work on this world, okay? Don't commit suicide. Suicide isn't a...

Maybe if we just died and went away it would be okay, but you don't. And... So it's not...

it doesn't make any sense. You're just in a worse place than you were before you killed yourself, okay? Anyway, DER RGYAS LONG RNAMS MYONG BAR GYUR PA NA Because of that, the monks started to get less and less.

SO SBYONG GYI TSE The next time they held SO SBYONG, DUN PA'I, the Lord Buddha said to KUN DGA' BA'U'U ANANDA, RGYAS LONG MYONG NGON DGOS GANG YIN Hey, where are all the monks? RGYAS LONG RNAMS SPYOD KYI GCIG ZAD PA LA SOGS PA JI LTAR GYUR PA Then Ananda told Lord Buddha, they've been killing themselves. They've been killing each other, okay?

To put themselves out of their unclean bodies. DUN PA'I, RGYAS LONG GYI TSOR MIN PA GYUR SU DUN PA MIN PA DE NI RAB TU CHUNG BA'I BYA BA MIN PA RNAM DANG DUS MED MED Then he insistently repeated over and over about what a stupid thing they'd done. What a wrong thing they had done.

And he, over and over in many different terms, he told them what fools they had been, okay? That how wrong it was to kill yourself. DE LTA BA'I NA PA'I CHOS YANG DAG PAR ZIG PAS Then Lord Buddha saw that there would be ten benefits.

If he created a rule, which I'm only going to teach to monks and nuns, okay? That's another incentive. They're kind of beautiful, but you'll never know.

He saw that it would be useful to create this vow. So he created the third monk's vow, which is that you cannot kill. But I think it's very interesting that the vow was created in that context, okay?

It's very powerful, okay? Now we get to the definition of killing, okay? By the way, I wanted to mention that the definitions of these vows for monks are not necessarily the same as the vows for in the Ten Commandments, okay?

The Buddhist Ten Commandments. Those are more general, okay? These four monks' vows are much more serious.

For example, in the case of killing, which is the first of the Ten Moral Codes, the Ten Elements of the Moral Code of a Buddhist practitioner, you can't kill anything. You can't kill a human. You can't kill an animal, okay?

But the monk's vow relates specifically to killing a human, okay? So here's the definition of the third monk's vow. These are the elements.

Each element is important because if one is missing, it drops down to the next category of vow. If two or more are missing, it drops down more, okay? If you're going to commit one of these things, then try to leave out one of the elements, okay?

Then at least you won't lose your vows, okay? Like if you want to kill another retreatant, just make sure you leave out one of these things. Then you can still be a monk or a nun.

Okay, chen nen gyal rung, it can only be committed by someone who still has their vows, okay? It means they have kept their vows clean enough that they haven't lost their vows, okay? rang ne shen gyi mi yam They must kill a person other than themselves, okay?

That's interesting, given the circumstances of the creation of the vow, okay? But here you get into the importance of not harming others, all right? Because ultimately they are yourselves, right?

mi yam mir chakpa kang rung or to kill a human fetus after the moment of conception, okay? So Buddhism says that the mind, the soul enters the womb at the moment of conception. At the moment that the sperm touches the egg, there's a human being there, okay?

So we're not allowed to do abortion, right? So if someone asks you about that issue, I don't go around, what do you call, lecturing people about abortion, right? I don't think it's my right to tell people what they should do.

But when people ask you, you can have an answer ready, okay? You can say this is what Lord Buddha said and this is where he said it, okay? I gave a talk in New York.

This was before three-year retreat, so I can talk about it. This was after the first three-year retreat and we went to New York and we gave a talk. It was at the Shambhala Center in New York City.

And you know, I was sitting in the green room and I was waiting for them to tell me to come in and talk. And there was this beautiful Asian girl. She must have been about, I don't know, two, two and a half years old.

And I can remember her. She was in a very beautiful pink dress, frilly pink dress, and she was dancing across the floor of the center. She was like doing little twirls around the floor and she was running back and forth.

And I was reflecting on how pretty she was and how beautiful to see a child dancing across the floor, you know? After the talk, her mother came up to me and she said, so you don't remember me? I was sitting in the back of your talks in New York in 1998 and you were talking about what Lord Buddha said about abortion.

And then right after that I got pregnant and I was going to have an abortion. But I remembered your talk. So I didn't have an abortion.

And I said, well, where's the child? And she said, oh, the girl in the pink dress. And she said it's the best thing that ever happened in my life that I have this child.

