Discovering Buddhism - Intro to Tantra (4 August 2011)

0:12 I'll let you start with a little short meditation on the breath and let our minds calm down, set our motivation for tonight's class. So Report an error in the passage at 0:12 Highlight the passage at 0:12

0:33 you might start with just taking some nice deep belly breaths. Report an error in the passage at 0:33 Highlight the passage at 0:33

0:40 If you're holding any tightness anywhere, you can imagine just breathing it away, dissolving it away with the breath. You Report an error in the passage at 0:40 Highlight the passage at 0:40

0:58 can also visualize breathing into those places that are tight or tense. Report an error in the passage at 0:58 Highlight the passage at 0:58

1:28 And then just maybe count to ten, watch your breath a little bit, and Report an error in the passage at 1:28 Highlight the passage at 1:28

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:15 we'll set our motivation for tonight's class, remembering that it's an incredibly precious thing to be studying, not just the Dharma, but the Tantra, the Tantric teachings, or even just an overview into them. Report an error in the passage at 2:15 Highlight the passage at 2:15

2:35 And first, just to rejoice in that, and Report an error in the passage at 2:35 Highlight the passage at 2:35

2:43 remembering to set a motivation larger than ourselves, so that whatever we may gain from tonight's class, That it goes immediately to our own progression on the path to enlightenment, our own Buddhahood for the benefit of others. Report an error in the passage at 2:43 Highlight the passage at 2:43

3:17 We'll just start with the opening prayer. Report an error in the passage at 3:17 Highlight the passage at 3:17

3:47 Page 8. With the wish to free all beings, I shall always go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha until I reach full enlightenment. Inspired by wisdom and compassion. Today in the Buddha's presence, I generate the mind of full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, until then may my two remain and dispel the miseries of the world. Report an error in the passage at 3:47 Highlight the passage at 3:47

4:26 Okay, so where's the mic this moment? Ha ha! Well, I'm not sure how much. Actually, hi, Rolf. Rolf just moved in downstairs. I'm not sure. This is like the fifth class of a nine-class series, so it might be confusing, but we can go for it and just know that there's been quite a bit of the classes before this one. Report an error in the passage at 4:26 Highlight the passage at 4:26

4:58 But you're welcome to sit in. It's just it might be confusing having not attended the other classes. We'll see. Okay, so does anybody have any questions or any, you know, comments about the reading or the homework this week? Report an error in the passage at 4:58 Highlight the passage at 4:58

5:20 It's always the same. Flat line. Report an error in the passage at 5:20 Highlight the passage at 5:20

5:28 Did you do the, oh wait, if you're going to say anything then you should use the mic. Can you pass through the mic? Report an error in the passage at 5:28 Highlight the passage at 5:28

5:45 Okay. I found it amazing because when you do, you know, when you... It clicks when you get it and then it starts to make sense. Like the Four Nobles Truths starts to make sense. Everything that you've been reading, or at least in my case that I've been reading, really starts to speak to you in a much deeper. Report an error in the passage at 5:45 Highlight the passage at 5:45

6:04 And so I really enjoyed that experience of finally, not just intellectually understanding something, but to actually start to get a glimpse and a realization of what really is. Well, is this now, is this in relationship to looking for the I? Yes. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 6:04 Highlight the passage at 6:04

6:21 Did you find it? Report an error in the passage at 6:21 Highlight the passage at 6:21

6:27 That's a trick question. Report an error in the passage at 6:27 Highlight the passage at 6:27

6:31 That's great. How long were you studying in Chicago? Report an error in the passage at 6:31 Highlight the passage at 6:31

6:40 We did have to travel for teachings. You did. A lot of effort went into it, but I would say over about 13 years. Yeah. That's great. Report an error in the passage at 6:40 Highlight the passage at 6:40

6:36 Um, not. Report an error in the passage at 6:36 Highlight the passage at 6:36

6:50 And it was really encouraging because I just recently, Dr. Thurman and Thuktan Jingpa did a talk in Long Beach back in May. And it was very encouraging for them to say that, you know, Dr. Thurman was saying, like, you know, you enter Buddhism and you're so excited and you think you own it and everything. And then, you know, they say, bye. Report an error in the passage at 6:50 Highlight the passage at 6:50

7:15 years into it, you kind of start getting the hang of it. It's a magical year. It is a magical year because you really feel like you're just starting to arrive at step one, you know, really at step one. So it's a really wonderful time. And then it's just, well, what else you got to do? You know, we got to solve everything now. Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

7:41 At least solve as much as you can this lifetime to make it a little easier next time. That's right. Make it a lot easier hopefully next time. Report an error in the passage at 7:41 Highlight the passage at 7:41

7:56 Okay, well tonight we are going to talk about what Lama Eshi calls overthrowing the tyranny of ordinary appearances. Overthrowing the tyranny of ordinary appearances. And the biggest obstacle to having a successful dharma or successful tantric. Practice is this sense of ordinary appearance. There's a train coming through. Should we do anything? Report an error in the passage at 7:56 Highlight the passage at 7:56

8:27 Maybe turn it off for now. It's probably pointed at the speaker. There you go. That's good. Perfect. And nobody can speak now for the rest of the course. Report an error in the passage at 8:27 Highlight the passage at 8:27

8:40 So we're going to start with another quote by Lama. I actually have a number of good quotes tonight. This one he said is, One of the major tasks facing the spiritual seeker is to identify as precisely as possible the factors responsible for perpetuating this cycle of dissatisfaction and then to apply the most appropriate antidote to their destruction. Report an error in the passage at 8:40 Highlight the passage at 8:40

9:05 I'll say that one again since everyone just showed up and they're all like, what? One of the major tasks facing the spiritual seeker is to identify as precisely as possible The factors responsible for perpetuating this cycle of dissatisfaction and then to apply the most appropriate antidote to their destruction. Report an error in the passage at 9:05 Highlight the passage at 9:05

9:28 So remember he calls the cycle of dissatisfaction, he's calling saṃsāra the cycle of dissatisfaction. So we want to figure out what's causing our suffering and what's causing this entire tapestry of suffering that we're part of and then apply the... Precise antidotes to that to destroy them, to destroy those causes so that we won't suffer and so that nobody else will suffer. And this practicality is, for me, was the juiciest thing about the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 9:28 Highlight the passage at 9:28

10:03 When I first entered the Dharma, it was like, that was the thing. That was the exciting thing. It was just figuring out that there was a cause for suffering and that we could end it. Report an error in the passage at 10:03 Highlight the passage at 10:03

10:13 Moment by moment, you know, but it's also the hardest part about the Dharma, right? So it's the most exciting, but then it's also the hardest because it's really calling on us to apply, to figure out these antidotes through study and meditation and contemplation and then to try to apply them when things are happening. Report an error in the passage at 10:13 Highlight the passage at 10:13

10:33 So it's not necessarily when we're just all calm and sitting in a chair on a Sunday afternoon. It's usually when somebody's yelling at us or when things are going wrong. And sometimes when things are going seriously wrong, that's when we have to try to remember to apply what we know, which is another way of practicing the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 10:33 Highlight the passage at 10:33

10:55 And the biggest reason that we're still stuck, according to the tantric teachings, is because of this really narrow, limited, tiny view of ourselves and our reality. Limited and limiting. This little tiny narrow view of who we are, what we are, what everything else is around us, even about our environment. We just see only the sort of pitiful look, the useless look, the samsaric look when we look around us and look at ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 10:55 Highlight the passage at 10:55

11:34 And the longer that we stay with this point of view, the longer we're stuck here, according to the Buddha. And our life doesn't have any real meaning. We just are depressed. It's just a depressing way to live. But of course, it's also supported by our culture. So our culture is also saying that really there's nothing else but this life. And to be happy, we have to buy more things and have sort of... Report an error in the passage at 11:34 Highlight the passage at 11:34

12:04 These incredibly worldly experiences in order to be happy at all times. And when those experiences lose their luster, then we have to get more and more and more experiences and get that excitement back. So if the marriage has gone sour, then dump her. Get another one. Try over. Yeah, it's her fault anyway. Report an error in the passage at 12:04 Highlight the passage at 12:04

12:29 And so we have to examine this view. This is the materialistic view that... That this, you know, this sort of reducing our human condition to this body and this brain, really, not even the mind, so just the brain. Report an error in the passage at 12:29 Highlight the passage at 12:29

12:49 And then basically that nothing, you know, that all there is, that there's no other larger purpose in life except you're born, you know, you have as much pleasure as possible, and then you get old and then you die. And that's basically all there is to life. That's the materialistic or the eternalistic view. And that's the complete opposite view of tantra. Report an error in the passage at 12:49 Highlight the passage at 12:49

