Discovering Buddhism - Presenting the Path (9 February 2012)

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2:28 I just know I will. Preventative. Report an error in the passage at 2:28 Highlight the passage at 2:28

2:38 Okay, Report an error in the passage at 2:38 Highlight the passage at 2:38

2:42 we'll start with a little meditation, a short one. And Report an error in the passage at 2:42 Highlight the passage at 2:42

3:04 just let ourselves arrive and everyone else arrive. And then we'll set a motivation for tonight's class. Report an error in the passage at 3:04 Highlight the passage at 3:04

3:14 So just take some nice deep belly breaths and let go of your day. Report an error in the passage at 3:14 Highlight the passage at 3:14

3:25 Use your breath to breathe into all the places where you feel tight, including your mind. All the little sharp corners, nooks and crannies. Just breathe some space and light into those places. Report an error in the passage at 3:25 Highlight the passage at 3:25

3:58 Imagine that with each breath, you're breathing in whatever you need for tonight's class. Maybe it's alertness, awakeness, Report an error in the passage at 3:58 Highlight the passage at 3:58

4:15 ability to stay present, stay in the moment, curiosity. And you're breathing out whatever you don't need. Do any distractions or sluggishness or other unconstructive states of mind. And just breathe them out like smoke from a chimney. Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:57 Just find, focus on that level, either the level of your belly or at the little patch of skin inside the tip of your nostril. Focus on your breath for a few rounds of ten, in and out. And try to keep your mind. Report an error in the passage at 4:57 Highlight the passage at 4:57

5:17 100 % on that breath. If you can't do 100%, try for 80%. If you really can't do that, try for 50%. Try to keep it on the breath, and every time it starts to wander off, just bring it right back without any judgment, any blame. Report an error in the passage at 5:17 Highlight the passage at 5:17

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7:59 The thing that Report an error in the passage at 7:59 Highlight the passage at 7:59

8:08 saves it from just being an intellectual exercise is setting a word of Report an error in the passage at 8:08 Highlight the passage at 8:08

8:38 its class, whatever, understanding, insights into our own minds, our own minds. Inspiration, encouragement, whatever we gain from tonight's class, act Report an error in the passage at 8:38 Highlight the passage at 8:38

8:55 as the fuel for each one of us to our own enlightenment Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:04 so that for the reason, for the purpose of being able to benefit every living being. Report an error in the passage at 9:04 Highlight the passage at 9:04

9:29 If we wish, then we can end your meditation with an opening prayer. And we'll also read the three principal paths, Lama Tsongkhapa. Report an error in the passage at 9:29 Highlight the passage at 9:29

9:47 Do you need to get some water? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 9:47 Highlight the passage at 9:47

9:55 This one's in a different place, so hopefully that's not true for the rest of you. I got the special book. Report an error in the passage at 9:55 Highlight the passage at 9:55

10:05 With the wish to free all beings, I shall always go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha until I reach full enlightenment. Inspired by wisdom and compassion, today in the Buddha's presence. I generate the mind of full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain and dispel the miseries of the world. Report an error in the passage at 10:05 Highlight the passage at 10:05

10:45 So people have their hand out with three principal paths. If you don't, then share with the person near you. And you can move to make that happen. Report an error in the passage at 10:45 Highlight the passage at 10:45

11:01 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 path which pleases the victors. Report an error in the passage at 11:01 Highlight the passage at 11:01

11:30 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. Report an error in the passage at 11:30 Highlight the passage at 11:30

11:55 Think over and over how deeds and their fruits never fail and the cycles suffering stop desire for the future. When you've meditated thus and feel not even a moment's wish for the good things of cyclic life, and when you begin to think both night and day of achieving freedom, you've found renunciation. Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:18 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. They're swept along on 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. Report an error in the passage at 12:18 Highlight the passage at 12:18

12:44 In the limitless round they're born, and in their births are tortured by the 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 renunciation and the wish, but unless you have the wisdom perceiving reality, you cannot cut the root of cyclic life. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:07 Make efforts in the way, then, to perceive dependent arising. A person's enter the path that pleases the Buddhas, when for all objects in this 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, and emptiness beyond taking any position. Report an error in the passage at 13:07 Highlight the passage at 13:07

13:41 At some point they no longer alternate and come together. Just seeing that dependent arising never fails, brings realization that destroys how you hold to objects, and then your analysis with view is complete. In addition, the appearance prevents the existence extreme, emptiness, that of non-existence, and if you see how emptiness shows and cause and effect, you'll never be stolen off by extreme views. Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

14:11 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 wish. Report an error in the passage at 14:11 Highlight the passage at 14:11

14:29 Dense little text that it is. Okay, so I'm going to quickly review renunciation because we sort of had to speed up at the end of last week's class. So I just wanted to quickly go over a few things that we already did discuss and then we're going to talk about bodhicitta tonight. We're moving on to the wish, as it's called in the text. Report an error in the passage at 14:29 Highlight the passage at 14:29

14:58 So one of the things that we talked about is dukkha, this state or condition that is often translated in English as suffering. Report an error in the passage at 14:58 Highlight the passage at 14:58

15:13 But on the most basic level, it's this... This underlying and continual dissatisfaction in our mind constantly bubbling or percolating, which keeps us. It's almost like a flaw in the way we're made because we are ordinary beings. We haven't yet overcome it. And so it doesn't allow us to be satisfied. It doesn't allow us to be happy. Even when we get what we want, we find fault with it or we get bored with it. Report an error in the passage at 15:13 Highlight the passage at 15:13

15:44 or we find something else, and of course that's true for people, or jobs, or And so it's this underlying dukkha that keeps us sort of anxious and unhappy and seeking constantly outside of ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

16:00 So renunciation is partly about understanding this condition in which we find ourselves and seeing how it contributes to our suffering from life to life. That level of recognition or understanding of our condition coupled with this understanding that there is something better. So it's not enough to just get fed up and to realize that life is suffering because we all hit that at some point, right? Report an error in the passage at 16:00 Highlight the passage at 16:00

16:28 I mean, we've all had that experience where we get it on some level, maybe at the death of a loved one or a divorce or something like that. We might go through such a profound suffering that we get it that life is suffering. But that would just lead us to suicide if that's all there was. It's not enough to stop there. When we talk about suffering and saṃsāra, the focus is to be an impetus to get out of saṃsāra, not to just think that... Report an error in the passage at 16:28 Highlight the passage at 16:28

16:57 That saṃsāra is suffering and it's all horrible because otherwise there's just no point to continue taking classes at Sage and Ling. So I want to keep underscoring that, that even though for the renunciation part of this text and this class there is a lot of emphasis on suffering, the point is to use that understanding or that recognition of that condition of suffering for other things. Report an error in the passage at 16:57 Highlight the passage at 16:57

17:21 And in this case to get out of saṃsāra, to end our... The tyranny of saṃsāra over us, which according to the Buddha has been happening for lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, which is almost more than we can get. But even if we just get it in this lifetime, to just figure out how it's, this condition that we're in, this dissatisfaction in our minds, to just begin looking, noticing it in ourselves, seeing it in other people. Report an error in the passage at 17:21 Highlight the passage at 17:21

17:49 Even seeing it in advertisement, they play on that in advertisement, that we're going to trade in whatever we just got for something better really quickly. I mean, almost immediately we need the latest model. And the old model is somewhere on Amazon for much, much less. Report an error in the passage at 17:49 Highlight the passage at 17:49

18:08 So That's why we're focusing so much on suffering. We will move on away from suffering. We'll move on to the suffering of others next. But first we have to recognize it in ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 18:08 Highlight the passage at 18:08

18:21 So I talked about the three levels of suffering, which is also mentioned in the root text that we just read. These three sufferings, talking about the suffering of suffering, meaning that kind of suffering that we think of as suffering, gross suffering. Physical suffering, mental suffering, disease, injury, loss, grief, you know, like all of that kind of suffering that we think of as suffering. Report an error in the passage at 18:21 Highlight the passage at 18:21

18:49 Even just anxiety, depression, you know, those are all, I mean, not even chronic depression, just depression on a day, waking up depressed. The blues, as we used to call it before it became a medical condition. So... That's suffering of suffering. That's the kind of suffering that we usually think of as suffering. But then there's also what's called the suffering or translated as the suffering of change. Report an error in the passage at 18:49 Highlight the passage at 18:49

19:13 And that is what we used to call happiness before we met Buddhism. That's when we get the thing that we want and then we, you know, because of this dukkha, this state of dukkha, we get bored with it or we move on. We want something else. We find fault with it. We can't. Be happy with it. Or it's just a temporary relief of our suffering and then the suffering renews itself. We want something desperately, we get it, and then it only holds us for so long before we want again. Report an error in the passage at 19:13 Highlight the passage at 19:13

19:48 Or the situation changes, you know, like we were talking about last week. We're really cold so we go stand in the sun and then the sun gets too hot so then we go back in the shade and then we get really cold and so we go back in the sun and then like that. Report an error in the passage at 19:48 Highlight the passage at 19:48

20:04 And we can see that sometimes even more in little kids, but it's happening for all of us. It's happening for all of us. We can just see more clearly, of course, always in other people. Report an error in the passage at 20:04 Highlight the passage at 20:04

20:14 So that's the second type of suffering or the second level of suffering, which is more subtle. And then the third level is this all-pervasive suffering, which is simply talking about the fact of this condition of dukkha in our minds and the fact that we are compounded. Report an error in the passage at 20:14 Highlight the passage at 20:14

20:35 From karma and delusion, so there's suffering inherent in our situation from the very beginning. Even from the first moment of our lives, because we are ordinary beings created out of our karma and delusions, then the suffering is sort of integral, intrinsic in our existence. That's the harder one to understand unless you study Buddhism for a good amount of time. Report an error in the passage at 20:35 Highlight the passage at 20:35

21:00 It's sort of the flaw in saṃsāra that's there for each of us. So then we also talked about the six sufferings of saṃsāra in general, the problem that nothing is certain, the problem that we're never satisfied, the problem that we have to discard our body over and over again, the problem that we have to be born over and over again. Report an error in the passage at 21:00 Highlight the passage at 21:00

21:25 And if anybody here has ever spent any time with anyone who's dying, Just the thought that we have to go through that over and over and over again. I mean, it's just this massive, when you're really contemplating this, it's just this massive waste of time that we have to go through. And also just like so heartbreaking that we have to go through this over and over and over again. Even though I think for most of us, and even me having studied for so long, I still, it's still hard in this life because this life just seems so real. Report an error in the passage at 21:25 Highlight the passage at 21:25

22:00 But even if we're just open to the idea in general, just the thought that we would have to take birth over and over again and start over with a new family and so forth and then have to go through this experience of giving up this body over and over again. The problem that we go up and down in life is the fifth. Report an error in the passage at 22:00 Highlight the passage at 22:00

22:21 And not only in life, but in a day. Sometimes within an hour. And over and over again, even within a day sometimes. You know, Vena Rubina always says, we're all bipolar, it's just a matter of degree. And I think it's true, you know, it's sort of like... Report an error in the passage at 22:21 Highlight the passage at 22:21

22:40 It's sort of like at what point do we call it a mental illness? Sometimes when I think about it, especially in my teens and 20s, it just felt like everybody was almost like you wanted this kind of energy of like always getting so excited when something happened and getting so depressed when something bad, you know, somebody broke up with you or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 22:40 Highlight the passage at 22:40

