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20040713 Summer Retreat Day 2004 Nyur Lam

Yesterday we covered up to the guru-devotional practice. The guru devotional practice is very important, extremely important. In essence, the total explanation for this is from the tantra. When you say the long Six Session yoga you find the verse

Gang gyi drin gyi de chen ne

Ke chik gi ni la tob gyur wa

La ma rin chen ta bu ku

Dor je chen zab pe la du

O guru vajra holder

Your body like a magic gem

Let me reach the great bliss state

I bow to the lotus of your feet

Nobody knows this by heart? Interesting. You should know it. We give you both, the long and the short Six Session Yoga and then it is up to you what to do with it. But reasonably, respectably you will begin with the long one up to the 8 Legged Praise, then go into the shorter one, do either two more or five more of the recitations, then when you dissolve the lama, you do it through the short one and do the last verse again according to the longer one. That is a very good way of doing it. I is not compulsory, but a very good way of doing it. At least I am glad nobody is only doing the one verse Six Session Yoga.

Anyway, this verse will say that the ultimate bliss-void state will be delivered to me within a matter of seconds. It says that the lama is like a precious jewel and we bow to the lowest part of his body, the vajra foot. This actually sums up everything we talked about.

It is due to the kindness of the great master that enlightenment is delivered to us within a very short time, like a minute, meaning within this one short lifetime. It is like a minute. Looking through the incarnation window, we see that huge panorama of life, compared to the life we are living is but an extremely short moment. These are the words of the tantra. It is the door to the liberation, the bridge between the positive enlightenment and the negative samsara.

Simultaneously there is also the danger of people misusing it. That is why it is so important that each individual uses their brain and analyzes and checks and finally follows the best way they can.

These days particularly, in the degenerate age, there are people who completely misuse this method and there isn’t any guarantee that it will not happen again. So be aware of all this. We have a funny story in Tibet about this. There are lots of stories and a lot of epics like Gesar of Ling. In Tibet this Gesar is not really a dharma protector, but some kind of funny spirit. I saw a number of people who come into a Gesar trance. These people are not literate, not educated, don’t even have good common sense, but when they come into trance, beautiful poetry and language comes out of their mouths, non-stop. Sometimes it goes on for four or five days. So when you listen to the Gesar epics, there is a little kingdom with ministers and the whole set up. There is one minister called Uncle Todrum. He is indespensible. He has all these wonderful ideas, without him they couldn’t manage. But there are also tremendous dangers. Everybody in that epic is a hero and brave and anybody who is captured by the enemies will not leak any information. But this Uncle Todrum is such a guy that he will always inform everybody of everything. So the joke is that the Gesar of Ling family cannot do without Uncle Todrum but that it is also dangerous and they have to be careful.

So the guru devotional practice is like that. Without it you cannot manage, but there is also a lot of danger. To balance this it is extremely important not to have blind faith. You need proper intelligence, analyzing, thinking and pondering and finally making the decisions by yourself. The guru devotion is the root of all development. Without the root, how can you expect to have branches, leaves and flowers grow? It becomes a big dilemma, if you get involved in it.

I think we did quite okay on that, not so bad. Normally we skip that. I forgot to tell you something about the lineage prayer. (Jewel Heart Prayer Book, page 35-36). The last line of each verse of the lineage you have to say twice. For example in the verse

Pun tsok gelek gewai trun pe

Tha yei dro wai rei wa kong wai sung

Ma lu shei ja jei zhin sig pai thug

Thub wang dor je chang la sol wa deb

You say the last line thub wang dor je chang la sol wa deb twice. The reason is that the first time when you say it you are making the prayer and the second time a duplicate comes and dissolves to you. You don’t do it to adjust your tune. Really true. They made this prayer first and the tune came later.

But in case of the last verse of the lineage prayer

Kye wa kun tu yang dak lam ma dang

Drel mei cho kyi pel la long cho ching

Sa dang lam gyi yon ten rab dzok nei

Dor je chang gi go pang nyur top shok

You don’t do that. That is only a common prayer, meaning ´in life after life, may I meet the great masters, perfect my practice and become Vajradhara in the space of a short minute.´ So the whole verse is praying, so there is no point in repeating the last line of this verse twice. You can repeat it if it adjusts your tune, but otherwise it is a waste of time. It sounds nice, if you repeat the last line, I guess and in the West people don’t like to cut it off. I don’t know why. When you are finished, you are finished, so you can leave it wherever it is.

Today we actually are reaching to the second main point, the first one being guru devotion. In terms of the Odyssey outlines the guru devotions is up the 13th step.

The outline says: after having a perfect master, how does one train? That also has two points:

Reminding oneself to fulfill the mission of one’s life

How to fulfill the mission of one’s life

Reminding oneself to fulfill the mission of one’s life

With this Lam rim in particular, there is always emphasis of session and in between session. You can take each session and spend time on it. During this session also there is preliminary, actual and conclusion, just like with guru devotion. There are always these three.

The preliminary here is the single-pointed request to the lama Tubwang Dorje Chang.

Kyab ne kun dug lama lha pai lha

tubwang dorje chang la sol wa deb

kyab ne kun du… all refuge objects are collected in one. Lama lha pai Lha…that is old Indian culture. Lha pai lha – that means god of gods. It is the Indian culture: they used to announce the king as god of gods, king of kings, etc. That is how they would address their emperors, then they would blow some funny kind of horn.

Now here we are talking about Tubwang Dorje Chang, who is the most important Buddha. It is almost like saying ´The Buddha of Buddhas´. Actually, for the individual it does become like that. So he is the collection of all refuge objects, the god of gods. In the western language, the early translators, professors and buddhologists completely ignored the word ´lha´. It is used to so many times. You know that is not referring to the big G god, the monotheistic creator god. To avoid any confusion, the translators simply ignored to translate it as gods. Otherwise, in Tibetan it is used very often. So you make strong requests to Lama Tubwang Dorje Chang, the Lama Buddha Vajradhara.