So I think if you learn about this and you teach people, then I don't know anyone who's had an abortion who's happy, personally. And everyone I've met that didn't have an abortion because of these teachings, you know, it's hard to have a kid, but they're really happy and they're really grateful, okay? So anyway, here's the source if somebody asks you.

I don't mean we should go out and bug people or burn down abortion clinics, but I think it's good to know. Okay. kun long sur sem dang den la.

There must be harmful intent, okay? That means if you kill somebody in a car accident by accident, you haven't lost your monk's vows, okay? There must be harmful intent.

djorwa rang nam gupa kang rung gi sopar tsom. You must undertake to kill the person. You must undertake some action to kill the person.

There's a long list of methods of killing people. You know them. I don't have to tell you.

You've considered them with your partner. Anyway, yourself or someone that you've induced to do the killing for you. You've paid them or you've talked them into it, okay?

It doesn't have to be by you. That now covers butchers and people who grow chickens and kill them, right? When you pay for something, you are asking someone to kill for you, right?

And the Tibetan monks who eat meat, they try all kinds of fancy ways to get around it, and I don't buy it, okay? I just don't buy it, okay? I had a long discussion with one one time.

I said, so why do you guys eat meat, you know? And they said, well, in the old days in Tibet we didn't have any vegetables. And I'm like, well, now there's refrigerators you can have vegetables.

And they're like, yeah. And then I'm like, well, so why are you still eating meat, you know? And then they said, I didn't go to the grocery store to kill a cow.

I went and bought a package of meat. You don't even call it cow. You call it meat.

You have a different word for it after it's killed. Therefore, I'm not killing them, you know? And then I'm like, oh, Rinpoche, you know?

Not my Rinpoche, okay? I'm like, oh, Venerable, you know? So a guy in New York tried to sell me a radio on the street, or you know, an iPad or something.

You don't know what that is, sorry. Someone tried to sell me an expensive electronic thing on the street that I know is worth $800, and he wanted 50 bucks for it, right? So is it okay if I buy it?

And he says, certainly not. And I say, why not? And he says, you just stole it from somebody in the Starbucks down the street, you know?

And you can't buy it. It's stolen property. So I'm like, tah!

You know? What about the body of the chicken? You know?

They didn't agree to give up their body. This is stolen goods. You're dealing in stolen goods, Rinpoche.

Anyway. That's a long story. Basically, you're paying someone else to kill it for you, right?

I worked in the Farm Workers Union when I had more sense and I was more idealistic. I worked for a couple of years for Cesar Chavez, and they wanted to get people to stop... They wanted to get more rights for the migrant workers from Mexico, and we worked for that.

And then we decided that we would talk people out of buying any vegetables in the market that were... You know, Teamsters Union. They were the union that was trying to kill the...

literally kill some Mexican workers, okay? Then... And we were working for them, for the Farm Workers Union.

And then... So we stood outside of grocery stores for two years and we asked people not to buy the vegetables from the people who were hurting the Mexican workers. And those companies started to collapse, and they started to close.

And then they agreed to take care of the workers, the Mexican workers. So what I mean is, a lot of the violence in the world is done on demand, right? It's done to our demand.

The reason that animals are killed for meat is that somebody will buy them, right? If we all refuse to buy it, as consumers, if we refuse to buy products that were made with prison labor or child labor or slave labor or the bodies of other inhabitants of this world, in my own life I've seen that then they would have to stop doing it, you see? It wouldn't become financially viable.

All they care about is money. If they can't make money on it, they won't do it. If nobody wanted meat, then they wouldn't sell meat.

You don't have to pass laws against killing animals, just nobody eat it. And then there won't be any... I mean, nobody will want to make a business because nobody will buy the meat, right?

So I've seen that that can work, okay? Okay, tar tuk sepa na, pampa deni du gyurwa, okay? Then last part of the definition.

In the end, the person must die, okay? As a result of your efforts, the person has to die. That's the tar tuk.

And there's an extra point that... there's a famous debate about whenever you're in a war and you both stab each other and then you die before the other guy, but then he dies. Did you break a pampa?

And they say, no, there's nobody there anymore. So you don't accumulate the karma. You get the karma of wounding somebody, but not of killing somebody.

It's interesting. So I thought we have to stop in like ten minutes. I thought we would review what we just said about killing, which are the four elements of a karmic path, okay?

So we talked about it the first day. And tomorrow everyone's distracted because they're going home or back to their retreat cabin. So I thought it would be nice to go over the idea of a karmic path together again one more time, okay?

