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- 2:23
This talk is about impermanence and attachment and grasping and karma. it's the story of those four and it has to do with the fact that a few years ago our house burned down and we were left with absolutely nothing except the clothes we stood up in.
- 7:50
And it sounds depressing, but it's really not at all. In some ways, it's kind of liberating. Okay, so now I'm going to tell you about this house fire that we had. And as I say, so many people have had house fires. You may have had one yourself, and you may know people. Uh-oh, I'm too far. My fingers are... So what happened was that we lived in Japan for almost 20 years.
- 18:27
I'd like to talk now a little bit about attachment. You see, we had pets. We had an old dog who was 14, we had an old cat who was 16, and we brought them from Japan. So we'd had them a very long time. And they burned up. And that was almost harder than the whole house because of the attachment, the long-term attachment.
- 25:21
Before we even become attached, we have a tendency to want, we have a tendency to grasp. And what I wanted to do was sell off the land, it was on a little bit of land, and get a Winnebago and take off. And just the two of us, and we would, I said to Jack, let's just live on the west coast with a Winnebago and follow the Dharma. And when the lamas come, we can go to the teachings, and then we can live in our Winnebago. Wouldn't that be a great life?
- 37:09
Lama Zopa Rinpoche came to dinner and we had a grand dinner to celebrate that the whole thing was there. So this brings me to my conclusion, you'll be very happy to hear, is that one of the conclusions was, is that the karma for a house burning down for us could be finished. Now, what that...
Transcript
0:07 Just away that dude. there we go. That's fine. Okay. Yes. going to get you some more water. Oh, thank you. Thank you. So, uh... Good morning. I'm really pleased to be here. Can everybody hear me? I don't always hear, so it's just a miracle if I do, and then I always wish people would say, can you hear me? Report an error in the passage at 0:07
0:44 My name is Judith. And I live in San Anselmo and have for the last ten years. And we have a little study group out there we've had for the last eight years called Machik Labdron. Machik Labdron was a great yogi at maybe six, seven, eight hundred years ago and she practiced in graveyards. She practiced overcoming fear and we think that that's a pretty cool name to have for a group. Report an error in the passage at 0:44
1:28 We didn't give ourselves the name, Lama Zopa gave it to us when we asked for a name. And she overcame obstacles and so we assumed that he just reckoned we had a lot of obstacles to overcome. a small group of about 16 people, and we study mostly with the students. Venerable Monam, who lives here in this house. And sometimes Cherki comes to see us. So that's who we are. Report an error in the passage at 1:28
2:02 And when I started to think about this talk, I thought how dangerous it is to get asked to talk about yourself. That could get to be very long. And I hope that it doesn't. This talk is about impermanence and attachment and grasping and karma. Report an error in the passage at 2:02
2:53 it's the story of those four and it has to do with the fact that a few years ago our house burned down and we were left with absolutely nothing except the clothes we stood up in. Report an error in the passage at 2:53
3:10 so I worked it out that I could talk about impermanence, attachment, grasping, and karma. Report an error in the passage at 3:10
3:21 Now, this is something that's happened to a lot of people. You know, in the paper we read, ever since the Oakland Hills fire, it's happened to a lot of people around, you know, and we read about them. And every time I read about them, I think, hope they've got some dharma. I'd like to say that Tibetan Buddhism Report an error in the passage at 3:21
4:15 path, so... Report an error in the passage at 4:15
4:20 always think that a good beginning for Tibetan Buddhism would be impermanence. a person could just get in touch with the fact that... They're not here forever and not even very long, let alone forever. And if a person could just start to think that way, instead of getting depressed and weird, you know, let me just move this up. Report an error in the passage at 4:20
4:48 I Report an error in the passage at 4:48
4:55 have trouble with this, running this mouse, you know, because I'm used to a ball. Report an error in the passage at 4:55
5:16 I think with impermanence. Very early when we started with Tibetan Buddhism, we started trying to imagine, what if I didn't exist? What if everything was gone? Report an error in the passage at 5:16
5:30 And like Suzuki Roshi was asked once, he's a great Zen teacher, he was asked once if he would tell all of Buddhism in a sentence. And he said yes, he could do that. Everything changes. And of course that's impermanence, but we don't really register, I think. Report an error in the passage at 5:30
5:52 get really messy and we get really wild we don't think oh this is very temporary is going to change this is going to pass also i think key to impermanence is age, and there's nobody in here that's got any age that I can see anyway. But that definitely is a reminder, it's a daily reminder, you know, because when you get old it's either this or that. Report an error in the passage at 5:52