From your mind you think: I and all sentient beings, in life after life, have gone through ups and downs continuously, experiencing the sufferings of samsara. That is because we could not manage to fulfill our mission.

In the lam rim tradition it is always pointed out: because of that condition I keep having all these problems. We could not fulfill the mission of our life, so we keep on suffering. Why could we not fulfill our mission? Because we did not get the realization of how important this life is and how difficult to find it is. We do not see the sense of urgency.

To find out what the purpose of our life is and how to fulfill the mission is becoming secondary. Even before that we misunderstand the mission itself. That is not only common, but almost universal. It is within us all the time. So we have not managed. Therefore now you request: may I and all beings be blessed by you, lama Tubwang Dorje Chang, the god of gods. May we be blessed to gain this realization. Through that light and liquid comea from all parts of the body of Lama Tubwang Dorje Chang, in rainbow colors. They reach to all living beings and myself. They enter into our body and mind streams and purify all negativities from the limitless beginning, particularly obstacles to gaining the realizations of the importance of this life and how difficult it is to find. Our body becomes pure light nature. Our mind becomes clean, clear and happy. Our life, luck, fortune, spiritual development and qualities all grow and prosper to the ultimate level, especially to develop the realizations of the importance of this life and how difficult it is to find. So that visualization and whether I can say it every time or not at every single point of lam rim meditations you have to use that. Ok. So when you visualize that and you become pure and perfect and all this.

Now is the time to analyze. When you are analyzing you have to have those points, otherwise you are completely lost. The points that you have to now look at are, as I said in the other session, preliminary, actual, and conclusion. The preliminary, or prerequesite of each session, within the session itself prerequsite means that in every session you have you must have it. It’s not like a degree once, you’ve done it you have it and then you don’t have to repeat it, no. You’ve got to repeat it at every point. Why? There are two points. With the practice of the guru devotion, you remember that ‘quickly, quickly’ business? That is why you have to have that. Every point, every point, you know because of this double quickly business. I explained it yesterday, don’t let me repeat it, that’s why this is important.

So now the actual practice is two points:

1. Thinking of the importance

2. Difficulty to find

Let’s study a little bit about the importance. Again, remember you’re meditating, your 30:00 Lama lha pai Lha on top of your head, so looking at the life and realizing the life we have is wonderful, especially it has two very important points. Point one, really important, is that this life is extremely rich, extremely rich. Point two you have opportunity to take time and to able to utilize the richness of this life for your own purpose and to fulfill the purpose of your life. You have the opportunity. You do it. I don’t really want to go into detail, but according to the tradition they talk to you with the opportunity first and as, you know, eight opportunities because you are free of eight births, eight lives that don’t have any time or opportunity and that’s why they call it even leisure. I don’t know whether you have leisure time or not but you can make it. Time is entirely up to the individual

Remember, we always like to complain, ‘I have no time’ what do we call it? We call it the sort of a good fancy stylish business excuse, truly. Because everybody will say ‘I have no time’, ‘I’m too busy.’ It is a style, because everybody would like to be here, you know, sort of important and ‘I’m busy’ ‘I have no time.’ That is stylish, that is a style. And it is a great excuse because it gives you two purposes: 1. you can avoid what you don’t want to do; 2. it gives you that showbiz idea of being important; 3. all the important people do that so you include yourself in there too.

You know, sometimes you become busy with nothing. So that is how it is. That is because you have a problem with priorities and you do not prioritize properly what you have to do. If we are in the time, the most important point that we can do in our lives we would like to put on our back burner, but you’re not going to cook that. So you put them on the back burner, that’s what we do. It will suit us because our laziness really adjusts well with this and the sense of urgency also becomes a monetary time for us, because we are in such a time that we have to pay the bills. If you don’t pay bills then everything cuts out and not only the bill collectors chase you, but then you start losing everything, so even the electricity is shut out, water is cut out, you know all that happens. That is why it is important.

35:04

So spiritual practitioners, I really am making a very important point here: to balance your priorities. You know if you can balance the needs of this particular life, this particular moment, and the needs of your spiritual and long-term goal. If you can balance that you are intelligent, you are brilliant, and you are capable. If you cannot you are just the opposite of intelligent, opposite of brilliant, and opposite of capable. So that is how you have to manage.

But before you manage that you have to convince yourself this life is important. You don’t have to convince very much because we knew it. We will know it only if it’s been threatened. If it’s threatened you realize how important life is, otherwise you’re taking it for granted, ‘yeat, yeah, I’m fine. I have a cold, fine, I can manage, I’m tufff,’ or if it’s too hard ‘oh, I manage. I’m not piece of paper I’m not going to be sort of soak and melt an I”m ok I’m tuff.’ and you know that’s ok. That’s what you do. So you are ignoring the importantness of life in our daily life and in the spiritual path. You don’t even want to think about it. And that’s what most people do, but over here what Buddha did is he said ‘yes, you have to think about it.’ Because you have to think about it and if you don’t think about it you will never be able to utilize that richness of the life.

The richness here is not an emphasis on simply saying that the life is rich, every body will say ‘yeah, yeah I know about it’ or ‘well, what is so rich about it?, I’m very poor.’ That is how people will think, but the richness over here is the opportunity point of view. Buddha emphasized this by pointing out that your life has 10 extra-ordinary qualities. Ten extraordinary qualities, and that’s why, particularly the time and the opportunity. So, I’m not going to go much in that because you all know.

