Transform Your Mind & Change Your Life Retreat - 7-Point Mind Training from Atisha (part 3)

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1:06 So this initial settling then of course is simply designed to bring some inner peace and quiet, a sense of ease in the body and mind, a calm, a balance, an equilibrium, a clarity of attention, which then we can apply to the teachings themselves, to practice and to everything else we do. So I think frankly the settling of body, speech and mind in that way, which doesn't generally need nearly that many words, I mean you can use very few words if you already know how to do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:06 Highlight the passage at 1:06

1:34 This is really a good prelude to any type of meaningful activity altogether. But now we'll turn to a very meaningful activity indeed, and that is really focusing on the seven-point mind training, which in Tibet there's a whole genre, as many of you know, there's a whole genre of practice called lojong in Tibetan, which is generally translated as mind training. Report an error in the passage at 1:34 Highlight the passage at 1:34

1:59 But the term lo is not just mind, there's another word more commonly translated as mind, it's jitta. Or sem in Tibetan. Loh is more a matter of attitude or way of viewing, kind of a perspective. And zhong means to purify and to train. And so we are cultivating, developing ways of viewing reality, adopting certain attitudes towards reality, ourselves and everything else, that will prove conducive to our own and as well-being, to help us proceed along the path to greater and greater awakening, clarity, wisdom and so on. Report an error in the passage at 1:59 Highlight the passage at 1:59

2:34 And so there's a whole genre. There are many, many of them taught by many of the great masters of India and Tibet. And it's very widely practiced in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. There's nothing sectarian about it. Just generally, lojong is just not an issue of sectarianism. Like, which one is it? Is it Nyingma or Galupa? It tends to cut through all of that because it's so utterly practical and helpful. Report an error in the passage at 2:34 Highlight the passage at 2:34

2:56 But among all the different types of lojong, the different texts, some longer, some shorter, I think it's safe to say that this is the most widely practiced taught, studied, commented upon of all the lojongs for the last thousand years in Tibet, the seven-point mind training, and taught by one of the greatest of all of the Mahāyāna Indian pundits, bodhisattvas, mahasiddhas, Atisha, who lived about a thousand years ago. Report an error in the passage at 2:56 Highlight the passage at 2:56

3:22 So this has been, how do you say, been very prominent in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism for a very long time, and for a very good reason, just because it's so practical, it's medicine that really, really works. And so the teaching here, of course, stems from Atisha, who lived in the 10th, 11th century, so just about exactly a thousand years ago. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:45 And just very briefly here, this is kind of out of tradition, he passed it on to his principal disciple, Dom Dumpa, who was a lay person, never became a monk, but his foremost disciple. And it's widely regarded, as I said, in Tibetan Buddhism. That Domdurma was a previous incarnation of His Holiness Dalai Lama. Same continuum, same mind stream there. And so he received it then from Atisha himself. Report an error in the passage at 3:45 Highlight the passage at 3:45

4:13 And this passed on, the seven point mind training was passed on purely as an oral lineage. It was not written down. For some time it was first written down by Chekawa. So that's like a hundred years later. It could be a hundred years later, something like that. And so during that time it was only an oral lineage. Report an error in the passage at 4:13 Highlight the passage at 4:13

4:31 And when my... Ask, well, why? They wrote down a lot of things. But we know from Atisha's teachings, he composed a number of texts. And in India itself, he was a renowned scholar during his time, still renowned in some quarters to this day in India as one of their all-time greatest pundits, scholars, contemplatives and so on. Report an error in the passage at 4:31 Highlight the passage at 4:31

4:53 And when he devoted the last something like, what, 13 years or so, he devoted the final years of his life. To leaving his position in India where he had tremendous respect, acclaim, enormous reputation and so forth, he left all of that behind to go to this wild barbaric country of Tibet where he'd been invited. Report an error in the passage at 4:53 Highlight the passage at 4:53

5:14 There's a whole story there, I think I won't go into it, but he was invited and he accepted the invitation and then I think on the provision he spent just three years there and then would be allowed to come back. Well, the three years went by and then he stayed and stayed and eventually spent his whole life there, the remaining years of his life. Report an error in the passage at 5:14 Highlight the passage at 5:14

5:32 And after his arrival in Tibet, he was asked by one of the kings, not of all of Tibet, but of a certain region of Tibet, to give teachings that would be simple, short and profound to the Tibetan people, who compared to Indians at that time, India was a very high culture by any standard. It would match any culture on the planet at that time. 11th century India, it was a very highly developed civilization, like China was as well. Report an error in the passage at 5:32 Highlight the passage at 5:32

6:02 Europe, we were kind of in shambles back then. That was kind of one of the darkest eras of Western civilization, right? The middle of the Dark Age, right? So we were kind of living in dire poverty and ignorance, whereas India was glowing. It was just brilliant. Manasseh universities and many, many fields of knowledge and fully ripe. And so India was very sophisticated at that time. And Tibet was kind of like the outback. Report an error in the passage at 6:02 Highlight the passage at 6:02

6:31 I don't know if that's a good analogy or not. I haven't been there. But it was wild. It was woolly. It was by Indian standards. I'm not going to make any more reference about outback. I'll get in deep trouble quickly. But Tibet by Indian standards was... Very barbaric. It was raw. It was primitive, uncultured. And although Buddhism had been introduced some two or three hundred years earlier, it had been severely suppressed there. Report an error in the passage at 6:31 Highlight the passage at 6:31