6:21 One thing or another, you know, and you think, oh, well, I got that fixed and then something else comes along. And so age is a key to impermanence. And then we had a great teacher here. He has died now. His name was Reba Rinpoche. And he used to give beautiful talks and everybody would, he would ask if people would meditate while he was talking. Report an error in the passage at 6:21
6:45 And then his translator or his interpreter, which is more correct. His interpreter was Italian, so he had this beautiful Italian voice that used to say, I can't say it like he did, but he used to say things like, nothing will remain, nothing, not one hair of your head. Everyone's meditating and trying to imagine not one hair of their head would remain. And that's how we learned more about impermanence from him. Report an error in the passage at 6:45
7:20 And even this house, I mean you just have to try to imagine in your spare time, when you're on the bus or wherever, imagine there's going to come a time when this very house is just dust. Nothing but dust. And so what are we? You know? We're smaller than dust by then. And so I think that if impermanence is once grasped, it's a very good place to start. Report an error in the passage at 7:20
7:50 And it sounds depressing, but it's really not at all. In some ways, it's kind of liberating. Okay, so now I'm going to tell you about this house fire that we had. And as I say, so many people have had house fires. You may have had one yourself, and you may know people. Uh-oh, I'm too far. My fingers are... So what happened was that we lived in Japan for almost 20 years. Report an error in the passage at 7:50
8:23 And then when we came back to America, we bought one of those San Anselmo bungalows. I don't know whether you know what they are, but when people in San Francisco began to make some money a hundred or more years ago, they wanted to get out of San Francisco and they built all these little summer houses out there over the bridge. Report an error in the passage at 8:23
8:44 And so they built all these bungalows and they were always kind of up a bit because they could catch the afternoon breeze. It was very hot. Report an error in the passage at 8:44
8:54 And we bought one of those. It was old. It was a 1916. And I think it was the last house in all of California that sold for $300,000. After that it went, you know. Anyway, it was a wreck. It was a picture-upper. And we bought it next to lifelong friends so that we could live next to them because we didn't know America anymore, you know. Report an error in the passage at 8:54
9:21 We'd been gone so long. And so we thought that was a pretty good plan and we remodeled it. And it was gorgeous, gorgeous. And then there came a day when Jack went to San Diego to see his mother and I went to the Land of Medicine Buddha to see Lama Zopa. And Jack gets a phone call from the neighbor, our dear friend, who says it's gone. Report an error in the passage at 9:21
9:49 The whole thing. Burned up. And of course the big problem at that moment was... For Jack was that my car was there because I had gone to Land of Medicine Buddha with some other people and then of course they thought perhaps I was in the house and he then began calling around, you know, everybody he knew or ever did know, everybody in his computer and found out that I wasn't. Report an error in the passage at 9:49
10:17 I had come home only partway from, you know, when Lama Zopa teaches sometimes it goes most of the night. And I had come back as far as San Francisco and was staying with some nuns and knew nothing. And eventually he phoned me in the car and the phone rang and the person driving the car said, you better, oh here's a phone for you. Report an error in the passage at 10:17
10:41 And I said, no, no, no. I'll answer it when I get home. We're almost home. And she said, no, no, I think I'll just pull over for you to answer. So I did. She did. I picked up the phone and Jack said, have you heard the news? And I said, no. He said, it's gone. The house is gone. It's completely burned down. Report an error in the passage at 10:41
11:04 And I thought, wow. And immediately somehow my mind thought about impermanence. Now that was a great benefit, really. And so I recommend to you that this is something to really read about, think about, study. I realized to some degree, I started, I think I took refuge, then I started to say Tara mantras. And I didn't feel especially panicked. Report an error in the passage at 11:04
11:33 I just felt, you know, wow, this is extremely strange. Three minutes later we were there, but I didn't look. I jumped out of the car and went in the neighbor's house. And they were very kind. The fire marshal told us that had we been at home... Report an error in the passage at 11:33
11:52 The coyote was internal, the outside walls were still standing but nothing was inside. had we been at home, probably we would have woken up, smelled the smoke, and died. Report an error in the passage at 11:52
12:06 that we thought, somehow, that could... I don't know, that seems a little bizarre, but it did. You know, that somehow we'd escaped. And we Report an error in the passage at 12:06