39:15 Tibetan

The most important richness is because you are a human being. Really, that is very important. If you are not a human being, you cannot do as much as a human being can do. We may think the samsaric gods and these spirits and all this would be able to do much better than us. Sometimes people even worship spirits, thinking they can do better than us. Forget it. They are equally, equally miserable and terrible. Even worse than us sometimes.

I’ll tell you one story, when the human beings are very scared the spirits also become very scared. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You know my family had an estate, we had a number of estates, but on one estate near Lhasa a big place called Loh and in the Loh estate there was a person who the spirit comes in trance and he tells a little bit of fortune to the village people, ‘do this and do this’ and ‘going to rain tomorrow, not going to rain tomorrow,’ and all this. They do, but it’s not a big surprise. All the meteorological people can tell you whether it’s going to rain or not. Whether it is right or wrong is a different story, but they can tell you and they probably do the same thing, they tell you that. Not necessarily right, probably if they’re right 40% they’re very lucky. Almost all the spirits are like that. And that spirit is also very bad one, always giving trouble to the villagers and they’re very poor villagers. So there was a monk from Ganden Monestary and he is a little crazy monk, too. He didn’t like that spirit at all, so he would like to make the spirit scared. So he doesn’t know what do, and one day he has idea. You know, the Tibetans wear this sheep skin robe dress, normally it’s not like in the West. In the west you put the hair out, the Tibetans put the hair in and the skin outside. So the guy, the monk, decides to put the skin outside and wear a funny looking mask and wear a Chinese soldier’s hat and he climbs up on the rooftop of some balcony and he’s sitting there. Then the spirit comes in trance and starts demanding of the villagers, ‘I need this, I need that’ and ‘you’ve been ungrateful.’ They do this all the time, you know all the villagers, ‘you’ve been ungrateful and if you don’t I’ll punish you, blah, blah, blah.’ Sometimes even good spirits do that too. Anyway, by that time he decides to make them scared so he screams ‘Chinese are here’ and he jumps with skin and all that. So thee spirits goes off the trance immediately, and is not there. Later when the inviting spirit and the spirit gradually comes up the first thing he say ‘Chinese here?’ So that is how they show you.

Ok, there’s a number of those types of stories, but anyway the spirits are equally scared and equally they need help. They are the same. Of course, it is a dead person that could not find proper human rebirth, and it becomes part in the six realms and it becomes hungry ghost category. They are there because they have some little power and that is that is their karmic power, karmic power. So they are capable of hurting and harming people, but not so capable of helping people. That’s what it really is, what those spirits are.

Why did I talk about the spirits, for what? Huh? Oh yeah. In old Tibet we have to say ‘human beings can do everything,’ but now we don’t have to. Science tells us what they can do, so that is human beings you know. All scientists, as far as I know, they are human beings, they’re not spirits. So you know those ghosts just don’t come in to the laboratory and work at night, they don’t do that, right? So it is the human beings that are capable, if you focus and if you pay attention and if you put your thoughts. That’s because of our mind. Really, it’s a brilliant mind. Even if you’re stupid you have a brilliant mind, it’s really true. Each and every body, but if you don’t utilize, then it becomes, you know, when you don’t use it then you have a problem. If you have a car and you don’t use it, you leave it out there for two years and then you try to start it, it won’t work. You push it and bang it and then you have to throw it in the garbage, and then it’s wasted. So if you don’t use it that’s what it is. If you keep on using it, it has tremendous capacity.

In short, everything you want, material benefit, business, if you want to get rich, if that is your goal, your life is capable of doing it. If you want to become famous, your life is capable of doing it and every thing. Whether you are satisfied or not is a different story, but life is capable of delivering it. If you want to be fully enlightened one, spiritually, ultimate, your ultimate goal is to achieve that, this life is capable of delivering. So from the lives point of view, they will not let us down. From our point of view we may fail, but life doesn’t fail, life is capable of delivering it.

Even look at the Buddha; Buddha had just like our life, nothing extraordinary in his life, except he happens to be an Indian prince. He happens to be a prince, that’s it. From the life point of view, it is the same, no difference. Everybody, from the life point of view. But from our point of view we may let us down

And spirtually, most important there is something to do

49:00 Tibetan

Buddha has given teachings, shared his experience, the message is a living tradition. Continuously there are people who will utilize that from any angle, not only from the Buddhist angle, but from any other you have a role model. You have everything available.

49:50 Tibetan

So you also have a person, you have a sangha community that is traveling with you. You have spiritual teachers who can give you a message and teaching. You have all this, so that’s why, traditionally, they say Buddha had appeared and obtained enlightenment, shared experience and teaching, continuously remains as a living tradition. There are followers, within the followers there are all kinds of different types of followers with the all neuroses and types of neurosis and free of neurosis and all of them are there. You can find any example that you want, it’s true too.

So in short, you have all facilities that are available. Particularly, you have the wisdom that follows; the learning and analyzing. And that you have to work and gain. You have to make sure that you are not influenced by the wrong non-virtuous teachers as well as friends. Having a good spiritual master and putting effort in; that’s why this Lam rim has the, out of four qualities. So all the teachings become special instructions.

Oh La So

So all of that

Oh La so

Oh yeah, all of that comes out, some people are picking that up it is old Tibetan tradition, they say OH Las so, oh yeah, it just slipped out. When Loche Rimpoche was giving a speech in Tibet, somebody said, I can only hear one word, and he says, oh, yeah, Oh la so. That somehow slipped out of my mouth here.

So in short, in our life there is the life that is very difficult to find; we have found it and we do have the opportunity. Our mission of the life is to reach to our goal, and that is, in this case, to reach the no more learning and the buddhahood. So we do have all this opportunity here. So it is very, very important because through this life we can achieve anything that we want to.

