Bok Jinpa 1

PLEASE ONLY READ THESE NOTES OR LISTEN TO THESE RECORDINGS IF YOU HAVE ASKED PERMISSION FROM LAMA SARAHNI TO ATTEND THIS COURSE OR OTHERWISE LISTEN TO THIS COURSE

Vocabulary

                             bhavana krama

                             Steps of meditation

Shine          shamatha or [Pali:] shamata

Hlak tong    vipassyana or [Pali:] vipassana

Acharya Kamalashila  750AD

Tsultrim 

Gompa

Shantarakshita

Padmasambhava

Samye

Hua Shang

(Tib) Gompay rimpa      (Sk) bhavana krama  (Eng) Steps of meditation 

(Tib) Nying Je Chenpo  (Sk) mahakruna  (Eng) Great compassion

Hatha yoga pradipika

Raja yoga

Acharya Svatmarama

Hatha yoga Pradipika   raja yoga

Yama = self-control

Niyama  = our commitment

Asana = the physical poses

Pranayama = the breath work

Pratyahara = the withdrawal of the senses

Dharana = focus

Dhyana = fixation

Samadhi = perfect meditation    ting ngen dzin

Welcome. This is the start of a course series called Setting Your Meditation on Fire in Tibetan language, Bok Jinpa. It is [June 11th at 6pm], 2025. Here in my part of the world, it is still Saga Dawa, which is an auspicious day to start something like setting our meditation practice on fire. I'm just absolutely delighted and honored to be the one that gets to share this with you. I'm committed to all 18 courses, as long as this body will survive that.

And I'm really grateful to Coco. Coco, will you wave there? My Dharma sister, who requested this to happen. We reached out to Geshe Michael for his blessing, permission to do so, and he actually answered my email and said yes. We reached out to Lama Christie as well. I don't hear from her anymore, but I told her, right? I requested. So, wherever she is, she knows what's going on as well. 

These courses are the meditation courses that Lama Christie was teaching throughout the Diamond Mountain University training years. They were mostly open courses, with the exception of a couple of them; her intention was to give us the tools that we will use to reach that platform of meditative concentration from which the direct perception of emptiness can occur. 

As we'll see, the courses aren't just sitting on your cushion techniques. We will review that. But there's so much more involved in what we need in order to reach that platform of meditation from which we can reach ultimate reality. 

These courses evolved, they were focused on heart opening practices, as well as intellectual understanding of emptiness practices. And she wove those two together so beautifully skillfully. So I'll do my best to share with you everything that she shared with us. 

Now, she was strict about who she let into class and what we had to do to be able to stay coming to class. Her requirement was that:

We gave her 30 minutes of meditation a day and she had a final exam that we did in class.

It's more like school, right? 

On our last class day, last class day was usually a meditation, and you did the final.

My personal recommendation to each of you is that you make a personal commitment to this class in terms of what you are pretty sure that you can keep, and to what extent you feel that you would be pushing yourself enough to take it seriously enough to use it to accelerate your progress on your spiritual path; only you can know what that's going to take. 

My request of your commitment is:

That you pledge a certain number of minutes of meditation a day and you do it. 

That you keep a track, you track your meditation, and we'll talk about how to do that.

You don't have to show that to me unless it would help you for me to see it. 

But your own personal commitment.

I thought for our final exam, our last class of each course, we would do the final exam together in class.

We'll have a class to do a final meditation and to do the final together; not meaning sit there and write it, but meaning here's the question, let's talk about it, and to do it in that way.

Homeworks are kind of on your own or maybe in groups together. 

For the final, we'll review everything together, is what I have in mind. 

We'll start promptly at 6:00 with opening prayers and almost always we'll go straight from opening prayers into the first guided meditation. 

Each class has at least one guided meditation, more commonly two of them, two 15-minute meditations. The idea is that you then take those two and use them for the week as your meditation, so whether you're going to do a whole half an hour or not, that's up to you. But you'll see these two practices that she gives us from each class. 

Then the other part of class is explanation from the text that we'll be using. She used authentic texts for all her courses. She did her translation, Geshe Michael helped and checked it and then she would provide the commentary on the text. 

I will be using the transcripts from the courses that I received from her. Through the course of 2004 to 2010, we received 18 courses from her that had anywhere from as few as six to as many as nine classes together. The classes were scheduled for two hours, but often they went longer than two hours. And I intend to keep these classes to two hours; if that means I need more classes to finish a course, we'll just do it that way. So I can't really give you a schedule for course one, these dates to that date, because I'm not sure how long that's going to go. My idea is that we'll complete a course and then we'll decide together how much time you want off before we start again.  And we'll negotiate around Geshe Michael's four retreats a year, four teachings a year. And we also will need to negotiate around some things I already have on the schedule before this came. And that said, we'll be meeting every Wednesday until July 16th . We'll have class on July 16, but not until September 3rd after that. So we won't finish course one in the time that we have before Geshe Michael's Mexico teaching, and then Sumati and I travel after that. But we'll pick right up in September. That means you'll have lots of time to work on your meditation so that when we all come back in September, we'll be ready to turn up the heat on our meditation practice, which is what this is all about. 

That's the housekeeping stuff mostly, let's now actually start class the way I will ordinarily start class, which is we'll do our opening prayers. 

To do our opening prayers, I ask you to gather your minds, as we usually do. 

Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again, (Silence Pause) 

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you just by way of your thinking of them.

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. 

Their wisdom radiates from them. 

That beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. 

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who is hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. 

Recognize how the worldly ways we try to help fall short, 

Maybe they help. Maybe they don't. 

But either way, that person seems to go on to have some other kinds of distress, or that one again.

It's unsatisfactory. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful, if we could also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distresses forever. 

Deep down, we know this is possible. 

Deep down, we know this is what we're meant to become. 

Learning about karma and emptiness, we glimpse how it's possible. 

And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing, and that longing into an intention, and that intention even into a determination, if you feel ready.

Then turn your mind back to that precious holy being. 

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet, 

To become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. 

And so we ask them, please, please teach us that. Please teach me that. Please. 

And they are so happy that we've asked, of course, they agree. 

Our gratitude arises. 

We want to offer them something exquisite. 

And so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create. 

We imagine we can hold it in our hands. And we offer it to them. 

Following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. 

Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. 

In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. 

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may all beings reach their total awakening for the benefit of every single other. 

Meditation (watching breath)

Settle your body in for a short practice. 

We'll go through the details of posture another time. 

Use what you know so far. (Silence Pause) 

When you have that body settled still, bring the focus of your attention to your breath on the most prominent spot in one or other of your nostrils where you feel that breath exit and enter. Park yourself at that location and simply watch, simply experience, the breath. Being the observer. (Silence Pause) 

Observer notices, whether it's trying to jump away from the object or not, and correct. 

You notice whether the observer feels dull, sleepy, tired, disinterested. And correct it. 

We're using the experience we call breath to turn on our focus on that single object: to turn on our clarity, 

bright-eyed bushy-tail quality of attention, 

and to turn on our intensity, 

fascination,

curiosity,

Eagerness. What is your word? (Silence Pause) 

When you have that mind fine-tuned in that way, begin your breath count. Out and in is one. Our aim is to count 10 breaths without losing the object, without agitating about the object, without losing clarity. (Silence Pause) 

Now let go of the counting. Just breath. 

And let go of breath as your object and just listen. 

Make a note, a mental note, on what that short experience was like. 

It was a new situation for all of us. Didn't know what was coming. Notice how those factors had an effect on the quality of your attention. 

Think of that period of time we were counting the breath. 

Did you get all the way to 10 without getting distracted? You don't have to answer me. 

Could you even tell when you were distracted? 

How much of that session were you fully on that breath as the object to the exclusion of all else? 

What did you learn about your mind and your meditation ability, or meditation experience, in that timeframe? It doesn't reflect your ability. 

Is that level of concentration a level of concentration that could sustain resting in ultimate reality, do you think? 

If your answer is yes, I'm rejoicing for you. 

Now become aware of you and your body in your room, in this class. 

Dedicate this little start to swiftly becoming a shamatha level meditator for the benefit of that other who you so deeply wish to help. 

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. (Silence Pause) 

We all know that our tradition does not use the breath as an object of meditation, that we use the breath as a tool for initiating the meditation session. We use the breath as a trigger to get to the focus, clarity, and intensity, quality of mind that we can then slide anything under that microscope lens and we'll have focus, clarity, and intensity on that object for as long as we have determined that we're going to stay there. 

Ideally effortlessly, once we slide that object underneath the lens of the microscope. Practically speaking, we use the breath to make the trigger, we put the thing underneath, and then our mind goes, I don't want to do this. Maybe, maybe not. And that's the practice. Some days better than others, etc. But like anything, training mixed with merit / karmic goodness brings progress.

We're starting in this course from an assumption that we've all been meditating, but from an assumption that we have not been formally training ourselves,like an athlete would train for competition, like a performer would train for performance. We've been dabbling, maybe. And maybe we're a good dabbler meditator. But, if we want to be able to sustain the intensity, clarity, and focus necessary to stay in ultimate reality, we need to take this seriously and do the skills, and do the training, even though training is hard. 

You train more vigorously than you compete. Athletes, right? 

I mean, that's, that's what I relate to - hours and hours of volleyball skills over and over and over and over and over. Then when you play your match, the match could be only 20 minutes long, but you're operating at 100% for 20 minutes. Which we can do if in our training, we've repeatedly done the skills, done the work. 

This course is teaching us the skills, but it also is going to go into how to set our mind heart in the right place so that those skills, the training skills, are taking us where we want to go, instead of taking us just into a worldly result. We will get worldly results from improved meditation, we're going to talk about it in a minute. 

But that's not the reason we're doing it, of course. So that's what comes next. 

Benefits of meditation

Lama Christie said there are worldly benefits for becoming a competitive, athlete version of meditator, or a performance dancer version of meditator.

One of those benefits is that it feels good when our meditative concentration, we turn it on, we slide into it, and we're there. It is blissful, not just physically, but in the sense that for the period of time you are in that space, you are free of active mental afflictions.

And it's like, does that ever happen outside of meditation? Almost never, right? Where you're just like, ah, so peaceful, so loving that nothing can rock your peace of mind. It's not nirvana, but while you're in it with no mental afflictions, it's such a relief, but it's simply a worldly benefit. That's not the bliss of bliss void wisdom. 

We'll reach that pleasure even before we reach the pleasures of shamatha level. But it's pleasurable and that's fine to enjoy that pleasure of meditation.

The second worldly benefit is when we are regularly getting to that deep, high, level of single-pointed concentration that has become effortless once we're in it, let's say, when we come out of that state, for some period of time, that focus and clarity and intensity quality of the mind carries over even off our cushion time. And when our mind has that quality, if there's some project you need to accomplish, the state of mind is so tuned that that project becomes easy. You know what you need to know. Lama Christie's example was: you're this really, accomplished meditator and then you come out of your meditation one day and it's like your motorcycle needs to have its oil changed, and you've never changed the oil on your motorcycle, but you just look at the motorcycle and it's like, oh, I see! This is where the oil pan is, this is where you unplug the thing. You just know how to do it. Not because you're suddenly psychic or omniscient, but your mind is so clear.

It can figure stuff out that without that kind of clarity, you can watch the YouTube video and still can't follow the instructions. That's me. It's like, say what? 

So second worldly benefit to being an accomplished meditator, but that's not the reason we're here. Nice side effects. 

We're here, I hope, because we've heard someone say that all this distress, all this suffering in our world, it's all a great big mistake. Yes, it's terrible, and it's born of an error. It's born of a misbelief. And so it's all stoppable, completely stoppable. And in order to bring about the end of all that suffering, not just my own, but any suffering I could see existing, the doorway to that is the direct experience of the no self-nature of me, and other, and suffering. Everything. 

The ultimate reality of existing things in particular, this existing thing, “the me,” the most important emptiness to experience directly. And it's such a slippery creature that we can't get there solely by thinking about it. And we can't get there solely by pretending we're in it, for those of you who recognize that. And we can't get there by just waiting for it. It will be a result of causes, just like everything we experience. And if that experience is so powerful that it actually puts us on the conveyor belt to total Buddhahood, to nirvana or “total Buddhahood,” then it would have to be the ripening result of some extraordinary goodness, wouldn’t it?

We'll learn through the course of our Bok Jinpas how you go about making goodness that's extraordinary enough that could ripen as this experience, direct perception of emptiness. The start of that accumulation of goodness is to just want to do it. And then to believe we can do it is the second piece. And then to learn about how others have done it is the third piece, and then to try those things on for size. 

We've learned there are many different roads that lead to the same end. And through the course of our Bok Jinpa, we'll learn many of them. And then we will explore them and then you get to be the judge of which one is the one that holds my attention, my heart attention, either most easily, or most pleasurably, or even the most challengingly, because maybe that'll be the fastest. And then you get to choose which one's going to be your heart practice. 

It's a beautiful course that gives us all these different tools to find the one that's going to work for us. So you'll need to stay tuned for all 18 of them. Hopefully you'll meet yours along the way and that'll be great!

So spiritual benefit of becoming an accomplished meditator is that we can achieve that direct perception of emptiness and then go on to repeat it. Because one time isn't quite enough. 

The second spiritual advantage of becoming an avid meditator, Lama Christie described, is that this regular accessing of these deep, subtle recesses of our mind makes those deep, subtle recesses of our mind more readily available to receive teachings. She was explaining that what she noticed personally, is before her meditations had gone deeper, she would be at a teaching, this is probably before Geshe Michael, at a teaching, and intellectually, she'd be understanding the teaching, but it felt.. she recognized it was staying on a surface level. 

Then as she met this Dharma and dug in deeper, and increased her ability to meditate at these high levels, she would be receiving a class.. she's not meditating in class, she's in class, normal class attitude mind, but she recognized that the teachings, she was perceiving the teachings from this deep recess aspect that she didn't even know that she had or could receive at that level. 

She recognized that the way she was hearing and receiving those teachings were like a transmission versus words coming out of the teacher's mouth that had intellectual understanding. She was getting this downpour. And then, she didn't say, but I would anticipate that if she did talk to classmates about what was taught in that class, that they'd be..like, were you in the same class as me? 

Which we've heard, Buddha Shakyamuni is teaching Heart Sutra and somebody else is hearing some Tantra. Like how can that be? Well, do you see, if you're receiving on a different level? Because the words out of the teacher's mouth have no nature of their own, we hear them with different meaning when we are deep meditators than we would hear them if we aren't. 

So spiritual benefit. Same teachings, maybe we've heard again, and again, and again, oh, my gosh, that wasn't the same teaching at all, how did I miss that the first time around? Or the first 10 times around? And I am still finding that as I teach the ACIs again and again. I'm embarrassed how many times I've taught them and I still learn something every single time. Like, whoa, I didn't think of it like that before. Not because I'm such a great meditator, but because I've done it again, and again, and again. But you get the idea. 

A bright, clear mind on cushion is a different mind off cushion, thank goodness. Because then we can use this different ability to fine-tune our interactions with our experiences, our life. So that we get off that automatic pilot of react, react, react, and get into the, let's call it a new automatic pilot of respond, right? Plant seeds, six perfections, Diamond Way, whatever your planting is, it's becoming.. the automatic response is, what needs planting here? As opposed to react, react, react. 

Theoretically, that's why we're here, planning to receive these Set Your Meditation Practice on Fire course series so that we can set it on fire and learn to plant the seeds that will help us become shamatha level meditators. That's my pledge to you - to give you what you need. Help me, Lamas! 

We are closer than we think

Lama Christie was saying to our group of students, ‘probably you are still thinking that that direct perception of emptiness is like something far away in your future’. 

Like, ‘no way. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying really hard. I need to do it in this lifetime, but come on, I've been at it for how many years and it hasn't happened yet’. Like, are we, am I starting to get discouraged? And it's common to feel like, ‘no, it's something that's going to happen way in the future. I'll do what I need to do now, but I won't worry about when it's going to happen’, because it's a little dangerous to say, ‘it's going to happen on November 3rd, 2026’, because what if you get there and it doesn't happen? And oh my gosh, right, mental affliction seeds. So we avoid making that kind of determination ‘I'm going to do it today’. But when our worldview is strong, we could say with every meditation, we sit down, ‘Today's the day I'm going to see emptiness directly!’

And then you finish your session and it's like, ‘well, I don't think it was today so it's going to be tomorrow’.

Just like we learned death awareness practice.

‘I die today’ 

‘Oh, no, I didn't.’

‘Okay. Today. I die today.’

‘Oh, no, no, I didn't. Great!’

We don't have to get discouraged. We keep fine tuning, fine tuning, fine tuning. We are closer than you think, each of us. 

Lama Christie said, ‘And you know how I know? Because you're here,’ to those of us, we're at the Diamond Mountain thing. And same goes for you guys. You had a week's notice that this was going to happen, some not even that much, and still here you are. Those are your great seeds! You're meant to be here! I'm meant to say something that's going to trigger in you this shift, and may it be tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, well, the next day, then, or next week. Doesn't matter, we're that close. And so it's a rejoicable to be here! And then at the same time, it's using up lots of goodness. So we need to be sure that we're replanting that goodness by starting with a strong motivation. Remembering our strong motivation, there are other beings suffering in my world, so as I'm starting to get dull and sleepy and disinterested, ‘oh, somebody's depending on me, crank it back up.’ And in the end, we'll dedicate so that we can keep this going, at least long enough until you reach your goal, or I finish the courses. Or both. 

History of Kamalashila

All right. So how are we going to do this? We are going to study Master Kamalashila. So as I was saying all of that, the deep level of meditation that we are training to reach is called the platform of Shine in Tibetan, Shamatha in Sanskrit, sometimes spelled this way [shamata], which I'm not sure if it's a different Sanskrit or if this is the Pali. Shine is that single-pointed concentration on the object that has those two SHIN JANGS with it. So it's more than single-pointed concentration, ting nge dzin. It’s  the platform from which when we turn our mind to the true nature of the object, we can penetrate more deeply into that true nature, which given the right circumstances, will trigger the actual hlak tong, which is the special insight, which is code for experiencing emptiness directly, but it's used for the kind of meditation that will end up as direct perception of emptiness. 

So once we're at Shamatha level on whatever our object is, we don't just stay there. It's very pleasurable, we want to, but we use that platform to then look at, or consider, the true nature of that object, whatever it is. And then we're into the Hlak tong or the vipassyana part of our meditation. It'll be a while before we get to doing that in our classwork because we need to be able to get to Shine. We will pretend we're at Shine and go to Hlak tong in our intellectual exploration of emptinesses, but to actually do it, we need to get to shamatha first. So that's what we'll be focusing on for a while. So Hlak tong, vipassyana, or vipassana I think it's the Pali. 

So now we are to who we are going to be studying from. Acharya Kamalashila is an Indian master who lived around 750 AD, we apparently don't know his specific dates. Acharya means Master, Lopan in Tibetan. Kamalashila is a beautiful word. Kamala means lotus flower. And we know the story of the lotus. The lotus grows out of the mud. The stinkier and awful-er the muddy pond it grows out of, the more beautiful and big is the lotus flower, is in theory. And then Shila, one meaning is morality, as in Tsultrim, which is the perfection of morality in our six perfections, which is the avoiding harming others because we understand karma and emptiness and want to stop everybody's suffering kind of morality, Shila means that. So the morality of the lotus, meaning this exquisite, beautiful thing arises out of the awful muck of samsara. We use samsara to transform samsara - Kamalashila. The other meaning or connotation within Shila is the getting used to or a steady practice, the habituation, the Gompa in Tibetan. When we learned all those different words for meditation years ago, Gompa was one of them, meditation, but meditation from the aspect of getting so familiar with something that it becomes automatic. So this idea of habituation happens on our meditation cushion as we go through the steps of reaching our Shine, but it also has the connotation of off our cushion, having this habituation of choosing our behaviors according to keeping our vows, for instance. And we get so used to it that it's not really a struggle anymore to be kind when the boss is yelling at me. It's like, it's what you want to do. You've gotten so used to your understanding of emptiness and karma and where it's come from that it's not a struggle anymore to respond kindly in the face of awfulness. Or to respond, to share kindly in the face of wonderfulness. To perpetuate wonderfulness. So Gompa. 

This man [Kamalashila] lived, as I say, 750 AD around that time in India. In Tibet, around the 650s into the 700s was when Buddhism was moving from from India into Tibet for the first time. I don't know the circumstances of how that happened, but as those first teachers would go there and sharing the idea of morality and bodhichitta, that there were spirits in the Tibetan country that they didn't like it one bit, that there were these beings that were rocking the boat. These spirits were running the show and getting people to do the kinds of things that people do and that would make the spirits happy and now here come these people saying, ‘no, no, don't act like that, you're just hurting yourself, be more kind’. And the demons are like, we don't want any part of this, and they would cause floods and famines and locusts hailing down from the sky. And the people, finally they said, ‘so sorry, we love your teachings, but all these disasters, they're too much, please stop coming’. And the teachers were like, oh my gosh, we can't have that. So they had someone named Shantarakshita and Padmasambhava, two Indian Masters, go to Tibet. ‘Here's the problem we're having, these demons, they're upset, can you help us out?’ So these two guys were the ones that went in there and did whatever they did to subdue the demons. I think as we go through these courses, we'll hear a little bit more about that. Padmasambhava, he'd go take care of a demon in an area and then he'd go into retreat in that area, and then he'd leave and go back to India until he was needed again. 

Shantarakshita, he went to Tibet and I guess he really liked it, so he stayed, and he stayed in an area of Tibet called Samye. He went on to establish a monastery in Samye, it took him 12 years to do it, and once he had the monastery there, he started ordaining people. Once he had ordained people, he started a regular sequence of teachings. I guess before then it was just this teaching here and that teaching there, so he started teaching regularly. And they started translating the Indian texts into Tibetan. They say that it's at that point where there's a monastery and there's ordained people and there's regular teachings with the translation happening, that is what established the Buddhadharma in Tibet. So Padmasambhava and Master Shantarakshita, they are the ones that established Buddhism in Tibet. The reason I'm telling you that is that Master Shantarakshita was Master Kamalashila's teacher. So Shantarakshita, he lives in Tibet, he's on his deathbed, and the king comes to talk to him. The king has been an avid supporter, he's very, very happy with the Dharma being in Tibet, at least this area of Tibet. And the Master says to the king, ‘after I go, it could happen that there'll be some kind of split in the sangha and if that happens, remember, call in my student Kamalashila, he will fix it’, and he dies. 

Shortly thereafter, the king becomes aware that there's been a different teacher in Tibet, a teacher from China, who's called the Hua shang. We've heard about the Hua shang. Hua shang just means monk, I guess in Chinese or Mandarin, I don't know what, but we don't know his actual name. But he's this famous guy, the Hua shang, the Chinese monk who had training, who had charisma, who taught and had students. The Hua Shang's belief was that all of those practices about planting merit with your six perfections, that all just plant seeds for goodness in your future life, but it's just goodness that perpetuates samsara. He was teaching what we really need to do is to get our minds to that non-conceptual state because in that non-conceptual state we experience emptiness, and once you experience emptiness, you're on your way to nirvana or Buddhahood. So ‘you don't need all of that virtue business, you don't need all of that figuring stuff out, you need non-conceptual meditation’, and he was convincing, and it is reasonable. We do need to get to a non-conceptual experience of emptiness, a direct experience of the true nature of our self, our me, and everything that me includes. So he's not wrong, but he's not right either because of what he was meaning by non-conceptual meditation and how to get there and what to do with it. But people were like, ‘yeah, yeah, this is the way to practice’ and there were other people, it's like, ‘no, no, our teacher taught this, our teacher taught this’. And guess what? They were starting to fight. And I guess in the old days in Tibet, when you had a disagreement, you brought out your swords and you fought about it. And if you were the survivor of the fight, well, guess what? ‘I guess my way was right’, and everybody would follow it because if they didn't, off with your head too. So the king says, no fighting this out, and he goes, oh, the Master said, call in his student Kamalashila. So they send for Kamalashila and of course he goes. And the king says, ‘you two, you’ve got to debate this. You can't fight it out, you need to debate it. We'll all listen to the debate and whoever wins the debate, other guy’s gotta leave town, no more of that practice. Whoever wins the debate’. So in a way, it's like this debate established Tibet's whole cultural Buddhism scene because everybody agreed because the king said so. That's interesting. So they have this debate and the Hua shang gives his argument, and then Kamalashila gives his argument that goes into seed planting and how seeing emptiness directly doesn't just come out of blanking your mind out because if it did, you could just have somebody knock you unconscious and you'd see emptiness directly and wake up and be on your conveyor belt to Buddhahood. A lot of people have been knocked unconscious, and it doesn't work like that, apparently. Or we'd reach it in our sleep, which theoretically we could. So Kamalashila gave the argument, you have to plant the seeds for the result that you want and if that's going to be a good result, it's got to be good seeds. And what kind of good seeds? The seeds of the perfection of giving moral discipline, not getting angry, having a good time doing your practices, meditative concentration, and wisdom, see? And apparently he won the debate and so the Hua shang had to leave town, and everybody who was following the Hua shang now followed Kamalashila and now we have Tibet as a Mahayana country. 

I mean, probably Hua shang was Mahayana too, but a six-perfections practicing country. After that whole thing, Kamalashila was thinking, my teacher had been here, this amazing teacher teaching these exquisite things, but he didn't write any of it down. So once he was gone, the next teacher that came along was what people listened to because they didn't have access to what the previous teacher had written. 

So Kamalashila thinks to himself, I better write this down, and so he wrote what came to be known as Bhavana krama in Sanskrit, gompay rimpa in Tibetan. It means steps (Rimpa); Gompay - steps on meditation or steps of meditation. Not the nine stages of meditation that we're familiar with, they're inside there, but this is everything we need to do to go from a non-meditator to a professional performance meditator, Not that you perform, but you get the idea. A Shamatha level meditator from which you can reach that ultimate reality so that we can transform. But now curiously, Master Kamalashila, he wrote bhavana krama three times, like three different texts about meditation all called bhavana krama, and not even apparently with subtitles so I don't know which one is which. Two of them, the first and the third, are instructional material. And apparently the middle one isn't so helpful in growing our meditation practice even though its name is Gompay rimpa. So we get to study the first and the third. We are on the third now, not meaning.. they're not sequential, each one is a complete text. His third version is the one that we're using now that you'll get in your reading. 

I'm looking for what Bahavana means.. The ‘gompay’ which is getting used to something.. I don't know how it breaks down. So getting used to meditation in this stepwise fashion, Gompay rimpa, or bhavana krama, by Master Kamalashila, 750 AD. 

Let's take a break.

[break]

In Master Kamalashila's Steps of Meditation text, we will find that he is using scriptural references, meaning from Buddha's sutras for what he's teaching, and then he's also going to use logic / debate reasonings for what he's going to share. The method of learning is very Gelugpa, even though there was no Gelugpa yet. He's documenting very clearly that he's not making this up, that his Master didn't make it up either. that these are skills handed down from Buddha's sutras and things that logically can work. Sp we'll see it in that way. 

If you sat down to write a book on meditation, you'd say why you're going to do it, the benefits of doing it, and then what do you think the first thing you would write about would be? Just like, how do I do it? What position do I take? What kind of cushion do I sit on? What am I going to think about? How long do I do it? 

You would think he would start right out with all the details, but he doesn't. He starts out talking about great compassion, mahakaruna, you do that backwards tongue thing [when pronouncing] with the “N”

In Tibetan – Nying Je Chenpo. We've learned, haven't we - there's a difference between compassion, great compassion, and holy great compassion. Everybody remember that? 

Compassion - people suffering, that's terrible, I wish they didn't have to have suffering. 

Great compassion - people suffering, it's terrible. I want to do something about it. I really want to do something about it. And then where our mind tends to go is like, but I seem incapable. Like I try and try and try and they still like.. oh man, I can't do it. I need to be Buddha to really help them. 

And then when we are Buddha, we have holy great compassion which had to do with seeing their no self-nature and their appearing nature, theirs and the one we see, all simultaneously, and the state of heart that is perpetuated by that, that compassion. It's like off the charts, compassion compared to great compassion. And great compassion is way up here compared to human compassion. But human compassion is way up here compared to ordinary selfish me who doesn't care one whit whether somebody else is hurting because I'm hurting so much. So plain old compassion is a great, powerful thing. Great compassion is the first factor we need to learn to become a meditator. It's our motivation that we need to do what we need to do to become the meditator we want to become so that we can help these others stop their suffering. 

The upward spiral when we have great compassion 

Kamalashila writes in his trying to convey what this great compassion is. He says when there's no form of pain that you would hesitate to take on, and no kind of pleasure you would hesitate to give up, in order to bring every living being to the evolution, meaning to progress along their path, that is the point when you have great compassion. No pain that I will avoid, and no pleasure that I'm not willing to give up, in order to do what I need to do to become the one who can help those others stop their suffering forever. So a big leap from, ‘oh, people's suffering is so terrible, I wish I could do something’ to this willingness, no matter what. We'll talk more and more about what that kind of great compassion looks like in life. It does not mean you need to be out in your city looking for who's getting ready to jump off a bridge and run over there in the middle of the night in a rainstorm to stop them. If that opportunity comes, we do it when we have holy great compassion. But holy great compassion operates on much smaller scales as well as this willingness to do anything necessary to help somebody's suffering stop. Why is great compassion a necessary factor in our motivation to meditate? It has to do with that high level of caring about others, and that high level of caring about others implies that we have some amount of intellectual wisdom about that mistake that causes suffering, about the fact that suffering can be stopped. If we didn't understand that someone's pain could actually end forever, no amount of holy great compassion would be useful. It's because we understand the emptiness and dependent origination of happiness and suffering that our great compassion motivates us to become one who can help others become one who can help others become one who can help others. I can't ever stop saying it. Because that's what we're doing, is turning the wheel - becoming the one that can not just stop others' pain but teach them how to stop it for themselves because in doing so, they have to go try to help somebody else. 

So when we have this compassion, let alone great compassion, but especially great compassion, as our in-our-mind motivator as we're doing anything, including meditation, the seeds that we're planting as we're doing that anything include that holy great compassion, and include whatever wisdom we use to help grow that holy great compassion. And so the same deed done with this different state of mind, the seeds themselves are planted in a way that they ripen differently than they would have if we did the same deed without that state of mind. So to have this holy great.. this great compassion, not holy great compassion.. great compassion, while we're meditating, the seeds we're planting while we're meditating are seeds that will ripen as our meditation taking us higher and higher spiritually to greater compassion and greater wisdom. It's like the foundation of this upward spiral that our meditating because of great compassion promotes that then is reflected in our behavior out of meditation, which is driven by that great compassion, which plants powerful seeds that helps us take our meditation deeper.. Deeper / higher, I don't know which, right? That allows our morality off cushion to go deeper, higher. Do you see how it goes? They feed on each other. He's not saying you have to have great compassion to become a meditator at the level that will let us see emptiness directly, he's saying it speeds the process up. That's what we're here for, I set my practice on fire, thank you very much. We can meditate diligently and it can take a really long time for this upward spiral to gather enough momentum that we reach that doorway to emptiness directly. Or we can start with the great compassion as the motivator for why I'm sitting every day and what I'm going to do with it. It tunes it up more quickly. 

Lama Christie went on to say, if you've noticed, when we are meditating for our own benefit.. like when we take on any new project that takes a certain amount of effort and we're doing it just for our own benefit, have you noticed that when things get hard, our tendency is to just go, ‘Oh, forget it’? It's like as selfish as we are, as self-involved as we are, when we're learning something new and it gets hard to learn that new thing, we'll give it up because it's just too hard. It's not worth it for just me. But when we take on something that we want to get good at so that we can use that to help somebody else, and we reach those struggles where it's so hard, yeah we want to quit, but what keeps us going is like ‘no, no, I'll be able to help that other one. I'll be more effective in my caring for others if I can really accomplish this’. So to have an other, let alone all sentient beings other, as our motivating factor for our effort to reach shamatha and then hlak tong, the likelihood of us sticking with it when things get hard is so much greater. And we hear it in many ways, ‘Oh, they're depending on me’. But then somebody will say, ‘no, I don't want people depending on me. And then we'll say, ‘okay, don't use depend, use they're relying on me’. ‘No, that's too much pressure’. Right? We all have our way that we're going to relate to those teachings, and the idea is to just explore, explore, explore how this feeling of compassion is a powerful tool for keeping us motivated on our path.  One of the things that we addressed again and again in the Bok Jinpa courses is how to use other people's pain to open our hearts. Our tendency is when we see or recognize someone's pain is to look away because we're incapable of really helping. Even if we can help in some small way, it's still not sufficient and so our tendency is just distracting ourselves. And it's a fatal error, they always say, because we just plant the seeds for continued samsara. So the motivation, the starting motivation, for our meditation career, says Master Kamalashila, needs to be compassion. Not just plain old compassion, great compassion. Not because he said so, not because Buddha said so, but because of the impact it has on our mind as we plant the seeds of the efforts we make to deepen our meditative concentration, the efforts we make on the cushion and off the cushion. And that's what we will be exploring as we go on. 

The eight factors from Hatha Yoga Padipika

In your reading, we're mainly studying the Bhavana krama. And then Lama Christie has included pieces from texts from the yoga tradition to show how there's crossover between those two traditions. Using the text.. I think you're all familiar with the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. It was written by someone named Acharya Master Svatmarama, whose name Sva of Svat means self, and the Arama means to play. Here's this guy with the name which is just like ‘frolicking with his self’, but self in the sense of his own self-nature. So here’s this guy whose name is ‘just playing in his own emptiness all the time’. Cool, I wanna be that. Acharya Svatmarama. He writes in his Hatha Yoga Pradipika that the Hatha Yoga is being taught solely to get people to the stage of what's called Raja Yoga. Raja means royal yoga, which is code for seeing emptiness directly. All the yoga of the sun and the moon, Hatha, is about cultivating the ability to reach the direct perception of emptiness. 

In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Master Svatmarama, he's exploring those Yamas / Niyamas, those eight factors. The eight factors of a yoga practice, of which the physical asanas is just one part. In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, he doesn't list the eight, but he's explaining how each of those eight plays its part in our spiritual progress to reaching ultimate reality, reaching Raja Yoga. So just for completion of the class, I want to give you those eight. These are Sanskrit. I don't have them in Tibetan. 

Yama means self-control.

Niyama means our commitments.

Asana means the physical poses.

Pranayama means the breath work.

Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses.

Dharana is the focus.

Dhyana is the fixation.

And Samadhi is called the perfect meditation. It's the level nine of our nine stages, the ting ngen dzin. So it's not the final piece, but it's the platform from which shamatha will spring forth, which is the platform from which wisdom can spring forth. It doesn't automatically, we have to do stuff that we'll learn about.

Lama Christie will be comparing the little snippets of things from the yoga to what Master Kamalashila is teaching to show how they work together. We have a second meditation to do, let's get this done. 

Meditation on seeing the good qualities of the Lama

Again, settle your body as you already know how to do. 

No new instructions just now, just get it still. (Silent pause) 

Once it's locked in, bring your focus of attention to those sensations of your breath at the nostrils, either both or one, wherever you feel it most prominently. 

Become the watcher of that breath, not controller, not anything else. Fascinated. (Silence pause) 

And in your mind's eye, you see that there before you is that most precious holy spiritual guide, your one and only, the highest incarnation of goodness. 

This being is the embodiment of compassion, the embodiment of love. And they are gazing at you with that unfathomable love. (Silence pause) 

They have become who and what they know themselves as by way of their great love, their great compassion, their great wisdom. (Silence pause) 

You know that about them. And so you know they have this great compassion for you. (Silence pause) 

Feel your gratitude to them for doing whatever it is they did to become the being who for you can help you become like that. 

Because of their compassion, they will teach. Because of their compassion, they are emanating. And when we ask for guidance, their compassion responds. (Silence pause) 

They have sacrificed themselves again and again on your behalf, with great joy.

Think about their qualities that you see in them. (Silence pause) 

Think of how their good qualities relate to this great love in their heart for others. 

And how that love and compassion inspires their meditation and their actions. (Silence pause) 

Check your own mind, your own heart. Do you believe that you can grow the kind of compassion, the kind of love that can do for others what your precious Lama does for you? 

Let yourself debate it. ‘Absolutely Yes!’, a part of our mind. 

Well, then why haven't you done it yet? 

Doesn't matter, I'm going to do it! 

Yeah, well, what happens when things get hard? 

Our minds do it. Who will win that debate over the advantage of compassion over selfishness? (Silence pause) 

Keep discussing it. (Silence pause) 

What conclusion can you come to? (Silence pause) 

Now focus again on that precious being before you. 

See in the center of their chest, this shining light, a diamond-like light. It's the light of their love, their compassion, their wisdom. And as they gaze at you and you at them, that light shines forth from them, a beam from their heart to your heart, filling you with this great love, filling you with this great compassion, filling you with this wisdom. (Silence pause) 

Our gratitude to them arises. 

We think of the goodness that they've just shared. We're so happy to have received it and so we offer this goodness to them back again. 

They accept it and they bless it and then they dissolve into that beam of light that's shining to your heart. They ride it, coming to rest there in that holy of holies in the middle of your chest. See them there, feel them there. It feels so good we want to keep it forever and so we know to share it. 

By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collections of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. 

Use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person from the start of class, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. 

And may it be so. 

Thank you very much.

So if you are going to assign yourself a meditation, which I hope you will, use the breath, you decide how much time. ‘I'm going to spend three minutes on my breath, but that three minutes, I'm going to really drill it hard to stay on that breath and to notice when I'm off’. We'll learn the details as we go along. ‘Then I'm going to spend my other 10 minutes - that beautiful Lama in front of me, their love, their compassion’, everything that you know about the power of love and compassion to make a fully enlightened being and what they do with it. And then check your own mind and go, ‘Yeah, they can do it, I can't’. Debate it with yourself inside, you know, angel / devil. 

‘You don't need to do that; you're doing just fine.’

‘No, no, I'm not doing just fine.’

Come to a conclusion., ‘Ah, I can do this’. 

See that Holy Lama  - ‘Yay! Yes, you can do that!’

Dedicate, bring them into your heart. 

It doesn't have to be long but be really intentional to drill in the benefit of compassion. 

I didn't talk to you about how to keep a meditation journal, but we'll do that next time. 

Thank you so much. We're on a roll.

Mahakaruna = great compassion

Geshe Chekawa = the master who opened lojong practices

Dukgyel gyi dukgyel = obvious suffering

Gyurway dukgyel = the suffering of change

Kyaba duje gyi dukgyel = moment to moment suffering / pervasive suffering

Ahimsa = to avoid harming

Satya = to speak truthfully

Asteya = to not steal

Brahmacharya = sexual purity

Aparigraha = non-possessiveness

Kshama = patience

Dhirti = joyful effort

Daya = love

Arjavya = sincerity       

Mitahara = moderation in intake, meaning moderation of food and drink, but moderation in sensory intake

Shaucha = cleanliness

Pratimoksha

All right, welcome back. 

We are Bok Jinpa Course 1, Class 2 on June 18th, 2025. 

Let's gather our minds here. We'll do our opening prayers and then I'd like to talk about keeping a meditation journal and then we'll go into our first meditation for class. 

So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. 

Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. (Silence Pause)

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom and see them there with you.

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiating from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. 

Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. 

Recognize that the worldly ways we try fall short. 

How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever.

Deep down we know it's possible, deep down we know this is what we're meant to become. Learning about emptiness and karma, we glimpse how it's possible. We glimpse even that it's inevitable. 

And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention. 

And with that strong intention, turn your mind back to that precious holy being. 

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. 

And so we ask them, please, please teach me that, show me that, guide me there, help me.

And they are so happy that we've asked, of course they agree. 

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite and so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. 

Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of our Buddha and offer it all to you. 

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may all beings awaken totally for the benefit of every single other. 

Keeping a meditation journal

So supposedly, everybody already has a meditation practice, and they know what they're doing in setting up their session. We will learn the details little by little, but only in the sense of reviews. So I'm going to assume the same thing. But if as we're going along the way, you're wondering if you've got your meditation session having all the necessary elements, ask me after class or shoot me an email that I can be sure and include answering people's questions. 

For Lama Christie, that's what her reviewing our books helped her to do. She didn't answer the stuff in our books, but she looked at what was going on in our meditations and adjusted her class accordingly so that we would hear the answers even without ever asking the questions. We don't have that capacity here so much. 

She instructed us to keep a meditation journal writing down at least these three things after every session: 

She wanted us to track how long was I on my object, so focus of attention on the object without losing the object. Once we can do that, we're at level four, if you recall. Once we're at level four (always on the object), then we can check whether I'm dull, whether I'm agitated, what's my intensity level, all that other stuff. But we need to learn to be on the object reliably before any of the rest of that matters. So we're training ourselves to be full-focused on our object, but then some little bit is over here just checking to see if I'm straying off the object. And this little checker will go, ‘hello’, and keep me on. The training is for that checker. At the beginning, the checker doesn't recognize we've been off the object till we've been like so fully off it where we've solved the problem about the meeting that's coming up. And then checker goes, ‘hello, you've been off your object. Bring it back’. Checker is going to grow until you can't even get off the object, checker is so strong. Like the rope that tethers the elephant to the pole. It can be 50 feet long and slowly you crank it in until elephant is against the pole constantly. That's what we mean about this checker mind; it needs to get strong, Drenpa it's called. 

So somehow, we're getting fully on the object of our breath for the beginning minute or two or three of our session because we're going to train the puppy-dog-meditating-mind that when I turn my focus to my breath, you turn on your focus, turn on your clarity, and turn on your intensity. And it should get to where all you have to do is go breath and you're in. You don't have to count to 10, you don't have to down count from 100, unless you want to. But when we've got the training thing going on..remember the radios in the cars that had the push button and you set the push button to the radio station you wanted. And then you didn't have to look at the radio, you could just reach down there and third button in, you’ve got 99 WKRQ. The same with our meditation. Here's the button ‘Tong Len’, here's the button ‘dzog rim’, here's the button ‘emptiness meditation’. We use our breath to gather the mind in and then push the button on the radio station and go into your meditation. So you start your timer actually as you're coming on to your breath. You already have your topic decided and how you're going to think through your topic. You already learned that. And so when you set down for your session, you finish your preliminaries, you come back, you push your button, ‘I'm going to meditate for 20 minutes’, there goes the timer. Use your breath to focus, clarity, intensity, and then go right into your radio station object of meditation without interrupting yourself to turn your timer on. So it's already going. That's why you want your breath section to only be a short period of time. Don't do your breath for 20 minutes out of your 21 minute meditation. Just for the trigger. 

So then that focus that's on the breath, when you push the button for your meditation, that same focus, clarity, intensity, just shifts. It's like a microscope, you switch slides. The breath slide goes out, that meditation topic goes in, and it's what your mind is focused on, and you start your meditation sequence, it's whatever it's going to be. Your Drempa is still holding the mind on there. Then as long as you're on the object, this other little part of your mind is checking - dull? Agitated? Dull? Agitated? Dull? Agitated? And whatever the answer is, we correct as necessary. And that's going on loudly at first, and as we get better and better at it, that's going on more softly until it's going on under the radar; and when we get at ‘under the radar checking and adjusting’, we're at level seven. And then from level seven, just practice, practice, practice to get to eight to nine. 

So the journal happens after your timer goes off. Don't open your eyes yet, just stop the ringing of the timer and think, ‘how long was I on my object?’  And just some kind of subjective assessment. ‘Man, I spent more time correcting, getting back onto my object than I was actually on it’ or ‘wow, I was on it a long time, just a couple of times off.’ At first, you won't really know how to assess. And what will happen is you'll develop a system that you'll be able to either give yourself a number, one to ten. Ten means, I don't know, 10 means I was never on my object. I've had days like that still. Can’t even find it. Maybe one or zero means I was on it completely, meaning I was never off it. Or use a percentage. On it the whole time, 100%, 50%. It's totally subjective, it's only for comparison purposes. So ‘how long do I think I was on my object?’ 

‘In this meditation session, what am I taking home with me? What little bit of aha did I get?’ Maybe the bit of aha is, ‘I need to prop my knee better because it gets to hurting halfway through’. Or maybe the aha is, ‘oh my gosh, I see how the ladder is not really a ladder, it's more like an elevator’. Right? Just something short, short and sweet. And so you're just doing this in your head. 

Third, or it can be second, it doesn't matter the order. How clear was my mind? How clear, meaning how bright? So again, find some way that you can assess. I've always used a number, but as I was thinking of trying how to describe this, an analogy popped into my mind is you could use like the weather. ‘My mind was like daylight at noon in Tucson in June, like blasting bright sun’. Or ‘my mind was like scattered clouds, partly rainy’. Or ‘my mind was like a fog bank on Santa Monica beach in June’. Just some sense for comparison purposes. 

Then Lama Christie said, just write down those three things. 

I like to add a fourth one, which is some kind of reward, some kind of attaboy. So if I was only on the object 30% of the time, my attaboy might be, ‘well, I was on the object 30% of the time. Wow, good for me.’ Somehow give yourself a smiley face or a little flower or a star, something to give yourself a reward so we'll keep coming back. Otherwise, our book could so easily become just a self-criticism; like we're so good at that that we'll do it here too, and I really want to suggest that you try not to. To try to point out each time the positive side, ‘I was on my object 15% of the time, yay!’ . Like that for your book. 

So you've just thought this all through. Then if your mind is such that you can finish the rest of your session whatever it's going to be, at the very minimum, we have our dedication to do again. If you can remember all that stuff, go back, finish your meditation, and then write it all down. 

If you're like me, I've forgotten it by the time I've thought it, so after I've thought the four things out, I just scribble them down really quickly and then go back and finish my session, whatever it's going to be. It really doesn't even have to be legible, this isn't for somebody else to read. It's not really even necessarily for you to go back and read someday; I've never actually reread mine. It's showing our mind that we're watching. And when we know somebody's watching, we do better. And that's the purpose of keeping a meditation journal. And then son of a gun, you learn a lot whether you go back and read them or not, because you've made this imprint at the end of your meditation to go back and think, ‘ah, what was it?’ So up to you how you actually design it. But I really, really, really insist that for this class, you keep a meditation journal, please. Otherwise these classes won't benefit us at all. All right, got it?

Meditation on focusing our attention with clarity and intensity

Let's do our first meditation for this class. 

So set your body comfortably, well-supported. We're not so interested in its exact precise alignment right now. Just get it comfortably propped so you can forget it, and forget it to the extent that itches, scratches, aches, just ignore them; they'll go away.