12:23 had... Literally nothing. And people came, kind people came and they brought things to the neighbor's house, you know, like clothes and eventually dishes and silverware and pieces of furniture. And we didn't refuse anything because we thought to ourselves, A, we didn't have anything, we didn't know what we would need or where we would put it if we had it. Report an error in the passage at 12:23
12:51 And also, it gave people a chance to be generous. people a chance to something. so we just piled it all up, you know. We didn't have anywhere to go. We were in the, the friends have a kind of a downstairs storage place, so we just pushed everything to the side and stayed in there. And there was, there was funny, we didn't fall down. Report an error in the passage at 12:51
13:19 thought maybe we would, you know, be wrecked out or or something. Report an error in the passage at 13:19
13:25 We didn't fall down. There were a few funny things like the first night we stayed, the fire was still smoking and we heard this creaking and groaning sound, you know, because we were right next door. And we woke up and we said, listen, the old house is trying to cool down, you know. It's trying to get cool. And we felt sad then. Report an error in the passage at 13:25
13:52 I think we cried, you know. No. Nothing big, but we did weep a little, and then in the morning we realized that it wasn't a house at all, that upstairs they have a gerbil in a great big cave, and it's nocturnal, you know, and it jumps about. And so that was what we heard and felt so bad about. The other really sad moment was that our pets had been in the house, and a couple of evenings later Jack tried to take a walk. Report an error in the passage at 13:52
14:25 And he came home after about half a block and he said, I can't take a walk because the dog wasn't with him, you know. Okay, and then the good thing was that the Lamas came. The Lamas started to come. Very, very wonderful for us. And Geshe Dakpa came and he and Lama and they sat in the living room of our neighbors. And Geshe Dakpa talked about when... Report an error in the passage at 14:25
14:55 His monastery burned in Tibet and how he had his, you know, whatever they were carrying with them, most of them brought out some of their prayers and very little else, I guess, a couple of statues. And he looked back and he saw Sarah J. Monastery burning and that somehow comforted us. We thought, look at Geshe Dakpa, solid as a rock, wise as any human person could ever be. Report an error in the passage at 14:55
15:23 And he saw his place burning. You know, that was extremely comforting. And then we have a dear lama from Japan. He's the only lama in Japan. And he comes in the summer to Mendocino to do some work. And he rented a car and he came down with a driver and he came down from Mendocino and sat in the neighbor's living room and said, well, it was his feeling. Report an error in the passage at 15:23
15:54 That why the house had burned was spirit harm. Now spirit harm is kind of a tricky thing I think in the West for most of us. Report an error in the passage at 15:54
16:07 There's a woman in our group who comes from Haiti and one day we talked about spirit harm and she about jumped out of her skin because she said in Haiti spirit harm is just like very huge you know and it's something you try never to. encounter or stay away from or talk about or anything else. Report an error in the passage at 16:07
16:29 He thought there was water running under the house the water spirits had become angry. Now this all sounds like a lot of wooey wooey too. But at the same time, when they finally bulldozed the house and took it away and they drilled down, there was water the house. was a local creek, know, running. Okay. Report an error in the passage at 16:29
16:57 Adjo Rinpoche came and he's Report an error in the passage at 16:57
17:15 a great Lama in the Gelug tradition and he managed to get a picture of himself up in our burned house for the newspaper, which I thought was pretty cool. So in many ways we were greatly comforted. Now that's the impermanence part because we had to realize at some level that everything was gone. And it's very weird that there was just small but a sense of space and freedom. Report an error in the passage at 17:15
17:49 We had nothing. Nothing. And there was some kind of space of freedom about that. And I always feel grateful that I've managed to experience that once in my life. I'm sorry it had to be that way, but at the same time, you know, I've always thought it would be fun to travel around the world with a day pack, nothing else, and freely, you know, without all this luggage and all this buying things and all that stuff. Report an error in the passage at 17:49
18:21 And so that sense was there. Now there was the business. I'd like to talk now a little bit about attachment. Report an error in the passage at 18:21
18:32 You see, we had pets. We had an old dog who was 14, we had an old cat who was 16, and we brought them from Japan. So we'd had them a very long time. And they burned up. And that was almost harder than the whole house because of the attachment, the long-term attachment. Report an error in the passage at 18:32
