Integration Practices - Discovering Buddhism (15 May 2007)

0:00 I know. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:05 It's all set up, it just needs to pick the cord. Okay. Just making sure the MP3. Report an error in the passage at 0:05 Highlight the passage at 0:05

0:13 So welcome. This is integration experience. It's just like on a plane where they announce a destination, right? If you want to be going to Boston and you're actually on the plane to DC, you should get on. Report an error in the passage at 0:13 Highlight the passage at 0:13

0:28 So this is integration experiences. It's sort of replicating module four. 14 of the Discovering Buddhism series, but also can stand alone and be four separate classes that can each stand alone as well, just on what I call the preliminary practices or ninja practices of Tibetan Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

0:56 Let's start with a little motivation, a little bit of time to kind of bring our mind to nature. Report an error in the passage at 0:56 Highlight the passage at 0:56

1:09 We just take a moment to check your posture. Allow your spine to be extended. I'm imagining a cord running along the spine at the top of your head. Let Report an error in the passage at 1:09 Highlight the passage at 1:09

1:31 your shoulders go back a little bit and be level. Your hands either on your lap or on your knees. Report an error in the passage at 1:31 Highlight the passage at 1:31

1:51 You're open and unfocused on the carpet in front of you. Report an error in the passage at 1:51 Highlight the passage at 1:51

2:00 Or closed. If you're late night, you're meditating on a group so you're distracting. Report an error in the passage at 2:00 Highlight the passage at 2:00

2:08 Your tongue on the roof of your mouth, behind the front teeth, Report an error in the passage at 2:08 Highlight the passage at 2:08

2:21 and your breath just relaxed, steady, unforced. We'll Report an error in the passage at 2:21 Highlight the passage at 2:21

2:36 start with watching that breath. So, you can either position your awareness at the level of your abdomen, rising and falling with each breath, or your chest as it rises and falls with each breath, or the level of your nostril, the sensation of the air going out and coming back in. Report an error in the passage at 2:36 Highlight the passage at 2:36

3:03 Try to count a couple of rounds of 10 breaths out and in each countdown as one without losing our object, without losing our concentration. So no matter what sounds are outside, and there will be a bot in the city, there's a lot of traffic on this corner. Boomboxes, people talking, or in the office, or in the hallway outside, doors, people coming and going. Report an error in the passage at 3:03 Highlight the passage at 3:03

3:34 Gently keep bringing your mind back to the object of the breath. As many times as you went to vibration, Report an error in the passage at 3:34 Highlight the passage at 3:34

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7:41 pain, Report an error in the passage at 7:41 Highlight the passage at 7:41

7:55 this life more meaningful. Report an error in the passage at 7:55 Highlight the passage at 7:55

8:01 What can we do to really integrate the Buddhist teachings now so they change not only our view but our whole life? Report an error in the passage at 8:01 Highlight the passage at 8:01

8:16 The good news is that with this amazing good fortune, we've met not only the Dharma and good teachers, but have the interest in spending their short life on studying and practicing it. Report an error in the passage at 8:16 Highlight the passage at 8:16

8:32 And this is the class that will show us how to take these teachings below the neck into the field to test our beliefs to go deeper, to go deeper than we ever have in our studies, even with our daily practice. Report an error in the passage at 8:32 Highlight the passage at 8:32

8:55 I found a quote today from Tsongkhapa Rinpoche, and it said, as long as you place some value in this worldly life, there's always going to be a loophole in your Dharma practice. Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:16 Class helped us to realize all the potential and opportunity we have in Report an error in the passage at 9:16 Highlight the passage at 9:16

9:34 worldly activities that have distracted us. Report an error in the passage at 9:34 Highlight the passage at 9:34

9:43 deeper and deeper understandings of the Buddha's teachings. With Report an error in the passage at 9:43 Highlight the passage at 9:43

· · · silence, 1 minute

10:23 the wish to free all beings, I shall always go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha until I reach full enlightenment. Inspired by wisdom and compassion, today in the Buddha's presence, I generate the mind of full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. As long as space remains. As long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain and dispel the miseries of the world. Report an error in the passage at 10:23 Highlight the passage at 10:23

10:55 With the wish to free all beings, I shall always go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha until I reach full enlightenment. Inspired by wisdom and compassion, today in the Buddha's presence, I generate the mind of full awakening. For the benefit of all sentient beings, as long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain and dispel the mysteries of the world. Report an error in the passage at 10:55 Highlight the passage at 10:55

11:28 With the wish to free all beings, I shall always go refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha until I reach the enlightenment, inspired by wisdom and compassion, today in the Buddha's presence. I generate the mind to full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain and dispel the miseries of the world. Report an error in the passage at 11:28 Highlight the passage at 11:28

12:14 Firecracker motivation. Report an error in the passage at 12:14 Highlight the passage at 12:14

12:19 I just thought that was a great quote. Because it's true. I mean, we keep trying to make some sour work, you know, we keep trying to fix it. It's like an old car with a bad engine. So this class is actually, I sort of made up this class. I'm actually surprised to find readings. There's actually only one reading, so I found two more. And I'll probably keep looking for more, because they didn't really satisfy me. Report an error in the passage at 12:19 Highlight the passage at 12:19

12:51 I was like, wait a second. So this wasn't actually meant to be a class. It's meant to be the final module where the student who's, you know, In the perfect world has been coming to every class and they've completed them all, so now they're going to go and do these integration practices. Well, you know, the way it goes in this center, maybe that works in some centers, but in our center it's sort of like people come in all the way along. Report an error in the passage at 12:51 Highlight the passage at 12:51

13:15 You know, so some people have only taken a class, some people haven't taken any classes, some people have taken all the classes. And there's really, in some of the classes we have talked about things like Pasha Soppa, which we'll talk about tonight. Report an error in the passage at 13:15 Highlight the passage at 13:15

13:30 But there's not really been much in the way of discussion of what are known as the preliminary practices of bodhisattva frustrations and various other things that are required suddenly at the end for the student to go and do 100,000 of with no background. So I just thought, well, let's just at least do a little short class. And so I am doing kind of one on each. The final class will probably also talk about pilgrimage because when I was looking over the requirements, they really encourage students to do some pilgrimage. Report an error in the passage at 13:30 Highlight the passage at 13:30

14:06 So we'll talk about that and maybe even watch a little bit of some of the pilgrimage videos from the Rubinus and Rubinus pilgrimage experience. So I, yeah, so I just thought it would be a worthwhile thing. These practices are not tied to discovering Buddhism. These practices are traditional and they have been traditional for many, many centuries in Tibet. And they were known as preliminary practices because they were, or foundation practices because they're sort of the foundation of your whole, any higher practice, especially meaning tantric practice. Report an error in the passage at 14:06 Highlight the passage at 14:06

14:52 In our culture now, they tend to be given out almost simultaneous with people attending tantric environments. And so now they're kind of known as life practices a lot of times. And that's fine. And so, you know, when you're given them often, it's just better to think of them that way, especially if you get huge amounts. Traditionally, you would receive 100,000 of each of these practices, and there are nine, and we'll go through those. Report an error in the passage at 14:52 Highlight the passage at 14:52

15:21 Of course, we'll have to have a couple lists. It wouldn't be a proper time. Report an error in the passage at 15:21 Highlight the passage at 15:21

15:28 But certain Lamas, of course, do all over the place numbers. Lama Zopa Rinpoche might give you 500,000 of one, and 3,000 of another, or 10 million of one. Report an error in the passage at 15:28 Highlight the passage at 15:28

15:44 1.2 million, I remember he gave a prostrationist to somebody I know. Recurna's got some high numbers. It's not here tonight. We'll be off doing them. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

15:58 But the whole point of these is actually to train your mind. We get caught up in them because a lot of them are actually quite physical. Prostrations are quite physical. Tsatsas are kind of physical. Water bowls are physical. You're doing things. But they all are about training the mind. They're all about training the mind. Report an error in the passage at 15:58 Highlight the passage at 15:58

16:21 And so, we'll talk about that. But that's why, I mean, it has more that idea of laying a really good foundation before you build a house than thinking, I have to do all of them before I can do any further higher practices. It's just more, it's actually, you just kind of keep doing it. It's kind of like a lamrim. It's not like, I mean, anybody that spends any time with Lama Zopa Rinpoche knows that he doesn't stop doing prostrations. Report an error in the passage at 16:21 Highlight the passage at 16:21

16:49 Because he finished his hundred thousand yesterday, that means he never has to do another one. He's always the first who's leading all of us in frustrations. The high masters continue to do, actually His Holiness does frustrations every day, which is pretty amazing considering his schedule. It makes me feel like a lazy one when I don't do it. But yeah, they don't stop just because they... Report an error in the passage at 16:49 Highlight the passage at 16:49

17:16 Enter higher practices or attain even realizations or more, as those of us who are their students think. So it's not something, it's like the alum room, we don't just stop doing them once we hit our hundred thousand. They're just, the numbers are really to make us do a good chunk of them to get a feel. Because otherwise we just kind of do... Report an error in the passage at 17:16 Highlight the passage at 17:16

17:41 Three or four frustrations a day. You have no time to actually do the visualization and kind of get your mind and your body and your speech all aligned, which is what you do when you're doing a longer practice. And especially they were meant to be done in retreat. Usually these were done traditionally in retreat. Bodger Self I think still is mostly done in retreat, although I've known people to do it as a daily practice if they have a busy life. Report an error in the passage at 17:41 Highlight the passage at 17:41

18:08 But again, you don't have... the same can't create kind of the same space around it to really let yourself go into the practice so um Report an error in the passage at 18:08 Highlight the passage at 18:08

18:23 The goal for the Discovering Buddhism program, I guess going back to the Discovering Buddhism program, for those of you that have been doing it and are going to continue doing it, it was not really just to provide a certain amount of intellectual knowledge, it was actually to get Students to a certain spiritual level of practice. It was to actually bring students to a certain maturity in their practice. Report an error in the passage at 18:23 Highlight the passage at 18:23

18:52 So it's not just to provide, this is what this is, this is what this is, this is what this is, okay, you take your books and go home, you know. There was always this idea of having it help students know, at least have options for what to do next when they complete. complete the classes in the program. Report an error in the passage at 18:52 Highlight the passage at 18:52

19:13 So this final module continues with that idea. The final module actually is to do 100,000 Vajrasattva mantras, 100,000 prostrations to 35 Buddhas, a two-week lamrim retreat, and three nunye purification retreats. Amongst other things, and then there's all these sort of encouraged things that you're supposed to do too, like Highly recommended is the Kopan one month course, you know. Yeah, Report an error in the passage at 19:13 Highlight the passage at 19:13

19:51 it's kind of good. Making pilgrimage to Buddhist holy sites. Did you do any of that when you were over there? Who was in the spiritual teacher class? Yeah, see, so we can say we went out to Lama Tsongkhapa's house, that's pretty cool. Meeting a qualified spiritual master. it's good. Report an error in the passage at 19:51 Highlight the passage at 19:51

20:10 So, I mean, actually, we could, I guess I'll let that out. Report an error in the passage at 20:10 Highlight the passage at 20:10

20:16 Participation in an Experiencing Monasticism residential course, which hasn't happened here actually, so they were hopeful at the time these courses were created. Report an error in the passage at 20:16 Highlight the passage at 20:16

20:30 So it's not like it was ever thought that it would stay in the head. That's why I use that quote. Tenzin Chokyi actually uses that quote when she teaches, talking about bringing things below the neck, bringing them into our bodies, in our being, in our mind, which in Buddhism is considered, heart and mind is considered the same thing. Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

