Discovering Buddhism - Presenting the Path (26 February 2009)

· · · silence, 6 minutes

6:24 Because we're going to use that. Report an error in the passage at 6:24 Highlight the passage at 6:24

6:36 It's been recording, so if you guys have been talking about me. Report an error in the passage at 6:36 Highlight the passage at 6:36

6:42 it, I Report an error in the passage at 6:42 Highlight the passage at 6:42

· · · silence, 1 minute

7:50 be doubleys. They'll be startled. Not only won't make that horrible noise. Report an error in the passage at 7:50 Highlight the passage at 7:50

· · · silence, 2 minutes

9:27 object of breath, either at the belly or at the, to be your nostril, and just your concentration there and just watch a couple rounds of your breathing. That's it. Report an error in the passage at 9:27 Highlight the passage at 9:27

9:41 rid of your day your evening. to get a little concentrated and Report an error in the passage at 9:41 Highlight the passage at 9:41

· · · silence, 4 minutes

14:12 the middle of the room and we'll all sit around you and say the cheese dance Report an error in the passage at 14:12 Highlight the passage at 14:12

14:27 that's even worse. Report an error in the passage at 14:27 Highlight the passage at 14:27

14:31 With the Report an error in the passage at 14:31 Highlight the passage at 14:31

14:36 wish to free all beings, I shall always go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sahaja until I reach Golan. Inspired by wisdom and compassion, today in the Buddha's prayer. 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. Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

15:13 Read this text with three people. And tonight we're actually going to start going through it verse by verse. Figure out what it means. Report an error in the passage at 15:13 Highlight the passage at 15:13

15:24 I bow to all the high and holy Lamas. As far as I am able, I'll explain the essence of all high teachings of the victors, the path that all their holy sons commend. The entry point for the fortunate seeking freedom. Listen with a pure mind fortunate ones who have no craving for the pleasures of life and who to make leisure and fortune meaningful strive to turn their minds to the past as the victors. Report an error in the passage at 15:24 Highlight the passage at 15:24

15:52 There is no way to end without pure renunciation, this striving for pleasant results in the ocean of life. It's because of their hankering life as well that beings are fettered. So seek renunciation first. Leisure and fortune are hard to find. Life's not long. Think it constantly. Stop desire for this life. Think over and over how deeds and their fruits never fail. In the cycle suffering, stop desire for the future. Report an error in the passage at 15:52 Highlight the passage at 15:52

16:24 When you've meditated thus, and feel not even a moment's wish for the good things of cyclical life, And when you begin to think both night and day of achieving freedom, you've found renunciation. Renunciation, though, can never bring the total bliss of matchless Buddhahood, unless it's bound by the purest wish, and so the wise seek the highest wish for enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 16:24 Highlight the passage at 16:24

16:50 They're swept along in the four fierce river currents, chained up tight in past deeds, hard to undo. Stuffed in a steel cage of grasping self, smothered in the pitch black ignorance, in the limitless round they're born and in their birth are tortured by three sufferings without break. Think how your mothers feel. Think of what's happening to them. Try to develop this highest wish. You may master enunciation and the wish, but unless you have the wisdom perceiving reality, you cannot cut the root of psychic life. Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50

17:25 Make efforts in the ways then to perceive dependent arising. A person enters the path that pleases the Buddhas, when for all objects, in the cycle or beyond, he sees that cause and effect can never fail, and when for him they lose all solid appearance. You've yet to realize the thought of the able, as long as two ideas seem to you disparate, the appearance of things, infallible dependent arising. Report an error in the passage at 17:25 Highlight the passage at 17:25

17:55 And emptiness beyond taking any position. At some point, they no longer alternate, come together. Just seeing that dependent arising never fails brings realization that destroys how you hold to objects. And then your analysis with you is complete. In addition, the appearance prevents the existence extreme. Emptiness, thought of non-existence. Report an error in the passage at 17:55 Highlight the passage at 17:55

18:20 And if you see how emptiness shows in cause and effect, You'll never be stolen off by extreme views. When you've grasped as well as I the essential points of each of the three principal paths explained, then go into isolation, my son, make mighty efforts, and quickly win your ultimate goal. Report an error in the passage at 18:20 Highlight the passage at 18:20

18:54 And I was so, it feels like it's been so long that I couldn't even remember what class was. I had to look it up on the calendar and count, and I was like, we're only in class four? Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:06 I think it's because clearly we missed it. two classes, but then I have something else. stretched Maybe it was confusion with the middle Report an error in the passage at 19:06 Highlight the passage at 19:06

19:20 Did anybody have any questions about the eight worldly concerns meditation that you've all been doing day and night since we've done it? Report an error in the passage at 19:20 Highlight the passage at 19:20

19:34 That's normal. Report an error in the passage at 19:34 Highlight the passage at 19:34

19:39 What's the problem? About two seconds and my mind takes off somewhere else. You just have to keep bringing it back. Yeah, I mean that's really, that's it. That's just it. Our minds are like that. I mean, is there anybody in here who does not have a distracted mind? Raise your hands now. If so, then maybe you should get here. Yeah, I mean, distraction's the biggest obstacle for most people, and especially at our level. Report an error in the passage at 19:39 Highlight the passage at 19:39

20:13 And look at our culture. Our culture thrives on it. When you're trying to just like look for something, and you're like, stop. Report an error in the passage at 20:13 Highlight the passage at 20:13

20:23 I mean, it's just constant. It didn't even happen. Yeah, I mean... Report an error in the passage at 20:23 Highlight the passage at 20:23

20:27 Watching the breath a little bit can begin to subdue that. Otherwise, Report an error in the passage at 20:27 Highlight the passage at 20:27

20:45 with the analytical medicine, when you notice your mind wandering, no drama, no judgment, just bring it back. I mean, it's sometimes funny. You have to admit that it's funny what our mind does. So just have a sense of humor and be patient. Report an error in the passage at 20:45 Highlight the passage at 20:45

21:04 It's that analogy of the mind being... You know, your mind's the two-year-old, so just put it back in the playpen and just set to work again. That's really all. That's all. But know that that's why we meditate. That's part of why we meditate is just to see the stage of our mind. Because your mind's not the only one. Report an error in the passage at 21:04 Highlight the passage at 21:04

21:27 And you're seeing mind, period. You're seeing what your sentient beings are up against. This is what we all are up against. So that's why we have to meditate. That's actually the reason. You just got the reason. That's great. Enormous insight. That's great. How profound. Many, many people will go 60, 70, 80 years or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 21:27 Highlight the passage at 21:27

21:50 That's great. Don't give up. Half my mind will focus and the other half is going somewhere else. It's like there's two of them up there. I know. There's actually more than two. I hate to tell you. There's more than two. I have whole armies in my head sometimes. You just have to keep bringing it back. Report an error in the passage at 21:50 Highlight the passage at 21:50

22:11 I mean, does anybody else have any magical? words of for Kara, than just keep it up be kind to yourself, also firm. That's why the mom thing is good, it's like that's the two-year-old, it's like sometimes you have to be really firm with a two-year-old, you also have to be nice, like it's not going to help you to like slam them, you know, or something, so it's like you have to beat Report an error in the passage at 22:11 Highlight the passage at 22:11

22:37 can actually do that little car, a two-year-old, yeah? Anybody else have anything to share? She's encouraged. Well, I happen to find my mind. Oh, gosh, you know what? We have the mic down here. It's rather more like a puppy dog. Do you pass him the mic? No. Puppy dog works, too. But the same difference. You have to be nice and you have to be, yeah. I really care about it. Report an error in the passage at 22:37 Highlight the passage at 22:37

23:04 Thank you. And, you know, it knows nothing. It's just learning. Yep. Puppy dog is exactly, it's another analogy. Cat is another analogy. Of any age, is another analogy, you know. But either way, you have to have some amount of firmness, putting that puppy dog back on the paper, you know, and some amount of gentleness. Report an error in the passage at 23:04 Highlight the passage at 23:04

23:36 Because otherwise, I think you just, I wasted years just getting mad at myself. It didn't actually do any good, you know. So it just adds to the afflictions already in the mind. And it doesn't do any good getting mad at you. Yeah. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 23:36 Highlight the passage at 23:36

24:04 I always desire to take a situation. In some ways, I'm like, oh, look at you. Look at you asserting yourself. That's so cute. But really, actually, I'm the boss. So I think in some ways having that other voice to say, aw, but I'm actually the one in charge here. Report an error in the passage at 24:04 Highlight the passage at 24:04

24:28 So you need to listen to me in the wiser voice. Yeah, isn't that interesting? I would go off and be planning, you know, my entire vacation for next year. But, let's go back now. So, you know, not getting angry. I Report an error in the passage at 24:28 Highlight the passage at 24:28

24:47 just sort of picked two years. Have a certain length fun time. Yeah, so keep it up. Doesn't get you off the hook. I notice I can't retain if my roommate's there. It's kind of always there. It's a studio, so I don't know what it is. Report an error in the passage at 24:47 Highlight the passage at 24:47

25:11 That is hard. That is hard. And I think that that's probably true for anybody in here as a partner who isn't into meditation. Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:28 Yeah. After a while, I think. So that one just may take time. Report an error in the passage at 25:28 Highlight the passage at 25:28

25:44 Staring at you. Writing notes down for the next time we talk. Report an error in the passage at 25:44 Highlight the passage at 25:44

25:54 But, you know. Report an error in the passage at 25:54 Highlight the passage at 25:54

26:02 Yeah, yeah. The way you do it, it's just like everything else. So Report an error in the passage at 26:02 Highlight the passage at 26:02

26:12 I'm going to welcome John, right? Yes. Yeah, so I'm going to welcome John to the class. We're halfway through, but that's okay. We are just starting to go through the text. I'm not here! Report an error in the passage at 26:12 Highlight the passage at 26:12

· · · silence, 1 minute

26:21 So it's actually a good time in that sense. Send him all the notes, so he's probably actually ahead of me at this point. Report an error in the passage at 26:21 Highlight the passage at 26:21

26:35 So what we're going to do, we're going to go through the text, through the renunciation portion of the text. So it's the first third of the text. Report an error in the passage at 26:35 Highlight the passage at 26:35

26:51 And what we'll do is sort of go, at the beginning it's sort of line by line, but then we're just going to go verse by verse. Report an error in the passage at 26:51 Highlight the passage at 26:51

27:00 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's okay, Report an error in the passage at 27:00 Highlight the passage at 27:00

27:09 now we can welcome Julie, too. We just welcome John. Report an error in the passage at 27:09 Highlight the passage at 27:09

27:15 Julie, was I supposed to send you all the notes and stuff for the Are you just going to sit in on it and see how you like it? That good. Okay. Report an error in the passage at 27:15 Highlight the passage at 27:15

27:25 anybody forgot, it would have been me. Yeah, if I gave up because of a distracted mind, I would have Report an error in the passage at 27:25 Highlight the passage at 27:25

27:36 many things Dharma centers are no different. So tonight we are going to talk about renunciation. Renunciation, I think it's interesting. Literally, if you translate the Tibetan, it comes out definite emergence, which I actually prefer to renunciation, because I think renunciation in our culture sounds like we're going to put on, what do they used to call it for the old monastics, the hair shirts? Report an error in the passage at 27:36 Highlight the passage at 27:36