19:00 They actually, we discovered when we finally got around to it, that the firemen had found their bodies because we had a downstairs room that had a pergo floor. I don't know if you know what pergo is. It's kind of a false wood. It's kind of a photograph of wood on something else. Do you know what it is? Report an error in the passage at 19:00
19:20 What is pergo? I think it's just kind of a thing. Yeah. Anyway, it didn't burn. So anything on that floor, everything was black, you know, but my photo books, for example, I had a whole set of photo albums I'd made over the years in Japan. They were still there. And the dog's little body and the cat, they had found their way when the house started to burn down into the basement, well not a basement, downstairs, and their bodies were intact, I guess. Report an error in the passage at 19:20
19:58 And the Humane Society took them away. And when we went to get them, they were in black plastic garbage bags, and it was a hot day. And they must have had them in a cooler, see, or a freezer or something. And we put them in the back of the car in a bottle. And before we got home, you could begin to smell the decay, you know. Report an error in the passage at 19:58
20:19 And so we dug a big hole in the backyard, and we put them in the hole, and then we asked Ajit Rinpoche, I think we were... You know, we were a little zoned out in some ways because we asked Ajahn Rinpoche to come and make prayers for our cat and our dog. Ajahn Rinpoche was an extremely holy Lama in the Balut tradition. We only found out all about that later. And he came so kindly. Report an error in the passage at 20:19
20:49 With his attendants and his household and the neighbors came and we said prayers and we threw flowers in and the whole thing. And at the very end Rinpoche whispers to me, Judith, it would be a really good thing if you took off the black bags. Report an error in the passage at 20:49
21:05 So then we waited until everybody left and then we got all geared up for this one. We thought, this is the ultimate, you know. And we got the scissors and we tied our faces up with claws, you know. But they were... They were okay. They had just died from, well, smoke inhalation can't be a very nice death, but they had died from that. And so then, we got them buried. Report an error in the passage at 21:05
21:29 But then the attachment also arose sometimes, because you see, when you have a loser, everything like that, everything around you, and think of all the millions and millions of people who've lost everything around them, all over the world. I mean, when there's a war. Report an error in the passage at 21:29
22:06 twenty years, we had collected Japanese Report an error in the passage at 22:06
22:12 um... paintings and woodblocks and and all that stuff, you know, that was all gone. was 20 years collection. We had even brought windows and the doors from an old Japanese house that we lived in because they were so charming. It was all made with handcrafted wood and glass with little designs in it. I don't know, we thought we'd make a little summer house or something in the garden. Report an error in the passage at 22:12
22:47 And all that, everything was done. And you see what happens is, you don't miss everything right away, but slowly, slowly, only two or three nights ago, I dreamed that I opened a little silk bag and in there was a perfume bottle that my grandmother gave me when I was baptized, which was a little while ago. Report an error in the passage at 22:47
23:11 And I hadn't even thought about that. And then I thought, when I woke up, I thought, oh yeah. I've totally forgotten about that. It was a little crystal with silver ends, you know, old-fashioned kind of a thing. Another funny part was that when we came back from Japan, we had 146 boxes of packed boxes of treasures. Report an error in the passage at 23:11
23:41 And we put some of them around the house, but as I went through the boxes, there was a whole lot of stuff I didn't want. I thought, oh, what did I collect that for? I don't really want that. And I packed it up and put it down in that room that had the pergol floor. And a couple of those boxes survived. And here I was with nothing really except a couple of boxes, very smoked, blackened things that I didn't even want in the first place. Report an error in the passage at 23:41
24:09 And so I thought that that was a little bit interesting. Yeah. I remembered another thing. You want to think about your own stuff and your house. you want to think about what you would miss. You know, I know you've thought about what you would grab if you had to run, you know, you have to think about the little details. Report an error in the passage at 24:09
24:31 And so attachment was very clear. We were very attached. We didn't get wrecked up over it as much as we just became kind of numb. And then we just watched. But at the same time, we didn't say, oh, well, it's all gone. That's okay. You know, we remembered. We'd say, oh, do you remember this? Do you remember that? Report an error in the passage at 24:31
25:10 And so the next stage was grasping. And we know very well that we have a tendency to grasp on. Before we even become attached, we have a tendency to want, we have a tendency to grasp. And what I wanted to do was sell off the land, it was on a little bit of land, and get a Winnebago and take off. And just the two of us, and we would, I said to Jack, let's just live on the west coast with a Winnebago and follow the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 25:10