20:52 And Tenzin Chokyi is actually going to be a guest. Lecturer for the third of the four classes. She is a nun who has spent, I would say, six out of the last seven years in retreat, probably-ish, who's also a good friend of mine, and she's a great teacher, and she's going to come and talk to us about designing our own lamrim retreat. Report an error in the passage at 20:52 Highlight the passage at 20:52

21:21 So, because sometimes that can be daunting to think about, like, you know, I mean, it's great to do a group retreat if you can find one, but it's not offered very often to do a lamrim retreat in a two-week format. You could also do a couple one-week ones. I know Member Rubina does what's called Copan West every year down at Lama Missambuda, and I think that would count, too. Report an error in the passage at 21:21 Highlight the passage at 21:21

21:45 She definitely covers the whole lamrim. At breakneck speed. That's one retreat that actually having happiness is quite useful. So, but if you decide you just want to do your own and maybe do it in portions, like, you know, do a weekend here and then cover the lower scope and then do a weekend and then cover the middle scope and then whatever, then Tens and Chokyi can help with that. Report an error in the passage at 21:45 Highlight the passage at 21:45

22:09 And sometimes that's easier for those who are so quick because you don't have to do it in smaller places like that. Or if you suddenly... We'll be right back. Report an error in the passage at 22:09 Highlight the passage at 22:09

22:17 If you find that you have the time and you just want to do it yourself and you know where you're going to go, then that's quite useful too, to just know how to set it up. So I was going to tell you the traditional, where did I have them? Oh, here we go. The nine traditional preliminary practices, which I covered in other classes too, but I'll cover here. Usually 100,000 of each, as I said. Report an error in the passage at 22:17 Highlight the passage at 22:17

22:47 Prostrations. Report an error in the passage at 22:47 Highlight the passage at 22:47

22:50 Vajrasattva. There won't be a test. Report an error in the passage at 22:50 Highlight the passage at 22:50

22:56 Refuge. This is the preliminary practice of going for refuge. Report an error in the passage at 22:56 Highlight the passage at 22:56

23:02 Aparna mandalas. Those are those building the 3D mandalas and letting them collapse and starting over. Guru yoga. Report an error in the passage at 23:02 Highlight the passage at 23:02

23:21 Satsas. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:29 Actually, some of these are explained a little bit, and I have a great article I found by Thutton Chodron. Refugee. Report an error in the passage at 23:29 Highlight the passage at 23:29

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23:36 Dorji Kadra Fire Puja offerings, we did a short version of that in the Karma class, on the final day on the front porch. Report an error in the passage at 23:36 Highlight the passage at 23:36

23:48 Damsig Dorji or Samayavaja, which is a purification. So all of these purify and accumulate merit and we're going to talk about what that means. Report an error in the passage at 23:48 Highlight the passage at 23:48

24:03 Some of them more specifically purify and some of them more specifically accumulate merit. done. Report an error in the passage at 24:03 Highlight the passage at 24:03

24:09 But all of them are actually sort of a blend. And the idea is that these practices sort of prepare the soil. It's that idea of kind of, you're kind of getting out, you know, purifying, sort of getting out all the rocks and roots and, you know, old car parts and stuff that are in your field. And rototilling it a little bit and preparing it. And the accumulating merit is then you're adding, you know, manure and nutrients and water and warmth and things to the soil. Report an error in the passage at 24:09 Highlight the passage at 24:09

24:51 So the accumulating merit is what you're adding too to make it work better and to make your mind, to help your mind work better. And the purification is kind of getting rid of the yucky stuff. stuff um so um So the idea is that you're using them to prepare your mind. What actually ends up happening, of course, is that they also help bring the teachings, especially depending on how much of the teachings you've had before you start doing them, they actually help bring the teachings into your mind a little deeper too. Report an error in the passage at 24:51 Highlight the passage at 24:51

25:28 So what Kendall said in one of the classes that she taught on Establishing a daily practice. We talked about some of this stuff in establishing a daily practice. She said it's sort of like when you think about with Vajrasapha, it's really important to clean the windows from time to time, but it's also really, really important to just like completely, you know, clean them all out, inside out, like every, you know, all the grout, like everything, give it an all out shine. Report an error in the passage at 25:28 Highlight the passage at 25:28

26:05 And that's really what going and doing the retreat is all about. And then after that, it's sort of like maintenance. You're doing maintenance. So if we just start out doing maintenance, it's not going to do quite the same amount of work. It'll still help. It's certainly better than just letting them get dirtier and dirtier and dirtier. But it is good to, at some point, do longer sessions of them. Report an error in the passage at 26:05 Highlight the passage at 26:05

26:31 And actually Venable Amy, who's going to be coming this summer in teaching Decembering Buddhism here, who used to be the director of Patropani, and actually is one of the co-founders of the center, Venable Carol, she used to call the dunya retreats taking, how does she call it, it's like taking a scrub brush to your chakras. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

26:54 And it is actually for those who have done it. I named a retreat. It's pretty intensive and very short, although it doesn't feel short at all. But relatively speaking, compared to three months of bodhicitta, doing a two and a half day retreat is pretty short and something that busy people can do to get a lot of bang out of the buck. Report an error in the passage at 26:54 Highlight the passage at 26:54

27:22 So the people who, the teachers, including Lama Tsongkhapa Rinpoche, And all the senior monastics and western teachers who got together and created the Discovering Buddhism program decided that they didn't want to water down these practices and just leave them off. And they didn't want to just ask people to do a couple of weekends or something like that. They decided that our teachers have pushed us and that we recognize the benefit. Report an error in the passage at 27:22 Highlight the passage at 27:22

27:58 Sometimes through gritted teeth and grimaces, but we do recognize the benefit, right? After you're able to pick yourself off the floor and the tears stop. Exactly. The wavering voice kind of comes. The processing. No, I mean, sometimes pushing is actually not a bad thing. And so the point is that the DP program... Report an error in the passage at 27:58 Highlight the passage at 27:58

28:03 Right, Peter? Am I right? Report an error in the passage at 28:03 Highlight the passage at 28:03

28:15 what do you mean? Report an error in the passage at 28:15 Highlight the passage at 28:15

28:25 I really wanted to include a couple of these Nudo practices all the way and Lama Tsongkhapa was really behind that to try to give that little extra kind of push because after you've done it, you realize what an incredible gift that is to take the time in this life to go and do retreat. And some of the times, I remember thinking after my Vajra Saka retreat, which was quite hard, I have to admit the first one. Report an error in the passage at 28:25 Highlight the passage at 28:25

28:57 I remember thinking how skillful, what skillful means it was to devise this whole practice. Because I don't think, with my personality, I would have just sat and contemplated, you know, the things that I had done for three months. I wouldn't have, I know. So it was quite skillful to have the whole sadhana and do the mantra and then you had the mala so you had to count it on and then you had this whole big fire hujja at the end and you had this whole visualization that you had to do. Report an error in the passage at 28:57 Highlight the passage at 28:57

29:25 You know, I mean, it was like sort of the Westerners dream because we had so many things to do. It was like all these different things, you know. And so, you know, three months went by, whereas if somebody said you have to go for three months and contemplate all the negative things you've done, and, you know, I just, I don't think I would have done it. Report an error in the passage at 29:25 Highlight the passage at 29:25

29:45 I wouldn't have been able to sit still for that long, for one thing, you know. So it was actually quite skillful. And actually I feel like that really was the push that I needed. I know it was during that retreat actually that I realized that I was going to get ordained about halfway through that retreat and then after that retreat where I began talking about it with my teachers. Report an error in the passage at 29:45 Highlight the passage at 29:45

30:09 So sometimes you just have to give those windows a good shine in order to see what's in there. Report an error in the passage at 30:09 Highlight the passage at 30:09

30:18 So, accumulating merit in purification practice, one of the things, probably the biggest thing that they do is when we are sort of bopping along with our practice and we keep hitting snags or we begin to see certain types of obstacles in our practice, those are certain signs that we either should do more purification or we should accumulate merit. Report an error in the passage at 30:18 Highlight the passage at 30:18

30:47 For those of us who haven't really developed much of a practice yet, you might not have seen this yet. So usually people kind of get involved with these practices after they've been practicing for even six months to a year. You begin to sort of tell when you're kind of moving really well and things are falling into place and you're getting teachings exactly what you need. You know when it's like popping, as one of my teachers said, like popcorn. Report an error in the passage at 30:47 Highlight the passage at 30:47

31:08 Like when it really takes off, it's like every book you open is exactly the... Sentence that you needed for the class that night or, you know, like every teacher, it feels like they're just saying, and so Chokyi, what you should do, Chokyi. And you come out of the class and you're like, wow, that was really cool. And everybody else is just kind of like, yeah, it's kind of boring tonight, you know. So you can kind of tell when it's like taking off. Report an error in the passage at 31:08 Highlight the passage at 31:08

31:32 And then likewise, you can tell when it's just like, you know, like one foot in front of the other is just. And every, you know, like your mind feels sluggish or you're, you know, when you're reading, you keep reading the same sentence over and over or everyone else in the class is like, you know, happily writing down notes and you're like, what did you even say? Report an error in the passage at 31:32 Highlight the passage at 31:32

31:57 So we talked about this for me on Monday night. When it actually is flying, like last night, it was like, wow, that's really cool. Oh my god, that's totally cool. Like it just, like it really clicks with what you already, you know, have learned. It builds on what you've already learned. So, if it feels like your practice is kind of running out of energy, running out of steam, like you're just kind of like, kind of hitting that kind of energy, then that is a sign of the need for a little more merit, a merit infusion. Report an error in the passage at 31:57 Highlight the passage at 31:57

32:31 I just made that up, isn't it? I like that. It's like a team. I was thinking more of some sort of like a fuel injection, but yeah. Of course you would make it through a TV. I'm surprised I didn't actually. That's a double tent leave. Merit inflation. Report an error in the passage at 32:31 Highlight the passage at 32:31

32:52 So merit is really just, I mean for this purpose we can just say merit is positive energy. Merit is really specifically or technically positive karma that you are... I'm sorry. Report an error in the passage at 32:52 Highlight the passage at 32:52

33:05 earmarking for your own enlightenment. So you might need a little bit of merit, in which case there are a lot of different things that you can do. Report an error in the passage at 33:05 Highlight the passage at 33:05

33:29 Water bowl offerings is a good way to accumulate merit. You can do any kind of offerings. It's actually mandala offerings is the traditional practice for Qimari. But you can just do any kind of offerings. You can do offerings on your altar of anything. You can just decide to do daily offerings, say, of candy or popcorn or some sort of food or flowers. Report an error in the passage at 33:29 Highlight the passage at 33:29

33:54 Just make this real effort to do more offerings on your own altar or on the center's altar or to the center or to another, you know, Charity, with that in mind, that kind of idea that I'm applying this towards my own enlightenment. It's sort of like creating this mind of generosity, feeding this mind of generosity so that it gets bigger and bigger in your own mind. Report an error in the passage at 33:54 Highlight the passage at 33:54

34:19 That actually creates merit. Actually, one really easy, which I didn't put down in my notes, but I remember Rinpoche saying that a really, really easy way to create merit is rejoicing. creates nerve. Report an error in the passage at 34:19 Highlight the passage at 34:19