28:06 Yeah, and have the little self-flagellation thing, and we'd all eat one crust of bread a day or something like that. But the mind of renunciation is actually a mind that wants to give up or let go of something. Not necessarily all the best food, but instead it's what we're giving up is our grasping onto things outside of ourselves that we think are going to bring us lasting. Report an error in the passage at 28:06 Highlight the passage at 28:06

28:34 Where the ideas come from, so the Buddha pointed this out because there's some underlying ideas or underlying reasonings that we need to examine that lead us to think. That all of our happiness is out there, outside of me. That person, or that thing, or that candy bar, or that book, or that job, or that vacation, or whatever, that's going to bring me happy. Report an error in the passage at 28:34 Highlight the passage at 28:34

29:02 And so we have to examine some of those ideas that lead us to think that way. It is a really limited way of looking at the world, and that's the Buddha's point. The mindset that we have to examine, and the mind with renunciation, once a mind has actually recognized that we do this, And made some attempt to let go of that, that way of interacting with the world, it actually is a broader, more vast open mind, and that tight little mind, which Report an error in the passage at 29:02 Highlight the passage at 29:02

29:40 is kind of the way we're operating right now. So it's different than we may think of. Report an error in the passage at 29:40 Highlight the passage at 29:40

29:49 If we don't get to the bottom of that grasping mind, it doesn't really matter what kind of an outfit we put on, or where we go, or what we do with our lives, we'll still be unhappy. We'll still be that tight, limiting mind. Report an error in the passage at 29:49 Highlight the passage at 29:49

30:04 So it doesn't matter so much externally what we do or even what we look like or how short our hair is. What's mattering is what's going on in our mind. So renunciation, just like the others, are states of mind. And really, it's interesting because the three principal paths that we're going to talk about, which are three states of mind, renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness, the correct view of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 30:04 Highlight the passage at 30:04

30:33 It's almost like a cycle because really you need some understanding of karma to have... This mind that can let go, that doesn't see this, is like the end all be all of my happiness. So it's like we kind of, it's like really the same thing happens when we get into the six perfections. Report an error in the passage at 30:33 Highlight the passage at 30:33

30:52 To have some understanding of giving patience, joyful effort, all those perfections, we actually have to have some understanding of emptiness too. So it's like you kind of, and actually the long rim's like that too. As we're going through the whole graduated path to enlightenment, all the topics. build on each other, but it's not like we're climbing a mountain. Report an error in the passage at 30:52 Highlight the passage at 30:52

31:19 the more we go through them, the more the beginning topics Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:38 understanding karma and emptiness Report an error in the passage at 31:38 Highlight the passage at 31:38

31:48 I mean, not from last night, Report an error in the passage at 31:48 Highlight the passage at 31:48

31:53 So let's start with the root text. So it begins with that one little phrasing at the top that's italicized. I bow to all the high and holy Lamas. Almost all traditional texts Begin with honoring the teacher, which definitely happens in the lamrim too. Let me spend chapters on the teacher, the importance of the teacher. Report an error in the passage at 31:53 Highlight the passage at 31:53

32:20 Here he's honoring his teachers and all the teachers of the lineage lamas. When you see these big, these are this, this tanka that's up here, this altar, on the break you can go and look at it. All the different little lamas that are depicted are supposed to be all the lineage lamas in the whole tradition of Buddhism. Now they've kind of... Report an error in the passage at 32:20 Highlight the passage at 32:20

32:42 He foreshortened it. If you're actually visualizing it, it's supposed to be Report an error in the passage at 32:42 Highlight the passage at 32:42

32:51 25, 28 years. Report an error in the passage at 32:51 Highlight the passage at 32:51

32:58 There have been many, many masters that have studied, taught and gained realizations. They are both sides. There's the wisdom emptiness teachings and there's the compassion. And that's all contained when he says, I bow to all the high and holy lamas. He's honoring all of those masters too. Because all of those teachings came in. Report an error in the passage at 32:58 Highlight the passage at 32:58

33:30 And so that's also just putting how important a spiritual teacher is. We actually do one of the next DB classes that we're going to do, I think in June, we're going to do two classes, two more. Report an error in the passage at 33:30 Highlight the passage at 33:30

33:48 We'll have one in March, and I'll tell you about that one next. But in June, we'll do another two series, and Lama will teach one, and I'll teach one, and we haven't decided who's teaching one. But one of us will teach on the spiritual master. Report an error in the passage at 33:48 Highlight the passage at 33:48

34:04 They're both great, essential. decide you want the buddhist especially tibetan buddhist spiritual teacher Report an error in the passage at 34:04 Highlight the passage at 34:04

34:17 we get into why. I think it's really Those two are like sort of the most juicy of all that I think the teaching is Report an error in the passage at 34:17 Highlight the passage at 34:17

34:27 As far as I'm able, I'll explain. So here he's speaking with community and they always speak really, as far as I'm able, I'll do the best I can, you know, and that's being a Humboldt. Report an error in the passage at 34:27 Highlight the passage at 34:27

34:46 Oh, yeah, here, take that back to her letter. I got it out for you and then I just, you know, sat there and smiled at you. So if you open it up a couple of pages in, it'll say three principal paths at the top. Report an error in the passage at 34:46 Highlight the passage at 34:46

35:04 There you go. And we're just going to go through, probably tonight, through renunciation. Report an error in the passage at 35:04 Highlight the passage at 35:04

35:16 Usually, too, they make this pledge to complete the work. This is just a traditional thing that if you ever go through a traditional text or traditional teaching on a text. Usually there's a line or a verse or something that's like basically stating I will complete this work. Sometimes of course they don't, right? Report an error in the passage at 35:16 Highlight the passage at 35:16

35:36 But it's like they're setting that intention at the very beginning. Sometimes they don't, sometimes Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

35:45 they do try to set that intention. It's like the motivation. The essence of all high teachings of the victors. That line is referring to the fact that these three principle paths are the essence of all the Buddha's teachings. So this one page has in it everything that the Buddha taught in its sort of creme de la creme. Report an error in the passage at 35:45 Highlight the passage at 35:45

36:14 The essence of all the Buddha taught is included in these three principles. Of course the essence of the entire lamrim is as well because the lamrim is the essence. Report an error in the passage at 36:14 Highlight the passage at 36:14

36:31 The path that all their holy sons commend, this is again referring to the lineage Lamas, especially those in the bodhicitta lineage, the bodhisattvas. Report an error in the passage at 36:31 Highlight the passage at 36:31

36:45 The entry point for the fortunate seeking freedom, this one is the way that we're talking about this entire verse is talking about the entire three principle path. So again, he is including the entire three principle paths in these four lines if you look at it that way. The essence of all the high teachings of the victors is referring to renunciation. The path that all their holy sons commend is... Report an error in the passage at 36:45 Highlight the passage at 36:45

37:16 It's referring to bodhicitta, holy sons. Whenever they use those terms, sons, the children of, they're like children of the Buddhas is what they call them. Those are bodhisattas, like a little code word. So now you guys can know the Report an error in the passage at 37:16 Highlight the passage at 37:16

37:33 bodhisattas there. There are a lot of these little code words that you'll see in these texts. Report an error in the passage at 37:33 Highlight the passage at 37:33

37:46 The pictures of the Buddhas. Yeah. The ones who got the goal, right? Yeah, the ones who got full enlightenment. The children of, or the sons of, the victors are those that are still on the path, but they've achieved liberation, so they're getting there. They're the heirs, really. Sometimes it's translated as children and sons, but Lama Zopa Rinpoche always says that it's more like heirs, like spiritual heirs, almost like the way a crown prince would have been an heir to a kingdom. Report an error in the passage at 37:46 Highlight the passage at 37:46

38:18 More like that, which we don't have so much in our culture, except for people Report an error in the passage at 38:18 Highlight the passage at 38:18

38:32 now. The heirs to their Report an error in the passage at 38:32 Highlight the passage at 38:32

38:41 kingdom. And then the entry point for the fortunate seeking freedom is talking about the flow of emptiness. So the direct perception of emptiness is that. It's the only way to gain. Report an error in the passage at 38:41 Highlight the passage at 38:41

39:02 So again, he's introducing us to all three paths in this single. Listen with a pure mind, fortunate ones, who have no craving for the pleasures of life, and who to make leisure and fortune meaningful strive to turn their minds to the path which pleases you. So here, he's telling us, you know, he's like, listen up, pay attention. Report an error in the passage at 39:02 Highlight the passage at 39:02

39:29 And he's calling us fortunate ones too, right? We're fortunate we get to even have these teachings, so it's good for us to remember that. And he's basically telling us to study this text well because it includes all the teachings of the Bible. But first, I think it's really useful for us to figure out if we're even good students. How do we tell if we're good students? Report an error in the passage at 39:29 Highlight the passage at 39:29

39:56 Sheepish right now. I think this is one of the interesting things that we go into in the teacher class because everyone always spends so much time on looking for good and forget how we might actually create those causes by being a good student. So if we start, Master Aryadeva, who was one of the great masters, he gave fortunately only a list of three attributes to being a good student. Report an error in the passage at 39:56 Highlight the passage at 39:56

40:27 The first is being unbiased or impartial. And by that, he's really meaning that not letting preconceived ideas or system, you know, our philosophical system, which Report an error in the passage at 40:27 Highlight the passage at 40:27

40:46 was, there are a lot of sort of competing philosophical systems, not allowing that to keep us from work, you know? So if we, if we're coming to the teachings and we're really strongly, for example, Christian, are we able to sort of set that aside and just listen, even with a grain of salt? You know, maybe I don't fully accept karma yet, but can I just... Report an error in the passage at 40:46 Highlight the passage at 40:46

41:09 understand you know like let my mind be open to it and just am I going to be like so closed off that I'm not able to hear the teachings at all you know that's one of the questions Report an error in the passage at 41:09 Highlight the passage at 41:09

41:25 And also, the more partial or biased we are, the less we're able to even hear the teacher. Are we intelligent? That's the second one, intelligent. Report an error in the passage at 41:25 Highlight the passage at 41:25

41:45 And by intelligent, it doesn't mean smart. Thankfully. It means that we have a mind that's able to discern or discriminate between, especially between. Report an error in the passage at 41:45 Highlight the passage at 41:45

42:03 So we're able to use reasoning or logic like that. It's more like that. Report an error in the passage at 42:03 Highlight the passage at 42:03

42:11 And the final one is diligent. Diligence. Are we diligent? And by diligence, he means are we taking these teachings and then working tirelessly is the word he used. Report an error in the passage at 42:11 Highlight the passage at 42:11

42:29 So then we just have to ask, there's not going to be a test before you leave the room. It'll be like those tests in the back of magazines, you know. If you've got more than three, you know. Again, with this verse, we can also take the first two lines to, again, refer to renunciation, the third line to refer to bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 42:29 Highlight the passage at 42:29

42:59 Listen with a pure mind, fortunate ones who have no craving for the... Um... Report an error in the passage at 42:59 Highlight the passage at 42:59

