Samsara and Nirvana - How we got into this mess and how to get out! (11 March 2008)

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0:55 Actually, we're going to talk about this throughout the course, but we'll introduce Lama and his friends tonight. We're going to start with a little meditation. So you Report an error in the passage at 0:55 Highlight the passage at 0:55

1:14 just kind of find a comfortable place on your cushion. It's a very long one. We're just going to set our minds and motivate. Report an error in the passage at 1:14 Highlight the passage at 1:14

1:29 So just find your comfort zone. Check your spine. Make sure that your shoulders level and back. Report an error in the passage at 1:29 Highlight the passage at 1:29

1:45 Eyes can be either open or closed. It was taught that... It's really better for us to learn and meditate with our eyes, so developing a deeper state of concentration. But I know personally for me, meditating in a group, I always. Report an error in the passage at 1:45 Highlight the passage at 1:45

2:12 Usually in this tradition, we have them in our laps, or you can also hold them at the level about four finger widths below your navel. You Report an error in the passage at 2:12 Highlight the passage at 2:12

2:25 can put something under it, like I used a rolled up shawl. When you're sitting in full bodge or posture, that's just where they rest. Report an error in the passage at 2:25 Highlight the passage at 2:25

2:41 Or if it's more comfortable for you, you can also just rest Report an error in the passage at 2:41 Highlight the passage at 2:41

2:51 your tongue. It usually goes on the roof of your mouth, and the reason for that is just to keep your mouth moist so you don't have to swallow so much. None of this stuff really matters so much for a short meditation, but as you get into longer and longer periods of meditation, it's good to know the reasoning behind these things. Report an error in the passage at 2:51 Highlight the passage at 2:51

3:13 If you want to directly perceive emptiness in this lifetime, you need to be able to get into deeper and deeper states of meditation. And even swallowing is distracting. Report an error in the passage at 3:13 Highlight the passage at 3:13

3:27 It's hard to imagine that now. Report an error in the passage at 3:27 Highlight the passage at 3:27

3:32 I'm just going to start letting our, you know, take some nice deep cleansing breaths. With each breath, just imagining you're coming more and more into your body, more and more into this room, and just dissolving away everything that might keep you from being here. All distractions, all the activities of the day has taken for you to come here tonight, you know, whether it's public or driving or parking, dramas you've just encountered. Report an error in the passage at 3:32 Highlight the passage at 3:32

4:09 Start Report an error in the passage at 4:09 Highlight the passage at 4:09

4:25 by watching your breath for a round of ten cycles. Just an in-breath and an out-breath. An in-breath and an out-breath. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

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14:25 number three on page. That's this page and I'm encouraged Report an error in the passage at 14:25 Highlight the passage at 14:25

14:33 do it once into then. Report an error in the passage at 14:33 Highlight the passage at 14:33

14:46 Jankshu-bar-du-dag-ni-kapsu-shi-i-chang-nyen-gi-pay-san-ang Dro-la-pen-shir-sang-de-dru-par I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient. Report an error in the passage at 14:46 Highlight the passage at 14:46

15:30 So let's do on the next page, we'll just say it once, generating the mind of enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 15:30 Highlight the passage at 15:30

15:38 With a 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 destroy the miseries of the Report an error in the passage at 15:38 Highlight the passage at 15:38

16:18 Lord. I thought we could open up with some questions if anybody has any. Last time we started, we sort of dived in to the deep end on the first week and started talking about all the kinds of suffering that the Buddha observed. And then I handed out lots of suffering for you to think about this week. And I thought it was very interesting when I saw that from Master Kamala Shila who wrote this Stages of Meditation, which is a great part of developing deep meditation. Report an error in the passage at 16:18 Highlight the passage at 16:18

16:50 that his very first thing was think about suffering and start with does anybody have an idea why that might be a good thing to think about when you're starting to learn community? Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50

17:07 Sorry. We like to use the mic because we record everything and upload it. I think that's a good idea actually because we do need to have compassion for ourselves and we do need to develop patience for ourselves. Yeah, it is good to open your heart. What I think he's getting at, actually, is that we need a reason. Because it's not very easy. Report an error in the passage at 17:07 Highlight the passage at 17:07

17:37 It's actually, it's like you kind of want it to be more exciting. You have to make it just a commitment and you just have to do it every day. And so I think that's what it's at. He doesn't get to why, actually. But that's what I think he's getting at, is that... You do need to start with compassion because you need to have a reason to do it day after day. But I think that's a good point too. Report an error in the passage at 17:37 Highlight the passage at 17:37

18:06 You also need to have compassion for yourself. You're going to do it every day. And every day is not going to be as pretty a picture as you really want it to be. But anyway, go ahead. Report an error in the passage at 18:06 Highlight the passage at 18:06

18:24 Just to go back to what you talked about last week with the Four Noble Truths, I'd always been taught that the Fourth Noble Truth, That there is a way out of suffering, was the Noble Eightfold Path. But in the readings, it seemed an Eightfold Path was mentioned, and then other things were mentioned too, and it didn't seem like that same Noble Eightfold Path that I'm familiar with. Report an error in the passage at 18:24 Highlight the passage at 18:24

18:47 Yeah, it's interesting. I think in the Tibetan tradition, the Noble Eightfold Path isn't taught as much, and I think it's more of a Sutrayana, and I think the Tibetan way is more Vajrayana, it's more Tantric. But I have seen that too. But that's not the way. When I learned, you know, the path comes in a different way. Report an error in the passage at 18:47 Highlight the passage at 18:47

19:10 It's presented in a different way. I think it gets to the same result. It's just a different presentation of the same material, you know. But interesting. Yeah. I think you're going to run into that in every one of the teachings. You're going to have all these different ways of just presenting the same material. Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:30 It just didn't seem clear. You know, the way it was presented. Oh. what way? didn't understand. What did it say? Um, okay. Um. It Report an error in the passage at 19:30 Highlight the passage at 19:30

19:53 talks about the five paths, the four close placements of mindfulness, the four miraculous powers, the four pure abandonments, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the eightfold path. To go to the back of Liberation and look up all those things. The five paths is referring to, and we have talked about this in other classes, is referring to the path of preparation, the path of accumulation, the path of preparation, the path of seeing, the path of habituation and the path of learning. Report an error in the passage at 19:53 Highlight the passage at 19:53

20:30 And so the path of accumulation is where you're accumulating all the merit. morning. Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

20:36 To even be able to begin to understand inferentially what the nature of reality is all about. Path of Preparation is where you're studying and meditating on emptiness and trying to get an inferential realization. Path of Seeing is that really short one where you basically, because you've already developed this really deep meditation state, you enter that deep meditation state and one day your karma ripens and you are directly able to perceive the nature of reality. Report an error in the passage at 20:36 Highlight the passage at 20:36

21:06 That you've been sort of gearing up for. And then you immediately, as soon as you come down from that state of meditation, enter a path that's basically getting used to the whole experience of having directly perceived emptiness forever after changing your mental continuum from ordinary being to ordinary being. Report an error in the passage at 21:06 Highlight the passage at 21:06

21:26 So that's meditating, path of meditation or path of situation. And the path of memory we're learning is basically in living itself. Report an error in the passage at 21:26 Highlight the passage at 21:26

21:35 So the first two and the fourth one are all quite long, many lifetimes. Report an error in the passage at 21:35 Highlight the passage at 21:35

21:45 I think all those lists are just other ways of describing this whole path. This is from a standpoint of removing all the obscurations to how you see the nature of reality. Report an error in the passage at 21:45 Highlight the passage at 21:45

22:09 I think it is funky to have just a bunch of lists like that and not explain what they are. So I apologize for some of the reading that Discovering Buddhism program hands down. So I'll see if some of them are on the glossary. I'm making, I guess, a glossary of a lot of these terms, and I just didn't get it copied this week. So I'll go and make sure that at least some of those things are on there. Report an error in the passage at 22:09 Highlight the passage at 22:09

22:33 But I think it's just another way of describing the entire path to enlightenment. so that you can Report an error in the passage at 22:33 Highlight the passage at 22:33

22:40 Which is really what the Noble Eightfold Path is too. Noble Eightfold Path is really talking a lot about, as I understand it, which I'm not even all that familiar with, and I have to go speak on it next weekend. No, just one aspect, speech. My favorite one. I was like, okay, let me do that one, because I know I mess it up, so that means that I, you know, at least I know what it is. Report an error in the passage at 22:40 Highlight the passage at 22:40

23:03 But yeah, there's a part that's on ethics, right? I think that the second... three or four, I think it's on ethics, right speech, right life, and how I think it's right. Yeah, so I'm not even aware of that. That's funny, you said the two that came I think it's just presented in different ways. The Lamrim teaching is the graduated path to enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 23:03 Highlight the passage at 23:03

23:38 I remember originally came from Lama Atisha and then after him, Lama Tsongkhapa, taking the Buddhist teachings and putting them in a way that they thought would work for Tibetan minds, which I think actually we have a lot in common with Tibetan minds because we have this kind of wildness to us that is hard to tame. Report an error in the passage at 23:38 Highlight the passage at 23:38

23:58 We may not have the same delusions. It seems like pride is a big one with them. That one comes up a lot. But we just have the reverse of it, which is low self-esteem. So I think it still works. But I think it's just a different presentation. Report an error in the passage at 23:58 Highlight the passage at 23:58

24:16 It just seems easier, like more accessible, like maybe I could do those eight things, like, you know, watch my speech and have right livelihood and, you know, reality and the other things. But when you talk about, like, path of accumulation, it just seems, like you said, that's many, many, many, many lifetimes. Report an error in the passage at 24:16 Highlight the passage at 24:16

24:39 So it seems a lot more... But not inherently easier. It's easier for your mind. It's good to remember that. It's easier for your mind because you happen to have a karmic connection maybe with the Eightfold Path. For me, it doesn't really. I'd rather know. And the thing is, we don't know where we are on those paths. That's it. We don't know where we are on those paths. Report an error in the passage at 24:39 Highlight the passage at 24:39

25:00 And when that karma is suddenly going to ripen during meditation, we just don't know. I definitely know that at this point I can't hold my mind on the object long enough. Report an error in the passage at 25:00 Highlight the passage at 25:00

25:10 But it could change, and I'm hanging on to that. So it's presented in different ways, and the Buddha did this during his lifetime too, because our minds are all different. So there's not one way that's going to reach all minds. And so, you know, he started that, and then all these other masters are continuing it, thinking of different ways to present the same material so that it'll make sense to various minds. Report an error in the passage at 25:10 Highlight the passage at 25:10

