Сокровищница высшего знания, курс 01: введение в Абхидхармакошу (Аризона, 2014), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
My teacher used to say, when you go to the dollar store, take a hundred dollars. Okay? Like, okay, you have to spend more than four or five dollars at the dollar store.

But when you go, you should have a hundred dollars. It means that when you're trying to help people, which is what we do, when you're trying to serve people, which is what we do, then you should have a big tool box. Okay?

Like, you should have many tools to help other people. And in my life, I've tried to give you more and more tools that you can use. And some of them you use every day, like pliers.

And some of them you rarely use, like rubber mallets. Right, baby stuff? But every tool has its place, and every tool has its time.

And the more tools I can give you to put in your box, the more you can serve other people. So my proposal tonight, in the time that's left, which is okay. Do you mind if I just go straight through to eight?

It's seven now. You're halfway there. How's your bladder?

It's okay? Okay. If you have a problem, just feel welcome to it.

So tonight we'll start a completely new subject. So you have done... Some of you have been here for 20 years or more.

You have completed the Geshe course, the basic text of the Geshe course, the five great books, in the seven-year program in New York. Some of you have completed the seven-year advanced Buddhism course here, that was held here. Many of you have attended the 14 years of the Kongxin class, Madhyamaka class, which began in 2003.

And we are now one quarter of the way through the text. We're still going. And then many of you have been attending the Lamrim course, which will take 12 or 14 years.

And we have finished three years. And you, daily life and sports, have to catch up on that, okay? Especially now, a lot of the world has to translate another thousand pages into Hebrew.

By the way, the work that the Israeli team did on the hypertext things was extremely helpful at Google. And I'd like to thank them for that. They're like, okay, we understand the English and the Tibetan.

Now, what's this other thing? I said, that's Hebrew. They were cool.

So, I hope the Israeli team can help a lot in the hypertexting for that project. I hope a lot of the world will give us some man power. Like, Yoram and people like that.

Because it was very, very helpful. They were very excited about it. So I thought today, since we don't have enough projects going on, that we could start a new project, which is called Abhidharma.

And there are four great schools of ancient India. And Abhidharma is one of them. I have a vision which I'd like to share with you.

There are many subjects which I was trained in. Because I was in the right place at the right time, as Dr. John would say. I was there the day that the Tibet Lamas started coming out into the world.

I was there. And I met the greatest. And I lived with him for 25 years.

And he taught me constantly, for free. And I would like to pass on what I learned. There are many, many things I haven't taught you.

There are decades of things I haven't taught you. And I would like to teach them. So we have an idea to sort of divorce the academic subjects from the retreat area.

So we feel that Diamond Mountain has strength in long-term retreats, deep retreats. So people from all over the world will be coming here to do deep retreats. And we will keep the caverns filled with people from many, many countries who want to do deep retreats.

They want to learn the experience of going inside and finding higher truths inside. Which can only be done with deep retreat. I just went to the Christian church where I grew up.

And it's Lenten time, right? 5 o'clock. And they are talking on the subject of Jesus' time in the desert.

The 40 days in the desert. And that was very pleasant for me. To sit and listen to their sermon about why going to the desert alone would enlighten you.

You know? And that was very beautiful. It was very wonderful.

The priest was defending this practice that Jesus did. And I think it's extremely important. I don't think you can really find out who you are if you don't learn to do retreat.

So this place has two functions in my mind. One is to provide the logistical place to do retreat. Because you can't get those places.

They cost thousands of dollars. No one is crazy enough to give you a three-year retreat for free. And no one is crazy enough to build a cabin and leave it there for somebody else.

And waste all their money. First is to have the place, right? And then you have to train people who come.

People are going to show up and say, Can I take one of those three-year retreats? And you are like, Have you ever done retreat? No.

Do you know anything about retreat? No. But I'll sit there.

And then you are like, No. These people were trained for seven years. These people did seven years of training to go into retreat.

So I see Diamond Mountain as a place where people from all over the world can learn to do retreat. They get training. In even a three-day retreat, or a five-day retreat, or a ten-day retreat, they get training on what the heck to do after they close the door.

And then we have the facility. So I see that as Diamond Mountain. And then I would like to take the academic subjects, the, what do you call it?

The training in the classics. We are looking at some buildings in Sedona. And that's more viable for people who want to be a student.

Then you can get work there. A lot of our students are working there already. And it's a beautiful, beautiful environment.

It's a beautiful place. And so my dream is to sort of have a college, a teacher's college in Sedona, for the, what do you call it? Academic subjects.

And then Diamond Mountain will be mainly for retreat and deep retreat. And I have several goals there. One is that I would like to pass on everything I've learned, which would take a long time.

And it has to be close to my home. Because my home is where my teacher is, and I have to be close to my teacher. So that's like a, we could do that for 10, 20, 30 years, depending on how long the machine runs.

But we have to record things, and we have to pass on those knowledge. I would like to train DCI teachers there, from all over the world. I would like to train ACI teachers there, from all over the world.

This is Mr. Wu's idea, actually. We were talking in Xiamen. And he said, you know, we should start a place in America to train people.

So he's been very kind to help me understand how we could grow, what we do. So I would like to have a place for VIPs to come, from other countries, and get training. And then I think we could help support that college by offering training for American and Western executives, who would like to do business in China, or Singapore, or Taiwan.