43:03 And Report an error in the passage at 43:03 Highlight the passage at 43:03

43:07 who to make leisure and fortune meaningful. I was talking about bodhicitta because they always talk about, we'll talk about this more with the bodhicitta verses, but they say it's taught that developing this mind of bodhicitta is the most incredible, Report an error in the passage at 43:07 Highlight the passage at 43:07

43:30 before we actually transcend saṃsāra, to develop this mind of bodhicitta, which is defined as the mind wanting to get enlightened in order to help all of it. So it's this really vast mind that's courageous and wants to work for them. Report an error in the passage at 43:30 Highlight the passage at 43:30

43:51 That's a way of making our leisure and fortune. Leisure and fortune, I ended up cutting one meditation for you guys and that was on the precious human rebirth. Report an error in the passage at 43:51 Highlight the passage at 43:51

44:05 Leisure and fortune are describing, there's actually another long, there's two long lists of our leisures and our fortunes that we have that give us ample opportunity to have some sort of a spiritual life. Report an error in the passage at 44:05 Highlight the passage at 44:05

44:21 I think the word leisure is not so great. First of all, my dad had a leisure suit in the 70s. It's not something that we want to emulate. Report an error in the passage at 44:21 Highlight the passage at 44:21

44:32 Leisure sounds like you're on vacation somehow. I don't really like it. It's freedoms. I like that translation better. We're free of huge hindrances that would keep us from being able to practice. And those particular freedoms are... I mean, those particular things that we're free of are major health obstacles, major mental health obstacles, major, you know, like being born in a place where there's fighting, being born in such poverty that we couldn't possibly even have an interest in practicing. Report an error in the passage at 44:32 Highlight the passage at 44:32

45:10 They are specific. You know, you actually go through the different realms of existence. Imagine what it would be like to be born there and see just from the context of what study the Dharma. You know, for example, even being born as a house cat. It's not such a horrible thing when you look at all the other animals, Report an error in the passage at 45:10 Highlight the passage at 45:10

45:34 but there's not a whole lot of opportunity for me to decide that that's what my ultimate goal is. Report an error in the passage at 45:34 Highlight the passage at 45:34

45:45 So just thinking about the different things that we don't have and being grateful for that. And then also thinking about things, of course, that we have and being grateful for that. Report an error in the passage at 45:45 Highlight the passage at 45:45

45:58 Have in place, we've met a teacher, we live at a time where it's really easy, a time and a place where it's really, Report an error in the passage at 45:58 Highlight the passage at 45:58

46:12 especially when you think about, you know, yesterday was Tibetan New Year. The Tibetans opted to just have no celebrations at all this year in honor of all the many, many people that killed just last year. It was also National Wednesday. Was it? Interesting. Yeah, so all we did, I mean, we sort of did celebrate it a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 46:12 Highlight the passage at 46:12

46:39 For the most part, we just put, Report an error in the passage at 46:39 Highlight the passage at 46:39

46:47 especially that are still being oppressed, still being tortured, still being imprisoned, because they want to do exactly what we're doing here tonight. Report an error in the passage at 46:47 Highlight the passage at 46:47

46:56 So just thinking about those different things that we have in this life and then feeling, so when you do these meditations on having human rebirth, which you could actually even just do just thinking about all the good conditions you have in your life and feeling grateful, you should feel like really revved up. Report an error in the passage at 46:56 Highlight the passage at 46:56

47:16 It should be a really positive meditation. It is a little sad though. You think your mind, talking about distracted, your mind of course... we get distracted by thinking about the people that are suffering or the animals that are suffering. There is Report an error in the passage at 47:16 Highlight the passage at 47:16

47:35 no Report an error in the passage at 47:35 Highlight the passage at 47:35

47:58 way to end without pure renunciation, the striving for pleasant results in the ocean of light. to realize that you've got this great opportunity Report an error in the passage at 47:58 Highlight the passage at 47:58

47:55 again, he's introduced all three Report an error in the passage at 47:55 Highlight the passage at 47:55

48:08 It's because of their hankering life as well that beings are fettered. So seek renunciation. So here it's using terms like ocean of life, hankering life, and then this term fettered. So we have to look at this. This is a description of saṃsāra. And renunciation is this mind that wants to get out of. Report an error in the passage at 48:08 Highlight the passage at 48:08

48:40 We're bound by our grasping, which we were just talking about. Grasping at things outside of me. Report an error in the passage at 48:40 Highlight the passage at 48:40

48:50 misperceiving that those things are going to bring me This is what we're grasping at. This grasping is what fetters us are afflictions. Report an error in the passage at 48:50 Highlight the passage at 48:50

49:08 So this grasping is what causes us to actually suffer. This is actually, you know, that sort of keeps this cycle going around. Report an error in the passage at 49:08 Highlight the passage at 49:08

49:21 You actually say it's this mind of grasping and the bardo of grasping for it is so desperate. that's that will just be what that we're so The chaos is so strong that we're not very particular at that point. We're just so wanting another body again. So wanting just to feel firm. Report an error in the passage at 49:21 Highlight the passage at 49:21

50:00 So that grasping really ends up causing us suffering right now. If I'm reaching out wanting bowls and bowls of ice cream or something, that causes suffering. But it also is that huger suffering of Report an error in the passage at 50:00 Highlight the passage at 50:00

50:18 going through some sorrow. Report an error in the passage at 50:18 Highlight the passage at 50:18

50:22 So we have to think a little bit about how saṃsāra works. So we have these mental states, and we've talked about this, I know, so this is so. Report an error in the passage at 50:22 Highlight the passage at 50:22

50:34 We have these mental states that we call kleshas or mental afflictions, which is basically described as anything that disturbs the mind. Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34

50:45 Literally anything that disturbs the mind. You know, everything from road rage or, you know, taking out an entire village, all the way down to just having a slight irritation. Report an error in the passage at 50:45 Highlight the passage at 50:45

50:59 dress that someone know so it's like Report an error in the passage at 50:59 Highlight the passage at 50:59

51:04 And our mind has billions of these afflictions all the time. Our reaction because of this misperceiving of reality where we see things outside of us is so solid and real and the source of our happiness or the source of our suffering. It's that dualism. If you hear that term dualism, me and you. And you is everything, that's not me. So I see the world in these ways and I... Report an error in the passage at 51:04 Highlight the passage at 51:04

51:32 My mind then of course gets upset at anything that seems to threaten me or not bring me happiness or take awayness or get between me and my happiness. And I grasp at anyone that seems that I think might bring me happiness. So even when that person's trying to leave me and I'm like, oh, their ankles is there. Report an error in the passage at 51:32 Highlight the passage at 51:32

51:52 That's that same mind of grasping. That's what fetters us. It's that whole cycle of me having these afflicted states of mind that arise and those afflicted states of mind. Report an error in the passage at 51:52 Highlight the passage at 51:52

52:19 Our karma, of course, creates the conditions of our taking the rebirth, which is called the throwing karma, but also, of course, the filling out of that rebirth. So we create it all, basically, through our acts. Most of our acts are based on... Every once in a while, of course, we do do a virtuous act. Report an error in the passage at 52:19 Highlight the passage at 52:19

52:49 Unfortunately, we have... The habits are stronger and deeper to not divert you. It takes a lot more effort. Do you need another, do you need a little table? There's a little table there. You're cool? Yeah, no, it's just my life. Okay. Okay. I was just thinking, because we have tons of these little stools around, so I believe David could probably grab one underneath. Report an error in the passage at 52:49 Highlight the passage at 52:49

53:13 Do you want? Yeah. Because there's like one, I think underneath that, right there outside the door, it makes it easier. I'm even more sympathetic now because I've had this. on me for month. Report an error in the passage at 53:13 Highlight the passage at 53:13

53:33 may not be here next week, so don't be alarmed if I'm sitting in the armchair. So saṃsāra is this whole condition, this whole condition of the mind having these afflicted states of mind, these afflictions, we call them mental afflictions, emotions, we act on those, we create the negative mind stream, the potential that then ripens as more suffering, if it's a negative. Report an error in the passage at 53:33 Highlight the passage at 53:33

54:03 Or a pleasure, if it's a pleasure. So karmacletia is what keeps us. What cuts that is this understanding of how reality works. So understanding karma and understanding emptiness. The more that we understand that and the more that we apply that understanding, because just understanding it doesn't do much. Report an error in the passage at 54:03 Highlight the passage at 54:03

54:25 I know that sounds obvious, but we actually need to hear that a lot. I think a lot of times people think if you have an intellectual understanding of something, that you've realized it. You know, we have to really, not only do we have to work with some of this stuff a lot in meditation, but we actually have to apply it. Report an error in the passage at 54:25 Highlight the passage at 54:25

54:47 And with karma, it's really practical. It's just sort of like, you know, what do you do when anger rises in your mind? What do you do with those mental afflictions? Or what do you do when things happen to you based on karmic seeds that you've created? How do you react to it? If we just keep following that habits, the imprints, Punching the guy, screaming back, cutting him off. And don't even feel a moment of regret for it. Because granted, we may still punch the guy and then feel guilty about it. Report an error in the passage at 54:47 Highlight the passage at 54:47

55:24 If we don't start applying some of the principles, then we aren't going to ever shift it. There's no way to shift it just from understanding it. Report an error in the passage at 55:24 Highlight the passage at 55:24

55:33 They say it's a lot like a person taking medicine that a doctor gives them, but they haven't changed the way they're acting that would cause them to get sick again. So it's more like that. Report an error in the passage at 55:33 Highlight the passage at 55:33

55:50 Emphysema. Yeah, diabetes is a good one. Any kind of thing that's, um, Report an error in the passage at 55:50 Highlight the passage at 55:50

56:06 saṃsāra is a condition. Saṃsāra is not a place. And likewise, nirvāṇa is a condition. It's creatable. And it creates, the way we create it is true. Report an error in the passage at 56:06 Highlight the passage at 56:06

56:22 So here, when they say that, you know, there's no way to end without pure renunciation. Pure renunciation here is fierce renunciation. It's like really, really strong power. So it's getting how all these things work, which takes some time. It takes studying it, it takes thinking about it, it takes time. Report an error in the passage at 56:22 Highlight the passage at 56:22

56:49 Before you can develop it, really this really strong mind, it really is like fierce. Seeing, I'm done with that, I don't want to do this anymore. Like really first getting it, what this is, and then going, Report an error in the passage at 56:49 Highlight the passage at 56:49

57:13 there's nobody on the right side of the room, for whatever reason. Yeah, you have to talk into it because we record it, and then it gets uploaded. I know. Well, hold it far away from your mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 57:13 Highlight the passage at 57:13

57:37 Definite emergence. Definite emergence. And so you're emerging from this. It's almost like, you know the old cartoon of peanuts with pig pen? I think of pig pen as like a sort of human saṃsāra. You know, with all that stuff kind of going around in this stuff? This is our saṃsāra, you know? And so we're trying to get out of that. Report an error in the passage at 57:37 Highlight the passage at 57:37

57:59 We're trying to get out of that. Report an error in the passage at 57:59 Highlight the passage at 57:59

58:04 lucy holds the football well that's definitely describing some sort he says i'm not gonna kick yeah exactly know it's so sad and you see yourself in that you actually he's like he's meant to be like every Report an error in the passage at 58:04 Highlight the passage at 58:04