13:15 You'd be happy to hear. And so one of the most essential aspects of tantra is to just dissolve all of this that we look around us and we see all the time, including our view of ourself and our image of ourself, which isn't... Always accurate anyway, into emptiness and then arising as the deity from that emptiness. And so, and when I say the deity, I mean like the, oh sorry, just a few tantric implements, moving them out of the way for tonight's class. Report an error in the passage at 13:15 Highlight the passage at 13:15

13:54 So when we arise as a deity, we are also experiencing the deity as this body of light. So we are arising ourselves as a body of light. So we're no longer this little ordinary Liza or Christine or Jessica. Report an error in the passage at 13:54 Highlight the passage at 13:54

14:09 Woke up that morning and just kind of looked at ourselves in the mirror and thought, oh, yuck, you know. And then sat down and we're like, okay, whatever. And then we immediately dissolve all of this, the room included and our cushion and our clothing and everything, and then we arise up. Nothing is left of that ordinary view. Everything is transformed, the environment, the people around us, and most importantly ourselves. And we become the Buddha from the inside out. Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:39 So the idea of tantra, especially in generation stage, which is mostly what we're talking about here, there are two stages of tantra, generation stage and completion stage. The generation stage where we're sort of practicing being a Buddha and completion stages are the more advanced practices where we are working on transforming our body at a very subtle level. Report an error in the passage at 14:39 Highlight the passage at 14:39

15:05 To actually become the Buddha, to complete the practice, thus the name. But the idea in generation stages, the more that we focus on ourselves arising as the deity and focus on our environment as the pure land, celestial mansions and so forth, the mandala, the less bound we are to this kind of ordinary view of reality and view of our sort of just dissatisfied, little disappointed. Report an error in the passage at 15:05 Highlight the passage at 15:05

15:31 Pitiful life that we normally spend time in. And that allows us also this feeling of taking control, taking the bull by the horns. Report an error in the passage at 15:31 Highlight the passage at 15:31

15:45 And the Buddha and Lama Yeshe in his wake also says that is our true potential to do this. So it's not like something outside of us. So when we talk about rising as a... A Buddha, or we talk about all the different Buddhas that are even just depicted on the walls of this room. We shouldn't confuse them with sort of a pantheistic religion like in Greece where they had all the different gods and goddesses and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

16:18 These are all basically qualities of enlightened mind, but also qualities that all of us already have to some degree, even tiny, even tiny, tiny bits. Report an error in the passage at 16:18 Highlight the passage at 16:18

16:31 You know, wisdom, compassion, love, action. Let me talk about Tara or Vajrapani as well, skillful means, you know, purification of Vajrasattva and so forth. So all these different qualities are qualities that are within it. And when we arise as the deity, we're concentrating on those qualities and all of the different mudras and so forth that their hands are in or the position of their legs even, the colors that are used, the things that they're holding, the different implements, they all have precise meaning. Report an error in the passage at 16:31 Highlight the passage at 16:31

17:08 And as we're getting used to what those... How it feels to arise as the deity, we don't want to forget all the details of all the little things that they are holding on to, because all of those play into the qualities of that deity's enlightened mind that we're trying to access in our own mind. So they say that if we don't, if we just focus on, for example, arising as Yamantaka, who is a... Report an error in the passage at 17:08 Highlight the passage at 17:08

17:42 A buffalo-headed deity. If we just arise as a deity that's wrathful and has a billion arms and we get into all of that, but we aren't remembering what it's standing for, for example, wrathful compassion or tearing out the heart of our... Report an error in the passage at 17:42 Highlight the passage at 17:42

17:59 Self-cherishing mind or something like that. If we're forgetting what that wrath is all about, we're just creating the causes to become a monster. So, I mean, literally they say that, you know, they say that it doesn't help us at all if we forget the root causes of all of those different implements and mudras and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:17 But the main gist is that we're trying to access those exact qualities within ourselves. And don't get overwhelmed, too, if you are trying to visualize. There's so much detail in some of these. These are actually fairly simplified ones. The Kriya Tantra ones are fairly simplified. When we get into highest yoga tantra, they get far more complex. But the way that they say to begin visualizing is you just pick one thing. Report an error in the passage at 18:17 Highlight the passage at 18:17

18:46 It might just be the finger. It might just be one finger and you visualize on one finger and then you begin expanding out from there. So you don't have to start immediately with like 17 heads and however many arms and however many deities around them, like with Kalachakra for example, one of the more complex visualizations. Report an error in the passage at 18:46 Highlight the passage at 18:46

19:10 The main gist is to try to find those qualities and to know at some level that I have those qualities in myself. So this isn't something that's outside. And it does feel artificial at first. It does feel contrived. And that's okay. Because we haven't developed those qualities. We haven't perfected ourselves. Oh, surprise. I hate to be the one to tell you. We have those qualities within us, but we haven't realized those qualities quite yet. Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:40 So we're still working on it. But we practice with the idea of being able to access those qualities and also to overcome this leaden burden of ordinary view that just has kept us swimming around in saṃsāra for lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 19:40 Highlight the passage at 19:40

20:01 And it gives us this courage too, right? Because it's one thing all of these deities, when they rise up, it's like they have this sort of hugeness, they have this huge mind, this vastness, they have bodhicitta already, right? So they have this amazing desire to help all living beings and the capacity to do something about it. And so when you're visualizing yourself as the deity, for a minute, However long you hold the visualization before you get up and have your breakfast. You have the ability to help all beings too and you have the capacity and this light is pouring out of you and it's purifying all the beings around you and it's transforming them into deity and it's coming back into you. Report an error in the passage at 20:01 Highlight the passage at 20:01

20:43 There's a lot of this back and forth light. That makes you powerful and courageous and strong too. Even if it's just for a minute before you get in your car and go to work. If you can actually remember at various points during the day, even for a minute, to be riding your bike and to suddenly become the deity or to be sitting at your desk and to suddenly become the deity. Report an error in the passage at 20:43 Highlight the passage at 20:43

21:04 You have to put a couple of your legs aside so that you can sit in your office chair and things like that. It really is quite powerful, even if it's just for a minute to remember. That's a lot of the practice is just remembering to... To transform that ordinary view and to remember what your life's really about now that you've become a tantric player rather than an ordinary being. Report an error in the passage at 21:04 Highlight the passage at 21:04

21:33 Even though everyone else from the outside still thinks you're just an ordinary being sitting at your little desk, you know, being whoever you were before. Report an error in the passage at 21:33 Highlight the passage at 21:33

21:44 So it also, the more we do it, the more we identify with this really powerful, strong, capable being. And the less we identify with that old... Lama Yeshi calls it, and I love this one, self-pity mind. He talks about self-pity mind all the time. And our mind gradually will transform into the deity over time. Report an error in the passage at 21:44 Highlight the passage at 21:44

22:06 All it takes is a lot of effort and time, but it is possible. We are not the first yogis and yoginis to do this. We have many, many people ahead of us on the path whose practices we can emulate. Report an error in the passage at 22:06 Highlight the passage at 22:06

22:23 So a lot of Westerners say, well, you know, isn't this just putting on yet another mask, you know, one more mask, you know. I've already put on a bunch of different masks in this lifetime, and why, you know, why bother putting this mask on? And that's, Lama Yeshe is really... We're underscoring a lot in this particular chapter on ordinary appearance that we aren't becoming something that we don't already have the seeds of within ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 22:23 Highlight the passage at 22:23

22:51 So we're not just sticking on. Especially the Tibetan dances where they wear the big heads. If you've ever seen Thipa perform, they do the big head thing. They put on the whole costume and stuff. We're not doing that. We're doing it from the inside out. So we're arising and we're visualizing from the inside out. So we're transforming, working on first our mind, but also eventually our body, our whole body is actually going to change into a deity. Report an error in the passage at 22:51 Highlight the passage at 22:51

23:21 So it's pretty incredible stuff. So it's not play acting, even though at first it might feel contrived. It's a really different thing. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:33 But first we have to look at how we do see ourselves. And so that's part of the visualization or part of the meditation that you guys did last week is a way into seeing where this I or me is. But Lama Yeshe said this great four line. Sentence as he was passing away, as he was manifesting passing away in 1984 and he was continuing to teach as much as he could up until the end. Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

24:01 I mean in some ways he taught all the way to the end how to let go of your body happily, which is something that all of us need to learn. But he said to his students who were clinging to him, am I this body? Am I this body? And it's something that we have to really examine. We're not this body. We are not this brain, this body. We are not these muscles, these clothes. Report an error in the passage at 24:01 Highlight the passage at 24:01

24:29 We're not this identity. As much as we identify so strongly with it right now. And we have to examine this because it makes the dying process that much harder to think I am this body and now suddenly this body is collapsing basically. Report an error in the passage at 24:29 Highlight the passage at 24:29