We have the staff, we have a large, in Singapore alone we have 60 volunteers. In China we have many, we are in many cities in China, and we have many, many volunteers. We have a great staff, and we can help American and Western business people to learn Chinese culture, some Chinese language, how to conduct yourself in China, how to do business.

Because in the future, the big cooperation will be between East and West. It will be between Asia and North America. So if we can help people to do that, it will also make more international cooperation, and much less likely for any kind of conflict.

If many Chinese friends are here, and if many American friends are there, then it will help reduce the risk of conflict in the world. Otherwise there may be conflict. And so I feel like we could play a large role in that, and I'm hoping people like Mr. Wu could come and teach there, help us start, and then teach us, teach Western people how to do business there. And then we could train each other, we could train each other. And I think it will change the world. I think we can help the whole world, if we have a place like that.

So that's my dream. Another dream, okay? So there are many, many subjects to karma that I've never taught you.

One of the most important is called Abhidharma. I was thinking a lot about Abhidharma because when I went to China, to a place called Xiamen, I asked Mr. Wu to teach me something. And he said, I have this book.

It's by someone named Rasa Bandhu. And it's called, like, The Hundred Doors of Abhidharma. And this is one of the texts that Mr. Wu specializes in. And that book by Rasa Bandhu, it came to Tibet, but from China, because the Indian copies were lost. So some of the kandir and tingir were completed in Tibet from China. And this one book by Rasa Bandhu, which Mr. Wu specializes in, was lost in India. And it survived in China. And then it was translated about 800 years ago into Tibet. And it's part of our tingir.

It's part of our kandir. So he was teaching me Mr. Rasa Bandhu, and I was, like, getting excited. And then I thought, well, I should...

I kind of made a commitment to my teacher, Khun Rinpoche, to translate the Abhidharma Kosha. This is the book on Abhidharma. He taught it to me for 12 years.

The story goes like this, and you should know. On the first night of 15 years of work or so, you should know the story. So he...

I had just reached his house. I was 21 or 22, I don't remember. I don't remember being that age.

[Speaker 2]
No, I don't.

[Speaker 1]
Except for certain major events with high school girlfriends. And he said, we're going down to Washington, D.C. And I said, okay, whatever you want. He said, you're going to be my assistant.

And I said, what are we going to do? He said, you're going to drive me to school every day. Because I'm going to learn English at Georgetown University.

Somewhat paid for him. And then in the evening, I'm going to teach. And I said, well, what are you going to teach?

And he said, well, I have a group there. But I'm also going to teach a professor from... American U.S.A. Who wants to translate the Abhidharmakosha. And the commentary by the first part of Abhidharmakosha. Who was just a Harvard student. And so he spent many sessions with this professor, whose name I won't mention.

And I said, Rinpoche, can I just sit in on them? Sit on the driver. And I might as well just sit there.

And can I sit there? He said, yeah, you can sit there. But you have to memorize the root text.

Which is hundreds of pages. So I started. And I didn't know what it meant.

I didn't know Tibetan. But I started memorizing it. I taught you three and a half chapters.

It took 12 years. And he taught... Then the guy dropped out.

The professor decided he was too busy. A crazy guy. And then I'm like, Rinpoche, let me finish it.

Let me finish the translation. So he's like, okay, let's keep going. And it took 12 years.

And he taught me Abhidharmakosha for 12 years. And we did a translation. And then...

It's still there. It was my first translation. I threw it out later.

And I did it again. And then I... I'm sorry I got out and I'm doing it again now.

Now John Brady and Dan Stylers did a 14-year project in St. Petersburg to save 141,000 Tibetan manuscripts. And in there are the missing textbooks of my mom today, from the 1600s by Choney Nama, Dr. Shin. And Jigme has translated two of his commentaries.

He wrote a commentary on the Xinjing and he wrote a commentary on the Jigme. She's translated them into English. Somebody has to help me translate it into Chinese.

But we want to publish it in Sanskrit, Tibetan, English and Chinese. The three are finished. The three languages are finished.

But we're missing the Chinese. So Choney Nama is an extraordinary lama born in 1675. He attended the greatest Buddhism in the world.

His name is Choney. He wrote the textbooks. He wrote many of the textbooks.

And you have studied him many times. Those of you who studied the ACI 18 courses, he figures heavily in the 6th course because he wrote the commentary to the Dalai Lama. And in the advanced teachings, you have him many times.

For example, in the commentaries on Yamantaka, he taught... We used his commentaries on Yamantaka. He's extraordinarily clear and extraordinarily methodical almost like no other Tibetan in history.

So with Rinpoche, I did the first Dalai Lama's commentary. It's about 400 pages. But I would like...

I propose... Actually, you don't have a choice. I propose to do Choney Lama's commentary to the Amitabha.

Because it's more organized and it's more clear. And it's more helpful. And...

So the other translation is there, but I would like to do this one in order to fulfill my teacher's wishes. Because Khenpo Rinpoche wanted an Amitabha commentary in the world. So I'm doing it for him because he loves me too.

Okay, so take a while. But it's an extraordinary commentary. Okay?

So we'll just keep doing that. Especially in our new college in Sedona. If we get a call.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, here we go.

[Speaker 1]
And you have a text with you. And we'll just start. And it's really just to speak and it's just to teach her.

