Corresponding files:
Prayers, Course Syllabus & Readings
The notes below were taken by a student and may contain errors.
14 January 2022
Link to Eng Audio: ACI 14 - Class 1
Welcome. I see new faces to me, but bear with me please.
Let's begin class as we usually do, which is how we set our motivation to begin.
It goes like this.
Please gather your minds here by bringing your focus to your breath until you hear from me again.
Now bring to mind that being who is for you a manifestation of perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, and see them appear before you, just by way of your thinking of them.
See them there gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy, great compassion. Their wisdom radiates from them, a beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light.
Then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way.
Think about how much you would like to be able to help them, and the worldly ways you might try or have tried.
Recognize how those worldly ways of helping fall short. Maybe they work, maybe they don't. But either way, the person goes on to have some other distress again, or that one again.
How wonderful it would be if we could also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they would go on to stop their distress forever.
Grow that wish, grow that wish into a longing, maybe even into an intention.
And if you feel ready even into a determination.
Turn your mind back to your precious holy guide.
We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn, what we need to do to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way.
And so we ask them, please, please teach us that.
They are so happy that we've asked, of course they agree.
Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite.
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.
Here is the great earth
Filled with fragrant intense and covered with a blanket of flowers.
The great mountain, four lands
Are 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 I reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.
(Repeat 3 times)
Those of you who've been with this group Thursday / Monday Group, welcome back. Those who are new to me, welcome.
We're studying ACI course 14, a beautiful, amazing course and if it's your first ACI course, hooray, it's fabulous. And if it's your 14th ACI course, hooray. It's equally fabulous. So I'm really, really happy to have all of you come and join.
Because there are a few that are new to me, I wanted to let you know about my expectations for you for this course in case you haven't heard. And that is that I require—more than request, but don't demand, require—that you complete your homework and quiz and even the meditation assignment from each class before the next class is scheduled.
So Monday and Thursday, find time to review the material, read the student notes, look at your own notes, take the homework open book, then study the homework, actually read, do the homework, get out the answer key, look at the answer key and compare your answer to the answer key and actually mark your own homework paper.
So if you don't need to add anything to your own question, give yourself a hundred percent. If you have to make some adjustments to make sure you have it just right, like mark off one point. Be nice to yourself when you're grading your own papers for the homework.
The reason for doing homeworks and grading your own and then the quiz is I just want you to review the material again and again and again, because you're planting seeds every time you do. So it's not about getting a 100%, it's about doing it.
So please do them.
Then after you've looked at your own homework, study it, put it away. Take your quiz closed book. You know what I mean by that.
Take your quiz from your own memory and then get out your answer key again and mark your quiz.
You're your own student and grader for your homeworks and your quizzes.
Be sure you also write down on your homework the day and time of your meditation assignment. Each class has a meditation assignment. Really, it's a contemplation assignment. But be sure that you have that on your homework when you submit that homework for your certificate.
In the end there'll be a final exam.
The last class that we do together is a review of that final exam, so you know exactly what's on it and you can do the same thing: Study hard, put your notes away, take your final exam.
We'll decide on a date that the final exam and all your papers are due.
By the time we get to the end of the course, we'll say you have this amount of time to finish it all up. I find that if I don't do that, they just never get finished, right?
So we'll put a deadline to help all of us be successful.
Then Rachana, would you wave please? Rachana is our amazing technical teachers assistant. She's the one that organizes to be sure that your papers, all your marks are gathered together appropriately, and she will send that to the ACI dean, and you'll get a certificate.
And when you get your certificate, I ask you to actually look at it, even go so far as to print it out, but at least on your phone. Wow, I got my ACI 14 certificate and like, yay, okay.
So that's like the agreement to be here. I understand that not everybody can always completely comply, but please let me know if there's reasons that for a given class you can't manage to get your homework done. But please make the commitment to do it. It will serve you. I promise you it will serve you.
We also are going to learn a little bit of Tibetan. You are not held to doing the Tibetan on your homework. Although some of the homeworks sound like you are, you're not. The reason we look at the Tibetan and sometimes repeat it is just to plant seeds in our minds to help protect that language, because the biggest collection of the Buddhist scriptures is written in that language now. We need to keep that language readable, which means somebody's got to be able to do it.
If you have the seeds for learning languages, maybe Tibetan might be one you'd want to learn, right? Not because you'll use it when you go on vacation, but because you can use it to help preserve and spread the dharma, which would be a great thing.
That's not a requirement at all.
Okay, I would also like to take the time to just go around and have everyone here, just tell everyone your name and where you are, where you're living, just so that we can get a feel of who's who and where we all are.
So I'll start. My name is Sani. I live in Tucson, Arizona.
Hello, my name is Joana. I'm living in Dresden in Germany.
Hi everyone, my name is Vika and I'm from Moscow, Russia.
Luisa. Hi, my name is Luisa and I live in Germany also.
My name is Sevonne and I'm in Guatemala.
Hi everyone, I'm Veronica from Taiwan.
Hello everyone. My name is Rachau from Vietnam.
Hi, my name is Liang Sang, I come from Singapore.
My name's Ahi. I'm living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Good morning everyone. My name is Lingh, I come from Vietnam too.
Hi everyone. My name is Vu, I'm from Vietnam.
Hello everyone. My Vietnamese name is Ngoc, but you can call me Emerald, it is my English name and I come from Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, but now I'm in my hometown, not province.
Hello, I'm Rachna. I am a New York City girl, but I'm staying two hours north of the city during Covid.
Hello everyone. My name is Siau Cheng. I'm from Singapore.
Wow.
Okay, thank you so much everyone. Yeah, we really are mostly on the other side of the ocean. What's up with that?
(19:40) Asian Classics Institute course 14 is called Lojong.
Lo = mind
Jong = to make pure, to train
When you’re an athlete, or a dancer or a musician, you have to train in your sport or your art in order to get good at it. I bet we have all done something like that, either when we were kids or later, where we had to practice.
Mom said, “Have you practiced your piano today?”
Me, “Oh mom, do I have to?”
Or you were the kid, “Yeah, can I do another half an hour?”
Either way, we had to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
“I don’t want to do the scales. I want to play Amazing Grace.”
“No. You do the scales.”
But once you can do the scales, like in your sleep your body can do them, that’s when you can put the music up and you can then learn to play the music.
Especially if we are in training in order to perform.
As an athlete you have a competition, as a dancer you are going to perform for others.
Then the training kicks up a nudge, our motivation and our effort increases according to our goal. But we still have to do the training again and again and again in order to habituate to that new activity.
The term Jong has these two meanings.
to make pure
to train, to perfect. You perfect your piano playing.
Not that you ever really peak out but it’s like that idea to perfect something.
So here it is like mind, make pure mind, train mind, perfect mind.
What are they trying to say?
Geshe Michael said in Tibetan the word Lo means mind, and Jong also means water.
Maybe Lojong is just a sweating practice, something that makes your head sweat.
Actually that was more course 13, which made our heads sweat.
That was just wicked that class, wasn’t it?
That’s not what Lojong means here at all.
It sounds like it’s saying mind training. Like in I am in an age group where a lot of stuff that you get, literature that you get is about how you keep your brain sharp, brain training. You have to keep this and this and this functioning well, like brain training. Memory aids, lots of that stuff. It’s a little bit depressing.
Is Lojong talking about how to keep our intellect sharp? Or how to increase our intelligence, our IQ?
It’s not about that at all.
In this tradition when we say “mind”, we’re not talking about what we think of when we go “mind”. Which is our thinking ability, our intellectual capacity, that kind of mind.
We’re talking about the kind of mind where you go “mind” (pointing at her heart).
I studied and practiced Chinese Medicine. In Chinese Medicine Heart is Mind.
Heart is the seat of the spirit, not here (pointing at her head)
When we’re talking about Lojong, point to your heart.
We’re not getting smarter—although we are.
We’re getting more heart, and that’s actually more difficult.
It’s actually a more difficult course to comprehend and to practice than course 13 was.
And yet, course 13 was 350 pages of reading.
In this course the first 2 classes that we do have one page of reading.
In Tibetan it would all be on one page.
We have it separated into separate ones but very short.
But the principles that it’s teaching challenges our very way of being in our world.
This Lojong is about training our heart in jangchub kye sem.
The term Jong in Lojong, when it becomes past tense it’s ‘jang’.
Jang is what we see in Jangchub.
Jangchub is the Tibetan word for Buddha, so there is a connection there.
We are learning Lojong, and when we have successfully Lojong-ed, we are Jang-ed, Jangchub.
This training–Lojong–is training our mind to develop our Buddhahood, develop into becoming a being who can in fact help that other being in that deep and ultimate way.
To become one who can help just one being in that way, we are a being who is helping every being in that way, even if it appears that we are only helping one.
It’s too big to understand here (pointing at her head), but it’s not too big to understand from our heart. It’s like what our heart wants us to do.
Not our heart organ. But our deepest, deepest, deepest being you.
Why do we need training in that?
If it is our deepest, deepest instinct, why aren’t we just born being lojong-ers?
Then we wouldn’t have to Lojong at all. We would just do it.
The reason we’re not doing it is because that’s blocked by our misunderstanding of the nature of our world.
You wouldn’t be here if you didn't know, right?
I just have to hold this thing up (holding up a pen)
I can hear your mind going, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
So I am not even going to do it, how is that?
Because of the pen and what you understand of the pen, that misunderstanding that the pen’s identity is in it spreads into the misunderstanding that everybody’s identities are in them, including our own, which makes us be the suffering beings that we are, from our own side, inside us, coming from us, unrelated to what?
Unrelated to our behavior.
Which if our qualities, our characteristics, our very identity are unrelated to our behavior, then we are just stuck, there is nothing we can do to change our world or ourselves.
If doing something can change us, then all we have to do is do it.
If there is nothing we can do to change us, then we are just stuck.
If there is 1 Buddha, then somebody figured out what to do.
Part of figuring out what to do is part of the impetus that makes that fully enlightened being then emanate and teach.
Those teachings come down to us through a pure lineage in this particular tradition, so that we can have confidence to try on for size what they are teaching us.
It won’t work if we don’t do something, because that’s what it is about.
The whole Lojong course is teaching us what to do. Not in the terms of physically doing something, but in terms of our heart doing that motivates our thinking, our speech and our physical action.
Lojong is a difficult course–not philosophically, but emotionally, because it is going to reach in and give you the opportunity to look for your own blocks to loving others to the extent necessary to become the one who can stop the suffering of your world. Your own suffering and the suffering of others.
It’s a big responsibility.
Once we recognize the truth of the lack of self-existence of anything, anybody, including ourselves, the ramification of that is: Everything I think, say, do is creating the circumstances of my very reality.
Only there is that gap in time between what we do now and what we get back.
Within that gap is perpetuated our very selfishness. It’s harsh to say. But it’s our own selfishness based on our misunderstanding that is the block to being the one who can stop all the suffering of our world.
This course is designed to help us recognize where we are selfish.
If we were all selfish slobs, it would be easy where we are selfish.
But we are not. We are kind people, we’ve already worked through a lot of selfishness.
But this course is designed to help us dig in deeper, because if we are not yet perceiving ourselves as beings of perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, we still have some selfishness that is blocking us.
Nobody is judging. Nobody is saying we are bad.
We are just all mistaken and we have seeds for being mistaken since beginningless time.
So catch yourself some slack but decide, “I’m tired of being mistaken. I want to fix it.”
This course gives a lot of juicy little clues as to how to set about changing yourself.
Because you lack self-existence, you can be anything for anybody.
Not can be, you already are anything for anybody.
We want to tap into that availability and use it to grow our love. Love being my concern for your happiness–love.
Compassion being my concern for stopping your suffering.
The two go hand in hand.
That’s where we are going with Lojong.
We’re really doing a course in Bodhichitta–the wish to reach full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. That state of mind motivating our every moment allows everything that we do to become causes for our actual reaching that state someday.
Ripening the seeds to see ourselves as that Buddha being in Buddha paradise emanating, being what everyone else needs.
(36:10)
Gehela told this story.
When he was 18, he wasn’t Buddhist yet.
He was traveling on his own for the first time, he was flying from Phoenix to the East Coast.
The flight had to make a change in Chicago, he had to change planes in Chicago.
He said the flight was that standard kind of flight, people ellbowing themselves because there wasn’t enough room, complaining about the food, complaining about the movie, and were anxious that they would make their connections on time.
And as they got into Chicago, they apparently started circling the city.
At some point the plane would suddenly drop, drop and then level out again, and drop and level out again. It happened a couple of times without the staff, the crew saying anything about it.
And of course everybody, the passengers were all like “What is this about?”.
The captain comes on and he says, “We have this problem. Our cockpit says our landing gear has not come down. It’s too foggy so the airport tower can’t see whether it’s really down or not. So they’ve instructed us to circle the city to use up the fuel, so that when we land, we won’t crash so badly, it won’t burn so bad. It’s gonna take about 45 minutes to burn off the rest of that fuel.”
I don’t know what a captain says after a speech like that.
They were taught how to take a crash position, where you put your head down on your lap, and you cover your arms and they all had to do that.
They also were instructed on what to do if you were one of the ones to survive the crash, like run away fast basically. Take your shoes off, take your jewelry off.
They were instructed and then they had like 30 more minutes to just wait it out while they circled.
Geshela said, the most amazing thing happened in that 30 minutes, this was the days before cell phones. He said, like immediately people turned to the other people, asking them, “Who are you, where were you going? Who is your family?”
They were interested in each other.
He said grandmothers were helping young people, young were helping old people, nobody was complaining about the food. Nobody was complaining about the movie.
They were loving each other because they were about to die together and they knew it.
He said it was an extraordinary feeling that he had never experienced before and has never experienced since.
This extraordinary love that a plane full of people had for each other.
But then they landed, the wheels were down, it did hold, the runway was lined with hearses and ambulances. They came to a stop and the doors opened and the feeling was gone.
There was rushing and pushing to get off that plane.
And he felt this tangible shift from this heart to this right back into this selfishness again.
His point in sharing this story is that we are all always in that crashing airplane together. We just don’t understand it.
We’ve learned, as a species we have learned to deny it and focus on our day to day needs and wishes and work so hard to get what we want, thinking that the thing we want will make us happy and thinking that what we do to get that thing is where the thing and the happiness come from.
Both of which are incorrect.
And even if they were correct, we just lose the thing that we worked so hard to get, we lose it eventually anyway.
The point is: Because of our misunderstanding we are willing to struggle, and fight, lie, cheat, and steal in gross and subtle ways to get what we want over someone else getting what they want. We are encouraged, we are taught, we are trained to be good at it.
And then, whether we live long or short, we lose all that stuff that we worked so hard to get, whether it’s material stuff, or promotions, or reputation, or beauty, whatever.
By way of being human we are going to lose it, because where it all came from was driven by the mistake.
So what’s the point in struggling with anybody over worldly things that we just gonna lose anyway?
Yet, if we stop and think, “Oh, ok, I’ll just stop being like that.”, we can’t even conceive of how life would work if you didn’t make an effort to get a paycheck that you use to pay your rent and pay your groceries. Would you ever get out of bed?
Not from our wrong perception we wouldn’t.
But from a Lojong perception we absolutely would get out of bed, and we would go to work, and we would get paid, and we would use that money to pay rent for probably others including ourselves. Life would be way different, but it would still be life in a world.
So Lojong is not training us to bail out of our worldly life. It’s training us to use what we are calling worldly life as our training ground. The 30 minutes of playing the chords on your piano is your all day life at work, in your family, at the grocery store, on vacation.
You still do some meditation time to prepare yourself for that, but your training, your Jong-ing, is happening all day long out amongst other beings.
Mostly other people, humans. But it’s not limited to other humans. Animals, bugs, hell beings, hungry ghosts, all of them are available recipients of our training. They are our training ground.
And this Lojong course is teaching us how to interact with all those other beings from this new perspective. The perspective of, “I love you. Whether I like you or not. Whether I agree with you or not.”
It’s challenging to do that. Because we don’t love everybody, yet. Do we?
So it’s a difficult course from our emotional perspective. But so, so powerful to just get a glimmer enough to change a little bit of behavior, you’ll come out the other side so happy that you tried it on for size.
And I hope someday you’ll either get a chance to take the course again or you’ll get a chance to teach it to somebody else. Even better, because that plants the seeds to get it so much more deeply, to be the one to share it.
You don’t have to perfect it before you share it.
Sharing it is how it gets perfected, right?
Sharing is how we Jong.
Keep that in mind. Listen to it as if you’ve already been asked to teach it to somebody, “Oh, how am I going to share that?” And then share a little bit, whatever catches your heart in any given class, tell somebody about it.
Which would be a great way for your study group, to share, tell each other about it, that’s ok.
But tell somebody new too. It would be really helpful.
(46:00)
Everything in this course comes from original sources from Tibetan monastic literature. We are not going to the Sutras so much, the Buddha’s teachings directly. We are using the source of literature that came to us through the Tibetan monastic traditions as they developed.
We are going to study, I don’t know how many, maybe there are 10 or 12 different Lojong texts, practices, in the course of our classes.
Each one has a different author and a certain set of circumstances, but all are in this genre of literature and practice having to do with us recognizing our mistaken view and how it affects our heart, and then gives us indications for how to choose our behaviors differently in order to develop this heart of Jangchub Kye Sem, the heart of Bodhichitta, the wish to reach that perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
In trying to describe this idea of Lojong Geshela talked to us about this one particular Lama whose title is Changkya Rinpoche. I think you've heard this term before. Changkya Rinpoche is a lineage of lamas, meaning there was the first one, I don't know what his dates were, and then when he passed, he left a message that he'd show up someplace. Then his students went and found him and trained the new one and he became the second Changkya Rinpoche. So this isn't a name, it's a title.
This particular Changkya Rinpoche, his dates are 1642 to 1714, which—remember this is after Je Tsongkapa, so this is still in our Gelugpa tradition, this particular line of lamas. At this time, Tibet and China had a really close relationship, and the Tibetan teachers would go to China and Chinese Buddhists would come to Tibet. They shared teachings.
This particular Lama became the teacher of the emperor of China at that time.
They had this very close and respectful relationship where when the lama got there, the lama sat on the emperor’s throne and the emperor sat on the floor. Then lama would leave, emperor would get back onto the emperor’s throne.
So they had a very, very beautiful relationship at that time.
This lineage of lamas, the Changkya Rinpoches, this fellow is a former life of the one we call Pabongka Rinpoche Dechen Nyingpo.
Pabongka Rinpoche Dechen Nyingpo is the one who taught that Liberation Thrust into the Palm of your Hand—the text that Geshe Michael is teaching the Lam Rim series from. When that, not this one, but a couple of generations after, when that Changkya Rinpoche passed and gave the message for where he would be reborn, that rebirth happened during a time when there was conflict between Tibet and China.
Those who were finding the reincarnation, they were afraid to label him the Changkya Rinpoche because they were afraid that anyway, they were afraid for him.
Apparently about that same time, a lineage called the Pabongka Rinpoches had also passed, and so they said, let's call this guy Pabongka Rinpoche. And it stuck. I don't know what happened to the other Pabongka Rinpoche, but so our Pabongka Rinpoche, who's really a Changkya Rinpoche, went on to become a very famous and powerful teacher to both the monastics and the laypeople.
Geshela shared that he was once asked about this funny situation and he said, I'm no Tulku, I don't remember my past lives, but I sure like Chinese things, I'm sure attracted to China and Chinese things. Maybe a clue where he was saying, yeah, yeah, this is true without coming out straight and saying.
The reason I'm telling you this story is that we're connected to this guy. We're connected to this Changkya Rinpoche by way of the Lam Rim that you've been studying with Geshe Michael, that Geshe Michael's teacher taught him, Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Tharchin for many, many years.
So he is related to us from being inside this tradition.
The reason we're talking about this guy is because he said this. Now you don't need to write this down, I just want to read it to you because there are some important words and I can't read it and hold it up at the same time.
Here's what the Changkya Rinpoche has to say about Lojong, specifically the Lojong we're going to study if I ever get around to it.
Changkya Rinpoche says:
SEMPA CHENPO LANGRI TANGPA DOR-JE SENG-GE
DZEMPAY JANGCHUB SEM-JONG GO DAMPA TSIK-GYE MAR DRAKPA
So what this is saying is, we call these religious instructions, the eight verses on JANGCHUB SEM-JONG.
JANGCHUB means Buddhahood.
SEM-JONG means wish training
Those of you who have studied with me, you know the term JANGCHUB KYE-SEM, right? Somebody nods.
JANCHUB KYE-SEM, Tibetan for Bodhichitta, which is Sanskrit for „I want to become a Buddha so I can help all sentient beings stop their suffering“.
Not just “I want to, I'm going to be a Buddha someday”.
Not because I want the Buddha-paradise-me, but because then I can finally help people.
Isn't it frustrating to be so limited?
JANCHUB SEM-JONG is what we have to do to grow our Bodhichitta, which is what we have to do to become Buddhas, which is what we have to do to be able to help anybody, really. There's that word, really.
So here this guy, Changkya Rinpoche, he points out that Lojong really means developing Bodhichitta.
Not just Lo in terms of your heart mind, but specifically growing our wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
So we just upped the ante in studying Lojong, we're studying the clues to how to transform ourselves and our very world from a suffering one to one of perfect happiness for everybody.
I hope that's exciting.
That's why we've been studying for years. And that's also why Lojong is course 14, because it takes a pretty high understanding of emptiness and karma to hear what I just said and not immediately think, oh, that's not possible, or, oh, I can't do it.
To hear those words and have just even the inkling in your heart that, wow, maybe I can do it. It takes that to be at course 14.
If you had started from number one, we would've been planting those seeds and here you would be.
When my husband and I first started studying ACI, we'd already been studying Buddhism for a number of years. Then we got Diamond Cutter Sutra course, course 6, and then we went directly to course 14, because in course 14 is the training in Tonglen, and we'd been doing that practice for years, and nobody had written about it, we didn't have any access to literature.
So I'm only pointing out that you don't have to do these courses, 1, 2, 3, 4. You can get them in the way that your seeds ripen as ready.
But then I would really, really recommend that if you do them piecemeal, that you go back and do them in sequence because they build on each other in a very specific way. And especially if you've done this one and that one and that one, when you put it into context of the 1 through 15, oh, it goes so much deeper.
That was my experience, because we did go back and start from number 1 and go all the way through the 18 in sequence after we've done 6 and then 14 and then 7, and we did it over.
So I really, really recommend that.
So here's the other part of this guy's quote, is that
SEMPA CHENPO LANGRI TANGPA DOR-JE SENG-GE
When he talks about Lojong really being a SEM-JONG, he's talking specifically about this first phrase because this is talking about a person.
The SEMPO CHENPO means great Bodhisattva.
LANGRI TANG is a location in Tibet.
LANGRI TANGPA means the guy from there.
So it's like saying, Mr. California, Mr. LANGRI TANG.
Then, Dorje Senge is the fellow's name.
Dorje Senge means Diamond Lion.
Senge is a mistake that stuck from the Sanskrit word (SINPA), which means lion. It becomes SENG-GE.
So DORJE SENGE means diamond lion.
So this guy from the area of Langri Tang whose name was Dorje Senge, who was a great Bodhisattva, he wrote these beautiful, private religious like spiritual advices called the TSIKGYE MAR, the SEMJONG in eight verses.
So this training in how to develop our Bodhichitta comes to us from Dokje Senge in eight very simple verses.
To memorize those verses and to use them as guidelines could be an entire lifetime’s practice. They're so rich, they're so deep.
And yet because they're so short and simple and succinct, they also could be a beautiful introductory teaching.
Geshela encouraged people who are both—in this tradition and the Yoga asanas tradition—he said, take this teaching and about these eight verses, and go teach them in the young community, you'll set their practices on fire.
I don't have that community, so I haven't ever done it. But it is such an important message and people who have seeds for it, that it just opens hearts right and left.
People who don't have seeds for it, they'll say, no thanks, see you. Don't have your feelings hurt when that happens.
What we're actually studying in tonight's class and next class is this Lojong, which is really a Semjong, which really means we're developing our, not just our heart mind called the Lojong TSIK-GYE MAR, which means the Lojong eight verses.
Let me make sure from the homework I said what I was supposed to say there.
The Lojong in 8 verses is advices for developing the mind of enlightenment, which Geshela calls the good heart, developing the good heart.
So LOjong, that actually has caught on, you'll see that in the literature, not the classic literature, but the modern literature that Lojong is called Developing the Good Heart.
Now we know that that's code for not just greater kindness, although it is that, but the kind of kindness that will create the seeds for Buddhahood, for yourself and everyone.
So keep that in mind.
With that, let's take a little break, get refreshed, come back a few minutes, not 10, less than 5 please. But come back and we'll carry on.
(Break)
All right, we are back.
These Lojong texts that we're going to be studying, there is a compilation of Lojong texts that was put together by someone named Muchen Konchok Gyeltsen in the 14th century, sometime.
He compiled all of these different Lojong training teachings.
The Lojongs come to us from around a thousand AD in Tibet.
This fellow was bright enough to bring them all together into one big book. That book is called the LO JONG GYA-TSA.
GYA = 100
TSA = root text
So LO JONG GYA-TSA literally means the 100 root text of Lojong.
But it doesn't literally mean 100 of them. The word GYA-TSA means compendium, compendium of Lojong.
That actual text has been translated into English, the whole thing, all the different Lojong.
It is available in English for those of you. And within it are all these beautiful, beautiful short teachings about how to develop our Bodhichitta.
We're going to study the Lojong eight verses.
We're going to study another one called The Freedom from Four Attachments, another one called the Wheel of Knives or Crown of Knives, probably some of you're familiar with that one.
And then a few really short miscellaneous ones as well that come to us from these different circumstances. I'll talk about those later.
Each one is training us in developing our Bodhichitta in a unique way. So what we'll find likely is that there'll be one or two of them that really speak to you. And then the others, yeah, they're great, but..
Geshela‘s advice to us is when you find the one that really speaks to you, adopt it and keep it with you. Memorize it, think about it, keep coming back to it when you go on to study other things: How does it all relate to that Lojong, your personal Lojong?
It's sweet.
So in this survey course, you can be thinking, may my Lojong come to me, the one that's perfect for you.
Hopefully it will be included in the ones that I share.
Let's finally get to the one that's called the LOJONG TSIK-GYE MA, it's the Lojong in eight verses by this fellow Dorje Sengye whose dates we don't actually have, but he was one of what are called the Kadampas of Tibet.
This word Kadampa means spiritual advice, personal spiritual advice.
Like you have the goodness to be hanging out with your Lama and I don't know, you're cruising through the tile store. And they say something that it was like, oh, right, that's a specific instruction that I'm going to use for the rest of my life. Like these little sweet episodes of a teaching, as opposed to a teaching like this. Or as opposed to being on the debate ground with your lama, but just sweet situational teaching. The KA is short for KALIANA MITRA, which is Sanskrit.
KALIANA MITRA = spiritual friend
I love that word Kaliana. It means spiritual friend.
In Tibetan, it got translated into Geshe. I don't know how that gets derived, but the original people who were called Geshe in Tibet were these Kadampas who took on students. And those students considered the teacher as these really, really special beings that would be able to help the student open their heart so completely that they could become Buddha.
And that's what Kaliana Mitra means. That's what Geshe means.
Now Geshe means, it's the title given when you pass that exam, right? You study for 20 years, you sit for the debates, you get passed.
It's more like a PhD in religious philosophy.
Whereas what it really means is this spiritual friend, your spiritual guide, your personal spiritual guide.
So the Kadampas we're this group of practitioners, Tibetan practitioners like the first Buddhists of Tibet who met the Indian Buddhism somehow and were attracted to it, and worked really hard to learn the language so that they could read the texts, and worked really hard to learn the practices and the meditation and saw results enough, and then shared it with others.
This group of the first ones first to meet these teachings, they were all teaching each other. There wasn't a big Tibetan Lama at that time. The lamas were in India. They spoke other languages, they didn't speak Tibetan.
So there is this group of folks that we're learning from a different cultural tradition. And then in the course of that, they taught each other.
What would happen if you learned something and turned immediately around and shared it with somebody else?
And then they turn around and share something with you?
You can see how everybody's seeds would grow really fast.
And that's what happened in this group as well.
So they would teach their experience, so those would become commentaries.
And those commentaries became personal instructions, like this is what worked for me. And those became these Lojong teachings.
We'll hear that for a long time they were only orally transmitted and they were only privately transmitted, and there was some key thing, key player that brought it out into public.
They were more like the secret teachings, these Lojong, maybe they were the first secret teachings in Tibet.
This man, Dorje Senge was amongst this first group and his Lojong in eight verses became very popular in this closed way.
Then when it did go public, so to speak, again, it was so succinct and useful and beautiful that it became very popular very quickly. So let's learn it. I'm going to give you the oral transmission first. So just listen and then we'll go back and study however many we can finish in the time that I've got.
This is the Kaliana Mitra Dorje Senge speaking to you, and he says:
(1:12:45)
(1)
May I think of every living being
as more precious than a wish giving gem
for reaching the ultimate goal
And so may I always hold them dear.
(2)
When I'm with another, wherever we are,
may I see myself as the lowest.
May I hold the other as highest,
from the bottom of my heart.
(3)
As I go through the day,
may I watch my mind
to see if a negative thought has come.
If it does, may I stop it right there with force.
Since it hurts myself and others.
(4)
At times I will meet bad people
tormented by strong bad deeds and pain.
They are hard to find, like a mine of gold.
And so may I hold them dear.
(5)
Some jealous person might do me wrong,
insult me or something of the like.
May I learn to take the loss myself
and offer them all the gain.
(6)
There may be times when I turn to someone
with every hope, they'll help me,
and instead they do me great wrong.
May I see them as my holy guide.
(7)
In brief, may I give all help and happiness
to my mothers directly or some other way.
May I take all the hurt and pain of my mother's
in secret upon myself.
(8)
May none of this ever be made impure
by the eight ideas of things.
May I see all things as illusion, and free myself
from the chains of attachment.
So even as I read these and I hear myself, some of these are kind of scary. It's like, are you kidding? So we're going to learn about them.
They are hard.
Becoming Buddha is hard.
If it were easy, we'd all be one already.
So please don't get scared and run away.
These are beautiful teachings.
Let's look at this first one.
(1:17:10)
Eight verses developing the good heart written by the Kadampa Geshe named Diamond Lion from the plains of Langri.
(1)
May I think of every living being
as more precious than a wish giving gem
for reaching the ultimate goal.
And so may I always hold them dear.
Apparently the grammar of this Tibetan, which I know nothing about… here's the Tibetan.
Tibetan syntax goes backwards from English.
Like I go to the store. They say, I store go.
As a translator, of course you know that.
And as the Tibetan speaker, we have it backwards.
But so I'm just sharing with you what Geshe Michael shares that when you read this Tibetan, there's a number of different ways this verse can be translated, different meanings.
What's important is „may I think of every living being as more precious than a wish giving gem“.
What's a wish giving gem?
And why are living beings more precious than that?
And what does reaching the ultimate goal have to do with that?
A wish giving gem, it's called YISHIN NORBU in the Tibetan, which curiously is the nickname for his holiness, the Dalai Lama. Tibetans call him YISHIN NORBU or Gelwa Rinpoche.
It means that to the Tibetans, his holiness, the Dalai Lama is like the most precious thing who can grant you all your dreams come true.
So a wish-giving gem is said to be like an Aladdin's lamp. You rub the lamp, out comes the genie, I'll grant you three wishes.
But you have to be really careful what you actually wish for because the genie takes it literally, right? You saw the movie.
Wish Giving gem is similar in the Tibetan tradition.
You come across this gemstone that's in the mud or muck or trash heap or worse, but you clean it, you find this special kind of pole that you put it onto, you do these special prayers and this gem can give you anything you wish for.
What could be more precious than a wish giving gem if it is the source for anything that you want?
How can a living being…?
Living beings:
a third of the living beings, we love dearly,
a third of the living beings we can't stand,
a third of the living beings either way, right?
Traditionally they say when you're in a group of people, it's like that because of our seeds.
So how is it that a living being can be more precious than a wish giving gem if the wish giving gem can give us anything you want?
A living bean can't give us anything we want, can they?
The commentaries say, the problem with the wish giving gem is that we can only wish for things that we can conceive of.
So even if we say, oh, I wish for Buddhahood, the Buddhahood that we're conceiving of is in fact not Buddhahood.
So what we're going to get from our wish-giving gem is what we think is Buddhahood, not actual Buddhahood, because we can't really understand.
In our wish is like a mistaken mental image of what we're asking for.
But living beings, our interactions with living beings, it's through others that we plant our mental seeds, isn't it?
And those mental seeds grow. So even if we are thinking, I'm taking the salad to my friend in order to reach Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beans, even though I don't really have a quite clear idea of what I'm wishing for, those seeds are going to grow bigger than the seeds I planted.
But I have to have them directed towards someone. Somehow you can't offer yourself, Ooh, I'm getting on dutchy ground. You can't just do for yourself what you want and reach your Buddhahood.
Well, that'd be a good debate.
But it takes others to interact with.
So in this one way, every living being is more precious than a wish giving gem, because it is through our interaction with them that we can in fact reach the ultimate goal. Without them, we can't.
A wish giving gem can't give us that.
The second way this can be read is that, the Tibetan could be meaning that the state of mind that wants to reach the ultimate goal, that state of mind is more precious than the wish giving gem.
And that state of mind that wants to reach the highest goal knows that it requires interaction with other beings in order to reach that other goal.
So the state of mind that wants to reach total enlightenment, it really doesn't care about a wish giving gen. It cares about other living beings, ones they like and ones they don't like. All of them are what's so precious to a mind that wants to reach Buddhahood.
Then apparently the third way that Tibetan can be read as saying that the reaching of the ultimate goal is more precious than any wish giving gem.
And in order to reach that ultimate goal, we had and have the wish to help every living being reach that goal as well.
So to recognize, this verse has in it at least three different aspects:
I rely on every living being to grow my Bodhichitta,
the mind that wants to grow the Bodhichitta, wants to help other living beings, and
the one that doesn't has succeeded in doing it.
All of those are more precious than anything a wish giving gem can give us, because a wish giving gem is limited to what our worldly mind can wish for.
So anything that can take us out of our mistaken understanding of our world and where happiness comes from is more precious than something that keeps us stuck in worldly life.
It's other living beings that do that for us.
How do they do that?
We'll talk about it.
There are a lot of different ways that they do that.
(1:27:30)
The second advice he gives, he must be saying, this is how I practice. He says
(2)
When I'm with another, wherever we are,
may I see myself as the lowest.
May I hold the other as highest,
from the bottom of my heart.
Geshela says, this is not an exercise in low self-esteem. Like many of us are already good at that. We don't need to say, see, I'm right.
It doesn't mean that.
It's much more difficult than that, actually.
I'm supposed to do a demonstration. I'll come back to that.
This verse is saying, so pretend I'm Gehe Michael talking to you.
He says, this is what this verse is saying.
Now watch and listen. Like watch, everybody, watch.
How many beings on this zoom call are enlightened beings in disguise?
Raise your hand.
Oh, you never say so, do you?
You get it?
Why did he do this?
If we're not omniscient, we don't know, do we, the mind of another being.
Don't we automatically assume because they all look like humans, that they're all suffering, sansaric beings just like us?
Of course we do, right?
There's nothing wrong with, well, yes there is. It's a big mistake, but it's not invalid. It's totally valid.
But the scriptures say that in any group of people, there is one or two that are in fact already enlightened beings appearing there to be what others need.
It's like, not me. I'm not omniscient. I don't know your mind.
But that said, I don't know that it's not Emerald. Could be, right? Could be. Yay.
Now, what if you went through your day at work just with the thought, maybe the boss is an enlightened being, doing exactly what they need to do to help me get enlightened as quickly as possible.
No, not that jerk boss. All they do is find fault with me.
Oh, right? It's a clue to what we have an opportunity to change in ourself.
Well, if I know I'm not omniscient, but I don't know for sure that everybody I'm with is not omniscient, it's a little scary to think, well, maybe they are. In which case, oh my gosh, they know my mind.
But it also means, oh my gosh, they love me more than anybody else. They love me even more than I love myself.
It has to go hand in hand.
An omniscient being is one who gets omniscient because their love is so big.
So we really need to have those two tied together. Otherwise, it's too scary to be in the presence of an omniscient being. I'd pull my jacket over my head, no, no, don't know me.
But one who loves me more than my mom and dad even.
Help me. Please help me. And that attitude would shift my relationship with them from my side.
It may or may not shift things from their side if they're enlightened being, they love me anyway, right? Unconditional love.
Their job is to be what I need to get me free of suffering as swiftly as possible.
So now it's kind of natural to be, okay, they are highest.
I'm lowest in the sense of I'm the last non omniscient being in the world, and I'm struggling against everybody to stay that way for some stupid reason.
This verse is about this just shift in attitude. Maybe they're out to help me. Maybe there's something I can learn from this stupid yelling boss, blaming me again.
Maybe, just maybe, is it true that they're really enlightened beings?
No. Right? They're empty.
Even enlightened beings are empty of being enlightened beings from their own side.
So it's not true that they're all really enlightened, but it's also not true that they're really not enlightened. And that leaves this opportunity for us to interact with them from this imposed, maybe belief that maybe they're actually out to help me, and how do I take advantage of that?
Luisa: Just a question with that. If I think that everybody else is a Buddha, everybody.
Lama Sarahni: I know where you're going. Then should I help them out?
Luisa: If they're here to help me, then what I am doing here, I don't have anybody else to help.
Lama Sarahni: So maybe your job is to make offerings to all of those Buddha and that there isn't anybody for you to help. There's just all of those beings for you to make offerings to.
Luisa: Even the jerk boss?
Lama Sarahni: Even the jerk boss, especially the jerk boss. And what might you offer? I'm so sorry you're angry. How can I help you? That would be an offering, wouldn't it?
Luisa: Okay.
Lama Sarahni: If my karmic seeds are ripening being yelled at, wouldn't the jerk boss Buddha yell at me? They would have to, because my seeds are making them do it. And then hopefully I like, oh my gosh, Buddha jerk boss is yelling at me. I've burned off those seeds. I've not reacted badly. Hooray. One less jerk boss karma in the world.
Luisa: But it seems a bit, I don't know if I got it, but it sounds a bit like, okay, they are Buddhas. They can see what my karma is, so they can kind of, okay, now she deserves this.
Lama Sarahni: No, but it's not like that. They're spontaneously being what my karma needs. They're not thinking, oh, I need to do that, because they are being it. Just like you are being—you have a daughter, right?—you are being your daughter's mother, spontaneously, effortlessly. You don't have to think about it. Oh, in this moment I need to be my daughter's mother because I'm not really that. You just are that for her. Spontaneously, effortlessly. Keep working on the self existent Buddha and self existent omniscience because that's the block, because it's misunderstanding. But you're on the right track.
Why are we talking about that?
Wherever I am, whoever I'm with,
may I see myself as the lowest
and the other at the highest from the bottom of my heart.
How is that going to help our behavior towards that other?
I hope we're going to be on our best behavior with others.
My brothers and sisters, every now and then, we get together every few years and we get together for a weekend and we're so happy to see each other. We're all on our best behavior, and as long as we don't stay together for too long, we stay on our best behavior. Everybody gets along and then goodbye. See you again in five years.
But if you stay together long enough, you let your hair down, and then we start to be more selfish and we think, okay, I live with my husband. We've been married many, many years. We love each other so much. There's nothing we could do to break ourselves apart, which means you let your hair down and then kind of unkind things come out of your mouth sometimes.
Or you belt or fart or something. You're rude around the ones you love the most because they love you so much, they don't care.
But right, karmic seeds say, who cares about that part?
What about the little unkindness that comes out of our mouth?
So we actually don't want to let our hair down in that way. We want to continue to plant our seeds of kindness, even with those that love us unconditionally.
Maybe even more so with them because they're such powerful karmic objects to be really, really careful in our behavior. And it goes counter to our whole thinking of what it's like to be around other people.
There should be somebody where I can really just let down and be me.
But the me we're wanting to let down and be is this suffering me? And it's a me that perpetuates suffering–our own and others. So do we really want to do it?
But I don't want you to hear that as me saying, oh, you have to be this tight, hung up, neurotic person. Because that doesn't work either.
Some fine tuning in our perception of the other person helps us to find that fine tuning.
When we really admire and enjoy and want to care for the other person, it's no effort to be kind. Even when it gets difficult.
When our concern is for our own sense of comfort or wellbeing, then it's easy to get unkind.
But that's what this verse is saying: train ourselves to think of the other that we're with as being someone who's there to help us reach our Buddhahood as quickly as possible.
It's from our side because our behavior towards them will be so different when we have that in mind as we interact with the grocery store clerk, the bus driver, the bum on the street, the stray dog.
It's sweet. It's a really, really sweet message, that we can't force ourselves to do, but we can cook it and work with it and explore it until it opens our heart.
All right, let's do another one, verse number three.
1:41:35
(3)
As I go through the day,
may I watch my mind to see if a negative thought has come,
and if it does, may I stop it right there with force,
since it hurts myself and others.
This seems impossible to do, doesn't it?
It does require a high level of mindfulness.
We think of mindfulness as being something we do on our cushion, and it is, developing that sheshin and drenpa.
The drenpa is holding our mind on our meditation object, and our sheshin is the checker to see whether we're tight, agitated, or dull.
But when you take those two states of mind, drenpa and sheshin, into your off cushion life, they become even more powerful.
Your drenpa would be being able to hold in your mind that I'm working on this, watching for negative thoughts even as I am at work, even as I'm driving my car, even as I'm doing the dishes.
And then the sheshin is the actual watcher.
What's arising? What's arising? What's arising?
Oh, there's a negative thought.
What the heck is a negative thought?
What qualifies as a negative thought?
We drive down the hill, we can see the Tucson Valley, and some days the Tucson Valley has a little bit of smog, and some days it's crystal clear and so beautiful.
Of course, on the days that it's crystal clear, your mind goes, wow, what a beautiful. On the days, it's not crystal clear, right? You don't even say the words, but your mind makes this imprint, oh, scuzzy air.
It doesn't even come in words. It's just an experience.
Is that a negative thought?
Technically it is.
How do I stop that with force?
Why go to the effort?
We don't necessarily start with those ones.
Maybe we have the habit of getting into work grumpy, right?
If we're grumpy as we walk in the door, everything anybody does is going to just increase our grump.
So this task would be before you even go in the door grumpy, work with the grumpy, in whatever tool that you have to shift your grumpy to at least neutral, lots of different methods that you can work with.
Some will work and some won't, right? Depending on what extent we've helped other people deal with their grumpy.
Modern psychology says, let your anger out.
Speak truthfully. Be true to yourself. Don't stuff those emotions.
This tradition agrees. Don't stuff the emotions. That's not what this is about.
But when we understand about mental seeds and how swiftly they're planted, it would be counterproductive to allow moments of anger, irritation, criticism, et cetera, to go on long enough to get it out.
Because in getting it out, you're replanting something. You're not replanting it completely because you're not necessarily getting it out towards someone else. But it's still, you're hearing yourself allow yourself to continue to be blaming somebody else for something because that's where anger, irritation, all these negative things come from. Is there something we don't like? And there's somebody or something that caused it.
To let that go on perpetuates seeds to continue to blame others and other things for the things that go wrong.
So this tradition says that every moment of negativity becomes really powerful, negative or unpleasant experiences in the future. It happens that swiftly.
So this tradition says, don't let them go on a moment longer than you are forced to by your ability to shut them off. Negative seeds grow into unpleasant circumstances, can even grow into an entire next lifetime in a lesser realm, a lesser capacity.
So this tradition says one of the Lojong is to train our awareness to be watching this state of mind.
As soon as possible, as one that when it comes back to us will be unpleasant is noticed, we cut it. You just stop it.
Easier said than done, but thoughts can be stopped.
If you're thinking about the weather and all of a sudden your phone rings, those thoughts stop and you turn to the phone.
Our mindfulness and sheshin alerts our me, whatever, whoever that is to say, no, shut that off.
Our habit is to keep agitating about the thing that has us agitated.
This practice is to say, Nope, unacceptable. Those are seeds and I'm done with them. Throw them in the fire.
For a long time, I had this mental image of this little fire that it actually would move along with me on my left side.
Something would come up, throw that in the fire, throw that in the fire.
Mentally, I hope I wasn't ever doing it with my hands. Maybe I was.
It's like throwing that in the fire. But it served me well because it was like this tangible thing that I could do when those thoughts came up. Just throw 'em in the fire.
I'm happy to remind myself, I need to do that a little bit more now.
This verse wants us to recognize the necessity of instant response to a moment of mental emotional negativity.
To do that kind of need to decide what qualifies as negative.
We have the standard 10 killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, et cetera. You know them.
Make those more subtle, harming others physically.
What others? Okay, I'm going to work with humans.
Now I'm going to work with animals.
Now I'm going to work with insects.
It's totally a self-motivated self-driven practice, the depth to which you would like to take these different verses.
Start at a more superficial level and then dig down as you get familiar with them.
I've got one more I need to talk to you about for your homework. Bear with me. We're almost done.
(1:50:45)
(4)
At times I will meet bad people,
tormented by strong bad deeds and pain.
They are hard to find, like a mine of gold.
And so may I hold them dear.
At times I will meet bad people tormented by strong bad deeds and pain.
They're hard to find like a mine of gold and so may I hold them dear.
Is it hard to find bad people, unkind people?
Let's say unkind people.
I don't know. I have to admit in my life it is actually, but it didn't used to be. I have to admit that.
I have seen that shift after many years of practice.
This verse is pointing out that if we have bad people in our world, meaning unkind people, people that hurt us, people that we don't like, recognize that those people themselves are tormented by pain, tormented by suffering.
We tend to not think that when we're in a situation where somebody's being nasty to us. We're just concerned about protecting ourselves and responding in a way that's legal to get them to stop what they're doing to us.
We really don't have the natural thought about what they're going through, do we?
But what if we did? What if we were able to put our own sense of hurt and protection just aside enough to think of their situation in which they're thinking that what they're doing towards us is going to bring them some kind of happiness?
Because it's not, is it?
It's going to bring them some similar situation to what is happening to us, probably—not necessarily, but probably.
If we can hold just an inkling of that perception, they're being like this to me because they are so tormented by their selfishness and misunderstanding that they think they're going to get some kind of happiness out of this. Because we have some modicum of wisdom, a little bit of our heart will crack open and for an instant maybe it's like, oh, our compassion would go, I'm so sorry for you. I really wish I could help in some way.
Maybe that's enough and you just have to run away fast to protect them and to protect you.
But that is enough to switch from blaming, blaming, blaming, blaming to the seeds planted from that interaction was actually burning off, burning off meeting more unkind people.
If we have an experience of unkindness happening to us and we respond with kindness—however long that takes us to do, 30 seconds, five minutes—it's that many seeds of burning off the negativity and not replanting it.
How many times would we have to do that if we have the habitual seeds of being yelled at by the boss, and we used to yell back to get out of it, and we used to yell at the kids to get them to do what we want?
How many times would we have to not yell back and not yell at the kids to make it so that we couldn't experience being yelled at anymore?
There's not really an answer to that, How many?
But do we see by way of our understanding mental seeds, that every time we do do it, there's that many less yelling episodes in our future, because we didn't replant them the way we would have.
Now, say you diligently set about weeding out yelling people from your world by being so careful in your response to others. It would happen that you would stop being yelled at.
You would stop even hearing yelling so you wouldn't hear other people getting yelled at.
But maybe you hadn't completely weeded out all your yelling at other seeds yet. And you would only know if you had or hadn't by being in a situation where you would expect somebody to yell at you and they didn't.
You might get to the point where you go in search of angry people to see if you could get somebody to yell at you.
Not that you would try, but you go to somebody that yells at everybody else because you haven't weeding that quite out and put yourself in that position to see what would happen.
It sounds crazy, doesn't it? But, then it would be so hard to find those people because you weeded your anger seeds out, you just can't find them.
Then say you're, I don't know, at the Starbucks and somebody butts in front of the person in front of you, and the person in front of you gets all hot and angry about it. You'd be going, wow, an angry person. Let me help them. Right?
You'd be so happy to have a way to weed out your seed that had gotten so much more subtle, that that angry person would be like this precious jewel, this precious mine of gold that you couldn't find before because you weeded 'em all out.
So probably we're not the ones that are being yelled at, but maybe we've got jealousy.
Maybe we've got, I don't know, people that don't speak the truth all the time.
Whatever our own personal recurring theme experience that reveals Sansara.
Maybe that's one that we can, instead of avoiding, recognize it's like a gold mine of opportunity to weed that out of your entire world by refusing to respond in the same old way and refusing to do that behavior towards others and really training in doing the opposite.
We all know that pattern.
Alright.
We have these first four verses in the eight.
Choose one of them please and just explore it in your meditation time. I don't know what the meditation assignment is for this class actually, but even outside of that, choose one of these four verses and explore it a little bit, and see what you can come up with in terms of what Dorje Senge’s instruction he's giving for you, and see how it can help you.
We'll learn the other four in the next class.
I'm sorry I took five extra minutes of your time. I'm going to take a few more because at the end of class, we want to dedicate the goodness of what we've done so that it's sure to carry on the momentum for us.
So the way we do that is like this.
Remember that person that you wanted to be able to help at the beginning of class.
We learned things this evening, this morning that you will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way.
And that's an extraordinary goodness.
So please be really happy with yourself.
That owning the deed, intending to do it again, enjoying doing it, it's the force with which those seeds get planted so strongly.
Think of this goodness, like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands.
Now, think of that precious holy guide, that being of perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
See how happy they are with you.
Grow your gratitude to them.
Ask them to please, please stay close to you, to continue to guide you and 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, into that holy of holies, in the middle of your chest.
Feel them there, that love, that compassion, that wisdom, like a little glow or a tingle or a pulsation.
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, the first to share this goodness with that one person,
the second to share it with everyone you love,
the third to share it with every being you've ever, ever seen or heard of. And see them all filled with this happiness, this wisdom, this eagerness to Lojong.
And may it be so.
Alrighty, thank you so much for the opportunity.
17 January 2022
Link to Eng audio: ACI 14 - Class 2
Okay, welcome back for the recording, we are ACI course 14 Lojong study group class 2 on January 17th, 2022.
So let's gather our minds here as we usually do.
Usual opening
Last class, we learned what Lojong, the translation, was and what its real meaning is, based on a reference by that Chankgya Rinpoche that gave us insight into what's meant by Lojong.
I am deciding whether I want to do this as debate or just…
I'm just going to slide through.
So if I were to ask somebody, they would say, oh yes, of course, the first Chankgya Rinpoche addressed how Dorje Senge wrote a very short teaching called the The eight verses of Lojong. But he describes what we're Jong-ing.
What we're practicing, what we're training, what we're developing isn't so much low the mind as in our intellect, but rather it's our Sem. Sem is the word for the mind that wants to achieve total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
That's a more specific thing than just mind training.
So we could say Lojong from what Dorje Senge shares with us really means heart training, Bodhichitta training.
Geshela calls it „Training a good heart“.
It's very poetic, but even just those words don't really give the full meaning.
It might be more accurate to say „Training in Bodhichitta“, right? Because that's really what it is. Lojong—training ourselves in the behavior necessary to make the goodness that will ripen as our Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating. And nothing less than that is what Lojong is about.
We learned that there is a single text from which all the Lojongs come, at least all the ones that we're going to study, and that text is the compendium of texts on developing the good heart, the LOJONG GYA-TSA that was compiled by Muchen Konchok Gyeltsen. You don't say 'written by him‘, because he did not write those Lojongs. He took them from all these different places and put them all together in one place, in one text, a compendium.
Then we learned a good way of avoiding the negative thought of low self-esteem and still practice the instruction of the second of the eight verses.
Think for a minute, what was the second of the eight verses.
That was the one about seeing myself as the lowest and others as the highest from the bottom of our heart, meaning genuinely, which come on, that's a whole practice. We have to fake it at first, and eventually it will become genuine and what a feeling that must be when we really have that sense.
But it doesn't mean, oh, I'm just the worst slob in the world. Everybody else is better than me.
We learned that it has to do with recalling the empty nature of others. Their identity is not inside them. The one we see is not necessarily what they are.
So couldn't they be an emanation of a fully enlightened being?
Couldn't they even be an emanation of our specific enlightened being who loves us so perfectly that they'd show up as whatever we're interacting with?
Now it's the sense of being the lowest and the others being the highest has to do with recognizing their empty nature means they could in fact be this angel here to help me in some way.
If we even entertain that thought, wouldn't we interact with them differently than we would if we're still on automatic pilot from self existent me, self existent them.
Just to try means when the seeds that are being planted by our mind and our interaction with them is vastly different than when we're just on automatic pilot as beings who are still steeped in the belief in self existence.
That second verse isn't about being inadequate, incomplete, impossible to really practice well. It's about entertaining the idea that others, because of emptiness, those other beings could be on track to help us.
Then lastly, the third verse stresses stopping our mental afflictions like the moment they occur, not letting them go on for a moment, and it stresses the reason for that as being because every moment of a negative state of mind plants an imprint in our mind that grows. The longer we leave that imprint allowing to grow, the bigger the unpleasantness is when it ripens. They could go on to ripen an entire next lifetime in a lower realm.
It takes a lot of understanding about how that process happens to understand that. But the point is to grow our Longing mindfulness so strong, because we understand the consequences of negative mental seeds growing that we just can't bear to leave a negative seed in there, unregretted, un-4-powered, un… and this Lojong is just teaching us the importance of that level of mindfulness about our behavior, but meaning even the behavior of our very thoughts.
All right, so let me read you those first four verses again.
Dorje Senge shares these 8 verses.
(1)
May I think of every living being
as more precious than a wish giving gem
for reaching the ultimate goal
And so always hold them dear.
Even when they are interrupting us, even when they are annoying. Especially when they are upsetting us.
(2)
When I'm with another, wherever we are,
may I see myself as the lowest.
May I hold the other as highest,
from the bottom of my heart.
(3)
As I go through the day,
may I watch my mind
to see if a negative thought has come.
If it does, may I stop it right there with force.
Since it hurts myself and others.
(4)
At times I will meet bad people
tormented by strong bad deeds and pain.
They are hard to find, like a mine of gold.
And so may I hold them dear.
We talked about that. There is a lot more that could be said about it.
(5)
Some jealous person might do me wrong,
insult me or something of the like.
May I learn to take the loss myself
and offer them all the gain.
Geshe Michael shared with us that this particular class, the four verses I'm supposed to cover in this class, are probably the most difficult teachings in all of the ACI coursework.
We've had more intellectually challenging ones.
We probably had some that we still really don't understand, like on the shelf. But he said this one, this very simple Lojong, Eight Verses, and this particular verse, this one and the next actually.
To hear what I'm to deliver to you will be more challenging than logic, more challenging than RIKCHI [type generals], DUNCHI [actual object generals], DRACHI [term generals] from Diamond Cutter because it's a direct challenge to our ego.
What I mean by ego, we don't use that term much, but what I mean by ego is our belief in a self-existent me, a me, the me that we think we are, that is the one that wants to get to Buddhahood, sort of.
There's a part of that me that actually doesn't want that, because there's a part of that me that in order to reach our goal, it actually has to recognize that it doesn't exist and never did. That me does not want to do that.
It comes out fighting every time we get close to showing its true nature. Well, it's like how do you do that with something that doesn't exist?
We're doing it to our belief that it does exist and that belief does exist.
That belief is so deeply ingrained in us that you could call it, it's a part of us.
So let's call that our ego, our belief in a self existent me.
And any teaching that's getting us close to recognizing that belief is mistaken, and so mistaken that it causes all the suffering of our world, not just ours, but all of it. Now we've got this fight going on. The part of us that just wants to ditch that belief, and the part of us that still believes so strongly in the belief that we believe we'll disappear if that belief stops.
That part of us that doesn't really believe that we can become Buddha for all beings doesn't really want to do that.
This class is challenging that you.
The tendency is to want to protect it and go, okay, I'll listen, I'll entertain. Maybe these teachings aren‘t true.
So it's useful to work with these principles again and again and again so that they can sink in deeper and deeper, so that we can reach that place where we're eager to let that belief go instead of afraid to do it.
These verses of Lojong, this one and the next one, they are so challenging to that self-existent me that watch, watch your mind as it says no, that can't be, no, no, no, no. And struggle with it. Struggle.
Why is it so difficult?
Some jealous person might do me wrong
insult me or something of the like,
may I learn to take the loss myself
and offer them all the gain.
It doesn't sound so difficult when we just read the words, but let's really dig in.
When someone is jealous, how do they behave?
I'm not going to ask you. Because none of you have been ever so jealous that you interfered with somebody else's activities. Have you?
I was talking with a friend recently, she's been dealing with relationship stuff. A long, long story, thought it was all resolved and then she meets somebody new and the old partner starts causing trouble.
It's like, oh, where'd this come from? What's going on?
This is jealousy happening and this is what jealousy looks like.
It lies, it cheats, it gets in the way, it criticizes, it does anything to avoid allowing the happiness of the other to go on.
Ugly, isn't it? Especially ugly for someone—I'm not talking about this situation anymore—but jealousy in the mind of someone who has their Bodhisattva vows, who has professed, I'm going to act in such a way so that I can bring everybody to their total enlightenment because I love them so much except for that one getting a little bit of happiness, I can't stand that.
It happens. It comes up because our self existent me has not liked it when self existent others get the things they want or the things we want.
Self-existent me thinks it's okay.
Society even thinks it's okay in some ways to let our jealousy choose our behavior as long as we don't break the law in doing it.
Here this is saying, when some jealous person does the bad things that jealous people do to me, what am I supposed to do with that?
What do we ordinarily do with that?
We get mad at them, and we blame them for getting in the way.
Then what do we do?
We retaliate in some way.
Maybe we just ignore them and that's our retaliation.
Maybe we come out actually fighting. Who knows what we do?
But how likely is it that we think, oh, they're jealous, they're suffering so badly from their jealousy. How can I help them?
How can I give them what they want?
They're jealous over me getting that new job.
You want the job? Here, have it, have it.
Do we do that?
Probably not.
At best we go, okay, and we walk away.
But even then we don't leave the situation behind.
We may leave the person, but then our mind, our heart chews on it.
They did that to me. They did that to me. They did that…and we're back into that one.
When a negative thought comes, cut it off. We're not cutting it off because we're so justified: They did that to me.
These Lojongs say, catch ourselves in the "they did that to me‘ state of mind and check what really happened here.
Say someone who has a friend all of a sudden won't have anything to do with you, and you're trying to figure out what happened.
What did I do? What did they do?
Then you learn that that friend and somebody that you know doesn't like you went out to lunch one day and shortly after that your friend's not talking to you anymore.
Oh, they must have got to talking. And the one who doesn't like me influenced the one who did like me to now not like me anymore.
They did that to me.
Whatever our reaction to that is, we've already made the mistake.
They did that to me.
Because we're believing that that lunch and what they said is the cause of my friend not liking me anymore.
Is that the cause?
Would they have stopped liking me if they didn't talk to that other person at all?
We don't know, do we?
The real question isn't: How did my friends stop liking me?
The real question is: Why did my friend stop liking me?
We would ordinarily say, well, the WHY is this other person told them bad things about me and they believed it. That's the why.
That's not why. That‘s the how.
How they came to dislike me was that other person said bad things.
Why they came to dislike me is the ripening results of my own past deeds of turning someone away from someone else.
Do you remember your teenage years?
We did all kinds of stupid stuff when we were teens, right?
Now it just seems so ridiculous, but those seeds are in there if we haven't either burned them off through experience or done our four powers on them.
And it's not so unreasonable to see how something like this could happen, has happened, and that we've been involved on both sides of the equation.
We didn't until recently probably look at that and go, oh, what a big mistake that was.
Because of what seeds we planted, now that we know about planting mental seeds through our behavior.
It's so critical, this state of mind that's looking for the how versus the why.
When somebody's doing something unpleasant towards us, we automatically think the Why is the How it's happened—our explanation of the circumstance, the worldly circumstance.
But the real why is I did that to someone before and now it's ripening the result.
Why is that so important to understand the Why?
What does it shift our mind?
It shifts us from continuing to blame the others, those involved in the how and it shifts the responsibility to ourself. And that's useful because our choice of behavior born of this sense of personal responsibility will be very different than our choice of behavior based on our explanation of the How.
The How the person came to dislike me, I would want to go to the one who said bad things and to them a new one as we say, how dare you do that? How dare you say things to my friend? How dare you? How dare you? How dare you?
Is that going to solve the problem?
Maybe, maybe not.
The action is not going to solve the problem, because blaming somebody for something isn't accurate. It's a mistake.
A mistake can't fix anything, can it?
Our habit of responding to the How perpetuates the mistake—perpetuates our belief in the self existent me, self existent them—that allows our choice of behavior to be behavior that just perpetuates the unpleasant situation, just perpetuates Sansara.
When we understand the Why, even if we don't know the details of the Why. I don't remember interfering with somebody. I don't remember ever going and saying bad things about somebody's friend to them, to someone else. I never did that.
We understand karma and emptiness, the laws of karma well enough by the time we're at course 14 theoretically, to recognize that it doesn't matter if we remember or not.
If we're having the experience, it's a ripening result of seeds that are similar that we planted in the past.
Why not regret it? Like instantly, the Why: I did the same thing. I regret it. How do I want to behave now so that when those seeds ripen on me, I'll like it.
How does the verse say to behave?
It says: I will learn to take the loss myself and offer the other all the gain.
Isn't that scary?
I've been studying this for a long time and I hear myself say it and I feel my heart go, are you kidding? Are you nuts?
It's like, no, I'm not nuts. Listen, do it.
What does our mind say when we think, when we hear: I'll offer the gain to them and I will take the loss myself.
Our mind goes, they're going to take advantage of me.
Haven’t we had that experience being taken advantage of?
I have in many different ways, and it just makes you so angry and frustrated and hurt and awful.
But usually for me it was always in a situation where I couldn't address it. There was nothing that I could do. And maybe that helped me because it protected me from perpetuating it.
But I have to admit that protection didn't come from realizing, Oh my gosh, that could only happen if I had taken advantage of others in the past. Because in my mind I never did that.
But come on, if it can happen to me, I had to have done it in some way—smaller than the one that happened to me.
To understand our resistance to offering the gain, taking the loss and offering the gain is from this self-existent me side that refuses to take the responsibility for having created the situation in the first place.
When we do take that responsibility, we know for sure we don't want to do something that's going to plant new unpleasant seeds to ripen upon us.
So maybe our first step would be, okay, I'm going to do Master Shantidevas ‘be like a bump on a log‘ thing here. I want to come out fighting, but I'm not.
But the next level is, okay, okay, here, whatever it is you want, you who are abusing me and taking advantage of me here.
You stole my purse. You want my jacket as well? It's cold outside.
That would take a really big heart, wouldn't it?
Almost impossible, for me for sure.
But look at the seeds planted.
A state of heart that could do that, have such compassion for the person who stole your purse that you wanted them to not be cold as they run away with it? Wow.
Just the glimmer of it kind of feels good. Not that I ever wish it on anybody, but maybe there's some similar way that we could approach someone who out of their jealousy has mistreated us in some way, that rather than struggling against them, we can come up with a way of giving them what they want, backing off and even helping them succeed.
Wow, are you crazy?
Just walk away? Okay. Maybe we can do that.
But help them succeed when they took advantage of me? How is that helpful?
How is it helpful?
It's going to help us create a world where nobody, it will never occur to anybody to take advantage of someone else.
That can only come out of our own seed ripening results of refusing to take advantage of someone else, refusing to act from jealousy towards someone else.
It doesn't mean we won't be jealous sometimes, but to recognize it, recognize what it's making us want to do and refuse to do that. And in fact, maybe even do the opposite for that person we're jealous of.
What a big shift in mental seed planting that would be.
We learned in other courses that the antidote to jealousy is rejoicing.
That seems weird.
When you're jealous of somebody, they're getting something that you want, you deserve, they don't deserve, and you stop and go, wow, I'm so happy they're getting what I want, what I deserve.
It is true. It is a rejoicable, because for us to see that person getting that, whose seeds are those? Ours or theirs?
Ours.
So don’t we want to plant those again, thank you very much.
I want them to get more and more and more.
I want them to get more and more and more.
I want everybody to get more and more and more.
How is that going to ripen?
Stuff coming—what you want more and more and more.
Where does what we want coming to us come from?
Helping others get what they want.
Our jealousy is the opposite of that.
Someone gets something they want, or that we want and we get upset about it? Well, no wonder we can't get the stuff we want.
Because we've felt badly when somebody else gets stuff that we want.
Be happy when people get the stuff we want, and you'll have so much stuff you want, you won't be able to give it away fast enough.
Or maybe the mind shifts and it's like not even want anymore.
Want comes from: I want this, I don't want that.
But what if everything that you experience is a pleasant thing?
You don't need to want anything anymore, because everything's just pleasant, pleasant, pleasant, pleasant, pleasant. It doesn't matter whether it's a wilted rose or a beautiful rose. It's all pleasant.
Not all the same, not all neutral, but the struggle starts to fall away as we apply these Lojongs to our behavior.
That's the point of them.
All of them are about how to train our mindfulness to be aware of the old reaction, not act from it and choose a response instead.
How do we choose the response?
We have vows. You can choose your response based on the vows that you have, in which case you get the goodness of the behavior and the goodness of keeping the vow.
You can also choose your response based on the understanding that whatever I see myself do is going to come back to me, and will I like it or not? That's a good rule of thumb, even though technically the you it's going to come back to is going to be different. You'll have different likes and dislikes and et cetera by then.
But it really boils down to those 10 non virtues, not killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, like within every kind of physical unpleasantness we can experience, they come out of some combination of those three.
So I don't think we could say, oh, I can justify killing something or somebody because there could be a future circumstance where I enjoy being killed. I mean, I suppose that's possible, but it's not likely.
To use the rule of thumb: Will I like this when it comes back to me?, is a really powerful game changer actually for our choosing our response. That means physical response and verbal response because we have a little bit of time to actually make that choice.
The mental response that's going to take extra work, but it will come along because the mindfulness that's necessary for making these responses versus reaction is building the ability to be aware at more and more subtle levels.
The Lojong doesn't talk about that, but it's going to have that effect on our mind as we apply ourselves to the different practices of these different Lojongs.
As I said before, we're going to learn a lot of them and one or two will speak to your heart and that'll be the one to work with for a while. Don't try to master all of them. It's too much. Some of them are even too big.
But find one and then even though we'll go on to course 15, don't set it on a shelf. Keep it there as part of your daily practice somehow.
If you need help with that, ask me about it.
Luisa: Jealousy is one of my favorites.
What I struggle with is this feeling that I perceive myself then as being pushed over when I give the gain. I take the loss I have tried in things that are not so important to me, so to practice.
But then I have this feeling that I am always sacrificing. Then I look around at other people who are not Buddhist or are not doing this, and somehow I see they're happier than me doing this.
Lama Sarahni: Appear to be happier.
Luisa: This is supposed to make me happier, but somehow I have the feeling is making me unhappier to take that.
Lama Sarahni: Geshe Michael has said more than once, if these teachings are making you more unhappy and upset, they probably are not for you. I'm not speaking to you, Luisa. I think these teachings are for you. I myself, blissful ignorance seems okay when you start into your spiritual practice and you just are seeing all our own faults deeper and deeper. And we're trying so hard that goodness is stirring up our past selfishness that things seem to be getting worse and worse and worse instead of better and better and better. And we compare ourselves either to other practitioners or to life as we thought we knew it before we met the dharma. And it's like, oh my gosh, I was happier then.
No, actually you weren't or you would not have been attracted to the dharma.
So when we see all those people that don't know the dharma aren't practicing at all, they're happier than me, that's actually a rejoiceable, because if you can see people that seem to be happy, that's coming from you. That's from past seeds of having helped people be happy, to be able to see happy people.
But it's hard because it's like I want to be one of those happy people and the more I practice, the further away from my goal I am and the more frustrated I get.
So I think my suggestion for you personally, since you asked the question is: Yes, our goal is Buddhahood. But set yourself a smaller goal. A smaller goal that you actually reach once a week, or every day, or something, so that you can in fact show yourself that you are making progress.
When we don't think we're making progress, we get frustrated and self-critical. It's a danger of losing our momentum to be in that space that you're in. And it's common, and I'm going to guess there's more than one of us in that boat here in Lojong class.
Luisa: But what will be a small goal? I don't get it. Like what?
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, a small goal would be a level of mindfulness that you achieved at recognizing anybody's smile. The beauty of someone's smile is a result of your past goodness.
I'll bet if you look at your practice, you'll find that you've made great strides actually. And you're just saying, yeah, but it's not enough.
Whereas if you look at all the times that you have not responded in the way you used to respond, that's progress, right?
That's something to call up every day, right?
It's part of that whole coffee meditation, the rejoiceables, I call them.
Those little achievements, spiritual achievements that we don't put much power into because I didn't reach, I didn't meditate at Shamata today. It's like, yeah, but I sat and I had a headache I didn't want to at all. Yay.
So I want to go back again to the getting taken advantage of if we make ourselves give the advantage to the other, when everything in us is saying, no, we shouldn't do that.
Again, when we understand about seeds ripening and seeds planting, the only reason we can be taken advantage of is because we have the seeds of having taken advantage of others in the past.
And those seeds have grown every opportunity that we could take advantage of and we don't.
We're not replanting and adding to those seeds.
Anytime we see ourselves being taken advantage of and we don't react badly, we just offer, we've burned those seeds off and not replanted new ones.
If we're doing that because we're trying to Semjong, because we're growing our Bodhichitta, we've burned those seeds off and not replanted the negative ones. But in fact I replanted a little bit of baby wisdom in place.
What is our future going to be like, eventually?
Nobody, it would never occur to anybody to take advantage of you, eventually.
How long does ‚eventually‘ take?
Could be a long time, could not be a long time.
We don't know what our seed pool is.
But if we have it as a recurring theme, being taken advantage of, we can work very specifically on it.
Look for subtle ways we are taking advantage of others and honor them instead, help them instead.
The opposite of taking advantage of somebody is offering them the gain.
Even, you know, in the olden, olden days, the grocery checker outer had to count your change. And it's like you were always hoping that they miscount and you'd get the extra quarter. It was legal, you could have it, because they made the mistake. A stupid little thing.
It doesn't happen anymore because nobody counts change anymore, but little bitty ways that—I'm going to go out on a limb and say probably everybody did—that was taking advantage of the person counting the change of the grocery store, et cetera.
Little tiny ways.
How are we still doing it?
Not just refuse to do it, but that person who is taking advantage of you, “Here, have more”. Here. Here.
I've heard it said, some people say, I never lock my front door because if somebody's going to thief from me, I don't want 'em to also break down my door, or break my window. Just let 'em in. They can have it.
Well, if you've left your door open and have the attitude, let them have it. Did they steal from you?
No. Technically, there has to be breaking and entering in order for it to be thieves.
If you leave it open, you just as well give it away.
You can't get stolen from, if you just give everything, right?
It's the same idea.
But doesn't our heart go, Yeah, but. Yeah, but.
That, yeah but is what's preventing us from seeing emptiness directly, from the Bodhichitta heart opening, from being Buddha. That yeah, but… You're not bad because you have a Yeah, but. Just mistaken. Just mistaken.
Forgive yourself the mistake, but fix it.
That's what Lojong is for—fixing the mistake.
There's a little bit more here.
The commentaries about this Lojong says, there are three things to think about to convince yourself that this Lojong is necessary to practice, or how to help us practice.
1. Our Bodhisattva Vows
One is that, if we have Bodhisattva vows, it means that we were at some point inspired enough by the understanding of karma and emptiness and the ideal of Buddhahood—becoming perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom—that we swore to do what we had to do to become that.
If you've got vows, part of that, I swear, to do what I have to do to become a Buddha included, is offering the victory to others.
Yuck, right?
It's not meant to make you regret having your Bodhisattva vows, it's to inspire you that you have a heart big enough that you in fact do have the capacity to do this by way of keeping your vows.
2. Our understanding of Karma and Emptiness
The second thing to think about is that we understand about mental seeds, then we understand that the only way for us to get the happiness that we want is to be aware of ourselves trying to help someone else get the happiness as they want.
In some weird perverted way, the person taking advantage of us is trying to get some happiness, right?
It's mistaken, but they just want happiness, just like we do.
Happiness comes from taking care of others.
Maybe the person who takes advantage of us that we then offer the game to will someday ask us, why in the world did you do that?
Then you can whip out your friend a pen, and you bless them or curse them with the understanding of the pen.
It starts them on their way.
3. The karma of the ones involved of taking/being taken advantage of
The third thing to think about, this one isn't so much to convince us, but it's basically saying someone is going to take advantage of you, which is making a bad karma, and we're going to let them do it.
We're not going to just let them do it.
We're going to help them do it.
But because we're helping them do it, they're not in fact taking advantage of us anymore.
So by helping them do it, we stop them from taking advantage of us because now we're going along willingly.
What comes up here is, well, what happens when they're physically hurting you?
Do you have to go along with that?
No.
Oh, okay. I let them take advantage of me in that way. Now they're not making a bad karma by hurting me.
But, they're seeing themselves hurt somebody, and our Bodhisattva state of mind says, I can't bear it to see them get the seeds for being beat up, even in the event of doing it in a situation where it's going to help them Lojong.
Our vows say, we must act. We must do something to prevent them from hurting someone else, whether it's us or another.
But our typical response to seeing someone being hurt is to immediately want to protect the victim.
Our response to us being the victim is to respond to immediately protect us as the victim.
The problem with that is that unless we're omniscient, we don't actually know who the victim is, do we? When it's a situation that we come across on the street.
Yet, what we do know is the one that's receiving the harm is ripening results from past having harmed, and the one doing the harm is the one planting the new seeds that will grow into greater harm.
So when we act to stop that situation, we act with the heart that wants to protect the perpetrator equally as wanting to protect the apparent victim.
We might actually be able to help them both. We don't know.
Maybe we try to stop the problem and maybe we make it work. Maybe we try to stop the problem and it does actually stop.
Maybe something in between.
What's happening in the moment is not the result of what we're doing in the moment.
That effort to try to stop this situation born of the compassion towards the aggressor and the victim equally plants seeds in our mind with such power, because it takes so much wisdom to do that, that it's a hugely positive act—whether or not what we do actually stops the situation.
But it's the level of understanding and compassion, wisdom and compassion in our mind that makes the difference.
That doesn't mean, oh, I don't have any wisdom, so I won't ever get involved.
At least we can, I don't know, pull the fire alarm, call 911. We can do something.
It doesn't mean you have to get in the middle.
The point here is in this interchange between me, the victim getting taken advantage of and them the taking advantage-er, there's the my karma and what I'm seeing and their karma and what they're seeing, which I don't really know and my effort to influence them in such a way that will plant good seeds for both of us—influence them by my behavior.
That's what this is trying to help us address so that we don't have to stop and think it all out when we're in the next situation when somebody's taking advantage of us, whether it's financial or physical or verbal—however it is that that happens to us.
Student: I have a question. Is now a good time for a question?
Lama Sarahni: Now's as good a time as any, oh, you know what? We need to take a break. Ask your question. People who want to take a break, take or listen and then you'll get a break too.
Student: I have thought it's more like, what do you think?-kind of question. I thought for a long time that Lojong is perfecting wisdom. I think it's part of the perfection of wisdom. And I also think for a short time that Lojong is training us for how to act after we see emptiness directly.
How we should act after we see emptiness directly.
What is your response to those two comments?
Lama Sarahni: To be able to see emptiness directly, that experience will be a ripening of extraordinary goodness, because it's such a powerful goodness itself. It can only come as a result of goodness.
So Lojonging-behavior, similar to keeping vows, is how we add to our growing seed pool that can be directed towards seeing emptiness directly.
So in that way, yes, Lojong grows our wisdom. It also takes a certain amount of wisdom to be interested in Lojong. It is this beautiful spiral.
Then Lojong is the way an Arya Bodhisattva chooses their behavior as they move through their Bodhisattva Bhumis, through their Bodhisattva practices.
But that does not mean that someone who is not yet an Arya Bodhisattva won't benefit from trying.
Student: Thank you.
Okay, let's take a break. Please get refreshed.
(Break)
(1:07)
Dorje Senge, he's the one who taught this Lojong.
He apparently wrote a commentary, I'm not sure where this is coming from, that's why I'm looking at my notes.
He said, this is really difficult, this practice of offering the gain and taking the loss ourselves. Our heart rejects it.
But he says, on the off chance that you actually do it sometimes, there's two states of mind that are really important to be aware of having when we do it.
First of all, he said, you need to enjoy doing it.
Like don't do it until it's going to be fun to do, or find really baby ways to do it in some arena in your life where it would be fun to do, so that it can grow.
It can grow into bigger ones that are fun to do.
Then second, he says, don't have any regrets about it.
So the first time we tried this, Geshela—I remember him saying—I got this training, I went and I did it. They were taking advantage of me and I just gave 'em more than what they were taking from me.
He said, I went home that night and thought it through and he said, my heart said: that was silly, I'm not going to do that again.
And he went, oh no. Because he just ruined the whole effort— seed wise—to have regret, for stepping out on a limb like this just damages the seeds from that event, but also plants seeds to make it harder to try again, of course.
So I think that he's telling us this so that we can be aware, because I don't know how we would not have some regret. The first time, especially that we really try this on for size. It won't be fun and you'll have regrets.
But if we're aware of that, maybe we can be a little bit swifter in saying that regret is born of my mistake in me. It's not the real me having regret. That's just a habit. I regret the regret—and I think you're back on track. Okay?
To regret a good deeded, regret is the only negative state of mind that's a virtue, unless you're regretting some good deed or causing someone to regret some good deed. In which case regret that regret making and kind of like that double negative.
Rather, says Geshe Michael, do rejoicing practice. Be happy: I did it. I gave the benefit, I gave the loss. I pretended to have fun and I'm happy I did it.
Even if you have to force yourself, it's important for the seed planting to be able to do it more next time, another time.
More importantly, be really, really careful. Where are we taking advantage of others? And stop doing it. Do the opposite. Help them instead.
Alrighty, let's move on.
Here's the next one.
There may be times when I turn to someone
with every hope, they'll help me,
and instead they do me great wrong.
May I see them as my holy guide.
There may be times when I turn to someone with every hope that they'll help me,
and instead they do me great, wrong.
What am I supposed to do in that situation?
May I see them as my holy teacher. Not just teacher, my own being who is a manifestation of perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
What?
When we turn to someone with hopes, they'll help. That's a situation where we need some kind of help.
The person we go to, we seem to know that they have the ability, they have the skill, they have what we need, and we anticipate that they will help us.
They even say, yes, I'll help you.
Wow, good, thank you so much.
But then, instead of giving us the help we need, they in fact—the only word that fits is—they screw you over.
Geshala used an example of needing help to write a grant of some kind and finding someone who had grant writing skills, similar understanding of the topic of the grant, enlisted that person's help and the person does the help, does the grant writing.
But what happens?
That person gets the grant.
So not only did they not help you, but they took advantage of the whole situation to get the grant for themselves. All the while pretending to help you with your grant.
How would you feel?
This is beyond a jealous person doing harm. This is somebody that you expected would help you and they just took advantage.
Somebody is laughing. You must be close to home.
It happens to all of us and somehow we must do it to others—eww gads—if it can happen to us. Same kind of logic.