24:47 That's what leads to so much fear on the deathbed. Because if we have to give up this body, which is our most prized possession, and we think I'm it, then what else is there? And suddenly there's nothing. In one minute you're having to give up everyone and everything that you've ever been attached to and ever loved, including this identity of me. Report an error in the passage at 24:47 Highlight the passage at 24:47

25:13 So if we haven't examined it, Before that moment, then we're in trouble. So it really behooves us, even if for no other reason than preparing for our own death, to examine what we really are. But, you know, we are not this body. Lama Yeshe was not that body, even though his students loved that body that he was manifesting in. Report an error in the passage at 25:13 Highlight the passage at 25:13

25:43 That mental continuum then moved out of that body. That body was burned and then the mental continuum found another body in the form of this Spanish boy, Usel. And that is not Lama Yeshi. So it's really different. That's the same mental continuum but a very different being this time around. And yet some similarities, right? So it's very interesting to look at something like that and to think about. Report an error in the passage at 25:43 Highlight the passage at 25:43

26:18 How that relates to me, not just as some story about somebody else, but how does that relate to me? Because, you know, what happens when my mind leaves this particular identity and body and mind and brain? Report an error in the passage at 26:18 Highlight the passage at 26:18

26:33 Very worth looking at. So, and, I mean, our culture really, really perpetuates this, too, by pouring almost all of our energy into our body, right? How we look, how we age. Report an error in the passage at 26:33 Highlight the passage at 26:33

26:51 What color our hair is. What we put on our body. And then of course the gym and that whole scene of taking care of this body but in sometimes an exaggerated manner. Of course it is really good to take care of our bodies. And actually one of the tantric commitments is to take care of our bodies because it's a useful vessel in which to practice tantra. Report an error in the passage at 26:51 Highlight the passage at 26:51

27:14 Not so much because it's such a great thing in and of itself. Report an error in the passage at 27:14 Highlight the passage at 27:14

27:21 So we have to, when we enter Tantra, which is why of course it is an advanced practice also, we are sort of moving, we are definitely moving away from the same goals as the culture that surrounds us. And so we have to, when we enter Tantra, we have to be aware that that's what's going to happen. It doesn't mean we have to immediately run off into the mountains, but if our goal really is to get enlightened, then our goals aren't. Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:51 We're not necessarily meshing with the rest of society, mainstream society. Obviously there's a Dharma society that's out there too and we can connect with each other and support each other and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 27:51 Highlight the passage at 27:51

28:08 So some of the teachings of Tantra are getting into the subtle body and mind and we're going to talk more about that next class and in fact I'm going to give you guys some diagrams of the I don't remember if it's next class actually. I know I'm going to give you the diagrams of the subtle body, the chakra system and so forth. And so we're going to talk about that a little bit as the completion stage practices will get into working with those energies, which I think I described in an earlier class. Report an error in the passage at 28:08 Highlight the passage at 28:08

28:47 I know I have in other classes. It's very similar to other systems, especially other Asian systems that talk about meridians and points and so forth, and chakras are talked about in other Hindu systems as well. A lot of precision in the Tibetan Buddhist system that is very unique as well. We can talk about some of those things. They aren't necessarily secret. They're used within the Tibetan medicine, so it's okay for me to share that with you. Report an error in the passage at 28:47 Highlight the passage at 28:47

29:21 But it is important to know that when we do this deity yoga or the practice of arising as the deity, that it's not fantasizing in a new way because we already do enough fantasizing, right? We already do enough hallucinating. This is actually a really... Clear and profound method to sort of blast through this ordinary view that's holding us back. Report an error in the passage at 29:21 Highlight the passage at 29:21

29:50 And some of these visualizations are actually used, we hear about it in medicine and sort of health and healing professions now, like people who are very, very sick with something like cancer or tumor or something like that, visualizing that they are not. That they are not sick, you know, or that, you know, visualizing the tumor going away and that they are not sick and that they are strong and vibrant and healthy and that they are able to actually do something with that because the visualization, and they believe in the visualization that strongly. Report an error in the passage at 29:50 Highlight the passage at 29:50

30:28 And also in sports, you know, visualizing the entire run, you know, this happens a lot, visualizing the entire run all the way through getting the metal put on you, you know, and with that. It feels like being put on you and so forth. And Rubina always talks about that. I find that really fascinating. And that's totally a tantric technique that's being used in sports and successfully. Report an error in the passage at 30:28 Highlight the passage at 30:28

30:53 I mean, people are able to visualize it so well that they have this sort of extra, I guess, confidence must come from it that they're able to actually run the race or bobsled the race or whatever it is and succeed. Whereas they might have... Not before, they might have been overcome by sort of worries or something like that. So it's not something new to Tantra, or maybe it was and maybe they've been who served. Report an error in the passage at 30:53 Highlight the passage at 30:53

31:22 Again, another great quote from Lama Yeshe. This one's a bit longer, but it's so powerful and we have to hear this over and over and over again, which is one of the reasons why when I... First read Introduction to Tantra, I decided I was just going to try to read it every year because it's such a powerful book. And he knows Western mind. Report an error in the passage at 31:22 Highlight the passage at 31:22

31:42 He knows where we get stuck more so, I think, than other cultures. Or I should just, yeah, Western, I think, including not just America but North America and Europe. The biggest obstacle standing in the way of our successful transformation into such a deity is our persistent belief in ordinary appearances. As long as we maintain the ordinary vision we have of ourselves, there is no space for seeing ourselves as an enlightened being. Report an error in the passage at 31:42 Highlight the passage at 31:42

32:14 We cannot truly see ourselves as possessing a deity's transparent body of light if we continue to identify so strongly with our gross physical form. And we will never be able to contact the essentially pure nature of our own being if we continue to think that our mind's fundamental nature is nothing but the delusions and gross conceptions that pass through it. Report an error in the passage at 32:14 Highlight the passage at 32:14

32:38 Therefore, if we truly wish to achieve the satisfaction of complete self-fulfillment, meaning get enlightened, we must find a way to break free from the tyranny of ordinary appearances and conceptions. We must gain a heartfelt appreciation of how disastrous it is to continue relating to our body and our mind and therefore our self-image in the gross and limiting ways we do now. Report an error in the passage at 32:38 Highlight the passage at 32:38

33:05 Got to. There's no other choice, as you were saying. What else is there to do with the rest of our lives? Report an error in the passage at 33:05 Highlight the passage at 33:05

33:17 Because if we don't, then we just keep perpetuating this cycle of seeing ourselves as... Poor little me, victim mind, worthless, incapable. All those things that are going to keep us, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? So we're just going to keep creating ourselves in that image. And he's saying basically we have the chance to create ourselves again in whatever image we want. Report an error in the passage at 33:17 Highlight the passage at 33:17

33:48 Which is a really powerful statement and is very, very true of Buddhism and it's not necessarily true of other religions. That we can become the most magnificent being that we can possibly imagine. Which is pretty cool. And so this is the direct antidote of seeing ourselves with this little self-pity mind is beginning to visualize ourselves as this powerful, capable deity. Report an error in the passage at 33:48 Highlight the passage at 33:48

34:18 deity. Report an error in the passage at 34:18 Highlight the passage at 34:18

34:22 And the more that we do it, the more that we will completely identify with that. And it takes practice. It's like over and over and over and over and over we do it. Report an error in the passage at 34:22 Highlight the passage at 34:22

34:34 If you have your first tantric empowerment and you haven't figured it out by the following Friday, don't feel like something's wrong with you. Don't, you know. Report an error in the passage at 34:34 Highlight the passage at 34:34

34:45 I have had students come to me and say that's kind of like, you know, it really takes a long time. We're talking limitless lifetimes of, you know, having this really heavy burden of ordinary perception of ourselves and everything around us. And so it's a habit of mind. It's just another habit of mind. It's just like getting angry is a habit of mind or feeling jealous of others is a habit of mind. Report an error in the passage at 34:45 Highlight the passage at 34:45

35:12 Or, you know, having irritation if things don't go your way is a habit of mind. And all of those, according to even the sūtra teachings, can also be transformed with familiarization with their antidote, right? It's the same as Shantideva teaches. If we get angry a lot, the antidote is patience, which always feels like, duh. Report an error in the passage at 35:12 Highlight the passage at 35:12

35:36 Duh. But. I think a lot of times when we think applying patience, we think patience is already fully manifested rather than applying this active patience of making this determination not to get angry. Making the determination not to get angry and then whatever it takes to keep from getting angry is a form of patience. That's really different than just going, okay. Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

36:07 You know, like any time you get upset, you know, oh, I got to be patient. That means I got to be good. You know, it's not like that. It's not like we're trying to look good in case the Buddhas notice. You know, it's like the way we used to do when Mom was coming down the hall. It's like, okay, okay. You know, I try to get all in place. They see us all the time, so the jig's up, you know. Report an error in the passage at 36:07 Highlight the passage at 36:07