6:57 There was a lot of degeneration. The monastic tradition was pretty much crushed. And so there was a lot of degeneration. And the king who invited Atisha to Tibet did so with the wish that he would revitalize it, reinvigorate it, restore its integrity. Its depth, its purity, and Atisha recognized the need for that. And so the king asked Atisha to give us something for us simple people, us simple folk, these Tibetan people, who are very strong. Report an error in the passage at 6:57 Highlight the passage at 6:57

7:29 They're very strong mountain folk, but they weren't very cultured or civilized. They did have a written language, so the work had already been done, and they had many of the Buddhist scriptures, texts, Mahaitis, the sutras and tantras and so forth had been translated. But there was a lot of degeneration. So, in response, then, Atisha wrote the lamrim, the first lamrim, a sequence of meditations, of teaching and meditation, setting out the stages of the path. Report an error in the passage at 7:29 Highlight the passage at 7:29

7:55 He wrote the first one, a lamp for the path to enlightenment. It is, in fact, very short, it's not very complicated, and it's very, very deep. He wrote that, he wrote an auto-commentary, and that genre of lamrim then proliferated eventually in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. And they all revere Atisha for doing this. But it was something he, with his enormous erudition as one of the greatest pundits, great scholars, contemplatives and siddhas of India, he presented something for the Tibetans that they could really put into practice. Report an error in the passage at 7:55 Highlight the passage at 7:55

8:27 And that became very widespread. It was taught eventually in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. And that was kind of the general teaching, that if you would like the teachings of Atisha, here's his lamrim. And so there was no secrecy about it. It was written down, widely disseminated. And it's been disseminated for the last thousand years, very, very widely. Report an error in the passage at 8:27 Highlight the passage at 8:27

8:48 But then Atisha also had, in addition to the general population, he would give many public teachings, monks, nuns, laypeople, travel all around, was tremendously welcomed wherever he went. But over time, then he also, they're gathered around him, monks, nuns and laypeople who were Really deeply devoted, utter dedication to Dharma. Basically sacrificed everything, very much along the lines of St. Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:18 Francis of Assisi. That kind of mood, of utter simplicity, living in poverty, no politics, just straight Dharma. Just core Dharma. Among the various Roman Catholic orders, that one seems to have the strongest resonance, frankly. With this lineage, the Kadampa lineage, the authentic Kadampa lineage of Atisha through Domdomba and so on. And so he had very gifted disciples, very dedicated disciples. Report an error in the passage at 9:18 Highlight the passage at 9:18

9:45 Such disciples are said to be of sharp faculties. Not necessarily because they're smarter, but because of their utter dedication, their purity, their deep commitment and giftedness for the Dharma. They're called of sharp faculties. and so these are the ones These are the ones that are bound to be the stars. They're going to come to the top, you know, for various reasons. And so teachers, I mean, this goes back to Socrates and everywhere. When you have very gifted disciples, you may give them teachings that would not be so beneficial and not so appropriate for the general audience, but for the very gifted ones. Report an error in the passage at 9:45 Highlight the passage at 9:45

10:20 We have that in, I think you must have that here in Australia, like in high school and so forth. Don't you have advanced placement courses, something like that, for gifted students in chemistry and mathematics and so forth? Well, that was his, he had an advanced placement course. For very gifted, very dedicated students. And so the training for them was a seven-point mind training. Report an error in the passage at 10:20 Highlight the passage at 10:20

10:42 This is something he assembled. It's a matrix of teachings that for many general lay people, people with a bit more casual interests, not so profoundly dedicated, not so astute, not so clear-minded when it comes to Dharma, they might find this a really steep climb. They might find it really a bit daunting, a bit too much, frankly. And I think you'll find out why. Some people might find, I think I need something a bit slower, shallow end of the pool first, please. Report an error in the passage at 10:42 Highlight the passage at 10:42

11:11 Where he, in this text, throws you into the deep end of the pool very quickly. So it's more challenging. It's more challenging. The Lama Rhythm is majestic, and it's been taught by the greatest masters of Tibet. This has also been taught by the greater masters of Tibet, but this was secret for maybe a hundred years or so after he taught it. And eventually, this Geshe Chakawa, Chakawa Ishiroji, then he wrote it down, and so then it was more proliferated. Report an error in the passage at 11:11 Highlight the passage at 11:11

11:37 And so, just to give the lineage very briefly, I won't linger here, but I have my notes here, and this is like, I don't know, 30 pages or so, something like that, close to 27, 28 pages. This is my outline. I put this together when I was teaching this one text for eight weeks a couple of years ago in Phuket. So I wrote extensive notes. So we spent two months on this one text, and we're going to cover it in six days, right? Report an error in the passage at 11:37 Highlight the passage at 11:37

12:02 But I have notes enough for two months, right? And so every time I go through these, I edit them further. And Anne Sinclair very kindly printed up a copy for me. But when we're finished here, if any or all of you would like my notes, then we'll just be sent out to you. Happy to share. But to get it after I've revised them, because I'm going to revise them over the next six days. I always do. Keep on polishing, polishing. And so here I have in my notes, so Chikawa Isidori, the first person to actually write this down, he lived right in the 12th century, from 1101 to 1175. Report an error in the passage at 12:02 Highlight the passage at 12:02