22:57 And it's almost like that's encouraged again by our culture, you know, to get that excited and to get that depressed when things go good or go badly. And then the problem that you go through life alone and you die alone and that we can encircle ourselves with loads of people and activities and jobs and friendships and relationships, but ultimately it's our journey. Report an error in the passage at 22:57 Highlight the passage at 22:57

23:24 It's always been our journey and it continues to be our journey as we move into the next life. So no matter how sparkly we make this life, while we're in it, and hopefully it is sparkly, hopefully it is good, Report an error in the passage at 23:24 Highlight the passage at 23:24

23:38 Even if it's good or bad, we still have to go on. It's our life. It's our mind. So that's the six sufferings of saṃsāra in general. The eight sufferings specific to human life. Of course, they are not completely specific to human life. Some of them are also true for animals, for example. But that's the way they're taught. That's the suffering of birth, aging, sickness and death. Report an error in the passage at 23:38 Highlight the passage at 23:38

24:08 the fact Especially when you're meditating on this, you're really focusing on the fact that we do this over and over and over again. We take birth over and over again, we age over and over again, which is such a drag. Report an error in the passage at 24:08 Highlight the passage at 24:08

24:22 I mean, such a drag. Suffering of sickness over and over and over again, everything from the tiniest little... Cold, which as we all know, sometimes the tiniest things are actually the worst because nobody really wants to be near you when you have that cold. It's not like anything dramatic where they want to bring you roses. Report an error in the passage at 24:22 Highlight the passage at 24:22

24:41 They just want to stay away from you because they don't want it. The suffering of death. And then the next four, especially the following three, are kind of related. The suffering of separation from what you like. So you actually connect with things, people, environments, experiences that you do like, and then you have to be separated from them, either through conditions in your world, like the government collapses and the whole country is in chaos, which of course happened. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:17 We feel so safe here and somewhat smug in America. But I think many of us, at least, are somehow connected to countries where that's not the case, especially in the last hundred years. If you look around the world, political boundaries have completely shifted over and over and over again. And all of that reflects in individual people losing things. Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:41 If we think about it in those terms, it actually becomes much more real. People being separated from what they love. But it can also be as little as you... Set up your seat in the meditation hall and you come back and somebody else is taking it. It doesn't have to be huge things. I always use the example of the parking space because it's definitely a big one in San Francisco. Report an error in the passage at 25:41 Highlight the passage at 25:41

26:03 You have your space and then someone takes it and someone whips it in front of you or does a U-turn and grabs it. The suffering of encountering what you dislike, which again can be anything from a huge tsunami. I doubt if anybody enjoyed the tsunami. All the way down to, you know, you come into the gampa again and you've, you know, your favorite cushion is gone or you end up with that really hard one that I can't imagine why we even hold on to it. Report an error in the passage at 26:03 Highlight the passage at 26:03

26:39 So it can be really tiny things. Somebody did make your tea right. That used to be a big one for me. I have this really special way that I like my tea and then someone would very kindly make my tea and it would be not. Quite right. That just actually causes our mind to be weak when we're that attached to the way things are. And then the suffering of not obtaining what you want. Report an error in the passage at 26:39 Highlight the passage at 26:39

27:00 So thinking that you really want something and then not getting it. So those three are really, really connected and they happen all the time. They happen to us all the time. These aren't things that are rare in any stretch of the imagination. And according to the Buddha, they've been happening for lifetimes and lifetimes. Report an error in the passage at 27:00 Highlight the passage at 27:00

27:22 And then the final one is very much like this all-pervasive suffering, and that's the suffering of these contaminated aggregates, which just means body and mind, this body and mind. It's just a fancy way of saying body and mind. Contaminated meaning, of course, that we aren't enlightened yet. So our body and mind currently is produced from our karma and delusions. Report an error in the passage at 27:22 Highlight the passage at 27:22

27:48 Being in the nature of suffering. Because it is produced by karma and delusion. So that's really what it's talking about. Faulty by nature. Despite how we keep trying to fix saṃsāra, as Tenzin Chokyi always calls it. Report an error in the passage at 27:48 Highlight the passage at 27:48

28:05 So, the Buddhist definition of compassion, this came up over the weekend actually, when somebody was asking a question. It's important to know that some of these terms that we've grown up with have a slightly different meaning in Buddhism. And so we usually try to define our terms. Compassion is one of those. Report an error in the passage at 28:05 Highlight the passage at 28:05

28:25 Compassion in Buddhism simply means wanting to remove another's suffering. So it's not empathy. It's not talking about anything emotional or anything like that. It's simply wanting, having this thought, having this mind that wants to remove another's suffering. Love. By the way, on the side, love means wanting another's happiness. So it also doesn't mean all these other emotional things that we put on it in our culture. Report an error in the passage at 28:25 Highlight the passage at 28:25

28:53 In Buddhist terms, it simply means wanting another's happiness. Great compassion, which we'll talk about a little bit more in the bodhicitta meditation, is wanting to remove the suffering of all living beings. So it really is great. It's great in terms of scope. Report an error in the passage at 28:53 Highlight the passage at 28:53

29:14 And it's based on being able to develop just regular, ordinary compassion. Like if we can, Lama Yeshu used to always say, if you can want to remove the suffering of even one being, whether it's your dog or your daughter or your husband or whatever, then you can do it. All you have to do is just build that. It just takes time. It just has to grow. That's all. Report an error in the passage at 29:14 Highlight the passage at 29:14

29:39 But as long as you've ever in your life wanted to remove the suffering of another being sincerely, and I think all of us, or many of us, have had the experience where we have wanted to take away the suffering of another person or animal, especially animals too. Sometimes even more than people, right? We care about animals more than we care about people. Something about them, they're a little more unconditional in their love. Report an error in the passage at 29:39 Highlight the passage at 29:39

30:08 So compassion is, Very related to renunciation, and in the Buddhist terms, it's actually based on renunciation. We have to realize the conditioned selves, and renunciation is a form of waking up to that, and also realizing that there is something besides this condition to work towards, and that's liberation. Report an error in the passage at 30:08 Highlight the passage at 30:08

30:36 That's when we start getting this. Emergence, definite emergence, emergence from saṃsāra, wanting to get out of this mess that we're in. So the final verse of this section that we were just looking at in the root text is actually how we know whether we've attained genuine renunciation, just in case you thought you might be close. Report an error in the passage at 30:36 Highlight the passage at 30:36

31:04 So it's the fifth verse. It is... When you've meditated thus and feel not even a moment's wish for the good things of life, and when you begin to think both night and day of achieving freedom, you've found renunciation. So the result of contemplating all this stuff should make us go for it. And that's what kind of the idea is here. Report an error in the passage at 31:04 Highlight the passage at 31:04

31:29 So if you think you're close but you're not, you know, you're taking time off to... You know, watch a movie or something, which of course I still am. Thank you. Then I haven't really developed renunciation. Have some of us developed a little bit of renunciation? Yeah, probably. So we develop it in small doses over time. It's not like you just get it all at once and then you move on. You just happen to read through the root text a few times and it just comes to you like a blast. Report an error in the passage at 31:29 Highlight the passage at 31:29

31:58 Oh, I hope. I keep hoping. That's why we do read it. And maybe somebody's got the karma that it ignites something from a past life. That could happen. But for most of us, it takes effort and time to really contemplate, to bring these contemplations into our everyday life when we're going through problems, when we see other people going through problems, too. Report an error in the passage at 31:58 Highlight the passage at 31:58

32:21 Not in a judgmental way, but simply observing. That's what I always call it, the Margaret Mead moments where you're kind of seeing, oh wow, it's her attachment to him that's really causing her all that pain. He's not a monster and she's not either. You can see how other people's problems are also caused by these issues of attachment and clinging and grasping and wrong view. Report an error in the passage at 32:21 Highlight the passage at 32:21

32:50 because... Because saṃsāra is a condition of our mind, renunciation is also a condition of our mind. This doesn't mean we have to run out and get rid of our wife and children and drop our job or anything like that. It's simply what we're trying to do is get this understanding in our mind. Because then when we get this understanding in our mind, then we... Report an error in the passage at 32:50 Highlight the passage at 32:50

33:09 We can progress in our spiritual path, and that's really all it is. Nobody necessarily has to know that you develop renunciation. You don't have to start wearing burlap sacks or change your name or cut your hair off. There are plenty of monks and nuns who have not achieved renunciation, although it is an outward manifestation of something. Report an error in the passage at 33:09 Highlight the passage at 33:09

33:33 But it might have been something that lasted for 15 seconds at the moment you got ordained and then you just went back to wanting your coffee at 180 degrees and watching movies all night or something. So what people see on the outside isn't necessarily what's going on on the inside. Renunciation is a state of mind. Report an error in the passage at 33:33 Highlight the passage at 33:33

33:53 So when we're working on renunciation or we're trying to understand our condition, it's simply understanding. This is what's going on in our mind. It doesn't mean we have to run out and change our life. I think this happened a lot with the early Western students of Tibetan Buddhism when everybody would sort of run off to the mountains before they even knew really how to meditate. Report an error in the passage at 33:53 Highlight the passage at 33:53

34:12 They'd get all inspired. Lama Yeshi would teach and then everybody would disappear and then after a couple of weeks they'd start kind of coming back with their tails between their legs because they weren't really ready to go and meditate on this. But they were all inspired. The real work can happen. At home in the West, it doesn't have to happen in this exotic place of Kathmandu or anything like that because the work is really what you do with your mind, you know, your study, your reading, your meditation, your coming to classes, things like that. Report an error in the passage at 34:12 Highlight the passage at 34:12

34:43 So then we're moving into bodhicitta, which is the next three verses. He really spends the most amount of time in this text on... Emptiness, and so that's what we'll do too. This is really the only class we're going to talk about bodhicitta, so I'm going to do my best to give you an overview of bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 34:43 Highlight the passage at 34:43

35:06 It is one of the most powerful minds. It is the most powerful mind, I think, for an ordinary being because, of course, when you have a direct perception of emptiness, you are no longer an ordinary being. That's how we get away with that. But if you can generate bodhicitta, it is the most powerful mind for an ordinary being. So we have one entire class all about bodhicitta and then transforming problems is actually talking about the bodhicitta mind. Report an error in the passage at 35:06 Highlight the passage at 35:06

35:36 So there's really two whole classes within the program of discovering Buddhism. So I'm just going to give you an overview of the method to develop bodhicitta, especially the one that corresponds mostly with these three verses, the way they're described, the images in these verses. Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

35:53 And then we'll open it up for questions. But I'm going to just sort of cover the ground, because I know all these questions will come up. And I just kind of want to get the material out there, and then we can talk. So the next three verses are, 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 35:53 Highlight the passage at 35:53

36:23 They're swept along on 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 births are tortured by three sufferings without break. Think of how your mothers feel. Think of what's happening to them. Report an error in the passage at 36:23 Highlight the passage at 36:23

36:46 Try to develop this highest wish. Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

36:52 So bodhicitta or jangsem. Bodhicitta is actually Sanskrit. Bodhicitta. Chitta is mind. Bodhi is enlightenment. And jangsem translates the same way in Tibetan. Sem is also mind. Report an error in the passage at 36:52 Highlight the passage at 36:52

37:09 It's usually defined as the mind that wants to or wishes to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So it has these two parts, wanting to get enlightened and doing it for the benefit of all beings. It has to be there. Obviously we don't want to just get enlightened because it's cool. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:30 So it's really important to have that underlying motivation. You're only wanting to get enlightened because it affords you or gives you the capacity to be able to help all some people. That actually didn't come to me until a couple of years into it. So I always think that's really important to underscore that that motivation is actually more important than the getting enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 37:30 Highlight the passage at 37:30