If we want this life to be happy, joyful, wonderful, yes you can achieve because of this life. If you want to become rich, sure you can, the life is capable of delivering it. If you have lots of good friends and become famous, you can achieve all of it because life is capable of giving it. If you wanted to be rich and you want really the richness to come from your karmic point of view, sure you can do it. You can be generous, and most of you are generous anyway. So the generosity brings the wealth

54:55 Tibetan

jim beh long jo chim beh deh

Buddha had a short verse the short verse says:

jim beh long jeh chim beh deh

That determines the seven virtues of life comes out

jim ben long jeh chim ji dez

The generosity brings you wealth.

Morality brings you joy.

Patience makes you pretty, cute. If you want to be Miss Universe in your future life you have to be very patient in this life, ok? If you wanted to be Miss Universe in this life and tried to be patient now, it’s a little too late. So, in your next life, that’s what it is, so

Som beh jez

So if you want to be complete and fulfilled, then you have to have enthusiasm. If you have enthusiasm in everything, anything that you do; everything will be complete. If you have no interest and no enthusiasm it’s very hard to fulfill anything, even if they pay you. It becomes nothing because you are obligated only, because you really don’t have enthusiasm. The enthusiasm makes it complete.

If you really admire total enlightenment, if you really want to have it you should have enthusiasm for it. If you have enthusiasm the laziness has no room to come in and play, but when you don’t have enthusiasm everything else is more important than what you are supposed to be doing because you don’t have enthusiasm. Everything is urgent and important, except what you really needed to do. When you don’t have enthusiasm the only thing that will force you is if someone chases you and then you know you have to be chased until you are horrified. We know that in life, so enthusiasm makes fulfillment, whatever. That’s really simple, isn’t it? Very simple,

58:00

som beh ji chi

The shi nez, shi nez means

Meditation, concentration, will pacify you, you know give you peace.

som beh ji shi

This is very interesting, just what it is.

loh eh treh

The wisdom will liberate you. So this is it.

som beh ji shi

lo eh toh

Ming seh wah en do goh tuz

Compassion fulfills all purposes what you need it. And that becomes what Thurman called seven virtues. He has different names in his book: Infinite Life. The essence of those seven virtues, that’s the:

Bah su ban do’s the metaphysical life has two verses:

59:00

jim beh long joh chim be des

soh beh don

Oh, I see. The last words say: ‘these seven are the virtues said by Buddha.’ That’s what it is.

So,

gel so ing beh toh beh tzoh

Anyway, so the life can be fulfilled in that way. So now in the normally, you know, this eight leisures which we just touched on, and the ten endowments, ten richnesses which we also touched on, it is in the transcripts and everywhere I don’t want to take time, but I’d like to take another point here: when you are meditating you say ‘this life is extra-ordinarily important’ because you can fulfill everything. That’s where we went, fulfilling everything. And then also, how powerfully we can do it. Powerfully. I’d like to introduce you to some powers here which I don’t think I have done much. Powers here: the first power will be power of the object that you are dealing with. The power of the object you are dealing with, power of the person your dealing with. Let me count this:

Power of the person what you are dealing

Power of motivation

Power of actual

Power of your body

Power of your time

Is that five? Yes. So, the power of the person what you’re dealing with. You’re dealing with lama Tubwang Dorje Chang. So, according to Buddha, from the benefit point of view, now listen to this, this is quite funny, but important. If you find capability and opportunity to release all the prisoners in the world, and if you find opportunity to open the eyesight of all the blind people in the world, and that virtue you accumulate as one side of measurement and looking, dealing, talking and sharing things with a bodhisattava [on the other]. If you weight these two, which one do you think is going to be more loaded? Naturally we’re going to think this freeing all prisoners and opening the eyesight of all blinded are definitely considered much, much more important and valued. Commonly, everybody would think that, but Buddha says no. Buddha says no. Dealing with a single bodhisattavah, in any manner, has more value for the individual than all of those. It is surprising, but that’s what Buddha says. Even the Bodhisatavachavaratia says that, remember in the Benefits chapter? So much so that at the end words:

1:04

kah lah new

So at the end of the bodhisattvasahavarayta’s first chapter, even if you hear a bodhisattavha you get more benefit than anything else you do. You know, because you are connected.

So that’s what Buddha says, it is right here. And it says it: ‘even looking at a bodhisattavah with pure thoughts is much more beneficial’ and then ‘making offerings and pleasing all bodhisattavahs the best way you can.’ Simply making a simple offering to Buddha. Which is more important?

So, we think you know, there are zillions of bodhisattavahs and which will much be more important, more beneficial. But Buddha says no. Making offerings to even a hair pore of a Buddha. Zillions of bodhisattavahs so zillions and a Buddha offering is much more important.

And doing this of making offerings to all the buddhas, and then your own spiritual master and when you are comparing that. According to Buddha, the spiritual master is more important, more beneficial to you. That is how and why these guru devotion things are important. Even in the precious human life level you have that reason. And you’re dealing with Lama Tubwang Dorje Chang, so that’s why the base on which you are working, the person which you are working is much more important and that’s why it is power number one.

Power number two is mental power. Mental power. If you have this mind of benefitting all, not just benefitting, liberating all sentient beings, bringing them to a total no more learning stage and seeking no more learning stage for yourself, to be able to fulfill that, is such and that’s why yesterday we talked: A bodhisattavah who just simply throws a little piece of left over food to a dog makes much more virtue, good karma, value, than then anybody, everybody, whatever they are doing. You know, somebody who is trying to be completely disciplined and totally devoted, dedicated, disciplined like years and years, lives and lives, and a bodhisattavah who is just simply throwing left over food to a dog makes much more good karma than someone who are life long doing efforts.