So you intentionally drop all the busyness of the day, cranking your mind's awareness in. You're already cranked in, you're focused on this class. Crank it in further and bring that focus of fascinated attention to your breath. These sensations we call breath. 

There's a place in your nostrils somewhere where those sensation of breath is most prominent right now. 

Use your mind to find that place. 

Identify that place, that sensation, that image, as air going out and air coming in. 

No control. 

Focus on that location. 

Notice if the mind struggles to stay there. 

Keep bringing it back. 

As you focus, notice your clarity. How bright is that focus on that place? 

Imagine that location of focus inside your nostril. That area gets bigger, bigger, bigger, so that it encompasses your whole sense of vision if you're visualizing it. 

So there's nothing else to focus on but that. 

See if that helps. 

Check how bright your mind is. 

Check whether you are on or off the object. 

Increase your focus on the object. 

Now try shrinking that area down to a tiny, tiny, tiny little speck, location, sensation. Breath going out, going in, focusing on a tiny spot. 

What does that do to your quality of focus? The effort it takes to stay focused? 

For some it gets easier, for some it gets harder. 

Now check, were you on the object? If so, how bright? If bright, how fascinated? 

Make any adjustment. Come back to the object.

Now make it anatomical size again. 

That location, that sensation, breath. 

We'll stay two more minutes. 

Adjust your focus. Check your clarity, your intensity. Two minutes. (Silence pause)

Check.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, our timer goes off.

Don't open your eyes yet. 

Think, how much of that session was I actually full-focused on that object? 

How clear was my mind? How bright-eyed and bushy-tailed? 

What was something I became aware of? Some little aha.

And then some reward: ‘I actually sat still, perfectly still, hooray.’ 

Then dedicate the goodness that we've done so far. 

Bring your awareness back to you here in this room, in this class. 

And then open your eyes. 

And then you would write your little note to yourself. 

Good, nice job! 

So always keep in mind that we are not using our breath as our meditation object. We are using the breath as the trigger to turn on the microscope, prepare the lens, and fine-tune the focus so that we can slide our meditation topic underneath that lens. And we always have our breath available so we use it as this trigger. It's not our meditation object. 

Growing our meditation career needs to start with great compassion

All righty, so Master Kamalashila's advices about growing our meditation career is we need to start with mahakaruna, great compassion. Of course, he's a Mahayanist. Mahakaruna is the Sanskrit word for great compassion. We were talking a little bit about that last week, last class. And he's pointing out that he recognized that the whole reason he got asked to go to Tibet to debate with the Hua Shang is that whatever practices the people in Tibet were doing at that time, they apparently were not bringing them to these deep realizations, deep enough to be able to know whether the Hua Shang's meditation instructions were functional or accurate, were the ones they wanted to follow or not. 

He points out that if people had the realizations, they would have known that the Master Hua Shang's teachings were good for this thing, but not for the goal that they aspired to and they wouldn't have needed an expert to come and do the debate thing. 

So he says, ‘of course, it was me’. He doesn't say it arrogantly, but ‘me the master of meditation teaching’, I guess, because their meditations were not taking them to these deep realizations where they would have known themselves that the Master Hua Shang's would just take them to a form of formless realm rebirth. They'd have known it if their own meditations were deep. So he goes, yeah, I see why Master Shantarakshita said, ‘call for Master Kamalashila’, because he knew exactly that that's what the people needed because their meditations were not going deep. And then he says, and their meditations are not going deep..’Your meditations are not going deep’, to the Tibetan people, ‘because you're doing your meditation for the wrong reason’. We're doing them for, I don't know, limited compassion or not even compassion or not even a future lifetime goal, but for a this-lifetime goal. And, you know, it's good to do meditation for this-lifetime goal, but it isn't going to bring us to the kind of transformation that we say we're aspiring to: ‘I want to be Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings’. But are we just mouthing the words and feeling something nice in our heart when we say that or do we really mean it? If our motivation is mahakaruna, great compassion, it's like we could almost not help but go into deep meditations where we gain deep realizations if our great compassion was strong enough. But it's not just about deciding I'm going to have great compassion, because otherwise we'd all hear it and go, ‘okay, I'll just turn it on’. It's not like that. If it were, gosh, it'd be easier. It's something we need to cultivate, right? It's going to be seeds ripening from seeds planted. 

And the way we grow our Mahakaruna is to be willing to face the pain and suffering of our world instead of run from it, which is what we do, what society does. What we learn to do is if there's somebody's distress that we can help, maybe we're brave enough to go help. But if someone's problem is something that we're not capable of addressing or not capable of helping, we just turn away. We shut down, we don't really even engage enough to find out more, right? We're taught to block ourselves, shield ourselves, from this pain. And some of us are better at doing that than others. Others are so sensitive that you have to shield yourself or you'll have a meltdown seeing any amount of suffering. But even at that level and stage, that empathetic nature is a kind of ripening that is actually blocking opening of our hearts rather than protecting the opening of the heart, only because we don't know what to do with the overwhelm of the pain. So I'm not criticizing anybody. It's a healthy human thing to have our boundaries, and those boundaries are protective. And as our spiritual path is growing.. my own analogy shifted from putting myself into this protective egg of energy that would allow me to see people's pain, but it couldn't get in to affect my judgment or my clarity, to shifting to this feeling that those energies of love, compassion, and wisdom, to whatever extent I have access to them, if they're pouring into me and out from me so strongly, so effectively, they make that same protective bubble around me, but not in terms of keeping me inside, but rather by overwhelming the negative energy that's coming at me so it can't get in. A different process to get the same outcome. 

But Master Kamalashila, we'd say, come on, even that, if you're doing it to protect yourself, it's not Mahakaruna, right? It's going to block the depth with which our meditative concentration can go. And it's like, what's that connection? Why does my willingness to see somebody's pain have anything to do with the level of concentration I can get to? And he's going to weave that in. We know the punchline, right? Our ethical behavior makes it so that we don't have stuff on our conscience as we're trying to get to the place of that conscience so still we need it not rattled around with negative ideas, negative deeds, selfish deeds. But I don't know about you, it was like, I see the logical connection but it doesn't go, ‘oh, yeah, duh’, right? The good seeds, good result, I see that. But it really still doesn't quite make sense to me because then somebody who's exceptionally kind, for whatever reason, ought to be a really good meditator and maybe they've never even heard of meditation. So it's like, wait, something else has to be going on here as well. So Master Kamalashila is going to weave us through coming to that aha about how and why it is that the training of moral discipline increases our concentration, and so increases the depth of our wisdom understanding, which then increases the subtleties of our ethical practice, which increases the concentration, which increases.. and we've got this threefold spiral building. 

He explains Mahakaruna as this radical idea that we would have where at any moment we are willing to throw away any kind of pleasure or take on any kind of pain if it would help somebody else, period. Ouch, right? I add, help them in an ultimate way, just to soften it a little bit for myself, but he doesn't say that. ‘There's no pain I wouldn't take on, there's no pleasure I wouldn't give up, when or if by doing so, I can help somebody else reach their happiness’. So like what happiness? What is the happiness? Is it just another nice meal that ends? Is it a medicine that works to cure their cancer so they can get hit by a car and die instead? Do you see? What do we really mean by ‘to help them reach happiness’? We do mean ultimately, and then it's a little bit like more acceptable. ‘Okay, okay’, you're like, ‘no pain I won't take on if I can help somebody else reach their Buddhahood. But if all they want is another drink, I'm not so willing to take on that pain so that they can have the pleasure of a gin and tonic because I know in the end, it's going to hurt them’. But maybe that gin and tonic is the one that triggers that.. we don't know, do we? So it's dangerous to say, look, we don't have Mahakaruna until we have the state of mind that there's no pain I won't avoid, there's no pleasure I won't give up, for you to help you find the happiness that's really happiness, nirvana or Buddhahood. 

From the other person's side, what's going on? They don't know, right? They don't know what you're doing. They don't know why you're doing it. We're not doing it..well, that's not fair.. we are doing it for them. But the seeds we're planting are in our mind, which is why we're doing it for them. If we try to do it just for ourselves, it doesn't work. We end up being the ones with the gin and tonic because we're just getting frustrated and we finally give up and it's like, okay, I can't deal with all this pain after all, numb myself. It happens. 

Lama Christie points out that as our willingness to take on pain and give up pleasure grows, our ability to experience taking on pain and giving up pleasure lessens because of the karmic goodness buildup. She reminded us from ACI 14, the Lojong training of Master Chekawa, the one who felt that it was time for Lojong to go public. He's on his deathbed; he's doing this major Tong Len practice as he's dying. ‘I'm going to take all this pain of dying with me and I want to go to the hell realms so I can lift all those things out of the hell realms. I'm praying, I'm going to the hell realms. I'm on my way to the hell realms. But he says, ‘all I can see before me now is the paradise of a Buddha’.  The harder he prayed to go to the hell realms, the more beautiful his experience became. 

The more willing we are to take on any amount of pain, give up any amount of pleasure for another's happiness makes it such that sooner or later, unfortunately sometimes it's later, there's no pain we can take on even when we're begging for it; we don't have the seeds anymore. How do we get there? Through our meditation training, through our meditative concentration, through our growing mindfulness, which translates into our growing awareness off the cushion that is ethical awareness, not just awareness. We can be very keenly aware of every bite of oatmeal and that won't help us, but keenly aware of the impact of my next word on somebody else and adjusting it accordingly, according to my vows, that kind of awareness [is] critical in growing us into beings who are begging to go to hell realms and end up in paradise instead. How? Because it's all motivated by Mahakaruna. See why we're spending so much time on it.  

So in order to have compassion.. compassion means ‘I see suffering somewhere and I want it to stop’. That's beginning baby compassion, notice suffering, ‘Oh, that's too bad, I wish they didn't have it’. No sense of doing anything. Then it grows into, ‘well, you know, if I could do something, I would’, but we still don't. And then it grows into, ‘well, I can do something, I'll go try’. And maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but it doesn't matter because we tried. It's not that it doesn't matter, but ‘we try’ is the imprint. And then that grows into increased willingness to notice people's pain. And even if we can't do anything about it, wish that we could. And then that grows into meeting a practice like Tong Len, where if you're breathing, you can help their suffering by Tong Len’ing, which I had an opportunity today. 

It was in the doctor's office waiting room while David was getting his thing done. And a guy comes in with his appointment time and the receptionist says, ‘I'm so sorry, but you canceled that appointment’. ‘No, I didn't, I took the whole day off to do this appointment and three other ones’. And at first it was civil. And then as the push and shove went back and forth, the tension was escalating. And I was sitting there listening, thinking, and it's like, oh my gosh, I can Tong Len. And so, then it was like, which one's the most suffering one here? I mean, I Tong Len’ned them both, but like my heart was with the lady who was getting yelled at. But then I thought, no, no, this guy is really.. who knows what his situation was, but he was really upset. So, you know, I did some Tong Len and it wasn't like all of a sudden they were kumbaya and loving each other, but it would escalate and then he would calm down. And then it would escalate and he would calm down, as I was doing the breathing. It was like, wow, this is wild, it's like, seems to be real time here. And finally, they came to a conclusion. He still walked out mad, but I felt like, oh man, maybe I really can have an impact with my mind; with my heart really, not my mind, but my heart. So even if they had just kept going into altercation as I was Tong Len’ing, was the Tong Len working in the moment? Technically not, nothing works in the moment. But that's why we do it - to plant the seeds for the karmic goodness that our presence alone can be an uplifting factor in a place. 

To grow our Mahakaruna, we need to be willing to face those pains, to see them, to recognize them, to admit that it's a result of being so broken, so misunderstanding, so selfish as a result, that all this suffering is terrible, terrible suffering and it's all a mistake. It doesn't have to be perpetuated. If we see suffering and it's like, ‘oh, I can't stand it’, we're not ever going to reach that place where ‘this is so unacceptable and I understand that it's somehow coming from me’ for that seeing others pain to be what cranks up the intensity of our own practice. It doesn't crank up the intensity on what that suffering person needs to do to save themselves. It cranks up the intensity on our own efforts to change. And we go through a phase where we've learned a certain amount, and we understand these principles to a level that maybe we've even proved them to ourselves, and then we want everybody to know it, which is a great state of heart, and then we expect everybody to live by it actually better than we live by it ourselves. And we get really good at criticizing their practice, ‘why don't you do it this way?’ when in fact our responsibility is for our actions, responses. Not to address theirs, to respond to theirs, in ways that sets the example that grows our own practice that someday they'll go, ‘what do you know?’ And then when they want to do what you do and they ask you for help, that's when we correct and help and encourage. So their pain inspires our practice and that's where we're going with this. 

The suffering which our compassion wants to stop

So Master Kamalashila said, remember those three sufferings; compassion wants suffering to stop. What kind of suffering? 

Obvious suffering, obviously. 

The suffering of change that most people aren't even aware it's a suffering. 

And then pervasive suffering that for sure we're not aware of pervasive suffering happening at the moment, even though it's a moment-by-moment suffering. 

Let's take our break and we'll go back into how Master Kamalashila wants us to look at these sufferings, because he wants us to turn them on.

[recording started a few minutes after class started again]

We're talking about them in the context of growing our compassion for someone else. We're looking now for the obvious suffering in somebody else, and not turning our mind away from it, or our heart away from it, but rather using it to increase the power of our ethics, concentration, and wisdom, however that's going to look like. So any obvious pain in somebody else is a pain that we can see that they're in and then instead of ignoring it, we let our heart feel for them and act in some way from that, big or small. 

Second is the suffering of change. The delicious meal wears out, we're left wanting for more, and that's a suffering, right? Life's going great, we've got that perfect job, perfect relationship, everything's fabulous, and then our partner gets cancer. We have this expectation that things will stay great once they're great, but they don't. We see people in those situations where, man, it looks like everything, you know, why aren't they wildly happy, they've got it all? Well, because the having it all and happiness don’t go together. That happiness is caused by other things. So to be able to see someone who can't get pleasure and open our hearts to them, is a level of compassion. And to see somebody who's in the midst of all this wonderfulness and still have compassion for them because they're in the suffering of change. It's going to change. And when it does their suffering is going to be surprising. It maybe doesn't have back pain / headache, but all of a sudden, their pleasure goes to obvious suffering. And our heart goes out to them while they're in the midst of the enjoyment. And it's like, man, you Buddhists are really Debbie Downers. Like, you take somebody else out for a nice meal and it's like, ‘I'm so sorry this meal's going to end, I'm going to leave you suffering so badly, please forgive me’. ‘Would you shut up and just enjoy your dinner, Sarahni, for crying out loud?’ But in our hearts, right? ‘Well then I'm not being authentic, I'm enjoying my dinner and all the while I'm thinking you poor thing’? Like, I don't know quite how to sort that out. Suffering of change.

Then that moment-by-moment suffering. There are so many levels of that, as you know. The fact that in the process of obvious pain, in the process of the goodness that's going to wear out, and we don't know that that's suffering, we are headed towards losing it all anyway. Like all of it ripped away to where nothing, nothing is what we knew, what we know, what we expected. Just sliding into that unmistakable chaos. We're headed towards it moment by moment. Another aspect of the moment by moment is we don't know what seeds are going to ripen the next moment; we're really in this like freefall constantly of what's next, what's next, what's next. And we're so good at blocking that, that we can actually carry on and function as normal human beings, right? When in fact it's like we're stepping through a door with nothing behind it, moment by moment by moment. It's only by way of some kind of past goodness that we have some kind of consistency from moment to moment. Otherwise it could be like we're here in this moment and the next moment, I don't know, we're a bug on Mars. Then the next moment, you know, it's like it could be like this where there's just no consistency at all. So it's like a great thing that we have this consistency coming out of our seeds.

I remember once, Geshe Michael saying that consistency is gratitude ripening; being grateful makes consistency. I haven't quite got that correlation in my head yet, but just to throw that out. 

So Master Kamalashila says, our Mahakaruna grows with the depth of our awareness of other beings suffering, all three of those kind: obvious, of change, and the moment by moment. They really don't know what's coming next and they're headed to the end of all they know, whether that's going to happen in the next four minutes or 40 years from now, who knows, but it's going to happen. They're going to go through that death process and it's all suffering, every moment. So the beautiful sunset, it's suffering, the child's giggle, it's all suffering. ‘Ow!’ The point isn't to avoid it all, But do you see why I say ‘ow’? It's because my training, my human training, says ‘block it out, it's too painful, I don't want to think about that, I just want to go try to help somebody have a little bit of laughter’. Right? Tomorrow, I lead my exercise class and my whole point of doing it is to get people to laugh, like that's the best exercise is laughter. So I just be goofy and silly and get them to do silly things, and we try to laugh because that's all I can do. Right? And barely that sometimes. The point is, if we close ourselves down to all this suffering, we're missing an opportunity. And I don't know, it's really hard. 

So Master Kamalashila goes through it in detail. He said, think about the suffering of the different realms. We just finished course eight, some of us, ‘The Suffering of the Hell Realms’. Burning pain, beating, violence. Terrible! There are beings who are experiencing that now, beyond our awareness. We can get it logically. Thank goodness, we can't see it. Or maybe not thank goodness that we can't see it, maybe if we could see it our Mahakaruna would grow really fast and our meditation next would be really deep. 

Then hungry ghosts, a whole existence of incapable of getting that need to eat and / or drink satisfied. Have you ever been really, really, really thirsty? Multiply that by beyond numbers, and a whole lifetime of that. It's just inconceivable that beings can have that reality. 

Animals are a little bit closer to home, but that's constant fear, right? Eat or be eaten, a constant need to self protect, self protect, self protect. Yeah, if you live in a herd, you're other-protecting as well, but constant fear. Hell realms isn't fear. Hell realms is just violent, right? Pain. Animal realm is constant fear. Then there are some animals that have the goodness to not actually have the constant fear as evident. It's still underneath, but their needs are more easily taken care of. But then they're in bondage by some master that maybe they're a beautiful, amazing, loving master like Prem, but even still, that animal is completely dependent on somebody else and it makes them vulnerable and it's a kind of suffering. Animals. 

Humans we’ll get back to.

Pleasure beings. It seems like, wow, pleasure beings, by definition everything’s pleasurable. And that is true. And it's not that they don't still want things that they don't have, apparently, they do still have that, but they don't have this connection between their behavior and the results that they get. So we understand that as they're enjoying their enjoyments, all their karmic goodness and they're going to run out of it. Probably takes a pretty long time, but when they run out of it, they haven't done anything to purify or work off any old, selfish, and harmful seeds and so that's all they've got left. And so they get this projecting karma that they go screaming down to one of those lower realms. Most likely hell, hungry ghost, animal, those are the three lower realms that they're going to go to. Not likely to land in a human realm from form or formless realm, if I understand correctly. So they still have pervasive suffering. They have the suffering of change in those last time period when their seeds are running out. They just don't have the obvious suffering for a really, really, really long time. But still our compassion would then be, ‘wow, lucky them, I guess, all that pleasure, but oh my gosh, once they've used that all up and all they've got is yuck, they've got a lot of work to do to get back to even have the goodness to hear about a spiritual path, let alone get on one’, and our compassion would grow for the form realm beings. And he doesn't talk about formless realm, but same idea, right? Those beings don't even have a body, just a subtle wind, and they're still having mental afflictions. How sad is that?

Then Kamalashila says, I know it's hard to relate to beings that you can't see to grow our great compassion. He says, I really don't expect you to be like Master Chekawa, ‘I wish I could go to the hell realms’, that's a hard one. But if you look, if you really pay attention to the humans and animals that you can have awareness of, there are humans that are in lives that approximate a hell realm, aren't there? Like right now, more than we care to address, happening in our world, and never hasn't been somewhere in the world. It's always going on. Now there's lots more and there are people involved in that. Number one - so, there are hell realms on earth. We heard it too, in our course eight, there's this particular kind of hell realm that's, I forget the term, somehow like unique or special, where, I don't know, doesn't matter. Hell-like karmas within a human lifetime. He's saying, it happens, face it, recognize it, use it to open our heart! Instead of to close down and blame somebody else. 

Second, hungry ghosts. There are beings who are in survival mode. And despite things being so abundant in some places, there's just nothing available in other places, even if the one place is a block away from the other place. Because it's the karmic seeds of the person, people involved. We can see it in our world if we're willing to open our eyes, open our hearts, and recognize, yes, that suffering is happening. 

Hell, hungry ghosts, the fear, the fear and the need for constant protection. Also, happening amongst humans in our world, happening amongst animals in our world, we can see that. Happening between humans and animals in our world, in both directions, needing protection. 

And then pleasure beings, also happening in our world, people that are beyond wealthy, don't need to do any of the things that those of us not-wealthy have to do in order to be safe and get our needs met. We need to go to work, we need to do all these things to keep life going. These beings have other people that take care of all of that for them, they don't need to do any of it. We would think that they would be just walking around happy, trying to share their goodness with everybody, that's what we expect of them. And do we necessarily see that of them? No. And are they necessarily amongst the happiest people in the world? It seems like they're not somehow, right? Because those are not connected. ‘What? To have all our needs so easily met is not the source of my happiness? What?’ But that's what this whole path is about, right? What is the source of our happiness? Your happiness is the source of my happiness. ‘Well, how can that be? I don't even know whether you're happy or not’. My trying to help you be happy is the source of my happiness. I don't even have to be successful, technically, because I can't make you happy no matter what I do, I can just try. And I can be happy when somebody tries to help me and then that will become the experience of me seeing someone be happy when I've helped them. But it still is not what I did in the moment to help them that made them happy or made me happy, it was me showing happiness when somebody else helped me before that made them be happy with what I did. Do you see how it's working? We're trying to connect this dot by recognizing, I guess, how it is that our not knowing that has propelled our behavior in such a way that makes our experience be ‘their pain is their pain, has nothing to do with me’ or ‘their pain is their pain and has a little bit to do with me, but I am not completely responsible because I can't really fix it for them’. Right. So we're going to come full circle again and again and again. 

The willingness to see pain is one thing. 

Second is the willingness to recognize, ‘oh man, these are my seeds ripening’. That's harder than to let ourselves be willing to face the pain. It's even harder to say, ‘I made that’. Like, really? Who does that? I can do it in my head, but my heart's going, ‘how?’ Right? It argues, ‘how? I don't behave like that’. ‘Oh, wait’. Some class I told the story about the white flies. ‘Oh man, I do behave like that’. ‘Yeah, but come on, white flies six months ago made what's going on in my world now?’ Yeah, it contributed. Didn't it? It had to, because I'm seeing it happen. So why am I going on like that? Because Master Kamalashila is saying to let ourselves see pain, to show ourselves that if I can be aware of it, it's a ripening of my own past behaviors of some awful kind. Not as big, because they've grown. And so I see that the pain I see in my world is this big mistake that I'm thinking it's in-them from-them when really it's from me, which means I can, in fact, do something about it. What? Change my behavior. Right? In the arena of behavior that I have. I'm not going to fly over there [to war zones and suck] and try to do something because I can't there. But here, I can, and so I will. And part of what I'm going to do is crank up the juice on my meditation because proving all of this to myself is necessary. Reaching that direct perception of emptiness is the doorway through which we stop perpetuating it moment by moment, that pervasive suffering. It doesn't stop in the moment of direct perception, as we know, but we stop replanting. And then we're a little bit like the form realm beings, we're burning off the yuck as we go. They were burning off their goodness as they go, we're burning off our ignorance as we go, once we come out of the door of that direct experience of ultimate reality. So it really is our first, not first, but our major goal. And then that really starts our career path. 

All right. Let's get refreshed again. 

I have another little guided meditation to do. Actually two of them. I think I'm going to do both together as one because of the time. And then we have a little bit to talk about in terms of Hatha Yoga Pradipika and Yoga Sutra, like the yoga traditions version of what's necessary for deep meditation. I really want to get through that, anyway, not to worry. 

Meditation on suffering we see and what we are willing to do to stop it

So settle yourself in, please. 

Get your body upright and propped and still. 

When you've got it set, bring your attention to the breath at that place, at the nostrils, like we did before, 

Use it to trigger going into that state of focus, clarity, eagerness for what I'm going to say next.

Recall that precious holy being there before you. 

Ask them to help you open your heart, to help you feel love, feel compassion, and to feel safe doing so, because they're there with you. They are helping you. 

See them smile in agreement. 

We'll start by going through those three sufferings from our own experience. 

Obvious suffering you know. Just think of the last one you had, or if you have one even right now. Probably we have so many, we ignore most of them. Other people, the same. 

Now let's look for the suffering of change. Think of something good in your life, something pleasurable. Maybe it's an object that gives you pleasure, a person you like so much, a position you have at work, something. And recognize that there's some part of you that expects that you'll be able to keep that. That it will always bring you this pleasure that it seems to bring now. 

Now think of something that you used to have that brought you pleasure in that same way. And recognize, I used to think I would have that forever, but look, it's gone. It didn't last. 

Find anything that brings you pleasure. And with it find your expectation that it will always bring you pleasure. 

And look more closely - is that true or not. 

No pleasant thing can be relied upon as the source of our pleasure. 

And that reveals the third kind of suffering. This constant impulse to go after things thinking they will bring us pleasure when they can't. If they seem like they do, they didn't. And if they didn't, they just didn't. Ignorance insists that my pleasure, my happiness, comes from that or them. And so I want it, I act to get it. 

Pervasive suffering because of the misunderstanding that underlies that impulse. 

Everything we do, we do because we think that we make what comes next. But the action and the immediate next experience are not in fact related. To believe they are is pervasive suffering. 

Can you even find yourself doing it? Having it, pervasive suffering. 

Now bring to mind that person that you wanted to be able to help at the beginning of class. 

Just briefly describe to yourself the distress that you are aware that they seem to be in. 

Recognize that if a third person comes along who doesn't know them like you do, and that third person sits down with them, recognize that that third person doesn't have any awareness of this other person's situation, but you do. And we say, ‘of course I do because they and I, we've talked about it. I've seen them, that third person hasn't. And so our person in pain, their pain that's in-them from-them’. If it really is in-them from-them, shouldn't the third person be able to see it? Be able to know it? And even if our person in pain turns to that third person and says, ‘yes, I have a headache’, is the third person's experience of that person in pain's headache the same as your experience of your friend's being in pain? No. Your friend's pain is unique to you. 

Are we willing to admit to ourselves that the pain I see them in is a result of something in my own heart? If it is, we can do something about it. If their pain is not coming from us, there is nothing we can do about it. It's a curious conundrum. We don't want to take personal responsibility, it feels too big. But it's through personal responsibility we can actually change our world. 

Without personal responsibility, we are actually stuck in the worldly ways of trying to help them, all of which fall short. Which do you really want? 

What are you willing to do within your own heart to change what you see in your outside world, motivated by your friend's pain? 

We can help them, just not in the moment. 

So now shift that scene of your friend in pain, shift it to another visit where now they are wildly happy. 

Something wonderful has happened. That too is coming from you. And so we can make more of it. 

So let that all go. 

Take just a short moment to think, was I on the object? Did I follow her words? Did I stay focused? How much? How clear was my mind? Did I get an aha, a little take home? And give yourself an attaboy for your willingness to try. 

Then dedicate just what we've done there to learning and growing the benefits of these meditations. 

And then come back to you in your room. 

I have a little bit more to do for class. 

Okay. Lama Christie keeps reminding us that in order for us to make the changes in ourselves that we need to make this transformation that we say we want to make, we need to keep our desire for that transformation at the level of a burning desire. When it slips down to, ‘oh, it's going to happen sooner or later’, or complacency, I'm talking to myself here, we'll know what we need to do and we'll wait till later. ‘Oh, I'm too tired’, ‘Oh, the sky's too blue’, ‘Oh, it's too hot outside’. All kinds of excuses. And while we make excuses, our selfishness seeds just grow. And then out they come flying moment by moment. So really, we're trying to meditate like our hair is on fire. We've heard that before. And it's like, if I could just do that by turning it on, I would. But I don't know about you, I can't just like turn on that motivation. 

Anyway. So this is all the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as brought to Tibet by Master Kamalashila. And then from the yoga tradition, which is also in India at the time, actually predating Buddha probably, there are also instructions about the foundation for deep meditation, because deep meditation is necessary for those realizations through which we reach our final goal, whatever it is. And they have a different set of lists but when we look at them together, it's like they're really not so different at all. 

So last class, we heard from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika about the yamas and niyamas, right? The eight limbs of your yoga practice. Yama - self-control, Niyama - commitment, Asana - physical poses, Pranayama - breath control, Dharana - focus, Dhyana - fixation, Samadhi - perfect meditation. Meaning self-control, commitment, physical poses, and breath control are used so that our focus can be the focus through which we can fixation, through which we can perfect meditation, through which we can improve our self-control, which improves our commitments, which improves asanas, which improves.. right? 

So then Yoga Sutras, it also has a list. I'm not sure its context of its list, but it has these 10 factors:

Ahimsa, which is to not harm, to avoid harming. Satya, which is to speak truthfully. Asteya, which is to not steal. These are sounding familiar, aren't they? Brahmacharya, sexual purity. Aparigraha, non-possessiveness, which probably is a little bit of a long story. Kshama, which is patience. Dhirti, joyfulness, like joyful effort. Daya, which is love. They combine love and compassion here. And Arjavya, sincerity. Mitahara, which is moderation in intake, meaning moderation of food and drink, but moderation in sensory intake. Shaucha, cleanliness. 

So Yoga Sutra predates Hatha Yoga Pradipika, of course. And this list is very similar to the 10 Non-Virtues. And we would also find in here, if we dug in, the practice of the Six Perfections. So Lama Christie's point in this was seeing how the yoga tradition wasn't completely abandoned by the Buddhists of India. Buddha didn't develop a whole new system. He took the system he was trained in as Prince Siddhartha, the Vedas, and when he recognized,’ oh, karma and emptiness in there’, tweaked some things and put us on the path of purifying and gathering goodness. And then outlined for us how to do that effectively because, because we can't connect the dot between what I do now and what I get next, someone who's omniscient shows us how that doesn't work in that way, it works in this other way, so ‘here I'll give you some guidelines’. The guidelines we get are: avoid killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, right? Practice giving, moral discipline, not getting angry, having a good time doing all of that, concentration and wisdom. Because all that previous stuff, giving, moral discipline, etcetera, all of that helps our meditative concentration. Deep meditative concentration helps our even intellectual understanding of emptiness on the cushion, which helps our intellectual understanding off the cushion, which helps our behavior choices get more wise, which increases our ability to share, not harm, be patient, have fun, meditate more deeply, get more wise, so we can share, [in a continuous upward cycle], until you're a Buddha who's still doing all those things, only spontaneously, effortlessly, in their paradise and as emanations. 

Why do Buddhas emanate? What makes them emanate? Their Mahakaruna. Do you see where it comes in? If we were to just get blissed out as Buddhas, we wouldn't do anything about it. If you could get blissed out Buddha without compassion, you'd become blissed out Buddha and you wouldn't do anything. But it takes compassion to become blissed out Buddha and then that compassion, those seeds ripen as your emanation to help everybody become blissed out Buddhas who are emanating, to help everybody who are blissed out Buddhas emanating. I can never stop saying it because that's the process, that's the system. 

So Mahakaruna, Yoga system, they don't lay it out quite like that, but they have all the same components of ethics necessary to build our practice. 

Buddhist tradition, Tibetan Buddhist tradition, lays it out more succinctly and thank goodness for me because I couldn't figure it out on my own. I need somebody to say, ‘do it like this’. Okay, I will try. And then little by little, right? It's like, ‘Oh, I get it! Oh, I get it!’ And then I can do it on my own, once I'm getting it from my heart. So that's the point of all of this.

And that does complete our second class. 

And that gives you your two meditations, which is one, using your breath, just to work on focus, which is fixation, clarity, and intensity to trigger the just turning yourself to the breath so that you can sink in.

And then second one, spend a week getting deeper insights into that suffering of change and pervasive suffering. Don't spend much time on obvious, we know obvious. Dig into the other two. First from what you have in yourself, but also what we see in others. And the second half of that meditation, turn your mind to your understanding that the pain that you see is ripening of your own results, so that you can do something about it. We need that conclusion instead of ‘Oh, it's my own results, oh my gosh, I'm so bad!’ That is not where to end on that meditation. But rather, it's like, ‘Oh! I got it! I can fix this. I'm on it’. So end your meditation with some kind of ‘Yeah, when they're happy, that's coming from me too! And I'm going to make more of that so that everybody is coming out of my seeds as these happy beings’. Seeds, seeds, seeds. Okay, great. 

So remember that person we wanted to be able to help. 

We've learned a lot that we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way. And that's a great, great goodness. 

So please be happy with yourself. 

And think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands. Recall your own precious holy being, see how happy they are with you. 

Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. 

Ask them to please, please stay close, to continue to guide you and help you and inspire you. 

And then offer them this gemstone of goodness. 

See them accept it and bless it. 

And they carry it with them right back into your heart. 

See them there, feel them there. 

Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. 

It feels so good, we want to keep it forever. And so we know to share it.

By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. 

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one being, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. 

See them filled with happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. 

And may it be so. 

All right. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.

Welcome back everyone. 

It's lovely to be here with you. 

Today is June 25th, 2025, we are studying the course series called Bok Jinpa. 

We are in Course 1, Class 3, Master Kamalashlia's Stages of Meditation or Steps in Meditation. 

So, let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please. 

Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. (Silence pause)

Now bring to mind that being before you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you. 

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. 

Their wisdom radiates from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light.

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. 

Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. 

Recognize that all the worldly ways we try, they fall short. 

How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. 

Deep down we know this is possible. Deep down we know this is what we're meant to become. 

Learning about karma and emptiness we get glimpses into how it's possible, how it's even inevitable in fact. 

And so I invite you to grow this wish into a longing, and that longing into an intention, and that intention into a determination. 

And with that determination, turn your mind back to your precious holy being. 

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so, we ask them, please, please, please teach me that. 

And they are so happy that we've asked, of course they agree. 

Our gratitude arises. 

We want to offer them something exquisite. 

And so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create. 

We imagine we can hold it in our hands, and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. 

Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of our Buddha and offer it all to you. 

By this deed, every living being experience the pure world.

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may all beings awaken completely for the benefit of every single other. 

Let's do our first meditation.  

Meditation on watching breath for the benefit of another

Settle your body in the way you know to do. 

We'll get to the details in future classes. 

Get upright, propped, relaxed, (Silence pause)

And then bring your attention to your breath, that sensation we call breath at our nostrils, anywhere you feel it most prominently. Focus there. (Silence pause)

Now just note, what's the quality of your focus on that object the breath in the last few moments, on a scale of one to ten? 

Ten - sharp, clear, on fire, fascinated. 

One - barely. 

Give yourself a number. (Silence pause)

Now, bring that focus of attention to that other person's distress, the one we started with at the beginning of class. (Silence pause)

Identify them clearly. Identify the distress you see them having. (Silence pause)

Now let's check our belief about their experience, this distress. 

On one level, we witness their experience. We know it's their experience, their problem. ‘I'm so sorry they have it, I wish I could do something’. 

Feel the level of concern, the level of compassion, that arises with the problem they have. ‘It's their own’. (Silence pause)

Another level of our belief might be, ‘Ah, their distress, it's their karmic seeds ripening, results of past behaviors. I'm so sorry’. 

Feel how that compassion is a little different. (Silence pause)

Another level, ‘wait, what I perceive is unique to me. Oh my gosh! Their distress that I see is my seeds ripening. Oh, I am so sorry!’ 

Compare that compassion. (Silence pause)

Let's move on. 

How can we help? 

Worldly ways, maybe they work, maybe they don't. We try, but either way, the person goes on to have that distress or a new one later. 

‘Oh, I could teach them about the pen and mental seeds’. Maybe that will work and maybe it won't because maybe they catch on and maybe they don't. 

In both conditions, the results I perceive of how I'm trying to help are unique to me, my seeds ripening. 

So the way to help them with their distress that I see is to change me, change my karmic seeds. 

To do that, I need to be able to meditate deeply. 

To do that, I need to be able to focus single-pointedly on the object of my choice at the time of my choice. 

So I will focus on the object breath for them. 

I will focus on my breath as if their happiness depends upon it, because it does. 

So now, with this motivation, watch your breath. 

Some specific aspect, it could be the temperature change with the exhale or inhale. It can be the speed change of the movement. You choose a specific aspect. And your focus on that object for the next three minutes is being done motivated by your great compassion for the other's happiness. 

Got it? 

Hold that motivation. 

Bring your focus to your breath. 

Three minutes. (Silence pause)

Okay, release the focus, but don't release your in-meditation. 

Dedicate your effort to that other person's relief, to your change that will bring about that other person's happiness. 

And then make a mental note. How much of that time was I fully focused on my breath? 

You can use a percentage or a number, just general idea. 

Make a mental note of some quality of the experience: ‘It was a struggle’, ‘it was easy’, ‘it was nice’, ‘I kept getting distracted to my knee’. Just something.

And then make a determination, an eagerness, to meditate again soon out of this great compassion. 

And then fill in your awareness with you in your room here in class.

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. 

Now let's recall that Master Kamalashila is from 750 AD. I guess we don't know his actual dates, maybe he was one of those people that lived 300 years and we're talking about what he did with his life around 750. But in the context, Buddhism was only newly going into Tibet. There was that conflict about what was the best kind of meditation to do because one of the main teachers, Shantarakshita, had withdrawn himself for whatever reason. Then they do this debate and Kamalashila's debate wins and so everybody takes on his system. 

So he writes these instructions on the system, three books with the same name, not just repeats, they have different information in them, apparently, on how to meditate. So then ever since then, in Tibet, all the meditative practices, traditions, lineages, this is their source. This is where they start. And then, of course, they modify with the ages. Then when we get to the 1100s time frame, when the Tenrim Chenmo was written, the first book that is this detailed outline of the steps you go through from A to Z, suffering being to fully enlightened being, according to this Tibetan tradition that has developed, that outlines renunciation. The Lama tells us, “take the essence of your life.” That should trigger in our minds by now [all the steps on the path] until we get to that courtyard of enlightenment. I'm thinking the Source of All My Good meditation practice. 

So within there is how to gather the meditative concentration necessary to bring those things that we're studying in the stages of the Lamrim into reality for us, how to make them real. Apparently, each one of those stages is made real by some direct experience that happens in deep meditation. We have out of meditation experiences that we would say, ‘that makes it real to me’, right? My renunciation experience was not in meditation, it was very open-eyed. But then realizations of renunciation goes deeper in meditation than it ever could up in our outer world. 

So to gain these realizations, especially the realization of the ultimate nature of me, can only happen in this deep state of meditation. And it's not very likely the case that all of a sudden we would be able to ripen the goodness of that realization and the goodness of the sudden ability of being able to sustain a level of concentration that can sustain that absence. So all of it will be ripening results. The way we get results to ripen is we have to put the seeds in. The seeds get put in by way of what we are aware of ourselves thinking, doing, saying towards other. So Master Karmalashila's premise is we would need to care enough to do the work necessary to reach those levels of deep meditation that will sustain us into those various realizations. And in our samsaric life, our motivating factor, unfortunately, is our selfishness, right? Our self-existent me and what it needs, and it needs protection, and it wants and needs and wants and needs. And it's the strongest, most powerful force that we have is this me, our selfishness. So we would think that we would call upon that for the strength that we need to create our ability to focus deeply enough to go into a direct perception of emptiness. But do you see the conundrum? The direct perception of emptiness proves to that selfishness that it's not in charge; not only is it not in charge, but it is also non-existent. It has never been what it thought it was, it has never been what we thought it was, and yet it's controlled our every moment. So if we think we can rely upon our personal motivation to stop my suffering, that's enough to get us to nirvana because getting to nirvana doesn't really take us to that doorway of no self-existent me in the way that Mahayana no self-existent me takes us. The no self-nature that we understand we see when we see emptiness directly as a first or second school believer doesn't have the same impact on our mind. So we can't rely upon our personal wanting to get free from suffering. And that's Master Kamalashila's premise is we need to start with great compassion to have the power behind our efforts to focus well enough to actually reach the single-pointed concentration at our determination that will allow us to gain the realizations that will move us into that ultimate experience, and then through the path of habituation afterwards. So he says, cultivate that great compassion first. The great compassion is not our first meditation object; our first meditation object is actually our breath, even though I've been saying since I've been teaching, ‘your breath is not your meditation object because it's not a powerful karmic object’. Okay, for a little while, our breath is our meditation object, but propelled by this state of heart, this state of mind, great compassion. And the difference is, ‘okay, I'm going to spend two minutes focusing on my breath so I can adjust my mind so I can get to my real object’ or ‘that person's pain, every moment I'm on my object, they're getting a little bit happier’. So now, it's like, whoa, I really want to catch when I start to slip because I still will and then ‘no, no, get back here’. It'll increase the power of our effort to be doing it on behalf of somebody else's pain. 

So we're going to go through all these different ways to feel that so that we can habituate to the level of caring for other that that triggers our meditation session. We use meditations to get there, but then once we have it, you just turn it on. Like we're tuning it into one of the radio stations. I think.. I've got this radio, like in your car where you just push the button and it's like, I've got Tong Len, I've got Kusali Tsok, I've got all my favorite meditations. And I just sink in, push the button, and it starts. So like turning on your radio is turning on this great compassion. And then we're going to see that the great compassion does not exclude ourself. We're not taking ourselves out of that picture. The great compassion is turned on to all of existing suffering in the world and mine is included so we are dealing with it as well. 

So previous reading, Master Kamalashila was going through all those different kinds of suffering in the world because he's setting us up for what opens our heart to this great compassion. Our habit tends to be as we grow into adulthood where we have to function as human beings, is that we see someone else's pain or distress, we make a mental note, ‘I'm sorry’, and we just go right on. If there isn't something that we can do in the immediate moment, it's like, ‘okay, somebody else will take care of that’ and it becomes just our pattern and our habit. And unless somebody's close to us, it's like we keep it at arm's length. And much of these practices that Lama Christie was taking us into, she was pushing us to engage in other people's suffering. Not take it on from them. Some will feel it and feel it so strongly that it becomes overwhelming, and for those we do something a little bit different. But we're trying to override our human mammalian habit of protecting self from what's unpleasant. And we're using those unpleasant circumstances to ‘crack open our heart’ is the term we always use, to increase the strength of our using our practices to change ourselves in order to see our world in a different way, in a way that has less and less suffering. Now, admittedly, my personal experience is things can get worse before they get better at some point, they can get better, and then they can get worse again, and then they can get better, and then they can get worse again. So keep in mind that we're spiraling and maybe with that spiral, it's like the higher we go, as it spirals down again, the lower it goes. Maybe we're in one of those cycles, I hope, and it's just about to turn. 

When we use the term compassion, and when we use our goal as Mahayanas, our goal is ‘I want to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings’. And then that gets modernized into, ‘I want to be the one standing on the billion planets who's going to save the world’. And it's beautiful and inspiring and heart opening. And for me, personally me, not Lama Christie, not Kamalashila, but me personally, I always had a little glitch in there that said, ‘save the world, yes, I want to save the world, but I'm not sure everybody else wants to be saved’. And I always thought, ‘what's the matter with you, Sarahni? Of course everybody wants to be saved’. But you know how many times you try to help somebody and ‘would you just back out, leave me alone’. We get that [response when we try to help]. Now why we get that, another story. And I was reading something by an ex-evangelical Christian minister, he called himself a recovering evangelical minister. And he was saying all that he spouted and one day he realized, ‘People don't want to be saved. They want to be loved. People want to be loved, unconditionally loved.’ So his bottom line is, I quit trying to save people and I decided to love them. He said, I quit my job, I quit my whatever that's called; he said, ‘and I just walk through my life loving people'. And that resonated. It's like ‘I'm going to stand on the billion planets and I'm going to be their unconditional love’. All right, you got me now on that one. So, when I get to the ‘Oh, do we want to take care of that person?’ And my own heart was going, ‘I don't think so because I don't think they want to be taken care of by me’. Do you want to be the source of unconditional love for them? ‘Of course’. Everybody wants to feel that, and if you've ever felt it from anybody, you know what it's like. And it's one thing to be on the receiving side, imagine being on the giving side. So this great compassion that wants to take care of everybody, for me, I just give it this little tweak: be the unconditional love. So if you need to change those words when I'm following Lama Christie's words of ‘I want to become the one that takes care of everybody’, feel free. If the ‘care’ suits, then stay with. 

So that reading from class two was all about all this different suffering and it was talking about these groups of beings who have suffering, like suffering in these big general terms. And then he shifts into explaining a practice that he draws from the Abhidharma level sutras, not meaning Abhidharmakosha, but the Buddha's sutras that are higher wisdom, that are lower school. Curious, we're talking about great compassion from a Mahayana point of view, but he's getting these practices from the lower school; it's not contradictory at all, we'll see. 

In the Buddha's sutras, Buddha teaches a practice to grow our own ability to understand where suffering comes from and what to do about it. You start by thinking of the people who are close to you. We hear this phrase, “those who are close and those who are far.” And it doesn't mean those who are close in proximity and those who are far away, it means those who are close emotionally, and those who are far emotionally and there are all those in between. Those we love the most [closest], those we love but not quite the same [littler further], those we like [even further], those we interact with but on this neutral way, we don't really know them, but they're common humans [even further], and then beyond that, we've got those ‘well, I don't quite trust them’ or those I'm a little afraid of or those who have actually outright, we don't get along, I really don't like them, all the way out to somebody we might call an enemy. And then we work with those different beings that bring up these different feelings in us. And of course, at first, it's like, ‘their qualities in them are why I love them’, ‘neutral them’, ‘don't like them’. And then as we look deeper and deeper, it's like, no, no, wait, some of those people they are in my ‘I don't like category’, it's actually because they don't like me. It's like, ‘I don't really know that I don't like them, but they don't like me, so, they're over there’.  And the ones that like me that maybe I don't want to admit I don't actually like so much, but because they like me, I put them in the close category. Either way, we're just using that criteria to generate this quality of heart in response to pain that we see in them. So someone who's very close, like little Mr. Jam, the sensation that Ale has when Jam has a fever is one form of compassion. Her husband can have the same level fever, she'll have compassion for her husband, but it'll be different. Then the neighbor has a fever, the bus driver has a fever. Yeah, we care, but come on, right? The feelings are different, as they should be, I'm not criticizing those feelings. Just for compassion to come up for somebody in the far category having a fever and we care, that's huge.  Because ordinarily, I mean, I hate to admit, it could be like, ‘you deserve that fever’. ‘I'm so sorry you have it’, but deep down, it's like human nature for something like that to come up. Not for any of you guys, I'm sure. 