37:53 The compassion, wanting to remove people suffering, not just people, wanting to remove all beings suffering. It is the underlying reason that we do this whole thing. It has to be. And of course, for most of us, we still have to develop that compassion. So we don't even have the motivation quite yet. That's okay. That's why these paths, that's why we need that long view. Keep the long view. Report an error in the passage at 37:53 Highlight the passage at 37:53

38:20 So sometimes it is described, so in the text, it's always described as the wish, the wish. You see that? And often that's code. Report an error in the passage at 38:20 Highlight the passage at 38:20

38:28 In Buddhist teachings, you'll see it described as the wish. I think it tends to be a little more vague when we say wish. I actually like terms like the resolution or the determination because it's this really strong mind. It's not just like, oh, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't that be really nice? If people at all, it's not that vague. It's definitely very strong. It's this incredibly courageous mind. Report an error in the passage at 38:28 Highlight the passage at 38:28

38:54 It's almost, as Dravena Rubin always says, it's almost insane. You know, because it's this huge mind that not only wants to remove the suffering of all beings and bring them all happiness, all beings, all beings, but that I will do it myself no matter what it takes or how long it takes or who else is doing it. Report an error in the passage at 38:54 Highlight the passage at 38:54

39:14 So even if you guys all drop out and get bored or whatever, I'm going to soldier on. I mean, it is. It's almost thoroughly insane. But in a good way. It's like I really, really want that. Lama Zopa always says, I myself alone. I myself alone. It's this really powerful mind of, I will do this. So I always like determines, the mind that determines to get enlightened for the benefit of all scientific things. Report an error in the passage at 39:14 Highlight the passage at 39:14

39:41 Not the mind that wishes, that wants. Because that just sounds like, I want that candy bar. It's not the same kind of powerful wish. you know. Report an error in the passage at 39:41 Highlight the passage at 39:41

39:51 And it grows organically out of this mind of renunciation. Because renunciation and bodhicitta are basically the same mind but with a different object. Renunciation is recognizing our own suffering. It's kind of a compassion for ourselves. It's recognizing our own suffering and developing this desire to get out of that suffering. Report an error in the passage at 39:51 Highlight the passage at 39:51

40:13 And bodhicitta is like looking around and going, oh yeah. You guys are all suffering too. I'm going to work for you and get you out of this. And then reaching this conclusion that the only way I can do that is to get enlightened myself. So it's the same exact mind, but now we're pointing it outward. Report an error in the passage at 40:13 Highlight the passage at 40:13

40:34 So usually in Buddhism they give you the advertisement before they bring on the main show. So the advertisements with bodhicitta... For example, in Shantideva, he does this for the whole first chapter. He talks about how great bodhicitta is. So I'll tell you a couple of key quotes on how great bodhicitta is so that we get inspired and we want to develop it in ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 40:34 Highlight the passage at 40:34

41:01 Lama Yeshe said that if we want success in our practice, in our meditation, we need bodhicitta. Because otherwise, if we have this really selfish attitude and we're meditating, we have a good experience and we just cling to that good experience and it actually destroys our meditation practice. And we can't even just have a worldly meditation practice. In other words, something that just attains peace of mind in this lifetime, which isn't, by the way, the goal. Report an error in the passage at 41:01 Highlight the passage at 41:01

41:28 The goal is enlightenment. But if you have a bodhicitta... motivation in your meditating or during your practice, it's sort of like by the way, you do get peace of mind and happiness. It's like the opposite than we cling to the peace of mind and happiness for ourselves, but that actually destroys our larger or motivation to be able to become enlightened, which affords a really nice side effect of peace of mind and happiness for ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 41:28 Highlight the passage at 41:28

41:58 Bodhicitta is the exact opposite of this self-cherishing mind or this selfish mind. It's literally the direct opposite. So whenever we talk about developing bodhicitta, we also have to work on destroying selfishness. So that'll come up. Not so much in this class, but in the bodhicitta class when we talk about doing practices like tonglen and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 41:58 Highlight the passage at 41:58

42:23 You're the real enemy, really the only enemy. Although it's hard to believe, is this selfishness. Because this selfishness gets us into trouble time and time again. This is what really brings us down. Lifetime after lifetime is this selfish mind. So bodhicitta allows us to become a Buddha. It's really, we cannot become a Buddha without bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 42:23 Highlight the passage at 42:23

42:51 Because of course bodhicitta is like sort of, if anybody's ever done archery, it's like shooting the arrow. Then everything else follows. So if we don't have this determination to get enlightened, we won't get enlightened. You know, it's like the idea of creating the karma. Having a wish, just saying the wish every day isn't going to be enough. Report an error in the passage at 42:51 Highlight the passage at 42:51

43:11 We actively have to move towards where that arrow is going, which is enlightenment. And so bodhicitta is the only way to get enlightened. There have been many, many wonderful beings in the world who haven't had bodhicitta and then they won't get enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 43:11 Highlight the passage at 43:11

43:29 If we want to get enlightened, we have to have bodhicitta. And this is one of my favorites. After you generate genuine bodhicitta, it keeps generating more and more merit without interruption, even if you're asleep or distracted. I love that. I love the idea of these bodhisattvas sort of hanging out asleep or distracted and all this merit is just being accumulated. Report an error in the passage at 43:29 Highlight the passage at 43:29

43:52 It gives me hope. Why is that? It's because you have this huge scope of wanting to benefit all living beings without exception. So not even just all Americans. Not even just all North Americans. Not even all people on the planet. Not even all just people. It's like all animals. It's insects. It's birds, fish. It's hard to even imagine what that means. It's even the realms that we don't even have a full understanding of. Report an error in the passage at 43:52 Highlight the passage at 43:52

44:22 These spirit realms and so forth. And you are working for them all. So that's why if you've generated this mind, even these mundane actions of pouring tea for somebody or planting a flower, it sort of pervades your mind with this bodhicitta motivation. So even these mundane activities that you're doing become the cause for enlightenment. So it just keeps creating more and more and more of this really powerful merit. Report an error in the passage at 44:22 Highlight the passage at 44:22

44:53 They say that once you attain this mind, you become a child of the Buddhas, you enter the family. That always sounds very mafioso. Report an error in the passage at 44:53 Highlight the passage at 44:53

45:03 She's with us. They actually say that once you, once somebody actually, well, there's two times. Once you take the bodhisattva vows with a really sincere motivation, they say that there's like the earth shakes. Report an error in the passage at 45:03 Highlight the passage at 45:03

45:19 And once somebody actually genuinely... yeah. Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

45:21 It generates genuine bodhicitta, because we all have little blips of bodhicitta, but I say genuine meaning that it becomes irreversible, so it doesn't just switch again once you have a bad day. But they say that the earth shakes, and they say that's because the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are just so happy that somebody else joined the family. Report an error in the passage at 45:21 Highlight the passage at 45:21

45:43 And apparently with this mind you can purify enormous amounts of negative karma, which is pretty cool. And all that negative karma would have caused us just eons of suffering, you know. And so now we can purify it. Part of what that does, part of the reason that bodhicitta is so important to become a Buddha is that we have to purify all of that. Report an error in the passage at 45:43 Highlight the passage at 45:43

46:07 And so this is like a really fast way of doing it. And we have to have all those stores of merit in order to have the direct perception of emptiness. We need a huge amount of positive karma. In order to see the nature of reality as the Buddha taught that it existed once he got enlightened. So that's partly why in our tradition it's very strong, well there's a couple of reasons why it's really taught strongly that we need to develop bodhicitta before we have a direct perception of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 46:07 Highlight the passage at 46:07

46:39 One of the other big reasons is that of course if we just have a direct perception of emptiness without wanting to work for the benefit of all beings. We can just get lost in the bliss. We can just have this direct perception of emptiness and attain nirvāṇa for ourselves and then just get lost in the bliss for eons. Report an error in the passage at 46:39 Highlight the passage at 46:39

46:59 According to our tradition, the Buddhas come and kind of tap you on the shoulder after a few eons and say, come on, you're not really helping anybody by being blissed out, but come join us, become a Buddha. So we don't want to waste that time either, even though it's a really enjoyable time apparently. Report an error in the passage at 46:59 Highlight the passage at 46:59

46:56 And so in Report an error in the passage at 46:56 Highlight the passage at 46:56

47:16 And on the short term, I think it's really, and I've never heard this before, but just watching my teachers, I think it's like this enormous fuel for practice. Because I think even just a blip of bodhicitta, and at our level we can have lots of blips of bodhicitta, we don't have to feel like, I may not have the genuine thing, so forget it. Report an error in the passage at 47:16 Highlight the passage at 47:16

47:37 Because I think if we have even just a taste of what this mind is like. It can make you jump out of bed in the morning. It can make you crawl out of bed in the morning. It can make you want to do your frustrations. It can make you want to meditate. It can make you have the determination to sit every day even without any kind of obvious sign in your meditation. It can make you want to go on retreat and things like that. Report an error in the passage at 47:37 Highlight the passage at 47:37

48:02 It just fuels your practice a little bit because it's no longer just for yourself. Now you're really working for all beings, even if you just have a little taste of it. But when you look at, for example, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, how he just is constantly working for others all the time, even when he's ill, even when he's manifesting illness, even when he's going down the back steps and he's stopping over every little crushed bug and doing prayers, you know. Report an error in the passage at 48:02 Highlight the passage at 48:02

48:28 He's just constantly working for others and there's no... He doesn't have any stress or rushing or worries or any of that. He's just kind of plodding along, working for others. Because he also knows there's other lifetimes to accomplish. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is another one. He's just constantly meeting with people, sometimes telling horrific stories of torture and the situation in Tibet and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 48:28 Highlight the passage at 48:28

48:56 And he just stays energetic and positive. When you see these beings, you have some sense that it's possible. I find that very, very inspiring and I think it's the bodhicitta. In fact, often I've heard some of my other teachers talk about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, sort of known for how much bodhicitta he has, which I think is an interesting thought that even these other holy beings will talk about this other... Report an error in the passage at 48:56 Highlight the passage at 48:56

49:25 Teacher's bodhicitta, like his sort of off the chart bodhicitta. And I was like, wow, but don't you all have bodhicitta? So I don't really understand all that, but I know they just talk about how it's so enormous. They say, especially Riva Rinpoche used to say this, one of my teachers who passed away a few years ago. Report an error in the passage at 49:25 Highlight the passage at 49:25

49:43 Who I always called Mr. Bodhicitta. I thought he was just like so profoundly inspiring. Don't get me started. I talk about him in the bodhicitta class. He's just such an amazing being. But he used to say that just working for Lama Zopa in one of Lama Zopa's centers, because of Lama Zopa's bodhicitta, was so, like you accumulate so much merit just working for his goals. Report an error in the passage at 49:43 Highlight the passage at 49:43

50:06 I was like, wow, really? So it's almost like beyond what we can understand to get this mind. One person getting this mind, and then those of us that are sort of orbiting around that person also get affected by that bodhicitta, even before they become a Buddha. So just developing that mind, one person developing that mind. So there are two main methods for developing bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 50:06 Highlight the passage at 50:06

50:32 We talk about this, as I said, much more in the bodhicitta class. Three main methods if you include... Lama Tsongkhapa's version where he combines those two into an eleven point method. Master Asanga's method of seven point cause and effect and then exchanging self and others from Shantideva and others. Report an error in the passage at 50:32 Highlight the passage at 50:32