It comes up here. We just went over it with killing. So you have a medical problem, right?

But the opposite of killing, the reason not to kill is that you want to be healthy and you want to have a good body, right? It doesn't help to follow the first monk's vow to have a partner, to gain yourself a sweet partner, and it doesn't help to follow the second vow of honoring other people's property because that would bring you financial independence if you're sick all the time, okay? To be wealthy or financially independent and to have a nice partner is no fun and doesn't do you much good if your body's falling apart, all right?

So that naturally we would want to have a nice body. How do you create the seeds to overcome a personal illness, right? You have some kind of illness?

Or you're just getting old and the body starts falling apart. It does, okay? Trust me.

Things you took for granted, some piece breaks down. It's like a car, you know? And you're like, dang, the steering wheel was always so...

I had the best steering wheel, you know? And then one day it just like bunked and you're like, your body's the same, okay? Trust me.

It just... parts fall apart. There's a schedule.

You go to the doctor and you say, I can't believe this is happening. He says, hey, you're lucky it happened 15 years late, you know? But it happens to everybody, you know?

If you get old enough, right? So the pieces just start breaking. So we don't want that.

I mean, we would want to... If you have a particular illness, bad back, bad shoulders, you have some... any kind of medical problem or you're just a victim of wear and tear, right?

Your car is getting old and parts of your car are starting to not cooperate and it's very frustrating and you feel very... or you just don't have the energy that you used to have. It's very...

what do you call it? Disconcerting. You feel very sad.

You're like, go to the doctor, I don't have any energy. He says, well, you're 60 years old, what do you want? You know?

That's what happens. Then if you want to change that, you have to honor this vow and you have to honor it in four steps, right? So I'm trying to sell you the four step.

I was thinking if they ever called us anything, I don't care if they call me a Buddhist. I almost prefer that people don't call me a Buddhist. But if they want to call me a four-steppist, I'm okay with it, you know?

I'm a four-steppist, right? It's not very smooth, right? Neither was the Beatles.

But anyway. So what are the four? And I want you to go home with this, okay?

Both retreatants and non-retreatants. I want you to go home with this. You should take this home.

If you don't remember the 252nd monk's vow, which was throwing snot on green plants, okay? That's okay. If after a week you don't remember 252, unless you're ordained, you have to remember.

But you should remember the four steps. Why? If you get a medical problem, you can use them and you can change it, okay?

You can change it. Or if you have a credit card debt and it's beginning to wear on you that you have these debts and you feel underwater all the time or it's been three years since your last relationship and you haven't got a new partner and you're getting older and you don't know where to get one and it's becoming a little desperate, okay? Use the four steps, okay?

Use the four steps. So, step number one. Where did these four come from?

We just went over them. Shri Sampaja Uttarata. We just did it for the act of killing.

All the parts of the definition I just mentioned were either Shri Sampaja Uttarata, okay? So, step number one. Decide what you want, okay?

In one small sentence. I often ask people, they come to me, Geshe-la, I want something. I say, okay, tell me in one sentence.

They say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Then I say, could you write that down? And they write it down. It's actually ten sentences, but they put commas between them.

And then I'm like, okay, legally that's a sentence, but that's not what I mean. In one short sentence, tell me what you want. And then they say, I want more energy, okay?

Like, I used to have a lot of youthful energy, and now I don't have so much energy. And it's really frustrating, okay? If you've had energy your whole life, and then suddenly the energy stops.

Or creativity, you know? Creativity is good. I would like to be more creative.

I used to be very creative, and now I can't think of new stuff anymore. Okay? Then that creativity and that energy was coming from seeds, right?

And those seeds wear out as you get older, so you have to replenish the seeds. Or it's natural that you would have less energy or less creativity. So write it down, I would like to have more energy and creativity.

I'll give you two things, okay? I would like to have more energy and more creativity. Write down a sentence, okay?

Write down the thing you want the most this week, and write it down. Be clear with yourself. It's important to clarify with yourself what you want, because some people get stuck there.

By the way, if you don't know what you want, you try to write your sentence, you can't come up with what you want, you're not sure what you want, then you have to find somebody who doesn't know what they want, you have to help them, and then you can do the four steps on that. I'm not kidding, okay? Like thousands of people around the world who aren't sure what they want, they can't write the first sentence.

Then I'm like, okay, let's make the sentence, I don't know what I want. And then you can work on that with the four steps. You help somebody who doesn't know what they want.