So this stage that first we start considering the discomfort, the pain, the distresses of those we love, because it's easy for compassion to come up, it's easy to recognize the feeling that we have, ‘Oh, I care about that, I wish they didn't have it, I wish there was something I could do’. That feeling identified in our bodies, in our heart, wherever you feel it. And then we try that on for size for someone neutral who has a pain or a distress. And we get a similar ‘I'm so sorry, I wish I could help. Nobody should be in pain like that’, but it feels different. And then what would we need to do for that feeling towards the neutral person to be equivalent.. like to feel the same as the one that naturally arises for the person who's close? We can't just really determine ‘I'm going to care about the bus driver as much as I'm going to care about my own child’. It would take some method of convincing ourselves why that must be true; we're going to try one on for size. And then same for those who are far. So we do it in periods of time. We cultivate, we work with it as a meditation practice, but it's all just a tool to develop the foundation from which every other meditation is ever going to come. So it's not actually part of our meditation practice. But it is until we can push the button of the radio station ‘great compassion’ and it be as strong for the loved one and for the worst enemy. Then when you have that as your motivation, you focus on your breath and you start whatever meditation session you were getting ready to do. So that's future. We've got 18 courses to go to build that whole thing. You guys are already halfway there. But you see, we've got this strong foundation that I don't know about you, but I didn't take the time to build this as strongly as what she's laying out we could do. Even when I was going through it during Diamond Mountain, I didn't get it.. the way it's clearer to me now the way that I need to deliver it. 

Okay. So as we are exploring these different reactions that we have of levels of compassion to the different categories that we have beings in, what we will touch up against is this shape-shifting border between what we call self and other. It's not part of the meditation, it's not part of the practice, but it's like a natural consequence of the practice as we're exploring the compassion that comes up here, and the compassion comes up there, and like, ‘why? Is it because of them? Is it because of me? Where is it happening? Why do I have compassion at all?’ It starts to push against the ‘where do I end and where does the other begin?’ And that's the purpose of growing our compassion. Our compassion is cracking those heart knots. And cracking the heart knots allows us to lose those boundaries between us and them for short periods of time, or the boundaries become to be transparent even though they're still there, whatever your analogy will become. 

Having great compassion as our motivator, for any meditation that we do, is the Bok Jinpa factor, the Setting Our Practice on Fire factor for open teaching meditations. For those of you who know the Bok Jinpa factor in Diamond Way, it still is the Bok Jinpa factor for the Bok Jinpa factor. So it's worth revisiting it to increase its power.

So let's try a little bit on for size. Lama Christie gave us multiple little short meditations and then her instruction for between classes was to mix and match them according to our personal use to make up the 30 minutes pledge that we had to her. So same for you. You can use these in different combinations.

So let's do another short one.

Meditation on expanding the circle of loved ones

Settle your body in again (Silence pause)

Again, feel that wave of relaxation, top to down, on the outside. 

Feel the rising energy up the inside bringing your mind alert, bright, clear, fascinated.

And then listen and follow. 

So first, think of someone who you feel very close to. It could be the same person as at the beginning of class, but if there's someone who you feel emotionally closer to, like even the person you love the most, even if it's your pet.

Give me a thumbs up when you have somebody in mind. 

Now focus on them and think of the different ways that you are aware of that they have problems in their life. 

Maybe there seems to be a recurring one. And think of the distress it gives them and feel your heart. Its response is sadness or concern or wanting to help. (Silence pause)

And think then of another person who you love very much. (Silence pause)

That when you hear or see about some distress they're having, a very similar feeling comes up. ‘Oh, man, I'm so sorry, I wish I could help, I'll try to help.’ So now there's two. (Silence pause)

And recognize that you've made the decision that those two are within this circle called ‘people I love, people I care about, whose problems bring up this quality in my heart, this compassion.’ (Silence pause)

Now recognize that there are beings who are outside this circle, inside of which are those called ‘those I love’. Outside may be someone that you come across every day, but don't really know, or don't know much. 

And then imagine one day you see them in some kind of pain. They're on crutches. And feel your heart's response. 

It's care, it's concern. 

Maybe even just by seeing this neutral person struggling, your bubble of those I love versus those I don't actually expands for a little bit and includes them. ‘Can I help you?’ with a fondness, a wanting. 

And then maybe they go, ‘No, leave me alone.’

Immediately they're outside the circle of those I love and they're back to the neutral person.

Maybe even to be ‘those who are far’ because of their response to our effort. Human nature, not absolutely going to happen, of course. 

Think that scenario through and feel how your heart shifts with that reaction from them. (Silence pause)

Then rerun the tape. This time they go, ‘wow, thank you so much, you're so kind’. 

And feel what happens to your heart. (Silence pause)

Who shifted? 

Who increased the line of the circle of ‘those I love’? 

We did. 

We can, when we want to.

So that we can have a similar level of compassion in response to seeing pain in someone that we don't even know, similar to the compassion when someone we love has a pain. (Silence pause)

So, explore it again. 

Someone you love, they're having a headache. Feel your heart. 

Someone you don't know, but they happen to say to you, ‘Oh man, I've got this wicked headache!’ Feel your heart. 

Think of another actual neutral person that you're likely to come across soon, later. And imagine that you are aware of some distress that they're feeling. 

And what does your heart do? (Silence pause)

Now make a mental note. 

Did I follow her words full-on that whole time? 

Was I distracted? 

Did I catch an aha? What might it have been? 

Dedicate the effort to gaining the realizations through which you will change yourself to be the one who loves all. 

And then when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch, and we'll take a break.

[Student: Lama, can I ask a question about the meditation?]

Yes.

[Student: So, I'm going to be fully honest. When I think of the pain of the other person, the first meditation when you wanted to help us increase our compassion so that our concentration is better. So when I think of another person that is in pain, let's say my sister, because I know some things of her behavior that I still believe are coming from her side, then I go into more judgmental. Like it's not this compassion when I think it's her seeds, and the second level, it's more like, well, look, this is what is happening because you did this and that. And then when I think of the next level, when I think, okay, this is coming from me, then I feel judgmental about myself, like I am creating this awful reality and this guilt. So it's not helping me to increase compassion because I turn more into the negative side. Do you have any recommendation for that?]

Yeah, my recommendation is don't choose such a triggering object of meditation. For these purposes, go to somebody less triggering than your sister or your mom or your aunt so that you can tiptoe into this and these issues that are blocking you from getting the benefit of that situation that you have going on, which is very powerful..when it cracks, it's going to be really useful. But that's not the place to try to grow the feeling of compassion that we're trying to grow here. It's just clearly not working from what you're telling me. So shift to an easier subject, which maybe isn't someone you love, maybe you need to start with a neutral person. 

[Student: Yeah, okay. Because I was thinking, let's say I take my daughter so I can feel the second level. I'm sorry that she has the seeds, but when I look at the higher level, then I feel this, like I can see in her my wrongs very clearly and then I start to go again into the guilt.] 

Right, right. And so that also is a different issue. It's part of coming to the wrong conclusion. Like reaching the right idea, but with the wrong conclusion after that. The conclusion being guilt, instead of the ‘aha, so I'm the one who can change me, and that's how I help everybody’. 

[Student: Okay, thank you, Lama.]

[Student 2: I was thinking about this thing, from one side, as you mentioned, in open teachings, we look at the people and try to see their sufferings and feel them to get to great compassion. At the other side, Geshe Michael in his teachings, the last one, he said, try to see everyone as a Buddha, as an Angel. And I have this kind of thinking in my mind, how to combine these two approaches, if it's combinable, if it's possible.]

Yeah, great question. I'm going to have to say, can't answer that in class because of the time it'll take and it is a conundrum and it is resolvable as a practice. But remember where we are - we are building our meditation practice. So that's like we're all in graduate school college, and we've gone back to kindergarten. So leave that in graduate school, let's do kindergarten so when we get back in there to graduate school, it'll be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, how did I miss that?’ 

[Student 2: Okay. Thank you so much.]

Yeah, so suffering beings are suffering beings. They're not Angels right now, even though of course, they are. 

So in the reading, Master Kamalashila, he goes into how cultivating this great compassion in this method of the compassion for my loved ones, and grow that to include the neutral people, and then grow that to include those we don't like, grow it even to include the ones we really don't like, and don't like us, and etc., is really taking our.. here's the line, me and those I love are inside the line, everybody else is outside. That really what we're doing is expanding this line around who I care enough about to change my behavior towards others, and who I don't care enough about to change my behavior. And slowly, not so slowly, we find, son of a gun, there's nobody outside the line, there's nobody who isn't somebody that I'm willing to change my behavior in order to be the source of their love, the source of their happiness. As long as there is somebody outside that circle, then we don't have the bodhichitta that will be the cause of our Buddhahood. When we have everybody inside that, then whatever you call that feeling and that way we interact with our world, whatever you call that feeling, that's bodhichitta. That's ‘there's nobody that I won't work for my Buddhahood in order to be what helps them reach theirs’. Nobody outside that system, and that's bodhichitta. ‘I want to reach total Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings and if I leave anybody out, then it doesn't matter how much I say the wish, it doesn't matter how many vows I take and keep, my bodhichitta is not bodhichitta if I've left anybody out.’

So Master Kamalashila says, you cultivate your compassion in this way until there isn't anybody, any living creature, whose suffering you can be aware of that doesn't make your heart ache to help them feel loved. When we have that, we have bodhichitta. And when you have bodhichitta, you outshine any non-buddhist and you outshine Listeners and you outshine self-made Buddhas. And it sounds like he's saying you can compare yourself to others and ‘I'm just so much better than you’ and it's like that's the antithesis of the state of heart we've been cultivating. So rather it means, suppose that you, I don't know, suppose an alternative you, is on the path of self-made Buddha. And you're a self-made Buddha, you've gained your realizations, you didn't apparently have any teacher, you're like close to nirvana or there. This you [current] that has this great compassion not leaving anyone out, we'd say nowhere close to nirvana, but this you is leaps and eons closer to your goal than that you who is a self-made Buddha. Do you see what he's trying to say? This compassion is so powerful a force in us choosing our behaviors, that it outshines, it's more valuable, it's more valuable to our world than any amount of closing the door to a lesser rebirth, any amount of reaching nirvana without a teacher. Even when we say, ‘yeah, but I'm just like barely a practitioner’. Yes, that's the power of compassion, great compassion, this compassion that's wrapping around everybody.

So he says, you can go take your vows and pledge to get bodhicitta and the lineage is so kind, they'll call you a bodhisattva. Or you can be growing your bodhicitta with the seven-step cause and effect method, or growing your bodhicitta with the exchanging self and others method, or combining the two into the 13 steps for growing our bodhicitta, or you can care about every being in the same way that you care about the one you love the most, to the same extent. And then from that level, you will care more about the things that you do towards others than you will about what happens to you. Ordinary human state of mind is functioning on results level - ‘that's happened, now I have to act’, ‘that's happened, now I have to act’. So we're in react mode. It means we believe that the results are more important. But how we respond is more important than what actually happens to us. It's our seed planting where we are creating, and so mostly, we're creating on automatic pilot driven by our reaction to what's going on. ‘I want this’, ‘I don't want that’. Instead of consciously creating in plant mode all the time. When we can do it, it's extraordinary. Your day is one of those days where you just find yourself in the right place at the right time with the right person. You say one thing, boom, you know, it goes like that. Effortless being exactly what the other being needs at the moment. And you're not organizing it, you're just in that flow, it's extraordinary. And it's there for a little while, and then something happens, and the old way comes back and phooey, right? Because it feels so good when we get those glimpses. It's the difference between plant mode and react mode. 

So Kamalashila is saying, it is worth the effort to work on this great compassion as our foundational motivation for our meditation because it will become our foundational motivation for everything we do. Going to the toilet, brushing your teeth, driving your car, taking out the fly. It’s all being driven by this great compassion, which has grown into your bodhicitta. And it's so valuable to the world that even if you take that diamond and you smash it to a million pieces, each piece is still diamond and still more valuable than a beautiful piece of jewelry made of gold. That's the analogy that he uses. I guess even in Kamalashila's time, diamonds were more precious than gold and gold was the monetary exchange, right? So this kind of compassion is our bodhicitta, and that's the diamond, that's the trigger for the diamond. Subtle, isn't he? Because you know what the diamond represents. 

So, let's do another meditation.

There's another way to recognize blockers to our compassion, and so Lama Christie has us explore it this way. 

Meditation on seeing the scared inner child in those around us

So settle in again. (Silence pause)

This time picture a person before you who you see as more advanced than you, maybe smarter than you, whatever that kind of criteria might be for you. Scripture says the person is higher, we see them as higher. (Silence pause) 

Settle on somebody. And then there they are with you. 

And think first, how you, ordinary-you, relates to this other person. How you behave around them - maybe you shrink and don't want them to see you, or maybe you really want to tell them how much you admire them, or maybe you want to show off a little bit because maybe then they'll think highly of you. We each have our own unique way with that unique person. 

So give me a thumbs up when you have that clarified. (Silence pause)

So, it's okay, we're just noticing. And just leave that in your outer world, but decide in our inner-self world, we can have a different relationship with them. And one way to do it is to recognize ways in which they are in fact in pain. Outer world, they are in every way better than me. In our inner world, no, we are aware, maybe they're not having obvious suffering, but they are having suffering of change, they are having pervasive suffering, and what's even worse is it appears that they don't even know it. 

Something is going to take them by surprise. 

Think it through again. 

You understand that although in the outer world it seems like everything is right for them, and I admit I have a little resentment, a little jealousy, and I choose to look deeper and recognize that inside they're suffering too. 

They have struggles. 

They have pain. 

Your outer world you, what kind of pain would you have to see in them before your heart would open, your compassion would come on like it comes on for your loved one? Maybe don't even answer that, just think, ‘Oh, I see’. And in your inner world you, can you see that this person is suffering? 

And does your heart care? (Silence pause)

Use your mind's eye to look into their inner world again and you see that there within their heart is a small child who's lost and confused, probably scared. Now what does your heart do? (Silence pause)

Step out of that visualization. 

And imagine yourself walking through your next day, whatever it's going to be. And imagine being aware of the small lost child inside every being you encounter. 

How might you interact with everyone you pass by or meet or talk to, knowing their small child is scared and lost and just needs love?

What will your day be like? (Silence pause)

What are you feeling in your body right now? 

Call it great compassion. 

Call it the start of that expanded circle that encompasses every existing being, every existing thing. 

And then dedicate to becoming that source of love for everyone. 

And then when you're ready, come back to your room, open your eyes, take a stretch. 

Alright, so as you recall, we're doing these parallel studies, Master Kamalashila’s and then we're looking at the yoga tradition method of cultivating a personal spiritual practice of which meditation is a part. Lama Christie is using some yoga sutra, mostly Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and we were in this section talking about the Yamas / Niyamas and then I don't know what they call the category, but those 10 different practices that we train ourselves in, that list: Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, I listed them last week. Lama Christie was making the point that those 10, we can see within those 10, the Mahayana tradition of the six perfections, and some other stuff as well. So she was drawing this parallel between those, and we had the last two to talk about - the Mitahara and Shaucha. And so, for the end of this class, she's using Je Tsongkapa's explanation of how to grow the foundation of our meditation practice, particularly in retreat. And he also speaks to these issues that come up in the 10 of the yoga tradition; he's not talking about them from that perspective, but Lama Christie’s drawing these parallels. The Mitahara was how we measure our food, and it comes into the context when Je Tsongkapa is talking about stillness, how reaching stillness, which is single-pointed concentration, is the platform from which we cultivate Shamatha, which is single-pointed concentration with the SHIN JANGS. And from that platform, we can penetrate to the first causal level that will be the platform of the shamatha upon which our investigation into the emptiness of our object can actually trigger the insight, the Vipassyana. So the actual Vipassyana is triggering the direct perception of emptiness, but when we get to the platform and we turn to our analytical meditation on emptiness, they call that Vipassyana-level meditation but technically, it's not Vipassyana until we're in direct perception of emptiness. Like a fine distinction that doesn't really matter - takes both Shamatha and Vipassyana to come out of the other side as Arya.

So in order to cultivate that sequence: stillness, Shamatha, causal level, and so Vipassyana, Je Tsongkapa says there are four foundational factors that help us reach stillness, and this is where they kind of parallel with the yoga tradition. So his four causes for deep meditation, the first one is the controlling our doors of sense. Not in meditation, not even in retreat, controlling our doors of sense means restricting how much you look around, restricting our need for more stimulation as sources of our happiness, like restricting ourselves at a Vinaya level, especially. More importantly is the recognition that the information we receive through our sense powers is all mistaken. And they say our sense powers deceive us, they lie to us, because our eyeballs bring in the information and with the bringing in of the information is the information that ‘the information is out there being brought in’. It's a subtle piece. And it's like, ‘well, come on, the eyeball is not doing that, it's my sense consciousness about what the eyeball is doing that’. But at the beginning level, it's like, no, no, your eye is seeing the world and it's seeing it as if it's out there coming at you. We really need to admit, it looks like I'm looking at a Ficus tree right here, you can't even see it, proof of what I'm saying. But I just see the tree and the way I'm seeing it says, ‘it's a tree out there’. And every time I look at it, it's there, out there for me to see, coming at me. Not bearing down on me, but out there by itself, because the information is imbued with that mistaken understanding because it was planted with that mistaken understanding. So we start with saying, ‘I just don't trust anything that my senses bring to me’, and we could go a little bit crazy doing that. It's the principle that the way my world is being perceived by me so automatically is so broken that the less of it I do, the less of it I perpetuate. So, we would want to not see so much. Now granted, we're going to get onto a higher level of practice where you're back to wanting to see a lot. But now it's from a different perspective, we need this strong foundation to be able to get there. So control our senses. In meditation, controlling our senses means you're trying to focus on your breath and that dumb sparrow in the grapefruit tree won't shut up. And it's like, whoop, out goes my mind, whoop, out goes my mind. Because I'm believing that those sounds that are out there is the bird and it's interrupting me, and if it would just fly away, maybe I should go out there and scare it away and then I could sit better, right? It's like wrong reaction. We’re wanting in our meditation to just shut those sensory orifice off, as if putting earplugs in will stop sounds from interrupting your meditation practice. I'm telling you they don't, there are still sounds, just not the same sounds. If you have seeds for sounds to interrupt your meditation, earplugs are not.. sounds are going to do the job. So it's cultivating this ability to ignore it, to turn inward so deeply that it doesn't matter if there was a flock of birds inside your room with you, you wouldn't hear them. Your ear would hear them, but you wouldn't. Restrict your sense powers. Je Tsongkapa is apparently saying, in particular, when you manage to get in retreat, you want to restrict your sense powers. Especially there, because you can, you're doing it on purpose. You don't have to go to work, you don't have to answer the phone, you don't have to do anything but your practice. You make your room as simple and undistracting as possible, you eat the same thing at the same time, you do the same thing at the same time. Sounds boring, sounds awful, sounds challenging, sounds useful. Because all this other stuff just gets turned off. 

Yes, there'll still be birds outside your cabin, but there won't be the 16 million things that are bearing down on you that you need to do, because you're in retreat. The advantage of solitary retreat, one of them, one of many. So first, learn to control your senses. Not so much control them as control believing the information they're giving you. 

Second one, generating awareness, holding awareness, the state of constant awareness of our bodies and our minds. In our Mahamudra practice, we're learning this ‘watcher state’ in our meditation time, but have you noticed that it carries over off meditation time, this heightened watcher? In meditation in particular, we want this heightened, constant She-shin - what's up with the body, what's up with the mind? So that we can more accurately direct and guide and make choices, ‘let go of this’, ‘deal with that’. Because we're so keenly aware, we have this constant window of opportunity to make a choice in our behavior. So that kind of watcher state of mind is what helps us shift from react mode to plant mode. Regardless of what's going on, we're planting. The planting that we're wanting to do, of course, is planting seeds through which our concentration can get deeper. Seeds that when they ripen, whenever that is, they will be a positive influence on ourselves and our world. So we would call it wanting to plant good seeds versus bad seeds, but meaning positive, uplifting ten-virtue seeds versus non-virtue seeds. We understand.

He says this practice of keeping awareness helps us overcome those five obstacles of meditation. The Five Obstacles of Meditation that he's mentioning here are the ones that are listed in our Bodhisattva Secondary Vows. Do you remember those? How does that go? Restless desire and missing someone or something, feelings of malice, dullness / laziness, attraction to the objects of the senses, and unresolved doubts. Those five. So our heightened awareness practice, even if we're not necessarily working on those things specifically, they'll lessen as obstacles to our meditation practice. 

The third foundational cause for deep meditation is where it meets with Hatha Yoga Pradipika, this practice of ‘measuring our food’ is the word they say, ‘measuring our food’. And it doesn't mean, ‘you can have a half a cup of lentils and three cups of greens’, right, Margie? It means cultivating this carefully measured relationship with food which, I can only speak for myself, it's pretty measured, but you know, could do better. It means, this really, really heightened eating as medicine, eating as fuel, instead of eating for all the other reasons that we eat. We eat because we think we need nutrition, but the things we actually choose to eat are not all that nutritious so that can't really be why we're eating. We eat because it's pleasurable to eat, but then we overeat and then suddenly it's not pleasurable to eat, but we still eat, so that can't completely be it either, whether it's pleasure or pleasurable. So we eat to help other people, okay, that's a little bit better, maybe. Find our own reasons to eat. ‘I need distraction’, that's mine. ‘I've been studying hard, I need a distraction, I'll go make a cup of tea. I'll go have a bite of peanut butter’, right? As if that somehow fixes things. Just a weird relationship, we all have them. It's fine to have a relationship with food, we should, and we want it to be one that will serve our practice, not block it. 

So we find what foods our bodies digest well. 

We find what time of day our bodies need food or respond to food the best. 

We figure out how much food our body really needs versus how much food our mind needs for some reason, and adjust it. 

All these different factors that we really don't learn in school. We don't necessarily even learn from the nutritionist unless we ask specifically, ‘what kind of foods are going to help my meditation?’ And so especially when we're retreaters, we want to figure out:

How do I eat, when do I eat, what do I eat, that will be the least distracting to my practice and the most sustaining for my physical body? And it may surprise us. Like I would say lentils and quinoa with carrots and ginger. For this body, it does it. But for somebody else's body, no, it'll give them gas and keep them awake all night. So we need to figure it out ourselves and how do you do that except by trying out different things? And when we're out in our worldly life, it's hard to use life as an experiment when we have family distractions and all of that. So when you do get to finally start your meditation retreat career, start off exploring these different factors. How we eat is one of them. We can start exploring our relationship to food now, outside of retreat, outside of meditation, to come to recognize how is it that I'm using food as a payback, as a reward, etcetera, and then choose. Is it working for you to use, I don't know, two bites of yogurt as a reward? Yeah, but how about half a package of Oreos as a reward? Maybe not that. Is it okay to reward myself with food? Yes. But then choose how we do it. Do you see? This is not saying ‘eat nothing but lentils and rice’; it's saying get a healthy relationship with food and then fine-tune it for in retreat. It also says, however, the food you eat should be food you like. Lama Christie said Geshe Michael got a lot of mileage out of that. It's like, ‘but look, I know you want dal and rice every day, but look, it says it should be food you like, and you have to admit, you don't really like dal and rice like you like Oreo cookies’. And they’d debate about that. So ultimately what's going to do the best for your practice, which you're in there practicing because of your compassion to grow the circle around everybody so that you can become the source of unconditional love for all of them. Now what kind of food do you need to feed this thing? And he gives this beautiful offering prayer, and it goes something like, ‘I rely on what I eat with neither craving nor dislike by seeing it as medicine. It's not for gluttony or for the sake of pride. It's not for my appearance. I eat this food solely to keep this flesh alive.’ If we're eating to keep our flesh alive and no other reason, that would change things a lot, I think. 

Fourth factor, my personal favorite, the fourth factor is sleep. We need adequate and quality sleep to be able to single-pointed focus when we're awake to the extent necessary to sustain a direct perception of emptiness. In retreat, the instruction is to sleep in the third watch of the night. They split the daytime and nighttime into.. they call them ‘watches’, they're time frames and they are four hours each, I think there's four and six in each one. We want to be meditating at dawn and dusk so those are two periods of time that you're not going to be sleeping. And then your deepest sleep then is those middle time of night where there's a four-hour period of time where our quality of sleep is apparently the deepest, but it's only four hours. So, it's like, 11:00 to 3:00, and you get that much sleep. You're meditating, then you go to bed, then you get up, you meditate, you do something else, you meditate again, you do something else, you meditate again, you do something else. So that you're meditating at dusk, at dawn, just before noon, just before midnight, you're finishing. But four hours [of sleep]. So in retreat, what will happen as we do this practice of sleep is that you in fact end up sleeping in a way that you kind of can't tell the difference between being awake and asleep. It feels like in the morning, ‘gosh, I didn't sleep all night’ but if somebody was watching you, it was like you were dead asleep. Your body was asleep, but your mind was still in this focused concentration. That doesn't happen when you first go into retreat, that takes cultivation. We need to be rested in order to be able to function on just four hours of sleep in retreat. So outside of retreat, a good sleep habit is a necessary part of our spiritual practice. Find out when you sleep best, deepest, and be sure that you're in bed before that and not interrupted until after that. How do you do that in a worldly life, in a family life? To the best of your ability; help everybody else have a healthy sleep life; there are all kinds of instructions on how to sleep well. But it's important to do so. So if you have those days where it's like, ‘I'm so sorry, I've just got to go to bed’, give yourself permission. I used to have that, I'd go along, go along, and then there'd be a day, 5:00 in the afternoon, ‘sorry, timeout’, and crash and sleep all the way around until 8:00 the next morning, not even getting up to go to the bathroom. And it's just like, if you need to do it, do it. 

Even in retreat, in great retreat, it took me the whole first year to really get to where I felt like, ‘man, this body is finally rested’, after an entire adult life. And I was sleeping that four-hour period of time, practicing, sleeping again two hours. So I would practice and sleep, practice and sleep, practice and eat, practice, practice, practice and sleep. And it's like, that's all I did was practice and sleep, but it worked for me. And then in that, it's like, when was I asleep and when was I practicing? And that's the point is that we can be using sleep time and waking time to still be exploring emptiness and dependent origination. And it's cultivated in this way. 

So get enough sleep, time of sleep, in retreat. 

The posture that we sleep in is also recommended, that we sleep in lion's pose. I think we've heard that before where: 

You're laying on your right side, 

Your right leg is extended, 

Your left is bent on top of it, 

Your right hand is under your jaw or your ear, 

Your left arm is extended down your torso, 

And you lay your head in your Holy Lama's lap. 

And then what's on your mind when you go to sleep is the additional factor in sleep practice, where you think about those wonderful things that you did all day. Meaning, you're in retreat, what your wonderful things you did all day was meditate, meditate, meditate. You think about the things you meditated about as you're falling asleep. So you end up still thinking about your meditation while you're sleeping, and when you're awake you're meditating about the things you were thinking about while you were sleeping, and then while you're sleeping.. do you see how it feeds the practice? So sleep is the fourth factor of these four foundational practices for reaching Shamatha, according to Je Tsongkapa. 

Got it? And that's class, except for a little piece, then I'll finish next time. 

So remember that person we wanted to be able to help. 

We've learned a lot that we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way. 

And that's an extraordinary goodness. 

So please be happy with yourself, and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hand. 

Recall your own precious holy being. 

See how happy they are with you. 

Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. 

Ask them to please, please stay close, to continue to guide you, help you, support you, inspire you.

And then offer them this gemstone of goodness. 

See them accept it and bless it. 

And they carry it with them right back into your heart.

See them there, feel them there. 

Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good, we want to keep it forever, and so we know to share it. 

By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom, and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. 

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person. 

To share it with everyone we love. 

To share it with every existing being everywhere. 

See them all filled with loving kindness, shining it forth to everyone. 

And may it be so. 

Thank you so much everyone for the opportunity to share.

Niyama

Tapa self-imposed spiritual hardship

Santosha contentment, being happy with what I get

Astikya belief in higher things / wanting to know higher things (not faith)

Dana giving (material things, time, effort, wisdom)

Ishwarapujana to honor or worship the Lama

Siddhanta intellectual study of all the different views of emptiness

Vakya shravana spiritual teachings in general, study and attend them

Hrimat modesty / being willing to open up and receive a class

Japa recitation

Juta fire offering

All right, welcome back. We are Bok Jinpa course 1, class 4, Master Kamalashila's Stages of Meditation, July 2nd, 2025.

Let's gather our minds here for our opening prayers and then I want to finish up last class and then we'll do our first of the two meditations, or first part of the meditation.

So bring your attention to your breath, please, until you hear from me again.

(Usual class opening)

How to eat in ways that will help us deepen our meditative concentration

(8:26) Last class, I didn't quite finish with the instructions about making ourselves proper vessels for deep meditation, about the section of eating. How we can eat in ways that will help us deepen our meditative concentration so that our emptiness wisdom can grow, amongst other things.

Lama Christie gave us these three different eating practices that she demonstrated. So when I sent out the link to the recording, I said, ‘please bring three little bites of something to eat’. Did anybody see that? Do you have your three little bites? If you don't, if you have water, you can do it with water. Have your glass of water there. I have a little animal cracker. I had an auntie one time who used to tease us about being vegetarian. She made this delicious vegetable soup for us once and as we're enjoying it, she goes, ‘you know, this really would have been better with a ham hock’. And it's like, ‘yes, auntie, it really would taste better, but thank you for making it without’. And she asked me, ‘do vegetarians eat animal crackers?’ And it's like, this one [Lama Sarahni] does, after they've been offered, when they're leftovers.

1. See the food as antidote to your mental afflictions

Okay, so to even use eating as a practice to increase our goodness to allow our meditative concentration to get deeper, one method is that you you take a bite of food and before you eat it, you just think for a minute,

I'm gonna eat this cracker specifically to get rid of all my mental afflictions.

So in my mind's going, ‘what, how can that be?’

Just because of karma and emptiness, because of intention, out of compassion, we can establish that this act of eating this cookie, this cookie can be the thing that wipes out those mental afflictions. So we decide it works. And you see that bite of food as the antidote to mental afflictions and you eat it.

So take your first bite or sip or whatever, hold it up in front of you. 

Think of your favorite mental affliction, that thing that upsets you, that situation that you always come out with something you regret later, just one of them.

Then think of all the other mental afflictions that come flooding out. And look at this thing and say, 

‘There's no reason why this cannot be the cure for all of that. So it is.’

So eat it.

As you eat it, every chew, every taste, every swallow is dissolving away your mental afflictions.

Feel them going?

Cool, how about another bite, right?

Second bite's gonna be something else. So that's one thing you can do. You can do it with every bite of your meal. It's gonna take some concentration, isn't it?

See, it's a trick.

But does it help with our mental afflictions? Yeah, it does, surprisingly, right? We'll see why by the end of this class, if I do my job. 

2. Think of all the beings that were involved in bringing this food to you to eat and give their goodness back to them

Second method, you look at what you're about to eat and you think of all the beings that were and are involved in bringing this bite, this food, to you to eat.

The obvious ones - all the grocery store people.

Oh, wait, the trucker.

Oh, wait, the people who order and arrange and all that stuff.

Oh, wait, the people who manufactured it.

Oh, wait, the people who grew the ingredients for the menu, the ones who ordered that to get it to the manufacturer.

The list is long.

Keep adding people.

You'll be really hungry by the time you eat. Lots of people.

I mean, technically, like all sentient beings went into this bite to eat. But don't just go there, really think it through. Think it through, think it through.

And then think,

As I partake of this, I give all that goodness back to them.

I'm getting a bite to eat. Maybe it tastes good, maybe it doesn't. 

Whatever reason I'm eating it, that's a result of my past goodness that I even have anything to eat. And the fact that they did all that they did to bring this to me, I want them to have all that goodness ripen on them now, may they have it.

So I'm eating this for their good karma.

I'm giving them good karma by eating this. Does it make sense?

So huge number of beings are gonna benefit by you taking your bite of food. So are you ready? Think of all those people, ‘oh my gosh, spending their lifetimes to make me a little animal cracker. Wow, this is for you’.

And as you partake, you think of them all suddenly going, ‘wow, I feel so good’. Suddenly something goes right for them because you gave this goodness that they actually did for you, you gave it right back. So then your whole meal can be, ‘here's another’, ‘here's more for you’, ‘here's more for you’, ‘here's more for you’. That's the second method.

3. Nurture all the beings inside your body

Third method - you take your bite and you think about all the beings who live inside your body. They say there's more foreign DNA living inside our bodies than our own DNA. Like that's how many creatures we are the home for. We are the protector. We feed them, we support them, we keep them warm, not too hot, not too cool. 

They rely on us for all of that. And we can think about them. Everywhere along the way, there's creatures. And as we partake of our food, we are better taking care of them, nurturing them, helping them, loving them. And they feel it.

So how many beings? 

Apparently the Tibetans would say 80,000. It's like, come on, that's not nearly enough. Probably trillions. So on behalf of trillions of beings, for their benefit, for their sustenance, for their awakening, down the hatch it goes.

Mmm, they're all so happy. Next bite, next bite, next bite.

Any combination of those, you're welcome to do.

It's gonna take concentration, right? And it's fun. And it is planting good seeds to do that.

Then you can debate later - does it really help them?

I mean, without the debate, what do you think?

Yeah, of course, eventually.

Does it help them in the moment? That's where the debate would show up. And we're gonna see that later in this class as well.

Does our meditation that we're doing on behalf of somebody else's suffering, does the meditation I do today help their suffering today? 

And my own mind goes, no, it's planting seeds now for something I'll be able to do for them in the future.

But technically, technically, technically, our strong concentration on behalf of them is changing our seeds for them in the moment. We can't verify it because we can only be here. We can't be here and there at the same time. And then even if we say, yeah, but I could call them up and they'll say, no, I feel just as rotten now as I did 10 minutes ago. But technically, they could have been 10 times worse. And their perception is, no, I'm just the same. But you just saved them from the 10 times worse. We can't confirm it either way, right?

So are we just making it up to say, oh, I'm gonna meditate as if their hair's on fire and it doesn't really work like that?

Or do we say, no, understanding the empty nature of me, and them, and the interaction between,

it really is the fact that the quality of my concentration now makes an impact on them, not just them, on everybody. Like if we really got that, and I'm not saying that I do, but if we really got that and we understood that we really can't work in that arena when we're out in our worldly aspect, that we can only really work in that arena when we are in the arena of our mind, we wouldn't wanna do anything but meditate. Because sitting on your cushion, you'd be out there helping in the world everywhere by the power of your concentration on your cushion. And there'd be no reason to ever get up. Like that would be the ideal and we're getting glimpses of it. Like Master Kamalashila is trying to drop these little ahas in our mind. And to be honest with you, I missed it the first time through. And it's still, it's just like, I can hear myself say the words, but when I get back on my cushion, it doesn't just all of a sudden sink in. But it has in the past.

So I'm trying to motivate us all so that we will be thinking of our meditation opportunity to be the place where we are finally effective in our world. And rather than saying, ‘oh, I'm really busy today, I need to cut my meditation short’ or ‘I'm so extra tired today, I have to cut my meditation short’, my specialty recently.

But rather it's like, I'm so busy today, like Gandhi, I need to meditate twice as long. What he was probably doing in that meditation was working out the meetings that he had all day to be really well prepared for them.

When we find ourselves more effective on our meditation cushion than off, that's when we are like chomping at the bit to get into retreat. Because in retreat, that's all you have to do is work in the arena of your mind, whether you're on your cushion or not on your cushion. And you don't get that luxury when we're out in an outer world. 

(24:00) Okay, so let's go back to Master Kamalashila's just focusing on our breath and look at that quality, how it's coming. And then we'll go into his next inspiring information about how to gather the more good seeds to be able to do this. And in the end, we're supposed to go through the Hatha Yoga Pradipika version of a similar thing. So I'll do my best to get it all done.

Meditation on breath with 3 different focuses

(24:39) Let's put ourselves into that meditation posture. We haven't really talked about it, but you all know. Most important is get still. 

When you've got that body set, bring your attention to your breath, at the nostrils, simply watching. Fascinated, focused, clear, no control, no moving it, just observing, feeling.

We're gonna stay two minutes. This breath is your object. Don't stray from it.

Now don't come out, but listen to me.

Did your mind stray from your breath at all?

Was it a struggle to get it back?

How strong an effort did you really make to keep it on?

Just make a note and let's do again, two minutes.

This time, imagine that your perspective is that the space of the tip of your nostril is as big as a cave and you're sitting right there at the mouth of the cave. And all you have to do is be aware of the air that moves out past you and in past you.

So this whole image of watching the breath takes up your whole mental visual picture. Okay, got that?

Now, two minutes on the object of aware of breath.

Now, is that easier or harder to keep your fascination, your focus, your clarity? Or just different?

Was there still some struggle?

Let's do it a third time.

This time, think of that other person and the distress that they're having and feel your wish to really be able to help. And then recognize that the quality of our concentration allows a deepening of our understanding of emptiness and mental seeds and so greater clarity as to how to help them—both worldly and ultimately.

And so it is true that the quality of our concentration on our breath right now will help their distress be relieved.

So decide that you will focus on your breath as if their happiness depends on it, as if their life depends on it. Not yours, theirs.

Feel that quality of intention driven by your compassion.

Don't let it go over into tension. And ‘if I don't do it perfectly, they're gonna drop dead’. Not like that. But this sense of direct effect on them.

Now, concentrate on your breath, two minutes.

Now think about the quality of those two minutes.

Make a mental note and then be happy with your efforts, whatever they were and dedicate them to reaching the wisdom necessary to be able to help that other one reach the wisdom necessary to help everyone.

Now, when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

The power of our motivation to do our practice for someone else

(37:42) Is anybody noticing how hard it is to stay on the breath?

Me too. It's crazy difficult. Our minds just are so unruly, every little thing, right? And even when we have the person's wellbeing as my motivation, then my mind would go to them, ‘I'm doing this for them’ instead of, ‘I'm doing this for them, stay on’.

But hopefully, like the idea is that when you had that motivation in your heart, like really feeling it, not up here so much, but ‘wow, every instant I'm on my breath, they are getting happier'. Then once you've got that established, let it go and just stay on the breath, and then you go off, come right back, come right back.

Hopefully that motivation, that feeling inside as a reason to stay on the breath helps it be easier to stay on the breath.

Maybe not on it longer yet, but easier to work with it, to try to recognize we're off, to pull it back, ‘okay, let's do it again’. To do the training.

We can sit into meditation and do the same thing every single time and not really ever get past a certain level because we're not working at the nuances.

If we're an athlete and we're an accomplished athlete and a competition is coming up, you don't just continue doing your regular workout. You increase. You train in something further, deeper, harder so that you can perform at your best capacity at the competition if you care about the competition.

If you don't care, of course, you just do your usual workout and then go see how it goes.

So the caring about the other person is this additional piece that even caring about ourselves isn't enough. We talked about that last time, that even though our selfishness drives everything that we do, when it comes down to making the change we need to make to become this being who can help all beings, our own selfishness isn't actually strong enough. And in fact, it's the one that's going to get in the way because it knows that it can't help. It can't help. It’s not within its goals to become the one who can help all beings. Our selfishness doesn't want to do that.

So we turn our wish for enlightenment onto somebody else. And Master Kamalashila’s recurring point is not just intellectually, but feel it. The feeling will compel our effort on our cushion much more than the intellectual part.

His system was to first work with your loved ones because they're easy, right? We don't like when they suffer. If I can help them, I will. And then you go to neutral people, and then you go to people you don't like, and then you go to people that don't like you, and then you go to people that have actually hurt you. 

You just keep expanding your circle.

Then he said, if you can't just see their suffering straight up, think of that little child inside them who's lost and afraid and doesn't know any better and so is hurting themselves trying to get what they want. When we can see that little child in them, that's when our heart goes, ‘oh’. Whether we like the person or not, the little child in there, ‘oh man, I wanna help’. 

With that feeling, our powers of concentration, our effort to make the adjustments necessary will increase, according to Master Kamalashila. And then we get to explore it and see.

Then he says, just to get that feeling in your heart, he's calling that feeling bodhicitta. Now, of course, bodhicitta is a little more than that. But he says to get that bodhicitta in your heart, it is so valuable, so precious. It's like a diamond in a world where gold is really, really valuable. The diamond, even if you smash it in a bazillion pieces, each little piece is still more valuable than any lump of gold. That's how valuable this caring about this other being's happiness to the point of their ultimate happiness is.

Then we learned long time ago that when we have bodhicitta, any little activity becomes the cause for our Buddhahood.

So you smash the diamond into a million smithereens, that's like any little activity that I do is still a diamond activity.

He goes on to say, it doesn't even matter if you don't do all those bodhisattva activities that we're supposed to do. If you have that bodhicitta in your heart, your teacher doesn't have to make you do all those bodhisattva activities, he says.

He says, if you're the teacher and your student has that bodhicitta in their heart, you don't have to make them do all those bodhisattva activities because the bodhicitta in their heart will motivate them and they will choose those activities. They'd even come up with it on their own to do their giving, their moral discipline. With the words that we use, but the behaviors underlying them, it would ooze out of you if you had this feeling in your heart all the time.

Lama Christie said that he's saying when you're the teacher, you inspire this bodhicitta in your student's hearts and don't worry about whether they do the bodhisattva deeds because they're gonna do them on their own. 

Lama Christie laughed. She said, he just did that to us.

He got us to awaken to the power of this bodhicitta. And then we all go, whoa, teach us more. What can I do? How can I act from that? 

And he's gonna do this again and again and again. He's teaching us how to teach others and in the process, he does this skillful means on us. It's so beautiful.

Buddha’s four instructions to the King

(45:56) He goes on to describe how in a sutra called Advices to the King, Buddha‘s Sutra, Buddha has this student who is a king and the king is saying to him, I'm king, but I wanna ditch my kingdom and I wanna become a monastic.

And Buddha says to him, sorry, can't ditch your kingdom. You're the king. You have the karma. You have the goodness to be king. You need to rule. But there are four things you can do as king day to day where your being king activities can be your spiritual path.

So he'd be saying to any of us, you and your family life and work life can be your spiritual path. We don't need to aspire to go live in a cave.

We wanna aspire to go live in a cave for periods of time from time to time, but not permanently necessarily. It won't help us unless we already have a certain level.

Okay, so he says to the king, ‘transform your work life’. And that's dangerous because we could kid ourselves and say, ‘okay, I've transformed my work life. Everything I do is dharma’. And then we just go right ahead being our same old human selfish self, right? And pretending that, ‘yeah, but I'm acting in my world in a different way’, but we really aren't.

So he gives the king these four specific advices, four instructions, like no matter what he's doing, have these four happening.

1. Have this longing for enlightenment, yours and theirs in your heart always

The first one, he says, King, be longing for your enlightenment constantly. Whether you're sitting, standing, sleeping, riding, turning, eating, anything you're doing, have in your heart / mind, in your consciousness, the longing for enlightenment.

I'm gonna be Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.

I'm doing this to become Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. 

I'm being Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.

I mean, gosh, a king, right? You own everything. You're in charge of everything. Probably you're partway there. So have this bodhicitta fresh in feeling in every moment—first thing you can do, king. 

Like if it was easy, if we could just push the button on the radio station and have it all the time, yeah, we'd be skating. It takes effort. It takes reminders. It takes tracking ourselves, but it's doable. It's doable.

So number one, have this longing for your enlightenment, for the benefit of all your subjects, constantly. This feeling, the emotion. 

Second one, wait, Lama Christie had more to say about that. Sorry. 

This longing for enlightenment grows as our intellectual understanding of the vastness of our mind grows. We tend to think there's me and I have my body and I have my mind. And we think the mind is somehow contained, most of us up here [in our heads], for some of us, it's also here [in our hearts], but it's limited, you know?

And when we say, ‘well, when you see the tree out there, is that your mind?’ And we go, ‘no, it's not my mind. It takes my mind to be aware of it, but it's not my mind. It's the thing out there.’

Then we study and we study and we study. And we meet Mind Only School, and they say, ‘well, in fact, yes, there are things out there, but you and what they are as you interact with them, that's coming out of your own seeds. That's your own mind. So technically everything you experience, it's all your mind’. 

And then we kind of go, ‘no, not really, because that's Mind Only School’. But in fact, it is really. Like all our karmic seeds ripening, moment by moment by moment, are ripening subject side, object side, interaction between, and they're all coming out of our seeds. 

And what is karma? Movement of the mind and what it motivates. 

For a long time, I thought, yeah, the mind moves and out shoots something. But then as I understood more and more and more, it's like this mind incorporates all, like it's vast as all. And the mind movement is this ripening, ripening, ripening of everything I'm aware of, from the immediate obvious stuff to all the little details and nuances that are in and behind all of it. All of it. There isn't anything we can experience that's not a ripening out of our own mind. Everything is our mind. There's nothing that's not your mind.

And we go, ‘okay, so nothing exists really, but me. Everything's nothing but projections except me because I'm the projector’. And guess what? We've got that wrong too. Because our me, including this [body], is part of those constant shape-shifting mental seeds of this mind rippling, ripening, rippling, rippling. Those who are doing Mahamudra, this is sounding familiar.

So as our deepening concentration can help us grow a deepening awareness of what we think our mind is, it expands to include more and more and more and more of everything. 

It just pops into my mind now - we can see why Master Shantideva takes us from exchanging self and others to expanding self to include others because there it is. And all of it increases our compassion for all those beings that are a part of me. And so I really can influence them by the power of the quality of my meditation and wisdom. Eventually, even in the moment, right?

At first, it seems like, ‘no, I do it now. They don't get the benefit. I don't see the change in my mind to benefit them till later.’ But that's just temporary.

So all of this is getting us to build this strong foundation of practice that's gonna automatically move us in the direction of re-identifying what we mean by me and my body, me and my mind, me and my five heaps, me and my karma.

We're gonna re-identify. So it starts up here [in our heads] and then as we explore it in our meditation with deepening concentration, it moves down into experiential and feeling [to our hearts].

So to start with some component of feeling helps us drop that intellectual stuff down faster than if we think we've got to get it all right up here first before we put it down there.

Let's do both, right? Finish your ACI courses, do these meditations. They will come together beautifully, in my experience.

So when we have an other who seems to be suffering so terribly, and part of the way that we see them suffering is the fact that they don't understand about karma and emptiness, right? ‘If they just understood, then they could change the way they behave so that they could change them and get freer from suffering’, right? That's a stage we go through.