25:33 Yeah, so maybe you stick with the A's. Yes, stick with the A's. I like Then you can come give that talk next week. I like that wheel at Spirit Rock. Have you guys ever been to Spirit Rock? We're going there actually, the team group. Well they have this wheel and you can spin the wheel and I always feel like wherever the wheel lands, that's what I need to work on right now. Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

25:52 What's it on, the eightfold house? Yeah, yeah, so like we're laying on right speech and it's like . Mine are just always on. Any other questions though? Have you guys been thinking about it? Is it making sense to you? Did you have time to even read through it? Because I know it was a lot to kind of throw at you. And I'm going to give it to you for another week. Report an error in the passage at 25:52 Highlight the passage at 25:52

26:14 I mean, honestly, if all you did is just... There's a kind of meditation in the Tibetan tradition that's called review meditation. I can't remember what it is in Tibetan. Where you're basically just... Reviewing the points of something before you take it to the next level, which would be to then take one of those things and sit with it. So if that's all you do, that's great. Report an error in the passage at 26:14 Highlight the passage at 26:14

26:36 Because that's the way in. So if you just decide you're just going to read through it over breakfast every morning, I mean, considering hoping that your partner or whatever is okay with the idea, but I mean, to just read through it every day is great. That's a great start. I'd love it if at some point before the end of the week you grabbed one and went a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 26:36 Highlight the passage at 26:36

26:56 But just one. It's kind of interesting to take one, for those who have the time, because I don't know what kind of time you guys have, but to take one and to look at how it might pop up in your life in a day. So, and I think a really good example is not getting what you want. You know, because we were really aware that with little kids, right? The ice cream man comes, little kid. Report an error in the passage at 26:56 Highlight the passage at 26:56

27:21 I mean, I remember one of that, like you hear the bell and it's just like your entire being. Became wrapped up in getting the quarter at that point. And like dating myself. And then like racing out to catch him and like getting it and if you got it, it was like bliss. And if you missed it because he turned the quarter and left without you, it was just like you were just inconsolable, you know? Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:46 And we do that all the time. Like we think, oh, isn't that cute, you know, ah, there are five, you know, but we do it all the time. It's like, oh, there's a pretty space. Okay, got it. You know, and then it's just like our whole, you know, whatever. So it's interesting to watch how these sufferings pop up in our minds on a daily basis so that it doesn't sound like just words on paper because it has to go beyond words on paper for it to begin to mean something. Report an error in the passage at 27:46 Highlight the passage at 27:46

28:14 Did anybody else have a question about either the reading or the... Report an error in the passage at 28:14 Highlight the passage at 28:14

28:28 He's not getting what he wanted. Yeah. You talked about specific antidotes to suffering and the different kinds of suffering, kind of creating your own toolbox, so to speak. Antidotes to the delusions, actually. Yeah, that's what we're going to start dealing with next week. Okay. That's my question. Yeah, we're going to spend three classes on it. We're actually going to, tonight we're actually going to talk about, we're going to introduce the Wheel of Life and we're going to talk a little bit about how individuals get into the Wheel of Life, which is the death process. Report an error in the passage at 28:28 Highlight the passage at 28:28

29:05 So we'll talk a little bit about the death process, which those of you who have taken the death class, Sandy could actually come up and teach it. We'll talk a little bit about, especially the death dissolution. That dissolution process and then the bardo and then how we as different sentient beings, so right now we are who we are, but in the scheme of things we actually travel from realm to realm, body to body. Report an error in the passage at 29:05 Highlight the passage at 29:05

29:33 Our subtle mind goes from life to life. So we'll talk a little bit about that tonight and the school of life. And then only in the context of that we'll talk about karma, but then the mechanics of karma we're going to get into at the beginning of the next episode. It just was too much to try to put it in a comfortable way. Report an error in the passage at 29:33 Highlight the passage at 29:33

29:52 So if there are no more questions, I'll go ahead and get started. This wheel of life is actually going to be our sort of teaching tool for the whole series, although what I'm going to try to do is have you guys each have your own little one so that David doesn't have to get up on the ladder and yank it off the wall each time. Report an error in the passage at 29:52 Highlight the passage at 29:52

30:12 The story of this painting... This is the only painting that I am aware of. It actually came off from outside. I saw Sandy looking around trying to find a hole. We stuck somebody else up. No. Report an error in the passage at 30:12 Highlight the passage at 30:12

30:27 We keep a few in the back room. This is one of the only paintings that the Buddha himself actually designed and commissioned. Report an error in the passage at 30:27 Highlight the passage at 30:27

30:39 There's this story that there are these two kings, and I can't remember their names, two Indian kings, who had a sort of correspondence relationship they'd never actually met, but they would send each other letters, and then eventually they began sending each other gifts, and they were always kind of outdoing each other in their gifts. Report an error in the passage at 30:39 Highlight the passage at 30:39

30:58 So the one king sent this amazing jewel that, what did it do? I can't remember. It wasn't a wish for filling, but it was like a... Some jewel that enabled you to do something amazing. I can't remember now what it was. And so the one king was really depressed actually when he got it because how could he top this? Report an error in the passage at 30:58 Highlight the passage at 30:58

31:19 So he kind of was like, you know, what do I do? He kind of got depressed and his ministers were like, I think you should go ask the Buddha. Buddha happened to be around in that time period and in his region. And so he went to him and asked him what he should do. And the Buddha said, to do this painting and he described exactly to the artist what it was. At first he was actually going to send a painting of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:47 That's right, there was that story. He was going to send an actual painting of the Buddha and then the artist found it incredibly difficult to actually capture the Buddha on canvas which we talked a little bit about in the qualities of the Buddha in the refuge class last time because he was so amazingly gorgeous. Report an error in the passage at 31:47 Highlight the passage at 31:47

32:06 Because he embodied all of these amazing qualities that we just frustrated to. So the artist would just get dazzled and then they couldn't paint him. So then he even tried this thing where he would be through gauze and the artist still couldn't do it. So then he said, okay, how about this? He described this whole painting and the artist did it and the king was like, okay, sure. Report an error in the passage at 32:06 Highlight the passage at 32:06

32:29 And he said, not only that, not only do I want you to send it to him, I want you to send it with... He's a whole entourage and I want you to tell him how to receive it because this is the most precious painting he can ever receive. So the king sent a messenger ahead of it describing how this king should receive it and the king was actually a little put off. He was kind of bossy telling me how to receive your gift and actually started to raise up an army. Report an error in the passage at 32:29 Highlight the passage at 32:29

33:00 I guess they did a lot. So then his ministers fortunately calmed him down and said, look, let's just wait and see what the painting is. So they all knew it was going to be this amazing painting. And so then they got this, so they met him the way he said, they brought it in, they unrolled it. It was this painting, and he looked at it, and it was the description of it, which for us is in Tibetan at the bottom, says that it is the wheel of life, and understanding this wheel of life. Report an error in the passage at 33:00 Highlight the passage at 33:00

33:32 Will lead you to Nirvāṇa, because you'll understand how it all works, how it all fits together. So apparently he took it upstairs to his, you know, suites at the palace, contemplated it and became an Arhat, which means he attained Nirvāṇa just by studying this painting. Report an error in the passage at 33:32 Highlight the passage at 33:32

33:50 So this is the one painting that the Buddha is said to have sort of directed that this should be outside of every temple. This should be outside. So most of the monasteries in Tibet actually have this on the door and that somebody should be around to explain it to people. I guess we fall a little short on that one. Report an error in the passage at 33:50 Highlight the passage at 33:50

34:12 So what you're trying to do is to understand how, basically it's sort of like the sub line of this class, how we got into this mess and how we get out. This is the wheel of saṃsāra. This is showing saṃsāra. So just a little bit to describe it. The monster holding it in his mouth is who? Any ideas? Report an error in the passage at 34:12 Highlight the passage at 34:12

34:45 Yama. Yama, well done. It's Yama, the lord of death, which of course is depicted as a monster, but it's simply death. It's not an outside monster. It's simply the fact that we have to die. It becomes rather monstrous when you're face to face with it. So that's why it's depicted as a monster. Report an error in the passage at 34:45 Highlight the passage at 34:45

35:06 Oh, so see the guy with the, maybe, my lovely assistant, would you mind standing up for a second? Yeah, I wish I had brought my laser pointer. I'll tell you, bring it, bring it from now on. We won't, we won't use it every time. There he is. And see, he's got his fangs and he's holding it and his little feet on the bottom. His little feet kicking out to the side. Report an error in the passage at 35:06 Highlight the passage at 35:06

35:33 No, just the Lord of Death. That's the way he's described, the Lord of Death. Yeah, very good. And he's holding it in his mouth because that, of course, this is how we move from life to life, is through this process of doorway of death. But we have no control over it at this point. And what controls it is our karma. Report an error in the passage at 35:33 Highlight the passage at 35:33

36:03 We began to talk about love. You'll see sort of when we're going through the process of dying and the bardo, why it pays to work on your mind in this life. Because that's really the point, is we figure out what causes all this to happen and then we figure out what we can do about it. So it's not just like, you know, it sucks to be all of you, you know. Report an error in the passage at 36:03 Highlight the passage at 36:03

36:26 It's kind of like there's like a reason. There is a path, like in the Four Noble Truths, there is a path to that cessation. The cessation is what releases us from this. Report an error in the passage at 36:26 Highlight the passage at 36:26

36:37 So it goes clockwise. And the inside, very, very inside, no in, all the way in the very center, target right there, is, you see three beings. It's actually not depicted correctly on this one. It should be, there are three beings, and they are representing the delusions of anger. Report an error in the passage at 36:37 Highlight the passage at 36:37

37:06 I'm going to always say anger slash hatred because I actually think hatred is really the one that they're getting at. Desire, attachment is one. And ignorance is one. And it should be that the three animals are the snake is actually hatred. Report an error in the passage at 37:06 Highlight the passage at 37:06

37:26 And then there's a rat. I think that's that thing closest to you actually. Yeah, I think it is supposed to be. That's ignorance. And then there's like a pigeon, which I think must be the upside down one. I see a wing. Yeah, there you go. Sometimes it's a rooster, and that's desire. If you ever watch them in the park, you can see that. So they actually, both of their tails should be coming out of the rat's mouth, because ignorance causes the other two to arrive. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

38:01 And then around that... Really, around that, the bigger ones, the main, yeah, the bigger, yeah, the bigger one, these are the realms of existence. So we're going to start with that right now. And then around that is what's called the 12 lengths of interdependence or of dependent arising. And we're going to get to that in a later class. And that's really telling you at a really minute level kind of how... Report an error in the passage at 38:01 Highlight the passage at 38:01

38:36 How karma works. That's what we're going to get to. And there are all these different links and how they work together and how once you begin to realize how our minds work and how we come into contact with an object and then based on that object all these things arise and we act on that and then we create the karma and then the karma causes us. Report an error in the passage at 38:36 Highlight the passage at 38:36