Okay? It's like you go to the restaurant and they're giving you those free little dessert bites and they hope you will order it later. So we're just starting.

Just get used to it. Just dip your toe into Amitabha. Okay?

So there are four great schools of Buddhism in India and there are four great schools of Buddhism in Tibet. They are completely separate from each other. Okay?

They're different things. In India, there were four great schools of thought developed. They were all taught by Lord Buddha.

And then he taught philosophy in four different... and sometimes contradicting ways. Okay?

Lord Buddha, when he was speaking to people in the impoverished areas of Buenos Aires, he taught it one way. And then when he got to Dharana, he taught it in a different way. And then people were like...

Later they found the two books and they didn't match up. And people got worried, you know? Buddha taught on four...

vastly speaking, four different levels in ancient India. One is the first one, the foundational one, which sometimes we call lowest, but I don't think so. The foundation of all Buddhist study was Abhidharma.

So even in the time of Lord Buddha, some of his disciples like Kapilayana took his teachings and organized them into seven great books called Abhidharma. There used to be seven great books of Abhidharma. And some of them we still study.

Some of them still exist, but not much. And they are like encyclopedias of Buddhist knowledge that Lord Buddha left that were assembled after he passed from this world. So Abhidharma is the foundation of all Buddhist practice.

And it's the earliest teaching of Lord Buddha. So it was organized in the first, second, third century AD. Okay?

In India. After that came the... South Chandraka, which are kind of the schools...

the school which deals with perceptual theory and formal reasoning. Like, mainly when I look at a car and I see four black round things and a couple of long silver things, how do I know it's a car? Why do I see it as a car?

By the way, the challenge with all these ancient philosophies is how do you use them when you're teaching? I saw John Deere talk to the largest home construction company in Arizona. And it was very interesting.

How do you take this knowledge and help people be more successful in their real life, or people in the family life? How do you make them more successful in their day-to-day relationships? So the second school, the second great school in India was called South Chandraka.

And they were thinking, how is it that we recognize things? Because you could manipulate that and learn to recognize the world in a different way. And maybe it would be better.

And maybe there wouldn't be war or hunger. You see, that's the idea. The third school is Mainobi, Yogachara, or Chittamatra.

And Mr. Wu is also a master of this school. Mr. Wu is the master of the Abhidharma school taught by the Mainobi school, which is very sexy. But we can talk about it someday.

There's a text by a Sangha that teaches that. And then the fourth school? Middle Way.

Which is the foundation of our current practice. It is the correct explanation of reality. And it's what we use in the higher teachings.

It's the foundation of the higher teachings. The seven-year program here, from 2003 to 2010 or earlier, was founded on the Middle Way school, which is our basic... We call it Ranglok.

What's Ranglok? It's our position. It's our native position.

It's what we believe. Then why do we study the three last schools?

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, we flush out wrong ideas in our own mind. Like, a good answer, a nice answer. The lower schools represent the wrong ideas that would pop into a person's mind automatically, including me.

Okay? So we have to study them. To study...

And then we have to study the differences between that school and what we're being taught in the Middle Ways, okay? And the differences tell everything, okay? It's a very common pedagogical or educational method in Asia that you teach somebody first what's wrong.

You teach them a wrong system. And then you correct it. And in the process of correction, they learn.

You see? So you tell somebody emptiness means everything changes. And then later you tell them that's not what emptiness means at all.

And then you're like, well, why didn't you tell me before it was everything changes? And then it makes you think and that's the object of education. So education in Asia is different than a Western education.

It has a different methodology. Okay? So we're going to go to the Abhidharma, which is the foundation of all Buddhist schools.

Okay? And it's beautiful. And it's fantastic.

Okay? It's extraordinary. So I'm just going to jump into the text.

I could give you a lecture on the eight chapters and its structure, how the third chapter presents the world down to seven atomic particles and up to light years, and describes the end of this world when the sun supernovas, and how it was created by cosmic dust clouds written 17 centuries ago. But I'm not going to do that. Or the questions about the nature of time.

Four positions on the nature of time. We're not going to do that tonight. I'm not going to talk about it.

The fourth chapter, I could tell you, is the greatest presentation of karma in all of Buddhist literature. And it's the basis of most of the DNA. But we don't have time to do all that.

We're not going to go through all that. Okay? And the fifth chapter, the greatest presentation of mental addiction.

Addiction, you could say. And then the other chapter is the greatest presentation, the practice of watching your breath, up to up, the practice of basic meditations. All the basic meditations of Buddhism are found in the Abhidharmakosha.

They all come from there. Okay? So, I'm not going to give you a whole outline of the whole Abhidharma.

I'm just going to start with the text and let him do it. Okay? All right?

And, you know, if you sign up, it's going to be 15 years or so. Okay? And I'm just warning you now.

And if we can have the place in Sedona, it would be nice, because we can also stream it live. And if you're in Tel Aviv, or if you're in Guadalajara, or if you're in Sofia, or Beijing, you can watch it live. Because we cannot get into that strength here.

We've been, Scott's been working with the phone company all week, offering them any amount of money that they need, and anything they want, and they say, we just can't do it. You know? They put in a lousy single here, and that's all they can do.

So, I think if we have Sedona, we would like to webcast all of these teachings, and then people all over the world can learn them. And there are, we have simultaneous translation into many languages. In Mexico, simultaneous translation into Spanish.