If it can happen to us, it’s because we've done it to others.
What is our response? To get mad to somehow interfere with their success. Now it's not out of jealousy, it's out of revenge. It's out of sustained anger and hurt.
And so we feel justified: they did that to me. They shouldn't get away with it, should they?
Our self existent me, just comes out lying. And even if we go, no, I'm just going to let 'em have it. Still inside us somehow that hurt just fester, and we think they've gotten away with something.
All of those states of mind, those seeds are in there, coloring our very future experiences into something similar.
The habit of us doing it to others, the recurring theme of it happening to us and all the negativity that comes from all the blaming and the irritation that really isn't specific to being taken advantage of or being screwed over like that. But just the irritation and negativity and anger, that colors our whole world into a world that's getting worse and worse and worse. So any situation in which we get annoyed, angry and don't resolve that in some way with ourselves will lead to a world that is getting uglier.
Ugliness comes from anger. Beauty comes from patience.
That's a long story where patience is.
Before it was saying, okay, take the loss, offer them the gain.
Now it's saying, this person that you went to for help and they just really took advantage, now think of them as your own precious holy guide helping you.
Oh man, helping me?
They did that out of their unconditional love for me?
You've got to be kidding.
Am I sure I want to... It's like it would make us doubt our perfect holy guide, wouldn't it? If we were misunderstanding, maybe.
If we're understanding we'd be bowing at their holy feet and gratitude for weeding that stuff out of our pool of karmic seeds before it got any bigger.
Does our heart go, yeah, let me add it? Or it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't want to wish for bad things. This teaching is not saying wish for bad things, don't even do bad things on purpose. But recognizing that, because if we are not omniscient—and I don't know, maybe I'm the only one here who's not omniscient—but if we're not omniscient, then we don't know the mind of that person who we thought was going to help us and screwed us over instead. We don't know their mind. We don't know their motivation.
We don't know that they're not a Buddha. Do we?
We think we do, and the one who thinks we know they're not a Buddha also thinks we know they're a jerk and so we should be angry and mad and mean to them.
The one that doesn't know that either recognizes, if they are a manifestation of my own perfect holy angel guide, then they know exactly what I need to help me get enlightened as quickly as possible and so thank you, thank you.
Please don't do it again.
Thank you. But please don't do it again—unless I need it to help people.
Help me respond in a way that will make it so that nobody does this to anybody ever again.
Help me respond in a way so that you don't ever have to appear this way to me ever again.
How would we respond if we could recognize that that being because they're empty could be our angel and I want to see my angel in person someday.
How would we respond to them?
Okay, I am glad you got the grant. May you get more grants.
I'm not coming to you for help again, whoops.
Angel Lama, please teach me some more. Ah.
Not to them in our own minds.
To be able to respond that way means our level of intellectual understanding of their empty nature has to be really, really strong. And that's the goodness we're going for. Is this strong enough understanding of their emptiness to entertain the possibility that they were an enlightened being helping me in that way.
Okay, God bless. It's out of my system. I didn't respond badly. Hooray.
Can you feel the difference?
It takes a really ugly situation and shifts it.
How swiftly can we do that? Depends on our seeds.
But to try, just to try is a huge shift from what we've always done before, which is to blame them, get angry with them, interfere with them, whatever our response to someone who's been nasty in that way to us.
Geshela says this practice of trying to see all these hurtful beings as our own spiritual guides, it's not just about trying to feel better about his situation.
He says, it's actually true because of the emptiness of that other, because of the emptiness of ourselves, because of the emptiness of the whole situation, it's the manifestation of holy beings.
But we hear that and then our minds think, oh, self-existently, so they really are a holy being.
No, they're not really either one.
The power of holding that view changes the way we plant our seeds towards them. That's what Lojong is trying to teach us—a state of mind that plants seeds differently in the situations that we habitually plant seeds in a mistaken way.
Anytime anything unpleasant happens to us, it's our own holy guides showing us the suffering of samsara, of Sanara that we are perpetuating through our misunderstanding.
Recognizing that helps us start to break the cycle.
Geshela says, these teachings are literal, not symbolic, not metaphorical.
The next verse.
In brief, may I give all help and happiness
to my mothers directly or some other way.
May I take all the hurt and pain of my mother's
in secret upon myself.
Again, each of these verses, they're not building one from the other. Each one is a separate holy, amazing Lojong-ing opportunity.
You can take one and spend a whole life on it and it will take you through all the different kinds of mental afflictions that we want to overcome. Different ones have different aspects and different arenas in which you work with them.
This one is a hint towards the practice called Tonglen, which probably many of you know. That practice, it's a visualization and breathing practice where you just imagine you're taking the pain and suffering that you see in another or in our world.
When we can't do anything else, Tonglen is our default Bodhisattva behavior.
I'm not capable of doing anything else? So I‘ll Tonglen.
You don't have to only Tonglen then. You can Tonglen every time you breathe, but especially your default breathe in. Imagine you're breathing in all that blackness, all that negativity, all the pain, all the hurt, all the ignorance, and you just suck it all into you with your breath, destroy it with this flash of wisdom light in your heart, and then breathe out every imaginable kind of happiness, worldly and otherwise.
It can be that fast: one in breath, one out breath.
Or it can be a whole practice that you sit and work with. There's a practice module that teaches the Tonglen practice in great detail. It's very beautiful.
So this verse is really addressing that tonglen practice. But it doesn't mean only Tonglen.
Tonglen works. It doesn't work... Your breath doesn't take anything from anybody. You're not going to get somebody's cancer by taking it from them. Your breath doesn't give anybody anything.
It's the state of mind with which you do that practice, that plants the seeds that are so transforming of ourselves and our world.
The inclination to do Tonglen is what this verse is talking about. This understanding of the projected nature of my reality, my whole world, all of it coming out of my own results from past behavior. That state of mind goes to, Well then what I really want, what I really want is a world where there's no grief, no suffering in anyone, and just every kind of happiness in everyone.
We're included in everyone, so you don't even have to say, me and everyone. Just, I want a world where there's no suffering. I want a world where everybody's happy.
I understand mental seeds well enough to know that the only way that can come about is if I try to create a world like that.
I can't create a world like that physically, but I can create one like that from seeds, from mental seeds.
This verse is talking about how do we grow that state of mind as we're walking around in our everyday life to have it growing constantly.
Within that verse is that whole teaching on the seven step cause and effect method for reaching Bodhichitta, the pre-step being generating equanimity, the same loving concern for every being as we have for those we love.
Then the first step being recognizing that every being has been our mother in some lifetime or other. Some kind of mother, maybe fish mother, maybe mosquito mother, but more importantly, a mammal mother, right?
Human mother.
By being a mother, she gave us life, whatever kind of life it was. And she kept us alive long enough to have a life however long that life lived. Given infinite lifetimes, everybody has been our mother.
That means I've been their mother too, but then that means they're all my children.
I like that one better actually.
But the mother piece has to do with the wanting to repay the kindness.
You don't have that sense with children, to want to repay their kindness. You want to take care of them. You want them to be happy.
But this wanting to repay is a big piece that helps us develop our Bodhichitta.
When it says, may I give all help and happiness to my mothers, it means all beings. But it has this different connotation than just saying, I want to give help and happiness to all beings.
I want to give help and happiness to all beings my mother's. It's different.
It's a different feeling in our heart to think of that mosquito as your mother from before. Clearly not from this life, but from before.
Then it's like, okay, mosquito, have some lunch. I've paid you back. I'm paying you back. I'm so grateful to you.
It's just a little shift. It seems meaningless. But curiously, when I offer lunch to the mosquito, I don't get a mosquito bump. It doesn't itch. And they get their little fat, bloody albumin, and then they fly away.
Whereas when I didn't use to do that, ew, right?
Different attitude can even bring a different result.
Is it that moment? No, it's from before.
So this verse starts out, I want to give help and joy to happiness to all my mothers.
That's inspiring. We want to do that.
But then it gets a little more difficult: May I take all the hurt and pain of those mothers in secret upon myself.
May I take all the pain and hurt of my mother's in secret upon myself.
Our mind says, yeah, yeah, in Tonglen.
In Tonglen, because then I don't really have to take it. Oops. Oops.
Do we have to go and take the pain and suffering from our mothers for it to work?
Can we?
No, we can't take suffering from anybody, can we?
No.
How do we know?
I know it's because I still suffer. Because if somebody could take my suffering away, it would be a Buddha, a being who is perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
And if they didn't, then they must not be able to. Because, if they could and they're not, then they're not perfectly loving or they don't know how, in which case they're not omniscient.
I don't know, maybe there are no Buddhas and this is all like we've drunk the purple Kool-Aid, but…
Or it means Buddhists can't actually take our suffering away. Well then how do they help us?
They teach us what they did to stop their suffering. This is what worked for me.
Buddha said, over 50 years of teaching, This is what worked for me.
Then, as an omniscient being, that mind then knows what will work for each of us. And out of that comes these teachings that we still need to apply for ourselves to figure out how it is that they do work for us. Because there's not anything in the teachings that makes them work for us.
All the teachings are about learning how to interact with other beings, because that's where everything comes from. If we want to see the end of our own suffering, the only way to bring that about is to try to help others suffering be relieved. Even though we can't in fact do it. To see ourselves trying is enough. It plants the seeds that grow into the end of our suffering—not just our own personal suffering, but all the suffering that we can see in the world ends as well.
As Buddhas, Buddhas have achieved their own goals and the goals of others—achieved, past tense, already done.
It's one of those things we need to cook to understand why they say it like that.
They haven't achieved my goals yet, because I'm still suffering. Technically, yes, they have.
Geshela described this ‚I will take it all upon myself in secret‘. Meaning, if we're in a situation with groups of other people and we see that somebody else is going to get in trouble in some way, we try to figure out: Is there some way I can get into this situation and make it better for them? Or can I take the blame?
Is there something that I can do that can make it so that that person isn't going to get hurt?
It says ‚in secret‘. That means anonymously. Anonymously.
And that means working at a more subtle level, like working, helping out a situation before the situation even blows up, to try to take on a different task or do something to adjust the situation so it never does blow up—without ever taking credit, just secretly doing it.
I don't know. I'm just trying to think of my own past experience. And at Diamond Mountain, David and I were in that position of being the administrators.
We were there in between the terms and making sure the bills get paid and dah, dah, dah, and making sure things were ready to go. We weren't the only ones. There were others as well, but we somehow were in charge. And in that position, we were trying to make sure that the campground would be safe for everybody. The temple was all ready to go, that everything was in place so that when people got there, it would be as easy as possible, which was never easy because of the whole situation.
There are all kinds of karmic things blowing up right and left. But we did our best to keep it as safe as possible, to keep it without getting in the middle of it.
In a sense, we all have those kinds of opportunities. We're probably already doing it a lot because we're kind caring people. That's what kind caring people do and you don't even notice.
But notice and then see if you can crank it up a little bit in the sense of being more aware of what's getting ready to come down, and how can I have some influence in this situation for other people's benefit.
That's the trick, because our own, that ego thing, is going to say, oh, I can be the hero, right? I can fix this.
It's like, no, you can't.
What you can do is try to make it better for others without calling attention to yourself.
Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't. If it doesn't work, step up and take responsibility. That just seems really weird.
We were sneaking around trying to make it better and it all goes wrong, and then you step in and say, My fault. Well, you weren't even involved in the thing. I know. Well still, I'll take care of it. Let me take care of it.
Our mind, our heart goes, no way, just butt out. It's not any of your business.
Yes, it is. If it's happening in your world, it's your business.
Some things happening in our world are too far away for us to engage, so we can always Tonglen.
But those things that are in our world that we tend to put aside or avoid—opportunities to see, how can I be a positive influence in this situation without anybody knowing in the sense that without calling attention to myself. You don't really have to do it in secret, but it's the state of mind of, rather than I'm going to be the hero, it's like, I'm just going to try to help.
No personal gain here, just to help all those others. And it's a difficult state of mind to hold.
Geshela says, the key to happiness is to just give all kinds of good things to others secretly. They don't even need to know where they come from. He says Bodhisattvas leaving money in somebody's purse. Instead of stealing it, they put stuff in.
Taking care of the neighbor's weeds while they're gone. You don't have to call and ask 'em. You don't even have to say when they get home, oh, I took care of your weed. Just do it. It needs to be done. We all do stuff like that.
Rejoice in that and then take it to more and more subtle levels, just this transparent Bodhisattva sweetness and our own happiness grows, the happiness around us grows.
They say, directly and indirectly.
In brief, I'll take all help and happiness,
give all help and happiness to my mothers directly or some other way—directly or indirectly.
Directly means when we're actually doing something.
The indirectly is the Tonglen default. When you're not in a situation where you can physically do anything, verbally do anything, Tonglen instead.
There's never a situation where we can't Tonglen. I suppose, unless we're unconscious. But otherwise.
We are still planting mental seeds when we Tonglen, we are planting mental seeds. That's why we do Tonglen, and you don't have to be on your meditation cushion to do it once you learn how to do it.
Interesting. They say that training ourselves to have Tonglen as our default mode of helping. It means we're on this constant alert for being aware of suffering, taking it away, wishing to take it away and destroy it, and then giving happiness to others.
That awareness of this constant, take it away, destroy it, give it, will lead some day to our Tonglen becoming direct.
You have to think about what that means.
Pulling the neighbor's weeds anonymously is direct experience. Tonglen is indirect helping. Someday the Tonglen will be the direct way that we help.
I'm eager for that.
We have a few minutes left. Let's start the last one. It's long to talk about. It has two different parts, so we won't be able to finish your homework from this class, but you can do most of it. So please do most of it, and you will be able to do your quiz, I'm pretty sure. So the last verse of these eight verses of Lojong says: (1:46:30)
May none of this ever be made impure
by the eight ideas of things.
May I see all things as illusion, and free myself
from the chains of attachment.
This one is really rich.
The eight ideas of things have been explained in two different ways.
Master Chekawa, we'll meet him specifically a bit later, he suggested..
He was one of the Kadampas. He would teach that Dorje Senge met the eight worldly thoughts in this verse. Don't pollute your Lojong-ing with the eight worldly thoughts.
The first Changkya Rinpoche, sorry, not the first Chankya Rinpoche, the Changkya Rinpoche that we met earlier, he suggests that the eight ideas of things refers to eight different ways that we're holding to things as self existent.
Both fit the category of Lojong and how to not dilute our Lojong-ing with these wrong views. We're going to study them, both sets of eight.
Then again, whichever one speaks to your heart the most, that would be the one to work with to see how is it that my spiritual practice is stained by these eight?
Student: Can you repeat the two again?
Lama Sarahni: One is called the eight worldly thoughts, and the other is called the eight ideas of things. That's what’s actually in the verse.
The eight ideas of things is eight ways we're still holding to things as self-existent.
The eight worldly thoughts, remember those?
To be happy when we get what we want, to be unhappy, when we don't.
To be happy, when we feel good, to be unhappy, when we don't feel good.
To be happy, when we're praised, to be unhappy when we're criticized, and
to be happy when we're famous and to be unhappy when we're the opposite of famous, either not famous or infamous, right?
Like famous for being a bad person versus famous for being a good person.
Why are we talking about the eight worldly thoughts or the eight ways of how we still hold to things as self-existent when we're talking about Lojong?
It's because as we try to Lojong, our self-existent me personality is going to sneak into it. It's going to influence our ability to really Lojong to a higher and higher capacity. And they're counseling us to be on alert.
Not meaning you're bad. If it happens, you're fabulous to even try Lojong in a tiny baby way. It's extraordinary.
But we could get to Lojong-ing and go, oh yeah, I'm a Lojonger.
Whoops, right?
So these eight worldly thoughts, don't pollute them. Don't pollute our Lojong-ing with our old habitual self-existent me now thinking it's making some progress, other than the progress made by way of planting seeds. Which is a good progress, but that wisdom won't show up as these eight worldly thoughts.
We need to review the eight worldly thoughts so that we can recognize when they're happening as applied to our Loging-ing, and I've got three minutes, I'm going to go for it.
The first eight worldly thought is to be happy when we get what we want.
What's weird with this is that we hear that and then we go, oh, so I'm not supposed to be happy when I get what I want?
That's a mistaken reaction to hearing the first of the eight worldly thoughts.
It's not that we're not supposed to enjoy pleasant things.
The whole point of Buddhism is to make everything we experience be pleasant things, to be happy when we get what we want being a mistake means that our happiness comes from our belief that the thing we just got is the source of our happiness.
It's like, well, if it's not, why am I happy?
Someone makes you an apricot pie and you love apricot pie, and you're happy that someone gave you an apricot pie, and you're going to enjoy the apricot pie.
The wrong kind of happiness is, Oh, apricot pie is the reason for the delicious taste and for my happiness. As opposed to, This apricot pie giving me happiness is a result of my having taken that pasta salad to my friend two weeks ago.
Now, understanding where happiness making apricot pie really comes from, I can enjoy that apricot pie. But am I going to eat it myself?
No, I'm going to find somebody to share it with.
Why? Because I like apricot pie.
What if you live by yourself? Do you have to leave the apricot pie on the table until somebody shows up? Oh, I'll wait for the mailman.
You might want to do that, but do you have to do that?
No, you can offer it, right?
That's why in the refuge advices, they say one of the refuge advices is to offer the first bite of anything that you eat to the three jewels.
You always have the opportunity to offer. That sharing the apricot pie with a huge, big, vast arena as well.
Does that mean you offer and then you don't share the apricot pie because you've offered it? No. No. You do both.
All of that process of what you do with the apricot pie is the source of happiness, whether it's future apricot pie, or spaghetti, or a safe drive across town. Any amount of happiness comes from recognizing where any amount of happiness comes from.
Happiness is the reason we're doing all these practices, but understanding that happiness comes from helping others, not from the apricot pie.
The helping others is why apricot pie makes me happy. But it's not the apricot pie, you see?
Being happy when we get what we want is only a poison of the Lojonging when we're thinking wrongly about doing the Lojong, wrongly motivated.
See how those two relate.
How do I pollute my Lojong with this worldly thought of happiness coming from what I'm doing at the moment.
It's slippery. These seem so straightforward, but they're not. When you try to get in and really work with them.
Enough, we'll come back to the eight worldly thoughts.
It's past eight o'clock and I would've gone on and it would be nine o'clock before I took a breath. So let's stop.
Thank you. Let's do our dedication, please.
Usual closing
Thank you so much. Have fun with your homeworks. I'll see you on Thursday. Bye-Bye bye. Thank you.
For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 14, our 3rd session, but we're finishing up class 2.
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do.
Usual opening
Let's listen to this Lojong 8 verses again, the advices from Dorje Senge.
(1)
May I think of every living being
as more precious than a wish giving gem
for reaching the ultimate goal
And so may I always hold them dear.
(2)
When I'm with another, wherever we are,
may I see myself as the lowest.
May I hold the other as highest,
from the bottom of my heart.
(3)
As I go through the day,
may I watch my mind
to see if a negative thought has come.
If it does, may I stop it right there with force
Since it hurts myself and others.
(4)
At times I will meet bad people
tormented by strong bad deeds and pain.
They are hard to find, like a mine of gold.
And so may I hold them dear.
(5)
Some jealous person might do me wrong,
insult me or something of the like.
May I learn to take the loss myself
and offer them all the gain.
(6)
There may be times when I turn to someone
with every hope, they'll help me,
and instead they do me great wrong.
May I see them as my holy guide.
(7)
In brief, may I give all help and happiness
to my mothers directly or some other way.
May I take all the hurt and pain of my mother's
in secret upon myself.
Think of the mental seeds we would be planting if we could do all of this. It would be extraordinary, wouldn't it? It would be a good exercise, a fun exercise to imagine the seeds ripening from each verse and what our experience would be like.
That would be a fun thing to do.
Let's go to the last verse.
(8)
May none of this ever be made impure
by the eight ideas of things.
May I see all things are illusion, and free myself
from the chains of attachment.
May none of this ever be made impure by the eight ideas of things.
May I see all things are illusion and free myself from the chains of attachment.
May none of this ever be made impure, meaning all of those behaviors that the other 7 verses are suggesting that we train ourselves in.
He says, while we're doing them, don't spoil them by having this wrong state of mind about what you're doing and why you're doing it and who you're doing it with.
How could even trying to do these things be spoiled?
They're so extraordinary, the behaviors, that it seems like just the effort to try even if we fail would be an extraordinary goodness. And that is true.
So this last verse actually is a bit harsh and apparently sometimes when the eight verses are being taught, they only have time to teach seven of them.
„Oh, sorry, out of time.“ and they don't teach the eighth one because it can feel a little like, oh, I can't possibly do the other seven, so I won't even try.
It's so wonderful that we have a teacher who teaches a commentary on this verse and shows us actually how close we are to being able to do these eight other seven with the state of mind that doesn't pollute them. Because of how well trained we are in what's meant by emptiness and dependent origination.
I think I mentioned at the end of last class that there are two different eight things that are being spoken to in this „Don't make these other seven behaviors impure by the eight ideas of things“.
One thing that could be talking about is what are called the eight worldly thoughts. The other state of mind that that could be talking about is the eight wrong ideas about how things exist. The eight wrong ways we hold to self-existent nature of things.
It's not like one way is more correct than the other in this verse.
Both of them ring true for the verse.
But what we'll see is that the second eight is actually necessary to understand well in order for us to avoid the first eight.
The first eight is called JIKTEN CHU GYE, just for the Tibetan, JIKTEN CHU GYE.
JIKTEN is the word for our world. You could call it worldly.
CHU usually means dharma, but here it means existing things.
So worldly existing things eight.
But what this refers to is these eight misunderstandings we have that makes us respond to our world in certain ways, and they're mistaken. JIKTEN means worldly. Worldly means for suffering beings, Sansaric world, so suffering world.
So these 8 worldly thoughts are like emotional responses that we have that are incorrect to our experiences in our life.
If we're still having these kinds of responses as we're trying to do the seven Lojong-ing experiences, our minds will say, This is foolish.
Instead of our mind going, Wow, that was hard and I know I just created a more pure world.
The point of these eight Lojongs is to give us this tool through which we can be fixing the world that we live in, transforming it from one that causes constant disappointment to one that brings constant growing enjoyment and happiness.
These eight worldly thoughts, we've studied them before.
being happy when you get what you want
being unhappy when you don't
being happy when you feel good
being happy you don't feel good
being happy when you're well-known
being unhappy when you're not well-known
being happy when you're spoken highly of, like praised, and
being unhappy when you're spoken badly to or about
What's wrong with those eight thoughts?
That just sounds like life, doesn't it?
You feel good, you're happy. When you don't feel good, you're supposed to be happy? You don't feel good, right? You're not supposed to be happy when good stuff happens?
That's not what these eight worldly thought teachings are about.
I don't know, many of us seem to have this inability to enjoy something when something enjoyable comes along. I've got it too.
We just don't let ourselves enjoy something.
Part of it is some kind of baggage from many lifetimes where we are somehow taught that you have to suffer in order to make progress on your spiritual path, and that some traditions still say that and they even encourage you to do stuff that makes yourself suffer.
This tradition says no.
Actually the higher we get in this tradition, we get a vow that doesn't allow us to harm ourselves in the name of our spiritual growth, our spiritual progress.
Enough discomfort will come, we don't have to intentionally add to it. But somehow that old baggage is still in there, that even prevents us from really enjoying ourselves when we're seeing a good movie, or when we've given or gone to a good dharma class. It's like, No, no, I don't dare be happy, right?
In a sense, it's some wisdom showing up because that happiness is going to change into unhappiness. In Sansara any pleasure is going to wear out, and it's going to leave us wanting for more.
So any pleasure is really a suffering, and if we take that to heart, it's like, well then I can't enjoy anything, right? Until I'm totally enlightened, I can't enjoy anything.
I have that a lot.
Buddha would say, no, you are misunderstanding. Really misunderstanding.
We're trying to tap into that, in this one being the eight worldly thoughts that we're trying to avoid, so we don't pollute our Lojong-ing. Putting others ahead of ourselves is a worldly thought to be happy when you get what you want.
What it means that makes that impure is when that happiness is thinking it's happy from the thing we just got.
Wise happiness from getting what we want is the happiness that comes from recognizing, Wow, this is a result of having helped others get what they want.
It's just this little shift in mindset. This meal is delicious. Wow, I'm so happy because I must have given good meals to others. Yay. Then enjoy the meal.
You'll know it's going to wear out.
Does your happiness have to wear out because the good meal wears out if your happiness is not from the good meal, but it's rather from having served other good meals?
No, the meal can end and your happiness can go on, can't it?
Because the happiness wasn't from the meal, it was from the past having served a meal. We can still be happy about having served a past good meal. Even if its seeds have ripened, we still have the memory of must have having done that, right?
I don't remember doing it.
That doesn't matter.
You had a good meal? You had to have done it, at least once. And you still have done it at least once, even though its seeds have ripened into that meal. Do you see?
So, yes, be happy with the yummy meal, but not from the yummy meal—from the fact that the yummy meal is a ripening of some goodness. And be happy. Enjoy it.
Enjoy the movie, enjoy a walk in the park.
Anything pleasant that comes to us is a result of having done something pleasant for someone else.
Technically just having tried to do something pleasant.
Happiness that comes from getting the thing we want or happiness from ripening having helped someone else get what they want.
It's the first happiness that is the worldly thought of happiness.
The second happiness is the one that we're allowed, we should have. We want to cultivate.
The worldly thought—being happy when we get what we want—is the one that's mistaken when we think that happiness comes from a thing getting the thing.
So don't pollute your other seven efforts at the Lojong-ing with being happy when it seems like it's going well and being unhappy when it's not.
That's the opposite. The opposite one is being unhappy when you don't get what you want.
Does that mean we're supposed to be happy when we don't get the job that we just work so hard to interview you for and apply for and cultivate?
It's not saying be happy when bad things happen, although they'll come to a point where your happiness won't matter whether things you want or things you don't want are coming to you.
But the same explanation applies: our worldly response when we don't get what we want, when we expect it to, or we're getting what we don't want—two different situations. When our happiness or unhappiness is related to what's going on at the moment rather than related to understanding those are seeds ripening from past behavior. When the seed’s ripening, understanding unhappiness is an unhappiness, that's wisdom, but then it won't stay unhappy for long. Because it's like, whoa, I've just burnt off some negativity that I planted in the past. Hooray.
It doesn't make the situation pleasant, but the automatic connection between our emotional response and what's happening starts to get broken when we're recognizing our experiences, our results of past deeds and not from what we did the moment before.
The eight worldly thoughts come from the happiness that thinks it's getting what it wants because of what it just did.
The unhappiness from not getting what it wants because of what it just did.
What we are getting now is not a result of what we just did. It's a result of something we did long ago.
Understanding that our emotional response to our situation will be different. We don't have to force it to be different, it will be different.
As we grow these wisdom replacing the eight worldly thoughts, we do grow into a position where we're using every circumstance, pleasant or unpleasant, as seed planting opportunities—conscious seed planting opportunities. In which case we're less on the seesaw of trying to get this and avoid that, which is what's happening in life constantly.
Whereas when we have this understanding that no matter what's arising at the moment, it's the soil within which I'm going to plant a seed by my behavior and we're in that seed planting choice making mode, then it's a much smoother swing whether things are going well or not going well. Because we're still in the mode of carefully planting.
Now, we don't do it perfectly. We plant a seed and oh gosh darn, I wish I hadn't planted that one. But it's all part of what we call the practice, not just on your cushion, but in daily life of having growing this level of awareness of behavior planting, so that we grow into a being who's just gardening constantly.
You know that your gardening is such that when that garden ripens as it ripens, it will be just fine because you'll respond appropriately to that ripening as well.
These eight worldly thoughts are ways that we can be checking our own awareness. It's like ‘Am I still in that happy related to what's happening in the moment versus happy by way of planting seeds constantly’.
We're growing, we need to learn more, we get to learn more so that we can move into that state of mind more and more and more.
3+4 is to be happy when we feel good and to be unhappy when we don't feel good.
Again, Buddhism is not saying be like a robot. No matter what is going on around you just behave the same.
It is saying we can cultivate the ability to choose our behavior regardless of our in the moment experience that we're having.
That's what the lojong is trying to train us to do.
Ordinarily when we feel good, we can be nice to other people, and when we don't feel good, somehow we justify being grumpy.
When we're grumpy, we're a little bit nastier to somebody else who gets in our way. We're not as patient when we don't feel good as when we do feel good.
But if we really pay attention as we go through our day, you feel pretty good when you wake up or maybe not, maybe you feel lousy when you first wake up and then after you have your first cup of coffee or tea, and now I feel good, right? It’s just, Don't talk to me until I've had my first coffee and then I can be nice to you. But before that, just back off. Otherwise we're both in trouble.
It can be like that. And we go, oh, that's just what life is, and we let it go on, and it's a mistake if we want to stop being grumpy when we don't feel good.
These teachings say, To be grumpy, whether you feel good or don't feel good is planting seeds for grumpy people in your world, you and others.
Doesn't matter, feel good, not feel good, be nice, be kind, be helpful.
It's harder to be helpful when you don't feel good.
That means if we do be kind even a little bit kind when we don't feel good enough to be kind, what does that do to your mind that's expecting you to be grumpy and nasty?
It goes, What? And that seed is planted so much stronger because it's off automatic pilot. It calls attention.
So it's worth the effort when we don't feel good to be intentionally kind to somebody, even if it's just the cat, somebody, maybe even yourself. Be intentionally kind when you feel like being grumpy. That's what the eight worldly thoughts are coaching us to do. What Dorje Senge is saying, Don't let your Lojong-ing, like you're giving the gain to somebody else, when you've got a headache and you just go, Here, nasty giving the game. Yeah, it spoils it a bit.
Why? Because your own mind is watching and that's going to make seeds for some grumpy person right here.
So that's better than being grumpy and nasty, but it's not better enough to turn our world from Sansaric into Buddha Paradise, which is what Lojong-ing is all about.
Luisa: What about when you are sad and you want to cry, so you should avoid crying because then you will plan more crying people and you crying in the future.
Lama Sarahni: No. Well, only if crying is bad. Is crying bad? Is crying unpleasant?
Luisa: Of course.
Lama Sarahni: You think so?
Luisa: Okay. No. I sometimes cry from happiness, but let's say I cry because,…
Lama Sarahni: But is crying a bad thing? I mean, I have a dear friend whose husband died just last week. It's like, oh, my heart twists for her and I would be delighted to go and hold her through a good cry. I'd cry with her and it would be painful and hard and awful and excellent for both of us. Wouldn't it?
Crying and getting angry and blaming and hateful. That's different. But we can be like that without crying at all, when we're sad.
Stephanie: I think we have to be careful about judging our feelings because that's only planting seeds to continue to judge our feelings, which can block them or color them incorrectly.
Lama Sarahni: Right, right, right.
So I hope it's not coming across to sound like we're saying when unpleasant things come, just reject that they're unpleasant.
It's how we respond towards others in the face of unpleasantness. That's the point I'm trying to get across.
When things are unpleasant, we justify being nasty and that perpetuates Sansara.
Sevonne: When we're writing ourselves as grumpy and there are people in our world and we don't want to perpetuate this, in those moments when it's time for us to say something to them, is it like fake it till you make it?
I can't really be, I don't have access to being truly sweet and pleasant right now. I can't quite get there, but I am going to fake it and maybe sound insincere and ingenuine and through really tough teeth.
Lama Sarahni: I'm going to be nice to you because I have to. Yeah, I think that as long as we're not denying that we're grumpy, then we should fake it till we make it.
If in our faking it, we're also trying to fake to ourselves that we're upset, then that's going to backfire. But it's legitimate to say to myself, I am so grumpy right now. I really don't want to do anything nice and so I'm going to go find something nice to do and do it. I predict that by just trying, your grumpy will decrease, because it's so different a response than what's ordinary. A lot of those grumpy seeds will get burnt off.
But it's important to understand not to stuff the feelings, not to deny them like Stephanie says, not judge them as good or bad, just they are right there.
How does it make me want to act and is that what I want to experience in the future?
If it's, do it. If it isn't, don't. But don't say, oh, I'm bad for having these feelings of being grumpy. Those are ripening as well, right? They will pass by, because they're being burnt off.
A dharma practitioner, our practice is to respond towards others independent of how we feel. To plant seeds, whether your back hurts or you're too cold, or you're well fed or you're just won the lottery, you plant seeds for the future.
It's hard to get off our automatic pilot of reacting to the moment.
We're going to talk about it.
Who's next here?
5+6: to get all happy when we're well known, and to be upset when we're not well known.
This one I find funny because it's like I don't think I aspire to be famous, and really the word is to be happy when you're famous and to be unhappy when you're not famous.
It's like I don't know about you, but I'm not famous and I don't really think I want to be famous, because it seems like it's a pain in the butt to be famous.
But that we're misunderstanding.
I do want to be well thought of by others. I do care about whether I'm an uplifting influence on others or a downer on others. I do care about that.
Then if I think that others knowing me in that way is a reflection of my actual quality, then when I hear of somebody who doesn't like me, I get upset.
I probably won't go to them, Why don't you like me?
I'll just chew myself out. You're not good enough that that person doesn't like you.
And it leads to this downward spiral of seed planting in my own mind about what's wrong with me, that they don't see me in the same way all those other people see me.
So it's our response to our situations again, that this getting happy when you're well-known and being unhappy when you're not well known, it's the action towards others that makes our misunderstood state of mind be so powerfully negative.
How it quite relates to the Lojong-ing, I'm not so clear, but it would be having to do with our reputation in a sense.
Like our Lojong behavior, if it's misunderstood with these eight worldly thoughts from this one would be something like getting all puffed up with pride that I'm a good Lojonger, and then when somebody doesn't notice that or doesn't praise me for it or think highly of me for it, then I would get mad at them instead of my own past needs that created that response.
Luisa: When you say, okay, we all want to have the feeling that we are doing something that influences people in a positive way and then help them to, I don't know, improve themselves. So let's say I explain to someone about karma and then they do it and then they get better, and then I start to feel this kind of, not pride, but this kind of, Huh, I am good at helping. I have been thinking about it and this is what you are saying now, it sounds to me at the end, it was not me, it was their karma that saw in whatever I said or this influencing changing. So at the end is their karma. So what the hell am I doing here?
Lama Sarahni: What did you see yourself doing? What did you see yourself doing? Helping them get better, right?
Luisa: Yeah. Yeah. My intention of course is that, but there is always this stain or I have noticed in myself that I need this confirmation that what I said helped them. So I am, there is a seeking inside myself of, Okay, I of course want to help them, but I also want to see that what I'm doing is helping them and if it doesn't help them, then I feel bad.
Lama Sarahni: That's the worldly thought part of it, it's the feeling bad when you think, oh, I didn't really help them. And as opposed to it's like, well, now there's a ripening as well to come to the conclusion that I'm sad that I didn't really help them, because I did help them. I saw myself helping them.
You saw yourself being the ripening of their karma helping them keep.
Keep thinking it through. You'll catch what you keep running up against is the wall of our self existence, right? Things that we're holding as self-existent. And it's so beautiful because you get up to it and you hit this wall and then it's like…
Luisa: I come from different angles, but I don't go through. Since years.
Lama Sarahni: Keep working on it, keep working on it.
Geshela told us this story of the Sakya Pandita. We'll meet Sakya Pandita later. He is a fellow who got really, really famous in his lifetime. He became really famous, really well known. Everywhere he went, people wanted to see him and talk to him, and somebody asked someone else who was clairvoyant, How did he get so famous?
And the clairvoyant person said, oh, his lama, I don't know if in that life or a previous life, but that guy, he had a Llama and that lama had terrible diarrhea once and didn't make it to the toilet. And this guy who's the Sankya Pandita now, he went in and he cleaned it all up with his bare hands. He had a rag and he was taking care of it and while he was doing so, he had this thought, oh my gosh, this is the sweetest holiest nectar. I'm so happy to be cleaning this up for my Llama.
That's why he got so famous.
So it's like, what? When we go, how did he make somebody famous? That's how he got famous, understanding of how we think through karma and what seeds we want to plant. But actual workings of karma are so deeply hidden. It's more hidden than emptiness is hidden. To really know the seeds that create this or create that requires omniscience.
We can make this correlation. What I see myself do towards others is going to come back to me. We can use that. We can live by that.
But the actual details of what causes what are so much more subtle and broad that we really can't conceive of it. We need a simplified version, which is what I see myself doing towards others is going to come back to me, and so I want to avoid killing because I don't want to be killed, stealing because I don't want to lose all my stuff and get stolen for, sexual misconduct because I want a pure relation. I want to be able to trust people, et cetera. Those 10 basic unkindness is that Sansaric state of mind says should be done in certain circumstances.
Wisdom mind says, not unless you want the result.
None of those are bad from their own side. Nothing's good or bad from its own side. It's by way of what will come back to us from what we just saw ourselves think, say, do. That's always the criteria.
When this comes back to me, will I like it?
Then decide to do it or not, say it or not, think it or not.
Oh, not right, it's already been thought, but let it go on or not.
7+8 of the eight worldly thoughts is to be all happy when you get praised and to be upset when you don't get praised or the opposite, get criticized.
It‘s pleasant to go into work and the boss says, Wow, you did such a good job yesterday and it brought this about and I'm so proud of you and you're the greatest employee. I hope you stay with us forever.
We go, wow. Yay. Yes, I'm so great.
The next day we go in and they say, you jerk. And it's like, what did you change from brilliant to stupid in 24 hours?
We get happy with the first one. We get all upset at the second one.
The first one, we don't go, wow, boss, you're the greatest. We go, yeah, right?
The second one we get criticized. Jerk boss.
Wrong response to both of them. Isn't it?
The praise: Yeah, enjoy being praised, but know where it's coming from.
Where is it coming from? Oh, you kids, you're so great. You made your bed. Thank you. Wow, you're the greatest.
Where does ‘criticizing boss’ come from? You husband. You're late again.
It doesn't mean that we're criticizing the boss, although maybe we are, over coffee. You know what that dumb boss did to me again? Yeah. Yeah. He did it to me too.
We do that and we're supposed to do that. That's how we build camaraderie, right?
Wrong. That's how we perpetuate our worldly situation in our office.
So what do we do as we're getting praised?
Many of us, our tendency is go, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that's incorrect as well.
To get praised: Accept it. You did a great job. Okay, thanks.
It's pleasant to hear it. I'll try again.
But where it really came from, both the praise and the having been seen of doing a good job came from some past way that you were kind and helpful to another in the past.
To have that even fleeting in our mind while we're in the midst of getting praised allows that happiness at being praised to have an inkling of wisdom. Oh, past me, praised others, helped others, was kind to others. This feels good.
You don't have to say it to the boss, Think about it.
But then same thing when you're being criticized. Oh darn, this is unpleasant. I'm sorry I did this to others. I'll try really hard not to.
You're just thinking it, burning off the criticism while it's going on, and then not responding negatively to that criticism.
Sorry, you see it that way. How can I fix it?
Our ego doesn't want to say that. That's Lojong-ing, isn't it?
We want to say, I didn't do that. They did that.
As opposed to did it or not, I'll take the responsibility for fixing it.
That shift from the eight worldly thoughts’ Lojong-ing to the Oh, trying to apply my wisdom to a situation so that my Lojong-ing can actually happen.
With the eight worldly thoughts we won't actually be able to take the loss ourselves and offer the gain, because that part of us that struggles, the self existent part of us that struggles against this idea of taking the loss ourself, will win out.
The bottom line is growing this awareness, this ability to have this awareness that what's happening right now is not coming from what I did the moment before, and that what I do right now doesn't bring what comes exactly next.
Growing this awareness that what I'm experiencing right now is the result of some past behavior. There was that gap, here it's arising, what I do now going into this time gap and come out later.
Understanding that allows us to divorce our immediate response from our action.
Our immediate response arises to whatever's going on right now.
Our Sheshin, our awareness says, whoa, this whole thing's ripening from when I did something similar. How do I want to respond?
You've just bought yourself two seconds of time to choose a different result.
Then as we do that different response, we understand, I just planted seeds. Because whatever comes next is not related to what you just did.
Maybe the yelling boss, you say you want to yell back, but instead you say, I'm so sorry you're upset. How can I help?
And our expectation is that he goes, oh, thank you, and stops being mad. But maybe what they actually do is even madder, because they expected and wanted you to get mad and then you didn't, and that upset them further. Is it related to not getting upset?
No. It's related to having gotten upset by someone's response in the past. Have we ever done that?
This whole Lojong-ing is about learning to get out of this space of happen-react, happen-react, happen-react, happen-react and be a little bit stepped back from that, so that that system can still be happening, but we don't buy into it.
Divorce ourselves from that automatic response, thinking that my action now brings what comes next, because it doesn't.
And it's so hard. Lojong was kept secret for a long, long time, hundreds of years, because this was just too radical.
A big heart will still say, no, I can't let myself take the loss in this one. It will hurt too much.
Validly, validly in a worldly way.
But if we want to stop suffering—our own, let alone everyone's—we will reach a point where that thought process doesn't make sense anymore.
Lojong is a tool to explore reaching that.
Geshela says, Don't confuse the crap from the past that we can't do anything about with creating your Buddha paradise. Every moment we can be planting seeds in such a way that they are seeds for Buddha paradise, or every moment we can be planting seeds with the same behavior that's perpetuating Sansara.
The difference is the state of mind: I'm planting seeds for Buddha paradise versus just react, react, react.
All right, let's take a break and we'll see what the other eight are.
(Break) 58:06
Luisa pointed out that in the homework for class 2, question 1 is about the protector deity controversy. I didn't mention it and I didn't mention it because it's old history and I just didn't want to bring it up. But I should have brought up, just so that you didn't have to ask that question. So graders, that's all you, let me rather ask you for that question:
What if your teacher is involved in some… you see your teacher involved in some kind of controversy that's making people who used to follow their teachings suddenly not follow those teachings and then say bad things about the teacher or why they're not following the teacher anymore.
Our human response is, no, no discount the ones who are saying bad stuff and reiterate how great our teacher is and everybody should see them that way. If they don't, there's something bad with them and justify our own position.
We would do that from either side.
But a Logonger, a Buddhist really, a wise Buddhist would recognize, shoot, this whole situation of conflict is a ripening of my seeds from not having served my past teachers well. My own past seeds are ripening here as this conflict, and if I don't want to see further conflict, then I want to serve my teacher better than I have been.
I want to do a four powers on ways in which I haven't served my teachers well, or even served them badly.
Not just your spiritual teacher, but any teacher. How well did we treat our first grade teacher? Were we a teen that caused trouble in class?
Those little things grow.
The principal behind that first question is, how we serve our own teachers is going to be reflected in how we see others serving teachers—whether they are our teacher or somebody else's teacher. If there's conflict towards teachers, what we do about that is look at our own behavior towards our own teachers and clean up our act. Even if our act is good already, we can be more wise, we can be more subtle, we can be more precise.
That's how we clean up a conflict.
That conflict that this first question is all about, it's passed.
So somebody cleaned up their act because it's gone now.
But there will be conflict with teachers, because we're in Sansara. That was the whole point of that question, is how I interact with my teachers is what creates controversies like that.
Everybody gets a 100 on their first question on class 2, no matter what you write.
So let's go back. Don't pollute your Lojong-ing with the eight worldly thoughts.
Once we step over the line of Lojong, I'm a Lojonger now. It means we've made the determination that I am the last to get anything, any need met.
I put everybody else in front of me and then once we step across that line, we must stay there. So don't step across prematurely. Learn all of this stuff first and wait because to step across them then regret is worse than not stepping across at all.
We need to step across with wisdom and then stay there with wisdom.
As I said, these Lojongs were kept secret, as secret or more so than the tantra teachings for a long, long time. They actually got started with Arya Nagarjuna, so 200 AD. But it wasn't until 1200 that they came out into public. We'll see the story behind that.
In Tibet, the Lojong tradition was starting to gain power, starting around a thousand AD when Atisha went into Tibet.
The Lam Rim was being taught openly, but not the Lojong part of the Lam Rim.
Not that the Lam Rim was incomplete. Because the Lojong is about generating our Bodhichitta and there are other ways to develop Bodhichitta that are in the Lam Rim. The Lojong was a very swift and specific technique of developing the Bodhichitta.
The Lam Rim was being taught for a long time before the Lojong came out into public teachings. The Lojongs were being taught from a teacher to a student that they were aware, had sufficient wisdom, and had sufficient big heart to be able to hear the teachings and try them on for size.
The fear was they're so radical and require such selflessness that most people would hear the teachings and go, no way, no way. And then disrespect them in some way.
To hear a Lojong and disrespect it is worse than not hearing it at all apparently. Now, to hear a Lojong and not practice it is not disrespecting it unless you don't practice it because you go, eh, no way that can work. To not practice it because it's on the shelf—this is too much for me right now—that's okay. That's not disrespecting it.
So just be careful. We won't be able to do all these Lojongs and that's okay. Don't kick yourself for that.
But admire them, aspire to them, put 'em on the shelf, you'll come back someday very likely.
Chankya Rinpoche comes along later than Dorje Senge, and he is aware of that last verse, the eight ideas of things having been taught as the eight worldly thoughts—don't pollute your giving the advantage to others with any of these eight wrong ideas, eight wrong responses.
He says that you really can't not have the eight worldly thoughts until your understanding of emptiness is really strong. So he says maybe what was also meant by this verse—don't pollute your Lojong-ing with the eight wrong ideas of things is these eight extremes. Maybe he was also talking about what are called the eight extremes.
The eight extremes is a teaching that comes to us from Arya Nagarjuna. Didn't we just study Arya Nagarjuna recently? Some of us? I just finished the course class 15, actually yesterday I listened to it. And really that whole Arya Nagarjuna root text on wisdom is extraordinary. David and I got to study it with Lama Christie during Diamond Mountain Times and we didn't finish it, but we got well into, I think we got, I don't know, to chapter 20 or something. No, it doesn't matter. And then studying it again with Geshe Michael over the last couple of years took it to another level. I'm so happy I had the background from Lama Christie. I can't imagine listening to his teachings as the first intro to Arya Nagarjuna. You guys are amazing, those who did it.
Arya Nagarjuna, as we know, is keen on helping us recognize when we go, yeah, I understand the emptiness of this—but he's pointing out all our, I call 'em „yeah, buts“.
Yeah, but what about…? Yeah, but what about…?
Arya Nagarjuna is just going to take every one of those ‘Yeah, buts’, and show us why we're misunderstanding what we think doesn't apply to what he's just taught.
So that text, the root text on wisdom, it's talking about these eight wrong ideas, the eight extremes. TA GYE.
TA = short for TAR, which is the edge, the end or the edge or the cliff. We hear it „falling off the cliff of the two extremes“. There are actually eight cliffs that we can fall off of.
GYE = the word for eight.
TA GYE = the eight cliffs
They all hinge on this idea of NGOWA DRUPPA.
These two words.
NGOWA = essence or nature.
Not nature like the pine tree, the birds. But the essential nature of something.
DRUPPA = to exist
Some kind of essential nature existence of things.
It means that something existing from its own side, something existing with its inherent nature, something existing with its characteristics, identity in it.
These all sound familiar, don't they?
Something existing self-existently, something existing that's not our karmic results of past deeds.
Ultimately that's what it means. Something exists with a nature other than being the resultant ripening from our past deeds.
How do you put that into a short succinct phrase?
NGOWA DRUPPA. Actually NGOWA DRUPPA is the opposite of that.
NGOWA DRUPPA is the idea that things exist somehow with their essence in them. Fire has its heat and burning in it.
Water has its wood and liquid in it.
We think that until Arya Nagarjuna comes along and says, Well wait if it did then...
And we go, Oh yeah, we just hadn't thought of it before. It doesn't occur to us.
Here's our friend the pen. We've done it so many times. Your mind almost shuts down when you see it, but open it back up and recall. There's colors and shapes. You can only, I don't know, can you see the shape you see long, but you can't really see round, but something in your mind says it's round, right?
And then color and shape and onto it becomes pen.
Partly because I'm holding it up your mind goes ‚pen‘. You didn't even see the thing yet. That's how quickly our seeds ripen.
We know that the pen is the perception of the viewer, coming from the perception of the viewer, because a dog chews it.
But honestly, if you saw a dog chewing on this thing, wouldn't your mind say, ‚The dog is chewing on my pen.‘?
We say that because we believe this pen has NGOWA DRUPPA.
This pen has its pen-ess in it. And yeah, we understand that the dog doesn't see it as a pen, but come on. NGOWA DRUPPA, it's got pen in it in some way.
It's a misperception though that this object has pen in it, NGOWA DRUPPA in it.
Geshela said this really interesting thing, and I want to say it a couple of times too.
We look here, that's better.
See all these?
Geshela says, there are many cylinders in this world which are pens because we are seeing them as pen. But there are not any pens from their own side.
There are many, many cylinders in this world that are pens because we're seeing them as pens. But there are no pens in this world that are from their own side.
There are no pens that are NGOWA DRUPPA.
It's such a slick description.
It's very, very helpful to cook that one.
There are many cylinders in this world which are pens because we see them that way, but there are no pens in this world that come from their side.
When we're understanding the emptiness of the pens of this world, do the cylinders that we see as pens go away?
No, because they are there because of our seeing them as pens.
Why are we seeing them as pens?
Our mental seeds are ripening into pens here and that's what makes them pens.
If they had a NGOWA DRUPPA nature of pen, what would happen If that's true?
If their pen nature was in them unrelated to any other factor, what would be the ramification of that? Could I even use it?
No, because for me to use it depends on my ability to use it.
If its nature is pen from its own side, is in it from it, it would have to say you can use it as a pen. You can use it as a chew toy. You can use it as a doorstop.
But if it says that, then it's depending on me or the dog or the door for it to say, I can be a doorstep.
It couldn't even do that without depending on something else.
NGOWA DRUPPA says pen without depending on anything else.
It's ridiculous. The pen is depending upon the pen factory, and it's depending on its parts, and it's depending on all kinds of stuff. But most importantly, it's depending on our seeds ripening this cylinder as a pen for it to be a pen with parts from the pen factory.
All of that is our perceived ripenings and there's no pen that exists from its own side, of all the gazillion pens that there are existing in the world not a single one is a pen from its own side.
Okay, got it?
Arya Nagarjuna wants us to understand that in all the different ways that we think we're understanding it, but we're not quite understanding it. And that becomes these eight ideas of things, the eight extremes.
I'm going to show you the Tibetan and then we're going to do it in English.
1. KYEWA MEPA NGOWA DRUPPA, KYEWA = starting
2. GAPKA MEPA NGOWA DRUPPA, GAKPA = stopping
3. TAKPA NGOWA DRUPPA, TAKPA = unchanging
4. CHEPA NGOWA DRUPPA, CHEPA = cut off or non-existent
5. DROWA NGOWA DRUPPA
6. ONGWA NGOWA DRUPPA
I'm going to get back to those, because I can't remember off the top of my head.
7. CHIK NGOWA DRUPPA = one
8. TADE NGOWA DRUPPA = many
One or many.
We need to talk about all of these before class is done so that we can get onto class 3 and class 4.
KYEWA means start. There's no starting and there's no stopping said Arya Nagarjuna, Lord Buddha said. So Arya Nagarjuna did not make this stuff up. He's explaining something Lord Buddha said.
But starting and stopping here means, starting to happen—KYEWA means something starts to happen. KYEWA MEPA NGOWA DRUPPA means nothing starts to happen from its own side. Nothing has a nature of starting to happen from it.
Something has to make that something happen to come about. KYEWA means to start. Things don't start from their own side.
What kinds of things? Anything that we want to happen.
You want a new relationship? You want a new house? You want a new job?
Anything that's not happening now that you would like to have happen, it's going to come about not through any nature of its own, but through some other means.
We're trying to learn what are those factors that bring things to happen.
Geshela‘s example was, if you need a new place to stay, you're looking for a new, better apartment—all kinds of different ways you might go about trying to find your new place. Understanding karma and emptiness, the first thing one would do would be to find somebody who needs a new place to live, and help them find one.
Whether that's a human somebody, or an animal somebody, or a bug somebody.
The stronger the karmic object, the more powerful the helping them will be. So if you're putting out cockroaches into the compost, you're going to need to put a whole lot more of them than if you were finding your lama a new place to stay, because of the power of the seeds.
But regardless, that new apartment isn't going to come about if we don't have the seeds in our own mind already of having helped someone find a new place to stay.
Now is that exactly the karma? Probably not. But it's a good way to approach this something that we want to get to start.
Things are starting all around us and we take it all for granted where they come from.
All of it are opportunities to recognize, Oh, it looked like my car started because I turned the key. But that isn't the real reason my car started. Is it? Because sometimes turning the key doesn't start the car, so it can't be the actual cause.
We have all kinds of opportunities that we can be playing with our own mind to get it off automatic pilot to recognize these places where we think things are starting from their own side, when in fact they're only starting as a result of our karmic seeds.
Don't really bother going into, Oh no, they started from their causes and conditions or from their parts, right?
We're sophisticated enough, we can just go, no, this is my seeds ripening.
Impose that and then figure out what to do with that.
Every time we do, we're planting seeds in our minds to get that more clearly, to understand it more directly, more automatically, which eventually is going to be the direct perception of it happening. Which is precursor to seeing emptiness directly, right?
Remember all this Lojong-ing, all this studying wisdom is for the purpose of reaching wisdom, which means seeing emptiness directly, which is your doorway to your real Lojong-ing behavior. Moving yourself through the Bodhisattva Bhumis.
Whatever it is that we need is something that we need to start.
It can only start when those seeds for it to start ripen.
If you need money, give.
I don't have any money to give.
You have something to give, give your time, give a smile, give something, find something to give and things will come.
Nothing starts from its own side. Things start from having helped others in the past.
Bad things start from having helped others in a bad way, harmed others. Good things start from having helped people in a kind way—to the best of our ability, of course, because there's no thing that's kind from its own side.
There's no thing that's bad from its own side, unkind from its own side.
It's based on what will it be like when it comes back to you?
Will it be pleasant? Then It's a kindness.
Will it be unpleasant? Then it's an unkindness.
Different for different people.
Things stopping. There are things that are happening that we would like to stop, like your back pain, your headache, the job you don't like, whatever.
We all have things happen throughout our lives and days even that we don't want to go on. Those are going to go on until our seeds for them run out. There's actually nothing that we can do in the moment and make them run out.
Our response to them, we would always want to be some kind of kindness so that at least in the course of that unpleasantness running its course, we are not making new unpleasantness to come back to us later.
Probably the hardest to do is to be kind when rotten stuff is happening to you. But that's what Loong is talking about, isn't it?
When somebody's screwing you over, hand them the keys to your car. Here, what else can I do for you?
It's very difficult.
When things do run out, it's because we tried to help somebody else's problems run out.
Have we ever been with someone who is having difficulty and tried to help them solve it? Stop it?
Yeah, I think we all do that often. Even in worldly ways we help people solve their problems.
You've got a headache? Oh, I'm so sorry. Can I rub your neck?
Oh, can I give you some aspirin?
It's pretty natural human behavior for anybody but a narcissist maybe. And so we do have seeds for unpleasant things to respond to things that someone else does. Because we've tried: Does what we do help the other person?
No, actually. Not in the moment. Even when it looks like it does, it really didn't. But the effort to try is planting seeds in our mind that will help us when we're in a similar boat.
Technically, what we do in the moment doesn't bring what comes next. But what we do in the moment does help.
It just doesn't help in the moment. It helps us later and the person who's going to be part of the ripening of our karmic seed later, because there's going to be somebody or something that is the apparent agent of the end of our problem, because we try to help somebody out.
Nothing stops from its own side.
We make things stop by trying to help somebody else's problems stop.
Then what we try to stop, our own problem, is more likely to work.
You have a headache, you can take aspirin. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.
It's more likely to work if when we saw someone having some kind of trouble, we tried something to help them.
Then as we take the aspirin, we can load it with that: Oh, if it's true that I help so-and-so when they sprained their ankle, I just tried to help them feel better at that time, then may this aspirin work for my headache because otherwise it can't.
Good things stop too, don’t they?
We don't want good things to stop. We do want bad things to stop.
The same process is happening in both of them.
Geshela explained, Karma is an impression put in our mind when we interact with another object, whether that object is animate or inanimate.
Stephanie: Can you say that again? Please one more time.
Lama Sarahni: Karma is an impression put in our minds when we interact with another object.
Our interactions with current objects are the ripening of those mental impressions into our current perception.
The impression is made, ripening is happening later.
Our ripenings now is from those old impressions coming to fruition, and then we react or respond depending on our level of wisdom to that immediate experience, which makes new impressions.
We're in this constant ripening planting mode, but the ripening from the planting doesn't come next. It comes later.
It's like, here's the plant, here's the plant, here's the ripening, here's a plant, but here's a ripening. It's in this single one.
Things do start. Things do stop.
But only by way of this process of seeds ripening and ending, ripening and ending.
TAKPA means unchanging. Remember TAKPA and MITAKPA?
This is believing that things have an unchanging nature.
A pen is always a pen until it's destroyed, of course.
The nature of Sansara is this misunderstanding that holds things and people and us as having some unchanging nature.
Our intellect says, no, we don't. We know everything's changing. Everybody's changing. We know everybody's depending on causes and conditions.
But the way what we're holding to when we say that is still mistaken. Because when we say that, we're not saying, No, no, everything is projected results of past deeds.
We're saying, No, no. They've got their own causes. They've got their own conditions. They change constantly because their causes and conditions change, there, there, there.
When our mind is saying, No, no, everything's projected, then we've got it right. But that's not what our initial gut reaction is to things are unchanging. It's like, No, they're not. They're changing because they have their own thing about them that's changing all the time.
Arya Nagarjuna wants us to work on that. He says, if things have an unchanging nature, like the pen stays the pen until it's gone.
What are the ramifications of that?
It means that there's something about the pen that cannot change. If we say it stays pen for its whole lifetime, then there's something about it that's unchanging. And if there's something about a sansaric thing that's unchanging, then we are stuck in Sansara forever.
Is that what you want?
The whole point of being here is that we're sick to death perpetuating Sansara, and we're desperate to figure out how to stop doing it.
But we're holding to something about all the different things and beings in Sansara that's blocking us from being able to do that.
That they have this nature in them that stays that.
Me, Sarahni, will be Sarahni until this body dies. It's not like I'm going to be Ted tomorrow and married the next day. That's not what we mean. But I'm not the same Sarahni for each of you. And I'm not the same Sarahni for each of you that I was before, and I'm not even the same Sarahni for me, this moment, this moment, this moment and this moment. And we go, yeah, yeah. Great. We understand you're changing, changing, changing. But we're still not saying, yeah, great. You're my seeds ripening, ripening, ripening. Do we?
When we have wisdom, that's our natural reaction to things. Is Oh, ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening.
Stephanie: Question real quick. So are you saying that if things are unchanging from their own side, you would stay Sarahni as you are now and in your next life and in your next life and your next?
Lama Sarahni: Yeah.
Stephanie: Okay. Just wanted to make that clear. Thank you.
Lama Sarahni: And that would be same for all of us. And that's just completely contradictory to our experience, isn't it?
I used to be 25 years old, believe it or not, before that I was 10. We all change.
Luisa: But then why do you say we think that the pen stays as a pen until it is destroyed and this is why we believe everything is unchanging. Because we do agree that pens also get old. They get scratches, they are changing.
Lama Sarahni: Right. But there's still a pen, aren‘t there? They have some essential nature of pen. It can be all scratched up. It can lose this thing (pointing at the clip on the pen) and it still would be a pen.
So that pen-ess that's unchanging is what he's pointing out.
And you can see, you point out how ridiculous it is that we hold to the essence of the thing being an unchanging pen. When it gets scratched, it gets old. It has half the ink that it had before and we still say it's a pen. If we got it right, the instant it got a scratch, we wouldn't say it's a pen. What? It's a pen with a scratch. It's a pen with three quarters of the ink.
Stephanie: Is it a pen when it has no ink and you cannot write with it.
Lama Sarahni: Right. All these ways that we understand it's changing, which is why we don't understand that they're holding to it in some way that's unchanging, that it's a pen until it disappears, when in fact it's not a pen at all. Without our seeds ripening it, this is a pen until it disappears and then it is. That's different.
Luisa: And this is different to impermanent, no? Unchanging and impermanent are not the same? I forgot, we learned that in the last course and I already forgot.
Lama Sarahni: Right, unchanging and impermanent are not the same thing.
To be non-existent, CHEPA means to not exist at all.
So these two kind of go together, the TAKPA and the CHEPA, because they're kind of describing this swing between things exist in the way that they appear, and then we prove to ourselves that no, they don't exist in that way at all.
Then our mind swings to this, Well then they don't exist at all, right?
CHEPA would say that if we come to that conclusion that they don't exist at all, we're still holding this cliff of wrong view, because our holding to a nature of a thing is so strong. Then when we say nothing has a nature like that, our conclusion is so it doesn't exist at all, is a completely wrong conclusion from understanding that it doesn't have any nature of its own.
The accurate conclusion is, Of course it doesn't have any nature of its own. Because here's a pen that I see that you see, that she sees, that the dog sees as a chew toy. Duh.
But it's not Duh, is it?
When we say this pen has no nature of being a pen in it, our mind automatically goes, well if that's true, the thing can't be there at all. That's CHEPA.
The thing is here: it either has to be here with the nature of its owner, it's got to be here in some other way. Which is it?
It's here in some other way, isn't it?
Siau-Cheng: Can I ask a question?
Lama Sarahni: Yes, please.
Siau-Cheng: The case of TAKPA and CHEPA, is the full sentence TAKPA MEPA or is it just TAKPA?
Because in the first two we have this TAKPA MEPA.
Lama Sarahni: TAKPA MEPA NGOWA DRUPPA it is.
Siau-Cheng: And TAKPA. Is it TAKPA MEPA and CHUPA MEPA?
Lama Sarahni: TAKPA, MEPA. They don't have any nature of unchanging. Yes, you're correct.
Siau-Cheng: Okay, thank you.
Lama Sarahni: Thank you.
The ramification of: If the thing doesn't have a nature of its own, and so it doesn't exist at all, the incorrect conclusion from that that then is consistent with having any existing thing here is that, Oh, all of these existing things that don't exist in the way that we thought they did, they're just not real, because it didn't disappear to say it does not have its own unchanging nature.
But to disappear it should disappear and it doesn't, and that means the thing that's here is just some kind of unreal thing. Our conclusion would be everything's just like a dream, nothing's really real. What I do in the moment doesn't bring what comes next. So what does it matter what I do in the moment?
We hear these two cliffs and we think, Oh, I'll never fall off that one.
But there is a danger because if we really understand that what we do now doesn't bring what comes next, what difference does it make what I do now?
Like in a dream, you're in a dream, you can do all kinds of amazing things and terrible things in the dream and then you wake up and it's like, oh, that was just a dream. It didn't really happen.
It's similar to this state of mind that well, if nothing has any nature of its own, and what I do now doesn't bring what comes next, walk out in front of the truck, steal your neighbor's car. It just doesn't matter because it's not going to bring results. It's just everything's random, insubstantial, just like a dream. It's a danger. It is a danger of misunderstanding.
Why does what we do in the moment matter if what comes next isn't the result?
That's exactly why, isn't it? Because what we do in the moment creates what comes later. Which means what comes in the next moment is coming from what we did before. So what we do now is where our power lies, where our ability to create anything for our future lies in our right now and what we do in our right now. Because past is gone, we can't redo.
Future isn't here yet. We only have right now to act and we do act, we're acting constantly. We are creating our future constantly. Just not the very next future, future future.
Remember that question: What's the base for the future? What's the future for the base? That was crazy, that question in course 13. It is worth thinking about.
What's the future for the past base?
All right, hang in here with me. We're going to finish this class.
If you remember Arya Nagarjuna, he was talking about walking as going and coming, but really when he got to the end of those chapters, he said, no, really I'm talking about something coming out of its cause into its result.
The seed going into the result and the result coming out of the seed. That's very different than walking from here to there. They just use that as an example.
This is really talking about, do cause and effect, do the cause of the moment before, does that cause bring the result of the next moment? We think so. We do need to plant a tomato seed to get a tomato sprout, in order to get a tomato bush, in order to get to make toast. We do need that.
But the real cause of having tomatoes is not the seed making the sprout, making the tomato plant, making the tomato.
All of that is the seed ripening results of past having supplied tomatoes to others whether you were the farmer or not.
The apparent cause and result, worldly cause and result is not the real cause. That's what this is pointing out.
These two eight extremes. The extreme is to believe that the worldly cause result relationship is the actual cause result relationship—from the causes side becoming the result and from the results side coming out of the cause. But it's not because in order for those to happen, we have to have the seeds for that to happen.
That behavior, our own past behavior is the real cause for any worldly cause result relationship. We're not saying there's no worldly cause-result relationship. We are saying the cause for that is karmic.
That's what the DROWA and ONGWA are pointing out to us.
The last two, CHIK & TADE, I like to say that, CHIK TADE.
CHIK means one, TADE means many.
Here he's saying, in our Sansaric world—even in a paradise world I imagine—there are objects, animate or inanimate that are either singular or plural. Can you have something that's neither singular nor plural?
Can you have something that's both—singular and plural simultaneously? Not the whole same thing, of course. You have one person with all these different parts, but there's just one person.
This is one pen. It's not multiple pens.
It doesn't seem like it's an extreme to say yes. Here's one pen and here's multiple pens. What's wrong with that?
NGOWA DRUPPA.
Is there one pen that has its pen-ess in it? No.
Are there multiple pens that have their pens in them? No.
How long are the horns on the head of a rabbit?
There's no such thing.
There's no such thing as one pen.
There's no such thing as plural pens.
If you're thinking of pens in a worldly way, are there singular pens and plural pens when we have pen seeds ripening singular pen seed ripening pen here. But is there a pen here?
No. Projected pen here.
Me seeing pen here, you seeing pen here.
You seeing one pen. You seeing multiple pens. Happening now.
Language fails to get it right.
There's no one thing, there's no multiple things, but nothing can exist in any other way than singular or multiple.
None of them can exist with their NGOWA DRUPPA in them, either singular or multiple.
So each one of these eight, they're like four pairs that go together.
We sort this one out and then our mind goes, yeah but… and it leads us to the next one.
Yeah, but—to the next one.
Yeah, but—to this one.
Not that this is the highest one, but it's pointing out these subtle ways that we're still holding to things in our world, beings in our world, experiences that we have, having some nature in them of what we're experiencing that leads to our belief that my reaction to them in the moment now brings what happens next.
Tie that into these eight worldly thoughts and the eight extremes, because when we don't have the eight extremes anymore, we won't have the eight worldly thoughts.
They'll just be gone because we're not blaming what's happening in the moment and reacting to it in this happy or upset.
Then our reaction to our moment also is off automatic pilot when we don't have the eight worldly thoughts, because we don't have the eight extremes anymore.
Now technically it requires experiencing emptiness directly to get rid of all eight extremes. Even when we do that, although we don't believe in the eight extremes anymore, they will still ripen them. But now we can be working with them. We'll be aware of them at that point.
I actually didn't finish because Chankya Rinpoche has to talk to us about the illusion. We've only talked about the first half of the vers, the other half says:
May I see all things as illusion and free myself from the chains of attachment.
We'll finish that at the beginning of next class, which is why I've scheduled extra classes, because I can't do this in the usual amount of time.
So you don't have any more homework to do. Well you do. You have one more question on homework to do.
Siau-Cheng: Could I ask, so back to the verse number eight. When they say that by the eight ideas of things, does it refer to the eight as extreme or the eight worthy thoughts?
Lama Sarahni: Both.
Siau-Cheng: It's both?
Lama Sarahni: Both.
Siau-Cheng: Okay. Thank you so much.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, anything else? No? Okay.
Let's do our dedication.
That was a tough class. They're going to get tougher, so let's dedicate it strongly, so they won't seem tough when we get to them.
Usual closing
Thank you so much. Work hard with these ideas. Please. I'll see you on Monday. Have a nice weekend. Bye-Bye.
24 January 2022
Link to Eng audio: Eng ACI 14 - Class 4
For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI 14. We're still finishing up class two, but we're going to get to class 3 today.
I don't remember what meeting we are, 4 something like that, for the recording.
So welcome back. Please let's gather our minds here as we usually do.
[Usual opening]
We need to finish up the 8 verses by Dorje Senge, these 8 verses for training a good heart. Meaning training our Bodhichitta, our wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Training ourselves in how to live according to that.
He gave us these 8 suggestions, like radical ways of interacting with ourselves, really, within our world in order to plant seeds in our mind in such a radically different way that when they ripen it will be a radically different world that we're experiencing, a Buddha paradise world that's pretty radically different. It's going to take red to make that.
He was saying, first of all, that other beings are your ticket to that paradise. Everyone can be precious to us because our interaction with them is how we create the causes for Buddha paradise.
Then he went on to say, and when I'm with them, may I see myself as lowest of all. We learned that what he was really saying is, consider maybe they are a Buddha already, maybe. Because just that maybe in our mind as we're planting our seed and our behavior towards them changes the seed that's planted. You can think about it that way. What would that ripen as it grew?
Then what was the third one? May I watch my own mind for negativity and cut it off. Because every instant of it is fouling up what I'm trying to do.
Then the next one is, and those beings that are so precious to me, sometimes they're going to be nasty and may I still hold them dear.
Then not only might they be nasty, they're going to actually treat me badly out of their jealousy, they're going to mistreat me. May I take that loss, may I take that on. Not for the wrong reason. For the reason that we understand that if we can experience such a person doing such a thing, it is a ripening of our own past such behaviors, that these verses don't make any sense in terms of the behavior they're teaching us if we don't understand emptiness and dependent origination. Which is why these were kept secret for so long because not many people understood emptiness and dependent origination deeply enough for these advices to be inspiring. They're not inspiring if we believe our old way of being, our old world. They wouldn't be inspiring to hear if we didn't already understand something about the seed planting business and that we want some insight into how to behave differently, to plant seeds differently.
What's the next one? He says, there'll also be times when we go to someone to help us and we know they can and we believe they are and in fact they end up screwing us over. Same thing: Consider yourself lucky, opportunity to burn that behavior off because guess where it's coming from—our own behavior, right?
He keeps drilling that home.
Then we get that positive one. May I give help and happiness to all my mothers and take all their pain. But that one too, for it to inspire us, we need to understand emptiness and dependent origination because otherwise we might resist that thinking, I don't really want their pain. Thank you very much. It would be challenging, wouldn't it? And yet, if we don't really believe we are taking their pain, why would we do Tonglen? Is it just something in your imagination or is it really effective?
Anyway, there's a whole course on Tonglen. We'll do it sometime. Not on the schedule, but we'll do it.
Then the last one, may none of these ever be made impure by the eight ideas of things. May I see all things as illusion and free myself from the chains of attachment. We studied what he means by the eight ideas of things and immediately we think, oh, he meant the eight worldly thoughts—happy when this, unhappy when that. Then Changkya Rinpoche says, but really until we understand the emptiness of things and where things come from, and even the emptiness of our habits and ourselves and our response to things, we can't not have the eight worldly thoughts. Because they're driven by seeds and you can't just shut them off. They won't just go away. So he says, another way of thinking these eight idea things is those eight ways we're still holding to things and how things happen as self-existent.
Maybe he's saying we need to dig into that misunderstanding and not pollute our Lojong-ing with still the belief in all these different kinds of self existence that we are holding to whether we know it or not. That was about whether things start or stop, meaning happen and stop happening, or whether things are unchanging or non-existent at all, or how it is things come and things go, meaning coming out of its cause into the result or going from the cause into the result. There's like four different ways to think of coming and going.
But all of it we're thinking of cause and result in the wrong way, Arya Nagarjuna is telling us. There's a worldly cause and result which isn't real cause and result.
So these eight worldly thoughts, what's the last one? Are things singular or are they multiple? Because every existing thing in our sansaric world is one or the other, but in fact none of them are either from them in them, from their own side.
All of that study, deep dive into what lack of self nature means in all these different contexts of our experiences are really what's necessary in order to not pollute our Lojong with being happy when it goes well, being unhappy when it doesn't, et cetera, to not pollute our Lojong-ing with ignorance basically. But it's like, well then do we not even try to Lojong if we haven't seen emptiness directly?
No, because our effort to do these Lojong behaviors gathers extraordinary goodness, even when we still do it with the wrong state of mind, that that goodness grows our ability to understand emptiness and dependent origination intellectually more strongly so that it will guide our behavior more strongly, so it plants more goodness more strongly, and it grows into seeing emptiness directly, which then means we can Lojong with wisdom. We don't stop Lojong-ing. That's when we actually start really Lojong-ing, after seeing emptiness directly. But we don't wait until then.
Finally, he ties it all together with his last two lines: May I see all things as illusion and free myself from the chains of attachment.
May I see all things, I'm sorry I read it wrong. All things are illusion. I have to change my notes, not change my notes, change my messy writing.
May I see all things are illusion, and free myself from the chains of attachment. Ordinarily, like my own slip of my handwriting was may we see things all as illusion, meaning as if they are illusion. He's not saying that.
He says, may we see all things are illusion. They are an illusion.
What do we mean by illusion? I love the example of a mirage. Especially in the desert we see mirage fairly frequently.
You have a long vista on a really hot day and you're looking out into the desert and it's like, what's water doing there? It hasn't rained in months. There's nothing. There shouldn't be water out there, but you see water. Then you drive a little while further and you look again. There's no water there at all. Oh, it was a mirage.
Is the mirage the illusion? No. The mirage was really there. It was the water that was illusion. It looked like water. It was a mirage. It wasn't that nothing was there at all.
The mirage was there, but not the water.
So when he says: May I see all things are illusion—he doesn't mean, oh, may I see that everything's like a dream, nothing's not happening. I mean nothing is really happening. Nothing is really there. Nothing really exists.
That's not what „are illusion“ means.
Remind yourself: mirages are there, water is not.
So what is it that we think is there that's not there when we're experiencing „things are illusion“?
The self existent thing. The jealous guy who lied about me, who made me get demoted, that was coming from something other than my own seeds ripening.
That guy, that whole situation, is not there.
It did happen. I mean, I'm making this up. It did happen, but it happened. My karma made it happen. He didn't make it happen. My karma made it happen to me.
My karma making it happen is the mirage. It's really there. The guy doing that to me is the water, looks to be there but isn't there. It's the mirage. You see?
When we get this, „all things are illusion“, it's like, Yeah. That's how they're real. That's why they're real, and that's why how I respond to them makes all the difference in the world for future experience. Because to know them as illusion means we know them as our seeds ripening past behavior results.
Just like looking out in the desert, oh look, there's a mirage. You're not fooled by the water at all once you've seen your fifth one. You don't fall for it anymore. Oh wow, cool mirage. You know there's no water there. You know there's no jerk from his own side, independent of my own past seeds.
It doesn't really matter if we go, oh, I remember when I was seven and I acted that way to my kid brother. We don't have to remember it. It did happen.
If it happens to us, it's coming from us when we understand things are illusion.
To have that understanding—intellectual is one thing, right?
That response is what we're trying to grow. Understanding that so strongly that it's our immediate reaction to situations both good and bad. And that comes with time.
When we understand that that's what breaks those chains of attachment.
Geshela didn't go into what they actually mean by chains of attachment. What he addressed was, what keeps us chained to attachment—attachment would mean then our belief in things happening in the way that they appear, people being the way that they appear, us being the way that we appear attached to Sansara actually.
Like, I'm not attached to Sansara, I want to stop it. No, I'm perpetuating it constantly, right? Yes, I want to stop it, but I'm so chained to it. I don't even know how I'm perpetuating it.
The understanding, the closer we are to experiencing things are illusion, the closer we get to these chains of attachment dropping away.
The chains that are binding us are the two extremes.
The two extremes we've studied before, the first extreme is the belief that things are the way they appear, is one chain that holds us attached to perpetuating Sansara. That way of believing means that guy at work was jealous, he lied, the boss believed him. I got demoted as result. They did that to me and everybody involved knows that's how it happened. That's our experience, that's our belief that that's where the experience came from. It's the how, not the why, isn't it?
The guy did lie, but why he lied, why I had that whole experience? For all the reasons that we've studied has to be results of my own past, having behaved similarly in the past.
To try to explain, Geshela pointed out that say that event is happening right now. I'm in the office, I'm getting demoted. I've been told that guy said these things.
What's actually happening in all that time is that there's colors, shapes, sounds happening. My mind is taking those information and laying onto it, boss demoting me because that guy lied to me. Just like our eye is taking colors and shapes and laying onto it pen.
That whole experience is the same process: Information getting assimilated into a certain experience, series of experiences, technically. The entire interpretation of the information is coming from my mind.
How do we know? Everybody in the room is having a different experience.
It's so obvious, we miss it.
Because if it was happening in the way that we think, everybody would have to experience it in the same way, and that's just ridiculous. Nobody experiences it the same way as I do, your eye. Everybody's unique.
The better we understand that intellectually, the more strongly we'll be able to choose then our response to a situation, because we would be so much more clear that that whole experience is a result of some way in which I had responded to an experience before.
This wisdom that grows is that, Oh, my response now to whatever's going on in my life is where I create my future experiences right now, every response.
We're training ourselves in Lojong to get off react mode, because react perpetuates Sansara and shift to respond mode. Actually react and create.
It's the same letters rearranged. I love that.
Switching to create mode, in which case every interaction with others is creating our future. It already is doing that, but we can do it more intentionally, more consciously.
Then what would I want to do differently? All those different Lojongs are ideas to try. Whichever one series of ones that most inspire you, try those on for size.
So yeah, that was all the first extreme: Things are the way they appear.
The other extreme we've learned is that, well, if it's not true that things exist in the way that they appear, well then they must not exist at all. We think, Oh no, we don't really fall for that one, right? We've been so well trained in karma and emptiness, we don't fall off this cliff. We don't think the pen doesn't exist at all when we say it doesn't have any nature of its own.
But part of that ramification of „if things don't exist the way they appear, then they must not exist at all“ is, when we apply that to understanding that what we do now doesn't actually bring what comes next.
What we do now doesn't bring what comes next.
We put the key in the car and turn it. We think putting the key in the car and turning it is what starts the car. It isn't in fact what starts the car. Karma starts the car.
We immediately think, well if karma starts the car, I don't need the key.
That's falling off the cliff, because you follow that along to its logical conclusion and it's like, well, it doesn't really matter what I do in the moment because it doesn't bring what comes next. So then I might as well just do anything I want because it doesn't bring anything. It is a dangerous misunderstanding of things don't function in the way they appear to function, it's to come to the conclusion, well, then they don't function at all. In which case, who cares about behavior? Just do what we want, because it doesn't matter. Like being in a dream, you can't get hurt, nothing can happen.
But it's not true. It's a mistake. It's a mistaken conclusion and it's a dangerous cliff.
It does matter what we do, because what we do brings a result in the future, just not immediate.
It is true that things aren't the way they appear, but it's not true that they don't exist at all.
It is true that things don't come from what we do in the moment, but it's not true that they don't come from what we do.
Got it? Everything comes from what we have done, which means what we are doing: Action, speech, thought is what's creating our future experience.
What future experience do you want?
Make the seeds for that. Imprint your mind with that.
How do we do that?
By seeing ourselves try to help others get something that they want—just worldly.
Like I want Buddha paradise for everybody. That means I have to give Buddha paradise to everybody in order to see everybody with Buddha paradise?
No, because seeds grow. Thank goodness, because otherwise it'd be desperate. I don't have a Buddha paradise to give to anybody or I would—worldly.