It's just ‘you don't know about karmic emptiness, I do. I can help you know better about karma and emptiness and then that will make you happier’. The problem is we can tell them, tell them, tell them, and either they argue with us or they go, ‘yeah, yeah, right’, but don't act on it, or they get downright mad at us and won't talk to us, right? 

The result that we see them get from our effort to teach them the truth is also coming from us.

So their very ignorance is coming from me. ‘I'm so sorry’, right? Prove me wrong, all of you.

So who do I need to change to help their suffering get less? Right, me. 

How do I do that? By seeing emptiness directly for starters. 

How do I do that? By getting to shamatha level.

How do I do that? By clearing out the obstacles and planting the goodness.

How do I do that? Secret - by teaching others how to do that. Thank you so much. Like you guys are all doing me the biggest favor.

It's this beautiful cycle, upward cycle.

So number one: King, have this longing for enlightenment, yours and theirs in your heart always.

2. Rejoice

(58:12) Then, second one, rejoice.

Think about the virtue that Buddha did to become Buddha.

Think about the goodness any being who's a Buddha did to become Buddha.

Think about the goodness any bodhisattva has done to become bodhisattva.

Think about any goodness you've seen anybody, any ordinary being, do.

And think about the goodness you yourself have done, King. Take care of your subjects, make sure they have enough to eat, not tax them too much, right? Throw them parties. Think of all those goodnesses and be happy that you know about them. Because where is that coming from? [ourselves]

King, right?

Kings have great good karma to be King. So they're already partway there.

How do we keep our goodness going? Rejoice in it, be happy about it.

But Buddha didn't say to the King, just rejoice in your own good deeds. He said, rejoice in Buddha's good deeds, bodhisattva's good deeds. Because 

1. that makes the King stop and think about Buddhas and bodhisattvas during the course of their busy day. And the being happy for goodnesses that others have done, we get 10%, wherever that 10% comes from, I don't know. But we get some of it because it's coming from us as well. So we get to replant it. 

2. And then if we're rejoicing in the goodness we do, we wanna do more. It's like, ‘yay, I did that nice thing. That felt good, I'm happy I did it’. It's automatic to go ‘and I'll do it again when I get a chance’. As opposed to, oh, I stepped on that person's foot, I really regret it. It's not like, 'and I'll do it again next time I get a chance'. It's like, 'no, I'm gonna really avoid that'. The rejoicing helps strengthen the habit.

So, long for enlightenment, rejoice in the goodnesses.

Think of the Buddhas, rejoice.

It's cool, because we think of rejoice ‘not til the end of the day’, like it’s sort of your finishing up thing as you're rejoicing. He's telling the king, no, all day long, rejoicing.

Again, an emotional thing, rejoicing.

Third, he tells them, oh, wait, it's time for a break. Sorry, I get going. I will pause the recording, let's get refreshed.

(1:01:22) So Lama Christie pointed out about the rejoicing piece that Lord Buddha is also saying to the king, 'look, king, you're the highest guy in the land, but there are others who have more goodness than you'.

And the king might go, no, I'm the king, right? I'm the best in the land.

And Lord Buddha is pointing out, it would serve you, king, to find someone that you admire, that you aspire to some quality that they have that you don't see in yourself.

Kings have ministers, and they rely on the ministers for their expertise. So sort of like that, to remind the king that to rejoice in others' goodnesses also means to admire and aspire to grow those goodnesses in oneself. Not as if, ‘well, I'm already the king of the land, there's nothing new I can become’. Well, actually there is.

So then when these traditions came into Tibet and the different Tibetan schools or lineages made them into daily practices, they all had their way of putting it together. In the Tibetan system, they took very carefully, meaningfully to heart, that you can meet a being, a teacher, who you can perceive as being so spiritually advanced but somehow still connected with puny little me. But I can see their goodness and my admiration of them and my devotion to them and my aspiration to become like them, I use them like a mentor. And It goes so far as to completely surrender everything to them, which that's another story, but it developed into this system that the outside world even called Lama-ism, or the early West said that Tibetans practice Lama-ism, they didn't even call it Buddhism because they saw the disciples bowing to a human being. Which the disciples, of course, see as much more than a human being. And because that gives that being, human or otherwise, a strength of karmic power that is beneficial for the student, for the student's growth, like that's how that relationship is beneficial.

It's not beneficial from the Lama's side. It's all for the student's side so that they have someone that they aspire to, they see as a powerful karmic object, and they can make rapid progress in their relationship with. Like progress that can be like this because we're only human and they appear to be human and it's a struggle. 

But it's a powerful struggle because you've got someone right there with you, which is very different than having a relationship with someone you imagine. Or someone that you used to have in the flesh and now they're not anymore.

So to have an in-the-flesh being that you interact with becomes a very delicate and powerful circumstance. You know, easily misunderstood as well.

So the Buddha is saying to the king, rejoicing in others' goodnesses, find those that are higher than you, rejoice in those—to help his mind, king's mind, aspire to get even better.

And then rejoice in what you do, of course, to increase the habits and rejoice in the goodness you see anybody do to increase seeing more of it.

3. Making offerings

Then he says, Buddha says to the king, third practice is make offerings. Make offerings to the Buddhas, make offerings to the Bodhisattvas and throw in some offerings to all living beings.

It seems a little bit weird. Here's the king, he owns all the resources. And it sounds like Buddha is saying, ‘make offerings to the Buddhas’, which means spend all these resources putting out offerings on the altar, that what happens to them? Well, hopefully when they take them and their leftovers, they use them for people, but maybe they just burn them or throw them away. I don't know.

It seems like, wow, you're using all those resources for something that's just symbolic? You know, those enlightened beings, they don't seem to drink the juice, right? The tea I put out still is a full cup when I take it down the next day.

And so it would seem like, wow, you're just wasting resources.

Then the third level of offering is ‘well, to all the beings’. It sounds like flippant.

What Buddha is saying though, is that to take our precious resources and make an offering that we can't see anybody actually partake of, in order to do that, we have to, at some level, believe that that being does exist. 

We're saying to our own mind, ‘even if I don't fully believe it, I'm gonna plant the seeds to believe that this offering that I put out, they are in fact aware of it. And if it's true that everything an enlightened being is aware of, it gives them bliss and more emptiness, then every offering I make contributes to enlightened beings bliss wisdom’. And what's that gonna do to my mind? Plant seeds for that state.

So to offer to the Buddhas is saying to our mind, I believe you're there. I believe I'm planting incredible karmic goodness, more than karmic goodness—merit, if I'm also remembering, because of karma and emptiness we're planting some merit simply by putting offerings up.

So Mr. King, your daily practice of ruling your kingdom needs to include making offerings to the Buddha, making offerings to the Bodhisattvas, and of course, making offerings to your subjects as well. But they really are secondary because they are lesser karmic objects than Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Easily, easily misunderstood. And hopefully the King doesn't misunderstand that and just give the dregs to his people to where they end up starving, but rather he recognizes how to balance all of it.

And again, that's the message for us in our outer lives, we are the kings of our world. And how important is our making offerings? 

Hopefully we do it every day as this opportunity to make goodness.

And to what extent are we on automatic pilot? I'm talking to myself, right? I'm on automatic pilot most of the time when I'm doing my offerings until after I'm done. And then it's like, oh, nuts, right? I missed an opportunity there. So I just pause and try to do better. 

But when things get to be the same, it's so human nature to just slide into automatic.

And automatic is better than not at all probably, but better is to make those offerings really conscientiously put out.

So even if you don't end up having your proper seven water bowls and your bell there, but rather you just wanna say, today it's gonna be a piece of toast with butter and a black tea and you make it really highly motivated, highly aware, and put that out and call it my traditional offerings. It might get us off automatic pilot. But up to you.

The point is making offerings is this third factor for the king.

So then it doesn't just have to be the offerings that we put on the altar. Like I'm pointing over there cause that's where my altar is. 

• We can be making offerings before we eat.

• We can be making offerings as we brush our teeth.

• We can be making offerings with everything we see because we just said, everything is bubbling up out of my mind, isn't it? So it's unique to me. So look Buddhas, like look what I look like right now, I offer it to you. 

We can offer anything at any time if we just remember to do it, and it shifts us off automatic pilot and we make these intentionally planted goodness seeds that will contribute to our ability to keep our vows, that will contribute to our ability to deepen our concentration, that will contribute to our ability to deepen our emptiness understanding and get the process spiraling upward more swiftly.

4. Dedicating all of your practice

The fourth factor Lord Buddha tells the king is dedicate.

Dedicate your having bodhichitta all the time.

Dedicate your rejoicing.

Dedicate your making offerings.

Dedicate your dedicating, right?

Dedicating all of it.

Meaning take what you've just done, make it into a dart, put the target ‘bodhichitta for everybody’, throw the dart to the bullseye.

Like literally that kind of sharpness with our dedication:

I just put out my offerings.

I dedicate it to bodhichitta for everybody. 

I dedicate it to reaching total omniscience so I can help that other person.

Dedicate it to…, right?

We wanna be as specific as possible, but we wanna be as all inclusive as possible as well.

So we can dedicate to all of it.

I dedicate this class to shamatha level meditation so that direct perception of emptiness can come so that my omniscience can come so that…

And like we would sit there doing our dedication longer than our meditation practice. So boil it down, right? Somehow boil it down, but then don't get on automatic pilot.

During one of Geshe Michael's quiet retreat teachings, so this is not part of Bok Jinpa, but an experience that I had. He was doing, I think he was doing the magic of empty teachers and he was talking about this dedication. He said a really fun way to increase our practice of dedication is someday when you have time by yourself, go sit with your altar and you've got your image of your holy beings there and call them forth and have this conversation with them and say,

Look, I wanna increase my dedication practice. And what I mean by dedication is that whatever goodness I just did, I know it's imprinted in my mind in such a way and I want it to ripen as…, all the way up to my total enlightenment so that I can bring everybody to ultimate happiness.

And you say to them, ‘every time I pull my right earlobe, my left earlobe, this is what I mean. I'm sending you the signal that I'm dedicating what I just did to what I just said’. And you don't have to say it all. All you have to do is remember to pull your ear.

So you come up and then you hear them agree.

They go, okay, we get it. And then your job is to remember, to dedicate.

So I had my own little secret sign and I used it a lot apparently because sometime later, later, later, I was teaching tapping method and one of the tappings was really close to my sign. And the person I was teaching the tapping to, they said, ‘oh, you were doing tapping all those times’. And it was like, no, actually I was doing my dedication. But I realized somebody was watching, like the angels really are watching when you make your secret pact with them. But then you have to do it. And I've gotten out of the habit so thank you for this class so I get back on the habit.

So Buddha has said, King, don't ditch your kingdom. Rule it like this. 

1. Long for your Buddhahood.

2. Rejoice like crazy.

3. Make offerings and 

4. dedicate.

What does that sound like? Anybody recognize?

It's only missing one.

It's our meditation preliminaries, isn't it? Yeah, son of a gun. Only it's our meditation preliminaries in real life. Not just in the first 10 minutes of your meditation session. 

Meditation preliminaries in real life:

• Making goodness in these specific ways, a mind imbued with bodhicitta,

• rejoicing in the goodness of others,

• offering everything that we're doing and

• dedicating it all to that targeted result.

So Lama Christie wanted our meditation for this week to be doing our meditation preliminaries instead of in the usual way, whatever it is, but doing them by feel. And so maybe going at them in this way as the Buddha has taught the king and then seeing how they feel maybe a little different than the way we've gotten used to doing them.

And then take them off your cushion and do your practice preliminaries in life. And there's still gonna be practice preliminaries, do you see? Because when we do them as 10 minutes before meditation, they don't actually help that meditation because they're planting seeds, those seeds take time to ripen, but they're adding to seeds that we did 10 years ago. Maybe those will ripen today, maybe not.

But if we take them off into our outer life and we're doing the same kinds of things, bodhicitta, rejoicing, offering, and dedicating, then when we do them on our cushion, they'll just be adding more power to more power.

So we'll help increase the upward spiral, the turning of the upward spiral.

Meditation on the Preliminaries (the four advices to the king)

(1:20:32) So let's do her second meditation. It's not a long one. And then I need to do the Hatha Yoga Pradipika stuff.

So settle your body. Pull your mind into the breath, turn on the focus, brighten up the clarity, have this curiosity, ‘what's she gonna say next?’

Now call up that one person whose distress you're aware of that you feel so strongly how you want to change you so that their pain will cease. Not just that one, but all of it.

Get it intellectually, what that connection is, and then feel.

It's a little frustrating to want to do it, but we can't yet. But we know we will someday, and I want it to be soon.

So I really am willing to change my behavior to be able to help them. To change me.

Keep turning up the power of that feeling. I really can do it. I'm willing to try. Their pain is so unnecessary, it's just a big mistake. My big mistake.

Now hold that feeling in your heart and think about the good qualities of the enlightened beings you know of: their extraordinary love, their extraordinary compassion, their omniscience, their emanatings.

Think of the goodness of beings around you who inspire you. And feel that all that goodness in all of them is also coming from you, your goodness. Be happy about it.

Be happy those beings exist.

Be happy you admire them and aspire to be like them.

Be happy with your willingness to try.

Be happy with that longing in your heart to help the other.

It's so exquisite that we're here right now.

So now think of some special kindness you did recently.

However small, be happy with yourself that you had the ripening seeds to do that.

Be happy with the seeds you planted by doing that.

And then offer this deed and your being happy that you did it to one or more of those holy beings. See them happy with you.

Then offer them some material thing. See them enjoy it.

Then offer the effort you made in your meditation today.

And offer even your mental afflictions. Whatever upset you might've had, unkind judgment you might've been aware of, any disappointment, any expectation, offer that all to them.

Seems like a weird thing to offer but they are happy to take it from us. And feel yourself free of that habit, free of that mistake.

So we've just developed our longing for enlightenment, rejoiced in the good qualities of holy beings, and made offerings to them.

In doing so, we've planted some powerful goodness in our minds and while that planting is still fresh, we want to carefully dedicate it towards a certain result.

So review these last few minutes.

Take all those seeds planted. Think of the target you want to direct those seeds towards, getting to a single-pointed state of concentration so we can reach the platform to experience emptiness directly. And send those seeds of the last five minutes to that target like a dart.

Send the dart, it hits bullseye, leave it there.

Those seeds will grow.

So now bring your focus back to include your body in your room and being in this class. And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

Meditation homework for this week

Nice. So the effort for this week's meditation practice is that exploring what it takes to get your ability to focus on your breath to improve. We're theoretically tracking it so that, ‘oh my gosh, I can stay on my breath for three breaths’ or ‘until the first sound drops’. 

Let's see if we can make it four and try these different methods.

‘Do I just make it so huge that I can't think of anything else?’ Or ‘do I make me so tiny’, we didn't do that, ‘that I can't think’.

Try these different ways.

Or is it the love in your heart for the other person? ‘If I stay on my breath every minute, every instant I'm on that breath, they're getting happier’. Does it work?

Nothing in it that's gonna make it work which is why it can work. Then you do this one where our usual preliminaries, don't do them in the usual way. Try to do them by feel and then take those out off your cushion and try to do them by feel during your day as well.

Hatha Yoga Pradipika

(1:35:17) Master Kamalashila is preparing us to reach the platform from which we can see emptiness directly.

Lama Christie is showing us how the yoga tradition has a similar set us up for success process.

We talked about the yamas and niyamas. The yamas are the cleaning out stuff and the niyamas are the gathering goodness stuff.

They're called commitments, the things we commit to do. But the reason we're committing to do them is because they're good seed planting things.

Their tradition probably doesn't describe them like that but when you know our tradition then you see the reason for the things that other traditions have us do. And it's like, oh wow, they must've known, they just didn't teach it the same way.

The Niyamas

So they're called the niyamas and there's a list of them. So I am not a yoga person so I'm just parroting what Lama Christie taught me as they're pertinent to our tradition. So here are the niyamas:

Merit making activities from Hatha Yoga Pradipika to prepare our meditation basis for DPE

1. Tapa: self-imposed spiritual hardship

2. Santosha: contentment, be happy with what I get, with what’s happening (don’t wish it different)

3. Astikya: believe in higher things, interest in them, not faith!

4. Dana: giving, be generous with material things, time, effort

5. Ishwarapujana: to honor, worship the Lama (in person, in pictures..)

6. Siddhanta: intellectual studying specific views (of emptiness)

7. Vakya shravana: Attend spiritual teachings 

8. Hrimat: shame/humility, quality of mind we have when doing spiritual things/classes and be humble enough to receive (I don’t know much yet to stop suffering, please teach me)

9. Japa: recitation, mantra

10. Juta: fire offerings

1. Tapa: Spiritual Hardship

Tapa means spiritual hardship. Some of us have a vow that says 'I will avoid doing spiritual hardships for the sake of my practice' and it's because to think that we should harm ourselves in order to purify is a mistake.

We experience enough distress and suffering and pain that we don't have to inflict any on ourselves to purify faster. So it's not a goodness to inflict spiritual hardship on yourself.

This means, this tapa, does mean spiritual hardship but in the sense that deciding that a certain practice that would be hard for me to make as a priority, I will avoid doing because it's just plain difficult. So not taking on something that will hurt me or someone else.

But Lama Christie's example was, suppose you are a person who needs plenty of sleep and you're just not a morning person, then it would be taking on a spiritual hardship to decide, I'm going to meditate every day at 5 a.m. You would have to adjust what time you went to bed to be able to get enough sleep. So you're putting yourself out a little bit for the benefit of your practice. And there's a power in carrying that out.

She said, if you are someone who naturally gets up early in the morning, it's no spiritual hardship at all to say I'm going to meditate every day at 5 a.m. So that would not be your spiritual hardship, right?

It's a personally designed, ‘this would make me struggle a little bit, I would have to change somewhat in order to keep this commitment’.  Nobody's giving you this commitment, it's your own. We can imagine the right, the power of the goodness that if we give ourselves a commitment like that and then we keep it, it's like, wow, because mostly we don't do the things we don't really want to do. And so then to decide, ‘I'm going to make myself do that’, it's a powerful goodness. It's telling our ignorant mind, ‘no, you are not in charge here’. Whoever's saying that, I'm not quite sure.

Tapa - self self-imposed spiritual hardship, not hurting yourself, not hurting anybody else. 

2. Santosha: Contentment

Second one, Santosha. It means contentment. We had somewhere about needing very little and being happy with what we get. 

I think it has to do with the circumstances of retreat or deepening meditation, something like that.

So this Santosha is the being happy with whatever we get, to have this mind that's content with what's happening is a goodness, because ordinarily we're not content. That's one of the human sufferings. It's like no satisfaction.

So this is saying, no, no, whatever comes, it's exactly what it should be, I'll be happy with it. Well, maybe happy is going a little too far, I'll be content with it. I won't wish it was something else or need something else or be writing out notes, ‘please send me that other peanut butter’.

Being happy with what you get, content.

3. Astikya: belief in higher things

It means belief in higher things. In the sense of wanting to know higher things, interest in higher things.

It's not faith, Lama Christie pointed out. They have a word for faith, and it's not that.

So this is particular, this aspiration to not just intellectually know, but to reach higher.

4. Dana: Giving

Dana, we know Dana. Dana means giving, like the ‘perfection of giving’ giving. A way of gathering goodness is to be generous. Material things, time, effort, wisdom. Just out an outflowing sense, as opposed to taking in, taking in.

5. Ishwarapujana: honoring

Ishwarapujana means to honor or worship.

Ishwara means the Lord or master or guru. So to honor and worship the guru, whether it's one in the flesh or the statue or this ethereal being.

The sense of honoring and worship means we aspire to become like them. We honor them. We call upon their good qualities. We learn about them. Worship.

6. Siddhanta: Studying

Siddhanta means studying. Studying specific views.

Lama Christie said studying all the different views of emptiness. I'm not sure that the yoga tradition would call it that, but the study, the intellectual study is Siddhanta.

7. Vakya shravana: Attend spiritual teachings

Vakya shravana is the spiritual teachings in general. Attend spiritual teachings. Study and attend the spiritual teachings. All of this is about gathering goodness. So they all make sense in that way.

8. Hrimat: Modesty

This one, Hrimat. It means a sense of shame or modesty. And in English, it doesn't really quite come across. It's a quality of mind that we have when we're sitting in class or doing our study or doing our worship in which we are humble enough to receive.

Like we're modest, and shame in the sense of, ‘I don't know enough, I'm not capable yet, I can't make enough goodness to change my world yet’. But I can't quite get the right English word either, ‘humility’ is close to it. But it's the asking, the willingness to open up and receive. We want that state of mind when we are receiving a class.

If we've heard the class before, then the tendency when we hear it again is, yeah, I heard it before. Like even just subconsciously. And we don't have ourselves fully cracked open. And it's this word, what this word is trying to say. Have ourselves like really wide open and available to receive this information because we need it. We need it to be able to help that other one stop their suffering. That's the sense of Hrimat. I need this.

9. Japa: Recitation

Then Japa means recitation. So it's doing mantra. Vajra Japa, some of us have studied.

Mantra recitation, also a method of gathering goodness.

10. Juta: Fire Offerings

Juta is the fire offerings. We're familiar with the great big one that Diamond Mountain does. Takes you three whole days to finish it off if you do it by yourself. But here you can be doing little fire offerings. And in the yoga tradition, they do them frequently. Not great big ones necessarily, but small ones, but often. As a merit making activity. So we have that in our tradition as well.

So in the last class, I remember vaguely mentioning that the Yamas and the Niyamas together, they cover the first four of the six perfections.

The Dana is in there, the ethical living, avoiding the ten non-virtues is in the combination of the things that you clean out and these things that we gather to make merit.

Patience is also in what we clean out.

And then joyous effort is in there somewhere.

All of these, the Yamas and Niyamas are designed to clear out the obstacles and gather the goodness so that our meditative concentration can go deep enough in order to gain the realizations of this tradition.

So our tradition says we need to clean out the obstacles, gather the goodness so that our meditative concentration can go deep enough to reach Shamatha, so that our Shamatha level can be the platform from which we can turn our minds to the empty nature of whatever our object is and be able to hold there as we go into that absence.

If our mind is not trained in single-pointed concentration, it's not going to go there. It'll stay at the analysis, or it'll even stay at the conclusion intellectually, but it won't be able to penetrate into the absence because it'll fly off, because it's being threatened with absence.

So it takes goodness ripening at that time to be able to stay in that space and it not be scary because now you've got goodness ripening instead of not-goodness ripening.

So we build that all, they build it into the system of developing, so that when the circumstances are ripe, we have the staying power of our meditation to be able to go in.

Like the athlete who's trained and trained and trained and trained and then can sustain their maximum effort for their competition. Which may be for a sprinter, their competition is three minutes long, but they've trained hours and hours and hours so that they can function at max.

Our meditation will be the same. We do all this stuff off cushion and on cushion so that when competition comes.. it's not competition, of course, but when that high performance comes, which will be your direct perception of emptiness, it'll be no sweat because your seed planting has gone so sweetly.

So Kamalashila's purpose is by having us grow this bodhichitta in our hearts.. but now we know what he means by that even better, he says all this other stuff that the scriptures say you have to do this, this, this and this, we'll want to do all that stuff. And so it won't be a big effort.

‘Oh, it's so hard to keep my book’. ‘No, I want to do that!’. And then that goodness ripens as deepening meditation, and then that feels good. It's like, ‘great, I'll do more’, and we reach this effortless practice instead of straining, straining, straining practice.

It comes faster for some than others. We all have different past seeds. We all have similar seeds to hear this class, right? You're making it come out of my mouth, and you're all hearing it in ways unique to you. And it will influence all of us in ways unique to us. And may it all be fabulous.

But when we see how it works, it's like, ‘oh, my gosh, this system is so fail proof’. Which, you know, those of us that are like the slowest studies, it's like ‘fail proof for everybody but me’. But no, it's just dogged determination, we've heard Geshe Michael say that. Just go with the program like the donkey. Just keep at it. Keep at it. Keep at it. And, and.. right? Yes.

How will you know you're getting better unless you track it?

That's the purpose of the meditation journal. It's just to develop some method where you're telling your mind, ‘I'm paying attention, let's do this together’.

Then you rejoice in the feedback that you get.

Nobody else is going to look at your journal.

(class dedication)

Thank you so much.

Ngar

Mudra

Gomukha-asana

Virsana = hero pose

Padmasana = lotus pose

Siddhasana = master’s pose

Welcome back. We are Bok Jinpa, course 1, class 5. I would like to speak to the schedule coming up. I have in my notes that there'll be no class next week because people are traveling to Mexico City, etc. But I would like to have class the week after that, the 23rd, to do one more, and then we'll be off until September 3rd, so please make a note. I'll double-check the Zoom link if I need to send you a new one, I will before that, but you'll have a month to work on what you've learned so far. We'll just be a little bit short of finishing the whole class, I'm sorry I couldn't finish it before we took the break, but we will have enough that I think you can make good use of the time. And even if as a group you want to get together, if there's some way that I can facilitate that with my Zoom link, I'd be happy to do that. Or I don't know, you'll probably have that all worked out yourselves. If that would be helpful to keep everybody on track. It's hard to take time off and stay engaged. 

All right, so that said, let's gather our minds here as we usually do.

We'll do our opening prayers and then go into the first meditation that she gave us, which is basically the same as our opening prayers, so it'll be a little bit redundant, but that's okay. 

So settle yourself in 

and bring your attention to your breath as we usually do. (Silence pause)

Bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you. 

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light.  And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. (Silence pause)

Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. 

Recognize how all the worldly ways we try to help fall short.

How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. 

Deep down we know this is possible. 

Deep down we know this is what we are meant to become.

Learning karma and emptiness, we glimpse how it's possible, how it's even inevitable. 

And so I invite you to grow your wish into a longing, and that longing into an intention, and that intention into a determination.

And with that determination to learn and do what we need to do to help that other in that deep and ultimate way, we turn our minds to our precious holy being. 

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. 

And that's a great, great gift. 

And so we ask them, please, please teach me that. 

And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree. 

Our gratitude arises. 

We want to offer them something exquisite. 

And so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create. 

We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. 

Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. 

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Highest Community. Through the merit that I do share in this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Highest Community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being, 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Highest Community. Through  the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings realize their own total awakening for the benefit of every single other. 

Meditation on why we are meditating

So go back to settling your body. 

We haven't actually talked about the details of that yet, but you all know. 

Sink it down, rise it up, relax it. (Silence pause)

Once it's set, it's set. 

And bring your attention to your breath. A djusting that focus, drawing your attention from all the concerns of the outer world to focusing on that location at the tip of the nostrils, those sensations at that location. (Silence pause)

Now listen. 

When we sit down to meditate, we are intentionally withdrawing ourselves from our busy outside world for a period of time. 

Why in the world would you want to do that? 

Why is it important to you? 

How did you expect it to affect you? 

Have you yet experienced that which you had expected? (Silence pause)

Recall that our tradition teaches how to train our minds to be able to reach that platform called shamatha from which we can penetrate to the true nature of our experiences, of ourselves, so that we can come to experience truth, ultimate reality, at least once. Because we've been taught about what we mean by ultimate reality and the impact that will have on our own mind, our own heart. (Silence pause)

Recognize that the result of that understanding of ultimate reality is to know clearly that every experience is reflections of our own past behavior. 

We see the connection between our interactions with others and reality. 

So our goal in meditation is to penetrate more accurately into this marriage of how our behavior creates our circumstances. The marriage of karma and emptiness. 

How close have we gotten to that realization? 

What drives our efforts to reach it? 

What drives our daily motivation to try again, to get on our cushion every day?

Is it enough to do it for yourself? 

When we are in pain, not feeling well, probably you don't meditate. 

‘I don't feel up to it. I won't be able to do it anyway.’   

What level of discomfort, physical, emotional, busyness blocks your cushion time? 

Now think about that person whose suffering you are aware of. 

Recognize the worldly ways we try to help. Help maybe, maybe temporarily, maybe fully, but they go on to suffer in a different way. 

Why is that? 

Where does the pain, the distress they are in that we see come from? 

They and their pain is a reflection of my own mind, my own past behavior, my own suffering, and the actions I did to try to relieve it. 

So who must change in order to help that other stop their suffering? 

We can't change them anyway. 

All we can change is ourselves, and yet there's a part of ourselves that blocks us from making the change we even say we want to make. 

When we recognize my deep wish and intention to help that other in worldly and ultimate ways is the method through which I change me, which is how I come to see them free. 

So call up your understanding - that others' pain, their distress, is a reflection of my own mind, my own deeds. And so I can help, I will help, by cultivating these realizations that happen in deep meditation. So my meditation is on behalf of them, through me. 

So we'll stay two more minutes.

Clarify for yourself that long explanation, get it down to a short phrase. And then feel it as your underlying motivation for your meditation practice - that being, their pain, my projections, and so real, and so I can change them by way of changing me. 

Two minutes.  (Silence pause)

Nice. Now add this added dimension to the compassion that we feel for this other's suffering because it's actually so unnecessary, and dedicate this bit of goodness that we've done to helping them gain the realizations that they will use to stop their distress forever. 

And then become aware again of your body in your room and  you in class, 

And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. 

So before we were working on our compassion as our motivating factor to work through our meditation levels, and compassion is a wonderful emotion, and compassion with the component of emptiness and dependent origination is like “Bok Jinpa”, rocket fuel, because it's wonderful to have compassion: ‘I wish I could stop your suffering, and I'll wrap your ankle with an ace wrap, and give you the crutches’. But if I don't somehow help ultimately, something else will happen. And yet how do you help anybody ultimately who hasn't come to you and said, ‘will you teach me how to stop suffering?’ ‘Okay, great, now I have your attention’, but have you ever tried to teach somebody how to stop their suffering who hasn't asked you? According to our seeds, have we ever rejected somebody giving us advice we hadn't asked for? Yes, so it's no wonder that we can't just stand on the street corner and holler, ‘the pen thing, learn the pen thing, and you'll be happy’, and people would gather around us, right? But it could be, like karmically speaking, it could be. So Lama Christie is wanting us to really dig deep into our motivation for getting on our cushion because building a meditative training is hard if we don't have some strong sustainable intention to do so. Like we just don't have it in us naturally to learn something new and really master it if we're not interested in it. You hear the stories, right? Somebody grows up, the parents want you to become a lawyer, and ‘look at all the advantages of being a lawyer, you must become a lawyer’, and it's like, ‘I don't really want to be a lawyer, mom and dad, but’, right? The movies, they all do this. And then in the end, the person who's become a lawyer but is unhappy being a lawyer, they finally have to break free and they go do what their passion. And then they're more successful in their passion than they were as the lawyer and everybody lives happily ever after. It's the same idea. If we don't have some kind of passion for our meditation career, we're just going through the motions. And we've already said that if our passion is to relieve our own suffering.. maybe it wasn't this class we said that.. there's our me, our me that believes it's a me independently existing, that it maybe goes along with the ride, ‘okay, I'll meditate with you, okay, I'll meditate with you’, but guess what it does? ‘Okay, let's focus’ [then we go totally off focus]. Because it doesn't want us to recognize its true nature, because guess what its true nature is? It isn't. So to be self-motivated to do what we need to do to reach the depth of meditations we need to reach, the ‘I’ll do it for my own personal suffering’, it won't get us there. 

Now, you know, ‘yes, it does, it'll get us to nirvana’. Yeah, all right, but we're not nirvana intenders, right? We are all on the bodhisattva track, presumably, and it's not enough to be motivated for the end of our own suffering. It starts there. If we don't recognize that we're suffering and where it's really coming from, then no amount of somebody else's suffering is going to feel like we can do anything about it. 

So it starts with recognizing our own suffering, that's renunciation. And then, of course, we turn that renunciation on others. Then we use that as our urging factor to get ourselves on the cushion every day and to do the training that needs to happen on the cushion every day. 

Once we learn a new skill and we get pretty proficient at it, our habit is to say, ‘okay, that's good’ and then we just use it, skate along, but don't force ourselves to further train to get better and better at it. 

I mean, I don't know about pro athletes, whether they still train for three or four hours a day or if they just walk onto the court. I remember becoming a proficient volleyball player after hours and hours and hours and hours of training. But then I could not play for a couple of weeks at all and step onto the court and play just as well as I had when I was training, but only for a couple of times, and then it would deteriorate and I'd have to go back to train, train, train, train, train to get back up again. So meditation is really not any different. Any given meditation session is really like our skill training session for learning to play an instrument, to learning to dance, learning anything. You don't just walk onto the volleyball court and try to play, right? You'd serve, serve, serve, serve hundreds, thousands of times. You set, you bump, you train. Meditation is the same. Our daily sessions are training sessions. Well, when do you finally get to have the result? When do you finally get to play the game? It's like, yeah, well, I don't know, actually. Like there'll be a session where it's like something shifts and, ‘oh, now I'm playing. Now I'm really meditating’. Until then, I was doing my skills again and again and again. And you'll know when it happens. And it's quite pleasurable when it does. 

Not that we're not meditating at all until we get there, all of it's called meditation. So in order to do the training, training, training to get better, we need to know what the skills are and how we develop them and what the obstacles are and what we do about the obstacles. We've learned all of that before, we're just going to touch into it again to remind ourselves. And then we can learn all that stuff and go, ‘yeah, yeah’ and sit on our cushion and not use any of it. And then wonder, like, why is my meditation not getting any better? Like, why am I not any better at playing volleyball if I skip practice? You know, duh. But does what I do on this given day to train in my meditation skill affect my meditation in that day or even the next day or even the next day? It gets a little frustrating, right? It's like, when are these seeds going to kick in? And it's like, when they kick in, they kick in. 

So even as we're doing our meditative training skills, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, there need to be other factors that we're using to feed those meditative practice seeds that we're planting to get them to actually ripen. So past meditation effort ripens as today's meditation result. Today's meditation effort plants seeds for some future's meditation result.

Once we've got it going on, then every session actually does get better and better and better, with some exceptions where it's like, ‘whoa, that was a rotten day’. And then you don't have to beat yourself up. It's just okay, different seeds ripen, good they're out of there, and tomorrow it'll be better. 

So Master Kamalashila, he's setting us up for this whole process. He says, it's extraordinary to get that bodhisattva wish in our heart. ‘Oh, I really, really want to reach my total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. I really want to be a bodhisattva. I'm gonna be a bodhisattva’. 

He says that's extraordinary, rare, special, precious, amazing to have that feeling, those thoughts. And then he says, and when we step in to actually acting like a bodhisattva, like we determine, ‘I'm not just gonna wish, I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna behave in a way that is bodhisattva behavior’. ‘I'm gonna enter into that bodhisattva way of life’ is what we hear it told, said to be. He says that is beyond words extraordinary. Not meaning.. I mean, it does refer to the rareness of someone who steps into that way of life, but even if there were lots and lots and lots of us, for each one of us it would be exceptionally rare and special for this lifetime to be the lifetime where those instructions to be a bodhisattva and what it is to act as a bodhisattva caught our heart and broke something loose. And it's like, ‘oh my gosh, that's the answer, that's what I meant to do and I'm gonna do it’. Like that's so extraordinary and it is being projected. Nothing but projections is what it's called. But don't.. like I watch my mind, I hear ‘nothing but projections’ and it's like, ‘oh, so not really real’. And it's like, no, nothing but projections and so real, and so, so real that I can use it to color every seed I make actually. 

So that's where Kamalashila goes. He says, to decide I'm going to act like a bodhisattva, it sounds like I have my meditation time where I'm doing this other stuff motivated by my wish to help somebody stop their suffering. But then I have my actual activities side and this is where I'm out in my world and I'm doing, doing, doing. And we have those lists of the things that qualify as bodhisattva activities. The Six Perfections, the Four Immeasurables, the Four of How to Gather Students, other things. And it's like, ‘okay, as long as I'm doing one of those activities, I'm doing bodhisattva activity’, which would imply when I'm doing anything other than those activities, I'm not doing bodhisattva activities. And it's like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is there something in the activity that makes it a bodhisattva activity? Or is it something in my mind that makes it a bodhisattva activity? And if it's what's in my mind that's making a bodhisattva activity then why is it limited to just giving? Or am I limiting my idea of what giving is? We can give until we're blue in the face and not give anything with bodhichitta - the understanding of emptiness and karma and why we're really doing our giving in order to benefit the other ultimately by changing me. And all of that giving will bring about a future abundant world that ends. So it's not the giving that makes it a bodhisattva activity. It's the bodhisattva state of mind that's doing the giving that makes giving, giving. Which means you can make brushing your teeth a bodhisattva activity. You can make sweeping the floor, driving, anything, breathing. You can make anything a bodhisattva activity and it takes an intention to do so. It's a state of mind, a quality of heart that we have while we're doing the deed that makes the deed a bodhisattva deed. 

So really, if you think through your day, which we're going to do that in a minute. All the things we do in an ordinary day and then within those, ‘well, there was a bodhisattva thing I did, like one. And then all these other things. And there's a bodhisattva thing I did, two, with a different state of heart’. It's like, no, no, they're all bodhisattva things even if we're all by ourself all day, because of the state of mind, the state of heart we had as we are doing them. That takes training and that takes motivation to learn to turn on that state of mind until it becomes our natural state of mind, which it can. 

So when we are out in our world, trying to influence our outer world, the better we understand that the actual things we're doing, physical speech, even mental, they are not influencing our outer world. What they are influencing is our own mind world because what we see ourselves doing is planting seeds in our mind for the change that we want to see. So maybe we're teaching about non-violent conflict resolution to a group of people and we've got this really clear sequence of how to teach that to somebody. We've taught it to people before and they come away going, yeah, yeah, now I understand, I can do it. But what we actually taught them was not the true reason for why they come away going, ‘now I know how to non-violently resolve things’. It seems like our words affected them, but it can't work that fast, that what we did in the moment brought about the result that comes next. What we were doing is planting seeds in our mind that shift our mind. How fast can our mind shift? So it can very well look like I taught this program, they come away, they benefited from the program, and it looks like what I did in the moment is what made that happen. But what I did in the moment added to seeds that I had done in the past that brought about that result in the next moment. It's a minor detail, but it has to do with our expectation of what we're doing in the moment. Even as we're doing our giving with bodhichitta, we're still seeing ourselves give the little piece of bread to the bird, or let's call it a seed to the bird, because that's healthier for them than bread. I'm still seeing myself give them a little seed that they wouldn't otherwise have gotten. The extent to which we are aware that really what I'm doing is changing my mind in order to see this little bird get something to eat, to see this little bird become my teacher, to see this little bird as the angel that I'm offering to, at whatever level we're going to hold our karma and emptiness understanding is what's making the seeds that is what will be reflected in our experience in the future. 

So we're trying to choose behaviors that plant the seeds that will reflect a future experience that will be more pleasurable for everybody and that's what it is to enter into a bodhisattva activity. It's to be aware that whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it to plant seeds. Does that mean, okay, I can go into a group of people who are, I don't know, they disagree with me. And because I'm bodhisattva and I have this high intention, I can just read them the riot act and tell them how bad they are and how mean they are and how bad it's going to come back to them. And is that being a bodhisattva activity? I have emptiness and karma in my mind, but I'm willing to be mean and nasty. It's tricky, right? So easily misunderstood as you take this deeper and deeper because, ‘oh, nothing's but my projection, so it doesn't matter what I do as long as I'm motivated for everybody's happiness. I can be just as mean as I want’. Yeah, right. Watch how that comes back to you. 

So we dance this fine line. 

All that we've been learning, we have words that we can use to trigger our learning, like ‘bodhichitta’. It means a whole lot more now to you than when you first heard it, doesn't it? And so when you think ‘bodhichitta’, it's just loaded and you don't have to think of all the details specifically, you've packed it into ‘bodhichitta’. So maybe the word ‘projection’ is the same for you, now it means a whole lot more, or maybe ‘mental seeds’. But keep intentionally packing these simple words, simple phrases, so that in life as we're doing anything, we just need a simple word or a phrase running in our mind to be included in the imprint as we're doing the dishes for the dishes to become a bodhisattva activity, a cause for my Buddhahood, a cause for the end of suffering for everybody, by just doing the dishes. Triggered by just having this one phrase or word rattling around in my mind as I'm doing the dishes. I mean, that alone is hard enough. You start doing the dishes and you're on automatic pilot, ‘this is how you do the dishes’ and it's like, by the time you're done.. I'm done. I'm talking about me.. by the time I'm done, it's like, ‘oh, I did all that with bodhichitta. Not.’ Because it didn't occur to me until after I was finished, ‘Oh, bodhichitta’. So it's the training off the cushion that reveals to us what we're going to face on the cushion. And then what we see in our outer world, like these recurring themes of things that we struggle with, that it's like, how do you take the recurring ‘everybody's yelling at me all the time’ and how disturbing that becomes, and then take that onto our meditation cushion and recognize that whatever that pattern is that underlies that, ‘they're all yelling at me all the time’ is also going to disturb our meditation. It's like there's some quality of our mind, our reactive behavior, that's triggering that surface ‘they're yelling at me all the time’. We use our karmic correlations to kind of figure out ideas, but mostly in our meditation, we watch for the things that distract us. And then when we recognize this pattern to what distracts us, outside of your session you might be able to connect the dot. It's like, ‘oh, my gosh, underlying all that yelling is like me really being unreliable. I say I'm going to do something and I do get around to it eventually, but I keep everybody waiting and that annoys them and then I sit down into my meditation and my mind just won't cooperate. It's [my mind is] like, I'll do this later. Because that's my pattern’. We recognize those things by watching what kinds of things pull our mind off our object. And until we get in and try it on for size, it's like, ‘I don't really get what she's saying’. Right. I heard Lama Christie's.. all these classes in meditation, it's like, ‘what is she talking about’. Until you get into enough meditation, [and then] it's like, oh, I see. I see. I see. 

So intention is really what makes any deed ordinary deed or bodhisattva deed or angel deed. And then, as I said before, it gets a little bit dangerous because it's like I can have this good intention underneath my being nasty. And it's like, actually, you're missing something here. There's some link gone wrong if our intention allows us to do something harmful because it'll just come back as something unpleasant from somebody with a good intention. How nice is that? So she gave us another meditation at this point. 

Let's take our break first and then we'll do it. 

[Student: Lama, I have a question.]

Yes. 

[Student: I haven't had one in a long time. We talk about the practice in one way of doing whatever it is, like doing the dishes, as part of the practice. But then the main practice is like sitting in meditation, purification, all those kind of activities. But don't you actually do it when you're observing your practice as well? So like if I'm doing dishes, I'm observing my observation of doing dishes. So that could all like... The intention can continuously be in all times without doing the main practices if I'm observing them. So walk around, drink coffee, having that like internal thoughts. So why would the practices of the meditation would be more than my every time movement breath that I'm observing and thinking this? Why would the meditation be like more in that practice? Why would that be like higher? Because... Less time, you know, technically in the day, doing it.]

Right, right. Because it's only in that state of mind where your awareness is withdrawn from the outer world that we can penetrate into that ultimate reality, the empty nature. We can see the seed ripening outside of meditation, but to be able to experience the absence of self-nature, that requires a mind that has gotten free of the subject / object distinction between things. And that can only happen in a deep meditation. So all our practice time out of meditation time is gathering the goodness to be able to ripen the extraordinary goodness of direct perception of emptiness or even high intellectual understanding of emptiness that happens in meditation. 

So the outer factors feed, by way of their virtue, that progress. And then that progress feeds our ability to carry that wisdom into our daily practice, which increases the power of those goodnesses. So it becomes this upward spiral. But the meditation is called more powerful because it's the arena within which the ultimate reality can appear to us. 

[Student: But then I'll get most likely experience emptiness outside of meditation.]

No, you won't. Emptiness directly is only in meditation ever. Or dead.

[Student: I thought you said last time we talked about it, I thought you said that it can happen at any moment.]

No, that the direct perception of dependent origination will happen and then you go,’ Oh, that's my way’, run and sit on your meditation cushion. 

[Student: Oh, I see. Okay.]

So in that term, it can happen at any moment. But still in meditation.

[Student: Okay, so I have to sharpen my spidey sense and on both sides. So when it happens, I can be real quick and catch it.]

Right. Right. 

[Student: Thank you.] 

Good. Are we back? 

So Tom did a Subhuti question that the answer to the question was what we do in our non-meditating time is gathering the goodness, gathering good karma, merit. And that merit helps us have good results on our meditation cushion, which we actually are using up. Planting more too, but different. So we have this outside of meditation time is longer than inside meditation time. So our whole systems are built such that we need more time planting goodness than we do meditating because we need all that goodness. And then as we don't need so much goodness, I predict your meditation times will get longer and deeper. And maybe it even goes to where you can't really tell the difference between your meditation time and you're out of meditation time. 

And in retreat, it kind of gets like that. I don't experience that so much not in retreat, but it could be. You could have that mental state of always bodhichitta, always clearly directing our mind to a single-pointed concentration. That's not the goal to be like that in our outer world, except when you need to. Like if you can learn how to turn on single-pointed concentration on anything you want on your meditation cushion, you can do it outside your meditation cushion too. It makes you really effective in your outer world because you are zoomed in on what you need to achieve and you do it. Not much wasted time if our minds are not going [all over the place]. 

Meditation on what it is like to be a bodhisattva

All right. So let's do Lama Christie's second sit for this class. 

So settle your body. 

Park it still. 

Bring your attention to your breath so you feel that draw in. (Silence pause)

Recall the reason why you're here. 

Because others' suffering is a reflection of my own mind's past deeds. 

I can help them by growing my wisdom, love, compassion. (Silence pause) 

So get that feeling in your heart, that you're listening and doing what I say for the benefit of that other, the ultimate benefit of that other. So you're eager and curious. (Silence pause)

Now think through an ordinary day from when you wake up through your day. All those little activities that you do, make a mental list. (Silence pause)

Now, according to scripture definition of Bodhisattva activities, six perfections, four limitless, gathering students, how many of those deeds in your usual day qualify as bodhisattva activity? (Silence pause)

Now think about the ones that didn't seem to qualify. 

And what would it take to do them differently? 

To make them Bodhisattva Activities. (Silence pause)

Now think, what's it like to be a bodhisattva? 

To have that constant wish in your heart, that constant knowing ‘projections and nothing but. I'm planting seeds’. Imagine you full-on bodhisattva. 

And now go through your day. (Silence pause)

Let's sit for three minutes. 

Put yourself in various situations. 

And see / feel being the bodhisattva. 

The state of mind, the feeling, the choice of behavior. (Silence pause)

(check, have you gotten distracted?)