34:32 And that's like one of the easiest ones. That's the one that Lama Yeshe says that if you get home from work and you're just too tired to do anything else, you just make yourself a cup of coffee, you kick back on the couch and you just rejoice in all the good that's being done. So first of all, beginning with yourself. And we do work hard. We do try. We try hard in our own work and our practice. And then we can rejoice in all of our... Report an error in the passage at 34:32 Highlight the passage at 34:32

34:58 Friends who are practicing and studying and they can rejoice in all the work of our teachers. You could just rejoice about Lama Zopa or His Holiness for like 24 hours and still wouldn't reach the end of everything that they do. You'd have to get up and Google for a while and find out more projects that you could rejoice. Report an error in the passage at 34:58 Highlight the passage at 34:58

35:17 And then you can just rejoice also in like all the ordinary virtue that people just, I mean, people do amazing things. You know, I was just watching a documentary, beginning a documentary last night called The Saint of 911 about the Franciscan priest, Michael Judge, who died in 911. Report an error in the passage at 35:17 Highlight the passage at 35:17

35:34 Just, you know, the willingness to go into burning buildings, like that's what I've never understood, like people who would want to be a fire person. And people do that all the time for lifetimes and generations of the same family. That's just what they do. Just that incredible kindness to do that, for people to run in and save them and bring them back out again. Report an error in the passage at 35:34 Highlight the passage at 35:34

35:58 People sit up all night with people who are dying. People do this all the time. We have a couple of nurses in our community who do amazing things for people, and I'm always like, man, if I could end up with one of them on my shift, you know, that would be so happy. It's amazing how far they'll go for somebody, for one of their people, one of their patients. So you can just rejoice in that. Report an error in the passage at 35:58 Highlight the passage at 35:58

36:21 You can just read the paper and rejoice. Look for the good stuff. I mean, we always dwell on the bad, but there is so much that we can rejoice in. And then you can also, Ben Rovina always says, and we always try to do this when we rejoice in the morning, in the morning kucha. Report an error in the passage at 36:21 Highlight the passage at 36:21

36:36 She said normally when we look at somebody who has stuff that we want, or like, you know, maybe beauty, Angelina Jolie, for example. Beauty, fame, money, whatever, attractive partner, beautiful children. Report an error in the passage at 36:36 Highlight the passage at 36:36

36:52 You know, beautiful homes or whatever, to actually think those, if we believe at all in karma, even if we have the tiniest belief in karma, then we have to believe that those are results of positive actions done in the past and we rejoice. We may not even know what those actions are, but we can see those results really clearly in certain people. Instead of spending time being negative and dissing them and complaining about them and like... Report an error in the passage at 36:52 Highlight the passage at 36:52

37:18 We can actually just rejoice in their beauty and in their wealth and in their freedom and in their happiness. So it's actually an incredibly positive action that brings amazing merit. So if you find your practice needing a little bit of energy, then that might be a quick way to infuse. Report an error in the passage at 37:18 Highlight the passage at 37:18

37:43 But the main thing that we're going to talk about tonight is purification practice. And actually next week too, because tonight we're going to talk about Abhajusatha specifically. Report an error in the passage at 37:43 Highlight the passage at 37:43

37:55 And next week we're going to talk about prostrations. And I think we're going to have a visiting teacher for that one as well. But I'm not going to say. She's agreed, but not entirely. We haven't confirmed over a cup of tea. Jesus. Merit infusion. Report an error in the passage at 37:55 Highlight the passage at 37:55

38:11 It's actually one of the nurses I was just talking about, Sangho. I'm trying to get Sangho to come. But she's shy, so we'll see. She's not really able to get her started. Yeah, she's great. And she does these a lot. She does a lot of prostration. She's the one, actually, who I just mentioned, who did her entire hundred thousand rajasapha as a daily practice. Report an error in the passage at 38:11 Highlight the passage at 38:11

38:31 And she completed it. I don't think it took her that long either. She was incredibly disciplined. um, But tonight we're going to, so purification is those times that, I mean the need for purification is when you are finding yourself trying really hard and your mind just seems like kind of heavy and dark and blah, you know, that kind of feeling. Report an error in the passage at 38:31 Highlight the passage at 38:31

38:56 Like when you're reading the text over and over and it just looks like a bunch of words that don't make any sense. Or if the Dharma that you're studying doesn't seem applicable at all to your life. Report an error in the passage at 38:56 Highlight the passage at 38:56

39:13 Or you can't even stay with the topic if you're trying, like you're in a class, like you just, your mind is just going out the window or, you know, like that. So that's usually the need to do purification. It's like the idea of almost like a veil in your mind and you're trying to, or those windows again. Report an error in the passage at 39:13 Highlight the passage at 39:13

39:35 You need to clean those windows a little bit. So, um, um... You know, like also if you're doing like analytical meditation and it feels like your mind just wants to stay on the surface, it doesn't want to go deeply into the subject and that is the need for purification also. Report an error in the passage at 39:35 Highlight the passage at 39:35

39:56 So that's what we're going to focus on tonight. There's a quote, there's actually Lama Yeshe's book, of course, I'm like... Settling Lama, the introduction to Tantra, that's all we're focusing on is his introduction to Tantra book. But this class, actually, surprisingly to me, one of the required readings is Becoming Vajrasattva, the Tantric Path of Purification, which I actually think is not so intelligent for people to read until they either... Report an error in the passage at 39:56 Highlight the passage at 39:56

40:30 had the Discovering Buddhism Introduction to Chandra class or have taken the empowerment. I'm not going to have you guys read that unless you have been studying for a while or you have taken the empowerment already. Because I feel like it's a little funny. When you're getting ready to do, if you do decide that you are going to do a Vajrasapha retreat, definitely take it with you. It's like... Report an error in the passage at 40:30 Highlight the passage at 40:30

40:57 The manual, if you take nothing else in with you, take that book. That book will tell you how to do it from start to finish, even if you're in a group and there's like a leader telling you that, which I wouldn't count on because that wasn't the case in mine, but he was down to Delhi. Report an error in the passage at 40:57 Highlight the passage at 40:57

41:16 So Lama will definitely take you by the hand and lead you through your Raja Safra practice. If that's what you decide to do, and definitely if you do it as a retreat, he'll even tell you how to set up your cushion. I mean, it's just like it's perfect for that. But for our purposes in this class, it seems a little funny to start reading that if you don't have a strong enough background. I think for those of you that have done pretty much all of the DB classes, and you know who you are, then I think you'd probably be all right with it. Report an error in the passage at 41:16 Highlight the passage at 41:16

41:47 But I would think it was a little funny if you hadn't. Yeah, I'm not going to push that one, but I can give you great quotes. And this is one, Lama Yashi describing how negative karma buildup can hinder our practice. We often find that when we meditate we encounter many hindrances. We can't understand why it's so difficult to meditate, to control our minds, to gain realization. Report an error in the passage at 41:47 Highlight the passage at 41:47

42:11 Even an hour's meditation is so difficult. It's not just lack of wisdom. It's that over countless lives the negative energy forces our body, speech and mind. The negative energy forces of our body, speech and mind have accumulated such that now they fill us like a vast ocean. If they were to manifest in physical form, they would occupy all of space. Report an error in the passage at 42:11 Highlight the passage at 42:11

42:33 How's that for an image? By contrast, our small intellectual knowledge wisdom is as weak as the light of a flickering little candle. A little candle isn't much help on a dark and windy night. Our candlelight knowledge Our tiny candlelight knowledge wisdom cannot control or release us from the overwhelming force of our negative mind. Thus, it is the energy of our wrong conceptions, our negative mind, that makes it difficult to actualize the everlasting peaceful path of liberation and to receive realizations. Report an error in the passage at 42:33 Highlight the passage at 42:33

43:04 Therefore, we need a powerful purification practice like Raja Sattva to destroy both the energy forces of the ignorant mind and the negative actions of body and speech that arise from it. Report an error in the passage at 43:04 Highlight the passage at 43:04

43:18 So that's the cell job. Report an error in the passage at 43:18 Highlight the passage at 43:18

43:23 I also found a great quote that kind of speaks to what Tim and I were talking about after class when you were talking about you finally, you reached this point of realizing that you really need to act. Report an error in the passage at 43:23 Highlight the passage at 43:23

43:34 Yeah, yeah, I found a quote today and I was like, oh my god, it's Tim, it's Tim, it's for Tim. So here, I'll read it to you. It's actually, it begins one of the chapters in that book and it's called Action is Everything. We have to act, not just philosophize. Philosophical concepts may be able to correct the wrong ideas, erroneous ways of thought and mistaken beliefs, but intellectual correction is not enough. Report an error in the passage at 43:34 Highlight the passage at 43:34

44:02 Along with that, we need a powerful force to channel our minds into correct philosophy of the middle way. The bodhicitta practice is not complicated. It's very simple and easy to understand. It's not something that takes a lot of intellectual thought. You just do it. Just act. No matter how much you study and learn, how much information you collect, it is action that really helps you integrate your life. Report an error in the passage at 44:02 Highlight the passage at 44:02

44:29 Isn't that like the perfect thing? That's the perfect thing. I was like, oh my god. That was one of those popcorn moments, but it was of course for your practice, not mine. Report an error in the passage at 44:29 Highlight the passage at 44:29

44:41 That's okay. I'll use your popcorn. Report an error in the passage at 44:41 Highlight the passage at 44:41

44:46 So we're going to actually go through the whole practice and some of you I know are already familiar with it, in which case you can talk up and say things and question me. But before we do that, what I thought might be nice is to kind of go around and introduce ourselves and I'll start actually. My name is Chokyi and I am the program coordinator here and I've been teaching the Discovering Buddhism program. Report an error in the passage at 44:46 Highlight the passage at 44:46

45:15 In its entirety now, I think. All but once. I'm sorry, Nirvāṇa. Isn't that rather telling? That's the only one I haven't thought. For about two years now. A little bit more than two years now. And I've been ordained, oh, this week. Seven years. Woo-hoo! Report an error in the passage at 45:15 Highlight the passage at 45:15

45:41 And I've been at St. John Lane seven years. I came here right about the time that I got ordained. Yeah, and I have a lot of interest in these practices. I'm both doing, still working on them, still working on my frustrations, which I've been working on for probably about 10 years. Doing more of them in retreat and less of them on a daily basis, but slowly, slowly accumulating them. Report an error in the passage at 45:41 Highlight the passage at 45:41

46:07 And I've had very strong experiences doing preliminary practices, both. Well, all of them. I mean, all of them that I have done. I didn't, with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, you don't even always get them all. Like, I didn't have water bowls, but of course now I'm doing water bowls for the center, so that comes back. Report an error in the passage at 46:07 Highlight the passage at 46:07

46:26 But I have a strong feeling that, a strong belief in the power of doing these integration practices, and so I'm really happy to be doing this class because I feel like it's something that I can speak to from experience. Report an error in the passage at 46:26 Highlight the passage at 46:26

46:46 And also people can use the mic just in case people are listening at home. Hi, my name is Sarah and I've been coming here for I think about a year and a half studying off and on with Chokyi and I was first exposed to Buddhism probably in college with a survey of religions course but that didn't get me here. Report an error in the passage at 46:46 Highlight the passage at 46:46

47:13 A friend of mine drove me here one night. It was supposed to be for her, but I keep showing up and like it. That was great. Report an error in the passage at 47:13 Highlight the passage at 47:13

47:26 My name is Tim. I've been coming here for a couple years. And what I was going to say, you already explained. Kind of the need to act, I guess. Report an error in the passage at 47:26 Highlight the passage at 47:26