So anyway, step number one, I would like to have more energy and creativity. Step number two, you must find another person who needs energy or creativity. That's all, okay?

You cannot normally, under normal circumstances, you cannot plant a karmic seed in yourself. You must plant your dream in someone else. Nowadays I say with someone else because people are getting weird ideas about planting seeds in other people.

So you have to, you must identify another person, okay? This stuff doesn't work, this system doesn't work if you don't help somebody else. In that sense, the people who are not in retreat are in a way more fortunate that you have lots of bodies around you all the time.

You never have a shortage of direct objects to help. Retreatants have a bigger challenge in that sense. It has to be mental and in your vision.

But it can be more powerful if you do it right, okay? So you have to find someone who has a similar problem. Part of step two is that you have to make a plan for them, okay?

You have to come up with a plan for them. I'm going to take them... It's really tong len, okay?

If you want to get practical, step number two is tong len. Tong len means you visualize the person you want to help and then you visualize how you're going to help them. Before you help them, I know somebody who doesn't have any energy.

They used to have a lot of energy, now they're getting older, they don't have any energy. They're taking all these ginseng pills and you know, they are doing all this weird stuff to get more energy. They're drinking weird fruit shakes and stuff like that.

Do they work? No. Why?

They don't work all the time, okay? When they work, why do they work? Because of seeds, okay?

They don't work because of the ginseng or the stuff in the fruit. It's not the chemicals in the fruit, okay? Because they don't work on some people.

If it was the chemicals in the fruits, it would work on everybody. Duh! Okay, I'll find somebody who needs more energy and I'll take them out and I'll just listen to their problem.

I'll take them to Starbucks or to the Anigoma, okay? You could put a Starbucks sign on it. And I'll sit down with them and we will, in companionable silence, which this is not, okay?

This is not silence, okay? This is distracting and this makes you cuckoo. Okay?

Companionable silence. Sit in companionable silence, real silence, for a while. And then, you know, write them a note and say, can I help you?

I understand you're feeling tired nowadays or you don't have the energy you had when you started retreat. So, I understand you're getting tired. Then, I'd like to...

What can I do to help you? You know, I have suggestions. Let's talk about suggestions.

A young man in a recent talk in a country which I can't say, raised his hand and said, any suggestion you give which is less than karmic seeds is not totally truthful. So, how can that create a good seed? It still can, okay?

You gain their trust by bringing them ginseng tablets and making them fruit shakes, okay? And then later, when they are close enough to you, you explain to them why they don't work. All right?

And then you give them the real thing. Okay? But you attract them with the ginseng and the fruit.

Okay? That's how it works.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, it's not true that giving them those methods doesn't create a seed. It creates a good seed for you. That's step number two.

Plan how you're going to take them somewhere and give them advice. Okay? Even people in retreat who have heard these things 10,000 times, who are still feeling tired, can still benefit from being around you and you helping them.

Then they feel they have some support or someone cares about them and they might be more willing to to try methods to not be so tired.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
If they hear it from you rather than they just sit in their cabin feeling tired and wondering why they're tired even though they know why they're tired. Okay? Somehow it's helpful to hear it from somebody else.

Okay? That's number two. Planning it.

Step number three. Go to Starbucks. Okay?

What did it say here? It said, sombar. You have to start the action.

You have to undertake the action. An important question comes up here. Okay?

An important question comes up here. If you do step three just to get rid of your bad back, right? Okay?

You take someone out to Starbucks and express concern about their health problems just because you want seeds to fix your bad back, then for the rest of your life you will have a good back and you will be surrounded by selfish son-of-a-guns. Okay? It's very interesting.

It can backfire, right? This stuff can backfire. Step number three.

I'm taking you to the anagama to discuss your problem with being tired because I don't want to be tired. And as soon as I don't feel tired you can just do what you want. I don't care.

Okay? Then you'll just be surrounded by people with lots of energy who are extremely selfish. Okay?

You're planting two seeds. Okay? How do you get around that?

Is it wrong to want something for yourself? Is it wrong to want to have more energy? It's not wrong.

It's a noble goal. Is there some other way to get it than serving someone else who doesn't have energy? No, there isn't.

Okay? So you're stuck. You have to help somebody else.

If you want more energy you have to help somebody else who needs energy. There's going to have to be this exchange. Well, then how do I prevent it from becoming selfish or egocentric?

There's a trick, okay? It's called bodhicitta. You think...