Nice, now make a mental note of how that felt. 

Make a mental note that that really can be you. 

And dedicate to seeing a change in that other person. 

Some relief in their distress because of the change in you. 

And then be aware of your you, this body in your room. 

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. 

Did you get a glimpse? Yeah, feels nice. 

So Lama Christie pulled out a First Panchen Lama Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen text. Not the whole thing, but parts of it for our reading here, in order to remind us of the standard training in meditation, learning meditation, which is that training in the Eight Obstacles and the Five Antidotes with the poster.. I think it was Trijang Rinpoche that wrote it with the elephant and the monkey and doing all this. And we all got introduced to that poster. I never really quite related to it much, but it's like we all know the poster, we understand the stages, but do we really practice them? Last January, we did that really fun, beautiful retreat in Mexico where we were exploring those different stages. And until we get in there and experience them, it's just words. And then we use the words and try to feel it and then try to match our feeling to the words and we don't really understand until we get to level seven, what level seven is. And so it's very difficult to hear teachings and go, ‘okay, I can do that’, because we probably can't. 

So we hear it again. She didn't go through all the details, just touched on some factors that we can remember. So we remember the first obstacle to meditation. Everybody knows the word, Le-Lo. It means laziness, but it's like lazy is not quite the right word because it really means ‘just not today’. You know, ‘I don't feel like it, I don't feel good enough. I've got extra things going on. I just can't do it. My schedule’. We have some other excuses. Something else is more important. That's really the meaning of Le-Lo. It's not a priority enough for us to do it, despite these other factors. When we have something that's really important to us we do it whether we feel good or not, whether it's convenient or not. When we have passion for something, when we know it's important whether we have passion or not, when it's meaningful, all those other factors don't get in the way. We have that capacity. Think back in your life when you used that capacity and did seem to get a good result because that would be a rejoicable. And all the pieces that went into that, whatever it is, your analogy is, they will apply to meditation as well. 

I've told you this story, my high school girls volleyball team, brand new women's sports in our high school. ‘Let's put together a volleyball team’. ‘What's volleyball?’ And then the Olympic team, Korea and the United States, came to Culver City and did a demonstration match. And we, these 14 year olds, our eyes are like this. ‘Wow, we could do that?’ ‘Yeah!’ And we were terrible for a whole year. Terrible for a whole year. But we had this coach that just, ‘do the skills, do the skills, help the other person do the skills’. One day a month, we'd go play in tournament play. And you'd play 8, 10, 12, 15 games. We lost every single one for a year. And the other teams would say, you girls are the most fun team to beat because we would go, ‘wow, that was so great’ to the other team. And when we made a mistake, it's like, ‘it's okay, we can do better’. We were so fun to play with. And of course, what happened the second year? We took our league. And what happened to the third year? We took league and we took tournament play. We got really good really fast. And we did work hard to do it, but we had this passion, this drive. Two / three hours a day we worked out in order to play one match a week that lasted an hour. So we work much harder at our training than we do at our competition. And we've heard that. We sit, sit, sit, sit so that eventually 20 minutes in the direct perception of emptiness, we can sustain that level. And then we sit, sit, sit some more in order to sustain 20 minutes more sometime later, maybe not even in that lifetime, depending. So to get over laziness, we need some powerful motivation, but motivation that verges on passion. Fascination. Determination. Geshehla says, in high school, you have this infatuation with a boy and it's all you can think about, all you want to do is meet them. Like that to our meditation. Like the girls volleyball team playing volleyball, actually playing well. So you all have your own thing that you learn to do that you got good at. Think about that and then feel the stages that you went through. There were days, ‘oh, I don't really want to do this, but training is at 2:00. I'm committed to training, I don't want to go. Go’. You go. You do it. You do it anyway. Because of our devotion, because of our.. Find the word. Because you'll have bad days and our tendency will be to, ‘ugh, I give up’. 

And Lama Christie even said that in her three-year retreat, you know, it's three years, three months, three days, that she hit a wall at the end of their last long retreat. They had three months left that you do a little bit here and a little bit there. And she said at the end of her three years, her karma for deep meditation just wore out and she couldn't reach shamatha anymore. Her last three months, she said, was a waste of time because she just lost it. And it was distressing and disturbing. But she realized that it's because she knew it was time to come out of retreat, and she knew that what happens going out of retreat is that then you go and gather enough goodness for your meditation to go in and even deeper than what it did before. But she recognized that in that three years of deep, amazing, extraordinary meditative experiences for hours, twelve, sixteen hours a day of meditation, reverse of usual life, she saw it's time to get out into the outer world. And then her method was to teach. She went with Geshehla, etcetera, in order to build the goodness back again. 

So it's like we'll have bad days, we'll have bad stretches. If Lama Christie can have a bad stretch, we can have a bad stretch. And then the task isn't to bear down, work hard, be hard on myself, on my cushion. It's to go out into the outer world and gather more goodness. Not give up on cushion time. You’ve still got to sit, we have our commitments. But the focus goes to the outer life to gather the goodness, to have that mindfulness of why I'm doing what I'm doing so that I can plant my seeds, so my meditation can improve again. So whether we hit a wall with our meditation or we're just learning, there's this balance between what we do on our outer time to what happens on our cushion time. So as we are on our cushion time, the first task is to keep our mind on the object and we think, oh, no sweat. But have you watched how hard it is even now after all this effort to really park our mind on the breath and really stay there? Have you noticed then when we do the counting, which, you know, I don't emphasize, but ordinarily we do count to 10. And even if you're doing, ‘yeah, I can get to seven or eight’, if you're really watching, it's like, ‘no, I don't get to two’. It's like I'm counting, but I'm not actually paying attention to the breath, I'm watching my counting. Well, that's not on the breath at all so your counting doesn't count; start again. It's difficult. Only because our karmic seeds are planted in such a way that it's like we need to stay safe by being aware of everything going on around us. Which is why your meditation place needs to be a safe place so that you can allow that part of our function to turn off. ‘Okay, for right now, I don't have to be aware of all that other stuff. I really can come inside because it's safe here.’

So the first thing that we need to be able to learn to do is to notice whether we are actually on the object or not. And that's a step that we have to experience and it can take a long time to recognize that that's a step: am I on or off my object? Our tradition says don't use the breath as your meditation object because it's not a virtuous object. But it's an object that's there constantly and so it really is an object that we can focus on and be able to recognize whether we're on it or not on it, because it's never not there to blame. You could be focusing on your back pain and then for an instant the back pain is gone, and you don't know what to do with that. But there's always a sensation of breath going until it goes into the pause, different story. But then our focus stays on the pause because that's still a part of the breath. So our task at first is when they say put your focus of attention on your breath, can you recognize whether you're on it or off it? And then it's not black or white ‘I'm on’ [or] ‘I'm off’. It's like ‘I'm on, but there's this going on’ or ‘I'm on, but there's like this flat disinterest’ or ‘I'm on and I'm struggling to stay on, in any minute it's going to go and run off’. All these different qualities of this attention that we're learning to recognize and that we learn to recognize if we let that go on where it's going to lead to. So the mind that's on the object but really doesn't want to be there, as soon as there's something else that pops up, it goes [off] because it doesn't really want to be where it's at. There's some kind of attraction. When we find ourselves off the object, it's because our minds been attracted to something else. But it's only attracted to something else because that something else was more interesting than the object. And the other is only more interesting than the object because we don't have our intention set strongly enough, or our belief that using the breath will actually help us draw in. Personally, I don't find the breath helps me pull in. But it's the tradition and this is why I teach it too, but I don't frankly use it. Nonetheless, it's like we need this stronger motivation to go inwards than our standard motivation, which is to stay outwards. So we crank up the motivation, get on this boring object of the breath, and tell our mind to stay there when it's like saying, ‘this is so boring, this isn't going to help anybody, there's other things I should be doing, I'm more effective..’ So when the bird sings, it's like off to the bird because we don't have our motivation strong, do you see? So we can sit there and go crank it back, crank it back, crank it back. And it won't do any good if we don't go, ‘hey, you, like what's more important here? Listening to the bird or getting in deep?’ And really, we need to have this sternness with ourself if we truly want to make the progress we want to make. It's like training a puppy dog. Our current mind is like an eight week old puppy and we want that puppy to become a service dog. So highly trained. It takes loving, compassionate attention, constant consistent correction, direction, cajoling, rewarding, but consistent. Consistent and diligent to train the puppy dog. And the dog grows up to be a really happy dog because it knows what you want from it and there's no mixed messages. It's doing its job when it has its vest on and when it doesn't have its vest on, it gets to play and it's this really effective puppy dog. That's what we're doing with our mind. But it takes diligent, regular, compassionate skills, skill set. 

Once we notice we're off the object, then we pull it back. That's the puppy training. ‘Oh, mind, come back. If you stay on this object, I'll give you a cup of tea when we're done’. [Mind says,] ‘okay, I'll come back.’ Right? Whatever you have to do to get it back. And then our task of the one who's noticing that it's off the object is to get more subtle in your noticing of when it's going to go off the object. 

So Lama Christie would teach, get on your object and then intentionally let yourself go off and watch it while it's happening so that you can notice the off the object, the middle of going off the object, the beginning of going off the object. And when you become aware of what the mind feels like when it begins to go off the object, then that's where you're rewarding the puppy dog. ‘Wait, wait, no, no, come back. No, no, come back. No, no, come back’. It gets more and more subtle until you don't have to be doing the ‘no, no, come back’ anymore. That's called Dren-pa. Our Dren-pa is complete. Our recollection is complete. We've got the puppy dog, ‘sit, stay’ and it does until the timer goes off. Once we're there, we still have the problem of the mind getting dull and the mind getting agitated, are the two words. We don't even bother with dullness or agitation until we can stay on the object long enough to recognize those two. Now the reason we can't stay on the object in the first place, sometimes, is because we go into the meditation with a dull, foggy, stupid state of mind so it can't stay on the object even if it wants to. Or we go into our meditation with this ‘I've got six meetings and [busyness]’ kind of mind and then again, it can't stay on the object even if it wants to because it's already too restless or our body is too restless. If the body won't stay put and sit still, the mind's not going to cooperate either. It can't because every time we move or scratch or itch, our attention has to go there to do that and we've lost our object. 

So there is dullness and agitation, even when we're not on the object. But that doesn't qualify as what we mean by the dullness and agitation that we're trying to adjust to move through the levels or the stages of meditation. So once we are on the object long enough, we can recognize dullness and agitation, but there are different levels of dullness and agitation, as we know. There's gross dullness, subtle dullness, gross agitation and subtle agitation. And Lama Christie says there's an even grosser gross dullness than gross dullness and an even grosser agitation than gross agitation. And they're called fogginess for dullness and restlessness for agitation. So even though we're on the object, the gross gross dullness is fogginess, which is this you're on the object, but just the mind is heavy and sloppy and foggy as a grayed out. Not the visual is grayed out, but the feeling is grayed out, like brain fog. You can be on your object and have brain fog. And we want to notice it and correct it if we can. Then the gross gross agitation is restlessness, where even if we're on the object, it's like just barely. We're holding the object in mind, but you can feel the mind's just like waiting for something to allow it to jump off. It's pretty uncomfortable, this bad, this rough, rough restlessness.

The instructions for gross gross dullness and etc. is always just brighten up for dullness, just calm it down for agitation. And it's like, did you ever find that very helpful? ‘Just brighten it up’. If I could, I would. And so then they say, well, you know, for dullness, any level of dullness, make your object of meditation brighter to brighten your mind. So your breath is your object, make the sensation of your breath be strings of light and it'll brighten the dullness. If it's all agitated and you're having to really work hard, then somehow without also losing the object, you think of some downer thing, you could think of the suffering of the other person. ‘But that's off the object’. It's like sometimes these teachings, it's like, ‘wait a minute, that's inconsistent’. When you have gross gross fogginess, when you have restlessness, they say it really does take stopping your object, turning your mind to something joyful, something rejoicable in order to brighten up. And to think of something samsara-ish, like a death or impermanence or somebody suffering, to bring down the restlessness for when we are at those gross ends. When we're on our object and we have the gross dullness and gross agitation, then we don't want to lose our object in order to fix the dullness or agitation except for a last ditch effort, because we're on our object finally, which is why we can have dullness or agitation with it. You don't want to solve the problem by leaving your object. So you stay on the object and you brighten it up in some way. Put it into the sky or turn lights on it, something in your imagination to brighten your mind. If that doesn't work in the end, you can say, ‘okay, I‘ve got to set that aside and I need to go to a rejoicing practice to uplift me’. And if that doesn't work, just timeout your session, go splash water in your face, have a cup of tea, whatever you need to wake up and then try again. But the last ditch effort is to come off the object or off the cushion. 

For agitation, we do this reverse, the opposite of that, something that will calm the mind down, but without losing the object if we can. So then when we get to subtle dullness, subtle agitation, the subtle dullness is difficult to recognize we’re at because we're on the object. We have a bright, clear mind on the object but what we're missing is that component we know as NGAR, the intensity, the fascination, the curiosity, the passion. Find the word for your NGAR so that you can recognize whether it's there or not. To be on the object with clarity, but no NGAR is subtle dullness. Most of my meditations, I realize, are subtle dull and they feel good so it's tricky to find this subtle dullness piece until we're there for a while enough to recognize, ‘oh, that's what she meant’. So we find some analogy that you can use through which you can explain to yourself what that must be like, that NGAR. We did it in that meditation retreat, remember? 

So then for subtle agitation, they describe that as being like a river whose surface is frozen, but the river is still flowing underneath it. So we're on our meditation object, we’re bright and clear with the meditation object. We might even have NGAR on the meditation object. That's our mind as the frozen ice, frozen on the object. But underneath, there's still this movement happening. There's some kind of sensation where we're on there, we're intense, we're passionate about it, but underneath there's this urge.. urge isn't the right word.. impulse to go off. The impulse to think of something more, something more about the object, an impulse of movement. And that impulse will build until it pushes us off. The subtle dullness without the NGAR will slip until we lose the object from the dull side. So our corrections still need to be happening. 

What's the level of my.. am I on or off the object? Bright? Level of brightness, level of intensity. Within those two - dullness, agitation, dullness, agitation. What's the feeling going on under there? And when I notice it, let it go. There really isn’t anything else to do but to be aware, ‘oh, my mind's getting ready to go off something’, increase our intention, our love, our focus, our motivation to hold us on. 

The circle is that we're making these adjustments. We over adjust for agitation and we slide into dullness. We brighten up our dullness and we overdo it into agitation. And the pendulum swings back and forth and as that pendulum swings back and forth, we are moving through those stages five, six, seven of meditation, those levels of meditation. 

A shift happens from seven to eight, another shift from eight to nine. But it's the same process of learning to be so keenly alert 'dull or agitated', 'dull or agitated' that's going to also affect our quality of awareness / mindfulness off our cushion as well. If we're getting more and more keenly aware of when I'm agitated, we'll be more keenly aware of when I'm agitated off-cushion as well. Agitation off-cushion leads to some mental affliction, we're going to fly off the handle. Dullness leads to some other kind of mental affliction, we're going to fly off the handle. To be aware of them allows us to not react from them, to choose something else. So our cushion time will benefit our off-cushion time. And then our off-cushion time, seed planting, kindness, goodness will feed our on-cushion time and we step onto this upward spiral that probably all of you are already on. 

Lama Christie said for this class, she wants us to do 15 minutes of focus on our breath. Like only breath for 15 minutes. We haven't been doing that up to now. It's only temporary. Start it with this understanding that I'm not focusing on my breath because it's a powerful karmic object. I'm doing it because I'm using it to train myself in my meditation so that I can help that other in that deep and ultimate way by changing me. So now, done with bodhicitta, a breath meditation is a powerful karmic object meditation. We're not going to stay there for long. But for this week, have half of your meditation time be seriously trying to focus on your breath. 

Meditation level one - find the breath. 

Two - stay on the breath for a couple of seconds at a time. 

Three - stay on your breath for two minutes at a time. 

Breath to the exclusion of all else. 

Try it, be honest. 

Do we ever get to actually on the breath without like full on breath and nothing else for 15 whole minutes? Try it and see and track. Track and see. 

‘First day - on it, two seconds at a time, 35 times. The rest of the time, I couldn't even find it’. 

Next day, ‘oh, a little better’. Be honest, not guilt, not ‘I'm bad’. Just honest looking. 

Then the other 15 minutes, do the go through your day, ordinary-me day, bodhisattva-me day.

Spend more time in the bodhisattva-me day version of it. 

And then notice what your day goes like. 

See if it's not a little bit more fun. 

All right, I have nine minutes to go through the Hatha Yoga Pradipika part of this class, which has to do with the different physical postures you can use for sitting in meditation. So when we sit our body in meditation, we're making our body into a mudra, a physical representation of an energetic something that we want to create for our world. And the position we put our body in does something to our subtle body and the energy of our subtle body that will contribute to or distract from the ability of our meditation focus to go as deep as we want it to go. 

So different postures help in different ways and our task is to learn the one that seems to suit you best. And to learn that there are others that you might want to try on for size sometime to see if there aren't some circumstances where this other one would help you. So if you're familiar with yoga asanas, you've already experienced some of this, how this position of my body makes things flow differently, affects my mind differently. Sitting in our meditation posture is similar. 

There are multiple options for meditation posture.

One is called Gomukha-asana. It means cow face pose. I can't show you, so we have to pretend that my arms are my legs. And I'll do the best I can here. Cow face pose is, you put one foot around to your opposite hip. Here's my hips and the other one goes like this. So these are your knees sticking out in front. [Elbows = knees in image]

Your feet are out like upside down to the back. So your ankles need to be able to go pretty flat. They're kind of stuck out to the side. 

It's the cow's ears. And you're sitting down. You can have a cushion on your bottom if you want. It helps to have a cushion I found. But it's a very comfortable, solid position. Your thighs are on the ground, your knees are on the ground, your feet are sticking out, and your pelvis is upright, as we want it. Other people, their knees can't do this. So you just have to try it and see. Cow face pose it's called. 

Another one is called Virasana, Hero's pose. And if I have this correct, this one, you have your, I can't do it with my elbows. You're sitting on a big pillow or a bench and your knees are bent behind you, so your shins are on the ground. Your ankles need to be able to bend flat because the ground's going to be here so they're tucked in underneath you. Your bottom is up on a cushion or a bench that allows your legs to go past your hips so you're supported. It tends to be the one that Zen teaches to sit, it's like Japanese style. So your knees should be as close together as possible, depending on the size of your cushion and your legs are going behind you. But your weight is on your cushion, not on your legs or it'll strain your knees. So that's called a hero pose. It has different advantages. 

Padmasana, we know it is Lotus pose. With lotus pose, some traditions say put your right foot up first, then your left. Tibetan tradition says put your left foot up, then your right. Unless you have a problem with dullness, then you switch it. And unless you have a problem with whatever, you switch it. I don't know. The thing with lotus is your hip is way open, your knees are bent, the soles of your feet are actually turned up and your foot is resting on top of your thigh up close to your hip. 

And then the other one does the same thing.

So it takes really flexible hip and buttock muscles and healthy knees to be able to get this position. For me, the pressure of my foot on the bone of my thigh was intolerable. I could do the position, but it's like, ‘ugh, this is painful on my bones’, so I quit trying. The advantage of lotus is how it locks your spine and hips in place, and how by putting yourself in this position, it automatically shoots the winds of the two side channels towards the center. 

So they say it really is the optimum meditation posture, but not if your knees are going to start hurting and not if you're going to damage your knees, back, or hips by trying to do it. So some people are just naturally easily flexible and, ‘oh, lotus, no sweat’. Great, do it. For the rest of us, try half lotus, one leg up and the other one is tucked in close to the perineum. The other one's up.

That also can like do half worth of lotus. I personally find it makes me off balance. Mostly when you have a lotus, you don't need a meditation cushion which is another benefit of lotus. Some people still use a cushion, that's okay. All right, so lotus. 

Then Siddhasana is Master's pose. This one, I can't really show you, but if this is my heel [base of palm]

and this is my perineum, where where your legs come together, there's the vaginal opening and the anus. You tuck your one heel right up into the perineum. So for women, you put your heel into the opening of the vagina. And then you take your other heel and you put it on top. So technically it would be touching right below the clitoris, if you've got them tucked in there in that way. For men, the heel goes into that space between the anus and the scrotum and then the other one rests down on top of the penis because the penis and scrotum is going to be in between the two. So how you don't squish those, I don't know. But one on top of the other, and then you need your cushion such that when you've got those tucked in there, you don’t have the weight on them, you have the weight on the thighs. So your bottom has to be up high enough to tilt you forward so your weight is on these thighs, not on your heels. So that one takes adjustment of your cushion size. So usually we put ourselves on a cushion, we tuck one heel in, the other heel in, that's good enough. But if we want these positions that will actually work with our subtle body without us even trying, we pick one of these and work with it, and then it becomes our most comfortable position that maybe you even use when you're sitting on the couch watching a movie because it just feels so good. You're locked in place, your spine is up, helps you stay bright and alert as opposed to when we sit in a chair and we start to [slump], our legs go out, our back curves, we get [slouched] and then that gets locked into place and gravity takes over and it's all downhill from there. 

All right, enough. 

So I won't see you next week, but I'll see you the week after that. Okay. 

So remember that being that we wanted to be able to help.

Everything we heard tonight, we heard with that motivation. 

And so we've actually set the end of their suffering into motion, rippling out. 

And that's a great, great goodness. 

So please be happy with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands. 

Recall your own precious holy being. 

See how happy they are with you. 

See how happy they are with you. 

Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. 

Ask them to please, please stay close. 

To continue to guide you, help you, support you. 

And then offer them this gemstone of goodness. 

See them accept it and bless it.

And they carry it with them right back into your heart. 

See them there, feel them there. 

Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. 

It feels so good. 

We want to keep it forever and so we know to share it.

By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. 

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. 

Everywhere, not leaving a single one out. 

See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. 

And may it be so. All right. 

So thank you very much. 

Thank you for the extra minutes. 

Yama

Niyama

Asana

Pranayama

Pratyahara

All right, welcome back everyone. We are Bok Jinpa course one, working on class six. This is July 23rd 2025. Let's do our usual opening prayers and then our first class sit together. 

So bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again, please. (Silence pause) 

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you. 

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiating from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. 

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. Recognize that the worldly ways we try fall short.

How wonderful it will be when we can also help in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. 

Deep down we know this is possible. 

Deep down we know this is what we are meant to become. 

Learning about karma and emptiness we glimpse how it's possible. 

And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing, and that longing into an intention, and that intention even to a determination. 

And with that state of heart, turn your mind back to your precious holy being. 

We know they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. 

And so we ask them, please, please, please teach me, show me, guide me, push me. 

And they're so happy that we've asked of course they agree.

Our gratitude arises. 

We want to offer them something exquisite and so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. 

Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. 

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through  the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings awaken for the benefit of every single other. 

Meditation on Pranayama

So settle your body in. Find that upright spine, sit bones pushing down a little bit to feel that strong foundation support. Sending the energy rising up which lifts your upper body, sternum rises, chin tucks, crown rises. Then scan down the outside inviting all that tension to drain away, release out from around your eyes, up from around your jaws, out from your shoulders, just drains away. Nice wave of relaxation. 

And then again follow an inner energy upwards to correct any slump that might have happened from the relaxation and bring your attention to your breath. (Silence pause) 

Recall your motivation - that other person's suffering. I'm doing this for them because they can't or won't. 

Now zoom that focus into the object - breath. 

For this practice, wherever you feel your breath sensations the most prominently, that's where you park your focus of attention. 

Get it clear - the location, the sensations, that is your object of focus. 

Adjust your clarity and do what you need to do to turn on the intensity, fascination, curiosity. (Silence pause)

Notice the distinction between out-breath and in-breath. 

For this practice, add the component of somehow measuring the length of that out-breath. 

If you are aware of your heartbeat, you can use that. How many heartbeats does each exhale take? 

First just watching, noticing. 

If you don't feel your heartbeat, you can mentally count like a metronome, but keep it the same tempo. 

I'm going to assume you're doing it by heartbeat. (Silence pause)

Next, whatever heartbeat count the exhale requires, make your inhale take the same amount of heartbeat counts. 

First, just watch to see if it does so naturally. 

If they don't match, adjust the inhale ever so gently to match the exhale in a relaxed, playful, exploring way. (Silence pause)

Next, whatever number of heartbeats your exhales take, coax that exhale to take one more heartbeat. So a little slower, a little finer, a little longer, and match the inhale to that new number. 

Gently, comfortably ……. stay at this new number. (Silence pause)

Now see if that exhale will lengthen a little more, one more heartbeat. 

Inhale matching. 

The quality of our breath reflects the state of our mind. (Silence pause)

Now, we'll shift to another version.

Stop paying attention to the heartbeat and length of that breath. 

Still nice, long, fine, gentle exhale with matching inhale. 

Now, with each exhale, you are exhaling some quality about yourself that you don't like so much. Some habit, some belief, some mental affliction. Choose one, and with every exhale, long, slow, gentle, easy, out goes that negativity, disappearing into outer space. (Silence pause)

Now, add that on the inhale, your precious holy being is sending blessings into you. The blessings of the ability to do or be the opposite of that negativity that you're clearing out of yourself. 

So out goes the negative and in comes the blessing. Riding on the breath. (Silence pause)

Fine-tune this practice by exhaling those negativities out your right nostril and inhaling the Lama's blessings through your left nostril, simply by your concentration. (Silence pause)

We'll stay two more minutes. 

Check your focus, check your clarity, check your intensity. Make any adjustments, and then yuck out the right, blessings in the left. (Silence pause)

Nice. All motivated to become one who can help that other in that deep and ultimate way, to become one made of love. 

So make a note of what that session was like and dedicate to future meditation sessions bringing on the realizations we need to help that other. And then become aware of yourself in your body, your body in your room, and when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. 

So that was different. 

Lama Christie shared with us this kind of practice, which is a pranayama. Those who are in the yoga tradition recognize that. It's more familiar, probably, to you than those of us in the Tibetan meditation tradition. In the yoga tradition, as I've been taught, while you are doing your asanas, your instructor instructs you on how to use your breath to deepen into the asanas. And so they're helping us tag our breathing with the movement of our body, with the movement of the subtle body, the inner winds, thereby having an effect on those channels. And then when you're done with your asana practice, you go and sit in meditation, and then you use your breath / subtle body connection to deepen your mind's concentration into your object. So the breath is being used to help the physical body and the channels, and then it's being used to help the mind go inwards. So we're using the breath in that tradition as this bridge between outer and inner. 

Using Pranayama to purify and make merit

The instructions, generally, for breath work have included often some way of using the breath for a specific purpose which means you're having some kind of control on the breath. Like we were trying to lengthen it by a heartbeat or two and then manipulating the inhale to match it if it didn't automatically.

In the usual Tibetan tradition, you don't use the breath in that way. You just use it as an object of focus that's there all the time at the beginning of our sit to trigger the mind to go inwards, and we're simply using the breath to build a trigger. You know how when you do hypnotism, they always take you down, ‘count backwards by five’, and so they imprint this method, this tool, anytime you count backwards from five your mind's going to go from out here to in there. So we're doing the same with the breath in the Tibetan tradition by just using it as a focus of attention at the beginning. But they say the breath is not in itself a virtuous object so we don't use the breath as the object for the meditation. Now, you get into Diamond Way, and it's like, wait a minute, anything can be the powerful karmic object, and it is true, there will be practices where we'll come back and do breath work. But Lama Christie is doing this parallel between Hatha Yoga Pradipika and its instructions on how to get to a deep meditation, and then Master Kamalashila's instruction on how to get to deep meditation, and we're seeing these parallels. In the yogic tradition, as she has taught, you have this sequence of practices. Not that you finish one before you go to the next, but they build on each other. You have the YAMAS where you're cleaning stuff out, you're preparing. And you have the NIYAMAS where you're gathering these goodness by learning these new ways of interacting. And you have your ASANAS, the physical practices where you're disciplining your ability to move in certain ways and getting your alignment straightened up. And as I said, the asanas use the breath so the asanas are including this breath work, panayama. But then after the asanas you go into meditation, that's where you would use the breath as your object to work with it, to control it, to use it, and to use it in certain ways so that it can affect our subtle body because where our winds go, our mind goes. And so, if we can use our breath, gross winds breath, to help move our subtle winds, it will help move our mind to where we're moving the subtle winds. It's called the pranayama, this breath control work in meditation, in which case, for them, your breath is the object, and you're lengthening it out, you're moving it here, you're working with it there. 

In the Tibetan tradition, they say even if we are going to use our breath as a meditation object, we want to tag it to something that will help us collect goodness. And because you have this natural out and in, what they tag it to is breathing out as a form of purification, breathing out the stuff you want to get rid of, and breathing in those new qualities that we want, we call it the blessings of the Lama. You can think of them as just, ‘oh, Lama's blessing me’ or ‘they're blessing me with the ability to be humble in the face of conflict’, or whatever is the opposite of what it is we're getting rid of, you can match those two. And then just sit there and focus on your breath, getting rid of the negativity, focus on the breath, breathing in Lama's blessings. It's planting seeds for a change in our mind and it's drawing our ability to focus single-pointedly, like it's drawing that in. Because as the breath gets softer, longer, more gentle, more subtle, so does our mind, because our mind is focused on the thing that's gentle, slow, relaxed. So they're really mirrors of each other, as we're all well aware, right? It's like, whatever quality of my breath is my mind's projection at the moment. And we might think, well, there's my mind, independent, and it's sending out a projection and in that projection is all kinds of agitation, but it's not really mine, because I'm the me back here doing the whole thing. And it's like, actually not. The ‘me’ is in the projection going out so if there's anything about the projection going out that's agitated or upset, guess what? That's a picture of the mind right now, snapshot of the mind is that agitated and upset. So there are days when I try to do a breath.. like I lead an exercise class every Thursday. At the end of the exercise class, everybody likes to do this breathing practice that the other instructor always teaches where you breathe in for count of five, you pause for count of six, and you breathe out for a count of seven. And I try to do that while I'm in charge of the group and it's like my breath just goes [gasping]. I practically choke, whereas everybody else.. because I'm talking it, they're all doing it, they look so nice. And it's like, I can't do it. ‘Well, you can't do it and talk at the same time’. But I can't even do it when I shut up and say ‘do it at your own pace’. Then it's like I'm still choking on the number; I can inhale for two and exhale for 20 or vice versa. I can't make it do what I've just instructed the class to do. It's just weird. But it's because I'm in this space of being responsible, being in charge. You just can't do the practice and then be the leader at the same time, I find, because the mind reflection has all this other stuff going on in it. So when we're doing our own personal practice, we can notice by way of how difficult is it to get calm by following the breath or using the breath to get calm. How difficult is it? Because that's showing us our mind is just agitated about something. And then if you need to just stop your session and go figure out what you're agitated about, and then go back into the session, then you get to blow that whatever you're agitated about out with your exhale and breathe in the opposite with the inhale once you figured out exactly what it is. 

So we can learn to recognize the quality of our breath as a reflection of the state of our mind. And then read it, use it, to help ourselves. And then we can go on to use that kind of connection to read people we might be interacting with. Maybe somebody is saying, ‘Oh, you know, everything's just fine’, but their breath is all erratic and it's like everything's not just fine. But you’re just asking them what's going on, ‘oh,  nothing’, but you would know to like tiptoe around this and see if we can help them in a little deeper way until you saw that the shift in their breathing has happened. I mean, if we had sufficient awareness of the other, we would be able to do that and help people in a way that they'd end up saying, ‘wow, can you read my mind? How do you know that?’ And you're just reading the signs, right? Their body is telling you what's going on. So it is a helpful practice, the just counting, using a tag for the count, and slowly lengthening it and matching is the Indian tradition of this particular pranayama. And the putting the negativities on the exhale and blessings on the inhale is the Tibetan version of this pranayama because they want us to always be purifying / making merit. With every practice that we're doing, that's what's built into it, is to give us this opportunity to clean out our ignorance and plant greater compassion, greater love. And technically, all of the practices are about that. They're not really about the actual practice. It's the imprint that trying the practice makes on our mind to clear out negativity and increase our goodness. The goodness will help us be able to actually experience results from whatever that practice is, or was, even if we still say,’[Oh, my practice is really lousy’. But we always have this mindset that we're clearing out and gathering goodness. The goodness will accumulate, do you see, and the negativity will clean out. And it takes time for that process to gather enough momentum that we'll be able to say, ‘Oh, wow, my meditation is getting better’. It's not really getting better because we've sat every day for 25 minutes, and we've tracked our book, and we've made all the corrections. It's getting better, because in doing so, we've purified and made more merit. And that merit ripens as, ‘oh, I'm getting better’. 

Doing Pranayama to reach Pratyahara

So when our pranayama work draws our mind inward, inward, inward, getting more and more subtle, following the more and more subtle breathing, as the mind gets deeper in its concentration, the breathing gets deeper, and actually will eventually come to a still point where you're breathing out and out and out, and out and out, [and breathing pauses] because of your concentration. And then all of a sudden, it's like, ‘Oh, it's, it's time to inhale again’. Or it may even be that you exhale, like you've exhaled for a minute, and then nothing for a long time, but you're not really aware because you're so concentrated on something. And then it shifts and then you finish your exhalation, and then inhale. Or maybe you inhale.. who knows what will happen. But it's like the reason to do pranayama is to reach pratyahara, which is the withdrawal from the sense powers. And it kind of sounds like it means you stop those sense powers from happening, but I don't think that that's really what's happening. It's rather your concentration has gone so deeply inward, that no matter what sense powers are still doing, what the eardrum is doing, what the eyeball is doing, your mind is just not interested. There's subtle body.. there's no wind that's carrying the mind up to the eyeball anymore because the mind is so concentrated on something else, something so deep inner, that who cares about all that other stuff? Geshehla says a bomb could go off next to you and you would not be rocked because you wouldn't hear it. It made a sound but you didn't register it. We can't really make our mind ignore sounds. We've been doing it in Mahamudra class, ‘outer sound, shut it off’. Come on, it doesn't shut off. We can shut off the story about it, but the sound is still going on until we get to a certain point in that Mahamudra. Have you noticed? And then all of a sudden, it's like, well, from where I am now, there are no more birds in the grapefruit tree. Until the instant I come out of that, and then birds are back in the grapefruit tree. Were they gone and back? I don't know, right? But because our focus of attention was so inner.. now I'm not saying I get that inner, because I still hear the garbage truck go by. But it's like we're not shutting the organs off, we're shutting the mind that's going to them that's making the stories about what they're seeing. So it's the pratyahara from hatha yoga pradyapika. The pranayama is the bridge between asana and pratyahara, whatever that means. 

Commit to not moving during meditation and keeping bodhichitta

So in order to reach this level at which our mind focus inside is so concentrated that we have essentially turned off our outer senses, one of the outer senses that is getting turned off is the sense of our physical body - the sensations, the itches, the uncomfortables, the I’ve got to move’s. And so Lama Christie was saying, if we intend to get to the place where none of these outer factors can disturb our meditation, we have to at some point commit to ignoring that physical body's insistence that we pay attention to it. Like our physical body is like the little two-year-old who's playing all by themselves, having a good time, and then somebody shows up and takes mom's attention and all of a sudden, the two-year-old has to get right in the middle of them and be the center of attention. Our bodies do the same thing. As we're trying to get deep, deep, deep, that body's like, ‘what about me? I'm not comfortable, I don't want to do this’. And we shift and we wiggle and we shoo the fly. And every time we shift, we've broken this magic spell. And it's a habit and a cycle. And Lama Christie was really tough. When we were in a group meditating together, she said, ‘sit still, I don't care if your leg falls asleep. I don't care, just sit still because when you move, you're going to disturb somebody else’. That was her reasoning to get us to behave better, but her real reasoning was every time we shift and wiggle, we disturb our own mind and we delay our own practice. She said, make a commitment. If you can only do it for three minutes, ‘I'm going to sit like a rock for three minutes’. And it was surprising how quickly our class went from fidgeters to rock solid body meditators, at least, I don't know what their minds were doing. But once we make the commitment, like the little two-year-old body becomes more like a puppy dog who really does want to please us. And we're saying to that puppy dog, ‘sit, stay, good puppy’. So it's really helpful when you're finished with a session, no matter how short or long, that you really do pay attention to the puppy and say, ‘you did a great job’. And pat it on the back so it'll want to come back for more. Otherwise, it won't. So somewhere along the line, you make this commitment ‘No more moving, no matter what’. And then, I don't know, just wait till the fly walks up your nose, which it will happen. And then it's really hard. 

Now we shift back to Bhavana Krama, which I don't have any more vocabulary. Last class we were talking about what makes a Bodhisattva activity a Bodhisattva activity. And I think we came to recognize that it's not so much the outer activity as it is the state of mind with which we do the activity. Like our motivation before we do it and then hopefully as we're doing it, easier said than done. And then of course, after we've done it, being happy we did it and dedicating as well. It's that state of mind as we're doing a deed that makes the deed the deed of a Bodhisattva, meaning it makes the deed be a cause for our Buddhahood. Technically that means when we have real Bodhichitta, that's a long story. But the greater the extent we have in our mind our Bodhichitta as we are feeding the piece of bread to the bird, as we are giving the dollar to the street person, that's the extent that that series of seeds is influenced by the Bodhichitta. And when those seeds are colored with Bodhichitta, the same deed’s result is going to be so different than the same deed’s result done simply out of the worldly kindness. So it's not the deed, it's not how big the deed or how amazing the deed, it's how big is the heart, the state of mind as we're doing the deed that makes the difference. 

And then you got to play with a meditation of imagining what it would be like to go through your day doing everything that you ordinarily do in your day with this quality of mind, ‘Bodhichitta, Bodhichitta, Bodhichitta’, however, right? Really, I hope you explored the difference between just thinking it, ‘because it's empty, I'm planting good seeds, I'm going to be a Buddha’, and feeling it, which maybe doesn't even need words, just needs a reminder as we're doing an activity that's on such automatic pilot that the automatic pilot feeling takes over. Getting the dishes done because they need to be done versus doing dishes because I'm a being made of love. Like, same deed. I mean, really, which is more fun anyway? What feels nicer anyway? Why it's so difficult for me, I don't know, but that automatic pilot is so automatic. But when it is done with this love, it just feels so much nicer anyway. ‘Oh, then we're just pretending’. Who cares, the imprint is made. 

So then at some point it would occur to us, well, then really, this whole thing about practice is about training myself in the ability to have that state of heart bodhichitta as my habitual instead of the old, whatever it is, habit. Replace that with the habitual for the benefit of others so I can get totally enlightened for the benefit of others, for the benefit of others, call it what you will. And so our practice really is about growing this mindfulness of our bodhichitta. So we've gone in our practice from mindfulness every-bite-of-oatmeal-mindful to ethical mindfulness. To what extent is what I'm doing hurting somebody else? Where are those ants, I know they're around here somewhere, so I can avoid stepping on them. Who needs a little help? What can I offer? Having this on our mind constantly - avoiding harming others, trying to gather goodness, ethical mindfulness. Who cares about oatmeal, right? I want to be offering everybody - that kind of mindfulness. Now we're cranking up the juice a little bit. We want our mindfulness on our bodhichitta and to have that become our permanent address. I heard that used once. I want bodhichitta as my permanent address. It's only going to happen if we plant the seeds for it to happen and then those seeds ripen. Like we can't really in the moment force ourselves to think bodhichitta constantly. Like I can't, maybe you can. It's not about willpower, it's not really even about discipline. It's about the goodness seeds that we're planting as we train ourselves in ethical mindfulness and we train ourselves in loving compassion, and we train ourselves in emptiness and karma. All of that study and effort isn't in and of itself what's helping us. It's the seeds we're planting by doing those things that will ripen into this change in our perception of me and my world. It's just a very subtle difference in expectation. If we're expecting the act of practice time to change me, we're expecting our practice to work in some self-existent way. When we understand that I'm practicing like this in order to plant the seeds so that when those seeds ripen, they ripen as this shift in my perception, then even our practice is a more effective practice. 

You catch that difference? 

We're doing our practice to plant the seeds. We're not doing the practice to get the result from the practice at the moment, which is kind of refreshing because we do a practice and we finish and it's like, ‘oh my gosh, that whole thing was in subtle dullness the whole time, doggone it anyway’, right? We regret, we fix it, but we still planted seeds of trying. We still planted seeds with our motivation, we still planted a lot of good seeds that if we hadn't even tried, we wouldn't have planted at all. So even a lousy meditation done with bodhichitta is better than no meditation, or even it's better than a good meditation done with no bodhichitta. A lousy meditation done with bodhichitta has a greater positive effect on us than a good meditation done not with bodhichitta, in this tradition. Someone with bodhichitta outshines even the Listeners - remember that teaching? 

Perpetuating our seeds for our practice

So we think my practice is when I'm setting up my altar, sitting down on my meditation cushion, doing my preliminaries, doing my meditation practice, writing my meditation journal, keeping my book. We think that's practice. And we have a tendency to say, ‘excuse me, I need to go do my practice’. And it's like, no, excuse me, your practice is all day, 24-7. Now it looks like a meditation practice, now it looks like walking around practice, but the quality of mind-heart that we're planting the seeds to ripen us as is that there's no difference between on-cushion state of heart-mind and off-cushion state of heart-mind. And it doesn't mean you'll be walking around in your outer world with your senses shut down. Although, do you remember with the Vinaya teachings, the monks are instructed, ‘keep your eyes down, don't pay attention, shut your sensory objects off’, not to the point where it's dangerous, but because they're just distracting. And so maybe it is that we get to the point where we turn on our eye consciousness when we need it, and we turn on our ear consciousness when we need it, and the rest of the time, we're not paying any attention to all the blah, blah, blah, blah that's going on. We're just listening for that one somebody saying something that tells us they need help. And we hear that one, and then there we go. I'm not saying I can do this. It's what the practice is taking us to, is this meditative quality of experience on and off the cushion. It's not going to happen if we don't give it any cushion time to plant the seeds for it. The time on the meditation isn't going to plant the seeds for it if the time off the cushion isn't used to clean out and gather goodness so that our time on the cushion can ripen that goodness. Now, technically, not the goodness from yesterday. Geshehla would say the goodness from two weeks ago, I still argue with that a little bit, but the goodness from some past life that our goodness from two weeks ago added to. And so together, they're bringing me a better meditation quality in today's session, maybe tomorrow's session too. So we're getting to this point where we're not really making this distinction between practice time and not-practice time. All of it is our practice time. We are in training to see ourselves as Buddha, and those who have already done it see that we will do it someday and what we need to take up and give up now to help ourselves move along that path. So getting ahead of myself here. 

Our concentration off the cushion feeds our concentration on the cushion, our concentration on the cushion feeds our concentration off the cushion, and we get on this upward spiral. 

But we get distracted. Life takes a turn - we get sick, somebody else gets sick that we're close to, something changes. We have to deal with worldly stuff and our habit is to slide back, make that the priority. Maybe we don't completely give up our daily practice, but our focus of attention goes back to worldly, and it's gonna happen. It happens to many of us. If we're recognizing it already and aware that it's happening, we can reach out to our Dharma brothers / sisters to help us through it. We can use that distraction actually to help our practice. Just recognizing that right now I need to do less time on my cushion and more time in life practice, all dedicated to the goodness, helping my on-cushion time when I get back to it. The danger is that those kinds of ups and downs of life drag us away and we let the drag pull us all the way back into worldly life. And it can very quickly shift to the point where we don't really quite remember why we were dedicating ourself so much to our spiritual path. It's not necessarily that you get in a situation and it's like, ‘oh, I'm longing to do it again, but I just can't’, you get in this situation where it's just not on your radar screen anymore. It's karmically driven, of course. And so even a Dharma friend, if they came and said, where have you been? We really miss you, we've been having classes, we want you to come back.’  And they'll just go, ‘I don't really understand what you mean’. Not like they've wiped it from their memory banks, but they just don't have the resonance with it anymore. It could happen to any of us. I've seen it happen with people, very devoted students, and just life circumstances shift and they're gone. It's very scary. I find it really scary. 

Perpetuating ourselves on our path is an ongoing process. Lama Christie kept saying, don't take it for granted. To her classes, we were all theoretically committed to that whole six or seven year program. Some of us, three more years after that. And it felt like ‘I made the commitment, I'm going to be here’ and so it didn't feel so much of a danger that we could lose it. But that was really, thank goodness it worked out that way for many of us, but for some, it didn't. And they had dedicated themselves to the whole program and then next thing you know, ‘I can't come anymore’. And then they're just gone. So we take things for granted and Lama Christie kept saying again and again, please don't do that because our experience is ripening seeds. Once they're ripened, they're done, they're gone. Our response to the ripening replants. If we're just assuming Geshe Michael's next program will come along and not actively contributing to get it to happen, who knows? Maybe it doesn't happen, maybe we can't get there or even online, right? So she was really.. she kept coming back to this again and again - don't get complacent about your practice.  Don't be fanatical, but gratitude, gratitude for ourselves, gratitude for our positions, use it to help everybody be a little bit happier, is how we help perpetuate it. 

She pointed out, Kamalashila is pointing out, if we are here in a class like this, it's because we have the bodies, the minds, the hearts, the karmas to be here, and we know about impermanence of all of those things. 

Let's take a break. 

[start of break]

[Student 1: May I ask a question about the meditation?]

Yes. 

[Student: You said to inhale on the left positivity and exhale on the right negativity, but I heard other teachers from our group lineage [to] exhale on the left negativity. So was that for a specific reason, part of this general practice, like not a huge deal?]

Yeah, different practice. There's a different practice where we exhale negativity from either nostril, one at a time, and inhale positively in a different way than that, so it's a different practice. 

[Student 1: Okay, because I also heard it in Kapalbhati to exhale through the left. That's what I was wondering if it's different.]

Different purpose, different practice. 

[Student 1: Okay, so it's not like there is a specific, like, rule that..]

No.

Yes, [student 2]?

[Student 2: Thank you for teaching. I have similar question about the breathing with the left and right side. Actually, when you mentioned that we should expel the negativity or afflictions through the right side of the nostril, and I felt it like a stone and I couldn't.]

It didn't want to go. 

[Student 2: No. And then it was just like, as I try harder and harder, then I couldn't and then I started to feel how all the right side of the channel started to become rock solid. And I decided to breathe from my right side, like all my skin, use it as a channel. Is that okay?]

Yeah, that's okay. 

[Student 2: Okay. Thank you. But I still couldn't remove the stone.]