47:37 I'm really good at thinking about things and not doing anything. Report an error in the passage at 47:37 Highlight the passage at 47:37

47:43 So I think this is actually good. Report an error in the passage at 47:43 Highlight the passage at 47:43

47:48 My name is Chad. I've only been here, coming here for about five, six months or so. So I'm definitely a newbie. Yeah, a friend of mine, Roland, introduced me to the center. And yeah, I've been coming here mostly for drinking classes, but I've also come for a guest on Sunday morning talks. And each one I come to, you know, obviously there's tons of information. Report an error in the passage at 47:48 Highlight the passage at 47:48

48:09 that I get and that I realize that I don't know so it continues I'm still so shocked that you've only been coming for like five or six months it's like five years I mean in a good way My name is Jessica. This is actually my first class. I've taken some meditation classes, but no formal classes. My father actually introduced me to the center. He's a monk in Long Beach, and I've just discussed things with him. I had a good conversation with him a couple months ago. Report an error in the passage at 48:09 Highlight the passage at 48:09

48:48 Yeah, he was up there for us at TG. So now I'm trying to figure out what my path is. I think I've also seen you on Saturdays. Report an error in the passage at 48:48 Highlight the passage at 48:48

49:01 I'm Lewis and I usually go after Peters. I did it on purpose. Report an error in the passage at 49:01 Highlight the passage at 49:01

49:10 So I've been coming here for almost two years and Geshella gave me a practice which was not number specific and it just would be good to come here and try to pull it all together and see if I'm doing it right. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Report an error in the passage at 49:10 Highlight the passage at 49:10

49:34 Hi, I'm Margaret and I've been discovering Buddhism since I've been in high school. I won't see how long ago that was. Still discovering. I became interested in Tibetan Buddhism because my primary care doctor is from India, Dr. Yeshi Danden. Oh, okay. So I felt drawn to that particular practice. So I've been coming here all the time for environments and classes. I drop in maybe for about a year now and I'm trying to put it all together because I come here, I go to other centers and I'm not, my practice isn't cohesive. Report an error in the passage at 49:34 Highlight the passage at 49:34

50:20 I'm looking for cohesion. And we have it to Peter. Report an error in the passage at 50:20 Highlight the passage at 50:20

50:30 I think Tim and I are your first students that are still here, and have been here about two years. Actually, Jess and Evan still come, but they just come to the team group. Oh, okay. Report an error in the passage at 50:30 Highlight the passage at 50:30

50:41 I think I've completed all but one or two of the classes, so I'm kind of wrapping things up in the DD program, and I was given a very extensive intro practice, which I consider an intro, but... We'll see if it is or not with the class, but it's definitely been helpful. It's definitely had a lot of challenges associated with it, but I can see the value of it, and the more I do it, the more I see how it's changing my mind and will change my mind. Report an error in the passage at 50:41 Highlight the passage at 50:41

51:10 So this class is just to kind of figure out how to pull all of this together into an integrated experience. It's been pretty great so far. Report an error in the passage at 51:10 Highlight the passage at 51:10

51:26 living in the country only two, three years. to understand Dharma teaching, I try to complete the class as much as I can. My Report an error in the passage at 51:26 Highlight the passage at 51:26

51:46 name is Ricardo. So what are the questions? Report an error in the passage at 51:46 Highlight the passage at 51:46

51:55 You don't have to give me numbers. On my ear? Report an error in the passage at 51:55 Highlight the passage at 51:55

52:03 Well, I have a bunch of Nundra. That one, yeah. More than anyone that anyone's ever known. And we're so happy about that. Very cool. And so, of course, this class is going to help me tremendously with my practice and I also want to finish the Discovering Buddhism modules. it. Report an error in the passage at 52:03 Highlight the passage at 52:03

52:30 modules. So... This is just to find out how to use all the requirements. Well, one of them is 100,000 budgets of cell phone, one is 100,000 frustrations, so it's kind of subsumed in years, so that's cool. And a two-week lumber retreat, I think, so actually that one can get some Report an error in the passage at 52:30 Highlight the passage at 52:30

52:53 great. Welcome. So, one of the, when we're, there's a set of what are called the four opponent powers that we. talk about when we're talking about specifically doing. One of the things that we can start thinking about now is what do we know needs to be purified. Clearly sometimes stuff is weighing on our minds. We know that we're really mean to somebody or we're really mean to a certain relationship or we're already doing an assessment of our life maybe and we're thinking about. Report an error in the passage at 52:53 Highlight the passage at 52:53

53:35 Ways that we could have been more skillful in past jobs or like that. So we might already know certain things that we'd like to purify that are kind of weighing on us. And sometimes when we're doing Lama Tsongkhapa as a daily practice, we might think, you know, like, what am I purifying today? With the retreat, you do tend to kind of really take stock of your life because you've got three months at least to think about. Report an error in the passage at 53:35 Highlight the passage at 53:35

54:02 Usually you do it in a three-month chunk. So you really are just looking at everything, but it's not so much like when I first started, when I first sat down to do a Bodhicitta Supper retreat, I didn't really have a lot of training, and I just began digging out. It was like digging deeper and deeper into this bottomless pit of every wrong thing I'd ever done. I mean, I'm not Catholic, I was never Catholic, but it was sort of this Catholic idea of, you know, whipping myself and going further and further and I was like getting so depressed. Report an error in the passage at 54:02 Highlight the passage at 54:02

54:36 And fortunately, fortunately not so far into the retreat. Unfortunately, probably two months, two weeks into the retreat. Not so far into the retreat. This great monk, one of Lama Yashi's students, came and gave us a talk and he said, no, no, no, no, no. He's like, you don't have to do this, you know. The power is the mantra. The power is in the practice. Like, you don't have to make this work. Report an error in the passage at 54:36 Highlight the passage at 54:36

55:01 Like, you don't have to sit there and go, you know, and make this thing work. Dig out all your derby laundry, you know. He goes, you set it all up. You know, you know where yourself is there. You've got the practice. You've got the mantra. And then you just see what's on the screen today. It'll come up. Report an error in the passage at 55:01 Highlight the passage at 55:01

55:19 And as it comes up, it gets purified. And that was just so, such a relief. It was like we could stop working so hard and whipping ourselves for like burying bugs when we were 10. You know what I mean? I mean, I was digging it out. Like every wrong word I'd said to my grandma. You know what I mean? I was just like digging it all out. Report an error in the passage at 55:19 Highlight the passage at 55:19

55:39 Oh, and it was actually surprising once you just let go, the things that would come into your mind, it's not like those things wouldn't pop into your mind, but it's just like, because it's all actually still in your mind from this life, it's actually kind of amazing the stuff that's still in there, but you could just relax and it would just come through and it's almost like it would just pass, the practice would just sort of purify it while you were, you know, doing the mantras and doing the visualization. Report an error in the passage at 55:39 Highlight the passage at 55:39

56:05 So it's just so much more relaxed. So identifying what to be purified can have a couple different steps. If you're purifying, if you're trying to do some sort of purification on a daily basis, which is kind of what we're going to be doing this week with the Bodhisattva practice, and hopefully those of you that have been doing some sort of a daily practice for a while, you do some form of purification every day. Report an error in the passage at 56:05 Highlight the passage at 56:05

56:32 Lama Zopa Rinpoche says it would be absolute fools not to, even if it's only not single-pointedly. I even asked him, I finally did, I asked him this time, I said, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, if I set it all up, can I do the visualization and the mantras while I'm still working? He said, yes, yes, yes, fine, fine. So, I mean, even if you just set it up and, you know, you know, Vajrasapha is purifying while you're emptying water bowls, for example. That's okay. Report an error in the passage at 56:32 Highlight the passage at 56:32

56:58 But at least it's better than not doing anything at all. When you're doing it as a daily practice, it's really, really good to be as specific as you can, rather than thinking, every wrong thing I've ever done. Report an error in the passage at 56:58 Highlight the passage at 56:58

57:12 That's not really going to be very useful. It's more useful to just think, what's a couple of things that I did today? Usually you can do this in conjunction with the... Report an error in the passage at 57:12 Highlight the passage at 57:12

57:24 Six-time book that we talked about in the karma class where you're doing some sort of an assessment at the end of the day on the things that you sort of feel the best about and the things that you sort of feel the worst about. Report an error in the passage at 57:24 Highlight the passage at 57:24

57:34 And so then you have, right in front of you in black and white, what you want to purify. But if you don't, if you're just sitting down fresh and you're just thinking, you know, about a couple of things that maybe weren't so close to how you'd like to live your life, then you can be as specific as... Report an error in the passage at 57:34 Highlight the passage at 57:34

57:53 Knowing that you lost your tempered driving, you took somebody else's parking place. It can be that simple. You weren't really applying the teachings at that moment. It seems simple, but you weren't. I mean, we lose it all the time, right? We get up from the class, we're like, oh, this is a really great class, and then we go outside. Report an error in the passage at 57:53 Highlight the passage at 57:53

58:17 I mean, it happens like that all the time. So that's what we want to purify before that gets any stronger. like Report an error in the passage at 58:17 Highlight the passage at 58:17

58:25 So... But sometimes people say, you know, they can't really think of anything, which I think is probably not true. But if that's the case, you can look at, you can also look at karmic results that are happening for you right now in your life and purify what must have been the cause. For example, if you tend to lose things, that's a clear karmic result of stealing karma, having stolen in a past life. Report an error in the passage at 58:25 Highlight the passage at 58:25

58:53 Or not having enough, if you don't have enough money, if you're always short on money, if you never have enough to do things, then that's a sure sign of stealing karma ripening for you. Report an error in the passage at 58:53 Highlight the passage at 58:53

59:05 Or maybe not stealing karma like, you know, you ripped things off, but rather you borrowed things and never returned them. And actually, maybe you've done that in this life and you just aren't aware of it. So you could start with looking at this life and then trying to make that really, really clean. Report an error in the passage at 59:05 Highlight the passage at 59:05

59:22 The same as if you find yourself in a lot of really sort of disharmonious situations. That definitely can be from divisive speech. Also can be from sexual misconduct. So depending on what type of situation it is. And then one of my personal favorites is no power to your speech. No one listens to you. That one comes from gossip or idle speech. Meaningless chatter. Not using your speech very wisely. Report an error in the passage at 59:22 Highlight the passage at 59:22

59:52 There are a list of correlations like that and you can find out, actually Wheel of Sharp Weapons, which is the text that Emily is going to start teaching on Friday nights, is really good for those correlations of if this is happening to you, then this is a karmic result of having done this in a past life. Report an error in the passage at 59:52 Highlight the passage at 59:52

1:00:12 So you can work on it in this life, just seeing the results of it. Which is actually very cool. It's a cool way of using karma. A lot of times people think that karma is like destiny or fate. But it's completely changeable. It's how we actually get to become Buddhists. It's by beginning to work with it in this way. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:12 Highlight the passage at 1:00:12

1:00:37 So sometimes when we do our purification practice we can be doing... Specifically things that we know we did today. And then sometimes we can be, sometimes simultaneously, we can just decide, okay, for the next six months I'm really going to try to work on my speech karma. Or I'm really going to try to work on my generosity karma or something like that. Whatever it is that you're having a problem with. So that takes a little thought and a little looking at my life and seeing where I'd like to see change is what I'm not seeing that's, you know... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:37 Highlight the passage at 1:00:37

1:01:11 that I'd like to see and that sort of thing. But it's pretty cool to do, and if anybody ever wants to help doing that, I'm really happy to try to help. I can't say that I can help entirely, but we can always sit down and toss ideas around because it is kind of a neat way to clean up your life. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:11 Highlight the passage at 1:01:11