Our arena is worldly, not from its own side, from seeds. So it can be beyond worldly and will be beyond worldly because its own nature is blank, empty.
Your own nature is blank, empty.
Your best friend's nature is blank, empty.
Your worst enemy's nature is blank, empty.
Everything. Everybody. Nature is the potential to be whatever we perceive them as. But now we need to correct the word „everything“. Every being's nature is the availability to be whatever our minds project them as.
And that projection will include us.
It's not that we're the only thing that exists and we're projecting everything else.
It's that we are part of the projection and that's where it gets slippery.
How do I be the projector and projecting all at the same time?
The answer is yes.
So understanding verse 8 well, deeply, our conclusion is, Oh, so kindness is the building blocks of all of existence. Because existence is a goodness. It doesn't matter how bad existence is, it's still a goodness to exist, to have life.
It is karmic ripening.
So kindness is the key to everything and that's what all the Lojongs are giving us clues as to how to be kind in various situations. Because our own ideas of being kind will fall short until we get these ideas from the wisdom beings of what they mean by kindness in more and more subtle arenas.
We finally just finished class two.
You can answer that last question about breaking the chains of attachment.
So let's move on to class three.
(35:00)
This next Lojong comes to us from the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
Tibetan Buddhism has 4 traditions. The Nyingma, Sakya, Kygyu and Gelukpa. Don't mistake Sakya and Shakya, Shakyamuni is from India. Sakya is an area of Tibet, the Nyingmas, the Sakyas, and the Gelukpa.
The Gelukpas are the newest of the traditions.
The Gelukpa was started by our hero, Je Tsongkapa whose dates are 1357 to 1419. So Gelukpas didn't even start until the 14 hundreds.
We're talking Lojongs that are coming from these guys from the 1000s to 1200s.
Lord Atisha came to Tibet in the thousand, around a thousand if my dates are correct. So these three are much earlier than the Gelukpa. Je Tsongkapa studied in these three traditions, all three of them, and then actually directly into the Indian lineages as well.
Kagyu is where we are for this next Lojong.
The Kagyus have several different subgroups within them. I can't rattle them off. The Drukpa Kagyu is one of them and that's what we'll be speaking to in tonight's class, because this next Lojong that we're going to study comes to us from a man whose title is Gyalwa Yang Gunpa. Yang Gunpa is his name, Gyalwa is the title his students called him by.
It‘s typical that students don't call their teacher by their direct name, but put something ahead of it. Like Tsongkapa is Je Tsongkapa, not just, Hey Tsongkapa.
Gyalwa means victorious one. It's another term for Buddha.
So this fellow Yang Gunpa, his own students called him victorious one, Yang Gunpa. They're calling him Buddha Yang Gunpa—that's a teaching in itself.
His dates are 1213 to 1258. He didn't live so long. He was the founder of the Dukpa Kagyu lineage and Druk is a monastery in a certain location in Tibet, and that was where he was studying and teaching. So they took the name of the whole, I dunno what to call it, school—no, school isn't right.
The Drukpa Kagyu, it's like being Protestant, a Christian Protestant, like that, from the monastery that he was associated with. That's where Drukpa came from. Sect, yeah, maybe Sect.
The Lojong that we're studying from him is a collection called Dam Ngak.
Ngak = words or advices
Dam Ngak = private personal advices
So these several Lojongs that we're going to hear about, the circumstance was Gyalwa Yang Gunpa hanging out with a few of his students, one or a few close students, maybe they're traveling together somewhere. They're sitting around at dinner and they're asking questions, and he just gives these short answers. They're deep in their profound and they're right on and they get practiced.
They didn't get written down for a long time, but they got practiced and carried on by those students.
So they get called Dam Ngak, because it just means these personal advices. Here's a Dam Ngak that I got from Gyalwa Yang Gunpa that day. We were cleaning the yard together, whatever it was.
So Gyalwang Yang Gunpa, he studied from within those other traditions, right? He founded the Drukpa Kagyu, so he wasn't studying Drukpa Kagyu, he was studying Kagyu and from other teachers as well.
He studied for a while with someone called the Sakya Pandita, who was a Sakya. That's where the term Sakya came from. That's where Sakya Pandita came from—from Sakya, this area of Tibet.
We'll learn, we'll meet Sakya Pandita later. He is a very famous Tibetan Lama.
The Sakyas are a non-ordained lineage. They had families and Sakya Pandita, his nephew Pakpa was the one who took Tibetan Buddhism to Mongolia. He's famous for creating the 37 pile mandala. If you've seen our tradition, do the mandala where they put the grain into the rings and pile the thing up. It's that one. It's a merit making practice, a virtue practice. He developed this 37 pile mandala that's very fun to do.
Another of Gyalwa Yang Gunpas teachers is someone named Gu-Tsangpa. Sakya Pandita and Gu-Tsangpa. I don't know the lineage of Gu, I don't have it written down.
Sakya Pandita is also one of the Lamas in the Vajra Yogini lineage Lamas that the school you are in practices.
With Gyalwa Yang Gunpa we have a connection between the Sakyas, the Kagyus, and the Gelugpas. And that's why Geshe Michael chose this particular couple of Lojongs because he wanted to plant those seeds for us to keep this sweet connection between the different, the lineage going.
Yang Gunpas, here's one of the Dam Ngak that sweet, holy advices given to some of his students at one point. I'm going to read it to you and then undo my (screen sharing).
There he's hanging out with some of his students and I don't know the circumstance, but all of a sudden out of his mouth come:
Nothing that starts remains unchanged,
Have no attachment, cut the tithes;
There is no happiness in this vicious circle.
Get tired of it, find renunciation.
The world is hollow and meaningless,
Do not trust the lie;
Your own mind is the Buddha,
Go and meet your friend.
The world is hollow and meaningless.
Do not trust the lie.
Your own mind is the Buddha.
Go and meet your friend.
That's the whole Lojong.
Each line itself is a deep instruction, and then the way the lines tie together is also meaningful and then he brings it to conclusion: Your own mind is the Buddha. Go and meet your friend.
Geshela said, clearly he's talking to students who have already studied, that he knows the level that they're at, that he knows he can say something like this and they'll have enough of an understanding of what he meant that he didn't have to sit them down and say much more.
But, there are also these little sweet Dam Ngaks that you wouldn't want to whisper to a brand new beginning person who's just heard the pen thing. Because it could easily be mistaken.
Oh, Gyalwa Yang Gunpa, the Buddha Gyalwa, Buddha Yang Gunpa. He said, my mind's already the Buddha, so I don't have to do anything. I'm already Buddha, he said.
Did he mean that? I don't think so.
There's a lot of meaning in this little Dam Ngak. Geshela mainly wanted to use this opportunity to explore: What did he mean by your own mind is the Buddha. Go and meet your friend.
He figures we do already understand enough that we can investigate the significance of nothing that starts, remains unchanged, et cetera.
But this part: your own mind is the Buddha.
He is talking about our Buddha nature—SANGYE GYI RIK in Tibetan, SUGATA GARBA in Sanskrit
Buddha nature is a very, very specific thing, a very specific concept, so often misunderstood that Geshe Michael likes to bring it up and talk about it in detail any chance he gets.
It's so often misunderstood to believe that it's saying that Buddha said there is a tiny little Buddha deep inside all of us already, and that all we have to do is uncover it. That it's covered by all the muck of our misunderstanding, and just clean away the muck and your own Buddha you will be there.
It doesn't sound so awfully different than saying, look, you can create yourself into a Buddha. You can be Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating. You will be that being who stands on billions of planets being what everybody needs.
But, the difference is the connotation in believing that I already have a Buddha me inside is that we don't have to change our behavior to create it. We have to change our behavior to unveil it, granted.
But if we think that all we have to do is unveil something, we aren't planting the seeds in the way that are necessary for it actually to be ever unveiled. We will never reach it, if all we do is keep trying to unveil, unveil, unveil, unveil. Because it's implying that there's a little self-existent Buddha inside there, a Buddha inside there that's not a result of projections.
If we're even purifying without the understanding of the empty nature of me and my future Buddha, then we can purify, purify, purify but we're not going to make ourselves into Buddha. Do you see? Very, very important to understand that idea.
So what is Buddha nature?
Yes, Stevie. Unmute please.
Stevie: Oh, thank you. Can you repeat again? I understand what you said about that if we continue to believe that in this tiny little self existent Buddha and that's different than, what did you say?
Lama Sarahni: It's different than the Buddha that you'll create yourself into being that comes from your empty nature. And even that Buddha you create yourself into being will still have an empty nature.
Stevie: Thank you. Got it. Thank you.
Buddha Nature is the term that they use for the lack of self existence of our own mind. The emptiness of our own mind is what is meant by our Buddha nature.
Remember the pen. We've learned that the pen appears to be here with its nature in it, but because the dog can chew this thing for the dog, it's the chew toy, for the human it's the pen.
We recognize there's something about our mind that's making it pen, and so the nature of the object isn't pen in it. The nature of chew toy isn't chew toy in it.
If our mind was such that to see this object, our reaction to it is to want to chew it, and that to see this information, our response to it is paw. That's what it is to be a dog, to organize data such that chew toy, mh paw, oh tail, is to be a dog.
To organize this data as pen, human hands is what it is to be a human.
To organize this data as bliss, void, wisdom, paradise emanating is what it is to be Buddha.
The process is the same. The principle is the same: Seeds ripening, seeds planted, seeds ripening, seeds planting.
But the planting and the ripening are not immediate until we are at omniscient level.
This object is as valid to be a pen as it is to be a chew toy, as it is to be an object of perfect bliss, wisdom, which it is for every omniscient being.
Which is, I can't even say that, which is what happened for every omniscient being.
Our mind is the same as the pen.
Our mind is the same as the pen: information, experience that is interpreted as human mind, my mind, my negative thought, my pleasure, my whatever it is that you are aware, the aware-ing, the nature of the aware-ing your mind is like the pen.
It takes some time to really chew on that. How is it that my mind is empty?
How is it that I'm perceiving it with the same process as I'm perceiving the pen or the doorknob or the yelling boss.
I'm perceiving my mind In the same way. Perceiving mind is happening in the same way.
We are forced to perceive our mind as this bizarre combination of happiness, sadness, disappointment, excitement, 84,000 different changing states of mind is being forced upon us by our own seed processes ripening and our responses to them planting new ones.
That process never stops. It never started and it never stops.
The process is existence. Movement of the mind and what it motivates is another way to say that process.
Just karma is another way to say that process, but I don't know karma, we have to pack the word karma with that before when we say karma, that's what it means.
If we had collected sufficient goodness in the past, we would be forced to experience our minds as bliss, void, wisdom, Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating already. When your goodness ripens at that, that is what your experience will be.
Until we have the goodness ripening as that, it will not be that experience. As long as we still have seeds borne of ignorance, selfishness, we are in a recurring cycle of Samsara, suffering, disappointment, obvious suffering, the suffering of change, pervasive suffering. None of it has any nature of its own.
All of it is this process happening. The string that ties it all together for each of us is this thing that we call the mind strength. The mindstream of each one of us is unique to each one of us. It's constantly changing. Never the same two moments in a row, but my mindstream never becomes Flavia's mindstream.
Unique, but not self existent. Because that mind then is the state mind whose seeds will ripen its experience of itself as Buddha. It’s emptiness that we have now and the emptiness we’ll have as Buddha, it's applying to our mind that we have now.
Our body will be different, our environment will be different, our mind will be different, but not something else.
Do you see why we studied all the different ways of studying emptiness, that when we're trying to figure out, we end up with one or many parts or not parts. How many of the parts make me? Am I the same or am I different? It's all pertinent to planting the seeds to be able to understand our Buddha nature and why it's so significant that our mind lacks self existence.
Because it lacks self existence, it can be forced to perceive itself as omniscient.
What forces that extraordinary goodness?
How much goodness? Many times 10 to the 60th, countless eons worth of merit from Lord Buddha‘s experience after achieving his Bodhichitta. That's a lot of merit.
Diamond Cutter Sutra says, yeah, lots of merit.
How do you make it? By reading Diamond Cutter Sutra, writing it down, learning it, teaching it to others. Just hold four lines and teach it to others. Understanding karma and emptiness and sharing it with others, it's so extraordinarily powerful that it's the seeds that will grow into being forced to perceive your own mind as Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating.
That is only possible because our minds are empty of self nature. Got it? Empty of self nature.
Your own mind is nothing but your projection.
How could you experience a mind if you don't experience your mind as part of your projection?
What mind would you experience? No mind.
But we have a mind, don't you? That's like the only thing we really know. You are aware. I don't know that about you. I know it about me. I am aware. And that's about the only thing I've got, right? Yes. Luisa.
Luisa: I got a bit lost with Mindstream. My mindstream now is the same mindstream that is going to become a Buddha, eventually.
And then you say something that the emptiness of this mind now is what? The same emptiness of the Buddha that I will become when I collect the right merit?
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, identical. Not the same, but in the sense that your mind is unique to you and it is empty of self existence. Your Buddha mind is unique to you and empty of self existence. So because that mindstream carries along, it doesn't jump to somebody else‘s mindstream, the body doesn't carry on like that, emotions don't carry on like that. Only the mindstream does.
So it's the mind stream's emptiness that carries along as well.
Not that the emptiness itself carries along, but empty now, empty now,empty now, empty now.
Luisa: But why do you say that is not this gives me, I don't know. I understood until now that emptiness is the same. I mean the emptiness of the pain is the same as the emptiness of me. And what you're saying now makes me think the emptiness of each given moment is different to the emptiness of the moment before.
Lama Sarahni: It's different, but it's 100% identical.
Well, if there's a parking lot full of silver Toyota trucks, there's a hundred silver Toyota trucks. They're all identically silver Toyota trucks. But each one is a unique silver Toyota truck. So the emptiness of every different thing is 100% lacking self existence. So all identical but all unique emptiness. Unique to this thing, unique to this thing. Unique to this thing.
Luisa: So identical in the sense of the meaning of emptiness of being the blank screen, but not being the same as the same. Exactly the same.
Lama Sarahni: Right. Like Sarahni and David's wife are the same, different words for the same thing. The emptiness of this and the emptiness of that are not like Sarahni and David's one, but they are identical in their 100% lacking identity in it.
Luisa: And if it's true that the mainstream is the same, then why I cannot remember my past lives?
Lama Sarahni: Because you have obstacles to remembering your past lives. You could if you didn't have those obstacles.
Luisa: Okay, thank you.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah.
Somebody else had their hand up and then we'll take a break.
Going once, going twice.
Let's take a break, shall we?
(Break 1:05:01)
All right, we're back.
Your own mind is the Buddha.
Go and meet your friend.
says Gyalwang Gunpa.
Meaning, when we understand the empty nature of our own mind, we understand that we can in fact become Buddha.
It's not going to happen all by itself, but it shows us that it is true. That it's not only possible but inevitable.
Given infinite time, and infinite experience, the monkey will eventually type the Bible. This monkey will eventually make enough goodness to force itself to perceive itself as Buddha them and Buddha paradise, emanating.
Infinite is a long time. We don't have to wait. We have enough goodness to be gaining the clues to how the process works that we can start to apply ourselves even before we've seen emptiness directly, and then especially after that.
When we appreciate that we have Buddha nature already, not a little Buddha already inside us, but the potential to create that, we would want to keep our behavior as kind and kind as possible.
And what behavior do we do? Keep our vows.
The vows are the behaviors taught to us by omniscient beings that plant the seeds that will ripen into our Buddha being. Being. That's why we are given vows. That's why we take vows.
So keep your vows. Just try to keep your vows. Track your vows. I'll put a plug in for the phone app. There's a phone app: „Keep my vows“, available to you.
They ask for a donation to Diamond Mountain, but it's so sweet and so simple, right? Right there on your phone. No excuses. I didn't get up early enough to write my book. On your phone. Keep my vows app in the app store.
Thanks, Venerable Sumati sponsored that and one of his students developed it. I'm so grateful to him.
Go and meet your friend means go create your Buddha you, and then there you'll be someday forced by the ripening of your kindness to enjoy yourself as Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating. How fun will that be.
Here's another one of his Dam Ngaks:
The hour of life is passing;
Start down the road to freedom.
Send away the many thoughts of the busy life you lead;
Bring to your side the many thoughts of what will happen later.
Everyone would like to stay, but no one has the power;
Try to think of something that will come and help you later.
It's hard to find a life with opportunity and leisure;
Now for once you have, so try to get the most from it.
It's easy to get used to mistakes;
Post the century of your awareness.
The objects of the senses are good at tripping people up;
Learn to hate those useless things.
Here's the one Geshela wants to talk about:
Nothing but the Dharma means anything at all;
Throw the rest out like trash.
It all boils down to dying;
Pack light, take off now.
Nothing but the dharma means anything at all;
Throw the rest out like trash.
It all boils down to dying;
Pack light, take off now.
If the bus is leaving now and you want to be on the bus, you've got to grab your purse and go. Make sure you've got the minimum necessary, but get on that bus is what he's saying.
But the metaphor, the bus Geshela was talking about is the bus to paradise.
There's no paradise somewhere you have to take a bus to. But the idea is there is a lifestyle, life change that needs to happen in order for us to change the way we plant our seeds sufficiently to make the changes necessary to be creating our future Buddha paradise.
If that were a bus, that bus would be leaving now.
Not two days from now, so that you have enough time to prepare and pack your things and tell your people. It's like now.
What they mean by that is that we don't know when this life's going to end.
We think we have enough time, and our experience seems to be that we have enough time.
But come on, do we know for sure that we have until tomorrow?
We don't, do we?
No. I had the experience in my thirties where I got that phone call. I'm so sorry, but your parents' plane went down. They were there the day before, and then they weren't.
It happened to all of us. We've all lost people. For me in this last year, seven close, reasonably close friends were there and now they're not. It happens.
If we wait, oh, just book me on the bus that comes next week. We don't know for sure we'll be able to get on that bus. It's sobering. It really is sobering to live by way of „I die tonight“ is impactful, truly impactful. And I put a plug for the practice module called „Death and the End of Death“ in which we study those principles of the death meditation and how to use it. But I think Lama Sumati is going to be teaching sometime this spring. Keep an eye out for that if you've not taken it. I really, really encourage you to take it. If you have taken it, I really encourage you to take it again.
It's a powerful, powerful thing to live according to, and that's what the Lojong here, this fellow Dam Ngak is saying.
We are so complacent about thinking we have time that we waste so much of it allowing our selfishness to go on and on. Oh, I'll take care of that mental affliction next. I'm working on this one now, sort of.
If we're really honest with ourselves, we think that we have time.
But he really is meaning get going on your path to enlightenment, get going on, growing your Bodhichitta.
You're not going anywhere. You don't have to get on a bus and go to India to do this. You get on the bus of your own shifting perspective about your priorities in life.
It doesn't even mean, Oh, then I need to give up my job and ditch my family and go live in a Dharma center somewhere. It doesn't even mean that.
Nothing but the Dharma means anything at all, means how can we make everything that we do be the Dharma?
At first when we first gain our renunciation, it is, I'll give up going to the movies and so forth and all that way I waste time and I'm going to study really hard instead.
And that's useful and it's necessary.
But later we learned that everything is the Dharma is coming from our state of mind, because the things themselves are not Dharma and they're not Dharma.
To have a job that you have to go to to make the money, to pay the bills, to feed your family, you can think of that as: I do that and then on my off time I go serve the sick, and I serve my Dharma center, and I translate for my Lama. So I have my Dharma time and I have my lifetime.
But at the Lojong level, it's like no. There's no difference between Dharma time and lifetime. You could actually be doing your work time more dharmically than your Dharma time.
If in your Dharma time you're having mental afflictions about the other Dharma students and blaming them for why you don't get a better project, but at work you're being really careful not to blame anybody for anybody.
So it's what's going on in our own choices of responses and why we make those choices, that makes Dharma or not Dharma.
Here he's saying, don't think that we have time to wait and prepare to make everything I do Dharma. If we understand karma and emptiness, you've been blessed or cursed with the information that we need to apply it all the time, and when we're not, we've missed the bus.
We have everything that we need by the time we've received the teachings up to the ACI 18. Then if you want the fast track there's more teachings for that, but it isn't absolutely necessary. The fast track is just faster, but we use the same principles there. The better we are at living by those principles, the easier the fast track becomes if you go that route.
He's saying: Use our own death as the litmus test because that's what motivates us. If we truly believe that we could die at any moment, then we would be asking ourselves constantly, is this what I want to be doing if it's the last thing I'm going to do?
To be honest with you, this is where I would be, sharing with you.
But it's like how do we really do that 24/7?
It isn't the thing that we're doing, it's the state of mind with which we are doing whatever we're doing that is what we're trying to train ourselves in.
Geshela says a Logoner lives by the line: Is this worth dying for?
Like whatever we're doing, is this what I want? Is this what I want to be doing when I die? It's a tough question.
Mostly, is this the state of mind I want to have as I die? Probably more functional than: Is this what I want to be doing? Because I'm not allowed to leave you with the thought, Oh my gosh, I need to quit my work and ditch my family. Because that's not the proper conclusion, which is why Lojong doesn't come early in the ACI courses.
We need to understand that our ripening situations are our opportunity for our practices. It's the state of mind.
Is this the state of mind about my current situation that I want to die with?
No. I want to be more loving. I want to be more compassionate. I want to be more understanding. I want to be more...
And then that's even the wrong thought, because that judging myself or not being good enough, it's like what state of mind do I want in this last hour?
I want to be loved, right?
Did you see, everybody saw all those posts about Thích Nhất Hạnh having just passed, right? And oh my gosh, it was beautiful to read all of that. Inspiring and it's sad for the world but not sad for him, right?
That's not beyond our capacity. It really isn't.
Why do I say that? Because we have the goodness to have heard of him, or known of him, or read his teachings, or taken teachings from him, had that opportunity.
Those are coming out of our own seeds, and yet we don't have the seeds to sustain it forever. He is gone now, but his teachings are still available. Extraordinary.
The next set of his Dam Ngaks are called The six keys.
Here are the six keys:
Put your death in your heart;
This is the key for checking
whether your practice is tuned too tight or too loose.
Think of the viper's nest of the problems of this life;
This is the key for stopping
attachment at the bottom of your heart.
Let every thought be of what others need;
This is the key for making
Everything you ever do the Dharma.
That just answered that question from before.
Don't think of anything but your Lama;
This is the key for turning
Your mind and theirs into one.
See the world and people as Angels;
This is the key for stopping
The idea that life is ordinary.
Whatever comes, make it crystal;
This is the key for making
This life turn to freedom all by itself.
We can see there's this recurring theme in many of his Lojongs about being so keen about our death, that it is coming. Four minutes from now or maybe 40 years, but we don't know, do we?
But in this:
Put your death in your heart;
This is the key for checking
Whether your practice is tuned too tight or too loose.
We can have our practice be tuned too tight and then the string breaks.
You remember the analogy of Buddha before he’s Buddha. He hears the instruction going on in the boat as it goes down the river, and the teacher is saying, now tune your string just right. If it's too tight, your string will break. If it's too loose, you can't make music. It has to be just right.
Same for our practice level.
And what's just right is unique to each of us. It's up to us to be, Am I getting neurotic and too overstressed about my practice?—in which case the string is going to break. Or am I too loose and sloppy?—in which case I'm going to lose interest and fall off. Either way too tight, too loose, we're going to break, and we won't be sustaining our seeds to stay on the path.
So for each of us, we're instructed to be checking, to be checking our level of effort without getting complacent, without getting too demanding on ourselves.
It takes huge, huge effort to transform Sansara being into paradise being.
Stevie: It's interesting this particular line of this piece of advice. I saw that death in your heart as being sort of the measure that if you can remember that, that death is inevitable but you can't predict it when it's going to happen. If that's in your heart, in the back of your mind all the time, then your probably practice is pretty balanced. That's how I saw that. I dunno. Yeah.
Lama Sarahni: That's the goal, is to have it balanced. Certainly.
Think of the viper's nest of the problems of this life;
This is the key to stopping
Attachment from the bottom of your heart.
The problems of this life, clearly when we lose jobs, when friends die, when we get sick, when we don't feel good, those are pretty obvious viper nest problems, and we don't want to perpetuate them.
Good things wear out, or even the happiness that comes and goes, whether good things wear out or not, that too is in the viper's nest of Sansara.
We have a tendency to only apply ourselves to karma and emptiness when bad things are happening. But then we're missing the opportunity of applying ourselves when pleasant things are happening so that we can make more pleasant things to happen. We have this one-sided approach to stopping Sansara.
We are going to lose everything—good and bad—at death.
Everything that we know, have experienced, every detail of our own experience and world goes with us. It dies with us. The only thing that goes on is that karmic stream, movement of the mind and what it motivates.
We've learned before the power of „Only the Dharma can help us at death“, meaning the Dharma has taught us how to plant our seeds such that any one of those seeds that ripens at the moment of death will put us in the perfect place for continuing our creation of Buddha paradise. Only the Dharma teaches us that.
This is saying, all those worldly goals, reassess them as goals. Set your goals as planting the seeds that will close the door to lesser rebirth.
Planting the seeds that will bring you the freedom from all suffering.
Planting the seeds that will bring you to your Buddhahood—whether it's before this death of this body, this life or after. It doesn't really matter.
The seeds planted will continue on in that way.
It requires different behaviors and that requires different decisions about behaviors.
So he's saying, recognize that there's nothing in Sansaric world that will bring us the satisfaction and happiness that we're looking for.
It doesn't mean reject all those things. It means understand where they really come from and create them differently.
Won't happen in a moment, but it will happen.
How do we do it?
He says,
Let every thought be of what other people need;
This is the key for making
Everything you ever do the Dharma.
So we heard that earlier Dam Ngak
Throw everything else out as trash, only do Dharma.
How do we only do Dharma?
It's the state of mind.
What state of mind? Here it is: Everything I do is for others' benefit.
Everything I do is to get me to total enlightenment so that I can really help others in that deep and ultimate way.
Everything with Bodhichitta, everything as Bodhichitta to make Bodhichitta. Throw in your Bodhichitta and however you relate to it.
With that state of mind: I'm doing everything for everybody's benefit, worldly and ultimate. Then, with that state of mind, go to the movies, go to work, mow the lawn, do the dishes, change your baby's diapers with that state of mind. Everything you do, it causes for Buddha paradise for everybody.
That shouldn't be so hard. Except…
Number 4:
Don't think of anything but your Lama;
This is the key to turning
Your mind and theirs into one.
But wait a minute, we just were told: In your mind, I'm doing this for the benefit of everybody. And now we're supposed to have not think of anything but my Lama. How do I do both of those?
One at a time, at first.
Then sooner or later we'll see that there's actually no contradiction there.
To be doing everything for the benefit of others and to be thinking of nothing but your Lama? You're doing it, to figure out how is that? How does that work?
They tell us that everybody has a root Lama, like a guardian angel in the Christian tradition, although it's not quite the same idea.
But unique to you. There is this your precious holy Lama and that Lama has all of these characteristics of a totally enlightened being, only they're appearing to you as human being.
Maybe your cat, maybe the tree in your backyard, but more likely a human being, and wow, our job, not our job, our heart sees them, relates to them as this incredible perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom being.
The more we admire them, think of them, be devoted to them, live to help them, to please them, the more we become like them.
They say turning our mind and theirs into one.
We have to figure out what they mean by that. We've already learned our mindstream, their mindstream are unique mindstreams. They're not going to take us over. We're not going to lose the mindstream.
How is it that Lama’s mind and our mind become one?
It doesn't say like one, or like one another.
How is it they become one?
I'll just give a clue: I think it has something to do with the state of omniscience.
Not that all omniscient minds are one, but something about that awareness.
Luisa, you have something?
Luisa: Just something that I have never understood with the heart Lama and root Lama, because I understood always your heart Lama is you have to go through this checking your Lama and the one who is going to teach you, and then you just say, it could be your cat or it could be, I don't know, my daughter and I get confused. Okay, how is she going to teach me the path? How's my kid or is my cat?
Lama Sarahni: Right. That's a really long class in and of itself, so I think for interest of time, I'm going to have to say, good questions, cook it.
There's a way of thinking those qualities: they have to know the scripture. That means they have to be trained in the scripture. That means they have to be ACI nutcases, and if they aren't, they can't be my Lama. But, does the knowledge of the scripture have to look the way we are imposing on it? Can we say, my cat knows the Dharma? My cat is a being who knows the Dharma perfectly, appearing to me as a cat, because the best I can do.
Good question.
Number 5:
See the world and people in it as Angels;
This is the key for stopping
The idea that life is an ordinary thing.
One way to use these six keys is, each phrase says this is the key to blah.
So it's like, okay, I want to create more seeds for blah.
How do I do it?
Here, I'm going to work on this behavior for a little while.
The key to turning, to making my mind be as loving, as compassionate, as wisdom as my Lama's mind, I'm going to think of nothing but them.
Oh, there's the tree—my Lama.
There's the car—my Lama.
There's somebody yelling at me—my Lama.
I'm just going to work on that one for a while.
You could assign yourself, I'm going to work on this key for a week, and that key for a week, and this key for a week, and not try to do them all, because to try to do them all will get crazy and not do any of them very well.
The key to not seeing life as ordinary is to see the world and the people in it as angels. I think we talked about this before.
Is this saying, Oh, everybody is really an angel and I'm the only one that's really not?
No. It's saying, if it's true that me and every being are lacking self existence, then I do see them as not angels, but I don't really know, do I?
Because they're empty, they could be angels. And if they're angels, by definition, they are perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, and they are coming to me to help me in a way that I can benefit right now.
Yeah, but they just stepped on my toe.
Right. Thank you, angel.
Yeah, but they're beating me up for the 15th time.
Thank angel?
No, maybe it's for the 15th time, because the first 14, you didn't run away and keep them from beating you. Right?
We still have to apply our understanding of karma and emptiness even as we interact with angels. But when we interact with angels instead of ordinary beings, the same deed done plants a different seed.
You give flowers to your aunt, I mean your mother's sister aunt, it plants seeds in your mind. She likes flowers. Your intention was for her to like flowers, right? You plant good seeds.
You give the same flowers to this holiness the Dalai Lama, because you admire his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Same deed plants seeds differently, more powerful karmic object.
You see Aunt Mary as, Oh, because she's empty, she could be Buddha Aunt Mary, and I'm offering her flowers. The same flowers plant seeds in your mind for a different ripening than just your Aunt Mary.
What seeds? The seeds will change from seeing your world as ordinary to seeing your world as extraordinary, as Buddha paradise eventually—a place where every being in it is fully enlightened being.
That isn't going to come randomly. It isn't a place that's there all by itself.
We create it.
How do we create it?
By interacting with the empty beings around us as if they are already enlightened beings. Not because they're already enlightened, but as if they are.
The more we do it, the more we'll actually see them that way, and you will be one of them. It includes you.
You can't be an ordinary being in a paradise world. You have to be an extraordinary being in a paradise world, because that's where the paradise world is coming from, is you.
Things are not normal. Things are empty, and that's important. Because we think, Oh, things are not normal. It means really they're all Buddhas.
No. Really they're all blank. They're all empty. They're all void. They're all available to be whatever our seeds put on them.
How cool is that?
Number 6:
Whatever comes make it crystal;
This is the key for making
this life turn to freedom, all by itself.
Geshela especially wanted to talk about this one, because it's the kind of verse that can get out to not well-trained people, who then misunderstand it and think, Oh, I just pretend that everything is clear, and then Nirvana, Buddhahood is just going to show up. I don't have to do anything but pretend that this pen is clear as crystal.
It shouldn't make sense, really, but it could be misunderstood.
Life doesn't change all by itself.
To see things as crystal means to understand the true nature of everything and everybody, it‘s that clear, empty, lacking identity in it.
To see things as crystal is like the reaching into the pocket and finding no key.
To reaching into the pen and finding no pen in it, reaching into the yelling boss and finding no nasty yelling boss in them.
It seems ridiculous. It requires applying our understanding again and again until it becomes automatic.
By understanding that emptiness of everything, everybody, including ourselves, is that enough for everything to become nirvana or Buddha paradise?
No, it won't automatically change things.
What it changes is our choice of behaviors.
When we understand the blank nature of things, we also understand their appearing nature is then a result of something. The result being our own behavior, which means our behavior creates our future.
So to understand things, be able to relate to things as crystal as empty, we stop planting our karmic seeds with ignorance, which leads to selfishness, and we are planting our seeds with wisdom, which leads to more and more kindness, greater compassion, greater love.
Those seeds get planted, but they don't ripen right away. But when they do start ripening, it seems like, Wow, my world is just getting better and better.
It does seem like it happens all by itself.
It didn't happen all by itself. It's just finally ripening.
When it starts to ripen, when all those goodness start to ripen, it'll be like whoom, whoom, whoom…not that all the bad is necessarily gone, but our response to the ones that aren't quite so beautiful will be so automatically kindnesses, that it'll empath and the goodness just keeps going.
It may look to other people like it's happened all by itself, but they didn't know you've been at overcoming your selfishness for the last three countless eons, and now it's all coming to ahead, so to speak, in this lifetime.
They may even say, you haven't even made that much effort in this lifetime for some people. It's like, maybe not, but they did the work before.
If we're not seeing it in our own life yet, it just means we either haven't done the work, or we have and the seeds haven't ripened yet.
If we're here inspired by a class like this, we have a lot of those good seeds or we wouldn't be here. So do some big rejoicing practice, I'm studying lojong and I'm not running away. It kind of makes sense and I'm going to try it on for size.
Those are great seeds. You could be thinking like you're on the verge of that volcano of goodness starting to come through.
Geshe Michael uses that analogy of the target and the arrow. The arrow's been shot and the target is like, I can't see it quite. You're like right there and it just has to get through the target and you're at Buddha paradise.
He's been saying this for 30 years. We're right there.
But what's 30 years compared to eons? We are all at that target. We really, really are. So be happy about yourself.
Each of these Dam Ngaks in this chapter, this class, they're tied together with, „He also said“. You'll see when you read it.
There are these little snippets of teachings that happened around the table, and then finally they get written down.
They just say, „and he also said“.
He also said this one that's called the five verses about the five poisons.
I'm going to stop here because I want to do that in its own class. It won't take the whole class, but I don't want to rush it because it's such a beautiful teaching about the five poisons, and when we apply the antidote to the five poisons, what we get from that.
Sevonne, we were doing the Dam Ngak thing around the kitchen table, and we had this question, I can't remember the question, but this is the answer.
This is the teaching I was looking for, and I sent Sumati into Master Shantideva and he found something else. This is the one, so if you can remember the question, I'd be grateful to hear it. But this is the answer to whatever it was from that.
So we'll study it next class.
Again, you won't be able to complete your class 3, but please do as much of it as you can. I think it's just one question is the five wisdoms.
I just love that teaching so much. It's so juicy that we'll do it next.
We‘ll do it Thursday. Okay?
Sevonne: I remember what it was. I think I asked what's the antidote for pride?
Lama Sarahni: Okay, we'll get there. Thank you. Exactly. Yeah.
Let's do our dedication.
Flavia: My mom asked me that two days ago.
Lama Sarahni: Yay. Tell your mom you'll answer her next week, over the weekend. Great.
[Usual closing]
Thank you so much.
27 January 2022
Link to Eng audio: Eng audio ACI 14 - Class 5
Alright, for the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 14, still working on class 3, is that right? And we're going into class 4, homework Class 4 on tonight, but won't finish class 4.
Let's gather our minds here please, as we usually do, bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
[Usual opening]
I think I've mentioned that we've been working on the plans for a Thousand Angels of Bliss group retreat in Guatemala in June. And we have our formal announcement ready to go out and with it is also a formal announcement of a project that a group of Sumati and my students have developed to offer a peace pole to Diamond Mountain in the name of Seeds of World Peace.
It's a wooden engraved pillar that has „May peace prevail on earth“ in 16 different languages. I don't want to just send that announcement out to my course 14 students because I don't want you to feel I'm taking advantage of you.
But if you would like to see that announcement, whether you act on it or not is fine, would you please just dash off an email to me to say please send it, and we‘ll send it off to you. Okay? And then whoever hears this on the audio, you're welcome to do the same.
(9:10)
We are still studying from Gyalwa Yang Gunpa, and these teachings that he would give, not even formal teachings, but hanging out with his students, a topic would come up and little of these succinct little snippets of wisdom would come out of his mouth. Fortunately at some point his students wrote them down and shared them with their students who shared them with their students, who shared them with their students, and they come down to us.
We've studied a couple of the different ones and I left off where they said, And he also said…, and he gave us this teaching called the Five Verses about the Five Poisons.
Usually we hear three poisons: ignorant liking, ignorant disliking and ignorant itself. But there are five poisons, actually.
Then, when we were studying Master Shantideva, he broke it down further and I think we ended up with 10 poisons and maybe even broke it down further to 20 main mental afflictions.
When you just keep digging into them, somehow we end up with 84,000 mental afflictions. Fortunately not 84,001, 84,000, which I hope that's literal.
The five poisons, Gyalwa Yang Gunpa gave this set of verses, five verses that I find so beautiful.
He said to them,
If you want to have every happiness,
You must use the antidotes that keep you
From liking things ignorantly.
If you want to free yourself from all pain,
You must use the antidotes that keep you
From disliking things ignorantly.
If you want to reach matchless enlightenment,
You must use the antidotes that keep you
From being ignorant.
If you want to stand independent on your own,
You must use the antidotes that keep you from
Feeling any pride.
If you want to stop all obstacles,
you must use the antidotes that keep you from
Feeling jealousy.
This teaching is really, really rich, and I'm sorry I've only got like a half an hour to share it with you, if that much.
Let me show you the Tibetan just for the blessing of the seeds.
The five poisons are
DUCHAK - ignorant liking
SHEDANG - ignorant disliking
TIMUK - ignorance
NGA GYEL - pride
TRAKDOK - jealousy
Then the result of applying their antidote.
DEWA TAMCHE
DEWA = all happiness
Get rid of ignorant liking (DUCHAK) and what you reach is all happiness.
DUKGNEL DANG DRELWA
The result is freedom from suffering.
You get rid of your ignorant dislike (SHEDANG) and you get rid of all suffering.
JANGCHUB TOPPA = reaching Buddhahood
Get rid of your ignorance (TIMUK) and the result is reaching Buddhahood.
RANG TUNBA = stand independent on your own
You overcome your pride (NGA GYEL) and the result is RANG TUNBA.
That should raise a lot of questions.
What? I become a self-standing thing? No such thing.
GEK TAMCHE SELWA = stop all obstacles
Overcome our jealousy (TRAKDOK) means clear out all of our GEKs.
GEKs are obstacles.
We're going to talk about it. What's the connection?
Why does being jealous create obstacles of any kind?
Why does pride make us so dependent on others?
Why does ignorance keep us from being Buddhas? Duh.
Why does ignorant dislike keep us suffering?
Why does ignorant liking keep us from happiness?
Some seem pretty obvious, but we could dig into these very deeply and gain a lot of wisdom about choosing our behaviors.
Remember, all of the Lojongs are about growing our Bodhichitta, our Bodhichitta: I want to reach total enlightenment so that I can help beings in that deep and ultimate way.
All of these are about growing the wisdom that brings us to that state of being perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
If we perceive ourselves as ordinary humans in an ordinary human world, we have these five mental poisons, grossly or subtly or both.
Those poisons, classically we would say they are riding on our winds. And because we have poisons riding on our winds, the winds are poisoned. And poisoned winds don't go where they're supposed to go—not meaning they have their own idea of where they go. But they don't work right. Just like if we get poisoned by something, we get sick. Winds that move, that are the poisons, we can't get our mind to go where we want it to go, because it's riding on the poisoned wind.
The winds are moving, we're having jealousy. We can't take that jealousy riding on winds and redirect it without having some kind of power over the wind.
Yet it's like a vicious cycle.
If my winds are broken and my mind's going with my broken winds, how do I ever stop the cycle?
Fortunately, we can stop the cycle, but as long as we have those poisons flowing within us, we are sick and we need to find the antidotes. We need to find the prescription to help resolve the poison.
In many scriptures they say the Buddha is the ultimate physician and the dharma is the prescription, and the Sangha are the nurses that help us get the prescription and how to take the prescription and how to live by the prescription.
It comes out of this analogy of these five main mental afflictions being like a sickness that's inside us.
Gyalwa Yang Gunpa, I don't know to what extent he sat down with his students and explained what he's talking about. But it's our job to think, What does he really mean? If you want every kind of happiness, you must use the antidotes that keep you from liking things ignorantly.
We need to know what is it to like something ignorantly, and then what's the antidote to liking things ignorantly, so that we can plant the seeds for the result, which is that all happiness.
What do they mean by all happiness, really?
We could talk for hours on just this one.
We'll just go into it a little bit and then maybe someday you'll dig into it deeper.
When they say DUCHAK, it's not just liking things, that is the poison. It's ignorant liking things.
Ignorant liking things can mean a lot of different parts of how we like things.
But at the deepest level it means being willing to do something that is grossly or subtly unkind to another to get the thing that we want.
The thing that we want is the thing we expect to bring us some happiness, and we're willing to do something to get that. If that's something that we're willing to do is in any way harmful or unkind to another, then our liking of that object is said to be an ignorant liking. Because the seed that's planted is a seed that will grow into being harmed by someone to get what they want, which is not happiness. Not that they want happiness, but it's not happiness for us.
So the very liking things is driven by our wanting to be happy, because we think the chocolate cake is going to bring us that happiness. So, to what extent do we be unkind to be able to enjoy that chocolate cake?
Most of us would say, Not to any extent. Who cares so much about chocolate cake?
But find something that you want badly enough that even society says, oh, it's okay to tell that little white lie, that doesn't hurt anybody, in order to get that thing. And then we justify that little white lie, and we probably actually get the thing.
But what we also get is the seeds to be lied to and not trusted, and not listened to, and not believe. Is that going to contribute to your happiness later? No.
So even if we got a little bit of happiness it seemed from getting the thing from telling the white lie, that itself is not correct. The happiness that we thought we got is going to end—in which case that's not the kind of happiness we're talking about becoming the result of the antidote of ignorant disliking.
What kind of happiness is going to come about when we antidote our ignorant disliking?
Let's go back. When we are being happy, we're liking, we're enjoying what's going on.
Can we agree to that? Like I'm happy right now because it's sunshiny and warm. I like the sun and so it feels good, and so I'm happy right now and there's nothing wrong with that, being happy. There's nothing wrong with being happy. There's nothing wrong with liking things.
What's broken in the cycle is believing that the happiness I feel in that moment is because I'm sitting out in the sun on a warm day. I wouldn't be happy sitting outside in the rain on a cold day.
But really, the happiness is not coming from either the sunshine or the unhappiness from the rain.
The happiness or unhappiness is a ripening result of how I've behaved towards an other in the past.
To reach that all happiness that this is talking about is not meaning, Oh, you'll live in a place where there's always sunshine and it never rains.
It means your state of mind will be happy, regardless of what you're experiencing.
When they say to have pleasure that doesn't wear out, or Geshela says you'll have chocolate cake that doesn't wear out, it doesn't mean that all you'll ever eat again is chocolate cake. It means the pleasure doesn't wear out even though the chocolate cake does.
The pleasure is unrelated to the event happening and you're using the pleasure that's unrelated to the event happening to try to help other people get some worldly pleasure that does seem to be related to what they're doing, feeling, experiencing at the moment—but in such a way to try to influence them to recognize that in fact their happiness doesn't really come from that. It comes from just trying to help other people have a little bit of pleasure.
If in the effort to get a little bit of pleasure, we're willing to cause a little bit of displeasure to somebody, we're not ever going to get that pleasure that we were hoping for, even if it looked like we did.
Antidoting the ignorant liking doesn't mean stop liking. It means overcome the belief that what I'm doing now and my state of mind have to be related—as opposed to my state of happiness or not is related to my seeds ripening and nothing but, in which case I want to plant happy seeds as much as I can.
We have a diamond sister who is into education, kids education, and she has a whole curriculum based on making happy seeds. She teaches kids to read and write an arithmetic based on gathering happy seeds, doing a book. She teaches kids to do book from kindergarten. It's extraordinary, right? It can be done.
Antidoting ignorant liking, how do we actually do it?
Gyalwa Yang Gunpa, he doesn't tell us. We really do have to come to understand emptiness and dependent origination well enough, but we start out with growing our mindfulness and being aware of how our happiness.. We believe our happiness in this moment is related to what's going on in that moment and repeatedly show ourselves by logic, by meditation, repeated review: Is it true that my happiness now is related to what's going on?
There's so many different ways to apply ourselves to that.
Mostly would be: Am I equally happy every time the same situation comes up?
Of course we can easily say no. We are never the same two moments in a row. The same circumstance doesn't bring the same amount of happiness.
I love the fact that at least in English, the word ‚happy‘ or ‚happiness‘ is so close to the word ‚happening‘. Is that just coincidence?
Is that the same in your language, happy and happiness and happening?
I don't know language, so I don't know, but I think it's significant.
Getting happiness, being happy, let's put it that way. Not getting happiness.
Being happy is the result of refusing to be unkind to get what we want. Just refusing. It sounds so easy, but try, right? We'll have a line. We'll step over the line, we'll go, oh, nuts, I stepped over my line. I'll do it again.
It's a practice. But it can be so clear. Really, it can.
SHEDANG means ignorant disliking things.
A lot of times they say this mental affliction is anger, and we could so easily say, Well, I don't have that one. I almost never get angry.
Do we get frustrated? Do we get irritated? Oh yeah, yeah, but that's not anger, so I don't have this one.
Geshe Michael says, You're just missing the boat, if you call SHEDANG anger, it's ignorant, disliking.
Do we have ignorant disliking? Ignorant disliking is when we want to stop or avoid something unpleasant and we're willing to be grossly or subtly unkind to get that situation to stop or to avoid it altogether.
Now, do we have that one? I know I still do, even after working on it for 30 years, it's still in there.
It's human nature, ignorant human nature. We're hardwired to protect ourselves from danger and it includes fight or flight. Runaway would probably be the wiser of the two, but it's just as likely that we'll want to fight, whether it's physically fight or verbally fight or just mentally fight against the other or the situation.
At any level, it's still replanting ignorant dislike at that level. So it's a big job to work with our ignorant dislike.
Does it mean that we don't dislike anything? No, Buddhas dislike the fact that we see ourselves suffering when they see that it's so darn unnecessary.
We should dislike the fact that there are people suffering. There's hunger, that there's covid restrictions. We should dislike all of that stuff. But the extent to which we're willing to hurt somebody to avoid it ourselves or even get it to stop for someone else is the extent to which our hard wiring—meaning our ignorance is taking over. It doesn't mean we say, okay, then those bad things happen to other people. That's their karma. I don't do anything. Because that's a kind of harming, isn't it?
When we know that there's something we could do, even if your default is Tonglen.
I physically can't do anything in this moment for that situation, but I can Tonglen.
When we antidote our ignorant disliking, what we've antidoted is our willingness to be unkind, hurtful, harmful, to avoid something unpleasant.
It ties into Bodhisattva work on not getting angry level, because that patient's practice includes at some point the even willingness to take on unpleasant situations in order to make progress.
As our seeds shift, our perception of the situation loses its unpleasantness. It's still unpleasant, but our perception of it is not something to avoid, but rather something to use in order to plant our seeds newly.
Like, Oh gosh, here I am with the yelling boss again. I'm right back in that big weedy garden. I thought I had it all weeded out, but dug on it. There it is again. Right?
Let's use it again, maybe in a more subtle way even at this point.
When we stop reacting in unkind ways to avoid things we don't want, the result of that is freedom from all pain, freedom from all pain. Stop disliking things ignorantly and nothing can hurt you anymore.
It's interesting though, are they saying you could never break your leg again?
Are they saying it wouldn't hurt to break your leg, like it wouldn't have pain to break your leg?
Would that be a good thing? If you didn't have pain when you broke your leg, how would you know you broke your leg? You'd just keep walking on it and maybe it would heal up all twisted, and then you'd have this twisted leg.
What we call pain isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it's good that it hurts to put your hand on a hot pot because it makes you go back.
Keep thinking these things through so that we can catch the more and more subtle aspects of the work that we do, the practice that we do to bring on this state of freedom from all pain. What do we really mean by that?
When we talk about the number twos, and we use the word ignorance, they're pretty quick to say, At this level, ignorance means not believing in past and future lifetimes because that means you don't really believe that your actions bring consequences. It also means that you don't actually believe that you could ever become Buddha.
It really doesn't go into the level of ignorance that means we're perceiving everything and everybody as having their identity inside them. Which is really what ignorance means.
Here, the ignorance is verging on the more ultimate meaning of ignorance, of not understanding the way our world really works. This is the ignorance they're talking about here. It would include not believing in past and future lives, but it's way deeper than that here. Here it means still believing that things have their identities in them. The pen, the chair, my glasses, my computer, my husband, my yelling boss, the beautiful weather, everything is the way it is from worldly causes, from their parts, not holding all of those aspects of every moment of experiences being ripening results of my own deeds.
So here we are talking about the ignorance that is the cause of all suffering, misunderstanding where things come from, which then allows us to perpetuate our misunderstanding of what we do to get what we want and avoid what we don't want.
Geshela‘s example was, you're in that situation where the guy at work is screwing you and your mind‘s saying, Oh, he's doing all these kinds of ways to cause me trouble. The guy's not screwing you. Your karma is screwing you, and it looks like the guide doing that at work.
It's really such a simple way that you use that every time you're thinking, „They're doing that to me.“—stop and say, No, my karma is doing that to me and it looks like this situation.
Why? Because I did that to somebody before and man, do I regret it because this is exquisitely uncomfortable. I refuse to do it to somebody else. I promise that I refuse to do it to somebody else. But then be careful because five years, 10 years, two days, three hours later, you're in some situation with somebody else, are you doing it to somebody else in some subtle way. Maybe not, but maybe so.
The practice at this level is to kick up our mindfulness of the awareness of blaming other things and other people, even our feelings and our emotions on anything other than our own karma's ripening, our own past behavior.
We do it all the time. Every time you walk through the refrigerator to get out an apple, you've blamed the refrigerator and the apple for being there.
We don't say, Oh, my caramel ripening refrigerator, maybe there'll be an apple inside. Maybe there won't.
We don't live in that space, most of us. Maybe you do, I hope that you do.
But we can impose it. We can try to remind ourselves.
Every time we do, we plant incredibly powerful seeds because it's so different than our automatic seeds that are going by constantly.
Our own witnesser will take notice when we force ourselves to remember, Oh, this is karma ripening right now and nothing but. And so it's real. Add that so that we don't flop over in off that cliff of saying, Oh, it's nothing but my karma. So it isn't real. So it doesn't matter.
It won't come out as words in your mind, but there'll be some part of us that says, Oh, if it's just a projection, it isn't real. The other piece, we're trying to make sure that we don't plant the wrong conclusion in working with our ignorance, antidoting our ignorance.
Blaming is a hard word. I don't blame the sun for shining. But yeah, we do. If we're thinking there's something about the sun that's shining, that's not my karma ripening, we are blaming the sun.
I find it useful actually to use that word, because it catches my attention.
Geshela shared, there's apparently a Sutra where Buddha paraphrased says, What do you think the hell realms were made by Acme Construction Company and some brilliant construction overlord designs it, and buys the materials and directs his workers to build the ovens and the walls? And it's like, No, that's not where hell comes from.
He doesn't say it, but we could say the same, Where do you think Buddha Paradise comes from? Acme Buddha Paradise Construction Company?
No, it comes from our own mind seeds ripening. Which is why both are possible and why it's so dangerous to die, and why dying is also an opportunity if we're trained well enough to use it, which is extraordinarily difficult to be that well trained.
What happens when we get over the poison of blaming everything and everybody for having their identities in them?
That's what it is to be Buddha, perceiving emptiness and dependent origination simultaneously. Get over our ignorance and we reach Buddhahood.
How do we get over our ignorance? We have to do all these other things too. Of course.
Then he says, this is all in the same „Then he says“: NGA GYEL, the fourth poison.
NGA GYEL is a fascinating and interesting word. It means „me king“, me king.
In the old days when there were kings, the kings owned everything and everybody. They were the most important being in their kingdom, in kingship, and nobody had authority over them.
And I dunno, that would be a dangerous situation I would think.
But the same word NGA GYEL is used in the secret teachings for your divine pride. Your divine pride, your pride of being perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom is the antithesis of the selfish king.
It's the king who is so in love with their kingdom that they personally provide for everybody's happiness. Only the king could do that. So the king can be incredibly selfish or the king could be the ultimate love for his kingdom—that king's Buddha. To really be that kind of king, you have to be seeing emptiness and dependent origination simultaneously—and that's what it is to be omniscient.
How do we get to become omniscient, and perfect love, and perfect compassion?
By antidoting our blaming others for their identities in them.
Doesn't sound so hard, when you put it that way.
You reach Buddhahood.
GNA GYEL however, oh this pride, ignorant pride, is the state of mind that thinks so highly of itself and its own needs that it disrespects others and their needs in favor of your own. So it's a pride that disrespects others. There is also a pride that is a good pride in the sense that when you've had a great meditation, you can come out of that meditation and think to yourself, Wow, I'm really proud of myself now and went really well. I must've done some goodness at some point that I got a good meditation or I really did do some Lojonging today. I'm proud of myself. We should be proud of ourself.
You might reword it and you might say, Oh, I'm going to rejoice in what I did. Because using that pride to grow a virtue would be, I'm really happy that I did that. But it is a kind of pride and it's a good pride, because it was motivated to bring an end to suffering your own and others as well.
But when our pride is a state of mind that allows us to ignore others, or flat out disrespect them, that's a kind of pride that perpetuates our need to protect ourselves, our need to establish that we're valuable because we haven't honored the value of others. Those seeds come back as not being able to get what we need—not being able to have the self-confidence to apply ourselves to something and be successful. The opposite of pride here, it isn't exactly humility. It's more like with that great confidence honoring admiring other people, recognizing that other beings are in fact teaching you something as you go through your day. The antidote, the wrong pride, one of the methods is: Everybody's teaching me something—that attitude. Because it opens us up to the value of that interaction with that person, or that lie, or that scroungy dog.
What would that really look like? We'd have to cook that a little bit. Yeah, I can be more respectful to the checkout clerk in the grocery store. I can look her in the eye. I can thank her and admire her instead of ignoring her. I can do that with the bus driver. I can do it with other drivers going by, but can I do it with the fly? Hello, fly. What do you have to teach me? It seems weird, but every experience is an opportunity to perceive our relationship with it in this more respectful, honoring kind of way.
Doesn't mean self-deprecating, but it means receptive to others having something to share, as opposed to I'm a Dharma practitioner, they're not. Which is easy to get into, actually.
The karmic result of this heartfelt constant respect and valuing others is this thing called RANG TUNBA. It means totally independent.
I find this one so interesting, because somebody with strong ignorant pride would think themselves totally independent, wouldn't they? I mean, it's like „Me king. I don't need anybody else. I've got what I need.“ And it's a wrong pride.
Yet you overcome wrong pride and you become one who is totally self-sufficient, not meaning self existent.
But meaning you know what you need.
You know what to do to get your needs met.
You know how to behave where the wisdom comes from.
You don't even need teachers anymore.
You don't need to practice anymore.
You're full on it, exactly what the wrong pride thinks it is already, but because of it disrespects other people, Oh, then my needs are more important than yours.
You aren't that until you have this really, really high respect for others where your pride means you respect other in such a high way that your needs are all met.
It's so beautiful.
This teaching is saying: Force yourself to be on the receiving end of teachings by everything and everybody to overcome Pride.
Master Shantideva said, if pride is one of your main mental afflictions, force yourself into the service of others.
It might be like steps right along working with pride, because something a prideful person doesn't want to do is be the one who cleans the toilet, or be the one who serves the coffee, or be the one that's last in line on donut day.
They want to step right in because their needs are going to get met, because they always do.
To force ourselves into the service of others is the first step at overcoming wrong pride.
But then further garner this attitude: Everybody's teaching me something, everyone has something to teach me. Let's put it that way.
Everyone has something to teach me, because then we're going to respect them. You see, it's respect here. It's the clue.
The fifth poison is TRAKDOK, jealousy.
Jealousy, the state of mind that's unhappy when it sees others getting something they want, whether it's getting something they personally want or getting something you, the jealous person wants. It doesn't matter.
It's when you see somebody getting something, having some experience and your state of mind is to go, <Lama Sarahni making grumpy sounds>.
Whereas a Bodhisattva has pledged, I'm going to be the happiness producer for everybody. I want everybody to have all happiness, worldly and ultimate. And then you see somebody with some happiness and something in your heart goes Yick.
It's like, Oh man. Antithesis of our pledge as a Bodhisattva. Now, just doing that doesn't mean you broke your vows, but we want to be watching our own state of mind.
Full out jealousy means that other person is closer to my friend, so I can't get close to my friend, and so I don't like that other person, and so I'm going to do something to just get in the way of the friend and my friend so that… I'll just get in the way.
Maybe in the process I'll say some little nasty thing about that other friend to my friend. So maybe my friend won't like them as much.
It's like, we don't do that stuff, do we?
Everybody says, no. I don't think we do.
But subtly, how are we still seeing somebody get something or be successful, more successful than me, and my heart doesn't go, Wow, yay. That's a form of jealousy to just even not go, „Yay“ for them is a little bit of jealousy.
When we overcome jealousy and don't have it anymore, the result, says Gyalwa Yang Drunpa, is freedom from all obstacles. Freedom from all obstacles. Obstacles are when we're trying to accomplish something and just something else keeps getting in the way.
You just can't get it done.
Many of you have been on this journey with us of remodeling this house. It started in July and still isn't done. It's like, Puh.
To be honest with you, until I reread these notes, it was like, why is this taking so long? How come there's so many obstacles? And it's like because of jealousy?
Who would've put that together?
Jealousy is making it so they can't get the paint that we need to paint the interior.
Jealousy is what's making my other obstacles. There have been a bunch of them.
And it's like jealousy? I'm not jealous.
Oh yeah? I guess I was and I guess I am.
It's eye opening to see how subtle jealousy can be.
If we're starting to recognize it by way of having obstacles to achieving stuff, well then we must have it a lot.
Every traffic jam, if you're in a hurry, if you're not enjoying your traffic jam that‘s blocking you from getting to an appointment. It's a jealousy obstacle.
I could go on for a long time.
I used to think my jealousy was not jealousy when we used to drive around town a lot and you'd see somebody in a really, really expensive car. Instead of just going, wow, what a beautiful car, I hope it makes 'em really happy, my mind would go, Why in the world would you spend so much money on a car?
I always think I was being pragmatic, but really it's a kind of jealousy.
It's a criticism, a mental criticism. I wasn't happy for them having some kind of happiness, and I came up with a reason to justify why I should judge them like that. That's just so much money. You could have used that money to, I don't know…
Who am I to say? Maybe somebody gave them that car.
But that kind of subtle thing. It doesn't even come up as jealousy, but these judgments that we then send a little blast of some kind of ugliness their way that comes back to us as things getting in our way of our successes.
Stevie: So when you're working on that, when you're working on let's say I am a jealous person, and I want to work on this and I believe this, I believe that the antidote is to be happy for them. Do you fake it till you make it sort of thing?
Lama Sarahni: Absolutely.
Stevie: Though you're not, even if you're not really, maybe you're just not in touch with being happy for them, but you are going to say it out loud even though it doesn't feel sincere.
Lama Sarahni: My suggestion would be to say, Me seeing them have that happiness is coming from me. I'm giving them that success. So yeah, I'm not feeling happy about it, but I'm going to be happy about it. And the feeling happy-about-it will come later. But there's a difference between faking it with wisdom and just faking it.
Stevie: And I think the happiness comes later because you're starting to plant those seeds for you to heal the happiness, because you realize that it's coming from you. Thank you so much for that clarification. Thank you Lama, teacher.
Lama Sarahni: Rachana, you have your hand up.
Rachana: Yeah, I have a question. So I was trying to explain this concept to my husband who's very Prasangika and intentionally Prasangika, and it was a real world situation where we were talking about stuff and I said, Well, we can try and be happy for these people because they're getting what they want, even though in our perception it's harming others. And so he gave me an example and I don‘t know how to respond to it. He's like, so then should we feel happy for murderers? Because they set out a plan to murder people, they succeeded, they're happy that they murdered the people. Other people were harmed. And so I kind of said, yeah, I guess so because I mean obviously they're going to incur bad karma and so that's not great. But if they're happy that they murdered, then we should be happy for them, is what I said. But I'm not at all sure that was the right answer.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah. So the fact that they are happy is a result of some way they helped someone else be happy in the past. The fact that they murdered somebody means they're going to get murdered. And the fact that they believe that killing brought them happiness is also going to perpetuate their misunderstanding of the world, which is going to perpetuate their suffering.
So, we can be happy with their moments of happiness, understanding that they didn't actually come from killing the person, and our compassion would arise because we see them thinking that they got happy from killing somebody, because then they're likely to try and do it again. And that's not the case.
Rachana: Yes. Alright. So when I go back to him, I'll say we can be happy for them that they're happy. Our trying to make other people happy, is resulting in us seeing them happy, which is completely unrelated to whichever action they just took. Okay.
Lama Sarahni: Right. Because what they did and what the result they seem to get next are not actually related. A Prasangika is going to understand that
Stevie: They have to be really careful not to mix up your seeds. And especially because as you had said in an earlier class, seeds take time so they could be happy after they murdered somebody, but that's not the seed that's making them happy.
Lama Sarahni: Right, right, right. To be happy you had to have helped somebody else be happy. Now you could take that further. Maybe the person they murdered wanted to be dead. Right? There really isn't anything self-existly bad about killing.
What's bad about killing is that it plants the seeds for you to be killed, and what being killed implies is that you're dying before you expected. And that's a bad thing.
Rachana: Thank you.
So stop jealousy and all obstacles will stop. Interesting, interesting.
Let's take a break. Yeah, let's take a break.
(Break) 1:03:33
Geshe Michael boiled these all down to when we can be happy, when others get what they want, karmically we get what we want, which is to be happy. So rejoice in successes, our own in others, be happy when others are happy, be happy when we're happy. Speak highly to other people of other people.
All of it is antidotes to jealousy and not so hard to do, really.
We have one more Lojong to talk about from Gyalwa Yang Gunpa, and Geshela said this is one more delicate, powerful short comment that the Lama made in the divine state to his personal student or students after all that he taught them, all the meditation they've done, their debate work, their retreats.
He also said,
The reality of things is beyond the mind,
So reside in a state where you hold to nothing.
Whoever he spoke that to probably knew what he was talking about. I mean, yeah, knew what he was implying. Probably they were having a discussion about deceptive reality, ultimate reality, and the Lama comes out with this one-liner for the student to take home with them and really work with.
But to say this to someone who isn't at that level or wasn't there in that conversation would be very not helpful. It could even lead to some misunderstanding that could end up being harmful to the other person. Because it sounds like it's saying, you can't understand reality, so just reside in a place where there's nothing. Like, just space out, don't bother to try, and that'll somehow help you get where you want to go?
No, clearly not. We've been well-trained enough that we wouldn't fall for that.
But Geshela counseled his students back then, so I'm obligated to counsel you to counsel your students. Don't go drop in this one-liner on somebody who you're not quite sure will understand the ramifications of it.
What are the ramifications of it?
When he says
The reality of things is beyond the mind,
he means: Our world leaves sansaric state of mind. The reality he's talking about is ultimate reality. The true nature of existing things and where they come from and how they work.
That's beyond perception by a worldly sansaric, human conceptualizing mind.
He's not saying we can't be aware of our reality, because we certainly are.
The truck will break your legs. Reality is perceptible.
That sansaric reality is very perceptible to our mind.
But ultimate reality is not perceptible to a sansaric mind.
When we say, Reach the direct perception of emptiness, we have to in that first level of the form realm, level of concentration. It's because at that level the sensory input that we perceive as ordinary world we're not aware of that at that level.
Although you are still in Sansara, your level of awareness is said to be a level of concentration that if those seeds ripen would take you out of our human Sansara, but not put you outside of Sansara at all.
In our usual conceptualizing human mind, we cannot perceive ultimate reality. We can come to a pretty high and clear conceptual understanding, but it requires the direct perception of emptiness—this direct yogic experience, they call it—of the absence of self nature in all existing things, including you. Actually said the other way around: The lack of self existence of you, what you think of as you and all other existing things.
It can only be in this state of mind beyond the conceptualizing mind.
Until we've had that direct perception of ultimate reality, even our highest intellectual understanding of it is not a hundred percent accurate. It's not accurate enough to stop those three mental afflictions that get stopped by that experience.
Ultimate reality is beyond our human conceptualizing mind is what he means here.
Then when he says, so reside in a state where you hold to nothing, his student was understanding that to mean to behold nothing as self-existent.
Meaning, outside of the direct perception of emptiness and you're back into a world of self and other appearing to have their natures in them, but you know they don't. It's saying here, use that wisdom intentionally. I understand things look self-existent, but I know they're not—to intentionally plant seeds by way of behaviors of body, speech, and mind that will slowly or rapidly weed out all of those past seeds of having believed things had their natures in them.
So even before we've seen emptiness directly, if we're working on this Lojong in order to grow our two Bodhichittas, we can hold our highest intellectual understanding of the true nature of the deceptive reality that we're experiencing.
We can try to reside in our understanding that things look self-existent but I know they're not by imposing, intellectual imposing they look self-existently, but I know they're not.
Arya does that automatically, not in words. Non Arya, we grow the habit of imposing that. It helps to chip away at the power of the seeds of ignorance that will help us come to the depth of meditation necessary to be able to see emptiness directly.
Stevie: It's funny because when I read that DAM NGAK, I thought to myself what he means is that okay, if you can't sort of conceive of ultimate reality, then you're better off in don't get hooked by something else. Don't believe in something else. But I understand what you're saying and that makes more sense. But when I first heard, I thought, oh, he's just saying don't get hooked by something else and spend lifetimes of suffering, believing in green aliens or something.
Lama Sarahni: Right, right. Good, good. It could also mean when you are coming to understand the teachings on the true nature of reality, don't fall into the cliff of nothing. It says, Reside in a state where you hold to nothing, but it's the right kind of nothing. Nothing exists the way it looks, but it's not that nothing exists at all. So this could be interpreted in infinite different ways.
Geshela says, one of the main places to reside in a state where you hold to nothing, is in your own perception of your own self, your body and mind.
We are probably holding to a belief that our body and mind are Sansaric suffering human beings. But they're not. They're blank. We are blank.
We can make ourselves anything—not by wishing it, but by way of seed planting. Train yourself in worldview, meditate regularly. Work on emptiness and dependent origination. Mostly keep your vows, keep your kindness behavior intentionally.
Because our true nature of our body, mind, ourself is blank, the results of those behaviors will be Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating to help everybody do the same.
Holding to nothing means, Nothing self existent. So nothing that can't change for the better or for the worse.
Then it's up to us to say, how do we make the change? By way of our behavior.
That finishes Gyalwa Yang Gunpa and your homework 3.
Let's go on to class 4 and see how far we can get.
Class 4 and 5, and probably 6 the way it's going and maybe more, comes to us from Kadampa Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje. It is called the Lojong Dun Dun Ma, given to us by someone named Kadampa Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje.
Kadampa Geshe—that's his title
Chekawa—that's the place he's from
Yeshe Dorje—that's his name.
His dates are 1101 to 1175.
Lojong Dun Dun Ma is a really, really famous Lojong amongst people who know Lojong. Is one of Pabongka Rinpoche’s favorites. He called it the greatest Lojong ever. Probably the one he was reading at the moment was the greatest one.
Lojong Dun Dun Ma means:
Dun = seven. The number seven
Dun = points
Dun Dun = the seven points
Ma = wisdom book
Lojong = for training the good heart, meaning for training our Bodhichitta, both Bodhichittas: The wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings and that ultimate love, and ultimate wisdom, making omniscience and that empty nature of perceiving emptiness, independent origination simultaneously.
Who wrote the Lojong Dun Dun Ma?
I said it was shared by Kadampa Geshe Chekawa, but actually we don't know who wrote it originally, or maybe we do. But it's written in various places of the collection of scriptures. And in different places that it's found, it's attributed to different writers. Geshela kept digging and digging in. He found one that was attributed to someone named Tub-Wang.
TUB WANG is the Tibetan word for Shakyamuni Buddha.
Geshela says probably this one's the most correct. Lord Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha was the first one to write, or teach, or speak this Lojong Dun Dun Ma.
But then through the years it was taught from a Lama to a student, from a Lama to a student… who actually did the teaching, kind of got credit. But not for writing it, but for teaching it. So it's not completely clear, really, how it came into the form that it's in, that now it's available to us and there's a story behind that.
So this man where we are learning it from, Kadampa Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje— Kadampa is the name for the very early Tibetan Buddhists as Buddhism is coming into Tibet from India. There were people that met it in these just little snippets and had the seeds to be attracted to it. They would go to India to get more teachings.
So one person would be particularly attracted to the Vinaya and they would gather information on the Vinaya as if that was the whole package. And then they go back to Tibet having mastered Vinaya and it's like, Here, here's Buddhism.
They'd teach the Vinaya to the other folks that were interested in.
Somebody else would get the Prajna Paramita, and somebody else would get some other part, and they all were teaching each other.
It ended up dividing into these different lineages. But all of them also received the Lojong. So they all received all of it eventually. But in this early time, the Lojong was part of something that some of them were mastering and taking back and sharing with the others.
The term Kadampa refers to this man being part of this early group. Now, he comes later in the early group because he wasn't born until 1100, so the Kadampas have already been around for almost a hundred years by the time he comes along.
Geshe—we know that term as meaning a level of training, like having received your doctor degree in religious studies from the Tibetan Buddhist monastery. But in the olden days, Geshe was the translation of Kaliana Mitra in Sanskrit, which means spiritual friend or spiritual guide. The one that you rely upon.
Here the term is being used in this way, not a monastic title, but like an honorific of others, recognizing that he had wisdom to share.
Then Chekawa was his region in Tibet. Like Tsongkapa. Tsongkapa isn't his given name, it's where he is from, but we call him the Lord from Tsongka, the guy from Tsongka, as opposed to Lobsang Drakpa, which is his monk's name.
So this man's name is Yeshe Dorje.
Yeshe = wisdom
Dorje = diamond
So his name is Wisdom Diamond, or Diamond Wisdom.
Geshela found a biography of many of the lojong masters when he was teaching this course. He shared with us the story of this one who became Kadampa Geshe Chekawa, Yeshe Dorje.
They say he was a great scholar from very early on in life. Seven, eight years old he's already studying, learning, memorizing. By his twenties he had memorized a hundred major scriptures and understood their meaning. Which is important to add that piece.
I could maybe memorize a hundred scriptures and not understand the meaning of any of it. And what good would it do? Monkey me reciting The Source of all my Good. But to memorize something and understand the meaning, now you've got more than an encyclopedia. You've got an encyclopedia who can teach us something.
The biography said he finished, like he studied everything he could get his hands on. Took him a long time. But that he still felt like there was something missing. There's a piece missing here. I can't get enlightened with what I know so far. It drove him nuts and he kept searching and kept searching.
Finally he had the good fortune to meet another Geshe who shared with him the eight verses Lojong—the one we just studied, those eight verses.
Apparently he just freaked out, says, Geshe Michael, this is what I was looking for. This is the missing piece. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
He went off to India to try to find Dorje Senge. He wanted to learn directly from that master. By the time he got there, Dorje Senge had passed, already.
So he hangs around with the students trying to check them out to see if there was anybody that maybe could teach him, share with him.
And somebody says to him, Oh, there are three main students of Dorje Senge, and they're all struggling over what's called the densa. The densa means the teacher's throne. So when a great teacher passes, one of the students is assigned to take over as teacher.
There's one of those for Lobsang Drakpa, a densa.
So here are these three students, high level students, and they're fighting over the seat and he gets all bummed out. It's like, well, how good a student could they be if they're fighting over something.
He is about ready to leave and he happens to mention that to somebody, and that somebody goes, No, no, you're misunderstanding. Each one of those three is arguing that they're too stupid to take the throne. Each of the three wants the others to do it. And each of the others is saying, No, no, no, no, I can't do that. You need to do it.
No, no, I can't do it. You need to do it.
So Chekawa is heartened, and decides to stick around and he continues to study in there and finally he meets some Master Sharawa, Geshe Sharawa—who's not one of those three by the way, but someone who was involved in that community.
Master Sharawa teaches Master Chekawa, who's already very well studied, but Chekawa studies with Sharawa for 12 years and relearns everything before he gets further teachings on Lojong.
He goes there for Lojong, because of those Eight Verses. And he finds somebody to teach it to them, and that teacher teaches them the basics for 12 years.
Then finally that teacher says, Okay, now you're ready for the real stuff.
Now you're ready for the real Lojong.
Like 12 years after, I don't know how long before, now I'm getting the real Dharma? Okay, bring it on, says Master Chekawa.
He gets Lojong Dun Dun Ma from Master Sharawa that we're going to study.
Chekawa becomes its lineage holder—as you will by the time we're finished with these classes and studying it.
The Lojong Dun Dun Ma was held in secret and not available, even though that's what Geshe Chekawa went there for, was the Lojong. No, not until you're ready. Ready by whose determination? Long story there. But Chekawas seeds had to ripen that he was ready to receive this very, very powerful secret teaching. Not Tantra, we're not talking Tantra, but Lojong were held so deeply secret that they were never written down. They were passed orally. Not to the big group, but to the student whose seeds were ready for it.
Then, at some point, we'll hear in a minute how Geshe Chekawa took this leap and wrote it down and made it more readily available. My guess is to great cost to himself. I don't know.
Geshela wanted us to see the lineage, because you are a part of it actually. So I have screen share. Here is how the Dun Dun Ma lineage comes to us.
(Names are given first in Tibetan, then in Sanskrit, if the person has a Sanskrit name)
Tubwang - Shakyamuni (500 BC)
Jampa - Lord Maitreya (the 5th Buddha to come here)
Tokme Kuche - Arya Asanga and Master Vasubhandu (350 AD)
Serlingpa - Dharmakirti (the Lojong master, not the logician!)
Jowo Je - Lord Atisha (982-1054)
Dromtonpa (1005-1064)
Geshe Potowa (1027-1105)
Geshe Sharawa
Geshe Chekawa (1101-1175)
Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra
Pabongka Rinpoche
Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin (1921-2003)
Geshe Michael Roach (1953- )
Ven. Jigme, Elly Vanderpas, Ven. Chukyi, Anne Lindsey, Winston McCullough, David Stumph, Sarahni Stumph
YOU!
It starts with Tubwang—Shakyamuni.
He teaches it to Jampa— Lord Maitreya, the high level Bodhisattva in Sutra, said to be the next wheel turning Buddha to appear on our planet.
Shakyamuni Buddha was the fourth out of a thousand. Lord Maitreya will be the fifth.
Maitreya taught the Tokme Kuche, means the 2 Tukme brothers.
Tokme is the Tibetan word for Asanga, Arya Asanga and MasterVasubhandu, we've studied from both of those fellows. Their dates are around 350 AD.
Buddha Shauni is 2500 BC. I don't know, Lord Maitreya.
Asanga and Vasubandhu 350 AD, we've heard their stories. Their mother was a nun, a good nun, a strong nun. She had these dreams that said if she had a son by a king and a son by a Brahman, those two sons would go on to reinvigorate Buddhism in India.
So probably a great cost to herself and her reputation, she disrobed and managed to have a son by a king and a son by a Brahman, and they became these two fellows who we know for having written down the five great books from Lord Maitreya. Asanga and Master Vasubhandu having written Abhidharma Kosha amongst other things. Powerful players in our lineage. They are Indian, not Tibetan.
So now, through their lineage comes someone named Serlingpa, whose dates are around 1000. His Sanskrit name is Dharmakirti, but he is not the Dharmakirti who's the logician that you keep hearing from. Don't confuse those two.
This is Dharmakirti—Serlingpa—was a Lojong master.
He taught this Lojong, the Lojong Dun Dun Ma, to Jowo Je—Lord Atisha.
Lord Atisha was the one who for the most part brought Buddhism from India to Tibet. His dates are 982 to 1054.
Lojong is happening in India.
Buddhism is coming into Tibet, and with it is coming the Lojong to these very specific people. Not to big groups.
Lord Atisha had a sidekick whose name is Dromtonpa.
We also hear Dromton Je. Dromtonpa is a layperson, Atisha is a monk.
Dromtonpa, his dates are here 1005 to 1064.
He's Tibetan. Atisha doesn't speak Tibetan when he first comes to Tibet. So Dromtonpa is at his side, his right-hand man in helping with the communication. But he also seems to always show up just at the right time with just exactly what's needed. Food, texts, a place for people to stay—kind of magical guy.
Some texts say that he was an emanation of a tantric deity. But instrumental in Atisha's success in spreading Buddhism into Tibet.
Dromten Je himself taught this Lojong Dun Dun Ma to someone named Geshe Potowa. He doesn't have a Sanskrit name. He's a Tibetan fellow.
His dates are 10 27 to 1105.
Geshe Potowas is who taught it to Geshe Sharawa, that I have so much trouble saying.
And Sharawa is the one who taught Geshe Chekawa. We have his dates here.
Geshe Chekawa, his lineage goes on to teach someone called Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra, who's very close to the Diamond Mountain lineage’s heart for the Diamond Way teachings that he taught.
From Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra through a couple of others it came down to the one we know as Pabongka Rinpoche, who shared it with Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who shared it with…
Then Geshe Michael passed it on to Venerable Jigme, Venerable Chukyi, Winston McCullough and others. And these three, Jigme, Chukyi and Winston passed it on to David and myself. And I have the privileges of passing it on to you.
So when you share this class, you'll put your name under YOU, and move YOU down to mean your students. Okay? Okay.
In each of these lineage pourings, it has been from the Lama to a student or two. So this lineage is very narrow and specific until it gets here to Master Chekawa.
The reason it had been kept secret from Buddha's time, 500 BC, up to Master Chekawa, 1120, is because the teachings about Exchanging Self for Others, which is what these all are, was so radical to the state of mind of people, even Dharma practitioners at that time, that it was believed that it would be more harmful for them to hear it and be disrespected than to not hear it at all.
So it was only taught to people that the teacher perceived as someone who was ready to not disrespect it.
Chekwa had that sense, I've learned everything, but there's something missing.
What was missing was this piece about developing Bodhichitta.
There's two ways of developing Bodhichitta:
the seven step cause and effect method, and
the method of exchanging self and others.
We learn them with master Shantideva exchanging self and others and how deep and profound and difficult it really is.
But for some of us, it caught our heart.
Tonglen was the first Tibetan Buddhist thing I learned, and it's all about. It's not specifically exchanging self and others, but it's inside there and it's like it caught my heart, and I wanted to know more and more and more and more. And you guys wouldn't be here if something similar hadn't done the same.
But what if we hadn't had that? And somebody said, Well, the most powerful practice is to put others needs ahead of your own 100% of the time.
Everything you think, say, do, own, move, everything is in order to help the other one that you're with get happiness—regardless of who you're with: aunt, lie, jerk loved one, they come first.
We can hardly even conceive of it unless you're a mother with an infant, then you did it. Maybe dads with infants too to some extent. But with mothers there's something special. But somehow it fades, even though the child is special forever.
But we have to discipline them, et cetera.