25:49 And when the lamas come, we can go to the teachings, and then we can live in our Winnebago. Wouldn't that be a great life? Well, Jack is much more sensible and grounded than I am and he said, no, I think we'll rebuild. And that just seemed very onerous to have to build a new house in Marin because the insurance was not what it should be. Report an error in the passage at 25:49
26:15 And after our fire, many friends... And then when the house burned down, by then property values had gone up so high that I don't know what. We had $250,000 in insurance. And we only owed $100,000 on the house. So we could pay that off. So what's that leave us? $150,000. We couldn't build a garage, I don't think, in Marin for that. And also, contents were insured. Report an error in the passage at 26:15
27:08 We could realize some more money from contents. But do you know how you get the money from your contents? Has anybody ever done that? It's hilarious. Report an error in the passage at 27:08
27:18 You hire a company that sends someone to your house and Report an error in the passage at 27:18
27:31 they have a big ledger and you go room by room remembering and you have to list everything in your house. Well, yes, you can list the big old furnitures and what you feel they're worth or what you paid for them. Well, since we bought antiques in Japan, they were worth quite a lot of money. when you get down to the dish towel and that chest of drawers how many How many drawers did you have? Well, it had three drawers. What was in the top drawer? Socks. How many socks? You know? Report an error in the passage at 27:31
28:05 And in the end, you just make it all up, you know? And in the kitchen, what was in the first cabinet? Spices. What spices? And you list all them, you know? How many dish towels, how many face cloths, how many, I mean it gets to be absolutely ridiculous. This poor lady, I'm sure she was paid well, she would come and sit at the kitchen where we lived around, we were homeless, we lived here and there. Report an error in the passage at 28:05
28:33 And she would make these immense lists because you had to make your goods equal to the amount of money that your goods were insured for. So we had to find $150,000 worth of goods in our house. Well, when it came to tankas and tansus, that wasn't hard. But this was just a bungalow, you know. And so we claimed amazing things. Report an error in the passage at 28:33
28:58 Anyway, so we lived all around. We had to move here and there. We didn't have any stuff anyway. And the other stuff we stored somewhere. So there were benefits to that. Because we were used to having a great many visitors. Report an error in the passage at 28:58
29:17 And we didn't have any visitors, so we had time to go to Weight Watchers and follow Weight Watchers. We didn't serve any food to anyone. We didn't have to put on any meals. And we both lost 20 pounds. We thought that was pretty cool. So there's a little side benefit. And then there came the whole business of rebuilding. And the architect, this is what's leading up to the grasping bit. Report an error in the passage at 29:17
29:45 And so I interviewed architects. And made a list and then took the list to Geshe-la here. And Geshe-la chose one and he chose, how he does it I don't know, but he chose a neighbor whom we already knew. And of course she was thrilled and she chose a contractor. And from then on Geshe-la made all the observations. Like if we had a question, you know, which way should the house face or... Report an error in the passage at 29:45
30:15 What should we do, you know, how many this and how many that, and all the various questions. At Geshe-la, should we sue, one of the questions was, should we sue the insurance company? Report an error in the passage at 30:15
30:28 And Geshe-la didn't answer that one, but we said, so we answered it for ourselves, and we decided yes, because they hadn't given us a high enough bid on how much insurance to buy. So then we asked Geshe-la, should we pay him by the hour or should we pay him by contingency and by results? And Geshe-la said, you pay him by results, he'll work harder that way. Report an error in the passage at 30:28
30:54 I mean, we just got Geshe-la's input all the way from then on. Then came the bulldozing of the ruin, you know, and we all sat up on the hill and Geshe-la and Ajah Rinpoche and they wanted to make a little... a puja. Well, of course, smoke is a big word in the neighborhood by now. We're talking two years later, by the way. Report an error in the passage at 30:54
31:22 It took two years to get all these things in motion. And we went to the firehouse and we said, oh, we want to burn some branches as part of a religious ceremony. And they said, yes, fine, fine, it's legal, all that stuff. And then... They forgot to pass the word on to the next staff the next day. So of course as soon as we began to make the puja and make the smoke, here come all the firemen all geared up in helmets and their yellow clothes and everything. Report an error in the passage at 31:22