1:01:30 And it works, actually. It's pretty cool. Vajra Safa practice. They say that, and Geshe-la says this too, one of the, Vajrasapha is one of the fastest, strongest methods of purification that you can do. And they say that it's because of the power of this mantra. And I am happy, I didn't do it for this class, but if people would like a copy of, Lama Yeshe has a, A translation of the mantra, but Geshe-la also gave us a translation of the mantra in the Wednesday night class, and I can find that if people would be interested in seeing that translation. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:30 Highlight the passage at 1:01:30

1:02:12 I've never actually compared the two, so I'm sure they're very close. But Geshe-la also is a Sanskrit scholar, so it would be interesting to see if there is a difference with it. this? Um... In this lineage, I mean, often, you know, with these preliminary practices, we would do preliminary practices, say, back in traditional Tibet before the fall. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:12 Highlight the passage at 1:02:12

1:02:41 We would do preliminary practices and then we would enter tantra many, many years later. Lama Yeshe's lineage, of which the center is a part of, Report an error in the passage at 1:02:41 Highlight the passage at 1:02:41

1:02:52 He encouraged his students to enter into Vajra Sapa practice quite early. It was one of the practices that he taught widely and offered the empowerment widely, really encouraged his students to do. Part of it was to overcome what he thought was an epidemic of low self-esteem in the West. that he felt that... Report an error in the passage at 1:02:52 Highlight the passage at 1:02:52

1:03:16 It was a form of Tantra that would give his students the taste of the practice and help us overcome this sort of negative view about ourselves and this kind of low self-esteem and low self-worth kind of thing that he found rampant in the West. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:16 Highlight the passage at 1:03:16

1:03:36 So, and after he passed, his students did Vajrasattva practice solidly for one year in retreat. It's pretty cool. I mean, not all of them, but a number of them did. Which must have been a retreat. Wow. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:36 Highlight the passage at 1:03:36

1:03:57 You could do that. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:57 Highlight the passage at 1:03:57

1:04:02 Actually, it probably would be pretty. I mean, probably the first four months would be really hell. But then it would probably be, actually, I bet you'd probably get into the groove. sure you've heard it. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:02 Highlight the passage at 1:04:02

1:04:02 not going to be shunned. Yeah, actually, probably. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:02 Highlight the passage at 1:04:02

1:04:19 There is one of the FMT booklets, if anybody's ever interested in doing this practice as a, you know, getting started on say the 100,000 or doing it as a daily practice or doing it as a retreat, there's a little booklet in the bookshop on Raja Safra practice. And like I said, Lama Yashi's book, The Chantra Path of Purification for Becoming Raja Safra, it's called now. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:19 Highlight the passage at 1:04:19

1:04:48 It's also incredibly good for that. There's also a teaching, a book by Lama Tsongkhapa Rinpoche. It actually came from teachings that he gave at the Vashya Self Retreat that was given a few years ago, or many years ago now, I guess, the same summer that I was in India. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:48 Highlight the passage at 1:04:48

1:05:08 He decided to give after I was already over there. He decided to do a Lama Tsongkhapa retreat at Land of Medicine Buddha. And so these were collected teachings of his from that Lama Tsongkhapa retreat. And that's very good, actually. That would be quite good. It's thick. But it's one of those books that you could kind of just open it to any page and find something pithy. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:08 Highlight the passage at 1:05:08

1:05:31 So I'm going to just talk a little bit about karma and how it works, just so that we're all on the same page. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:31 Highlight the passage at 1:05:31

1:05:44 Real quick, I guess, before the other purification practices within the Nunjo were the Dorji Kadro is another strong purification practice. Any kind of fire puja is a purification practice. So at the end of any retreat, including Vajrasafra retreat, where all you've been doing is purifying for three months, you end with a fire puja. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:44 Highlight the passage at 1:05:44

1:06:08 Some, and I think ours did this too, some... Three month retreats, every month you'll do a fire puja, just to purify all the ways you've screwed up. And we do this, you'll see this actually in the Tara, in the Tara Puja, if you've ever commented on the Tara Puja or Medicine Buddha Puja, you always do the Vajrasapha Mantra. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:08 Highlight the passage at 1:06:08

1:06:29 At the end of any sadhana, you do a Vajrasapha Mantra. It's always part of any other practice because you're purifying all the ways you've screwed it up, basically. There's always like, you know... We're really sorry that our offerings are lousy and that we didn't do this right and please be patient with us. And then you do the bodhicitta sapa mantra, the hundred syllable mantra, three times usually. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:29 Highlight the passage at 1:06:29

1:06:52 So bodhicitta sapa kind of comes into all the other ones, but in the same way the fire fujas also come into the other practices and they're both really strong purification methods. Prostrations is also a strong purification method and we'll talk about that next week. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:52 Highlight the passage at 1:06:52

1:07:10 So, first something about how karma works. Karma means action in Sanskrit. The definition of karma is an action of thinking and what those actions of thinking inspire with your body and speech. This is one definition of karma, but I don't think it's a good one. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:10 Highlight the passage at 1:07:10

1:07:34 So, it's really important to remember that mind is the driver of karma. Mind provides the intention or the motivation, which is 90 % of karma is the motivation. And that's actually a really, really important thing to remember because a lot of times in the West we try to, and you hear this always at teachings, big teachings when Lama's open it up for questions, like His Holiness or Lama Zopa Rinpoche, people will always ask the same questions and it's like they want them to be like a Pope and give like the Word of God on... Report an error in the passage at 1:07:34 Highlight the passage at 1:07:34

1:08:10 Blah. You know, what does Buddhism think about blah? And they always have to say, it really depends on your motivation. That comes up all the time because the example that I always choose is, you know, Sarah and Chad and I could all do the same thing. Grab this little flying bug and smoosh it. And it could be for three totally different reasons and we could get three different karmic results. I could do it thinking that his wing was ripped off and I'm trying to help him. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:10 Highlight the passage at 1:08:10

1:08:39 Or I'm trying to, you know, put him out of his misery, which could be diluted. I'm not saying that it's not, but still, it could be from my heart a really good motivation. Sarah could just hate moths. And, you know, Chad could just be running to get something in the corner and not even see it. It's mushing. So, and that happens all the time. And we kill insects all the time, driving. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:39 Highlight the passage at 1:08:39

1:08:59 They're always on our windshields, you know, walking even. We smash them all the time. We just don't even see them. And so... Report an error in the passage at 1:08:59 Highlight the passage at 1:08:59

1:09:08 Oh, there he is. Okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:08 Highlight the passage at 1:09:08

1:09:13 So the point is that for any, there's not so much a thou shalt not, there are definite rules and guidelines and precepts and vows and things like that in Buddhism, which we just spent the morning talking about, especially around refuge. But there, um, but... You always have to remember that all of those are almost more like training wheels and that it really depends on what's happening in our mind. Because what happens in our mind is going to be the power that drives whatever our bodies and our speech do. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:13 Highlight the passage at 1:09:13

1:09:53 And we can see that. I mean, just simply saying if we're like really raging and angry, what we do with our speech and our bodies is probably not going to be very pretty, right? I mean, road rage, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:53 Highlight the passage at 1:09:53

1:10:06 As an example. Whereas if our mind is calm and peaceful and happy, what we do with our speech is much less likely to be harmful. So this is just an observation of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:06 Highlight the passage at 1:10:06

1:10:19 Karma is the creator of everything that we experience. This is what the Buddha observed. There is no external creator being in Buddhism. There's no creator God. Everything that we experience is due to our having created the causes in some life or another. The problem is, of course, is this lag time. There's a lag time sometimes with many lifetimes between when this continuum, which is now manifesting as me or Louis or Jessica or Tim, created this action that is now ripening as either suffering a neutral or happy result. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:19 Highlight the passage at 1:10:19

1:10:58 based on whether it's a positive or a or a neutral action. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:58 Highlight the passage at 1:10:58

1:11:09 So, we create our experience and the good news is that we can then create the kind of experience that we want to have, which is why I was talking about looking at the results that you have now and trying to figure out what you may have done to create them either in this life or another life. And playing with it, doing your dharma, your karma experiments, as Karen, one of the other students who's done a lot of these classes, calls it, she likes to do karma experiments and see kind of what happens. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:09 Highlight the passage at 1:11:09

1:11:42 So she, you know, experiments with like being generous and she experiments with being helpful and she experiments with like doing the things that she wants that result to be in her life, to see, just to see if it works. So far it seems to be working. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:42 Highlight the passage at 1:11:42

1:12:00 But what creates the situation that we're in now that I touched on briefly in the motivation is this idea that we don't perceive reality the way it really is. We have these things called karmic projections forced upon us by our karma where we see things in a certain way and then worse, we believe that they exist in that way and we act on those beliefs. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:00 Highlight the passage at 1:12:00

1:12:26 We create these actions that are negative. Even if what we want is happiness, we create actions that actually give us suffering results. That is a simple version of how harm and emptiness work to people without getting into it too deeply. But the idea is just that we misperceive reality all the time. And simply put, we can kind of think about it in terms of the way that we often will walk into a crowd of people and immediately begin them. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:26 Highlight the passage at 1:12:26

1:12:54 Judging them or having thoughts about who they are and we don't know them at all. We are basing those thoughts on the fact that, you know, Margaret looks like somebody that I knew once and, you know, irritated me so that I could decide that she's irritating or I don't like the sound of that voice or, you know, like things like that happen all the time where we decide that somebody is a certain way based on our perception, but our perception is distorted. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:54 Highlight the passage at 1:12:54

1:13:19 And so the Buddha said this is actually the entire root cause of samsaro. It's bigger than that. And so the way to clean it up is to actually try to understand reality more and more, the way that we taught, which takes a lot of study and meditation. But also we can begin cleaning up our karma. And so this is what this class, this specific class tonight is about, is starting to clean up our karma a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:19 Highlight the passage at 1:13:19

1:13:54 So there are four principles of karma, which, you know, can never be mentioned enough. The four principles are that karma is definite. If you do something positive, you get a positive result. I should start testing, actually. You guys said I have some relief classes. Karma is definite. What does that mean? I always hate that. I hate it when you just call it. I don't mind if they say, do you really believe that? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:54 Highlight the passage at 1:13:54

1:14:20 That's okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:20 Highlight the passage at 1:14:20

1:14:24 If you do something positive, you get a positive result. If you do something negative, you get a negative result. And by the same token, no good action you do will ever yield a negative result. And no negative action you do will ever yield a positive result. We ignore this one all the time. Our society actually is based on the idea that you should be able to get away with stuff, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:14:24 Highlight the passage at 1:14:24

1:14:47 There's that idea that if you lie on your taxes and you get a bigger refund. If you get the bigger refund according to the Buddha, you were generous in a past life. Your karma for having lied on your taxes hasn't ripened yet. That's still out there. The one hasn't caused the other. The same in business where people lie a lot and sometimes businesses actually, bosses actually ask you to lie on things. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:47 Highlight the passage at 1:14:47

1:15:14 Thinking that if you lie that you're going to have this really billion dollar deal come through. In reality, Positive karma has caused this billion dollar, generosity karma has ripened and caused this billion dollar yield to come through. The negative karma of that lie hasn't ripened yet because there's a lot of time. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:14 Highlight the passage at 1:15:14