It's a beautiful, amazing practice and we want everybody to know it. But not everybody's going to have their heart opened by it. Some people are going to go, That's nuts. I can't do that.
And the Lamas refused to put it forth in a situation where people might, No, that's not, and if that's what Buddhism's about, I don't want any part.
But Geshe Chekawa, he was having the thought, well, I can't know whether people are ready for it or not, and what if I don't teach it to 10 people who were ready for it and then they don't get it? That's worse than teaching it to a hundred people who are going to disrespect it. I'm willing to take causing someone to disrespect in order to get it to those few people that I can't know already for it.
He was willing to take that leap. So he started teaching it in bigger groups, offering it, and it apparently took off wildfire through Tibet by that time.
Somebody's seeds shifted from, No, no, nobody's ready to, everybody was ready, and it just took off.
So for Master Chekawa, it's no longer really this one person, two people, one person, two people. It's just like out there.
And now we have it written down, not only in ACI 14, but it's in that compendium and you could probably Google it and find lots of different translations of Lojong Dun Dun Ma.
It's beautiful, but it's cryptic. So it does still require a fair amount of commentary in order to make sense of what it's really trying to tell us to do. We can understand it on a certain level, and it would be useful and helpful. But to be able to dig in deeply into it and use it to guide our behaviors toward others is what makes it a seed teaching that helps us plant the seeds that will grow into our Buddhahood, as opposed to simply progress on the path. It's designed to help us grow our Bodhichitta.
Let me share with you the seven points, the seven categories of the seven point practice of Lojong, and then we're going to study them in greater depth each one.
Tibetan of each of the seven different pieces of the seven step heart training here.
I'm just going to read them and then we're going to do 'em in English.
Ngundro ten gyi chu tenpa - preliminaries
Ngushi jangchub kyi sem - the actual practice of developing Bodhichitta
Kyen ngen jangchub kyi lam du kyerwa - using obstacles as the path
Tse chik gi nyamlen drilme tenpa - whole lifetime‘s practice in a nutshell
Lojong pay tse - how you know you Lojong-ed
Lojong ge damtsik - promises you make to yourself to keep a good heart
Lojong gi labja - advices on how to keep it going
The first one has something to do with doing the preliminaries.
The second one has to do with the main practice of developing Bodhichitta, remember JANGCHUB KYI SEM is the word for the Bodhichitta we are trying to develop.
The third means using obstacles as the path.
Number four means a whole lifetime's practice wrapped in a nutshell.
Number five means how you know you Lojong-ed.
Number six means promises you make to yourself to keep your good heart. So even though we've at some point we will have Lojong-ed, we still have to perpetuate it, so we make these promises.
Then number seven means advices on how to keep it going. You make these pledges in number six and then the advices on how to keep your pledges in number seven.
A whole lifetime‘s practice, interestingly.
It's all actually in your, probably the student notes or the answer key, if you want the Tibetan.
Ngundro ten gyi chu tenpa means the foundation preliminaries that need to be taught.
Usually when we say the preliminaries, classically we mean the refuge prayers, the prostrations, the mandala offerings that we get assigned by the Lama to gather enough goodness so that we can actually hear the teachings in a higher way.
So, classically, you'd be assigned a hundred thousand refuge prayers, a hundred thousand prostrations, a hundred thousand mandala offerings, and then you'd be taught how to do them as a practice. And Lama would say, come back when you're done and we'll go on.
Geshe Michael never did that as far as I know with anybody. He said the ACI one through 18 plus the 6 practice modules, that's as much goodness, maybe more, as doing a hundred thousand refuge prayers, a hundred thousand prostrations, a hundred thousand mandala offerings. I don't know, you could assign yourself both if you wanted to, but learn how to do them properly.
The other way we heard the term preliminaries used is the preliminaries to meditation. That seven step process that we go through that does the same thing:
It gathers goodness, it clears out negativity, so it clears out obstacles. We clear out obstacles with the rejoicing practice. Now we know why that works before our meditation so that our meditation can go well, even though doing those preliminaries that day doesn't make that day's meditation go any differently.
But doing your meditation preliminaries regularly plants the seeds for meditations to go better—is the idea.
But that's not what we're talking about here either.
Here the preliminaries have to do with the attitudes we need to cultivate before we're ready to get to the main event. The main event is going to be growing our Bodhichitta. We have to start with a certain state of mind or our Bodhichitta won't grow any bigger than it already is.
Those states of mind are going to have to do with renunciation and impermanence and worldview and et cetera. We'll learn about those.
Then the second piece is the Ngushi jangchub kyi sem, means the main event of developing our Janchub Kyi Sem, the main event of developing our Bodhichitta.
It‘s like the verses in this part of the Lojong are the verses specifically designed to opening our heart to that sense of love and compassion for all beings, born out of our wisdom that seeing that, O my gosh, all this suffering is so unnecessary. It's just all driven by a big mistake. And if we could just stop the mistake, oh my gosh, everything would change.
It could happen that fast growing that all the way up to growing the experience of seeing the face of every living being and loving them.
Then the second aspect in growing our Bodhichitta is growing our intellectual understanding of emptiness deeper and deeper and deeper, and using that to grow our goodness bigger and bigger and bigger, so that that can ripen into the experience of the direct perception of emptiness—the experience of ultimate reality, which is what's meant by ultimate Bodhichitta, perceiving emptiness directly.
So this main event is verses that help us bring on the experience of what's called deceptive Bodhichitta and ultimate Bodhichitta, and we'll learn them.
Kyen ngen jangchub kyi lam du kyerwa.
Kyen ngen means bad circumstances, like when bad things happen.
Kyen ngen jangchub kyi lam du kyerwa means transforming those bad things that happen into our path to Buddhahood.
Geshela is doing a whole DCI level. I think he's teaching it soon to the first folks at SCIM—using problems as the path. I'm sure it's going to be extraordinary.
Difficult things happen in life. Being on our spiritual path doesn't make life any easier, necessarily. Sometimes even the effort to change is so strong a change that it stirs stuff up worse than it would've.
I've had students who've been really amazing students and they work so hard and they make such change in themselves that they stir up the crap so fast that just one thing blows up after another and they quit. It's too hard. And it's like, Uff, I'm so sorry. They made huge progress, but they're on vacation. They'll be back, I'm sure to somebody, because their seeds are so great.
But if we think, oh, I'm doing everything right, my life's going to go great. And when it doesn't, we will be either sadly disappointed and run away or we'll wonder, I'm not doing it well enough. We'll get down on ourselves. It's so easy.
Both are an unnecessary reaction born of misunderstanding.
Bad things are going to happen, because we're some sansaric beings and we've been nasty to other people. Our mind streams have seen our me-s be nasty to other beings—whether we know it or not, we have. And that's where bad stuff comes from. We can either get morose and unhappy, or we can use those ripening as an opportunity to weed out and plant new.
You guys know my husband has a neurodegenerative disease, and he's had other diseases in the last 10 years and we've used our karmic seed planting, rejoicing practice to get him through, and he bounced back after each one. Almost died here, bounced back, almost died there, bounced back, over and over again.
Now he's got one that he is not bouncing back from, but he could very well transform from and so could I.
But, it's not like, oh, I just have to make my seeds better and it will go away.
If I keep on that track, I just get more and more morose because I can't do it well enough. I can't make my seeds fast enough to override what I see happening in his body. But I can use it, can‘t I?
I can use it every time I see him struggle, Yeah, burning off that crap and planting seeds.
How do I plant seeds? I help use an opportunity to help him, to be silly with him, to help him laugh instead of also getting morose.
We have to do it that way, because otherwise we'd get crazy.
So we say regularly, Thank goodness we understand the Dharma.
Because without it, we don't know how we would cope, really.
But with it, he still has a disease, but it's a totally different experience.
Because we understand the opportunity it brings for burning off lifetimes of lesser realities in this life.
I don't know, we've got probably a couple of years worth to do it. It's ideal.
Could I say that to a group of people that don't know about mental seeds?
No. They'd go, what's wrong with you? You cold-hearted thing, you're happy your husband has a disease that's going to deteriorate him.
No, I'm not happy, but I am in a way. Better than a lifetime in hell, right?
So I don't know, it's perverted, but it's Lojong to use it.
There's this whole series of verses about how to use the crappy things that happen to you as opportunities and then, if they are opportunities, are they crappy things anymore?
No. Which is wild.
Stevie: I think it's the „with wisdom“, that little phrase. It's that blank with wisdom. Blank, with wisdom, blank with wisdom. I think that's the transformational, and I once heard about making offerings is the transformation. Offering. I love that. I'm still chewing and cooking it, but I think I got something there.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, you do.
Stevie: But it's that „with Wisdom“, right?
Cook your vegetables with wisdom.
Lama Sarahni: Exactly, exactly.
At whatever level of wisdom we have at the moment, right? It's better than no wisdom at all. So we're on a roll, really, already. Even though you may be thinking, oh no, I'm really a beginner here. Pat yourself on the back. You've come a long way in this life and in the many lives you've been at this.
I've used up more time than I was allowed. So I'm going to put my marker here and we'll finish about the seven and then study the seven next time.
So do whatever amount of your homeworks you can do. You can finish 3, start into 4, right? But you don't have to finish it. We haven't talked about it. All right? Alright.
Let's do our rejoining and dedication.
[Usual closing]
Hi, for the recording welcome back. We are ACI course 14, still working on class 4. I've got to finish it today I think.
Let's gather our minds here, please.
[Usual opening]
We have just started into studying the Lojong called Lojong Dun Dun Man, the Lojong in seven parts. Remember that these are the seven sweet advices given originally by Lord Buddha to help us grow and cultivate our Bodhichitta. Our Bodhichitta, both the deceptive Bodhichitta and ultimate Bodhichitta, meaning the wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings and the wisdom to which we make that happen, we create the result.
We had heard the seven different parts of the Lojong Dun Dun Ma:
the preliminaries
being the main event of developing Bodhichitta
transforming problems into the path
whole lifetimes practice in a nutshell
how we know when we've succeeded.
promises we make to keep it
these advices on how to do all that.
It seems a little redundant, the seventh part, but we'll see it takes things a little bit deeper.
I'm not going to read the whole Lojong Dun Dun Ma tonight. It‘s in your reading, and I think you've gotten to the point of reading it, but if not, you will right after tonight's class. So you'll read the whole thing. I'm just going to give you the pieces as we go along, as we discuss them.
It starts out Om svasti, many prayers start with Om svasti.
Om means om, and svasti means may there be goodness.
Om svasti
Train yourself first in the preliminary.
Learn to see all things as a dream;
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
The antidote itself is gone to is;
Let it go in the essence, source of all things.
In between sessions, be a figment of the imagination.
Pretty clear, right? Or wrong. Pretty cryptic and intentionally so.
The first part of the Lojong is the „train yourself first in the preliminary“. I think we said before, we might think, oh, that means the preliminaries to meditation. We even learned those in two different ways.
Or it could mean „train yourself in those NGUN-DRO practices, the foundation practices, the hundred thousand refuge prayers and the a hundred thousand prostrations, the hundred thousand mandala offerings, the practices of gathering enough goodness that our effort at further practice has some goodness to run on.
Those practices are like gasoline for our practice.
But that's not the preliminaries that this „train yourself in the preliminaries“ is talking about. This is more addressing the early part of the Lam Rim where the Lama is teaching us things through which our sense of renunciation is growing.
„Train yourself first in the preliminaries“ has three parts.
The first part the Kadampa Lama teaches us is recognize the amazing opportunity that we have. If you remember your Lam Rim, the first half of Lam Rim is to find a teacher. Once you found the teacher, you ask them to teach you. And they say, Got to get the essence of this life. Then they don't say anything more unless you say, How do I do that? And then they say, Well, look at your leisures and fortunes, meaning look at the rare and special opportunity that you have right now.
That's this piece in the training for this Lojong, is to go back and revisit your understanding about your rare and precious opportunity.
Again, remember, Lojong is taught to already well-educated Buddhist practitioners.
Traditionally, when we learned, Master Chekawa was already well learned. He was looking for this last piece to his practice. He found his teacher, Master Sharawa, do I have that right?
And then Sharawa went back and taught him everything again, 12 years of training before he goes, Now you're ready for Lojong.
So we shouldn't complain about being asked to go back and revisit our understanding of our rare and special opportunity that we have. I'm not going to go into it. We've learned about rare and special opportunity. Relook at that yourself.
Part of it has to do with the complacency that we get into. Yeah, yeah, rare and special opportunity. And: we have time for it to continue, right? We've made it to ACI 14 from number one for some of us, and so we expect, I'll go right on and get 15 and then 16, 17, and 18 and then whatever comes next.
That's a mistaken belief. We don't know for sure that we'll be here for the next class, do we?
It's not meant to make us nervous and upset. It's meant to have us look at: Where am I spending my time? If this time is so precious, how much of it do I waste or do I spend on worldly things? Or do I spend my worldly life without a mind that turns those worldly things into Dharma?
You see, there are different levels of training yourself first in the preliminaries, different levels of what renunciation means. We should be at, we could be at a much different level of understanding of what renunciation means by the time we've gotten this far in our study.
It comes hot on the heels of checking out our rare and special opportunity. Although dying isn't the only way that we can lose our rare and special opportunity to have teachings like this.
Karma could shift. We could just get too sick to attend.
Karma could shift. We could just lose interest.
It sounds like impossible, but it's not impossible. You see one movie and that movie impacts you in such a way that your belief shifts. It's possible. Likely, I hope not, but possible. It doesn't mean, Oh my gosh, I'm not going to let myself see or hear anything else because that’s not how we protect it either.
But it's not just dying that makes us lose opportunity. But dying is a big one that makes us lose opportunity. Because then we don't even have this life.
We don't even have the closeness of what we had before that maybe we could get back to. Dying is such a huge shift in our projected reality that this old one doesn't even exist anymore for us.
We tend to think, Oh, no, no, I'll go into my next life and we don't really stop to think what happens to this one. Somehow we're thinking, I'll remember it, I'll use it. I'll carry on. Right? It is possible for that to happen.
But if we die untrained, that's not what happens. Seeds are ripening me and my world now.
Those seeds shift a little bit, and the projection is me dying.
Those seeds shift again, and it's a whole different unimaginable reality than before.
That's scary.
Dying is only plug these three orifices for four minutes. That's all it takes unless you're under really, really cold water, then you have a little bit more time, but not much. It’s really, really easy to die.
It's a preliminary to get really clear on how close we are to losing it and how part of that process untrained pushes us into more Sansara. Not necessarily more human Sansara, although that would be the least bad of all of it. It still is going to happen.
Again, growing our sense of renunciation, renunciating our lesser motivations, our worldly aspirations, but even more so renunciating our lack of wisdom, renunciating our ignorance. Really, renunciation at its deepest lever is, I give up my ignorance. I wish it were that easy, but it's a good start to get our renunciation to be that.
You can see the sequence here:
Oh, my rare and special opportunity. I could die at any moment.
No big deal. If I die, I'll just go into the Dharma again.
The next one, meditate on the problems of Sansara. Maybe not.
Sansara is perpetuated by the seeds that believe that things and self have their nature in them, that things and self come from themselves so that things‘ pleasure and displeasure that brings me happiness or not.
Perpetuating that leads to a lifetime of perpetuating that, of doing things to get the thing I like, the thing I don't want and doesn't matter what I do to another, I deserve that goodness. I deserve that avoiding.
So, once they say Sansara perpetuates itself, but it's not doing it.
Our mistaken understanding is what's perpetuating Sansara.
The process through which Sansara comes into being is the same process through which your paradise will come into being: Seeds planted, seeds ripening.
There's something about our mindstream that accepts that things go wrong. Like that's just the way it is. And so we don't struggle against it until, I don't know, something really bad happens or enough little things happen that something happens and we reach the end of our tolerance.
It's kind of crazy that we accept so much going wrong and don't wonder how come things, where do good things come from?
It's crazy that we don't go crazy every time our key turns on the car. Wow, my car started.
What we do is, Why didn't my car start the thousandth time? That 999 times it did start and then it doesn't start, and I got mad.
How come I wasn't rejoicing every time it did start right?
There's this expectation in our seeds that keeps us not even questioning and through it we perpetuate not making a pure realm.
Because our broken realm has no nature of its own, we can make a pure realm.
Because a pure realm has no nature of its own, we can make a pure realm.
Because of both, we haven't made a pure realm yet. If you're like me, human perceiving oneself as a human.
A mind that is in Sansara really means a mind that's projecting Sansara, is broken.
If you have broken equipment creating stuff, the stuff's going to be broken too. Duh.
But our equipment, although it is broken, isn't broken from its own side.
It's a belief that's mistaken, that is the brokenness. Just the belief.
How quickly can beliefs shift? Really that fast. If you're a little kid and you believed in Santa Claus, and by the time, I don't know what, six years old and your 12-year-old brother says, Don't be silly. That was Uncle Charlie all along. I don't know why you didn't believe that before because they'd said it before and it was like, No, no, no, no, no. But when you're six years old, the brother says it one more time and it's like, Oh man. And Santa Claus is just gone that fast.
Technically, our belief in a self-existent anything can go that fast too.
Both of it happens as a result of seeds ripening. There's no self-existent something that's going to make our ignorance go away.
Oh, oh, oh. Seeing emptiness directly makes our ignorance go away.
Not from its own side.
Curious. That's a good one to cook.
It's our pool of seeds that are producing this broken world, Sansara.
Changing those seeds is how we change Sansara to paradise.
We're not changing Sansara, we're not making paradise.
We're changing our seeds and so it can happen.
How do we change our seeds? Through our behavior.
What kind of behavior changes those seeds? The vowed behavior.
That's why they are the ones they are. Because an omniscient being has established, You do these things, they plant the seeds in this way that will grow your goodness so that your understanding can grow in this way, so that you can plant those seeds in that way to create the seeds for Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating.
That's the only place that Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating it's going to come from.
Then once you're there, you're perpetuating it. Because you're still existing by way of seeds ripening, seeds planting.
These three are the actual preparation for the actual Lojong practice, because of how motivated we'll get: I don't want to die without seeds that could push me into a Buddha paradise at that moment, or at least to push me into another human life in the Dharma. At the very minimum, I want to cultivate enough seeds, as many seeds for being in the Dharma as I can to increase my likelihood of one of those seeds popping at the moment of death.
Then, what state of mind do I have to have in order to cultivate those seeds with that kind of strength that even my dying could be experienced in that same way?
Bodhichitta state of mind. That constant understanding of emptiness and karma that inspires and makes it possible that we can in fact plant seeds for Buddhahood within an apparently Sansaric world.
Classically, the Lojong teacher would say to the student, Go meditate on these preliminaries, and when you've gained realizations in each one of those three, come back and we'll go further in this Lojong.
That could take some time maybe, couldn't it?
We don't have that kind of time—that was one of the realizations. So we beg the Lama, Please, please, please teach me more. And of course they say yes. But then our tendency is to just slip over these preliminaries, Okay, okay, I have 'em good enough. It's useful to not let yourself do that.
Work on these levels of renunciation and how they influence your choice of behavior. Because that‘s how we're going to know—when we're changing our choices of behavior, we know our renunciation is going deeper.
The next piece is:
Learn to see all things as a dream.
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
The antidote itself is gone to is;
Let it go in the essence, source of all things.
In between sessions, be a figment of the imagination.
We learned that the main practice of the seven step of the Lojong was this piece about developing Bodhichitta, and it had the two factors: developing the deceptive Bodhichitta and the ultimate Bodhichitta.
It's like to recognize deceptive Bodhichitta, we also need a certain amount of wisdom. So the deceptive Bodhichitta has the dependent origination factor and the emptiness. Then the second piece of developing the actual Bodhichitta takes that understanding and builds upon it to help us reach the direct perception of emptiness—which is the actual ultimate Bodhichitta.
It sounds like it's just two parts, but it kind of gets rolled in.
A third part gets rolled in, that you'll see.
Those verses, those phrases, they are describing the actual meditation, the actual practice of developing the Bodhichitta.
It's here where our meditation preliminaries come in in order for us to do these verses as meditations.
So cultivating our Bodhichitta happens on our cushion and then off our cushion, we do stuff with those growing realizations, understandings. Then you go back the next day to your cushion, work on it some more, go off work on it in this other way.
The seven steps guide us through that process of developing that into a lifestyle.
It doesn't say sit down and do your meditation preliminaries. But between train yourself in the preliminaries and learn to see all things as a dream.
You've sat yourself down on your cushion and you've started with your meditation preliminary.
If you don't know the meditation preliminaries, you need to learn them. That's ACI course 3, or ask somebody to teach them to you. We're not going to go through them now, but it's the sequence that you do about setting up your altar, doing your prostration, getting your proper posture, putting your mind through these steps of gathering goodness, clearing obstacles, gathering more goodness, asking for help.
The very basis of them is visualizing you're a holy, perfect angel guide with their perfect love, their perfect compassion, their perfect wisdom, and asking them sincerely, Help me, help me, help me, help me.
So just at the very minimalist of meditation preliminaries, do that: Help me, help me help. Help me, help me. And then finally go on to the actual meditation practice.
Learn to see all things as a dream.
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
The ultimate itself is gone to is;
Let it go in the essence, source of all things.
In between sessions, be a figment of the imagination.
Clearly these need some instruction, which is why it's written so cryptically first of all, but then also why the Lojong was kept secret for so long. Because they didn't want a written version of this to get out, and then untrained practitioners get it: Oh, this is a high holy practice. I'm going to meditate on the nature of my unborn mind.
You might think, I mean, what would you think if you heard „nature of my unborn mind“? It's like, what was I before I was born?
Oh, I was a king Tutt. I'll meditate on being king Tutt.
You can waste a lot of time on misunderstanding these phrases. So we get some training on them.
Learn to see all things as dreams.
Remember, we're dealing with training in deceptive Bodhichitta here, which means that this verse is talking about coming to recognize the dependent origination nature of everything and everybody, including your own body and yourself.
So every one of us is made up of our mind and our body.
Then you can break that down to five, but mind and body is enough.
Then body means the physical stuff.
Then truly, you could include in that aspect of self every material thing that you come in contact with.
Not meaning the wall is really a part of my body. But what we call mind and body includes our material world. So it's certainly a part, it's one of my parts, the wall.
Again, even working with those words about what do I mean by my mind and body? What do we mean by my me and my world? And how do those two relate? Because they do, me and my body and me and my world.
Learn to see all things as a dream.
It's another way of saying the illusion. Recognize the illusion.
Does the illusion mean that the wall behind me doesn't really exist? It's not really there? Like you wake up from the dream and nothing in the dream happened? Is that what we mean by „See all things as like a dream“? Like we're going to wake up and none of this ever happened?
No, that's not what „as a dream“ means.
When we're in the dream, it's very real. And we don't know it was not real until we wake up.
We are in this thing Sansara. That's very real. And when we wake up to how it is truly real, it won't be at all like what we thought it was.
In Sansara we are having experiences. They seem like those experiences are coming from the other at us. Even our us somehow has a nature of its own that those other things are coming at. That is our reality since beginning with time technically.
When we wake up from that reality, we're in a new state of mind, a different state of mind that then goes, That was silly. Like all of that in the same way that we think of our dream, it's like, well, that was silly. That was just a dream. Why did I get so upset? Just a dream. Sansara is just a dream.
But when we're in it, we act, we react, we have emotions, we have feelings.
It's all valid but incorrect. Valid, given what we know: it is our seeds ripening, but we don't know that. We're not aware of that. It seems like it's all out there coming from its own causes and conditions, from its own parts, from its own whatever.
We buy into that so much that we perpetuate it by trying to get what we want in the next moment. Oh, I need a pen. Here's a pen. I'll grab one.
Working with „See everything as a dream“ is trying to grasp this experience of how things are, the way we experience them, but not really like that. Because the „really“ factor is our belief in the things identities, their qualities, their characteristics in them as opposed to our awareness that their identities, their qualities are ripening results of our own past deeds.
The same for ourselves, our own perceived qualities, identities, emotions, reactions, all of those—also ripening results of our own past deeds. Which makes our current deeds be what will create our future such perceptions.
When we're at the level of understanding that process—I like to make the distinction with the word „projections“ instead of „perceptions“.
They don't use different words in the scriptures that I'm aware of, but it helps my mind make the difference between, I'm perceiving now, but I know really it's projections happening. Not even me doing it. I'm perceiving you, but really projections happening, me perceiving you—a shift in our understanding.
To recognize we're in the dream doesn't mean to recognize, Oh, nothing's real, so nothing matters.
It's to recognize that what I'm experiencing, it's coming from something different than what I thought.
Our ordinary state of mind says, I need money to pay my rent and care for my family. I need to go to work to get the salary to pay my rent.
That's how our world seems to work.
But really, where does the ability to provide for our family come from? Where does money come from?
Money comes from past generosity. Having things comes from the past protecting others‘ property.
You can work hard and make a good living and even get a good, and not be able to pay rent on your apartment or buy food for your family. Or you could work really, really hard and not get paid, or you could not work at all and get paid.
We know the four possibilities that show us that our idea, I get educated > so I get a good job > so I work really hard > so that I have money for my future, appears to work like in a dream.
If it works, it's the ripening of past goodness of being generous and taking care of people.
If it doesn't work, it's the past ripening of having had opportunities to be generous and take care of others when we didn't do it.
We've all done both, because here we are—with the goodness of having homes, having close, having the Dharma, having loving relationships, and so we get a bit complacent.
What if you wake up from the dream?
If we wake up, great. But what if the dream just ends, like dying?
We're not guaranteed that the same seeds are going to be ripening.
Maybe we've used them up. We don't know, do we? Until we're omniscient, we don't know at all.
Our job then is plant, plant, plant, plant. So that we're best prepared for whatever happens. And that's really what the Lojong is talking about. Like, okay, okay, I'm moving into plant, plant, plant mode. Now what do I do?
And Lojong is going to help us understand.
Geshela boils it down to „See all things as a dream“ means to see our outer world, our own body, our own mind, movement of mind, whatever it's being at the time. All the problems that come to us have come about through our own past selfishness, our own past to mistake, which leads to selfishness. Selfishness leads to behavior to get what I want at others' expense, to avoid what I don't want at others' expense. Whether it works or doesn't work, we planted seeds for perpetuating the mistake. To believe that any kind of unpleasant thing that we do towards others can bring us any kind of pleasure is a mistake, is the big mistake.
Yet, we do it all the time.
Society agrees that we should do it. You can't kill somebody, but you are expected to kill the cockroach to get it out of your kitchen, aren't you?
That's not where no cockroaches in the kitchen comes from.
Our understanding, even at this level, „See all things as dream“, leads us to a greater sense of wanting to be kind. Because kindness, any kind of kindness, plants seeds for pleasure, your own personal pleasure.
You want pleasure? Just be kind no matter what.
It sounds like, Well, that's so selfish. What a selfish reason to be kind. Yeah, but who benefits?
The person you're being kind to benefits.
You benefit because it feels good to be kind and your future You benefits from the pleasure that comes back. Probably the future them benefits too by way of the example that you set, going to sink into them one day.
She would never yell back. She was supposed to, but she wouldn't yell back. What's up with that?
It may take a long time, but lots of benefits from being kind, especially when you don't want to be.
The next piece:
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
Again, it does not mean, think about your past lives and what were you then? That's really not particularly helpful, except in some certain circumstances when you're doing purification or like lion's dance, you're trying to find the seeds for your holy Lama, that kind of thing. But here to just say, Oh, I'm going to sit in the nature of my mind before this life, is not what this is talking about.
We are so well-trained, you probably thought immediately, Oh, examine the nature of the mind, unborn, means, examine the nature of my own mind. It's appearing nature and it's true nature, which is that it doesn't exist self-existently.
But do we go, Oh yeah, duh. My mind doesn't exist self consistently, or do we go? What do you mean, I don't have a mind?
Because we hear that now your mind doesn't exist the way you thought.
Well, what does that mean? What does it mean for my mind to be of self existence? Do I have no mind at all?
Oh no, my mind's just coming from my seeds. Well, what „my seeds“ if I don't have a mind? No, no, you do have a mind. Every moment of a seed ripening has in it the mindstream that was in the seed being planted. You have to have a mind, because you had to have a mine to plant your seeds.
Then that mind ripens with every seed.
Well, if seeds are ripening 65 per instant, which one of those minds is your mind?
It's changing so fast. How come it never becomes somebody else's mind?
Because it can't, can it? You can only plant seeds for your own mind. But it's changing moment by moment by moment, so there is no „my mind“ that I'm planting seeds in. It's part of the process happening, my mind. Which means then you could very well experience your „my mind“ as Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating omniscient, perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
If your mind had some nature of its own, and it is now perceiving itself as a suffering mind, a limited mind, a not omniscient mind, then that would not ever be able to perceive itself as Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating, could it?
Because there would be this piece that is still Sansaric, that was coming from its own side. That meant it was not a result of past deeds. So your Buddha mind is going to be a result of past deeds. Cool.
Just like your current mind is a result of past deeds. Cool.
That reveals the empty nature of our mind, which is our Buddha nature, which we talked about earlier, the emptiness of our own mind.
Luisa, you had your hand up a long time ago, and I kept yacking.
Luisa: Just, if you can repeat when you say, every moment of a seed is ripening, having it the mind when you say something else, but then I lost you.
I didn't get that. What is the seeds?
Lama Sarahni: Every seed planted has, part of that seed is the awareness of what just happened that's planted the seed. That means every seed ripening has awareness ripening. That planting, ripening, planting, ripening, planting, ripening, aware-ing happening is what we mean by mindstream.
It's not a mindstream that has karma. It's that process which includes aware-ing happening.
Luisa: Okay, thank you.
Flavia: So that's why sometimes we are aware of what we do and think, and sometimes we just do things, or think, or say things and 30 seconds later, or sometimes 15 minutes, or sometimes one day after we are like, wow, I said that, or I did that, or I thought and I wasn't aware. I wasn't… I mean a little because I remember, but not…
Lama Sarahni: Right. So that remembering is also a coming out of our seeds. So the fact that it took an hour or a day or three days to remember, Oh, I could have behaved differently at that time. That's a current moment ripening of seeds planting, of somehow having helped somebody, let's just say remember how they could have behaved differently.
Flavia: So to be really aware, we have to plant seeds of awareness all the time,
Lama Sarahni: Right. And that whole practice of mindfulness, right? I mean it's a really, really big popular practice of being mindful, really mindful and it's powerful and difficult and trainable and helpful and rejoiceable that so many people are doing it. Although our tradition would say that mindfulness would be more effectively turned onto their ethics, ethical mindfulness, behavior, mindfulness than simply mindfulness of eating oatmeal. Because it won't automatically translate, unless we've been trained to translate it. Meaning to move it from awareness of what I'm feeling, awareness of what I'm saying into awareness of what I want to say in order to plant seeds for everybody's happiness. That's not automatically included in mindfulness practice until you get to Lojonging and then it is.
Yes, Stevie.
Stevie: I may be misunderstanding this, but do you think that if you do, whether it's ethics or eating oatmeal, right, and you do it mindfully, that we are in fact planting seeds of awareness.
Lama Sarahni: Greater level of awareness, yes.
Stevie: Good. Thank you.
Let's take a break. I need to reboot.
(Break 54:19)
We are back.
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
Geshe, Michael wraps that all up saying we're investigating in meditation this realization, the experience of the awareness happening is ripening seed then nothing but. And that means there's no negativity in our minds that can be stopped except by way of taking care of others-states of mind.
How we affect other people plants the seeds in our minds that ripen as to how our mind affects us.
To come to an understanding of the dependent origination and empty nature of our own mind reveals to us the fact that all this depression, jealousy, anxiety, upset, nervousness, happy and then it goes away, is all unnecessary. It could all be pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. Love love, love, love, love. Could be, because it's empty.
Flavia: So, a busy state of mind is not only a problem for meditation, it's also against making seeds for awareness to be able to see ourselves and keep our morality, even.
Lama Sarahni: To be in this busy state of mind you mean?
Flavia: Yes. A busy lifestyle that everybody defends, so that we don't want to, I dunno, give up so easily.
Lama Sarahni: Right. But it's not the busyness, that's the problem. It's the lack of awareness that keeps us in the planting mode that is the problem. If somebody had this high level of awareness, like Geshe Michael, he is busy, I'll bet his mind is just through constantly with this underlying awareness of seeds planting, seeds planting. But for most of us, I mean me, I had to back out of the usual lifestyle in order to grow my ability to grow that mindfulness. And then even still, when I step back in, I reach a bar, I can't go further than that anymore. I used to be able to multitask and I just can't do it anymore. And a part of me says, well, that's a problem because Buddha does multitask. I need to be able to multitask. But until I can multitask with awareness, I'm not going to let myself go back to the old habit of multitasking, because that was just perpetuating Sansara-multitasking instead of creating Buddha paradise-multitasking, like that.
All right, next one.
The Antidote Itself is gone to is
The antidote itself is gone to is. What's the antidote?
The mind of wisdom. Wisdom is the antidote.
We've been talking about growing our Bodhichitta. To grow our Bodhichitta, we came to realize more clearly the lack of self existence of our outer world, including our body that it‘s seeds ripening and nothing but. And our own mind seeds ripening and nothing but. Now that wisdom, oh, everything is seeds ripening and nothing but, and so I want to plant seeds to create the future I want.
We think, Oh, I've got it. This is saying, recognize that that itself is not self existent. We’ll think, Oh, once I get wisdom, I have what it takes to move along my path to Buddhahood. It's true you do, but there's nothing about that wisdom from its own side that works to move us along the path.
I don't know that if by the time we actually get that wisdom, we could fall for that. But the important thing is to have this wise training going into our direct perception of emptiness, so when we come out of it, we've got the imprint to understand what that experience was all about. Because we could go into that experience without any kind of training whatsoever, and come out of it and have a different interpretation of it.
There's nothing self-existent about the direct perception of emptiness that puts you on the Bodhisattva Bhumi.
It's the training that you took into it that you have coming out of it. That's why they say, seeing emptiness directly with the mind imbued with Bodhichitta.
They don't just say, see emptiness directly.
It's important. It's an important piece to realize that all your training is leading to the direct perception of emptiness, so that can function in the way of putting you onto your Bodhisattva Bhumis. It's not the direct perception of emptiness itself that does that.
Wow, like that sounds herital. Is that the right word?
But a self-existent direct perception of emptiness can't happen, can't function, can't do anything, because there's no such thing.
So why do we have to worry about it? We can't reach it.
We could mistake our experience for that. Then it can't have the big impact that it has the potential to have because we've been trained that's what it's going to do.
The wisdom itself also lacks self existence. The wisdom itself doesn't come from anything other than our own seeds ripening. That's what lacking self existence means.
The wisdom that grows as a result of your direct perception of emptiness is seeds ripening a mind of wisdom. We can reach a mind of wisdom, but only by way of having planted seeds of wisdom.
Well, how do I plant seeds of wisdom if I don't have it? I have to have a packet of tomato seeds in order to plant tomatoes. But the tomato seeds grow into great big tomatoes with a zillion more tomato seeds that can be planted by somebody.
Any amount of wisdom that we share with anybody are seeds planted in our mind that can grow into this wisdom that we're talking about. Anything that we know that somebody else doesn't seem to know that we share with them is going to contribute to our growing wisdom.
Share something we know with someone else with the intention of those seeds ripening as your direct perception of emptiness and Buddhahood itself, and then those seeds add to those other seeds directed in that direction. The seeds themselves aren't self-existent either, so they can be colored with the intention and motivation to ripen in a different than worldly way.
Luisa: And this with the self-existent wisdom and the self-existent karma laws, this is for me what has been confusing, because if I think karma laws are not self-existent, but still we are saying this is kind of the ultimate truth. Saying this is the way that it really works. But then we say it's not self-existent, which will mean for me, there are people who by them karma law will not work. No?
Lama Sarahni: So a karma law being self-existent means of karma law that's not a ripening of our seeds to know it as the karma law that we're understanding it to be.
Luisa: But the working of the karma law will happen to anybody regardless of the belief or not.
Lama Sarahni: They work according to our karmic seeds for them to work. Our seeds planting makes them work. Our seeds planting makes them work in the way that they do. So that means that there could be people who don't know anything about them and they still work, and there could be beings who don't know anything about them and they don't work. And there could be beings who know something about them and they don't work, and know nothing about them and they don't work.
And all of that is necessary to think through so that we can understand what we're misunderstanding when we think, How can the seed laws of karma be projected and still be the answer to how things work?
Luisa: Okay, this is too much.
Lama Sarahni: It's really, really difficult. I wish I could say it in words that you would just go, Oh, I get it right. And it is true that they're not not projected, and it is true that by way of they‘re being projections, they work in the way that they do, but not from their own side.
It's true that to see oneself give kindness has to come back as receiving kindness. What if for me, it's a kind thing to lock my head off with a blade of grass. If I believed that to kill me, to cut my head off was a kind thing, then that means when I cut somebody's head off, I was perceiving it as a kindness. Is that still the law of karma working? Yeah.
Do you see? But it's like, no, no, it's not good to get your head cut off.
Luisa: Not good for whom?
Lama Sarahni: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Luisa: Yeah. But then this, I don't know. Okay.
Lama Sarahni: Seeds planting is seeds… Awareness of things done is the cause of awareness of things happening later.
Luisa: So this is what they say. There is no good and bad by itself, but then there is no ethics because we have this conduct of killing someone else is bad, and if I think killing someone else is good, I don't know. Someone can kill someone by the sake of others or God in their beliefs. They think it's good, but we all other think it's bad.
Lama Sarahni: Right. They're going to get killed. The ones who think killing is good are going to get killed. And if they think getting killed is good, that's consistent with the karmic law.
If when they get killed they don't think that's good, then their action of thinking it was good to kill somebody was wrong. It was mistaken.
Luisa: Okay, I will really listen to this.
Lama Sarahni: It's a really pretty tough topic, but pretty important. I mean, we can live by the laws of karma and not work this out. But it's pretty helpful to work it out.
All right.
The antidote itself is our wisdom. Wisdom itself is also empty, not existing except by way of projections happening, which is how it can happen, hooray.
We've really addressed the three spheres:
the emptiness of objects, the emptiness of subjects, the mind part, the emptiness of things that are happening, but also the emptiness of the wisdom that's being applied to those three spheres. Which is what makes it possible for our experiences to be different, different than Sansara is what I mean.
What we've talked about so far, when we look at the five paths:
the path of renunciation, the path of accumulation, the path of seeing, path of getting used to what you now know, and then the path of no more learning—
what have we traversed so far?
The path of renunciation we looked at as the preliminary.
Then the path of accumulation means accumulating enough intellectual understanding of emptiness and dependent origination that we're changing our behavior such that we're gathering enough goodness that we can move to the direct perception of emptiness, our path of seeing.
So those verses about
Learn to see all things as a dream;
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
The antidote itself is gone to is;
are all these accumulating knowledge, let's say, that happens in our path of accumulation.
Every time we say, oh, that angry state of mind is not self existent. It's a ripening out of seeds and nothing but, we're understanding emptiness on a certain level.
We're even perceiving emptiness on a certain level, an intellectual level.
To perceive it directly is an entirely different experience. But all of these little moments of catching glimpses of it are going to grow into this unique experience of perceiving ultimate reality directly.
So the line
Let it go in the essence, source of all things
It means two things.
Let it go, first of all is talking about the problems of meditation.
Let go of the problems of meditation in English, it sounds like, Okay, just forget it.
I don't know. That doesn't work to just let those meditation obstacles go. They're not going to go away by themselves.
It means work hard to get rid of them, because then you can let go of that effort. The obstacles to meditation or the JINGWA and GUPA—the agitation and dullness.
GUPA is the distraction. I always get them backwards. GUPA is the distraction, JINGWA is the dullness.
The agitation means you've got your meditation object, but your mind's off on lunch, the meeting, et cetera, or you've got your meditation object and your mind just keeps thinking about the object. It never finally goes Ah!, on the object.
Those states of mind interfere with our ability to penetrate to this level of concentration necessary to be able to really turn our focus of attention on the true nature of the object, whatever the object is.
JINGWA, the mental dullness. Obvious dullness is that sleepiness when you haven't had enough sleep, you've overeaten, you're just dull, dumb and stupid. That's pretty obvious to recognize. Then the more subtle dullness obstacle to meditation as you have learned, is when we are bright and clear and on the object with minimal if any of that distraction, but we don't have that intensity, that fascination that allows us to really hone in on the object and be able to let go of the effort of keeping it there. Subtle dullness feels good. It feels like a really nice meditation, and so it's easy to get complacent and let subtle dullness go on, which means every moment we're subtly dulling in our meditation, we're planting seeds for more subtle dullness. It grows into a bad habit.
Let it go, in this first meaning is, work really hard to get rid of those two. Because when we get to the point where we can actually let go, it means we've got our mind trained, are self-trained, that we sit down onto the cushion, we do our preliminaries, we sink right into Shamata level, and you can let go of the need to be keeping yourself on track.
That becomes a distraction as we've learned. At some point, to keep checking becomes a distraction. So let it go in the essence.
Let it go, means get your mind to where you can in fact let go of the effort necessary to concentrate deeply enough to turn your mind to the true nature of your object, whatever it is.
Then it says, let it go „In the essence, the source of all things“.
The essence, source of all things, of course, is talking about the true nature of the object, which means it's lack of self existence, which means it's appearing nature being coming out of mental seeds, past behavior, and no nature other than that.
It takes all those parts to get there. We want to go, Oh, the empty nature.
But to really get to the empty nature, we have to establish what's there and the way we thought it was there and remove that to reach the emptiness of the self existence that we thought was there that wasn't there.
We have to get to emptiness through an absence.
Let it go in the essence, the source of all things—is clear out those meditation obstacles and then hone in on the true nature of that object.
If you're gazing at the lovely face of your Lama, we could gaze for hours, days with this mind of Shamata and that would be good seeds.
But it isn't all in and of itself going to automatically turn our awareness to this is seeds ripening and nothing but.
We have to do that so we really do in fact change our object of meditation in the midst of our Shamata is: Here's my holy Lama there in front of me, and they look like they have their qualities in them, but I know they're coming from me, my past behavior and no other Lama than that, and sit there.
Then something will happen and you start again. Seeds ripening and nothing but.
Then seeds ripening and nothing but.
Just again and again and again until your time's up.
It's the process of this „Let go in the essence, the source of all things“.
It's really the verse that's saying, here's the key or the space in which dropping into the direct perception of emptiness can happen.
It's nothing in those words that's going to make it happen, but it's in the practice of cultivating that understanding of emptiness intellectually again and again and again, higher and higher and higher, or maybe deeper and deeper and deeper, that is planting seeds for at some point will happen the „Oh, seeing the pot on stove“-seeds thing and then going into the direct perception of emptiness.
You'll have the system down automatically. You'll go into Shamata, seeds will ripen of it happening.
So this very Lojong is training us in the method to cultivate our Tonglam, which is the ultimate Bodhichitta. So it's not just teaching us about it, it's teaching us how to plant the seeds to reach it. Hooray for that.
Then it says:
In between sessions, be a figment of the imagination
In between sessions be a figment of the imagination.
We're still in this part two about cultivating our Bodhichitta. It sounds like, Okay, just pretend you're not real. Pretend you're an imaginary thing.
That wouldn't actually be so helpful necessarily, unless I don't know, there could be a circumstance where it would. But it doesn't mean, just recognize you pretend.
Be a figment of imagination is referring to what happens when you come out of your TONG LAM, which we learned is the period of JETOP YESHE, the aftermath wisdom where for some period of time, 8, 10, 12 hours after the direct perception of emptiness, the goodness of that is ripening as a open heart chakra. Which means our awareness is more open, which means we're perceiving our world in a more open way, which… you're not omniscient, but you're aware of others' thoughts more so, you're aware of other sufferings more so, you have that experience of the face of all beings and you love 'em, and you have these series of realizations, experiences, direct experiences that make things real for you that come to be called the four Arya truths.
The four aspects of the four Arya truths are the explanation of these experiences that happen in JETOP YESHE:
Your realization of your own death, your realization of your own Buddhahood, all of these things and the causes of things. You'll have come out of the experience of the lack of self existence of you and all existence.
Having gone into it with the wish to become Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. You come out of it recognizing, Ah, I see the mistake. I finally see the mistake I've been making since forever, that all beings in my world have been making since forever. And I see that it's not necessary, because just then for 20 minutes I got out of it. During the 20 minutes you didn't know. You weren't aware. But coming out of it, it's like, oh man, the mistake. You finally know the mistake.
We think we know the mistake now, by way of our study, but to finally experience yourself out of it and then come back into it, it's like right there in your face, unmistakably the way we're seeing things, experiencing things, believing in things is mistaken. Every instant, every moment is mistaken because we're thinking they have their identities in them. We're thinking they come from their own causes and conditions. We think that I can do whatever I need to do now to get the thing that I want next.
Coming out of your direct perception of emptiness and through your Jetop Yeshe, it's like that was never the case. It's always been my behavior planting seeds creating what I am experiencing. So it's always been what I'm experiencing now is creating what it'll be in the future. To have that by direct experience, nobody can ever tell you differently, right? Because you experienced it.
In between sessions, be a figment of the imagination
is saying that Jetop Yeshe and the wisdoms that you gain from that, they're going to happen. So as part of our practice, it might be worth reviewing those coming out of a meditation. I've never done that. It just popped in my head now to come out of even an emptiness meditation recalling, well now I'll truly understand the true nature of all existence and suffering, and that it has causes. And anything with causes, if you end the causes, the thing has to end. And the way to do it is by being kind, not so hard, really being kind. And then get off your cushion and go be kind, because we understand why—better—than we did before.
The figment of imagination
is reminding us that everything that we are perceiving is projected, projections forced by the ripening of our past behavior.
The figment of the imagination, really the figment of the imagination is the self existent nature of all things. We're making that up, because it's not there.
So this verse is just reminding us that even after our direct perception of emptiness, when it's all over, we go back to seeing things the same old way.
Only now we know we're wrong. Now we're experiencing the discrepancy between the way we perceive things and how we know that they truly exist.
We can't make ourselves see them as seeds ripening again, but we know that they're not coming from their own side the way they look. Their coming from their own side is a figment of our imagination.
The me coming from its own side is also a figment of the imagination. It's one thing to do it with the tree, and the David, and the doctor's appointment, and all that other stuff. It's another to do it with our me, whatever that is.
Figment of the imagination.
No, it's self existent nature is the figment. Get it right.
Then comes the third part.
Geshela says the second part of the section on developing Bodhichitta comes next.
So all of what we just did was the first part: growing our intellectual understanding of emptiness and dependent origination all the way up to seeing it directly. But now we're wanting to cultivate that living by the mind of Bodhichitta. Because if our practice has not yet taken us into the direct perception of emptiness, we want to gather enough goodness so it can.
So how do we live with our intellectual understanding of emptiness and dependent origination, such that we can grow that into a direct perception of those two things that comes next. It says:
Practice giving and taking, alternately;
Let the two ride on the wind.
Three objects, three poisons, three stores of virtue.
Practice throughout the day, in words.
The order of taking’s to start with yourself.
This is the first mention of Tonglen that comes in this Lojong.
But it also apparently in the literature is the first time a mention of Tonglen practice was written down. It doesn't call it Tonglen, but the practice of giving and taking alternately riding on the winds—that's what the practice of Tonglen is.
The practice of using our breath and our imagination, and our wisdom to imagine that we're taking pain and suffering and ignorance and anything from the beings of our world as we inhale using that to destroy our own mental afflictions and ignorance.
Then in exchange, giving whatever goodness, whatever happiness, whatever wisdom we have, giving that to the other and using it, training our own breath to be doing that.
So that you always have a default mode of serving when you're out and about.
You don't even have to be out and about. Any amount of suffering that we perceive or know that can be happening, we're always breathing. We can always breathe in the suffering, destroy it, send out goodness.
So there's a whole module for learning how to do Tonglen properly. It sounds so simple, but it needs to be done with a big understanding of why and what and how, and there's a method to learning that. So I really encourage you to do the Tonglen practice module if you haven't already.
It doesn't work the way you think, but it does work, sometimes amazingly fast it seems.
This verse says,… so we're saying, what are you going to do to grow the goodness, to get your deceptive Bodhichitta to become ultimate Bodhichitta?
Use your breath to take away the suffering of others.
What are we going to take away? The three objects, the three poisons, the three stores of virtue?
We're not taking away three stores of virtue.
We're taking away three objects, three poisons, and we're giving three stores of virtue.
What do they mean by that?
Let me give you a little Tibetan:
Yul Yi-Duong Miong Barma Sum
Yul=object
Sum=three
So whatever's in between is the three they're talking about.
Yi-duong = pretty things you like
Miong = not nice
Barma = things in between
Things that are pretty, we like.
Things we don't like, Miong.
And Barma - things in between.
Barma like bardo.
The 3 Objects
The three objects are things we like, things we don't like, and things that are in between. When we see someone and they are experiencing something they like, why do we want to take that from them?
Or does it mean when we see them experiencing something we like, do we want to take that from them? That seems to make our jealousy worse.
What are we really taking?
When we see somebody, something they don't like happening to them? Oh yeah, duh. I can't myself do anything. I can still do Tonglen. I'll imagine I can take those seeds away so that they never have to experience that again. That feels more legit, doesn't it?
Then things neither way, neutral things. I don't know that there's really such a thing, but here it is. Neutral things we just don't care about.
Why are we Tonglen-ing anybody with things that it doesn't matter?
Because underlying all of them, if we're seeing them as humans in a human world, underlying all of them is the mistake: The liking things ignorantly, the disliking things ignorantly, even the not caring about things ignorantly, that the whole worldly approach to getting those things, avoiding those things, is perpetuating suffering.
Obvious suffering, Suffering of change, pervasive suffering.
This is saying, you see anybody doing anything, it's a reason to Tonglen. Because if you see them as humans, they're perpetuating their sansaric world, and what if they die on the way home and they don't know anything about it and they die really mad and they end up as a hell being?
Okay, I'll suck in their ignorance. Their thinking the milkshake is bringing them happiness, when in fact it was because they served a milkshake to somebody else, that the milkshake is happy for them. I'll suck all that mistake in, and I'll recognize that in fact, it's coming from me. So by sucking it in, I'll use it to destroy my own mistaken belief and well, how happy it'll be when everybody knows about wisdom and I'll give them all kinds of happiness and love.
All in a breath, in a breath.
What are we Tonglen-ing?
The odd things we like, things we don't like, things we're neutral towards.
What's the other?
We are also Tonglen-ing the three poisons.
The 3 Poisons
The three poisons we know as DUCHAK, SHEDANG and TIMUK, and they shorten that to CHAK DANG TIMUK SUM, which is what they mean by the three poisons.
But really it's DUCHAK, SHEDANG, TIMUK that we learned in last class.
Because really these are the things that makes these objects be in any one of these categories, isn't it?
So really, this is the level that we would be working on.
What we really want to suck in is the ignorance underneath the liking, not the liking, the ignorance underneath the disliking, not the disliking. The ignorance, because it's in the ignorance that tells us, Oh, if that person's yelling at me, I get them to stop by yelling louder, or by being aggressive towards them, or by being rude or by showing them how they're wrong.
Mistaken idea of how to respond to an unpleasant thing to get the unpleasantness to stop. That mistaken behavior plants seeds for new unpleasant situations that we then act in a way that maybe appears to stop it but doesn't really.
Same for pleasant things.
It's these poisons that we want to be getting rid of.
It's like for us to reach wisdom, we need to get rid of these three objects, three poisons, don't we?
Because really they're coming from us. We're seeing them in others.
We're using seeing them in others to practice Tonglen, to grow our Bodhichitta so that we can really help others stop their own seeds.
It's the misunderstanding of the response that is where our ignorance shows up. When there's something that we want, our willingness to do something unkind to get it or keep it, is our ignorance acting.
When there's something unpleasant, our willingness to do something unkind to avoid it is our ignorance acting.
But we've learned that the criteria for whether what I do qualifies as kind or unkind is determined by will I like it when it happens to me? Will I not like it when it happens to me?
Because that's the criteria. That's the best we have to use to be able to choose our behaviors short of being omniscient, where we know exactly what behavior will bring what results. Because we're experiencing both the cause and the results simultaneously as an omniscient being. We don't have to wait till then, if we just apply: Will I like that? Will the future me like it to get my head cut off?
I don't think so.
Then I got to solve this problem some other way. I am not going to kill that cockroach to get rid of it, even though society says I should. Everybody says I should. I refuse because I don't want to get my head cut off in future.
Just applying that logic is a huge wisdom. It takes a certain amount of time to do it. And while you're doing it, you're planting seeds. Those seeds being planted is changing you and changing your world. Even though they haven't ripened yet, they're affecting all your other seeds.
Your wisdom is already happening. It's already being applied. We can intentionally grow it.
The three virtues
The three virtues are what come out of practicing the removing the three objects and the three poisons.
Remember we had that five poisons, and when you apply the antidotes to the five, you end up with those five resultant results. I can't remember them now.
One of them was everything comes to you.
Another one is you are freestanding on your own.
Another one was, I think it was Buddhahood.
Another one was all success. No pain and all success.
Wrap those all into three.
Freedom from suffering, all kinds of success, and Buddhahood.
These three objects, three poisons, three stores of virtue we're growing by getting rid of these three objects—not the objects, the ignorant liking, ignorant disliking and ignorance that makes the thing look nice from it. That makes the other look bad from it. That's what we're taking away the three objects.
The three poisons: the ignorant disliking, the ignorant liking, and the ignorance itself and creating, planting the seeds for those three stores of virtue. Stores of virtue are going to grow into these aspects of our Buddhahood. Perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom.
We want to remove these three objects and three poisons from our own mind.
How do we do it?
Oh, we burn them off. We clear them off. We work on our wisdom. We grow our understanding…
No, actually.
We see ourselves trying to remove those from someone else's mind, right?
Which is why he has them here in the category of Tonglen. We can't remove those from anybody else's mind with surgeon's tools, but we can with our breathing and visualization practice of taking those ignorant objects and ignorant poisons, sucking them in, burning them off, seeing ourselves give them the three virtues. Our awareness of just trying to do that with our breath plants the seed for it to actually happen.
It's exquisite because we think, I have to get rid of my three objects and my three poisons. No, I have to get rid of yours, and then mine will go away. I don't have to do anything with mine.
I have to get rid of yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours. And it's like, how do I do that?
By breathing. Yay. Sweet. Don't you love Lojong?
Yeah. Now try to do it.
We breathe 21,600 times a day.
Half of those you are asleep. So you could pretend you're Tonglen-ing all night long. But at least during the day, 10,000 breaths do Tonglen.
Buddhahood shouldn't be so far away if we could Tonglen on every breath with this understanding. Which the only reason we can't is because we don't believe we can. Let's just ditch that belief, because it's a wrong belief.
Because we are giving everything to everybody every moment, aren't we?
Then burning it off. We're already doing it.
Luisa: That'll reduce our practice to just Tonglen-ing?
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, your whole practice could be Tonglen-ing. They say that what it is for a Buddha to breathe is Tonglen.
Buddhists don't breathe. They Tonglen. Kind of cool.
All right.
Oh man, I've got three minutes. I want to finish this class. I'm going to do a horse race.
So when you're Tonglen-ing, suck in these poisons—ignorant liking, ignorant disliking, ignorance itself—blow out the wisdoms. Forget all the rest of this stuff. Yeah, it looks like they have a limp. Suck in the limp. No, right?
The poisons, work on the poisons.
Then next it says, practice throughout the day in words.
The order of taking is to start with yourself, which is what we just talked about.
It's like, wait a minute, start with myself? Yeah, by doing other people. That's how you work on yourself. It's an important piece.
Then it goes on, it says,
When the world and those in it are full of bad deeds,
Learn to use problems as a path to Enlightenment.
The blame all belongs to only one person.
Practice seeing them all full of kindness.
This is going into part three of the seven step, which is using problems as the path. Problems happen.
If we think that our practice is not going well because we have problems, we're missing a big piece.
And if we think our problems are too hard to use as the path, we're missing a big piece.
Problems are what to use as our path.
We are burning off our own path deeds that are making those problems. We're using them up by experiencing it. And our choice of different behaviors is not perpetuating it. Maybe they're perpetuating some other suffering, but hopefully it's going to be less.
When he says, the blame all belongs to one person, we know who they're talking about. Me, my seeds cause all of your problems. So just blame me. I'll take it from all of you, truly, for me.
That means also that anything I do, body, speech, mind is creating the future circumstance for all of us. All of the yous that I know are coming out of my seeds. So now my deeds that I'm doing to plant my seeds just got a whole lot bigger than this. Really, my identity gets a whole lot bigger when I think of it that way.
Which is how it is possible that we can become Buddha. The Buddha being in paradise and standing on a billion planets being what every being needs and want to help them reach their full enlightenment. Because everything is ripening our own seeds, everything does exist and it's all lacking self existence, so it can all be what it appears to be—whether that's valid or correct, which is different.
When we say, I'll take the blame, our habit would be, Oh man, that's too big. I'm just so bad. Just kill me now. I can never get out of this one.
Our conclusion, better conclusion is, Oh, so my behavior is the key. I want to be kind. I want to keep my vows. I want to create the seeds that's going to ripen as my whole world getting happier. And maybe in the process of doing that, my whole world looks worse at first, which it is doing, but it doesn't mean my practice is a failure. It probably means it's a success and to keep it up.
Keep burning that stuff off, creating new, do what's right.
The conclusion from everything is my fault.Iis, So I can create everything new, differently. My behavior is the key.
Yikes. All right. I'm not going to finish class four, but let me look and see if you can do your homework.
All but question eight, but I think you can do your quiz. Question eight is not on the quiz. All right, I'm going to stop here.
Young-Soon, you have your hand up.
Young-Soon: Yes. Yeah. We are talking about this Tonglen, that if we see people or we see any bad action, it's coming from me, right? So I mean, if we really, really practice until that, it's so good, right? That it could be that the person himself is feeling the suffering, but I could be seeing that it's a good thing.
Lama Sarahni: Technically, yeah. But, when you say the person themselves is really experiencing suffering, that implies that we're not really understanding what we're saying. Because there is no really. We would have to say, If from their side they're experiencing suffering, but from my side, I see them having a great time. What's really going on here? How do I respond to them?
Just because we see them having a good time, do we ignore them? Or do we help them perpetuate what looks like a good time for us?
We try to help them perpetuate the good time.
If they say, no, no, I'm totally miserable. That's a ripening from our seeds, and we shift what we're doing with them. Oh, how can I help you?
It's not inconsistent to say, I see them having a good time and they see themselves having a bad time, and if we don't know their mind, we don't know, do we?
So it doesn't help to just say, I'm going to pretend everybody's having a good time.
We might want to ask them, are you having a good time? Because if you're not, I want to help it be better for you. And if you are, I want to help it perpetuate for you. Either way.
Our tendency when we say, oh, everything is coming from my seeds, is to think except me. And that's a huge mistake. Everything coming from my seeds includes the my that's involved. That's important to keep going back to that.
Everything is my seeds including me.
All right. I'm going to put my marker on this last page of class. I feel like we're stopping class on a downer instead of an upper.
You are creating your world to be in a class like this, to hear that everything is your ripening is such a goodness that you are already creating Buddhahood for everybody. Hooray.
How's that? It is true. Yes. Stevie,
Stevie: I asked Geshela just the other day about what Rinpoche meant by cooking it. And this Thursday, we have an opportunity in our study group that Sevonne leads to cook all of this and talk amongst ourselves, and to really find the language that will help us understand. So I suggest that if you want to cook this heavy, deep subject, come to study group.
Lama Sarahni: Yay. Good advertisement. Thanks Stevie. Thanks for doing that. It does help to try to find words that for your own mind goes, oh, that's it. And then keep working with those words as well.
Stevie: I don't know where I ever got the first suggestion about have a definition of what emptiness means to you and keep tweaking it and tweaking it and tweaking it, and have it follow you as you move along the path. And it's amazing, what it was 12 years ago, I thought it was an event to what it is today. So I really suggest to everyone to work on what your definition of emptiness is.
That's my suggestion. I meant it only as a gift.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, thank you. And then after this course, we'll do the six flavors of emptiness. Remember what Stevie says, right? Because those six flavors of emptiness helps us see, oh, this level, this level, this level, this level. And we'll see where we really are. Maybe we're not even quite there yet at all, but maybe so.
So let's do our dedication please.
[Usual closing]
Alright, thank you everyone.
3 February 2022
Link to Eng audio: Eng audio ACI 14 - Class 7
For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 14, finishing up class 4 and going into class 5, on February 3rd, my day favorite.
Let's gather our mind here as we usually do, please.
[Usual opening]
We are studying Lojong Dun Dun Ma, Lojong in the seven steps.
What are we doing? What's Lojong training us in?
Our Bodhichitta, don't forget.
Two kinds of Bodhichitta:
deceptive Bodhichitta and
ultimate Bodhichitta
Deceptive Bodhichitta isn't really Bodhichitta?
We didn't say that. It's the Bodhichitta that we experience in our deceived reality. That heart opening, seeing the face of every being and loving them and knowing that we personally are responsible for their happiness.
Then ultimate Bodhichitta: experiencing the emptiness of oneself and all existing things directly.
That's what we're training in. Don't lose it.
Because Lojong is like, whoa, so much to do.
But there's this goal in mind and it's all directed towards that.
Lojong Dun Dun Ma, it goes like this
Om svasti!
Om, may there be goodness.
Train yourself first in the preliminary.
We know what that means now.
Learn to see all things as a dream;
Examine the nature of the mind, unborn.
The antidote itself is gone to is;
Let it go in the essence, source of all things.
In between sessions, be a figment of the imagination.
Okay, got it. That was step 1 and step 2.
Step 1 = the preliminaries
Step 2 = the main event, 2 parts of the main event.
More of the main event:
Practice giving and taking, alternately;
Let the two ride on the wind.
Three objects, three poisons, three stores of virtue.
Practice throughout the day, in words.
The order of taking is to start with yourself.
That was a tricky one, right?
Who do you tonglen on when you start with yourself to take away the three objects and the three poisons? You tonglen other’s to take away your three poisons. Tonglen other’s three objects, three poisons to take away your own. Got it?
So you are working on yourself when you're tonglen-ing somebody else. But it is also legitimate to tonglen yourself for something that you have coming later on in the day or a week that's going to be difficult. But that‘s actually… nevermind.
So, where's the rest of it?
Part three, that's where we stopped.
Part three was using problems as the path, and the verse says,
When the world and those in it are full of bad deeds;
Learn to use problems as a path to Enlightenment.
The blame all belongs to only one person.
Practice seeing them all full of kindness.
I'm sorry, I just misspoke. We studied that. We did that one already.
Now,
See the deception as being the four bodies;
Emptiness is the matchless protector.
The four acts are the supreme method.
On the spot, turn all that happens to practice.
So that's the section on, sorry, I'm confusing myself.
Those two about bad deeds and this one using the deception, all of that is part 3, using problems as the path:
actual problems
Using Sansara as the path
Well, what else have we got to use? So we need to talk about these 4 phrases:
See the deception as being the four bodies;
Emptiness is the matchless protector.
The four acts are the supreme method.
On the spot, turn all that happens to practice.
We know the word deception.
The deception is we think things have their identities in them, but they don't really. Really, they're my seeds ripening and that's accurate.
The deception in life experience is that we tell a little bit of a lie in order to get the deal to go through, in order to get the advantage.
We're willing, I'm not saying always, but suppose our culture says that's okay, a little white lie. That's all right.
You'll have your own example that you could use.
Anytime that we say, Oh, this is how I achieved that result.
Here's another good one: You have roaches in your kitchen? Kill them. Put poison down the sink, because that's where they come from, right?
We are so well trained, I hope nobody's poisoning their roaches.
But still, our immediate thought when there's a roach is we want to get rid of it. We think that we can do something on the spot to that roach to hurt it. Then we'll get rid of those roaches in our kitchen.
That's the deception revealed, because killing somebody to get rid of them, the result of that is being killed to be gotten rid of, or something similar.
That isn't what happens immediately after killing somebody to get rid of them, but it is the result.
If killing them does seem to get rid of them, and that seems to be a good thing that couldn't have come from the actual killing them. We can feel the deception, Yeah, but they're dead. They are gone. That is true.
When you're dead, you're gone. When they're dead, they're gone.
But killing them wasn't the cause for them to be gone.
Do you see how hard the deception really is? That killing them to get rid of them will end up me being killed to be gotten rid of. The roach being gone from the kitchen, if that's a good thing, that came from something else. It appears to have come from killing them, but it's really coming from some goodness that we did to help someone have a clean place, or have a safe place to live maybe. Hard to know. But we can recognize that inside our deception is our belief that what we do now brings what comes next.
Why are we talking about it?
See the deception as the four bodies.
Now we know what the deception is: making wrong choices about what causes what. But then, see that whole situation of wrong choices as the four bodies.
The four bodies, when we hear that term, it is probably referring to the four bodies of Buddha.
I'm not just talking about Shakyamuni Buddha, when I say Buddha, I mean any fully enlightened being Buddha. So we could also talking about our own future Buddha, keep that in mind. We're talking about another who is Buddha and our own future Buddha.
Four bodies.
One body is the body in paradise, the paradise body it's called. That Buddha them in their Buddha paradise, got those marks and signs, not from its own side, but a being experiencing bliss. Bliss, always bliss.
Then Sambhogakaya, enjoyment body. One body, another body or aspect of being of a Buddha, of your Buddha, will be your emanation body. That You that is standing on the billion planet being what every being needs and wants. The Nirmanakaya, emanation being.
Then the third body of Buddha is their mind, their omniscient mind that is perceiving directly emptiness, independent origination of all things and all times.
So they can have a paradise body, an emanation body, omniscient body.
Then the Dharmakaya, the fourth body, which is really what is being spoken to here when it's saying the four bodies.
The fourth body is the Dharmakaya, which is the emptiness of the other three. So we know that emptiness of the other three means that those other three buddies don't have their natures in them. Those other three buddies are ripening results happening. The results of virtue in the mind of that being who's experiencing them, which is a long story when we get into them in Diamond Cutter Sutra about, who we're talking about here.
But those four bodies, the first three have to lack self existence in order to be the first three. And so that fourth one is like the underlying theme that is being spoken to in this verse.
See the deception as the four bodies.
Like the English word words there are confusing.
But it's saying recognize that everything in our deceptive reality—which means me, subject, object, other and the interaction between—that's all our deceptive deception that we're talking about. All of that, each individual piece and moment lack self existence. Identically to how Buddha lacks existence in their self other and interaction between as well as our own future Buddha will be similarly. So the fact that we have bodies and minds, which is our deceptive reality, if you're perceiving your body and mind as a sansaric human—the fact that they're empty of self existence, nothing but mental seeds ripening, projections happening results of past deeds. That's identical to the way that your Buddha You will exist.
It's identical to the way that Buddhas that already exist exist.
Their body and mind are empty of self existence.
Their experiences are all projected results forced by past deeds.
Now it gets a little tricky with an omniscient being because they don't have past deeds, they just have all have now, and it includes past, present, and future, but they are still needing to perpetuate their four bodies. Not their fourth one, but their three of the four.
What this verse is saying, that in order to use problems as the path, we recognize the empty nature, the nothing but projected results from past deeds, which means current deeds will create future projected results of past deeds.
The idea is to put ourselves right into the now of the planting. I'm going to plant what I want in the future.
When we have this understanding that everything that happens—good, bad, in between—is this process happening that is forever happening and always will happen, it doesn't matter whether good things, bad things, pleasant things, unpleasant things are happening. We use them each one to plant new, to plant again, to plant better.
We use the deception. We see the deception as the four bodies, meaning the potential to be the four bodies if we just get our act right.
The fact that we're empty means if we had gathered enough goodness before, we would right now be interpreting this information as Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating. If we're not, we just haven't gathered the goodness yet. Or maybe we've gathered it and it just isn't ripening yet.
It's not that, Oh, I need to be in a world where nothing goes wrong in order to know that my practice is good. No, in fact, maybe we want some stuff to go wrong so that we know we are really cleaning out the mistake, and planting new lesson to mistake or no mistake at all.
Instead of thinking, oh, there's this deceptive reality that's so different than pure reality, I can never get between one and the other. It's recognizing, because of our emptiness, we're right at the doorway of a pure reality all the time. We just step through the doorway or not by way of our interaction with others.
Using problems as the path.
Let me make sure I've said everything I was supposed to say there.
We're training ourselves to always be in this moment of planting seeds. It's coming from the understanding about emptiness, et cetera, and it's like we're thinking to ourselves, I want to be kind. I want to be kind in the highest way, but I'm too stupid to even know that. What do I do?
Buddha taught vows, vowed behavior.
He didn't say, oh, restrict yourself with vowed behaviors. He said, Here, I'll give you AAA triptych. Just follow the instructions and you'll get there. Individual freedom vows, actually refuge advices, individual freedom vows, Bodhisattva vows, Tantric vows as well.
All behaviors that when done, plant seeds that contribute to the ripening of Buddha You and Buddha paradise emanating.
Then we don't have to stop and figure it out ourselves. Learn our vows, keep our vows. Again, I plug the vow app on the phone „Keep my vows“. It makes it so fun and sweet and easy and no excuse, because it's right there on your phone.
Emptiness is the matchless protector.
That I hope doesn't even need explanation, because we understood that what they meant by „See the deception as the four bodies“, what was necessary in that is to recognize what the emptiness of subject object interaction between implies. The implication being: my behavior creates all. We're starting to get those two—the emptiness and independent origination—into my behavior become linked together. Lojong helps us to do that.
When we go for a protector, in the worldly sense, your house is on fire—you call the fire department. Because they know how to put it out and they're obligated to come and so they're going to.
We're in trouble. We go to them, we know they can help and they do.
Maybe they put the fire out and maybe they don't, but the damage is done.
When we go for protection, what we're thinking is: what we do in the moment is going to stop the bad thing happening, and that's why I reach for something or somebody to help me.
If we leave our refuge at that level and we go for refuge to a Buddha image, or a Buddha statue, or even a temple, when somebody's after us, does it work?
Probably not.
Taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha by the prayer won't stop a speeding bullet coming to your head.
How does anything be a refuge, be a protection?
How does emptiness be a protection?
Can thinking of emptiness stop the speeding bullet from coming to your head?
No. No. Unless you're, who is that guy, Neil right? He catches it right?
Technically it could. But the way emptiness is the protector is that our understanding of emptiness and all those implications about it inspires us to choose our behavior carefully. It also helps us understand our true identity and the ongoing nature of our, let's call it mindstream, so that maybe even when the speeding bullet is coming at us, our state of mind is different, and that our sense of protection. We're not expecting physical protection, we're looking for some other kind of protection.
Protection of our state of mind, our reaction to that situation. Emptiness—our level of awareness of emptiness—is the most powerful thing that can guide us in our behavior choice.
That's where our protection life is in our behavior towards the something or somebody or whatever it is that we're needing protection from.
Does that mean you don't call the fire department when your house is on fire?
No, of course we still do AND we understand that it's my seeds ripening my house on fire.
It's my seeds ripening the fire department coming.
It's my seeds ripening whether they put the fire out or not, and how much damage there's done. My seeds ripening.
We don't want our houses to catch on fire. If they do, we want the fire department to be able to take them out.
So how do we live in order to gather as much protection as possible for our own future? Don't burn down somebody else's house. Nope. If you're going to do a fire, be careful nobody's living in that wood. It's like, my gosh, in a real world you can't do that. You get firewood, there's bugs living in it.
We just throw it on the fire, and so no wonder homes burn down. It's a miracle that ours don't for all the firewood that we've burnt since being humans. However, how many hundreds of millions of years have there been humans?
Emptiness is the matchless protector because through our understanding of it, we are more and more careful in our choices of behavior, physical behavior, verbal behavior and mental behavior, especially mental behavior.
It goes on to say:
The four acts are the supreme method.
Geshela didn't talk about the four acts and why they are the supreme method.
In your reading he says, The commentary says what the four acts are, but leaves it up to us to think about why they are the supreme method.
So I'll just give you the four from your reading.
Accumulating goodness.
Purifying negativity.
Okay, we've got those.
The last two, 3 + 4 are making offerings, but number three is
making offerings to harmful spirits and
making offerings to the protector deity.
It's a little interesting, because in my western culture, it's like we don't really even believe in harmful spirits and protector deities. Why would you make offerings to them?
You have a bit of an advantage if you grew up in a culture that does believe in those things, those beings, those entities, so that this might not be quite the stretch to do. But think about what does it mean to make offerings to harmful spirits and to protector deities? Protectors, it makes sense, right? I offer you this because I'm grateful you've been protecting me, so you'll protect me some more, right?
It doesn't work quite like that. It's our own mind.
Why would we make offerings to harmful spirits?
Yeah, kind of the same idea. We're going to buy 'em off.
Or you're going to make 'em like you so much, they'll stop trying to hurt you. There's a whole deity whose whole entourage are all those harmful spirit deities.
She made them into her entourage and they all still look really ugly, but now they've got these draping hearts and they're wonderful.
Anyway, so I'm not going to talk anything more about that.
Harmful spirits seem to do us harm. Making offerings to them would certainly change our response, which is ordinarily: Get out, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to get rid of you. I don't like you. Get away from me.
Instead, it's like, oh, harmful spirit. Hello, I hate what you're doing to me here. Would you like some cookies? Now, go away. Something like that.
Using problems as the path—remember that's the section we're in.
Last one says:
On the spot turn, all that happens to practice.
All that happens: Brushing your teeth, going to the toilet, going to the grocery store, somebody yelling at you, somebody stealing from you, somebody kissing you, somebody praising you.
Use it all. Not a moment to lose. Not a moment to waste.
That finishes class four, hooray.
We're going to move right into class five.
Class five picks up on Lojong Dun Dun Ma’s part four, which is the summary of an entire lifetimes‘ practice. Like an entire lifetime's practice in a nutshell, is how Geshe Michael translated that section.
I'll read you the verse.
The brief essentials of the instruction
Are combined within the five powers.
In the greater way the same five are the advices
For sending your mind; cherish the act.
That's the whole fourth section. The whole lifetimes practice in a nutshell.
The five powers, they're called TOP-NGA.
NGA = five, the number five
TOP = power
We've had it in the four powers of purification that TOP.
The five, let me just give them to you in Tibetan and then I can forget about that part.
Here are the five powers, the five TOPs, that is a whole lifetime's practice.
PENPA GYI TOB
GOMPA GYI TOB
This G-O-M-P-A, it sounds like in English COMB, like you comb your hair.
COMBA instead of GOMPA. The GOMPA is your temple space. That's a different word.
KARPO SABUN GYI TOB
SUNJINPA GYI TOB - the rip it out of the heart power
MUNLAM GYI TOB, MUNLAM = prayer
The last line
In the greater way the same five are the advices
For sending your mind; cherish the act.
Sending your mind is the word POWA.
Literally it means to move out. Like if you are moving to a new apartment, your POWA, I guess your POWA-ing from one apartment to the another.
But when they use the term POWA in a practice context, what they're speaking to is the transference of consciousness to a new.., at death.., the transference of your consciousness at death.
Your mind moves out of this apartment and moves somewhere else. I don't want to say it moves into a new apartment, that would be the wrong connotation. But a POWA practice is a training in which you learn how to consciously move your mind before this body dies onto whatever's coming next in a consciously achieved way.
It usually takes initiation and training and teaching and practice, powerful practice.
In our lineage, Geshe Michael, Khen Rinpoche, I don't know beyond them, they didn't teach POWA as a separate practice. It comes in the Vajrayogini practice. It is part of it, but not a separate part. But rather, our lineage focuses upon the power of gathering enough good seeds in our mindstream so that when this lifetime comes to an end, we'll already have enough goodness that the whole experience we’ll have changed enough to at least be such that we've closed the door to lesser rebirth, or close the door even to another Sansara—if not already transformed into the perfect angel being.
Geshela does not emphasize a POWA practice, except this one.
So this one in the Lojong is an open teaching about how to transfer your consciousness at or before the moment of the death of this body.
But it also will only work if we've gathered sufficient goodness in our mindstream for it to work.
This beautiful Lojong says, here are the five powers that we can apply in daily life to grow our Bodhichitta. Then it goes on to say, and you know what? These same five powers also used in a little different way will be what you do to transfer your mind before this body actually dies.
Before we can talk about the POWA part of the five, we need to understand the in life five, because that's what creates the causes for the POWA five to work. You see?
The POWA five won't work if we haven't habituated ourselves to the lifetime five. Then, because we've habituated ourselves to the lifetime five, well then just a little bit of a shift in how we use those five for dying, it's already easy and we've got the seeds for it to be successful for it to happen. Because we've been planting it our whole life.
So it really is an incredibly succinct teaching to have that in five simple steps.
Well, not so simple, but five, easy to understand steps, and then it takes a whole lifetime to do. But then you don't need anything else. I think I've said that before.
1. Power: Projecting Power
PENPA GYI TOB = projecting power.
We've studied it before, PEMPA, it was hooking the feathers onto the arrow so that when you shoot it, it'll go somewhere. A stick with no feathers on the end? You do this and it just drops. It has no direction. But when you put feathers on it, it gives it some kind of aerodynamic something or other, and you can shoot your arrow.
It's the word that they use for our intention.
We're shooting the arrow of our mind, our behavior, our understanding at something.
The power of PEMPA or the projecting power means that we train ourselves regularly, as in every day when you first wake up, establish your specific PEMPA for the day—your special intention, very specific intention for the day before you even get out of bed.
You wake up, don't even open your eyes yet. My determination for today is… fill in the blank.
You make this resolution: Today, I am going to… fill in the blank.
This gives suggestions for how to fill in the blank.
The practice is doing this intention setting every day.
It might be: My intention is I'm not going to waste a moment of this day in old worldly things, thoughts, beliefs. I'm going to direct myself towards my… whatever you're working on.
They say, remember lojong-ing is about growing our Bodhichitta. Our Bodhichitta is our wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
What's blocking that is our belief in self-existent me and self-existent other, and out of that comes our self cherishing—me first, that state of mind, my needs, my needs, my wishes, my what's best, me, me, me mine, me, mine, whatever.
Our PEMPA, if we're trying to grow our Bodhichitta, if I'm not going to waste a moment, I'm not going to waste a moment of opportunity to overcome my self-cherishing.
Now, maybe that feels too strong. I can't go there yet, right?
Maybe I'm going to not waste a moment to overcome my laziness that I can work with for a while.
We have this whole list of things that we can do our PEMPA on.
All of it, however, with the underlying theme of: So that I can become a Buddha, so that I can help others in that deep and ultimate way, or so that I can bring everybody to seeing themselves as Buddhas, helping everybody reach that.#
Whatever inspires your heart the most.
But to just say, Okay, I'm going to PEMPA today. I'm becoming a Buddha. It's too big.
We want our PEMPA to be something that we actually work on.
We're going to later that it may be your own personal high rise mental affliction that you say, Okay, I'm not going to waste a moment working with my jealousy today so that I can become a being who can help everybody be happy.
The Lojong reminds us that our worst enemy is our belief in our self existent me because that self existent me needs to get what it wants to be happy, get what it needs to be successful, and what it believes it needs to do to get what it wants and needs are the very things that prevent it from getting the things it wants and needs.
So we're talking about our ignorant state of mind having a life of its own
It's as if it does. Technically it doesn't exist at all. But the belief does exist so strongly that it becomes this chooser of behaviors, and we're learning to apply our wisdom to break that down and finally remove the belief in that self-existent me, so that it finally just disappears, or transforms depending on how you're thinking of it.