58:26 But then they also show love and stuff. At least they did Without Report an error in the passage at 58:26 Highlight the passage at 58:26

58:37 renunciation, without recognizing what This condition is all about we can't ever develop compassion for other people. It's born out of our compassion for ourselves. Because renunciation is really compassion for ourselves. Renunciation is getting it that we are in a situation that's unnecessary and pointless, basically. Report an error in the passage at 58:37 Highlight the passage at 58:37

59:03 And that we're settling for it. You know, we're settling for the little cone when we could be actually having the huge fudge Sunday. We're deciding, this is okay, I can make it work. And the best Buddhists actually fall into this too where we keep trying. Saṃsāra is by nature flawed because it's the product. Report an error in the passage at 59:03 Highlight the passage at 59:03

59:29 So it cannot be Report an error in the passage at 59:29 Highlight the passage at 59:29

59:35 what we want to opt for is getting transcending karma. Nirvāṇa is having a mind so we don't have this crazy yo-yo mind in every single day going up and down based on what somebody says to me or how somebody looks at me. Report an error in the passage at 59:35 Highlight the passage at 59:35

59:58 You know, whether I get my way or whether I don't get my way. You know, whether it's big or small problems, the way our mind goes up and down, that's a sign of pronunciation. We're talking about that with the eight world of concerns, right? The way, you know, our mind, you know, yo-yo mind is what me actually used to call it. Yo-yo mind, the mind that goes up and down according to whatever is happening around me. Report an error in the passage at 59:58 Highlight the passage at 59:58

1:00:21 My mind is not stable enough to just be happy no matter what. Once we have Nirvāṇa, we are. And actually, before. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:21 Highlight the passage at 1:00:21

1:00:38 But until then, we really are kind of at the mercy of all these things that are happening to us. And that's not a new way to live. So that's what the Buddhists are pointing out. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:38 Highlight the passage at 1:00:38

1:00:52 There's a quote from a Sakyam master whose name I don't have, but it was an interesting quote, so I decided to throw it in here, because it's talking about renunciation. you know, once you started having a Report an error in the passage at 1:00:52 Highlight the passage at 1:00:52

1:01:02 He said, if you are attached to this life and if your spiritual life is still based on worldly attainment, you are not a spiritual person. It's all delusion and it won't liberate anyone. So what he's saying basically, being attached to this life, and this we're going to get into in the next verse, being attached to this life is thinking this is it. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:02 Highlight the passage at 1:01:02

1:01:27 There's nothing beyond this. What I have right now is it. Not being attached to this life is starting to think this is one lifetime. It's a great lifetime. I have some great conditions. I might be able to move, progress more and more towards my goal of, you know, whatever my goal is. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:27 Highlight the passage at 1:01:27

1:01:48 But it's not the only life that I've ever had. It's not the only life that I ever will have. And that, of course, is going to require you to think about the fact that there's reincarnation and the mind may go on. You know, studying the nature of mind, studying reincarnation, studying karma, studying the Report an error in the passage at 1:01:48 Highlight the passage at 1:01:48

1:02:08 Buddha talk. And so when the Sakyamaster is saying if you're attached to this life and if your spiritual life is still based on worldly attainments, which of course would be somebody, for example, who just wanted to become a really, really good meditator, that Report an error in the passage at 1:02:08 Highlight the passage at 1:02:08

1:02:29 would not be the best possible motivations for a spiritual life. There are people out there, though, who might fit that bill. And I wouldn't at all hazard a guess as to who they are because I don't know. I don't have clairvoyance, so I don't know what their minds are. But there are certainly people that would make us think that they don't have motivation if we look at their ads. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:29 Highlight the passage at 1:02:29

1:02:55 So his point is that Report an error in the passage at 1:02:55 Highlight the passage at 1:02:55

1:03:01 leisure and fortune, there are those words again, leisure and fortune are hard to find, life's not long, think it constantly, stop desire for this. Verse 4, actually, we look at it in two parts. Verse 4 begins with talking about this precious human rebirth, and then it ends with talking about... Report an error in the passage at 1:03:01 Highlight the passage at 1:03:01

1:03:25 So leisure and fortune are hard to find. Life's not long. Think it constantly. Stop desire for this life. So desire for this life is basically, again, thinking that all these different things outside of us is what's going to bring us happiness. You know, if I can get that job or that apartment or that person or that house or that car or that, you know, keep it small, that piece of cake, that parking space, whatever it is, Report an error in the passage at 1:03:25 Highlight the passage at 1:03:25

1:03:57 Thinking that that's going to bring me happiness, rather than anything that we might do to increase the stability of our mind, do virtue that would plant the seeds of happiness, you know, like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:57 Highlight the passage at 1:03:57

1:04:15 That kind of thinking is what keeps us here. It keeps us little. Like Lama Eshu's always saying in all his teachings, he's like, we want big mind, dear, not little mind. Big mind, big mind. So we're kind of practicing big mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:15 Highlight the passage at 1:04:15

1:04:32 Little mind is that. And Report an error in the passage at 1:04:32 Highlight the passage at 1:04:32

1:04:38 it's very, very tiny little mind. And I think we can all relate to it, right? I mean, how many times today have I just thought, well, you know, if I could just do that. You know, and I may not put it in those words, but there's some thought that's going to do it, you know, break. If I could just get a cup of tea, I'd do that one over and over. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:38 Highlight the passage at 1:04:38

1:04:59 Talk about the sign of, what do they say, the sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. How many times do I have a cup of tea thinking that somehow it's going to just clear things up and just make things work. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:59 Highlight the passage at 1:04:59

1:05:17 So there is a story at Lama Atisha, if you remember back to the very first class, which now seems millions of years, where we talked a little bit about the story of Buddhism in Tibet and when it came to Tibet. And Lama Atisha was the master who was invited for the second flourishing of the... Report an error in the passage at 1:05:17 Highlight the passage at 1:05:17

1:05:48 And there's this story of him coming upon this monk, circumamilating a stupa. And everything the monk does, he's like, that's really wonderful, but it would be much better if he would just practice the Dharma. And he does this over and over. So first he finds him circumamilating, and he says, oh, that's great, but you should really just, you know, do something spiritual. And then he sees him, you know, doing prayers, and then he sees him doing prostrations or whatever, meditating. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:48 Highlight the passage at 1:05:48

1:06:15 And he's like, oh, this is wonderful. But it would be really better if you would just, you know, do something spiritual. And finally, the monk throws his hands up. He's like, well, what should I be doing? And then he says three times really, give up this life, give up this life. And what he's talking about, Report an error in the passage at 1:06:15 Highlight the passage at 1:06:15

1:06:39 thinking something out there, both right now and long time. Constant, Report an error in the passage at 1:06:39 Highlight the passage at 1:06:39

1:06:54 this life is over. And it actually forces us to. We have this amazing opportunity. I think about that every time another week goes by really fast. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:54 Highlight the passage at 1:06:54

1:07:10 We've hit a certain age. It feels like it's just going so incredibly fast. You're like, how can it have gone by already? You know, what on earth did I even do that? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:10 Highlight the passage at 1:07:10

1:07:22 I do a lot of things that are meaning, even from a Dharma perspective, but still, I just feel like it's so easy for our life. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:22 Highlight the passage at 1:07:22

1:07:35 We waste time on other stupid stuff, too, but we also waste really thinking. And then, of course, he says he just alludes to one entire topic of the long room. Life's not, that's it. That's all he says about death. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:35 Highlight the passage at 1:07:35

1:07:56 Life's not long. He does say think it constantly. Life's not long. So the next Discovering Buddhism class, which is starting March 26th, Tuesday, Thursday class, Report an error in the passage at 1:07:56 Highlight the passage at 1:07:56

1:08:19 we're going to talk about death, the process of dying, and also how you get reborn, how that whole thing happens. So it'll be a great class to do. But the reason we do it isn't to get depressed, you know, it's... It's to think about the fact that we don't have forever. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:19 Highlight the passage at 1:08:19

1:08:40 even though we all get that one, don't really change our life so much based on it. We might for a minute after our best friend dies or something. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:40 Highlight the passage at 1:08:40

1:08:52 but we just go back to cutting somebody off in traffic you know sometimes on the way home in the hospital you know it doesn't we haven't really realized it it hasn't really So, the focus on... Getting the fact that our life is finite is totally about, it's really like the conflict with the one, with getting the conditions that we have, recognizing and being able, we grab that opportunity and run for it and go for it. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:52 Highlight the passage at 1:08:52

1:09:26 But with getting death and impermanence, we should get some sense of urgency, you know, not fear, not like panic where we get paralyzed and can't do it, but more just like, wow, I don't have forever. No, I don't have forever. I think actually many of us come to a spiritual path. Based on something of that sort of recognition, even if it's just momentary, Report an error in the passage at 1:09:26 Highlight the passage at 1:09:26

1:09:55 9-1-1, a lot of things, a lot of really good things. People got it, Report an error in the passage at 1:09:55 Highlight the passage at 1:09:55

1:10:08 but they, you know, they were led to something more meaningful. People sometimes, the most meaningful times of their life are the final months of their life. My sister-in-law was talking about two jobs. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:08 Highlight the passage at 1:10:08

1:10:25 Lost one main job and then she found another one and then was laid off. And she was applying at a hospice. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:25 Highlight the passage at 1:10:25

1:10:34 depressing place and whether or not she can handle And I said that. I said actually for some people, and that's what makes it such satisfying work, is for some people that's when they get it. That's when they get the whole meaning of life. And maybe in three weeks. And maybe in three years. Whatever amount of time that they start getting it and start deciding that they have a choice. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:34 Highlight the passage at 1:10:34

1:11:01 And that they want to live differently. That they want to love or they want to... write or they want to you know whatever it is it doesn't even have to be a spiritual pursuit but they just decide to make Report an error in the passage at 1:11:01 Highlight the passage at 1:11:01

1:11:27 Life's not long. Think it constantly. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:27 Highlight the passage at 1:11:27

1:11:33 Meditating on precious human rebirth and meditating on the fact that our death is certain and that its timing is uncertain definitely cuts that thinking that all my happiness is out there and you just keep grasping at all of this my whole life Report an error in the passage at 1:11:33 Highlight the passage at 1:11:33

1:12:03 So one of my teachers, Venable Neal Houston, whose ordination name is Tutun Dundro, he said, renunciation is letting go of what we are neurotically obsessed with. Renunciation isn't just letting go of grasping to things of this world, but also involves the recognition that there is something better. This involves a basic change in attitude. The grasping keeps the mind small while developing renunciation gives the mind space and begins to open. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:03 Highlight the passage at 1:12:03

1:12:42 So I'm going to skip that next part because this week, right before we leave, right before we lose class tonight, we'll look at the homework. And the homework tonight is going to be how you apply these kind of teachings in your life right now. And it just begins from investigating. Like, you know, each day, like looking at... Report an error in the passage at 1:12:42 Highlight the passage at 1:12:42

1:13:02 How many times your mind kind of got close to renunciation and how really far away it got from renunciation. I mean, that's cool. Examining is how we begin. It's a little bit the way we did with the eight worldly concerns, Report an error in the passage at 1:13:02 Highlight the passage at 1:13:02