36:26 So when we're applying patience, we have to actively make our mind really courageous and strong against our own anger. So that's what applying patience is. And the same, if we're lazy and we want to apply joyful effort, it's not like we have this fully formed joyful effort that we just fake. Report an error in the passage at 36:26 Highlight the passage at 36:26

36:47 We're trying to manifest this mind of getting what effort is, which is this delight in virtue, and growing into that, getting habituated with that mind. Report an error in the passage at 36:47 Highlight the passage at 36:47

37:01 In the sūtra teachings, it's the same. We're doing the same thing. It's just a slight difference on what we're becoming. A slight difference. Rather than a patient, joyful, generous living being, we're all of those things combined into this deity that we're manifesting as. Report an error in the passage at 37:01 Highlight the passage at 37:01

37:26 I remember talking with Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a few years ago and saying that I felt like I really shouldn't be teaching the Lamrim because I didn't have any realizations. And he said really quietly and slowly, gaining realizations takes a very long time. So I took that to mean that we just have to keep practicing the best we can, knowing that it's going to take a long time. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

37:54 And when we screw up, We just start over, you know, we just start over. And we try to get to the point, I know one of the things, I've mentioned this many times, but I always found it quite useful to see in person when Venerable Rabina was living here, when she would have a deluded thought or manifest one, whoever she is, she would say, oh, isn't that interesting what the mind does? Report an error in the passage at 37:54 Highlight the passage at 37:54

38:21 Rather than identifying so strongly with, oh, I'm such an idiot, which is, of course, my response. I can't believe he did that again, you know. Channeling my father, so I needed to. And she would just be like, oh, isn't that interesting what the mind just did, you know. So it's not, it's like this. Deluded thought is passing over the mind and she's just watching it, kind of like Margaret Mead with the notebook. So there's just this sort of, almost like a scientific thing happening that she's watching. Report an error in the passage at 38:21 Highlight the passage at 38:21

38:53 And then she doesn't get all identified. Because then you just spiral out and you just hate yourself for a while, right? And then you're like, no, wait, I'm supposed to be applying the Dharma. Three days later, it's like, oh, whoops. Let me do about... Ten hours of bodhicitta and get rid of that. And then go to the original action, which was simply a thought arising in my mind. That's a habit for many lifetimes of not catching it. Report an error in the passage at 38:53 Highlight the passage at 38:53

39:18 That's all it is, you know. So that's what we're trying to get to. Stop identifying so strongly with the deluded state of mind. Report an error in the passage at 39:18 Highlight the passage at 39:18

39:29 So how do we, you know, how do we access the subtler consciousness and... Without getting so distracted the way we normally get by all the exciting things that are outside of us. One of the things that we have to do, and fortunately it's part of the tantric practice in a completely different way than it is in the sūtra practice, but for both we need to develop concentration. Report an error in the passage at 39:29 Highlight the passage at 39:29

39:58 So we have to develop calm abiding, a very, very profound form of single-pointed concentration. But this is kind of interesting, the way in Tantra, the way we develop calm abiding, and we'll also need to develop special insight, the same as in Sūtra, to have a direct perception of emptiness. In Tantra, it's part of the visualizations. We actually use the visualizations to develop this mind of concentration, because otherwise... Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:31 We still can get completely distracted by whatever sense pleasures are around us, the same thing that we do in sūtra. But what we do in tantra is we actually gain, okay, so we use pleasure, we use the desire of pleasure that arises and it becomes such a juicy object. As we're visualizing ourself as the deity, that we begin to focus on that. And that becomes so interesting to us that we aren't, you know, it's not like we're trying to visualize, like in sūtra where we're visualizing a candle flame or our breath or Vajra, Dorji, or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 40:31 Highlight the passage at 40:31

41:24 We're not visualizing something. We're visualizing the experience of bliss and then emptiness. And so we use that experience to hold our concentration on that and to develop calm abiding as part of our visualization. And so that's how we're developing calm abiding. Special insight we gain in a couple of different ways. One is because we use that mind of bliss to meditate on emptiness, right? Report an error in the passage at 41:24 Highlight the passage at 41:24

41:52 So there's no other reason to have a mind of bliss from the tantric point of view. Not from the Western point of view, except that that mind is very, very subtle and that we can use that mind to directly perceive emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 41:52 Highlight the passage at 41:52

42:09 So we're still going to use special insight in the same way. So if we don't have the last few classes I was going through, the three principle paths, the Minds of Renunciation, Bodhicitta and the Correct View of Emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 42:09 Highlight the passage at 42:09

42:27 Those are called the common preliminaries. Actually studying the Lamrim in its entirety is a common preliminary. At the end of the class tonight we also mention the uncommon preliminaries as well. If we don't have those before we get into Tantra as a daily practice and as going deeper into it, into retreats and so forth, then we run the risk of... Report an error in the passage at 42:27 Highlight the passage at 42:27

42:56 Not just mishandling it and not getting the results that we want, but it could be worse than that. We could get absolutely no result and then think it doesn't work and then dissuade others from the path as well, saying it doesn't work. I've tried it. I've been trying it for 40 years. I mean, there are definitely students out there who have been trying it for 40 years and they aren't getting any result, probably because they aren't remembering. Report an error in the passage at 42:56 Highlight the passage at 42:56

43:26 To follow whatever their gurus advise, if they even had a guru, which is of course a big one too. So, one of the things that Lama Yeshi advises us to do is to relax our ordinary ego grasping, even just a little bit from the start. So even if we don't have, already don't have a profound view of emptiness, just to begin to relax it a little bit, we do have to create this space. Report an error in the passage at 43:26 Highlight the passage at 43:26

43:56 And how we see ourselves and this habitual hallucinated view of ourselves and role playing that we normally do. And so he just talks a lot about relaxing that one, becoming more easy going he talks about and things like that. Report an error in the passage at 43:56 Highlight the passage at 43:56

44:12 If anybody's ever seen, there's this one picture of Lama Yeshu when he's in meditation posture and he's trying really, really hard and he's got his eyes really closed and that's his imitation of Westerners trying to arise as the deity. Actually, one of my teachers said he really hated the word generation, generating as the deity. There's one back there and then there's also one right up here in the front row and you can do either one. Report an error in the passage at 44:12 Highlight the passage at 44:12

44:40 And this one's not too scary because you're, oh, you've got a skirt on. All right, yeah. She's got the girly look. Report an error in the passage at 44:40 Highlight the passage at 44:40

44:52 That's his imitation of us trying to rise as a deity. It's like generating as a deity. One of my teachers said that that word sounds like a generator, right? It's like, and so he liked something else. I think Gartgen Rinpoche was using creation stage. Which is kind of nice too. I like that creation stage. Also again giving us the power of the creation again. Report an error in the passage at 44:52 Highlight the passage at 44:52

45:19 It's sort of the opposite of Christianity where we have a creator being who does that for us and then we just, we're inhabitants. We are the creator and then we actually even create the inhabitants. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, language is an interesting thing. I think the more realizations we get the... Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

45:39 The more it'll click with our experience. It won't be just somebody else's attempting to get it right. Report an error in the passage at 45:39 Highlight the passage at 45:39

45:52 So one of the habits that we have with our ordinary view is just this constant idea of running towards all the things that we're attracted to and running away from all the things that we're averse to. Report an error in the passage at 45:52 Highlight the passage at 45:52

46:04 This is partly due to this whole dualistic appearance. This hallucination, as Lama Eshi puts it, this idea that things exist as good and bad and male and female and out there and in here and this whole idea that we have that that's how things exist. And this is, of course, the way that we're raised, too. And in order to get past that... Report an error in the passage at 46:04 Highlight the passage at 46:04

46:37 We have to keep doing these visualizations where all of that dissolves. So there's no good and bad. There's no male and female. There's no there and here. Everything just gets dissolved into this sort of clear, empty space. It's an experience of emptiness. That's not actually emptiness. Even Lama Yeshi says that in the book in places. He has to say it because I'm sure he had some detractors at the time. I know this isn't emptiness, but this is what gives us an experience of emptiness by allowing us to sort of dissolve this dualistic appearance of reality that we currently have that holds us back. Report an error in the passage at 46:37 Highlight the passage at 46:37

47:18 So we keep dissolving everything into this clear, empty space, allowing our mind to be sort of... Free of all those tight little limitations. Boundless. We see its boundlessness. It is boundless. We're simply seeing it. It hasn't attained this quality through the visualization. We're seeing our boundless mind, you know, in these visualizations. And again, just like I was saying in some of the early classes, we try to keep, so that moment of bliss arises and we try to keep our mind very alert and strong. Report an error in the passage at 47:18 Highlight the passage at 47:18