12:39 And as we'll see, it emphasizes, it's kind of the absolute core of this whole training, is the cultivation of ultimate and relative bodhicitta. We'll look into this in some detail. And then the lineage went on from Chikawa Yeshidoji. You see it goes on to a very very famous Geshe by the name of, well there was Potowa, Geshe Potowa, he was very famous, from Dom Tumba, and Potowa to Chikawa Yeshidoji. Report an error in the passage at 12:39 Highlight the passage at 12:39

13:06 And then not too long after that, I believe it's probably the first written commentary. To the root text, just the aphorisms themselves, was written a long time ago, maybe within 150 years or so, of Atisha himself. I had a copy of a handwritten copy of this text that I received years ago. And I read it, which took delight in it. And it was by a Tibetan yogi by the name of Sejibua. Report an error in the passage at 13:06 Highlight the passage at 13:06

13:37 And so I've studied that commentary. A lot of my comments come from this earliest commentary. And the root text that I'm using is from this very, very early redaction of the text, in which there's one line that is often missing in later versions, but it's included in the one I'm sharing with you. So, but through Selji Bua, and then over, what, 800 years, 900 years, then this has been passed on, from teacher to student, teacher to student, and so it's called the oral lineage, there's oral transmission of this text. Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

14:09 And when I was a monk, I was a monk for 14 years, I'm no longer a monk, but I was a monk for 14 years. During that time, when I was in India, after about a year or two after I'd arrived, I went for total immersion. I was living in a Tibetan household, I became a monk, I was studying in a monastery with all the other monks who were Tibetan, so it's really total immersion. So I became fluent quite quickly, of course, I was young. Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:33 What else are you going to do? If everybody around you speaks Tibetan, then you do too. So all of the instruction in the monastery was in Tibetan. Everything we studied, memorized, debated, everything Tibetan. And it was a marvelous education, but it was very much kind of like academic, theoretical. Lots of memorizing texts and debating and instruction. Report an error in the passage at 14:33 Highlight the passage at 14:33

14:54 And I found value in that. I still do value it greatly. But I found right during the midst of that, I wanted to just not... Drift away from just my own practice and not get caught up too much in the philosophy, the dialectics, the debating, epistemology and all of that. It has value. But I wanted to make sure I was still connected with my practice. Maybe one reason for that is I got sick so often there in India and almost died about twice that I thought, you know, if I'm going to die here young, I want to make sure that I haven't drifted away from my practice even while I'm a monk and in a monastery. Report an error in the passage at 14:54 Highlight the passage at 14:54

15:30 That at least I haven't drifted from my practice if I'm going to get sick and die here. And so I knew of this text, Seven Book Mind Training, because it's really quite famous among Tibetans. And I'm living in Dharamsala, India at the time. And there weren't many of us Westerners back in 1973 or so that had become fluent in Tibetans. Report an error in the passage at 15:30 Highlight the passage at 15:30

15:52 There were some others, but not many. Because most would come in for a couple of months and then drift out and come in and drift out. Or some would come, but they wouldn't learn Tibetan. Whereas I came in already with one year of Tibetan before I arrived and then just went for total immersion. And so for any of us at that time, if we were Westerner and we could speak and read Tibetan, you could go to almost any Lama. I mean, not the Dalai Lama, but he's got a lot of responsibilities. Report an error in the passage at 15:52 Highlight the passage at 15:52

16:15 But any of the Lamas there, you really could. And you could ask almost any Lama. If you're a Westerner and you can speak and read Tibetan, you can ask for teachings, the chances are they'll give them to you. They were just delighted. They weren't prostitizing, they were trying to convert people, but if a person has traveled halfway around the world to India, come up to this remote hill station, gone through probably a lot of hardships to get there and stay there, and learn the language, then I think that indicated to them that you're pretty serious. Report an error in the passage at 16:15 Highlight the passage at 16:15

16:44 And what I found was the doors were always open. Always open. one master after another. Latchita Rinpoche and Gesha Raptan and Gesha Ngau and Taige and Seokon Rinpoche. The list goes on and on. You could ask almost any Lama, and they give you empowerment, give you teaching. So I thought, well, I want something that's just completely practiced and not a kind of a head trip. Report an error in the passage at 16:44 Highlight the passage at 16:44

17:09 And I thought this text could be a really good thing to immerse my mind in. Apart from, you know, the highest of the high lamas, like the two tutors, I mean, I could maybe get some very short teaching from them, but, you know, they also have a lot of responsibilities. But I thought I could probably ask almost any Lama for this. But then I heard of one Lama that I actually knew a little bit. He was not a monk, but he was renowned to McLeod Gunge, our little village there, as being really one of the finest scholars in the whole community. Report an error in the passage at 17:09 Highlight the passage at 17:09

17:39 And he was an aristocrat. He was very unusual. He was an aristocrat in Tibet itself. He'd been a major landowner. He had multiple estates. He was, you know, nobility. But he was also like something like a Charles, not really close, but something like a Charles Darwin, but not for the sciences, but for the humanities. Report an error in the passage at 17:39 Highlight the passage at 17:39

17:58 He was a gentleman scholar. That's what he was. And the English have a long heritage of that. A person who's in the upper crust. Very well off, doesn't have to work for a living. So instead of just hanging out and shooting foxes and riding around on a pony, devote themselves to a life of the mind, cultivating the mind, and to become some really outstanding scholars. Report an error in the passage at 17:58 Highlight the passage at 17:58