38:59 And we do that with every single thing that we come into contact with. So it's not like we just create like one. you know branch of these 12 links daily it's like we're popping them out all the time and that's why we chain ourselves here we're gonna So the realms is basically, oh and one thing that's missing, I think on this one, is the moon. Report an error in the passage at 38:59 Highlight the passage at 38:59

39:28 There should be Buddha on the right pointing at See, I think he is there, right? And he's pointing. But there's no moon. He's supposed to be pointing at the moon. Oh, maybe it's a new moon. It's an artist's error, actually. And I saw it as soon as Stephen brought it back and we showed it to Geshe-la and that was the first thing he said. He was like, where's the moon? The moon is nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

39:55 So the Buddha is purposefully outside of... You can see he has the space for it. It's like the painting's... Report an error in the passage at 39:55 Highlight the passage at 39:55

40:04 Well, I think that they're, you know, we live in a degenerate age. Things are kind of wearing down. But it actually should be on the other side. When you see it, like little one by Andy Weber, you guys can't see it, but I'll pass it around. It's actually, he's on this side, and he's pointing, and that's all that's on the other side. It's quite easy to spot. I don't even know. Report an error in the passage at 40:04 Highlight the passage at 40:04

40:32 Buddha should be on the right corner. Buddha should be showing it. pointing the way to the moon because he's on the my yeah yeah yeah And this one also has the two tails coming out of the one mouth too. So the Buddha is purposefully outside of the wheel of life, right? Because he's beyond saṃsāra and he's pointing away at the moon, which is our way out, our way to nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 40:32 Highlight the passage at 40:32

41:14 maybe not. You might want to take notes, though, so. Yeah, I'm doing both. Yeah. This is where I need, see, I should have that little pointer. Yeah. No, no, you didn't know. I just took it out of my bag. I was carrying it around for so long. That's not right. This thing's kind of scary, anyway, because it's an eye thing. Report an error in the passage at 41:14 Highlight the passage at 41:14

41:34 Yeah. I took it out So, this is traditionally This is the six realms of existence. And after I sort of present them the traditional way, then I'll tell you some other ways that you can think about them. And we have talked about this in some classes. Some people might be familiar with this already, in which case you'll just hear it again. And some people might be brand new and just totally bizarre and just feel free. Report an error in the passage at 41:34 Highlight the passage at 41:34

42:05 At the end, ask me. It's better not to interrupt my train of thought because I'm very little retention. Um, so So remember to, and we'll talk about this more when we talk about how karma and emptiness work together, that you could also look at this as different states of mind. And so one of the things that we're going to talk about is sort of the state of mind that leads you to take a certain rebirth, what the dominant state of mind is in a certain realm. Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:40 Because, like everything else, our mind is responsible for us to have that experience. But you can't say that it only is a mind. It's not just a psychological experience. Because the Buddha would say, actually, that the experiences that we're having right now in this room, in this body, is also due to our mind. Report an error in the passage at 42:40 Highlight the passage at 42:40

43:03 And so we can't just dismiss it in that sense. But anyway, we'll get into that in a second. Okay, so The Buddha actually observed that there are three main realms, and this is only depicting six realms, so that's confusing, right? This is just depicting one of the three realms, so it's not really depicting the form and formless realms. Report an error in the passage at 43:03 Highlight the passage at 43:03

43:28 The form and formless realms, really briefly, are dealing with these two realms, very high realms. Usually very blissful realms, not much in the way of gross suffering at all in them. And they're usually the result of having done deep meditation but no motivation to benefit others. So it's just deep meditation for its own sake or for the bliss that you might receive from it. They're both much subtler. Report an error in the passage at 43:28 Highlight the passage at 43:28

44:08 We're actually in the grossest realm. don't know. Sorry. Which is partly why it's called the desire realm. Our realm is permeated by desire, according to the Buddha, which I think actually is rather apt. Grows desire, so it's usually in the form of desire for food or desire for sex, they say. And it's made up of these six sub-realms, which we're going to get into. Report an error in the passage at 44:08 Highlight the passage at 44:08

44:32 The form realm is much more subtle. They still have some desire. But they don't have, it's much more subtle. It's not for food or sex. The formless realm is even subtler, even more refined. And those beings don't even have bodies, they're just minds. So it's even more subtle. Report an error in the passage at 44:32 Highlight the passage at 44:32

44:59 So the form realm is, it's sort of like, Sandy asked a question last week about the difference between nirvāṇa and... The formless realm, right? So Nirvāṇa is out of saṃsāra completely. Whereas these two are actually, you're still going into these states due to karma and delusions. Your delusions are very, very limited at this point. Once you start going into these deep states of meditation, because you're not talking to anyone. Report an error in the passage at 44:59 Highlight the passage at 44:59

45:37 You're definitely not punching anybody. The amount of negative... Karma that you create is limited because you're meditating deeply all the time. So it's sort of like you sort of protect yourself in a way by going into these deep states of meditation, but there's still selfishness involved. So it's more subtle. It's not like you're grabbing all the candy or something like that or stealing that last parking space. But you're definitely just doing it for your own benefit and your own pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 45:37 Highlight the passage at 45:37

46:10 And when your karma for having taken this rebirth into either the form or form this realm, they're very similar, ends, you've just wasted a lot of good karma. And then there's nothing left but negative karma. And so then you take a lower rebirth. So basically from the point of view of the Buddha and Lama Tsongkhapa who was gathering these, you know, the Lamrim together. Report an error in the passage at 46:10 Highlight the passage at 46:10

46:41 It's sort of just a colossal waste of time. It's blissful to be in these states for eons and eons, they say, to be born in the form or formless realm. But ultimately, in terms of being able to benefit others, it's not very useful. Or even to benefit yourself, because you haven't gotten yourself out of saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 46:41 Highlight the passage at 46:41

47:00 You're still just riding on your good karma when that's up. Then there's not a whole lot else you can do. Okay, so then desire realm is made up of... Report an error in the passage at 47:00 Highlight the passage at 47:00

47:13 We're in the human realm, clearly. And they actually say that this is the best place for us to take rebirth at this point. I mean, clearly it would be great to take. There is another place that we could be born, which is called the Pure Land, and I'm going to get into that one afterwards. But within these six realms... Report an error in the passage at 47:13 Highlight the passage at 47:13

47:36 They say that a human rebirth is quite good to practice the Dharma because we experience both suffering and happiness. So we have a way to sort of measure, we have a way to see how the Dharma works. We have a way to understand this first teaching of the suffering. Because most of us have had some experience of suffering in our life already. Some of us have had a lot of suffering in our life. Report an error in the passage at 47:36 Highlight the passage at 47:36

48:02 And so they say actually that the human realm is a good realm to be in. Now clearly there are all sorts of human rebirths, right? We've all seen people who have had really horrifying human rebirths as well as people who have amazing human rebirths, at least from where we sit, right? It looks pretty amazing, maybe actually horrific. Sometimes movie stars and stuff or celebrities look like they have a really great rebirth and then they actually are quite miserable. Report an error in the passage at 48:02 Highlight the passage at 48:02

48:29 And sometimes people have really horrifying looking rebirths and they're actually quite happy, so it's hard for us to tell. The causes for a human rebirth, it's taught that the causes to attain a human rebirth, so we've already gotten one, are practicing morality and making prayers. So that's an interesting thought. So that means that somehow we've created the causes of this rebirth. Report an error in the passage at 48:29 Highlight the passage at 48:29

48:59 I like to know what the causes are just so that if I want another one, I'll know what to do. I think that's useful to know that this is so that you can create the causes. Report an error in the passage at 48:59 Highlight the passage at 48:59

49:13 The next, so the human realm I believe is, I believe it is on the right side, they're sort of all running around. Do you see them there? On the right top, sorry. Yeah, there. Working? Yeah, I think that's the humans there. And then you have, the very top is the gods, and then the ones next to them are the demigods. Report an error in the passage at 49:13 Highlight the passage at 49:13

49:43 Yeah. So the god realms is also a very blissful state. I think the Pure Lands actually is in a god realm, isn't it? I think that's true. I think I asked Eshala because it came up in another class. I think it's considered... I'll find that out. Let me not say that for sure. But I actually think what's called a pure land is actually considered a God realm. Report an error in the passage at 49:43 Highlight the passage at 49:43

50:12 But maybe I'm wrong, so don't take that one. Delete. The God realms is a little bit like we described the form and formless realm. I've actually heard some... Some teachers call it the realm of, like gods are called pleasure beings, which actually in some ways is better, I think, because we have so many other associations with the word gods. Report an error in the passage at 50:12 Highlight the passage at 50:12

50:34 But in some ways I can kind of see it because it sort of sounds like the old Greek gods. You know, it's like that, the way they describe it. It's a lot of pleasure, a lot of beauty. People are said to have great, amazing beauty. And you're just non-stop pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34

50:53 It's sort of what you're getting. And the cause of this one is just having done good or done virtue, but not with any greater motivation. Not to benefit others. There's no sense of bodhicitta. So you've done virtuous. You've created a lot of virtue and it ripens as a blissful experience, but it's not necessarily that you have been working for Buddhahood, for example. Report an error in the passage at 50:53 Highlight the passage at 50:53

51:17 You haven't necessarily had a spiritual path. You just simply have been generally... All around good guy. And that creates, I mean I do mean all around too because you have to create quite a bit of virtue to end up with this life. And you just have this constant pleasure for they say eons and eons but then what happens the karma again runs out because what causes our experience in each of these realms to continue is our karmic. Report an error in the passage at 51:17 Highlight the passage at 51:17

51:49 The amount of karma that we have created is what keeps us there. It keeps us experiencing things. When that karma ends, for that life, that's what we call death. That's simply what death is, is that the karma for that life exists and it's done. Our karma for conditions within our life can change before our death comes. Report an error in the passage at 51:49 Highlight the passage at 51:49

52:16 You could have a really great situation, and I think we've all heard people like this, we have a really great situation, you know, somebody that you really love and a family that you, you know, are taking care of or whatever, and then suddenly everything shifts and the husband leaves you and the kid dies or something like that, you know, so like one day you're literally between, you know, only a day or two, you have everything and then suddenly you don't. Report an error in the passage at 52:16 Highlight the passage at 52:16

52:42 Or... You're the king of a country and suddenly you're overthrown. This one we hear about a lot, right? You have almost like limitless power and then suddenly you're hated. In fact, nobody wants you in their country. You're trying to move into a country with all of your wives or something and nobody wants you in. Report an error in the passage at 52:42 Highlight the passage at 52:42