The key to stopping caring for ourselves so much is to train ourselves to care for others. That's not so hard. We have opportunities all the time.
When we feel good, it's easy. When things are going well, it's easier. When people are nice and we love them, it's not so hard.
But our challenge is to do it when they're not so lovable, we don't like them so much when things aren't going so easily or so well.
To continue to do our kindnesses out of wisdom instead of doing kindnesses because we're just nice people, or because they're the people I love. So of course I'm kind to them.
PEMPA is to make this determination.
I know who my real enemy is, it's my self cherishing, and I'm going to stop it. I'm going to stop it.
2. Power: Habituation
GOMPA GYI TOB, GOM is just like the GOM of meditation, getting used to. Getting used to living according to the cherishing others‘ understanding, cherishing others‘ understanding.
Why are we growing the ability to cherish others?
Because that's where happiness comes from—for them at that moment, for us in the future, ultimately to bring us to the Buddhahood that will help them also come to Buddhahood, the upward spiral.
Cherishing others moves us along that upward spiral.
This one says habituating. Habituating to cherishing others first.
The commentaries say „in secret“.
Lojong has come out in the public, but the Lojong-ing is happening inside our own heart, our own mind.
You're not out there going, Oh, I'm going to cherish you over me. I'm cherishing you over me.
No need to do that. I suppose you could, but it wouldn't really be helpful, would it?
It might kick people off, but rather this is all done inside your own heart. Your PEMPA first thing in the morning. Nobody needs to know you're doing that. Just you.
Nobody needs to know that the reason you stopped to get flowers for the secretary is because you're doing your Lojong.
They just go, Wow, how nice. Thank you for the flowers. It is lovely. And then we enjoy that they enjoy the flowers, and everybody who sees them as well. Okay?
Luisa: I have a question. What if they ask you the reason? Because I'm having that situation in the moment. I had an old boss who I didn't like.
Then out of fighting my jealousy and practicing Lojong, I asked him if I could do job shadowing. I don't know if you know what that is. You accompany that person for the whole day to learn how they work. It's kind of like admiring someone. But I'm doing it out of fighting my jealousy and these things. And then other people, because they know I moved from that place because I didn't like his management style, are asking me, like this is a bit contradictory. You are crazy. And I am fighting with that. If I tell them it's because of that, then I am killing the Lojong.
Lama Sarahni: No. No. If they're seeing some peculiar behavior in you, that's what you're saying. These other people are seeing peculiar behavior in you, and they've actually asked you, What's up with that, right? That's a perfect opportunity to say—you can do it a number of ways. You could say, Well, I really didn't like him and I was having trouble with him. And from my own mind to get over that, I want to see the way he does his job so that I can admire him. Some may get it and go, Wow, tell me why you're doing that. And others may go what?
Or you can sit them down and really explain to them. It depends on how much attention that you think they have, whether you give them just a one-liner. It's not ruining the Ljong to explain when someone asks you.
Luisa: Okay, thank you, because it was whoa, because you say give them what they want and he wants the recognition. And he's kind of, in my perception, he's using that to say, ah, look, I wasn't so bad because she's asking me.
Lama Sarahni: Right. And that doesn't matter. Because the two are not really related. That's also a reflection of some way in which your ego responded with ego puff up, because somebody did something that your motivation and what you're doing will come out. It will come out in the end. In this job with that person, probably not, but what you're doing is okay.
Luisa: So it's okay to say. Okay, thank you.
Lama Sarahni: And you don't say it to him unless he asks you. Otherwise, just for your own mind, admire, admire, admire. And watch, because your own mind will try to find faults. And we're going to talk about what to do when that happens. You're just going to smash that state of mind that's finding fault. Then it's the next one, the next power.
GOMPA GYI TOB is getting used to living according to this cherishing others‘ first, which is this constant moment by moment recognizing what's coming next and who's it for. It takes a really keen level of mindfulness in the moment.
They say, the way you train this is that every time you change position, you mindfully do so to cherish someone else first.
It's really brilliant and it's completely impossible. It seems to me to actually do, but try it even for a few days. It's extraordinary.
When we move position, it's because we want something.
Even if it's just shifting position, you're back on a little bit stiff, you shift for some relief.
So they say, when you go from lying to sitting, when you go from sitting to standing, when you go from standing to walking, is that three or four? And when you laying down, sitting, standing, walking—those four—anytime you're doing any one of those activities, you're training yourself to be doing those activities with the cherishing others‘ state of mind.
If you really did that, you'd be in your chair and the urge to move your arm would arise. But before you moved your arm, you'd somehow think, I'm moving my arm.
Why?
Because it aches. No, I'm moving my arm to become a Buddhist so I can bring every being to happiness.
We move all the time generated by our own: I need this, I need that. So, if every time we go to move, we stop and say, No, that's not really why I'm moving. I'm moving so I can become a Buddha, and then move.
It gets us off automatic pilot really fast. It helps us recognize our subtle self cherishing really fast.
So what if you live by yourself? You never get out of bed?
No, you do. But you do so in order to become a Buddha to bring all to happiness.
How does getting out of bed do that? It doesn't. Nothing we do does. It's the state of mind we do things with that does, because that plants the seed.
You can become a Buddha by brushing your teeth. If you brush your teeth with Bodhichitta, doesn't mean you'll become a Buddha while you're brushing your teeth. But brushing your teeth become a cause of Buddhahood.
Everything can become a cause of Buddhahood when it's done with Bodhichitta.
Rachana: I just want to check what… I shift all the time, right? So is it like I'm thinking that, oh, I'm shifting in may, anybody else who's back hurts also gets relief, or is it…?
Lama Sarahni: You could do that. You could do that. Yes. It's getting off the automatic pilot of „I'm doing this for me“.
This teaching is saying, when you're laying down, check your state of mind.
Is it for others or is it for you?
When you're walking, when you're sitting, when you're standing. Like is there anything else you're ever doing other than lying, sitting, walking?
It means every moment of every day, we have the opportunity to tag our state of mind of concern for others above concern for health, just by way of our body movement. I think it would kick in pretty quickly if we could really do it.
Geshela says, it's a Kadampa trick to get us to remember what our main job is: To be thinking Bodhichitta, to be thinking the emptiness of me, the emptiness of why I'm moving.
Let's take a break. I went right to seven o'clock. We'll take a break before we do number three.
(Break) 1:04:45
3. Power: The Force of Pure White Seeds
KARPO SABUN GYI TOB - the power of pure white seeds.
KARPO SABUN = white seeds
There are two practices inside this one daily practices.
The first one is the practice of collecting really powerful karma.
The second one, you could guess, is the power of wiping out one's old negative karma.
In this power of pure white seeds is included, the gathering of white seeds and the clearing out the negative seed.
They're talking about helping us grow a state of mind that's so aware of what's arising that at the slightest irritation, the slightest bit of unhappiness about something, the slightest bit of competitiveness, we're aware of that, refusing to let it go on and responding differently.
Because at those very slight levels of ignorant results arising, a very teeny bit of a mental affliction is already affecting our winds and channels and mind, our subtle body in such a way that our channels are being clogged, choked, knotted, twisted by every moment of those slight irritations that grow into big ones.
As that goes on and repeats itself through life, those clogged, damaged channels manifest as clogged, damaged bodies. And they get wrinkly and they get gray and they get nobby, and they get icky. All because of these damages to the channels and winds caused by these mental afflictions.
Every time one of those begins to arise that we forward it and in fact feed it the opposite, that one less clogged, knot, inflammation, whatever inside that subtle body. We can even get to the point where we're adding goodness at a rate faster than we're adding new irritation.
That body will feel better, function better, even go on to get healthier. Technically it's possible, but mostly as those winds and channels are improving, the mind that runs on the winds is improving. So the mind is happier, regardless of the state of the outer channels.
As the mind gets happier, the winds and channels are going to get better.
As the winds and channels get better, the mind gets happier, and at some point the happy state of mind takes over, if you will, and you can stay healthy regardless of the outer experience that the body and mind is experiencing. Because now those winds and channels are opening up.
This PEMPA GYI TOB, we start working at a gross level, but it's a whole lifetime's practice, because as we get better and better at the gross level, we have more and more to work on at the subtle level.
It gets more and more powerful, gross to subtle.
You would think it would be the other way around. But when we're working at these very subtle levels, the pure white seeds are being planted so swiftly that there are many of them.
The first part of this, of gathering goodness at the level of study that we're at, we already understand about what goodnesses are: the protecting life, the protecting others property, the protecting, respecting relationships, the speaking truthfully, the kindly towards others, the purposefully and the bringing others together… all of that action of body and speech and all its ramifications, they come to us in the form of the Bodhisattva vows behavior.
When we're familiar with all of that, at this level of practice now we'll be in the arena of choosing the highest goodness. We've already gotten to the point where we're choosing goodness, pretty consistently choosing goodness. But now we'll find ourselves in the position of choosing between goodnesses.
This practice is saying always go for the highest, always go for the highest, the highest that you're capable of in the given situation. Push yourself.
In your planning, Geshela calls it „intend to be a virtue hug“, just looking for all the goodnesses that you can do, everywhere going for the highest and the biggest.
He gave the example that when the man who was his boss became his boss, when he was first starting his jewelry business, he was just a brand new business, but he already refused to take any orders under a hundred thousand dollars.
He got requests for things for $10,000. And Geshela said he was actually pretty amazed that the guy would say, No, I don't want to deal with the small fry. I'm taking a hundred thousand dollars orders or none at all.
And it grew, somehow it worked for him.
But Geshela took that to mean we can get really comfortable with our level of the goodnesses that we do in our arena, and that's useful and it will help.
But do we have time to mess with the small fry? Technically, we don't know whether we have time, which means we don't have time.
When we understand karma and emptiness and the possibility of the transformation of our entire existence, then our sense of urgency would grow a bit and we'd be looking for the highest way to be of service.
Then maybe our choices of things that we do will be different, pushing ourselves further.
Luisa: You measured the highest in terms of karmic objects, or how do you measure what is the highest, right?
Lama Sarahni: When we've learned about karma and how to make karma more powerful, we've learned about doing deeds towards a powerful karmic object. We've learned about doing deeds repetitively, doing deeds with high motivation. What were the other ones? There was a list of, I don't know, five or six or seven things.
It also has to do with our own perception of ourself—whether we're perceiving ourselves as some old schmuck human who can never really change things and I'll just try and do this stuff, is different than, No. I'm an angel in the making. I'm Buddha in the making when I do this stuff. That also changes the power of the karma, how we perceive ourselves. A lot of the Diamond Way is based upon that.
So, when we talk about a powerful karmic object, it feels awkward as the teacher sharing with this because the highest, the most powerful karmic object that you have is the person who's teaching you the Dharma.
It doesn't mean one person, whoever is teaching you the Dharma is a powerful karmic object for you. And so if you want the most bang for your buck, your service to them is the highest virtue that we can do.
And then recognize that that being who's teaching the Dharma, their perspective is, All I want to do is implant the Dharma in the mind of every being in my world. It's like nothing is more important than sharing the Dharma.
Anyone who's studying under someone who's sharing the Dharma to help that person be able to share the Dharma in whatever way that you can do that is a virtue, a powerful virtue. So maybe you're the one who's close to that teacher and you do their laundry so they don't have to. You wash their dishes so they don't have to. That's a high virtue if you're doing it because you understand about karma and emptiness, and that empowers them to spend more time on preparing their classes and sharing the Dharma.
Or, maybe you're able to be one who, I don't know, helps schedule the courses and advertise it and prepare the readings and make sure everybody has the readings, right? Maybe you're not even close to the teacher physically, but you play this role for them. That means they don't have to do it. So they have more time to prepare and share the teaching. It's the state of mind more than what we're actually doing. But anything that we do for those who are teaching us the Dharma and teaching others the Dharma, is a really, really powerful set of seeds when done, because you understand why you're doing it.
Geshela and ACI, and DCI, et cetera, he knows that and he's made it such that people can very easily get put in positions of helping. All of you that translate, all of you that are doing programs. It's all designed to give you this opportunity to make this huge virtue, to help you get enlightened as quickly as possible. Like wow,Geshe Michael. Thank you. Such wisdom. We all have some kind of opportunity that we can help.
To serve someone who's teaching the Dharma is one mode of gathering this high virtue. The second is to serve the Dharma in any way.
Meaning maybe there's a Dharma center in your area and you could help support the center. Maybe you just sweep the floor, maybe you clean the toilets, maybe you support financially, maybe you drive people there who couldn't get there.
Otherwise, all of that is high, high virtue. It seems like, No, it's not. It's just sweeping the floor. No, no, but because you understand why you're sweeping the floor at that Dharma center. Or maybe there's no Dharma center around, and so you use your living room to have ACI courses. We did that for years and share the Dharma. And you just make the space available for people. All of that is very, very high virtue when we do it with this state of mind of understanding why.
Of course, studying emptiness, meditating on emptiness is also a great virtue builder. And as we learned before, Tonglen on others‘ poisons and the objects, three poisons, to give them the three virtues. Another very powerful virtue builder.
We notice that these are mental states.
What we have in mind as we're doing our deeds is what makes the deed be this high virtue. I mean, you could probably run this stream of thought to come to the conclusion that brushing your teeth is helping your teacher teach the Dharma and making the place you're brushing the teeth be a place that's high and holy and sacred. I mean, really, you could actually. But more important, right, is to make it more obvious to our mind. But then it needs to be in mind as well. These are states of mind we're trying to cultivate.
Then the second part of the KARPO SABUN GYI TOB is wiping out one's old negative karma. That old negative stuff is contributing to our obstacles to wisdom.
It also is what ripens into the struggles that we have, the unpleasantness that we have, whether they're obvious unpleasantness is the unpleasantness of change or just plain old pervasive suffering.
But we've already learned we're going to use all of that as the path. So now it's like our aversion to all that a little bit less. Now we want to be, well, that will empower us to work with our state of mind towards those things.
When we're in the state of mind that, Oh, my happiness or my unhappiness is related to what's going on with me right now, it's really hard to work on our state of mind as a separate thing from what we're experiencing.
But when we've got this space between what's arising and our response, our reaction to what's arising, where we can be working with our response, it doesn't matter so much what's arising. Do you see?
We get to the place where it doesn't matter so much first, and then we can work with these responses.
In doing this rip out negativity, it is applying the four powers as we've learned them. I don't think there's anyone here that doesn't know the four powers and has practiced them. But if there is, would you please contact me, because we need to know the four powers and how to apply those, so that we can be doing it daily, at least at your meditation session, if not throughout the day.
You can apply your four powers every time you do a vow, technically, anytime. It doesn't take 10 minutes to apply your four powers.
It is about tracking our behavior, keeping our vows that we do all day long.
Stevie: Do you think that it's also important in this part that, I mean, how lucky are we that negative karma is ripening now when we have the Dharma, when we have the teacher, when we have the teachings, and it's like that gives me when I can remember that, it helps me a lot.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, that's hugely powerful to connect that dot. How lucky I am for David's deteriorating neurologic condition to be ripening when I have the Dharma to hold us up. Is that crazy? Are you going to go and say that to a group of people that aren't in the Dharma? I'm so lucky to have this situation. I wouldn't be brave enough to do that. But in a group like this, you're absolutely right. How lucky we are and how fragile is it?
Stevie: If it weren't for my addiction, I never would've met Geshe Michael.
Lama Sarahni: Yay, right? Yay, yay for the addiction. I say the same thing. If my parents' plane hadn't crashed, I would not be here. The best and the worst thing that ever happened to me. Took a long time to come to that conclusion, long time. But I wouldn't have it any other way now, unless I could have it as they teach me the Dharma when I was a little kid. That could have been, but. Okay.
The next one. So that was just the 4 powers of purification practice is in the power of pure white seeds, curiously. Now, the 4th power of the five is
4. Power: To Rip Out From The Heart
SUNJINPA GYI TOB means to rip it out from your heart power.
That's one of the four powers of purification. What's going on here?
So this SUNJINPA GYI TOB is at another level than the one that we apply in our 4 powers.
This one is meant as a all day long power that we're cultivating. Meaning we're on this high alert for the state of mind that thinks, what about me?
I want what I want. This comparison between self and other or whatever our next choice of behavior's going to be—is it for my benefit or somebody?
What's the state of mind going on here?
The instant we recognize self-existent me, self cherishing, we take that self cherishing and rip it out from our heart. So they use that strength, like a thought. They say, A seed ripens. You can't see my heart. Here's my heart.
A seed ripens. Technically it comes from lower even. Let's call the seed ripens the heart, it gets differentiated, it gets labeled, it gets seen.
So we're talking about at this level of this self cherishing coming out in which we go, grab it and throw it in the fire, so that it doesn't even get so far as a „me I want“.
Could you imagine what level of awareness you'd have to be at to get it here and rip it out?
Probably it's going to be here when we grab it and rip it out. It's okay. Don't let it go. By the time it gets here off the screen, we've thought, said or done something. Still grab it, rip it out, throw it in the fire as soon as you recognize it. But the sooner the „Oh, I, me, mine—self cherishing me, grab it, throw it in a fire.
I used to imagine this little flame was on my left side somewhere, not inside me, but outside me, and it went anywhere with me that I went.
Remember the old Malto meal commercial? There was a little bowl of cereal that followed the little kid. Mine's a fire on my left side, and I would literally go, Puff.
I think I was walking around doing this for a while until finally it shifted to just in my mind, thrown out in the fire.
But this instantaneous awareness, me going for me here and to not tolerate it for an instant. We can't just turn that on, but we can train in doing it.
5. Power: Make a Prayer
MUNLAM GYI TOB, MUNLAM = prayer. The power of prayer.
The power of prayer overlaps with your coffee meditation. You're growing a lot of stuff to do as you go to bed, aren't you? It's like you have to start going to bed about six o'clock at night in order to go to sleep at 10. There's so much to do at bedtime.
I don't know. You have to figure out how to do that.
The power of prayer is this practice where at the end of your day, you recall: This morning when I got up, before I got up, I set my intention to go after that self-cherishing demon me. And then during my day, gosh, I actually did it once.
I took a glass of water to David. Wow, yay. I'm really happy I did that. And there were a couple of times that I was about to say something that really didn't need to be said, and I caught it and I threw it in the fire. Yay, I did that.
It is a rejoicing practice, but here they call it a recognizing all the times that you overcame your self cherishing. Even if it was just one time. To recall it, to be happy you did it. We know the power of that, it adds to the seed the being happy with the seed, which adds to all the seeds that are similar.
So we count up all the efforts of goodness.
Now, what happens really when we lay down to do our rejoicing practice?
I did this, this, and this, and then your mind goes, Yeah, but you also did that and that. Shut up. That's one to grab and throw in the fire, right?
Shut up in there and go back to the goodnesses. Find the little sweet ones.
The big ones are obvious, but find the times you didn't say something that you maybe would've said in the past, or times you felt a sense of, Wow, that's so beautiful out there. Whereas before you just would've ignored it.
Any little bitty shifts in your sense of me, me, to other, other, and be happy about them as you're laying there to go to bed and dedicate them.
We know coffee medication isn't just about being happy. It's about dedicating all that goodness to a specific result. We've learned about how you choose your specific result. Why not just go for the highest?
I dedicate this to the two Bodhichittas in the mind of everybody.
I dedicate these to Buddhahood for everybody.
Because we understand what we mean by that, just those words have great impact if we do understand what we mean by that.
That's why we've spent some of us the last six years packing the word Bodhichitta with all kinds of information so that when you say it, the seed’s planted include all of that.
So remember you're dedicating to both Bodhichittas for everybody: the heart opening Bodhichitta—I'm going to take care of everybody, and the direct perception of emptiness Bodhichitta, which end up as perceiving dependent origination and emptiness simultaneously all the time for everybody.
Alright, nice.
Let's go on then to how these five powers, the seeds that are planted by doing these regularly can then become the five powers that we apply as we're getting close to our dying time.
As the five powers of where it means
In the great way the same five are the advices
For sending the mind; cherish the act.
I don't know why it has to designate the Greater Way.
Geshe Michael says, it means this practice is the Mahayana practice. It's like, well, we're Logonging, it is Mahayana. Why do we have to say again, „It's Mahayana.“
Maybe there's some deeper meaning in there about these five powers and what it means for them to be in the greater way, they are the five through which we will send our mind. I don't know. You can cook that one.
I look back on my life and until recently, I always thought how wonderful it would be to just wake up dead, to not have to go through all that suffering around dying for everybody and just die.
I remember when I was little, my parents used to say, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could just fly off into the sunset and never be heard from again? And dammit, that's what happened. But they didn't do it on purpose.
But then it's like now since then, people I know have had cancer or debilitating diseases and it took them time to die. And in that time, many of them, not all, but many had really, really healed.
So that when they died, it was like the greatest thing for them and their families. It was all done, it was finished. I don't know what their experiences were, but there wasn't the struggle. There wasn't the angst. They had the usual agitation, hard breathing that the physical body goes through, but you could tell that their being, their state of being wasn't struggling, wasn't struggling.
So at one point I got to thinking for myself, well, that wouldn't be so bad, really, to have a situation where you know your body's declining, but you still have the mental state that you could work on it, and you had the Dharma tools to use. It's like how motivating would that be? And then you'd have some time that you could really put it into practice and be really prepared. So all of a sudden my idea of how's the best way to die shifted from drop dead to no, let me have about, I don't know, a year or two, please. It's perverted both of them because neither one is true, right? Your transformation can be entirely different than both of those situations.
But I'm just saying how my own mind has shifted because of the power of the Dharma and how this whole thing about what it is to die, is so different for me now than it used to be from experience from helping people.
Stevie: It's almost almost like before when we were talking about go for the highest, it's almost like this is the highest time to practice. This is it.
Lama Sarahni: This is it. Exactly.
And that's where this POWA is going to take us, really. Because we think, oh, POWA means there'll be a time when my body's getting ready to die and I know it, and I'll take this mindstream me and I'll just send it out and the body can drop dead, and I'll go on and I'll do my thing as the new me.
Probably that's not right. Because we're thinking there's a me-that is not projections happening; that I'm going to shoot out of this body-that's not projections happening; that's going to put me into some other good place-that's not projections happening. I'm not saying the words, „not projections happening“, but I'm also not holding them to be „this mind is doing this“, not even mind doing this. Seeds ripening, doing this, this, this, this, this. What if that's our perception of our me in my world?
Then what's the difference if you're in this one or you're in that one, if you're in this one or you're in that one?
When our awareness has made that shift, that whole thing we call dying is experienced entirely differently.
This POWA practice—using the five powers as a death transformation practice—allows this shift in experience to happen for you.
What experience does your family have? Don't know. Don't know any more than I know now, what somebody else's experience is around somebody else's death.
But the power of these five practices, when they are built upon those five practices in daily life, the ripening results transforms that whole experience that we call dying. It can be done before this body dies. Ordinarily, we wait until the body is getting ready to die before we apply it. But technically you don't even have to do that.
The thing is, we don't know, do we? When this body will be about to die.
Oh, you're going to get your cancer diagnosis, then you're going to have time.
But what about flying through the windshield of your car?
How much time do you have then? And are you prepared?
When we've got our five powers practice going strongly, we'll be as prepared as we can be for flying through the windshield of your car experience, and using that as an opportunity of transformation.
There's a big level of underlying fear that we all have of death from having experienced it before in the ordinary way, and from not knowing when it's going to happen in this life.
It may not ever cross our minds, but underneath there's a fear.
Fear is a knot in our heart. Fear makes anger, and anger blocks our channels.
So helping to release that fear goes a long way at unlocking the channels of the heart. Unlocking the knots around the heart goes a long way to releasing that fear. It's not chicken or the egg, it's both together.
So let's learn these five when it comes to a dying practice, meaning what are these five when our body is actively dying? How do we use them?
We have the PEMPA GYI TOB, the projecting karma.
This one's more specific than the one we've been planting the seed by in daily practice.
This one says, our projection thought that we want to grow is „I'm about to die“. I'm about to die, and I will go into death itself, into the bardo and into the beyond. But I will not lose my wish to help all beings.
I will not lose my Bodhichitta as I go through this experience. I will hold the thought of serving beings to bring them to total happiness as I go through this, whatever happens.
You can see we'd only be able to do that if we've been doing it every day, even every moment of the day, to be able to then have the goodness to be able to hold this in mind. But we wouldn't know to do it until we got a teaching on it. It's very beautiful that just to be given something to hold our mind on as we're in that situation. Ordinarily we'd be terrified or grasping to something to get more time. Now we have a state of mind to hold onto.
It's the most powerful thing to die with, the state of mind of „I'm still helping others as I experience this dying“. I'm helping others as I experience this dying.
The second one, the GOMPA GYI TOB, to get used to it power. We've spent our lifetime getting used to thinking about others first. So the thinking about others first as we're dying shouldn't, won't be anything new.
The power of habituation ripens as more power of habituation.
You won't lose it, your wish to bring all beings to happiness as you go through those hallucinations that happen as the process of death is happening.
We can go into that chaos still with a mind imbued with our wish to bring all beings to happiness. Because see, we've disconnected from the mental state from the experience in life. Not meaning we're disconnected, disassociated, right? That's a mental illness.
But we're responding instead of reacting. We'll carry that through into this experience as well.
Geshela says, we use our life to train our vision of our Buddhahood and teaching other people how not to die, so that that's on your mind when you die. Or technically, when you don't die. That very experience could be you not dying, complicated.
Rachana: Sorry, I have a question. So just really quick. So how would we take, I can't figure out how to think about how this would help others. If I'm caught up in a tornado, how do I think about that helping others?
Lama Sarahni: How does brushing your teeth help others?
Rachana: I thought it was that they don't have to experience my bad breath, but clearly that's wrong.
Lama Sarahni: That's just a minimal. To have in mind the wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings as you do anything, plants the seed for bringing all those beings to their ultimate happiness as they do anything, as you do anything. So being in a swept up in a hurricane, our self existent Me gets swept up in the hurricane and the suffering and the fear. But our wisdom Me, if it could override that self existent me, would instead probably reach out to other people who are fearful, wouldn't they? Your own fear of your own self with a mind of Bodhichitta would not be reacting with the fear and the save-me state of mind. A Bodhichitta state of mind is still Bodhichitta despite the tornado. And then, may all of this take all the pain and suffering from everyone, like a Tonglen going on.
Stevie: And maybe those that love you and know you for the good person that you are will miss you so much and do something about climate change.
Lama SArahni: Right, right. Could spur that.
We're learning to separate our state of mind from what's going on.
Yeah. So Liang-Sang says, if someone has dementia, is this still possible?
Probably for them, but we wouldn't be able to see it. If they were very, very, very well trained in all of this and then we're seeing them as having dementia, the kind of dementia where they can't really communicate with us what's going on. I don't know that that necessarily means there's nothing going on in their mind. They could very well be doing this and they've withdrawn already the body just hasn't died yet.
I don't really know. From our side, dementia is you've lost all your mental capacity to make mental choices. In which case, if that is what's going on inside, they can't do it. Could we talk to them as if they're doing it or try to instruct them in doing it?
It would be, if it wouldn't agitate them to do that, it would be good seeds for us and maybe help them depending on their seeds.
So really, this learning the 5 Powers, yes, we want to teach it to somebody else.
But remember, it comes in Lojong, course 14, high level of wish just for suffering to stop before someone's mind will be able to recognize the power of this practice.
We teach it to someone whose heart isn't there yet, and they'll just go, That's just nuts. Lojong behavior is just nuts. People will walk all over you and then it's true for that person. They will get walked all over.
So we learned this. We put it into practice ourselves.
When someone comes along who seems ready, like Master Chekawa, they seem ready, I'm going to give it to them.
Of course, he then said, I don't know if they're ready. I'm going to give it to everybody, but you have to use your judgment.
We're training our vision on our Buddhahood for everybody's benefit through step 1 and step 2.
Step 3 is the power of pure white seeds. In the day-to-day practice it was gathering goodness and clearing out our negativity.
In dying this power has to do with releasing any further attachment to our worldly things, or reputation, or all the things that we hold as important to. To die right, we want to have already given our stuff away. Not necessarily physically given it away. But if you have things that are valuable, have 'em already assigned to who you want them to go to. If you care. If you don't care, then make that clear in your own mind as well: I don't care what happens to my stuff.
Or, I want it all to go to so-and-so, or I want this to go… Get that all already done so that it's not on your mind as you're trying to do this transformation thing.
Because those attachments, worldly attachments, have a big self existent me involved in them. It's really helpful to have all of that already sorted out so that you don't have to be worrying about it.
Then as you are getting absolutely closer to dying, double check. Is there something about things that you own, people that you know, beliefs that you have that are holding you back from this sense of freedom, of transformation, freedom of change, and somehow release yourself from them.
It may mean contacting somebody you're still mad at. It may not mean that.
It may mean, I don't know, not being close enough myself to really even experience what that would be. But even our reputation, if there's some piece of our reputation we're still holding on to, getting this preparation to release it all. Because the death process, even your personality, your name is dying.
You get into this new realm and all that's familiar is gone.
Any part of what's familiar that we're still holding to be, that's what defines me, we want to have already recognized, No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. So that it can all be dissolved away.
It's not that it's left behind. It's all dissolved away: Your world, your experiences, they are all unique to you, and when your you dies, they all go away.
Anything holding you back is going to disrupt the process, the ease of the process’ process. So get rid of all your connections, your clingings, your attachments. Then offer all your goodnesses. Offer all your goodnesses.
If you're really close to dying, you maybe won't have the mental wherewithal to be reviewing all your goodnesses. You might want to set up beforehand, you need a buddy: When I'm getting there, would you take me through my goodnesses?
Maybe even make a list of them or enlist somebody to remind you, Oh, Sarahni, tell me about all those classes you taught.
Oh yeah, I taught classes. Yeah, I'm happy I taught classes.
It would be really, really helpful to have this positive state of mind of the goodnesses that we've done as we're moving through this transition.
So we set it up beforehand if we can.
If there's any stuff we haven't purified yet, in terms of like, Oh, any regrets left towards anyone or anything? It's important to get those out.
Many traditions have the tradition of having a spiritual guide of some kind come and help you, help hear your regrets. They call it something in the Catholic church, I can't think of it now. But to verbalize them and say you're sorry. It doesn't necessarily have to be to the person involved, but it helps the mind to say it to somebody, and that's usually what a chaplain or somebody serves in that capacity.
Then, if you have vows, it's really, really useful to die with fresh vows.
I can't imagine how this would really work out, especially, it's not going to happen if you're flying through the windshield of your car. But if you are sick and have a terminal illness and you have refuge, Bodhisattva, even Tantric vows, you might want to make a concerted effort while you still can to refresh those.
We can refresh our Bodhisattva vows daily with prayers. Same for the tantric vows, but to get a reinitiation soon before you die would be a really powerful thing as well.
That's just also something to keep in mind if it could be arranged for somebody to be able to do that.
We're out of time. I don't get to finish this. Alright, sorry. In the middle of the five powers, so don't die between now and next class. All right? You have to promise so I can finish teaching you the five powers. I'm not being silly. Really, really not.
[Usual closing]
Alrighty. Thank you again for the opportunity. Keep up the good work with your homeworks. Just do the ones you can do, please. We'll eventually get there. Okay? Thank you.
Welcome back. For the recording, we are ACI course 14. I have no idea which class, we are still working on homework 5.
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please. Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
[Usual opening]
We're still studying the Lojong Dun Dun Ma, and we left off from the section of a whole lifetime's practice in a nutshell. That was about the 5 powers. We learned how those five powers are a lifetime, like daily practice.
Those 5 powers, the first one—like think in your head, first one—PENPA, setting our intention. But here the specific intention to overcome our self-cherishing.
The second piece, getting used to doing so. Which the rest, the next part of the Lojong is going to tell us how to do that.
Then the third one was gathering goodness, which included purifying obstacles just by trying to do what we intended to do in step one and we are doing in step two.
Then number four was the rip out part, which is taking what we're doing in number two at the mental level. That more subtle level of the thought, the instant a negative thought, a thought about me „I want“ arises, you grab it and throw it out. Really, it takes that kind of forcefulness of intention to be working at that level.
Then number five was the power of prayer, which is very similar to your coffee meditation. At the end of the day, you think back on all the efforts you tried to do, successful or not, just your effort at Lojong and you'd be happy and you dedicate those efforts. So that you can get up the next day—if you do—and do it again.
Then we learned that those same five are also a dying practice, a practice of cause, preparing our mind for that experience that untrained we call ‚death‘ and trained by the five powers of living can be used in a different way.
We had talked about how
the 1st of the five powers—the setting the intention—here is setting the intention that I will even use my dying experiences as a way to overcome my self cherishing and help all sentient beings stop their suffering.
Then number 2, the getting used to doing so, right? We don't really have much time to get used to doing so when we're dying. But it meant holding in mind the same state of mind that we had trained ourselves in during life. Everything I do, I do in order to help all beings reach their total enlightenment. That doesn't have to change when you're sick and or dying. Which we can see the power of habituating to that state of mind when we're in life. We'll have the seeds to be able to carry that on when we're in this major throw of what we call death. It takes habitation to be able to do it.
Then the 3rd, the power of pure white seeds. That one we said, cultivate that by when you're getting close to death, be sure you've disattached to everything about the you and your life. We only talked a little bit about that. There's so many different levels of it. But to be able to go into this death process completely free of any regrets or holdbacks, or what ifs, or attachment to something that would draw your mind in a different direction when you are no longer in control of your mind. Get it all cleared out, not physically cleared out, the emotional attachments to them: stuff, people, ideas, beliefs, self, reputation, who I was, leaving something behind, all of it. Whatever you find that your own mind would go, Yeh, what about that? We want to have that all cleaned out. We want our vows as strong as possible. We can use the death process to take away all of our obstacles to enlightenment. But all the more tangible obstacles need to be gone already. Our attachment to those.
Then the 4th one, the SUNJINPA GYI TOB, the ripping it out force. We said that's the confessing. Be sure that your vows are clean, that you've cleared and confessed, and to believe, truly believe that you're by confessing those bad deeds, those wrong deeds are severely enough damaged that they can't influence you anymore. Purification practice, even the one not at death. There's a big component of believing that you've purified. That's necessary for our purification to be effective, to be really effective. Included in this rip out force is cultivating this state of mind where you're holding that your own d<ing and the pain that it has, is in fact ripping out all of the suffering, all of the pain from your world. So ripping out pain and suffering from the world is really the ripping out part.
Then the 5th is the power of prayer. The power of prayer used as a dying practice. Geshela says this is the real powa, the real mind transference, is holding this state of mind through that whole experience, whether it's a swift one or a long drawn out one. To have cultivated this state of mind so that you're imbued with it as you go through this experience. That state of mind is, As I die, I pray that all bad deeds, all suffering, all mental, physical suffering, ignorance, the entire world should come into me and die with me. It's a powerful prayer. We know one character in history who is said to have done it. We're saying, all the suffering will come with me. Let me suck it into myself and take it away with me. It's like a really powerful tonglen. Only all you're doing is tong-ing—taking. You'll do the len-ing later. So we dedicate our death to this. Then when the pain comes, we could be thinking, Wow, it's working. It's working. Instead of, Oh, the pain, make it stop. It's working.
The verses say,
„The brief essentials of the instructions are combined within the five powers.“
Now we know what that means.
„In the greater way, the same five are the advices for sending your mind.“
Now we know what that means.
It's the last line in this section.
Number 4, I think.
What cherish the act means, it's a reference to the example of how Shakyamuni Buddha demonstrated dying. When he knew it was time to withdraw, he summons his close disciples, he lays down on his right side with his hand under his cheek and ear, and his left knee drawn up, and he left.
That easily, that peacefully, that calmly, that beautifully.
Hopefully his disciples understood perfectly what was going on, and they weren't wailing and carrying on, but I don't know. I wasn't there that I know of.
But the „Cherish the act“ means, it's like a demonstration that death doesn't have to be—I want to say something to avoid or something to resist, something to fight against.
It will be different if we have done our TOP NGA in life, then we'll be able to do our TOP NGA in death and then this thing called ‚death‘ will be different.
Geshe Chekawa himself, apparently, demonstrated that he had been Lojong in this way his whole life. When his time came, the scripture says he blurted out, like the last thing he said, he blurts out this beautiful statement. I'm going to read it to you in Tibetan just for the blessing and then I'll give you the English.
The Tibetan says
NGA SEMCHEN TAMCHE KYI DONDU NARME DU DROWAR MUNPAR
JE KYANG MINDROWAR DUK, DAKSHING GI NANGWA SHAR JUNG
What this said is, he's laying there and he blurts out.
I'm praying that I could pass to the lowest hell
for the sake of helping every living being.
It's not working, I can't go.
All I see before me now is the paradise of enlightenment.
DAKSHING GI NANGWA SHAR JUNG
All I see before me now is the paradise of enlightenment.
The harder he tried to go to hell to serve beings, the more pure his experience got. D Does that mean he doesn't get to help beings in hell?
No, he couldn't help beings in hell if he went there. But as reaching Buddhahood, if that's what this is meaning, now he has the omniscience, now he knows, now he can help those beings.
By stopping the hell realm for them?
No, by doing what Buddhas do, which we call teaching.
All of that is section 4 of the Seven Step Lojong—a whole lifetimes‘ practice rolled into a nutshell.
Then part five and six and seven are what we do in our doing the whole lifetimes‘ practice, the more specific things. A lot of it is redundant. When we get through it all, it's like, well, they already told me to do that. Now they're telling me again.
Each one is an emphasis, but it also means something a little subtly different.
That would be the beauty of taking on a Lojong like this as a whole lifetimes‘ practice and just repeatedly digging in and learning more, and applying it, and understanding it better. Because I'm sure it goes much, much deeper than what I'm sharing with you now.
Part five of the seven is the part where you know you have developed your Lojong heart. So Lojong is our Bodhichitta, generating our Bodhichitta.
Do we not fully generate Bodhichitta until we're Buddhas? It would be a good debate. This is saying no, no. We will be fully Bodhichitta-ed at some point. It doesn't mean we stop then. It means we're actually now planting our seeds in such a way that they're creating our future Buddhahood. Until then, it was always planting the seeds for the behavior that will plant the seeds for them.
So how do we know when we've finally reached that shift from preparation to actually Lojong-ing?
The verses say,
All dharma comes down to a single point.
There are two judges.
Keep the main one.
Be joy alone in an unbroken stream.
It's there when you can keep it unthinking.
The commentaries say, there'll come a time when we'll recognize that all the Dharma teachings, they all boil down to just one thing:
That is fighting our tendency to look out for number 1 first.
The habit that we have of ignoring others' needs, ours are more important.
It's like, Really? Everything Buddha taught is about that?
It seems hard to recognize.
It means reading between the lines.
It really means knowing the whole soup to nuts process from suffering to enlightened being, to recognize this hidden nugget within all the different teachings.
But when we have those seeds ripening to see that deep, deep down the mistake, our ignorance—like there's ignorance and then there is self-cherishing—those two are so tied together that if we can work at our self-cherishing level, our ignorance gets chipped away at. As we chip away at our ignorance, we chip away at our self cherishing. The two go hand in hand.
So, how do we know we Lojong-ed?
One of the ways is when every Dharma that we come across, whether we hear it, read it, I don't know how else we come across it, smell it, taste it, touch it—it's all an instruction on how to overcome our self-cherishing.
That's one way that we know we've Lojong-ed.
Next, they say there are two judges, keep to the main one.
The word judge, (PANGPO?), Geshela says it really means witness.
There are two witnesses, keep to the main one. It doesn't have the same impact in English as the two judges. Because ‚judge‘ means you did right, you did wrong.
Witness is, I just saw you do that.
But we have to see ourselves do that in order to be able to judge: Was it right or was it wrong? Was it goodness or was it something that's going to bring unpleasantness?
There are two judges, this says. Meaning two categories of judges. The first one, they say, is other people, the people around us. Which is curious. It's like, well, they don't know my mind. How can they judge me?
Well, they're watching our behavior, and they're going to react to the behavior that they see you doing.
Now we know that's their karma and not ours, but if they react to us badly and then we react to they're reacting to us badly, we react badly. We don't get it. We've not Lojong-ed well enough yet.
We do use the response that other beings have towards us as a way of judging our level of practice. Because it's an indicator of how we have responded to others. So say, we're trying to Lojong and we're trying to get kinder, and in doing so we've maybe even piss people off. Maybe your family, maybe you're saying, I have to meditate every day. Please, honey, you take care of the kids for this half an hour and let me do my practice. That makes them upset because, my goodness, what a selfish person you are to absolutely put your foot down on this something.
If they have that response to our change, that's a representation of how we had a bad response to someone having a need and it's ripening on us.
But our tendency is to get mad at them. You don't understand, this is so important. And we get mad and we respond badly, and our Lojong isn't complete.
If we carry out our Lojong-ing, those seeds will catch up. The goodness seeds will catch up, and people around us will—from our side get more pleasant. From our side, be more accepting of us. But we're in the gap when we first start Lojong-ing, it may not go so well with others. But it's not because there's something wrong with our Lojong behavior necessarily. Maybe there is, but it's not the Lojong that's doing it. We adjust our reaction to them by way of what is going to help them in the long run.
It's not a simple situation, but Lojong-ing means we're repeatedly coming back to recognize: this too is a ripening of my seeds, and the Lojong-ing behavior where I am putting others' needs and wants ahead of mine is going to catch up. I'm in the gap.
We're training ourselves to choose our response to them based on our understanding of Lojong, not based on how we're seeing them behave.
Geshela has been teaching that in the two husbands in the kitchen thing for years. It's the same idea.
The second judge is oneself.
The second judge is oneself, which Lojong says, Keep to the main judge.
This is the one they're talking about. We're the only one that can really say what the quality of our effort in our behavior changed to overcome self-cherishing.
I lost my train of thought on that sentence.
How strong that effort is, we're the only one that knows, technically Buddha knows, but we're talking about Samsaric beings judging here, not Buddhas, because they're not going to judge at all. So we're the only ones who really know, and it's so easy for us to fool ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, I am working as hard as I can. Maybe not. But maybe so.
Being the judge, our own judge, it doesn't mean, Oh, I'm doing a lousy job until I'm perfect. Which is probably what most of us do to ourselves. I'm not perfect yet, so I'm a lousy Lojonger. Well, that‘s a wrong idea.
To be trying to Lojong is remarkable, and special, and fabulous.
Can we raise the bar? When do we raise the bar?
If we raise it too high, we're sure to fail.
If we don't raise it at all, we stagnate.
Little by little by little. And we're the only one who can judge that—our own self.
The way we judge is by asking ourselves from time to time, Is my mind getting sweeter? Is it getting kinder? It Is not, How's my world going? Not, How does my body feel? It is, Is my response to things more loving? Is my Lojong-ing more and more enjoyable, whether I succeed or fail?
All of the Lojong is about really separating our response from the actual situation. Whatever the situation's going on, our response is guided by overcoming self-cherishing, planting seeds for Buddhahood.
It doesn't really matter what ripens next. We continue to have this state of mind, that ‚This is what I'm all about so that I can bring happiness to everybody‘.
He says, there's also this piece about judging our choice of behavior in this response that we're cultivating, in the sense of what's Dharma and what's not Dharma. In Lojon-ing we're cultivating this, Everything I do is Dharma. But we have this idea, there's Dharma and there's not Dharma.
If we understand the emptiness of what's Dharma and the emptiness of what's not Dharma, we understand that it's not really true that there's Dharma and not Dharma. There's just our seeds ripening: This is Dharma, that's not Dharma.
So when we're learning to work at that level, what is Dharma? Is anything that is a guideline for our behavior, when those seeds ripen, help us, make us happier, then that was Dharma. It's a little in retrospect, until we get the idea of how the correlation goes. So anything that guides us in our behavior that will bring about greater happiness in the world is Dharma.
Maybe the roses that you take to your secretary is Dharma, even though it just looks like roses. If your attitude in taking them to that person is Lojong-ing as opposed to—I don't know whatever reason—other reason. We might give roses to our secretary. Maybe we were nasty to them day before and we want to make up for it. Or maybe we're trying to see how cool an employer I am. A lot of reasons to give flowers. It maybe wasn't ‚So that I can become a Buddha so that I can help you become a Buddha in case you're not one already‘.
Just in case, because maybe they are, and maybe they're not.
To judge Dharma, we have to be the main one also. Because what is Dharma? What isn't Dharma? Is according to our understanding, our seed.
Stevie: So can our mistakes—that's the only word that comes to mind. That can be our Dharma?
Lama Sarahni: It sure can, if we learn from it and do something different, right?
Stevie: Yep. I'd like to check something. I had this thought the other day, just yesterday actually, that when good seeds wear out, I often feel like I'm not living up to my obligations instead of seeing it as good seeds running out and the chance to plant more seeds.
Lama Sarahni: Good seeds are an opportunity to plant more good seeds, and we tend to not do it. We take them for granted. Right.
Stevie: Thank you.
Dharma is anything that's helping us fix our mental afflictions and non Dharma is anything that's increasing our mental afflictions, not fixing our mental afflictions. We could be in a Dharma community studying, listening to teachings all day long, and we could be jealous of the person, and angry with the other person. Then none of it is Dharma. Right?
Luisa: But then what about that vow, the Bodhisattva vow, not to associate with people who are not in the path. I have always struggled with that one.
Lama Sarahni: That one is about to what extent they influence our behavior. So if there are people, if we associate with people not on the path, and because of our association we go do things with them that our Dharma life, in our Dharma life we wouldn't do, then we're allowing that situation to damage our vow.
On the other hand, if you're associating with them in order to set an example, or even in order to use that to find your line, No, I'm sorry, I can't go to that movie, because I know how it's going to affect my mind, it's going to affect my meditation. You don't have to say that. You just say, I'm so sorry, I can't go.
It's how they're going to affect you. Which means we could reach a state where there's nobody that's going to affect our mind badly. There's nobody we should not be around. But the Bodhisattva vows are guidelines for us until we are really Bodhisattvas. In which case you're living according to that without having to have a vow to do it.
We are still talking about the judges, the two judges.
Geshela reminds us, this whole section is about how do you know when you've Lojong? He reminds us, we do not have to be perfect before we can say, I've Lojong-ed. I have Lojong in my mind now.
Because of the gap between when our Lojong seed planting is planted, and when the Lojong seeds ripening will be ripening.
If we know we're in the gap, then we don't lose confidence. We don't get discouraged. We don't worry. We just continue to do our Lojong behavior.
Our response to whatever is happening is imbued with this, In order to reach enlightenment for the sake of all beings. Which means it's imbued with overcoming my self cherishing.
But the self cherishing may not be gone yet, because we still have those seeds that we're full of self cherishing still ripening. But the situations are all the opportunities to plant seeds without self cherishing or minimal, minimal, minimal until there is no more self cherishing to be planted with our seeds.
It doesn't mean seeds stop ripening. When we get past the gap of seeds with our self cherishing, then the ripenings are more and more beautiful, more and more pleasant. Our mind, let me say, our seeds ripen our state of mind more and more beautiful, more and more pleasant. Because there can still be situations that can arise that are wickedly unpleasant, as we learned in the King of Kalinka story in Diamond Cutter Sutra. That yogi was a very, very, very high yogi. He ripened some really stinking painful karma, but it didn't rock his mind. Lojong-ed.
The next verse says,
Be joy alone in an unbroken stream.
Wouldn't that be sweet? Be joy alone in an unbroken stream.
The commentaries say, this is to remind us kind of like the eight worldly thoughts. Don't get too happy when things are going well.
Don't get too upset when things aren't going well.
Be in that middle way. Just respond by Lojong.
Just respond by Lojong. Use the unpleasant, perpetuate the pleasant and Lojong.
When we have that ability to respond independent of the pleasure or pain of the circumstance, we really can be joy alone. Our state of emotion, our state of mind isn't dependent upon what's going on at the moment. Just that alone would be really pleasant, wouldn't it?
There's a reason why one of the Bodhisattva activities, one of Bodhisattva Bhumis is joyous effort. Having a good time doing your Bodhisattva deeds of giving, not harming others, taking on unpleasantness for the sake of practice, and having a good time doing it.
The only way we have a good time doing it is when we reach this point where our response is independent of what's going on.
It doesn't mean, you go to the grocery store and instead of shopping for groceries, I don't you sit down and talk on your phone. It means your state of mind is the same at the grocery store as it is at your favorite movie, as it is at the worst football game you've ever been to. Your state of mind. Not that you're a robot, but that you're enjoying the seeds that you're planting and ripening, planting, ripening, planting, ripening. What fun.
We have Lojong-ed when we have that state of mind: What fun. No matter what's going on because it's all an opportunity to plant seeds for happiness for everybody, even though it looks like you're the only one there, and all you're doing is brushing your teeth.
It's there when you can keep it unthinking.
„It's there“ means we have this state of mind that's enjoying choosing its responses to what's going on according to our Lojong-ing, regardless of what‘s going on.
Then, when we can keep it unthinking means when we don't have to be fully concentrating on it. The analogy Geshela used is like when you're first learning to ride a horse or ride a bicycle, probably riding a bicycle is an experience we've all had. I don't know if we've all learned to ride horseback. So when we first learned to ride a bicycle, like a two wheeler, you have to really, really concentrate to stay upright. For the first, I don't know how long, you fall over pretty easily and regularly. Then you get better at it, but you still have to really concentrate. And if somebody hollers at you, hey surround, and you look over to wave, you fall over.
When we get really good at riding the bike, we can ride the bike, somebody can holler, a car can come out in front of us, and we just adjust. Maybe we even go on so effectively at riding our bike that we can be that kid that rides along the top of the fence and then over the garbage can and down in the…, you've seen those guys, right? They can do anything on this bicycle and they never fall off. Maybe they jump off and they hold the bike and then they put it down and they get…, you've seen those guys? Amazing.
Imagine your mind riding the Lojong bicycle, meaning my response is loving kindness. My response is taking care of others. My response is reaching Buddhahood for everybody. No matter what's going on around you, you never fall off the bike, and you don't have to think about it.
That's when we have Lojong-ed.
Until then we keep working on it, but we get closer and closer. In some circumstances it's there, and then whoops, we fall off the bike or we have to concentrate a little bit better. We know we've got it when we're riding that bike upside down, even.
What it means in our Lojong-ing is that the time between when something happens that sets off a mental affliction, and when we respond by Lojong, how long that period of time is, determines how strong our Lojong-ing is.
Somebody's yelling at you, me, my resentment comes up, my blaming them comes up, my starting to want to respond in the old way comes up, and maybe by then it's like, oh, it's coming from me. I'm not going to respond like that. I'm so sorry. How can I help you?
There was the experience, the feeling, the emotional reaction before the Lojong kicked in.
That's not bad, because it used to be it didn't kick in at all.
But what we're getting at is the minute the yelling, the instant the yelling happens, and that feeling of resentment comes up, flip, Lojong. How can I help you? I'm so sorry. How can I help you?
The swifter it is, the more imbued we are with our Bodhichitta.
You know that term ‚seeing emptiness directly with the mind imbued with Bodhichitta‘, right? Bodhichitta in our mind no matter what's going on, even in that deep state of meditation where you don't have the conceptual Bodhichitta. That's what we're training in our life so that it will be in there for our direct perception of emptiness, but it will still be in there as we do our practices of giving with our understanding of emptiness, moral discipline, with our understanding of emptiness. We're trying to get imbued.
The way we know we're getting better is in the response time. How quickly does our Lojong overcome our mental affliction. So we have a criteria that we can use. Alrighty.
Then, we would expect the Lojong to give us advices for how to work with those mental afflictions to get that time gap to come down. That is what the advices give us, although it's not quite so clear until we really try to think of them that way.
The 6th section of the Lojong is those advices, 18 advices for how to go about training ourselves in our Bodhichitta. Then the 7th section is about, I'm blanking out on the name of it, somebody tell me what the 7th section is.
Luisa: The 6th is the pledges to keep developing.
Lama Sarahni: Thank you.
Luisa: And the seven is (…) how to keep doing the Lojong.
Lama Sarahni: How to keep doing the Lojong, right.
When Geshela was teaching this, he went to section seven in his class and then he went back and did section six. I don't know why, but as a result, the homework is done that way too. There's homeworks from section seven, and there's no actual homeworks from section six. So I'm going to do the same thing so that I can give you everything you need for your homework five. And then I will go into section six, and whatever I finish tonight will be it. If I can't finish it, all the rest you can get from the student notes. But there's no homeworks that you need for section six. Got it? Then we'll be on schedule for what comes next in class six, which is the freedom from the four attachments.
So we're going to part seven, those advices, more advices for developing the good part well after we've Lojong-ing and in order to help us Lojong fully. So this whole thing isn't about, well once I'm fully Lojong-ed, I quit doing it. We continue to use it and that's when our understanding of the instructions will go deeper.
So section seven, I'm going to read it to you. We're not going to talk about all of it.
In fact, the really cryptic ones Geshe Michael didn't talk about, but there is some I think in your reading about it.
So section seven goes like this,
Do all practices with but one,
Let all mistakes be made by one.
Do two at the beginning and the end.
Bear with whatever comes of the two. (a different two)
Keep the two at the cost of your life. (I think also a different two)
Train yourself in the three kinds of hardship.
Take to yourself the three main causes.
Live in three ways that never get weaker.
Keep the three that should never be lost.
Act towards each one free of bias.
Spread your love, and make it deep.
Constantly think of the special ones.
Don't let it depend on circumstances.
Act now, do the most important thing.
Don't get it backwards.
Don't be on and off.
Make up your mind and stick to it.
Figure out both and free yourself.
Stop thinking all the time about how wonderful you are.
Don't let little things get to you.
Don't change from moment to moment.
Don't expect any thanks.
We're going to just talk about a few of those, the ones that Geshe Michael chose to emphasize. Let's take a break before we do and get refreshed, and we'll finish up your homework.
(Break) 57:42
Part seven
Act now, do the most important thing.
What's the most important thing? In the TOP GNA, what was the first one?
I'm going to overcome my self-cherishing. That's the most important thing.
Don't get it backwards.
Geshe Michael said, this one's a long story. I'll get back to it. And you know what, he never did. So sorry. I'm guessing the don't get it backwards has something to do with the way that our ego will get involved in becoming more and more kind, and more and more special, and more and more amazing because we're Lojong-ing, our self existent Me—which is the very thing we're trying to overcome—is going to take credit. Oops, that's getting it backwards. I think. You can cook it. Maybe you come up with a different ‚you get it backwards‘.
Figure out both and free yourself.
This one's fabulous. Figure out both and free yourself.
What both? Past and future is what they say. But what they mean is our mental affliction.
Figure out what are our biggest mental afflictions by looking at our past, meaning our recent past, this life's past, to see what's the recurring theme of mental affliction for me. We've got the five basic ones. They break down into 10, they break down into 20. We learn them in Master Shantideva. But you can just look at the original five: ill will, jealousy, pride, stinginess, ignorant disliking—which means fear, anxiety, anger, violence, revenge—, ignorant liking, what makes us happy, and ignorance itself, meaning wrong morality.
So going back, what was the recurring theme in your life? Was it anger? Is it jealousy? Is it ill will? Is it I want, I want, I want? Is it revenge, getting back at somebody? It takes some honesty to look at ourselves and Geshela often says, we'll come up with, oh man, I'm such an angry person. And then the people around us all say, yeah, but what about all that criticism and gossiping that you do? The people around us may have a different idea.
That's their seed. How you work with that, you decide.
But what we're looking for is that behavior that is a recurring thing. And the way we do that is by looking back.
Then they say, identify that mental affliction, but then also identify the circumstances that set it off. You might say, oh, my jealousy is always set off by my older brother, and I don't have jealousy anywhere else, it's just my older brother. Until we look more deeply. Then anybody who seems to have that role over me that my older brother has, oh, I get jealous with them as well. So we can identify some kind of relationship and know to watch for that.
Another aspect of identifying how the mental affliction gets set off is how the behavior that we do in response to that mental affliction, what allows that to get triggered.
For instance, maybe we can feel jealous and not act from it unless we're extra tired, or extra hungry, or extra frustrated with something else. Then that jealousy arises and we immediately say, or do something from the jealousy that we otherwise, if we were feeling better, we would restrain ourselves.
When we're jealous somebody has received something or had some kind of happiness that we don't think they deserve, we think we deserve that. And our tendency then is to somehow point out the fault in that person to others, because we don't think they deserve that happiness. We should show other people that they really don't deserve it. So we say something not so kind about them to somebody else or maybe even to them directly. So, sometimes you do that, sometimes you just want to do that and you don't do it. What's the difference? What's the situation‘s difference? Identify that.
Then you take some time to evaluate the mental affliction itself.
Analyze it to show yourself why it hurts you. So we would look at jealousy. Jealousy. It's a feeling of upset when somebody gets something that they want. Use your reasoning to show yourself how that dysfunctional, how that is not serving you and not hurting the other person anyway. To have jealousy and then act towards it. First of all, if you have Bodhisattva vows, if you've claimed „I am going to be a happiness maker in the minds of everybody until everybody's happy“, to have a sense of unhappiness when somebody gets a little worldly happiness, it's like, oh what?
Or same for anger, same for any of them actually for Bodhisattva.
Then we analyze, why don't I like somebody getting happy? What's in the way?
Then why, if I have that feeling, I think that criticizing them or pointing out their faults is something that's going to be helpful for either one of us?
It'll upset them probably, but it doesn't take away what they got.
They won the trophy and you say, You really aren't that good. It doesn't take their trophy away. All it does is plant the seeds in our own mind that when some kind of goodness comes to us, we have the experience of somebody saying, You don't deserve that. Right? Or pointing out our faults in some way.
So we analyze this whole thing that we've somehow justified as being okay, jealousy in our response to jealousy to prove to ourselves that it's hurtful, harmful for ourselves and others and the antithesis of our Bodhisattva behavior.
Once you have those, it's really part of four factors that you've worked out for your own mental affliction, that's the first half of this „Figure out both and free yourself“.
The second half is for the future, meaning now the next thing we do is figure out, identify the most subtle level of awareness that at which we can recognize, that's jealousy coming up. Even maybe before, jealousy is going to come up when I hear this program and be so alert and so aware to the tenancy for jealousy to arrive that the instant it does, you can apply whatever antidote you've come up with that you're going to apply.
The general purpose antidote for jealousy is rejoicing in the goodness of that other person, or at least in somebody if you can't find something honestly good in that person. But we identify the most subtle instant of the mental affliction arising so that we can apply our antidote. So, for the future we're looking at the smallest and for the past we're looking at the bigger.
Yes, Flavia.
Flavia: I'm really interested in this antidote for thoughts. Because in actions I can kind of restrain myself, but with thoughts, it's already happening. So what if I kind of recognize that I get angry, but before anger is fear. Should I work with anger or with fear?
Lama Sarahni: Fear. Work with fear.
Flavia: Thank you.
Lama Sarahni: Because then if you address the fear, it never goes to anger, unless there's other kinds of anger in there. But you would work with that one first. So, what kind of thought antidotes fear?
Flavia: Hope?
Lama Sarahni: Hope, safety, compassion.
Stevie: Loving kindness. Loving kindness. Loving kindness. May you be safe. May you be well.
Lama Sarahni: Protection.
When we've got these two figured out for our mental affliction and then we apply ourselves to them, of course it takes that piece, we'll be free of that old habit of perpetuating the anger, the jealousy, whatever it is.
It isn't really so much perpetuating it, it's the responding to the jealousy in a way that perpetuates Samsara. Because when we respond with jealousy, we plant new seeds really of ill will. We don't plant new seeds of jealousy somewhat. But either way, regardless, we're planting new seeds that perpetuate suffering and that's what we're Lojong-ing to stop.
The next one says,
Stop thinking all the time about how wonderful you are.
Geshela likes to talk about these kind of statements. Because he sees modern people as experts at low self-esteem, and it sounds like this is saying right, deprecate yourself further and it's not meaning that at all.
What it's pointing out is like that self-existent me, let's call it ego, to just use a common modern term that our tradition actually doesn't use very much, but our personality Me, that's so important, that it's okay to be jealous. It's okay to have ill will. It's okay. That one. That even thinks, oh my kindness, that's my good quality. I'm a kind person. I've always been a kind person, now I'm learning Lojong. I'm even kinder. I'm really special.
It automatically expands into, I'm more special than you. If you don't see it that way, there's something wrong with you and it's Samsara, like on fire Samsara based on our goodness. Similar to, Don't get it backwards, is. Lojong-ing, all needs to be based on our understanding of emptiness and seed planting is how reality happens.
It's the explanation of all of our experiences including that one. Oh, my kindness is mine. I'll have it forever. I don't really have to do anything to perpetuate it, but I will because you're suffering and you don't know.
It's so subtle, but it's a huge obstacle because then self existent Me just gets stronger and stronger and we think we're Lojong-ing. We're not, in fact.
Geshela says, we should be thinking how wonderful we are, because out of 8 billion people, how many are studying the Dharma at this level? How many are hearing Lojong that was secret for so many centuries, and now it's open enough for us to be able to hear it. And you're still here hearing it after what? A month of studying it?
You are extraordinary. Those are your seeds from your past goodness. You are right, it's a huge rejoice. We should have incredibly high unself-esteem. How's that? Unself-esteem, seed planting self-esteem.
The instructions for this one is when we're starting to think, Oh, I'm special because I am Lojong-ing. It says, stop and reconsider why you are being intentionally kind at these big levels.
Number one, those beings, you're being kind to, they really need your help. They really need your help. That seems to me like it would make your ego even higher, but it's like we don't really have a choice. If we're true to our Bodhisattva aspiration and there's somebody who needs something, it's our obligation. Our obligation.
So it takes a little of that, put the little pin in the bubble to say, No, no, this kindness is my obligation. But it kind of takes the fun out of it too.
Second evaluation is, why I took my Bodhisattva vows. My Bodhisattva vows say this is the behavior to do in order to reach enlightenment. So I'm just doing it, because I have vows. Because I committed myself to it. It's not because I'm some special puffed up thing. It‘s because I made the commitment.
They say, when you have a commitment and you do what you commit to do, yes, you can rejoice in that. But you don't get all puffed up, Look what I did. I made dinner for the family. Look what I did.
You just did it right? Rejoice in doing it, but don't get all puffed up about it. That's what this is saying.
Next one,
Don't expect any thanks.
Again, our tendency is, Whoa, I'm the one cleaning the toilets every day at the Dharma Center. Why doesn't anybody come and say thank you?
Our mind does that. And it's a level of Lojong-ing to catch it, and say thank you to somebody else who's mopping the floor.
Not because they need it, because we need it.
We have this expectation, Oh, I'm being such a good Bodhisattva, I should be recognized. They should thank me. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Depending on our own seeds. But if we decide our quality of our Lojong is based on whether we're thanked or not, we have some work to do with our Lojong-ing.
They also say within this one is, When we're doing our service we have this expectation that others are going to come help us. Especially others, at a Dharma center, you're the one sweeping the floor and everybody else rushes off to class. It's like, where did all the Bodhisattvas go?
And our mind gets upset instead of, Great, I get to sweep the whole floor. I get to do all the dishes instead. Instead it's like, How come they're not here helping? We could all be done 10 minutes earlier if everybody would come help. That's what our minds do, right? It's polluting our Lojong. It's almost impossible not to do.
And so they're saying, Look. Watch out for this. Watch out for this.
It's an opportunity to work at that mind level. Catch it, stop it, catch it, apply the antidote. No, no, I want everybody to go to class. I'll take care of it. But I want to go to class. Yeah, well where does class come from but getting everybody to go to class? Where do teachings come from? Let's put it that way.
Nobody's going to appreciate you. Nobody's going to come help you, necessarily. Don't expect it.
When we reach this place where our state of mind is that it just doesn't matter people's response to what I'm doing. I'm creating Buddhahood for everybody. It's really pretty liberating to be free of this: What do they think? Why aren't they doing this?
The constant chatter inside there is so draining. We can get free of that.
They also say inside this one is, Don't expect any good words from anyone. Don't expect anybody to praise you.
In fact, you might expect somebody else to get the credit for what you did. I used to have that at Diamond Mountain all the time. Geshe Michael would point out some good thing that happened and they'd attribute it to somebody else, when you knew it was you. The tendency was to go, No, no, I did that. It really happens a lot. Either they say nothing, or they give it to somebody else. It's an opportunity to check our mind.
Then last they say, Don't want fame or reputation from what you're doing.
This one can get misunderstood, because it's like, well, the whole reason I'm Lojong-ing is because I want to reach Buddhahood. I want to get a good result out of what I'm doing. That's why I'm doing it.
But fame and reputation means in this life, in this body, in this perception of me. Self-existent Me wants to be known as this great Lojonger, wants to be known as, wants to get not famous but well known. It's not bad to be well known, but self-existently well-known. If that ego Me is subtly saying, I'm Lojong-ing so I can get a good reputation, it's not really Lojong-ing, is it? Because the Lojong is about overcoming that self-existent Me. It is the self-cherishing thing that's happening.
They say often, a Lojong-er is doing things anonymously.
You sneak in and clean the bathroom when everybody's in class, and then there's just a clean bathroom and nobody knows who did it. Our tendency is to somewhere let it slip. Well, I did. And that's more and more levels that we can work with.
It doesn't mean you don't ever, it doesn't mean you have to hide yourself. But our Lojong is happening in our mind, and it shows in our behavior of course to some extent. But it's what's going on in our mind, is really where the power is happening.
All right, good for us. 7:30, we just finished the material that you need to finish your homework for class 5. Hooray for that.
What I have left is to share with you some insights into the pledges to keep for developing the good heart, which is part 6.
Part 6 is 16 lines of verse, that within which are 18 advices, the actual advices for carrying out the practice of training ourselves in Lojong. All the rest of this is contributing information. These are the actual advices.
I'll read them to you, if I find them. Here they are. All right. It goes like this.
Part 6, keep to the three laws.
I'm sorry, Sevonne. You have your hand up.
Sevonne: Thank you. I just have a question about the last example that you gave. Let's say you came up with a really good way that you're really excited about to make an offering to someone. And you did it secretly, and you had so much fun with it and it was such a beautiful offering, and then it kind of came out, it kind of came up and you wanted the person to know that, yeah, I loved you that much. I did that for you. What's the thinking on that? Yes, it's taking the credit.
Lama Sarahni: I think that one would need to do some deep soul searching.
Am I just showing them that it was me expressing my love? Or am I showing them it was me expressing my love, because I want them to like me more. I want to be special. Check that self grasping versus the other grasping. And if we can honestly say, I just want them to know I love them. I don't care what happened, then say it. If we can honestly say, No, I really want to reveal myself, I know they'll like me better. Then probably better to not say it, right? For our own growth.
Sevonne: Thank you very much.
All right, here's 6,
Keep to the three laws.
That's the one that's got three.
Change your mind and stay the same.
This is how you Lojong. Keep to the three laws.
Change your mind and stay the same.
Speak not of what was broken.
What is broken?
Never worry about what they are doing.
Rid yourself of the biggest affliction first.
Never hope for any reward.
Stop eating poison food.
Don't let the stream flow smoothly.
Forget repaying criticism.
Give up laying ambushes.
No going for the jugular.
Load your own truck, no passing the buck.
Don't get fixed on speed.
Don't feed the wrong face.
Don't turn the sweet angel to a devil.
Don't look for crap to make yourself happy.
Pretty straightforward, right?
No, not quite.
So let's see what Geshela shares with us.
Keep to the three laws
It means:
Never contradict what you have already committed yourself to. Meaning, as a Lojonger, if you have refuge advices, freedom vows or ordained vows, Bodhisattva vows, and/or secret vows, your Lojong behavior may not be such that you break one of those vows. It kind of sounds like it could be. Oh, Lojong. As long as I have the state of mind of reaching Buddhahood, I can do anything for anybody to anybody. In which case, if I want my buddy to be happy and my buddy loves beer, well then I make my buddy happy by buying him a six pack of beer, even though I have those lifetime lay person's vows of not taking or serving anybody alcohol. But I'm a Lojonger, so I can get away with it. Wrong.We heard that thing, Keep to the main judge. You yourself are the judge of your behavior. If you have vows, we need to keep our vows. We can Lojong and keep our vows. It's not contradictory. It's our self-existent Me that wants to use our Lojong in a way that could break down. Don't fall for it.
The second of these ‚Keep to the three‘ is: Don't ever place yourself in danger. Again, a great Lojonger, I'm a great Lojonger, I can do anything. Nothing can harm me. We are not obligated in our Lojong to allow our physical body or our mind body to be harmed. We need them. We need them to Lojong. We need them to get enlightened. We might say, Well, I am a great Lojonger. I'm going to step in the middle of a mugger, of being mugged and I'm going to get mugged. But that's okay because I'm a Lojonger. If there's a way to interfere with the mugging without stepping into the middle of the fray, we do that. And that’s Lojong. If we are being beaten, we don't stay around and let them beat us further, because we're burning off our bad seeds, while they're planting bad seeds. We don't ignore a situation, but our Lojong behavior finds another way that doesn't put ourselves in danger. Don't put yourself in danger. Don't walk down the dark alley at night. Go the long way around. Be careful of worldly situations, that you don't unnecessarily put yourself in harm with.
Don't discriminate between people in our Dharma practice. We tend to be able to be good little Bodhisattvas when we're around people we like. When we're at a Dharma teaching together for 10 days, we can be on our best behavior for 10 days, but keep us there for 12, and forget it. We can do it. Then we get out into, I don't know, our work life and it all goes to heck. Or we do it at our work life. Then we get home and we're so exhausted for being on our best behavior, we let our hair down with our family. Now we're nasty to the family. That's discriminating between people. Not in the sense of I'll Bodhichitta with you, but not you. We're not setting that out. It's by way of our habits in our seeds, and our willingness to let our guard down sometimes. So this is saying, ideally, don't ever let your guard down. Have it on high alert with everybody at every time. Just to even think of that, it's just exhausting. Can I ever be myself? No, actually, because yourself is Samsaric, suffering slob. You really want to be yourself? I mean, really? Yet it takes so much effort to be on our best behavior all the time. Again, we're not expected to be on our best behavior all the time. Immediately that you hear a teaching like this, we work on what it's like to be on our best behavior, and why it's so pleasant. Then you want to do it. When you want to do it, it's not a big strain. That's the Lojong-oing that grows, the practice that grows. Don't be hard on yourself, but Lojong towards everyone. Those you like, those you love, those you don't like so much, those you downright dislike, especially those you don't know. Those that are human, and those that are not. Lojong everybody.
Yes, Rachana, you had your hand up a while ago. Thank you for letting me stop.
Rachana: I am pretty sure I know the answer, but just to confirm, because it also ties in with what Flavia had mentioned, which was fear. I was just going to mention back then that, so I'm very allergic to wasps, and a couple of days ago, there's a wasp in the bedroom, and I was going to go to sleep with a wasp buzzing around. And so I was like, okay, in the past I would've escorted the wasp outside. It's freezing. The wasp will die if I take it outside. So I'm going to Lojong towards the swap. And I was still terrified, which I was going to mention to Flavia, if you've got fear, I think my reaction was, I can't make my fear go away, but I can handle my reaction to the fear. But what my question was though, because you just said Lama Sarahni that we shouldn't keep ourselves in a dangerous situation. I should have still stayed in the room with the wasp, even though I perceive it to be a dangerous situation, though, and let it live. Or?
Lama Sarahni: I think that you made a goodness by doing that. But you would've also made a goodness if you had caught the wasp and took it to a different room. Didn't have to stay in your bedroom. You didn't have to send it outside where it was too cold. But you could have put it somewhere else where you wouldn't have been in danger all night long when you were asleep. Then maybe you catch it later from the other room. You put it in the spare bedroom, and then you go back and get it when it's warmer out outside, if it ever gets that warm. Or you put it in the basement or you do…, right? So it didn't have to stay in the bedroom. But the fact that it did and you survived is a big rejoycable.
Rachana: Okay.
Lama Sarahni: Dedicate it to exactly that. I feel my fear still, but I reacted to it differently. I responded instead of reacted. Yay. That's a yay. Everybody, Yay for Rachana. It's a big one. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for sharing.
Second line says,
Change your mind and stay the same.
It's like, What? We are changing. How do we ever stay the same? This is not about philosophy. We don't ever stay the same. But what this means is our Lojong is happening on the inside, in our choices of responses to what's going on on the outside. We can be Lojong-ing, and on the outside look just like you did before. You don't have to wear a special outfit. You don't have to change your hairdo. You don't have to, I don't know, you don't have to look different on the outside.
Our state of mind changes. Certainly our behavior probably changes. But what they're saying here is, you don't have to quit your job. Give up everything. Go live under a bridge in order to be a good Lojonger.
You have work, you go to work, you Lojong at work. You look the same as you did at work, but now you're being kinder, more helpful, right? More supportive. More, more, more, more. So behavior changes, but your look doesn't have to. Your circumstances don't have to change. In fact, we wouldn't want our circumstances to change necessarily, because our current circumstances are exactly what our seeds are bringing us for our effort at hand, aren't they?
Then by Lojong-ing, changes are going to happen. Not right away, but as our Lojong seeds accumulate, and our selfishness seeds are being burnt away, our outer circumstances are going to change.
We are Lojong-ing before they change.
When they start to change, we don't stop Lojong-ing, even when they change into Buddha paradise, you keep Lojong-ing.
So on the outside, stay the same. Is meaning, look the same. Let everybody be benefiting from your goodness.
Then number 5,
Speak not of what was broken.
Meaning you don't speak about others’ mistakes. Others‘ Dharma mistakes, others‘ worldly mistakes. It's like, come on. But in the worldly work situation, people make mistakes. You have to assert them out. You have to figure out how to fix them. How can you not speak about people's mistakes?
We can. We can find a way to address what happened without blaming somebody, without imposing our… The blame. This went wrong. Let's all fix it.
Our approach to the situation can be different.
It's common, we have the seeds to see others' faults. It's a complicated mechanism that we have, really I think we're hardwired with it based on when we had to decide whether we were safe or not safe, and where we were in the pecking order, and… We had to make some judgments and decide: That one I'll follow, that one I won't. I'll lead better than that one. Those seeds are in us still, and they come out in our interaction even on the human level. So our awareness of those habitual patterns help us respond differently.
We're talking about reacting versus responding. And really, responding as creating, but we're trying to get this level of awareness.
To point out others' faults, how is that going to ripen?
Our own faults being pointed out.
How pleasant is that? I don't know. It can be helpful, can't it? But it can also—depends on how it's done. Do we have faults that need to be pointed out? Yeah, if we're some Samsaric beings we do. But do they have some nature of their own that we're always going to have those faults? No.
If we're still seeing faults in others, it is because we have faults.
Are we supposed to ignore the faults of others? No. We recognize them as our own seeds ripening and do what we need to do to help.
Geshela reminded us, remember Lojong class we learned about why Buddha said, if you are me or one like me, you can judge another, but if you're not, you're going to fall into the hell realms for so many eons that you'll really, really regret having spoken badly about somebody?
It was those monks, the monk that got jealous and spoke badly of the other monk that was teaching. The monk ends up in hell realm, and losing his robes, and et cetera. The punchline was, Buddha said, That was me in a past life.
I wasn't the monk that was doing such a great job. I was the monk that criticized, that judged, that was jealous, that behaved badly. And you know what? It delayed my progress by eons. So don't do it. The Jataka tales, they're written like kids' books, but really they are the stories Buddha told when some monks got in trouble. Buddha would tell a story about a similar way that he had made a mistake in the past and what the result was. It wasn't just getting in trouble in that life. It was eons in the hell realm. To encourage his monks to be more careful with their behavior. This is similar.
We have this habit of judging others, pointing out their faults to others, maybe not to them, but to others. And it just hurts us badly.
Now, six is,
Never worry about what they are doing.
That's just more of the same. We compare ourselves to others. Then, in order to inflate our ego, we find fault with somebody else. Then hopefully we keep it to ourselves. But even that‘s enough to have perpetuated our self cherishing me somewhat. So this training is to catch our own mind in comparing, and then sharing with others: Oh, I saw them do that. It's very, very common.
Seven,
Rid yourself of the biggest affliction first.
We talked about that before. Look back through this life and see what your major affliction has been, and work on that one. Look on that one. When you've got that one down to a dull roar or gone, then work on another one. Probably they're all rolled together though. And if you get that one, like Flavia said, anger underneath is fear. Jealousy underneath is probably something similar. Some kind of self-esteem thing. We can find the deepest one, the more subtle one, and work on that. Whatever level we can get a hold of, work at that level and it will shift. It will shift.
Number eight,
Never hope for any reward.
We're doing all of this so that we get the reward of the perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, so we really can help other people do it. It's not talking about that. But if we're holding onto that as if it's a reward someone will give us, then we've got it wrong. We don't get rewarded with Buddhahood for the good deeds we do as a Bodhisattva. Those good deeds of Lojong-ing are the causes. They are the seeds that when those seeds ripen, ripen as Buddha You and Buddha paradise emanating. That's the only place omniscience comes from, is from the seeds planted with Bodhichitta. So it's plant, plant, plant. The result will come. There's no need to be looking for it, be grasping to it, to be saying, Oh, until the result comes, it hasn't actually worked.
Good results come from good causes.
Pleasant results come from kindness.
Not because somebody decreed, but because pleasant seeds ripen into pleasant results. That's the way consciousness is. That's what is the process of consciousness.
It also is pointing out not to expect instant results. Instant rewards.
Lojong-ing is powerful. So those seeds are planted in a way that they are going to ripen. But they still don't ripen the next day, the next moment, necessarily even the next week or month.
Seeds are ripening, but don't expect our Lojong to show up with, Oh, my Lojong is working because my hair is less gray. We don't need that.
Plant your seeds and let them grow.
I mean, in a way, we want our good seeds to grow longer. We want bad seeds to wear out fast, but we want good seeds to get bigger and bigger and bigger. A little bit weird.
I just wanted to mention, Luisa always has that great question, how can the laws of karma be empty and still always be true? I just want to give a clue as to how to think about that. Because we have a tendency to think of the laws of karma as something that determines the result. Try and think of the laws of karma rather as an explanation for experience, an explanation for existence. And maybe you can catch how it is true that the laws of karma are true and empty.
Number nine,
Stop eating poison food.
They say we poison our Lojong when we finally do something good for somebody else. Then we do something good for somebody else expecting something from them back, like expecting a result. We are going to get a result. We just talked about that. We don't have to worry about what the result is going to be.
But this one is, when we recognize that our Lojong-ing is tainted with some self gain, which dug on it, as long as we have a self-existent me, it's always tainted with some self gain. But it's another thing we can work on.
Can we minimize that as much as possible?
Similar to what Sevonne asked.
Do I tell them? I was the one, because I just wanted to show you how much I love you.
If it's true that that's all we intended, with, No, because I want you to like me better. Then say it.
But if you can honestly say, No, no, I really want them to know how much I love them, because I want them to love me back. Then don't. Like that.
Don't let the stream flow smooth.
Is reference to when we're in the midst of a mental affliction, where a situation is ripening, mental affliction is coming up and we let it flow on. This is a big Lojong obstacle, is to let any mental affliction go on.
What happens? Something happens and then you try to explain. Even trying to explain, Well, it was seeds ripening because, because, because…
But we're still holding onto the hurt. The mental affliction hurt.
This is saying at least struggle against it. At least say, I know it's my seeds ripening. It still hurts. I want to lash out. I'm going to try not to lash out, because that'll just make it worse. But by the time I've explained this all to myself, I've already lashed out and oh, darn.