18:20 And so that's what Kungo Barshi did. He had a brilliant mind, a voracious appetite for knowledge, and he studied all kinds of things in Tibet, just one field after another. And he had just absorbed everything. He studied Tibetan medicine. Report an error in the passage at 18:20 Highlight the passage at 18:20

18:34 Dharma history, he studied epistemology, he studied multidisciplinary dharma, he studied astronomy. He's one of those polymaths, really very brilliant. And he lived this life of comfortable life. While his wife, a very capable one, she ran the estates and just let her husband be a bookworm, you know, and study a lot. Report an error in the passage at 18:34 Highlight the passage at 18:34

18:54 But then, then the Chinese communist invasion, the occupation, the genocide, the March 10th uprising occurred. And he had to flee for his life because he would have been shot, for sure. And so he was able to escape. He had a family of maybe four or five children. But when you have to escape, it's kind of like, escape right now. You don't plan it for a week. If you plan it for a week, you'll be dead on day two. So when you have to escape, you'll go now. Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:22 And among his children, the only one they'd get out was one son. And his wife was with him, so they escaped together. And I don't know the whole story of their escape, but if it's like so many of the other lamas and teachers I know, the escape route itself was one of the tremendously arduous, demanding and dangerous. Report an error in the passage at 19:22 Highlight the passage at 19:22

19:40 Thousands and thousands of people trying to escape Tibet. We're just machine gunned down on the way out. They would be shot for trying to escape. But obviously he made it out, made his way down to India. But now, of course, he'd given up everything. He'd left behind most of his children, all of his estates, virtually all of his wealth. Report an error in the passage at 19:40 Highlight the passage at 19:40

19:57 He came down from the pinnacle of Tibetan society down to nothing. He's got his wife and a grown son. And then, but he comes down with this enormous erudition. And so he made his way to Dharamsala. And a man that I lived with, the Dalai Lama's personal physician, he established the Menzi Khan, the Tibetan Institute for Medicine and Astrology, the Astro-Medical Institute. Report an error in the passage at 19:57 Highlight the passage at 19:57

20:25 And so very soon, My teacher, Gumo Barsi, from whom I received the teachings, he was installed there as the principal instructor because he was brilliant. He knew every aspect of Tibetan medicine, could teach everything, but he also taught astronomy and he taught poetics and he taught literature and he taught all kinds of things there because he was just like an encyclopedia and he taught most of it from memory. Report an error in the passage at 20:25 Highlight the passage at 20:25

20:47 He would memorize whole textbooks, and he'd walk up and down to the aisles of classrooms and say, okay, children, now our students, young people, now turn to page 53, you'll note on the top of the page, it says this, and he's doing all from memory. So he was really quite formidable. But he was also just an incredibly lovely man, very humble, gentle. His students adored him, just adored him. Report an error in the passage at 20:47 Highlight the passage at 20:47

21:09 And, oh, by the way, his salary was $30 a month. For being the top instructor, the director and the chief instructor for this whole institute, which is the only institute in India that was a place where you could actually study traditional Tibetan medicine and astronomy and related topics. He was the one. And his salary is what they could afford because they're all refugees. Everybody's poor. That he had enough just for his wife to live in a one-room shack with one light bulb, no running water. Report an error in the passage at 21:09 Highlight the passage at 21:09

21:36 He had to go to a communal tap. And he lived there, and I knew him because I lived in the Tibetan Medical Center for some months just before becoming a monk. And my roommate turned out to be one of the finest Tibetan doctors as he went through his training. So I'd met him, I knew him, and I thought, I knew he had an interesting story, that he'd gone from riches to rags and gone through tremendous suffering in ways that I learned in more detail later on. Report an error in the passage at 21:36 Highlight the passage at 21:36

22:06 And I thought of all the Lamas, the great Tukus and Rinpoche's and Geshe's and Yogis, I think for this particular training, I'd like to receive the transmission and the commentary, I'd like to go to Kunga Bharsi because it's clear to me, even though I didn't know much about him, that his whole life had been fundamentally transformed and he'd handled tremendous adversity and trauma and turned it all into Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 22:06 Highlight the passage at 22:06

22:31 So I thought if there's anybody I know who's utterly embodied these teachings, it's this man. And so I went to him and I just asked him for a one-on-one tutorial. Would you please give me the, because I knew he must have it, he knew everything, would you please give me the oral transmission, that is read the text to me, give me the oral transmission and your commentary to this text. Report an error in the passage at 22:31 Highlight the passage at 22:31

22:53 It turned out he wrote his own commentary to this text because it was so cherished, he was so well versed in it. And of course he very graciously agreed. And I had no money to pay anybody anything, I was a monk. So I think it was just all free. He just gave it out of the goodness of his heart. So over a period of, must have been weeks, I would just slip away from the monastery, go off to his little cabin, his little hut, and sit with him. Report an error in the passage at 22:53 Highlight the passage at 22:53

23:21 And he gave me this transmission and the teaching. And this was about 43 years ago. And just a little bit more in his life. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:33 And that is he fled, you know, very, very rapidly down to India. And having lost everything. And I think he never had any contact with the children left behind. And they were aristocrats too, so it's probably not very good. I don't know what happened to them. But probably pretty tough. Whether any of them survived, I don't know. But there he was, and I got to know him. And over the course of the weeks that he gave me this teaching, I got to know him much better. Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