And in China, simultaneous into Chinese, and other countries. Which leads me to, I would like to thank a person who's been one of my three assistants in China, and one of my three translators. And she's been kind enough to make the trip from Beijing with Mr. Wu. And her name is Xiaoping Allison Zhou. And she's really responsible for me meeting Mr. Wu. So, that's another story.

So, you should thank her. Okay. So, I would like to video everything.

I would like to translate everything. And I would like to offer it live, free, live, webcast. Okay?

And then we finish all these subjects. And then I can go back to my rose garden without feeling guilty.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Alright, let's start.

[Speaker 1]
I'm teaching this the old way. If you don't like that, I don't care. We're going to do every single word.

We're going to go the old way. And, I'm not going to make it easy. And I'm not going to water it down.

And, we're just going to go straight to the real thing. I'm not going to make it simple. Okay?

And, the first part will be okay. It's like the first 15 minutes of Maurice's yoga class. And then later we get to the real stuff.

Okay, here we go. Say, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö, Chö. So, the pronunciation as you're gathering, it doesn't match the letters.

Becuase Tibetan has a lot of strange pronunciation. There are the correct letters. Previous letters.

But we'll teach it to you some other time. Just be glad I didn't put it in Tibetan scripts. Say, Chö, Chö, Chö Chö, Chö.

There are a lot of silent previous letters. If you hear There's a M in front of that speaking word. Chö means what?

Yeah, what's dharma mean? Ranggi mo zembe na chö. Say it.

Ranggi? Start dictionary entry. What's that mean?

Start dictionary entry. What's that mean? We're making a video dictionary today.

So every time I get to a hard word, I tell them, start dictionary entry. And then Adam cuts it out, out of the video, and we put it on YouTube for free. And if you don't know what chö means, you just type chos into YouTube, and you get me explaining it tonight.

Okay, you ready? Start dictionary entry. Chö.

Say chö. Chö. Chö is a Tibetan word, a translation of the word dharma, okay?

Dharma in Sanskrit, okay? And there's a definition of the word dharma in Tibetan. Say it.

Ranggi? Ranggi mo mo zinme na zinme na chö Ranggi? Ranggi mo mo zinme na zinme na chö Ranggi mo zinme na chö Ranggi mo zinme na chö So that's a literal explanation from the ancient Sanskrit.

Because the word zin, the Sanskrit root for the word zin, which means to hold, the Sanskrit root is? Dhṛt. Dhṛt.

Dhṛt. Say dhṛt. So the root is dhṛt.

So it's a pun. The definition is a pun. Because you der around the world, it's called Dharma.

Okay? All Sanskrit words are derived from 800 roots. If you memorize 800 roots in Sanskrit, you can pretty much figure out any Sanskrit word.

I did it on the bus from New Jersey to New York. It takes about, I don't know, you can memorize all the roots of Sanskrit, and then you can, then you can read it, almost. Okay?

So Dharma is the root. Dharma is the word that can come in, the noun. Okay?

Meaning, that thing which holds Rangimal. What's Rangimal? Which holds its own essence.

Anything which possesses, or contains, or holds its own essence, is a? Dharma. Is the definition of Dharma.

So Dharma really means things. Anything, any event, anything in the world, in the universe, is called a Dharma. Okay?

A Dharma. Then later, the explanation of those Dharmas came to be called the Dharma.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And then, you know, nowadays Dharma means Dharma's teaching, teaching the Dharma. Things like that. Okay?

And that's the meaning of the word Dharma. So here it means knowledge. Here it means knowledge.

Okay? Stopped dictionary entry for Chö. Chö, Nongpa.

Nongpa is the Tibetan translation of Abhi. Abhi. Okay?

Abhi. Abhi came into English as Abhi, like epistender, apogee, like if you fly your F-14, and you inspire 58,000 Mach 1.57 over Pensacola for a year, then you are reaching the apogee of something, I think. And the word apo comes from Abhi.

So Abhi Dharma means highest. Okay? Highest.

So I translate it as higher knowledge. Okay? Abhi Dharma, you can think of as higher knowledge.

And he will spend a lot of pages on explaining the meaning of Abhi Dharma. Okay? We'll get there.

I'm just telling you the title of the book. We'll be lucky if we finish the title of the book by then. That's what gets you marked.

Okay. Chö Mon Dzoggyi said, Jigga.

[Speaker 2]
Jigga. Jigga. Jigga.

[Speaker 1]
This is a long word from Sanskrit. It's not Tibetan. Yeah?

Jigga is an ancient Indian word, Sanskrit word for commentary. It means a commentary. Okay?

Sometimes the Tibetan word really is to tick. Start dictionary entry. Jigga, which you see here, which is a ta, retroflex ta, with a ta-ta-ta, with a long I.

Ah-choo-ee. Ka-ka. Jigga.

Say Jigga. Curl your tongue back. Retroflex your tongue.

Jigga. Jigga. Jigga.

Yeah. So that's it for current. Most words in Sanskrit that have retroflex in such a position are often older than Sanskrit.

Okay? They are the original language before the Aryans came to India. Okay?

5,000 years ago. So, so, these are mostly southern languages, southern Indian. They were pushed, their Vidyan race was pushed into southern India by the invaders of the north.