Yeah, yeah, that's okay. In this kind of practice, don't force it, don't struggle with it. Just kind of laugh to yourself about it. It's like, ‘well, that's not going anywhere’. That's okay, it'll go. And then when you shift to inhaling the blessings to the left, did they go or were they rocky too?

[Student 2: No, the blessings felt like nectar, very beautiful. But then the other side, it was just like a bottle. It was just like a whole caught on ice. But I’ll keep trying.]

Yeah, but don't force it don't worry about it. Just kind of laugh about it and it'll let go.

[Student 2: Yeah, those afflictions. Thank you.]

They don't want to go. Angel, Devil. The devil [says] ‘I've been your best friend since forever. You really want to get rid of me? I don't think so’. 

[Student 1: Yes, for me, the first part actually gave me anxiety, like too much of the counting. And I've been practicing yoga for a while now, I can count. So then you added like the heartbeat, I started panicking trying to count and then like my whole face locked, my shoulder locked, I was like it's one or the other. There's no both. And then I thought I was feeling positivity coming in, but I was like, what's blessings? I was like, what blessings are coming? Like, that's very unspecific of what blessing I'm supposed to like, have in. But I remember last year when I made those monks.. for the Peace Mandala, they were giving a teaching and their Geshe said that the hardest practice is to inhale compassion and exhale compassion. So I just stuck to the compassion because I didn't know what blessings to ask or to receive.]

That's fine. It's a good thing, but it's not our practice. But it also shows us that when we're used to doing it one way and then we're introduced to something different, it's like [panic]. And it's common, not to worry. 

The thing is, Lama Cristie was saying that each of us will find one of these different methods that will be the one that, ‘oh, that's so easy, that's so obvious’, that we will use that as we do it again and again. It's like every single time, this, this, this, this, and I'm in. And when you find that practice, forget the rest of them. Just remember them for your students’ sake, because you'll meet students who the counting the breath and making it longer and longer, is the one ‘wow, that's so easy and special’. So we learn this toolbox, we try them on for size, we find the one that fits us, and then we use that as our regular practice. Especially for this one of finding the trigger that turns us in. And then once you've got that system, it doesn't even have to take very long. Our usual tradition is count 10 breaths, three times, that would take you about three minutes. But you can get to the point where you just start, 1 [st breath], 2 [nd breath], 3 [rd breath], and you're in there, you don't have to keep counting for 10, three times because that's what the practice is. The practice did what it was supposed to do, which was to turn on the meditative focus, concentration, intensity, ready, ‘all right, put the object in front of me, would you please, and just get on with it’

[end of break]

Wisdom-side without method, method-side without wisdom

So Master Kamalashila, in your reading six, he's talking about the combination of method and wisdom. So previously, he was pointing out how adding bodhichitta, the motivation of bodhichitta, influences the seeds we plant as we're doing our meditative practice as well as outer meditation practices. But now he says, but the method-side isn't enough. It takes method and wisdom. Method-side alone is not enough, wisdom side alone is not enough. It takes both together. And we heard Geshehla talking about that in last class about that term NANG TONG, right? NANG is the appearances and TONG is the emptiness. And son of a gun, they put it together into one word. That's a clue, right? You can't have an appearance without the emptiness of that appearance so it can be whatever it is it is appearing as, because who's it coming from? Me. You can't have emptiness without the appearance and you can't have the appearance without its emptiness or it wouldn't be the thing I'm perceiving. And I can't perceive anything that's outside of my projections. Like I want to say even if it's there, something outside of my projection, even if it was there right in front of me I couldn't perceive it because I can't perceive anything outside of my projections. Is there anything possible outside of my projection? Technically not, for me. But everything I'm perceiving, which is all my projections, is everything. And it's all unique to me, and yours is all unique to you, and we make reality together. It's quite exquisite. 

So he's saying this bodhisattva intention as I do any deed - I'm doing the dishes not because the dishes need to be done, I'm doing the dishes in order to reach my Buddhahood so that I can help every being reach their ultimate happiness. What does doing dishes have to do with my reaching Buddhahood or bringing everybody to happiness? Not a darn thing. But what does meditating have to do with it? Not a darn thing. Nothing has anything to do with it. Except by way of the intention with which I was doing the thing that I'm doing. Because that intention plants that into a seed that ripens as, ‘oh my gosh, I do know what they need to give up and take up’. And my compassion takes shape for them as that, whether they like it or not, sorry. 

So to want to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings is a beautiful thing. We can say the words and not really have any clue as to how it could possibly happen, couldn't we? Like we could have the seeds to be attracted to the bodhisattva ideal and not have ever heard the pen thing, and that would be a powerful goodness as long as those seeds lasted. With wisdom, the wisdom component is the understanding that there's nothing, not even my own Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, that has any identity or quality in it. That nothing.. like the words I want to use are just the party-line words and I don't want to use them, but now I'm stalled. It's like our own subject side identifies everything unique to us and that shows that the other who we are identifying unique to us cannot have an identity in them or they would tell us how to identify them. That's the pen not so elegantly said. 

So think again. What's this thing?

It's a pen. 

Puppy comes along. What does puppy see? What does puppy do with it? 

[chews on it]

What does that say about the identity of this thing? 

It can't be in it. It has to be coming from the puppy and from the human. 

What if a fly comes along? [lands on it]

What if another human comes along? Tarzan grew up in the jungle, ‘Tarzan, you're human, what is this thing?’ What's he gonna do? 

Tie his hair up with it. 

Again, we say..I watch my own mind and my own mind says, ‘Yeah, you can tie your hair up with a pen, a dog can chew on a pen. Come on.’

What's the matter with that argument? 

‘A fly can walk on a pen, don't tell me they don't see a pen. Okay, tell me they don't see a pen, but the pens there. Right?’

I mean, my mind does that, I admit. 

And Kamalashila is saying as long as we think that about the pen, we are thinking that about ourselves. And no amount of ‘I want to be a Buddha for the sake of all beings’ is gonna allow me to experience myself differently without understanding that I'm just like the pen. Not just my body, but my very thing I call ‘me’, Mahamudra people.. we're just starting to work with it now. That me, we think.. like, it's so nebulous, we can't find it, but it's so certain that it has its own nature that we can't become these fully enlightened beings as long as we hold to our me with that nature of its own. ‘But wait, everything I experience is unique to me, so me has to be unique to me, so me does so have my own identity.’ And that thinking will make it impossible for us to become the being who is made of love because that me that has its own identity also has its own wants and needs and preferences and selfishnesses and jealousy and [all the other afflictions] and it's not ever going to give them up all by itself. So where our wisdom that empowers our bodhichitta must be the wisdom of the me that I know as me, its true nature is the availability to be the me now and the me now and the me now and the me for you and the me for you.  Different me's, how many? Twenty-one participants, I'm one of them. So there are 21 different me's right now, 21 different you's right now. What is it.. 21 factorial. That's how many realities are going on right now. Until we identify with our no self-nature, nature, our bodhichitta is limited. ‘I want to become Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings’, when that's imbued with our understanding that I can actually have that as my identity because my own identity has no identity, then I can create the projected ripenings of this subject / object / interaction being made of love, made of compassion, made of wisdom, meaning omniscient. It will only happen because the blank me has created the karmic seeds, merit seeds, that ripen as that perception of self / other / interaction between as all this enlightened being. Not an enlightened being, but fully awakened be-ing, like verb. That can only happen if we remove the blocks, the seeds that are ripening as ‘no, me / you / interaction between’. To remove those or damage those enough that for some short period of time they stop ripening, I might get slammed for saying that. And plant the seeds that ripen as this different self identity. To have our ‘I want to be Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings’ based on our understanding that that can happen if and when I remove all my obstacles to it and plant the goodness that will ripen as it, we will be forced to perceive ourselves in that way. Just like we are being forced by our karmic ripenings to see ourselves as ordinary, if you do, and I don't know. Our merit seeds will force us to see ourselves as Buddha-me in Buddha paradise emanating, and it's not going to happen in any other way than that. To reach that, we need to clean out the negativity, the obstacles, and plant the goodness. Purify and make merit. When we first meet the Dharma.. when we first met the Dharma, David and I, we were in a different tradition at Karma Kagyu  and it was the mantra, ‘purify and make merit, purify and make merit’ and we thought we understood what it meant. And now, an embarrassingly large number of years later, it's like, ‘oh, now I get it really’. And it really is all it's about. Every moment of experiencing ordinary is burning off seeds of ordinary. If we respond to it all through the lens of emptiness and bodhichitta, emptiness and method-side, then we plant new seeds that ripen differently than ordinary. And they start ripening differently than ordinary little by little bit, and that's kind of what Geshe Michael was alluding to when he was saying life will become like magic. These weird things will happen, like you get a text during the meditation that you're not supposed to be looking at anyway, but it's saying exactly what the teacher is about to say, like that's the magical moments of karmic goodness ripening, clues that you're on the right track. And then we go through dry spells where none of that's happening, and ‘oh my gosh, I don't think I'm doing well enough’ and we get down on ourselves. It's common, at least in my own experience. But just as you're starting to go, ‘yeah, I'm on a roll’, something happens and ‘oh, man, here we go again’. But if we recognize it and expect it, it's like, ‘okay, we'll just do it again, it worked the first time, let's see how I can apply my reasoning about karma and emptiness to use this seems like a setback to get back on the horse’. And then every time we do it, our practice gets a little bit stronger. So hopefully you've noticed an increase in your meditative concentration. And hopefully you've noticed that there seems to be an increased awareness in your off meditation time to the quality of your reactions to things. And maybe it's left you a little discouraged because it's like, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm so much more selfish than I thought I was’, but it's a good thing to recognize that because we know it's just old seeds ripening. It doesn't mean you're a jerk, it just means we have stuff to purify and not act from those impulses. And then that's our practice, off-cushion practice. 

So bodhichitta without emptiness is hollow, method-side without emptiness is hollow. What about emptiness without method-side? That seems like, ‘no, seeing emptiness directly, that's the most powerful thing, most powerful influence, that could be all by itself and it will change everything’. And, technically, technically, we could have the seeds to come into a lifetime where no training, no interest whatsoever, but something happens and we have this extraordinary experience where we recognize ‘oh, my gosh, nothing has the natures in them like I thought’, and you come out of it and you see everything is suffering, everything has a cause, all those causes can be stopped, because ‘gosh, I just did it for 20 minutes and this is how I've got to do it’. Like out of the blue, seemingly out of the blue. Was it out of the blue? No, not at all. It's out of seeds from previous lifetime. That can happen. And then whether or not that person will go on to think, ‘well, if that stuff about suffering is true for me, it must be true for everybody. Oh, my gosh, I want to help everybody by way of this wisdom’. They may or may not have those seeds. So we could see emptiness directly and use it to stop all of our own personal suffering and believe that that's the ultimate attainment of a human being and be very happy as a nirvanasized being. Kamalashila did a commentary on Diamond Cutter Sutra and he apparently uses this word that Geshehla translated as ‘nirvanasized’, I've never seen it anywhere else. To become nirvanasized, meaning in Bodhisattva tradition to reach the eighth Bodhisattva level - all seeds for mental afflictions have been sufficiently damaged that they can't go off. You can still have your physical body, you can still have some lifetime left, unpleasant things can happen, but you will not suffer from it. Remember the King of Kalinga's story. But that doesn't make you Buddha because we're not perceiving emptiness and dependent origination simultaneously at eighth level Bodhisattva; we still have obstacles to omniscience. Why am I going there? You can have wisdom without method-side, but only because you did the method-side in some previous lifetime and it's ripening in this lifetime. If we're on this path and we haven't seen emptiness directly yet, then it means that the goodness that we have that in past lives we've directed towards seeing emptiness directly, just hasn't ripened yet. They don't have the power to get over that threshold, whatever it is, into manifestation. Which means we want to keep adding to them. Adding to similar goodness, rejoicing in them so that we can increase their strength, coaxing them to ripen. So really, technically, we don't work hard to see emptiness directly on the cushion. We work hard purifying obstacles to it and gathering the goodness to add to our already goodness, to get it to ripen. And then our meditation cushion time gives it the opportunity to show up. And there's no other way really to make it happen. We can't do it by willpower, have you tried? I've tried. ‘I'm going to sit on this cushion until I see emptiness directly’.  And eight hours later, it's like, I’ve got to go to bed. Just after eight hours, man, I didn't even last a whole day. We can't force it. 

So then we want to ask ourselves, well, if what I need to do is to make more merit in order to coax those seeds to ripen, and I don't know how much time I have to be able to do that, I want to make the strongest karmic seeds I can. Like, I went the most bang for my buck. Do you remember the death meditation practice? You're standing looking at the blue door. Not only do I want the highest practice, I want the most powerful practice ever. And what was behind the blue door? Exchanging self and others, cultivating bodhichitta. The way we cultivate our seeds to see emptiness directly is through the attitude we have as we interact with others, so we're right back to the method-side. We need our method-side in order to grow the seeds to bring our wisdom to the level that it becomes direct. As we are growing our method-side for the benefit of our wisdom, our intellectual understanding of emptiness improves. As our intellectual understanding of emptiness improves, our method-side improves. The more subtle ways in which we stop harming others deepens. The more subtle ways we gather goodness deepens. Our mindfulness gets stronger. And that grows as deepening intellectual and deepening goodness such that our meditative concentration can get to the platform where when we put our object in front of the microscope, we can zero it in on the object to the exclusion of all else, and then shift the lens to the true nature of the object. And in we go. So that whole process takes both method and wisdom, says Master Kamalashila. 

And he reads our minds, he says, and you know, there are certain things that make our good karmic seeds more powerful. Like karma versus merit. Good deeds done with wisdom is called merit. Good deeds done for any other reason is called good karma. It will ripen as pleasant result that wear out. Kindness deeds done with wisdom are deeds that they say don't wear out. I don't quite understand that because they do ripen and go on, but as they ripen, our wisdom is applied which replants them. And I think in that way, although the actual circumstance doesn't stay forever, maybe the pleasure of the circumstance stays, but we've replanted the circumstance, and it's going to grow. And so in that way, we're not using up the karma and it's gone, we're using up the merit and perpetuating it. I think it's something like that. Because it's not like we're going to make ice cream that never wears out, right? It's like, I don't want ice cream forever. I just want it anytime I want it. Anytime I want to share it with somebody else is when I want it. Do you see the level it's going to shift? It's not going to become, ‘oh, I can get anything I want anytime I want’ because what you're going to want is to have what somebody else wants, not what you want. So I talk about ice cream not because I necessarily like ice cream, it tastes good, but I know Sumati loves ice cream. So it's like, I don't really want it but I want him to have it, but I have to admit I kind of don't because it makes him fat. But anyway, you get the idea. As we're getting higher and higher, what we want changes. It's not what I want for me, it's what I want to uplift. It's a beautiful shift. 

What are the powerful ways to keep us on an upward spiral?

So what are those powerful ways to add goodness that helps us stay on this upward spiral, reducing the risk of losing our seeds and dropping away? So he says, okay, the most important one is understanding emptiness. But it's funny, it's like, but if I don't understand emptiness well now, it's because I don't have the seeds for it and I can't just sit there and go ‘I'm going to understand emptiness better’, you have to plant the seeds for it. So yeah, we study and we try and we work. But you know, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. 

So yes, understanding emptiness is the best strong karma, but if we don't have that yet, then the second, not the second best, another best thing to do is teach other people. Really teach other people anything that you know about that they apparently don't know about because they've come to you and said, ‘would you teach me’, so that kind of assumes that they don't know. Lama Christie said, I mean, it seems obvious that to teach is to make these beautiful seeds to be taught, but she took it deeper than that. She said when we are teaching, especially the Dharma, the people we're teaching are our own projections and we're perceiving those projections as ordinary beings. I mean, you're all extraordinary, but human samsaric beings, still ignorant beings. My perception is that the reason you're in class is that you want to learn these things because you perceive yourself as mistaken and you want to fix it, otherwise you wouldn't be here. And that's all coming from me. So for me to see myself teaching my projections that I make as ignorant, how to be more wise.. do you see, do you get it? It's like, what could be more powerful than seeing yourself teach your own projections about wisdom? Geshehla says teach the pen to anybody who will listen. Do you see why he's saying that? He's giving us the opportunity to teach our own mind [which we perceive as] everything / everybody, wisdom. How's that going to come back to us? Duh, right? Wisdom. Whether it's the direct perception or this incredibly powerful intellectual understanding that colors you moment by moment. Like almost, what's the difference? Direct perception is going to come when you have this high level of understanding and you're living by it. So if you can't just sit down and think yourself into emptiness deeply, then teach somebody about it. Teach the pen, share the pen, show by example. Anybody who asks you a question, answer them. Give them an answer. Do you see why we have a bodhisattva [vow] to answer questions? Because it's the opportunity for us to share what we know with our projections that appear to not know. So we're changing our projections in that way. Thank you very much projections, I really appreciate the opportunity. 

Okay, next one. Any kind of powerful risk we take for the dharma is a really powerful karma, says Master Kamalashila, says Lama Christie. So to take a risk for the dharma, what she means is that, suppose we're understanding karma and emptiness pretty well and then there comes this opportunity to make a decision. I'll just use our example. So Sumati and I had met Geshe Michael and that group and took the Diamond Cutter Sutra course from him and it's like ‘oh man [amazing]’ and within a year, there was this opportunity to be involved with the group that was building the Diamond Mountain where it is now, that's not where the retreat was happening. And they needed people to be out there on the ground to help prepare it for when they came out of retreat. And Sumati and I had our careers, we had our mortgage, we had all the usual obligations. But both of us, something in our heart said we've got to go be a part of that. And it wasn't that our karma and emptiness understanding was so great, it was our seeds were ripening. But it was this huge leap. We knew that everybody that we knew, when we told them, ‘we're giving it all up and we're moving out’, we expected them all to go, ‘What are you crazy, you can't do that’. But we had the seeds for everybody we love to go, ‘Wow, hope it makes you happy’. You know what they're thinking, ‘What are you nuts’, but they didn't say it. And so we made this leap, gave it all up and lived in a trailer for a couple years. And this is the kind of leap she's talking about. You weren't really sure, it seemed nuts, but there was some compelling need to follow the teachings and you leaped. So it doesn't always have to be that big, it could be, ‘the boss is yelling at me again. Every time they do that, if I say this, they'll shut up. But I know saying this plants new seeds for something else. I really have to keep my mouth shut. I don't want to say it, but I'm gonna say it. I'm sorry, you're upset. How can I help you?’ Right? That's also a leap. It's taking a risk because the boss could say, ‘you don't mean that you're being insincere, don't patronize me’ and fire you. And the leap would be not only having reacted in that way by choice, the leap would be ‘well then the best thing in the world for me right now is to have gotten fired. I'm out of here. I'm free to do something else’. That's leaping, falling on your feet, and running. High powerful karmic planting to take those leaps, risks, because of our understanding of karma and emptiness, because of our bodhichitta imbued with that wisdom that we take this risk. 

Another powerful karmic influence is remembering to dedicate. To dedicate whatever it is that we've just done to whatever it is that you're deciding you're wanting to dedicate to. General purpose dedication ‘may all beings reach their total enlightenment’ and you can get more and more specific - ‘and in the process they all see emptiness directly’, ‘and in the process they all get free of hunger’, ‘and in the process..’, any kind of dedication takes the seeds that we've just done and colors them in such a way that their ripening will include what we said in our dedication. They say that by doing so, like assuming our dedication is high, not I dedicate it to my bank account reaching a million dollars’, that would happen, but we're talking about a dedicating to realizations. That the seed planted will be colored by that, that when it ripens, it will include what we dedicated in some version of it. Probably not exactly what we had in mind when we dedicated because it's going to get bigger. So dedicating regularly is this really powerful practice, but dedicating really quite specifically. And they say it's a way that you make your karmic seeds be such that they can't wear out. And again, I don't exactly know what that means. 

Then he adds that another powerful karmic object is serving your Root Lama. So this whole weekend was about Lama, Lama, Lama, Lama. And they were using the term Heart Lama and then we were trying to investigate what's the difference between Root Lama and Heart Lama. I think what I heard again and again was your Root Lama is your scripture teacher. And your Heart Lama is that one that you feel loves you, knows you better than you know yourself, they're the one that's going to take you to full enlightenment. Heart Lama may or may not be scripture teacher, but Lama Christie is now using Root Lama here, synonymous with Heart Teacher, like assuming sort of that your Scripture Teacher is your Heart Teacher, which for her it was, so I can see why it gets mixed up. So she's saying, to serve your Root Lama is amongst the highest karmas. Now to serve the Root Lama, understanding karma and emptiness with bodhichitta, of course, makes that then the combination of the highest karma that you can do. Then dedicate it and rejoiced for and you've got a practice that will up the power of the spiral. So what does it mean to serve the Lama? What if we're not anywhere close to them and we only see them two or three or four times a year, if that. Can we only serve them when we're there? And then when we're there, there's 200 other people there who are all trying to serve them. How do I serve them then? It is ideal to be in personal contact with your Lama so you can do their laundry, you can water their yard, you can do those things. As long as when we're doing them, we're doing them understanding emptiness and with bodhichitta; otherwise they're good karmas, but karmas that are going to wear out. Do we have to be close to the Lama to serve the Lama? In that way, yes, but not in the way that they really want to be served, which is by us practicing what they've taught us, putting into practice what they've taught us. And so that means just from time to time, you write them a letter like, ‘thank you so much. I just did this differently than I would have because you taught me something. Thank you very much.’ They don't really even have to know, you don't have to tell them because they know; as you're doing it, they know. We want to remind ourselves that I'm offering my practice to that Lama. It's built into your preliminaries. So you're doing it at least once a day, offering your practice to the Lama. Not just in words, like, ‘I really did catch my mind blaming, blah, blah, blah. I caught it, I stopped it, I turned on my bodhichitta instead. I offer that to you, Holy Lama’. That's serving the Lama. If we have the opportunity to help them develop a program, to do the translation for class, all of that is serving the Lama as well. Serving the people who serve the Lama directly is also serving the Lama. So the Lamas have their attendants, you help the attendants and you're helping the teacher. So in that way, it's like everything we do can be in service to the Lama if we have that in our attitude as we're going through our daily practice.

Ah, I didn't get to give you the second meditation. Well, that's just too bad. So that means we stop this class at the meditation where you are imagining your day as a bodhisattva. Oh, too bad. Do that for a month. That's perfect. 

So remember the person we wanted to be able to help. 

We did this whole class for their benefit and we have set in motion the end of their suffering and that's an extraordinary goodness. 

So please be happy with yourself. Complete the seed.

And think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands. 

Recall your own precious holy guide, see how happy they are with you. 

Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. 

Ask them to please, please, please stay close. To continue to guide you, help you, inspire you. And then offer them this gemstone of goodness. 

See them accept it and bless it and they carry it with them right back into your heart. 

See them there, feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good. We want to keep it forever and so we know to share it.

By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. 

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. 

And may it be so. 

All righty. Thank you so much. 

We have one more class in this first Bok Jinpa 1, which we'll start back on September 3rd. And then we'll just go right on into Bok Jinpa 2, because it just picks up. So we'll do a little bit of review in September and then carry on. All right, thank you so much for the opportunity. Changing my projections fast. Thanks, everyone, I love you so much. Have a lovely August. I’ll miss you.

Vocab:

Drondok = putting on more than is really there

Korndep = discounting things

Sambhogakaya     

Jnanadharmakaya

Nirmanakaya    

Dharmakaya

Welcome back. We are the Bok Jinpa course studiers. We are at the tail end of the first course, and it is September 3rd, 2025.

Let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please.

Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again, please.

(Usual opening)

(7:34) According to my papers, the last meditation we did was the one that was about blowing out our negativities and breathing in the blessings of the Lama. And we had a whole month to get to do that. 

Did we do that for a whole month? I hope some of us did. 

I have to admit I didn't, but that's where we're picking up.

In that last class, I didn't finish all the material that Lama Christie had given us. So I want to finish up what is included in her class 6 and then we have a whole class 7. And then class 8 is a partial class because for us, we did our final exam in class. 

We're not going to do a final exam in class, but we'll use that last class to review stuff and do questions and answers. Both I'll ask you and you can ask me.

So hopefully, we'll finish 6 and I'll go into 7. But I don't want to rush to also finish 7 tonight because we're in no hurry, right? So we'll see how far we get.

But curiously, she also had three meditations in this one class, which feels like too many for us not being at Diamond Mountain and sequestered. So I'm going to slow things down a little bit too for that purpose. 

Review

To review what Master Kamalashila has been pointing out to us so far, is that the method for cultivating an effective meditation practice requires multiple factors that actually has little to do with what you do on your cushion. 

So the first is for us to be sure to have our motivation for our practice to be strong, meaning that day's practice getting onto the cushion, saying our prayers, and for that day's activities off the cushion, which we mistakenly call not our practice. But really, our other 23 hours of activity is more practice than the hour we spend on our cushion that we call our practice.

‘I do my practice in the morning’. No, actually, it's all day long, and then it looks like this when I'm on the cushion and it looks like that when I'm not on the cushion. But all of it is our practice.

So motivation, being strong.

At the level that we are learning, practicing, studying, which is the Mahayana level, that motivation is turned on to the suffering of somebody else. We got here by reaching a wall against our own suffering. Like, ‘this is too much, I can't take any more of it, I have to find another way’.

But then something in our hearts also opened up to ‘and that's true for everybody’. 

Maybe it took a long time before we recognized what we really meant by ‘it's true for everybody’, but something motivated us and attracted or brought forth this Mahayana way.

So our motivation is that we're doing what we're doing in order to help stop somebody else end their pain. Worldly end the pain, they'll just have some more later. That's okay. Still, they got a little relief. But then ultimately, ‘I really, really want that pain to stop forever for everybody’. Then that gets too big and too distant and so we want to reel ourselves back to understanding better and better how it is that my hour on my meditation cushion can, in fact, affect me in such a way that I affect the other. 

We understand it, somehow that we're attracted to it. Master Kamalashila says that's great, that will get us started, and that's what we use to set this motivation. ‘I'm going to meditate today like my friend's hair is on fire. I've got to do this absolutely fantastic meditation, because they're hurting so badly’. It can be too much pressure, right? ‘Argh, can't do that!’

So we fine tune it to where it keeps us on the edge, but not so self burdened by it that we freeze. So first, our motivation needs to be strong, says Master Kamalashila, to make the progress we claim we want to make. 

(13:36) Second is, we rely upon our Lama. That long story about what we mean by Lama. I like to start with that ideal, a being who's made of love, compassion, and wisdom. It's vague, right? What does that really mean?

It's unique to you, what that really means and who that being is. Do they really exist, and how can they help me? What does it feel like to be in somebody's presence who's made of love?

Those are things to explore on our own in order for those words to mean something for you. If you come up with other words that you want to use, to catch this feeling in your heart of your devotion, connection, reliance on this other being, use whatever words work for you.

We want that, ‘Man, they know. If they could give it to me, they would, I know it. All they can do is show me, guide me, teach me. It's up to me to try to put it into practice. Please stay close to me. Please don't ever give up on me. I know I'm such a slow study and I make all these mistakes. Please help me, help me, help me’. That feeling. 

Who is it that we relate to in that way?

And do we really rely upon them? The term we use eventually is ‘surrender’ to them. So second part, relying on the Lama. 

(15:20) Third part, he's been teaching us is, rely on our refuge.

We know the refuge prayer. We know the real meaning of refuge is karma and emptiness. And that karma and emptiness is something we understand in our mind. And something we understand in our mind will not stop the speeding bullet, will not make the angry boss not fire you. What it will do is help us choose a wiser reaction or response to those unpleasant situations.

It's like, well, that's not much protection because it's not in the moment. Or is it?

If we truly had this healthy wisdom response to that angry yelling boss and we responded in that way, we would fully understand that they may fire me or not, but that has nothing to do with the fact that I just was kind in the face of their distress. Right? We would know that so clearly. That maybe our action according to karma and emptiness would be our protection. It would feel like protection. Just protecting us in a different way than what we used to think protection was.

So refuge in this understanding of the marriage of karma and emptiness, meaning my behavior now creates the circumstances of something that I will experience in the future. What I'm experiencing now is the result of some way in which I interacted with others in the past. And there's no other way anything exists.

Which means we need to understand about this idea of karma, and we need to understand about this idea of emptiness.

In order to understand emptiness better and better, we want to clear out the negative karmas, the negative seeds, from our past mistakes that are actually blocking us from being able to just grasp the wisdom of what's meant by emptiness.

The instant we first hear the pen thing, and you would go and sit in meditation and go into direct perception of emptiness.

Do you remember the story of the first five disciples of the Buddha?

He's fresh off his meditation, his kusha grass cushion, and the guys go, ‘Wow, what happened to you?‘, you know. And he goes, ‘Well, sit down, I'll tell you about it‘.

And he tells them, and he tells them of the direct perception of emptiness and the four Arya truths. And you know, one by one, they sit down and go into its direct perception of emptiness. Like they've done a whole lot of goodness that they just heard it once and done.

We could do that too if we didn't have all this yuck, layers and layers of misunderstanding blocking it. So we clear those up, like with every exhale. Could be. 

Maybe it takes more effort than that.

So we work on cleaning our negativities, applying our four powers, doing our Vajrasattva, those who freshly got them, any method of clearing out this negativity. Part of which can very often include experiencing unpleasant things. 

To experience something unpleasant and not respond in the same old way is to purify 65 per instant of those yucky negative seeds.

So maybe it wasn't so bad that all those migraines lasted 18 hours. That's 18 [times] 65 per instant hours of negativity getting purified for the ones that I didn't moan and complain and blame somebody for.

So it's like, Whoa, does that mean I'm wishing negative things on myself?

No, not at all. Negative things happen. But do we need to resist and complain and struggle against those negative things if our attitude can be ‘great, more yuck out of the system’, and out now instead of two years from now, when it would have been a whole lot worse. Or two lifetimes from now, when it would have been unbearably worse.

So our attitude towards our off-cushion time shifts as our understanding of karma and emptiness grows. And as we're purifying the negativity, that alone allows our understanding of emptiness to get deeper.

We'll hear the same example, but our understanding of the ramification will be like, ‘Wow, I never heard it like that before‘, because of our purification practices.

So then purifying alone isn't enough, says Master Kamalashila. Of course, we want to gather goodness. So our method side is this process of purify the negative and gather the goodness that grows our method side wing of the bird.

All of that we're doing in order to grow our wisdom wing of the bird, the wisdom being the understanding of the emptiness aspect of our appearing reality, and ultimately being the direct perception of that ultimate reality.

So that all of the karmic seeds that we still have, are colored by that experience.

So that we're finally on the conveyor belt to the end of all suffering, which if we manage to have that experience with our mind imbued with Bodhicitta, that conveyor belt is the conveyor belt to Buddhahood, not just to Nirvana.

Our method side is, I purify and I make merit because I want my wisdom side to grow, which is my emptiness understanding. Which means I'm doing my purify and make merit because of the empty nature of what I'm purifying and what I'm merit-making about, so that I can have the direct perception of emptiness, so that my wisdom becomes what we call complete. Although it's not complete in the sense of perceiving it all the time, yet. But there's nothing more we need to learn about the concept of emptiness once we've experienced it directly.

We may need to learn a lot about how to help other people see it directly. But once you've experienced it directly, you know. Like getting on the bicycle and riding it, even if you never ride it again, you know what it's like, you know what it means. Okay.

So apparently, in Kamalashila, some Mr. Kachik comes along. And Mr. Kachik says something like,’It must be the case that eventually, you can quit all that method-side and you should just sit on your cushion or be in retreat, to focus solely on the wisdom side‘.

It kind of makes sense. Like you purify, make merit, purify, make merit, purify, make merit. Like how much more do you need to do? Well, technically, more.

But at some point, it's like, no, I just really want to focus my mind on emptiness.

And surely, surely at some point in our practice, that's what we'll be called to do, just emptiness, emptiness meditation and sit there.

Kamalashila's answer is to quote from a Buddha's Sutra, where Buddha's telling the story of an eighth-level Bodhisattva that Lord Buddha has come to, to say, ‘Look, you can't stay here. You've got to go on.‘ So eighth level bodhisattva means they've reached that point that for the lesser capacity, we'd be calling it Nirvana. That being has experienced emptiness directly at least once. And they've been working on purifying their mental afflictions and gathering merit and they finally reached this stage where they have no more seeds for mental afflictions. So no matter what situation they find themselves in, their mind will never be rocked from a state of peace.

Do you remember the King of Kalinka's story in Diamond Cutter Sutra?

That's not the guy we're talking about, but here's somebody, eighth level Bodhisattva. They're sitting in their Nirvana meditation, blissed out. I don't know, they're apparently there for a long, long, long, long time. And Buddha recognizes, oh, they need their nudge. The Buddha goes and says to this being, probably mind meld, says to this being, ‘Look, you made a pledge to stop the suffering of all beings. And it was because of that pledge, that you got to this state of bliss. I know you want to stay here because it's so blissful. But you made a pledge. You need to come out. You need to come back. You need to come and perfect your six perfections. Beings need you. You promised. They're waiting for you.‘

He goes on to say, ‘You had the direct perception of emptiness and as a result, there's a light shining within you. It's a light like nothing in worldly life. It feels great, that bliss of that light. But when you're a Buddha, you will have a light for every being whose suffering you have ended. So take this pleasure that you're feeling now from your one light from the end of your suffering, and multiply it by the all sentient beings that you pledged to free. That's what it will be like to be Buddha.‘

Like he's trying to get the person to go, Oh, okay, I'll come out of this bliss in order to grow my compassion further, in order to grow my six perfections further.

They must already have incredible six-perfection practice, but they got stalled by the pleasure of the state of Nirvana.

Remember, we have a Bodhisattva vow not to consider the pleasure of meditation as a personal attainment, right? It has to do with this kind of thing.

It's like, Oh, I can't imagine getting stalled out. But we could see that it could happen.

So this is Kamalashila's answer to the person who says, Look, at some point, you can quit all those Bodhisattva activities and just focus on wisdom. And Kamalashila says, Well, apparently not. Even Buddhas have four bodies, four aspects of their existence.

What are the two physical ones? Their bliss body in paradise, and their emanations. 

Do you think they're emanating just for fun?

Their emanations are how they perpetuate their Buddhahood. Because the process of seed planting, seed ripening is still happening. It's not called seeds, and it's not happening sequentially. But it's still the nature of existence, projections, projections, projections. So no, we don't ever get to the point where all we need to do is sit in wisdom, sit and cogitate emptiness, because it's not enough. Because there's no emptiness without the appearance side, is there? And the appearance side is also all this stuff that's happening off our meditation cushion. It's as important as the appearance side stuff on our meditation cushion, and it's the arena in which we make the goodness for our on-cushion practice to get deeper and higher. Those sound like contradictory, but it's like both.

Stillness Meditation (Still the Body & Withdraw the Mind Method 1)

Lama Christie gave us an interesting meditation from this point in Kamalashila, having also done a bit of a review. And then she's been working with us on doing the cleaning and receiving the blessings of the Lama, trusting ourselves to them.

Now she wants to give us a few different tools to explore to find the way that each one of us can have a method for getting our physical body still. So still that the mind can finally become unaware of it.

It's not going to happen in one or two or five efforts in any of these meditations. But you'll find one of them that seems to be the funnest or the most interesting and then that'll be the one that you use for your career of your meditation progress to shamatha.

Movement of the body attracts the attention of the mind. So from gross to subtle, we're wanting to gather the seeds so that when we determine, ‘ I'm pulling my mind in from awareness of my outer world‘, part of that outer world becomes our physical body. Even to the point where our inner physical body is part of our outer world, so that we can withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw.

It doesn't mean it all disappears. Although while you're deep in there, you won't even think about it, whether it's there or not there, because to think about it pulls you back out.

So here's one of the methods that one can use to cultivate this ability to still the body and turn the mind away from all those physical ways that it pulls us off.

It doesn't really seem like it's a body stillness meditation, but I'm sharing you her wisdom.

(34:20) Get yourself seated.

When you do this yourself, take your time to do the body scan relaxation down.

Then the energy rises up. Then bringing your focus to your breath and then turning in.

But I'm just going to go fast. So get your body set.

Bring your attention to your breath at your nostrils.

Try to brighten the clarity. Turn on the curiosity.

Now picture the purest being you can imagine sitting on the crown of your head. They are a few inches tall.

They have the essence of your heart Lama, whether you know your heart Lama or not.

See this being's body glowing in light. The light shining from their body.

Feel them there on your crown, some tiny pressure or warmth.

Now this angel being makes a clone of themselves, like one flame lighting a second flame, so then there's two flames. But this clone breaks off from them from the bottom.

The clone shrinks down smaller and smaller, and it descends through your crown, down into the middle side-to-side of your body, and a little towards the back from front-to-back middle.

They're very happily floating down in front of your spine, slowly, slowly.

And they come to rest there at the level behind your navel, in front of the spine, middle side-to-side.

They're about the size of a pea, shining in light, this purest being you can imagine. 

They're inside your body at that location.

Zoom in as the most fascinating thing.

See them and feel them.

We'll stay two more minutes.

Now intentionally move your focus of attention up the inside of your body to that pure being sitting on your crown. And see them shrinking into a tiny little size of a pea and also coming down the inside of your body.

They come to rest within the middle of your chest, the level of your heart, middle side-to-side, but a little to the back in front of your spine.

Feel them at that location. See them there.

And then you become aware that that angel Lama at your navel is rising up to meet the one at your heart.

And they merge together into one precious being there in your heart, shining the light of their love, their compassion, their wisdom into you.

And we dedicate to using it to help that other being in that deep and ultimate way. 

Then shift your focus of attention of your this-body in this room.

Feel your hands, feel your feet. And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

You were very still, did you notice?

(47:03) Lama Christie explained that for the purpose of this meditation for growing our ability to stay physically still, physically withdrawn, the details of this holy being are not so important as the knowing that they're there. She said specifically, even for non-visualizers, it's fine - you call forth this being and feel them on your crown and know that they're there. The focus of attention is zoomed into this knowing, and knowing what their qualities are. So it is a little bit more intellectual for non-visualizers, but it'll work just the same.

Then, if you have a being who's like a living being or had lived, so that we have some photograph or mental photograph of them, you can use a being that you know, who qualifies.

If you don't have a relationship with someone in that way, then you come up with an idealized one. It can be a worldwide religious figure, living or not. It can be someone we imagine. It could be a thing or an animal. The idea is this purity that they are.

I, again, like the term, a being made of love, compassion, wisdom. But I resonate with that. You find what this being represents, the one that's on your crown, that we're going to pull down, the clone of, to behind the navel, then into the heart, and then bring them both together and just sit.

Don't spend a long time sitting with the two together in the heart. This meditation can be 15, 20 minutes long. As we're in it, we're planting the seeds that we are doing it for the results for.

Lama Christie is working with this group of people that are just fine-tuning their meditation skills. We've all been meditating before, that's how we got into class. But she's teaching us these proper skills. She said at this point, when you're growing a new skill, if we learn the skill in a sloppy way, then we're always going to do the skill in a sloppy way. Whereas when you're first learning, we try really hard to learn it in a really precise way, we can always shift it to make it our own later. Possibly circumstances will make it so that we get sloppy later. But if we start out learning in a sloppy way, it makes it really hard later to unlearn the sloppy and learn the new.

So she was really strict with us when we were in class together, and she would always say, what you do at home on your cushion, that's not up to me. But the implication was, what you do on your home cushion is more important than what you do in two hours a week in class time.

But here we had, I don't know, 50, 60 people in this class together meditating. If there were three or four or five of us shifting and wiggling and sniffing and coughing, it disturbed everybody. So she really was strict, she'd call you out and it's like, ‘so and so sit still or get out’. She was like mean.

So we don't need to do that here. But the point is, be strict with yourself when you're first learning this new skill.

Like I admit, since I've been teaching so much and my sleep schedule is different, my meditations have gotten really sloppy. And I see what she's talking about here, because they used to be precise and on. And now it's like, I can't get them back there, except for some, I don't know, some zip from the universe hits me, and I get a good meditation now and then. But it's only because I've let myself get sloppy. So don't do that, please. It's a setback.

Do the precision, go through the steps.

(52:49) Each meditation that we do, it's not about whether that meditation is high quality or not. It's about the seeds we're planting during the meditation and how high quality those are.

Am I really checking whether I'm on or off the object?

Am I really establishing dullness versus subtle dullness?

Do I have that SHE SHIN and DRENPA active?

We're doing meditations that aren't training us to do just those. We need to apply that ourselves.

Really early in my meditation career, I assigned myself a month-long retreat to just work on the nine stages of meditation to see if I could figure out what the heck they really were, what they really meant. 

I took just a single-pointed object and I worked on it, four, five, six sessions a day. And I really didn't know so much what I was doing, I just took the books in with me. John Yates was teaching that stuff. I took in some instruction from John Yates and I just dug in to my own mind. It was one of the most powerful retreats I'd ever done, before or since. And then it's like out of that has come a couple of different retreat programs that we've led to help people dig into that stuff. But I don't know, maybe we need to do that later. It's like, supposedly we can do it ourselves.

So that actually completes our homework or our class six from before. And I'm going to go right on into class seven, but as I said, I don't think I can finish it. But we're almost at break time so let's take break first. 

(Break)

Meditation to Fine Tune Our Focus

(55:32) Lama Christie gave us another meditation. This one is about fine tuning our ability to focus.

Our meditation skill is growing the ability to focus our attention on an object, irrelevant of our interest in the object. Ordinarily, something we're really interested in, we can focus easily. When we're not so interested, we don't focus so easily.

So we're shifting the impetus of focusing onto our decision to focus.

Then again, if we think, ‘well, I'm only focused on this one object as long as that one object stays still’, we're misunderstanding the power of our focus.

So in this meditation, she's helping us grow this awareness of how much is included in our focus when we're focusing on an object, and how we can establish the quality of our focus and then move it from one object to the next.

Like you've got the microscope and you've got the slide under the microscope lens and you've got it focused. Then you take this slide out and you put another one in, and this one out and another one in. And the focus doesn't go [following the object]. The focus stays right here and you stick different things in front of it.

This particular meditation, she's helping us recognize that when we have our focus on my one object, to recognize that we may think we're focused on this object, but in fact, included in that awareness is a whole bunch of other stuff. And that to become aware of what we're thinking is focus here is not focus here because there's this other stuff.

Learning how to then take this microscope lens that includes all the other stuff and switch it, switch it [to a tighter focus so it excludes other things], switch it [to even tighter focus], switch it [to even tighter focus], until it includes only what's under the slide.

So this particular exercise is a much more active, engaged exercise.

And as I describe it, it sounds like ‘you're distracting me from the focus you're telling me to have, teacher’, and it's like, yeah, it's the only way I can do this. 

Once you go to try this on for size at home, don't use a recording of it because the recording is going to distract you. But get a feel for the sequence of it and then use your experience. You'll see when I'm done with it.

I'm frustrated by this meditation. Probably I shouldn't have told you at the beginning, because that means you're going to be. But maybe not. Okay, so let's try it on for size.

(59:22) Settle in.

And again, recall your intention for being here. Somebody's distressed. They don't know this stuff and they're not interested and we're going to do it for them.

Do your relax down, energize up, come to the focus of your breath at your nostrils.

Now you're focusing on your breath and notice how with that focus on your breath is some subtle awareness of you in your room, in your house, in your city.

So I've just pulled your mind out to all of those places. And bring it back into the focus on your breath. And recognize those other subtle awarenesses as part of the experience of focus on the breath.

Now intentionally withdraw a level so that all that subtle awareness is, is the inside of your room, your breath, you, inside your room.

Now pull it in a little further. You, your breath, on your chair, nothing else.

Now pull it in closer, like a you behind your nose focusing just in front of you.

And withdraw in further, zoom into that edge of your nostril between inside and outside. Just that.

Sharp, clear, fascinated.

Now expand from the sharp focus at the edge of the nostril to being behind your nose watching.

To being inside a whole body breathing through your nostrils,

to being you in your room,

you in your room inside your home,

your home in its location,

its location in your city,

your city in your state,

your state in your country,

your country on its continent,

your continent on the planet,

your planet in space.

What's the limit to what your mind can focus upon?

Now draw it back in.

Use your own steps until you have your body in your room.

And recognize all of these images have been constructs of our mind, ripening in images, showing us how our mind creates our world.

Then dedicate this experience to helping that other in that deep and ultimate way someday.

And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

(71:38) So that's an exercise in doing the focusing, but it's also an exercise in seeing how expansive our mind can be and how teeny, how zeroed in it can be. And at either level it's doing the same thing, conceptual arisings happening. 

Lama Christie's meditations through all of the Bok Jinpa would swing between helping us cultivate a better awareness of appearing reality with meditations that are helping us cultivate a better awareness of that empty nature of those appearing realities. And of course you can't have one without the other, but we can't focus on them both at the same time until we can really focus.

So we use what we're trying to investigate as the objects to learn to focus so that once we have our focus tool well trained, there's not some new object we're putting under there.

It shouldn't matter. Once our focus tool is well trained, it shouldn't matter what you put under there. It's just easier to be familiar with the object that we train in to then do our performance. They say, if you're training a racehorse, you can train a racehorse on any track. But then if you go race them on a track they're not familiar with, they're not going to perform as well on the unfamiliar racetrack as they would as if you had given them some time to train on the racetrack that they're going to race on. Same with our own mind.

Master Kamalashila has been talking about cultivating our method side and wisdom side. They seem to be two separate things. We already know the punch line - they're not two separate things, they are two sides of the same coin and we can't have a coin that doesn't have two sides. Regardless of which side of the coin we are looking at, we know it has the other side. So for any appearing thing, we know its empty nature, and anytime we think of emptiness we know there has to be something that's empty in order to even consider emptiness.

There's no such thing as ‘general purpose all over the place‘ emptiness that we can put our mind onto. The emptiness we explore is the emptiness of something.

Then our mind wants to say, well then the thing has to be there first in order for it to be empty. And of course it's like, no. They are not sequential. They don't depend on each other in that way that they are rather mutually arising. Words just fail to convey. 

Which is why we struggle with the words and we take it into meditation and we dig in, dig in, dig in to get a more direct experience of this pair of appearance and emptiness.

Master Kamalashila will give us lots of different methods for investigating it and any one of which will be the one that for you, you'll make your career out of.