53:04 And that can happen overnight as well. So we sort of can see... This God experience, but we see it in this way that it can change. And the gods, they say, experience this God-like experience of this blissful happiness for eons and eons before their karma shifts. Because one day in the God realm is said to be many, many years of our existence. The other one that's right next to it is sometimes called the Demi-God, the one that Karen pointed out before. Report an error in the passage at 53:04 Highlight the passage at 53:04

53:39 to the left of it demigods or the um also called ashuras yeah the gods are called shuras in the um in Sanskrit and the demigods are called ashuras like demigods so much It's kind of an odd word, but anyway the idea is that they're almost gods, like they're not quite, it's like the... It's like the starlets, but not the stars. It's like, yeah, it's like the celebrities who can't quite carry a film, you know, but they can be, they're like, you know, they're there. Report an error in the passage at 53:39 Highlight the passage at 53:39

54:18 They might even be on the poster, but they're kind of down on the bottom rather than, you know, right in the main line. And they say they actually have a very, they also have a lot of beauty. They have long lives, these amazingly long lives. They have a lot of things. But their mental state is pervaded by jealousy constantly towards the existence and the belongings of these gods. Report an error in the passage at 54:18 Highlight the passage at 54:18

54:42 And so they're constantly fighting them, and of course the gods always win. So it's this constant catch-22 where they have this incredible life that's filled with pleasure, but they can't appreciate it. Report an error in the passage at 54:42 Highlight the passage at 54:42

54:57 Sound like anybody we know? I mean, at the end we're going to talk about one way to see this, and that's... I think it's really easy to see these things in our own reality, actually in our own life. The animals, which I think, yeah, are over here. Oh, this one is on the right. Yeah, you're right. Who knows? Report an error in the passage at 54:57 Highlight the passage at 54:57

55:21 On this one, it's on the right. But anyway, the animal realms, we actually can see animals, so it doesn't take too much of a leap. The gods and the demigods, we are at this point sort of left with trusting the Buddha on that one. Report an error in the passage at 55:21 Highlight the passage at 55:21

55:37 But in the Buddhist tradition, they say that it's not as great to be born as an animal, not because humans are in charge of the world. Sometimes people hear these teachings and they... The whole Christian, I think, teaching on humans and animals is really different because that was sort of like you are the steward of the earth and you can do whatever you want, right? Report an error in the passage at 55:37 Highlight the passage at 55:37

56:01 This isn't where Buddha is coming from at all. The Buddha is basically saying animals, all of these beings have minds that are exactly like our minds except different levels or different degrees of obscuration. So animals have more obscuration and so it's only from the attitude of, What's the best way for me to transform my mind so that I can help others? And Buddhists have a heart, I mean Buddhists, and animals have a harder time because they have more inspiration. Report an error in the passage at 56:01 Highlight the passage at 56:01

56:31 And if you spend any time looking at, you know, your animal, if you have animals, you can kind of see, especially those that it feels like they must have had a human rebirth fairly recently because they really are trying. You can see they're like really trying to get what you're getting at, but they just... Report an error in the passage at 56:31 Highlight the passage at 56:31

56:49 can't. And the Buddha actually said that the only reasoning is because they have karmic observations, which can't clear. We have, according to the Buddha, been all of these things. There hasn't been a realm that we haven't already visited many, many, many times. We have also been animals. And it's a lot more suffering in the animal realm because they have even less control than most of us. Report an error in the passage at 56:49 Highlight the passage at 56:49

57:13 How about how they're treated, how they're raised, how they eat, where they go, what they do. I mean, a lot of us will look at like a pet, but even they don't have any control. They're forced to eat cat chow or something, you know, may not be what they really had in mind. Report an error in the passage at 57:13 Highlight the passage at 57:13

57:30 So, but especially if you see animals that are, you know, raised to either be eaten or to carry loads or things like that, you know, in India a lot, especially in Tibet as well, yeah, you see animals. They don't even have room for traffic, they'll just have these small paths and things, they'll just have animals carrying these enormous loads, and some of the animals are really thin, especially in India. Report an error in the passage at 57:30 Highlight the passage at 57:30

57:59 According to the Buddha, their minds are exactly like ours. They can think, they know, they can feel, and they simply just have this particular karmic appearance in this life. And they have this particular karmic obscurations of this life created through the acts that they've done with their bodies, which are exactly like we are experiencing certain karmic obscurations. Report an error in the passage at 57:59 Highlight the passage at 57:59

58:28 So animal mind is clear in knowing in the same way that God mind is clear in knowing and human mind is clear in knowing. In all the other realms, their mind itself is clear in knowing, but in this case it's just more obscured. The main cause of taking rebirth in the animal realm is ignorance. And especially the ignorance of how things actually exist. Report an error in the passage at 58:28 Highlight the passage at 58:28

58:56 So it's karma and emptiness. When Report an error in the passage at 58:56 Highlight the passage at 58:56

59:02 I say emptiness, I'm talking about things not existing in some solid, absolute way, the way we often perceive them, too. And we'll get into that a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 59:02 Highlight the passage at 59:02

59:13 It's sort of like the theory of relativity. Report an error in the passage at 59:13 Highlight the passage at 59:13

59:18 So then there's the spirits or the hungry ghosts. And that's that one and this one and this one is the opposite side. And that is created through craving and attachment. So the delusion of craving and attachment. And it creates this state where you just are filled with this constant craving. And that's what permeates this particular... Report an error in the passage at 59:18 Highlight the passage at 59:18

59:45 realm. And in the same way, I didn't really say that for the animal realm, the delusion that really permeates that realm is also ignorance. So you are born there, but then you're also in this environment. You're born there because of a lot of ignorance in your mind, but then you also are in this state of ignorance for a lot of it. Report an error in the passage at 59:45 Highlight the passage at 59:45

1:00:07 And so it's kind of hard. It's sort of like you create this habit of having this ignorant mind, so it's hard to break that cycle. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:07 Highlight the passage at 1:00:07

1:00:18 So in the spirit realm or the pratas, because the Buddha actually taught that this isn't like a separate place, that they're actually here. They're actually around us. We just don't have a karma to perceive them. And that they have this mind of constant craving. And for them, this suffering that we were talking about, not getting what you want, is extreme. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:18 Highlight the passage at 1:00:18

1:00:44 Because they're constantly seeing this sort of... It's almost like a mirage, you know, when it's really, really hot and you can see, it looks like you see something in a distance and then it turns out it's not there. That's like a constant kind of apparition for them. And so they are constantly sort of moving towards trying to find food and drink, especially food and drink, and not being able to get it. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:44 Highlight the passage at 1:00:44

1:01:08 Like everything that you desire arises in front of you and then it morphs into something else that you can't use or that you can't, you know, that's actually disgusting. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:08 Highlight the passage at 1:01:08

1:01:19 And so then the final one is the hell realms. And a lot of times people are kind of freaked out to hear that Buddhism has hell realms. But the good thing is that all of these things are impermanent. There's no lasting anything. And actually we've already been there. So this is created by a mind of extreme aversion or hatred. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:19 Highlight the passage at 1:01:19

1:01:46 And that's the mind that pervades it. It's just constant hatred and aversion towards everyone and everything. It's just a sort of undistracted mind of hatred. And so that's what it's like. So all the torturing of it and all the pain and the suffering comes from that constant state of mind. And that's the mind that creates it and that's the mind that you are constantly within. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:46 Highlight the passage at 1:01:46

1:02:13 So the way that these realms are taught traditionally, if you read a book, for example, like Liberation in the Palm of Your Hands or Liberation in Your Hands, is that they are places that you can go to, you know, and that's the way that they're traditionally taught. And so that's the way I kind of was describing them there. But for me, it's kind of hard to get my mind around that. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:13 Highlight the passage at 1:02:13

1:02:35 Actually, I mean, I'll spend a lot of time, I have spent a lot of time in retreat just trying to memorize all the sufferings of the various realms so that I can meditate on it. But it's like somebody else describing something that, it's like somebody describing third hand what some place looked like in Warsaw. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:35 Highlight the passage at 1:02:35

1:02:56 You know, it's kind of like I can't quite get my mind around it. I'm willing, you know, it's full, the Buddha taught it. They say that actually the Buddha took his sort of main two disciples to these realms. So they saw it with their own eyes and then they could come back and really teach, you know, like, oh my God, you guys, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:56 Highlight the passage at 1:02:56

1:03:15 But we haven't had that experience, you know. We can look at this and it's like, hmm, okay. So for me it actually is easier to get my mind around it when I just look at it in terms of this reality on this planet right now, what I can see. Then it makes more sense to me. And in that sense, you can see the hell realms is like any place where there's constant fighting and war, whether it's L.A. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:15 Highlight the passage at 1:03:15

1:03:42 or whether it's Iraq. Or just any kind of constant hatred. So it could be any inner city thing. It doesn't have to be even a gangland, but just any kind of where that's the dominant mind. And. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:42 Highlight the passage at 1:03:42

1:04:01 And you can also imagine it as being something that can instantly happen. I mean, because a lot of these places we've grown up hearing about, but some of them, you know, war-torn areas, but some of them happen almost instantly. You know, like how quickly the whole situation in Sarajevo and things like that happened, you know, like within our lifetime, like within actually a couple years of the Olympics. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:01 Highlight the passage at 1:04:01

1:04:26 That's kind of odd. So it's just like it went from being a place of like cafes and everyone seeming to have a good time and all of a sudden it's just constant bombing and hatred and warfare and literally within a very short time. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:26 Highlight the passage at 1:04:26

1:04:39 Actually the same is true in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well. You might have had troubles brewing and we may not have seen those troubles brewing but it did seem to happen instantly. Or you can think of a situation like 9-1-1. You know, I mean for those people that became a hell realm. They went in there thinking it was going to be a normal day at work. And it just shifted immediately. So for me, that's easier to get my mind around what a hell realm would be like than this kind of image, you know, which seems a little like Blake to me. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:39 Highlight the passage at 1:04:39

1:05:14 It's a little hard to get my mind around. Or to think about, you know, when you think about, you know, just the kind of hell that somebody who's born in an area where there's just never enough food. They're just never enough to eat or drink. And they're trying to raise their babies. I mean, that's a help. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:14 Highlight the passage at 1:05:14

1:05:36 That's definitely a help. Certainly a hungry ghost experience. That's actually a hungry ghost experience. You can never get enough food. It's almost like you can't even imagine getting enough food. That's a hungry ghost experience. But we can imagine it because we can read about it and we can even see it. Sometimes we can see it in person. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:36 Highlight the passage at 1:05:36