Remember the bodhisattavah benefits? They give you young bodhisattavahs like prince of Wales or something who will be the future emperor or whatever, and king or queen, whatever and the arahats and everybody else like seasoned ministers. They also give you the metaphor between the diamond and other sapphire, etc, other jewels, which has more value? They give you that. That is what they’re talking about. That’s because of the mental power the mind power, power ultimate compassion, unlimited compassion can make that. That’s why it is the second power, and so we have that opportunity.

From the actual reality point of view, and that we don’t have most of us, we don’t have it. We don’t have it because that is specifically meant for those who are having self liberation vows, whether you are monks or nuns. So if with the vow if you do something it is much more valuable and information much more valuable and makes more good karma than lay people like us who are working so hard for years and probably there for short time. They are more important because they make much more, and that’s why the actual sangha you have more than four buddhist monks or nuns. Actually from the original true point of view it is more than four buddhist monks, the nuns we’re putting in now because it is politically correct. Honestly speaking, that’s what they’re doing, but truly if you read the sutras it will be only the monks, not so much the nuns. Nuns are sort of put aside. Because it’s the Indian culture, don’t be surprised. Twenty-seven hundred years ago. The honesty is this, they also talk of the male superiority and plus the vow and makes all this, let’s not touch it.

If you have vows, a person with a vow who is making, you know the Tibetans make lot of butter offerings, butter lamps, person with a vow making one butter lamp, person without vow making hundred thousand butter lamps they measure it, you know. So a person with a vow’s one butter lamp makes more money than, more good karma than, a person without vow’s hundred thousand butter lamps. So that is how vows work.

So we can have opportunity. Actually we don’t have self liberation vow, but we have bodhisaatvah vow and we have refuge vow and we have vajrayana vow so from that point of view. From the vajarayana point of view we have all of those. From the sutra, because lam rim mostly talks to sutra alone, from the sutra point of view we may not have that. But there are lay vows. Everybody doesn’t have to be celibate, there are lay vows all uber sekah vows are lay vows. There are eight of them. Eight of them.

1:13

Soh doh dem bah

chim beh

Ok, so there are eight of them and

chim beh don beh tan boh tsun

The first three are lay vows and the last five vows are celibacy vows. So lay vows there are three of them.

yung tsoh tsang jeh

neh ji keh nei

So the uber sekah, the complete uber sekah and uber sekah that restrains from sexual activitieis and uber sekah that protects one downfall. Only one downfall, so I”m not going to go killing any human beings, so that can be. So like three of them.

kim beh don beh tan boh tsun

There are three lay vows.

reb beh don boh tang meh nah

The celibates have five. Let’s not worry about it.

1:15

Plus four root downfalls, plus four branches and they are called nie neh. The nie ney, the vow you can take for periods, like you can take one week period or two week period or month period or all this. In old Tibet they do take that during the Vesak month, they do take that. Then you have the 24 hour Mahayana vow too. So there are not shortage of vows if you take them.

Then some people who take vows without realizing and really they’re taking that vow and after taking the vow they realize they have taken the vow. So people who really follow the vow very carefully as so within ourself, among us, I saw people who are doing that. When they are taking the vow they have no idea what they are doing, and happen to be attending one of the Dalai Lama’s teachings somewhere and they have this vow giving. Somehow that person went in there and had that vow and afterwards she realized what she took and after that she, the person is follows it completely. So people do have that. It is lay vow, I won’t name it, so but it’s important.

And so that’s why the body on which you work if is also with the vow it becomes icing on cake. Then most important for us that we have is the time. Time where we are today it is much more you make much more than earlier. According to the Buddha, he said at the beginning of the Buddha’s period people who are having this perfect morality for life long and people who are having one commitment for 24 hours in those days full commitment whole life you compare it these people our time people makes much more, because it is a degenerated age. Degenerated age has disadvantage, however there is advantage if you can take it. That is the time. So Buddha himself said: ‘when the time this vow Buddhism is about to go the teaching of the Buddha is about to disappear, a single person protecting one commitment for half day is more, makes more good karma than people who are here now.’ That is when the Buddha was alive doing a whole commitment for whole life and those people will make more, that ‘those’ is us. We are in that time. So, that’s why not only the eight leisures and ten richnesses but also base mind, actual time, from all these points we have a tremendous amount of opportunity. It is only us who have the opportunity to be able to cash our good efforts of the earlier life to be able to use in the later part of life. It is only us. In those days it didn’t work so fast, world is not so small, times is not so that short, as now is. So it makes a huge difference for us. And particularly place like this, middle of nowhere in Michigan, it is a Michigan quality, I’m joking.

1:20

[Break for changing of tape]

1:24 Mic turned off

1:34:14 Mic turned on

1:36:20 Teaching begins again

Ok, thank you. So we don’t really have much time so I think I should conclude here.

The conclusion will be this: life is capable of giving any vows that we would like to take, and this life is capable of giving total enlightenment within the short period. That’s why this life is important and this life is difficult to find, but once you find then it is so important. It is very important. Point number 1, mission number 1 for us is not to waste the time. So I’d like to fulfill my mission by not wasting time and I may be able to do this I request the blessing to be able to do this. So then from the lama Tubwang Dorje Chang’s body light liquid five color comes reaching all sentient beings, purifying all negativities and especially the obstacles to develop the realization of the importance of the life.

One thing I’d like to also tell you here is though we pray from here and we work and we say, ‘I hope that we take rebirth in the paradise, western pure land’ and all this, but the pure land people also pray that they’ll take rebirth here because this time the time where we are has the opportunity to be able to take become fully enlightened in short lifetime. The time is not here when earlier. Earlier there is not time for this, now is the time. Because it is so important and particularly the time period where the world is moving in such a way and there are always tremendous problems of any extremist tradition, all these religious traditions, not only the mulisms but extremists of buddhist extremesits of Hindus and extremesits of Christians, extremeists of aethest and extemeists of everybody.