50:57 I mean they ultimately came from the Buddha himself but these are sort of the lineage holders of both ways. We're going to focus on the seven point cause and effect because the imagery is very much in line with The images in these particular verses, these three verses that I just read and that we read at the beginning of the class. Report an error in the passage at 50:57 Highlight the passage at 50:57

51:19 Obviously, what you're going to be able to get from this class and also even if you are an incredibly great student and you do the little meditation every single day in the next couple of weeks, unless you are even more amazing, and I pray that you are than I think you are, It's going to take like years, it takes years to develop bodhicitta and you have to spend a lot of time really focusing on each of these methods quite deeply. Report an error in the passage at 51:19 Highlight the passage at 51:19

51:47 However, you get a start, you get a taste and that's kind of the role of this class. It's like sort of the appetizer class. It's giving you an idea of what lies ahead and all the remaining classes of the Discovering Buddhism program. Report an error in the passage at 51:47 Highlight the passage at 51:47

52:04 So the foundation practices equanimity. So next week we don't have a class because it's a soak night and I'm going to actually lead the soak next week which is a puja rather than having it happening simultaneously. So we're not going to have a class. So your homework is a bit thicker because... You think I'm going to let you off with just one week's homework. No, no, you're going to get two weeks' homework. The first week is going to be focused on this idea of equanimity. Report an error in the passage at 52:04 Highlight the passage at 52:04

52:36 Equanimity is where we try to develop this mind that is level in terms of our attachment, aversion and indifference for other people. We tend to discriminate almost instantaneously and without thought. If you ever come to a party and you don't know anyone, you just immediately start thinking, well, she's nice, but he's really horrible and I don't care about her. It's sort of like we just immediately do it and then we actually begin believing that that's how those people really exist. Report an error in the passage at 52:36 Highlight the passage at 52:36

53:10 Although we can be persuaded, otherwise if somebody's suddenly nice to us, then they get to be in the friend camp. But it's often with no bearing in reality. Report an error in the passage at 53:10 Highlight the passage at 53:10

53:22 You know, you always hear that when somebody kills somebody and their next-door neighbors are like, you know, oh, but he was the nicest guy and he always, you know, mowed my lawn. It's like our basis sometimes for thinking or they think, you know, somebody that actually gave a billion dollars to the local hospital was just, you know, cranky and mean, you know, or whatever, you know. Report an error in the passage at 53:22 Highlight the passage at 53:22

53:43 We have these really shallow reasons often for thinking that somebody is friend, enemy and stranger. Report an error in the passage at 53:43 Highlight the passage at 53:43

53:52 So this first meditation that you're going to focus on this week is really looking at this mind that does that. What it takes to call somebody a friend, what it takes to call somebody a stranger, which is of course most of the people on the planet. Report an error in the passage at 53:52 Highlight the passage at 53:52

54:13 And then an enemy. And don't get hung up on the term enemy. I think a lot of times people are like, I don't have any enemies. I don't have to do this meditation. It's like, no. Enemy can be the guy in the elevator that bugs you. It doesn't have to be somebody that tries to kill you on a daily basis or stole your wife or something like that. It doesn't have to be. Report an error in the passage at 54:13 Highlight the passage at 54:13

54:32 Or anyone that abused you for 17 years. In fact, don't start with that person because that would be way harder than this meditation is really about. It's mostly those little people that we get. We have some sort of aversion for because we don't like the nasal tone of their voice or whatever it is that we decide that we don't like that person. Report an error in the passage at 54:32 Highlight the passage at 54:32

54:52 Or we think because somebody else told us, a friend, that they said something bad about us even if they actually never did. And then we make that person into an enemy, sometimes 15 years. So like, dislike, don't care. Like, dislike, don't care. Like, dislike, don't care. Constantly. Looking around at people like, dislike, don't care. And often the don't care people, the strangers, will always become one or the other, you know, or else they stay strangers, you know. Report an error in the passage at 54:52 Highlight the passage at 54:52

55:21 But every friend or enemy has at one point been a stranger, right? They didn't just leap into your life as a friend. Most likely you didn't inherit them, I guess, unless they were like friends of your parents or something you might have. But for the most part, they start as somebody we don't know. And then we get close to them and they become either a friend or, and or, and they're fluid, right? Report an error in the passage at 55:21 Highlight the passage at 55:21

55:46 Once you've lived a certain amount of years, they change, you know? Sometimes friends become enemies, sometimes enemies become friends, sometimes friends and enemies become strangers. You have no idea what happened to them. People that you were so close to 20 years ago, think about it, those of us at a certain age. People that you just thought the whole sun and moon revolved around. Report an error in the passage at 55:46 Highlight the passage at 55:46

56:07 And now we don't have a clue even where they are or even what their name is, you know, or even if they're still alive. It's amazing, actually, because we forget that that's the case and we think that they're sort of permanently friend, enemy and stranger. And so this is an opportunity to just look at this in yourself without any kind of trying to change it so much as you're just observing what the mind is already doing. Report an error in the passage at 56:07 Highlight the passage at 56:07

56:34 Yeah, obviously if you can see that it's something that you don't want in your mind, then you can try to change it. But the idea first is just to observe, just to look, just to see what you see. Report an error in the passage at 56:34 Highlight the passage at 56:34

56:46 Because it keeps our minds very limited and tiny, you know, to do this all the time. We don't allow ourselves to really notice the fluidity of relationships and how fragile human relationships are. We sort of keep this false view of reality going. This kind of meditation can be quite useful. It's also quite useful if you're having problems, for example, with an enemy, with somebody who you don't like the tone of their voice, or somebody that maybe you're working with or something like that, to contemplate from their side, they're just trying to live. Report an error in the passage at 56:46 Highlight the passage at 56:46

57:29 Often these labels have to do with our own selfishness, right? We're the center of the universe, right? So however this person interacts with us is how they really are. Well, no, from their side, they're just trying to be happy. We're almost like a blip in their existence in a way. They're just trying to be happy. Report an error in the passage at 57:29 Highlight the passage at 57:29

57:48 And so actually, if we can kind of get out of the way. And start looking at people with a little bit more openness and awareness and compassion. We can sort of see that they exist. I was going to say from your own side, but I don't want to go there. Report an error in the passage at 57:48 Highlight the passage at 57:48

58:07 Okay, so then that's the base practice because they say it's sort of like leveling the ground before you start building a house. If we don't level the ground first, then we start trying to build this house of bodhicitta. It's all uneven because we have these friends and enemies and strangers. So how on earth are we going to get to the point where we want to love all beings and have compassion for all beings equally? Report an error in the passage at 58:07 Highlight the passage at 58:07

58:32 Impossible if we haven't started to notice that we're categorizing everybody that we meet without thought mindlessly. So the seven point cause and effect. It has seven points, and I'm going to, well it's actually six points, and then the final point of bodhicitta is the result of the first six. So the first six meditations are done with the idea that then they result in this mind of bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 58:32 Highlight the passage at 58:32

59:02 We're not going to go into them in serious detail, but I am going to give you the overview, partly to explain the text, the verses in the text, and where those images come from. Report an error in the passage at 59:02 Highlight the passage at 59:02

59:14 is like, it goes sort of like this after one. Report an error in the passage at 59:14 Highlight the passage at 59:14

59:22 So the first one is recognizing all sentient beings as your mother or parent. Mothers comes up a lot. And you can use whatever you want. You can use grandmothers, you can use fathers, you can use siblings and so forth. But I'm going to talk a little bit about why the image of mother comes up. Report an error in the passage at 59:22 Highlight the passage at 59:22

59:44 And it's what's used in the text. And we actually talk about, think of how your mothers feel. Think of what's happening to them. Try to develop this highest wish. And all of those lines, they're swept along with four fierce river currents. Every time they talk about they, they're talking about these mothers. So what is this mothers talking about? Report an error in the passage at 59:44 Highlight the passage at 59:44

1:00:03 So this is based on the logic of, according to the Buddha, that the mind is beginningless and endless. It's like a number line, so it sort of stretches out limitlessly before this life, and then it stretches out limitlessly after this life. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:03 Highlight the passage at 1:00:03

1:00:24 So that means, according to the Buddha, that we've had many, many, many, many lives. Limitless life. When they use this term, limitless, it basically means really a whole lot. So you can translate it into a whole lot of lives that we've had. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:24 Highlight the passage at 1:00:24

1:00:41 I know I've heard people try to figure it out mathematically and all this stuff, and it just means a whole lot, and that's okay. We don't have to get down to that kind of detail. If we've had a whole lot of lives, most of the time we've had somebody who cared for us from the time of our birth, sometimes several people or several beings who cared for us from the moment of our birth until we were old enough to sort of be on our own. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:41 Highlight the passage at 1:00:41

1:01:10 One of the ways that we get our mind around this idea of limitless lifetimes is even just thinking about within this life all the different yous that have existed. And even though all of those different yous are connected with this mental continuum, same mental continuum, most of us would say there is a vast difference between these different yous. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:10 Highlight the passage at 1:01:10

1:01:36 When I think of me... As a 3-year-old versus me as a 7-year-old versus me as a 16-year-old. If I am thinking about it, there is definitely the same continuum. There were certainly similar people, sometimes the same people around me, but my mind has definitely, I would say, improved when I think about my mind as a 3-year-old and a 7-year-old. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:36 Highlight the passage at 1:01:36

1:02:04 So that's kind of the idea that the Buddha actually said that that's true for, you know, that the same mind, the same subtle mind is running through all of our different rebirths, but it's obviously different based on the conditions, based on the people around you, based on the situation of each rebirth, based on the karma that you're forced to experience and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:04 Highlight the passage at 1:02:04

1:02:27 So in meditation on this aspect, we can kind of imagine... All the different ways that we're born, like in every single type of human family or human condition, country conditions, poverty, wealth, hunger and war. Just thinking about all the different possibilities and just focusing on a few of them, imagining yourself growing up in some other family. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:27 Highlight the passage at 1:02:27

1:02:57 Imagining just being open to the idea, not necessarily believing in 100 % yet. Also imagining yourself as even an animal or a bird or a fish or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:57 Highlight the passage at 1:02:57

1:03:09 Thinking about the conditions of those births. Those mothers may not have cared for their young in the same way that a mother, a human mother might. But there's still a certain amount of protection, often protection at the point of death for the mother or the father. In some animal situations, the father is actually the one that hatches the eggs. So even just thinking about the defenselessness of a little baby something, whether it's a human baby or an animal baby or whatever, and somebody protecting that, even if they aren't personified, even if they aren't tender in any kind of way that sometimes we try to make animals tender. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:09 Highlight the passage at 1:03:09

1:03:53 But they did protect us and they kept us alive to a certain extent and taught us something. That allowed us to survive on our own, you know, and maybe even taught us how to hunt or things like that. And the same is true for all the human mothers that we've had. Even if the human mother of this life we may not get along with for some reason, there's still, there's apparently limitless other ones to choose from. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:53 Highlight the passage at 1:03:53

1:04:20 So focusing on maybe those human mothers, some of them... Maybe being less tender than others, some of them being more tender than others. Just letting your imagination play with that. Just like the mother of this life remains the mother after she passes away, all those other beings that we see are the mothers of all those other lives. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:20 Highlight the passage at 1:04:20

1:04:45 When you start playing with that in that way, it's like the bus driver becomes your mother. Those, all other, you Report an error in the passage at 1:04:45 Highlight the passage at 1:04:45

1:04:53 The silver fish that you find in the gompo becomes your mother. The cat upstairs becomes your mother. Somebody that you don't like his voice because it's kind of got that nasal tinge. I actually don't have anyone like that in my life. I just know the little ways that we get annoyed by people. That guy has been your mother. The guy in the news has been your mother. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:53 Highlight the passage at 1:04:53