But the struggle is such a powerful goodness that it still qualifies as Lojong-ing. Every time we do it, it strengthens our ability to not lash out the way we want to. Every delay will increase our ability to change our response.
We have to start somewhere. Your easiest mental afflictions, you can start there and really, really not respond. Then grow into working on your worst mental affliction.
Or you can be that spiritual warrior: I'm going after my worst mental affliction, and I'm really going to struggle with it. Even if I fail in the actual response, I'm going to work really, really hard to delay it. Delay that response because of applying my wisdom. Not just stuff it. I'm getting so pissed off that I'm not going to let myself, because I'm Lojong-ing. We'll get sick doing that.
I can't stand that. He did that to me again, and it's coming from me, and I'm so sorry that I did it to somebody else. And then maybe run away fast or something so that you don't flow.
If we let it flow on, that's the thing.
We're damaging our ability to Lojong, if we let some flow.
Number 11, one more minute,
Forget repaying criticism.
This touches on those Bodhisattva vows about the four „Don't respond in kind“. Don't repay criticism with criticism. Violence with violence. Yelling with yelling, and scolding with scolding.
Because in doing so, we just plant more seeds for the same. It sounds like it means when that person's yelling at me, I'm not going to yell back at them. But Geshela‘s two husbands in the kitchen so skillfully shows, Yeah, you don't want to yell back at them, but you also don't want to yell back at anybody else.
If you're being criticized, you don't get the chance to criticize back. But you go and you criticize your cousin instead. Somebody gets angry, somebody hurts somebody. You don't get to hurt the other person back. Instead, you go and kick the dog. Because you can get away with it. We do that. And that's what this is talking about. Don't do it to anybody else either. Don't respond immediately, and don't do it to anybody else later. And that is what breaks the cycle. That's Lojong-ing, to keep that Bodhisattva vows as Lojong-ing.
Alright. The rest of them, I will let you get from your reading and from the student notes, which I think you all have, because there's no homework questions that require that you heard it from me.
Yay. So let's dedicate our goodness to our growing Lojoing-ing in our whole world. Not just our own, but everybody‘s.
[Usual closing]
Thank you so very much for the opportunity to share.
Right for the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 14, finally doing Class 6 - Freedom from the Four Attachments. Yay.
So let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please.
Bring your attention to your breath until you'll hear from me again. Now, bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of perfect love, perfect co
[Usual opening]
(7:25)
Alrighty, so thank you for everyone for doing your assignments. We are onto the official class 6, which is the topic called SHENPA SHI DREL, means Freedom from the four attachments.
It's a Lojong that is four lines long. Freedom from the four attachments, but there's a lot to say about it.
We hear this word attachment. We're so attached. Attached to this, attached to that, and it causes all our suffering. And Buddha taught us, let's get rid of these attachments.
But then, it's hard to really understand what they mean by those attachments. Maybe our image of what it is to be a Buddhist, like a powerful Buddhist, is some (drachi) that we have in our mind of a monk who's very stoic, and silent, and strong, and non-reactive, like Geshela said, kind of like a Marine. If you're American, I think you know what I mean. Marines are these robot people.
They're just so. It's like, I don't know, is that what inspires you?
You want to be like this amazing robot that doesn't respond to anything, just carries out your task?
Geshela says, if that's what you want to be, you can become that if that would make you really happy. But that's not what Buddha was teaching, become a robot, in all of his teachings.
If there are any teachings that lead us to believe that's what we're supposed to be, we're misunderstanding Buddha's teaching.
Now, early on we learned, oh, gain renunciation. Like give up everything, that's renunciation.
It sure sounds like becoming a robot because to be able to give up everything you have to just not care about what's going on and how you feel, and the impact of things.
That's not renunciation either.
At the beginning, they do say, when you're a new student of serious Buddhism, sorry, but you are going to suffer.
There's a lot to say about why that's true. But at one level, it just means when we have this higher goal in sight, then we are willing to give up smaller pleasures, smaller successes, smaller needs, because we've got our site set on this bigger thing. So I mean, a simple example is say you want to learn to ice skate so that you can compete at the Olympics. You start when you're four years old, and that means you're on the ice seven days a week, probably two hours a day instead of going for ice cream, going out to the movies.
But it's not like you've given up stuff that somebody said, you have to give that up to be a competitive ice skater. It's that you want ice skating so much that that's all you're interested in. To other people, it looks like you gave up all this stuff.
To you it's like, I didn't give anything up. I was on it, and I went on to become this fine ice skater. That was my goal in a worldly way, great. You became a fine ice skater and then you died. Oh well, better luck next time.
So we can apply these ideas to our own life and go through life maybe in a less distressed way or less agitated way.
But then we're kind of missing the boat, because what Buddhism has to offer is your total transformation from samsaric suffering being even at the level of, no, no, I'm doing everything I want to do.
To transform that into a being who is perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom—they call it a being who is bliss.
I can't relate to that word bliss, but if you can, great.
There's nothing in the worldly experience that is bliss, that experience is pleasure beyond belief and not related to anything happening. It's just bubbling bliss.
We learn as we go, what we mean by becoming Buddha. It's growing. The more we talk about it, the clearer it becomes. Our human conception of what it is to be Buddha is nowhere close. It's way finer, way more spectacular, way more vast than that.
But if we can get this highest idea in our mind and believe that we can be that, then for sure it's easy to say, no thanks. I'd rather go on retreat than go to Hawaii with you guys. Not because Lama says, but because that's what you want to do. Then it's a whole nother practice to convince your family that you're not ditching out on them, that in fact you're making their Hawaiian vacation all the more fun for them by being in retreat. It takes a long time to get this connection. Because we are so stuck in what I do now brings the result that comes next.
So, we're talking about getting clear on what the Buddhism that we're learning is teaching us to become.
It's not a robot. It’s not, I don't care about anything. It's not a, I'm not going to let myself have any fun until I'm enlightened.
It's about learning how to transform, not every experience, how to transform ourselves so that every experience we have is one that is pleasure for everybody involved, not just ourselves.
Freedom from the four attachments, it's like four different ways that we have this thing attachment.
Four different ways to understand what they mean by attachment more deeply.
Of course, the explanation of each of those attachments isn't just one. There's multiple varieties of each of the different attachments. We're adding, by learning this lojong, we're adding more to our toolbox.
Maybe it's the one that's like, oh, this is my lojong. I'm going to work on this one for the rest of my life. It's like one or the other will catch your heart and then learn what you can and then study more. Use it. If it inspires you, use it.
If it's one that's like, oh yeah, okay, another lojong, then study it. Do your homework, set it aside for later.
We get to learn the history of this freedom of the four attachments, partly because the lineage history behind freedom from the four attachments lojong reveals to us our own Buddhism lineage.
It's a Sakya lineage, not Gelukpa. But remember, Gelukpa didn't start until 1400. We're studying Lojong, 1000 AD, 1100, 1200.
What we are studying is long before Je Tsongkapa, long before the Gelukpa, already in place, and it was the stuff that Je Tsongkapa was being trained in, that he then double checked and cleaned up and et cetera. Out of it came the Gelukpa lineage.
So we are in this family, even though we don't say to ourselves, oh, we're Sakya Buddhists. Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyü and Gelukpa are the four different sects of Buddhism in Tibet. We're talking about Sakya here. This freedom from four attachments comes out of the Sakya lineage.
When Buddhism was first coming into Tibet, we've already heard that, I don't know the specifics of the circumstances, but teachers from India where Buddhism was flourishing, went into Tibet and they'd give some teachings and people would be interested.
Of course, they taught in whatever language was being spoken in India at that time. So these Tibetans, pretty new to Buddhism, carrying it in somebody else's language, somebody had to learn that language so they could translate it. People did that. But it caught.
Tibet was a culture of herders. It was a herding culture, herding yaks, sheep, maybe goats. But they were nomads. Your wealth, your position in society was based on how many yaks you had, how many sheep you had.
Geshela said it was still primarily like that until 1959. So we would call it a primitive lifestyle compared to ours. I'm guessing it's not primitive at all. But then they didn't have any written language yet.
Along come these Indian teachers who are teaching this powerful philosophy, deep ideas, karma and emptiness, even the Lojong—put others before yourself so that you can be happy.
Surprisingly, the people then had the BAKCHAKs for it, and they loved it. They kept asking more to come, and some of them would give up their yak herding position and go to India to get some teaching. They'd come back and they'd be able to teach in their language, in Tibetan. Whoa, they became pretty popular, because now you could understand it directly.
So there was this big interchange between the Indian Tibetan coming into Tibet, and then the Tibetan people just lapping it up.
In that time, they realized, by 1000 AD in Tibet, they have a language, and they realized they need to translate those texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan so that they'd have access to them.
There were people who then said, okay, I'll learn Sanskrit so that I can translate the text. Of course, you have to learn the text too in order to translate. So really, there were a group of people who took it on to become the translators, called (Lotselwa).
All this is happening in various areas in Tibet.
There was one place where one fellow whose name was Kun Koynchok Gyalpo, his dates around 1030, we don't know the specific dates. He latches on, and he decides that he'll make a community where these teachers from India couldn't be invited to come and teach.
He chooses this area in Tibet that's known for this white chalky hillside, which is what Sakya means. It means SA is earth and KYA is white, white earth, the white earth area.
So this fellow Kun Koynchok Gyalpo, sorry, he takes it upon himself to start a center, to start a place where the teachings could happen.
He has a son, the name of his son is Josay Jampel. I don't have his specific dates either. Josay Jampel studies with his dad, serves his dad and takes over the Dharma Center when his dad died.
Obviously this is not a monastic center, this is a layperson center. Sakyas are a lay lineage. They do have ordination. But at this early stage, it was laypeople.
Josay Jampel has a son, his name is Kunga Nyingpo, and I do have his dates, 1092 to 1158.
By this time, by the time Josay Jampal has taken over this Dharma Center in the Sakya land, there are translators that have become very accomplished. They're called master translators, which is what lotsawa means. There was one particular master translator who was a master amongst the masters, and his name was Bari. So they called him Bari Lotsawa. He is living in this area of this Dharma center of the Sakya, the Sakya Dharma Center.
He is doing his translation thing, and Kunga Nyingpo as a little kid is hanging out with Bari Lotsawa, who I presume he's in his twenties. So a little kid would be attracted. Bari Lotsawa recognizes something special in this little kid, not just that the little kid is the son of the head of the Dharma Center. But he also sees the kid has something special, and so Bari Lotsawa takes Kunga Nyingpo under his wing and says, Let's make you into someone who makes your father really proud.
He taught this little kid karma and emptiness, and practices to meet the enlightened beings directly to get teachings from them.
By the time this kid is, I don't know, 11 or 12, he's doing these practices to meet Manjushri. It goes a little astray, and he starts having serious problems. I don't know what kind of problems, but he's having these doubts and he goes to his teacher Bari Lotsawa, and he's like, I am having trouble. I'm having trouble.
So Lotsawa adjusts the practice, gives him some other practices that are actually higher, apparently, to help clear out these obstacles.
Again, the young man is hugely successful, and he clears out the negative influences that he had met along the way. He overcomes those, and he has a vision of Manjushri, Manjushri flanked by two Bodhisattvas.
So here's this 12-year-old kid, playing himself do his lessons and his practices, and bingo, there's Manjushri. And Manjushri turns to the kid and says, Well, I'll tell you what he says later.
(Manjushri) gives him this teaching called „The Freedom from the Four Attachments“.
He is only 12. He cooks it for a while. But he goes on to become a great teacher, a great master, and he does take over the Dharma Center when his father steps down.
He gains the name Sachen.
Here's Kun Konchok Gyalpo (1034-?), the original guy who took responsibility.
>> His son Josay Jampel (?-?)
>> His son Kunga Nyingpo (1092–1158)
That's the one we're talking about now, the 12-year-old kid.
Bari Lotsawa is Kunga Nyingpo’s first teacher.
Kunga Nyingpo goes on to become this great teacher who's called the Sachen. Sa meaning the white earth, meaning the Sakya area Center. Chen means great.
So literally the word means the great Earth. But what they mean is this great teacher of the Sakya.
So this lineage is forming, the Sakya lineage.
He passes the lineage to his sons. He has two sons, I don't know if only two, but he has two.
One is named Sonam Tse, the older one, 1142 to 1182. He didn't live so long.
The other one, Jetsun Drakpa Gyelsten, 1147 to 1216. Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen goes on to be also a very great figure in the Sakya lineage. He is also dear to Diamond Mountain Lineage, Geshe Michael-Khen Rinpoche lineage, because he is a big player in the Vajrayogini practice, and the instructions on how to practice. So he's close to us.
He writes a commentary on the Freedom from four attachments, he probably wrote more than one commentary. Generally what happens is a teacher teaches something, and then what they taught gets written down, and then that comes to be called a commentary.
It seems from what I'm going to be sharing with you tonight, that Jetsun Drakpa Gyelsten probably taught this freedom from four attachments in different times to different audiences, because his commentaries say a little bit different stuff about what the four attachments are all about. Which itself is a teaching.
We think a teaching has one meaning. Of course it doesn't, does it? Oh, no, no, no. It'll have different meanings according to how the teacher teaches it. Yes and no. It'll have different meanings according to whoever's hearing it, because it's coming out of them. So how many freedom of four attachments are there?
How many understandings of it are there?
As many as there are people who've ever heard of it.
So why do we have to learn anything? Just here at once and it's yours. Maybe you don't need any teaching. I don't know your mind. I did, because I wanted to know more. So anyway, that's my job, to give you, the more that Geshe Michael gave to me. And then there's probably more beyond that.
Alright, so Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen, he himself didn't have kids, apparently. But he has nephews. One of his nephews is Drogun Chugyal Pakpa, who goes by the name Pakpa. Not from his side, but everybody knows him as Pakpa. As the lineage comes down, he's just called Pakpa. His dates are 1238 to 1280. He also didn't live all that long. Pakpa is famous. I'm going to tell you why, very shortly.
Whoops. I missed somebody. Go back, scratch out your notes.
The Jetsun Drakpa Gysltsen, he passes it to his nephew, the Sakya Pandita, Kunga Gyeltsen. So sorry.
Sakya Pandita, Kunga Gyeltsen is the nephew of Jetsun Gyeltsen.
He gets the name Sakya Panidita after he's already become a great teacher. Sakya means Sakya, the lineage we're talking about. Pandita means the wise man. Wise man of Sakya.
His dates 1182 to 1251.
He is the guy who was known for having memorized the Prajna Paramita in 8,000 verses in Sanskrit. That, when he was just minding his own business walking around, he'd be reciting it. That would take a special mind.
He also is the one who spread Buddhism to the Mongols, which I'll explain in a moment.
Sakya Pandita, Kunga Gyeltsen.
Drogun Chugyal Pakpa is one of Sakya Pandita‘s nephews. I got the nephew right.
I'm going to come back to that. I get to tell you a story.
By this time, the time of Sakya Pandita, Kunga Gyeltsen, or early 1200s in Tibet, the Sakya are a very powerful lineage. Like strong practitioners. They have established a monastery, but their lineage is secular.
Their monastery is called Sakya Kyunchen, where there's a monastery and a great library because of all this translation that they've been doing.
Geshela shared that this was one of the only monasteries and libraries that remained intact when all the other monasteries and libraries were destroyed. Had some goodness. They kept it.
So the Mongolian Kingdom at this time, apparently stretched as far as Burma and Vietnam over to the Middle East, up to Moscow and China. So Mongolia, the Mongolian empire, was humongous and very, very powerful, and led by one that was called the Khan.
There were different Khans, Gengis Khan, Dschingis Khan, all those different ones.
At that time, because there was only horse and foot, it took three years to get a message from one end of the Mongolian Empire to the other end, three whole years. The Mongolians were a warrior people. How they took everything over, they were just fierce and brutal, and their culture made animal sacrifices as a practice to keep the gods on their side, et cetera.
In this time period when all of that area of the world was being taken over by the Mongolians, they didn't take Tibet.
Apparently it was because the Tibet leaders were wise enough to go to the Khan and pay him off. We'll give you this much money every year if you'll just leave us alone.
Apparently it worked because for a long, long time they just left Tibet alone and they took everything around.
Well then, that Khan died, and the Tibetans, why, I don't know, decided the deal was off and they quit paying.
The next Khan coming, they're called the Godan, which means Prince somehow hasn't become the next Khan yet, gets wind of that and gets upset, and decides he's going to go to Tibet and get his money.
I don't know if he personally was going or how it was really working, but on his way towards Tibet, somehow he gets introduced to Buddhism. He gets interested, not converted but interested, and he hears about this great teacher, that Sakya Pandita, and that that great teacher, he'll do anything for anybody. He loves so much. He's so wise and he loves so much.
So this prince, he says, well, great, I'll summon him to Mongolia. I don't have to go to Tibet. I'll bring him to me and he'll have to come because if I ask him, he's pledged to do anything necessary for sentient beings. I'm a suffering being. He'll have to come, and then I'll negotiate with him to get my money.
So he sends this letter to Sakya Pandita, who is an old man by now, he's 60 years old. The Prince's letter says, I understand you're a great Buddhist, a great Bodhisattva. I'm a suffering being.
I'm asking you to come to me to teach me Buddhism.
I know that because I ask, you have to come.
If you don't come, I will go in and I will burn down all of Tibet.
It's like, all right, I guess I'll go says Sakya Pandita.
So he starts out, it's a long journey from wherever he is. He is living in Lhasa to get to wherever the Godan has said, come to me. But he starts out with the intention to go, and he takes with him his two nephews that are like one's 9 or 10, and the other's a little bit older.
But everywhere he goes, he's so famous that people would ask him to teach. Can we see you? Can we have an interview? Will you teach us?
Of course he can't say no. So it's taking him a really long time to get to where he's supposed to be going.
He realizes that he's old enough that maybe at this rate, maybe I won't even get there. So he wants to please the prince. So he sends the Princes a message saying, I'm on my way, but this is taking a really long time. So in good faith, I'm sending you my two nephews. They know a lot. Please accept my nephews while I'm coming. I am coming.
So these two nephews go on ahead, and of course they get there a whole lot faster than Sakya Pandita does.
They teach the Prince about karma and emptiness. You reap what you sow. You will reap what you are sowing, et cetera. And they do such a good job that by the time Sakya Pandita gets there, the prince is converted. He's already taken refuge from the two nephews, or one of the two nephews. So Sakya Pandita does still teach him a bit, and I guess that Prince goes on to become the Khan.
He takes up residence in Beijing, apparently. Beijing being Mongolia at that time. He stops all the violence. He stops all the fighting, because now he's got refuge. He stops the practice of animal sacrifices, and changes it to making these little dough animals instead. Which is probably a take on torma that Sakya Pandita taught.
And he brings teachings, teachers and teachings to where he's living in Beijing.
The nephew, Pakpa is the one that gets chosen to go serve the Khan, the emperor of Mongolia in Beijing. So this young man, right by now he is older, he goes and becomes the spiritual teacher of the Mongolian Khan and becomes quite famous there, and has a big positive influence also in that area.
He meets Marco Polo apparently, and Marco Polo, he has his writings. He mentions that Lama Pakpa. I think that's why Geshela tied part of this story together. It's like Pakpa is known in the Western world by anybody who knows Marco Polo's stuff, which is not me. But there's a connection with the outer world here.
This big connection then between Tibetan Buddhism and Mongolia, which is in this huge area of the world.
So there have been this introduction of what we're calling Tibetan Buddhism, probably wasn't called that then, across this huge swath of our world.
Pakpa is the one who develops a written language for the Mongolians. He designs an alphabet so that they too can translate the text into their language.
Fast forward some period of time, I don't know how long, but the Mongolian Empire shrinks at some point—as they all do.
There's this story that there were Mongolians out there on its Western border along Eastern Europe. They've been out there a really long time, and it takes a really long time for the message still to get to them. They're told to withdraw to come home.
By now, like this is hundreds, I don't know, some period, it has to be past 1400s because they write to the Dalai Lama in Tibet to ask for an auspicious date to come home.
So that's how Buddhist they've become. The Dalai Lama does the most, sends them the date. And this group of Mongolians are intense on either side of some big river there. I don't know which one, which in the winter, the river is frozen over.
So they just cross back and forth as they need.
So they have this date, they're all prepared to leave on this date. And apparently on the day before that date, it warms up and the river thaws.
So when the date comes, the group on the side of the river that gets to go home goes home, and the group that's on the other side of the river, they're stuck. Now, why they didn't get boats, I don't know. But apparently no boats.
They're stuck on the wrong side of the river. They can't get home on that auspicious day. They can't leave for home. Apparently the ones that did leave for home, almost none of them made it. I don't know what happened.
The ones that got stuck on the other side came to be known as Kalmuks, because Kalmuk in Mongolian means stuck over there.
So that this whole group of Mongolians became known as Kalmuk Mongolians, and they were still fierce fighters.
Fierce fighters, and their ferocity and their skills got used in different ways there through the period of time of, I don't know my history well, the revolutions that are happening in World War I that lead into World War II. They're all still over there in Europe. They made a living there, but they're still these fierce warriors.
Then somehow at some point, having to do with World War II, a big group of them immigrated to the United States, and they go to New Mexico. I mean land of Enchantment. It's a beautiful area, but they didn't like it. They instead landed in New Jersey, I don't know.
Several different small communities with a monastery each with an Abbott each developed there in New Jersey.
Those monasteries all had an Abbott, a monk usually. An Abbott who would do the religious thing for that community, marry people, bury people, christened people, do the pujas, et cetera.
It was that kind of religious base back then.
One of those was Geshe Wangyal, who taught crazy Americans like Jeffrey Hopkins and Robert Thurman. That first wave of very well-educated, gifted, amazing practitioners came out of this Mongolian group that ended up in New Jersey.
Then, one of the small Mongolian communities, their Abbott was getting old and close to dying. So they wrote to his Holiness the Dalai Lama, we need a new Abbot. Will you send us somebody?
Geshela said his Holiness the Dalai Lama loaned them Geshe Lobsang Tharchin for three years. So Geshe Lobsang Tharchin is 50 years old or so when he goes to America, doesn't speak any English, only owns his robes and Dorje and bells, and goes to be Abbott to replace this one from this little Mongolian temple. But very quickly after arriving there, some American students show up, like Geshe Michael and others, and when Khen Rinpoche‘s three year Abbottship is up, he said, I can't leave. I have my students.
He didn't say it, but later on we learn. It's like he's got this 20 year plan for them, he can't ditch them. So he never leaves that monastery in New Jersey, and he died in 2004 after training, beautifully training Geshe Michael and others over a period of 25, 30 years, whatever it was. Like 74 or 75 until 2004, whatever that is.
Anyway, long time, you do the math.
So that's why we're really talking about it, because that's our lineage, that's our family.
Sakya Panda, if you count it way back, I don't know how many greats back, but great-granddad, seven times removed or something. We're connected to these things, and it's kind of cool to get to hear a little bit about them in that way. Not just some historical figure, but oh my gosh, they've poured the teachings into somebody who poured in, who poured it in, who poured it in, who poured it into this one who's pouring it into you.
Hopefully you're going to get a chance to pour it into somebody else, most especially the Vajrayogini lineage.
But these sutra lineages as well, in particular the Lojong lineage.
You don't have to start from ACI 1. You can share Lojong with somebody, and then you're pouring it in. But you'll need to be a little careful about who you share Lojong with. You have to be able to assess their level of motivation and understanding, because you don't want to share Lojong with somebody who's going to say, What? That's nuts.
It does help to do the earlier ACI‘s before, because then you know what you poured into them is all the preparation as well. But you don't have to. You can just do that.
Luisa: How is it possible that those Mongolian..? Because you say they're fairs and they're warriors and they do animal sacrifice. How can they be Buddhists?
Lama Sarahni: I know, it's a really great question. So by the time we have the warriors in World War II, they are somehow, they're not doing the animal sacrifices anymore, but they are still fierce warriors. I don't know how to answer that. I don‘t.
Luisa: Because I also got to learn that Geshe, I don't want to be disrespectful, but that Khen Rinpoche was not vegetarian for some time.
Lama Sarahni: Correct.
Luisa: But it's coming from us. No?
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, that's good. Thanks. That's a great answer.
Flavia, you had something to say?
Flavia: Just the story that we know is that the teacher of Geshe Michael wasn't a vegetarian. Because I don't know Khen Rinpoche in the sense that I never met him. So I cannot say that he was a vegetarian or that he wasn‘t. The story that I have is that Geisha Michael's teacher wasn’t vegetarian, and that he learned from that, and what are the things that he did. Afterwards Luisa said, it's coming from us, but even if it's coming from us, it's a story. It's not like my dad. I can say my dad is not vegetarian, but in this other case, it's a story about the teaching.
Lama Sarahni: Okay, so you're saying we don't know for sure whether he ate meat or not. Maybe it's just a story that he ate meat?
Flavia: No, no. What I'm saying is in my mind, it's only a teaching.
My experience.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah, good. That's how you're approaching it. That's how you're approaching it. I'm taking this as a teaching and not judging my teacher. That's very wise. That's very wise. Yeah, it would be a good discussion to have if we had infinite time, we'd do it now, but we don't. I'm so sorry. But a good discussion about what is it he‘s trying to teach us when a being who is teaching us about this pure morality does not seem to demonstrate it?
How are they understanding it differently than me? Does that mean I'm supposed to do that too, or do I hold my line for me? That's a good question.
Luisa: Just one comment on that, because for me, what hit me when Geshe Michael mentioned that, that he was not vegetarian, and then after some, I don't know how many years he became vegetarian when he was 70. I don't remember what exactly the date. He said something very funny that his teacher was making fun of him, of Geshe Michael because he gave up meat, but not his mental afflictions.
Lama Sarahni: That's good.
Luisa: This is what for me was, okay, this is maybe the hint.
Lama Sarahni: Right. That's a good one.
All right. So there is this question on your homework about the five Sakya patriarchs.
SAKYA GONGMA NAM NGA, the five great Sakya patriarchs.
I just want to point out to you the five.
It starts with the Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, the 12-year-old Sakya. He's not the first Sakya, but he's the first of what's called the five great patriarchs.
The five Sakya patriarchs
Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092-1158)
the brothers Sonam Tse (1142-1182) and
Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen (1147-1217)
Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen (1182-1251)
Drogun Chugyal Pakpa (1238-1280)
There's 2 and 3, not in order, but 2nd and 3rd are those two brothers. You would say 2 and 3 because this guy's older, but he died young. Then number 4 is Drakpa Gyeltsen’s nephew Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen, and number 5 is Pakpa, who's really the one who converted the Mongolian guy.
Those are the five. That's what you need for your homework.
Now let's take a break. Perfect timing. Goodness, good for me.
Let's take a break and we'll get onto the actual Lojong.
(Break 57:21)
So here's this 12-year-old who's practicing so hard to please his dad to become the… He's in line to take over from his dad the Dharma center and Bari Lotsawa has been training him and his efforts are making progress, but they went sour.
So he gets a readjustment, and his readjustment is got great results because boom, he has this vision of Manjushri flanked by two Bodhisattvas, and Manjushri says to this whipper snapper:
A person who's still attached to this life is no dharma practitioner.
A person who's still attached to the three worlds, has no renunciation.
A person who's still attached to getting what they want, is no Bodhisattva.
A person who still grasps to things has no worldview.
As I'm working with this, I'm thinking to myself, I don't think that's quite how Manjushri addressed this young man. That this is how this young man, when he was ready to actually teach this, which wasn't the next day. He had to grow up before he taught this. When he taught his people, he called it „A person who's still attached to this life is no Dharma practitioner.“
I imagine Manjushri says to the kid, If you are still attached to this life, you are no Dharma practitioner.
I think the kid was getting chewed up, because he was probably getting a little arrogant. Don't you think this is just Sarahni?
Thinking it through to make it more impactful to my mind to say, „A person who is still attached to this life is no Dharma practitioner.“ Yeah, yeah. Other people, not me.
But what if Manjushri had come to me, Sarahni, If YOU are still attached to this life, YOU are no Dharma practitioner.
It's like, oh my God, what do you mean attached to this life?
Am I? Am I doing it?
Tell me what I'm doing wrong. I've got to fix it. I thought I was a Dharma practitioner.
You see? So I'm going to read 'em this other way, but on the recording, know that this is not from the scripture, this is from Sarahni trying to impact her own mind, her own heart.
Manjushri is saying to me,
If you are still attached to this life, you are no dharma practitioner.
If you are still attached to the three worlds, you have no renunciation.
If you still want what you want, like over others' needs, you are no Bodhisattva.
And if you still grasp to things, you have no worldview.
It's harsh.
If that's too harsh for you, word it the other way.
Oh, ANY person who's still attached to this life is no dharma practitioner.
Whatever way, right? It's all right. Either way you want.
But let's figure out what he's talking about.
He grows up, becomes a great teacher.
Probably at some point he had a group of students who were ready to hear this teaching. Well-trained, making progress and maybe getting a little arrogant about it. Thinking that their progress was coming from their own goodness now. Losing out the impact of understanding any success, any progress I'm making as a result of past good deeds. I could lose it at any minute.
He then teaches some group of students, this is what I mean.
Maybe another time he has a group of students that are on a different level and he says, nah, this is what I was meaning.
Then, as it's passed down through the lineage, when it comes down to the one that's called Sakya Pandita, and he's teaching it to his students, he also is giving commentary.
The commentaries that Sakya Pandita taught, like how it got written down from him are what is your reading. They're not Kunga Gyeltsen‘s commentaries. We just have his four liner.
Then a couple of generations later, Sakya Pandita gives commentary, and that's what you have in your reading.
So your answer, your homework asks the question, it says:
The Sakya Pandita uses four metaphors for the four attachments. State them and explain them briefly.
This is one way that the freedom from the four attachments was taught.
The first metaphor, it's addressing the one that says
It says, the metaphor for that is life is like a bubble.
You know bubbles. They're ephemeral, they're fleeting, they pop, the very slightest thing, poof, they're gone.
Life is like a bubble.
If you are not attached to it, you don't go to the lower realms.
To become not attached to it, the antidote to being attached to this life, is meditate every hour on your death. Learn that death and the end of death meditation, reach the conclusion, review it often.
So that you're living with the understanding that „I die today“, the result of this antidote is that your Dharma practice becomes Dharma, really Dharma than instead of missing the boat Dharma, not quite really Dharma.
The metaphor for this the attachment to the three worlds, or the three realms is what the homework says, is like eating poison.
I guess as a general rule, something that's poisonous that we would eat tastes good, but it makes you sick or die. Because we won't eat a poison that tastes so terrible.
The analogy of the eating poison is, it tastes good in the moment, but it hurts you in the long run.
So attachment to the three realms has no renunciation.
The way we get free of that attachment is to repeatedly think of the problems of this vicious cycle. To think of Samsara and sort out again and again, why it is that the obvious things are obviously unpleasant. Why it is that the good things are also suffering, and why it is that just living is suffering.
Not meaning, Okay, so I wish to be dead. Because there really is no such thing as death. There's just the end of this particular way it looks. There'll be another after that.
The result of overcoming the attachment is that our Dharma practice becomes a path.
We usually hear the word path and we go, Oh, great, so then my Dharma practice is really leading me along in the right direction.
But when they say path, it doesn't mean that. But in a deeper meaning, it means our Dharma practice becomes realizations, realized. It becomes real for us.
So there's some level where we go from our Dharma practice being somehow still on the idealized, or imagined, or not completely real to where it becomes realized, experienced.
Usually they mean a realization that you have in deep meditation, and this does mean those. But it really means that you're really living it for real. When living by seeds becomes your default mode, your dharma is real, your dharma is a path. It's realized, made real.
Then the third one
The metaphor is, being attached to what we want is killing your enemy's son.
If you have an enemy, somebody you really, really, really dislike, let's just go down and say you hate them. Because of that hate, we want to hurt them. The best way to hurt somebody is to kill their firstborn son. You know that and so you set about to do it. Because you'll be so satisfied when you actually do it. It's disgusting. But to still want what we want, even if it's just tea, when somebody else needs lunch, you might as well go kill your enemies‘ first born.
That's what it does to our wish.
Oh, no, no, I have the wish. I just can't live it yet.
We're damaging the wish every time we kill our enemies‘ son, which none of you're ever going to do that.
What is the antidote?
Yeah, so you're glad in the short run, but in the end it's certain to bring you harm. To overcome that attachment, we cultivate the wish for enlightenment. The very thing that wanting what I want over others is damaging our wish. We just go back and cultivate our wish again and again. Cultivate our Bodhichitta.
Then the result of applying the antidote is, it removes from our practice the first great mistake of the path. Which is doing our practice for our own game. Doing our practice just for ourself. You can't be a Mahayana Buddhist and do your Buddhism just for yourself.
What makes you Mahayanas is that you do want to stop all beings‘ suffering, not leaving a single one out.
They say, the only way we can reach the point where we can help even one, let alone all, is to reach that state of total Buddhahood ourselves. We are in it for ourselves. But we are not in it for ourselves, because we can't reach that without doing it for all sentient beings, not leaving a single one out.
It sounds so circular, but we have to step into the circle at some point, and then work on it forwards and backwards to keep bringing back our Bodhichitta every time we think, do, or say something that has put ourselves first. I mean, that's what Lojong is all about: Developing our Bodhichitta.
Then the last one
The metaphor is believing the mirage is water.
The metaphor for someone still grasping to things is believing the mirage is water, right?
When they say, „A person who still grasps to things“, means the things as having their identities in them. All the different nuances of what that means on the flip side, to grasp to things means that you're not holding the thing as your projection forced results of your deeds.
The analogy of the mirage is, we see water and it doesn't make sense that there's water there. Or it does, and we go to it, throw our face in it, and we come up with a mouth of sand.
We saw water, we thought it was water, but in fact it was a mirage.
What's a mirage? A mental, how do you describe a mirage? A phenomenon that looked like water but wasn't water.
It's great, great analogy to work with that mirage to try to explain mirage water, mirage water, mirage water, what's really going on?
When we can get deep into that, it really helps us understand this mental seeds versus something having its own nature without the thing having to disappear.
The true nature of the mirage is, it's not the water we thought was there. It is a mirage.
The mirage is there, the water is not.
The metaphor is, it seems like water.
Grasping to things means we think the things are themselves, and so do what those things do.
We run to the mirage and try to drink.
We grasp to the pen and try to write.
Shoot, the pen works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't.
The mirage never works. You never come up with water at the mirage.
Technically, you never come up with a pen that writes.
So that 12-year-old Pakpa is maybe thinking he understands emptiness and karma. But then turns around and grabs a pen and writes with it without going, wow, look at this. My seed's making this thing write. How cool is that?
And Manjushri knows. So he is pointing it out.
Perceiving the mirage as water, the problem with that attachment is it keeps us from reaching enlightenment quickly.
It keeps us from reaching enlightenment at all, to keep thinking that a mirage is water.
When we get free of that, the result is that we are able to transform our present mistaken state of mind into the mind of an enlightened being.
To see a mirage and not think there's water there, Oh look, the mirage! Is the metaphor for a mind of enlightened being. Not describing it. But a metaphor for it.
Also the freedom from attachment to grasping to things enables us to avoid the second great mistake of the path, which is holding to the two extremes.
The first mistake of the path is doing it for our own gain.
The second mistake of the path is still holding to the two extremes.
The two extremes. Here's our friend the pen. It exists as a pen, the way it looks. That's one extreme.
The other extreme is, if it doesn't exist in the way that it appears, if it's true that it's only a mental projection, well then it doesn't exist at all. Because mental projections are just these ideas, in which case, it doesn't matter what I do.
We know the two extremes. Grasping to things, anything with an identity in it on any level keeps us in the two extremes, which keeps us out of enlightened the mind.
So we can see how complete a teaching this is to the 12-year-old Pakpa, to help him keep digging more deeply into his understanding of emptiness and karma.
Rachana: So for the fourth one, did you say what the antidote is?
I know we know the result of the antidote, but do we know the antidote?
Lama Sarahni: Geshe Michael didn't write it. He didn't say it, but the clearest antidote is experience emptiness directly. Because then we know for sure.
So I don't know about the 12-year-old, whether he's perceived emptiness directly or not at 12. I don't know. It'd be an interesting thing to think. Could you have a vision of Manjushri before you've seen emptiness directly? Why not, right? Good seeds are good seeds.
Has he probably seen emptiness directly in a previous life? I'm going to guess yes, and it's probably coming quickly if it hasn't already.
I don't know the rest of his life story enough to say, I don't know if he is one of the ones who's had his biography written. I haven't ever looked at that.
All right, so whole many. I've got to finish this up.
That's one teaching on the freedom from the four attachments.
There's another way that it's looked at, at how to describe what the attachment is at each of these four different teachings.
In this class I'm supposed to finish the first one.
If someone is still attached to this life, they are no Dharma practitioner.
To talk about what attachment means in that one, is my task.
What does non-attachment really look like?
Are we really trying to get non-attachment or are we trying to develop wise attachment?
Is there such a thing as wise attachment?
If there was, is wise attachment actually attachment, or is it something else?
Again, I'm not giving you, here's the right answer. But all these different clues as to how that you could investigate: What does your attachment to life look like still?
In that first teaching, it said, If you're attached to your own life, when it comes to an end, you're going to drop to a lower realm. So you would think that other teachings would all be, How do I get rid of my attachment to this life?
And this teaching actually isn't talking about it at that level.
It's talking about our attachment to how the criterias that we use to choose our behaviors of this life.
In life, as an adult, leading into adulthood, we make some decision about what I want to do with my life. What do I want to be when I grow up? Then we set about to make that happen, most of us.
But then, maybe it changes along the way. But then on a day to day, even moment by moment basis, we're still making choices for what comes next. How do I respond to this? What do I do today? How do I accomplish that?
All of that requires decision-making, and decision-making requires criteria.
Geshe Michael said again and again, this freedom from the attachment to life does not mean learn to give up liking anything, learn to give up avoiding bad things, learn to give up.
It's not about the giving up or avoiding.
It's actually about cultivating the ability to enjoy everything to its utmost. Probably harder.
It'd be easier to give up stuff than it would to enjoy having your teeth drilled with no Novocaine, right? But it is possible. It is possible for everything to give you that much pleasure. Please don't try it.
So attachment doesn't mean that. Attachment, they're explaining to us, is our attachment to our criteria for our behavior choice making.
Behavior choice making means morality, doesn't it?
But when I say morality, that's such a big word. It's like, no, no, I'm a moral person.
You call it behavioral choice making.
Now, what are our criteria for our behavioral choice making?
I'm going to guess that most of us have already some level of deep, deep automatic choice making that when someone makes you mad, you don't haul off and slug them.
When somebody cuts you off in traffic, you don't pull out your gun and shoot them when you are offended.
We already have a certain level of this behavior is not right in that situation, even though I don't like that situation.
Where does that come from?
Did mom and dad have to sit us down and go, When the guy cuts you off in traffic, you're not allowed to shoot them?
No, they didn't have to. Did they?
Somehow it was in us, because it is not in everybody. Is it?
So it's not inherent in being human, and we think, oh, no, no, no. But it's inherent in me.
That's one of the aspects that's pointed out in this attachment to life being our attachment to, No, no, that goodness is in me.
In fact, they're coming from past goodness seeds, aren't they?
They're BAKCHAKS.
In fact, let me take one moment and write down four things on my board for you. I made a little cheat sheet.
There are things that we rely on to make our decisions about our level of our response to situations in terms of our level of kindness.
BAKCHAK, TSORWA, LUKSUL and PA MA.
These are all related to the first attachment.
We're only talking about the first attachment here.
If we're attached to this life, we are no dharma practitioner.
BAKCHAK, TSORWA, LUKSUL and PA MA
BAKCHAKS means seeds from past behavior.
We rely on those we don't even know, which is that attachment to our behavior is that we don't know that it seeds.
These automatic behaviors we rely upon. Oh, I was a nice kid. I was the one that protected the little baby bird. The kid across the street. If he got at that little baby bird, he would crush it. But no, no, I knew I knew better. I knew better.
That „I knew better“ makes us think, I'll always know better. Makes us think, well then whatever occurs to me to do, it must be the better without stopping to check it out. Oh, maybe I need to make my choice more conscientiously, more deliberately, more with an awareness of how is this going to come back to me and others, to make my choice.
Growing our freedom from this attachment is growing our awareness of what's ripening is coming out of past behaviors.
How I respond to it, it's going to create some future experience.
What do I want to create?
Do I want to get shot by somebody when I offend them? No.
So I'm not going to shoot the guy who cut me off.
We don't have to do that because we don't do that behavior.
But what do I do with that cockroach in my sink? Oh, smash it fast before it gets away.
Really? Really? You want to get smashed fast before you get away someday? Do it. If that's okay with you, do it.
Training ourselves to use a different criteria than just our instincts, our instincts, our seeds planted by an ignorant mind, a mind that believes that what I did brought what came next.
So even good BAKCHAKS, kindness BAKCHAK, are likely kindness without wisdom. Which doesn't mean ignore those and do the opposite.
It means understand that we want to perpetuate those, and increase our level of subtlety and our kindness that we do.
We'd be getting off automatic pilot to life's behaviors. That's what they mean by getting free of attachment to life. Not giving up life, not ready to die life giving up, but free of this automatism. Even when our automatism is goodness, is kindness. Probably especially then, because otherwise we're using it up. We're wearing it off.
Which means you don't know what you're going to be like as an old person. Maybe you're going to get nasty.
There's a kind of dementia. It's a particular kind of clogging in the brain by a particular kind of protein. Amazingly beautiful, helpful, kind, sweet people get brutally nasty. They blame their spouse for everything. They're angry all the time. They yell, they fight. It's horrible. Fortunately, it goes very fast, and they don't live that way very long. But it's awful. And then there are other kinds of dementias where they just get sweeter and sweeter and sweeter. Well, what's up with that?
It's just the seeds ripening from before.
We don't want to become a nasty old, old person. We want to become a sweeter, kinder, old person, and we want to create that.
Alrighty, the second one.
The second one is called TSORWA. TSORWA means feelings.
Feelings in the sense of feeling good, feeling bad, feeling neutral. Not I feel loving. I feel hurt. Not that kind of feelings. But pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.
But in the sense of our feelings being a part of the criteria that we use for what we're doing, or what we're about to do next.
I think this is going to make me feel good. I think this is going to bring me pleasure. So I will do it.
I think this is going to bring me unpleasure, and so I won't do it.
Our criteria for behavior is based on what comes right after.
Which is mistaken. Because if, what's an example?
The poison, the eating poison, he said. Apparently warfarin, it's a blood thinner. They use it as rat poison because it tastes so good to rats. You put it out there, you know that the rat's going to eat it, because it’s like candy and they can't help it because they want that pleasure so badly. But it's going to kill 'em. They are going to bleed to death and die.
Then me, the one who used the poison, because I knew it was going to give pleasure to the rat, but I also knew it was going to kill it. I just made those seeds for something that tastes good to me, being harmful, and thinking that because it tastes good, I can eat it.
The tasting good and the being harmful are not connected, because we planted our seeds that way.
To make our choices based on what it feels like at the moment.
Well, it feels good to yell back at somebody, so I should do it.
It feels good to get revenge, so I should do it.
No. Because if something feels good, it's not from what you just did.
The feeling good is coming from some past, having helped somebody feel good.
Maybe the person wants you to yell at them and they love being yelled at.
If you know that for sure, then yell at them, because you're bringing them some pleasure. Truly.
But do we know? Do we know?
All we know is, when I get yelled at, I don't like it.
But when I yell back at somebody, why would we yell at anybody? Except that we think we're going to get what we want. That's the only reason we yell. That too is a mistake. Because if we yell and get what we want, they are too close in time to be related.
So if we use our feelings to make our choices, we're going to make ignorant choices.
I have two hands up. Who is first?
Luisa: I have been thinking a lot of this, because what you have been teaching with this Lojong, the goal is to detach, detach the current result from my current action. But then I go in this crazy mode that you cannot trust yourself at the moment, because you don't know how to say that. I trust I'm going to grab this, I'm going to go with to grab this pen and it's going to happen. This is how we perceive life. But it's not. It is a projection. And then I am getting this kind of, I don't know how to call it, not panic, but some kind of craziness in my mind, like nothing what I'm doing now is really what I am doing. Because it's not the result in this moment. So how to trust what I am doing. and my instinct in the moment?
Lama Sarahni: I think that just a little bit of a shift might help. And that is, rather than sticking on the well, what I'm doing isn't really happening, rather shift to isn't this amazing what's happening right now. Because it isn't real, look what it can do.
Shift to the amazement of, Here's my pen, I'm going to reach for the pen, but I know I am not reaching for the pen. It's just seeds ripening, and oh my gosh, look, I'm writing with a pen. In my mind, I change my words. It's like not I'm writing with a pen. It's like riding with pen happening right now. Wow. This is extraordinary.
I think it'll help with the black hole, empty space, nothing's really happening sense that you're getting. Which is very astute, but it's the cliff.
If it's not the thing the way I thought, it isn't real at all. That's these two cliffs.
Because it's not what you think, it is what you're experiencing. Because it's not what you think it is what you are experiencing
Luis: Is not that I think it's not real. It is that I think I cannot trust what I'm going to do at this moment, because I know the result is going to be defined by my past seeds.
Lama Sarahni: I know, but it's already, by the time you thought that you're in it. You're already in it. And that's the miracle.
Luisa: Yeah. Okay. I will try that. Thank you.
Lama Sarahni: Yeah. It's an astute question.
This is saying, I don't like the words, but good person, bad person.
We're all considering ourselves good people.
Manjushri is saying to the 12-year-old kid, you are a good person. It's from seeds of the past. Perpetuate them by intentionally choosing goodness based on the seeds you plant for the future, not based on what feels good in the moment.
So it may mean not ordering the milkshake, but giving it to the bum outside instead of drinking it yourself. You want it, you know you want it. It's going to give you pleasure. Even though you know it's coming from my past seeds of giving a milkshake, it's going to give me pleasure now, because I gave pleasure to somebody else and I want it now. I'll buy a second one for the bum. That's better than nothing. But just to have that realization, there's a bum who might really enjoy it. I really want it. It's going to give me that pleasure. Really, you'll get more pleasure from the milkshake by giving it to the bum than drinking it yourself.
That would be freedom from attachment.
Not don't ever let yourself have a milkshake. Because it's okay to like milkshakes, and it's okay to enjoy milkshakes when you understand where they come from, and then, what you can do with them.
LUKSUL means customs. Customs meaning the customs of the country we live in. That whole country we live in, and the customs that it has, it's all ripening out of our own past seeds. As we grow up in that country, we learn those rules and laws. We learn them literally in school. We really learn them by way of living amongst other people. We get in trouble, and we don't get in trouble, and we get away with this and we don't get away with that. Then culturally, there are things that are acceptable and things that are not acceptable. Some of those things are actually downright laws.
If you break them, you'll go to jail and nobody wants to go to jail, so you don't break them. Others are all of a sudden it's illegal to have alcohol. Right?
In the United States, there was a period of time where all alcohol was prohibited. You couldn't make it, you couldn't have it. You couldn't drink it. And so you would go to jail if you were found having alcohol.
Then, I don't know, there came a day when that rule got changed, and it was perfectly fine to have alcohol once you're 21. But when you're 19 years old and 11 months and 29 days, it's illegal. You and your parents go to jail. Worst scenario, but 30 seconds later, legal.
Does the seed planting change? A little bit it does. But in terms of the alcohol and the drinking the alcohol, do we follow that criteria? Often, not. Sometimes, yes. But the fact is that our country, our civilization's criteria for what's right and what's wrong change. So we can't rely on them. Can we? To create the kind of happiness that we're talking about creating?
Does that mean, oh, then I can break the law because I don't choose to follow it?
Yeah, you can do that. But if you then get the consequences of getting thrown in jail, well then you need to consider that in the same light as you considered the deciding it was right to shoot the driver who cut you off.
If negative consequences occur, it's actually technically not from what you did. It's from the ripening of some other past seeds. We can't say, okay, this, I'm going to choose differently. But the result when I get now, I'm going to consider that self consistently. We can't get away.
It's like all or nothing, as we're trying to apply our wisdom.
But of course, we can't do applying our wisdom all or nothing until we're at Nirvana size. So we do our best. We try.
The point here is, if we don't stop to recognize that we're under this influence of our culturally imposed rights and wrongs, we're still in ignorant mode.
We choose actually a higher level of morality than our country's level of morality when we choose by way of karma and emptiness.
What we'll accept ourselves to do is more strictly avoiding harming others than our country dictates. When we get off the automatic pipe, we won't use poison for the roaches in our apartment, even though we're expected to.
In Arizona, you have to have your house check for termites. And every house in Arizona has termite. So when you go to sell your house, you have to have the termites treated, or the bank won't loan money. Maybe somebody will buy it, but the bank won't loan money on a house that has termites. Then every house has termites. So you have to treat the termites and it's law. You have to do it if you want to sell your house. It's a wicked situation. It's like, no, I'm not going to treat the termites to buy this house.
Well then I'm stuck with a termites house. Alright, let 'em have it.
But it's difficult. How to choose?
A Dharma practitioner is choosing independently. Choosing independently.
Yeah, Liang-Sang is going to pin me down. What do you do about the termites?
I'll tell you what. A friend of ours has a beautiful house and it got its termite treatment. But they didn't keep up the contract. Because every three years you have to have it retreated because the stuff wears out. One day they say, there are these weird things showing up in our bathroom, and I had a look and there are termite tunnels. So the termites were coming up through their floor into their bathroom, past the toilet, and along their tiles. Oh, I'm so sorry. These are termites. Yikes. What are we supposed to do? Oh, you're supposed to have it termited again. But we don't want to do that. What shall we do?
So we did a puja, we did the smoke puja for feeding the Hungry Ghosts. We did a smoke puja for the spirits. My friend was keen on that. His wife was curious. Thank goodness she went along with it. We all did this smoke puja, and walked away from it. To be honest, absolutely honest, I was thinking, Nah.
So I never asked, because I didn't want to know it failed. And a few months later it came up, whatever happened with your termites? We cleaned away the tunnels, never came back. Oh my goodness. So we'll be doing those pujas on a regular basis. That’s my answer to Liang-Sang. If you know the puja, you can do it. If you don't let me know. I'll share it with you.
The last one, PA MA, means mom dad.
Mom, dad teach us our morality, both through verbal teachings, through responses to our behaviors, and through their behavior through which we learn really. Which is probably the most powerful one, isn't it? Parents.
This one's really similar to number 3, the cultures of our country, the cultures of our civilization. Because that's where mom and dad learn theirs as well. But there's also the nuances of each family, and how that criteria was taught for what's right and what's wrong.
Again, we're not saying mom, dad got it wrong.
We're saying that at some point as a Dharma practitioner, we check what they taught us. I'm so grateful my parents did teach „What you do to others is going to come back to you“. They used those words. We weren't really a churchgoing family so much. But they had that piece, and it influenced me a lot. My own BAKCHAKS for that.
Not everybody grows it.
At some point, as a Dharma practitioner, we take the time to try and identify what part of my choice of morality is on automatic pilot from what I've learned from my parents? On automatic pilot, from what I've learned, from what my culture says is right or wrong?
From automatic pilot, from what feels good or doesn't feel good?
Or how do I choose differently when I feel good versus when I don't feel good?
That's a huge criteria.
When you're stressed, when you don't feel good, when your family's safety is in danger, your choices are way different in your level of willingness to harm another, to protect your family. I'm not saying right or wrong. I'm saying we need to be on conscious decision making based on seeds, and get off automatic pilot.
I think that's what Manjushri is pointing out to our friend, the 12-year-old whose name escapes me already. Because he's thinking his goodness is such that he can just be on automatic pilot, right? His goodness is such that he probably could get away with that for a really, really long time. Manjushri is saying, let's get off automatic pilot now, Mr. 12-year-old. He must have done it. Because he went on to become this great teacher. Which would only happen if he's perpetuating his goodness seeds instead of using them up and developing this arrogance, „I'm so great at a practitioner“.
Got it?
Alright. I did manage to finish this class. Woohoo.
So those four different things that attachment to this life is holding onto is our instincts, our feelings about things, how we feel, our cultural customs and our parents' morality.
Those are attachment to this life that makes us no dharma practitioner.
I saw a whole slew of chats about wanting to learn that puja, and I'm very, very happy to do that. Let's set a date. Pick a Monday or a Thursday in that break time when you're finishing up your papers and we'll do it. Okay? Keep on me about that because I'll forget. I think we can do it in one two hour session, probably. It's not that much.
[Usual closing]
Thank you again for the opportunity.
14 February 2022
Link to audio: Eng ACI 14 - Class 10
Alrighty, for the recording, we are ACI 14 studying class seven.
So let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please.
Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
[Usual opening]
(7:10)
We have been speaking about the Lojong called the Freedom from the four attachments. And you recall that this is a teaching that Buddha Manjushri gave to that 12-year-old. Who'd reached him in that lifetime from I don't know how long he was practicing, but he's only 12, so it couldn't have been that long.
My guess is the 12-year-old is thinking he's making good progress. Like he is.
He must have some good qualities. He does.
But Manjushri says to the kid,
If you are still attached to this life, you are no dharma practitioner.
If you are still attached to the three worlds, you have no renunciation.
If you're still attached to getting what you want, you are no Bodhisattva.
If you're still attached or if you're still grasping to things, you have no worldview.
I don't think the 12-year-old got insulted and ran away.
Fortunately he took that to heart. What did he mean by that?
It took him, I don't know how long, before this young man started teaching this teaching.
He didn't run right outside, I just got a message from Lord Manjushri. I don't think.
The scriptures say, the commentaries say that he grew up before he started teaching them.
I'm sure there are many levels of understanding that that young man went through as he was cooking this message from Manjushri.
It's his life message. So he's going to work with it, and work with it, and work with it, and work with it. And as I've said, each one of those Lojongs, it could be a whole life's practice. They're so rich, they hold everything in them.
So this is another one that if we keep digging into it, we could still be talking about this and learning new stuff about it 20 years from now.
We talked about:
If someone who hopes themself to be a Dharma practitioner is still using one of those old criteria for making their behavior decisions, habit, ethics that we're taught by society, ethics that we're taught by our parents. That is the fourth one. Feeling, how we feel. We behave differently when we feel good as when we feel not good. One way to read that.
The commentary says, A Lojong person drops those old standards and uses instead their understanding of karma and emptiness to be creating their Buddha paradise in every moment of their now.
It doesn't mean their Buddha paradise is coming into fruition in every moment of the now, yet. But it will, if that dharma practitioner is in fact practicing Dharma.
Meaning living according to karma and emptiness as often as possible, which will increase the what often as possible means until it's always. Always using karma and emptiness as our criteria for our behavior.
Then the commentary says, well actually there's a little more to say about this:
If you're still attached to this life, you're no Dharma practitioner
That is, we could say that what is meant by this life is our Buddhist way of life.
Aren't we supposed to be attached to that?
We finally found a path that makes sense. Yay. I'm going to latch onto it and I'm going to follow this one right to the end.
That's attachment to our Buddhist path.
Without that kind of tenacity, we could very easily lose our commitment, lose our devotion, lose our sense of this is the one. Because there's nothing in it that is the one. Or else everybody would meet Buddhism and oh, that's the one, and that doesn't happen.
Lobsang Drakpa Gyeltsen says, if we look at this phrase this way, anyone who's still attached to this life is no Dharma practitioner, meaning my life in the dharma the way it is now. It's right for everybody. No.
Or it's now that I've met it, now that I know it, I believe it.
Even Buddha said, Don't believe this stuff just because I said so. Check it out.
So we think that means sometime at the beginning, check it out. If you check it out and you get convinced, yeah, yeah, this must all be cracked. It must all work. I'm going to follow it.
We kind of think, okay, I don't have to keep checking it. I've checked it, I've done it. I'm on my path.
But Lobsang Drakpa Gyeltsen is saying, No, no. That's another form of attachment to this life. That the teachings themselves say, continue to check, continue to evaluate, continue to apply your logic to what you're taught at every level that you're taught.
Now, I've already proved the teacher. I've already proved the scripture.
No, no, keep proving it.
Every new point that you hear, check it out. Apply your logic. Does this hold true?
It's not because there's something in it that does hold true. It's because the seeds you plant in your own mind as you're checking it out to prove it to yourself are powerful seeds for what you need in the future when things get harder.
So go to the effort to keep checking and proving, keep checking and proving, keep checking and proving, and don't get complacent.
It's another level of „If you're attached to this life, you're no dharma practitioner“. If we stop checking what we're taught.
Some of you have taken that course 13, which is the nuts and bolts about how to check. But we learned it even earlier. Course 2 we learned the rudiments of logic and why to apply it. Anyway, don't stop checking.
But then Lobsang Drakpa Gyeltsen says, And there's another level of this, which is even if we do continue to check and make sure, Yeah, yeah, it still holds true.
Yeah, yeah, it still holds true for me. We can get to a place in our Dharma practice where it's comfortable.
Alright, I get up in the morning. I set up my altar, I do my refuge, I redo my Bodhichitta. I do my meditation like this, this and this, and at the end I dedicate it and then I do this. Then I do that and I go to bed and I rejoice and that and…
No, that's being attached to this life. That complacency, because it's comfortable. Because now I've got it going really well. It must be enough.
Manjushri is saying to this 12-year-old, No, it's not enough. If you're not seeing yourself as a Buddha in paradise emanating, whatever you're doing is not all there is that you can do.
Not saying it's not enough. Don't beat yourself up. But push the bar.
When we get to that place where it's, Oh, easy. Time to push the bar.
What does it mean to push the bar? Long story, but take on different practices, change your routine, find another mental affliction to work on. Keep challenging ourselves using our understanding of karma and emptiness to choose our behavior at more and more subtle levels.
We'll get to the place where we're choosing our behavior changes at the mental level, at the intention level, at the awareness level. Really, it'll get really, really subtle.
To be attached to this life at this level is being willing to get to a place in our practice where it's just smooth and easy.
It's like, really? Can't we enjoy it for a week or two? Yeah maybe, but imagine the seeds, oh, my practice is easy.
Are those really the seeds we want? So always think seed.
Last way that Lobsang Drakpa Gyeltsen says that you can think of this particular verse is about our actual choice of virtues.
It's part of pushing the bar. But it means when we have a choice between two different goodness behaviors, two different virtue behaviors, and one's a little easier, one's a little harder. When we're making our choice, a Dharma practitioner will choose the one based on the criteria of which will bring the highest benefit for the most beings. Which will bring the highest benefit for the most beings.
Now, if we're not omniscient, we don't really know the answer to that question. But with our understanding of karmic seeds, we can be a pretty good judge.
Then based on that, applying our reasoning to my two choices, which is going to be the most benefit, highest benefit for the most people, and have that be our criteria. Which is out of the box, really.
Usually our criteria is what can I actually do? What's the easiest? What can I afford?
We have all these other ways of choosing between behavior decisions, virtue decisions.
Another way to not be attached to this life is to push ourselves in our virtue choosing criteria.
Again, this finalizes how to consider this phrase
A person still attached to this life is no Dharma practitioner.
You can apply yourself to it. You'll come up with more ways that this life, what this life can mean. That's the beauty of these verses.
You're welcome to dig in and investigate and try it on for size and then write a commentary. Cool.
(21:05)
Geshela says, That said, don't push yourself higher than you're ready to go.
Push yourself beyond your comfort level, but not very far beyond.
If you push too hard too fast, you'll crack, and Buddha is not asking us to do that.
But our tendency is to get complacent, like I'm guilty of it.
Don't get complacent, says Manjushri to the 12-year-old.
Then,
This one takes a long explanation before we get to the punchline.
When we hear the three worlds—in some places it's written the three realms—we automatically think, Oh, desire realm, form realm, formless realm.
How am I attached to those?
Drakpa Gyeltsen‘s commentary says, Consider thinking about it in this other way.
That's what takes the long explanation.
He said the three worlds are actually talking about the three kinds of pain. So what are the three kinds of pain?
3 Kinds of Pain
Suffering of suffering
Suffering of change and
Pervasive suffering
We've learned those.
The suffering of suffering is obvious suffering: headaches, lost jobs, broken relationships, back pain. We know them as humans. We get obvious suffering, most people obvious suffering from time to time, not constant, not 24/7.
Some people have chronic pain. They're closer to 24/7.
But mostly for humans, obvious pain, obvious suffering is on and off.
The suffering of change is constant and pervasive suffering is constant.
The commentary is saying, it's a limited view of the three sufferings to just apply them to human suffering.
Technically that's all we know as humans, if we don't remember our past lives and are not omniscient. We have the animal realm that we can see.
Although again, I don't know their mind, and we have a bit of a misperception about the suffering of the animal realm.
We don't perceive directly hell realm and hungry ghost realm.
In the desire realm, there are these different levels of the desire realm.
Hell realms, hot, cold.
Hungry ghost realms. There are multiple kinds, but let's just call it hungry ghosts.
Animals, of which there are various kinds and
human
the jealous God realm and the worldly God realm—which is considered one realm, but it's got these two parts.
The only one that we can confirm is the animal realm.
Hell realm, Hungry Ghost, Devas. We can talk about them, we can consider that maybe they're true. We can learn about them and what causes them, and what ends them. Then use our reasoning to prove logically that they're possible. So maybe prove logically that they do exist. But even with that proof, frankly, until we experience it directly, there's still this little squeeze of doubt in there.
Hell realm, hungry ghost and animal realm, we've learned a little bit about.
A mind that has made imprints of stinginess and pride, withholding help from others that they could have helped. That if that kind of seed ripens at the moment of death, it colors a whole life's experience as a being who can't get their needs met. Can't get food, can't get drink, can't get hot, warm enough, can't get cold enough, can't get, can't, can't.
That goes on until all those seeds are worn off.
Not the seeds from just that one lifetime, but all the similar seeds from all the lifetime.
Then, if that mind dies with the hatred, anger, violent, it ripens into a whole reality experience of hatred, anger, and violence coming at them. Which means they react the same back. A hell realm is being beaten and beating, being crushed and crushing, being burnt and burning, and it goes on.
No big deal if you just, you land in hell realm, you get all cut up, you die and you're done.
But you don't die until your seeds for your hell realm are all worn off. It takes a long time from a human perspective to use up all those selfish, angry seeds from beginningless time.
In these realms, obvious suffering is constant. Obvious suffering is constant until your seeds for that whole realm are burnt up.
You get a little glimpse as to what really obvious suffering is. The pain of pain is. A hell realm, a hungry ghost realm, an animal realm.
It seems animals, no, no. They get some relief when they sleep. They get some relief. But apparently not, according to this.
Someone who's still attached to the three worlds has no renunciation.
One of the three worlds is the world of obvious pain. Which means hell realms, hungry ghost realms, animal realms, and the little bit of time that any human is in that.
Now, we can relate to the suffering of suffering in a different way.
We can rejoice that we just have fleeting moments, relatively speaking.
But if we have any seeds of anger, hatred, violence, solving a problem by hurting somebody else. Or any seeds of, no, this is mine, you can't have it. If that's the seed that popped at the moment of death, whops, into a hell realm, a constant suffering realm.
So part of this, anyone attached to the three realms, three worlds, means if we are thinking, oh no, that can't happen to me. I'm human. I'm even human in the Dharma, so I'm safe.
There is a point at which our wisdom of karma and emptiness is strong enough that those seeds won't ripen and push us into one of these lower realms.
But do we know for sure we are at that level now?
I don't know about you, but I'm not. If I went flying through the windshield of the car tonight, I'm not sure I wouldn't be angry about it.
Again, remember the context of this teaching. This young kid might be a little bit arrogant about his practice and Manjushri is saying, You have a lot to learn. Let me give you some guidance here so you don't get stalled out.
We can take it the same way. Let's hear what Manjushri is telling this amazing practitioner Kynga Nyingpo.
In a way they're saying a person who's still attached to the three worlds, a person who's still attached to the three kinds of pain, has no renunciation.
Well, come on. Who has attachment to the three kinds of pain?
I don't think we do. Do we?
All of us want to get rid of all of those three kinds of pain. So what does he mean by having attachment to it?
Meaning we don't know where it comes from.
If we don't know where it comes from, we do all kinds of things to try to get any of those three sufferings to stop. Sometimes it looks like it works. I take sumatriptan from my migraines and the pain stops. Yay. Sumatriptan works. Wrong. That's attachment to suffering. That's attachment to the three pains, because they came to the wrong conclusion.
It's getting pretty subtle here.
The commentary, not quite sure why it goes this direction, but the commentary quotes a Sutra. A Sutra means a teaching by Lord Buddha, it's a Sutra.
The Tibetan is NYEWARKOR GYI SHUPAY DO.
It's funny, I wrote down TU SAM GOM and I never said it, so nevermind.
NYEWARKOR GYI SHUPAY DO
NYEWARKOR GYI in Sanskrit is Upali. It's a person's name.
DO = the Sutra
SHUPAY = requested by
GYI = this person
NYEWARKOR = named Upali.
So the sutra requested by Upali.
In that sutra, Lord Buddha says, the commentary tells us,
When I taught you the terrors of the realms of hell, many thousands of you were frightened and dismayed. But I tell you now that those people who die and travel to these terrible realms of pain don't even exist at all.
There's no one to hurt you, no one to cut you with a sword, no one to thrust a spear through your body. Everything that you see happening to you within these realms of terror is only a projection.
There are no instruments of pain there.
He goes on to say,
Flowers blossom in a rainbow of pleasing, elegant blooms. Mighty structures, crafted of pure gold steal your heart away.
This is clearly not in the hell realm.
But here clearly too, no one ever came and stopped to do construction.
All of these were also built by the single act of projection.
The whole world is but a creation that comes from your projections.
What does that make you feel about him saying those hell realms, like you get your body speared and cut and burnt. When Buddha says, All of that, it's just your projection.
Does it make you go, Oh, ew, it's not real.
Or does it make you go ew gads? That's scary.
The difference is what we think we mean when we say, oh, nothing but projection.
Does it mean, oh, it‘S like a dream, it doesn't really exist.
Intellectually we know that's not what it means.
But when you hear the words, what does your heart do?
I'm going to say it again.
Oh, the hell realms. They're nothing but your projections.
Phew. It feels like that to me still, even though I know I'm wrong when I have that reaction.
Oh, the hell realms. They are nothing but your projections.
Oh my God! That would be more accurate.
Because what do we mean by projections?
Oh, it's just a movie that I'm playing, just actors. Everybody's paid to do what they do. Nobody's really getting hurt.
No.
Projections means the experience I'm having, that's a ripening result of the way I treated others in the past. That's what projection means.
The experience I'm having, that is a ripening result of my past karma: projection.
The experience I'm having forced on me by the ripening of my seed.
Is the experience you're having right now real?
Yeah, it's real.
Is it projections forced on you by the power of custody?
Yes.
Could it be anything other than that and you experience it?
No.
Will hell realm be that?
Yes.
How far away is that hell realm then?
Four minutes to die? Another instant to shift a little bit of Bardo time?
Geshela says three minutes. It takes three minutes to go from human to hell realm.
It's not a really fast rocket ship. It's a shift in projection.
We're projecting human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human. Human are going to wear out. Then what?
Could be, Oh, paw, chew toy. Or could be, Oh, light body, bliss, everybody happy.
Based on what? What we choose, what we decide, what we wish for?
No. Based on the seed that ripens at the moment of what we call death. That's a long story.
So hell realm is very real for the beings who are experiencing it.
Hungry Ghost, very real for the beings who are experiencing it.
Human realm, very real for the beings who are experiencing it.
But no more real than the animal realm for the dog.
No more or less real than the hell realm for the hell being.
Buddha says, oh, that hell realm, you are all scared when I told you about it. But it's nothing but projection.
Was he trying to ease their mind?
Yeah, but not in the way we're thinking? Oh, Tata, don't worry, it's just your projection. It was like, yes, worry. It is your projection.
But that means you can make it not possible for you.
You could damage all of those seeds from past ignorant disliking, anger, violence, fear. You could damage all those seeds so that not a single one could ripen at the moment of your death.
Then probably your death wouldn't even be experienced as a death. It would be something entirely different.
But that's the only way to change or stop or prevent a hell realm. Is by changing our seeds. Putting so many anti hell, hungry ghost, animal realms‘ seeds in our mind that the others get so neutralized that they don't have enough power to ever ripen.
We actually reach a point along our path of preparation, they say, where our intellectual understanding of karma and emptiness is so strong that all of those lower realm possible creating seeds have become impotent.
They can't be the one that pushes you into a whole nother realm.
Not that you've gotten rid of them all yet, but they won't be the thing that pushed you. In fact, at that point they say that you're much, much, much, much more likely to ripen another human realm.
So that means just being human doesn't guarantee us human in the future.
There are a lot of belief systems that even if they believe in evolution of the spirit, once you get human, you never go backward.
This tradition says, think that through. If you understand about mental seeds, it's probably true for some humans, but not all of us. Not without a really keen understanding about karma and emptiness. Then not just the understanding, but choosing our behavior accordingly. We can understand karma and emptiness really, really high and clear and not live by it.
A lot of good that does, right? It's not going to protect you at death.
Why am I talking about all of it?
Geshela had so much to say about it.
Projections are real and dangerous. But they also show us that our behavior is where our ability to create happy projections of pleasure and happiness for everyone, not just us.
If things were not projected reality, the reality that we are experiencing, we would be stuck with.
We've already applied our reasoning by way of the pen and the puppy, and they're both valid. They're both equally incorrect, because the true nature of the object is blank. The chew toy is blank, the pen is blank, the cylinder is blank.
At any level, we look at, the object is blank. Whether it's an inanimate object or another conscious being object. Whether the object is my own mind object, my own physical being object, my feelings object, all of it.
The criteria is the same.
The appearing thing is the ripening.
That ripening has an emptiness, As does our me, the experienc-er.
So from that emptiness, anything is possible. Not in the moment, not by wishing. But by way what's ripening next.
So our behavior is the imprint that is what we mean by the karmic seed, that when it ripens gives us that corresponding experience.
It doesn't ripen the moment after we plant it. And what we do in the moment doesn't bring on what comes next.
Manjushri is reminding our 12-year-old practitioner to keep his understanding straight about his attachment to the three worlds. Meaning his understanding of obvious suffering, the suffering of change and pervasive suffering.
It's subtle. We don't get that out of just the words. Check out, Mr. Kunga Nyingpo, where obvious suffering comes from, where the suffering of change comes from, where pervasive suffering comes from. Keep checking it out.
That's our task as well.
Those lower realms, the ones that we can know about, are they caused by the beings who are in a hell realm, who are ripening their hell karma?
Does that make the hell realm real for me?
No.
It's my seeds ripening to even know about someone in a hell realm, even know about a hell realm that someone could be in—my seeds ripening.
I could say, oh, well then they're not really there. I don't know if they're really there. I'm just thinking they're probably there.
Does that make it any less terrible?
I can just leave it because it's not real?
No. If I even have the inkling that there's a hell realm happening and there's a being or two or a bazillion there, I hope I would want to do something about it.
Oh, I can't do anything. If Buddhas can't stop a hell realm, how can I?
All of these thoughts, they'll come. I hope they'll come. I hope you'll think about them enough, deeply enough to have those same thoughts.
How can I stop a hell realm if Buddhas can't stop hell realm?
Well, what hell realm are we talking about? Thank you very much.
Buddhas did stop hell realm. Theirs.
Does that mean there's no hell realm?
No, there are.
Do you see the conundrum? Our rational minds go, you can't have one or the other. Either there are or they're not.
Wrong.
Say we really catch onto this related to the first world, which is the world of obvious suffering. Okay. Okay. Okay. I want to get free of that attachment.
What do I do when I get free of that attachment? How will I be different?
Commentary says, you will be keeping your vows really well.
If we don't want the seeds for a hell realm to ripen out of our minds, what do we have to do? We have to choose really, really carefully to avoid harming others, to avoid what we don't want or to get what we want in more and more subtle ways.
That's what our vow behavior guidelines are all about.
We could spend three times 10 to the 60th eon figuring out what karmas to do.
Or we can say, okay, I've proved to myself that Lord Buddha is an omniscient being and can't hear himself say anything wrong, and he gave me vows to live by.
Maybe I can accept that enough to actually follow those vows, and then track them. Because learn them and track them, meaning stop every couple of hours and think of your past behavior: Was that consistent with the vows that I have?
Remember, for every vow that you didn't break, you kept it.
If you have the five lifetime lay person's vows right now, and one of those vows is to not drink alcohol, are you drinking alcohol right now? No.
You're keeping your vow. Yay.
You're getting the merit of keeping your vow every moment you're not drinking alcohol.
Well, I'm not inclined to drink alcohol, so I didn't have to sit down, do I? Don't I? Do I? Don't I?
That's the beauty of having vows. You're getting the goodness of having the vow every moment that you're not drinking alcohol.
What happens when you do drink alcohol? Oh, whoops.
Unless somebody forced you, or all those different caveats about what it is to actually break that vow.
But hopefully when you understand about the power of vows, if it does come down to, oh, come on Sarahni, have a beer, what will it hurt? It's like, yeah, it'll hurt a lot, because I have all this goodness I've been accumulating that I don't want to damage. Because I'm going to use all that goodness for your benefit, but I'm not going to tell him that.
I'm just going to say, thank you very much. Thanks, but no thanks.
Get vows. So even if you don't have vows. The guideline of vows is great guidelines to follow when we have behavior choices. But to have them as vows, you see the additional power of that.
We get refuge advices, those aren't actually vows.
Then we get freedom vows, which is the five lifetime layperson's vows, or ordination vows. Later on we get motivated, we get Bodhisattva vows, 64 more. Then, if we go on, we get tantric vows, which is like, I don't know, a hundred more.
All of it guidelines to use, not restrictions. Once you have vows, you can't do this anymore. No, no. It's guidelines for behavior choices, just to make your life easier. But you have to know them. And you have to check your behavior so that we get off automatic pilot. But the effort of doing so, even if we're not all that successful with some of the higher vows—they're hard to actually do—we know the four powers, we know the four steps. We know how to adjust.
With the vows that we're given, we're also given the method for restoring our vows. So when we mess 'em up, we'd get them strong.
Again, it's really a foolproof method. If you just try it, do it, follow it.
The freedom from the four attachments is saying, if you're still letting yourself not understand where the suffering of suffering comes from, you don't have renunciation. Do you see? It makes sense.
Don't you want to avoid obvious pain?
If you're not willing to change your behavior to avoid obvious pain, where is your renunciation?
That's just one of the three worlds.
Hell realm, hungry ghost, animal realm is the first world, because they're the world of obvious pain.
The second world of the three worlds is the world of the suffering of change. Which is mainly directed at the human realm.
Human realm does have obvious suffering. But it's the suffering of change that is ubiquitous in the human realm. So is the pervasive suffering, but we're not really aware of pervasive suffering. We are very aware of the suffering of change, even if we don't know it by that name.
The suffering of change is you work so hard to get something you want and then very shortly thereafter you're dissatisfied with it. It's not enough. I need something else.
When we tease, David and I tease, it's like you have a bowl of ice cream and then there's the last bite and you swallow it and then it's gone.
The suffering of change is „and then it's gone“.
But that's just on a gross level.
Yes, chocolate cake. Gone, and it leaves you wanting for more.
It also happens on relationship levels. You meet a girl of your dream, she's so wonderful, and finally you get close and you spend a lot of time together and she changes. Pretty soon you don't like her so much anymore and pretty soon she's fighting with you, and pretty soon you're enemies and you ditch.
Or you live together for 65 years and then doggone it, she up and dies.
Either way, the dissatisfaction comes, either soon or not so soon, but it comes.
You get that new job you wanted so badly, and then you've got an employee that's a pain in the butt.
Why did I want this job now? I want that job.
We all do it, and it's so common to human realm that we just think that's what life is.
At least it's, you get something to change. Would you want a life where nothing changes?
Not the one like I've got.
But does Buddha paradise never change?
No, of course it's changing. Changing all the time.
But is a Buddha disappointed with change? Do they get upset with change?
Does their changing Buddha paradise leave them wanting for more and willing to do whatever they need to get it to be more?
No. That's the thing.
With the suffering of change, it's not the change that's so bad. It's our misunderstanding where the change comes from and where the thing came from in the first place.
So we do something in this moment, expecting to get that in the next moment, and 95% of the time it works. Then one time it doesn't work, and we still expect it to work the next time.
That's so mistaken about where things come from, that the very seed is planted with this mistake, that that mistake ripening inside everything has with it this sense of dissatisfaction. It's not quite right.
Blue the sky. So beautiful, but it's too windy.
Oh, finally, it's summertime, but it's too hot.
Our human minds do that.
It's part of our ignorance, actually.
The human realm has the perfect mix of good things happening and bad things happening in this shifting nature, and with enough intellect that we can actually figure out for ourselves that there's something wrong with the picture, and go looking for answers. Go looking for something to solve the problem.
Thank goodness, we have this satisfaction in our human realm enough so that some will start to wake up.
But if we are thinking, oh, good, the suffering of change is a good thing. I want to rely on it, then we're not really going to find an answer to where it's coming from, why it's suffering, for things to change. You see?
We can be attached to the world of the suffering of change, because we don't understand that we could in fact create a world where change is pleasurable, instead of just stressing. Where there's nothing but bliss, bliss and more bliss.
It doesn't mean all experiences are the same. It's that our state of mind of love, compassion, wisdom is ripening independent of what's happening.
We don't have to be Buddha to have a state of mind that's independent of what's actually happening. It doesn't make you like a robot at all. It puts you in this mode of results ripening. I know what to do. I know that my response is going to create my future. So I'm choosing my response carefully.
It doesn't mean there's one response in it to every given situation. But motivated with your wisdom, love, compassion, what you choose to do, understanding that what you do now doesn't solve the problem in the moment, it creates a future, will create a future where you're distressed, you're suffering, you're disappointed, you're upset, doesn't happen anymore. Even if the similar circumstance of being yelled at happens. Oh, here we go again, will be the response. I'm sorry you're upset with me. How can I help you?
How many times do I have to do that?
But until there's no more seeds, that's how many times.
A person who's still attached to the three worlds has no renunciation.
If we are not sick and tired of this suffering of change, of our reaction to the suffering of change, we don't have renunciation.
(Break)
(62:03 — There is some recording missing after the break, the first part of the transcript after the break is taken from student notes)
The third world is pervasive suffering. It has so many levels.
The first are forced birth, aging, sickness, death happening moment by moment.
Yes, we’re going to take rebirth. But are we aware of dying right now?
If you’re sick right now, it’s obvious suffering.
But we are sick even when we’re healthy with the illness of the three poisons.
We’re sick with the belief that what I do now brings what comes next.
It’s suffering that’s so pervasive that we don’t notice it.
All of these sufferings are not inherent in them, they are based on the mind that is experiencing them.
Pervasive suffering is also a karmic result. Meaning part of every experience is the piece of pervasive suffering. It’s part of the seeds that were planted so part of seeds that are ripening. Karma, meaning results of past behavior ripening now, is the underlying cause of every moment of every part of every experience.
Subject/object/interaction between sides.
It’s all projections happening. And that means it’s all created by our past perceptions and any experience now is the result of those past behaviors.
That misunderstanding that what I do now influences what comes next is what […]. We’re planting seeds that we’re in class so there will be future classes. But then class ends. And we don’t know when the seeds we planted tonight are probably not the ones that ripen on Thursday. But they add to the ones that will ripen on Thursday.