When the extremists are so active and when the world enters such a period intense, so much so that they’re ready to kill anyone anywhere anytime, at such a period there are especially important for us and it’s the benefits, that automatically becoming smart working because it is a such a thing here you know? It is such a thing, it is smart working and the virtues that good karmas that you going to cash this time is much more than any other time. So for us not only a time and right time, but also especially a right time at this point, so to even exhibit a minute of good thoughts bodhimind, compassion and all of them, really cash well, rather than old times. So that is the big difference there.

So not only degenerated age, the time like what we are going through and any efforts you put at the spiritual level becomes much more powerful. So it’s like a really additional fifth power we have. That is, in one way it’s our life and our fortune, in another way and that’s that. But in one way it is our life and our fortune. So that’s what it is

So even if you don’t want to help everybody, even helping yourself alone correctly being able to have all these benefits. That’s why we not only have time but especially, the powers that we are counting, this is an additional power. So with this we request and light and liquid comes and purifies everything, and I and all sentient beings have now obtained realization of the importance of life. So how do I know? I developed the realization of the importance.

1:43

soh meh de

bung

When you realize the importance of life you notice your cutting your unnecessary times. You begin to cut them down. When you begin to realize you don’t want to waste time and getting realization that and that is getting there, that is the sign.

On the other hand, some people would like to be very rigid about it, ‘well I’m not going to waste.’ You know, we have a good example like Dr. K, and so that is a neurosis. I can say it because Dr. K is not here. So that is sort of little nervousness, neurosis rather than really a realization of the importance of this. When you have the realization of the importance you know what happens is, when this realization gets in and you become much more gentle and calmer and sweeter and better personality, rather than a rigid and a twisted personality. That is Tibetan language, we call it twisted personality. Sort of some persons really have personality twisted one, some of them not only twisted character but also physically they’re twisted. ‘I’m superior, get out of here’

So, sort of, that is a twisted personality you know. So the lesser twisted personality, more kindness, more gentle and that is the personality. That’s not only a spiritual development, event the education does that. The more educated, the more well to do persons have a better behavior than the some crazy ones. That doesn’t mean that every educated person doesn’t have neurosis, but more or less you see it at the personalities. You don’t have to say, PhD or something, but when you look at the person, the way they think, the way they talk then you begin to know. You can make some kind of assumption what the person is. You know it can be wrong, but when you can make that assumption meaning you are throwing certain signals and which you may or may not realize, you may or may not like it, and someone telling you that in our culture we don’t like it. We think, that’s none of your business, shut up, you may say it, think about it. But you know this Lam rim is so funny, they poke you from any where, you know. So this is a poking time so you have to poke and what you learn is poking doesn’t bother you. You learn so the poking does not bother you, which means you are improving.

So you are making a better human being, that’s what it is. You know, the better human beings do not use f-word all the time and somebody says something you don’t use the f-word straight-away. and when somebody says something you don’t get up and punch the person straight away, you know we know that and sort of sort of when you do that we will say well, ‘that person is a character,’ we will say that, right? So they don’t say good character or bad character, but you say ‘character,’ so you understand. So it’s basically the importance of the life is sort of really making you that way. Softer and kinder person and personality and it is really important and it helps tremendously with a lot of people, lot of people.

People who are sort of known for short temper and then becomes tremendous wonderful personality. We have one outstanding example is our good friend the late Allen Ginsberg. You know when you read that, his earlier poems and read later those of you know what a difference in the person. These are the keys that help, and that we don’t want to say it but if you don’t point it out sometimes, and it’s not meant to be publicly speaking out, but for us to watch it and take that as an example and make that so it is real. Even when Allen was told he was going to die, he called me and we’re in Mexico and like normal ‘I would make a report.’ And I say, ‘how are you?’ But no matter, whatever I say, ‘make this official report,’ and at the end of the report is done, then he says ‘now I have reported already, and now I can talk.’ So the first thing he said is, ‘I thought when somebody was going to tell me that I’m going to die, I normally think I’m going to hit the ceiling and break the roof or something but you know,’ he said, ‘I was so calm and so gentle and so quiet and I said I’m surprised myself.’ He said, ‘I helped the doctor to break the bad news to me.’ He said, ‘when they came back and they came with a long face, so I told him cancer and he shook his head they acknowledged and I said immediately what’s the word, incurable or uncurable, incurable they shook head and I said couple of months and then they said four of five maximum.’ So he said, ‘judging from my own feeling I don’t think I’ll last more than a month or two.’ That’s what he told me and he said ‘I’m so surprised at myself and I thought someone is going to tell me and I’m going to die, I’m going to hit the ceiling, break it off, so I’m so surprised. I wanted immediately to help them to say because when they come in the room with the face I knew and I realized I had to help them, so I told them cancer and make them easy to say and they just shook head and then I said to them incurable and they shook head and so a month or two and then they say no, four or five. But judging from my own I don’t think it will be that long, that’s it.’

So that personality change are these things had contributed. So when we see this, why don’t we take it. If you admire that change then why don’t you use it for yourself? Nobody is blocking it, you have the opportunity. If you don’t want to use it, fine. Go ahead in the opposite direction, go ahead, get crazy it doesn’t matter. Get more angry, it doesn’t matter, you can explode. Anyway, so light and liquid coming purifying all.

Did I tell you the sign of development?

1:53

ten zin dom beh

That’s right, so when you realize the importance you begin to cut down the wasting time.