You think about the example you're setting. Okay? Especially the people on this side of the tent.

Right? If I have a friend who's having trouble because they feel tired all the time and I take them to Starbucks and I give them... I advise ginseng tablets.

Nowadays people say, I saw on the internet it really helps you. Okay? When somebody says it really works then a Buddha should roll their eyes.

Okay? When you hear it really works you should roll your eyes. You know?

Nothing really works. Take them out to Starbucks. Advise all these ginseng and fruit things until they trust you.

Like buy the stuff for them until they trust you. Then trick them. You know?

Trick them that way and then start telling them what really makes them less tired. What really makes a person less tired is helping other people not to be tired. Okay?

That's the only thing that works. If I have a friend who's exhausted all the time, who has... What do they call that?

The doctors make extra money if you have it. What's it called? You can't...

No, you can't tell me. Fatigue syndrome. Chronic fatigue.

They give it a CFS. They give it an abbreviation and it costs you more money to get it fixed. It just means I'm tired, you know?

So if you have a friend who has CFS then if you talk them into serving other people who are too busy or too tired or too exhausted and if by doing that they suddenly become fountains of youthful energy at any age, then they'll start to tell other people about that. Their friends will ask them, do you use ginseng or do you use chia seeds? Okay?

You can't have them because they're expensive. Should I... No, I blew it, right?

Sorry, Rob. Anyway. Should I use chia seeds or should I use ginseng?

And then you say... You can tell them. You should use...

People will come up to your friend and say, how did you suddenly become so energetic? Did you eat chia seeds or do you take ginseng? And then they're going to tell the person, no, I went to Starbucks.

I took an exhausted person to Starbucks and I taught them how to have more energy by caring for somebody else. Okay, got it? Then it will start a fad.

It will start a movement. Revolutia. And there will be a...

There will be a chain reaction of people who suddenly have more energy, right? This chain reaction will start of people who have great energy at any age, okay? And great creativity.

And then when you take the person to the Anigomba or to the Starbucks, when you're talking to them by handwritten note, you have to think, I'm starting a revolution. I'm starting a big deal. People all over the world will have energy in six months.

Somebody told me if a karmic seed doubles every 24 hours then it's a billion in a month or something like that. I forget. But it's a lot.

If you set an example of a new way of life to achieve your dreams by planting seeds, by serving other people, if you become a living example that that stuff works, then people will... Lots of people will come to you. Doubleday asked me to write the Diamond Cutter because they heard we made a lot of money.

Okay? And then, like that, people will come to you and they will say, how did you do that? And then you share it with them with the idea that maybe because of me there will be thousands of people who are not tired anymore.

That's bodhichitta. And there's no other bodhichitta. Okay?

Like, don't bust your brains over some cosmic love thing. Okay? Be a living example of a new way of life.

People will copy you if you're successful. That will create a new world where people achieve their dreams by serving others, the same thing. And that's bodhichitta.

That vision is bodhichitta. There's no other bodhichitta. It has to start with you.

You have to think, I'm going to set an example. I will get more energy by serving people who don't have energy. By the way, you can still take ginseng after that, even if you can't take chia seed.

Okay? You can still take that stuff. Why?

Because then it will work. All right? Then it will work.

The magic is not in the ginseng. The magic is in serving tired people. Then take the ginseng and it will work.

Then go do yoga. It will work. Okay?

Otherwise the yoga doesn't work. And the ginseng doesn't work. And the seed, whose name you forgot already, doesn't work.

Last step, then we'll stop. I'm sorry I ran over a bit. But I wanted to get into your head before the last day because last day nobody listens to anything.

Step number four, tar tuk, right? Tar tuk. Oh, so step number three, just to repeat, you have to do it with bodhicitta.

Right? You have to think, I'm starting revolution. Then it's not like you're healthy, rich, and have a cool partner, and everybody around you is selfish.

Okay? Because that can happen. Step number four, before you go to sleep, put your head down on the pillow, and instead of thinking of the other retreatant who's making irritating noises all day, or especially when we have group meetings, who's like whispering all day as if that were silence, instead of worrying about them, which by the way, you planted the seed for, right?

When you lay your head down on the pillow, say to yourself, today, you know, I paid attention to someone else's needs, you know? Today I did something for somebody else. Rather than normal human behavior, which is to ignore anybody or anything which is unpleasant, or needy, I did the opposite, you know?

I glommed on to the most tired person in the town, and I tried to help them to have more energy today. And when I gave them the ginseng, they smiled. And when I counted out the chia seeds, they were confused, but then I explained about the chia seeds.