47:59 Focused rather than just dumbing out the way the baby on the breast does. We aren't emulating the baby on the breast. We aren't falling asleep in front of the TV with a bunch of food. We aren't trying to dull our senses here. We're actually trying to have... This experience of the blissfulness and spaciousness of our own mind and thus all of reality and stay as open and alert as we can, you know. Report an error in the passage at 47:59 Highlight the passage at 47:59

48:32 So when these experiences arise, and this is something we can practice now too, right? So if you're having pleasurable experiences, stay alert, stay focused, you know. Try to stay focused as much as you can, whether it's a bathtub, you know, Whatever it is that you're having, whatever pleasurable experience as you're tasting food. There are different yogas that we do in Tantra that totally affect how we eat and every bite of food becomes a cause of our own bliss. Report an error in the passage at 48:32 Highlight the passage at 48:32

49:08 It completely changes the salad. And it's hard at first to do that when there's a whole table full of people around you and you're just blissing out with your chocolate cake or whatever it is that you're eating. Report an error in the passage at 49:08 Highlight the passage at 49:08

49:24 But we practice it partly to get away from that ordinary view and partly to remember that we are the deity. So we're just continually doing things like that. And if you're not having, you know, if you haven't had empowerment to arise as a deity but you want to practice that, the deity can be at your heart, you know. Report an error in the passage at 49:24 Highlight the passage at 49:24

49:43 So you can imagine Shakyamuni Buddha or His Holiness the Dalai Lama even at your heart and just feed him. His bliss can pervade you, you know, and it totally gives you the same effect. So very ordinary things. Sleeping can also bring great bliss. We all know that one, right? I'll be giving Report an error in the passage at 49:43 Highlight the passage at 49:43

50:11 you guys a meditation, not this time, but later. It's a meditation that we do in Tantra. We also do it in the death and impermanence class. It's the dissolution meditation. that we do to Report an error in the passage at 50:11 Highlight the passage at 50:11

50:33 In the ordinary experience of death, we visualize our body dissolving and all the different elements dissolving and then the mind dissolving into the clear light mind and then from that the mind would move into the bardo experience. If you're doing it with tantra, we're doing that visualization quite a bit and then from that we actually arise as the deity. We're shifting. Report an error in the passage at 50:33 Highlight the passage at 50:33

51:00 An ordinary experience of death into an experience of arising as the deity. And since they say that our mind gets very, very subtle like this at the time that we go to sleep as well, then that's one of the practices. So instead of just conking out, we actually attempt, or are supposed to be attempting to do this dissolution of... Report an error in the passage at 51:00 Highlight the passage at 51:00

51:25 The body and mind before sleep. And so it's another way, too, of just trying to stay alert at those times that feel really nice rather than just, you know, conking out or, you know, dumbing out, I call it. Dulling out maybe is a better way of saying it. So, yeah, and it's not like when we attain this state of bliss and spaciousness that we just sit around and, you know. Report an error in the passage at 51:25 Highlight the passage at 51:25

51:56 Kind of go gaga. Because you look at His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Lama Zopa Rinpoche, they are capable of doing more because their mind is so spacious and clear and sharp. So it's not like we're trying to reach some state of just kind of... Drooling happiness. That's again more of a worldly view of stuffing in everything while you're watching a movie or something. Report an error in the passage at 51:56 Highlight the passage at 51:56

52:25 But Buddhas are actually more capable because they aren't so distracted by all of the delusions that arise in the mind and they aren't dulled out. Their minds are very clear and crisp and spacious and creative. They have skillful means so they can come up with all these different... Ways to use their time and our time by coming up with all these great projects. So Lama Yashi gives us advice in the book to try to begin to look at our own minds now in order to get to that state. Report an error in the passage at 52:25 Highlight the passage at 52:25

53:04 We always want to leap through and we don't want to do the footwork to see where we are now. So first we have to see where we are now. So he talks about... What to do in meditation to kind of get an idea of what our mind is like now. This is very similar to other meditations that I've led in the drop-in meditations. Report an error in the passage at 53:04 Highlight the passage at 53:04

53:25 So some of you that started in the drop-in meditations might find this familiar. But he said, watch your thoughts as they arise, abide and then dissolve back into the clear nature of your mind. Watch them as they arise from this clear nature and then naturally, without you forcing them, they dissolve back into it. Once they dissolve, try concentrating on the resulting clarity with as little distraction as you can. Report an error in the passage at 53:25 Highlight the passage at 53:25

53:52 We need to train ourselves to not become engrossed by each thought arising and dissolving in our mind. So again, as I say in the drop in meditation, we're not trying to clear our mind of all thoughts, but we're trying to keep from running after every thought. We're trying to see how there is this sort of spacious, clear light nature of our mind and then from them all these sort of myriad of thoughts and ideas and dreams and visions. Report an error in the passage at 53:52 Highlight the passage at 53:52

54:23 and and, you know. I was going with all the good stuff. Wait a second. All the jealousy and the anger and the depression and all that stuff. Those are just thoughts and they're just arising like popcorn and they're dissolving back into this spacious, clear, light nature of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 54:23 Highlight the passage at 54:23

54:46 So again, Lama Yeshe. I can't say it any better, so I just keep... I'm quoting him because I just think he says it so great. I really wish I could have met him in this The source of all, the reason that we do this is because the source of all of our happiness and suffering, the root of both the pains of saṃsāra and the bliss of nirvāṇa is the mind. Report an error in the passage at 54:46 Highlight the passage at 54:46

55:08 And within the mind, it is our habitual wrong view, our ignorant, insecure, ego grasping. that holds on to the hallucination of a concrete self The way to break the spell of this hallucination is to see the illusory nature of things and recognize that all phenomena are nothing but fleeting appearances arising in the clear space of our mind. Report an error in the passage at 55:08 Highlight the passage at 55:08

55:36 Thus, the more we contemplate the clarity of our own consciousness, The less we hold on to any appearance as being concrete and real, and the less we suffer. By watching our thoughts come and go in this way, we move ever closer to the correct view of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 55:36 Highlight the passage at 55:36

55:55 So this is a way to begin training the mind in how the mind actually exists, to begin to see the clarity, to believe even though we may not yet have an experience of it. But to believe that at nature our mind is this clear, spacious, open, blissful state and that all these other things that arise, good and bad, are simply thoughts arising and then dissolving back in and then arising and then dissolving back in. Report an error in the passage at 55:55 Highlight the passage at 55:55

56:31 And our suffering comes from grasping onto those things and thinking that they truly exist. Thinking that they are something other than something that we ourselves have given birth to. Because that's how our entire environment and our view of ourself arises. Report an error in the passage at 56:31 Highlight the passage at 56:31

56:50 But we have to train ourselves. We have to train our minds because our minds have been so entrenched and trained in this little limited view that we have of ourselves and our reality. Report an error in the passage at 56:50 Highlight the passage at 56:50

57:04 There's nothing that can obscure this. Pure nature of the mind. I mean the delusions and so forth arise but then they fall away. It's like we're focusing on the clouds instead of the sky and we always are focusing on the clouds instead of the sky and then when the clouds move away even for an instant and we have this vision of how vast and clear our mind is, it's mind-blowing. Report an error in the passage at 57:04 Highlight the passage at 57:04

57:33 It's literally mind-blowing. And then the clouds come back, right? Because then it's like, then I have this idea. Oh, I saw that. I had this experience. And the minute the I comes back, that's a concept too. So the I has come back into it. Report an error in the passage at 57:33 Highlight the passage at 57:33

57:53 So any questions on any of that before we take a break and then talk about some of the uncommon preliminary? Any questions about all that babbling? Report an error in the passage at 57:53 Highlight the passage at 57:53

58:12 Everyone's somewhere in the blissful expanses of their own minds. Report an error in the passage at 58:12 Highlight the passage at 58:12

58:33 Yeah, use the microphone. Report an error in the passage at 58:33 Highlight the passage at 58:33

58:38 The reason that we use the microphone, in case we haven't said it out loud, if people don't come to the class and then they download, then if they can't hear questions or comments, it's very frustrating. It also helps people in the back row too. I just have a compliment to you. You have so beautiful voice. Report an error in the passage at 58:38 Highlight the passage at 58:38

58:59 Thank you. I have a very interesting voice, I've noticed. If I get phone calls from people, they always begin flirting with me. Men and women, it's like the strangest, and this has happened all my life. And it's a very odd thing, and it's sort of like, no, actually you're barking up the wrong tree here, because I'm a nun. Report an error in the passage at 58:59 Highlight the passage at 58:59

59:19 But I think I just have this voice, and I think it's just, and my sister has the exact opposite. My sister tried to do, she did fundraising door to door, which worked really well. But then she tried it on the phone. People would just hang up left and right. She had the opposite voice. So it's interesting. I think it's just karma. I think it's just karma. Thank you. I think Venerable Sarah has an incredible voice. Report an error in the passage at 59:19 Highlight the passage at 59:19