1:13:22 fear of loss. So the second half of verse four is talking about karma. And I think, why don't we take a break and then we'll come back and talk about karma. Karma a little. We may not get to the second part of what I wanted to. We'll definitely talk about karma. We'll come back for the break and we'll talk about the sufferings of Salma. It's not a very good advertiser for the second half. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:22 Highlight the passage at 1:13:22

1:13:52 Maybe it's good that we're doing a karma because otherwise it would be like, how do you go? I can just talk about suffering for the rest of the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:52 Highlight the passage at 1:13:52

1:14:04 How about ten minutes? Report an error in the passage at 1:14:04 Highlight the passage at 1:14:04

1:14:09 Watch that grass down there. Actually, there's nothing much to grasp on, unfortunately. Tea, maybe coffee. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:09 Highlight the passage at 1:14:09

1:14:24 Extra binders for people that show class three. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:24 Highlight the passage at 1:14:24

1:14:30 Oh, you didn't get the readings at all? Okay, so I need to make... John, did I send you the electronic readings? Yes. Okay, but I need to give you the hard copy readings, and I didn't do that. I need to make it. Can I give it to you next week? Please delight me. I know, because if I tried to rush it right now, I think I would. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:30 Highlight the passage at 1:14:30

1:15:03 But, actually, I Report an error in the passage at 1:15:03 Highlight the passage at 1:15:03

1:15:09 can send it to you. electronically, and that way you can start reading it. Okay, and from class two we were supposed to download the three principal, but I kept getting thrown to different on the website, so I didn't know if what I printed out was. I think it is, yeah. Yeah, we talked about that the following week, because Tony sent me an email. So it's really the first. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:09 Highlight the passage at 1:15:09

1:15:45 Yeah, because the second is on emptiness, but it's certainly not going to hurt you to study emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:45 Highlight the passage at 1:15:45

1:16:02 know, actually. Oh, that's nice. It kind of helps to do both. Yeah, I did. I followed a lot. And then to be able to go back and like that, this makes it Report an error in the passage at 1:16:02 Highlight the passage at 1:16:02

1:16:13 otherwise I have to read each page like two or three times for it to start syncing it. Oh, because this is yours? Sorry. And I was like, why is he giving me a blank screen? I'll just ignore him. I don't understand what's happening, so I'll just ignore him. He wants me not to write on this position. No, you're welcome to write on it. Are you the other person you do today? No, I'm not somebody else. No, John. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:13 Highlight the passage at 1:16:13

1:16:36 Oh, okay. But I'm the person who likes to steal. I give him my notes at the end of class, so he doesn't want me to put my little notes on his notes, actually. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:36 Highlight the passage at 1:16:36

1:16:46 Well, I want you to have your notes. That Report an error in the passage at 1:16:46 Highlight the passage at 1:16:46

1:17:06 Tipton Children's book that you recommended a few weeks ago to me, I don't know, with the CDs. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:06 Highlight the passage at 1:17:06

1:17:19 I haven't actually listened to it, but I've certainly known her for a billion years, and I know that she knows her stuff. And actually, I wanted to hand these out, and I'm not sure if I'm going to have them now. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:19 Highlight the passage at 1:17:19

1:17:33 Ian got his already. Did you get yours already? I did. So that means I just need one, two. There's nine of us right now in here, and I can hold off because I'm not officially ready at all. Okay, because I've got one. In fact, maybe I'll do that for you and John. Okay, so there's nine, so that means we need seven, and I think I have seven. You guys are weird, and you're pretty good to have. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:33 Highlight the passage at 1:17:33

1:18:02 All right, hand one of these to everyone. All righty. What's your name? I'm Courtney. Yes, as you do it, you can... Well, here, that's a good test. I apologize for being late. I wasn't quite sure I was coming and then it all... Good, I'm glad you made it. Yeah, thank you. Me too. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:02 Highlight the passage at 1:18:02

1:18:23 I'm Courtney. I'm David. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:23 Highlight the passage at 1:18:23

1:18:30 And Ian's not here. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:30 Highlight the passage at 1:18:30

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:19:07 And the minute I see her, I'll be like, I'll Report an error in the passage at 1:19:07 Highlight the passage at 1:19:07

1:19:15 walk around here. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:15 Highlight the passage at 1:19:15

1:19:31 I know, you heard your name, didn't you? The grasping of the eye. I know, isn't that funny? So horrible. Yeah, that's it. to do, like, some sort of, like, yeah. She's in a Report an error in the passage at 1:19:31 Highlight the passage at 1:19:31

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:19:44 Oh wait. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:44 Highlight the passage at 1:19:44

1:19:51 All of that was recorded, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:51 Highlight the passage at 1:19:51

1:19:56 And if you join this class, we can try to remember your name as well. This is what we'll do on the tip of the break. So there should be a book wandering around here for you. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:56 Highlight the passage at 1:19:56

1:20:14 I think Julie has it. Yeah. If we call it her name. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:14 Highlight the passage at 1:20:14

1:20:23 not, and I think that's Julie. does not have. She's Julie now. She ran out. She ran out? So that wasn't a wasn't. We must have 10. That You must have counted everyone. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:23 Highlight the passage at 1:20:23

1:21:02 I can give you one so don't worry you will have one but I don't have another one downstairs. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:02 Highlight the passage at 1:21:02

1:21:20 if that's the case, then Julie said she would Report an error in the passage at 1:21:20 Highlight the passage at 1:21:20

1:21:35 yeah. first time. Yeah, I think it's, I think she's been think she was there last week. Last week, yeah. The drug, the medication was in this room. The drop in meditation is in this room? Well it's either this room or upstairs. But it will be eventually in this room because we won't have it upstairs. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:35 Highlight the passage at 1:21:35

1:21:59 you have competing for events. We won't. And if we ever do, cross, that's kind of a silly sentence, but if we ever did, then we would have, we would have to make that, we wouldn't, not for a meditation class, but we wouldn't have to, Report an error in the passage at 1:21:59 Highlight the passage at 1:21:59

1:22:23 kind of have it be a bit more loungy. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:23 Highlight the passage at 1:22:23

1:22:27 So it would work for like, you know, class class. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:27 Highlight the passage at 1:22:27

1:22:41 Saturday morning early doesn't usually, there's only one time coming up that Saturday morning early has a cross. That's in November. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:41 Highlight the passage at 1:22:41

1:22:51 she wants to your new, um, Buddhism class I know, that's true. That's very silly. We'll be in there then, I guess. It'll be easier, I think, to do a classic. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:51 Highlight the passage at 1:22:51

1:23:10 Hey, Joey, did you have an extra one? Because Stacy didn't get one. You know, I think actually, I gave it to this one here. Somebody said he actually had it, but took one, I think. Yes. Oh, David? you grab a later recording? I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:10 Highlight the passage at 1:23:10

1:23:28 Can you, the guy that's sitting by the door, when the class is gone? No, he's behind you. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:28 Highlight the passage at 1:23:28

1:23:37 No, not David. What are you doing? What? I'll ask you something. I'm admiring this lineage. Well done. I totally didn't even feel you. All right, we have to start. Enough of this nonsense. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:37 Highlight the passage at 1:23:37

1:23:52 We are short one. We need one. Oh, that's Walker. He's in the class. He's renouncing it. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:52 Highlight the passage at 1:23:52

1:24:16 weren't counting her? No, there's nine of us at Gleitner, seven books, because here he has one, she said she'd get the Report an error in the passage at 1:24:16 Highlight the passage at 1:24:16

1:24:31 taking Ian, too, are you? Yeah, I know. We just make that seat his all the time, even when he's not here and hasn't actually been in that seat for three All right, let's talk about karma. Oh my God. All right. So, Report an error in the passage at 1:24:31 Highlight the passage at 1:24:31

1:24:53 definition of karma. Karma actually just means action. Karma is a Sanskrit word. But it's defined more precisely as the action of thinking and what that thinking inspires. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:53 Highlight the passage at 1:24:53

1:25:20 It's really important with karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:20 Highlight the passage at 1:25:20

1:25:27 Karma is a really, really complex subject. And if you decide to do the karma class, which I would highly recommend, say if you decided to only do two classes in all of the Discovering Buddhism series, I would say karma, five Report an error in the passage at 1:25:27 Highlight the passage at 1:25:27

1:25:45 more classes or six more classes. Those two work together. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:45 Highlight the passage at 1:25:45

1:25:56 Karma is a really complex subject because there are so many different factors and conditions that come into karma. But the biggest thing to remember with karma, part of what makes it so complex, is that our motivation is 95%. So yes, there are certain actions that are taught to not be so great and harmful. But if our motivation... Report an error in the passage at 1:25:56 Highlight the passage at 1:25:56

1:26:26 If the karma was positive, then it's going to be a mixed karma, even if the action is negative. For example, if it's Report an error in the passage at 1:26:26 Highlight the passage at 1:26:26

1:26:41 completely different, Report an error in the passage at 1:26:41 Highlight the passage at 1:26:41

1:26:45 just like running down an animal and not caring about it, or running down an animal and hating it, you know, like a really powerful, fierce negative karma. So one would be a really strong negative karma, you know, aiming to hit the animal or something like that. One would be just not a great karma, but it would be a little bit mixed. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:45 Highlight the passage at 1:26:45

1:27:04 There's a lot of ignorance going on, you know, just not seeing it. And one, you know, say you pull over and you find this animal but it's so much pain. It still may not be the wisest thing because we don't have clairvoyance to know where that animal is going to be reborn. This is why things like euthanasia are not said to be skillful in Buddhism because we don't have the mind that knows where that animal or human is. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:04 Highlight the passage at 1:27:04

1:27:35 So we think we're putting it out of its misery but we could be sending it into a far worse existence. I know. But it's still, the mind is really strong and compassionate, so your karma is going to not be as bad because you really are doing it with a sincere thought. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:35 Highlight the passage at 1:27:35

1:27:51 Stupid. Stupid just meaning unwise. I'm sorry. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:51 Highlight the passage at 1:27:51

1:27:59 So karma is 95 % of what's happening. And I think that's really important to know. And of course, what is it that we don't know what's happening in anybody? meant. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:59 Highlight the passage at 1:27:59

1:28:13 That's really, really important for us. So we can see different actions and of course make judgments. And we of course need to make certain amount of practical discrimination in our, you know, just dealing with reality on a conventional basis. But the reality is that we just don't know what's going on. We do know what's going on in our own mind. So these teachings of karma are mostly for us in our own mind, rather than you guys learning about karma and then judging everyone else. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:13 Highlight the passage at 1:28:13

1:28:44 And I have to say that because it comes up a lot where people learn about karma and then they start judging everyone else. He shouldn't be doing that because of that. And it's like, no, the real thing, the teachings of karma are about our own mind. What's really going on in our own minds? And then deciding to act and understanding. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:44 Highlight the passage at 1:28:44

1:29:05 I find when I'm Report an error in the passage at 1:29:05 Highlight the passage at 1:29:05

1:29:14 thinking about karma, it blends in with old notions of guilt and stuff. Guilt, good old guilt. Oh yeah, guilt does come up. Oh karma, you know, oh God, I've done something bad without knowing that it was bad, and now I'm going to pay for it. But, everything, everything that we do, no matter how heinous, it can always be purified. I mean, that's the good thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:14 Highlight the passage at 1:29:14