24:04 And I got to know his son as well, who was about my age, maybe a little bit older. I was 23 or so at the time. And his son had been traumatized, as so many had, but whether it was prior to Tibet or it was a result of the trauma, his son, a very sweet man, very sweet, very gentle soul, but he was not mentally stable. Report an error in the passage at 24:04 Highlight the passage at 24:04

24:30 And he'd had some psychotic breaks, and then they would get treatment and come back. And so when I knew him, he'd already been in a mental asylum, and then come back. And when he and I, we had a pleasant friendship. He was very gentle, very sensitive. It was just a nice friendship. And then one day I learned that he'd had another breakdown. Report an error in the passage at 24:30 Highlight the passage at 24:30

24:53 And so he was sent again to a mental asylum in India. And he was given electric shock therapy. And then he committed suicide. Report an error in the passage at 24:53 Highlight the passage at 24:53

25:04 So for his father, his mother and father, I can imagine what a blow that would be. Because now they lost all their children. The other ones have no way of knowing. Back in the 70s, it was right during the worst era, I think, of the entire history of Tibet. It was a cultural revolution. And it was like hell on earth throughout all of China, but especially for minorities, because there was a lot of racism by the Chinese government towards the Tibetans. Report an error in the passage at 25:04 Highlight the passage at 25:04

25:30 They regarded them as complete barbarians. No respect whatsoever for any aspect of their culture, and especially religion. They hammered it so hard. They killed tens of thousands of monks and wiped out almost all the monasteries and burned as many books as they could find. So it was almost inconceivably savage. Report an error in the passage at 25:30 Highlight the passage at 25:30

25:50 So Kunga Barsi, then I learned, you know, he'd been through all of this. And then while he was giving me the teaching, he made a statement that I've obviously never forgotten because I'm about to share it with you. But he turned to me with this, I think maybe you can imagine, maybe you've met somebody like him, but there was such a profound serenity to him. Report an error in the passage at 25:50 Highlight the passage at 25:50

26:11 His whole presence was like an embodiment of serenity, of gentleness, of warmth, of kindness, of utter humility. So serene, so balanced, so mellow. And there was also an underlying kind of just a current of good cheer that I saw every time I saw him. And this was, and I didn't spend that many hours with him, but students living with him, you know, seeing him every day. Report an error in the passage at 26:11 Highlight the passage at 26:11

26:35 I mean, this is who he was. It wasn't something he'd put on and take off. This is who he was. And that's why I say his students just revered him. They were blown away by his brilliance, but also so deeply moved by his kindness, humility and so on. And so just sitting across from him, he told me that, well, it's Alan or Champagia Sang was my monastic name. He said that, you know, for myself, I do regard the Chinese communists who came to our country and the impact on my life personally from my perspective. Report an error in the passage at 26:35 Highlight the passage at 26:35

27:07 I regard... I view them as being of great service to my Dharma practice. They've been very helpful to me, Chinese communist, been very helpful. Report an error in the passage at 27:07 Highlight the passage at 27:07

27:21 And it was very clear by the way he said it, he was just saying what he meant. There was nothing to it, then he just meant what he said. And so of course I asked, well, in what way? Because I knew what had happened. And he said, well, I can tell you quite candidly, when I was still in Tibet, living with our estates, living a very comfortable life, So comfortable. And just enjoying studying this and that. He said, you know, frankly, I took Dharma, my spiritual practice, I took the Dharma quite casually with a lot of complacency. Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:55 There was no real sense of urgency of really putting it into teaching, into practice. Because there are just so many cool things to study and more study and more study. So my practice was a bit complacent, a bit lackadaisical, a bit casual, taking things for granted. And then, of course, everything was lost. Report an error in the passage at 27:55 Highlight the passage at 27:55

27:53 Complacency, complacency. Report an error in the passage at 27:53 Highlight the passage at 27:53

28:12 And then suddenly I'm here, and with nothing. I mean, you don't know the language, you don't have the culture, everything's different. The food is different, the climate's different, the people are different, everything's different, and you have nothing. And having gone through this adversity, because clearly that was adversity, is that it's because of the kindness of the Chinese communists. Report an error in the passage at 28:12 Highlight the passage at 28:12

28:33 And through the adversity that I've experienced as a result of their invasion and my needing to flee. But I've seen for myself the tremendous value of Dharma. And my Dharma practice now is so much deeper, so much more sincere, dedicated, committed and transformative that I've benefited far more from the Dharma because of the invasion of Tibet than I would had everything remained status quo. Report an error in the passage at 28:33 Highlight the passage at 28:33

29:01 And I would have gotten older and older and just enjoyed studying this and that and the other. And then I would have died and never had. The quality of practice I have now. I've seen for myself how the teachings can transform adversity into the path and you can truly flourish even when the outer circumstances are far, far from the ideal. Report an error in the passage at 29:01 Highlight the passage at 29:01

29:22 So I paraphrased, of course. I didn't memorize what he said, but that was the gist of it. And what was so moving to me was that he... Anybody can say those words. Words are easy to say. But the fact that he was living it, that what he was saying... It was actually the truth. And so then that just kind of reinforced my decision, boy, I found the right person for these teachings. Report an error in the passage at 29:22 Highlight the passage at 29:22