Which are the classical Indian culture of the Aryans. Okay? So that's, when you see something like Jigga, it's probably older.

Okay? So Jigga means commentary. Alright?

And the Tibetans will often shorten it to tick. Say tick. But do it with a retroflex tongue, I believe.

Tick. Yeah. Tick.

So, sometimes this commentary will be called ze-tick. Say ze-tick. So it's tick.

This means I'll be done with commentary. I'll be done with Russian commentary. Okay?

Got it? And dictionary entry for tick. Sometimes, by the way, open it up again, Adam.

Sometimes they don't make the vowel long. Instead they just say tick. And then you'll get confused.

So, be aware. Okay. Chin-lin-ze-gi-ticka.

Gal-wa-se-che. You know Gal-se. He's one of our nuns.

Okay? Who's going to be running this place after she's done with her other stuff. Helping.

With one of the dirty... Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Never mind.

[Speaker 1]
Never mind. No. I heard you were going to help out.

But we'll talk about it. Sorry. I didn't mean to address you.

Gal-se means son or daughter of the victorious ones. And she's a daughter. And it means...

What's the word for... Bodhisattva. It's a synonym for bodhisattva.

Gal-se. Okay. So here gal-wa means...

Here it means gal-wa-se-che. Che means along with. Along with.

And unfortunately it comes after the second party. Start dictionary entry. Che.

Chao-cha-sa-che. B-C-A-S. It means along with.

But if you're going to say the victorious buddhas along with their daughters, you would say victorious buddhas' daughters. Che. And it comes at the end.

Okay? Stop dictionary entry for che. Okay.

Gal-wa-se-che means the buddhas and their bodhisattvas. Okay. Their bodhisattva kids.

Like if you're Dan Styrus and you have Doris and you have like 500 kids. You know. They would be the se.

They are the se. They are the princesses. Okay.

Gal-wa-se-che. Pak. Pak is short for papa.

Aya. Meaning someone who has seen emptiness directly. Unfortunately, they got a hold of the word and used it for what we call evil purposes.

And that's just, you know, unfortunate. But it's a very beautiful word in Sanskrit. Aya means someone who has seen emptiness directly.

So papa is the Tibetan for aya. Pak. Chok.

Chok you know. Collection. Collection or big group.

Pak. Chok means all those guys. That big group of aryas.

Okay. Probably shouldn't translate this word here.

[Speaker 2]
Pak. Chok.

[Speaker 1]
All of them. Gong-dun means what did they really have in their heart? What did they really mean when they talked?

What was their true intention? Gong-dun means true intention. What was their secret deep thought that they were trying to communicate?

Okay. Gong-dun. By the way, I will stop by tonight so have hope.

Don't worry. 20 more minutes. Hang in there.

You had a long day out in the hot sun. Retreatants all have migraines. Because that's what happens on the first day out of the three retreats.

And you can go home and be miserable.

[Speaker 2]
So I'll take over here.

[Speaker 1]
Sarvajepa means illuminates. You know the word Utsav. Clear light.

Clear light. Right. So Sarvajepa is the verb.

To illuminate. What? It's the nima.

This book is a nima. A sun. A sun.

So he says, my book is the sun. And it's going to illuminate what the Buddhists and the Bodhisattvas and all that big bunch of realized beings. What they had in mind.

I'm going to illuminate it for you. Not with a flashlight. But with the sun.

With the power of the sun. Okay. It's like, I'm not just shedding some light on this subject.

I am... Sometimes they call me niji. I am the day maker.

I am day maker. I'm making... I'm illuminating the planet.

And I'm illuminating their inner thought with the sun of my book. So the book is called the sun. The light of the sun.

Okay. And it's a commentary on chöng mön dzö. We didn't do dzö.

Say dzö. Dzö. Dzö.

Dzö is a translation of the Sanskrit word kosha. Say kosha. Kosha.

You can see kosha spelled either with a retroflex style or without a retroflex style. It's an acceptable variant called damta. Okay, say kosha.

Kosha. Anytime you turn your tongue back and go, kosha. Kosha.

Kosha.

[Speaker 2]
Kosha.

[Speaker 1]
So if you want to impress somebody in India, you say, I'm studying abhidharma kosha. A lot of people think I'm black. And they'll be, wow, your accent is perfect.

Don't say abhi, okay, it's abhi. Abhi. Abhi.

Abhi. Abhi. Abhi.

Abhi. Abhi. Abhi.

Abhi. Abhi. Abhi.

Okay. I have friends named Kapali, you know them. They are a accounting class of kings from ancient India who live around Bombay and they're big into the diamond business now.

So anyway, kosha means treasurer, or treasuree. Okay, we'll talk about it. So this book is called, the Treasure, it's A Commentary on the Treasure House of Higher which was written by Master Vasubandhu 1700 years ago, 17 centuries ago.

Very beautiful book. I'll tell you a little bit about Vasubandhu tomorrow, Master Vasubandhu tomorrow. He's the half-brother of Asanga, who wrote the Abhidharma book according to the Mahayana school, which Mr. Wu is teaching so well. Okay. So we always start out with a... The writer will always start out with an obeisance.

They will bow down to some holy being or to some holy thing. And this is a tradition in ancient India, okay? And it's often given in the Sanskrit language.

So what we have next is Sanskrit in Tibetan letters. So please say namo. Not namo, okay?