31:56 So anyway, I thought that was pretty charming. Then another interesting little sidelight in this was... Zenla, I don't know if you know Zenla, she's a translator or an interpreter for the Lamas and she's Tibetan nun. And she had an observation made in India, she didn't say who made the observation, about the fire. And she came back to us with the results and she said, the observation says, it's a psychic observation of some kind, that the fire was my karma. Report an error in the passage at 31:56
32:37 And I thought, oh dear. And then she said, and also the observation says that you have an obstacle on your life. Well, that's fairly serious, you know. So, of course, we ran off to Geshe-la again. Great haze, Geshe-la, Geshe-la. The observation says there's an obstacle on my life and Geshe-la just sat there and said, yes, there's an obstacle on your life. Report an error in the passage at 32:37
33:01 You're old. Report an error in the passage at 33:01
33:05 So we could let go of that. So Report an error in the passage at 33:05
33:13 what happens with grasping, since that's what I'm supposed to be on? Anyway, when you build a house, if you've never built a house, we had never built anything. I'd never even decorated a room that I could remember. And all of a sudden, you have these architectural plans. And the plans had been gone over. Report an error in the passage at 33:13
33:37 They'd been finished and the architect had finished and told us not to tell anyone. And then we met someone here at Sei Chen Ling, a friend, who said he knew a great feng shui master was here from Hong Kong, on the mainland or somewhere, and he would like to feng shui the architectural drawings. So we invited him to come and he met with the architect and they redrew the drawings and it cost another $10,000. Report an error in the passage at 33:37
34:07 So the whole house was now feng shui-ed. And then we started, well, if I had never done anything like this before, I mean, you have to go out literally and buy 30 light fixtures, you know, or somebody comes along and says, or the contractor says, by the end of the week, could you have all the doorknobs? Report an error in the passage at 34:07
34:30 And so you go out buying doorknobs and tiles. I'd never bought a tile in my life. And he would say, you know. Let's have the tiles ready in 10 days. I'd have to go around these tile shops imagining how you bought tiles and what tiles you would buy to make a house, you know. Report an error in the passage at 34:30
34:51 So what we had, it was a very strong learning curve is what I'm saying, very strong. But what we had decided is that we would build a house for Dharma, for the Dharma. Because when we lived in Japan, we were isolated. As I say, there's one Lama in Japan. He became our very dear friend. We never spoke enough Japanese to attend. He teaches in Japanese, even though he's Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 34:51
35:18 We never spoke enough Japanese to attend his teachings. And so we decided we would build a house where the Dharma would come. And so that led us to all kinds of things like making a gompa and guest rooms and buying an industrial stove. And having a dishwasher. I never had a dishwasher in my life before. And things like that. And so now the house was all feng shui-ed and equipped. Report an error in the passage at 35:18
35:49 And so it began to go up. But we were in this kind of, it's called the desire realm, where you have to grasp all the time. Because you're all the time shopping around, needing this and needing that and viewing this and viewing that and wondering, you know, wanting this and wanting that. And needing more than was in the plans. The whole thing was just like that. So after the house was already up, Master Li, the feng shui master, came back to check on it. Report an error in the passage at 35:49
36:26 And he got all disturbed because he thought a couple of doors were in the wrong place. Well, we couldn't start changing the doors at that point. So again, we called in Geshe-la. Geshe-la came and said, You know we have a saying in Tibet that says, if you consult too many astrologers, you'll never bury the body. So we let go of that. Report an error in the passage at 36:26
36:52 Later on, Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent a feng shui person to look again at the house and give us some little remedial things to do. So the very end of all that grasping and planning and living this house building thing. Lama Zopa Rinpoche came to dinner and we had a grand dinner to celebrate that the whole thing was there. Report an error in the passage at 36:52
37:19 So this brings me to my conclusion, you'll be very happy to hear, is that one of the conclusions was, is that the karma for a house burning down for us could be finished. Now, what that... What that means is that it's happened. It's over. Now I understand in the Oakland Hills fire there were some people whose house burned down and burned down again. Report an error in the passage at 37:19
37:52 Their karma wasn't finished. So we're thinking ours might be finished. And one of the stories I know about this is because many years ago I lived in Nepal at Kopan Monastery when Lama Yeshe was alive. At one time a man, a westerner, Beat me up. He had gone to town and taken some bad drugs and he got me by the hair and he beat me up. And the next morning I was in the kitchen and Lama, yes she comes along and says, well I hear one man did beat you up. Report an error in the passage at 37:52