1:05:14 The people of Syria have been your mother. You know what I mean? So it just becomes, it begins raising this. this experience of am I related to? And that's why I think they use the term mother. There is also, in the next step, remembering their kindness, where we really are thinking about both the kindness of the mother of this life, but also the kindness of all beings in general. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:14 Highlight the passage at 1:05:14

1:05:46 And so when we're talking about the kindness of the mother in this life, We're talking about the fact that, I mean mothers are kind of picked out purposefully because it's a slightly different relationship that you have with a mother because usually, at least with the birth mother, the birth mother carries you in her body. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:46 Highlight the passage at 1:05:46

1:06:07 It's like it's different than somebody who's just raised you. However, sometimes some of us don't even know our birth mothers. And so we can imagine who this person was and maybe we don't even like that person because maybe she gave us up or something. But at least she didn't kill us. I mean, honestly, she could have. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:07 Highlight the passage at 1:06:07

1:06:27 But then we can also think about the kindness of whoever raised us and that may extend out to grandparents. I know I was co-raised by my grandma as well as my parents. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:27 Highlight the passage at 1:06:27

1:06:39 And so thinking about that kindness of the person who was willing to get up with me in the night and care for me and wipe my tears away and all those little ways that our caregivers take care of us when we are really completely defenseless, especially as a little kid, a little tiny kid. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:39 Highlight the passage at 1:06:39

1:07:02 And the fact that we're alive right now is due to them. And so... Also we can think about, and Lama Zopa Rinpoche always really stresses this too, is that the mother of this life has been our mother in other lives, and the father of this life has been our mother in many lives, and the brother or sister or aunt or uncle in this life or grandmother in this life has also been our mother for many lives. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:02 Highlight the passage at 1:07:02

1:07:28 It's very interesting, very... It's complex when we think about it in those ways, too. So you can actually really think about this when you see people who might be considered strangers, you know, some cashier somewhere, you know, somebody you just walk by on the street. You don't have to hug them. Let's not go get California on me. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:28 Highlight the passage at 1:07:28

1:07:54 but just Change that they're no longer really a stranger, if you think about it in those terms. And even a passing dog, this person, this being has been your mother, and now they are in this other lifetime where their mind is more obscured and they're in this little body, but it's still a mind that can, according to the Buddha, actually get enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:54 Highlight the passage at 1:07:54

1:08:17 There's nothing wrong with an animal's mind. It's just been obscured by their karma. That's all. And then that life will end and they can definitely become your... or your parent in another life, you know. So it's a very interesting thing to think about. And then remembering the kindness of all beings in general. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:17 Highlight the passage at 1:08:17

1:08:42 Word always tries to rearrange your numbering. It's like, here, we'll help. No, maybe not. Sorry, I just changed all my numbering here, so hopefully I don't screw up my six points and seven result. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:42 Highlight the passage at 1:08:42

1:09:00 But the kindness of all beings in general, that's when we're just thinking about how dependent we are for everything that we use or make use of or own or anything. Everything is due to the kindness of others. So whether it's our shelter, people who made this house. These were living human beings who created this house. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:00 Highlight the passage at 1:09:00

1:09:24 Our transportation, our education, our computers, our entertainment, even sports. Not just the people who are playing, but all the people behind the scenes, the guy that cleans the court. It becomes this myriad of interconnection of all of the beings that take part in everything that we make use of and own and so forth in this life. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:24 Highlight the passage at 1:09:24

1:09:50 And so one of the things that Lama Zopa Rinpoche also does is has us think about often when we're really hungry and about to bite, then he'll go into this long meditation about all the people and beings that went into whatever it is that you're going to eat. So if you're having a cup of tea, then he'll go into that or a sandwich, for example, which he never eats a sandwich, but you know what I mean. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:50 Highlight the passage at 1:09:50

1:10:16 You talk about what went into that sandwich. It usually does a bowl of rice. You never look at a bowl of rice the same way. But thinking about all the farmers, you know, involved who grew. The grain, the wheat, and then those who harvested it and those who milled it into flour and then the bakers who then took the flour and created the bread and then sold the bread and then whoever bought the bread and made the sandwich and everything else that's on the sandwich, for example the cheese. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:16 Highlight the passage at 1:10:16

1:10:48 And the cow that was milked for that cheese and the person that did the milking and the person that treated the milk and then the person who made the cheese and often several of each and grew the lettuce and grew the tomatoes. And if you've ever farmed, it's much more than a handful of people. It's quite a few people involved in the farming and the selling of the produce. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:48 Highlight the passage at 1:10:48

1:11:10 And each part of them also involves... Report an error in the passage at 1:11:10 Highlight the passage at 1:11:10

1:11:16 Whenever somebody refills the water. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:16 Highlight the passage at 1:11:16

1:11:21 And every part of this also involves other living beings like insects who get killed in the process, you know, who just happen to be in the field where the wheat is being... grown or tomatoes or the lettuce is being grown or where the cow happens to be grazing or you know the bird on the cow's back who happens to be living off of the cow's insects or you It's just this myriad of beings and human beings that are involved just for me to have a cheese sandwich. And so if you start thinking about everything that way, like all of the living beings who took part to create this clock. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:21 Highlight the passage at 1:11:21

1:11:59 And then all the living beings who took part to create this center and still are. All the living beings who created my computer, you know, and so forth. Who even created this paper. Who, like, harvested the trees, you know. I mean, it really is amazing. And all of those are our mothers, too, in this analogy. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:59 Highlight the passage at 1:11:59

1:12:20 All of those living beings are also in our... And of course we don't eat the same thing every day. So every day it's more beings that we're getting more and more connected to. Everything and everyone is interconnected when we start thinking about it. So those are our mothers too. So that's the second step. And then the third step is wishing to repay that kindness. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:20 Highlight the passage at 1:12:20

1:12:44 So first we're... Thinking about, we're recognizing that all sentient beings have been our mother or our parent. We're remembering their kindness and now we're wanting to repay that kindness. If you spend time really thinking about this, then it just becomes, it sort of naturally results in that. You're like, wow, I just wanna, you know, I wanna, how can I repay this kindness? Report an error in the passage at 1:12:44 Highlight the passage at 1:12:44

1:13:09 It's almost like a debt if somebody's really helped you in some way. Sometimes I think about the fact of somebody who's helped you move, for example, you know, given up hours and hours and hours of time. But it's almost bigger than that because it's, again, they use this term mothers, and so it's sort of like something like you were on the street and didn't have anyplace else to go, if anybody's ever experienced that. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:09 Highlight the passage at 1:13:09

1:13:31 And somebody took you in. Or maybe somebody nursed you when you were sick. And maybe we haven't had that experience in this life except with a mother. I think that's another reason why a parent is used. Somebody who doesn't leave when you were really gross and you were sick. Wiped your brow. Something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:31 Highlight the passage at 1:13:31

1:13:51 So it creates this sort of feeling of a debt that you want to repay that. You have that debt for all of these beings. If we have that for one person, then we can sort of imagine, as Lama Yeshi says, we can kind of extrapolate them for all living beings. They say that if our mother or somebody that we really love, and you can imagine your grandmother or your sister or something like that, if they were blind and crazy and walking near a cliff, you'd have to go save her. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:51 Highlight the passage at 1:13:51

1:14:25 Like you wouldn't. You wouldn't think, well, somebody else will do it. You wouldn't think, well, that's fine. I've got to watch this movie. You'd feel like it was your responsibility and you would go and save that person because you have this connection. And so what we're trying to do in these first few points is to develop that connection for all living beings, which, like I said, is almost insane, but in a good way. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:25 Highlight the passage at 1:14:25

1:14:52 It's almost more than we can imagine. But apparently if we do this, and I actually, not to say that I have developed bodhicitta, but having spent a lot of time meditating on these at certain points in my life, you do, your heart does open in a way that you didn't think was possible before. Not stupidly, where you're taking in everybody on the street who's insane. No, it's not like talking about that at all. And people do get confused about that. That would be stupid compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:52 Highlight the passage at 1:14:52

1:15:21 There's a wise compassion that we're trying to develop where we understand the causes of suffering and we're trying to remove the causes of suffering in ourselves and in others. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:21 Highlight the passage at 1:15:21

1:15:33 So we're trying to do things sort of wisely. We're not necessarily, because sometimes actually that's not even going to help. You know what I mean? If people are so insane and you're taking them in, then it's not necessarily going to be anything that's going to help them unless you are a trained professional or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:33 Highlight the passage at 1:15:33

1:15:50 So wishing to repay the kindness is stepping in and going, it's my responsibility, I want to help all sentient beings. But what can we do? I mean, Venable Steve brought this up on the weekend. What can I do? I'm still a mess. I'm not able to take away my own suffering yet. So we're starting to recognize that. So how do we help? We have to get out of saṃsāra ourselves. We have to get enlightened ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:50 Highlight the passage at 1:15:50

1:16:20 So those are the first three steps. And then we develop this thing called affectionate love or loving kindness. And it's often described as an unbearable affection. And the reason it's an unbearable affection is because it's almost like painful. It's like they say that it should be like the love that a mother feels towards her only child. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:20 Highlight the passage at 1:16:20

1:16:46 So it's like this enormous love that we're trying to develop for all beings, actually, but even just imagine one being. So that being is so beautiful that even if they do, I mean, like this story that is just, that's actually quite horrifying to me in the news of the young woman who was just sentenced, who killed the little girl when she was 15, just to see what it would be like. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:46 Highlight the passage at 1:16:46

1:17:15 That's somebody's daughter. And I just keep thinking, wow, what if your kid is the one that killed somebody? Like, you still have to love that kid because that's your kid, you know? And I actually have a friend who's had so much trouble with her son who has bipolar syndrome and is, you know, substance abuse issues and violent. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:15 Highlight the passage at 1:17:15

1:17:39 But that's her firstborn baby. So the rest of us were like, oh God, you know, I was kind of scared of him. But for her, even though she's finally starting to get wise and realizing she can't help him anymore, that's still her baby. And that's the kind of affectionate love that we're trying to get, where we just see the beauty in everybody like that. You know, we see the beauty, even though we don't necessarily take them out of prison. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:39 Highlight the passage at 1:17:39

1:18:04 You know what I mean? Like sometimes it's actually more compassionate for them to stay in prison in both of those cases. But we can still love them. We can still see the purity in them and see the beauty in them. And I remember one of my teachers saying at one point, it was sort of like as you're, in his case, he was talking about his mother, aged and she even got a little bit dotty, a little dementia, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:04 Highlight the passage at 1:18:04

1:18:31 But she still just looks so beautiful to him. And my mom did the same. I adored my mom, actually. I was pretty fortunate to have a nice mom. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:31 Highlight the passage at 1:18:31

1:18:41 She actually had probably a little bit of old age dementia but it was more the result of many, many years on Parkinson's meds. So she had a short term memory loss a lot. But to me she just looked gorgeous. I just adored her and I just adored her to the end. But you know the other people that were working in the place didn't necessarily think she would. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:41 Highlight the passage at 1:18:41

1:19:01 They actually all liked her too because she was one of the few nice ones. But you know what I mean? It was like I could just see her as she had always been. And I thought that must be kind of what we're trying to get with all beings, that we can look at them, even when they're messing up, even when they aren't perfect, even when they're harming, even when they're grossly harming, and to still have this love, still want them to have happiness, still want them to be able to sort it out. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:01 Highlight the passage at 1:19:01