Cutting down wasting time, what does that mean? Prioritizing your needs, that’s what it is. You prioritize, you balance. Need to be respectable, good, educated wonderful American human being and spiritual person. Balancing them, having the good of both, that is really what it is. You should have, each and every one of us deserves to have best of the both sides. What is wrong with us?

Each and every one of us should have the best of both worlds and that you have to prioritize. You cannot lose the balance. If you lose the balance you become a yuppie or a hippie, so you don’t want either side. You really want to be a good wonderful person and you try to be a great spiritual person; try to ignore the normal human life and that of educated American life, and then you are crazy again. You loosen more screws at the right side or you have tightened more on the left side. So you really have to have balance otherwise you’ll go crazy, right? So you can’t be a nutty person.

A nutty person is not really a good person and each and every one of us has nuttiness within us. We all do. We all do we all do and we have to make sure we watch what is my nuttiness. You make sure whether you have to tighten the screw or loosen the screw. You have to adjust it. You know and a nutty person can cause not only be a problem for yourself, can cause problem for lot of other people.

I can’t help it, I shouldn’t say it but can’t help. If there is was no nutty person in the jury there is no reason why Martha Stewart had to go to jail. A nutty person could twist whatever trial or jury completely, so that’s what it is. So nuttiness is with everybody, even Ralph Nader has it. I’m teasing.

So when you realize the importance of the life, your value, and your mission then you adjust. Why do you have to meditate? If you meditate it becomes your part of life, it incorporates within your 24 hour way of sitting, way of thinking, way of adjusting. It influences you, it becomes your personality. If you don’t meditate it becomes knowledge, if you meditate and if you incorporate it within you then it becomes a quality. That is a difference. So otherwise it’s knowledge. That’s what it is. So that part of it is the importance.

1:58 Tibetan

When you have the importance and then you reducing the wasting time, otherwise the laziness is such a thing that it will sneak up on you from every angle and you don’t realize it. Sometimes people try to keep yourself busy and then you think you cut down laziness, you’ve made a big mistake. Busy for nothing is the best laziness. Best laziness, you know. and you notice in the in our western culture the busy for nothing is very active, very active. If you have nothing else to do you have to schedule something to do and you have to make yourself an artificial deadline and run around like crazy.

So that is also laziness, it’s not business. Actual business is something else, when you’re achieving something. Sometimes, you know, some people work very hard and make no money is also could be laziness too because you don’t have the value. You know, the value between the real valued and being busy for nothing is measured on the basis of something. What we are known for measuring is the money, but what we now have to learn the new one—what we measure is the good karmic money. So when I say you make more money I mean good karmic money, I don’t mean green dollars in terms of it.

But what normally we measure is in terms of green dollars, and when you doing so much working hard and do so much and make so little we call them a waste of time, don’t we? We do, at least the educated people will call them waste of time, but better than not doing anything else. That is also true, you know. Better than not doing anything else.

Anyway so that is the that part and then the second part I have to touch is difficulty to find. Again, meditation is the same way; preliminary, no preliminary and at the actual level what we need where do we find such a quality with the opportunity life? Actually it’s the life that we have is not a presentation for you, it is not just a gift. It is not just happens to be, but you have earned this life. It’s yours, the opportunity, all of them. You have really earned it. You have earned it because you have a great karma that you have accumulated before and this is that result. That karma, the base of that karma is a pure morality

2:02 Tibetan

So the pure of those karma is the perfect morality, it is the basis or that good karma. Perfect morality. Sometimes we ignore the morality, we enjoy, try to ignore the moralities, but the morality is very important, very important. In any tradition, wherever you look, even in normal human usual understanding can tell you how important the morality really is. I can not emphasis this enough, how important it is. Simply I can say, would you like to be immoral person? No one will say yes, right? No one will say yes. No one would like to be an immoral person and that tells you by our common sense how morality is important. So perfect morality is the fundamental basis of getting such a wonderful life capable and this life this body with combination of this mind makes the difference.

You have this mind with the different body you can simply say ‘bow, wow, wow’ nothing more. So if you really angry and upset you [growls] and then if more than that you bite. And otherwise you yap, ‘bow, wow, wow’ So that’s because it is not the shortage of the mind, but the mind cannot function because the base on which it’s functioning is the body. And combination of that makes a difference because the body imposes limitations on the mind. And our body is such, there is no limitation, almost. Our mental capacity right now we cannot even fulfill a quarter of our body’s capacity, really, particularly the mental connected body. We cannot because when you become fully enlightened, if and when you become fully enlightened, that is the time where our capacity the mind base body and mind both can be fully functioning. It is at that level. We are right now, no matter how brilliant educated wonderful person you may be, we are filling a quarter only and that also is questionable, half yes, half no on our business all the time, so on, off. And on off can become on all the time too,

Anyway, so the morality and help of those six activities and that’s why these seven virtues we counted. That is the support of basic morality from which we have brought. So my mind is not secret for me, there’s no secret to me. Not sacred, there is no secrecy, there’s no confidential anything in my mind from me, do you? No you don’t. If you do, if you think that you do, this is one sign that you’re crazy. Because if you do not have total knowledge of your knowledge, then you have no knowledge. Really, straightforward. So knowing yourself well. By yourself you can make the guess whether you’re guessing works. Luckily, we don’t make so much gassing because we don’t eat beans. Sorry, when I say guess, my mind is such terrible, it goes all over, just follow the words.

So guessing works, so you can measure from there, see and then morality on the basis of your own morality and you think you’re going to get good life in future you be your own judge, don’t let anybody judge you. You be your own judge and look from that angle, then see how much help you’re going to get. You’re going to be wealthy in future life? You should be generous now, practice generosity. That will become work. If you want to be cute and beautiful and wonderful Miss Universe, as I told you earlier, have patience. If your complete your work, do whatever you want to do and have enthusiasm now and because of that it will bring enthusiasm in the future, you will be very organized and doing on time everything. Everything.