1:05:55 And we actually know, I've definitely seen humans who have lived almost like animals, just through the sheer force of poverty. And so for me it's easier to just take that, like to look at, really to contemplate deeply in meditation, how all of these things are all around us. Like right now. In this city, actually, that would be a project, is to just try to figure out a way that all of these things manifest even within this block. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:55 Highlight the passage at 1:05:55

1:06:29 Because somebody's in a hell realm right now being beaten by a husband probably on this very block, you know what I mean? So that kind of, it's like... These kind of realms can be totally surrounding us and it doesn't have to be little marching armies of gods and demigods fighting each other, which is a little kind of hard to grasp. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:29 Highlight the passage at 1:06:29

1:06:47 Just imagine those starlets down in LA or whatever and how pissed they are all the time that they can't get into, that their name doesn't make it on the poster or their part gets onto the cutting room floor. That's a little easier for me to get my mind around. But you can also think about it in terms of your own mind every day. You know? I can tell you. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:47 Highlight the passage at 1:06:47

1:07:14 Yesterday, I definitely, well, Sunday, was it Sunday? No. One day, it was in the last couple of days, I definitely hit, I think it was yesterday, I hit a hell row, you know? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:14 Highlight the passage at 1:07:14

1:07:24 And then I was able to pick it back up again, you know, so you can kind of like, you know, and actually today it's been almost like God-like, you know? It's been blissful. Then Rabina came to Pooja, and we had this great Pooja, and there was like this great, and we were like, it's wonderful working here. I was like crying tears of joy. You know when she told us to cry, Mary was there. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:24 Highlight the passage at 1:07:24

1:07:42 She told us that we should be crying tears of joy to be here. I was totally crying tears of joy. So I mean like even within a single day, you can go, your mind can go through all of these different experiences. Or when like real anger just bubbles up inside of you, you do become. It becomes a hell. It's a hell. You're controlled by that. It feels like you are anyway, which is almost what really matters. So the way that each of us, why don't I take, actually, if you guys have any questions about any of that, then the next aspect of it is sort of like, how do we get into it? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:42 Highlight the passage at 1:07:42

1:08:18 So that's when we go through the death process. So does anybody have any questions about the material that we just were talking about? Report an error in the passage at 1:08:18 Highlight the passage at 1:08:18

1:08:26 you think about you, Sandy, in the background? Report an error in the passage at 1:08:26 Highlight the passage at 1:08:26

1:08:30 all these realms would be umbrellaed. With saṃsāra? Yeah, this is all saṃsāra, including the form of formless, which isn't depicted on here. But it's still anything, as long as we're under the control of karma and the wacky minds that we have of jealousy, anger, hatred, attachment, whatever, which we lump under delusions, as long as we're controlled by that and we don't control it, which is true for all of us unless you guys are Buddhists, Report an error in the passage at 1:08:30 Highlight the passage at 1:08:30

1:09:03 we are in saṃsāra. So there's different ways of being in saṃsāra and sometimes it's not as extreme as others, but we're always forced to, that karma for that existence ends, we're forced to move on because we don't control it. So the ultimate goal is to get out of saṃsāra and into nirvāṇa? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:03 Highlight the passage at 1:09:03

1:09:28 From this tradition it would be to get out and get enlightened. Nirvāṇa is the path to enlightenment, right? I mean, it's not exactly enlightenment. No, it's not full enlightenment because you still have subtle obstacles to remove. In Nirvāṇa. In Nirvāṇa, yeah. So it's not full enlightenment, but it is the removal of the gross obscurations that cause this to happen. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:28 Highlight the passage at 1:09:28

1:09:52 So you would be out of that. So you're out of that. Yeah, yeah. So Nirvāṇa doesn't have a body. You're going to ask me this every class. They say that you can attain nirvāṇa in a lifetime. Like, you could attain it. Sandy goes into meditation and she begins working on all of her delusions and she's able to directly perceive emptiness and then keep working with that. And you actually are able to become an Arhat, like the king did when he perceived this. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:52 Highlight the passage at 1:09:52

1:10:22 It was easier in those days. We have finer minds than we do. And then you would... um but You would still have that body that you went into meditation with and came out with. But I think that's called the Nirvāṇa with remainder because you still have that body. But then in your next state, I believe you don't. But I, again, would have to check on that. In this Report an error in the passage at 1:10:22 Highlight the passage at 1:10:22

1:10:53 tradition, you can reach Nirvāṇa, but then you choose to come back again to help other people. On the Bodhisattva path, you would actually not even... go through nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:53 Highlight the passage at 1:10:53

1:11:08 So he would not have attained it. Not necessarily. He could be a fully enlightened Buddha and manifesting in the form of an ordinary being. And that's often taught, or a high level bodhisattva, that you would choose to do that because you want to, I mean first of all you do want to attain enlightenment in order to help all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:08 Highlight the passage at 1:11:08

1:11:32 In this tradition it's actually taught that Attaining enlightenment is the best way for us to be able to help others. So it's not just that we want to attain enlightenment, but it's actually our purpose is to help others remove their suffering and to gain happiness. And the best tool is for us to be enlightened, because then we can look into their minds, we can know exactly what would help them, we can teach them according to their needs and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:32 Highlight the passage at 1:11:32

1:11:57 We can manifest all these bodies in all these different forms, all these different qualities that the Buddha has. So in this tradition it's taught that actually becoming a Buddha is the best method. So it's hard to say with somebody like His Holiness, it's taught that He's the manifestation of Jinre, the Buddha of compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:57 Highlight the passage at 1:11:57

1:12:16 And that He's manifesting in a form like this to be able to help our minds. Because we don't have the karma to see Him as the Buddha of compassion who is right there. So He's manifesting in this form and that He's choosing to come back over and over again. To help us. And that many other beings are doing the same thing. And so they're manifesting in these sort of somewhat ordinary forms. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:16 Highlight the passage at 1:12:16

1:12:42 But that they're actually holy beings. They're actually either enlightened full Buddhas, like in his case, or high level bodhisattvas who are choosing continually to come back. So not necessarily all of them come back. There's part of their essence coming back to teach. Oh, exactly. It could be an emanation body. If it's a Buddha, then they send out emanation bodies. And also there's different Buddhas or different teachers in the Tibetan tradition that can be two incarnations. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:42 Highlight the passage at 1:12:42

1:13:13 Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have heard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we can. So the spirit can. The soul. The mind. The mind. The subtle mind. Yeah. Can manifest in two forms at the same time. Yeah. It's interesting that way. Well, like in The Little Buddha, right? Did anybody see the film The Little Buddha? Yeah, he actually manifested as three different little kids. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:13 Highlight the passage at 1:13:13

1:13:39 So they have, at a time, whatever is time, reached, have gone beyond the mind. They've transcended saṃsāra. They've transcended the suffering that we go through all the time. And they have reached a point where they have perfected their mind. Really, Buddha is described as... So they have these amazing qualities of mind, they've perfected every quality so it can't be perfected anymore. So it's like compassion to the nth degree, love to the nth degree, patience to the nth degree, wisdom to the nth degree, so that they know all, they are omniscient. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:39 Highlight the passage at 1:13:39

1:14:19 So they have this amazing mind and that is the Dharmakaya, that's the Buddhist mind. But then that mind is capable because they have these amazing powers that they can send out emanation bodies in whatever form might help you, for example. So it could be Cedric. Cedric could be a Buddha who's just manifesting as this kind of joshmo sitting next to you and like, you know, maybe on the way out the door he'll say like something that'll make you, you know, go home and like meditate or something. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:19 Highlight the passage at 1:14:19

1:14:44 Or practice patience and not hit him or something. So they say that Buddhists can do that. They can manifest all these limitless numbers of bodies that can help us. And actually high-level bodhisattvas start being able to do it. The very first level of being a bodhisattva, they can actually manifest hundreds of bodies, and then it goes up exponentially. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:44 Highlight the passage at 1:14:44

1:15:05 So Buddhists, they say, can manifest limitless bodies. Can they manifest other things? Yes, they are. Like Sai Baba. Sai Baba is supposed to be known for manifesting. But he's not a Buddha. It's a different tradition, but he's certainly... Sai Baba, he's a... No, no, no. Yes, yes. But, But they say that they can manifest in a form of like a table, if that would be what would help you, or a bridge or something like that, a tree, something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:05 Highlight the passage at 1:15:05

1:15:33 It doesn't have to be a person. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:33 Highlight the passage at 1:15:33

1:15:42 So how do we get into this every time? Because remember, I'm talking about it like it's the first time that we're entering into this wheel of life, or this samsaric existence. We go through a process as the karma for this life begins to run out. And it's described in a lot of detail, and a lot of this detail actually comes from the Tantric tradition of Habitat Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:42 Highlight the passage at 1:15:42

1:16:11 But this part isn't super, so we can talk about it. And we actually spend a lot of time with this in the death class, and actually in the introduction to Tantric class we go into it in detail as well. But here I think it's useful because we're looking at the mind during this state and because you can begin to see how having overcome at least somewhat beginning to work with the clashes in your mind can help you through this process. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:11 Highlight the passage at 1:16:11

1:16:42 Clearly just having familiarity helps you a little bit with just going into it because a lot of our fear is based on things being unfamiliar. So just having some familiarity. But they say actually with many masters that they're able to say, and I have heard stories of this, during the early stages they're able to tell their attendant or disciple or students, I'm going through this right now, this is where, you know, I'm in this stage, I'm in this stage, you know, my body's beginning to dissolve. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:42 Highlight the passage at 1:16:42

1:17:16 And they're able to describe it quite clearly where they are. You know, I remember this happening, this story with Vishayama Kanchuk saying, you know, The mirage thing is hitting, you know, this vision is hitting, and so you should probably go and prepare the, you know, just still telling him what to do, telling him what to do, you know, maybe go outside and start building the cremation site. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:16 Highlight the passage at 1:17:16

1:17:41 So they have studied it in quite an amount of detail, and sometimes His Holiness will make a little joke actually about how, it totally tells you the difference in minds, how he's almost looking forward to his dying process to see. If he can navigate this with, you know, see if he's learned anything in this life because we meditate on this dissolution process a lot in tantra. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:41 Highlight the passage at 1:17:41

1:18:05 It actually comes up in a lot of detail. We change the ending. And I'll tell you what that means in a second. So they say that there are three conditions for death. The one that we mostly are aware of that we were just talking about is just simply that your lifespan or the karma for this life exhausts, runs out. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:05 Highlight the passage at 1:18:05

1:18:28 So that's basically, next class we're going to talk a little bit about karma and the karma that determines where you are born is called throwing karma. So when that throwing karma runs out, this life ends and that's called death. The second one is death due to exhaustion of merit. So you don't have enough merit to sustain your life. And that could be, so you actually have enough throwing karma, but the merit's just not there. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:28 Highlight the passage at 1:18:28