59:41 There are certain people whose voice, well, His Holiness, obviously. Just totally gorgeous, you know, just like this really resonant voice. And it's just this gorgeous voice. And that's just karma, you know. I thank the being in my past life who must have done something good with their speech. But thank you. Report an error in the passage at 59:41 Highlight the passage at 59:41

1:00:00 Thank you very much. So do we need a break right now? Are you all so stunned that you... I Report an error in the passage at 1:00:00 Highlight the passage at 1:00:00

1:00:15 haven't seen any. Georgie needs a break. All right, so we're going to take a break. How about a five-minute break? And we'll come back. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:15 Highlight the passage at 1:00:15

1:00:39 I brought an entire bottle. I actually brought that down to the puja. Now I'm okay to you too. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:39 Highlight the passage at 1:00:39

1:00:53 So Jeremy, can you check? Report an error in the passage at 1:00:53 Highlight the passage at 1:00:53

1:00:58 I wonder if... Yeah, Report an error in the passage at 1:00:58 Highlight the passage at 1:00:58

1:01:06 at the event on Tuesday night. I know that I grabbed it out of Steve Orley's hands and I said, that one's ours. And I brought it over to where everything else was and that it didn't make it home with us. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:06 Highlight the passage at 1:01:06

1:01:23 So we'll have to see. Yeah. Yeah, I also forgot, completely forgot to grab any leftover flyers. And nobody seems to know where those are either. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I contacted Denise. She said no. She didn't see them. She wasn't the one that loaded them. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:23 Highlight the passage at 1:01:23

1:01:48 Maybe they were all taken hungrily. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:48 Highlight the passage at 1:01:48

1:01:57 I know. Because if the church found them, they would have thrown them out. But by the time I got out to that lobby, that table was already taken down and the tablecloth was already folded. So somebody did that within our group. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:57 Highlight the passage at 1:01:57

1:02:15 If you were walking out, it was the one on the right. Yeah, there was one table that had a bunch of different flyers on it, and it was all gone by the time we got out. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:15 Highlight the passage at 1:02:15

1:02:32 The Tonka, the forearm generation. We snuck bodhicitta back up. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:32 Highlight the passage at 1:02:32

1:02:46 No, no, somebody brought it up. Ours was up. Ours was on the left as you faced him. The one that was applique? Yeah. Oh, I figured somewhere. You know, I figured, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:46 Highlight the passage at 1:02:46

1:03:01 If we didn't get it into our car, then even if they left it there, I think the church would be like, okay, this is obviously something, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:01 Highlight the passage at 1:03:01

1:03:12 And I know it wasn't left outside or something like that. But anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:12 Highlight the passage at 1:03:12

1:03:43 Oh, it's because everyone's already got to us. Yeah. Yeah, we just started breaking everything down. We had talked about that beforehand because they had to be out of there by 1030. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:43 Highlight the passage at 1:03:43

1:03:59 That's why I just was like grabbing people, you know, my thing where I'm just like, you, can you help? You, pick that up. So we just started taking up all the cushions. And also that makes it easier because everyone's climbing over the cushions. But then it was just confusing because then they wanted us to carry all the cushions through the crowd of people and out the front door. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:59 Highlight the passage at 1:03:59

1:04:20 And I was like, well, this doesn't seem very wise. Anyway, we managed to figure it out. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:20 Highlight the passage at 1:04:20

1:04:33 You're going in and out through this. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:33 Highlight the passage at 1:04:33

1:04:38 Walking out with all the cushions. It just was kind of silly. And then we were supposed to load it all into the back of a pickup, just an open bed pickup, completely in a dark parking lot. It was completely odd. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:38 Highlight the passage at 1:04:38

1:04:55 Yeah, well, it just felt weird. It was me and this woman named Swirl. is like Report an error in the passage at 1:04:55 Highlight the passage at 1:04:55

1:05:05 And then she just took over that project completely. I just said, okay, I can't do this one anymore. Swirl took it on. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:05 Highlight the passage at 1:05:05

1:05:16 She's like, I'm so happy right now. I could just do all this by myself. It's like, that's cool. You just go for it. I Report an error in the passage at 1:05:16 Highlight the passage at 1:05:16

1:05:35 know, they're so great. It's so great. It's very rewarding. The short chapters, you're like, I can do this. What are you talking about? The short chapters in this book. I know, aren't they great? They're very rewarding. I know, they are. are, they are. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:35 Highlight the passage at 1:05:35

1:05:53 Yeah, yeah. And believe me, and the words, like none of the words are hard, you know what I mean? So it's not like reading Geshitashi's thing on emptiness right now, which you're kind of like, you know, it's like all those kind of big words and stuff. Yeah, right. Get through like two paragraphs. photographs, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:53 Highlight the passage at 1:05:53

1:06:20 I actually feel happy with that. A couple of paragraphs is really good. But you're not going to read it before bed. Yeah, that's the wrong one. Because then you just be like, yeah. Like this one you can read before bed. But then I fall asleep holding you like that. That's probably not so good. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:20 Highlight the passage at 1:06:20

1:06:46 She's talking about reading it before you go to bed. Actually reading in bed. I think it's not great, but I do it too. Really? Report an error in the passage at 1:06:46 Highlight the passage at 1:06:46

1:06:56 Yeah, I think just because you're just like, you know. But Tenzo Chokyi always says she does that thing, and I've done it before too, where you have really thick books like Liberation, and you just open it up to any place, and that's what you go to sleep on. I like that too. That's kind of fun. That's it. It's much better than the normal thing you go to sleep on. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:56 Highlight the passage at 1:06:56

1:07:24 Why do they say that? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:24 Highlight the passage at 1:07:24

1:07:28 Right, right. Right, or you're like, I only have six hours until you... yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:28 Highlight the passage at 1:07:28

1:07:36 That's so pointless. I Report an error in the passage at 1:07:36 Highlight the passage at 1:07:36

1:07:43 kind of do that. I kind of do that, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:43 Highlight the passage at 1:07:43

1:07:52 Oh, really? Even when you're sitting up? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Report an error in the passage at 1:07:52 Highlight the passage at 1:07:52

1:08:03 yeah. It is nice that it kind of pervades your mind, though, before you go to sleep. Yeah, I mean, my problem is if I read out of bed, then I won't get, I'm really into it. And then you just stay up. I know. I know. Can't win for losing. losing. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:03 Highlight the passage at 1:08:03

1:08:30 I have to do this bell because I don't have the other one. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:30 Highlight the passage at 1:08:30

1:08:39 Oh, the, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just got it. It sounds like sort of a school marm or something. Come on in. Recess is over. I Report an error in the passage at 1:08:39 Highlight the passage at 1:08:39

1:09:03 was talking, oh, maybe a leaky. Somebody was talking to me about that book, actually. Yeah. Do you like it? You read it before you go to bed. Now your secret's out. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:03 Highlight the passage at 1:09:03

1:09:35 I know. One time during Tantra, she had him singing. The two of them were singing together. That was really cute. So one of the biggest, before we talk about the uncommon preliminary practices to practicing Tantra, one of the biggest obstacles to any kind of concentration, to building concentration. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:35 Highlight the passage at 1:09:35

1:09:58 And I'm the queen of the distracted mind, but the distracted mind comes from dukkha. It comes from this dissatisfied mind that we have that's always looking for something to bring us happiness. It's always searching. It's always distracted because it's always searching for this something, some sort of satisfaction outside of ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:58 Highlight the passage at 1:09:58

1:10:21 And we just notice it when we're sitting and meditating, but actually it's active all the time. So. This bliss that arises in this, you know, when Lama Yeshe is describing this meditation, this bliss that arises when we contemplate the clarity of our own mind, we actually try to recognize that our mind really is clear by nature. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:21 Highlight the passage at 1:10:21

1:10:48 It's a huge antidote to dukkha. So they say that it has this ability... It has this ability to calm this sort of restless mind and to bring this deep satisfaction that's completely unlike anything we've experienced in the ordinary pleasure, in the ordinary world. And because we have this feeling of bliss, her mind isn't even tempted to wander away. And so then they say that your concentration begins to strengthen effortlessly. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:48 Highlight the passage at 1:10:48

1:11:24 This has not been truly my experience so I'm just repeating what my teachers have told me. But that's the idea in Tantra is that you have this combination of the clarity of the mind and this bliss that allows you to hold the object more strongly and with more pleasure than when you're just focusing the mind on any other object like the breath or even an image of the deity. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:24 Highlight the passage at 1:11:24

1:11:55 So like that. But it's kind of like times in our lives when we've been so absorbed by our work or by something that we really enjoy, maybe art or something like that, or a good book, that time just completely disappears. And I think we've all had experiences like that, whatever it is that we have a passion about. I remember when I first came to San Francisco, I wanted to become a photographer, and so I was spending a lot of time. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:55 Highlight the passage at 1:11:55

