Танец льва: медитация для Колеса жизни (2017, Мексика), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
So today we're going to try to do Lion's Dance, okay? Morning is a good time, and it needs some explanation, okay? So, during the Lion's Dance, you dance through different levels of meditation, okay?

Nine or ten different levels of meditation, and that's partly why it's called a dance, you know? And part of the idea is to ... part of the idea is to get more familiar with meditation, okay?

You guys know the traditional three kinds of meditation. Shargon, chegong, jogong. Shargon is like a review meditation.

Chegong?

[Speaker 2]
Chegong.

[Speaker 1]
Problem-solving meditation. Why is my husband yelling at me? And jogong.

Jogong is ...

[Speaker 2]
you pick one object like Lama's eyes, and then you hold them. Single-pointedly, okay?

[Speaker 1]
And then you try to go deeper, you try to drill down deeper into that object.

[Speaker 2]
So, when you drill down into an object, okay?

[Speaker 1]
You can do it at ten ... really ten different levels, okay? So, I'm going to do those ten levels with you, okay?

And we'll practice that. In the lion's dance, you go like this. Then you go ...

You go up, you come down, you drill in, you drill back.

[Speaker 2]
Then later, there's a thing called over-the-top meditation, which people ...

[Speaker 1]
Then there's over-the-top ... well, we'll do it, but it's ... we do it after the lion's dance.

So, there's lion's dance, and then you do over-the-top. That's a tradition. Then in over-the-top ...

so, lion's dance, you go ... you go ... you drill into the object.

Doot-doot-doot-doot-doot-doot. Then you come out like a drill. The drill has a reverse thing, and you come out like this.

[Speaker 2]
Ah, taladro.

[Speaker 1]
Then in over-the-top meditation, which is called ... well, I'm just going to call it over-the-top. You drill in to the nine levels down.

Then there's a zero. So, really there's ten. Okay, sorry.

[Speaker 2]
Then you go down to one. Jump to zero. Two.

Jump to zero.

[Speaker 1]
Three.

[Speaker 2]
Jump to zero. So, drilling into the object, but to improve your flexibility, mental flexibility, like, drill down to seven, come back to three.

[Speaker 1]
Drill down to eight, go to ten. You know, like, you jump around. Then this helps you to see emptiness.

Because to see emptiness, you have to be at one of these nine. Okay? So, let me tell you about the ...

first I'll tell you about these ... really there's ten levels. Lowest level is called desire realm mind.

Okay? It's the state of mind you have almost all day. Like, when you're drinking a cappuccino.

The mind is definitely not in meditation. Okay? The mind is focusing on some outside object.

It's not inside. It's not Pratyahara. The mind is not withdrawn from the senses.

Then a desire realm state of mind, it has two ... two qualities, two parts. It's called DOGS PA and SPYOD PA.

Okay? DOGS PA and SPYOD PA. It's in the Yoga Sutra.

VITARKA and something ... VICHARA. Yeah, VITARKA and VICHARA.

The definition of VITARKA VICHARA in Buddhism comes in Stanley Bandhu's text. Where is Stanley Bandhu? Oh.

DOGS SPYING SPYOD PA TZING ZHIG GNYIS. DOGS SPYING SPYOD PA.

[Speaker 2]
Say DOGS SPYING SPYOD PA. SPYOD PA. TZING ZHIG ...

TZING ZHIG GNYIS.

[Speaker 1]
The definition of DOGS PA and SPYOD PA, VITARKA and VICHARA, is the mind which is aware of the general quality of the object. And then the mind which drills a little bit into the object, and here's the details of the object. So TZING means the general quality of the object.

I like to compare it to music, listening to music, okay? When you're in an American grocery store, and they are playing terrible music, it's very ... I don't know.

I don't like it, because I know they're aiming the music at my age group. They are playing lousy 1968 pop music. Because they know the only people who have time during the day to go to the grocery store is the 60-year-olds, you know?