1:19:01 And that could be where you've actually been creating more negative than positive, so you aren't continually sort of beating the meter, so to speak. Sorry. Sorry. These things just pop out afterwards. I got a ticket today. You're not feeding the gas tank, maybe I should say. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:01 Highlight the passage at 1:19:01

1:19:24 But they say that, for example, you could have the merit to have, I mean, you could have enough lifespan or karma, throwing karma, to have a long life. You can't find enough food or you can't find enough medicine to save you or whatever, and that's due to a lack of merit. On the other hand, a huge accumulation of merit could actually bypass where your throwing karma had originally. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:24 Highlight the passage at 1:19:24

1:19:53 So you might have enough throwing karma to live to be 75. If you have lived an incredibly virtuous life, then you can actually expand your lifespan. And the final one is death due to loss of power of the life force. And that's usually called an untimely death. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:53 Highlight the passage at 1:19:53

1:20:12 This gets into a little bit on the winds and channels. And this is totally a tantric idea of what our bodies, how our subtle body works. There's an entire system of channels and winds. And wind here is like an energy. that carries mind, actually. So it's a little bit like that system of, I mean they still have a system of chakras, and they have these channels that the winds move through, and it's a little bit like the Chinese system of meridians and things like that, so the energy moving through the meridians, or the chi, the life force moving through, it's a little bit like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:12 Highlight the passage at 1:20:12

1:20:56 So if one has this one like number three, Something has weakened the main wind, what's called the vitalizing wind or the life-supporting wind. And actually there's a number of different, we're not going to get into it too much, but things like overeating. I know I was reading that and I'm like, oh God. Eating before digesting the last meal. How many times did we do that one? Report an error in the passage at 1:20:56 Highlight the passage at 1:20:56

1:21:28 Eating unsuitable food. Food that hasn't been properly cleaned or isn't suitable for your body type or climate. Traveling at the wrong time, for example, you might be walking in a huge amount of heat or distance, like in the middle of the day or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:28 Highlight the passage at 1:21:28

1:21:49 And various things that, from this standpoint, they would say actually weaken your lifeline. So if you have all three of these conditions present, then there's not anything that can be done to lengthen your life. But if the second two are present, but you still have some of this throwing karma, I don't know if any of you guys have noticed, sometimes people do, sometimes we'll go to Geshe-la and we'll ask what to do. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:49 Highlight the passage at 1:21:49

1:22:19 Somebody has been diagnosed with cancer, for example, or somebody like with EC. Somebody is in a really bad car accident and then all of a sudden we'll get some advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche that everyone needs to read the diamond cutters, which are a billion times, which we just did here. There's a woman, a long time practitioner, who was in a really horrible car accident in Australia. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:19 Highlight the passage at 1:22:19

1:22:47 I've never seen him do that, actually, where he asked all the centers worldwide, like 135 centers or something, to do 110 readings of the Diamond Cutter Sūtra each, which is quite a bit. We kind of balked, actually. But of course, it all ended up just benefiting us, right, because we're the ones who read the Diamond Cutter Sūtra. But that was a case where it was answer unclear. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:47 Highlight the passage at 1:22:47

1:23:11 It was like he was saying, basically, the dedication was like, if... If she has the karma to die, then may her death be peaceful, may she have this great rebirth. If not, then it can be saved and life can be extended. So the dedication was very, very, very, very specific for her. And that had to do with the fact that she was experiencing this untimely death, possibly. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:11 Highlight the passage at 1:23:11

1:23:35 She actually is okay now, or at least she's out of coma and recovering a lot day by day. So that's, because I always wondered about that. I was always kind of like, why are we doing, how does a puja help? You know, how does doing a puja or certain practices help somebody if they're facing death? I couldn't figure that one out. And so this began to make more sense to me that maybe their lifespan hadn't really run out, but they were facing a life obstacle. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:35 Highlight the passage at 1:23:35

1:24:05 And actually sometimes they phrase it that way. He just has a life obstacle and we need to figure out a way to move that. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:05 Highlight the passage at 1:24:05

1:24:12 But eventually all of us end up facing death and knowing how to control our mind through this process or as much as we can to face it with a positive mind definitely will benefit us as we go through this process. So there's this... So there's an absorption, it's called the death absorption process. And as we are actually going through our own deaths, our body and our mind go from gross to more and more subtle. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:12 Highlight the passage at 1:24:12

1:24:48 Because what actually ends up moving from life to life is our most subtle mind. And the Buddha actually taught that there are sort of three levels of mind and the course consciousness where we spend... I mean 98 % of our time is in this course consciousness. A lot has to do with the sense consciousness, you know, our sort of, a lot of our experiences of this life are in the course consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:48 Highlight the passage at 1:24:48

1:25:16 The subtle consciousness, they actually say, is a lot of our conceptual thoughts, our dreams, are in the subtle consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:16 Highlight the passage at 1:25:16

1:25:28 And the most subtle consciousness we don't really have access to except in really, really deep states of meditation and at the time of death. We don't really touch that one. Although great yogis begin to work with this most subtle consciousness and that's kind of what tantra is all about. It's kind of working with this process, but harnessing it actually within our lifetime, not just using it at the time of death. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:28 Highlight the passage at 1:25:28

1:25:59 um... When they describe the dissolution of the body and the mind, they describe it in terms of the four elements, and people might be familiar with that again from Chinese medicine as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:59 Highlight the passage at 1:25:59

1:26:12 Earth element begins to dissolve, and that really is talking about our form, our body, our physical body. And they actually say that this can happen over time, quite a bit of time, and in fact aging. The aging process is said to be the beginning of the dissolution of this form of the earth element. They describe it that the earth element dissolves into the water element. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:12 Highlight the passage at 1:26:12

1:26:42 What that really means is that the solid portions of the body are gradually losing their ability to function and to support the mind. The liquid elements appear stronger at first and then they gradually... are unable to support the mind, and then they weaken, and The air elements do the same. So that's why it's described in this way. It's a descriptive, not literal absorption process. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:42 Highlight the passage at 1:26:42

1:27:11 It helps us meditate on it, but it doesn't always happen exactly this neatly. And you know this if you've ever spent any time with anyone that's dying, that some parts of it can be really slow and some parts of it can be incredibly fast. doesn't always go. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:11 Highlight the passage at 1:27:11

1:27:29 Um, so, um... So ultimately what finally happens is that the earth dissolves into the water and then the water dissolves into the fire and then the fire dissolves into the air. And this basically, we go through this in that meditation, for those of you who did the death class and the tantra class before, we go through this and you're... Report an error in the passage at 1:27:29 Highlight the passage at 1:27:29

1:27:59 Talking about what that would feel like because the teachings are so specific that they actually tell you if you were with somebody how it would look, like externally what would change. For example, the sort of caving in of the cheeks. There's like a way of sort of seeing when you see the person's face looking different than it did, you know, even a day before or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:59 Highlight the passage at 1:27:59

1:28:26 You start seeing those signs. And then there are internal signs that we ourselves would notice if we're going through that. And those are really, really specific too. For example, the mirage that I was just saying, I guess you don't know how much I was like, I'm in the mirage phase, you know? And that goes into what's called the firefly phase. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:26 Highlight the passage at 1:28:26

1:28:45 You know when you stand up suddenly, that kind of, the little dots, that's what I think that one's like. It's like these little sort of sparks, they say. And so you go through these various phases and you become, with our teachings on this and with our studying on this, we actually begin to, can begin to recognize them as we ourselves are going through them. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:45 Highlight the passage at 1:28:45

1:29:08 Ordinarily, most of us have pretty uncontrolled minds, right? We just noticed that at the beginning of the class. We hadn't noticed that already. Just meditating on the breath was really hard. And this is pretty good conditions, you know? Most of us, some of us might be in pain, but most of us aren't in a lot of pain. We are in a fairly comfortable building. Maybe the cushions aren't the greatest, but they're fairly comfortable. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:08 Highlight the passage at 1:29:08

1:29:33 We're not in a hospital bed or in a car. We have pretty good conditions, and we still find it really hard to stay concentrated. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:33 Highlight the passage at 1:29:33

1:29:45 So for most of us with an untrained mind, this process... Actually, it can go incredibly fast and we just miss it all. They actually say that our mind goes through this from gross to subtle and subtle to gross every night when we go to sleep and every morning when we get up. But we miss it. I know I do that when it's just kind of like heads on the pillow, gone. And you can try to be really aware of that as you're going to sleep at night. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:45 Highlight the passage at 1:29:45

1:30:17 But for most of us... It's difficult to stay with it. So the stronger our mind is, the more concentrated our mind is, which of course we have to work on right now, the more we can stay alert and be aware of the various phases. But they say that we go through these various phases no matter what kind of a depth we have. So whether it's a slow, over many, many months. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:17 Highlight the passage at 1:30:17

1:30:47 Or years of dying of some disease like cancer. Or whether we're hit by a car. We still go through it, but we just go through it faster. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:47 Highlight the passage at 1:30:47

1:30:58 So gradually the mind and body dissolve and the body itself gets to the point where it can no longer support the mind. And the breathing process, for those of you who are familiar with it, the breathing process ends. But the mind still hasn't separated from the body. Death itself is really just a subtle mind separating from the body of his life and going into the next. That's really what death is defined as. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:58 Highlight the passage at 1:30:58

1:31:28 Until that happens, the death process isn't complete. So in the Western world, when the breathing stops, the person is considered to be dead. And usually the person is taken away, unless you ask what you cannot. In Buddhism... The person is still going through the dying process and actually half of the whole stages happen after that breathing stops. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:28 Highlight the passage at 1:31:28

1:31:55 So the person's dying process continues to unfold even though from our standpoint we can see that the breathing has stopped. They actually say that there are a couple of signs that you know when somebody has actually finished this process. And one of them is if you still feel heat at the heart, then the mind is still with the body. Once that heat has ended, or the heart begins to feel cold to the touch, then the mind has left. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:55 Highlight the passage at 1:31:55

1:32:24 Then there's another one. They say often a little drop of blood will show. I haven't actually seen this one, but I've heard of it. And then often they say a little drop of blood at the tip of the... Penis or the vagina, there's a little drop. I haven't seen that one either. But the heart you can definitely feel. And I know recently, probably actually I think six months ago, a student died and we were with him and we just kept checking in for hours, really. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:24 Highlight the passage at 1:32:24

1:32:58 His heart remained warm to the touch. And so unfortunately it was a great hospital and they were really supportive of us continuing to do practice with him to let him take as much time as he needed. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:58 Highlight the passage at 1:32:58