That's a different word. That's a long story. I won't do it.

Plural dative in Sanskrit. Okay? No problem?

Dual, dual, dual dative. I think so. I bow down to these two, okay?

What? Buddhas and bodhisattvas. And guru.

Guru? Meaning what? What's the...

Yeah, what's the Tibetan for guru? Namo. And it's like these demons.

There are these demons... have gotten a hold of some things, like tantra or guru. And they say, oh, this is a dirty thing.

You know, gurus are dirty. Guru means like a bad person. Cult leader, guru.

And it's a very... It's a very sad and terrible thing. The word guru is very holy, very beautiful, very pure.

It means your heart teacher who guides you through this life and past death. And it's a very, very beautiful word. It comes from a root that means heavy or weighty.

And the word gravity comes from it, okay? So guru is a very beautiful, very, very beautiful, stunning, angelic, pure, crystalline, happy, joyful being who guides you. And then it got all corrupted by somebody I don't know.

These are like demonic. In my opinion, they take those words and make them... they make them dirty.

But that seems to be some people's business. Okay, say gurus? Okay, Buddha?

Bodhisattva, yeah. So they bow down. The author is bowing down to his teacher, the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas.

All right, next. Oh, by the way, it's a question for you. Why would you put teacher first?

Huh? There's a long story. We've been studying it for like a year, but in the Lamrim course.

But basically, there can be lots of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the universe, but they cannot speak to you because you cannot see them, because your karma is not good enough. So as in the case of Jesus Christ, the divine will take a human form. And communicate to us, to normal people, in a human form.

And so in a way, they are more kind and more important for us. They are our USB cables to the real thing. So if you say, what's more important, the USB cable or...

You say, I want the cable. Just give me the cable. Because I don't care how powerful the thing is, if I don't have the cable, I can't use it.

You see what I mean? So the Guru becomes more important than the machine. You see what I mean?

So for us, for us normal people, a human being, who can come down to our level, and look like us, and act like us, we can relate to them. And they are more valuable for our life purposes than these ethereal divine beings that we can't contact. Cool?

They are the Internet Wi-Fi. Hey! Then the Buddhas are the Internet.

Okay. Alright, here we go. Now he's going to do...

And I still have you for 10 more minutes, so just look cheerful. Because I'm going to use the time. I don't care.

Because I love it. And it's so helpful. It would help you so much.

And you can help other people. It's another nice little wrench in your toolkit called Abhidharma. Okay.

Okay, he's making poetry. These are his opening poems. Alright, here we go.

There are three... What? Changme.

Changme. No chang. No count.

Countless. Okay? Countless tree.

This refers to the time it takes to become a Buddha if you don't study Tantra. And Tantra is also not a dirty word. It's a beautiful, high, pure, moral, ethical, clean, compassionate, happy, wonderful thing.

And I don't know how to inquire God a little bit. But just trust me, okay? It's a beautiful...

It's based on very pure moral behavior. And it's a wonderful teachings to contact the angelic beings. Very sweet.

Anyway, if you don't practice them, if you just do the normal... What do you call it? If you do economy class and not business class.

Then it will take Changme soon to become a Buddha. Changme means countless eons. Three countless eons.

So it seems like a contradiction to say... Three countless eons. How many is that?

So in Avidharma, Kosha, in the Avidharma teachings, not in Kosha actually, there are... Each number, up to the... Each power of ten, up to 10 to the 60th power, has a separate name.

Like that. Each order of ten has its own name. Okay?

So 10 to the 60th power is the last one. They only go up to 10 to the 60 zeroes after that. And people memorize these things.

I only got up to the sixth one. The 10 to the 60th power is called Changme. Okay?

It's called innumerable. But it refers to a certain number. You figure out how many billions.

David Stock will tell me in about six minutes. How many billions that is. Just like million, million, million, million.

You figure it out. You are now in five minutes. Three times 10 to the 60th power.

Eons. Each eon is many millions of years. Just doing nice things for other people and trying to be a nice person.

You can become a Buddha, but it will take that many years. Who did it? Lord Buddha did it.

Okay? Changme Sung. Sung Ni.

You collected the two collections. Basically, the karma which created your body and the karma which created the mind of a Buddha. It's called the two collections.

When we finish the class, we say, Gyewon Ni. You're hoping, right? People salivate when they hear Gyewon Ni.

Gyewon Ni, Gyewon Ni. Sunam Yeshe Tsog Tsog Shi. Right?

Sunam Yeshe Tsog Tsog Shi. That's our code word for the karma that creates our Buddha's body and the karma that creates our Buddha's mind. It's called Tsog Ni.

So you collected the Tsog Ni for three countless eons. The Lord Buddha. So, Lord Buddha in Buddhism is sometimes just, like you New Yorkers, you arrogant New Yorkers.

Yes. Where do you live? The city.

In the Mexico City, people are the same. Where do you live? Mexico.

Mexico. They say Mexico. Right?

One day, I asked this guy. He came to my class in Guadalajara. I said, where are you from?

He said, Mexico. I said, I know, but where are you from? No, I'm from Mexico.

I said, well, what's that mean? He said, Mexico City. Oh.

Yeah, okay, okay. They think. Anyway.

So, love teacher is what we call, Buddhists call the Buddha. Okay, alright. You're not really arrogant New Yorkers.