1:19:35 This kid, I'm still hoping that maybe she'll connect to the Liberation Prison Project when she's in prison. It feels like she at least has remorse, which is the beginning of some kind of a life, even though all of it will be in prison. So that's the kind of affectionate love that we're trying to develop, and that's the fourth step. And then the fifth step is compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:35 Highlight the passage at 1:19:35

1:20:01 When we are... Developing this mind that wants to remove the suffering of another. And as I said, ultimately we're trying to develop great compassion, which is wanting to remove the suffering of all living beings. But we start with just meditating on an obvious object of compassion. So they often say, for example, an animal being led to slaughter. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:01 Highlight the passage at 1:20:01

1:20:27 If anybody has spent any time in developing countries, I think we see more of it there. Here it's hidden a lot in the stockyards. Although if you spend any time driving across the U.S., you definitely pass a lot of stockyards. But in, you know, places like India, Nepal, Greece and so forth, you often see animals being led to slaughter. And they're often the little cute fuzzy ones, like, you know, little goats or little sheep or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:27 Highlight the passage at 1:20:27

1:20:55 And so you focus on something obvious like that and you really think about all the conditions of what's going to happen to it, how it has no control, how it's really helpless. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:55 Highlight the passage at 1:20:55

1:21:08 And whoever ends up killing it just tries to kill it in a sort of impersonal way without thinking about it. It's completely alone when it's killed. There's obviously probably pain when it's killed and so forth and how scary it must be. Remembering again that this goat isn't just a goat now. This goat is one of our moms, right? So we have a connection now with this goat in a way, or sheep or cow, that we didn't before, that we have recognized in the first few steps of this meditation that we're focusing on the connection that we have with all living beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:08 Highlight the passage at 1:21:08

1:21:49 So this little goat that's been picked up and carried to slaughter is now our mom. So that makes it much more profound. It's a hard meditation. When you're meditating on compassion, it's not necessarily a blissful thing. Meditating on love is a lot more fun. But what we're trying to do is to not look away. Because we've looked away for too long. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:49 Highlight the passage at 1:21:49

1:22:14 And so what we're trying to do is to open our heart and to notice. And then think about all the other goats and the herd. Is it the herd? Yeah, the herd. That are just kind of munching down and they don't realize that they're next. They have no idea that they're next. They just don't notice, you know, which is a form of ignorance. But we're the same, right? I mean, when our friends get taken off, when they all die, we don't really notice that we might be next, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:14 Highlight the passage at 1:22:14

1:22:45 But in our case, we think about all those goats in the herd are also our moms. Those are also those mothers that are talked about in the verses. So we have a connection with each of them. And even worse, we have a connection with all those people that have to do the killing of those animals. And they sometimes have to just deny the emotion that comes up because it's a job. Especially in the U.S., the people that work in those places, they've tried to find any other job. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:45 Highlight the passage at 1:22:45

1:23:17 I mean, I can guarantee you, unless they're mentally ill, They don't like it. I've had friends that have actually worked in related industries and just the nightmares that come and how hard it is and how you have to shove any of your compassionate nature out of your mind in order to do the job. You have to feed your kids. You can't find anything else. You don't have the education to find something else. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:17 Highlight the passage at 1:23:17

1:23:46 And so, and, and they don't even realize it, and they're creating all this negative karma by constantly killing as a job. So day in and day out they're creating, they're constantly killing. Those are our moms too, you know. And so it's sort of like, we're starting to get it that all of them are our moms. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:46 Highlight the passage at 1:23:46

1:24:06 And that they're all caught up in this, because of ignorance, they're all caught up in this, this weave of... Constantly creating more and experiencing more and more suffering. Creating more suffering because they're creating the karma and then when that karma ripens they experience the suffering. The same minds just in different bodies. So the goat may end up becoming the slaughterer the next life and then the slaughterer becomes the goat and it just keeps happening lifetime after lifetime because no wisdom is ever brought into the situation. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:06 Highlight the passage at 1:24:06

1:24:39 It's never stopped. The cycle isn't stopped. And so it just becomes this pointless cycle of suffering and pain. So the next step, the sixth step, the step that leads to bodhicitta is developing this mind of universal responsibility, sometimes translated as extraordinary attitude, the altruistic mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:39 Highlight the passage at 1:24:39

1:25:08 I mean, it's called a lot of different things. I think His Holiness the Dalai Lama usually calls it the mind of universal responsibility. And that's when we just really get it that it's completely unbearable that sentient beings have to keep suffering like this. Like it's just unbearable. Just like if we realized that our kids were suffering, it would be unbearable that our kids were suffering. If we could do anything to remove that suffering, we would. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:08 Highlight the passage at 1:25:08

1:25:36 The Buddha is like saying, all of them are your kids. They're all your kids. They're all your moms. And that's when Lama Zopa always steps in and says, I myself alone. And he does. He's alone. It's like that courage. It's my responsibility to do this. And that's when it's like I can't pass the buck. That's my mom on that guy's back being led to slaughter. I need to do it. If I don't do it, who's going to do it? Report an error in the passage at 1:25:36 Highlight the passage at 1:25:36

1:25:46 you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:46 Highlight the passage at 1:25:46

1:26:08 And that's why we start thinking about them as our mothers. That's why it helps to think of them as our mothers. Because then we stop thinking of it as somebody else's job. It's sort of like a number of us that are in the situation of being the sons and daughters of elderly parents who have to make the decision about what to do with mom and dad when they're left on their own. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:08 Highlight the passage at 1:26:08

1:26:30 And sometimes we have to take them in. You kind of have to do it and you have to see that it's your... It's a problem to care for. You can't hope that the neighbor does it. Sometimes the neighbor will do it if she gets a little too dotty and nobody else is doing it. But they say that it's like you see the house on fire and you know your child or your mom is in there. You wouldn't wait for somebody else to do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:30 Highlight the passage at 1:26:30

1:26:55 You'd run in. You would run and try to save that person because of your connection with them. It's that strong and it's also for everyone. Which is almost impossible to gather, but it just takes constantly contemplating this and thinking about it over years and lifetimes really. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:55 Highlight the passage at 1:26:55

1:27:16 And we get to this point where we just feel like it's this huge wish to take away their suffering and this huge wish to do something for them. And it's sort of like that's when you get this point. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:16 Highlight the passage at 1:27:16

1:27:30 No matter how long it takes or how hard it is or whether or not they even like me. We can get all sweet and rosy about it, but some of them are real pains in the butt in this life. Not all humans or animals are necessarily warm and fuzzy, but we can still work for their benefit. Sometimes I'll think about that when I'm having a hard time with somebody. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:30 Highlight the passage at 1:27:30

1:27:53 It's like, yeah, but I'm still working for his or her enlightenment. I'm still working for the Bush family's enlightenment. I'm still working for the entire cadre of Republican candidates. Enlightenment. I'd love it if they all got bodhicitta tonight. That would be super. I mean, just amazing how that would be. That would be super. So, you know, we don't want to forget them just because we may disagree with them. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:53 Highlight the passage at 1:27:53

1:28:18 And we also don't want to make them all warm and fuzzy and assume that they're all going to be sweet and loving to us, even if we try to work for their benefit. It's enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:18 Highlight the passage at 1:28:18

1:28:26 So the resultant mind of all of this is this mind of bodhicitta that wants to get enlightened in order to be able to do this. Because when I look around I can see, yeah, I don't have it now. I don't know what to do to help them. I don't even know my own mind most of the time until the words, as Ruben always says, the words come vomiting out of the mouth. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:26 Highlight the passage at 1:28:26

1:28:48 I don't even know what I'm feeling or experiencing. I don't even know how to help myself a lot of the time. But when I look around me and I think, who can, it's only the enlightened mind of a Buddha. It's only somebody who has that capacity to be omniscient, to know the mind and the karma of every living being, but also has this capacity to emanate these different bodies and all these different forms to help living beings without thought or effort, just due to karma in whatever form is needed. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:48 Highlight the passage at 1:28:48

1:29:19 That's the only way I can help. Now that I've seen how huge the problem is, I can see that the only answer to this problem is to become exactly what is needed to all living beings. So that's how this mind of bodhicitta arises organically based on the first six causes. So at first when you do it, especially when you're doing this meditation, I've just suggested that maybe you do like the first three steps in one sitting and then the final four steps or something like that. If you do it all together, at first it takes a while to become familiar with the steps. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:19 Highlight the passage at 1:29:19

1:30:03 So just allow time. It takes a good half hour or 40 minutes. Probably at first when you do it, it's more than that. So that's why I suggest getting familiar with like maybe the first three steps and then the last four. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:03 Highlight the passage at 1:30:03

1:30:17 At first, you just contrive the bodhicitta. We don't have real bodhicitta yet, so we're just trying to imagine what this mind would be like to generate this mind that wants to remove the suffering of all the living beings and wants to do it by getting enlightened, that wants to take that step of no matter how long it takes, I will become a Buddha in order to help all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:17 Highlight the passage at 1:30:17

1:30:42 Even if we have to contrive it, it's still really powerful because it creates the seeds for us to be able to do it. That's really the only way we'll ever be able to do it. We have to create the seeds, the karmic seeds first to do it. It's sort of like it gives us the imprints to be able to do it. So we start with the equanimity meditation where we start breaking down how we look at people and then we move into this meditation on bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:42 Highlight the passage at 1:30:42

1:31:10 So any questions about any of all of that? And then we'll take a break. Actually, we'll probably, you know what, why don't we take a break now and then we'll come back and then see if you have any questions about it. And then we'll just wrap it up. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:10 Highlight the passage at 1:31:10

1:31:37 Okay. I Report an error in the passage at 1:31:37 Highlight the passage at 1:31:37

1:31:44 think so. She doesn't usually, I don't know actually when she, yeah, she does often come on Fridays. Yeah. You could write, do you have an email? Report an error in the passage at 1:31:44 Highlight the passage at 1:31:44

1:31:55 Yeah, she's at TMN. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:55 Highlight the passage at 1:31:55

1:32:01 Yeah, yeah, she often is, I don't know because I work outside on Fridays, but I know that she often used to come in when Janet would come in, probably more afternoon than morning. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:01 Highlight the passage at 1:32:01

1:32:31 Yeah, exchange of self and others. Yeah, that's the one that you can find in Shantideva's work, the guide to bodhisattva's way of life, is the combination, yeah, and as long as Lama Tsongkhapa is combined, I think. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:31 Highlight the passage at 1:32:31

1:32:56 Good, because I just got to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:56 Highlight the passage at 1:32:56

1:33:08 I Report an error in the passage at 1:33:08 Highlight the passage at 1:33:08

1:33:13 haven't Report an error in the passage at 1:33:13 Highlight the passage at 1:33:13

1:33:20 done it in a long time, but it's the one that's not the bookstore. So just take down her information, I would say run it, and then just leave Janet a note? Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it's unclear, if you can't run it, then just write down the information and then give it to Janet. She'll actually be back in almost a week, just a week. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:20 Highlight the passage at 1:33:20

1:33:46 Coming Report an error in the passage at 1:33:46 Highlight the passage at 1:33:46

1:33:49 to Southern California. Yeah, I haven't heard Northern California yet. Has anybody heard Northern California? Southern California, and it's an empowerment, and it actually has commitments, which is why I immediately just was like, nope. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:49 Highlight the passage at 1:33:49