29:46 Because not everybody, in fact, I'm not sure how many of the many lamas that I studied with and many, many lay people. I lived in a village. Most people are not monks or nuns or let alone yogis. I don't know if many experienced greater hardship than he did. But I don't know of many, if any, who so profoundly transformed. Report an error in the passage at 29:46 Highlight the passage at 29:46

30:06 What the rest of the world would say would be trauma and almost unspeakable adversity and sadness and transforming that into just straight pure Dharma. So there was not a vestige of resentment, of anger, of hatred. None. Zero. Just, oh, they were so kind to me. I feel I'm indebted to them. So that's his story. That's his story. And I'm happy to share it because he continues to inspire me to this day even though he's passed away years ago. Report an error in the passage at 30:06 Highlight the passage at 30:06

30:37 So that's a brief introduction to Atisha. Among all the great Indian pundits and so forth, I don't know if there's anyone after the Buddha that I admire more than Atisha. He was just really resplendent, really resplendent, so outstanding in every way. So this is the seven-point training of the mind. Just to run through the list very briefly, seven points. The first one is preliminaries. Report an error in the passage at 30:37 Highlight the passage at 30:37

31:05 And we'll be focusing on that today, probably into tomorrow. That's the foundation for everything else. Then we go right to the core. He takes it right into the deep end of the pool. That's quite unusual. The main practice is cultivating ultimate and relative bodhicitta. Now in the lamrim, many of you are very familiar with it, in the lamrim teachings, you start in the shallow end of the pool, just gradually developing more authentic motivation, developing more pronunciation. Report an error in the passage at 31:05 Highlight the passage at 31:05

31:31 Developing the purity of motivation for yourself, for your own liberation. Then you develop on into the Mahāyāna, developing the bodhicitta, developing the perfections of generosity, of ethics, of patience, enthusiasm. And then as you're really far into the text, like maybe three-fourths of the way through, then you come to the teachings, definitive, really marvelous, detailed, authoritative teachings on shamatha, developing retention, metacognition, mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 31:31 Highlight the passage at 31:31

32:00 That's the fifth of the six perfections of meditation. And then finally the grand finale, the culmination of the Lamrim teachings is cultivation of insight, vipassanā, the perfection of wisdom. And then you're finished. So it's kind of coming in gently through the shallow end of the pool. And then just goes deeper, deeper, deeper until the deepest is insight into the nature of emptiness, dependent origination. Report an error in the passage at 32:00 Highlight the passage at 32:00

32:26 Perfection of wisdom. And as Shantideva says, the great 8th century Bodhisattva, all of the teachings preceding it are all for the sake of this, all for the perfection of wisdom. And they're very deep, profoundly transformative if one really absorbs them and lets them completely radicalize or revolutionize one's way of viewing reality. Report an error in the passage at 32:26 Highlight the passage at 32:26

32:46 So that's the standard approach. And you'll find this everywhere in Tibetan Buddhism. You know, the renunciation, the bodhicitta, and eventually you get on to the Samadha Vipassanā, and then you get on to Vajrayana. After that. Maybe Dzogchen or Mahamudra after that. Well, what a teacher does, and that's the general teaching, the public teaching. Anybody comes, you have 3,000, 5,000 people come. Report an error in the passage at 32:46 Highlight the passage at 32:46

33:07 The Dalai Lama has been doing this for years now, every winter. Gives lamrim teachings and thousands of people show up. And that's been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. But then for those who are not the elite, so to speak, but just those who are deeply committed. Basically, they've... They've released everything else, and they have only one thing to do, and that is just practice Dharma. Then we have the seven-point mind training, starts with the foundation preliminaries, and then he goes directly from there, and we'll see if they are specifically, right into ultimate bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 33:07 Highlight the passage at 33:07

33:42 He goes into the culminating phase of lamrim, the perfection of wisdom. I mean, that's the highest thing there is in the whole bodhisattva path, the whole Mahāyāna. Perfection of wisdom is it. There's nothing higher than that. And he starts there. Right after the preliminaries. So you go right into the deep end of the pool, very early. And so he gives these pith instructions, these bullet points, the aphorisms, into ultimate bodhicitta, both what to do on the cushion and off the cushion. Report an error in the passage at 33:42 Highlight the passage at 33:42

34:09 And then he goes from there, and then he comes, what we say, most people say, back to relative bodhicitta, cultivating the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, practicing Dong Lin, exchanging self for others, and so on. But he does a switcheroo. And this is contrary to the general approach. But it is the approach of the seven point mind training. Report an error in the passage at 34:09 Highlight the passage at 34:09

34:35 And when I heard it, it just so resonated with me. That's not suggesting I'm gifted or sharp faculty or anything like that. It's just a fact that it just caught my attention. Really, I laid the foundation, okay, prime, and then boom, right in the teacher. It's kind of like, whoa. And it really catches the attention, you go in and you're laying a foundation of wisdom. That's what you're doing first. So the left hand, for those of you who know mudras, you know the left hand symbolizes wisdom, right? Report an error in the passage at 34:35 Highlight the passage at 34:35

35:04 And the right hand symbolizes skillful means, above all compassion or bodhicitta. And in the mudrā of meditative equipoise, the left hand supports the right, right? And then the two thumbs touch, symbolizing the union of wisdom and skillful means. Wisdom and compassion. So there it is. Well, this is exactly what a teacher does in this text. He lays the foundation of wisdom first, and on that basis, goes back to compassion, back to bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 35:04 Highlight the passage at 35:04