1:12:24 Darkroom time, which it seems like that's the saddest thing to me with the whole digital thing is that that was like the best time. That was like the best for me. The best part of photography is what you could do in the darkroom. I would just spend hours and hours and I would forget to eat, which is just shocking for me. And so I can really get that you can get so absorbed. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:24 Highlight the passage at 1:12:24

1:12:44 And there have been times, too, even working on the e-news and things like that, that I get really absorbed in it or even on a class. And I get so absorbed and hours and hours and hours go by. And it's just like, oh, wow. So it's like that, that we just, if we're having pleasure, then we want to stay there, right? So we aren't distracted to go somewhere else. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:44 Highlight the passage at 1:12:44

1:13:02 The mind usually gets bored if it's not having pleasure and looks for pleasure. And they say, with all of these qualities, concentration included, that all of us have this capacity here right now. It's just that the seeds are dormant. But that's not the same as saying that we're little Buddhas, that we're already Buddhas. Because as long as we're still getting irritated and impatient and holding grudges and so forth, then we're not Buddhas. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:02 Highlight the passage at 1:13:02

1:13:33 So it's not the same as saying that we're all... Buddhas and just sort of you have to just take off the mask and all of a sudden the Buddha's inside and everything's cool and it could happen overnight. It's not like that. It's more like we have these qualities and their seeds are dormant and so now we have to cultivate them and grow them and develop them and keep going back to them and keep remembering that that's what we're all about, that that's what our life is now, you know? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:33 Highlight the passage at 1:13:33

1:14:08 With especially that much joy. Okay, so the uncommon preliminaries to studying tantra are receiving the appropriate tantric empowerment, which is very important. You are not really supposed to study or practice any kind of tantric practice without having the proper empowerment or initiation. We'll talk about that more. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:08 Highlight the passage at 1:14:08

1:14:38 Keeping the various commitments and vows of that empowerment. So, of course, you have to know what they are, which is useful. Geshe-la always says that, you know, even when he's talking about refuge and lay vows, you know, he'll do the whole ceremony and he'll tell us to all rejoice. It's always built into every ceremony to rejoice. So he just rejoiced and he says, now that you've taken them, you have to keep them. And everyone kind of does. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:38 Highlight the passage at 1:14:38

1:15:04 just... I don't know. And actually, I think His Holiness Sakyatresin said that actually the other night too. It was kind of like, okay, now that you've done this, you have to keep the vows and samayas. Samayas are especially pledges that we make with our gurus, and we'll talk about the guru relationship too. That's a really huge one in tantra. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:04 Highlight the passage at 1:15:04

1:15:26 So receiving the appropriate tantric empowerment, keeping the various commitments and vows of that empowerment, doing the practices that... Purify us and accumulate merit. We have to keep that up. That's really big in sūtra, but it's also incredibly big in tantra, and of course they're built in. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:26 Highlight the passage at 1:15:26

1:15:48 Anybody that went on Tuesday night, that was a very interesting way to begin the teaching, starting with Rajya Sattva. We just went right into the long mantra of Vajrasattvas, which I was really thrilled because I had done all but seven Vajrasattvas on the way down. And we did like seven Vajrasattvas. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:48 Highlight the passage at 1:15:48

1:16:05 I was like, cool. It was so unusual. There were no opening prayers. And I wondered if Geshe was even prepared because he was the umzeh. And all of a sudden here we were doing the long Vajrasattva mantra. And we're just all sitting there, including, you know, Sakyatrim and doing the Vajrasattva. And I guess it was just to purify us before we did anything. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:05 Highlight the passage at 1:16:05

1:16:25 Before we even motivated. It was very unusual. I liked it a lot. I don't know so much about the Saki traditions, but I thought that was really cool. We constantly have to be purifying and accumulating there. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:25 Highlight the passage at 1:16:25

1:16:38 And then gaining inspiration through guru yoga. So we'll talk about that. I can't remember actually if it's next week or the week after, but in one of the final couple classes we're going to talk about guru yoga. Which ultimately means as... As Geshe-la always says, meeting and serving a qualified teacher, especially in this case of a qualified Vajra master. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:38 Highlight the passage at 1:16:38

1:17:05 And he said basically that's following their advice. So when we say serving, it is really nice to give them tea and make them momos and buy them socks. All of those things are really useful and good to do. And I always encourage people to do that. But the main thing is to follow their advice. If we found them, then... Report an error in the passage at 1:17:05 Highlight the passage at 1:17:05

1:17:24 And we're asking them what to do. And then they tell us what to do. And then we go and find another one to ask the same question. That's not so great. But we'll talk about that next week. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:24 Highlight the passage at 1:17:24

1:17:34 So I'd like to end with a meditation, unless anybody has any questions. I'd like to end with a meditation that's going to be your homework. But we're also going to do a practice that's called the nine-round breathing. And I was thinking to start with the nine-round breathing. In fact, I think I... I will start with the nine round breathing the way Lama Yeshi describes it, but we also learn this nine round breathing technique from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:34 Highlight the passage at 1:17:34

1:18:04 And I'll show you that one. It doesn't have so many words attached to it. And I find it quite nice. And so I've switched over. I have become a convert of His Holiness' technique. There's no difference between them. And in fact, the two can be combined. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:04 Highlight the passage at 1:18:04

1:18:22 All that's happening in Lama Yeshe's is more you're thinking about sort of what's going on. I guess that's the difference a little bit more. His Holiness is one is just you do this, you do this, you do this, and then you start. And there's something refreshing about that to me because I am such a thinker. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:22 Highlight the passage at 1:18:22

1:18:41 So it sort of just gets me out of all the thinking. But you can see which one you like better. So maybe just stretch a little bit if you need to stretch. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:41 Highlight the passage at 1:18:41

1:18:53 And then we're going to start with this. This is something that clears stagnant energy, any blocks that you might have in your system. There are clear dependencies or reliances between the body and the mind in Tibetan Buddhism, just as many of us have known for a long time. And so if you feel really blocked or really overcome by certain mental states, How you do breathing and different exercises and so forth actually help clear that so you don't have to just wait until you get happy again. You can actually do something to move the energy, which is really cool. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:53 Highlight the passage at 1:18:53

1:19:37 So I'm going to assign this and to just get comfortable with it, get used to it, and then we're going to... Try to remember to do it every class for the remainder of the classes so that we can get some experience together and people can ask questions if they have anything that comes up or whatever. And there is a more profound version of it that I'll show you in one of the later classes. So we start with holding your left. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:37 Highlight the passage at 1:19:37

1:20:12 Nostril closed. Actually, we may want to pass around the Kleenex in case anyone feels blacked up. You'll hear it if not. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:12 Highlight the passage at 1:20:12

1:20:25 Especially if anyone had any of the weird cream stuff in the little box out there. Mini Moos that we're now serving as milk. Not that I'm bitter or anything. I was like, I can't believe that we're offering that. I guess it doesn't have to be refrigerated. Anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:25 Highlight the passage at 1:20:25

1:20:47 Anyway. And, like, tons of, like, waste products, but, you know, that's another issue. Maybe we could pick it. I mean, no, mini-moos. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:47 Highlight the passage at 1:20:47

1:21:00 Anyway. Mini-moos? Mini-moos, those little kind of, like, creamers that you don't have to refrigerate. There's, like, a, yeah, single serving, yeah. Anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:00 Highlight the passage at 1:21:00

1:21:19 I'll have you visualize that. Especially for the black tea drinkers and the coffee drinkers. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:19 Highlight the passage at 1:21:19

1:21:30 You just have yours black? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:30 Highlight the passage at 1:21:30

1:21:35 Go back to your jump. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:35 Highlight the passage at 1:21:35

1:21:39 All right, so what we're going to do is we're going to start with holding our left nostril closed with the back of the index finger and then breathing in through the right nostril. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:39 Highlight the passage at 1:21:39

1:21:54 And Lama Yashi says that when you're doing that... Visualize that you're breathing in all the pure blissful energy from all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And then you move it over, cover your right and breathe out the left. And think as you're doing that that you're breathing out all your impure desire attachment energy. So when it's going out, the left side is usually desire attachment. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:54 Highlight the passage at 1:21:54

1:22:19 So as you're breathing out, that's when you're unblocking it. And you do that three times. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:19 Highlight the passage at 1:22:19

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:22:58 Then we do the reverse. And this time we're breathing out all of our hatred or anger energy. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:58 Highlight the passage at 1:22:58

1:23:09 Breathing in through the right. I'm sorry, through the left and out through the right. And Report an error in the passage at 1:23:09 Highlight the passage at 1:23:09