I don't like it. So I try not to listen to it. But sometimes I can hear a song I know, I'm like, wow, that's ...

that's Jimi Hendrix done with a really bad symphony, you know? Then if I go home, and somebody asks me, was there music at the store? Because I have vittarka, rough awareness, I can say, yeah, there was music at the store.

Then vichara means, I'm driving home. I'm playing music off my iPod, my iPhone, sorry, and a song comes on the stereo that I really like, you know? Then I bribed Nick to get me a real stereo in my car.

We tore out the factory stereo, and we put a real stereo. What's the definition of real stereo? The bass player is the main thing.

Then ... not muy bien, it's a main thing. Then ...

then when I'm driving home, I'm listening to the bassline, you know?

[Speaker 2]
Then when I'm driving home, I'm listening to the bass.

[Speaker 1]
So, all I can hear is the bassline, you know? I ask other people, how do you like the bassline? They're like, oh, is there a bass in that?

They have topa, I have chepa.

[Speaker 2]
They have vittarka, I have vichara.

[Speaker 1]
They're just listening to the song. I'm drilling into the bass part, you see? So, the lowest state of mind for meditation purposes is a desire realm mind, and it has a very primitive level of ...

I call it checking and examining, checking and examining. I'm sorry, noting and examining. In English, note means ...

in verb, note means, did you note the music in the grocery store? And they say, oh yeah, I noted it. I was aware of it.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, that's fine.

[Speaker 1]
So, especially for things like—desire realm things like food or music— the state of mind is very primitive. Then you know there's a, what we call in Buddhism, form realm and formless realm. So, in this ...

if you're a very nice person in this world, and you make very good karma, you can be born in the form realm after you die. This is like ... what's that?

Punta del Este? Punta del Este? Uruguay?

[Speaker 2]
What do you call it?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Punta del Este. It's like Punta del Este. Form realm.

Everybody has a bikini. All the guys are handsome. You know, soccer players and ...

Okay, so the reason they call it form realm, is that everything's only like five-star hotels, and lots of fuentes? Fountains. And everybody's very handsome, beautiful.

What do you call that? Beautiful people. In English we say beautiful people.

That's if you meditate a lot in the desire realm. You can be reborn in the form realm.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Then there's ... it's very famous that this is a wrong place to go, because they are having too much fun to be interested to come to lam rim retreat. Okay, like most of the people in Guadalajara and U.S. right now. Okay, then if you meditate even more in the desire realm, you can be born in the formless realm. In the formless realm, people don't have a gross physical body. They have prana.

Which is physical. So they still have lung sem jukpa chikpa. The mind is still riding on the physical prana.

[Speaker 2]
If you die in the desire realm, and you made enough karma to go to the formless realm, like it's like the richest house in Punta del Este, there's no bardo.

[Speaker 1]
There's no bardo. Okay? Why?

Why? Huh? Yeah, you don't have to go anywhere.

Bardo, between death and rebirth, the bardo, the time ... the spirit time between death and rebirth, the purpose of bardo is to get from Guadalajara to Punta del Este. But the formless ...

[Speaker 2]
if you're born into the formless realm, there's no bardo.

[Speaker 1]
Why? Yeah, you know, you just ... you just start living here, where you died.

Right here. If I meditate a lot, if I make karma for formless realm, then if I died today right here, sitting right here, then I enter the formless realm right here. Because it has no location.

Then form realm and formless realm, they each have four levels. There are four levels in the form realm, and there are four levels in the formless realm. So oftentimes they will talk about the nine levels of the three realms.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
One desire realm level, four form realm levels, and four formless realm levels.

[Speaker 1]
Nine total. Then to get born in these four, or to get born in these four, you have to do special meditations here in the desire realm. There are four deeper ...

levels of meditation in the desire realm, right? You drill into the object four levels, during this life, in the desire realm. And because of doing that a lot, you will be reborn in the form realm.

[Speaker 2]
If you learn to go deeper, four different levels, and you do it a lot in this life, you'll be born in the formless realm, one of the four levels.