35:34 Quite striking. But he obviously felt, this is the way. Just go right into the deep end of the pool for those who are profoundly committed, have sharpened up faculties, they won't be confused by the teachings. Bewildered, daunted, intimidated, or just flat out bewildered. So it goes ultimate relative bodhicitta, right into the very core of all of Mahāyāna Dharma. And then he comes to the central theme on the basis of those two of transforming adversities into the path of awakening. Report an error in the passage at 35:34 Highlight the passage at 35:34

36:07 So this lojong, lojong mind training or attitudinal adjustment, attitudinal training is really centrally focusing on the theme of transforming everything that comes up in the life into your spiritual path. Not just giving lip service. That's very easy. To say, my life is Dharma. I'm practicing all that. Anybody can say that. But he gives specific guidance in how to transform the events from day to day. Report an error in the passage at 36:07 Highlight the passage at 36:07

36:35 Adversity, felicity, everything comes up. And transforming this into nutrition. So it's like, really, it is very closely. It's like becoming a spiritual alchemist. So an alchemist takes base metals like lead and transforms them into gold, right? And lead, of course, Actually, poisonous. You don't want that in your bloodstream. And so, similarly, the lojong alchemist, for example, following the seven-point mind training, is taking whatever life dishes up, including losing your family and your homeland and your wealth and your aristocratic status, which means nothing in India. Report an error in the passage at 36:35 Highlight the passage at 36:35

37:09 Losing everything, that's pretty big adversity. And being reduced to poverty. I mean, pretty much $1 a day is poverty anywhere on the planet. And yet he's working full-time in this very prestigious position. And transforming all of that, that everything is Dharma, that all of this is deepening your wisdom, your compassion, the virtues of the mind and ameliorating the afflictions of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:34 So that's the central theme of this, kind of a spiritual alchemy. And then, so there he lays it out, he's covered the main points in verse 3. And then, okay, now that we have these teachings, now a synthesized practice for a lifetime. How do we lay this out? So here's your practice for the rest of your life. Report an error in the passage at 37:34 Highlight the passage at 37:34

37:53 It's like marching orders, okay? From here to death, here's what you do. Here's how to put this into practice on a day-to-day basis. So whatever comes up, you're always practicing Dharma. There's a nice analogy for this that I heard from Dr. Yishin Dunin. He was a Tibetan doctor. Actually, he's the Dalai Lama's personal physician, with whom I lived for about the first year and a half upon arrival in India in 1971. So I got to know him very well. Report an error in the passage at 37:53 Highlight the passage at 37:53

38:19 He also saved my life, for which I'm grateful, because I got sick an awful lot, and I took his medicine. But I became fluent in his household. He gave me the perfect opportunity to become fluent. And then I wound up learning a fair amount of about Tibetan medicine without being formally trained in it. Report an error in the passage at 38:19 Highlight the passage at 38:19

38:37 For various reasons I won't go into now, but I had a lot of exposure and served as a translator for years. When Western or non-Tibetan speaking, non-Tibetan or Hindi speaking patients came to his clinic, then I was the guy. So I translated for him for hundreds of interviews as he met with patients. So I learned a bit about Tibetan medicine from the outside without ever really learning, and I've never been close to being a Tibetan doctor. Report an error in the passage at 38:37 Highlight the passage at 38:37

39:01 But I remember we were sitting casually. He's gazing out over the rolling hillsides and the farms and then the mountains off in the distance. Anybody who's been to Ramzali, you know exactly what I'm talking about, the fields there. And he pointed out there, it's kind of like one of those iconic little memories that I have. And he pointed out and he said, so I think he called me Champagelsan or Alan, a lot of people call me Alan. Report an error in the passage at 39:01 Highlight the passage at 39:01

39:24 But he said he pointed out over the landscape, this natural landscape, fields, mountains, paths, and all kinds of animals living out there. Domestic and otherwise. And he said, Alan, I can go out there, out into the fields, into the countryside, in the mountains, and whatever I pick up, I can turn it into medicine. Report an error in the passage at 39:24 Highlight the passage at 39:24

39:42 I have a use for it. Whether it's a rock, it's a stick, it's a dead snake skin, it's herbs, it's anything. I can turn anything into medicine. I've got a use for it. So everything is potentially something I can put into my compounds. I think he actually meant that literally. That there be some use for it. That everything can be transformed into medicine. Including mercury, for example. You probably wouldn't bump into some mercury. But mercury, I all know, is very poisonous. Report an error in the passage at 39:42 Highlight the passage at 39:42

40:12 You don't want that in your bloodstream. Well, that has a role in Tibetan medicine. You use mercury. And you detoxify it. And then that appears in some of their most precious pills. Mercury. As well as gold and silver and other metals. So metals, so mineral, plant, animal, substance of all kinds. So I can find a use for it. Report an error in the passage at 40:12 Highlight the passage at 40:12

40:31 In medicine. Well, I'm just using that as an analogy, because I think he actually did mean it. The man was a consummate master. You don't get to be the Dalai Lama's personal physician unless you're, you know, way up there. And he knew everything about Tibetan medicine. I mean, he made all of his own medications themselves, herbal compounds with 30, 40, 50, 60 ingredients and a single pill, each with very specific proportions. Report an error in the passage at 40:31 Highlight the passage at 40:31