1:34:06 Everybody else is like all exciting. I'm like, nope. Yamantaka, it is Yamantaka empowerment. So it's, I mean, some of it is normal for for Hayas Yoga Tantra in terms of Succession Guru Yoga. And then there's actually a retreat. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:06 Highlight the passage at 1:34:06

1:34:51 I don't know, I didn't even, once I heard, I was like, okay. I used to jump into everything and now I'm much more cautious. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:51 Highlight the passage at 1:34:51

1:35:02 No, it's just, you know, after a while you have a lot of commitments and it's sort of like you pick and choose, you know, if it's already something that I have a strong connection with or I want, like, if I, you know, if I feel like it's my life's practice, for example, then I wouldn't mind. But otherwise, I keep taking them more and more because then it becomes hard to fulfill them and hard to do other stuff. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:02 Highlight the passage at 1:35:02

1:35:29 I think there's a public talk, though, that he's also doing. John was looking into it. That John was looking into it because he wanted to go down for at least the public talk. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:29 Highlight the passage at 1:35:29

1:35:41 So I don't know. But there's probably a website. I would assume there's a website set up about it. You could ask John. He'd probably be able to. I'll ask him when he comes back in. He can maybe. If he gave me the information, I could send it out to the class. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:41 Highlight the passage at 1:35:41

1:36:23 That's why I usually describe the Lamrim as more like a spiral, because I think when we keep taking the classes, we understand them more. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:23 Highlight the passage at 1:36:23

1:36:33 I mean, actually, I think it would be great for people to just keep, not that I want you all to keep staying with me as discovering Buddhism teachers. I do. I get really, really attached to my students and I get sad when they graduate and move on to other classes. But I think it actually just expands that knowledge, kind of, you integrate that knowledge, that understanding more and more every time you learn the same teachings. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:33 Highlight the passage at 1:36:33

1:36:55 So, for example, we just did this, teachings this weekend, this past weekend on karma. Many of us have studied, many people in the room have studied karma from different sources. I, for one, didn't learn anything new, but the way it was presented was useful. And so it was kind of like that. And I think the more that you allow yourself to study, especially from live teachers, because you hear it in a different way, like they might use a different phrasing of something that just all of a sudden goes right to your heart or wakes you up in a certain way. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:55 Highlight the passage at 1:36:55

1:37:31 So yeah, I think it's... Great to do over and over again. All the lamrim teachings especially. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Yeah, it was really, really nice. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:31 Highlight the passage at 1:37:31

1:37:49 A very relaxed delivery. Yeah. I liked that. Yeah. Very, it doesn't look like he's put any time thinking it through, but I know he has like 30 years of thinking it through, you know, that he just, yeah. It's almost like he's just kind of thinking about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:49 Highlight the passage at 1:37:49

1:38:14 John, when you were out of the room, a couple people were asking about His Holiness' teachings in Southern California. I'm wondering if you could give me a website and I could send it out to people who might be interested. Because he's giving a public talk as well, right? And that's on there. Okay. That would be great. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:14 Highlight the passage at 1:38:14

1:38:49 And thank you for that article from Junon. She sent an article about Nunyeh to you and David and I. Actually, then I took it and I cc'd you on it. I sent it to everybody who's already said that they want to do, or even were thinking about doing the Nunyeh. This one nun that was here for the Long Life Buja who was working on the procession, Chosang. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:49 Highlight the passage at 1:38:49

1:39:21 Here, you're a Doppelganger. He's also a Chosang. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:21 Highlight the passage at 1:39:21

1:39:28 But she was working in the back with Emily, but her sister is a healer, especially in Asia, and she wrote an article on the Power of Muni, and so you have it in your inbox when you get home, and I thought that's a nice one to send out to the people that aren't really considering seriously doing it, as though they aren't getting over, inundated with all the materials to think about. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:28 Highlight the passage at 1:39:28

1:39:59 And last weekend, no. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:59 Highlight the passage at 1:39:59

1:40:07 The first of March, I think, is a Thursday. Oh, yeah. Oh, is it a Monday? No, it can't be. Because the Monday is the 27th. So it has to be 27th, 28th, 29th would be the Wednesday. Yeah, so the Thursday. It's a Thursday about week. So who has, first of all, where's the microphone? And who has any comments, questions? Report an error in the passage at 1:40:07 Highlight the passage at 1:40:07

1:40:42 Jenna! Report an error in the passage at 1:40:42 Highlight the passage at 1:40:42

1:40:47 She's like, what, what? Oh, Jenna. See how all beings are your mother? Come home for dinner. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:47 Highlight the passage at 1:40:47

1:40:59 That's the way we always used to. We'd come running from all areas of the neighborhood. Who has a question or comment or anything about anything that we just want? I knew you did. That's why we called you home. Hello? Hi. Hello children. Hi mom. For the people who are seeking enlightenment just for the sole purpose of enlightenment for themselves and not having this mind of bodhicitta, are those people considered maybe selfish or less? Report an error in the passage at 1:40:59 Highlight the passage at 1:40:59

1:41:36 Is that bad? Well we have to be really careful because actually wanting to get... You know, recognizing the condition of saṃsāra, developing the tools to get out and actually attaining nirvāṇa, pretty damned impressive. So we have to be really careful not to like diss anyone who would become an arhat because they're pretty amazing beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:36 Highlight the passage at 1:41:36

1:41:57 That's kind of why I'm like, ugh. But it actually, in our tradition, since it's considered a greater goal to become a fully enlightened being, to become fully enlightened, as they say. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:57 Highlight the passage at 1:41:57

1:42:11 Is a greater goal because you can then benefit all beings. That is considered a kind of a very subtle level of selfishness because you are focusing on individual liberation. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:11 Highlight the passage at 1:42:11

1:42:26 But we just have to be careful of, you know, because there are entire traditions that are still quite, you know, quite vivid and practicing. All the Theravadan traditions come from this. So we have to be really careful not to be like, well. Yeah, so the Theravāda, they don't necessarily work with bodhicitta, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:42:26 Highlight the passage at 1:42:26

1:42:42 Right. Okay. Yeah. Although I think it's very interesting, actually, you'll notice at His Holiness' teachings, a lot of us, a lot of the ordained monks and nuns in a lot of these big public teachings will all sit together on the stage, for example. And I always think it's very interesting that a lot of Theravadan monks and nuns come to His Holiness' teachings, and often the teachings on bodhicitta. Very, very interested in it, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:42 Highlight the passage at 1:42:42

1:43:09 Because the compassion is there. The compassion is great. They just have different ways of looking at it. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:09 Highlight the passage at 1:43:09

1:43:21 Can you explain further the desire to be enlightened, to become enlightened, and the desire itself being just part of suffering? Yeah, desire is probably... Well, I mean... Report an error in the passage at 1:43:21 Highlight the passage at 1:43:21

1:43:40 That's why I usually say desire as obsessive desire or tainted desire or tainted attachment and things like that when I talk about it. Because there are certain forms of attachment that are quite useful. A mother's attachment for a baby, for example, would keep it from dying. So there's a certain amount of attachment that's actually constructive attachment. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:40 Highlight the passage at 1:43:40

1:44:04 The same is true for desire. That's why I actually like the word... Determination and resolve to get enlightened, like a stronger word rather than this desire. Because I think desire, again, just sort of sounds like, boy, I'd really like a little chocolate bun bun right now. It kind of sounds like lighter or something than this mind that you've worked for years. I mean, imagine meditating on this day and night to the point where it becomes second nature to you to want to help all Sunday beings, the same way that if you were hungry, you'd go to the kitchen and feed yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:04 Highlight the passage at 1:44:04

1:44:39 That's the way they say that it actually arises spontaneously once we have genuine bodhicitta. So it's not like this kind of, you know what I mean? It's not like a light wish or aspiration or a desire in that sense. It's this determination that I will do it and I will do it no matter what it takes and I will help all beings no matter what my relationship is with them. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:39 Highlight the passage at 1:44:39

1:45:01 I will help them. So it's this very, very powerful, vast, courageous mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:01 Highlight the passage at 1:45:01

1:45:09 Yeah, I don't even use the term desire because I just think it's such a different word. Desire tends to get us into trouble, mostly, even though it can be fun at times. But we just think it's fun until that dukkha rears its ugly head. Also, I have a second question. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:09 Highlight the passage at 1:45:09

1:45:31 Is it possible to realize emptiness? I know you brought that up, but I'm not sure that it was clear for me. To realize emptiness without bodhicitta. It is. And that would be for somebody who's on the individual liberation path. You can have a direct perception of emptiness. It's probably not the same understanding of emptiness. There's slight differences in the different schools. But you would have a direct perception of emptiness and you could attain nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:31 Highlight the passage at 1:45:31

1:46:01 And that's when you sort of get lost in eons of bliss. And then the Buddhists come and tap you on the shoulder and say, come on, Dylan, we need you. You can't just be hanging out here in the other world, you know. You've got to come join us. Yeah, it's kind of like that. You just, you would get, the experience of it would be really blissful if you attained nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:01 Highlight the passage at 1:46:01

1:46:23 But you wouldn't have bodhicitta or you wouldn't. You would bypass that nirvāṇa, in other words. For us, nirvāṇa is part of the fourth path. I think I did talk quickly about the five paths. The path of accumulation, path of preparation, and path of seeing, which is the direct perception of emptiness. Path of meditation, where you get used to what you experience in the path of seeing. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:23 Highlight the passage at 1:46:23

1:46:51 The path of meditation, about three quarters of the way through, is where you... Attain Nirvāṇa, but you keep going towards the path of no more learning. That's enlightenment. So yes, it is possible. In our tradition, because it's a Mahāyāna tradition, because enlightenment is our main goal, so to speak, our main purpose is enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:51 Highlight the passage at 1:46:51

1:47:18 We don't want to get caught up there, so that's why we start infusing even little teachings like this. With bodhicitta at the beginning, bodhicitta at the end. Even if we're doing whatever little act of moving a bug out of the way, walking down the path, trying to do it with a bodhicitta motivation. Because we're trying to build that so much that when we really get to the point of having this really powerful meditation that will allow us to have a direct perception of emptiness, calm, abiding and special insight, bodhicitta will be so much in our mind that we won't get caught up in the bliss. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:18 Highlight the passage at 1:47:18

1:47:52 They say the bliss of liberation. So we want to try to get enlightened. We don't want to get sidelined with all the fun stuff. Flying through the air and all that stuff. Geshe-la always says, yes, you know, loads of people can do that. Which I just love the fact that he even says that. And we're like, what was Tibet like when you lived there? Loads of people can do what, Geshe-la? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:52 Highlight the passage at 1:47:52

1:48:15 No good questions. Winnie? So for me, all this is just totally mind-boggling because what you were talking about is what I try not to think about. You know, like the whole thing of the suffering of animals and the suffering of children. And it just gets to the point where it's like, I can't think about this anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:15 Highlight the passage at 1:48:15

1:48:35 And so I'm confused because to be enlightened means that you're out of saṃsāra, right? To be enlightened means that your mind is not samsaric anymore. Right, so you're not suffering. Yes, so you aren't suffering anymore, but you are actually able to help those who are suffering. So you can see people suffering, but it doesn't make you suffer. That's incredible. Yeah, because it's different. It's a different type. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:35 Highlight the passage at 1:48:35

1:49:03 You know, the kind of suffering that we're undergoing is mostly out of ignorance. And Buddhas and bodhisattvas to a degree, but Buddhas especially, have the wisdom to see how it all works and how every single one of those beings will eventually get enlightened. And it's just a matter of time. And so there's this... Report an error in the passage at 1:49:03 Highlight the passage at 1:49:03