[Speaker 1]
Now, interesting ... oh by the way, why do you think you get to go to Punta del Este if you meditate a lot in this life? Punta del Este is the Latin American Riviera, okay?

Yeah, you don't have a chance to misbehave. You can't lie.

[Speaker 2]
You can't gossip.

[Speaker 1]
It's difficult to do sexual misconduct during meditation.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So, in English we say by default, you are born in a good place, you see, because you didn't have chance to do many bad things, okay? Okay. Now, interesting thing, you cannot see the other side of the world.

see emptiness directly in a desire realm state of mind. It's not possible. If you're in a desire realm state of mind, Ravvidhaka, Ravvidhara, if you're tasting a cappuccino, then at that moment it's impossible to see emptiness directly.

[Speaker 2]
You must be in a form realm state of mind, in a desire realm body. So the desire realm body has to sit down.

[Speaker 1]
You know, put your hands correctly, chin mudra.

[Speaker 2]
You close your eyes.

[Speaker 1]
Then the mind must drill into the object deeper. The mind doesn't go to the form realm. The mind goes to the meditation which would cause you to be born in the form realm if you died at that moment.

Okay, got it? So, the mind ... we say the mind is in the form realm, but it means the mind is making karma in meditation that would cause you to go to the form realm if you died at that moment.

So, watch. It's something like this, okay?

[Speaker 2]
There's music in the grocery store.

[Speaker 1]
Desire realm mind. In America they did an evil thing. They put Starbucks in all the grocery stores.

So, this is desire realm state of mind. You are in the grocery store listening to bad 1968 pop music with a Starbucks coffee. And if you're a male, you're asking everybody, where's the toilet paper?

Where's the toilet paper? Because the male never goes to the grocery store. So, you're at the desire realm state of mind.

Toilet paper, cappuccino, bad music. Then by accident, somebody employee, cool employee of the store puts on real Jimi Hendrix.

[Speaker 2]
Then desire realm rough awareness, sense awareness, drills a little deeper into the baseline. It's still a desire realm state of mind, but deeper.

[Speaker 1]
You forgot the Starbucks. You forgot the toilet paper. It's just you and the grocery cart and Jimi Hendrix baseline.

[Speaker 2]
Then because it's Jimi Hendrix, the grocery cart goes away.

[Speaker 1]
Even the baseline goes away. And you're like this with the grocery cart. Everybody thinks you had a heart attack standing up.

That's form realm state of mind.

[Speaker 2]
Bliss, bliss from the music.

[Speaker 1]
In English we say, I forgot where I was. And I just went into bliss in the music, you know. That's the first form realm ...

that's the most shallow meditation.

[Speaker 2]
Not deep.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, that's just the beginning of those eight meditations.

[Speaker 2]
Four form realm, four formless realm.

[Speaker 1]
And in this first form realm level, state of mind, part of your mind is saying, I don't want to go back to the toilet paper, you know. I hope they're playing the long version of this Jimi Hendrix song, so I can stay here for eight minutes instead of three minutes, you know. Okay, so part of your mind is looking ...

part of your mind is aware of the grocery store. Part of your mind is saying, I don't want to go back to the toilet paper. I want to stay here in Jimi Hendrix.

I don't even want to go to the baseline. I just want to be in the bliss of Jimi Hendrix. Grocery store, bad pop music is desire realm ...

lower desire realm, right? Then the baseline, go deeper.

[Speaker 2]
Still desire realm. Then they put on real Jimi Hendrix.

[Speaker 1]
Move into first form realm level.

[Speaker 2]
Like that, grocery store bliss, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then ...

[Speaker 2]
then you start real meditation, and there's seven more levels, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Three more form realm. Four formless realm. Now, so you have really nine choices.

Desire realm mind.

[Speaker 2]
Four form realm. Four formless realm. Which one is most useful platform from which to see emptiness directly?

Where should you park?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, park here.

[Speaker 2]
Park here.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? Don't go farther. What's farther than that?