1:29:35 Within Tibetan Buddhism, not all traditions of Buddhism have that understanding, but in Tibetan Buddhism, everything can be purified, which is what we just talked about. Last night, actually. And we're going to talk a little bit about on the practice day. But yeah, there's methods. Yeah, but I have had this experience where I've taught like a karma classes and people literally come, get down and kneel and like confess things to me. I'm like, as far as Buddhism is concerned, you can confess that to yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:35 Highlight the passage at 1:29:35

1:30:07 Like you can see, oh, I did this harmful action and I don't want to suffer anymore because what am I doing? I am feeding my own negative karma which will ripen as my own suffering. So just that recognition is the first step to purifying it. Because the whole purification process is simply this mental process of recognizing that we've done something that's going to plant seeds basically that will ripen as my own suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:07 Highlight the passage at 1:30:07

1:30:33 And then deciding that I don't want to, understanding how karma works, not guilt so it doesn't paralyze me, but regret. Understanding how it all works. So there's a really strong, strong difference between those two. So the more you understand about karma, I think that feeling about karma is still based in ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:33 Highlight the passage at 1:30:33

1:30:55 And the more that you get to know how karma works, it's actually really, really empowering because you realize that you hold the keys. Like you hold the reins to have whatever kind of existence you want. And it really falls on us to do the work. So the Buddhas can't do that for us. They can't change our minds. They can't purify the stuff that's there. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:55 Highlight the passage at 1:30:55

1:31:23 But we can. We can understand how it works and we can decide how we're going to act and we can live according to the law of cause and effect. We can understand that every action that we do with our speech and our body and our mind has some sort of a reaction, has some sort of a ramification and then decide to act accordingly. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:23 Highlight the passage at 1:31:23

1:31:40 Like we have that capacity. So it doesn't have to fall into paralysis and guilt and all that stuff. Because that stuff doesn't really help. The way my teacher said it, it's just another negative state of mind that you want to purify. So it doesn't behoove you. There's nothing constructive or beneficial about them. It's just a habit. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:40 Highlight the passage at 1:31:40

1:32:07 If karma is action, is there karma-less action? Is there an enlightened being? Produces no karma? No, they actually do. They produce, I don't have to think of the exact word, the way that enlightened beings become enlightened beings, they start eliminating the mental afflictions that we were talking about, those minds of anger, jealousy, depression, guilt. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:07 Highlight the passage at 1:32:07

1:32:38 They start eliminating those through a direct perception of emptiness, that you become an Arya being. And that puts you on this path, basically, of where you start being able to use that understanding of how things actually work, the nature of reality, to start eliminating those afflicted states of mind, because those afflicted states of mind are based on this misperception of reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:38 Highlight the passage at 1:32:38

1:33:02 You know, seeing people out there, concrete, solid, the source of all my unhappiness, the source of all my happiness, both of which are completely inaccurate. Once I have the direct perception of emptiness, I can start ending those one by one. Once I've ended all of them in their grossest form, at least, I become an arhat. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:02 Highlight the passage at 1:33:02

1:33:19 I attain nirvāṇa. That's still not full enlightenment. I have to eliminate all of them in their subtle form. Then I am no longer subject to karma and delusion. I have broken the bonds of saṃsāra. But I still produce karma. But because I'm an enlightened being, I'm producing... Only wonderful karma, because the whole reason of becoming a Buddha is to benefit all living beings. So I'm constantly, with every one of my billions and billions of emanation bodies, helping sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:19 Highlight the passage at 1:33:19

1:33:54 I have no choice but to be blissful and to keep producing mountains of positive karma. So that's how I stay that way. They aren't permanent, solid, concrete beings either. They're just constantly producing more and more and more blissful. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:54 Highlight the passage at 1:33:54

1:34:14 That's a good question. And there's a term for that karma and I can't think of what that karma is called. It's just off of my brain right now. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:14 Highlight the passage at 1:34:14

1:34:29 But it's just the kind of karma that Buddhists produce. So they also are these constantly changing beings, just like we are. But unfortunately, we're also having negative states of mind. We're having both. We're having negative states of mind that are constantly producing more and more and more and more karma at a rate of... Report an error in the passage at 1:34:29 Highlight the passage at 1:34:29

1:34:49 65 moments per finger snap. So since you've come in tonight, you've produced quite a bit of karma. Mostly mental. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:49 Highlight the passage at 1:34:49

1:35:03 I couldn't hear any of your speech karma. But yeah, so maybe you might leave here tonight and produce some physical and speech karma. But we produce mountains and mountains of karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:03 Highlight the passage at 1:35:03

1:35:19 That's how we produce. We are the creator gods. There's no other creator god but Report an error in the passage at 1:35:19 Highlight the passage at 1:35:19

1:35:29 a pantheon. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:29 Highlight the passage at 1:35:29

1:35:33 The way that it works is we see sort of basic, our mind sort of organizes shapes and sounds and colors and we perceive them in a certain way based upon it. So the karma that we've created allows us to interpret that raw data at Report an error in the passage at 1:35:33 Highlight the passage at 1:35:33

1:35:57 the wonderful Buddhist center or as weirdo hippies in a big house, you know, whatever we have the karma to perceive, you know. I'm sure that when my brother and his wife came here, they're born-again Christians, some of the stuff that I think it was so wonderful and beautiful actually looked quite frightening to were quite polite. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:57 Highlight the passage at 1:35:57

1:36:17 So it's not inherently that's getting into the emptiness, but our karma is what sort of shows it to us in a certain light with a certain perspective. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:17 Highlight the passage at 1:36:17

1:36:26 that's thing begins Unfortunately, according to Narghajuna, who is one of the great masters in wisdom teachings, Report an error in the passage at 1:36:26 Highlight the passage at 1:36:26

1:36:40 he said it's too bad that there's such a lag time between The action that we do and the result that we experience. He said if we, you know, if there was no lag time between the moment that we tried to step on the roach and a large foot coming down and stepping on us, then we wouldn't, there'd be no confusion. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:40 Highlight the passage at 1:36:40

1:37:00 Like we'd get it that our act has, the problem is usually it's at least a lifetime to Report an error in the passage at 1:37:00 Highlight the passage at 1:37:00

1:37:09 match us up. So we don't always see the connection. And often we'll think that, for example, The example that I think I've already used in class before where you are filling out a tax return and deciding to lie so that you get $500 extra in your refund, you're thinking that that's a really intelligent act and that it's netting you this great $500 extra money that you could really use. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:09 Highlight the passage at 1:37:09

1:37:38 In reality, you're getting that $500 always has to come. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:38 Highlight the passage at 1:37:38

1:37:46 The result of the negative act, the lying, hasn't come to you yet. It's still out there in the future. And you'll carry that karma seed until the conditions come. And that'll be usually with lying. People like to deceive you or people don't. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:46 Highlight the passage at 1:37:46

1:38:07 So I'm just going to give you the four principles of karma. The four main principles of karma. Karma is definite. If you do something positive, you get a positive result. You do something negative, you get a negative result. Which is what we're talking about just now, for example. If your company wants you to lie in order to make money for the company. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:07 Highlight the passage at 1:38:07

1:38:30 That's not how the company actually gets money. The company actually gets money because of generating giving pharma. Generosity is what produces money. So when we're feeling incredibly poor, what we need to do is to give. Whether it's money or whether it's time or energy or whatever, that's the way we turn around poverty. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:30 Highlight the passage at 1:38:30

1:39:01 So it's sometimes the opposite of what you would think. But the Buddha's point is... If you plant a lemon seed, you're going to get a lemon tree. If you plant an orange seed, you're going to get an orange tree. If you plant a virtuous seed, you will get a virtuous result. You might have to wait. And there are ways to work with it. But if you plant a rose bush, you won't ever get daisies. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:01 Highlight the passage at 1:39:01

1:39:31 It just won't happen. There's genetic modification. Hybrids. The second principle of karma is that it increases. The results are always bigger than the cause. And this is true for nature too, when you think about how much larger the tree is than the seed, or how much larger the plant is. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:31 Highlight the passage at 1:39:31

1:39:55 So if we think about that, any little act that we do, even just a moment of anger results in a better. If it's just left and not purified, and it's just left. But the same is true for positive. A tiny little act of kindness can result in an entire lifetime of happiness. It's bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:55 Highlight the passage at 1:39:55

1:40:27 And Geshe likes us to actually say imprint, karmic imprint. I use the examples of seeds and fruit and stuff. We see that in nature and it makes sense. But he says realistically it's actually not. If we think seed it becomes again something solid, concrete, changing. It's that same dualistic thought. But it helps to get the cross. He says it's more like a potential. It's almost like an energy. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:27 Highlight the passage at 1:40:27

1:40:56 our mind So the third one is if you didn't create the karma, you've experienced the reason. So nobody else can create your suffering for you and nobody else can create. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:56 Highlight the passage at 1:40:56

1:41:13 If you are experiencing suffering, you, meaning your mindstream, previous life, created the cause. If you want happiness, Report an error in the passage at 1:41:13 Highlight the passage at 1:41:13

1:41:29 are experiencing suffering. If you're experiencing happiness, of course we never ask when we're experiencing happiness, right? If we're experiencing suffering, it's why me? Why is this happening to me? In fact, we really cause ourselves, I joke about that, but actually, I know my mom really suffered a lot in her old age. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:29 Highlight the passage at 1:41:29

1:41:48 She had Parkinson's, just asking for like, probably about two years, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening? And I just have this really strong view of karma, but that was, it just, it eases the mind in some way to understand karma, because you're just like, oh, okay, well, if I created this cause, How can I look at it differently? Then at least I don't feel like a victim anymore. At least that much is done. So that mental suffering is done. I can still bitch and moan about it, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:41:48 Highlight the passage at 1:41:48

1:42:18 But I don't have that thing of like, that I created it. Hold on, let me just get through this. Dharma does this. It's very exciting. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:18 Highlight the passage at 1:42:18

1:42:35 So if we want a certain result, then we have to create the causes. If we don't want a certain result, then we keep from it. And it really behooves us to study karma. This is at this point a lot of information but not a lot of details. In the class on karma, one of the things, at least that I do when I teach it, is, and if you take it and he doesn't teach you, I'll share this with you, but it correlations so that you know, so for example, if you are experiencing what I just talked about, where people are lying to you a lot, deceiving you a lot, or nobody's believing you even when you're telling the truth, that's the result. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:35 Highlight the passage at 1:42:35

1:43:17 So sometimes it's useful to take stock of your life and to realize what your biggest problems are, maybe just one or two, and to trace them back. You might not remember ever lying. I mean, most of us have lied at some point, but remember it doesn't have to be within this life. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:17 Highlight the passage at 1:43:17

1:43:38 It could be in some previous life. So we may not actually remember doing the actions, but we can definitely do something. It's like if you find weeds in your garden, you can definitely rip them out. There's nothing stopping you if we know how to rip them off. So the fourth one is karma is never lost. It can never just disappear. Every tiny act produces a result. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:38 Highlight the passage at 1:43:38