You're just making fun. Nobody's arrogant without those kind of feelings. Okay, alright.

Tsog Ni.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Tsog Ni is what I'm talking about. You completed the two collections. You completed all the karma you needed to have a Buddhist body and a Buddhist mind.

And you reached the Kusum. Three holy bodies. Three holy bodies of the Buddha.

Ko Phang means that state of the three holy bodies. Chok, that supreme state. Nye Teng is you reached it.

He's playing on threes here. Each line, if you notice, has at least two sums in it. Check it out.

How many GSUM's in there? How many is it? Is it it?

Somebody count them up. Quick, quick. Yeah, each line has two threes in it.

He's playing. He's playing here. He wants it.

He's showing off how well he can write. So, we have... We already have two threes.

What was the first one?

[Speaker 2]
Three counts here.

[Speaker 1]
What was the second one?

[Speaker 2]
Three holy bodies.

[Speaker 1]
Now we have a Rick Jensen. Say Rick Jensen. Rick Jensen means three levels of disciples.

Three levels of students. Okay? We can say what?

Minta. Rangyel. And...

Chandra Simha. Minta is Shraka, Minta one. Listener track.

Listener track. Okay? Rangyel.

Self-made Buddha track. And then, Chandra Simha. Thich Nhat Hanh.

Mahayana track. So there are three tracks. You can go through your Buddhist career to Nirvana or enlightenment on one of three tracks depending on how smart you are.

Smart meaning spiritually smart. Meaning kind, and compassionate, and caring. Okay?

If you are really caring, if you're spiritually sharp, you get to go to the Buddhist track. And if you're a little lower, you go to what's called the self-made Buddha track, which are not self-made Buddhas, that's another story. And then, if you're lower than that, you can go to the listener track.

But, Dooljah. What's Dooljah? Disciple.

Huh? Disciple. Good.

Good. Dooljah means, the word, Dooljah is a Tibetan word for disciple or student. But I like the derivation of the word.

Jah means future, past, to be blanked. To be blanked. Dool means broken.

Like a horse. Like a wild horse. Okay?

The word in Tibetan for disciple is that which is to be broken. Like a wild horse. It doesn't mean broken like a, you know, smash them.

It means like a wild horse and you jump on them and they jump on you. Well, you can tame them. You can just be tame them.

Okay? The word disciple probably is the same, right? They are to be disciplined.

Okay? Anyway, Dooljah means, we are like wild animals when we meet our teacher. Dharmically, spiritually, we are like wild animals.

We are like little things that bite. And, I'm kidding. A person who has not been trained in spiritual things is like a little thing that bites.

And then the teacher trains him. The teacher makes you soft and gentle and kind. That's the goal.

Dooljah. You are someone who is to be broken. And I was broken very well by my teacher.

As John already knows. Okay. Dooljah is so glad to all those disciples.

Rabkor means, you turn the wheel of the dharma. You turn the wheel of the dharma. Very well.

Rab means very well. Rabkor. How many wheels?

Three wheels. Okay? So Lord Buddha in his lifetime had three specific periods of his teaching career.

Okay? His teaching mission was carried out in three grand stages. Okay?

The first was first turning of the wheel. Started at Deer Park in Sarnath, Varanasi. Okay?

And started to teach. Started to teach people. The main thing in our tradition, in our immediate tradition that distinguishes the first turning of the wheel is what?

Lord Buddha said things come from their own side. Everything. Okay?

Where's that? Who's got it? I need it.

Let's go. Let's go. So in the first turning of the wheel Lord Buddha said the pen is coming from its own side.

You are watching the pen. Okay? You are looking at the pen.

And the pen is coming from its own side. In the second turning of the wheel he contradicted himself and said that nothing comes from its own side. The pen's coming from your mind from Steve's and your mind.

Okay? And then in the third turning of the wheel the people who were at the first turning of the wheel who then went to the second turning of the wheel said, Are you for real? I mean, is that for real?

And he said, No, I was just joking around. It's like half coming from its own and half coming from you. Don't get all uptight.

Everything's cool. Okay? Got it?

Which one was correct? Yeah, the second was correct. Why did he teach the third one?

He was just trying to get people... Otherwise they'll quit. They'll say, I quit.

If pens don't come from themselves I quit. I'm going back to New York. You know, I'm going to get an advertising job or something.

You know, this Dharma stuff is weird. Okay? Like that.

Okay? So he just wanted to keep people from quitting. So he said, Yeah, yeah, you're right.

I was exaggerating. Okay? All right.

So he turned the three turns of the wheel for whom?

[Speaker 2]
Three tracks.

[Speaker 1]
Three... People have three different capacities. He taught three turns of the wheel.

He's got two sets of three here, right? Maybe we can get through all of them in the next one minute. I don't know.

So we're not stopping. He considers he's charging what we could. So therefore he taught the...

He taught the path of the three yanas. The three... The three vehicles?

The three levels, like that. First one, what? Hinayana, meaning lower way.

Okay? Then Mahayana, the greater way. And then Vajrayana, Vajrayana, the diamond way, okay?

The last two overlap, right? The last two overlap. Because Vajrayana is a kind of Mahayana, right?

You know that. I don't have to say that. Thekma Sunkhi Chalukya.

You set forth the path. Kamsa Jaya Nyanchik Bu. Kamsa means the three realms, okay?