There are people, you know many of you think every Tibetan Lama is very relaxed and disorganized, but if you look at Trijang [sp?] Rimpoche in Germany, he’s always organized and really on everything. The moment you tell him anything it will be done, you know. So exactly like that. I went and saw Trijang Rimpoche when I was in Europe last time and I started talking and I said ‘looks like Tarub Tulku is not very well, looks like he’s sick’ and he immediately picked up the phone and looked for the phone number. There’s no answer and nobody picks up the phone and I sat there talking to him about an hour and half, he might have tried fifteen times to call. After a little while he had the repeat button, he’d press the button every three, four, five minutes. Trijang Rimpoche is like that, anything you have to do he will be doing. He wanted somebody’s phone number in Malaysia, so he knew when I was going to get here, I told him when I get back I give it. Like 20 minutes after I arrived home I got a call from him. He says ‘I calculated the time and by now you should be there, so I want that number.’ I said, ‘I have to look, and I just got in. I have to look,’ and next morning, early morning, suddenly I realize Kathy has the number. So I said Kathy will e-mail you. In between that he called like four or five times already.

So people are like that, enthusiastic and well organized. That’s the enthusiasm now, it will not only organize your life now because of that karma, you are automatically building that without neurosis. Very well organized, everything done now and never tomorrow, never later, never in the list of to-do list, everything is now, and that also without any neurosis, without any stress. That is the result of enthusiasm.

And peacefulness is the result of shi neh meditation. Whether you’re a peaceful person or non-peaceful person is the shi neh. Whether you’re intelligent or not intelligent is the wisdom and above all whether you’re a good person or a bad person is the compassion, caring. So that is the seven virtues of life.

And I didn’t realize until now when I started saying the words by heart it’s coming up, they did say seven virtues. Yeah.

So that’s that part of it. And then not only that, from that angle what is life really? How did I earn this life? Because of this. When we look at now, whatever we have earned earlier we use now. It’s no longer left, it’s already been used. So now we have to see whether we have that in the future or now. You have to read by yourself. You don’t go and see some rimpoche and ask for whether I’m going to be a good or bad in the future. If you come to me and ask me whether I’m going to be in future good or bad, ask me more, then I will say ‘enie, menie, miney, moe, catch the tiger by the toe if he hollers let him go’ That’s exactly what any more is.

But you can make yourself the judgment, looking within you. Do you have the morality? Do you have the generosity? Do you have perfect patience? Do you have enthusiasm? Do you have samadhi? Do you have wisdom? There is your answer.

So from that angle you know, but then the second point, there’s the example. The example that Buddha used is an interesting one. So Buddha was asked by one of those kings, one of the kings and asks ‘how many human beings from the lower suffering realms will be able to come up to the wonderful human life that you talk about?’ and Buddha looked around and saw a mirror there. The king had a big mirror, so he picked up a handful of peas, because they’re all round, so he throws the peas at the glass wall and all peas fall down, nothing sticks up there. He said even less than this, peas sticking on the mirror. That was the example given. So how difficult, really to find it. That was Buddha’s example.

But, because of those great beings like Buddha, Jesus, and all the great beings in the human land for 2000 years, we had so many good things and as a result of that so many people are coming in the world today. And a lot of people think where do they come from? Yes, they come from there. They have connected in the previous life and some good karmic buildup, now only by coincidence, but that’s why more human beings are here today, anyway.

And then this very famous example, the very famous example in this particular book it goes more than what we normally tell, he says: ‘Buddha says, In case if this whole continent was completely covered by water and became a huge ocean, there’s nothing left. Within that ocean,’ then he says, ‘you have a yolk and a blind tortoise popping up five hundred years.’ And quoting in that is extremely almost impossible, that’s the example.

From the example point of view and from the population point of view it is also difficult to find the good human beings. Perfect wonderful good human beings are much less than all human beings. Is that true? Because we have bad human being too, there are also human beings. So good human beings are much less than total human beings, and nonhuman being are more than human beings. Insects, animals, birds, and count them all that we see and what we don’t see the people in the hell realm and all of them are, they’re much more. And the spirits, the hungry ghosts, they’re much more than human beings. These are from the population point of view.

Anyway, so whatever it might be we happen to be having this one. Difficult to find is what we have found, we have found it. An important thing is not to waste this. Fulfill our mission. The way and how to fulfill the mission is to have continuous connection relationship with enlightened ones, and teachings that enlightened ones have shared. By practicing that every day and result what they have given I may be able to help within the shortest possible time. If it is three minutes, let it be three minutes, if it’s three years, let it be three years. Let’s not be three lifetimes.

So that’s within the lifetime, whatever may be we may be able to have it and I may be blessed to be able to obtain that. Light liquid and purify all negativities in general and particularly realizing difficulty to find has been purified. I and all sentient beings have achieved state of that. And finally dedicating. Dedicating, and during the in between sessions reading about it and meditating about it.

There are teachings that will say during the mantra recitation or during the meditation you are permitted to read about it, but it is permission given. It may be working to a person, you know highly developed person, but for us it is emphasized that readings are done during the in between sessions rather than in the session. Likewise, whatever we’ve been sharing here, try to think about that in between sessions too. That does not necessarily mean you have to sit down and say ‘I’m meditating’ make a big showbiz, but a normal life, walking, eating, talking, chatting, laughing, yet you’re having one thought that is focused on that. You’ve got to learn that otherwise you’re never going to have enough time for us.

So that’s that part and I have to close here and before I close there’s announcement and I’m sure she will announce or not I’ll say at the end. Thank you. I don’t think we can solve that problem yet, anyway. Thank you very much.