1:44:04 So even if nobody saw you, even if nobody knows you did it, your mind knows you did it. And that's ultimately all that matters because there's no God in the sky with a clipboard. You know, it doesn't work that way. Our mind takes note of it, and that's really how karma is produced. If I was present, now granted a lot of what we do is done with ignorance, but just like with the law, you don't really get off. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:04 Highlight the passage at 1:44:04

1:44:36 You still are producing karma. Your karma is probably going to be lesser. If I'm doing a negative act out of complete stupidity, it's going to be different than if I'm doing a negative act and really relishing it. Then I'm going to be doing a much worse thing. If I'm doing a negative act again out of a kind thought, You can't see what my mind is in my karma. So it's really, there's all these variations of it. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:36 Highlight the passage at 1:44:36

1:45:05 But no matter what, karma is never just lost. So we do do purification practices, and what we end up doing is short-circuiting. So we still have a result, but it ends up being something much more manageable than times of suffering. It ends up being suffering in this life in some form, like a hurt knee or migraine. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:05 Highlight the passage at 1:45:05

1:45:33 Still, we don't get out of it completely. So we still have to get Report an error in the passage at 1:45:33 Highlight the passage at 1:45:33

1:45:41 rid of that karma. Now, sometimes we just experience the karma and it's just exhausting. It's just the end of that karma. Karma is impermanent. So we have a certain amount of karma that we've created and then that karma runs out. We call that death. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:41 Highlight the passage at 1:45:41

1:46:04 We have a name for it from the Buddhist point of view. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:04 Highlight the passage at 1:46:04

1:46:19 And there's never any ending or beginning. From our point of view, there is. But from the overall scheme of things, it's just more... purification. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:19 Highlight the passage at 1:46:19

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:46:30 Now that you have a Report an error in the passage at 1:46:30 Highlight the passage at 1:46:30

1:46:34 just wanted to get through those more. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:34 Highlight the passage at 1:46:34

1:46:40 Well, or after, or after, yeah, we can do that. The four main causes of karma? No, those are the four principles of karma. This much helps a lot. Just getting this much is like some tools that you can begin working with karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:40 Highlight the passage at 1:46:40

1:47:02 The reason all of this is important, of course, relies upon this understanding or at least some trust in the fact that it keeps going, you know, that the mind is... The Buddha believed, observed after he got enlightened, that mind is beginningless and endless, that it keeps going. And so when we die, it's not like the mind doesn't go out, even though from the Western point of view it does. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:02 Highlight the passage at 1:47:02

1:47:28 In the Buddha's point of view, it just goes into the next life, and we create all the causes for the next life. So if we go into the next life laden down with all this negative stuff, then we're going to have not such a great rebirth. If we can purify it, you know, or act in a different way in this life, if we understand these teachings and we decide to put them into effect, then the conditions of our next life will be much better. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:28 Highlight the passage at 1:47:28

1:47:58 And so that's why it behooves us to understand how it works and then start acting on it. Yeah? When someone, like, you know, experiences great pain, you know, it seems to me impossible to keep the mind focused on any... you know higher reality and so oftentimes you know when people die they might be in the state of great pain or agitation and at that moment of death Report an error in the passage at 1:47:58 Highlight the passage at 1:47:58

1:48:24 That's not the time to learn the practice. That's actually a really big part of the deaf class. We do learn different practices that are useful at the time of death, but you have to practice them in life. That won't be the best time on your deathbed to try to stabilize your mind. But now... While your life is somewhat stable, while your conditions are pretty good, while your health is pretty good, sure the knee may hurt, but for the most part my conditions right now are great for me to try to work at stabilizing my mind a little bit, purifying, accumulating merit. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:24 Highlight the passage at 1:48:24

1:49:00 These are sort of the basic tenets of Buddhism where I'm just basically trying to die peacefully and have a good rebirth. It's not even... Progressing on the path even so much at this point. It's just basically to try to get some control over my mind. Even before I die, I want to have some control over my mind because if you punch me, I don't want to punch you back. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:00 Highlight the passage at 1:49:00

1:49:24 I don't want that karma anymore. Just having some basic understanding of karma shows me just for myself, not even to benefit any of you guys, but I don't want that karma anymore. I don't want somebody coming into my life and punching me. If that happens, I don't want my normal reaction to punch you back. So for that I have to subdue my mind a little bit in this life. Because that stuff happens all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:24 Highlight the passage at 1:49:24

1:49:52 Negative stuff comes to us because we've created the karma. So when that stuff happens, how we react is what's going to change things. Because it's all eminently changeable. Karma is not destiny or fate. we don't, not just punching, but, um. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:52 Highlight the passage at 1:49:52

1:50:09 Karma is what created the conditions, but it's Completely changeable. That's what makes it juicy to me. Because if it was just like we created it and now we suck, now we're in big trouble, then it would just be like how depressing. I wouldn't see any point in studying it. But because it's not, it's completely changeable and we have the tools to change it, then it becomes exciting. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:09 Highlight the passage at 1:50:09

1:50:34 And then also I have to really watch it when I go into those old habits of blaming somebody else. Feeling resentful. You know, like all of that stuff. It's just habit. It's just mental habit. It's just like smoking. It's not that I'm a bad person because I have those habits, but I can begin recognizing that they're habits. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:34 Highlight the passage at 1:50:34

1:50:56 They don't serve me very well. It may take me a long time. I mean, I'm saying that this is all explaining the principles, but the actual reality of this is what makes practice. That's what makes practice. How you take all these tools and... To deal with somebody stealing your car, somebody cutting you off, somebody screaming at you at the bank. It's nothing more holy than that. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:56 Highlight the passage at 1:50:56

1:51:27 But how we do that leads to that. It's pretty amazing. And the Buddha actually taught that all of us have that. We Report an error in the passage at 1:51:27 Highlight the passage at 1:51:27

1:51:46 didn't get to the sufferings. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:46 Highlight the passage at 1:51:46

1:51:52 Nobody's going to come next to me. I'm making sure that... I'm going to say that for a minute. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:52 Highlight the passage at 1:51:52

1:52:01 I think some of it is, I'm going to give you a couple of, I know, I'll just give you the sufferings of payment. I'll just give you a couple of key sufferings, because some of these sufferings we don't even think about as suffering. We have eight minutes. Some of these sufferings we don't even think about as suffering, so I think they're useful to think about in that sense. That's good. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:01 Highlight the passage at 1:52:01

1:52:28 We just have to skip the root. We'll have to skip verse five. Verse 5 is when we know that we've attained genuine renunciation. I'm going to assume that none of us have yet, and hopefully by next week we'll figure out whether or not we've attained genuine. We'll get to that one next week. They say that there are three types of suffering. One of them is the obvious kind. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:28 Highlight the passage at 1:52:28

1:52:53 Gross suffering, broken leg, hurt knee, sick, migraines, mental illness, lost job, mother died. I mean, all the stuff that we all think of as suffering. That's what we think of as suffering. But we stop there. We don't think of anything else as suffering. The Buddha actually taught the next kind of suffering of change is what we think of as happiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:53 Highlight the passage at 1:52:53

1:53:16 But the problem is that every form of happiness that we have changes into suffering eventually. That's kind of depressing to think about. But if you think about it in the terms of, for example, Report an error in the passage at 1:53:16 Highlight the passage at 1:53:16

1:53:29 Really grasping at this clock. This clock is going to give me happiness. Well, at some point this clock is going to break. It's going to get lost. Someone's going to steal it. When we had our break-in, somebody stole that clock. I was sitting here and just listening. It was like worth negative $3 probably. Yeah, because we had had it for a billion years. So, you know, like if I, every single thing that I think of out there that's going to give me happiness, eventually it changes into suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:29 Highlight the passage at 1:53:29

1:53:56 I mean, at the very least, I'll die. Even if I still have everything. But most of the time, things break, get lost. We eat, instead of one piece of cake to bring us happiness, we eat ten and then we get sick, you know. The person leaves us, the person gets bored with us. We get bored with the person, you know. We get bored with the job. You know, all of that stuff happens. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:56 Highlight the passage at 1:53:56

1:54:17 And the reality of that is that, and it could be as simple as one of my favorite examples. You're feeling really cold, so you go and stand in the sun. And then you get really hot. So then you go and stand in the shade. I mean, how many picnics has anyone ever gone to where you've just done this back and forth? Or you get in the water and the water's cold. So then you get out and the Report an error in the passage at 1:54:17 Highlight the passage at 1:54:17

1:54:42 water's cold. And that's saṃsāra. That's saṃsāra. We keep thinking it's somehow going to bring us happiness and we just go back and forth. So that's a suffering of change in a really fast way. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:42 Highlight the passage at 1:54:42

1:54:56 Sometimes you feel this temporary cessation of the happiness. I mean, of the suffering. And you think that's happiness. And that's very much like, you know, you get into the water and it feels really good for a minute and all of a sudden it's really, really cold until you get back out, you know, so it's like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:56 Highlight the passage at 1:54:56

1:55:13 Or you're really, really hungry so you eat a lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:13 Highlight the passage at 1:55:13

1:55:20 A lot of our happiness is just simply that this suffering, grasping mind has for a moment appeased itself before it begins to turn on itself, how it turns on itself. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:20 Highlight the passage at 1:55:20

1:55:37 You know when you're really sick? And then there's a sensation of that sense of feeling bad. And you feel for a moment just how good it is to be without. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's what I always say is the best thing about a migraine that I've ever experienced. I've had migraines for a billion years. So I've actually, the more that I have, as a Buddhist, examined them. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:37 Highlight the passage at 1:55:37

1:55:58 They're actually an incredible teaching tool. But just the best thing about a migraine is when you recognize that it's gone. It's so powerful. And then you just forget. And you're like, you run around and go. Looking for happiness outside of yourself again. But for that moment of that insight, you're like, doesn't it feel so... Report an error in the passage at 1:55:58 Highlight the passage at 1:55:58

1:56:20 It's just that karma's done. The third kind is harder to explain. It's called all-pervasive suffering, and it's basically just that, this is what they call the subtlest level of suffering. It's just that everything in our experience is created by our karma and delusions, and so it's in the nature of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:20 Highlight the passage at 1:56:20

1:56:45 So it's this very, very subtle level of our suffering, of our existence, is suffering just because in its very nature it's created by this follow into action, create. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:45 Highlight the passage at 1:56:45

1:57:04 So because of that, it's at its very root. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:04 Highlight the passage at 1:57:04

1:57:18 The six sufferings of saṃsāra in general. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:18 Highlight the passage at 1:57:18

1:57:27 The problem that nothing is certain. These all make sense, you know. We just think, oh, that's life, you know. Nothing is certain. We all act like things are certain. We all act like it's positive that, you know, whatever I do every night, I'll do tonight. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:27 Highlight the passage at 1:57:27

1:57:50 We really honestly don't know what will happen tonight, you know. We assume that our car is out there. We assume a lot. We assume that things are certain and nothing is. In a positive as well as a negative way. We just, we box things in. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:50 Highlight the passage at 1:57:50