When we’re really in the know, all possibilities are on the table.
It happens sometimes that class doesn’t happen.
(Recording going on again)
Renunciation. What's renunciation?
I wish you were here with me so that you can answer all these questions, but then class would go on all night.
Renunciation is when you're sick and tired of being sick and tired.
You're and tired of hurting in any way any of these ways, and you're sick and tired of other people hurting you. You're sick and tired of hurting other people, especially hurting other people when you're trying to be nice, which happens.
Just: I'm sick of this system. It seems so impossible to get any kind of comfort, any kind of happiness, any kind of sustained goodness.
Renunciation is: I'm just sick of Samsara.
And Manjushri is saying to this young man, until you're sick of what it is that you're doing that creates Samsara, your renunciation is in words only.
What are we doing that perpetuates Samsara?
Me first. Me first, me first.
Remember, this is a Lojong. It's about growing our Bodhichitta.
What's our Bodhichitta? I want to reach total buddhahood so I can help everybody stop their suffering.
If we don't have renunciation, we're not going to get anywhere.
Oh, well, we do have renunciation because I'm studying the Buddha Dharma. That's about all I do in life. Every now and then I go out and go to a committee meeting. But mostly I study the Dharma. I am a Dharma practitioner.
But what if my behavior is just this same old kind person I've always been, but only because I was told to be kind. Right? We're back to the first attachment, using the wrong criteria for why to be kind. It comes in here as well.
If we misunderstand where suffering comes from, then no amount of renunciation is going to help us. We have to understand that all suffering is a result of our own behavior, of willingness to be unkind to another—in gross or subtle ways—to get what I want or avoid what I don't want. I, I, I. You hear it?
What did we learn about Lojong-ing? Who's the demon in Lojong-ing? I, I, I.
My me mind, right? I, me, mine. My mind is this demon.
So this too, our renunciation isn't built on. Oh, I negate me. No, me. Nothing Me, never me. It's rather the, Oh, the ultimate nature of me. Which is blank. Not non-existent, but blank. Open to projections, my own projections and the projections of others.
Now what's important to me is how my behavior impacts others. Not because, oh, I want a good reputation, but because I want to help them stop their suffering. Still I, I, but His Holiness would say „educated self-interest“, Buddhist educated self-interest.
The reason we do anything is in order to plant the seeds in our minds, to bring us to the ability to know directly exactly what others need to give up and to take up.
The only way we reach that is by trying to put their needs and wants ahead of our own.
That plants the seeds that will ripen as us knowing what they need. Because now we don't. We just have to do an educated guess in how to care for others.
Anyone attached to the three worlds has no renunciation.
It really means thinking we understand where suffering comes from and not working it out more deeply. Because all suffering comes from our own deeds towards others. So renunciation means I am ready to take the personal responsibility of changing my behavior in order to stop the suffering of the world.
Until we are that, until we understand suffering well enough, our renunciation isn't strong enough. So really what are we renunciating? Our ignorance.
It's our ignorance that is the cause of all suffering.
So let's renunciate that. Meaning, I refuse to let it run the show.
Like, we can just determine it and then it's going to change?
No, but our strength of conviction will help us make our choices differently.
When we don't do so well, we apply our four powers and we keep our direction straight by checking our vows. Meaning checking our behavior, not just reading your vows. Check your behavior, keep pushing the bar up on our level of subtlety of kindness.
It will eventually be mental. We'll be so physically kind that that's not the stressor anymore. Now it's like, „What's on my mind?“ as I'm doing it?
Then he goes on:
That seems pretty clear.
A Bodhisattva wears themselves to be a servant of the world.
Marok, servant of the world. I am in the business of creating happiness for everyone. That's my career. That's my corporation, happiness creating corporation right here. T
That's all I'm about.
If that person says, no, excuse me, I can't do that for you because… I don't know. Give me a good one. I can't go to that Dharma center because I'm going on vacation. Not that you can't go on vacation, but when we put our my-needs-first, that's not Bodhisattva.
But come on, I've got to go to the bathroom. If I help you now I'm going to pee my pants. Is that Bodhisattva? Maybe yes, maybe no. We have choices we need to make, don't we? It's our level of understanding at the moment. We do the best we can at any given moment and we keep pushing the bar.
So Drakpa Gyeltsen, he says, Manjushri maybe is speaking to this young man about how useless it is to reach freedom for yourself alone.
Freedom for yourself alone means reaching Nirvana. That state where your mind is incapable of having a mental affliction, incapable. Still have a human body, still in a human world, crap still happens, but your response is not upset.
Remember the king of Kakalinka story in Diamond Cutter Sutra story? Nirvana.
So maybe Manjushri is recognizing in Kunga Nyingpo that he's saying, Yes, Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva. But somehow he's holding in mind that his own attainment is his primary goal. Because they say, I'm going to reach Buddhahood so that I can help everybody out. Like I have to reach Buddhahood first, right?
The scriptures say that, and it is true. But we're probably thinking of it a little bit wrongly at what that means. I will reach my Buddhahood first, and then bring everybody along.
Because without trying to bring everybody to Buddhahood first before us, we don't reach Buddhahood ourself, and we can never help them. So it isn't the attitude „I'm going to take care of you, so I can become a Buddha“.
I'm going to take everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody, and then you do become Buddha so that you really can help everybody.
But if you're thinking, I'm doing this to become Buddha, you're no Bodhisattva.
You see how subtle it is?
That young man is not saying, I want all the tea.
He's way beyond that. Most of us are way beyond that.
But maybe we're not really quite understanding this Bodhisattva thing.
So Drakpa Gyeltsen uses this phrase:
„By the mystic power of this good deed,
may every living being reach their own enlightenment.“
By the mystic power of this good deed, may every living being reach their own enlightenment. You have a homework question, What does he mean by „the mystic power of this good deed“?
What's the good deed? The good deed of a Lojonger is stopping this tendency to worry about oneself first. Taking care of others as the method of taking care of oneself. Learning to take care of others as the method of taking care of oneself.
Like who does that? A Lojonger does that to the best of their ability.
Then, the mystic power is that while trying to do that, we have this desire where it's driven by this desire to really be able to take others' pain from them.
We know we can't do it. Not just are we incapable as humans to reach every existing being, but even if we could contact them all, reach out to them all, we can't take their karma from them, can we?
If a Buddha could take someone's karma and stop their suffering, the first being to become Buddha would've stopped all of our suffering right then. And I don't know about you, but I still get headaches. I still have back pain. I still want more sleep in the morning. I still have suffering.
So Buddhas can't take our pain, long story, or they're not perfect love, or they're not...
The wish to take everyone's pain, as we're helping anyone, goes into those seeds as we're helping that one, or two, or 50. However many you can help at one time, whatever your interaction with others level is.
The mystic power is that as I'm serving you a meal, in my heart I'm wishing that I could give you the bliss and happiness of your Buddhahood.
As I'm helping somebody mow their lawn. Yeah, I'm mowing your lawn, but I wish that I could stop all your suffering and bring you the ultimate happiness.
You look the same, but your mind looks like „I'm mowing a lawn, but really I'm bringing you to Buddhahood someday“.
Okay? This mystic power of that thought.
Not just because somebody said think that, train yourself to think that.
But because you understand mental seeds, you're implanting every perception with that mental seed that's so powerful that it itself has power. Those thoughts in your mind as you're mowing the lawn changes the result that the mowing the lawn seeds are planting in your mind.
We talked about this idea when we were talking about the death practice in the powa, where as we're dying, we're so habituated to our taking care of others that we think, okay, I am going to die. It's going to hurt. That pain is the pain, all the pain of the world, every being suffering, it's going to come into me. I'm going to take it with me when I die. I'm going to destroy suffering of every being as I die. Bring it on. I'll do it.
We heard how powerful a practice that is.
How much training it would take to be able to hold that in mind.
But mowing the lawn with that same thought is what the commentator is explaining. The mystic power of the deed. It's the state of mind with which we are doing anything that makes our doing Bodhichitta. Being done with Bodhichitta. Makes us Bodhisattva, because as we're doing our deed, we are saying, intending, wishing that by the power of what we are doing now, that being we'll reach their enlightenment.
If we're not even able to do anything, we drive by somebody, they're limping. Oh, they're limping. I wish they could be free of that pain. We can tonglen. We can include in our tonglen all their pain and suck it out of them. All the ignorance that cause them to create the causes for that pain too. I'll burn them off, and I'll send them happiness.
Who are we helping when we do that?
Our whole world, we're helping. Because those seeds are planted in our own mind that when they ripen, ripen as a being who can help that other.
How do we help that other? We teach them about the pen, about their behavior, about their own ultimate reality.
It's a huge upward spiral, of course, that ends with happiness for everyone. So that wish for that to be the result has to be in the seed.
It's just a wish but the seeds grow. Thank goodness, they grow.
So the mystic power of the deed is our effort to put ourselves last and everybody else first, brings about our own enlightenment.
That's pretty mystic.
Put everybody else ahead of me and I get enlightened.
That is magic, isn't it?
Our whole world runs on that kind of magic.
What we see ourselves thinking, doing, saying towards what we see as others is experienced as others doing to us. It's not magic, it's reality.
That gives us the power to change our experience not in the moment because it's our current interaction with others that plants those seeds. Got it?
It doesn't bring about the next moment, but it will bring about the next moment someday.
Grasp to things, of course means to things as having their own nature in them.
We think things, oh, pens, chairs, cars. But by things they mean anything, any existing thing. Inanimate things, animate things, people, animals, plants, bugs, our own self, our personality, our bodies, our experiences, every piece of every experience. These are all things.
A person who still grasps to things has no worldview.
If we're holding to any of those moments of the three spheres as coming, any piece of them from their own side, we don't have the world view with which we stop suffering.
A person who still grasps things has no worldview.
The commentator says that if we think anything or any part of ourselves exists independent of our karmic projections ripening forced on us by our past behavior, then we are attached to our old worldview.
All of our worldviews are very different than where they were when we started studying the Dharma. I think. I hope.
But we still have a worldview where we're attached to.
So he's saying to this 12-year-old whose worldview must be quite high: Keep pushing, keep checking. Where do you think? When? Find out. Watch.
Anytime you believe that something, somebody, some feeling, some experience is something other than results of your past deeds, and catch that wrong world view and push it. Push the wrong one away, and pour in the highest one.
He says to be free of this attachment is to know that things don't exist the way they seem to.
Things, meaning all three spheres-things.
Things don't exist the way they seem to, but it's not that things don't exist at all.
And, things can't both, exist the way they seem and not exist at all.
He's given us the four possibilities.
They don't exist the way they seem. Meaning their identities in them, coming out of them.
But they don't not exist at all. Just projections. So illusions, so dream-like, nothing real? Not like that.
But it's also true that they're not both of those things, and he leaves out that, well, it can't be nothing at all, the fourth one.
He gives that threefold phrase and then he says, so live then happily in that place where neither is the case. Things don't exist from their own side and they don't not exist at all.
Which means everything exists in that potentiality. Not meaning the potentiality exists, but every existing thing now. Nature is empty and so available to be anything that the perceiver perceives them as.
Live in that space about the things you experience. The experience itself, your own self doing the experiencing.
You don't exist the way you think you do, but you don't not exist at all.
You are ripening results of past deeds. You will always be ripening results of past deeds. So what do you want to be? Plant those seeds. Right? Not so hard.
When we know that we and everything that happens is projections, we know our We, moment by moment is very real and created by our behavior.
You'll never not be real. You will never not be.
But you will never be what you are in this moment.
You are changing moment by moment. But you will never not exist and you will never not be somebody else's subject side.
You are the subject side of your subject object, interaction between, moment by moment.
You are somebody else's object side.
But you can never become somebody else's subject side, because you can't plant the seeds to be somebody else's subject side.
Our future is totally under our power to create.
Not like it ever wasn't that. It's always been that. But now that we know, let's put that power to use.
That completes our freedom from the four attachments.
But I have another to complete for this class, and this is going to be like the raceless.
Let's take just a bit of a break. Get refreshed because I'm going to go fast on this one. We need to be able to change gears. So take a break, take a breather.
(Break)
(88:47)
This new Lojong is called LOJONG NAMKAY KYIMMA.
NAMKAY = sky or space
KYIMMA = celestial mansions
The Lojong of the celestial mansions. But that's not what it means.
The NAMKAY KYIMMA is the Tibetan word for the 12 houses of the zodiac.
It sounds like this is the Lojong of the 12 houses of the zodiac, but that doesn't mean that either.
NAMKAY KYIMMA, you know how in English we say, I bought a dozen eggs, and everybody knows a dozen means 12. Why don't you just say, I bought 12 eggs? But you buy a dozen eggs.
This term NAMKAY KYIMMA is like a nickname for the number 12.
In Tibetan, there are 12 houses of the zodiac, just like everywhere else, because it all comes from Persia the same. They use that term for, we use the term a dozen. It just means 12.
This Lojong is called the Lojong of the 12. Meaning the 12 qualities of a person who has successfully Lojong-ed. Meaning we've grown our Bodhichitta, but we're still in a human body. Just to get Bodhichitta doesn't mean you poof.
What are you like? What are you like when you have your Bodhichitta?
There's this beautiful Lojong, it lists these 12 different characteristics of you, the Bodhisattva with Bodhichitta, a real Bodhichitta I guess.
I'm not going to write the Tibetan. In your reading, you can see it. But I will say it.
YICHE — Trustworthy
YICHE means you can count on them, meaning they say they're going to do something for you and they actually do it. They go a little, you can count on them. Geshela says, let's call it trustworthy. We will be trustworthy when we are fully Bodhichitta-ed.
KADRIN DREN — Loyal
KADREN means remember kindness. It means being keenly aware of another's kindness towards you in the past, and so you really, really want to repay them. Not just once, but again and again and again. Geshela says, let's call it loyal. Loyal to those who have helped us in the past. By the time we're Bodhichitta-ed, who is it that's helped us in the past? Everybody. Maybe especially our Lamas, our parents, but everybody. Loyal.
MILA ROK — Helpful
The words mean to help people. So to be highly Bodhichitta-ed, we're helpful. Like duh, we're helpful already. But this helpful is just always on your toes to be there to help. The first one to help. Nothing too small, nothing too big. That really, really subtle, powerful helpfulness.
KUN LAM JAM — Friendly
KUN LAM JAM means gentle to everyone. Geshela said like cotton balls. They're so soft, they're so gentle, cotton balls. Be like cotton balls. I like that, a Bodhisattva is like cotton balls. To be so kind, so friendly, so peaceful, so soft. He calls it gentleness. A Bodhisattva is gentle.
He says gentle, but he says, let's call it friendly. You'll see why in a minute. Let's call it friendly.
SHEN LA TRAL CHEN — Courteous
SHEN LA = to others
TRAL = short for TRAL YU
CHEN = great, very
Do you remember the word TRAL YU? (?) and TRAL YU are those two states of mind that if we don't have them, we can break our vows so easily.
TRAL YU is the one where you are highly concerned with how your actions, your behavior will affect others‘ states of mind. Not because of your reputation or anything, but really keenly aware of what I do now, how is it going to impact people? And to choose our behavior based on what might happen.
Do you leave your chewing gum where somebody might step in it?
Do you leave the trash can in such a way that somebody might trip over it as opposed to pushing it off in the corner?
Really, really subtle awarenesses of how can I make sure that everybody is safe?
How can I make sure that everyone gets what they want? How can I…?
Really, really subtle. Our behavior chosen based on how it's going to impact others for the better.
It's like thinking ahead of what impact our deeds could have on others and then act appropriately. Geshela says, let's call it courteous, be courteous.
Courteous at a very high level of understanding of that word.
SHEN GYI DREN — Kind
SHEN GYI DREN means others of foot servant. Be others' foot servant.
We make that pledge when we take our Bodhisattva vows: I'll serve everyone what they need.
He says, let's call it kindness to all. Not just the ones we like, not just the ones that are easy, kindness to all do.
DULWAR NYEN — Obedient
DULWAR NYEN means tamed to listen, but it means our healthy respect for the other. We listen carefully in a controlled way and we do according to what we hear them apparently needing. A high example would be, your Lama tells you do this, and you listen carefully. You make sure you understood and then you go do it.
It means obedient, but obedient in the sense of clearly understanding and then doing. Obedient.
DZUM KAR CHEN — Cheerful
DZUM KARM CHEN means a big white smile. My big smile is yellow, but a big white smile. It's the word that they use for cheerful. A Bodhisattva is cheerful. They're not like, grumble, I never give my needs met because I'm taking care of everybody.
It's like, wow, cool. Let's do some more, cheerful.
TUN DZE BAKYU — Thrifty
TUN DZE BAKYU means don't waste commonly shared things. Don't waste resources. We must have a lot of having wasted resources karma ripening currently. We're having so much trouble, so don't waste resources that are used in common.
Geshela says, let's call this one thrifty. Is anybody recognizing these?
We only have two boys in the crowd.
PA TAK DEN — Brave
PA TAK DEN means, possess the sign of the warrior. Which means being brave, but in the sense of holding to our worldview. No matter what, holding to our understanding of karmic seeds, seed planting, seed ripening, I've got to hold to that behavior no matter what. Bravery, it takes bravery to do that in the face of a world of a family, a society, a business culture where nobody else seems to understand that. We still have the bravery to live by it. Bravery.
DAK SHING SO — Clean
DAK SHINg SO means, create your pure field, your pure land. They create their pure land moment to moment. Geshela says, let's call it cleanliness because one of the ways we create our pure world is keeping our own world as pure as possible and physically that means clean, clean and neat and decluttered and et cetera.
Let's call it cleanliness.
CHU SEM SHUL — Reverent
CHU SEM CHUL means our mind carried away in the current of the Dharma. A mind carried away in the current of the Dharma. It's like being newly in love. You're just, oh, I'm always thinking of him. You're carried away by him. Oh, how wonderful. I'm sorry I'm not with you now. Carried away in the Dharma, meaning our mind is just flowing along with our spiritual efforts, our spiritual work, constantly. In love with it, in love with our spiritual worldview and the task we have at hand and loving it.
But Geshela calls it, let's call it reverent, like devoted, and what's reverend? Humbled.
What are the 12th?
A fully Bodhichitta-ed Bodhisattva is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
I'm talking to not many boys and not many Americans that anybody recognize these 12. Any girl scouts?
It's the Boy Scout code. They get trained this code. David knew it right away when we were studying this. He goes, oh, he rattled them off right from having been a boy scout when he was like, I don't know, 10 to 12 years old.
I looked it up, the Boy Scout is a worldwide thing that was started by a cavalry officer in South Africa in 1908. This fellow Robert Baden Powell wrote a book „Scouting for boys“. He had trained cavalry officers, adult, well, teens, probably like late teens, and he thought all these things that we do to train these men to be officers and soldiers, it'd be good for young boys to learn this stuff. Not to become soldiers, not that part, but the resilience and the way of behavior. This code of behavior. His book outlined these different exercises and experiences and experiments that they could do that would generate these 12 characteristics in those growing young men.
It took off worldwide into the Boy Scout movement, which also became the Girl Scout movement and et cetera, a little bit different for girls.
Now, here's this Lojong written in the 1000s, maybe 1200s. It's like, wait a minute, did he know? Did he study Buddhism with this guy? It didn't say in Wiki that he was a Buddhist. It just said he came up with these things in his mind
Geshela, I think he must have come across this and go, oh my gosh, this is wild. Who was that guy Mr. Baden Powell?
We think all just some British officer who had a good idea. But who was he really?
Oh, he must have been a Bodhisattva appearing as Lord Baden Powell, and his task was to come up with the Boy Scouts in order to give this code of ethics for young men everywhere. He must've really been a Bodhisattva.
No, which is he? Which was he? Both, neither, depending on who's looking?
How is that helpful?
Geshela said, it's an example that we can use spiritual revisionism.
It shows us that because we understand emptiness and karma, we can look at something that history says happened in a certain way, and we can recognize that history saying that it happened in that certain way is a ripening of our seeds. But it doesn't mean that's the only way it could happen.
Could it be that what looks like Robert Baden Powell looked human to everybody then and to us now, but from his side, he was some Buddha manifesting to bring this code of ethics to the world because it was time. Or not, is that possible or not possible?
If it is possible and it did happen that way, what difference does that make to us? Except to go, oh, yeah, that's interesting to think about.
Geshela said, we can do the same thing with the different people in our own lives. We can look back and there were people in our lives that helped us a lot, maybe instrumental in sending us a different direction. There are people in our lives who hurt us a lot that actually maybe also were instrumental in sending us in a different direction—sometimes better, sometimes worse.
When we think back on those histories, we think, oh, that person was good. That person was bad. Every time we revisit it, yeah, they're still bad. They're still good. I like them. I don't like them.
As our understanding of mental seeds, karma and emptiness grows, and you look back on those experiences and those people, at some point we reach our own understanding that, son of a gun, I don't really know who or what they were.
I know my experience. Now I realize that even that bad experience contributed to my getting here. In fact, maybe even that worst experience I had in life was in fact the best one because without it, I really don't think I ever would've landed here.
Of course, technically without any experience that we've had in this life happening, we wouldn't be who we are today, right?
Everything, every detail of everything has brought you here.
But even if you don't think of it that way, there are some things good and bad that maybe when we revisit them now, we might say even for the bad things, gosh, thank you very much.
Who were you to know that I needed that so badly?
Who were you to be willing to be so nasty for my benefit?
Is that just magical thinking? Okay, now I feel better about my history? They just did that all for me? Or is it changing our future by revisiting the past in that look?
Am I saying, oh, they seem to you like they were normal people and they weren't really. Really, they were Buddha angels helping you. Is that what I'm saying?
No, they weren't really Buddhas, and they weren't really human jerks or human helpful. They were blank. They were the ripening result of my seeds.
My seeds forced them to be those great parents that taught me so much, then crashed in an airplane when I had a whole lot more learning to do from them and they had to pull out on me. Or that, I had a roommate that we were best friends, and the next thing I knew it was the worst thing on the planet. Where did that come from? Yet it took me in a whole new direction. What was she really?
The answer is: she was really the ripening of my seeds. For me, for herself I have no idea.
How is that spiritual revisionism helpful to us?
Think about the seeds planted when we revisit past, oh, they're bad. They're still bad. They're still bad. They did that to me. Seeds planted. Oh, wait a minute. They were bad. My seeds ripening made them bad, so they were bad. But I learned from that bad, and now I won't be bad like that to anybody else until I know for sure that it's going to help them. Then I hope I can help them in a way that's not bad.
Different seeds being planted as we're thinking that through.
Why? Because really, they were Buddha?
No, maybe they were Buddha, in which case they knew exactly what needed to happen, what I needed. In which case, thank you very much.
Maybe they weren't Buddha and they really were out to get me, in which case they planted a lot of really nasty seeds, and I'm so sorry that my karma made you do that.
Empty them, not non-existent them, empty them.
We think back now on that our whole us changes.
Geshela suggests, sometime, when you have a day or so to yourself, create a day or so to yourself and do this think back all the different experiences that you can recall in your life. The happy ones, the unhappy ones, and look at their pattern, look at the people involved, and think about how you're thinking of them and apply your understanding of karma and seeds to come to the conclusion that I don't really know who and what they were. Who and what they are.
Maybe they're Buddha emanations. Maybe they're human.
Really, for me, I know that they're blank. Blank to me, and so could be either one.
Which would I rather them have been, nasty human or Buddha?
I don't know the answer, but if that's possible that they were Buddha, then is it possible that the next one who's being nasty to you is also blank from their own side?
So from your side could be Buddha‘s emanation giving me an opportunity to act differently than my auto seed ripening makes me want to act.
Just to entertain that possibility is what this is asking us to do. Because it's so powerfully different than what our automatic pilot is, which is „They are doing that to me“. Spiritual revisionism.
We can rewrite our history, and every time we do, we plant those seeds in our mind that they'll come a day when you even think back on your history, and it's like, well, the greatest thing that ever happened to me was my parents' plane crashed. It's not a bad thing at all.
Do I wish it didn't happen?
Of course, but it was the greatest thing. It was a powerful experience, and I'm happy to have had it. That spiritual revisionism.
It was 35 years ago, so it took me a long time to get there, honestly. But it's important to be willing to do it, and then do it through the course of your dharma growing Bodhisattva career. Because then how you interact with others will shift. They won't be ordinary humans so solidly anymore, because of the possibility to be other things.
Alright, enough. You can do your homework 7. Hooray.
Thank you for the extra 10 minutes. I had those in the short class bank from previous classes, not you guys. However, two of you guys.
Let's do our dedication. Please give me two more minutes for our dedication so that we really get the bang for our buck.
[Usual closing]
Alright, for the recording, we are ACI 14. We would call it class 8, but it's not session 8, and it's not homework 8 because there isn't one. It's actually homework 9. So let's call it homework 9 for the recording, I mean class 9 for the recording.
Let‘s gather our minds here as we usually do. Please.
Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
[Usual opening]
(7:15) The next Lojong that we get to study is called TSUNCHA LORLA, written by someone named Master Dharma Rakshita.
Dharma Rakshita is a Sanskrit name, and for some reason the Tibetans called him by his Sanskrit name. I would love to know the story behind that. I don't know. Everybody else‘s, their names got translated, but this guy Dharma Rakshita, my guess is it was just fun to say.
We don't know his dates, but we do know that Master Dharma Rakshita shared or taught this Lojong to someone named Jowo Je. Jowo Je is the Tibetan translation of Lord Atisha whose dates we do know, 982 to 1052.
These two must have been living about the same time if one taught the other, presumably within the flesh teaching. It's consistent with the Lojong timeframe in the development of the Tibetan Buddhism.
TSUNCHA KORLO
TSUNCHA = a weapon
KORLO = a wheel
It literally would just mean a wheel weapon. But when they say a wheel weapon versus just a TSUNCHA, they mean a specific kind of weapon that's this round thing that's got blades sticking out of it, and you throw it at your enemy. The blades are so sharp and they're spinning that it just slices them.
Usually this particular Lojong is called the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. But Geshela prefers to translate TSUNCHA KORLO as the Wheel of Knives. We'll see later why he chooses that. It's more specific to what this thing, the TSUNCHO KORLO is meant.
Remember, when this teaching was being given first in New York City, this was all new to everybody. And Geshela had received this teaching, this Lojong actually during his study of the Vinaya with Khen Rinpoche.
The Vinaya is the study of your freedom vows, which for lay people is our five lifetime layperson vows. But for ordained people, it is also your novice vows for women, the medium vows for women, and men the full vows.
When you have vows, you have to learn them, and then learn how you break them and how you keep them, and how you damage them, but don't fully break them, and all of that stuff.
Geshe Michaal was learning all of that actually before he even got ordained. He made the pledge to live as if he was ordained, and he did that for 8 or 10 years before he actually went and got his ordination vows. In which case at that time he got novice monk vows and full vows on the same day, which is unusual. Usually you get your novice vows, and you live according to your novice vows and your vow master watches you. Then when you say, can I have full vows? They go, no, you have to keep your novice ones better. Or they say, yes. You've done a good job.
So this teaching was a teaching in the Vinaya. We're learning it in Lojong. Interesting.
When it's in the Vinaya, it's considered like an explanation of circumstances that happen that need to have a rule made about them in order to protect people's behavior. They don't actually know who wrote this Lojong first. Because Geshela received the first teaching in the Vinaya, he says that he believes that it's Buddha teaching one of his past lives to his group of misbehaving monks in order to teach them about the correlation between their behavior—we're going to see—and their experiences.
Geshela suspects it would be more in the genre of Jattica tales than in Lojong, but here it is as a Lojong.
Back in those days, Geshela had a student already. Or there was a student, let's say, who Geshela knew was having trouble with respect issues towards his parents.
The guy came to Geshe Michael and asked him to help him learn to translate. He didn't come saying, I'm having trouble with my parents. Geshela knew that about him, and the guy says, ah, will you teach me how to translate?
And Geshela says, sure. And he gives this fellow, this text to use to learn how to translate. Very, very sneaky skillful means even way back then to give someone a text that's all about the karmic consequences of our behavior, especially towards our parents. We're going to see.
As a result of that, Geshela chose to use this as one of the Lojongs that he taught once he reached ACI 14. Which was six years into the course of ACI teachings.
(14:25) The background of TSUNCHA KORLO is a story, and the story goes like this. There was this young boy. He lives in the town by the sea.
His father is a sailor, his mother is the mother.
The father's gone all the time because he is a sailor. It's very admirable to be a sailor. One day he goes out to see and word comes back, his ship sank and he was killed. The mother's distressed. The boy is distressed.
The boy grows up.
By the time the boy's 18, the boy's friends are all signing up to be sailors and going off to see, and he wants to become a sailor.
He asks his mother very respectfully, May I go out to sea?
Oh honey, your dad went out to see and never came back. It's so dangerous. Please, please, please don't go out to sea.
He goes, well, I respect my mom. Okay, I won't go. But I really want to go, but I won't go.
Then the next year, so more of his friends are signing up to go on as sailors.
He asked his mom again, mom, Please, can I go be a sailor?
Oh, honey, no, no, no, you can't do that.
He gets mad at her, but he still respects her wishes and doesn't go.
The third year, his friends are signing up, going out to sea, he asks her again, Mom, can I go out to sea?
No honey, please. No.
By now he's what? 18, 19, 20 or 21. He gets angrier and he just can't abide by it.
He yells and he storms out. She tries to block him from getting out the door, and he just forcefully knocks her and accidentally knocks her over, and she hits her head.
But he just goes on, and he goes out to sea on the ship.
The ship runs into trouble and it gets wrecked on an island and he's the only survivor. He crawls up the sand into this dark forest, and he is wandering around this forest and can't find anything to eat or drink. Finally, out of hunger and thirst he passes out.
I don't know how long he's passed out for, but he wakes up suddenly and there are these four beautiful young women staring down at him.
Are you okay? Are you okay?
The story, the text that tells the story, calls them four beautiful damsels dressed in silk and jewels.
It's a great word, damsels, isn't it? I don't think I was ever called a damsel.
We tend to not use that word, but maybe we should.
Anyway, he goes, Wow.
They say, come, come, we'll take care of you. They take him to their palace and he lives there for years with these four beautiful women.
Then one day he's out wandering in the forest. He goes out for a walk and he gets lost in the forest, nothing to eat or drink. Finally, out of hunger and thirst, he passes out. I don't know how long he's out, but he comes to, and there's six beautiful women staring down at him. Are you okay? Are you okay? Can we help you?
They take him back to their palace and take care of him.
He lives in this bliss for years and years and years.
Then one day he is out walking in the forest again. You'd think he's learned.
He gets lost, and he is wandering around and he is hungry and thirsty, and he passes out.
When he comes to, there's this big dark, ominous palace, and it's got, I dunno what you call it, a balcony way up high.
He sees a guy up there on the balcony.
He can see that this guy up there on the balcony has this thing on his head that's round and it's got knives. It's spinning and it's cutting the guy's head.
He can see that going on up there.
He's compelled, something's compelling him. He goes through the gate, it slams shut behind him. He goes walking, he's seeing this guy and the guy's coming down the stairway, it's an outdoor stairway.
He's looking up and he's seeing the guy and he says to the guy, Good Lord, what's that thing on your head?
The guy starts to explain what's going on. He says, Well, when I was a young man, I lived in a town by the sea. My father was a sailor. One day when I was a teen, he goes off to see and he never comes back. He died.
Then by the time I'm 18, I want to sign up to be a sailor like my dad, and I asked my mom and she says, no. I respected her.
Then the next year I asked her again and again, she said, no.
I got angry with her, but I respected her.
Then the third year, I asked her again, I really, really wanted to go.
She again said, no. But I got so angry I couldn't control myself and I barged by her and I accidentally made her hit her head.
By now the guy's going, he's recognizing the story.
And the guy goes on. He says, well, I did go and my ship got shipwrecked and I survived. I was the only survivor.
Then I passed out in the forest, and when I woke up, there were these four beautiful women and they took care of me for a long time.
Then I went out to the forest and I passed out again.
Then there were these six beautiful women.
By now he's just shaken in his boots, recognizing there's some punchline coming that has something to do with that thing on the guy's head.
The guy's still sort of walking slowly down the stairs towards him, and the guy says, finally I passed out again, and I woke up and there was this castle and this guy with this thing on his head.
Our young man now has got it full on that it's his turn, that any minute this wheel is going to come and go. Because the guy finally says, there was this guy with this wheel, and he described this story. By the time he got to the end of the story, the wheel had lifted up and it had come down onto my head, and it's been cutting me ever since. Who knows how long that is.
Our hero, he's like ew, and he knows that that thing's going to come onto his head. He closes his eyes and thinks to himself, I know this is coming.
But then he has this transformative thought, and he thinks I'm willing to take it so that guy's pain can't stop.
Just this shift in perception of: I know it's going to happen to me. Instead of resisting it, I'm going to take it on so he can be free.
So he's waiting, waiting, waiting.
Finally, he peaks an eye open because it hadn't happened yet.
And the palace is gone. The castle, the ugly castle is gone, and he has this series of epiphany.
Oh, the first time my mom said no, I obeyed her.
The very fact that I disobeyed her is ripened as the whole problem I got into.
But then the fact that the first time I obeyed her, I was saved by these beautiful women.
Then the second time, I still obeyed her.
I got lost because of the negativity of disobeying, getting angry. But then the second time, because I still obeyed her, six beautiful women taking care of me.
But then I got lost again. That next time out of my anger, I hurt my mother, and that's where this whole ugly vision came from.
The TSUNCHA KORLO was because I had hurt my mother in my anger and my determination to go to sea.
He caught on to these correlations.
That whole story is the basis for this Lojong that gets taught, and presumably this person who was expecting the thing to come on their head and then didn‘t, as a result of his transformative willingness to take it on to help the other be free of pain, then he gets all of these wisdoms that he writes down or teaches to somebody.
I'm not sure how that worked out.
It becomes this Lojong, which is your reading.
It becomes a whole teaching on karma and its consequences.
We've learned a little bit about karma and its consequences from Je Tsongkapa and how karma works, that course. The Lam Rim, you've been learning it. DCI teaches it as well. We have this idea: What I see myself do to others is going to come back to me and we can make these correlations.
This Lojong is very, very specific, however. In these different experiences that this author has had, and how he recognizes what the karmic causes of those experiences had to have been. He also makes this determination of what he's going to do instead. He gives us antidotes as well. So the whole thing becomes this beautiful series of karmic correlation that we can use based on this.
This is Buddha before Buddha teaching us, but it becomes an additional piece in our encyclopedia of karmic correlation. So that we can work with our own mental afflictions and our own life circumstances to have a better idea of what we did that created them and what we need to stop doing to keep perpetuating them, and what we can do to antidote them.
This whole Lojong is about that.
The first half of the Lojong is this series of, this happened to me and this was why, and this happened to me and this was why.
But then at some point partway through, he goes through this transformation again because yes, he's figured out the karmic correlations, but then he's like:
Why do I keep doing that stuff to myself?
What's underneath the karmic correlation?
Why do I behave like that?
He gets this Aha, like underneath all of that is my selfishness and my misunderstanding the true nature of things.
So partway through, he goes, Oh my gosh, it's my self cherishing and my ignorance that's the cause of all of it.
All that other stuff was the correlations, but underneath the correlations, selfishness and not understanding the true nature of things. That's the demon. He calls it the henchman of the devil.
I can work on all these other things, but I need to work on this demon, my self cherishing and my ignorance.
The second half of the Lojong is how he recognizes these two states of mind as this creature. Is that creature a good thing or a bad thing?
It's a whole other section that helps us learn how to work with the first section, but in a deeper way. So that we end up chipping away at our self cherishing and our ignorance. Because otherwise we really can't get rid of the mental afflictions that are represented in the first section of the Lojong.
They'll just keep shape shifting, those mental afflictions, until we get to the crook of them, which is selfishness and ignorance.
We're going to take two classes at least to getting the encyclopedia of information, and then recognizing how selfing and ignorance is underneath all of them.
If I do my job, bear with me please.
The Lojong is named after that awful thing on the person's head that's cutting them. Graphically, in order to impress upon us that we in Sansara, perpetuating sansara are in line for that heel of knives. I think I have one already. Not so much now, but we for a long time.
There are other explanations or words used to describe this thing, the TSUNCHA KORLO.
One of them is a razor tipped boomerang. A boomerang is a thing from Australia that has a certain shape. When you throw it into the air, it zings around and then it squirrels around and it comes back to you. Theoretically. I threw one once. It didn't come anywhere near back to me. It is actually a hunting tool as I understand it. What good would be a hunting tool if you throw it and you miss, and you got to go chase your thing. It's got to come back to you.
It is used as this symbol for how karma comes back to us.
We throw that boomerang, meaning we see ourselves are aware of ourselves thinking, doing, saying something to another—that's throwing this boomerang. The boomerang will come around and we ourselves will experience the result of that thing that we did towards another. We get that part.
They call it a razor tip boomerang, because a razor tip boomerang, when you reach up to grab it, it's going to slice your hand off. It's sansaric karma that is this razor tip boomerang. Technically even sansaric kindnesses are razor tip boomerang, because they come back as pleasantness that wear out that we don't realize why they wear out. We'll go there later.
Razor tip boomerang.
Geshela suggests that if we are experiencing ourselves hurting in any way, physically, emotionally, mentally, or even just seeing ourselves getting older, then we are being hit by our razor tip boomerang.
It's only what we've thrown at someone else that's coming back to us now and now and now and now. He says we're constantly getting hit on the head by having thrown the boomerang.
Throwing the boomerang means our actions towards others. Mostly it means unkind actions towards others. That's why it comes back as a painful boomerang that smacks us instead of serves us.
But ultimately, if there's still ignorance and selfishness underneath the kindness, it still comes back. Maybe it's got fewer knives on it.
Everything that we are aware of ourselves thinking, saying, doing towards another will come back to us correlated.
Let's say correlated. We would ordinarily say similarly, and that's true. But let's say correlated to give us a little bigger view.
Then our very natural response to that experience is similar to the one that we did that created what we just experienced. Because we're unaware of this correlation between what we did in the past, what we're experiencing now, we still think that what I'm impelled to do in response is the right thing to do to get us what we want.
But that's just throwing the boomerang again. The boomerang goes out, it comes back, it sits in the head, we do the same thing. It just comes back and hits us in the head again.
The whole purpose of learning this Lojong is first of all to recognize it's happening and then being able to be more specific into what behaviors are creating what experiences. And then what opposite to do in those given circumstances, because it's going to come back up again and we want to behave differently somehow.
When that boomerang is coming back to hit us, it appears that somebody is doing something unpleasant towards us. It looks like, our reaction is, they are doing that to me. And inside that response is this blame.
We're blaming them for what they're doing.
We're blaming them for the feeling that we have.
We're blaming them for just existing,
when all of it is our own boomerang that we threw coming back to us.
That other person, it doesn't mean that they're not there. They are there. They are a boss yelling at me.
But the boss yelling at me, them, is an instrument of my own past deed.
My karma is making them do that.
That takes a lot of sophistication and awareness to be able to think that in the moment. Man, my karma's making them yell at me.
Our old worldview struggles with that. No, no. They're yelling. They're yelling. They're really yelling. They're really upset with me. They hear themselves yelling.
We're not saying they don't.
We're saying every piece of that experience is our boomerang coming back, and their them, whatever they're seeing, whatever they're experiencing, they're throwing their boomerang that's going to come back to them.
Our concern is our response to our boomerang coming back, and how it is influencing them.
That level of understanding or awareness helps us get off automatic pilots so that we don't automatically do what our natural reaction says to do.
Typically with yelling, we yell back. That just throws another boomerang—not necessarily with that same person. We throw a boomerang of yelling at-being yelled at, others are going to yell at us. It's not just with the person involved, is it?
The cycle is what is meant by Sansara. Sansara is not a place that we're in. It's this cycle of responding wrongly thinking we're right to a situation that we don't understand where it's really coming from. That cycle perpetuates the cycle that‘s called Sansara.
TSUNCHEN KORLO, razor tip boomerang is one of the words.
Actions that backfire on us, is another phrase.
Geshela is just trying to come up with different phrases that we can use to try and understand this better.
There's another one, blowing off our own toes, and that comes from a story.
You're laying in bed, the moonlight is shining in, you wake up and at the end of the bed you see these two glowing eyeballs staring at you. You're scared and you get out your shotgun out and you shoot those two glowing eyes, and they turn out to be your toes. The moon reflecting off your toenails at the end of your bed and you lose your toes.
I don't know if we relate to that one or not, but glowing off your own toes.
Another one is, hanging yourself—not on purpose, mistakenly.
Or digging our own grave.
We have these terms in English. You probably have some in your own language where you're trying to do something and you end up hurting yourself instead.
That kind of term, that's what we mean.
We think, okay, those activities, those things that come back.
But this also applies to our mental or emotional state: pride, jealousy, low self-esteem, high self-esteem, all of our personality traits.
All of it is similarly ripening seeds based on factors that were involved as we perceive ourselves thinking, doing, and saying towards others.
There's nothing that we can experience that is not this process.
We've been through that again and again.
Every time we get irritated at somebody or something, the irritation alone requires blaming that other, believing our irritation is justified and believing there's a me separate from all of that, that it's happening to.
Even if we don't do anything, act at all, that arising irritation has already planted new seeds. It's like, well then I'm just stuck, because by the time I experienced something, I've reacted to it. I feel like it's already done, already replanted.
Technically, yes. But because of the fact that seeds grow, we can know what to do with that. We can work with these things at more and more subtle levels as our seeds ripen for us to be able to do so by helping others do so.
Because things are nothing but this process, we're not stuck.
If it weren't the process, we would be stuck. But thank goodness it's not.
As we're understanding better and better, we're recognizing more and more clearly that what we do towards others, we are in fact doing towards ourselves.
Not in the moment, but ultimately, yes. And really not so far away as ultimately. Ultimate is too big a word.
What I do to others, I'm doing to myself.
Even though there's the gap, we can use that statement to be more alert to what we're about to do.
Would I do this to me?
Do I want somebody to do that to me?
Do I want to make somebody do that to me?
Maybe not. Maybe so, then do it.
In the text about all of this, as with any text, the author starts by making a prostration, a verbal, mental prostration.
He first prostrates to the three jewels.
I'm just going to read it to you. The first little bit of it.
He says,
I bow down to the three precious jewels.
Here is the wheel of knives,
an instruction which strikes the enemy at his heart.
I bow down to the angry one, the Lord of death.
I'll get back to the next verse.
First he vows down to the three jewels: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. We know what that all means. He is bowing down to karma and emptiness in the form of Shakyamuni Buddha, in the form of the Dharma and the teachings, and the understanding and the realizations, and those who are ahead of him on the path.
Usually, when you do a prostration to the three jewels, what we expect next is a nice teaching on something about a Sutra, from Sutra level.
Then he says, I'm going to write about the wheel of knives so that we can get through and cut the heart of the demon that's the cause of all Sansara.
Then he must have a little bit of a change of heart. It's like, oh, I bow down to the angry one, the Lord of Death.
Why would we bow down to the Lord of Death?
The Lord of Death is the big enemy, right?
If Lord of Death wins out before we reach enlightenment, this opportunity that we have now is gone. Lord of Death is, we'll learn who it really is. But he's making obeisance to the Lord of Death. It's a little bit weird, it's a lot weird, actually.
But we'll see why.
The Lord of Death, when they depict the Lord of Death, you know the Thangka The Wheel of Life? That big black creature is holding onto the wheel of life. He's got his claws, he's got his feet claws, and I don't know, he's dimmer. Notice he's just hanging out there in empty space, not standing on any ground or anything.
That's a clue.
But he looks like this really vicious, wicked thing. Ugly three eyes, this crown of some kind, fangs dripping, scary guy.
He's got something going for him though, apparently, that he comes to us in this Lojong as something that's going to help us, maybe just by motivating us, but maybe more than that.
When we get to that part, he's going to explain it more. But if we're really thinking about it, it's like here's this amazing Lojong that's designed to grow our Bodhichitta, and there's this scary guy involved.
If we're thinking about it, we might want to go like, I'm not sure I want to read this Lojong. But on the other hand, maybe it's like, Ooh, wow, maybe there's really a deep clue here that I've been running from something that I need to look at. I hope that that will be the end result.
The author can't seem to decide if he's going to offer this sweet Lojong to the three jewels or if he's going to offer it to this fierce monster.
Maybe there's not a difference between those two.
Let's see where he goes from there.
(48:55) He says,
Peacocks wander in the midst of a forest of poison trees,
a garden of healing herbs and plants, maybe something lovely,
but peacocks have no love for them.
They live off poison itself.
Bodhisattva warriors are the same.
A garden of comfort and pleasures may be something lovely,
but the warriors have no attachment for them.
They live off a forest of pain.
Wait a minute, I'm not sure I want to know this Lojong. If it's telling me that as a Bodhisattva I need to go live in a forest of pain.
We do need a little explanation here.
The peacock preferring poison over herbs and flowers.
They say that peacock's, the beauty, that beautiful blue, shimmery blue and the amazing colors in the tail actually are derived from a poisonous plant. That their systems have some way of extracting what other creatures' bodies are poisoned by, peacocks extract that. Those substances is what make their feathers so beautiful.
I don't know if it's true or not. David and I had a pair of peacocks for a short while. The male went to live at the ranch next door. It was a dude ranch. People would come and they would have big barbecues of hamburgers and pizza and stuff. The male peacock would beg, and of course people would feed it hamburger and hot dogs and pizza. It didn't live so long.
Maybe it went out really happy, but it didn't live as long as the peahen who lived with us, who got seeds and things that she scratched around in our yard. But she also didn't live so long either.
But anyway, I don't know about peacocks except by the tradition that it's not that people don't let them into the garden. They don't want to live there. They want the poison stuff. Thank you very much.
So it is being used as the analogy for the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva isn't really interested in the beautiful garden. They want to be in the place where they are having multiple opportunities to burn off their negative karma and their ignorance, and get themselves to total enlightenment as quickly as possible so that they can help others stop their suffering.
They're not so driven to get to their Buddhahood for themselves.
They're driven to get to their Buddhahood so that they can really help people, instead of just a little bit of help people. Which is a whole lot more ‚little bit‘ than the rest of us, but it's still not enough for a Bodhisattva.
So yes, they want their Buddhahood. But if you just say, Oh, I want my Buddhahood as quickly as possible without saying, So that I can help people stop their suffering, then we're not understanding Buddhahood. And we're for sure not understanding how we're going to get there.
But Geshela shares this opportunity to point out a Dharma rumor, which is that Bodhisattvas, they are so big hearted, they're so Bodhisattva that they will their enlightenment, they will stay in Sansara in order to help people.
You can see where that would come from.
Peacocks choose poisonous places over beautiful gardens.
Bodhisattvas choose poisonous places over beautiful gardens, so they're going to choose Sansara over their Buddha paradise, right?
No, no, don't take me to Buddha paradise. There's people I still need the help.
Wrong! Because they have to become bliss void wisdom beings, omniscient beings in order to help anybody in that deep and ultimate way.
Can they help in worldly ways? Absolutely. Probably way better than non-Bodhisattva is helping in worldly ways. But they realize it's still not enough.
Bodhisattvas don't delay their own enlightenment in order to help people.
They get enlightened as quickly as possible in order to help people.
What does that look like? It looks like all they do is help other people.
It looks like they turn down promotions so that they have more time to spend in the soup kitchen.
It looks like they turn things away.
But it's because they're looking for the biggest bang for their buck in terms of their burning off negativity and planting their merit.
If you are in a situation where somebody says, Oh, those Bodhisattvas, they delay their enlightenment. Will you be brave enough to say, All due respect, that is misunderstood.
Don't say it's wrong, say it's misunderstood.
Bodhisattvas are hot on their heels of their Buddhahood so that they can help us all ultimately instead of in the limited way that we are when we're limited to a single physical body.
(55:42) Luisa: I have a question to that, because the idea in this worldly way to help others is that you become a living example so others can follow you. Then I have been thinking also about that and what you just say, if I prefer to be always in painful situations because this is burning up my bad karma, this is not going to look very appealing to others to follow me. You know what I mean?
If I am always struggling and with financial problems or sickness, it's probably a bit contradictory.
Lama Sarahni: That's exactly what we should wonder. Because we think it's saying a Bodhisattva will choose to have a migraine in order to burn it all up. That's not quite accurate. A Bodhisattva will recognize that pardon my French, shit's going to happen. Most of us go out of our way to try to avoid it. They don't seek to bring it on.
They recognize that when unpleasant stuff is happening to them, or they see it happening to somebody else, they step right into it and respond in a way that burns it off. That's different. And that would set an amazing example.
Even if the apparent result look like you got a bad result from your effort to be Bodhisattva, because you can't get a bad result from being Bodhisattva.
If what comes next is bad, it wasn't because of what you just did.
It's an important way to be sure that you're hearing these teachings and coming to the conclusion they're meant to conclude.
You don't put yourself into dangerous, ugly, negative circumstances.
You use the ones that happen, and they do happen. Obvious pain, the suffering of change and pervasive, we use it. Bodhisattva are using it all, as opposed to trying to avoid it. Which is what we spend most of our non Bodhisattva being doing, trying to avoid stuff and trying to get stuff.
Luisa: Thank you.
(59:15) Bodhisattvas are learning to use their mentally afflicted state, to use them to get rid of them, to use unpleasantness, to get rid of unpleasantness.
It takes some strong mindfulness to be able to do that. Because you have this mental affliction arises and this automatic jerk reaction on how to behave, and we've already planted seeds again.
This level of mindfulness grows as we work, as we make the effort, as we help others, our goodness ripens as increasing awareness of the processes. So that we have more space to recognize what's arising and how to respond differently.
It takes practice. It is a practice.
If we could just turn this on overnight, we‘d just do it. Some people can. They hear it once and boom, they're doing it.
Not for me, it's been a many, many year process of making progress and then seeming losing progress. You never lose progress, but it goes like this.
Just as with any kind of training goes like that.
You remember training in whatever you trained in. Good days, bad days, good competition, bad competition. It's the same here.
A Bodhisattva isn't keeping themselves out of situations that might arise their anger so that they don't have anger. They're recognizing that when they're in a situation where anger is arising, they use that situation to not respond to that anger.
When the anger arises and we don't respond to it, we respond opposite, whatever that would be for you, that's one series of mental seeds—however long it took—of burning off anger that has not been replanted.
Replanted a little bit because it arose. But then you used it to burn it off that seed's planting too.
Slowly we get ahead of the anger even arising.
But it's not that we're not making progress because we still get anger.
We're not making progress when we get angry and we blame the other guy, and we keep blaming the other guy until we do an action. That's the ongoing ignorance that's perpetuating the wrong view, that perpetuates the anger.
So really, we can be working with our outer circumstances, yelling boss, yelling boss, yelling boss. Or we can be working with our inner circumstances, which is the tendency to yell, or the tendency to lie, or the tendency to be jealous, or the tendency… we can be working at that level.
Then eventually we're also going to be working at the level of the blaming.
The blaming them for whatever I'm feeling, and even blaming what I'm feeling on what I want to do now. All these different ways in which we're holding things‘ qualities to be in them at a more and more subtle level.
Let's take a break.
(Break)
(63:45) In the Lojong, you'll read it, he goes on and on about what it is to be Bodhisattva. It sounds like he's saying all those Bodhisattva, they take on pain for others, they put themselves in terrible situations. But keep in mind what we're talking about.
They know terrible situations happen, and they don't avoid them.
They march into them.
But they don't make them happen. They don't probably even wish for them to happen.
They're just not out there avoiding them the way non Bodhisattvas are avoiding things.
He uses the analogy of crows. Crows, I guess are arrogant little birds and they think they're pretty special and amazing. But they don't eat poison. Peacocks eat poison.
Then he brings up this thing about the henchman of the devil.
He's talking about being a Bodhisattva.
Then he goes,
Realize now that grasping for yourself
Is the henchman of the devil
And keeps you here in this vicious circle,
Helpless to help yourself.
Run now far from that state of mind
That only wants what's good for me,
That only wants what feels good,
And happily take on upon yourself
Any hardship for others' sake.
The mass of living beings are just like me:
Driven on against their will by karma,
Minds forever filled with negative thoughts.
Let me take now all their pain
And throw it down in heaps
Upon the head of the part of me
That wants only me to be happy.
Whenever I feel myself being carried
Away by what I want,
May I stop myself and give away
My own happiness to others.
Whenever those who‘ve pledged to help me
Instead do something very wrong,
May I say to myself, „It's because I failed
To keep my mind on goodness,“
And thus put my heart at ease.
Now he's getting into this sequence of karmic correlations.
I'm going to read just a couple of them.
Whenever my body is stricken
By unbearable sickness,
It is because the wheel of knives
Has turned on me again:
The karma of doing harm
To the bodies of other people.
From now on then I'll take upon
My own body all the sickness
That comes to anyone at all.
Now wait a minute, what's he talking about? I can't take on anybody else's sickness.
He's talking about Tonglen, isn't he?
Listen and see.
Whenever I feel any pain
Inside my own thoughts,
It‘s because the wheel of knives
Has turned on me again:
Beyond a doubt it's the karma
Of upsetting other people.
From now on then I'll take on myself
The hurt that others feel.
Whenever I find myself tormented
By feelings of thirst and hunger,
It's because the wheel of knives
Has turned on me again:
The karma of burdening others financially,
Of thieving, of stealing, of failing to share
From now on then I'll take on myself
The hunger and thirst of others.
There's like 19 or 20 different verses where he's describing situations that are probably common in his timeframe.
Maybe we don't ever get really hungry and really thirsty, because of our past goodness of feeding people all the time. But we do get hungry.
It's noon, it's time for lunch. I get cranky if I don't get lunch at noon.
It's just so much subtler that we don't say, oh, I'm suffering hunger and thirst.
But it's the same thing. It's the same karma.
Why do we get hungry a couple hours after eating? There's no reason that we need to ever be hungry, whether we eat or not technically.
He's pointing out all these different kinds of correlations and you'll see what he means.
The refrain, of course, is he's recognizing when this happens to me, it’s because I did this to another. He's just not doing directly, Oh, I made others hungry and thirsty.
He's saying, oh, I recognize I was stingy. I stole from people.
Is that automatic?
I go to the grocery store and I want this specific thing. I'm in this grocery store that's got every different kind of thing you could ever want but the thing I want.
What's up with that?
I go, what's the matter with this grocery store? It doesn't carry my brand of whatever it was I was after. Instead of thinking, doggone it, I must have stolen that thing from somebody. Not that thing. I must have stolen from somebody that I can't get what I want.
We may think, oh, I wasn't generous enough. Could also be true.
But do we go that far to say, Oh, I stole. No, I don't steal.
Maybe the dime back in the change days when the clerk had to count out change and she gave me a dime and I kept it. Come on, I burnt that off long ago.
We don't realize it's from stealing. Well, I didn't steal.
Well, if I can't find what I want, I did. This is the ripening of that.
Now, do I blame the grocery store?
No. I go, okay, can't find it. That's all right.
It's the shift: Instead of getting all upset about it, it's like, all right, I'll do without. That's all right. I'll get a substitute. That's all right.
It's our own inner state that these Lojongs help us change our responses.
At this part of the Lojong for all these different things that happened to him, he is recognizing this correlation, the direct one and the not so direct one.
But he's still finding the behavior pattern that he had to have been doing in order to have this response.
Then he comes up with, And I'm going to do this instead—as his antidote.
In these verses, he's giving a situation, a karmic cause, and then the karmic antidote to do. It comes out as a guideline for our behavior that we can use.
Back when this was first taught, Geshela gave them the assignment, go into the reading and pick out these situations, the karmic cause and the antidote, and make yourself a list, this threefold list.
Somebody did it and now it's in your reading, so you don't have to do it yourself.
But I would suggest that you look at the situation and the karmic cause he comes up with, and maybe even be willing to make some fine adjustments to that karmic cause for your own personal situation.
Then look at his antidote power and really think, what would that look like in my life? Get it more specific than what he's saying.
There's one of 'em, it's about migraine like dear to my heart. It says it came from not keeping my vows and pledges in the past. So what I have to do now is really meticulously keep my word when I say I'm going to do something for someone, especially my Lama, really do it. Keep my vows really well.
It's like, I do keep my vows. I don't write them every day six times a day, but I'm aware and I'm on my behavior and I'm checking and it's like I can't be any gooder than I already am.
This was my mindset. And every two weeks and then every 10 days and then every week and then every four days I was still having migraines, killer migraines that nothing helped. Just 24 hours of in bed in a dark room until it passed.
Then they gave me a medicine. And the medicine stops the pain. Doesn't stop the syndrome, but I don't have to be in bed in the dark. I can carry on, because this medicine works. Hallelujah. There's a medicine that works for migraine. Right?
Wrong.
My seeds finally changed.
I really did keep my vows and pledges better enough that I got some change. But not better enough that the whole syndrome has quit yet.
How much better enough is necessary? Whatever it takes for the headaches to quit. Does that leave me thinking, oh God, I'm just screwed.
No, no, I just keep plugging away at it. Keep them as well as I can and try to push myself to do better. Plant those seeds, understanding that those migraines aren't because I have vascular anomaly in my brain. It's because I didn't keep my vows well.
Who would figure that out? Thank you Mr. Lojong Dharma Rakshita for sharing that with us.
All of that, maybe there's one or two that you go, whoa, he's talking to me.
Then check into the karmic cause, means these are things I did to others—whether I remember it or not. Is there any way I'm doing that to others now?
Keep little squeeze on it, stop. What's the antidote you give?
Do I do that antidote behavior?
If so, rejoice like crazy that you already have been.
If maybe not so much, add it. Add it to your behavior repertoire.
Make it specific to you: where you'll use it and how you'll use it and plan it out.
Then, when you do actually do it, which you can do it even if you're not having trouble, right? So I don't wait until I have a migraine before I keep my vows. I keep the vows all the time.
If we're trying to overcome jealousy, you don't just wait until you're jealous to not act in the opposite. You act in the opposite all the time. Then when a situation that would've made you jealous comes up, you may be surprised to find after the fact, oh my gosh, I didn't get jealous. You see?
Once we understand what the antidote powers are to the problem we're having, you don't have to wait for the problem to apply it. Use it, live like that all the time.
Then that alone is affecting the seeds of the problem that not applying the antidote would allow to ripen.
Applying your antidote, you could say, is another way to keep those negative seeds from ripening. Which that is what the power of restraint and the power of the antidote in your four powers is all about, planting different seeds that interfere with the negative seeds so that they can't rip them.
In these karmic correlations, Master Dharma Rakshita is pointing out the difference between HOW things happen and the WHY things happen.
Your boss comes in and starts yelling at you when you expected them to praise you because you just finished a project and you did a really great job.
And then you think, oh, my boss must've had a really bad day that he's yelling at me instead of praising me.
We come up with all these different reasons why the boss is upset, because it's not because of me.
That explanation is our explanation of the how. Maybe it's right, conventionally, worldly.
But that's not the why. It's not the why they are yelling. It's not the why they had the bad day. It's not the why of the circumstance of what's going on.
We can explain until we're blue in the face, the how something happened.
But the why is always because I did something similar to somebody else in the past.
We spend a lot of time figuring out the HOW of things. Technically, spiritually it's a waste of time. Figure out the WHY.
Not in general terms. Oh yes, I yelled at my case.
But really specifically: why do I yell at people when they're not doing what I want them to do? Why yell? Why don't I pout? Why don't I cry? Why don't I jump up and down? Why don't I praise them?
We think what we do in the moment creates what comes next, and it doesn't.
So why not just be kind no matter what.
Because society will think you're a jerk and they'll take advantage of you.
You can't be kind all the time. You have to stand up for yourself or you'll get taken of.
Technically, only if you've taken advantage of other people that you perceived as weak before. And have we ever done that? Probably.
All of it, all of this, the first half of the Lojong is helping us learn to look at the WHY things happen instead of the HOW.
Get yourself shifted from HOW mode to WHY mode.
Then the why, it's always, I did something similar. You don't really even have to spend much time on it. Because from the WHY you shifted. Now what?
Because the NOW WHAT is what you plant that will become your future WHY things happen.
Gosh, why did I win the lottery?
Nobody says that.
Why is it another beautiful day in Arizona?
Nobody says that.
But it's worth looking at all the good things that happen and figuring out the whys for those because then we can make more.
Geshela reminded us that Je Tsongkapa, he taught us the list of the karmic correlations that I already referred to. He took the 10 non virtues and he said there are four different ways that a seed planted by way of any of those 10 non virtues will ripen.
One of the ways is that it ripens in such a way that we have the habit of doing it again. We'll enjoy repeating that behavior.
The second way it ripens is, it will push you to a lower realm. A rebirth in a lower realm.
The third way it will ripen is, eventually you do get another human life. In that human life, you'll experience other people treating yourself in that same way. So if in your human life you're having trouble with partnerships, romantic partnerships, business partnerships, team member partnerships, partnerships just don't go well. That's a karmic result from past sexual misconduct in the sense of interfering with others' relationships. That's what sexual misconduct really means. Somebody's in a committed relationship and you get in between it. That's going to ripen in a human world as can't sustain relationships.
And fourth, there's an environmental result. Our very environment around us, not just the weather and global warming. But whether we can get the things that we want at the grocery store, whether there's traffic, whether there's stinky garbage cans on your street. All of that outer, we call 'em worldly experiences, those are these environmental consequences, will reflect the seeds planted by way of those different 10 non virtues. We had that whole list. We had to write it on both our homework and our quiz. If you don't remember those, go back and dig them out. Teach 'em to somebody. If you have to teach 'em to somebody, you kind of learn 'em better. Use them, because it's really like having an encyclopedia in your mind of understanding the WHY versus the HOW.
This Lojong gives us a whole another page in your encyclopedia, it's more detailed.
Gesehela said you can actually use a combination of Je Tsongkapa list and this list to reconstruct your past lives, actually.
Which it's like an exercise that really isn't necessary. But what I found is that when I had a recurring theme in my life that I just couldn't understand, Why did this keep happening again and again and again? Because of a combination of things in retreat one time it was like, alright, I'm going to make up the seeds that I must have planted that are recurring in my life now.
So I made up this past life where I was the one that was doing all the stuff towards another that I was experiencing somebody doing to me. I was just making it up as I went along. But as I made it up and I went along with this character that I was creating, it took on a life of its own.
And that person and their behavior, the story of their life, explained things in my life way beyond where I started. It was fascinating, really.
Then I got to a point where the story sort of faded. It just stopped. It's not like I got to that past life's death, but I got to this place where, okay, that's enough. Then back in my this life, it was like, wow, I really was nasty like that. I've not been like that in this life except maybe here and here, but I know better now.
I really, really, really, I'm going to be really careful forever. I'm going to be really careful. And I'm going to do this, this, this, and this instead. It's a big four powers. When I got out of retreat, that recurring theme was just gone. Honestly. It was just gone. I don't even remember what it was, to be honest with you. That's how gone it is.
Then I thought, well, that's nuts. I just made that all up.
Few months later, I had a chance to actually get an appointment with Geshe Michael. I have this burning question I have to ask you. And I told him this story. I just made it up. And he said, you didn't make it up. That's all he said. You didn't make it up.
That verified to me that you can use this information to go back and really clean up stuff that you don't remember. But because it's happening now, it had to have happened. Make it clear, regret it like crazy. Apply your antidote and your power of restraint, and you can fix it. You can change it.
So I just share to be willing to try to explore and see what you can manage to do.
We're gaining the tools to apply to your own life, but you have to do it. Nobody can do it for you.
Nobody can say, oh, you had to have done this thing, and what's ripening is what you're experiencing. Because you can explain what's happening, but another person can't really understand it until they're omniscient.
So yeah, yeah, use somebody as a guide to help you to guide you.
But you got to do the work yourself, and then you have to do the power of restraint and the antinote.
But it is amazing how powerful these tools are if you let yourself do it, truly do it.
This big Lojong is instrumental in helping you.
(88:50)
Stevie: I was thinking when you were talking about the how you were making it up, making it up. I immediately got the image of the guy walking down the steps with the wheel of sharp weapons circling around his head, telling the hero his story.
Powerful. Thank you for sharing that example. It was very meaningful.
Luisa: I have a question because with these correlations, it sounds to me like there is an explanation. If you do this, you get this. If you do this, could you get this.
But when we have a problem and we ask teachers, I have this problem, and then it's always, what do you feel when you have the problem? What is the essence? And then for me might be A, and for someone else might be B, but outside is the same problem. Let's say back pain. But my essence is A, and the essence of the other person is B. So I get confused. How does it work? Is it something that is depending on each person's experience, or these correlations apply to everybody?
Lama Sarahni: When you read it, you'll see that the correlations are pretty broad. You can get the correlations and still have this specificity. But when you say, they say, how does it make you feel? In order to work with the deepest seed of a situation, I've found if you work with how you feel by being yelled at, you work with the yelling seeds at a much deeper level than at the just yelling back seeds.
Somebody can get yelled at and they're terrified.
Somebody else can get yelled at and they feel rejected.
If the rejected person works with where they are causing other people to feel rejected and stops doing it—even though it has nothing to do with yelling—the yelling that causes you feel to be rejected will stop. Because your seeds for being caused to be rejected are stopped. But see, just to say yelling to yelling wouldn't get us to that point of where am I rejecting others. Because we reject others without yelling at them, right?
That's where the doing the how do you feel, in my opinion, works better in figuring out the harm correlation for you personally.
This guideline is a good starting point, however, in terms of figuring out how is it that I make people feel rejected. Because maybe you can see in here there's some behavior that's contributing to yelling that makes you feel rejected. Maybe you can see how that goes together.
These are not saying is the only way yelling comes to us.
This is this guy's experience. It gives us more tool in our toolbox.
Rachana: How do the correlations work if I don't have the suffering myself, but I see other people suffering in various ways. Then how do I think about the correlations of, because I don't feel the suffering other than my heart is hurting for the other people suffering. So how does the correlation work? Like if somebody else is sick or somebody else is, whatever.
Lama Sarahni: So you're seeing somebody sick. You yourself are not sick. You're seeing somebody sick. In order to see somebody sick, if I understand correlations, we would have to say when I was sick, other people saw me sick. So I see sick people. That's how the actual experience would have to come about. It's like, well, how could you ever not do that? You go into hiding when you're sick? Maybe.
But it isn't that seeing sick people is in and of itself a bad thing.
Maybe you're a nurse, and you'd like to help sick people. So I want to see sick people. I want to see sick people get well.
It still is seeds ripening and there still are correlations. Like I did that towards others. You can cook it. I don't know. There must be a more subtle level.
(94:15)
You'll read the first part of your Lojong. Reading 9 goes through the first part. Reading 10 I think takes us into the part about the Lord of Death.
But there's this transition between the two where Dharma Rakshita, he's gone through all these karmic correlations, all the WHYs for what he has experienced throughout his life. Then he does this look deeper thing.
He goes deeper than the feeling though.
He goes deep into the WHY of the WHY.
Why was I willing to steal from somebody that is ripening now as my not being able to find the right kind of, I can't even find the right kind of flower.
Why did I steal that flower from that?
Well, because I had a need, and I thought they had more than enough.
Or I thought my need was more important than their need.
And I thought that by stealing it, I would have what I would need to take care of my family. I wasn't doing a bad deed, I was feeding my family.
It's like, oh, that's selfishness. Minding my family is more important than theirs.
But it's also the misunderstanding of where getting what I need comes from.
I steal the flower and I have it for my family, and I think having it for my family came from the stealing it, taking it, I would even say, borrowing it. I'm going to give it back to them someday. We've got it justified, because I get it and I have it for my family.
Is that where having the flower from my family really came from?
No. That's ignorance.
It took the selfishness: They have what I want. I need it from my family. I will take it. That's selfishness.
But the ignorance was, if I get it, I have it for my family.
Without ignorance, there would be no selfishness.
Any selfishness is born of ignorance.
There are these two, this henchman of the devil has these two aspects to it.
The self cherishing: my needs are more important than yours.
And the ignorance that from which that stems: things have some existence independent of being the result of my behavior. At this level, anything happening happening not as a result of my past behavior. To believe that is ignorance.
Anybody being something not ripening result of my past behavior.
That's what it means to be projection.
Anything, anybody that's not my projection is not possible.
But when we hear the word ‚nothing but projections‘, we automatically have an instinct that says, oh, they're projections. They're not real.
We're trying to grow the seeds for when we hear that word projection, even in our own mind, it makes things real.
Projections are more real than the taxi cab that breaks your leg if you stand in front of it. The worldly taxi cab that breaks your legs, can't break your legs, doesn't break your legs. It's your karmic ripening taxi cab breaking your legs that breaks your legs. Your projection breaks your legs, because your legs are projection.
It's really hard. Because the word.
But what other word can we use? Karma is ripening.
That helps. Oh, karma is ripening. Karma is ripening. Karma is ripening.
But then be careful to not beholding to karmas that are somebody else's.
My karma is ripening. Okay, maybe that's better.
My karma is ripening. My karma is ripening. My karma is ripening.
Leaves me thinking, oh yeah, stuff from before.
It doesn't give me that instant what I do now. I have to still impose that.
Somehow we're trying to pack some words that we can remind ourselves: this is happening because of some way I did similarly, and so this is what I want to do now. Or this is what I don't want to do now for sure. I want to do something different.
We want to roll that all into some thought that we can hold in the moment that we're being yelled at, not 20 minutes later, not the next day on your meditation cushion.
We want to kick it in as quickly as possible.
If we try that, and we can kick it in, it‘s because we had seeds from helping others make some big change. Yay.
If we try it and we just can't quite get it to work, it's just because the seeds from helping someone change aren't ripening.
What do we do to get them to ripen?
Think back. Have I ever helped somebody change in a big way?
Yeah, that way I'm going to rejoice.
If you have kids, kids are such great karmic objects. You've helped them in all these different ways that you need to become Buddha. We get to identify it and rejoice like crazy for things. But then that doesn't mean you don't also do those behaviors more for others as well.
We are just trying to grow this ability to respond differently off automatic pilot. That's what this Lojong is trying to get us to do.
He says, this henchman of the devil is twofold:
One, the grasping to oneself in the sense of justifying taking care of oneself ahead of caring for others.
And number two, not understanding the emptiness. Not understanding emptiness, they say, but it means the emptiness of subject, object and interaction between. Not understanding the lack of self existence.
We can't in fact stop our mental afflictions until we know emptiness. We know their emptiness, and the emptiness of the things that they seem to be triggered by.
Our intellectual understanding of emptiness will help us chip away at those mental afflictions. But it really does require perceiving emptiness directly in order to finally cut through the mental afflictions themselves.
Coming out of that experience, there are only three out of the 84,000 mental afflictions that are cut at that moment. So we still have a lot of work to do as brand new Aryas to overcome all the rest of those 83,997 mental afflictions.
But then we're on our way to doing it. We can't perpetuate them anymore, full on.
Geshela said to his class, I'm sorry, but I have cursed you with this Lojong. Once you've read your Lojong, done your homework, you know. You knew already.
This isn't a new curse.
You know that you can't blame anybody for anything.
You can't blame anything for anything.
All we can blame is our own past deeds for both the good and the bad. Which means that what we do now is what will bring about our future.
You want to do stuff that future you will blame you for?
Or do you want to do stuff that your future you will rejoice in you for?
That's a pretty simple criteria.
Will my future me like me for this one?
Your future you is not even going to know this you, necessarily. But just like we think, oh, Josephine, this is Josephine for later. Josephine wants to be nice to future me. That's not so hard.
We have the tools to fix our bad karma. We just need to do it.
Very, very important though to keep checking your mind when you say, Ohoh, this is all ripening of my past. This is all projections.
That you don't let yourself even subtly come to the conclusion: And so it's not real. And so it's not real.
Things are ripenings and they are very real, because things have always been ripening.
We think, oh, once I understand that the pen doesn't have any nature of its own, it's going to look different to me. But is it going to look any different?
No, because it's always been nothing but projections. It's our belief that's different.
Not the things, not the angry bosses.
(105:30) Everybody's saying, Good question. What question was it? Who said what?
Stevie: It was a question from Lian-Sang. She said, the fact that we always say my past seeds, we are still grasping to the self. And there is a me continuing.
Lama Sarahni: There is a me continuing. It's the subject side in every ripening. It's never the same two moments in a row.
But it's never not existent and it's never somebody else's subject side. Because somebody else, when we're seed planting, is the object.
You are always the subject.
The seed planted, always has a subject that is you. But not the same You.
But not a different buddy, just a different you different you.
Words fail, but we want to get it, what's that word? Crook it.
We want to really understand that this thing they call a mindstream is unique in that it never like, here's one and here's one. And they never do that.
But this mind stream is never the same two moments in a row.
Which one's the real one?
If that's scary, we don't get it.
If it's liberating, we're catching on.
So yeah, we have to use the words ‚my karma‘ to make sure that we're not thinking somebody else's karma can ripen on me, because we do think that. When the boss yells at me, we don't use the words, but it's like, oh, they're rotten karma making them yell at me.
No. My rotten karma making them yell at me, making them have a bad day.
They are great questions we should want to dig in.
(108:25) Geshela talked about all these different correlations. Not all of them, but a lot of them. I'm going to let you read it and do your homework from class 9, even though this is class 8.
Here's one of your homework questions. I think it's in the quiz as well.
I could be wrong, but it's a list of problems that we experience, problems that Master Dharma Rakshita talked about in his life.
Then the other column is the list of the WHY it happened to him. This is a matching. You're supposed to match the problem he had to the cause in this column.
But these two, they don't talk about the antidote.
The antidote is in your reading and you have a table.
I ask you to really look at the antidotes and then recognize. You'll recognize in this list of 19 or 20, Wow, that one happens to me a lot.
Find its WHY, find its antidote, and then fine tune them to yourself, to your own unique experience, and come up with an actual behavior antidote that you can figure out to apply in life, regardless of whether the circumstance is happening. So that you can change your seeds.
In that exercise of doing that, if you have questions, wonder, need guidance, we can talk about it as part of next class.
But really, focus in on this list of correlations, it's overwhelming at first, but especially pick the ones that seem like they're talking to you.
I think we've done what you need for your whole homework. Hooray for that.
[Usual closing]
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 14, officially class 10 on February 21st, 2022.
Let's gather our minds here as we do, please.
Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
[Usual opening]
(6:58) We are studying the Lojong TSUNCHA KORLO, which is the training and developing the Good Heart called the Wheel of Knives.
Geshela taught us what was meant by the Wheel of Knives.
At one level, this wicked weapon, this disc with knives sticking out of it, like a handle with a hole in it. So it's your handle, and then you throw the thing at your enemy and it just slices them to pieces.
Then the piece where it comes into a Lojong is like, well, you did that sometime ago, lifetimes ago maybe. Then you're standing around at a picnic one day and wroom, something comes and waxes you. Where did that come from?
It's that wicked weapon that you sent out. It went out beyond Xerxes and took three lifetimes to come back to get you.
And we don't know that. So we get this wicked thing that happens to us, we look around the park, who threw that at me? And we find somebody. Must've been them.
Then who knows what you do with that?
Depending on your state of mind if you go and beat them up or if you just call the police or what you do with that.
But, we blamed somebody. Even if there's nobody there to blame, we blame somebody. Somebody had to have thrown that weapon.
Somebody had to have…, whatever the situation is that I'm speaking about, that's popped up in your imagination.
Stuff happens to us, and there has to be somebody to blame for it.
Because that‘s where things come from.
It gets easier as we understand about Karma and emptiness, to stop blaming the brick for falling on your foot. We used to do that. That darn brick.
We can gather our wits about us and go, The brick didn't do that to me.
But when it's somebody who's hurting us, it's the same as the brick. But oh man, it's so much harder to say, No, no. That angry yelling boss is being so rude and so mean and it's unnecessary. It's coming from them. This unpleasant situation is coming from them and we justify it. Well, if they weren't there, they wouldn't be yelling at me.
If they weren't the boss, they wouldn't be yelling at me.
It's got to be them.
We have all those proofs for why we're justified in behaving the way our heart says to behave in that moment—whether it's yelling back, or lying to get out, of it or just continuing to blame the boss and so not liking the boss a little more not liking. And so a little more willing to interfere with their success.
This is from really gross to really subtle ways that when there's somebody who does something to us that we blame them for, that we somehow have to act in a way to protect ourselves and then also act in a way to justify our reaction.
Then of course, whatever that reaction is, it's thrown that dumb weapon again. Whether it's yelling back, or lying, or doing whatever to wiggle out of the situation, whatever we do has planted another boomerang round.
It's not just, oh, don't yell back. There's a whole lot of layers in that whole situation. But if our reaction were to yell back, and then we're starting to get the idea, oh, that's what's going to perpetuate the situation. We're going to grow our ability to at least not yell back.
But really any response we give to any situation has thrown another boomerang.
The better we're understanding this process, the more automatic it starts to be that the boomerang we want to throw is one that when it comes back to us, it will be pleasant.
Then at Lojong level, it'll be pleasant not just for me, but for everybody involved.
Not just for everybody involved, but eventually for happiness for every existing being.
It gets bigger and bigger.
In our Lojong, what we've studied so far was how Master Dharma Rakshita, because of this story about the wheel coming down from one guy to the next awoke in him this understanding of, Man, anything I've done in the past to anybody is going to come back to me somehow similar. There must be a way I can connect the dot here. Because then that will help me:
be less likely to blame the other
choose my response more wisely.
maybe even figure out from my habitual behavior what I can expect to come in the future. Then, if that's going to be stuff I don't like, is there a way I can work on it to modify it or even prevent it from coming back to me?
So the whole Lojong tip toes into these different ways of understanding the message so that we can get to the point where we know what to do in any given moment.
Not in the sense like here's the right behavior for that situation. Because there is no ultimately right or wrong behavior.
It’s this, what I do is going to come back to me.
With that, we do the best we can at any given moment.
As we plant those seeds of doing the best we can, our understanding of what the best we can in the future gets bigger, gets more subtle, gets more available, or our behavior changes.
It's this beautiful upward cycle. We just need to start somewhere.
That's what this Lojong gives us some help at where to start by giving us this list that you went through about these correlations. Which I don't know about you, but for me when I read those, it's like, How do you get that out of that one?
Someone wrote and said, I think mine is the one about not treating angels right.
Well, I don't even have initiation. I'm not even in the secret teachings. How can I work with that one?
All of them, we can do the onion skin thing. It's like, I don't quite understand the gist of what it's saying. But if I apply myself to understanding mantle seed behavior, I can approximate what this meaning might be, and try it on for size.
They can be useful in that way.
Am I saying they're all specific to that one guy?
Yes and no.
They're good clues for all of us. But those correlations are not self-existent either.
Keep that in mind as you're working with them.
Learn them or at least keep the list available so you can look at them. Because they can be really, really helpful once you catch onto this idea of what seeds would that behavior of the karmic cause, what does it look like in my behavior?
What seeds would it plant?
How would it affect the other person?
Because that's the seeds it's planting for how something's going to affect me.
It's not really the specific thing. It's how it's going to affect us that we want to be able to recognize.
(16:20) So the first part of the Lojong, Dharma Rakshita is recognizing all these correlations for him, for his life, and then he is starting to catch on.
It's like, well, why did I act like that?
Why did I yell at somebody in the first place that makes the yelling boss yell at me now?
He's going one step up, he's looking at the causes.
But now he's wondering, why in the world did I act like that?
And he's starting to recognize, oh, there's something in me that makes me do that.