38:31 And then he laughed and he laughed and he laughed. And I was horrified because I thought I was now a battered woman, you know, and this is very serious business. And I said, what's he laughing about? And they said, he's laughing because he's so happy that the karma is finished for that, for you. So you see there I got a lesson in karma. And hopefully with the house we got another lesson in karma. Another lesson we got from this was generosity. Report an error in the passage at 38:31
39:04 People are so generous. Se Chan Ling opened up one of those things where people send money. received $20,000. Report an error in the passage at 39:04
39:20 I have a photograph Report an error in the passage at 39:20
39:45 at home. about impermanence, I have a photo. Report an error in the passage at 39:45
39:47 That I didn't receive until quite, you know, a couple of years ago. And what happened, Lama Yeshe is my root Lama. And what happened when he died, he was cremated at Vajrapani. Report an error in the passage at 39:47
40:01 It was a wonderful series of events that someday maybe you need to hear about that too. That they could bring his body up from L.A., from Mount Zion Hospital and cremate it at Vajrapani. Very remarkable occurrence. Report an error in the passage at 40:01
40:18 Someone put a camera, you see when you cremate a lama it's in a stupa and there are certain holes like this in the stupa to allow the air to keep the fire going. And someone put a camera in there, very quickly I hope, and flicked it. And what you get is a picture of lama's holy skull burning. Report an error in the passage at 40:18
40:50 It's the most remarkable picture I've ever seen. And so, because I guess I understood a bit more about impermanence, I thought maybe that was a good way to go. And every night I look at this picture before I go to bed and remember not only Lama and all his wonderful kindness, but remember that that's where we'll all go. Report an error in the passage at 40:50
41:16 There isn't anyone who isn't going to, maybe they won't get burned up, maybe they'll get buried, but... That none of us are going to survive. That's not the way life goes. And as for attachment and grasping, still got it. We filled up this new house perfectly. We didn't buy much. We didn't have any money left for furniture. We went to garage sales and we got some really nice things. Report an error in the passage at 41:16
41:46 And then people still continued giving us things and we kept them. And so now we got another house, bigger house. full, filled, you know, full right to the back. so, and we still go once in a while to a garage sale, grasping around for something more to put in it. Report an error in the passage at 41:46
42:07 but I do think that we're a little bit aware. Report an error in the passage at 42:07
42:20 I could take just a couple of questions. did before. I hope so. that's it. Thank you very much. Report an error in the passage at 42:20
42:24 If you want to ask questions, it's 11.45. Report an error in the passage at 42:24
42:29 I'm deaf, and so you have to clear out the questions loudly, if you have one. That's another good reason to use the Report an error in the passage at 42:29
42:38 there's a mic. Yeah. You're not taping this. Oh, dear. Ina Wartle said, are they going to make it? they going to? What about the water spirits? Report an error in the passage at 42:38
42:59 I hope it's okay. We hired somebody who for, you can't believe what things cost, $4,000 came and drilled four holes. We had always heard there was water because we had a silver birch tree and we didn't water it and it was huge and it was beautiful so we reckoned there was water down there. And so when the house was bulldozed and the new foundations were built, they brought in great big stampers that stamped the ground down. Report an error in the passage at 42:59
43:34 And truckloads and truckloads of dirt. wherever that water was flowing, it doesn't flow anymore. Now whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 43:34
43:45 know, whatever the water was flowing, there's no water flowing there. Maybe it flows somewhere else, let's hope. Thank you so Report an error in the passage at 43:45
44:02 much. And if some big, horrible, traumatic and awful thing happens to you, remember impermanence. And remember the kindness of the Lamas. Never forget that. You're Report an error in the passage at 44:02
44:28 free! Report an error in the passage at 44:28
44:37 anybody has any questions or anything, I'm just going to go into the cafe and just ask any questions. Do you want to come up here and check it? No, it's okay. I see the ibuprofen in the airborne on the kitchen table. It's actually berries, but yeah, we're all getting something here. And that's a permanence tube. Yeah, but I'm available. People want to just sit. And there's some cookies here. can help themselves to cookies. Report an error in the passage at 44:37
45:06 Thank you so much Judith. You're welcome. Report an error in the passage at 45:06
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Talk by Judith Hunt, recorded 20 July 2008. Original at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/JH_SundayService_20080720. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Recorded at Tse Chen Ling Center, San Francisco, and archived by the center on Internet Archive. More from Tse Chen Ling