40:54 He knew everything about diagnostics, everything about treatment, not only herbal medication, but maksabashin and so on. So the man was a grand master. And so I'm just using that, maybe that little bit of tangent there, to say as Yeshidundan was for all of the natural substances he would find on the land. Report an error in the passage at 40:54 Highlight the passage at 40:54

41:11 So Gungabhashi, transmitting these teachings, is transforming everything into medicine, including personal tragedy, the suicide of his only son with whom he was able to escape. I can't imagine the blow that was for the father, who knew his son was very fragile. He did the best for him, but he still took his own life and transforming all of that into Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 41:11 Highlight the passage at 41:11

41:35 That's, well, a synthesis. This is what a teacher does here. And then here's something really practical, and that is you learn the teachings, you implement the teachings, you put them into daily practice. But what we're doing here, to speak a bit crassly, is we're investing. We're investing, right? We all have a finite number of hours per day, finite energy, finite free time, because we have a lot of responsibilities. And so when we have some free time, or any time at all, free or otherwise, if we devote ourselves to some type of practice, whether it's Tibetan Buddhism or it's TM or maybe it's yoga or mindfulness meditation, whatever it may be, then we're investing. Report an error in the passage at 41:35 Highlight the passage at 41:35

42:12 We're investing our time, our energy, our intelligence, creativity and so forth, clearly, not for no reason. That is not just because there's nothing else to do, but we're investing it with the hope, again to use a crass analogy, that there'll be some profit. In other words, some benefit, that it will be meaningful, transformative, helpful. Otherwise, why do it? We can find many other ways to fill the time. And so if we devote ourselves, hopefully I'll give you my best introduction I can in six days, and upon the conclusion of this, if a week goes by, a month, six months goes by, and you're really implementing the teachings of Atisha, Through this lineage, is it helpful? And how do you know whether it's helpful? You're engaging the practices, you're reflecting upon them, implementing them in day-to-day situations. Report an error in the passage at 42:12 Highlight the passage at 42:12

42:59 But then you can ask very reasonably, I made an investment, is it paying off? To use kind of ordinary terminology, is it paying off? Is there something, you know, is it working? Because this is like medicine, it's designed to heal an afflicted mind. And then, that's what a teacher gives, the criterion after you've been practicing for a while. How do you tell whether the practice is working? It's possible that you're not practicing very effectively, or maybe it's possible you're not practicing correctly, or maybe your teacher was really not giving you very good guidance, or maybe this isn't the practice for you, maybe you need to find another practice because here the shoe didn't quite fit. Report an error in the passage at 42:59 Highlight the passage at 42:59

43:38 These are all possibilities. Right? And so... How do you know? Well, then he makes it very clear. Here's how you assess. You take stock and see, is it working or not? If it's not, well, fix something. Either find a new practice or refine this one or get points of clarification, but don't waste your time. Report an error in the passage at 43:38 Highlight the passage at 43:38

43:55 So the criteria for having trained the mind is the fifth point. And then we have just basic points called pledges and practices, pledges of the mind training. We'll see what they are. But these are just things that you're committing yourself to. And practices, just specific points of practice that you'll seek to weave into your life almost to the point you no longer notice them. So during the monks, so 14 years, 12 years as a fully ordained monk, we had 253 precepts. Report an error in the passage at 43:55 Highlight the passage at 43:55

44:26 253, that's a lot, right? But as you learn them and you memorize them and then you implement them, there's some of them you just don't think about anymore because you're just not doing it because you already know you don't do that. Report an error in the passage at 44:26 Highlight the passage at 44:26

44:44 Drinking alcohol. There's nothing evil about taking a glass of red wine after a meal. It doesn't drive you crazy. I've heard there are certain health benefits. But if you take monastic ordination, you just don't drink a drop. I mean, you're a teetotaler. As long as you ordain, no alcohol. Well, you learn that on the day that you ordain, or maybe before. Report an error in the passage at 44:44 Highlight the passage at 44:44

45:05 Then afterwards, when you're walking by a bar, you don't think, hmm. Shall I or Shant I? Or somebody offers you a drink. Well, I don't know about today, yesterday. It's just kind of like, you just don't think about it anymore. It just doesn't come up. Because you made a decision, so you don't have to strive anymore. If you like to drink earlier, then you strive just to not be tempted anymore. But you just don't do it. Report an error in the passage at 45:05 Highlight the passage at 45:05

45:32 And so, just more and more of them, you learn them, and then you less and less have to think about them, because you just don't do it. And you know what they are. So that's kind of the aim of these pledges and practices. You learn them, they're integrated, and then you don't really have to hold all of them in mind once they've kind of flowed into your natural way of responding to all kinds of situations. Report an error in the passage at 45:32 Highlight the passage at 45:32

45:57 So then it's natural. It's natural. So that's an overview of the seven points. So let's take our break. It's now 3.35, so let's come back at 3.50, and then we'll go right back to practice. So this is what we'll do each session for the afternoon sessions. We'll start very early on in the session with a meditation, go to teaching, we'll have a break, back to meditation immediately, then teaching, and so that's how we'll go. Report an error in the passage at 45:57 Highlight the passage at 45:57

46:23 So let's take a break now. Let's see today. You please let me know whether 15 minutes is sufficient. If it's not, we'll make it longer. But right now we'll aim to come back at 10 minutes till the hour. Report an error in the passage at 46:23 Highlight the passage at 46:23