The three realms. There's two ways to interpret it, but I'll give you one, okay? Desire realm, form realm, and formless realm.

Desire realm, form realm, and formless realm. We are in the desire realm. The first diagram says because we are attracted mainly to two things.

Food and sex. So, I mean, most people's attention... I read somewhere that 60% of internet traffic is pornography.

Like that. And it doesn't mean most people are evil. It just means that they have this...

This is a human desire. They have desire. We live in desire.

Of food. If you could eat on the internet, that would probably be the other 40%. So, you know.

That's who we are. And we're all like that. We all are attracted to that.

So, that's a desire realm. And if you overcome that, you reach a form realm. If your meditation is better.

And if it gets better than that, you reach a formless realm. These are just higher states of meditation. So, why did we mention that?

He is the Nian Qigpu. Say Nian Qigpu. One and only friend.

One and only friend. Qigpu means... Qig means one.

Qigpu means one and only. He's the only real friend. So, you can have lots of friends in this life, right?

You can have many, many friends. And they are nice. It's good to have friends.

I enjoy all my friends. Immensely. Deeply.

I have a really good time with my friends. Me and Dan and Doris, we sat at the Echo Cafe on 68th and Thomas for five hours and talked, saving books, saving the world, you know? And I like my friends, okay?

We have friends. We all have friends. So, why does he call him the Buddha, the only friend?

He's the only one who can really help you in a big, big, big way. He can help you overcome death itself. He can help you save the world.

This is the Buddha, Lord Buddha. Only one and only friend of all the beings in all three realms, okay? I'll do the last line quick and I won't keep you.

Sipa-sun. Sipa-sun means... Sipa can mean possible.

Sipa can mean samsara, as in Sipa-Kara-Lama, the Wheel of Life. But it can also mean realm. Here it means realm, Sipa-sun.

Now, he already mentioned the concept which is the three realms. Here he's repeating the three realms. So, if you're teaching it to a class in Bangnam, you can give the second interpretation of three realms the second time across, which means, do you remember it?

Those who travel under the earth, upon the earth and who fly over the earth, meaning all creatures on this planet. People are either those little gophers that are all thieves, not realizing how nervous we are that he will get some kind of rabies and have to go to the hospital. Those are the creatures that live under the earth.

And then there's the creatures who walk on the earth, which are... And then there's the ones who fly. So, those are called the three worlds.

There's the world under the earth, and there's the world on the earth and the world over the earth. You are the teacher of all of them. All three.

Supreme teacher. Okay, three more words and we're finished. Five.

Dare to you, to that teacher, go-sun means in the three doors of expression. This go means door. Sun means I praise you in my words or song.

I praise you with my body. And in my heart, I think about how cool you are. Then let's go-sun.

Gu-pa means with respect. And then I get all this cult stuff about, oh, people are bowing down in your class. This is tradition.

This is 5,000 years old. I'm sorry. The Americans don't do it.

Maybe they should. It's a tradition that's 5,000 years old. I did it to my teacher my whole life.

And I enjoy it. And I like it. And I think it's beautiful.

In China, people know how to treat a teacher. And it's very nice to be there. Because they really know how to respect a teacher.

And it's a big part of Chinese culture. It's a beautiful part of Chinese culture. We are like barbarians compared to them.

Anyway, I'm not going to rap on that. Gu-pa. Gu-pa means respect.

With respect. I bow down to this. Even if it's culty.

You know, the greatest writer in Tibet unfortunately is bowing down to the Lord Buddha. Alright? Cool?

So he starts his book by bowing down to the Lord Buddha. Okay? The first verse is bowing down to the Lord Buddha.

Why is he doing that? If you tell me, you're good to go home. The retreatants are especially invested in this.

Huh? Yeah, it's a good comment about volunteering by means. That's true.

She says he's bowing to wisdom. And also it's showing lineage. For us, lineage is very important.

We're very careful to track our lineage. And that we have an authentic lineage. We are not a bunch of hippies out in the desert.

We are the, I don't know, 43rd generation of a lineage which starts with We say the lineage twice a month at six years. And we know the lineage. And now you are the next holder of the lineage.

You're now my kids. And your kids, Devorah's kids are my grandkids. Okay?

And it goes back to lineage. So he's honoring the lineage. The lineage starts with Lord Buddha.

And it comes up to us authentic. It's authentic. It's been kept very, very pure.

And very cleanly. And even the Abhidharma lineage is very, very pure. And amazing.

Extraordinary. Okay? And you're the next one.

And that means if you don't take good notes, at generation 44, after two and a half thousand years, it's you guys who lost it. Who broke it. So no pressure.

Okay? And I encourage you to keep up the class. We won't stream it for the next 50 years.

And I encourage you to keep up with it. Alright? It's not hard.

The cool thing about watching streaming is you can eat stuff while you're watching. And you can put your feet up on the table. You can take a pee-poo break.

And you come back and there's another still talking about the camera. And I enjoy watching stuff streaming. You can just relax.

Here you have to sit like that. And at home you can put your feet up on the kitchen table. You can watch the video.

So, you don't have any excuse in the modern world not to finish the Abhidharma which you started tonight. You have no excuse. You should finish it.

You really should finish it. You can help a lot of people with that. Very valuable.

Very helpful. You're very lucky to get Abhidharma. Alright.