What's a difference between these eight? I got it for you, and I'm going to teach it to you, okay? And each one we're going to try to do right here today.

The first important thing to say is, I'm going to teach you what happens in those eight.

[Speaker 2]
Then we're going to try to do it.

[Speaker 1]
And it's not possible sitting in a room in a hotel in Guadalajara. It's not going to happen, okay? But it's like our past life imagination meditation.

You are not really seeing your past life, but you are you are starting the process of seeing your past life. It's not going to be direct perception of your past life.

[Speaker 2]
You are getting clues about your past life by imagining your past life.

[Speaker 1]
Because the seeds from the past life created the imagination that you choose. Same for these eight. Maybe you can get into the first one.

I doubt you can get into the next seven in this room today. It takes about an hour of deep meditation to get any of these seven, okay? That's why I encourage you to meditate for an hour a day.

[Speaker 2]
Does it include the preliminaries?

[Speaker 1]
No. Does it include the, you know, dedication? No.

I'm talking one hour deep. No music, no bassline. One hour like that.

They will take you to the hospital. Okay? So, today we just have some fun.

You dance the lion's dance as a pussycat. Okay? So, I went and got you the definition of these eight.

Everybody talks about them, nobody knows what they are. So, I went to Tsongkapa and some other people and I got them for you. Luckily, they were bringing the Virgen de Guadalupe in a procession on horses from Guadalajara to Chalapa yesterday.

So, we got stuck behind like 100 people on horses on the way home from the airport. So, because of the blessing of the Virgen de Guadalupe, I had time to find all this for you.

[Speaker 2]
So, you have to thank the two most important people, Tsongkapa and the are working together. Okay, I was in the diamond business for 19 years.

[Speaker 1]
We became, we were the smallest diamond company in the world, and then we became the largest diamond company in the world. Diamond jewelry company. And we had this customer, you know it's in Zales?

In Texas? Zales. They have 1,500 jewelry stores.

They are competing with a company called Banks, Biddle, and Bailey's. We call BB&B.

[Speaker 2]
BB&B.

[Speaker 1]
BB&B has much higher quality. And the Zales has pretty, you know, normal cheap quality. Not cheap, but you know, what do you call it?

Middle, middle income, middle class jewelry. Then they will compete with each other in the Texas television stations. Then you see the two girls, they're talking, you know.

And one says, look my husband, I mean my boyfriend asked me to marry him. And he bought me this diamond ring, you know.

[Speaker 2]
Then the other girl says, oh that's so cool!

[Speaker 1]
Which store did he go to? Oh, he got from Zales. Oh, he doesn't love you.

Then the other company, BB&B, they will put an advertisement. Look, my boyfriend, he asked me to marry him. Oh, that's so cool!

[Speaker 2]
Where did he buy the ring? BB&B.

[Speaker 1]
Ah! Your husband's so stupid to pay a higher price! Then one day I have to send diamonds to BB&B, and to Zales.

Lower quality, higher quality. Higher quality and lower quality.

[Speaker 2]
Same package of diamonds, and then carefully we take out ten percent the highest ones, the best ones. Those go to BB&B.

[Speaker 1]
The rest goes to Zales, you know.

[Speaker 2]
Then I have to send two boxes of diamonds, you know.

[Speaker 1]
Then I'm writing the address on the insurance form, you know. Then I was like, wow! This is a mistake.

The address is the same address, you know. Then I went to my boss, you know.

[Speaker 2]
I said, one of these addresses is wrong, you know. The address is the same, you know.

[Speaker 1]
He said, you're so naive, you know.

[Speaker 2]
It's the same company, owned by the same people.

[Speaker 1]
Then I said, but they criticize each other on the TV. He said, yeah, they don't care which one you go to.

[Speaker 2]
They just want you to go to one, you know. Why am I talking about that? Virgen?

Tsongkapa.

[Speaker 1]
It's owned by the same company. Okay. Don't tell anybody.

Okay, it's true. Okay.