1:49:23 It's the same way that when your kids are suffering, when they're fighting on the playground, you can love them through that suffering. And you can love them all, even the bad kid who's hitting your kids. But you're suffering watching them suffer. Not necessarily. Not if you know there's something you can do about it and you're doing everything you can. And they actually have the capacity to help those beings in a way that we don't. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:23 Highlight the passage at 1:49:23

1:49:45 Right now, even with our kids, we can't necessarily help them. If you actually have the means and you are doing it, then there is not the same kind of suffering. It's not the same kind of suffering at all. I can hardly wait to get there. I know. It's pretty amazing. But I think we all push away suffering to a degree, right? Partly because we don't have the tools to do anything much about it, especially when you think about, for example, the suffering of people on the street. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:45 Highlight the passage at 1:49:45

1:50:16 You know, sometimes I'll engage and I'll have conversations with people and sometimes it's just like more than you can bear. Sometimes the news stories, it just feels like one story after another that's just haunting. It's so much suffering. And so I'm not saying like let it all in, but I'm saying use one of those in your meditation on suffering, you know, so that you can use it specifically to open your heart rather than just letting it all in. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:16 Highlight the passage at 1:50:16

1:50:41 You know, I mean, if we let it all in. The way news comes at us now online and in people's emails and on Facebook and just like it's coming at us in newspapers 100 % all the time, we just go crazy. But I'm just saying take, you know, one one hundredth of those and use it to open your heart in some way. Think about it slightly differently. Think about the person who committed the crime as well as the person who was the victim. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:41 Highlight the passage at 1:50:41

1:51:04 Because the person who was the victim of the crime, at least they exhausted their karma. And it's done. The person who committed the crime, they have eons of suffering together. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:04 Highlight the passage at 1:51:04

1:51:15 So trying to actually open your heart to that person, not condoning the action at all, but just seeing how this action done, I mean some of it is just so heinous it's hard to even get your mind around, but some of it is just like some action of love or confusion or stupidity or anger that then causes them this enormous amount of suffering, not just in this life but in it. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:15 Highlight the passage at 1:51:15

1:51:39 Lifetimes. Just looking at a story in a slightly different way can help open your heart. It's not like we have to let in every single thing, because again, that would be as stupid as opening our homes to everybody who needs something. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:39 Highlight the passage at 1:51:39

1:51:54 That would be stupid compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:54 Highlight the passage at 1:51:54

1:52:00 Any other questions? Report an error in the passage at 1:52:00 Highlight the passage at 1:52:00

1:52:08 Is this on? Yes. So when you first started, Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:08 Highlight the passage at 1:52:08

1:52:13 Talking to us about these meditation steps, these six steps, and the first one being imagining all sentient beings as our mother, I could tell I just started getting very, very nervous. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:13 Highlight the passage at 1:52:13

1:52:28 And what I see from that is that my relationship with my mother is very complicated. My relationship as a mother has complications. I'm a mother-in-law as well as a mother. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:28 Highlight the passage at 1:52:28

1:52:41 That the idea of focusing on all sentient beings as mother just almost seemed like, well, I'm just ready to go right now and forget this whole thing. Is there some other word that I can substitute? Actually, as you used the word mother more and more, it started to become a little easier for me. And I'm not sure what the question is even, but if you could speak to that. Yeah, I mean, this has come up the number of times that I've tried to teach this before, and a couple times I've even just said, you know, I'm just not going to teach this technique anymore, because it's just, especially people in the West, we have such complicated relationships with our mothers. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:41 Highlight the passage at 1:52:41

1:53:21 And I, the first time... I think I was completely not expecting it because my own relationship with my mom was just very precious. And it's not to say that it wasn't complicated for sure. I mean, she would definitely criticize. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:21 Highlight the passage at 1:53:21

1:53:38 Rest her soul. But I mean, you know, it's like my sister says sometimes, I just long to hear her like saying, you're not going out in that, are you? You know. eyes. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:38 Highlight the passage at 1:53:38

1:53:47 Even the criticisms now are dear. But I just wasn't expecting it. But every time I've ever studied it, much less taught it, somebody brings up not just difficult, but often horribly difficult relationships with mothers. And I have actually had a couple of friends who had really horrible relationships with their mothers. So that's why I started bringing in the other... Report an error in the passage at 1:53:47 Highlight the passage at 1:53:47

1:54:15 You know, caregivers and parent and some things like that. I think it's important to think about why the term mother is used. And I think in Tibet, just traditionally, as that culture has a really close relationship with their mother. Obviously, I'm sure there were exceptions. I'm sure there were some loony Tibetans as well as everybody else. But in general, it's a culture where the mother is, you know, has this real role of shaping the kid's life and caring for the kid. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:15 Highlight the passage at 1:54:15

1:54:43 And the mother is revered in a way. That is not necessarily the case in this culture. I think that's actually true in a lot of Asian cultures, period, compared to American culture. Of course, American culture is a combination of many cultures, so I'm sure it's true in many other cultures, too. But yeah, I mean, I had the good fortune to have, my grandma was really integral in raising me as well as my parents. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:43 Highlight the passage at 1:54:43

1:55:12 It was in the good old days where she actually lived next door to us. And so it was like the sort of Lambert family compound. It was like the Kennedy compound, except a lot poorer. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:12 Highlight the passage at 1:55:12

1:55:24 So I can totally understand that. And I know she gave up a lot because there's that self-sacrifice aspect of mothering that's different sometimes, especially in a certain generation of fathers. But some people had fathers who did that too. So I just introduced that idea of... Choosing another parent, choosing a sibling. Sometimes people were raised by an older sister, a brother, an aunt, an uncle, something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:24 Highlight the passage at 1:55:24

1:55:49 Somebody who took care of you when you weren't necessarily a real joy to take care of. Somebody who wiped your nose, somebody who helped you wipe your butt. Somebody who did that kind of stuff because that's how you have that sort of feeling of indebtedness. If it's just a friend, it's not going to be, unless that friend has cared for you when you're really deathly ill, then that might be the same situation. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:49 Highlight the passage at 1:55:49

1:56:14 But it's not the same as what you might have for your child, because your child, unless you're an aging parent and your child has already started caring for you, which is probably unlikely, they haven't taken care of you and given up chunks of their life to do that in the way that a parent. So that's why I focus more on parents, caregivers, whoever took you in when you had no place else to go, that kind of a relationship. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:14 Highlight the passage at 1:56:14

1:56:43 So it's a little bit more of that indebtedness is there. So in the meditation, can we use that word or just support our meditation with all beings? Report an error in the passage at 1:56:43 Highlight the passage at 1:56:43

1:57:01 All beings are my mother and I'm indebted to all of them. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:01 Highlight the passage at 1:57:01

1:57:09 You can. It's what grows in that wanting to repay the kindness. So when you get to that step of wanting to repay the kindness, that's what that is. That's that feeling of wanting to pay that back. Payback time. Yeah, so it's more like that just comes organically. I don't think you necessarily have to. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:09 Highlight the passage at 1:57:09

1:57:31 And when I say it, I think it's just part of that step of wanting to repay things. First recognizing the kindness and the non-genious. But yeah, I think it is an interesting thing in our lives that, oh wait, if you're going to leave, you have to take your homework. I know, she's trying to sneak out without it. I just realized, yeah, you're right, the time. So anyway, but yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:31 Highlight the passage at 1:57:31

1:57:56 You get the point. So I try to introduce different terms because people have different individual life experiences, and so they just need to focus on somebody who raised them. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:56 Highlight the passage at 1:57:56

1:58:08 And they can pick, if you had several people, I've tried doing it before. Actually, I focus the most on my mom, but I have tried doing it before with both of my parents and then with my grandma as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:08 Highlight the passage at 1:58:08

1:58:19 It's different effects, and you can try it with different people if you had more than one person raise you, too. Okay. I think we should stop there before anyone else gets up and tries to run out without their homework. So let's dedicate the merit, remembering again to make this a Dharma activity. We want to remember to try to broaden our motivation and our dedication to include all living beings, so all beings who are suffering, thinking of individual beings who are suffering, friends that we have, co-workers, people in our family. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:19 Highlight the passage at 1:58:19

1:58:57 Who are suffering in some way. And dedicating the merit to them and then also dedicating the merit to huge amounts of people who are suffering. People in Syria, people in prison, people in Tibet. Dedicating all of our good karma. We don't lose any of it by giving it away. It's the most amazing aspect. So dedicating it to our getting enlightened for their sake. To take away their suffering. To be able to. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:57 Highlight the passage at 1:58:57

1:59:27 To getting inspired to do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:27 Highlight the passage at 1:59:27

1:59:33 Okay, so don't get overwhelmed. It is a bit thick, but you're going to have a couple weeks to try this. And even if you don't have time to meditate on it, try reading it through, because then you still get familiar with it. And while you're handing it out, I'll make announcements. So this Sunday, we have a talk by Professor Mark Levy on emptiness in Eastern and Western art. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:33 Highlight the passage at 1:59:33

1:59:59 So Sunday morning, 10 o 'clock, something different. Guy Newland is coming the first weekend of March, the second to the fourth, to talk on Lama Tsongkhapa's lamrim. Specifically, he is the editor of the teachings that His Holiness the Dalai Lama did in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania about five years ago on the lamrim from a booklet that he himself carried out of Tibet. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:59 Highlight the passage at 1:59:59

2:00:26 And so he's sort of talking about why he chose that particular lamrim to teach. John Landau is coming to talk about Tonglen, which is the other of the methods to attain bodhicitta, the exchange of self and others. That's the Tonglen aspect. And so he's going to do that the middle weekend of March 16th and 17th. It's a Friday night and Saturday. Tubton Children is coming to talk about Joyful Effort on Tuesday night, the 20th of March. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:26 Highlight the passage at 2:00:26

2:00:59 And just a reminder that we aren't having class next week. So I think that's it. Okay. Great, thank you. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:59 Highlight the passage at 2:00:59

2:01:18 Are we out? Report an error in the passage at 2:01:18 Highlight the passage at 2:01:18

2:01:23 Oh, actually that's for Theo. I keep bringing it for him now. Did you ever get this? Would you like this hard copy? Okay. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:23 Highlight the passage at 2:01:23

2:01:38 I can send it to your email. Okay, okay. I just need to actually remember to do that. Can I use your phone? Can I use your pen, Lori? worry. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:38 Highlight the passage at 2:01:38

2:01:50 I'm just going to make a quick call. I've got a limited minutes on it. I'll write on this. That's such a pretty envelope. You know what? Report an error in the passage at 2:01:50 Highlight the passage at 2:01:50

2:02:03 Jenna, could you bring me a little scrap of paper? I'm going to write a note to myself to send Russ the email. I mean the homework. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:03 Highlight the passage at 2:02:03

2:02:32 Thank you, dear. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:32 Highlight the passage at 2:02:32

2:02:37 Thanks, Mom. I know that you didn't know about. Now you know the sperm donors. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:37 Highlight the passage at 2:02:37

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:03:24 Okay, I just made a note for it, so hopefully I'll remember. That means Dick Cheney. Front and center, man. He was your mom. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:24 Highlight the passage at 2:03:24

2:03:36 That's a sobering thought. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:36 Highlight the passage at 2:03:36

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:04:45 Oh, Report an error in the passage at 2:04:45 Highlight the passage at 2:04:45

2:05:03 I got it. Are we leaning up against the wall back here? Report an error in the passage at 2:05:03 Highlight the passage at 2:05:03

2:05:37 I will see you. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:37 Highlight the passage at 2:05:37