He must get a glimpse of what that something is, because all of a sudden in the Lojong he starts talking about this monster like thing called the Lord of Death.
I'm going to redo the verse about it.
This Lord of Death, it gets a little confusing. Is he talking about this wicked looking demon as the enemy, or is he talking about this wicked looking demon as the hero?
Keep in mind it's the hero. Even though it's this wicked dangerous looking thing, whose name is the Lord of Death, Yamari.
Now I've seen a video on YouTube or something of somebody teaching this class, and they called this being Yamantika and that's a mistake.
Yamari and Yamantika are not the same. But just to make that clear.
Yamari is the word for the Lord of Death, the cutter of death.
Yama Ari, the killer of life (corrected), the Lord of Death.
The Lord of Death is death itself. That's a long story.
Yamari is the killer of life. So the Lord of Death.
So our hero is turning himself into this Lord of Death, and it seems a little funny. It's like, is he getting ready to kill himself?
No, he's not.
As he goes through the next part of the Lojong, he's using this image of Yamari as a way of explaining what he's realizing that he then is going to use against these deep, deep cause of the behavior that makes him throw that weapon in the first place. Before he was figuring out when the weapon hits, where did it come from?
Now he wants to know, Why did I throw it in the first place?
This Lord of Death, the features that he describes as himself having in the form of the Lord of Death are manifestations of the realizations that are coming to him that he will use to kill the demons that make him throw the weapon.
Are you with me? I find it a little bit confusing.
Here's the first verse of this part of the second half of the Lojong TSUNCHA KORLO.
He says, Since this is the way things are, meaning everything is that weapon coming back at me.
Since this is the way things are,
I‘ve finally realized
Just who my enemy is.
I've caught the thief who lay in wait
And deceived me with his trap.
He’s a masquerader, fooling others,
And fooling himself as well.
I see it now!
He is the habit I have
Of grasping to myself,
And of this there can be no doubt.
Now let's see the wheel of knives,
Of karma, cut his skull.
O Angel of Wrath,
Now cut his skull, cut thrice!
Stand like a God on widespread legs,
A knowledge of two truths;
Stare in hatred with two eyes
Of method, and of wisdom.
Open your jaws and show your fangs,
Four powers of confession,
Sink them deep into the flesh
Of this, my hated foe.
That doesn't sound so Bodhisattva-ish, does it?
We think Bodhisattva, oh, gentle teddy bear like person, got to be kind and sweet no matter what. Which towards others probably so.
But towards our own part of us that is the one that is always throwing the weapon, can you be a teddy bear and overcome that habit?
He's saying, No. Towards this demon, not Yamari, the demon of WHY I throw the weapon in the first place.
We need to talk about that.
(22:53) He has identified actually two demons, like two parts of this nature that he has recognized that makes him throw the weapon in the first place, every single time.
In Tibetan, these are RANG CHENDZIN and DAK DZIN.
RANG CHENZIN = self cherishing
DAK DZIN = is self grasping
The DAK DZIN spelling in the Tibetan is this DAK, which means it's a short A, and then the DZIN has a prenasal N. So when you put that all together, it comes out sounding like DANG DZIN, as if there's a G in there.
DAK = self
DZIN = to hold
But it's curious because RANG CHENZIN is the actual self cherishing. Meaning it's the state of mind that is concerned first with one's self.
Am I safe? Am I getting what I need? Am I upset? Am I right? Me?
This is the self cherishing that's so important that we react to things.
It's not pride.
We hear, oh, putting one self first. It sounds like pride.
It is pride. Self cherishing to a really, really big level is pride.
We all have a certain amount of pride. Some of us are more prideful than others, not based on our self cherishing, but on the qualities that we think we have that are so great.
Pride is more superficial.
But you get underneath and this deep constant perception of me and my world is what's happening to me—that concern, What's happening to me?
It's hard to even conceive. How could you be concerned about what's happening to other, if you're not concerned with what's happening to you? Like it has to be there and yeah, it believes it has to be there. It believes it has to be there in the way it's always been there, and that's why it's so strong. So strong that mostly we can't even recognize that we're doing it until we start to really look for it.
Then it's embarrassing to see how ubiquitous our self cherishing is.
Even in somebody who's really other oriented, like a new mom.
A mom of young kids, you're always thinking, we got that kid, your child. Appropriately so and it's great seeds.
Underneath though there's still this me.
There has to be, because it's coming out of seeds and it's always gone into seeds.
We're going to talk about it.
But we're just trying to get clear, these two enemies, that he has recognized are the cause for throwing the wheel in the first place.
If we can address that, we'll stop throwing wheels, knife laden wheels.
We don't stop throwing. We start throwing, I don't know, don‘t I?
We throw stuff that when it comes back, it will be great. Thanks. Great, thanks.
This first state of mind, the first side of the demon is our self cherishing.
We can call it selfishness, but it's at a very, very, very subtle level.
Then the second one is the DAK DZIN, which means self to hold.
Which is the belief that things and others, and experiences, and ourself have their identities, their natures, their characteristics in them.
The boss, that angry yelling boss—in him. He's just like that. He gets angry at the drop of a hat. Those are his qualities. His identity boss—in him. Mad at me boss—in him.
That also means there's a me in me that doesn't deserve to be yelled at—whether I did what they said I did or not. That inherent nature that we believe we have, they have, the brick has, the horse has, the pen has. That deep belief in things‘ coming at us.
Which of course, if things have their identities in them, the experiences have their identity in the experience, and in the one doing the experience to us, then of course we're going to act in a way that we think will make that experience stop.
Because we believe our action that we do in the moment is how we make the experience stop. You see?
So this self grasping, it does mean our own self grasping. But it's not limited to just that. It's the blame that anything or anybody that we experience is not a result of my own past behavior.
Anything, anybody.
Anything that happens moment by moment happening of that anything, we're holding a me to have its own inherent me, and them and that—all of it happening to me.
It takes wisdom, great wisdom to hold in mind: It seems like it's happening to me, but in fact all of it is being forced by my own past behaviors‘ results ripening now.
It's so cumbersome to explain.
When we have that understanding, not they, the yelling and the me here hearing the yelling—all of it ripening results happening, happening, happening, happening.
Which means that what I think I can do to make this unpleasant situation stop, I'm thinking that has some inherent nature to make the unpleasant situation stop. It doesn't, does it? Because it doesn't always work. We can prove that to ourselves easily.
So what's the point of doing anything?
Even doing nothing is doing something. It's still planting seeds.
At best don't do whatever your old inclination driven by self cherishing, self grasping me tells you to do. Whether it's yell back, or lie, or run away, whatever it is.
Instead, karma's ripening. What I do now is going to plant seeds for my future. What do I want to do?
Then choose to the best of your ability and awareness at that moment.
What that's going to be will be different in every situation. Knowing that what you do may or may not work to stop the situation.
So that when it does, Woo-hoo. When it doesn't, okay, respond again. Either the same way or choose another way.
Our wisdom growing means we're recognizing our RANG CHENDZINs and DAK DZINs state of mind wanting us to react in a certain way, and we are taking this Yamari creature and applying it to that impulse. So that we can instead do something different: Different, a little kinder. Not different worse.
Then of course dedicate it.
By making that shift: My old habit says, do this, I'm going to do that instead.
One less that situation is going to happen to you. Actually more than that, because however many moments of seeds you've planted while you're doing your new behavior is creating new circumstances that are not being yelled at, or not lying to get out of something. Which means somebody else is going to not yell at you to get you to stop doing something. Somebody else is not going to lie to you. Because you refuse to do so. You see?
(33:37) Luisa: I'm a bit confused. Who is Yamari then? Yamari is helping us or Yamari is the two elements?
Lama Sarahni: Yamari is you when you figured out this understanding about who my real enemy is. It's my self cherishing and my self grasping.
That wisdom turns our guy into this Yamari creature.
So Yamari is this ability to recognize, what's happening is a result of my own past deeds. Man, am I sorry. And then has the understanding enough to choose a different behavior, and plant those seeds with that wisdom of understanding why they're planting those new seeds. Not just because somebody said so. But because of karma and emptiness, I'm going to plant these seeds instead of those ones.
Maybe they're not the ultimately kind seeds you'd like to plant, but it's what you've got at the moment, and that's a great thing. Because it was not what your old demon was wanting you to do.
Now what do you suppose the demon's going to do in response to that? Argh.
That's why Yamari is so big and powerful and scary. We'll see. We'll get there.
(35:27) Let's look at this guy Yamari.
In that second verse, he says,
Stand like a God on widespread legs,
A knowledge of two truths;
Liang Sang: Sorry Lama. So we call this Yamari the Lord of Death because I'm confused here because I know you mentioned about there's a difference with Yamantika, but I think we also call Yamantika the Lord of Death.
Lama Sarahni: No, he's the slayer of the Lord of Death. Yamantika is the slayer of the Lord of death. Yamari is the Lord of Death. Yamari is the good guy. Why do we want to slay him? I don't want to get into that.
This Yamari is a good guy. He's you when these wisdoms, that I'm going to talk about in a minute, have come into your mind. So maybe we have the wisdoms today. So we're Yamari today, and tomorrow, Yuck. Our self cherishing, self grasping gets the better of us. We're not Yamari tomorrow. But then we can go, oh, no, regroup. Here's my wisdom. We have a class, and then for a day or two you're on it, and then it slides. Fortunately we have another class, which is partly why we have two classes a week, so that we can finally get ahead of ourselves.
This guy, if I could draw, I would draw you a picture. But as somebody who's artistic draws this creature who's like eight feet tall and four feet wide. Like a sumo wrestler, no, not like a sumo wrestler. Like, years ago when I was in college, I played volleyball, competitive volleyball. So I was in the gym oftentimes. And in the off season, the football players, we had a whole bunch of football players who were Samoan, they were on scholarship. Incredible athletes. Incredible athletes. They could do anything.
But you know how Samoans are built. They're massive. They're like tanks, and so agile and fast. But huge compared to me. I don't know why, but they took a liking to me somehow, and we'd play volleyball together.
Those guys, when they were on, they'd take that volleyball and they'd hit it so hard that it would flatten when it hit the floor. But they didn't have such great control and sometimes they would hit it and the thing would go bouncing up into the ceiling and it would fly around the raptors of the gym for what seemed like an hour, because it had so much power behind it.
I mean these guys were scary, and I don't know why, but they took a liking to me. And they were like my protectors. If anybody was starting to get upset on the court—not like I ever caused that—but they would surround me.
David and I are getting to know each other during this time, and they were just, You big guy. He's tall. You. It was really, really funny.
But now it's like, oh, those Samoans, they were Yamari. That's what they look like. Amazing, amazing fellows. My protectors, self-assigned protectors.
I didn't even know their names. They were sweet. Bless you, all of you, wherever you are.
(39:39) So here's our Yamari.
He stands on widespread legs, classically one leg bent, one leg stretched out.
Those two legs, they are the manifestation of your knowledge of the two truths.
We've studied the two truths, haven't we actually?
What are the two truths?
DEN NYI = The two truths
NYI = the number two
DEN = truth
We've learned them.
KUNDZOB DENPA = deceptive or false reality
DUNDAM DENPA = ultimate reality
DENPA = truth or reality, KUNDZOB means, Geshela says bogus. It means deceptive or lying or fake.
Like the magician, he pulls the quarter out from behind your ear. That's just fake. It was in his hand all along. But it sure seemed like he pulled the quarter out from behind your ear.
KUNDZOB DENPA, fake reality
DUNDAM DENPA, ultimate reality. We've studied it.
KUNDZOB DENPA, often translated as relative truth or relative reality, which then is explained as you can't know long if you don't know short, and you can't know good if you don't know bad. And those are true. There's no ultimately long thing or ultimately short thing. You have to know things by comparison.
But that's not what the KUNDZOB DENPA is referring to.
The deceptive reality is referring to our reality as we experience ourselves, and our others, and our experiences. The way we perceive them is as if their identities, their qualities, their causes are in them, coming from them.
That's deceptive because things appear to us to exist in that way, but in fact they don't exist in that way. They exist in a different way.
To understand deceptive reality for its deception does not mean to understand that there's no reality at all. It's to understand that the thinking things‘ as identities are in them coming at me is mistaken. Really, they are there by way of my projections, my ripening past behaviors‘ results making what's happening in the moment: the me, the yelling boss, the being yelled at, the feeling disrespected, feeling hurt, the response I want to do—all of it. We think it has its nature in it. But it doesn't.
It takes us years and years to go through all the different arguments for why it's true that to say they look like they have their identities in them, but they don't.
That they are there because of my seed's ripening, because we can understand that at so many different levels before we understand it deeply enough to transform our experience of this Sansaric world into one of Buddha us in Buddha paradise emanating. The only way that Buddha us in Buddha paradise emanating can come about is by way of seeds ripening, by way of the results of behaviors.
Right leg - the Wisdom of deceptive reality
These wisdoms, the wisdom of deceptive reality is one of your legs. Let's call it your right leg.
It's the wisdom of dependent origination. It's the wisdom of your appearing world. It's the wisdom that can be in our appearing world and know it‘s seeds ripening. It's a seeds ripening appearing world, not a self existent appearing world. That you know that for outer objects, outer objects that are conscious beings and your own self, and all your emotions, and all your mental afflictions, and all of it. Every moment of every experience being aware seeds ripening happening now and now and now and now. And so seeds planting happening now and now and now, which is where of course our power lies to make the changes that we want to make—not in the moment the way our behavior causes changes. But by shifting the seeds in our own minds so that our future nows can bring about different experiences. Well, they're always bringing about different experiences, but different qualities of experiences, more and more pleasant, more and more pleasurable state of mind towards those ripenings happening.
Right leg, the wisdom of dependent origination understood at the highest level.
Left leg - the wisdom of ultimate reality
DUNDAM DENPA means the fact that nothing is not your projection.
We want to say, oh DUNDAM DENPA, ultimate reality is the emptiness of all existing things. And that's true. But what emptiness means is the fact that nothing is not your projection.
It's a big difference because we could say, oh, emptiness, I understand emptiness, the lack of self existence of all things. And we'll be thinking that it's a thing that is ultimate reality, when in fact it's an absence of something that we thought was there that actually was never there at all. But this absence, this sheer absence, which you can't have a sheer absence of something without having the presence of something.
That's why describing this ultimate reality with the double negatives helps us understand it better so that we don't make the mistake of thinking that emptiness is itself a self existent thing.
It's a very subtle state of mind, but important to try to work out the double negative.
It must be crazy for you guys whose English is not your first language to go working with double negatives. Then they just get keep adding on negatives as you work more and more subtly and it just drives me nuts, and all I speak is English. But work with it. Try to work with it. Watching your mind.
Emptiness of the pen versus the fact that it's nothing, not my projection. Because we thought it was right. That's why it's important. We think things are not our projections and we want to show ourselves that that's not possible.
Emptiness is the fact that nothing is not that. Nothing is not our projection, nothing is self existent. But see, it doesn't get the right connotation. Nothing is not our projection.
Everything is our projection, that's dependent origination.
Nothing exists in any other way than that, that's ultimate reality.
As we're talking about emptiness, every time we do, ultimate reality, we are perceiving ultimate reality, but in a conceptual way. We are having the projection, me conceptualizing emptiness, the ultimate reality, as I'm hearing those words.
That's powerful good seed, so we rejoice about that. But experiencing ultimate reality directly, you'd have to say, That projection is the one that influences all of our mind seeds that make us up at that moment in such a way that we finally cut the belief in things‘ identities in them. We are cutting at that belief every time we get another understanding of what something means to be dependent,origination, appearing nature and nothing but projections. Projections and nothing. but. We are chipping away at our belief. But to finally cut it requires that direct perception that when you come out of it, that belief is gone, just plain gone.
There's only three mental afflictions that are just plain gone, but that's one of 'em and it's a powerful one that's gone.
Then you work on what you now know to be true even though everything looks exactly the same. So the feeling that things are self existent comes right back after the direct perception of emptiness. But you know it's not true. Which is why they say, okay, once Arya, you are aware of the illusion, aware of the illusion. Meaning now you're aware that things seem to be coming at me with their identity in them, but I know it's not correct. I know it's not correct. It looks like water is out in the desert, but I know it's a mirage—like that.
So your other leg, when that wisdom grows, even the one that's not quite the direct perception of emptiness grows into the second leg of your Yamari you.
It's the other piece of, oh, now I know everything's projections, because I understand that nothing has any nature of its own. Those two go hand in hand. So you don't really get one leg and then the other except maybe for a 20 minute period of time. But once you have one leg, you will have the other, because those two go hand in hand.
When we know nothing has any nature of its own, we know everything is coming from me.
When we know everything is coming from me, it has to be that nothing comes from itself.
Those two come together and they are the foundation of this wisdom you Yamari. It's the foundation for overcoming our self cherishing and our self grasping. Because our self grasping is me and you and that all have their natures in them. And now we know that's not true.
Although we still have that feeling in response to everything, we know we're wrong because we've got these two strong Samoan legs grounding us in this growing wisdom.
(53:14) Okay, so he's describing his new self.
I have these two legs of the two truths, knowledge of the two truths.
I stare in hatred with two eyes.
So this creature has these two great big eyes. They're bloodshot, they're open so wide, you can see the whites all around 'em, and he's got these bristly eyebrows and probably has a third eye, but they don't talk about it here.
These two eyes, he says, I stare with two eyes of method and wisdom.
Method and wisdom.
We've studied method and wisdom too - TAB and SHE, which they put together into TAP SHE.
TAB SHE = method and wisdom
Method, when we talk about method, it specifically is referring to the behaviors we train ourselves in in doing the first four of the six Bodhisattva perfections. So we're talking Bodhichitta, developing our Bodhichitta, which means we're talking about Bodhisattva behavior, and there are the six perfection that are the behaviors that a Bodhisattva trains themselves in to become Buddha for everybody's benefit.
We know them:
The perfection of giving: not just material things
The perfection of living ethically: refusing to harm others in gross and subtle ways
The perfection of not getting angry: starts with not responding in the same old way to anger and slowly, slowly working out that you don't even get angry anymore. Not even irritated, not even frustrated, not even... And then
Joyous effort: the having fun doing those other three behaviors, the enjoyment factor in our Bodhisattva deeds
All of that is activity related. Things that we do. It is think and say as well, but they're directed towards other, they are behavior changes and those, the method side plants the seeds in our mind that when those seeds ripen, ripen into our form body of our Buddha, the body of life, paradise body and emanation.
The causes of our paradise body and emanations is our method side, six perfections.
Now, in order for an act of giving to be a Bodhisattva act of giving, it's done with the wisdom side. So we practice giving with our intellectual understanding of emptiness and karma, and that makes those acts of giving grow our goodness such that our understanding of emptiness and karma can grow deeper and eventually will bring us to the direct perception of emptiness, which now means to think karma and emptiness.
When we do our giving, we are in fact doing our act of giving with wisdom, which is really what makes it the seed planting for our Buddha body.
But even before then, we're still planting seeds for our Buddha body with our method side, because those seeds are first going to bring us to the direct perception and then we'll already have the habits of doing those behaviors. Do you see?
So, you can say yes, you're already doing your acts of giving with enough wisdom that you're taking yourself to Buddhahood with them.
Method side is those first four of the six perfections.
One of your eyes is a manifestation of your understanding of your method side, your task at doing those particular deeds in order to reach your Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient Beings. You can call that your right eye.
Your left eye then is the manifestation of the wisdom that's growing from your wisdom side.
Wisdom side is the last two perfections
+ 6 Meditation: which does mean meditative concentration so that we can see emptiness directly. But also means the state of mind that's getting habituated to living according to the four, method side.
That all leads to the direct perception of emptiness, which now our mind is imbued with the wisdom side.
Bodhisattva activities 5 +6 create the seeds for our wisdom that creates the seeds for your mind of your Buddha you, your omniscience, and your awareness of emptiness directly always.
The two eyes of your Yamari self, this powerful wisdom being looking terrifying, I'm going to tell you why soon, has these two legs of what? Understanding the two realities.
The two eyes of what? Method and wisdom, TAP and SHE.
He has, you have four fangs, two on top and two on the bottom.
It says,
Open your jaws and show your fangs,
Four powers of confession,
Sink them deep within the flesh
Of this, my hated foe.
These four fangs represent your four powers of purification.
It's a vivid image. You use your four powers of purification, and you can bite into that demon of your self cherishing and self grasping, and rip it to shreds.
So, we have our understanding of the two truths.
We have our eyes that represent our method side and wisdom side.
We have our four fangs that represent our four powers of purification, meaning we've used them, we continue to use them and we use them at different levels.
We first start at working on our mental afflictions.
Go for your worst one first, or go for the easiest one first, whatever.
Work on it, work on it, work on it until those situations aren't happening anymore.
Then you get a little more subtle at what you work on with your four powers of purification and you’re planting your seeds with the four steps.
We have this tool that we work on it.
At this level, he's talking about working on the level of our self cherishing and our self grasping.
Self-cherishing is the me, me, me.
Self grasping is my identity in me, your identity in you, the yelling boss, all of it. Identity in it, not just oneself.
The self cherishing me, me, me is a result of the: I'm me. I deserve this. They are them. They are doing that to me. I don't like it.
Those two together, it's happening moment by moment, by moment by moment. They're causing all these other mental afflictions.
So yeah, we can work on all these mental afflictions, or go for the jugular of your self grasping, self cherishing and all the rest of those mental afflictions have nothing to come out of. Nothing to stand on.
If it were that easy to just go for the jugular of our self cherishing, self grasping, we would all do it. The fact that we have these other layers of mental afflictions are manifestations of the fact that we can't get in there quite yet.
We have to work on the outer layers until we have sufficient goodness that our wisdom can ripen, so that we can really get in there at this level.
This guy who's teaching us this Lojong, he got there. Somehow he got there and that's how this Yamari creature has appeared to him. He himself, a part of him has transformed into this Yamari, and he's looking in—not inside Yamari, but inside himself—and gets that in an image. His old self is over there. He is Yamari here. The old self, I'm after you, because you are my self cherishing and my self grasping. Your days are numbered.
We have these tools and he's pointing out how all the stuff that we've been studying in your ACI, your DCI comes together into this way of life in which every moment of our day is an opportunity to be burning off and planting new.
The end of the day, you Yay on the ones I did well, regret on the ones I did not so well. Tomorrow I'll do it again.
Not: Oh man, I'm never going to get there.
Just, yeah, I made progress today. I'll try again tomorrow. That's what tomorrows are for.
Let's take a break and get refreshed there.
(Break)
(64:41) There's a question on your homework. It says,
How do you think a real fierce tantric angel, say the one called Yamari or the Lord of Death himself, would differ in nature from this symbolic monster?
So this guy, I didn't tell you he has got a chop knife in his hand, in his right hand.
He's got something else in his left (one). Eyes, these great big legs, he‘s got other stuff that we're not going to go into.
What we've said is the manifestation of your two realities, your method and wisdom. There's other things as well. Your four powers of purification.
Are we thinking, oh, that's just a metaphor?
Or are we describing somebody looking like that?
When we have those realizations manifesting, is that what we're going to look like? And it's like, Ew, gads, do I want to look like that.
Here's the thing, they say, It is not metaphorical that your wisdoms take form, not flesh and blood form, but light body form that looks solid to others probably. But is a manifestation of these wisdoms. Like Buddha with his 84 minor marks. Major marks and minor marks. It's not that there's a being and he just happens to have a bump on his head. Like I just happen to have gray hair.
It's that certain wisdoms, certain characteristics, certain ways of being make that body in the way it is. It's a reflection of the winds and channels.
Stevie: I think sometimes maybe the question is, did we want to look like this? We didn't want to look like this either. So why would we look like that when the time comes to call into, because the body is just a result of our past actions.
Lama Sarahni: Exactly. That is exactly true. And that's because the body is formed around the channels that the winds that the mind moves on. The movement of the mind and what it motivates is karma. So karma is what makes the framework upon which even our physical body is made.
As a light being those channels that are at that point pure and full of wisdom, love. The light being forms by those as well, not sort of around it but rather from it, radiating from it. In a paradise world they look like that for the one we call Shakyamuni Buddha. They look like those different marks. It's not that there's a being who has those marks. That's what that form looks like, because that's what that goodness forms into. I don't know, that's not coming across maybe.
Yamari, the answer to the question is no, no, he is.
We will look like that when we have those realizations.
Then, what will be the response of your selfishness and ignorance when it sees that creature you, that looks so powerful and so threatening?
They're going to run away scared. Because that being Yamari—which is your perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom—the ignorance that is my selfishness and self cherishing, sees that love, that compassion and that wisdom and that looks threatening to it. Because ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom is the end of our self cherishing. It's the enemy of our self cherishing. So it looks ugly, it looks scary.
So our answer would be, as long as there's still a self cherishing me in there, then even if my wisdoms have grown into showing this Yamari, my ignorant me sees it as ugly.
Stevie: That's why death looks so frightening and that's why Buddha looks so peaceful, and only we think that we should look like this. This is beautiful. That thin and boobs and great hair and all that is beautiful. Where did that come from?
Lama Sarahni: But isn't to say that, oh, okay, so none of it exists at all. That boobs and fine hair are not beautiful. Of course they are for some people, and they'll be the result of some exquisite not getting angry, patience. If that's beauty for you, that's how it will come out.
So this scary looking thing is only scary looking because we still have self cherishing and self grasping. When we don't have self cherishing, self grasping, they'll be the two eyes, they'll be the strong legs, but it will be beautiful, and our mind goes, oh, I'll see the same thing, but now I'll think it's beautiful. No! I won't see the same thing at all because my mind is different.
Is this metaphorical? No.
There are and will be beings that look like that when we are getting close enough to the wisdom that threatens our self cherishing and self grasping.
Then we won't need it anymore, when self cherishing, self grasping are gone. Which is a long story because they actually aren't in existence at all. But our belief in them is. When it's gone, that you, because it's emptiness, what's it going to look like?
You have to say, According to whom?
According to who's looking. To you, to others, to the beings you're emanating to?
You don't need to pin yourself down.
It will be what others need.
It will be for you, whatever you experience, and it will bring great pleasure, continually, void bliss.
Alright, I don't want to spend so much more time on that. We've spent almost all of class and we're only on question three.
He says,
Smash, smash this skull of this enemy who's wasted my life.
I'm not reading you all the verses. You're going to get 'em yourself.
Fetch him, bring him,
Lord of Anger, Lord of Death;
Strike, strike now,
Strike this highest foe in his heart;
It's funny, he's like outside this picture, he's talking to the Yamari, the scary hero, and he's talking about his self cherishing, his self grasping.
He's saying to Yamari, Hey, take this guy out. He's coaching the whole situation as if he's outside of it. But get the idea that it's this wisdom-ignorance thing going on here, and he's stepped outside of it. He's like watching the wrestling match on TV. Yeah, go. You get it, go get him, get him. Like that.
Yeah, like the angel devil debate. Only this one's really duking it up.
Fetch him, bring him,
Lord of Anger, Lord of Death;
Strike, strike now,
Strike this highest foe in his heart;
With the roar of hell
Smash now the skull
Of my misperceptions,
The ones who have wasted my life;
Bring your death
To the heart of this butcher,
My greatest enemy.
He is going to use this refrain with the roar of hell.
Smash now the skull of my misperceptions, the ones who have wasted my life.
Bring your death to the heart of this butcher. My greatest enemy.
Again, it's the self cherishing and self grasping, that's the enemy, that's the butcher, that's the bad guy. And this big scary creature is the good guy, only looking scary to the bad guy.
(76:24) He then goes on to say,…
Actually he goes through a number of verses where he's saying to Yamari, this is how this guy has behaved in the past. It gives a whole nother set of insights into how our ignorance makes us behave in different situations.
It's really interesting. It's interesting to compare what situation is he talking about and is that how I would act? To just check. It's these different opportunities to look at how we are planting seeds that are a little more involved than the list of correlations, gives you more tools to go through these carefully.
Each time he identifies one, he does this refrain: Take out the skull, take care of this demon.
Many pages, sorry I'm not finding what I wanted to read, but he turns the idea of the wheel of knives, LE KYI KORLO. He says, now I'm going to take this wheel of knives and I'm going to use it as a wheel of karma.
LE = karma
LE KYI KORLO, now this is the wheel of karma.
Whereas before we were calling it the wheel of knives.
When we're ignorant, it's the wheel of knives.
Ignorance means we don't even know we throw this stupid thing, and it's come back to hit us. So we don't know that what's happening to us now is a result of something we did before.
When we understand, ah, anything that's happening to me now is a result of what I did before. Now we can use that as the wheel of karma. Meaning now instead of reacting in the same old way, I'm going to choose my action.
The wheel of karma is saying, if we respond instead of react, we can create experiences that will be pleasant when they come back to us.
Instead of just seemingly random stuff, we can be more in charge.
Again, it's not that, oh, now I can plant the seed and what I do now comes back to me next. It's not that.
But we understand the system well enough that we know whatever we've planted has created a change that will appear in our future at some point.
LE, karma, means movement of the mind and what it motivates. Remember.
Now, the wheel of movement of the mind and what it motivates.
What that means is the wheel of what I think, do and say.
What I think, do, and say moment to moment is planting seeds.
Those seeds, when they bring about their result, will be my experience—is my experience from before, is now.
That means what I think, say, and do then will plant the seeds for what will be what I experience in the future.
Every experience now is a result of some past thought, speech, mind.
And what I do now—thought, speech, mind—is the cause of what will come sometime in the future.
Where's the power there?
In our now, in what we're thinking, doing, saying now, now, now, now.
So we have a careful handle on our responding.
It doesn't really matter so much, we don't have to worry about what's coming in the future. We have clear, we know what kind of behavior will make acceptable results.
Then our task is simply behavior now, now, now, now.
Then it gets fine tuned so that if we want an even better future result from a nicer, nicer human world to Buddha paradise for everybody. We just keep up the same system, and all the way to Buddhahood and beyond, your infinity and beyond, to Buddhahood and beyond, because we don't stop once we're Buddha.
Once we reach Buddha me and Buddha paradise, now our career finally starts.
Up until then we were in training.
Becoming Buddha and then being Buddha, the system is the same: projections, planting, projections, planting. For a fully awakened being it's all directly experienced.
Up until that there's ripenings, plantings, ripenings, plantings.
But the process is no different.
The more and more kind, sweet, beautiful our world becomes, the process is still the same. Plantings, ripening, plantings, ripening, plantings, plantings, plantings.
So, wheel of knives becoming wheel of karma puts us into the power of right now, of what we do, what we see, what we think, and our response to that—instead of reacting to that. Sounds easy. It's not, because reacting happens so quickly.
So we use the tools—four powers, four steps, the understandings, the study, the contemplation—to work it out.
All of that doesn't work from its own side, but it works by way of the seed planting, so that our goodness grows so that it does work. Because working is a pleasant result. Gives us the power.
(84:42) Sevonne: If my mind in any moment is the ripening result of the forced ripening of previous, then where is my power right now?
Lama Sarahni: In the ripening of having a choice to behave differently. Which means we need to give other people choices to behave differently, don't we? Opportunity to behave differently, encourage them to behave differently. That's scary if you're a parent of a teen. But understanding, helping people understand how to choose their behavior. Which points out why becoming an ultimately happy being—which is what we mean by Buddha—requires other people. Because it even requires other beings to have the ability to make the choice behavior difference, to be able to make the difference. There has to be others. There has to be other for this existence to be what it is. Not because there's self-existent other, but because of the way existence works, the way it happens, it has to.
(86:33) These enemies—self-existent me and my belief in the self nature of everything and everybody—these are these big enemies that are causing me all my pain and all my wrong behavior, and all my misunderstanding.
And they don't exist at all. Isn't that frustrating?
They don't have any nature of their own. Meaning they are ripening, part of the ripening, aren't they?
So when I say they don't exist at all, they don't exist at all, but they don't not exist. It‘s so slippery. They don't exist in the way that we think. Because we are thinking these are the big enemy, and we're thinking they're in them. They're coming from their side. There's something about me that's just bad from the get-go. And that's not true.
It's the ignorance itself, our self grasping ignorance is nothing but projection, and that means it'll stop. Someday we'll stop replanting seeds with ignorance.
If our self-existent self cherishing me had its own nature, we could never change it. We would just be stuck. If it had its own nature, we could never change.
And that's ridiculous because we do change. So the fact that we change day by day by day proves to us that our belief in self existence can't be self-existent, can't be there from its own side.
But it doesn't mean it's not there at all. It is there, and it's very real. It's a belief, not a thing. Now, a belief is a thing, it's a belief. But a belief, it has no substantiality to it. It's simply a belief.
If you believed in Santa Claus at one day, and one day your big brother said that Santa Claus was always Uncle Charlie, and I don't know why, but all of a sudden when you're six, you believe brother, whereas before you never did. And then the belief in Santa Claus is just gone.
How wonderful it will be when our belief in his self existent me and other it's just gone like that, just gone. May it happen to each of you tomorrow, or tonight even better.
We're that close, truly.
It seems so far away, but it's changing like this.
That belief could be gone.
I'll be the big brother. I'm telling you, your ignorance is not self existent. It was Uncle Charlie all along. So just ditch it. How do you know you've just ditched it?
You won't blame anything or anybody for anything.
That's hard to even conceive, isn't it?
I think my bed is in my room and when I lay down on it, I think my bed is soft and nice and warm and I like it. I don't go, oh wow, great projection. Thanks so much, Josephine.
But I would, if I had this understanding, if my self existence belief, my ignorance was gone. Someday it will be for all of us.
Why are we talking about that?
It's like, okay, we see so much suffering in the world and I'm just one little puny me.
How can I do anything to help that situation in Ukraine right now?
It's on my mind. It's like I'm too far away. I don't even really know what's going on there. What do I do?
This Lojong, it'll give this clue. It says, what we do when we understand this picture about karmic seeds and nothing but, the tool that we have at our disposal always is Tonglen. That practice of just imagining we can take away suffering and use it to destroy our own ignorance, and just imagining that we can take wisdom, love and happiness and pour it into people.
Those imaginings are planting seeds.
It takes a high level of Bodhichitta to even consider doing Tonglen, let alone learn how to do it, let alone have it be your default mode of interaction with the bus driver, with the Ukraine, with your aunt with cancer, with your yelling teenager, with anything. The default mode being Tonglen.
I came across this in my notes and it's like, oh dear. I think we need to change our schedule from doing the six flavors together in May to doing Tonglen, the Tonglen course. So we'll do the Tonglen course the next one coming up, whenever that is, end of April into May, because we need to learn.
We already learned what you Tonglen: the three poisons out of the minds of other beings.
Tonglen works because of the seeds it plants. It doesn't work by sending stuff on your breath.
But it works by way of the seeds planted in your mind and it works very quickly if you're doing it on your breath because you breathe all the time.
You're making the seeds for something that you want to have on your mind all the time. Tonglen is it. It's an extraordinary practice. It really, really is. So we’ll learn it soon.
(93:45) So he says, you want to really overcome this self cherishing, self grasping? Tonglen it from others, Tonglen others.
It's like, well then I'm not even fighting my own demon.
Yes we are.
If we think others have ignorance and selfishness, who's that coming from?
I don't know, really, directly, whether anybody's selfish or not. But they slammed the door in my face. They're selfish.
Do you see why Tonglen-ing theirs takes our own?
Because to see theirs is ours.
But it's a little bit hard to lay that on ourselves, on our shoulders when we're already beating ourselves up for not being nice enough. Yeah, yeah. I see it in them. I'm going to be willing to suck it in and destroy my own seeds with it.
We'll learn how to do it.
Remember this whole Lojong has been about how do we develop Bodhichitta?
One of the ways to develop Bodhichitta is exchanging self and others, and the method of exchanging self and others is to do Tonglen.
So duh, this whole thing would bring us around to Tonglen practice.
Quite extraordinary.
Geshela says there's a technical detail we need to know, and that is the difference between making karma and the two collections, what are called the two collections: married and wisdom. I need to teach it.
(96:14) TSOK NYI = the two collections.
The two collections means the two of method and wisdom.
Method means the first four perfections mainly, wisdom means the last two.
But they use this term TSOK NYI—the collection of the two collections—to distinguish between the way a fully enlightened beings‘ mind imprints, and the way non fully enlightened beings‘ mind imprint. The system is the same.
The imprint made by what's perceived perpetually. Then, when we collect, when we are creating karma, it's as we say, you see yourself doing something, the seed is imprinted in our mind. It takes a little while before it gets solid enough to stay there. And then it transfers its power from moment to moment. It's influenced by everything else we think, say and do and see until its power crosses some kind of threshold. I don't quite understand this yet.
Then that crossing the threshold ripens it, we call it ripening, into its experience.
What's planted included everything at that moment. So what ripens includes everything about that ripening in that moment.
So for us, that's what we mean by karma: Karma planted karma, ripening, et cetera.
When a fully enlightened mind is in this process, or we're creating the seeds for that fully enlightened mind, we call it the collection of the two collections.
Which is distinguishing between a Buddha does not make karma. We've heard that teaching, probably. Buddhas don't make karma, and we think, oh, well then they're not doing this seed planting thing anymore.
But the reason they say that is because the term karma implies in it the belief in self existence, and a Buddha mind, even once you're at a certain level on your Bodhisattva bhumis, you don't have that mistake anymore.
At that point, the same process is called collecting merit. Collecting merit. Because you are still doing giving, moral discipline, not getting angry, you're still interacting with an appearing reality and you're still planting seeds. But your awareness of it all seed ripening, seed planting, is included in the seed.
Then as fully enlightened being, your full on wisdom is included in all those seeds, and that's what makes it as omniscience, which is the direct perception of emptiness, independent origination of all times of all beings simultaneously.
The two collections are this collection of merit—which is your method side—, collections done with wisdom, and your collection of wisdom done with wisdom. Those two together are making seeds for both your form body Buddha and your mental body Buddha, so that those ripen into your paradise, your emanations, omniscient mind and the dharmakaya, which is the emptiness of all of those.
They're called the collection of the two collections.
When we do our dedication at the end of class, that's what we're talking about.
We're taking the goodness of what we did and we're giving it to other beings with the wish that by that power they can collect the two collections.
That means we're wishing for them that they get to that level of wisdom in which they're giving, moral discipline, not getting angry is done imbued with their understanding of emptiness.
We're just asking them to skip grades and go right to Bodhisattva bhumi 9, 10.
By the power of our goodness, may they do that.
It's a beautiful dedication.
Like I'm going to take all my goodness and give it to them so that they can be on Bhumi 8, 9, 10. It's nice.
(101:41) Luisa: Sorry Lama Sarahni, I didn’t get that. So the two collections are merit and wisdom. And Merit is method?
Lama Sarahni: Merit is method, correct. And wisdom is wisdom.
Luisa: But then what is the two collections of the two collections?
Lama Sarahni: The collection of the two collections is doing both of those. As you do anything, your wisdom is present, and so everything you do is your method site.
Luisa: Okay, thank you.
(102:40) He goes on to say, he's bringing all of this to a conclusion.
He's starting into a dedication of sorts.
He says,
And for whatever time remains
In the days before myself
And those who are my parents
Have reached our enlightenment
In the Heaven Below No Other,
May all of us as we wander together,
Driven by karma through six worlds,
Love and cherish one another,
Love and cherish each other as one.
So he's praying that everybody catches on.
But he's also saying to himself and others, may I keep this up until I reach my full enlightenment.
He's pointing out that the conclusion that we draw from understanding this karma and emptiness so clearly is love, love and cherishing others.
Because understanding seed planting makes us want to do things that will help others be happy. And that's what love is.
Love is: I want you to be happy.
That would be a great discussion to have, is like what do we mean by love in our worldly way? We really don't, I personally have a whole different criteria for love than I want you to be happy. Fortunately that's in there.
But according to this tradition, love is that feeling of the mother for her small child.
I just want you to be happy. Any way, every way, happy.
We've been taught, these are the behaviors to do.
If we really had this wisdom, we wouldn't have to be taught.
We would just do stuff out of our love for others, we would do stuff out of our cherishing them, because of their emptiness.
We want to see them as fully enlightened beings. So we take care of them. We help them, we teach them.
If we really had that state of mind, our concern for am I doing the right behavior?
Just let me care for them.
It would be so beautiful.
He says,
And in those days as well may I find
The strength to dwell alone
Within the three realms of misery
If this would be of service
To a single other being.
May I find the strength
To never give up
This bodhisattva behavior.
May I draw into my being
The suffering that all those feel
In the three lower realms of pain.
And in the very moment after
I arrive in the realms of hell,
May the hell guards look upon me
And see their holy Lama;
May the rain of weapons they release upon me
Turn to a shower of blooms before they land;
May I stand untouched,
May peace and bliss then
Spread throughout my heart.
We've talked about before that rumor that Bodhisattvas want to stay behind in Sansara to bring others to enlightenment.
Geshela says, no way. That is misunderstood. Bodhisattvas are hell bent on reaching their omniscient perfect love, perfect compassion state because that's what it takes to know how to help anybody in that deep and ultimate way.
But wait a minute here, this guy is saying,
May I go to the lower realms to help beings
Can a high level Bodhisattva go to a hell realm to help beings?
Yes, no. Yes, no, yes, no.
We'd have to say what hell realm and whose hell realm are we talking about?
A high level Bodhisattva doesn't have seeds for a hell realm anymore. So even if they wanted to go, even if they got on a ladder and down they went all the way to where the hell realms are supposed to be, they wouldn't see a hell realm. Would they? Remember the Lama on his deathbed, I'm praying to go to hell to help every being there. It's not working. I can't go. All I'd see around me is the paradise of a Buddha.
Does that mean there's no such thing as hell realms?
No.
So if there is such a thing as hell realms, how can a Bodhisattva in their great wish and compassion can't go there?
They don't have the seeds to see it that way.
Can I go to somebody else's hell round?
No.
Are two hell realm beings in the same hell realm, even if they're fighting each other?
No. One's ripening their hell realm, the other's ripening their hell realm, and they're both ripening fighting with each other.
That's no different than what we are doing.
No, no. We're all humans on planet earth. Yes and no.
I am this human on this planet earth with all of you with me, and Mr. Kung is on his planet earth in his world with all of us with him.
Are ‚all of us‘ for me the same as ‚all of us‘ for him?
There's nobody else. But each one is unique to each one of us, and that's what makes our me and my world for each of us.
Well then why are we all on earth in the human realm?
Because we all have those similar seeds ripening. What we call this as a dry erase marker. We all have those seeds ripening, but each dry erase marker and each me holding it is unique to you.
Hell realm the same, hungry ghost realm the same.
Similarities in ripening seeds, but each unique to each.
Same for Buddha you and Buddha Paradise.
It gets a little bit harder to unravel because every Buddha is omniscient. So every Buddha’s perceiving everything, but every Buddha‘s perceiving everything from their own side. They like share it somehow. But as Buddha, you don't merge into all one great Buddha. You still have your unique omniscient mindstream and there's their unique omniscient.
How does that work?
It's worth trying to catch it and catch the point where your mind goes, I can't get it. And rest in that potentiality.
It's another way of pushing your mind beyond its limits.
Then, when it starts up again, come out and try it again.
Stevie: Isn't the significant thing that the Bodhisattva wants to go to the hell realm?
Lama Sarahni: Yes, exactly. The willingness to go, the wish to go. Because they so clearly understand that that hell realm that those beings are in is a big mistake. All they have to do is have a little bit of compassion and it'll end it.
So the Bodhisattva wants to go there and just take a hold of the hell beings and go, look at the guy over there. He's suffering so badly. Can't you just go, I wish he wasn't and you'd be done.
But we can't ripen that. But we can imagine it and we can Tonglen, can't we?
Luisa: But how can they see, this is also a question with the Buddha. If they don't have the seeds for hell realm and then when they become a Buddha, they don't have the seeds for pain, they want to help us because they see us having pain. How do they remember that there was a hell realm? Because their seeds are gone.
Lama Sarahni: Their omniscience is experiencing directly the experience of every existing being. But they're not suffering, and it‘s their merit ripening their omniscience. See, we're thinking, our self existent, we can't get through the self existence that makes sense of the idea that a Buddha's omniscience is their experience of appearing reality and emptiness simultaneously. So that they can be aware of any hell being in a hell realm, and be aware of the reality of that for that hell being, and be aware that that being who's experiencing their hell realm for the Buddha is a Buddha experiencing their Buddha paradise. The answer is omniscience.
Luisa: So they see the hell realm being as a Buddha also, this is what you're saying?
Lama Sarahni: The hell realm being they're seeing as Buddha, and hell realm being, and hungry ghost being, and human being, and everything they've ever been, and ever will be. Omniscience is all three times. All of it. All of it. All of it. All of it. It's love and compassion and wisdom manifesting.
Luisa: But it contradicts the seeds theory.
Lama Sarahni: No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Keep cooking it. Keep cooking it.
Luisa: So many things to cook.
(113:57) I did not finish this homework from this Lojong. There's actually a couple more Lojongs that Geshela taught us. Short ones, but very, very beautiful ones that I would like to share. So we do have Thursday night’s class, and then we have another Monday, right? Yay. So the Monday will be our review, and then Thursday we'll finish. So the review, if you recall, the way I do reviews is you guys get to teach me so that you get the seeds of sharing the dharma. Yay. So you don't have to, but I encourage you to, I will assign you a question from the final exam and then when that's the one that comes up, you give the answer. You can read it or you can give a little teaching on it, whichever you like. You're preparing your co students to be able to do their final exam.
If you want to be included, be sure you are in class on Thursday when I'll assign them. And if you don't want to be included, that's just fine. Tell me ahead of time or tell me at the time I don't want to do. Okay? Don't feel obligated, but it's very fun and it's great seeds. So great, great seeds.
Let's do our dedication, please.
[Usual closing]
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I love this Lojong material. So sweet.
Welcome back. We are ACI course 14 class, the last actual class before the review class. Let's call it class 10.
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do please.
Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
[Usual opening]
(6:52) We are studying the method of developing Bodhichitta called the Wheel of Knives.
We know what he meant by the wheel of knives. Where did that come from? Why did that bad stuff happen to me? Why did that good stuff happen to me?
Oh, because I did that to somebody else before.
Oh, it was me, I'm going to stop doing that kind of stuff.
But then he goes, but wait a minute.
Why didn't I even do that in the first place?
Why in the world would I think to get angry and blow by my mom in order to go to sea. Because all my buddies were going, because I wanted it? Why?
He goes, oh, I get it now. It's my very selfishness that makes me do that. And my selfishness comes from my belief in a self-existent me and a self-existent what I want, and a self-existent how I'm going to get it right.
We know what, when I say self existent, there are all these different levels of what that could mean. We are at the level of something that could be what it is not as a result of our own past deeds.
That's what to be self existent is at this level: not my projection.
It's weird. We don't think in projection, not projection, projection, not projection.
We're thinking identities in them versus not in them.
How do we put that into language succinctly enough that we can access it automatically when the boss is yelling, when whatever is going wrong, and access it even when something good is happening. Which of course we don't tend to do, and it's a missed opportunity also.
So he's figured out, oh, that's my real enemy: my ignorance and my selfishness that comes about as a result. And he turns into this monster, because in order to have those understandings, he has to have developed those two legs of method and wisdom, the two eyes of the two kinds of self existence. What were all those things?
Those are all his wisdoms that have awoken, his realizations that have awoken, that shows him self existent me, and the ignorance that beliefs in that self existence of everything.
He's like, I'm onto you now.
He gives all of these different examples of what he doesn't do, that he's going to start doing better. That whole last section about, I had all those Lamas, but I never really did what they told me to do. Yet, here's this guy with all these realizations. It's like, wait, what? Really? He had to have done it.
It gave us a whole other slew of insights into what behaviors do for us, and what kinds of things to look at about our own selves to see how we're behaving.
As he wraps that up, he gets to sort of the end of all of these explanations.
He gets into some pretty cryptic lines, verses, that if we weren't well-trained, we could easily read those and it's like, oh, they're so mystical. It's about being like nobody nowhere anything. So cool. I‘ll act like that, and really misunderstand. Because in getting lost in those last several verses, we miss the fact that he spent a whole almost a hundred pages talking about morality.
Without that connection of our understanding of emptiness to our understanding of the importance of morality—not like the necessity of morality, then we'll have lost the whole point of the Lojong, which is to develop our Bodhichitta.
When we say developing Bodhichitta, we mean two different things. Developing this belief in karma and emptiness, that's strong enough that we can hold the wish: I'm going to become a totally enlightened being so that I can help everybody in that deep and ultimate way someday. To really know what those words mean in our heart, that apparent Bodhichitta or deceptive Bodhichitta. That grows eventually into that actual experience. Geshela actually calls it the heart opening experience where you see the face of every existing being and you love them, you take responsibility for them.
Then the other Bodhichitta is code word for the direct perception of emptiness, that direct communion with ultimate reality that colors all our seeds. That's why it's so important, is that finally the true nature of all existing things, including ourselves, colors every seed.
As it is now, we have the intellectual understanding coloring our seed, and that's a really, really great thing. We didn't use to have it. I don't know about you, but I didn't use to have it, and now I do and I'm really happy that I do.
Every time I explain it again, either to myself or somebody else, I've added to it, I've added to those seeds.
This last piece of his Lojong is going more deeply into the emptiness of all that stuff that he was talking about before. All that information about the karmic correlations is just instructions to us by somebody until we understand the empty nature of things.
Then those instructions to us from somebody take on new meaning. So he goes into emptiness towards the end of his Lojong.
(14:50) In your reading, in my reading of these notes, it's page 120.
His angry wrathful monster guy is calming down and he's starting to talk to the remnants of his ignorant self that he's been so wrathful against. Now he's calming down a little bit and he says,
If you and I can do this together, the foe will be defeated.
Which is kind of funny. It's the foe he is talking about. He's talking to the foe in order to defeat the foe. It's a little bit weird.
If you and I can do this together, the foe will be defeated.
If you and I can do this together, our misconceptions will be destroyed,
And we will meditate together on the wisdom that sees no self.
And we will both together attain what brings us the body of voidness.
Think now, everything we see is something that happens from something else.
Understanding that everything comes from something else
Is to see that nothing exists itself alone.
Things come, things go.
But nothing is what it seems.
Everything is an illusion.
The face in a mirror is no face itself.
When you spin a burning stick and see a solid crimson circle,
It's only as real as an image seen in a looking glass.
It goes on to talk about how a stick of bamboo looks solid, but it‘s hollow in the center.
How a desert mirage, you think water's there, but there's no water there.
How a bank of fog seen from outside of it looks so solid, but you get inside that bank of fog and it's like there's nothing that you can get ahold of.
All of these different images, ideas, for what they're wanting us to grasp about something that comes from something else.
We think of course things come from other things.
We all know things have causes, things have parts.
What's so astonishing about that? Why does that prove that that thing is not self-existent if it depends upon its causes or its parts.
Only if we're thinking there's a thing that exists independent of its parts, is it all of a sudden, oh my gosh, it's not. And that's extraordinary.
At lower levels, it is like how is that really helpful? So we're not talking about lower levels here. We're talking about a deeper understanding of the significance of saying: Everything that happens comes from something else.
He taps into it in the experience of looking at a face in the mirror.
I had this experience once. We went into a little restaurant or something. It wasn't so little. We sat down and I was just glancing around the place and it looked like a certain size to me. Then it caught my eye that it's like, wait, that's me over there. That's David and me over there. Oh, that's all a mirror. And all of a sudden the restaurant was half the size that I thought it was. Because I really didn't know that it was a mirror and the whole room had been doubled. It was a really, I loved the experience, because it caught me so off guard. It was like, Ah.
This is what he is talking about.
The angry, yelling, boss yelling at me and I'm getting mad back at him is just like that restaurant when it was double sized.
It's just like looking at a face in the mirror and thinking you could shave that face.
It's silly. We don't think that with the mirror. We know we're looking in the mirror. We know that the image in the mirror is coming from someplace else.
We know the image of the mirror is coming here.
I used to do this trying to get it myself. It's like if I was holding a baby, not my baby.
The baby has a mother, and I'm holding the baby in front of the mirror.
Baby is young enough that she doesn't know it's a mirror.
What's the baby going to do? Oh, right.
I don't let her touch the mirror yet. She's getting a little bit frustrated.
Then the mother walks in, and baby goes, Ma. And Ma's not there, but Ma's there.
Baby's so frustrated. What's going on here? Of course she's going to cry because mother's there, but I can't get her.
I work with that imagery a lot. It helped me a lot.
Because it's like the mom's behind the baby.
If baby has wisdom, that's a mirror.
Baby sees mom, she'd go like this.
How does that relate to yelling boss at me?
If I know yelling boss at me is the mirror of my own mind, I'm not going to yell back at the boss. I'm not even going to blame the boss. I'm going to go, Sarahni, like past me Josephine, why did you do that?
He's talking about this automatic reaction to things that understands we're constantly interacting with faces in mirrors not knowing it's a reflection in the mirror.
The taxi cab that breaks your leg.
We don't think it's an image in the mirror, but we're acting as if we don't know that it's an image in the mirror.
You see, it's slippery. It seems like it should be so straightforward until you step in front of an oncoming car that is the face in the mirror.
But so are our broken legs a face in the mirror.
We're not saying that there's no face in the mirror, are we?
We're saying the one we think is there is not the one that's there.
The one that is there is the reflection of the face in the mirror and that is there.
The angry yelling boss is there. But not the one coming from his or her own side. It's the one my karmic seeds are making to happen. That makes it real. That makes that angry yelling boss experience, me experiencing being yelled at by angry rotten, stupid boss. That experience is real, because it's my seeds ripening that me experiencing that. That's what makes it real. That's what he means. Things come from something else.
Everything we see is something that happens from something else, meaning something else than we thought. Not something else like, Oh really it's causes? Or, Oh really it's parts? But something other than what we thought it came from.
Add those couple of little words as if those couple of little words have some power in and of themselves. And it's like, oh, now I get it. But only if we have the seeds for those little words to say, Oh, I get it now.
Try, find the little words that do it for you, and dig in and catches meaning.
(24:20) Again, when we say or others say, Buddhism says everything is an illusion, we're understanding what they mean by that.
The illusion isn't that the yelling bosses is not real, they're not really there. I'm going to wake up from the dream and he'll just poof and be gone.
It means the illusion is, I think his mean, nasty actions are from him.
It means I don't think, I don't hold, I don't believe that my own past behavior is making him do that.
It's an illusion, the angry yelling boss from his own side because he is mad at his wife. That is an illusion.
But the boss I'm experiencing, angry yelling boss because he is mad at his wife coming from me is very real. Catch it.
An illusion doesn't mean, Oh, it's not really there. It means there is there in a way different than how we believe it to be.
Geshela uses the word discrepancy. There's a discrepancy between how we experience things and how they really are. It's a great word, and I can never remember it. Discrepancy. Discrepancy.
He goes on, I'm skipping a verse or two. He says,
There's no wheel of karma here at all.
Nothing is anything.
Nothing is this or that.
It looks like the moon itself is floating in your teacup.
The things we do and their consequences
Float by in the multitude of things in the world us.
I beg you now, be careful.
Do the things you should and give up the things you shouldn't
If only in a movie.
He has this new refrain.
I beg you now be careful.
Do the things you should and give up the things you shouldn't
If only in a movie.
There's no wheel of karma here at all, he says.
Remember we started the Lojong with the Wheel of Knives, and then he's gaining these realizations and he shifts and he calls it the Wheel of Karma. Because now he understands where things are coming from. If this is karma happening, again and again and again. But now he says, No, there is no Wheel of Karma at all.
Does he mean not at all?
No. The Wheel of Karma is another face in the mirror.
Is there a face in the mirror?
Yes.
Is it my face in the mirror?
Well, it's not your face in the mirror, but it's not my actual face. It's a reflection of the face.
The wheel of karma, we think that it's something that determines how we should behave, how we are. Like there's something about it that says, This is how it works. It's like, yeah, right? The four laws of karma, they explain everything, and there's no going outside the four laws of karma, right?
It's like, well then finally there's some self existent thing: The four laws of karma.
It works every single time. You can't get outside of it. You can't change it. You can't influence it.
And he says, No. The Wheel of Karma is an existing thing, and any existing thing is nothing but ripening mental seeds. It makes our brain hurt to keep talking about this stuff, but it's really necessary. It's really necessary, because we hit up with something that exists independent of our seeds ripening, and we have a block that won't let us understand any further until we chip away at that.
So he's saying nothing is anything. Nothing is this or that.
If we misunderstood, we would think, Wow, here's this brilliant Lojong saying nothing really exists.
What does our mind say after that? Well then what does it matter what I do?
If nothing really exists, and the Wheel of Karma doesn't exist, and if what I do now doesn't bring what comes next, well then what the hell? Do whatever you want.
Like in a dream. You can get away with anything in a dream, because it's just a dream.
Is that what he's saying?
Not after a hundred pages about morality. He's not going, oh gee, I was just making that all up. Really, nothing exists at all.
But it could be misunderstood that way if we send forth this Lojong and don't give an explanation of it, if you're teaching it at your local yoga club, or where one might teach that.
It's important to go all the way through, and when we reach this final punchline about, oh, nothing is anything—to have clearly brought our audience along with us in understanding: nothing is anything in the way that it appears to be coming from its own side, to be coming from its own causes, to be coming from its own parts.
The only way we can experience anything is if our own mental seeds are ripening into that experience.
When they ripen, that's the experience.
When they don't ripen, that's not that experience. But something else is ripening.
Seeds are always ripening, and they're always being planted, and it never stops.
That is existence.
The changing, changing, changing nature of that is a doorway to understanding it deeply enough to experience directly the seed ripening. Which hot on the heels of that will be: And nothing exists in any other way than that. The lack of self existence.
When we're using the term self existence as meaning the lack of anything, not projected ripening of past behavior.
When he says,
Nothing exists that doesn't come from something else.
What something else is he talking about?
Our past deeds, our own past deeds, our own behavior.
There's nothing that comes about in any other way than the results of my own past behavior.
That's what's meant by dependent origination.
At the highest level dependent origination is that nothing can be experienced except as ripening results of that mind's past. Perceptions of what its subject side did, said, thought towards object side.
With dependent origination at this level, understanding that bad boss is an illusion—not that she's not there yelling at me. But she's not there yelling at me not as a ripening result of something I did to create that.
It's not saying, Oh that bad boss isn't really bad. Like really she's good. You're just seeing her as bad.
No. She's not good. She's not bad. She's not anything. She's not even boss.
She's not even she.
At every level of experience with that other, it's my ripening me seeing that, me feeling that, me reacting that. Hyphenate ME feeling that.
Hyphenated all into one and we've got a little closer conception of what's… I can't get the word out.
He says, nothing happens. But it means nothing happens that we didn't create ourselves. Even far away, we're not talking about just immediate happening to me in my face. There's some awful stuff going on in a part of the world. I'm not really even quite clear where it is. But it's coming from me as well.
Everything I know about it, that it is happening coming from me as well.
There's nothing not that—the slippery nature of the language is necessary.
There's a verse where Master Dharmakirti even is pointing out that the enemy, our very enemy, which is our self cherishing born of self grasping, which really means our ignorance and its result. That enemy is illusion as well.
Doesn't it make your mind go, Oh, so it's not real.
No. Illusion means it's very real, as ripening result of my past seeds.
Which means it can disappear, it can be gone, we can get rid of it. Our very ignorance lacks self existence. It is inside every seed ripening because we've planted it there.
Every seed planted before Arya has ignorance in it. So every seed ripening is going to have ignorance in it, and every action towards that is going to have ignorance in it again. But that ignorance is not coming from its own side.
That ignorance is part of the projection, and so it can end, right? Hooray, big rejoicable to hear it said.
Our ignorance is equally lacking self existence. Which means its time is numbered.
Eventually, we're going to get it right, for 20 minutes is all it takes. I don't know, probably not even that from the first instant of the first dark perception of emptiness that we recognize as that when we come out of it and then boom.
(38:42) There's a verse that says,
Think of filling a water pitcher
With single drops of water.
The pitcher isn't filled up
When the first drop drops.
Neither is it the last that fills it,
Nor any of the other drops alone.
It's when the hole is done,
When things that come from others
Have come from the others,
That the picture is filled.
Consider filling a water pitcher drop by drop. Not the first one that fills it. It's not the middle ones that fill it. We think, well there's a last drop that fills the water pitcher, right?
This is classic Arya Nagarjuna, of course. Does something happen conventionally, worldly, ignorantly? We think yes. Of course the last drop is the drop that fills the pitcher. But when we've studied, we understand that there's still something missing from the last drop going into the pitcher that makes the pitcher be a full pitcher.
What's missing?
The example Geshela uses again and again: Is your car its tire? No.
Is it the steering wheel? No.
Is it all its parts together? We want to say yes. Arya Nagarjuna says no.
Is your car none of its parts? No.
Why isn't our car all its parts put together?
How do we know it's not our car just from all the parts put together?
Because if you hold your six month old baby in front of your car, it's not your car for them.
What about the fly landing on its roof? Is it your car for them?
No, but all the parts are there.
But not for the fly, right? And not for the baby, and technically not for us either until we have the karmic seed ripening: Oh my car.
Oh, full water pitcher.
We say, well that's a part of the water pitcher.
That's a part of my car.
But what part of your car is your perception ‚Oh, that's my car‘.
It's not in the car at all. It's not coming from the car at all. It's coming from you, and you are very separate from your car, are you not?
So Arya Nagarjuna is right:
Things are not their parts.
Things are not the sum of their parts.
Things are not both their parts and the sum of their parts and
Things are not either of those either.
Because without the observer's projection projecting what they observed, it's not that. Because it's not that from its own side.
Okay, easy with cars, easy with full water pitchers.
What about the angry yelling boss? Same. It's so hard.
What about yourself experiencing the angry yelling boss? Same.
What about yourself as a suffering being? Same.
It‘s getting slipperier and slipperier, isn't it?
Nothing but projections forced by karma.
By that we mean forced results from what I thought, said, did before, what my mind imprinted from what I thought was me doing, thinking, saying things towards what I thought were others. They are others and they are me, and they're all projected like the moon in your teacup.
That's where this comes in.
The Reflection of the Moon in a Tea Cup
It's a very, very common example used for dependent origination.
If you have a cup that has some liquid in it, and the liquid is very still, and it's outside and there's a full moon shining in the sky.
Spontaneously, effortlessly, because conditions are all there, you look in your cup and look, there's a moon in my cup.
The moon doesn't say, Oh, there's a teacup. I'll go down.
The teacup doesn't say hello moon, come shine in me.
It's just conditions are right, and there it's.
But we don't look at the moon and go, wow, how'd the moon get in my teacup?
Wow, now we can send a lunar light to the moon because it's so close.
It's right there, right?
Maybe if I could even turn it up, I can see the back of the moon.
We don't do that, do we?
But we do: That jerk angry boss, they're yelling at me. It's the same thing.
Do you see? It's the same thing.
A moon is in the teacup, but not THE moon.
A yelling boss is yelling at me. Conditions are there.
What does it mean "Conditions are there‘?
My seeds are ripening.
What does "my seeds ripening‘ mean?
You have to answer that.
Disappearing, disappearing, disappearing, disappearing. 65 per instant, and 65 planting.
Master Dharmakirti, he's saying, connect the dots. When we catch on to the true nature of every moment. There's that refrain:
I beg you.
Do the things you should
And give up the things you shouldn't.
If even in a way of a movie.
Do those things you should and give up those things you shouldn't.
If only in a movie.
Stevie wrote and said movie, they didn't have movies back then. You're right, Geshe said that the word that he translated as movie in Tibetan means a false play. A false play versus a real play, but meaning a performance on a stage, like Shakespeare happening. I guess they did that back then. Everybody knew it was a play. They were all watching a play and he said yes, our whole life is that same way. It seems so very real.
I almost said, but it's projections. And you would slam me on the debate ground if I had said that, right? Because it's like, no, because it's projections it's so very real. Because it's a movie.
We do the things we shouldn't, give up the things we shouldn't, meaning our behavior.
Take up the kinds of behaviors that make the scene in the movie that will be happiness for everybody.
Like there's this movie playing happening, and at the same time you're in the movie that's playing, you are filming the future episodes.
So you are the actor, you are the director, you are the producer, you are all parts of this movie that you are both in and you are filming for the future.
Where would your focus of attention be if we really understood that?
I'd be focused with my attention on what I am filming, because that's going to be what's going to play in the future.
The film that's running now—already done. It's just like reruns, you could say. Who cares about reruns?
I want to create a future scene that's going to be different.
My reruns are nothing but obvious pain, pain that changes, subtle pain.
Let's make a movie that is going to be different.
How do we do that? By way of what our projector is recording us think, say and do towards others.
If that recording includes what I'm thinking, saying, doing towards others is all projections happening, and I'm planting new ones. We've got wisdom growing inside there. And that means that those future episodes are going to have some greater wisdom ripening in them. With that, we can be growing our virtue, our goodness, until the wisdom is full on. It comes in stages, and we could debate, is fullon wisdom seeing emptiness directly and afterwards, or fullon wisdom Nirvana, or full on wisdom total Buddhahood?
Doesn't really matter because the process is the same.
Once we catch onto the process, we can use it. We can live according to it, even before we've experienced it directly.
With enough conviction that it might be true to be willing to change our behavior.
We can't change all of our behavior all at once, most of us. Some people being, it just changes. But most of us it's little bit, little bit, little bit.
When we finally have an experience where we connect the dot, that's when our power to dig in deeper to behavior changes goes up a notch, because of that conviction. Oh, I applied myself. I saw that it really worked. I proved it to myself. Even if it's not yet direct perception of emptiness.
That too is something that will come about as a result of projections ripening.
We just doggedly pick some behavior we want to change about ourselves, even conventionally.
You're a smoker, you want to quit smoking?
Help somebody else quit a habit, doesn't even have to be smoking, although it's a good one. Help them just in worldly ways to quit smoking. Whether they actually quit smoking or not, doesn't matter. Of course you hope that they do. The effort to help them will help you in your effort to change some habit.
Well, I'm trying to quit smoking. I'm trying to help them quit smoking. I still can't quit smoking.
Yeah, but what else has changed about you? Well, I'm exercising more.
Okay, great. There's your result connection.
No, no, it had to be quitting smoking. Alright then you're not being successful.
We can find success in subtle ways.
Anyway, he's encouraging us with his refrain.
When you connect the dot between emptiness and dependent origination, the conclusion is my behavior is my tool for creation. My behavior is my tool.
Then we would say, what behavior do I need to do? Just tell me what I need to do. Okay, great. Avoid killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, harsh speech, useless speech, divisive speech, jealousy, ill will, wrong view. How about that?
You want more specific? Your five lifetime layperson vows.
Yeah, but that's what I stopped doing. What do I do?
The opposite of those. You want more specific? Your Bodhisattva vows. Even if you don't have them as vows, they're guidelines of behavior. Makes life easier to have those choices already laid out. Then we just need to know them and then freely associate how you put them into modern life. Because often many of them seem kind of archaic.
Then if you're in a big rush, you manage to get yourself the Diamond Way vows and they're harder and faster.
But it's connecting the dots, karma and emptiness, is ‚O behavior‘. It's what he's wanting us to get to.
Let's see, did I answer your homework question? No, there's a little bit more.
Let's take a break. Please get refreshed.
(Break)
(54:05) His last two verses go like this.
Neither the things that the mind perceives
Nor the mind itself
Have any real nature of their own.
There is nothing you should practice.
There is nothing you should give up.
Strip everything of your perceptions.
Leave your mind as it came
From the beginning that never was.
Don't confuse things by trying to understand them.
Live in a place called as-it-is,
And then you'll become
A high and holy being.
Use this way to analyze
The apparent Wish for enlightenment
And the ultimate one as well.
With these then you can amass
The collections of merit and wisdom
Without the slightest obstacle,
And come to the perfect accomplishment
Of every single need
That you and others have.
That verse,
Neither the things that the mind perceives
Nor the mind itself
Have any real nature of their own.
There is nothing you should practice.
There is nothing you should give up.
Is he talking literally?
I don't know. You could say yes, and you could say no.
But he just spent this whole text talking about behavior, and then even in his refrain about, yeah, once you catch on to dependent origination and emptiness, then your conclusion is, I want to give up the things I shouldn't do, and I want to do the things I should do. And then he says, nah, that's not what this is saying.
The mind, everything the mind that perceives and the mind itself has no real nature of their own. We're onto that, right? He's not saying we have no mind.
He's not saying we don't perceive things. That would be ridiculous. Here we are.
But, the mind we think we have, that is a mind not projected, that mind we don't have. Come on, if the mind is the projector, doesn't it have to be outside the projection to be a projector?
We think so. Which means we think there's our mind that exists independent of being projected, of being part of every projection.
He's talking about the emptiness of our mind. Not that the mind is not there at all.
Our mind isn't an appearing thing. That means it's a projected thing, and that means it's own nature is blank, empty, lacking existence, so that it can be the mind that's projected moment by moment, by moment by moment.
If we're thinking, oh, self existent, everything's projection. No.
Self existent me that's having projections. No.
Projection. Projections happening, projections happening, projections happening.
There's nothing we should practice and there is nothing that we should give up that's not also projected.
When we get it, it's like, well dah. There's no self-existent shoulds and shouldn'ts. There's no self-existent practices. Because we can't experience anything that's self existent. We can't experience anything that's not our projections.
So of course there's no thing to take up and no thing to give up. Like Heart Sutra. Because our behavior means everything. You can say this.
But we have to really, really understand before we can share verses like that out into a world of not so well-trained spiritual practitioners.
Which again, you remember Lojong was kept secret for a very, very long time, because they have the verses in them that people would go, See, Buddha says, nothing really exists.
Yeah, he did say that, and he meant it literally. There is no self-existent thing that has existed, has ever existed, ever will exist.
Every existing thing that's ever happened and ever will happen will be projected happening.
It's such a weird word.
Leave your mind as it came
From the beginning that never was.
Sounds like just leave your mind alone. Like it'll find its own enlightenment.
No, I don't want to leave my mind alone. It can be a really unpleasant place to be in. I don't want those projections to go on.
When he says, leave your mind alone, meaning understand the emptiness of our mind. Leave that, don't meaning leave it behind. Really it means, I don't know why did you use the word ‚leave‘. Recognize that it's always there.
Every ripening of my mind is the emptiness of my mind and that emptiness of my mind is its ability, potential to be how I experience it. Which means it has this potential now, it's emptiness now. That means that with certain influences, it could ripen as Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating.
Leave your mind as it is in the way it was from the beginning. Means in that emptiness, you can't leave your mind in emptiness except when you're experiencing emptiness directly.
So he's talking about this direct experience of the true nature of mind, and that emptiness of our own mind is what we mean by our Buddha nature. We've talked about it before. Not that we already have a little Buddha inside us, or even that our mind is already omniscient, we just have to unravel it.
To experience omniscient mind will be forced on us by merit ripening, forced on us by projection, in the same way that our suffering mind is forced on us by projections now.
Different seeds can make an omniscient projection than a suffering being projection.
The emptiness of our mind now is the promise that we will someday experience ourself in that way.
(62:30) Luisa: Sorry, I got stuck in there. There is nothing we should practice or give up.
Lama Sarahni: That isn‘t a projection.
Luisa: But then with the vows, because this is kind of pointing towards the vows. So these are the guidelines. So this is to understand that even if I follow the vows, I could not, or we are not all going to get the same results, because it's a projection?
Lama Sarahni: Because keeping our vows planting projection brings about the result of a pleasure on the path. Because it's projections vows work.
Yes, we all get our own unique result from every vow.
Vows don't have their own self existent nature. One easy way to see that is that people can hear about vows and it's like, I don't want any part of that.
If they were good things from their own side, Vows? I want them. Everybody would say that.
Luisa: But what I mean is the goal of following the vows is to get enlightened, because this is the way to change our behavior. So in my ignorance, I still perceive that as the vows have the power to make me become enlightened, because they are the guidelines. But when I hear you or Dharma Rakshita, it sounds to me they may, they may not. Now I am a bit like, you know what I mean?
Lama Sarahni: The way they work is by projections. So yeah, if they don't work for you, that will be by projections also.
Luisa: Okay.
Don't confuse things by trying to understand them
Not meaning, don't try to figure it out. But meaning, until we have that direct experience of seeds ripening and then emptiness directly, we won't have it exactly right. You'd think he would say, keep trying to figure out until you see it directly. That's what he is saying in a cryptic kind of way.
Don't stop studying, keep studying. But understand that our conceptualization isn't quite it. You could have amazingly deep conceptualization of what it is to ride a bike. But until you've actually ridden a bike, you don't really, really know.
Same for our conceptualized understanding of emptiness and dependent origination.
It's really useful to keep working on our conceptualization in order to reach its direct experience however those conceptualizations are going to stop. And boom, you're in it directly.
Live in the place called as-it-is.
It sounds like humans will just stay there in the direct perception of emptiness forever. We all understand that that doesn't happen.
Staying in the place called as-it-is means here, stay in that place where every moment we are understanding projections and nothing but. Projections and nothing but.
If we're staying in that as-it-is—because that is how it is—every experience is projected and nothing but. To stay in that, we are not blaming anybody, anybody for anything. We're not really even blaming our own self or our own past behavior. We're just in the plant mode, just creating, creating, creating, creating, creating.
Then you'll become a high holy beings. Creating, creating, creating.
(67:32) Geshela boils it down. Because things are in (misery), we want to keep our behavior such that the results of that behavior will be growing happiness for everyone.
Do we want to figure out what behavior that is ourselves?
Or would we like to take a shortcut, which would be, let's consider what Buddha suggested as the behaviors based on his own experience.
That's what the vowed behaviors are about.
This is what Shakyamuni Buddha used. This is how he has guided his disciples since his time on earth when he was guiding disciples. We can say, okay, I'll use those guidelines. We don't have to, it's just a helpful tool.
Then we use that behavior to grow the goodness that allows us to understand better the demand of our self grasping and self cherishing, so that our behavior choices can get more subtle, so that our wisdom gets more subtle, so our behavior gets more subtle in terms of choosing what we want to plant. Choosing our behavior according to future.
That process feeds on itself until the projections are Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating. That couldn't happen if that also was not projections happening, because your Buddhahood is projections happening. We create them by what we see ourselves think, do and say towards others.
That finishes your homework for Class 10.
(70:15) Geshela gave an oral transmission of two more Lojongs.
You don't have any homeworks or quizzes, but I want to give you that oral transmission. You have them in your readings, but it's good to hear them said.
He had just a little bit of commentary on one of them, so we'll do that.
Then Louisa had asked if we could Tonglen the situation going on right now in the world, and so we'll do that at the end. Anyone who wishes to stay as welcome, if you don't want to, you don't have to.
Stevie: This is strictly an administrative question.
…
(Organization of HW question assignments for review class until 75:27)
Just sit back and listen.
Herein contained are the instructions for developing the good heart, which were passed down through the master translator of Sumpa.
I bow down to my holy Lama.
It happened that the accomplished saint named the master translator of Sumpa traveled to India. While there, he was able to study a great deal of the secret teachings. When it came time for him to return to Tibet, he took the leftover gold that he had with him and set off first to the Seat of the Diamond (?) so that he could make offerings to the site of the Great Enlightenment.
One day after reaching the Seat of the Diamond, he spent some time at the Great Temple walking around it in prayer, and sometimes pausing for a rest.
There was a woman there as well in red. As he watched her walking around the temple too, he noticed that for a while she would be stepping on the ground, and then for a stretch that she stepped in the air itself, and then on the ground once more. Then there was a lady in green and she walked at the side of the red and she said, but four things,
I don't feel so well today.
I have this urge to get going somewhere.
It would be better if people didn't have to die.
Death is a frightening thing.
The lady in red turned to the green, and with a sideways glance at the master translator said but for things in reply.
My dear, once you have learned to be satisfied with whatever comes to you,
you'll find happiness no matter what happens.
Your problem is that you are never satisfied.
My dear, once you have learned to leave your mind in one place,
you can go wherever you want.
Your problem is that you've never learned to leave your mind in one place.
My dear, once your mind has sunk into the dharma,
even dying is an easy thing to do.
Your problem is that your mind has never sunk into the dharma.
My dear, once you have realized that the mind is beyond all beginning,
there is no death at all.
Your problem is that you've never realized that the mind is beyond all beginning.
And with these words, all the sadness that the master translator had ever felt in his heart melted away. All the dharma that he'd ever heard suddenly took on meaning. And he would say that at that moment he gained his greatest realizations.
And that's the end of the Lojong. But there's a little commentary that you'll read to help understand what the angels were saying to each other.
I'm going to leave that and share with you the second Lojong, which is:
(7942) Herein contained, are advices granted to Lord Atisha by two angels who said to him simply, Practice the wish for enlightenment.
I bow down to my precious Lama on a very special day once, Lord Atisha was training his mind in the wish for enlightenment, Bodhichitta, while circling a holy place on foot. Off to the east then, up in the sky in the direction of the Seat of the Diamond—site of Lord Buddha's enlightenment—he saw two women.
Their bodies were something just beyond a human form, but something just short of the divine; and they were covered in precious jewels.
The younger of the two made as if to ask a question of the older:
What method would a person have to train themselves in,
if he or she hoped to reach their Enlightenment most quickly?
And the older of the two replied, in the way of the Secret Word, and said to the other:
A person who hoped to reach their Enlightenment most quickly
would have to practice the wish for enlightenment.
That's the complete Lojong. But there's a little commentary on the end, which says,
They say that the two women were two forms of the Lady of Liberation, Tara, and the Woman of Ferocity, Kalidevi.
And then they give the lineage.
So both of the Lojongs give a little explanation and then their lineage so that we know them.
So with this, we have completed our course 14, except for the review class.
The Lojongs, the practices to develop a good heart, it's only a few of the many, many Lojongs that have been taught and written. During Diamond Mountain Days, Lama Christie taught a whole series of courses called Bok Jinpa, Setting Your Practice on Fire. In there a couple of different terms, she taught over a few other Lojongs.
So they're one of those up my sleeve things, and we've got some spare time. If you ever want a little extra Lojong teaching, we have some. I'd be happy to pull them out of my Bok Jinpa notes. Lojong is beautiful and for opening our hearts.
Then as I said before, instead of the six flavors, we'll do the Tonglen practice module starting the end of April, since we're hot on the heels of course 14.
It said, your default mode can be Lojong. We better learn how to do it.
So let's do our standard dedication for those who aren't going to stay for the Tonglen session.
We've finished, I mean not completely finished, but we're finished the teaching of an extraordinary set of classes. All of it culminating in this deep, deep understanding that all of it is a ripening of your own past goodness.
Extraordinary seeds coming out of you, and even more extraordinary seeds being put back in to that which is you.
And that really, really is a rejoicable. So be happy with yourself.
All the effort you made.
And think of this goodness, like a beautiful, extraordinary gemstone that you could hold in your hands.
All those facets. You look inside, you see this extraordinary goodness inside.
It is your most precious thing.
Then turn your attention to your own precious holy angel guide there with you.
See how happy they are with you.
Grow your gratitude to them, your devotion to them.
Ask them again to please, please stay close, and continue to guide you and help you, and teaching.
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.
Feel them there, that love, that compassion, that wisdom.
It feels so good, we want to keep it.
And so we know to share it.
By the power of the goodness that we've just done
May all days complete the collection of merit and wisdom
And thus gain the two alternate bodies that merit and wisdom make.
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 being you've ever, ever seen or heard of or imagined.
See them all filled with happiness, filled with wisdom, filled with kindness.
And may it be so.