We won't know which one is the one for me until we try a whole bunch of different ones on for size, enough that we've really investigated them. So we're going through these classes way too fast. I would recommend that you keep a notebook maybe of all these different meditations. And then depending on how you want to relate to this material, if and when you choose to really dig into them, you have it all in one place that you don't have to go back and listen to all the classes. Just take some of those meditations and take them into a three-day retreat once a month and explore them until you find the one that pops for you. And then you use that one as your daily practice or as the one you take into deeper retreat with you.

We're not meant to master all of these different meditations. It's too much and too fast.

(78:05) When we are using method and wisdom on our retreat cushion in our meditation, anything that's appearing to us is what we're using for the appearing side, the method side, to recognize that it is a seed ripening. It is a construct of the mind and therefore, it has no nature of its own.

We're doing it in Mahamudra class where we're intentionally allowing all that stuff to pop up and imposing our understanding, oh, seed ripening and nothing but, seed ripening and nothing but.

And then taking our focus, clarity, and intensity of that and going underneath to find the fact that none of it is happening other than as seed ripenings in order to find its emptiness.

Master Kamalashila is helping us to get there as well. We start by recognizing that anything that pops up in our mind, including the sensation of the nostrils of the breath, is this construct of the mind.

I don't like that word construct. A picture made of sensations or made of colors and shapes, or made of something. But a name and a label and an experience that's coming out of.. or not coming out.. that's arising in our awareness. It's forced on us in some way, right? Because if it wasn't forced on us, if it was by our choice, we would just choose to have the ripening, ‘see emptiness directly‘. It's clearly not by choice.

So it seems like there's a little bit of choice. ‘ I'm choosing to sit on my meditation cushion and stay here until my timer goes off.’ Call that choice, call that seeds ripening, and you'd be correct either way.

The point is, in the meditative awareness, when we're supposed to be single-pointed focus and nothing else is coming up, other stuff is going to come up. And we can get frustrated and say, Oh, my meditations are lousy. Or we can use every single one and recognize ‘oop, another arising, in order for it to be what appears, it has to have no identity of its own’.

Like, is that clear enough to all of us that I can stop saying it?

No, never, right? Not to me anyway. I have to say it to my own mind over and over and over again, to remind myself. Because everything that pops up, we have this deep belief that even though it's just my thinking of the object, the object I'm thinking about has its identity in-it from-it.

Our me in my room is a room that somebody built, in a community that somebody designed, in a world, right? It's so inherent in the experience that we have to intentionally show ourselves, Oh, no, that's not right.

We don't need to use those words, we just need to turn that as part of what's in the focus. Ripening, ripening, ripening.

For something to appear to my mind, it's unique to my mind. And that's what tells me that the object cannot have its own nature. Because if it did, it would be the same to everybody.

But wait, I'm the only one aware of it. I'm in meditation behind my eyes thinking about something. There's nobody else there but me.

How can I still show myself that this thing coming up in my mind is my projection?

Well, because there's no substantial thing there. It has just popped out of my mind.

It should be even more clear that if a mental image of something or somebody pops into your mind during meditation, that it can't be the real thing, right?

Because the real body is out there in the other room, if all of a sudden Sumati comes to my mind in meditation. It's clear it's coming out of my mind.

But then from there we go, oh, then its nature is allowing that particular image to come out of my mind.

It's all a very head trippy thought process to get this. But then what we do with it is when we're experiencing it is, don't use so many mental words, but use the experiential. ‘There's an arising, it has to be empty’. And what's happening every time we do that is we're planting seeds. And in any given session, it just may be the same refrain. ‘There's some more, arising, mental seed, emptiness, okay’. And it may feel like we're never getting anywhere. But we're planting seeds that will ripen as getting somewhere. Okay?

(84:58) So Master Kamalashila says, method side without wisdom is poison. Meaning, if we do our practices of giving and moral discipline without our understanding that we're doing those because of emptiness, in order to plant seeds, in order to stop the suffering that I see in my world.. if we just give because it's nice and fun to give, we're just perpetuating suffering. We will get a good result, pleasure that will come to us, and it will wear out, and we'll be suffering, wanting more.

It is good to be kind. It is good to be kind on purpose. But it's useless to be kind on purpose without adding the wisdom component. It's kind of discouraging. Because it's hard enough to train ourselves to be kind in the face of unpleasantness, which is useful, but not useful enough to stop the suffering that we say we want to stop.

It really requires some level of thinking, of holding in mind, ‘Because of emptiness, I'm being kind. Because of Bodhicitta, with Bodhicitta, I'm offering this piece of bread to the bird. I'm taking flowers to Aunt Mary. I'm going to the doctor's office, because of emptiness‘. And it's so difficult to not be on automatic pilot.

When we're on our meditation cushion, we're not interacting with other people, we're not performing, we are finally there with our own mind, that can be the place where we can practice adding the emptiness component to what we're doing.

When we get off cushion and we're interacting with our world, it becomes difficult again.

The more we do it on our cushion, the more likely those seeds will ripen and we'll be able to do it when we're interacting with our outer world. And that spiral will increase. 

The training, or what we're trying to tag together, is this deep understanding that for anything to appear to me, anything to appear to me, it reveals its no self-nature, its emptiness.

Because I experience it unique to me, it must be empty.

Because I experience it, period, it must not have its own nature.

Because I experience it.

If it had its own nature, could I experience it? 

Our mind goes, yes, of course, it would just plop itself in front of me and be the pen from its own side and make me see pen. Independent of me seeing pen.

Wait, it couldn't do that. Just to see it as a pen, that it says, I have to see it as a pen, it depends on me seeing it.

At any level that we experience anything, it reveals its no self-nature.

And really, all we need to do is to think of it. It's like, oh, wow, there it is.

So Master Kamalashila is really trying to needle us to getting off automatic pilot and to really applying our emptiness of the three spheres in everything that we do. 

Why it's so difficult, I don't know. It's just our automatic pilot thing. The seeds of being on automatic pilot.

But that's what we're getting off of together. That's why we're doing these classes. Thank you very much, Coco.

Master Kamalashila says, when we come to really know that this pair of method and wisdom are inseparable, not two things that have come together, but are inseparably one coin, two sides, then that automatically helps us stop DRONDOKing and KORNDEPing. Do you remember those two words?

DRONDOK means fabricating, putting too much there, more there than really is.

And KORNDEP is the opposite. It's discounting, meaning some kind of belief that there's less there than there really is.

So, there are these opposites. It's a bit like the two cliffs. They aren't the two cliffs, but they're aspects of the two cliffs, of which we are trying to stay on the Middle Way.

In the extreme of the DRONDOK, it means that we're putting on more reality than the object actually has.

Geshe-hla had this whole story about a bear and I can't remember it now, but you know, here's our friend, the pen. And as soon as I say, what is this thing? And we all go, ‘A pen‘, our DRONDOK includes a pen from the factory made of plastic, has ink, is a writing instrument, I must've bought it from a store.

Like the whole story about the pen's identity and function is held in the answer [for] ‘what is this thing?’. Oh, a pen.

That's DRONDOK. That's putting on more than is really there.

And on one level, we can say, well, all that story about the object, the pen, is the DRONDOK. But come on, it is a pen. We just don't really know what store, who bought it, [etc], that's all the story.

But no, we can go, no, we're fabricating more than is necessary on this object when we say, oh, the pen is a writing instrument. Because, son of a gun, I can pick up this pen and explain these concepts and not ever write anything with the pen. Which means our including in the identity of pen that it must write, is putting too much on it.

And then when we go down deeper still, like the most subtle ‘too much’ that we're putting on it is its own nature. ‘There's some nature to this object that makes me see pen, or that influences me to see pen’. Like, isn't there a part of our own minds that are saying that?

Even as we say, I know it's my projection, but come on, there's an object here. And I don't sometimes look at this object and see orange tree. Every time I see this object, I see a pen or something similar to a pen. There must be something in it that suggests ‘pen‘. And I just bring this specific pen to the party. You can see the different levels of what emptiness and karma mean in the different schools as we investigate what is my DRONDOK? What's the too much that I'm putting on this object?

Its own nature. Anything that it brings to the party is our DRONDOK.

When we see the marriage of method and wisdom, meaning the two of appearance and emptiness, that prevents us from putting too much on the pen.

How? Because to see the pen is to know it's no self-nature.

To see the pen is to know it's empty of pen-ness in it, from it.

Because if it wasn't, everybody would see it the same way.

Because if it wasn't, it would make me see it without having eyeballs to see it. That's not possible. It has to depend on me. And it doesn't exist in any other way than that. That's its emptiness. It takes the both.

It appears. Seems to appear in it, from it. Can't. There's a version of its emptiness. 

What's there is my construct. Information made into pen, green pen, my green pen. 

And it must lack its own nature for me to see it that way.

Anything we see reveals its emptiness.

When those two are tied together, we don't make the mistake. Pen in it, from it. 

Pen in it from it is the DRONDOK.

We don't make that mistake anymore when we have the two together.

When we have the two together, we also don't make the mistake of the KORNDEP, which is discounting things.

(97:50) So Lama Christie said with the KORNDEP, that's not likely to happen when we are out interacting with our objects of awareness. Because KORNDEP happens when we're pushing ourselves to be more and more aware of the object's empty nature, its impossibility of being the thing that we're holding in our awareness. That we could slip into that misunderstanding of the ramification of its emptiness and come to the conclusion, ‘well, then there's really no pens there at all. And if there's no pens there at all, then it really doesn't matter what I do’.

To me, that feels like a disconnect. But what I do find is when I'm playing with my own mind, and I'm saying, okay, this thing is a projection of my mind… I just lost my train of thought.

It's only a projection. The term is, ‘It's only a projection’. Here's this thing, it's only a projection. I catch a part of my mind go, ‘oh, so it's not real. Oh, so it's like a movie. Oh, so it's like a dream’. In that is the edge of, ‘well then, so it wouldn't matter’. Because it doesn't,… In dreams, you think some terrible things have happened and you woke up and it's like, oh, that didn't happen, thank goodness.

It's like this wrong thought leads to a wrong conclusion.

They say it only happens when we get a not accurate explanation of emptiness. But I honestly feel like every time I think of things as projection and nothing but, I slip over into that edge, and I catch it and pull back. Because of this automatic hearing something as a projection, meaning it's not real.  When in fact when we get it right, to say it's my projection is like, Ah, that explains everything. It's more real as my coin of projection and its emptiness. It makes things more real than when I said before, oh, here's the DRONDOK pen.

So Kamalashila, he knows our mind is DRONDOK-ing and KORNDEP-ing as we're working on our understanding of how things seem to exist, but can't, and how they appear to exist and are empty. And then how our mind reacts to that and says, ‘oh, so things aren't real’ instead of coming to the accurate conclusion, which is, ‘oh my gosh, that's how things are real’.

But then we need the one other piece, which is why or how is it that my mind projects pen instead of chew toy?

Why is it my mind projects ‘angry yelling boss‘ out of those decibels instead of beautiful music?

Like why? Why is my projection this instead of that? And that's part of the method side.

So we've gone from appearances and emptiness to method side and wisdom. It's like the next level out. Our method side is the using our growing wisdom to do our kindness deeds because of the emptiness of the three spheres, and so my behavior creates the end of suffering for everybody. Because everything is nothing but appearance in my mind, how I see myself interact with those appearances of my mind influences that mind that's going to bring me future how I see myself being influenced by my world.

We know the punchline. We're trying to catch the process happening.

We do it on our meditation cushion because we can slow things down. We can pretend we're really seeing it. We can explore. Then we try to take those seeds that we've planted on the cushion and take them out and try them on for size.

And if we do it just once in a day, like, wow, write that on your rejoicables list, because we've gone billions of eons without ever even thinking about it.

So once in a lifetime would be amazing. And look how much you're doing.

Kamalashila is encouraging us. He gives, in your reading you'll see, he gives a story from Lord Buddha. Lord Buddha is talking to Maitreya one day.

And Lord Buddha says, ‘You know, foolish people think that all they need is wisdom. And they just trample on the six perfections, not knowing that those six perfections are so precious.‘

He says, I was the king of Kashi, once upon a time, like he tells a past life story.

And he says, I the king, I saw this dove, and this falcon was preparing to swoop in and eat the dove. He said, my heart was torn with compassion for both of them, that I cut my flesh and I fed the falcon with it in order to save the dove.

And he asked Maitreya, ‘Do you think that that was a lesser deed?‘

Like, do you think that that was a mistaken deed for the king to give their flesh to a falcon to save a dove? Like that dove isn't going to benefit from that deed. The king is so much closer a being to enlightenment than the dove, why would he risk his life by cutting his flesh to feed a falcon?

So on one level, Buddha might be saying, sometimes those Bodhisattva activities are not as high as you think. But that's not what he's saying here.

Maitreya apparently said something like, ‘That was probably a lesser deed. The king could have hurt himself on the behalf of the dove. And then that would not have been a good deed.‘

And Buddha goes on to say, ‘But that deed was amongst the deeds that were the causes of my Buddhahood.‘

And Maitreya goes, ‘Oh, in that case, the king must have had in his mind, as he's cutting the flesh, the empty nature of himself, the empty nature of the falcon, the empty nature of the dove.‘

He had Bodhichitta in his heart, not just ‘I want to be a Buddha for the sake of all beings‘. But the Bodhichitta which is empty, empty, empty and so what I'm doing is planting the seeds for all three of us to end the suffering of the world.

Now, is it a lesser deed to cut your flesh to save a dove, to feed a falcon when you're the king?

Kamalashila's, part of his point there is, the method side is important, but it's not what you do in the method side. It's why you do what you do in the method side. 

We have to do our method side activities. Those are the seeds that create our two form bodies of a Buddha. But they aren't method side activities without the wisdom applied. Because otherwise, what we are thinking is method side is simply perpetuating samsaric goodness side.

So we need both, method side and wisdom side, not as two separate things, but happening together. And that's why we meditate, so that we can grow that ability to hold those both at the same time.

(109:20) Lastly, included in your reading is someone must have said to Master Kamalashila, Look, all of this is interesting, but even Buddha said at some point, you have to give up the teachings. And so at some point, all this chewing on dependent origination and emptiness, it's just going to keep you tormented. Like we hear that in other classes in the future. 

Lama Christie pointed out that Master Kamalashila’s and all of these different Kachik arguments that he brings up, she says those were the different arguments that the Hua Shang debate was about.. like the Hashang was educated. He had sutras. He had methods. And they were understood from a lower understanding.

Master Kamalashila was able to reveal that lower understanding and so thereby reveal the truth of using a meditation where you are working with your mind instead of just trying to blank it out.

So one of those arguments the Hua Shang used is that even Buddha said at some point, you leave the teachings behind. And Kamalashila's answer back, you'll see in the reading is like, what Buddha meant when he said that, which was from Diamond Cutter Sutra, you remember? Was that at some point we realize that even the wisdom teachings lack any self-existence. That they are projections ripening and nothing but. And that's the only place they can come from. That's what makes them real. That's what makes them true.

So it still is hard. I listen to my own mind say that and it's like, ‘no, like there has to be truth in the Buddha's teachings.They can't be coming from my mind because my mind's too puny to make that’. And it's like, ‘No, if they have their own nature, just like the pen, I could not perceive them. To perceive them depends on me’. Oh my gosh, it's so fabulous. Right?

And Lama Christie said, and see how close we are. To study the Dharma at this level, with this exquisite.. I'm not saying ‘my explanation‘, Lama Christie‘s / Geshe Michael's explanations that I can channel through to you, it's all coming from you, your goodness. None of it has any nature of its own. We make it all.

Wow. How wild is that?

So pat yourself on the back. And think of this goodness that we've done on behalf of that other who isn't interested or isn't capable or who knows what.

[Dedication of class]

All right. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Pratyahara

Tu sam gom

Shargom = review meditation

Chegom = analytical meditation

Jokgom = fixation meditation

Okay, for the recording, welcome back. We are Bok Jinpa Course 1, finishing Class 7 and we'll do Class 8, should finish it, which will complete Course 1 tonight, hopefully. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do.

Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

I forgot to say this is September 10th, 2025.

[Usual class opening]

(7:30) Last class, we had a little bit more to go about the Hatha Yoga Pradipika side of learning how to meditate. What Lama brought up was that Hatha Yoga Pradipika at this point in your reading is discussing the practice of Pratyahara, which means withdrawal of the senses.

What Lama Christi pointed out was the similarities between the yoga tradition with the Niyamas and Niyamas, and then all this other, the methods that they use to cultivate our body and mind to be able to meditate and come to wisdom or whatever is meant by that. 

She is always focusing more on the similarity between our traditions‘ teachings and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika rather than teaching us the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

She's saying, Look, here it is there too. But this is where it shows up in our tradition.

The withdrawal of the senses we've already heard about. Our tradition says, when we're learning to train our Vinaya, one of the ways you do it is just quit engaging in so much outer stimulation.

When you walk along the city, keep your eyes to the cement, look up so you don't hit the telephone pole, or walk into a car, but otherwise keep your eyes down. It's like, OK, useful, probably not very practical. You can't very well do your grocery shopping with your eyes glued to the floor.

But the idea being, everything that we perceive gets recorded and it's stuck in there. I go here, but really it's in us. It's it's in there and it's actually something that, it's like it adds it adds to something in in all of our perceptions. Every perception we have sort of complicates every other one.

Lama Christi said in her deep retreat. She got to the point where just that a movie scene would suddenly pop up and she'd play her in her mind that like 10, 15, 20 minutes of that movie scene as if she's seeing it projected on the screen, word for word, everything because it's in there. She's not remembering it. It just came out and it's like how frustrating would that be when that's the last thing in the world you're interested in, but out it ripens and you can't really turn it off. It only can do that if it's been put inside. That’s the point. So the less we put in by way of our interactions with an outer world, the more free our mind becomes to be able to do these meditative practices. Kind of seems to me eons of outer stimulation to spend one whole lifetime trying to withdraw the sense powers. We're not going to make a dent in those imprints that we've put inside there. So there must be something deeper going on here.

Master Kamalashila, he talks about it in a little deeper way. Then Je Tsongkapa also talks about it in a deeper way than just avoiding sensory stimulation.

First Master Kamalashila says, yes, to withdraw from all that contact with an outer world will be useful in preparing our ability to sit in meditation and intentionally withdraw our focus of attention to being able to be unaware of those sense powers happening, number one.

Secondly, to start to cultivate our speech more intentionally, by which he means silence, a lot more silence, less speech, also helps to conserve our mind space to allow us to go deeper in meditation. It also conserves our subtle energy. To speak uses up a lot of energy. To intentionally be in silence is an energy cultivating practice as well. 

Then there's the mental isolation that happens on the cushion as we're turning our focus in deeper and deeper and deeper, where we can reach a place where we are so focused inward that even if there's stimulation coming to the sense powers, we won't be aware of it.

Then they go into this debate is like, well, then do the sense powers actually engage in that or they don't engage? I don't know, when you're in that state of disengaged with your sense powers, who really cares, in my opinion, whether they're getting vision and you don't care or they're not getting vision, which is why you can't. Maybe ultimately it's important.

Lama Tsongkapa takes it a little bit deeper, yet. He agrees with all of that. But he says the real Pratyahara that we want to cultivate or the deepest one is to be able to cultivate a level of mindfulness through which we can be aware of the moments where our attachment and aversion arise in response to the objects of our sense input. 

He reminds us, color, shape, appear to the eye ball, eye power, eye consciousness goes, Oh, information, information and matches pen. Then instantly, our me, whatever that is, Mahamudra group, our me goes, that pen, my pen, good pen, bad pen, I want pen. It's not in mental words, it's in instances. We get attachment, we get aversion. Then, of course, that goes to what we're going to do next. And then that goes to what we're going to do next.

So Lama Tsongkapa says, yeah, trying to shut off your eye power, your ear power, that's I suppose, a good practice. But where it will be helpful is to catch where your eye power, eye consciousness triggers the awareness of the thing, and then whatever triggers the grasping or aversion, the attachment or aversion, and shut it off right there. That the Pratyahara that will help us stop our ignorance is growing this awareness to be able to find that moment of desire or aversion and go withdraw from that.

It seems almost impossible, right? Outside of meditation, it probably is impossible until we've got the hang of it on our meditation. To be able to do it on our meditation, we certainly need to have this deep, deep level of stillness capability so that we can be so clearly focused on the moment-by-moment experience thing that we could actually catch that.

Then to catch it is one thing, to catch it and stop it is a whole other thing. But that's Je Tsongkapa’s point, is that if you want it, the highest function of a Pratyahara practice is this. Because it means you're cutting off your ignorance from continuing to roll. 

(18:10) Lama Christie shared that if in our practices, we only get really brief instances of shutting our sensory input awareness off, even if it doesn't last long, it's a respite from the constant lie. They call it, Geshe Michael calls it the lie of our outer reality, the lie of the object that my eye power, eye consciousness come up with is a pen. The lie is that it comes up automatically with a pen in it, from it. A pen, not my projection pen. As soon as we experience the pen, we're reconfirming it's a self-existent pen and so we're replanting those seeds that add to all the other ones. 

So anytime in meditation where we really are shut off from being aware of a sensory input, we're actually shutting off an instant of perpetuating that lie. 

That would make a debate whether it's effective enough to actually take us all the way to the direct perception of emptiness. I think that the scripture is going to say not all by itself. You wouldn't just get to that point where you just kept cutting off any sensory input without doing anything else and thinking, well, this is enough to cut my ignorance. We just have to do it for a really, really, really long time.

So Pratyahara has this whole different meaning when we take it deeper into 

Kamalashila and Je Tsongkapa.

Lama Christie gave us a meditation at the end of class 7, which we just finished class seven, that had to do with another method of reaching this deep, deep, deep concentration that will help us bring our physical body to stillness. And then she repeated it in the meditation for class 8. So I'm just going to do the meditation for class 8. So we just finished class 7.

Meditation Incorporating All Learnings from Course 1

(21:18) Let's sit together.

Get your body posture settled, push down on the sits bones, slight pull up with your lower tummy, drawing that energy up, aligning spine, aligning chest, head.

Scan back down the outside, inviting everything to relax.

As you bring your focus of attention back up first, turn your eyes to look at a spot behind your forehead in the midline, a little above where your eyebrows would meet, inside about an inch. Your physical eyes turn up a little bit.

With your eyes gently gazing at that place, think to yourself, or remind yourself why you are here, why you are taking this class.

Why is it important to learn these holy things?

At any time you feel strain in your eyes or your head, let those eyes relax.

It feels fine, leave them there.

Part of the reason you are here is because there's someone you know who's hurting, who triggers in us that feeling of need and desperation for us to reach our goal, to be able to really help them.

That person in some kind of distress, urgent or chronic, they're waiting for something or someone to help them, to save them.

Consider how it is that sitting here in meditation is going to save them someday by changing you and how you perceive your world. It does change them, save them. 

So now recall in front of you that holy being, that being made of love, compassion, wisdom.

They are your purest embodiment of your own goodness, manifesting outside of you, manifesting in a physical form, if they appear that way to you in life, manifesting in an imagined form, your now, your highest seeds of goodness.

Now think about the karma of interacting with this being.

This reveals to us why we even want a relationship with a being like this, a relationship with the Lama. They are our most powerful karmic object through which we create the circumstances of our future that include every being in our world.

And so we want to make them an offering.

Think of something.

See yourself offer it to them, whether it's a physical thing or an explanation, and see them so happy to receive it from you.

Then feeling so safe in their care, open your heart to them and reveal some negativity that's in there. Some seed or seeds that when they ripen will be unpleasant for us and others. Tell them about that circumstance.

Apply your refuge, your regret.

Offer this class as your antidote and establish your power of restraint.

We'll stay three minutes.

Be clear, be specific.

***3 min***

Let that holy being take the weight of that ugliness from you. And in doing so, it is completely destroyed.

Then we rejoice with them in some especially kind thing you did recently. Tell them. Feel like the five-year-old running home from school telling mom or dad, I helped Joey go down the slide and he was always so scared before. And we had such fun. Like that.

Tell them another.

And another.

See how happy they are for you to hear yourself telling them of these rejoicables.

Ask them for their blessings to help you continue to do those kinds of kindnesses, to help you see amazing teachings coming to you all around.

Ask them to bless you to be able to see them inside every being you encounter.

Ask them to bless you to continue to plant seeds that will perpetuate them in your life, in your relationship with them.

And of course, they grant all of your requests.

With that, we turn our focus off of them into inside us, finding that place where what we call breath exits and enters what we call our physical body. Find that location. Zoom in your focus.

Watch with crystal clarity those sensations as the air exits and returns.

Notice the length of that exhale and the length of the inhale.

Invite them to come to balance. Equal time out as in.

Just watching, enjoying.

Checking your mind for focus, for clarity, for intensity.

Now shift from that object to looking into the inside of your body, and you see that in fact, inside is completely hollow. It's a little surprising.

So you start from above and scan down, looking in all those places. Surprised to find there is just beautiful, clear color. Can be blue like the sky, yellow like the sun, pink if you like. Everywhere you look, this beautiful clear color space.

All the way down to your toes.

Then turn and come back up, and starting again from the top of your head, scan down, establishing that body part to be still. And feel the shift happen. Something in your head and face becomes immovable, intentionally immovable.

Shoulders, set.

Arms, hands, fingers, set.

Torso, set.

Hips, pelvis, set.

Thighs, knees, legs, feet, set.

Perfectly safe, perfectly firm.

Now look again to the inside and see that there's this glistening core of red light.

It's coming up from the core of the earth, up where your spine used to be, going beyond you, straight up all the way to the North Star.

This beautiful shining crimson column of light about the width of a drinking straw.

Get a sense of it mentally, visually. And explore it mentally, visually, experientially. 

There's a very subtle movement within it.

Perhaps it seems up to down, down to up.

Perhaps it seems in to out.

Open up to whatever experience it feels to you.

Focus on it more and more closely as if you are just this core of light.

Check for on or off that object. Check your clarity, dullness, agitation, intensity.

Fix what needs fixing.

Back to this awareness of this core of light, beautiful, exquisite.

Now we intentionally shift to our analytical aspect of the meditation.

We have this core of light as my inner me inside a hollow space with an outer outline. 

And we have a physical body.

Recognize how both of those ideas are mental images arising.

Is one of them more real than the other?

Does it seem like one is more real and the other is more imagined?

That too is mental images, both versions.

What happens to either of those bodies when the mental image disappears?

Can you find anything about your body that is not your mental image?

Now think of something that you've discovered in just the last few minutes.

Try to go through this sequence to discover it again. And when you catch it, hold it, free of any further talking about it.

Sit silently in its ‚Aha‘.

We'll stay three minutes.

***3min***

Now release that fixation meditation. Become aware of you and your physical body. Sitting on your chair or seat in your room, in your town.

And dedicate this effort to reaching that single-pointed meditation stillness from which you will go on to experience emptiness directly. From which you will go on to become one who can help that other in that deep and ultimate way.

Then when you're ready, move your hands, your arms, your body. Open your eyes. Take a stretch.

(54:28) That was fun, hey?

Lama Christie said, that meditation incorporates everything that we've learned so far in course one. Plus a few clues as well.

So whoever is doing the compiling of stuff, give this one a star so that if and when you're ready to come back and explore these things, this is the take-home meditation from course one.

You don't necessarily have to go back and spend weeks on every single one. You can use this one again and again.

Let's take our break before I start talking about it.

Master Kamalashila on the Steps of Meditation

(55:55) I need my vocabulary again.

Master Kamalashila's Bhavana Krama text, Steps of Meditation. If you've noticed in the reading, it doesn't seem like it's been any instruction about how to meditate yet. 

It's been why we would want to meditate. And then what we need to do to gather enough goodness so that we could meditate if we did ever sit down to do it. 

And while we're reading about those things, we are trying it on for size, of course. But he spends, Lama Christie said, a third or more of his whole book on how to meditate on just buying us on the idea and how to gather the goodness.

When he finally gets to the section about how to meditate, we would expect it to be, you know, sit yourself in the posture like this, bring your attention to the breath like this, watch your awareness, notice this, fix this, check this. But he doesn't do that.

He goes into wisdom.

He talks about wisdom and cultivating wisdom and how to get to wisdom. Which is telling us what meditation is really for. It's a tool to grow our wisdom. Ultimately, of course, the wisdom of the direct perception of emptiness and all the wisdom we gain along the way to that, and all the way we use that wisdom—I don't know, would we say to grow our wisdom towards our perception of ourselves as Buddha, me and Buddha paradise emanating? 

He talks about three stages of our meditation work. And he does say we need to learn the wisdom by relying on teachings, many, many teachings, and then thinking about what we learned in those teachings, and then meditating on that, what we think we've learned so that we can make it more real, more accessible. And we know that threefold practices TU SOM GOM. It's study, study, study, contemplate, meditate, which really none of those actually help us unless we also serve, serve, serve others, the Lama, the Dharma, the Sangha. So that our efforts in steady contemplation and meditation can ripen a good result.

So he does say, yes, yes. To some goal TU SOM GOM.

But in his deeper explanation, he starts talking about what we know as Shargom, Chegom, Jokgom. Remember those terms from ACI three?

Shargom = review meditation

Chegom = analytical meditation

Jokgom = fixation meditation.

He's going to make the case that our Shargom meditation or review meditation is not equivalent, but is how we do our Tu of to TU SOM GOM in our meditation.

Shargom is the review meditation.

When we're reviewing a teaching that we've gotten, like you've all learned the death awareness meditation practice with the nine, the three realizations and each one has the three reasonings, and then the three determinations after that.

If you review that, it's the same as studying it again. On cushion, you do a review meditation. It's like taking another teaching in it. You're just telling it to yourself.

Then Chegom, the analytical meditation is the on cushion equivalent of SOM, the contemplation, the thinking about it, the chewing on it, the applying the reasoning to come to some Aha. In meditation, we catch that Aha and we fixate on the Aha

 No more conceptual thought. We've come to the conclusion of the debate and we park on it and stay there.

Then of course we lose it for whatever reason. We get distracted or we start yakking about it again. And we might need to go back, do the analysis again, get the conclusion, park there.

Any given meditation session mirrors out TU SOM GOM of our meditation practice career by way of reviewing the teaching—Chegom, doing an analysis of some piece of it, and then parking on the Aha that we get, whatever it is.

They recommend that in any given meditation session, we do some amount of all three of these so that we're gathering the goodness of the TU SOM GOM.

When we did this meditation, you noticed we did the preliminaries.

The preliminaries are a version of the Chegom meditation. It's gone through the sequence, reminding ourselves of what we do in the sequence, but also mental wording to ourselves, why we're doing it:

That Holy being, they know what we need.

They love us.

They've done what they had to do to become that.

I admire them so much.

I want to be like them.

They can help me become like them.

Wow. That's so great. I want to offer them something because they are such a powerful karmic object.

Then I use them to clear my heart of negativities.

Our Chegom, we're actually doing it, but we're also replanting seeds in our mind to know to do that, to know our preliminaries.

In the process, we are spending our time admiring that Holy being.

Being grateful to that Holy being.

Aspiring to become like that Holy being.

All that is planting seeds in our mind and it's powerful seeds.

Then our purification, powerful purification seeds and rejoicing in the end.

Don't forget rejoicing practice.

Then the asking for blessings. 

All of it designed by way of the seeds that we plant as we're saying it.

Are those seeds going to ripen 10 minutes later when we do our actual Chegom and Jokgom?

Tomato plants don't grow tomatoes the minute you put the seed in the soil.

But if I've been putting seeds in the soil for decades, I'm adding to those seeds. 

They're gonna start to sprout and the meditation of the day is gonna start to improve. 

But on any given day, maybe it's a good one and maybe it's not. We have so many seeds.

Any given day's quality of meditation is not a reflection of your effort on that day. 

Which is hard to remember because we think, if I'm a good meditator, it ought to be good every day. Or if I'm trying really hard, I should be able to do a good meditation. 

But come on, whatever we've trained ourselves to get good at, whether it's a sport or music or a dance, there are days you work really hard and everything just goes wrong. And there are other days you work really hard and everything just goes right. And the other four are also true.

So we know that the effort in the moment doesn't bring the next moment's result. And we know that over time, the accumulation of the motivation and the seed planting has to start to ripen. Sooner or later, maybe not even till next life.

But when we understand clearly just the doing of the preliminaries, the doing of the analysis is enough to be headed towards the direction of the goal that we've established we're doing it for. And at the end, we dedicate it to.

Like, how can we go wrong? It's just we've got that darn time gap. But, you know, so what? Use it, use it to plant more.

Apparently, the Hua Shang and Master Kamalashila's debate about meditation, if you recall, the Hua Shang was saying, bring your mind to stillness and get it to stop. When you can get your mind to stop, you are experiencing its ultimate reality.

Kamalashila's argument was, it is true that there is a point in meditation where our cognition, our conceptualizing and mental wording needs to come to an end. But it's not that we're trying to turn everything off. Because when we turn everything off, we're not completely off. There's still a subtle awareness, aware that I'm trying to perceive nothing. And those seeds will plant for us a future where we can't think at all, even when we want to. It won't bring the result of a wisdom being by turning our mind off. That in fact, for meditation to grow us into the wisdom beings that we aspire to, we need to be using our meditation time to plant those seeds for that wisdom being. And to do that, we need to learn what it takes to transform from misunderstanding being to a being who doesn't misunderstand and review those instructions again, and again, and again, to strengthen the seeds so we don't lose them. And we need to cognitively, logically think through the explanations about how things seem to exist, but can't.

How they do exist, but we can't see them that way.

And how nothing exists in any other way than that.

To be able to work ourselves through the analysis to come to the conclusion of  beyond words, Oh, that's my true nature. That's that true nature. That's where that comes from. And then rest in that Aha with fixation, where our single-pointed, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, free of dullness, free of agitation, free of any effort to stay there is on, on this aha, which is non-cognitive.

It is direct, but what is it that we're experiencing directly? It takes cognition or words to explain it to oneself. So the tendency is, I got it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah about what it was. And then, Oops.

Okay, get the analysis again, get the Aha, park there.

Then, even when we're parked there, we can be at a part where our mind's going, Are you really parked there? Are you losing it? And it's like, shut up in there. Just park. Park.

The practice is to be aware of when we're holding the aha and when we've lost it, gotten distracted, gotten dull. So if we're training ourselves in catching the dullness and the agitation, et cetera, along our way to reaching our aha that we're going to fixate on, we will have our free of agitation, free of dullness already turned on by the time we get to our aha. Because it's hard to reach the aha and then train ourselves to stay out of dullness and stay out of agitation. Do you see?

It's like this whole cycle that we try to go through the review, the analytical, catch the Aha. And we're doing all of it all the while we are trying to move our minds through those different stages of meditation until we can do all three of those stages at the ninth level. Just turn it on, free of agitation, free of dullness, free of any effort to have to do that. That allows you to then also experience the pleasures of your meditation, bringing you to shamatha.Then your fixation meditation on your Aha can actually be at the platform where it might even trigger going into the direct perception of that no-self nature of whatever your Aha is about.

(73:30) Somebody says, look, all that Shargom and Chegom, it's still our conceptual thinking. And conceptual thinking is ignorant. It's mistaken. It's always wrong. So come on. It's a waste of time to do review meditation, Shargom and analytical meditation, Chegom. Because you're always going to be wrong.

Je Tsongkapa, he jumps in here as well. He says, true, there is conceptualization that's incorrect and the more of it we do, the more of it we plant, the more of it we do. But there's also conceptualization that's taking us to accurate. So the more of that we do, the more of that we can do and we continue to grow that.

He says, in order to cultivate those, to decrease the wrong ones and increase the right ones, he says, we want to Shargom and Chegom, review meditation and analytical meditation on those steps of the path, the Lam Rim.

Because in doing so, we are reviewing and analyzing the different aspects of realizations that we reach through which our transformation is happening.

To review the Lam Rim, the relationship with the lama, and then my leisures and fortunes, and then I could lose it at any time, my own impermanence.

What comes next? Egads, all that kind of suffering.

What can protect me? Refuge.

How does refuge work? Ah, by way of my behavior. Karma and its consequences. 

How does karma and its consequences work? Well, because things really don't have all of their nature in them from them.

Then we start getting these glimpses into how we really can change ourselves, change our world

Then something happens and it's like, whoa, if that's true for me, it's true for everybody. We turn on renunciation onto others. We reach Mahayana.

You know, the Lam Rim.

Every time we go through that lam rim, we're hearing ourselves describe what needs to happen. So we're adding to seeds of having heard about them before. We're increasing our aspiration, hopefully. And then, when we stop on one and do our analysis of it, we're working out why is it that a being can be a powerful karmic object for me? And how does that help me? And how is it dangerous to me?

Because what if I establish a powerful karmic object, and then I treat them badly? Yikers.

But what if I treat them really well? Wow, wow. The power of that.

We think of everything that we've learned, and we apply it to this particular lam that we're studying again and again and again until we get some deeper aha than we had had before. And we go, oh, and then park your focus of awareness on that.

That's the hardest part, right? We're good at reviewing the teachings in our mind. 

We're good at doing the analytical.

But to park on the Aha and stay there, I don't know, maybe you're good at it, but I'm not. It's like dee dee dee dee dee, right? Shut up in there.

Kamalashila and Je Tsongkapa, they both say, Yes, it's frustrating that you sit down in meditation and you want to get so still and calm and settled that nothing's going on inside there. And they say, great, you know, you'll reincarnate as a rabbit or a cow.

If you want Buddhahood, make the effort, Shargom at least with your preliminaries. And then do the analysis, according to whatever your practice is, to reach the conclusion. Park on the conclusion.

How much time you spend on each of those three sections is totally up to you. All of this is self driven, as we know. 

(79:07) Somebody continues to argue. Well, if we need to be able to be meditating at the level of stillness, meaning level nine and above, then don't we have to do practices for just stillness before we would do our analytical meditation so that when we reach our Aha, we can park there?

Je Tsongkapa‘s point is that we can try and try and try to reach stillness. If we are not clearing out our obstacles and gathering goodness, our efforts to reach stillness are not likely to be effective. Because to reach stillness, we need to shut off that awareness of outer objects. And there's a part of us that doesn't really want to do it.

We're so attached to those outer things that our senses bring to us that we hold to as really the sources of our happiness and distress. That to just try and reach stillness without cleaning out our negativities and gathering goodness, we'll just end up falling asleep.

It won't, it can't work without cleaning out and adding goodness.

Now, you know, we could argue, what if I've cleaned out and gathered goodness in past lifetimes? Can't I sit down and reach stillness tomorrow by ripening past life seeds?

Yes, of course we can.

Given what I know about my this life I can kind of see why I didn't sit down and go automatically into stillness, even if I had many, many lifetimes as a stillness meditator before.

Then also, what if my stillness meditation before was misdirected? Like it didn't have a good idea of why I was stillness meditating. It thought I was stillness meditating so that I could live longer, so that I could be calmer, so that I could get more wealthy.

It's like, okay, well then that would be the result of my stillness meditation. Not necessarily would it bring me the result of a stillness meditation that will take me to wisdom because it didn't include those seeds.

Je Tsongkapa says, when we do these analytical meditations about the different pieces of the Lam Rim, the different stages of the path, meaning the different realizations that we want to gather through which we transform. He says, there are some of those analytical meditations that function to clear out the obstacles. And there are some of those analytical meditations that function to gather the goodness. 

Although both of them are still done in conceptual thought by a being who's samsaric being. So yes, they are all technically incorrect, thinking self-existently in some way, because they're motivated by wanting to help that other in that ultimate way. Then the seeds that are being planted are like directing those seeds towards growing our wisdom rather than perpetuating our ignorance. There is still ignorance in them a little bit until where are Arya?

But do you see how we're chipping away at it by doing these practices with such a strong intention.

He says, when we do analytical meditations about things like the pain and suffering of this life, about how unbearable mental afflictions are, about things that make us sad or depressed, to do an analytical meditation about those things would include, where did they come from? Why do I see them this way? Does everybody see them the same way? To come to that conclusion that, oh, all that suffering has a cause. If I stop the cause, the suffering can stop. Can I come to understand how to stop the cause?

We're applying what we've learned and we're checking to see whether that's consistent with our experience, it's consistent with logic. Then we reach something we come to understand that we didn't understand before. And we stay on our fixation meditation then.

By deeply investigating those unpleasant things we are clearing out obstacles to gaining wisdom. We don't have to solve them. We don't have to fix them. We simply apply our growing understanding of emptiness and dependent origination to them.

It's enough, those seeds, it's enough.

Then, when we are doing the analytical meditations about things like the amazing qualities of our Lama, like loving compassion and how they color the seeds as we interact with other beings, Bodhichitta, those other aspects of our path that are uplifting and inspiring, those seeds are planting goodness seeds, merit seeds, technically, that will come back as growing our goodness directed towards the success of our meditations in the future. Really going towards direct perception of emptiness.

So it's useful to spend time on the yucky stuff, analyzing it to see where the yuck comes from so that we can stop perpetuating it.

Then of course it's useful to be analyzing all the good stuff. Not just thinking about the good stuff, but analyzing that too. Does everybody see it in the same way? Does it, I always experience it the same way? Are those good qualities in them, from them?

To come to the same conclusion, right?

The conclusion about the yuck stuff is, nothing but my seeds ripening.

And the conclusion about the good stuff is, wow, nothing but my seeds ripening.

Same conclusion, but sure different feeling inside. And they're both useful. One clears out obstacles. One gathers goodness.

Those who are in course 10 with me right now, does that sound familiar? 

It's built into our meditation preliminaries. Clear obstacles, gather goodness.

Now we see it's built into our very whole meditation practice. Because all of our meditations will, when we get this pattern, have the Shargom review meditation of the preliminaries at least. And then something about the meditation that you're doing for the day, you review the whole thing. Then you park on one part of it and do your analysis, come to your conclusion, park on the conclusion.

That could be your whole…, right? Dedicate at the end.

Or you can swing back and forth between your fixation and analytical.

Master Kamalashila, his argument in the debate was, this is a way of meditating to move yourself along your stages of the path of transformation. If that's what you want, the only way we're going to get there is by planting the seeds for it. Here's a way to plant the seeds.

Other meditations do other things. But if our goal is Nirvana or Buddhahood, he says, I offer you this tool. He's not saying it's the only way, although kind of he is. But he's not saying it's self-existent. We just might interpret that whole debate is like, oh, Kamalashila's way is right. In it, from it. Our way of meditating is right. In it, from it.

Wrong. Wrong.

That's what we find when we Chegom, analyze. Which means we need the skills to be able to think something through to a conclusion. It means arguing with ourself.

I used to, in retreat, I'd pretend I was explaining karma and emptiness to my dog.

She wasn't there. She wasn't even alive anymore. She'd sit there and I'd sit here and she'd ask questions, good questions. My dog came up with some really good questions and then I'd have to answer them.

Then she'd go, yeah, but what about... My dog was really smart.

But over and over and over, this…

That's an analytical meditation. It doesn't have to be according to how the debate texts go, so hard to follow. But question and answer, question and answer, question and answer. Keep exploring until you go, I didn't get that before. Now I see. Park.

(91:35) Je Tsongkapa says, these two methods, clear out obstacles and gather goodness, are the highest way to get to both a state of stillness and a state where we can see emptiness directly.

By using this threefold tool of review, analysis and park on the analysis repeatedly, we are doing the clear out the obstacles and gather the goodness.

It's like, that's all we have to do. Not so hard.

Then lastly, Lama Christie said that the story of Master Kamalashila, he won that debate. All of Tibet learned to meditate like this. And he went on to write his Bhavana Krama text, three of them, all named the same thing. But two of them have similar material. A third one is different, apparently. I guess he got pretty famous or well-known. Somewhere along the line, apparently disciples of the Hua Shang came back and they killed him. That's how Master Kamalashila died. He was murdered by disciples of the Hua Shang.

And it's like, wait, how can that happen to somebody so good, so pure? I mean, there's a huge lesson in that to begin with. But Lama Christie's point was, the world was a dangerous place back then. Tibet was a dangerous place back then.

I mean, the Hua Shang's disciples were probably monks. You would think they would have known better. So who knows, right? They, in their mind, I don't know. But Lama Christie was saying, we live in a world where… She's talking to us at Diamond Mountain in 2007, 2006 maybe. She's saying it's safe for us to come to Diamond Mountain and study these things. It's safe for us to disagree with other people about our belief system. At least it was.

And she was saying, those are extraordinarily rare circumstances to be safe, to study and practice these things. Because it wasn't always that way. Even for those beings that seemed so much further advanced than we. They had the goodness of that advance, but they also had this other yucky seeds too. And it's like, now I read this, I hesitated to even bring this up in class. Because the circumstances of my world is, it's not safe for some people to have a different skin color than me in my country. Worse than it was before. I'm really realizing now that it's been like this for a long time. But now it's like somehow, people have been given permission that it's okay.  Before we tried to hide it somehow. Now all of a sudden it's, I don't know. It's just so ugly that I don't even want to talk about it. Because I know where it's coming from. And it makes me want to throw up. And yet, it's old, old stuff. As evidenced, right? By Master Kamalashia getting murdered. Then Arya Nagarjuna got his head cut off by a blade of grass.

Anyway, how do we clear that? What do we do?

Clear obstacles, gather goodness.

Really, what we need to be doing is our meditation preliminary. Just heightened to some nth degree to get the shift to accumulate and get over the threshold to see this whole thing shift again. And it's like, oh my gosh.

But there's more and more and more of us doing it. Hooray for that. So don't be discouraged by Master Kamalashila's demise. It was only his physical body that left. 

So he went on to no doubt help a lot of people meditate. Maybe more so because he wasn't limited by a physical body anymore. That's my own theory, not from scripture. 

All right, we're done. Even a few minutes early. So let's…, how is it going? Is your meditation improving? Janet, yes.

(student: I'll get the text. But is it the second one that you're teaching? The second?) 

We're going to go straight to Bok Jimpa 2, yes. I haven't sent it to you yet, I don't think.

(student: Oh, okay.)

Have I? I don't think so. I'll send you the whole file for the reading for Bok Jimpa 2 that I have. I may not have all of it, but I'll put together what I have. It's coming, starting next week.

Anything else? Yes, Basant.

(student: Thank you for teaching us, Lama. I missed you while you were gone.)

Thank you.

(student: I've been keeping my meditation journal, which has really helped me. I'm not sure that my clarity is getting better yet, but my consistency is getting better. And it's great to have my journal and it's great to meet with all of you weekly to remind me why this is so important to me. So I'm really enjoying the class. Thank you.)

Thank you. Thanks for that feedback.