1:15:32 So we look at things and we think, you know, if I pay ten dollars I'm going to get this particular, you know. The reality is that this thing is available to me because my karma is such that this thing exists in my society. As soon as my karma for being in this place and this time ends, that's called death. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:32 Highlight the passage at 1:15:32

1:15:59 This particular identity no longer has this karma and my mind's dream goes into a different realm. But it doesn't mean it goes to a different place. It simply means that then I manifest in a different energetic form of an animal or a creating spirit or a long-life god or hopefully a Buddha at some point. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:59 Highlight the passage at 1:15:59

1:16:21 We always focus on the negative, so let's hope. Um, so, um... It's just that. I mean, that's what death really is, is a different karmic appearance. My karma for this life runs out, just like fuel runs out in a car. I have to keep feeding it. I have to keep creating positive karma that gives me positive results. If I want to have positive results, I can't think that I'm going to have them without creating causes. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:21 Highlight the passage at 1:16:21

1:16:51 Which is number three, actually, so I bounced ahead. Number two is that... Okay, so karma is definite, it's number one. And in physical form, we believe that because we believe that if you plant an apple seed, you get an apple tree, right? If you do a negative act, you get a negative result. If you do a positive act, you get a positive result. And action, of course, means body, speech and mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:51 Highlight the passage at 1:16:51

1:17:19 It's not just killing someone. So it's also thinking, God, I can't stand what he's wearing. That's a negative act of my mind. Or I could kill her even if I don't kill her. It's still a negative act. I'm still creating karma. Karma increases is number two. The results are always bigger than the cause. And this again we believe in the physical world. All seeds, every seed that we plant is smaller than the resulting fruit. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:19 Highlight the passage at 1:17:19

1:17:51 So a tiny amount of anger at somebody in the privacy of your own room. don't know. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:51 Highlight the passage at 1:17:51

1:17:59 Still creates a karmic result, even if you didn't go out and scream at them. It's better than going out and screaming at them. You didn't go out and cause more harm and disturb everyone around you. And it's certainly better than going out and slapping them or shooting them. That's an improvement. But sometimes we think if nobody saw us, we got away with something. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:59 Highlight the passage at 1:17:59

1:18:22 And the thing is that the only real judge on all this is our own mind. If we know we have the thought, It got recorded. So it's kind of like there's no like we can't just turn it off for a minute and have our angry mind and then turn it back on. The third one is if you don't create the karma, you won't experience the result. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:22 Highlight the passage at 1:18:22

1:18:44 So you can take that from both directions. Nobody else can cause your suffering. If you are suffering, you created the cause. If you're happy, you created the cause. Now we don't usually ask that one. If we're suffering, we usually blame somebody else. But we rarely blame anybody else if we're happy. If everything's going great, we don't usually question that. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:44 Highlight the passage at 1:18:44

1:19:09 Of course we get that. Of course I won the lotto or whatever. But if I have any pain in my body whatsoever, or if somebody fired me, then I of course blame that person, which conventionally is the condition. But I created the cause by firing somebody else, according to the Buddha. On the other hand, if you want positive things, if you want to get enlightened, if you want to create the causes in your mind to generate bodhicitta or to have these higher realizations, you have to create the causes. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:09 Highlight the passage at 1:19:09

1:19:46 It's not going to just happen by being nice, by going to church on Sunday. Like that doesn't work in Buddhism. You actually actively have to create the causes. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:46 Highlight the passage at 1:19:46

1:19:56 Much less getting another precious human rebirth, which we often take for granted. So you can stop yourself from creating a negative karma with this understanding. You can actually stop yourself, and that's pretty exciting. And the fourth one is that karma is never lost. Karma can't just disappear. Every single act that we do produces a result. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:56 Highlight the passage at 1:19:56

1:20:22 When we purify... It tends to come out in a lesser form, which can sometimes mean that when you're doing a lot of purification, and this is really important to mention, when you're doing a lot of purification, it can come out in ways like headaches or body aches or, you know, messed up knees or back aches or my current personal favorite is... Report an error in the passage at 1:20:22 Highlight the passage at 1:20:22

1:20:50 Left foot pain all over the place. Don't know what I did with that left foot many lifetimes, but it's like Achilles. Yeah, I must have like kicked people after I hit them on the head for 25 years, which has been my favorite up until now. Now all my kicking karma is coming up. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:50 Highlight the passage at 1:20:50

1:21:11 So it'll come out in some lesser form. Do I want to experience that rather than experiencing time and health? Absolutely. Like, bring on. Bring on the foot pain. That's okay. I can work with that. Because the idea is that you're receiving what might come later to you in a lesser form, in some form that you can actually manage. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:11 Highlight the passage at 1:21:11

1:21:32 You might not think you can manage it at the time, but you can manage it. so So, and that is especially true when you first start purifying a lot, like during Vesha Sefer Retreat. I was trying to warn Ricardo, because I'd just be prepared. When you first start doing Vesha Sefer Retreat, especially your first Vesha Sefer Retreat. My second Vesha Sefer Retreat is actually almost blissful. So, but, you know, I had also come and work in the center for a couple of years. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:32 Highlight the passage at 1:21:32

1:22:03 There's a lot of purification. So... What we want to bear in mind is the fact that, according to the Buddha, when we die, our mind doesn't just disappear. Our body ends. This particular physical body ends. It doesn't go any farther. And that's what we usually see as death in this culture. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:03 Highlight the passage at 1:22:03

1:22:25 Buddhism says, the Buddha observed that the mind actually continues on and we take rebirth. Well, what causes us to take rebirth? We don't necessarily have any choice at this point because we aren't that highly attained, if you are who you seem to be. I'm not that highly attained, I can put it that way. So I'm forced, we are forced at this point to take another rebirth due to our karma, whatever karma we've already created. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:25 Highlight the passage at 1:22:25

1:22:51 Or whatever negative karma we have not purified. So if we can purify, then the karma that's going to ripen at our death time is going to be mostly positive. If we can't, then it's possible that it could be negative. It's just sort of what karmic plane happens to be on the runway at that moment. And anything could trigger it, you know. I mean, Peter could be having a really calm, peaceful, sweet death with Lewis and I chanting and everything, and then suddenly some nurse comes in and and then crashes the bedpans and pisses him off and all this anger comes up and that could be it. That could be the moment. This has always been my fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:51 Highlight the passage at 1:22:51

1:23:28 So I mentioned this story because I just think, oh my God, what if that happened? So the point is to purify now, purify, purify, purify, purify, as much as we can. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:28 Highlight the passage at 1:23:28

1:23:52 So what we're going to do in the remaining, I'm going to actually, I wanted to talk a little bit about the four planet powers and then you guys take like a five minute break and then we can do this really short, sweet version, which I think some of you did with me in another class. I keep shortening it and shortening it. So this is all it is now. It's kind of hard to read the way you print it, but anyway. It's just... Report an error in the passage at 1:23:52 Highlight the passage at 1:23:52

1:24:19 This will be your homework this week to get familiar with this practice. Once you get familiar with it, you don't necessarily have to do all of the parts of it. You can just do the visualizing the deity, setting it up, doing your refuge in bodhicitta just like you would with any meditation. And then doing the visualization as Lama Zopa so kindly said, you know, why are you doing something else? I've done it while I'm walking, like, on the street, you know, like, Vajra's office purifying me, like, on Hay Street. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:19 Highlight the passage at 1:24:19

1:24:51 I always just think, wouldn't it be interesting if anybody else could see what was happening right now on my mind? So you can do it anywhere, and that's useful because we can screw up anywhere. Right? I mean, we can say the wrong thing at work. We can say the wrong thing, you know, to our families. And then you just, you know, take yourself into another room. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:51 Highlight the passage at 1:24:51

1:25:13 The bathroom works really nicely. Do your Lobsang Chokyi practice and it's done and you haven't carried it and that seat's not getting larger and you're not carrying any more of that. You're not carrying that mind of regret either. It's not weighing on your consciousness. It's not blocking anything else. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:13 Highlight the passage at 1:25:13

1:25:31 you know, like about So it's really good practice to just get the basics of and then be able to do it quite easily. Until that time, you have this great little cheat sheet that will help you do it. So this practice uses what's called the four opponent powers. The first being the power of regret. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:31 Highlight the passage at 1:25:31

1:25:58 You see these in different... orders but this is the order that you normally would sort of think about it but act on it you don't have regret you're not going to want to do the practice right I mean if you haven't even recognized that screaming at you know Peter is a bad thing then I'm not gonna even care to do to purify it so I have to have this power of regret Report an error in the passage at 1:25:58 Highlight the passage at 1:25:58

1:26:23 Reba Rinpoche calls this the power of putting the blame, which is basically blaming Your own delusions and your own negative karma for your problems, rather than, as we're used to doing, somebody else or, you know, like blaming, putting the blame. We usually blame other people. This is blaming our problems on our own negative karma, which is due to our own actions, which is the true enemy. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:23 Highlight the passage at 1:26:23

1:26:50 So this is really the most important because it determines the strength of anything else. If we don't have a strong feeling of regret, the whole practice becomes dishwater. You know, it's not... It's not really going to do anything. If we spend a little bit of time really feeling regret, not guilt, we're not getting necessarily hugely emotional about this. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:50 Highlight the passage at 1:26:50

1:27:11 We are intellectually understanding karma and how karma works and deciding we don't want to mess around with saṃsāra anymore. That's really what regret is. Regret is really intelligent. It's using some form of wisdom, some understanding of the Buddhist teachings and deciding that. We're done. We're fed up with saṃsāra and we want to get out of saṃsāra. And this is the way we do it. This is really the way that we'll be able to help others. If we don't clean up our own acts, we can't. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:11 Highlight the passage at 1:27:11

1:27:39 We're deluding ourselves to think so. So regret is actually a very intelligent first step because it allows us to take the steps that we need to to apply the antidote, basically. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:39 Highlight the passage at 1:27:39

1:27:54 The second step is reliance. Sometimes called the power of the object, but I think reliance makes more sense because you're relying on refuge and bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:54 Highlight the passage at 1:27:54

1:28:07 And refuge is with some understanding of the situation that we're in, thinking about, you know, whenever we're in trouble, if you understand that you're in a situation where you're in trouble or you're scared or you know that You should have freaked out, then you turn to something, right? And when we were little kids, we turned to mommy. When we got older, we started turning to relationships or to drugs or to chocolate or to something deadly. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:07 Highlight the passage at 1:28:07

1:28:40 You turn to something to make it better, to help you get out of that situation, to stop your suffering. That's what refuge is really about. Refuge is really about understanding that the triple gem, especially the Dharma itself, the Buddhist teachings, These are the methods that are going to get you out of suffering. So first you have to realize you're in suffering. And then you realize that there is a method and that you can rely on that method and that's taking refuge. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:40 Highlight the passage at 1:28:40

1:29:09 Generating bodhicitta, which is part B, is realizing every other sentient being is in the same boat. And they don't even know that they're in this boat. They actually think life is okay until it begins to fall apart and friends and loved ones die. Their own body decays, etc. And they do this life after life of ignorance. And so bodhicitta is having this wish to become enlightened for their psyche to help them, which is a strong mind of responsibility for all beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:09 Highlight the passage at 1:29:09

1:29:44 But in this particular case, in the case where you're doing it as one of the four opponent powers, it's also this understanding that whatever negative act we've done, Has either harmed sentient beings or been aimed towards the triple gem. So it's sort of like all the beings that have been the resultant, who have taken the brunt of our negative act, we're bringing them to mind before we do the practice. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:44 Highlight the passage at 1:29:44