1:58:14 Because it happened once. And we do that with people too. But that's a problem. Nothing is certain. And yet we act like it is. We're never satisfied. That's the second one. We're never satisfied. We get what we want and then we lose interest. We get what we want and then we get bored with it. We get what we want and then we find something. And we do that with people too. We have huge expectations about people, things, places, experiences. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:14 Highlight the passage at 1:58:14

1:58:44 And of course, we can never live up to those expectations. And when we're doing this meditation on these, Which you won't be. But I think it's still important for you to, I'll tell you why in a moment, but I still think it's important for you to at least know what these differences are. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:44 Highlight the passage at 1:58:44

1:59:06 When we just keep looking at how we just keep going through these sufferings over and over again, it's really pointless. That's really the gist of this particular contemplation. It's just that this suffering existence is pointless. There's no real point in our suffering. It's just... That we've created the causes for it, so now we're exhausting those causes, but we could do things differently. That's kind of the point of Report an error in the passage at 1:59:06 Highlight the passage at 1:59:06

1:59:34 the larger point. So the third of the six sufferings of saṃsāra is that you have to discard your body over and over. It's repeatedly having to take... And if we think about death in one life, if you've ever had to be with anybody who was dying, how hard that is. And then to think, oh my gosh, I've had to do this over and over and over. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:34 Highlight the passage at 1:59:34

2:00:01 Why? That's what you're getting out of it. It's pointless. There's no real reason for us to have to, except for the fact that we keep creating the causes. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:01 Highlight the passage at 2:00:01

2:00:11 And we have to keep being born over and over again, which is number four. We have to keep taking on this new body. We have to keep learning how to tie your shoes and walk and learn language and meet these new people. This one's mom and dad this lifetime. We have to just keep doing that over and over and over. We go up and down. In other words... Report an error in the passage at 2:00:11 Highlight the passage at 2:00:11

2:00:32 We get the best job in the company and we're a manager. Sometimes in the same company in the same lifetime. But we definitely all have the stories of kings who are made really, really low in their own kingdom. Sometimes in a single afternoon they lose everything. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:32 Highlight the passage at 2:00:32

2:00:57 Or celebrities who do the same thing. They make some movie and then it's just all gone. Just completely crashed. But the same is true in our lives too, you know, you also go up, you know, you join a company, you work with it, the company gets really big, you really make all this money and then all of a sudden all the stocks fall and then the company dies, you know. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:57 Highlight the passage at 2:00:57

2:01:22 And then the sixth one is that basically we enter this life alone and we die alone. We act like we surround ourselves with people, we surround ourselves with distractions, we surround ourselves with activities. But the reality is we have our own journey. We have our own life. And if we're ever with somebody as they're passing away, we might cling to them. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:22 Highlight the passage at 2:01:22

2:01:48 We might ask them to stay. There's nothing they can do at that point. They have to move on. That mind has to move on. So it's true for us as well. We are the ones. We are the livers of our own life. The ones that are specific to human life are somewhat similar. We're the suffering of birth, having to take rebirth over and over. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:48 Highlight the passage at 2:01:48

2:02:09 Taking birth in this particular life isn't all that pleasant. I've been in a number of them and there is a lot of struggling that's going on. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:09 Highlight the passage at 2:02:09

2:02:20 The suffering of aging. I think most of us in the room have had some experience of that. Some of us more than others. Body, mind deteriorates. Friends disappear. The simplest things become more difficult. People don't take you seriously. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:20 Highlight the passage at 2:02:20

2:02:42 And again, just thinking, I've done this over and over and over again. So that's the thought. Suffering of sickness. We've had everything. If we think about our life being beginningless and endless, we've had every possible sickness. We've had everything from the tiniest flu, or the tiniest, I should say something smaller than the flu, the tiniest cold all the way up to the most horrifying cancer or AIDS or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:42 Highlight the passage at 2:02:42

2:03:13 We've had everything. The same with mental illness. We've had it all. And we've done it over and over and over again. But we've sometimes had it in a way that we can actually be cared for. And sometimes we've had it in a way that we're just on the street or just in a field or something. We've done it over and over again. Suffering of death. Suffering of separation from what you like. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:13 Highlight the passage at 2:03:13

2:03:34 So you find something you like. You really like the clock. It's a great clock. And then Courtney knocks it over. And it's gone, you know. Or she walks out of here with it, you know. And that happens over and over again, too. You know, we find things, we like jobs, we're all excited about them, and then three days later we begin to realize, actually, it's not such a great job after all. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:34 Highlight the passage at 2:03:34

2:03:55 I completely misunderstood what I thought it was going to be. So we like the person, and then we begin to realize that maybe the person's actually not as wonderful as we thought they were. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:55 Highlight the passage at 2:03:55

2:04:07 Sometimes people, like Tibetans, are forced into exile from their country that they love. So it's big and little, all versions of this. And the suffering of not getting what you like, not obtaining what you like. You might think it's yours. It's my job. That was my job. David got it. That was my parking space. It causes so much suffering over and over and over again, whether it's little or big. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:07 Highlight the passage at 2:04:07

2:04:35 I sit there and begin to think that. So the final one is really similar to that all-pervasive suffering, the suffering of these contaminated aggregates being in the nature. These contaminated aggregates are talking about body and mind. The fact that they're contaminated is because they're created by karma. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:35 Highlight the passage at 2:04:35

2:05:02 They're faulty by nature. So why do we have to look at this? The Buddha actually taught the very first teaching of the Buddha was there is suffering. The very first of the four noble truths, there is suffering. Was he just a killjoy? No, I think there was a reason that he was teaching us that. And it was also, the good thing about the First Noble Truth is we all get that one, right? Report an error in the passage at 2:05:02 Highlight the passage at 2:05:02

2:05:30 Yeah, there's suffering. Actually, I think there's some people that are. But for the most part, most of us in some way can get, yes, that one I get. There is suffering. Yes, there is suffering. But he didn't stop there. That would be totally depressing. No. He said, there is a cause. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:30 Highlight the passage at 2:05:30

2:05:50 There is a cessation. The Four Noble Truths show us that there's a way out, there's something else. But first we have to start with saying, yeah, I am something. If we don't recognize it in ourselves, we can't. So we have to start. So that's why we have to. So renunciation is being able to recognize it and also recognizing, you have to have those two parts, recognizing that there's something else, there's something better. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:50 Highlight the passage at 2:05:50

2:06:24 There's another kind of existence that doesn't include, it is possible. There is hope. And so that's why our mind becomes more expansive. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:24 Highlight the passage at 2:06:24

2:06:40 And we'll start with verse 5 next week. So your homework this week, I think I might be a short one. I can email... Report an error in the passage at 2:06:40 Highlight the passage at 2:06:40

2:07:00 See, though, I didn't count. I thought I did eight. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:00 Highlight the passage at 2:07:00

2:07:05 So you're going to just think about renunciation and what it means to you. And you can look, if you took notes, you can look at that. You can also just kind of review the stanzas that we went over. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:05 Highlight the passage at 2:07:05

2:07:20 Did everyone get one? Okay, okay. Well, I'm going to give you this so I can give her this. You can email me. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:20 Highlight the passage at 2:07:20

2:07:35 No, it's fine. I can give this to you and then I'll just email you. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:35 Highlight the passage at 2:07:35

2:07:43 Yeah, so you're just going to contemplate and then your meditation. The difference between, you know, contemplating can be on the bus, contemplating can be in the bank, contemplating can be, you know, at work, contemplating can be in the bathroom, you know, contemplating can be wherever you are. Meditating is when then you take it and you really try to go a little deeper with it in meditation. It's going to bother you. Hopefully your neighbor's roommate isn't staring at you. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:43 Highlight the passage at 2:07:43

2:08:09 So you're just trying to bring it a little bit in deeper. Just do the best you can. Who has the principal teachings of Buddhism? I had suggested that, yeah. We do have copies of it in the store. I believe there's several copies of it in the store. I would highly recommend it. It's not a required reading for this, but it's great. And even if a couple of you wanted to split a copy, it's literally $6.95. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:09 Highlight the passage at 2:08:09

2:08:36 It's like a totally cheap little pocketbook. And I've re-read mine probably three times. It's just a really great readable little book. It's a really good book. And it's using this text. Same translation and going through it. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:36 Highlight the passage at 2:08:36

2:08:53 If you have that, then I'm asking you to do some reading out of it. If you don't, don't forget. If you decide you want to go deeper in these topics and you decide to read liberation in your homework means liberation in the poem. That's what that's referring to. If you're not reading that text, if you're not doing the class for credit, meaning the L certificate, don't worry about that either. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:53 Highlight the passage at 2:08:53

2:09:18 Just do Report an error in the passage at 2:09:18 Highlight the passage at 2:09:18

2:09:27 it. Okay, okay. So you get, you will get definitely Report an error in the passage at 2:09:27 Highlight the passage at 2:09:27

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:09:29 All right, so let's end with a dedication. And then anybody that has questions, hopefully Report an error in the passage at 2:09:29 Highlight the passage at 2:09:29

2:09:41 we're exhausting that. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:41 Highlight the passage at 2:09:41

2:09:47 Okay, so we'll just dedicate any positive karma, merit that we just created just since we came in tonight. We've been here for a couple of hours, some of us a little bit longer. And it's actually fairly amazing what we've done, just talking about all of these amazing and essential teachings. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:47 Highlight the passage at 2:09:47

2:10:09 So we just dedicate all that merit. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:09 Highlight the passage at 2:10:09

2:10:17 these teachings so that it actually transforms our minds and of Report an error in the passage at 2:10:17 Highlight the passage at 2:10:17

2:10:39 keep you over 10 minutes. very much. Oh my God. So review the sufferings next week. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:39 Highlight the passage at 2:10:39

2:10:53 do have another copy, so there's really no reason except for my grasping mind. Oh really? If you do, then she didn't get one. So, there you go. And I'll look around for another one, and if anybody else would like another one, I'll just bring it. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:53 Highlight the passage at 2:10:53

2:11:16 But, you know, your computer might be down at some point. like we had like a whole block go out all the lecture studio Friday night during the class it was actually pretty cool except I wasn't teaching she was doing PowerPoint too so it was like it was Emily But I was just upstairs. It was kind of interesting to watch a line. I was like, okay, cool, I'll just go to bed. All right, that worked. All right, here you go. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:16 Highlight the passage at 2:11:16

2:11:50 I thought actually that could save... I was thinking actually that would really save a lot if somebody could just unplug us at 10 o 'clock every night, you know. And like you couldn't work on the computer. All the phones went dead, so that was kind of cool. much. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:50 Highlight the passage at 2:11:50

2:12:12 Yeah, exactly. And I think it's probably like that monastery and stuff too, at least traditionally speaking. So the black books, you'll see, they go separately from the white books. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:12 Highlight the passage at 2:12:12

2:12:40 They actually go over on the bookshelf together. Have you figured out where they go? No, this bookshelf. Is that bookshelf right there? Did you find other ones that match it? It's like one of those, which one of these pieces. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:40 Highlight the passage at 2:12:40

2:13:19 the way it always ends. Yeah, for Report an error in the passage at 2:13:19 Highlight the passage at 2:13:19

2:13:36 I did a timer. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:36 Highlight the passage at 2:13:36

2:13:44 I haven't done it though. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:44 Highlight the passage at 2:13:44