You know, when we work for a living, it's so hard to have clarity. Because our total scattered state of mind to keep us safe in the world. And then we don't get enough sleep. We just can't get enough rest. So it is a real struggle to be able to clear out those dull yuckies. But it is doable by way of seeds. So it will come. Even without more sleep, it will come. Yes, Janet.

(student: That was strangely enough in the meditation for me. Because the person I chose, it was, yeah, he was suffering, but it almost was like a teaching or a warning. So he was working in a hospital in Chicago and he got long COVID. And he's one of my alchemy partners. I used to live in Chicago. And he doesn't join our group meetings. And he like once a week, we would do clearings together and write prayers together. I asked him if I could help him. And he said he thought about why he had long COVID. He gets disability, like very little money, like $2,000 a month. And he shared with me, he thinks he keeps himself sick so he could not have to work. And so I was like, oh my God, it's almost better to work and not have sleep and be able to do this than to be so sick, you cannot write prayers and join with your friends anymore. And I was, so here I am complaining about my job, now healthcare, but I can join pretty much all the classes live and do homework and do meditations. As I don't have long COVID and disability. I don't think I'm looking at things correctly when I look at the people that are suffering, I don't know.)

Yeah. And that's an Aha, right? That's beyond words, the Aha that you just got, that you shared with us, right? That's a, park your mind on that in a meditation. It's not like all of a sudden, you'll be able to just say the words, ‚Now I understand that Aha better‘. The end of the Aha, you come out going, what was that about? But you've changed as a result of it. Nice. Anything else?

[student: If I can share. To me was a very interesting exercise because when we started this course, I was studying and doing some other energy practices. And then I felt that it was energy or seeds or something like fighting in between the two teachings. And at the end, as I keep practicing and trying to find my Aha, I got it. And it was, I didn't got it on meditation, but I got it in real life. So I want to rejoice on that. So I can find the Aha in my meditations. And I just want to say thank you for this group. I thank you for teaching.]

Yeah. That is, that's a great point. That the Aha can come outside of meditation by way of an experience that you now know something is true that you didn't know before. And then you can take that into meditation. That will influence your meditation. You don't have to review it, but you've changed because of that. Cool. Nice. Thanks for sharing.

[student: This reminds me. I don't know if it's helpful for anybody because it's such an advanced group. But a few weeks ago, Joe and I went to get my dad. And then we went to Manhattan in my dad's car. And then at the end of the day, I was sitting with my dad. Joe went to get the car and he was coming and we were on the phone. And I was like, Baby, I don't see you. And he's like, I'm right in front of you. I'm like, I don't see you. It turned out he was in my dad's car and I couldn't see him because I was trying, I was looking for our car. And then once I saw the car, it's exactly the sensation you describe of throwing the identity onto the object. And so it was just such a thing. Anyway, so if it's helpful for anybody, when you can feel that of like, I just threw that identity onto that car now, because it was nothing before. And now it's like, oh.]

Yeah, that's great Aha.

So when we were doing our Bok Jinpa courses, we would finish a course in five weeks, right, two classes a week. And then we would have two or three months off. We were instructed to pick parts of what we had learned in that class and work on them, dig in them deeply. And then we were also encouraged to do retreat on them. Even if it was just a weekend long or a week long in order to give ourselves a chance to dive deep. Then we came back and did the five weeks again. And we learned Kamalashila, I think three or four terms in a row. After that, Lama Christie would choose what she was teaching us because it was somehow related to what we were learning in the Diamond Way courses as well.

So we would do Arya Nagarjuna here and then Lojong over there. I'm thinking to not jump around like that, that rather we'll finish all of Kamalashila and then we'll decide what to do next and we'll finish all of that. And then we'll go to the next and finish all of that. I think it'll feel like we're more consistent in what we're learning and that we're doing something and finishing it, which I want that completion for us all. So we'll just keep at Kamalashila until we finish it with little breaks here and there according to schedule. Happy to have you continue as long as you wish. We'll start right into the Bok Jinpa course 2 next Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, sorry.

We'll just keep going along. And it just makes it hard because you don't have a couple of months to dig in deep in this meditation about the shining red pole, right? Is that you or is this you? Which you is the real you? Yeah, so you have a week to do that. Sorry about that, but ta-da.

[Usual dedication]

Yes, Coco.

[Student: I'm just wondering, in the readings, I think there's 10 readings and there's a homework nine. Is there? There is in the materials. I know sometimes off a lot of times when we went through the courses, we didn't finish everything that was planned for when maybe classes went too long. But there is, there's a homework nine and the final and there's two more readings, like eight or nine and 10. So do you suggest that we just, because I didn't remember this. I'm just looking at the materials that we have now. Should we just read them and see what we can do with the homework?]

You know what? Thank you for pointing that out. And I'll look at them and see if we've actually covered the material in these classes. And if not, if not, I will, I'll finish that stuff up before we start. Thank you for pointing it out to me. 

[student: I don't, I remember. I don't remember what we, what we did, but I do see in the materials we have it.]

Yeah, I'm using transcripts from the class audios. So I didn't look to see, but I'll check. 

[student: And then did we say, did you say that there was a way that we were going to go over the last class together? Were we going to do like a review?]

I had suggested that and then I don't see. I don't know. You want to do that?

[student: I don't know. I mean, generally it's hard because it's so much, but I mean, it might be a way to wrap up and review or maybe questions would come up from that. That would be a gift to be able to, to go through. But then I know those things can be tricky because we can maybe not get through it all. And then maybe everything else gets delayed.]

Do we have an answer key? Is there an answer key in there?

[student: No, I don't have one here. And I mean, I didn't look at that, that email that I had sent to you. Did you go through it to see?]

Yeah, I looked at it, but I don't remember what I saw. So I'll check that too. So guess what? We'll play it by ear. I'll look at the materials. I'll look at the answer key. And maybe I'll either do, do more class based on the reading next week, or we'll do a review. And then we'll go into next class after that. We still have time before the five houses. We'll do something. Show up. We'll do something.

[student: Great. Great. Thank you.]

Thank you so much for pointing that out.

All right. Thank you, my dears. Thank you for the opportunity. I benefit most from doing this. So thank you. Thank you.

Welcome back. We are Bok Jinpa Couse, Master Kamalashila's Bhavanakrama. It's September 17th, 2025. At your prompting at the end of last class, I thought for this session, we would repeat the last meditation that Lama Christie gave us for this course. The one we did.

And then we'll go through the answer key for all the homeworks because I don't have a final. I'm pretty sure we did one, but it never got posted and saved as far as I know.

But there aren't so many questions that we can't just go through all of the homework questions as a review.

Then next Wednesday, we'll start the second part, which actually just starts right up. We're not going to miss anything. In looking through the stuff that I have, I only missed one thing that I was supposed to tell you that I didn't. So somehow those readings 9 and 10, they still got covered in Lama Christie's eight classes, according to what I've got available to me.

That said, let's gather our minds here, as we usually do, please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. So we'll do our opening prayers and then go right into the meditation.

(Usual Opening)

Review Meditation Incorporating All Learnings Course 1

(8:42) Settle your body as you know how to do.

Then bring your focus of attention to that place at your nostrils where you experience what we call the breath, moving out and moving in.

Use that object to focus, turn on your clarity, fine-tune the intensity.

Now shift the object of focus up to that place about an inch in from your forehead, about a half an inch up from where your eyebrows would meet if they went straight across in the midline. Your inner gaze goes to a spot there, helping to lift your brightness and intensity.

And with that gaze still lifted, recall your motivation for being here.

There is someone who triggers within us that feeling of need, even desperation for us to reach our goal in order to really help them.

That person is waiting for something or someone, wanting something or someone to help them in some way.

Still gazing at that spot, go over in your mind how it is that training yourself in deep meditation is going to help them in that deep and ultimate way.

Bring your inner gaze down and forward to again be aware of that holy being you called forth.

They are your own holy heart Lama, and you are sitting here alone with them.

Know that they are your projection, the purest embodiment of our own good seeds manifesting. And so recall how interacting with this being properly affects our mind, affects our karmic seeds, and how we want and need to perpetuate them, perpetuate our access to them.

And so feel your gratitude and reliance upon them and make them an offering.

Now open your heart to them and clean out some negativity, some obstacle you've been experiencing. Ask them to help you rid it from your heart. Let them take that weight from you and destroy it.

Rejoice with them in something that you are especially happy about having done.

Tell them of something you saw another do.

Even tell them of something good about someone you don't really like so much.

Ask them to continue to bless you to receive teachings, both formal ones and the everyday ones that we receive when we recognize that they are manifesting in myriad ways to help us.

Ask them to please stay close, to bless you to be able to perpetuate your seeds that are creating them. And of course they grant us all of those requests.

That holy being will stay there with you. And for the rest of the meditation, pull your focus inward further. Come again to those sensations at your nostril of what we call breath, focused, bright, fascinated.

Pay close attention to the length of that outbreath. You can count it if you want, but it's a bit of a distraction.

Allow the inhale to match the length of the exhale.

Decide to pull your focus of attention inward further.

You are inside your head area. You're surprised to find your awareness shows you it's completely hollow inside there. Some clear, beautiful light color, open and spacious. 

With that fascination and brightness scan down inside all of your body to see that everywhere you go is hollow. Simply some kind of border, some kind of outline.

Stay inside.

Your awareness of being hollow has reached your toes.

Turn that mental scan back up and you see there inside your torso that beautiful column of glistening red light, about as big around as a straw in the midline side to side, where the front of your spine used to be front to back.

You see it going from the bottom of your torso up to the crown of your head.

In that hollow space, you see that that red column of light continues past the top of your head, like a laser beam all the way up to the North Star.

As you follow it down through your body, you see it exits at the below place and shoots like a red laser beam all the way down to the center of the earth.

This column of energy.

Focus more and more closely on this column of energy in that space of your inner body, aware of its vastness.

Now we intentionally shift to an analysis, focusing on this core of red light in our hollow space. Recognize how it is a mental image.

We are projecting it.

And so, does it feel real?

Or is it something we've just imagined?

Now keep your inner vision inside that hollow space, aware of the red channel, and think about your outer body. Recognize it too is a projection.

Does it feel more real than the inner body column of red light?

Can we find anything about our outer body that's not our mental image?

Can we find anything about our hollow body red light core pillar that's not our mental image?

Is one more real than the other?

Review that line of thinking a few times to come to some conclusion of your own.

And then focus on that conclusion, that aha.

Fixation on that truth.

We'll stay three minutes.

***3min***

Nice. Now release that object of focus. But first, before coming out, make a mental note about the extent to which you were able to focus on your aha with clarity and intensity. You're checking the quality of your fixation.

And then recall that all of this effort was on behalf of that other assisted by your holy being. And so be happy with yourself and dedicate that effort and any glimpses to helping that other come to experience truth directly. 

Then become aware of your body in your room, and yourself in your body. And when you're ready, open your eyes, move, take a stretch.

Okay, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Review Answer Key Course 1

(42:30) I'm probably going to put you all to sleep. But let's just go through the answer keys from the classes. LIke, when you hear the question, think if it means anything to you. Like whatever you remember. Make it to yourself. And then I'll tell you what Lama Christie wants us to know about it. Ready?

(C1/Q1) List both the worldly and spiritual reasons why we need to strive to perfect the art of meditation.

Geshe Michael always says, it's not just to become a better crap coper. You will, but that's not why we do it. So worldly reasons, when we are a deep meditator, we get into those blissful states of mind with no mental afflictions. And then when we're outside meditation, we're still able to focus on things better, and so better able to accomplish what we're wanting to accomplish. But it's still just worldly accomplishments. So it doesn't do much for stopping the cycle.

But it does make us a more effective human being theoretically.

The spiritual reasons for a Mahyanist is our renunciation. We want to get everybody out of this pain filled place. Like not lift them out, you know that. Help them understand where it's all coming from so that they can stop perpetuating their own pain filled place. To be able to do that, we need to move ourselves through the five paths.

Those five paths, meaning the realizations that move us, happen in deep meditation. So we need deep meditation to actually move along the path.

Then she throws in the wanting to do so quickly so that we can practice Diamond Way. We can practice Diamond Way without being good meditators. But our Diamond Way won't be any much more effective than not Diamond Way. Without that ability to get into a deep state of meditation, in particular, that completion stage practices need deep, deep, deep meditative state to be able to be aware of them in the way they're meant to be used.

(C1/Q2)Name the primary source text we're working with the author and his dates.

Bhavanakrama—Sanskrit, GOMPAY RIMPA—Tibetan, Steps of Meditation—English, by our hero Master Kamalashila.

(C1/Q3) Described this situation in which this book was written in Tibet.

You're reading 10 is the long version of Master Kamalashila and why he was brought to Tibet for the debate and then what happened in the end. So that's what reading 10 was about. We didn't have it in class. We had the short version in the first class.

A meditation that would not end suffering was being taught as the way to reach our goals. Master Kamalashila went and debated about that and showed, in fact, that that meditation that was being taught wouldn't bring us to becoming a being who can help ourself and others stop suffering. Although the very premise of the Chinese monk was all those other kinds of meditations and activities of a Bodhisattva just perpetuate suffering.

It's interesting, their argument was sort of the same.

(C1/Q4) What's the key that we need to quickly progress in our meditation? 

I hope everybody's mind went, ah, great compassion, because that's Kamalashila's thing that makes the difference between rapid progress to stillness and sloppy progress to stillness.

He didn't just say compassion. He said, great compassion. Mahakaruna, NYINGJE CHENPO.

(C1/Q5) What are the eight limbs, and why are we studying them in a class on meditation?

Then, as you recall, we are also learning a little wee bit from the Hatha Yoga Pratipaka, from the yogic tradition of how to learn to meditate. And so Lama Christie shared with us from that text, the eight limbs, and to show us that there are so many similarities between these two traditions about how to set up the circumstances in our outer and inner world for a successful meditation career.

So we learned the eight, the Yamas, Niyamas, Asanas, Pranayamas, Pratyaharas, Dharanas, Dhyanis, and Samadhi. So you can read those.

(C1/Q6) what book are we using to study those?

Hatha Yoga Pratipaka, Light on the Yoga of the Sun and the Moon by Master Svatmarama.

Hypertext assignment

Years ago, Geshe-la had this program called Hypertexting, where you would match a word, an English word to the Tibetan or Sanskrit word, based on his other translations. You would find it matched, and oh, it must be that, and it must be that, and it must be that. He was building his, it's not really a dictionary, but anyway, he had a lot of us doing hypertexting.

I think you heard the story, Sumati was David then. He was like telling Lama Christie, I hate hypertexting, it's a waste of time, I don't want to do hypertexting. And then she comes to some future class and she goes, somebody in class doesn't want to hypertext, so we're going to do memorization instead, and we're going to memorize the Heart Sutra. And he was so smug because he already had it memorized in English. And then she said, in Tibetan or Sanskrit, you decide which. And he goes, Oh. So like he was the cause of that one.

Here's the hypertexting in Sanskrit, if you care to learn Sanskrit. Janet, maybe that'll help.

(C2/Q1) Give a personal example of someone you have seen demonstrating great compassion and explain why it was great compassion.

So obviously there's no standard answer, because it's your experience. But the idea is, we're seeing an action that's done, wanting something a person has done that is appearing to try to stop somebody's discomfort in some way, in order to bring themselves and the others to full enlightenment.

How in the world are you going to see that in your world? We don't know others' minds.

So when this is saying, give an example of when someone you've seen, who are they really talking about? (showing at herself) Because we're the only ones we can know our mind. So think, have you ever done something to relieve somebody's pain in order to reach total enlightenment for them and for you? I hope you can say, yeah, I was even just brushing my teeth. 

(C2/Q2) How is pain useful to us?

Yeah, your answer was renunciation. It brings me to renunciation.

It inspires my practice, helps me get rid of meaningless activities in my life, running after objects of the senses, since they really don't make us happy.

So the more pain, the better, right?

Yeah, no. But do we have to be so avoiding of pain when we see that, in fact, it's useful? Maybe our relationship to pain changes, even just at this level, about it increasing our renunciation, let alone our realization that we're purifying something at a level that's less bad than it would have been if we let it go on. It's not like we could get let it, if it did go on.

(C2/Q3) Then this one says, give examples in our human experience of each of the six realms.

Let's not spend time on that. We know what those look like, don't we? Right? Okay. 

(C2/Q4) Describe the three types of suffering?

All right, you guys do that, who wants to give me one of the three?

(student: Obvious suffering.)

Like what's obvious suffering, Margie?

(student: Well, it's, you know, when you're actually having physical pain or mental pain, because you've got trauma accident or something like that, or had a very emotional situation that caused you to mentally feel the suffering as well.)

Yeah, yeah. Something happening that I don't like.

Who can give me a second one?

(student: Suffering from things ending, from impermanence.)

The suffering from impermanence. So when my migraine goes away, I shouldn't be happy about that. That's a suffering.

(student: You should not be happy about that. Losing the good things that we have and yeah, good things ending.)

Yeah. But you're right. You know, everything changes. Thank goodness the bad things change. But no, we don't want the good things to change. We are so inconsistent, right? Do things change or don't they? Yes, they do. And right, it leaves us wanting for more, they say. But you know, there's a lot more to it. Have you found that suffering of change, it's a lot more subtle then. I want more ice cream when I'm done.

What's the third one?

(student: The third one was pervasive suffering, which was that we're going to die or that all beings, even at every level, we're going to die. So I'm not sure I've heard of the moment to moment suffering.)

(another student: Isn‘t it just samsara? Basically, you're stuck in mistakenly believing that what you see is coming from inherently existing, but really it comes from you. So that is making you replant those seeds. And it's really hard to get out of the suffering from mistaking what you see.)

Right. And all of that is why we end up dying and losing it all, which is definitely pervasive. Pervasive suffering has a lot of layers in it.

(student: I know. And I really never get what they mean.)

Yeah. Another aspect of pervasive suffering is we don't know what's coming out of our karmic pocket at any moment. That uncertainty that we have, one of the human sufferings, they call it, the uncertainty. It's like keeps us on edge all the time. Yeah. And that's this pervasive wear and tear on our mental state because of the ignorance that Margie points out.

(C2/Q5) Which path does great compassion open the door to?

I think you could make a case for all of them, wouldn't you?

So maybe she means first open the door to. I don't know, you see the answer there. The path of accumulation.

(student: Isn't great compassion linked to Bodhichitta and being the imbued with Bodhichitta? So maybe that…)

Yeah, it does. It does. It does. Yeah.

She's saying here, she's following what Master Kamalashila's argument is. And I don't remember specifically what the lesson was, but as I'm thinking about it now, we could go along our five paths from our own personal renunciation, wanting to close the doors to lesser rebirth, wanting to reach Nirvana. Remember all that? And we can have those five paths with that level of motivation.

For us to be on the five paths Mahayana version, the compassion for others has to be there. And then the great compassion is the adding the component of understanding the no self nature of the three spheres that increases the power of our compassion. We're not just seeing somebody suffering and, oh, that's so awful. That's compassion.

A little stronger is compassion, Oh, that's so awful. I wish I could do something to help them. And then, oh, that's so awful. I wish I could do something to help them. And I really see that it's what they're experiencing is their seeds and what I'm experiencing is my seeds.

When we add the wisdom component, the compassion gets closer to this great compassion. I think they would say that technically we don't have great compassion until we've had that Bodhichitta in our heart. That's what really makes it great compassion.

Or maybe they would even say we don't have great compassion until we see emptiness directly and then have the heart opening before we could really call our compassion great compassion.

But as we're learning about compassion, imbued with wisdom, we can say we have great compassion. But if that's what's motivating our renunciation, then even on our path of accumulation, accumulating enough disgust with Samsara, it's the great compassion that's propelling us to move along the path.

So tell them to think about.

(C2/Q6) List the 10 pledges of self-control and explain how they fit into the six perfections.

(60:50) Not harming any living being, speaking the truth, not stealing, pure sexual conduct, not getting angry, joyful effort. We recognize all those.

Love, sincerity, controlling food intake, and cleanliness.

So Lama Christie's pointing out that not harming any living beings, speaking the truth, not stealing, and pure sexual conduct all relate to our perfection of moral discipline. 

Joyful effort is joyful effort, fourth perfection.

Not getting angry is not getting angry, third perfection.

Yeah? So at least some of them overlap.

Then again, the reason she brings it up is because in the yogic tradition, you work on these in order to set yourself up for deeper levels of meditation, for success in your meditation practice. So things that we may not necessarily bring up, love, sincerity, controlling food intake, and cleanliness as part of our effort to improve our meditation, we can see, yeah, you know, maybe there's something to that.

Time for a break.

(student: Lama Sarani?)

Yes.

(student: What does the red column of light represent?)

Your central channel.

(student: It's supposed to be red?)

Yeah. Red, like when you shine a flashlight in your finger in a dark room. You know, that's not quite red, but it's like a red orange. Typically that color.

(student: Wow. So far I've been thinking about it like white and silver. I've been wrong completely.)

That's all right. You know, there'll be different reasons to have it be different colors. Lama Christie's planting seeds in all of our minds for what she knows is coming up. So she calls it red. At this level, it's meant to be this sense of this very deep core of us that's vast. And there's just very, very subtle movement and everything else outside of it is just gone. So everything outside of us is parked still for the meditation. 

(student: Thank you. I'll have to practice with the red because now that you mentioned the central channel, I've been seeing it differently. Okay. Thank you so much.)

(student: Isn't Ida supposed to be red and Pingala is supposed to be whitish?)

Right. But the red of the Ida is like brick red, dark red, venus blood red, dark.

(student: Okay. Thank you.)

(67:30) (C3/Q1) Describe the method of meditation Master Kamalashila describes for gaining the great compassion and where it comes from originally.

It comes originally from Lord Buddha and his teachings of Abhidharma, not meaning Abhidharmakosha, of course. But meaning from those teachings that are in the category called the first turning of the wheel, which we recall does not necessarily mean they were in the first time period, right? But the first level of first level of teachings to his early students, new students.

Then the meditation was a meditation on suffering, the suffering of people that we're close to, meaning people we love. Not physically close to but emotionally close to because we care so much about them to grow our compassion, that feeling and wish that we could help their suffering come to an end.

Then we shift to the suffering of beings we feel indifferent to and try to call up that same kind of compassion as for our loved ones, for these ones that before it didn't matter to us.

And then we look at the suffering of those who we flat out dislike and try to get the same kind of compassion in our heart for them as we do for our loved ones.

Okay, and I think we worked with that for a little while. It's helpful to go back to it from time to time.

(C3/Q2) How do you know when you've reached a state of great compassion?

When you feel the same compassion for every being as you would for your own sick child, you have reached great compassion.

(C3/Q3) What must we first do to our perception of ourself in order to reach a state of great compassion?

I don't remember this.

We must develop a sense of self which does not rely on other people's opinions of us. We must become in our own minds a person who can take care of everyone else. For this, we must understand our own emptiness and the possibility of recreating ourselves into this kind of person.

I don't think I would have come up with that.

(C2/Q4) Describe the analogy Master Kamalashila makes between having the wish and a diamond jewel.

Just as a diamond jewel is so exquisite and valuable, and if you shatter it, each piece is still exquisite and valuable and outshines all other jewelry, assuming you like diamonds, and would stop all poverty because of its value.

So even the wish without acting on it outshines all the lower paths. And so a person simply with the wish in the form of a prayer can be called a Bodhisattva and will eventually act to stop the poverty of this cycle of pain.

Remember that reading he was saying, just to have the wish in the form of the prayer, even if you never ever act on it, it's still so extraordinary to be attracted to the idea of becoming a fully enlightened being so that you could stop the suffering of all beings. That's so, so powerful that even if you don't act on it, it's a great, great thing. But you know, you're gonna act on it sooner or later. If you continue to have that and continue to cultivate, you're gonna automatically be choosing our behaviors differently when we're out amongst the world. So it's not like grow your wish and decide to park yourself there. But it is encouraging to feel like even just to be attracted to the wish is this powerful, powerful, powerful goodness. So pat yourself on the back.

(C3/Q5) What are the four causes the Je Tsongkapa lists for achieving a state of stillness and how does it relate to the 10 forms of self-control from Hatha Yoga Pradipika?

I wouldn't know this if I didn't have the notes. Je Tsongkapa gives the four causes for reaching stillness and getting to seeing emptiness directly, extraordinary vision, controlling the doors of our senses. Oh, now I remember.

Conducting ourselves with awareness correctly, this is supposed to be gauging our amount of food and monitoring our sleep. And right, we saw that list from before, from Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

It had this conducting ourselves with awareness.

It had gauging our amount of food.

And I don't remember that it had sleep necessarily, but monitoring our sleep. Meaning getting enough sleep so that we're rested enough that we can be effective on our cushion and in the world. Easier said than done.

(C3/6) Describe three things you can practice thinking about as you do your eating meditation and the reason for these.

Somebody here recently was working with that for a week, wasn't she? Do you care to share what these three are? I don't see you on my screen, but yeah, I know you're there. 

(student: Yeah, so we can use the food while we are eating and swallowing the food we can imagine we get rid of all the mental afflictions. So flush it out kind of thing. 

Then we can also use it to feel more gratitude to all the beings who have contributed to it. So make a coffee meditation and send the goodness back to all the people that have been contributing.

And then also thinking about all the little beings that are living in our body, that we sustain them and help them live. So even see the eating as an act of caring for others while we do that.)

Yeah, fun. I start out thinking of these, you know, and three bites in, it's like my mind's off doing something else. But sweet, wasn't it? Like, wow. Okay, moving right along.

(C4/Q1) Describe Master Kamalashila's idea of skillful means and getting people to develop the wish.

(76:06) We just touched on that before about luring people into getting the wish in their hearts by telling them they don't really have to worry about doing all those activities yet. Just get the wish. It's enough because it's so extraordinary. And then once they get the wish in mind, the goodness of that will push us into changing our behavior. So they call it skillful means. Yeah.

(C4/Q2) Master Kamalashila quotes a sutra where Lord Buddha is advising a king. What kind of practice is he teaching him?

He's teaching a rudimentary form of the meditation preliminaries.

Some of us are studying ACI 10, Master Shantideva's first section. It's talking about the need to clear out obstacles and gather goodness so that our purification practice can work, can be effective.

So that we can clear out obstacles and gather goodness for our meditation practice to be effective.

So that we can clear out obstacles and gather goodness for our worldly life to be effective.

So that it makes this beautiful circle. And so here it comes up again.

The meditation preliminaries, they are built in to do the necessary to clear obstacles and do the necessary to gather goodness so that we're gathering enough goodness to get good results in whatever we're trying to do. Yeah.

(C4/Q3) Why would we want to make offerings to enlightened beings?

You tell me. Why make offerings to enlightened beings?

I can't see them. I don't really know they're there.

(student: Well, I put, because I believe that they're there. And I'm planting merit by putting the offerings, consciously making these offerings with intention.)

Perfect. And why does it work?

(student: Well, because it's coming from us.)

Right. Geshe-la always says, who's there? Who's watching you do it? Me.

So are all the enlightened beings, of course.

But they don't need it. Who needs it? Me.

And then the things that we put out, we understand we're planting the seeds to see that kind of thing come back to us. So it's just like, it's so amazing, the built-in systems that we don't need to understand why we're doing them or what they're for. But when we do understand, we want to do them that much more intentionally, wisely. And then the more we understand what's built into them, the more amazing the practices all become. Then the more eager we are to do them. Right. So thank you, Geshe Michael and Lama Christie.

(C4/Q4) What karmic result does Lord Buddha describe to the king as a result of his embracing the wish?

He'll be born many, many times as a god or a human, and every time he'll be like royalty. This is sort of a skillful means, right? Here's a king. I guess he likes being king. He wants to be king again. So you encourage him in practices that will assure that he will be king or king-like in the future, and he's very likely to follow your advice.

If we're on a spiritual path to Buddhahood, do we want something that's going to plant seeds in our minds for a god realm? Thank you, but no thank you.

The seeds that we plant will probably be the same, but our motivation will be different.

(C4/Q5) List the 10 commitments in Hathi Yoga Pradipika, in Sanskrit and English.

So the 10 practices.

1. Tapa, embracing spiritual hardships. It doesn't mean imposing spiritual hardships on yourself. It means when they come, instead of resisting, opposing, running away from them, we use them.

2. Santosha, being content with what we get.

3. Astikya, believing in higher things.

4. Dana, the perfection of giving.

5. Ishvara Pujana, honoring our Lama.

6. Siddhanta, studying the different schools' presentations of emptiness. 

7. Vakya shravana, listening to teachings on emptiness.

8. Hrimat, a sense of shame.

9. Japa, reciting mantras, and 

10. Huta, doing fire offerings.

(C4/Q6) How does collecting good karma through keeping these commitments help your meditative concentration?

How do vows help us? They're supposed to make our behavior choices easier because we don't have to try to reinvent the wheel about what's positive and what's negative in terms of planting karma.

They're pointing out what would be the positive thing to do or the negative thing to avoid with the idea that it's going to help us gather that goodness and clear out our obstacles. But when we have a set of vows and we're new to them, they might seem hard to keep because we don't yet have the power of the goodness of having vows helping us keep our vows.

So it's this cycle, just like samsara is a negative cycle, vow keeping is a positive cycle. To keep our vows gathers the goodness that helps us keep our vows better, that gathers the goodness that helps us keep our vows better. And all of that goodness flows over into our improved concentration, because we have to concentrate in order to keep our vows, right?

Our mindfulness, I call it ethical mindfulness, is what we do off cushion from the mindfulness we're growing on cushion. But what if our effort to grow our mindfulness on cushion is just not going anywhere? It's not making any progress.

We need more goodness from keeping our vows, which requires the concentration off the cushion. 

So maybe our concentration off cushion is better than on cushion. Maybe it's not.

But we've got this whole cycle that we can call upon. And really, once it starts to kick in, you can see the connection between increased mindfulness off cushion and increased concentration on cushion. May it be so for everybody.

(C5/Q1) Describe the difference between the two types of the wish.

(85:05) We know that there's two types of the two types of the wish. Who wants to give me one type? Going once, going twice. I have this finger. I will use it.

(student: This one is first time is the wish in a form of player. And then the other one is the wish in a form of action.)

Right. Nice. We already talked about that.

What's the other kind of two types of the wish? Come on, come on, come on.

(student: Is it the wish in the form of wanting to help all beings and then the wish in the of actually seeing emptiness directly?)

Yeah, the emptiness directly, the ultimate Bodhichitta and the heart opening, seeing the face of every being that you love and are going to help is the deceptive Bodhichitta, right? So ultimate and deceptive Bodhichitta are the words, the names, the labels of what we're saying. And then what they mean, of course, is direct perception of emptiness, ultimate Bodhichitta.

And deceptive Bodhichitta, the actual experience of the heart opening thing. How in the world is that deceptive? That's finally the real thing. Because deceptive doesn't mean deceptive in that way. It means appearing, appearance. It makes a fun debate. 

(C5/Q2) When does one receive the right to be called a Bodhisattva?

That's a fun one, right? Technically, not until we see emptiness directly with a mind imbued with Bodhichitta do we become a first level Bodhisattva. But the lineage Lamas are so kind that they say, you know, when you get the wish in the form of a prayer, we'll kind of call you a Bodhisattva there. And what we'll mean by it is like a little baby Bodhisattva. And then when you take your vows, you determine you're going to act like a Bodhisattva, we'll call you a Bodhisattva then.

But you know, they know what they're talking about. 

By the time we catch on to that, it's like, doesn't matter, right? I'm Bodhisattva. I'm trying. That's enough. Because before I wasn't even bothering to try before I was just, you know, happy being a selfish slob.

What does Lama Christie say? Tibetans are kind enough to call us Bodhisattvas as soon as we decide we really want to become a being who could save everyone. This kind of thinking plants a seed for us to actually become someone who does every action for the sake of enlightenment for both ourselves and all others.

That's nicely said.

(C5/Q3) What is the most important thing to remember as you do your Bodhisattva activities?

(student: Is it that they're empty?)

Yeah. Which is funny, right? Oh, everybody's empty. Nothing but my projections.

Why is that so important? It seems like it negates the importance of everything.

Why is it so important?

(student: Well, because that's a very strong karmic seed that you're planting. If you can actually remember, like the three spheres, the emptiness of all the parts of that.) Right. Right. Right. Right. And because of that emptiness of everybody and all their suffering, and the me and what I'm going to do towards them to try to help them stop their suffering, I can in fact become a being who can in fact stop all that suffering.

Not by bonking them on the head, but coming to the place where I myself am experiencing my whole world in a pure way, which proves it can be done. And then spontaneously, effortlessly being what the others need, which in the long term ends up being something or somebody that can teach them to.

So the intention.

Is it enough to just wake up in the morning and say, I make my attention that every perception I have is really a projection and so I'm burning off ignorance with everything that happens all day long and then go out and just not ever think about it again? Not enough. Right?

We want our intention to be happening with our deeds. And does anybody notice how hard that is? 

Yet we intend something before we do anything. Before I even make it to the bathroom, I'm intending to get to the bathroom before it's too late.

Our intentions come up automatically. And then when we go and say to ourselves, I want this powerful intention, this different intention. To try to get off the automatic pilot of intentions is so hard because they pop up so quickly. And then our action from them is so quick that we're just on this automatic pilot all the time.

So even a teeny, teeny, teeny remembrance of our intention is better than no remembrance of our intention. But the stronger or the more alert, more mindful we are of our intention to do what we're doing in order to reach total Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, the extent we have that in our mind is the extent in which it's included in the seeds that we plant.

So it's not like it has to be X percent or it's ineffective. Any little teeny drop is better than none at all. Because those seeds are going to grow.

We're trying to consciously plant our seeds with that strong intention included. It does not mean, oh, I'm going to do this deed because I intend to become Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. And I'm going to go yell at that co-worker with Bodhichitta in my heart, right? Because Bodhichitta overrides what I'm actually doing. You can't set a good motivation and then go and be mean and expect that you're not going to get somebody to be mean well-intended back to you.

Intention doesn't override the behavior choice. It's an added value thing.

In the same way, we can be kind to others because it feels good to be kind because my mother said to be kind, because I know kindness will come back to me.

Kindness will come back to me, but it'll be kindness that wears out. It'll be that, there's the word SAKCHE GYI LE, right? Stained karma will bring stained results, pleasure that wears out.

So the most important thing they say is to remember our intention, our Bodhichitta intention as we're doing our Bodhisattva activities. You would think that would be easy.

(C5/Q4) Describe how you go about fixing a foggy state of mind in your meditation or how you fix a restless state of mind.

Each of us needs to find our own personal tool that works for these things.

Scripture suggests that for a foggy state of mind, we want to recognize it and act on it. One way to do that is to brighten up your object, like make it shine or twinkle so that the object is brighter, the mind will brighten up. That way you don't have to leave your object in order to brighten your mind.

If that doesn't do it, while you're still on your object, you try to think of how lucky we are to have the time to be on the object and see if that'll crank it up.

You keep trying different things to brighten up until you get there. And then you let that go and get back parked on the object itself.

If you can't, if none of those fix it, then you actually have to take a timeout from your object and go to some prearranged thing that you have already established brightens your mind. Maybe you remember your child when they were just first learning to walk and how wonderful that was. You recall that and your mind goes, Awe, or something. You find some memory that you can just turn on and you know it works. 

Once you're right, you go back on the object.

For restless state of mind, we need to turn it down. Sometimes just lowering your eyes will do it or lowering your chin. They don't say, take your bright object and make it darker. They don't say that, but it might work so that you don't have to leave your object in order to bring the mind down.

Recalling suffering is probably the best way to bring a restless mind back in.

So to recall that person that's hurting that we're working for can help, or go even beyond that to worse suffering than that. Something that will make us go, ah, yeah, this is why I'm here. Get back on our object.

(C5/Q5) What's the most dangerous obstacle to somebody who's already meditating and how do you fix it?

What is the most dangerous obstacle in meditation?

(student: The subtle dullness is. Because it's so hard to know that it's there. I think that's why it's the hardest.)

Yeah, truly.

(student: I have a big problem with that one.)

Yeah, yeah, it's pleasurable. Right? We are on the object. We just don't have that fascination. But the fascination feels a little agitating. And so subtle dullness is kind of attractive. Yeah, it's hard.

How do we fix it?

Tighten down on the object of focus. Like, come on, if I could, I would.

Zoom in a little bit more. Brighten it up. Think of somebody suffering, right?

Somehow get off that automatic pilot.

(student: How do you do it?)

Yeah, you know, when I, I don't know how I do it, to be honest with you, which means I probably don't.

When I teach the nine levels of meditation, like in a deeper way, deeper, by example, I use this example of walking along a path to try to approximate the quality of mind that's on and off the object, then on the object, but scattered and on the object with dullness. And then on the object with this bright fascination.

The bright fascination piece is you're walking along this path that you've been on before, you know it, you're comfortable with it, but your friend has said, I walked that path yesterday and I lost my keys. Could you see if you can find the keys for me as you walk that path?

The quality of mind that would just be enjoying the path now takes on this, I'm looking everywhere for my friend's keys, because I want so bad to find the keys for my friend. 

If you take that quality of mind onto the walking the path, that's the quality of mind we want. That is the intensity, that is not subtle dullness.

We try to translate that into my meditation effort. Suppose I'm doing my meditation on the emptiness of me, and I've got those five different people looking at me, and I'm thinking about how they're seeing me all differently. And so will the real me please stand up?

I want that quality of mind, like looking for my friend's keys, looking at my… that's not there. When we get it, it feels really good. But it is a kind of pressure that we're not used to. And so it has a tendency to pop us out.

And when we have focus and clarity without intensity, that by definition is subtle dullness. So to not have that fascination, we're in subtle dullness. Like most of the time. Yet it takes effort to keep that fascination.

So again, it's driven by karmic seeds. Yeah.

(student: So we have the fascination of it being like if you're describing looking for keys, like you're looking for the first time to see what's present and what's absent.) 

Right. Right.

(student: Like the fascination of a little kid.)

Yes, yes. Yes. Good analogy.

(student: So hard to keep though.)

It is we so quickly get on habit, on comfort, on ease, and then we just skate. We've trained ourselves to think that that's the goal for things to be habitual or automatic to be easy. We don't want that kind of powerful intensity. We tend to not want that.

Unfortunately.

(student: Thank you.)

Yeah, we can help each other be. I don't want to say intense, right? Because that's not a good quality to be too intense. Have fascination.

(C5/Q6) Name three different activities where you yourself experienced that kind of concentration.

She's given us a clue. If we're having trouble having the intensity and meditation, but we can recognize, oh my gosh, I get it when I'm whatever, or I used to get it when I used to play volleyball. I've got some rejoicables in my mind. Let's add those to my rejoicables list and see if I can't grow the power of those seeds from those other activities where it just turns on in order to get them to turn on in meditation.

Thank you, Lama Christie for pointing that out.

(C5/Q7) What's the classical meaning of the word Asana?

Seat?

Why is it important to know?

Because the seat we take for meditation is the foundation for the physical body's alignment, which prepares us to be able to not just meditate more comfortably so that we can withdraw our awareness of our physical body, but also sets us up for the inner winds to be able to move.

Even if we don't know anything about them and we're not working with them yet, we're allowing them the availability to shift and move with the way we use our mind in meditation.

So it's again one of those skillful means that's setting us up for future practices.

Get your seat right.

She went on to describe those various different postures, meditation postures, they are asana poses in yoga tradition.

One was the auspicious pose, the simple cross-legged pose.

Another is called the master's pose, where you tuck that one heel into the area between the this and the that with the other heel on top of it.

The other one is lotus, which, you know, that's the first choice for Kamalashila's eight-point posture.

Half lotus, right? Do full lotus or half lotus or no lotus is how they always say it.

There were others that we learned, the cow face pose, warrior pose. There were a few others.

(C7/Q1) What's the purpose of the pranayama?

(106:01) Breath control.

We use breath concentration as a trigger to our mind. Time to go in words, time to meditate. Later on, there are practice where we actually use the breath, like who's in Mahamudra class. We do that ninefold breath thing that helps clean out some stuff that helps us to go quieter, they say.

In yoga tradition, they do a lot more with the breath controlling than this tradition does.

Rather, we use the mind and the concentration to affect the breath rather than the breath to affect the mind and concentration. But it can go both ways.

(C7/Q2 How does the breath relate to the thoughts?

The breath is connected. It's the gross version of the subtle versions of the energy that runs in our channels. And those subtle energies that run in our channels are the energies that move the mind. So controlling our breath, theoretically, we can control our thoughts.

I find it goes the other way. Better control your thoughts and the breath is affected. 

(C7/Q3) What does (the first) Panchen Lama recommend as a meditation to practice in order to achieve the state of stillness?

He says, use a virtuous object for your stillness meditation. Like use an enlightened being because they are the highest ripening of our own karma and so the highest planting of our own karmic seeds and helps us to recall their good qualities, which prepares us for Diamond Way.

(C7/Q4) Name and describe the two paths of a Bodhisattva and how they relate to each other.

The two paths of the Bodhisattva, the two wings of the bird, method and wisdom. 

How do they relate?

Method is the activities that we do in our six perfection practices and what makes those activities perfections is doing them with wisdom. By doing them with wisdom, even baby wisdom, they plant the seeds that increase our goodness so that our concentration goes deeper so that we can get a higher intellectual understanding of emptiness. So higher intellectual wisdom that we use for our method side.

That cycle continues on to the direct perception of emptiness from which we now actually have wisdom that we use while we continue to do our method side so that now our method side is in fact growing us through our Bodhisattva bhumis.

Wisdom is what we use to purify our method to make sure what we're collecting is good karma, like you'd have to say merit, not good karma, that will serve to get us enlightened and not just another posh life.

We have posh life.

(C7/Q5) Describe the metaphor of consuming a poison.

Using method with wisdom together, having those two happening together is like being able to consume a poison without getting harmed.

The wisdom is like the instant antidote to the poison.

The poison is the belief in things in them from them and so the cause of all our pain and happiness that wears out, and even not being enlightened is caused by something or somebody in it from it. That poison is antidoted by wisdom.

(C7/Q6) When do we stop practicing Bodhisattva activities and simply concentrate on wisdom?

Don't look at the answer.

Never.

(C7/Q7) Describe what Lord Buddha says to the Bodhisattva who has reached the eighth level.

Eighth level is equivalent to Nirvana if you reached it without Bodhichitta.

Nirvana is freedom from all mental afflictions. Apparently, we might be compelled to just stay there for a while, a long while.

And Buddha comes along and says, hello, you promised there's more to do. Come on, go for your omniscience.

(C8/Q1) Describe the idea of method and wisdom as two sides of a coin.

(112:00) Here method and wisdom are being used in the sense of method being the appearing side of things and wisdom being their empty side and how you don't have the emptiness. You can't have an emptiness without an appearing thing that lacks its own nature. That is the emptiness. You can't have an appearance of something that's not empty of its own nature.

So it's not like you have two things that someday come together.

It's that we've got a coin that has two sides. Without both sides you have no coin. If you have a coin you have both sides.

Same with method and wisdom, deceptive reality and ultimate reality.

(C8/Q2) How will those two keep us from falling into either extreme?

Do you remember that explanation? Nothing has any nature of its own but it's not that nothing exists at all. Nothing exists in the way that it seems. Wait, is that the same?

But it's not that things have their own nature. It sounds like it's saying the same thing but it's saying from the different directions to keep us out of the two extremes.

We know the two extremes.

If something doesn't exist in the way I think it does, well then it must not exist at all. 

Like when we say, oh that yelling boss, they're nothing but my projection and my mind goes, yeah so they don't exist. Projections are like not real. I'm over the cliff into discounting something that is there.

But when I say, no, that thing has to exist in the way that it appears because it's so real. That's concocting something, putting more on than what's there.

So when we get the wrong understanding of nothing has any nature of its own and we think, well then that means things don't really exist, we've fallen off of that extreme of misunderstanding the significance of a no self nature. And when we hold that things must have some nature of their own, then we're on the cliff of that extreme of fabrication, giving things more reality than they do.

(C8/Q3) What's the higher reason for doing deeds the result of which will come back as a pleasant result for us?

Ultimately the reason for doing kind deeds is to create the appearance side of our Buddha me. Our method side creates our appearance side.

Buddha's paradise body and paradise emanating is the reason to do kindness with wisdom.

(C8/Q4) What parts of our Buddhahood are the result of method?

Those two parts. And what are the results of wisdom?

Technically the dharmakaya. Then there's the jnana dharmakaya, the omniscience. It becomes this little funny little dance. It's like, well, is the omniscience a wisdom result or is the omniscience a method result? Because in order for the omniscience to grow, we had to have the compassion. And is the compassion a method side or is it a wisdom side? Is it an appearing side or is it a empty side? Is the omniscience an appearing side or is it an empty side? It's a little bit squirrely when we first learn, oh, it's part of the mental side, because it's the mental aspect of the Buddha.

But it starts to get a little dicey when you dig in deeper.

(C8/Q5) What does it mean when Lord Buddha tells us we must eventually give up the teachings as well?

We will come to see that all of the teachings also have no nature of their own, nothing in them from them that can work to help us. Everyone hears them differently.

It's not that you will someday want to throw away all your books. I mean, maybe you won't need them anymore. But that's not what this means.

We give up our belief in the teachings as having something in them that's unique to them that can bring us to Buddhahood.

If we didn't believe that on some level, I don't think we'd still be here at this level. But it's not accurate.

(C8/Q7) How do we withdraw from the world?

I'm going to scoot fast because I only have two minutes. Why are our senses the enemy?

Scripture says our senses lie to us. I personally disagree.

The information comes to the eyeball. The eye power says, oh, that guy yelling at me. It's not the eyeball, but the eye power, right? The eye consciousness insists that the guy is in him from him yelling at me, the source of my discomfort. So in that way, the information we're getting and the conclusion we draw from that information is mistaken.

They say it's lying. Lying to me is something it does intentionally. This is so automatic, for me, my own mind, it's like, no, it's just so completely mistaken. When I understand it's so completely mistaken, if I really understood that, I'd quit trusting it.

It's like, yeah, it seems like it's coming from the guy, but come on, you're so totally mistaken. I'm not going to act the way I want to act because that's mistaken too. Like when we're onto our mistake, we'll finally, I hope, quit it. All right.

I didn't get to answer key nine, but you have it. You can read it. It's not anything new. You know all of it and it's in the readings, so you can explore. All right.

Thank you for putting up with me. We will start into part two, course two next Wednesday. So please join me if you like.

Please keep doing these meditations even if you don't join me, especially the compassion part because it's so important.