1:30:11 We're doing this practice to either connect with them in the case of the three tools or to rectify the harm that we've done to them in the case of bodhicitta. The third one is the remedy, which is any kind of virtuous action that you do. So if you forget this list, you can actually just come up with anything on your own. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:11 Highlight the passage at 1:30:11

1:30:34 But the Buddha taught that there are specifically a number of kinds of actions that you can do as an antidote for whatever. So I scream it. Ricardo. Then I go upstairs and I regret that wasn't very good to do, you know. I rely on the triple gem, you know. I generate bodhicitta. I have to do this practice because I give in to this delusion too often. Now I'm going to sit down. I'm going to come up with some sort of a remedy that's going to rectify the situation. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:34 Highlight the passage at 1:30:34

1:31:08 It's not necessarily going down and apologizing. That may be part of it, but it may not. This isn't really about... Forgiveness, it's not really about me apologizing to somebody else. This is about me really applying the Dharma to cleanse my own mind stream. I may as a result go and apologize to him, and probably I would, but that's not necessarily something that the Buddha taught to do. That comes from sort of the Judeo-Christian background, that whole idea of forgiveness. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:08 Highlight the passage at 1:31:08

1:31:43 Because this is really, we are responsible for purifying our own mind. We're not even, Vajjasapha is not even purifying our mind. We're using his method, but we're doing the work. It's really up to us. It's very much an empowering religion. So some of the remedies, for example, that the Buddha taught were reciting the names of the Buddhas, specifically the 35 Buddhas, when you do the confession to the 35 Buddhas with prostrations. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:43 Highlight the passage at 1:31:43

1:32:13 21 Taras, 7 Medicine Buddhas. Those are all supposed to be very, very powerful for purifying. Specifically because they requested that when they were on the path. They said, you know, when I become enlightened, if people recite my name, may whatever negativity they do be purified, may whatever they're wishing for be granted, blah, blah. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:13 Highlight the passage at 1:32:13

1:32:35 They have that in their prayers. So we can actually start creating prayers like that now, right, too? Because we're on the path. Reciting powerful mantras, Precious Self is one. Reciting sutras, Diamond Cutter Sūtra, for example. Any sūtra on emptiness, actually, is big. Heart Sūtra. Meditating on emptiness, even a tiny bit. They say that is the most powerful one, actually. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:35 Highlight the passage at 1:32:35

1:33:05 If you know anything about emptiness, if not, then you probably not can go anywhere. Making offerings, especially... Applied towards that, making offerings on your own altar or into anything with that in mind. Making representations of the Buddha's body, speech and mind, and that would be like making satsas or paintings or statues or stupas. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:05 Highlight the passage at 1:33:05

1:33:38 Resolve is the final power, and that's the power of determination not to commit the negative act again. So without this act, it's sort of like we just keep taking medicine, but we aren't, you know, we just keep going back to our old habits and getting sick again. Like we haven't changed anything. So a lot of times people who are non-Buddhist think there's kind of this easy out that we can always purify anything, sort of like the morning after pill. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:38 Highlight the passage at 1:33:38

1:34:07 We don't have to change anything about our behavior, right? We just purify it. Well, if you're doing it with a forecone of power. powers, then this is sort of the catch for that because you have to make this resolve not to do it again, in this case If it was something that came up on a regular basis, if I was always screaming at Ricardo, that would be really stupid. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:07 Highlight the passage at 1:34:07

1:34:31 I couldn't just say, I'll never again scream at him and then know that I'm going to go downstairs and scream at him. Like, whatever, you know, especially if you have like a long kind of... Report an error in the passage at 1:34:31 Highlight the passage at 1:34:31

1:34:41 bad relationship with your boss, say, or your mom, or something like that, then you just set an amount of time that you know you can keep it. Like, I know I won't scream at Ricardo for 10 minutes. That's what I say. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:41 Highlight the passage at 1:34:41

1:34:57 And after that, it's all awful stuff. No, I mean, you try to make larger and larger periods of time that you hold it so that it's still realistic because you don't want to compound it by lying to Vajra Zafa. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:57 Highlight the passage at 1:34:57

1:35:09 So. Why don't you guys take a quick break? Well, we only have, because I started a little bit late, we might just go ahead and do the practice unless you guys need a stretch break. You want to do a stretch break? Yeah. You can shake a leg. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:09 Highlight the passage at 1:35:09

1:35:32 It's easier just to leave it on. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I wasn't sure how many people there were, so I made seven binders, which actually might work. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I wish you made Report an error in the passage at 1:35:32 Highlight the passage at 1:35:32

1:35:58 more. Okay. I had just given her seven binders. Great. Okay. And anyone should have one. I was going to say it might be easier for Peter Pernille to send it to him to work time. Yeah, it would. right? Come night. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:58 Highlight the passage at 1:35:58

1:36:11 So what I did with the binders is they only had one article in the binder and it was about pilgrimage, which seemed kind of funny to me since that's only one aspect and it's not even required. Of course I'm doing all this so I'll probably get a call from the education department after I listen to this. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:11 Highlight the passage at 1:36:11

1:36:33 So Report an error in the passage at 1:36:33 Highlight the passage at 1:36:33

1:36:37 I found an article, it's not happy. is the last time. You can do it all around. You can do it all around. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:37 Highlight the passage at 1:36:37

1:36:45 It's like, yeah. Yeah. So I found an article by Tsuchin Chodron on the preliminary practices that I put in there. And then I also put in one by Zonso Kansu Rinpoche. He's from a completely different tradition, which I'm not sure, Margaret, if you were, when you were saying, you know, you go here and here, that could be a cause of confusion, actually, because all the different traditions, like Nema, Golub, Sakya, and Kagu, do things slightly differently. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:45 Highlight the passage at 1:36:45

1:37:14 Yeah, so it can be. But anyway, I liked this article by him, but just know that he's going to be referring to a certain tradition of Nigma, Nundro, that isn't really in this lineage, but I just thought his outlook is always refreshing. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:14 Highlight the passage at 1:37:14

1:37:37 But yeah, that will often be, it's... It's not to say that you shouldn't receive teachings from different lineages, but that sometimes can be a cause of confusion. Like, sometimes it's useful to just stick with one for a little bit until you gain some sort of mastery, and then, like, it's all ASRs receive teachings from all different lineages, and Lama Tsongkhapa received teachings from them. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:37 Highlight the passage at 1:37:37

1:37:59 And I'm just now starting to kind of open up to that, but I feel like I don't have enough basis yet. I've used quite easily in my own lineage, so that's kind of one of the teachings that I've received. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:59 Highlight the passage at 1:37:59

1:38:14 At the beginning you're trying to decide kind of which one you're in, and then once you do, stick with it, kind of master it a little bit, and then open up and start receiving. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:14 Highlight the passage at 1:38:14

1:38:26 Yes. I Report an error in the passage at 1:38:26 Highlight the passage at 1:38:26

1:38:33 don't see a syllabus. No, yeah, there's only four classes. Okay. I just, Report an error in the passage at 1:38:33 Highlight the passage at 1:38:33

1:38:53 yeah, you know, shake things. Oh, because you wanted to be underneath bodhicitta. That's so neat. I need all the help. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:53 Highlight the passage at 1:38:53

1:39:09 So for those who aren't familiar with Vajrasapha, he is on the back wall, directly over my lovely assistant Peter. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:09 Highlight the passage at 1:39:09

1:39:22 This is solitary Vajrasapha, rather than Vajrasapha with consort, which is great for us because we're not in a project path. And that's the way he's described in near practice. And I tried to picture this over. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:22 Highlight the passage at 1:39:22

1:39:38 The little tiny book from the FPMT that I gave you like all those back, that's with consort, which I think is confusing for students and so I don't use that one. But it's great size-wise. So you can have it in your pocket. I had a quick question. Talking stick. Can somebody pass that back to you? I can stand over here. Everyone's looking over here. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:38 Highlight the passage at 1:39:38

1:40:06 Is this a practice that's only in the Mahāyāna or do the lower scope practitioners also do bodhicitta? I don't know that answer actually to that question. I only know it in terms of Tibetan Buddhism. I thought it was Mahāyāna but I don't know. It probably is Mahāyāna but even in for example the Chinese tradition I don't know it. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:06 Highlight the passage at 1:40:06

1:40:32 But in all the four schools of the Tibetan tradition, there's some form of ajitsapha. So he has done across the board there, but that's a good question. That would be a geshpa question, actually. I think I actually read somewhere that since this is a tantric practice, it's only common in Tibetan. It makes sense. It makes sense, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:32 Highlight the passage at 1:40:32

1:40:56 because he has another patient It comes from Haruka Bhaja Sapa, even though this form is the lower form of Tantra. So a solitary Bhaja Sapa is usually a lower form of Tantra, but it comes from highest Tantra. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:56 Highlight the passage at 1:40:56

1:41:19 Okay, so we're just going to go through this very quickly, and then you'll have time to get familiar with it on your own, so we won't do 21 laundry, so people will have to panic. like that one. Right. I like that one. I remember I did that once with the office manager before, like, wait, when I first came, Joanna, who none of you knew, she was great, she is still great, we sat down to do it on New Year's Eve, and she thought I was going to do, like, seven, and I did a hundred and eight. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:19 Highlight the passage at 1:41:19

1:41:50 I mean, I was like, it's New Year's Eve, you know, so I'm like, I'm worth it. she's just in her eyes. She had to pure fuck while she was here. I know, like after a certain point, she said then she thought I was going to 21 and then I just kept going. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:50 Highlight the passage at 1:41:50

1:42:10 She was just like letting go of her nerves. Anyway. Were you doing it like, boom, fudge? Yeah, totally. Everyone was singing, you know. Everybody else was fine with it, you know. She had made other plans. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was pretty funny. So, we're going to do the bodhicitta practice really quickly and the very first thing you need to do is have in mind something that you want to clarify. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:10 Highlight the passage at 1:42:10

1:42:46 So, just spend one quick moment thinking about something specific that you did today maybe or this week that you still feel bad. So understanding how karma works and how it's just going to yield suffering for you. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:46 Highlight the passage at 1:42:46

1:43:18 Okay, so we're going to start with actually the power of reliance first, which is the second, but just because it starts that way. So just like we rely as it, I'm not going to actually let you guys read this the way, this is from Gara Rubina's text about relying upon the doctor. This is the way we rely on the triple jump, the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:18 Highlight the passage at 1:43:18

1:43:40 And then also we rely upon other beings, so you can see that. So what we're going to do is do this prayer for taking refuge and generating bodhicitta. But the prayer, the words, as always with all of these prayers, are supposed to be triggering some sort of direct experience. So you should spend a little bit of time thinking about it before you just read the prayer. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:40 Highlight the passage at 1:43:40

1:44:01 Okay, finish that. Check. So here we're just going to do the prayer, you know, going for refuge and generating bodhicitta. I go for refuge until I am in land to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Highest Assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:01 Highlight the passage at 1:44:01

1:44:27 I go for refuge until I am in land to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Highest Assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, May I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am alone to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:27 Highlight the passage at 1:44:27

1:44:49 From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:49 Highlight the passage at 1:44:49

1:45:02 So the crown of my head, you guys can just close your eyes and I'll read you through it. The crown of our heads appear at a cellful palm. Which transforms into a white lotus, which is clear and radiant. At the center of the lotus appears a white ah, which transforms into a white lotus. Isn't that interesting, that sound effect? This is going really well. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:02 Highlight the passage at 1:45:02