1:33:10 So it was actually kind of interesting. I mean, San Francisco, I think, can be very cool that way. It doesn't always happen that way. People are usually in a hurry. It's almost like a failed sense of, you know, like they failed as doctors if somebody's died. So they try to kind of hurry them through that process. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:10 Highlight the passage at 1:33:10

1:33:28 So there is a point where, let's see, Report an error in the passage at 1:33:28 Highlight the passage at 1:33:28

1:33:43 So I'm not going through all eight stages, you may notice, because I felt like it was actually more than we needed to talk about in this class. So there are eight stages and four of them are before the heart stops and the breathing ends and four of them are after and they get more and more subtle. And what begins to happen is for the person experiencing it, for the dying person, you begin to have these various visions. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:43 Highlight the passage at 1:33:43

1:34:10 So you go, you have the visions as all of your elements absorb, but then you also have visions, you know, the white vision and the red vision and then the dark vision. It almost begins to feel like a swoon. But then at the end of that, your subtle most mind, which during our lifetime is at our heart. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:10 Highlight the passage at 1:34:10

1:34:35 They actually call it an indestructible drop at our heart. It's indestructible in that nothing can permit, but it opens with each death that we go through. And that releases our subtle-most mind. At that point, our subtle-most mind is released, and they actually say if you can be alert at that point, you can use this subtle-most mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:35 Highlight the passage at 1:34:35

1:35:00 It's actually quite blissful. You can actually meditate on that subtle-most mind. Most of us, it's just like, I mean, think about how quickly we go to sleep, right? The chances of us actually catching it are great. Geshe-la actually kind of chuckled when I was trying to ask him questions about how we could use the dying process. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:00 Highlight the passage at 1:35:00

1:35:19 He was kind of like, you have to really, really have a very strong concentration. You have to meditate a lot on emptiness in this life in order to have that. It is possible. Some yogis use the dying process to either continue to meditate on emptiness, to directly perceive emptiness for the first time. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:19 Highlight the passage at 1:35:19

1:35:38 It's possible. Or to even attain enlightenment, it's possible. But you have to be pretty darn good. So I'm only giving you the fine print because sometimes it's presented like all of us could go out tonight and do this. We really have to work with our minds and get our minds stable and strong and concentrated in order to do this kind of thing. But not impossible. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:38 Highlight the passage at 1:35:38

1:36:05 normally... Normally this experience is totally dependent on our karma and so it can be quite frightening or it could be quite fine or anything in between. It sort of depends on how we've lived our lives and what kind of minds we have. And you can kind of see this already if you have any kind of experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:05 Highlight the passage at 1:36:05

1:36:27 you know. If you're, for example, if you get stuck in a, you know, if something horrible happens to you and you're able to navigate it fairly calmly, you can kind of, it's a test. It can, you can really, we can really look at it that way. It's a test on how we're able to work with our minds in this kind of situation. If we like completely freak out over really tiny things, the chances of us being able to calmly navigate this process without a lot of, you know, being pulled in sort of all these different directions. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:27 Highlight the passage at 1:36:27

1:36:59 At the beginning we started with that meditation and we began noticing how easily our mind was pulled by all these different thoughts. The same thing happens during the dying process. Our mind is, you know, as the various elements are dissolving, they say that it actually creates sort of this hallucination that can arise. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:59 Highlight the passage at 1:36:59

1:37:20 And so then we can see them as real and then it becomes frightening. They are hallucinations, they are... Karmic appearances, but they feel real. They feel real at the time. And often in the enigma tradition, there's actually a book that's called The Tibetan Book of the Dead. And you're often in that reminding the dying person of what he already knows or what he's already studied in terms of Buddhism. And we actually were doing this with this student too, just trying to, you know, we know it's scary, but, you know, just like actually talking to him, doing prayers, reminding him of... Report an error in the passage at 1:37:20 Highlight the passage at 1:37:20

1:37:57 The things that he believed in and valued in his life. Because it's kind of hard to be able to hold on to that during that process. So there's this idea that you can actually help the person in that way. I certainly would want somebody doing that for me. And clearly the more subdued and the more stable our mind is, the more likely that is to be of help. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:57 Highlight the passage at 1:37:57

1:38:21 So normally... We're still under the power of karma and delusions, and everything that, you know, the causing of our new experience, you know, going into our new rebirth, is also caused by this karma and delusions. The delusions is really talking about our state of mind at that moment, but also our state of mind when we created the karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:21 Highlight the passage at 1:38:21

1:38:49 So there's a couple of different ways that we're using this term delusions. At the moment of our dying process, we are having the same way that we did, or having right now, as you're facing me, you're either thinking, God, she's going on and on, I hope she's around late tonight. Or, I mean, you could be having a number of different kinds of mental experiences of this exact moment. The same thing happens as you're dying. And in addition, we have created karma, which we'll talk about next week, based on these various states of mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:49 Highlight the passage at 1:38:49

1:39:19 So, you know, I get impatient. The mind of impatience arises and then I act on it. And I say something to David and I create speech karma and I think something about Cedric and I create mental karma and I punch Karen and I create physical karma. So all of those are based on this mind of impatience or anger. So that's the way delusion drives us to create karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:19 Highlight the passage at 1:39:19

1:39:44 And then that karma ripens as our suffering or our pleasure. In those cases we'd be suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:44 Highlight the passage at 1:39:44

1:39:53 The more controlled our mind is, this is the gist, the more controlled our mind is in life, the more controlled it can be in death. It's not like it's suddenly going to become, we're not going to be like the king and suddenly become an Arhat in one moment. Like it's going to take some effort in our lives to begin working with our minds now. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:53 Highlight the passage at 1:39:53

1:40:17 Um. After we have this experience where the subtle mind dawns or rises, they say, it's like it comes out of this indestructible drop in our heart, then they say that we actually go back through the stages of the dissolution but in reverse, and then we arise as an intermediate state being. So this is the one realm that's not on here. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:17 Highlight the passage at 1:40:17

1:40:47 It's the intermediate states. It's sometimes called the bardo, the bardo beings. And this is the in-between, like in-between all of those you could actually show bardo beings. And I actually think sometimes they do depict them sort of like little ghosts kind of going from realm to realm. The bardo state is just, they actually say there are bardo beings around us now. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:47 Highlight the passage at 1:40:47

1:41:15 The same way that there are spirits. In that their bodies are similar to the life that they're going to take. So if somebody's going to take a human rebirth, that their body is more like a human. But the only ones that would perceive them are others that are going to become humans. So if Sandy and Matthew and I all die together, but I'm going to be born a cat and the two of them are humans, they could see each other, but they couldn't see me and I couldn't see them. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:15 Highlight the passage at 1:41:15

1:41:43 So I could have them left out. So you have your body, and actually the way they're named in Tibetan is based on what they're going to become. So when you attain this state, it's like you have these really subtle bodies, but your mind is just seeking some sort of more permanent body. And so it's grasping. It's grasping at whatever kind of body it can find. So it's this kind of state of... Report an error in the passage at 1:41:43 Highlight the passage at 1:41:43

1:42:16 A feeling less than whole and seeking for something to complete me. Something to be me again. Because we always see ourselves as I, me, this body, me, mine. And this is the source of a lot of our problems. But it definitely is what arises when we're in this state of the bardo. So they say that the bardo being is basically mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:16 Highlight the passage at 1:42:16

1:42:40 They have this appearance of a body, but it's basically mind. And that mind can move. I can think right now of where I left something on my desk. So in a second, my mind can go through, you know, I don't have that far to go. I just have to go off the flight and over. But I can actually go back in time, too, with my mind. If you think about how powerful our mind is, I can think of what the refrigerator looked like in the house I grew up in, which is all completely changed and gone. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:40 Highlight the passage at 1:42:40

1:43:10 So you can go, or you can go to the Eiffel Tower. Let's go there. Our minds can go anywhere just like a mama's thought. This happens to the Vardo being. So things arise in your mind. It's almost like that phrase of your life passes before your eyes. You're able to remember in detail things about your life and then you are able to go to those places. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:10 Highlight the passage at 1:43:10

1:43:40 Sandy experienced something amazing that happened in Kansas City and she's there. Her mind is there and then she remembers something that happened to her the first time she gave birth or whatever and she's there. So the mind is just kind of buffeted around based on these thoughts, going through walls, going through all these different experiences. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:40 Highlight the passage at 1:43:40

1:44:00 They say that we go through this little tiny version of death every seven days within Labardo until we take a new rebirth. And that most of us actually take a new rebirth within like three weeks of our death. But we do practices for a person for up to 49 days, seven of them rebirth because we don't know. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:00 Highlight the passage at 1:44:00

1:44:20 We don't know how often. And that's the maximum they say that somebody could stay in the birth. But most of us, they say, are actually rebirth within the first three weeks. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:20 Highlight the passage at 1:44:20

1:44:32 So we're just sort of racing around. Grasping at things. Sometimes there's confusion. We don't know that we're dead. So we're just kind of trying to figure things out. There's a lot of confusion and angst. And then we figure it out and then there's frustration or fear that arises. And our mind is sort of just going from situation to situation a little out of control at the speed of thought and kind of racing around. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:32 Highlight the passage at 1:44:32

1:45:04 Until we see, they say that we're drawn to our appearance of the next life karmically and that we are drawn to being back in saṃsāra again. Because we've been in saṃsāra in this life and we misunderstand it, we experience it as pleasure. And so we want to get back into that, you know, suddenly that looks really great. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:04 Highlight the passage at 1:45:04

1:45:28 I want to be, you know, whether it's a human or a dog. I want to be back in the game again. I want a body. I want to be back doing all those great things. And it's not like a conceptual thought at all. It's just that you're drawn by that energy. And you're drawn into the womb of your future mother and then you can't get out. Because then the karma changes and then you're just there. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:28 Highlight the passage at 1:45:28

1:45:51 And then from then on you become the fetus of your new life. So they say that this sort of moving around from thought to thought to thought that we experience in the opening meditation, this is part of the root of our problem, is this always chasing after something better and not being able to control that. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:51 Highlight the passage at 1:45:51

1:46:15 And that permeates this entire death process, and actually from life to life to life to life, unless we do something about it. And so that's sort of the long... Advertisement for working on your mind in this life while we have a chance. So it's a good place for some questions and I'm not going to have time to do as much as I thought I was going to do, but that's okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:15 Highlight the passage at 1:46:15

1:46:43 Okay, I've got two. I have a great quote though for the end. So the wind that you mentioned in the wind and channels part, is that the same as lung? No, lung meaning the imbalance. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:43 Highlight the passage at 1:46:43

1:46:59 I thought lung meant wind. Lung does mean wind. But there's a particular imbalance of the winds that people will talk about. People will say I have lung, but no, I mean lung mind. Lung is wind, and mind rides the wind. They say like a rider rides a horse. So if the horse is insane, the rider is going to be in trouble. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:59 Highlight the passage at 1:46:59