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:23:48 then finally you're breathing in through both nostrils. And as you exhale, visualize that you're removing all your ignorance energy. So you're just breathing in through both and breathing out through. Breathing in all the pure, radiant light. energy of the Buddhas all your ignorance energy. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:48 Highlight the passage at 1:23:48

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:24:48 says three of each, times it makes nine. So that's why it's called the nine round breathing. So his holiness is, want you to move this a little bit because we have a little action with his holiness. This was, I think, one of the coolest moments of His Holiness' teachings in D.C. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:48 Highlight the passage at 1:24:48

1:25:09 Although I had to hit the person next to me and thought that wasn't so great. So you have to be careful because your arms kind of go out. It's as far as your arm goes, so you might hit the person next to you, so apologize right now. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:09 Highlight the passage at 1:25:09

1:25:24 Or become friends with the person next to you. So you start with just, you sort of make these Bajra fists, have them down on your, kind of in front of you. it's Report an error in the passage at 1:25:24 Highlight the passage at 1:25:24

1:25:39 And you're bringing them up the sides and then straight out. It's almost like you're punching somebody. And then to the left. This one goes to the left and this is underneath. So your hand comes underneath your pit. And then you bring this up and block with that like Report an error in the passage at 1:25:39 Highlight the passage at 1:25:39

1:26:09 that three times. And Report an error in the passage at 1:26:09 Highlight the passage at 1:26:09

1:26:23 then drop them in your lap again. And Report an error in the passage at 1:26:23 Highlight the passage at 1:26:23

1:26:29 then again bringing them up and straight out. And then right to the pit. And then cover the left and do three times. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:29 Highlight the passage at 1:26:29

1:27:02 And then you can drop in your lap. And then make the Vajra fists again. And each time, which is good, I don't have the table here. So now we're going to breathe in. And as we breathe in, we're going to hold the fist. And then as we breathe out, you're going to release. And then breathing out through your nostril. So three times. And Report an error in the passage at 1:27:02 Highlight the passage at 1:27:02

1:27:51 then just return to normal breathing. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:51 Highlight the passage at 1:27:51

1:27:56 So you can do either of those or try them out different days, one or the other. But I want you to try them, you know, every day this week and just see if you have some sort of a feeling. Before you do the meditation, I don't know that we have time for the meditation. I'm going to do some version of the meditation right now because we have about eight minutes left of the class. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:56 Highlight the passage at 1:27:56

1:28:19 So that helps sort of bring all the energies in. And then concentrate the mind a little bit. He said if you're really distracted, if you have a lot of distractions, stop and just do that. Or else you start every meditation with that. But it was really cool to see him just suddenly. He's like up there on this throne. He's like suddenly became our Vajra master. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:19 Highlight the passage at 1:28:19

1:28:43 That was pretty cool. Okay, so just relax and Report an error in the passage at 1:28:43 Highlight the passage at 1:28:43

1:28:54 allow your breathing to be normal. Relax. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:54 Highlight the passage at 1:28:54

1:29:03 Try to pay attention to how your body is, your posture, especially your spine. Bring your spine, extend your spine up from your pelvis. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:03 Highlight the passage at 1:29:03

1:29:34 Imagine for a moment that your body is like a great tree which sends its roots down deep into the earth. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:34 Highlight the passage at 1:29:34

1:29:49 You can bring your attention to the place that your body makes contact with either the chair or the cushion and Report an error in the passage at 1:29:49 Highlight the passage at 1:29:49

1:30:00 then imagining roots. Reaching down through that cushion or chair, through the floor, deep into the earth. And Report an error in the passage at 1:30:00 Highlight the passage at 1:30:00

1:30:12 that allows us to connect with that stable earth energy that supports us. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:12 Highlight the passage at 1:30:12

1:30:24 You can also begin to imagine your central channel. They say that it runs directly in front of our spinal column. And it's a tube completely made of light. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:24 Highlight the passage at 1:30:24

1:30:44 And for this visualization, you can imagine this central channel. Penetrating deep into the earth, contacting that stable earth energy that grounds us. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:44 Highlight the passage at 1:30:44

1:31:06 So just like a tree brings nutrients out of the earth, you can imagine that this energy begins to very slowly and deliberately come up from the earth through our central channel all the way up to our crown. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:06 Highlight the passage at 1:31:06

1:31:36 And imagine on the way that it releases all the areas of frustrated energy and any blocked energy we might experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:36 Highlight the passage at 1:31:36

1:31:52 You can imagine that this energy goes straight out of the top of your head, up through the ceiling, through the roof, into Report an error in the passage at 1:31:52 Highlight the passage at 1:31:52

1:32:06 space. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:06 Highlight the passage at 1:32:06

1:32:11 And through this our mind contacts all the boundlessness of space. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:11 Highlight the passage at 1:32:11

1:32:19 Clear, unobstructed awareness. And Report an error in the passage at 1:32:19 Highlight the passage at 1:32:19

1:32:42 then imagine bringing that energy down, back, Through the crown of your head into your heart center. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:42 Highlight the passage at 1:32:42

1:32:56 This is the center of your awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:56 Highlight the passage at 1:32:56

1:33:03 But imagine that it remains connected with the earth and the spaciousness above. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:03 Highlight the passage at 1:33:03

1:33:21 If the earth element predominates, we begin to feel heavy and dull and drowsy. Then we connect with the space element to counteract that. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:21 Highlight the passage at 1:33:21

1:33:35 But if the space element predominates, then we start feeling vague and lightheaded and distracted or scattered. So then we have to ground ourselves. So Report an error in the passage at 1:33:35 Highlight the passage at 1:33:35

1:34:01 imagine that this essentially clear consciousness at your heart center takes on the aspect of radiating white light, Report an error in the passage at 1:34:01 Highlight the passage at 1:34:01

1:34:15 which is the heartfelt wish that all beings could have perfectly balanced minds, stable and clear, and that their loving compassion and wisdom could manifest effortlessly. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:15 Highlight the passage at 1:34:15

1:34:32 Imagine this wish just expanding out of your heart in all directions. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:32 Highlight the passage at 1:34:32

1:34:43 Emerging with all the white light coming out of all the classmates around you. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:43 Highlight the passage at 1:34:43

1:34:54 Imagine that it just fills this entire room, Report an error in the passage at 1:34:54 Highlight the passage at 1:34:54

1:35:02 this entire building, Report an error in the passage at 1:35:02 Highlight the passage at 1:35:02

1:35:08 this entire neighborhood, Report an error in the passage at 1:35:08 Highlight the passage at 1:35:08

1:35:13 this entire city, the Report an error in the passage at 1:35:13 Highlight the passage at 1:35:13

1:35:20 state, Report an error in the passage at 1:35:20 Highlight the passage at 1:35:20

1:35:25 country, Report an error in the passage at 1:35:25 Highlight the passage at 1:35:25

1:35:32 continent, the world, the whole world is pervaded by this white light. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:32 Highlight the passage at 1:35:32

1:35:45 Imagine the whole universe pervaded by this. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:45 Highlight the passage at 1:35:45

1:35:52 And wherever the light reaches, whoever it touches, it induces this inexpressible experience of peace, well-being and bliss. And Report an error in the passage at 1:35:52 Highlight the passage at 1:35:52

1:36:26 then bringing that energy back into your heart, you can imagine it returning to your heart like snowflakes falling into a lake. And Report an error in the passage at 1:36:26 Highlight the passage at 1:36:26

1:36:41 imagine that this feeling of inexpressible bliss and well-being and peace fills your whole being. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:41 Highlight the passage at 1:36:41

1:37:05 And we dedicate the merit. Of this experience, of this class, of anything we may have gained from this class, to Report an error in the passage at 1:37:05 Highlight the passage at 1:37:05

1:37:19 being able to cultivate the qualities that we need in our hearts and our minds to be able to help all living beings find happiness and be released of all forms of suffering as quickly as possible. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:19 Highlight the passage at 1:37:19

1:37:47 Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:47 Highlight the passage at 1:37:47

1:37:53 Homework. Is that what I did with it? I came running down with it. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:53 Highlight the passage at 1:37:53

1:38:02 I wonder if I left it up in my room. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:02 Highlight the passage at 1:38:02

1:38:10 Christine, you've seen my room in various states. Would you mind going up there? I think maybe I left it on the bed. And that sort of allows Her Majesty to escape as well. She's been in there since we began the puja, so she's probably ready for it. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:10 Highlight the passage at 1:38:10

1:38:36 Just a reminder that we're going to start over the Discovering Buddhism program. And the first class is going to start on September 8th. It's going to be five weeks on the mind. And that'll be me teaching that. And then October 20th, Venerable Carol will teach a class on meditation with those two. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:36 Highlight the passage at 1:38:36

1:39:06 I think we can get up. We have to wait for her to find it. It may not be there. Hopefully she doesn't find those dirty dishes on the table. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:06 Highlight the passage at 1:39:06