And you have to soak them for 15 minutes. They get all, they get like a Japanese, what do they call those shakes with the little balls in them? Anyway, you know.

You can't say, but you know. Yeah, you got to soak them for like 15, 20. Then you can't drink it because it doesn't pour very well.

Then nuns can't have it. Anyway. So, step number four, put your head down on the pillow and think about all the cool stuff you did today for other people.

That includes, I mean, I have the retreatants have been coming up to me for a couple of days now. By the way, Sunday is unsure, okay? I don't know the schedule for tomorrow.

If I have to, I might have to come back, okay? I may have to leave on schedule. I'm not sure yet.

There's another thing I have to do. But anyway, lama thing I have to do. But anyway, so they were like, a lot of the retreatants come up to me.

They come into the room. This curtain of silence and power descends on the room. And then they always write, I'm making no progress in my meditation.

And I'm like, yeah, right. And then, what should I do? And I'm like, you are making progress, okay?

I don't know. I think because they're in retreat, they don't notice that they're making progress or they're constantly examining themselves all day to make sure they're closer to enlightenment every day. And the examining makes you closer.

The wondering why you make no progress is progress. So, no, I mean you're all quite farther along than you were a year ago, or six months ago. Your meditation is better than it was six months ago.

So, number four is very important for you guys about your daily practice. Your struggles with the sadhana and the mantras and the Dzogchen meditations and the latest Yangchen Jube impossible thing to do. You know.

Now, when you go to sleep, it's very important that you cash in on your karmic seeds, okay? Go to bed. Don't worry about some other retreat.

Go to bed and think, I'm not a great meditator and I didn't memorize any Tibetan today or I didn't get inner fire, I didn't even get farts. And then, but I tried all day. And when you go to bed, think about every hour you spend in meditation changes your personality indelibly, okay?

Inevitably and indelibly, okay? Your personality is changed by every half hour of meditation you do. You are a different person when you come out of that meditation, even if you were distracted the whole time.

The fight to be in meditation has made you a different person and you are at the middle of a chain reaction. So do the number three bodhicitta thing. You see what I mean?

You got seeds all day long and you're not taking advantage of them. I really believe that. You are making powerful seeds.

If you're frustrated with your progress, it's not that you're... You know, somebody said, should I do this sadhana or that sadhana? It doesn't matter.

That's like saying ginseng or chia seeds, you see? It's a dumb question. You have the seeds.

You're not fertilizing them, right? You have to do step number four. Before you go to bed, as you go to bed, think, I'm not perfect at meditation.

I had a lot of mental afflictions about my neighbor and the tum today, but I tried all day. I'm a different person than I was and when I... Just by being here, I am a different...

I'm an example for thousands of people and then they will talk to other people and it will spread, okay? A meditation by yourself in your cabin in the middle of a leader room, which goes very poorly, is still a cause for... You have changed the world by a certain amount during that day, okay?

Then you have to appreciate it or you don't get the karma and the progress is slower, okay? So, at the end of the day, you have to think... When you put your head down on the pillow, you have to think, you know, I did a good thing today, you know?

Not perfect, but I did a... Then count all the good things you did and it... It plants more seeds than the good thing, okay?

Try to grasp that. Step two and step four plant more good seeds than step three. Okay?

Thinking about after what you did and planning to do a good deed beforehand plants more seeds than doing the good deed. It's very interesting, okay? If you're not getting the things you want in your life, it's because you're not doing two and four.

It's not because you're not doing three, okay? Got it? Alright, if you nod your head, you get to go home.

Okay, alright. You know, they're all like... We'll continue tomorrow with this vow and then we have to get into the fourth vow, okay?

The fourth vow is very important. It's lying. The fourth monk's vow, the fourth most serious monk's vow is to lie, but specifically about your spiritual life, okay?

To make claims about your spiritual life which are untrue, okay, is a cause to lose your vows, okay? And so we have to be very careful about that and we'll talk about that tomorrow. So we'll work out the schedule for tomorrow and we'll send it out when we know.

And if it has to be shortened, then I'll make some other arrangement to give back to the people that I don't do, okay? I think before the 17th, am I right? Not if I'm right.

17th, right? Okay. So I'm requesting all you guys to stay and after the talk we have some words and so you have to walk away quickly, okay?

Wait, we didn't do this yet. Okay, go for it, Venerable Chandra. Okay, thank you.

Thank you for... See you tomorrow.