1:45:29 At the center of the lotus appears a white hum. This transforms into a white five-spoke fascia, marked with a hum at the center. know at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:29 Highlight the passage at 1:45:29

1:45:39 The light radiates out from the Vajra into the ten directions, filling all of space. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:39 Highlight the passage at 1:45:39

1:45:49 This light fulfills the two purposes, meaning making offerings to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and also making offerings to all sentient beings, and then reabsorbs into the Vajra. The Vajra dissolves into light from which appears Vajrasattva. He's white in color, with one face and two arms. His left hand holds a bell, slightly upturned on his left hip. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:49 Highlight the passage at 1:45:49

1:46:14 His right hand holds a Vajra at his heart. He's sitting in the full Vajra posture, and he's dressed in robes of heavenly silk adorned with precious jeweled ornaments. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:14 Highlight the passage at 1:46:14

1:46:26 At his crown is a syllable Om, at his throat a syllable Ah, and at the center of a flat moon desk at his heart is a syllable Om. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:26 Highlight the passage at 1:46:26

1:46:38 Around the edge of the moon desk, standing clockwise, are the 100 syllables of the mantra. From the moment of his heart, Much light radiates out, invoking the divine wisdom beings. The invoked wisdom beings come back and become inseparable from Vajrasattva by dissolving into them. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:38 Highlight the passage at 1:46:38

1:47:04 Again, much light radiates out from the divine heart of Vajrasattva, invoking all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the aspect of the five Dhyāna Buddhas. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:04 Highlight the passage at 1:47:04

1:47:17 These return, lifted veins filled with nectar, and pour out Vajrasattva's crown. This nectar fills up his entire holy body and from the overflow in the crown of his head appears actually a bit of his blood. I'm Report an error in the passage at 1:47:17 Highlight the passage at 1:47:17

1:47:38 just going to read a lot if you want. You can read along or you can just contemplate. Reverently I prostrate with my body, speech and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time. I rejoice in the merits of all holy and ordinary beings. So that's the point where you can spend a lot of time rejoicing. Please remain until the end of psychic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:38 Highlight the passage at 1:47:38

1:48:15 I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the great enlightenment. Here we offer a mandala. So when you do a Landala offering, you can do this mudrā that allows you to offer the whole universe. But if you don't know that mudrā, you can just imagine it in your mind. And it's described in these verses. This ground, anointed with perfume, stirring with flowers, adoring with Mount Meru, poor continents, the sun and the moon. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:15 Highlight the passage at 1:48:15

1:48:51 I imagine this as a Buddha field and offer it. May all living beings enjoy this pure land, the objects of my attachment, aversion and ignorance, friends, enemies, strangers, and my body, wealth and enjoyments. Without any sense of loss, I offer this collection. Please accept it with pleasure and bless me with freedom from the three poisons. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:51 Highlight the passage at 1:48:51

1:49:27 then we make a request to buzz yourself on. Bhagavan Vajrasattva, destroyer of all defilements, you who have all realizations and have passed to the other shore, request you to purify all the negativities of myself and all sentient beings to wash away the defilements that have resulted from the breach and degeneration of my Samaya. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:27 Highlight the passage at 1:49:27

1:49:51 Samaya is really any kind of promises that you may have made. So it could be vows, it could be... Pledges, it could be way that you're allowed. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:51 Highlight the passage at 1:49:51

1:50:07 It can also be Samaya, which is, of course, heavy. So here we should bring to mind this thing that we thought about at the beginning and cultivate some genuine regret. Whatever act it is that we would like to purify, understanding that if we've done this negative act, we ourselves are going to suffer. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:07 Highlight the passage at 1:50:07

1:50:29 At this point, that's what we're thinking about. It's realistic to think that way. It's like we've swallowed poison and now we have to apply the antidote. There's no guilt. It's not like obsessing about it. It's simply understanding how power works and wanting to get it out of our mental continuum. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:29 Highlight the passage at 1:50:29

1:50:52 And then we apply the third of the four planet powers, the power of remedy, which is in this case the visualization and the mantra recitation. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:52 Highlight the passage at 1:50:52

1:51:02 So we have bodhicitta in the air in front of us. Turn it over our heads, right? And if all you can imagine is a white blob of light, that's great. Just keep thinking the white light, that's fine. If you can't picture his arms and his legs and what his head is doing and things like that, that's totally fine. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:02 Highlight the passage at 1:51:02

1:51:25 Just know that he's there and just know that there's a lot of sort of cleansing, white, radiant, powerful light. And that's fine. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:25 Highlight the passage at 1:51:25

1:51:36 So after this request is made, much radiant light goes out from the home of Phasho Sattva's heart into all the ten directions. This washes away all the defilements and negativities of all mother sentient beings and becomes an offering for all the Buddhas and Buddhist Sattvas. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:36 Highlight the passage at 1:51:36

1:51:54 The essence of their transcendental wisdom knowledge comes back in the form of light and sinks into the home and the mantra garland of his heart. From the home and the mantra of his heart, blissful white nectar flows down and enters through your crown. Purifying all your negativities and defilements of body, speech and mind. So as we recite the mantra, which we'll only do a couple of times actually because of timing, then when you're doing this at home you can recite it as much as you need to. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:54 Highlight the passage at 1:51:54

1:52:26 But the main thing is to take some time. So if it's hard for you to recite and visualize simultaneously, stop sometimes and visualize and then recite again. And it says here to recite 21 times because that's what's really good. But do it, you know, just a few times if that's all you have time for. Om Vajrasattva Samaya Manupalaya Vajrasattva Denu Patita Dhiru me bhava Suttokaya me bhava Suttokaya me bhava Anuraktur me bhava Sarva Siddhi me Parayasa Sarva Karma Suttame Sittam Shiram Kuru Hum O Bhagavan Sarvatata Gata Bajramame Mursa Bajramava Mahasamiya Sattva Ahumbe. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:26 Highlight the passage at 1:52:26

1:53:21 Om Bajra Sattva Samaya Manupalaya Bajra Sattva Deva Patita. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:21 Highlight the passage at 1:53:21

1:53:46 Lama Tsongkhapa, Report an error in the passage at 1:53:46 Highlight the passage at 1:53:46

1:53:58 Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Om Vajrasattva Samaya, Manupalaya, Vajrasattva Denapatita, Nido me bhava, Suttokaya me bhava, Suttokaya me bhava, Anurakto me bhava, Sarva Siddhi me karyasa, Sarva Karma Siddha me, Sittam Sriram Kuru hum, Ha ha ha ha, O Bhagava, Sarva Tata Gaptova Jamamemursa Vajabhava Mahasamaya Sabta Ahum. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:58 Highlight the passage at 1:53:58

1:54:38 So it's really good to do 21 of this long mantra at night. If you don't have time for that, then you can also do the short mantra, which is 28 times, the totally purified. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:38 Highlight the passage at 1:54:38

1:54:57 And while you're doing it, you're imagining that these blissful radiant... Light, white light, it's just cleansing you, either your speech or your body, depending on what the action is, or your mind. And there are several different visualizations you can do. You can imagine it sort of pouring into you, through you and going out through the lower orifices into the earth and just being nullified there so that your whole body is filled with this blissful white light nectar. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:57 Highlight the passage at 1:54:57

1:55:31 Or you can imagine it sort of like you're filling a bucket where all the sort of negativities float on the top and they come out of your upper orifices in a form of sort of black smoke. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:31 Highlight the passage at 1:55:31

1:55:47 Or you can do one of my personal favorites, the one where it's like the nectar enters you and it's almost like turning on a light and your mind and body is filled with darkness, which is really good for mental negativities. And it's like turning on the light and it goes through, if you have any sense of your body being channels, all the channels of your body are just lit up like lightning, like turning on light in the dark room. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:47 Highlight the passage at 1:55:47

1:56:15 And all the negativities are just gone. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:15 Highlight the passage at 1:56:15

1:56:21 So we make the pledge, due to my ignorance and my delusions, I have created negative actions damaging my samaya. I go for refuge to Guru Bhajusattva, my inner master, who is holding a vajra. who has the power to liberate me, whose essence is great compassion for all sentient beings. Then Bajit Sapa says, My child, your breach of Samaya is forgiven, and all your observations and negativities are washed away and purified. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:21 Highlight the passage at 1:56:21

1:56:47 So now it's time for the fourth opponent power, the power of resolve. So you just make this determination if it's an act that you know that you can't give up for life. Which most of them are. Try to set a realistic amount of time that you can avoid repeating it. You know, five minutes, ten minutes, half a day, one day. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:47 Highlight the passage at 1:56:47

1:57:15 But be realistic. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:15 Highlight the passage at 1:57:15

1:57:28 Then afterwards, Vajrasapha dissolves completely into light and sinks into you. And your three doors of body, speech and mind and Vajrasapha's holy body, holy speech and holy mind become completely one without any differentiation. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:28 Highlight the passage at 1:57:28

1:57:49 So just take a moment to really rejoice in this feeling of union with Precious Atva and with all enlightened mind and with feeling really cleansed and purified. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:49 Highlight the passage at 1:57:49

1:58:05 You are, as Lama Yashi said, clean, clear, like Krista. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:05 Highlight the passage at 1:58:05

1:58:11 And this often trips us up, not believing that. So Lama Yashi is really saying, really, really take a moment to believe it. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:11 Highlight the passage at 1:58:11

1:58:23 And using these two verses, we'll dedicate the whole class and just the fact that we all showed up today. Through the merits of this virtuous practice, may I quickly attain the state of Guru Bhajusaka and lead all beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious floating mind, not yet foreign, arise and grow. May that foreign have no decline, but increase forevermore. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:23 Highlight the passage at 1:58:23

1:58:57 Thank you. I'm excited. So your homework is to do, try to do this practice every day. Best you can. And if it's a new mantra for you, I don't know if it is for you guys, then just do your best with it. And if you get two tongue ties, do it three times and then do Lama Tsongkhapa homes for the rest of them. And also read this first article by Umtuddin Chodron because it gives you a nice overview on the preliminary practices. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:57 Highlight the passage at 1:58:57

1:59:32 I ask you, could I do my practice instead? Is it okay to practice? Sorry? Oh, if you didn't do a practice that you were supposed to do, like a commitment? Yeah, you kind of have to do bodhicitta, actually. That's good to do. It's good to purify that way. I've also heard, actually, and it depends on the Lama, but I actually have heard that if it is a daily commitment, I actually heard that... Report an error in the passage at 1:59:32 Highlight the passage at 1:59:32

2:00:07 Depends on the Lama, actually, because sketchbook is basically, you just have to take it again. But I have heard one of my teachers, my refuge alma, actually said that you can do it three times the next day. So, like, if you normally did something that, you know, whatever your practice is, then you would do it once for the one you missed, once for penance, and once again, you know, so you do it. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:07 Highlight the passage at 2:00:07

2:00:33 You don't. Yeah, you don't end up doing that very often. But I told that to get some of you to just laugh, but I still do. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:33 Highlight the passage at 2:00:33

2:00:44 I'm sticking with Fishy Zeppel. I'm sticking to it. You're welcome. Oh, I forgot to send this around. We'll send around the roster next week. And next week we probably will do some prostrations, so people should probably dress accordingly. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:44 Highlight the passage at 2:00:44

2:01:09 Oh, yeah, so it's kind of like, where's the church? Report an error in the passage at 2:01:09 Highlight the passage at 2:01:09

2:01:16 Yeah, oh, yeah. You know what, the iMic wasn't plugged in. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:16 Highlight the passage at 2:01:16