1:47:28 And so that's the idea of working with the mind. So that the, you know, they often will describe mind, you know, in the stages, has anybody in here ever seen the stages of meditation depicted on the, there's like a poster, and it's often depicted as an insane elephant, like a wild elephant, which I can relate to. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:28 Highlight the passage at 1:47:28

1:47:48 Totally insane, like just out of control, doing a lot, which in India, you can imagine they probably had this problem. problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:48 Highlight the passage at 1:47:48

1:47:56 And they often will describe mind, unsubdued mind, like this wild elephant. And then you go through this process of taming this elephant and then the elephant can actually do things for you, which is the idea of taming your mind so that it can do what we want it to do and not just go crazy, which is what it currently does. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:56 Highlight the passage at 1:47:56

1:48:17 So wind, they have a lot of different terms for these various things, but lung is always referring to wind. Sometimes air, you know, sort of related things like that. And then the imbalance of it is also codulent, which makes life even more confusing. But you can just figure it out in context. And that just is when the winds get all off balance because of, usually because the winds are off balance. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:17 Highlight the passage at 1:48:17

1:48:51 Okay, and the second question was, and I should know this, and I'm sorry I don't, but the firefly phase. You said, is that like the bright flashing lights that you see before your eyes? No, it's more like flickers. It's actually, there's, let's see if I can give you all eight stages. So the very first is a mirage, like they say it's like a silvery, I do this meditation enough, I shouldn't be able to bring it up. The silvery blue mirage is the first, and then that goes into smoke, they say, like a stick of incense. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:51 Highlight the passage at 1:48:51

1:49:28 Would it help if I made jungle songs? No. It was so not. And then the next is this firefly or sparks within smoke. And then the next is, they say, like a sputtering butter lamp about to go out. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:28 Highlight the passage at 1:49:28

1:49:54 And often, actually, Rene actually describes that as imagining that like in a white room. So you can kind of imagine that. reflecting on the walls. And then the next is what's called the white vision. So it's a white vision and they say that it looks like a moonlit sky but without the moon. So it doesn't have a source of light in it, it's just this pervasive diffuse white light. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:54 Highlight the passage at 1:49:54

1:50:09 The white light, go to the white light. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:09 Highlight the passage at 1:50:09

1:50:32 And then the next one is like an orangey red, coppery red, and they call it the red vision. It's the same. It's like, they say it's like the light of a sunset, but again, without this one source of light. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:32 Highlight the passage at 1:50:32

1:50:50 And then the black near attainment, they say, black or dark vision. It's kind of like if you've ever been outside and... There's sort of sky everywhere and suddenly night falls. It's like that, they say, where it's just, again, it's like this all-pervasing, pervasive darkness filling a sky, so there's no source of light at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50:50

1:51:20 And then they say that we go into like a swoon, like a little faint, and then we... We awaken our conscious again and then there are the clear light dawns and that's the final stage and that's our subtle, most mind exiting this indestructible drop in our heart. Now all seven, those previous sevens... The previous sevens you gave us something to envision but the eighth one... Report an error in the passage at 1:51:20 Highlight the passage at 1:51:20

1:51:52 The eighth one is the clear light. That's what you envision. And that, they say, is like, they describe it as the autumn sky just before dawn in the Himalayas. So it's incredibly precise. So it's this clear, clear, clear, because you're at a high altitude, right? So it's very, very clear and crisp, like that kind of night. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:52 Highlight the passage at 1:51:52

1:52:13 So that kind of pre-dawn light. So it's almost like it's not light. It's almost light. So when you're in those environments, you're like looking at it, trying to memorize what that looks like. But it's like this dawning of that really subtle most mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:13 Highlight the passage at 1:52:13

1:52:30 And I said it, when I started talking about this, I said in Tantra you change the ending, right? So normally you would, for the ordinary being going through the dying process, you go back through those series and then you arise in a bardo body, right? Well with Tantra you actually arise as the Dimity. And so that's the difference. Because you've been empowered to do that, you've been practicing it. So the whole point of Tantra is to change the ending. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:30 Highlight the passage at 1:52:30

1:52:59 To harness the same things that happen in ordinary death, but to give them different results. And so it changes the ending. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:59 Highlight the passage at 1:52:59

1:53:11 So the quote that I was going to leave you guys with is from Geshe Sopa. Geshe Sopa, and we can take some more questions too, I'm not going to cut you off, but for those who need to leave. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:11 Highlight the passage at 1:53:11

1:53:22 Geshe Sopa has an amazing commentary on the lamrim, Sopa S-O-P-A, that comes in, I think it's going to be in total like five volumes. It's quite intensive. He's still working on it. I'm getting close to 90, so we're hoping he makes it through all five of them. He's done three now. He said that your experiences at death and your rebirth are determined by your actions of body, speech and mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:22 Highlight the passage at 1:53:22

1:53:52 Thus, death comes to each individual differently. Each person has his or her own unique experience at the time of death. For some, it might come very peacefully. For others, there will be great pain, suffering and fear. The most powerful non-virtuous actions motivated by great hatred will produce the greatest fear. No matter how many loved ones surround you, no one can really help you chase away these strange and fearful things. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:52 Highlight the passage at 1:53:52

1:54:19 People who practice the Dharma, who meditate, lead virtuous, peaceful lives and are compassionate will not experience this kind of terror at death. Instead, various kinds of wonderful experiences and marvelous visions will appear. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:19 Highlight the passage at 1:54:19

1:54:33 So I think it's useful to say, because a lot of times they're describing sort of the worst case scenario and everybody kind of leaves terrified. So I wanted to let you know that there's a possibility to change the ending, even for those of us ordinary beings who may not master the tantric path in this lifetime, that just really working on not just our mind, but also how we live and how we interact with people and how we treat people and how the kinds of things that we do lead us to have not just good rebirth in the next life but help us go in through a more peaceful dying process of the living of this event. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:33 Highlight the passage at 1:54:33

1:55:11 So I think that's a good place to stop. Unless anybody has any burning questions that they absolutely need. Otherwise I'm not going anywhere so people can ask me stuff. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:11 Highlight the passage at 1:55:11

1:55:25 Unless one of those conditions has ended. I'll give it to this. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:25 Highlight the passage at 1:55:25

1:55:29 So let's just take a moment and we'll just end and do a little dedication. And I know that we have talked about a lot, especially for those of you that maybe haven't ever encountered this information before. And just the way I would just say is just kind of just take it like an opening, just open. Nobody's asking anyone to buy this lock, stock and barrel. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:29 Highlight the passage at 1:55:29

1:55:57 It would be a little easier if the Buddha took us to all these realms and said, look, look, but we didn't have that karma. So for us it's just like, isn't this interesting? You know, just staying open to the possibility. And the reasoning is, of course, that then we can figure out how to change this for ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:57 Highlight the passage at 1:55:57

1:56:19 Because we each can get out of saṃsāra. There's nothing standing in our way. So these teachings are simply to show us the way. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:19 Highlight the passage at 1:56:19

1:56:35 So we're figuring out a little bit each week, we're figuring out a little bit about how these crazy minds of ours work and how beginning to work with them now can Report an error in the passage at 1:56:35 Highlight the passage at 1:56:35

1:56:50 help us not only in this life, which might be why most of us came actually to find out how to work with these crazy minds of anger, fear, hatred in this life, but also how they can help us navigate the transition into the next life and also help us attain a better rebirth. And ultimately help us break out of the whole cycle completely. Just working with these crazy mindsets. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:50 Highlight the passage at 1:56:50

1:57:24 So we'll start next week with just beginning to look at how karma works, the mechanics of how karma works, which is intricately tied up with these delusions and how we begin to apply the anecdotes to rid ourselves of these delusions that are really the source of all of our pain and Report an error in the passage at 1:57:24 Highlight the passage at 1:57:24

1:57:49 the source of this whole world. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:49 Highlight the passage at 1:57:49

1:57:55 So since we came in a couple of hours ago, so many ideas and thoughts, Report an error in the passage at 1:57:55 Highlight the passage at 1:57:55

1:58:03 so many seeds have been planted. So we just take this moment before we leave to dedicate them to Report an error in the passage at 1:58:03 Highlight the passage at 1:58:03

1:58:14 all suffering beings, including ourselves, so that we can develop the tools we need to get out of some sort, to attain total and complete enlightenment, which may seem utterly impossible at this point, but the Buddha said that each of us can do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:14 Highlight the passage at 1:58:14

1:58:36 the man is kind enough to leave the methods. class become the seed of that. So your Report an error in the passage at 1:58:36 Highlight the passage at 1:58:36

1:58:55 homework, I didn't actually write it up this time. Shocking, isn't it? So you're just going to continue to work with the sufferings. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:55 Highlight the passage at 1:58:55

1:59:05 And then the next two binder readings, or at least start them. The second one is on renunciation and the third one is on karma. So those of you that have studied karma before, it'll just give you a lot of... information about product. For those of you that it's new, we'll spend more time talking about it so it won't be new. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:05 Highlight the passage at 1:59:05

1:59:39 So if anybody has any questions, oh! Last announcement, I wanted to announce Vena Borbina's workshop on Sunday. This is the one that was supposed to be last weekend. It's now on this coming Sunday, the 16th. Practice means simply changing your mind. It's very apt for this class. Actually, I made it for the last class, but it's apt for this one. It's always apt. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:39 Highlight the passage at 1:59:39

2:00:04 Anyway, that's Sunday, this coming Sunday from 10.30 to 4. And then just... For those of you who are interested, I'm teaching a class on how to offer a mandala on Sunday the 30th. So if anybody's interested in that, the mandala is basically a representation of the universe that we offer. Sometimes you see people doing this and sometimes you see these big old kits and everybody's like building this three-dimensional thing. So anyway, if you're interested, come. If you have a mandala kit and want to figure out how to use it, come. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:04 Highlight the passage at 2:00:04

2:00:37 If you just want to find out what the heck I'm talking about, come. Sunday the 30th. I love you, I'll be out of time, I'm so excited. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:37 Highlight the passage at 2:00:37

2:00:43 I'm hoping Peter will teach you. Peter's going to come. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:43 Highlight the passage at 2:00:43

2:00:50 So, um, to Avina today, she's a bit hellerol. Oh, good, no, it's wonderful. Tell me your name. And, I'm joking. Strug me with the realm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a bit nice on your very first day. Do you mind hitting the, um, pause? Report an error in the passage at 2:00:50 Highlight the passage at 2:00:50

2:01:11 entire conversation. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:11 Highlight the passage at 2:01:11