«Дар освобождения», курс 10 «Новогодний ретрит», занятие 13

[Geshe Michael Roach] (0:00 - 3:02)
So, we'll keep going. You look pretty good for being up partying all night. I was in my bed and I could hear, whaaa!

Sometimes it's good to party all night. That's also a good Buddhist thing to do. If you are happy, you have to celebrate.

RANG NI PHAL CHE BA'I GDUG BZHAG BYA RGYU YOD SANGS PA CHER MED MU We've been talking about the third of the seven steps for preparing for meditation, which is? Clean your bad deeds. Oh, RANG NI PHAL CHE, most of us, when the teacher says, okay, it's time to do purification of your old bad deeds, then we think, I have a couple, but not much.

DE NI SDIG PA BYAS TSUL LA MA SANGS PA'I LEN TE The Tibetan should be P-A-S, SANGS PA'I LEN. But that's because you are just unaware of how much you're doing every day. Those of you studying Tibetan, it's an unusual structure here.

LEN normally means answer. Answer. And then it requires the instrumental case.

So it means the answer is by. This means it's because you didn't blah, blah, blah. It's a strange Tibetan.

LEN TE. ZHIG TU BSAM NA, DA NANG NAM RANG NAS GSUNGS YID DANG SNGAGS SOGS KYIS NUS ZAN DANG SNGAGS RGYAL TSUL TSUL SOGS CI TZAM BYAS DU If you really think about it, just take today so far. DA NANG means today so far, as an example.

NAM RANG NAS GSUNGS From the time the sun came up, YID DANG SNGAGS SOGS KYIS In our mind and in our words, NUS ZAN means little wishes that other people will fail.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (3:04 - 3:20)
NUS ZAN means little wishes that other people will fail. And a subtle joy in other people's failures.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (3:21 - 3:31)
We all have it. That's why we read newspapers. We like to see, oh, who got hurt last night?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (3:32 - 3:35)
We like to see, oh, who got hurt last night?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (3:35 - 6:23)
What famous person had a problem yesterday? Which famous person had a problem yesterday? SNGAGS RGYAL means just blah blah, waste gossip talk.

And ZHIG TUG means little harsh words towards other people. CI THAMS CAD DU means already today we have piled up a lot of bad seeds. Already, since we got up.

RANG CAG RAB CING LTA BU YIN NA PHAMS PA YAR CES LHAG PA MED ZHUGS DAG GCIG BYAS NA NYE LTUNG TSA'I BAGS SHING CHUNG YOD If you are a monk, you have 253 extra vows. Nuns have, what's 364? 364.

Because they are more naughty. Then there are many divisions of those vows. Some are mentioned here.

PHAMS PA, LHAG MA, NYE LTUNG These are some of the... Some are more serious, some are less serious. Then if you are also an ordained person, then there are very small vows.

Many, many small vows. And from the time you woke up until now, they are falling like rain. DER MA ZAD GYI TZAM MA NEN RGAG CI YOD SHES SHAM THABS SDUG BSNGAL MA BRGOS PA LTA BUR SANG SNGAGS KYI RTZA THUNG TZAM RDOR BA YANG YOD Then there's a monk's vow and a nun's vow called SHAM THABS SDUG BSNGAL MA BRGOS PA LTA BUR SHAM THABS SDUG BSNGAL MA BRGOS PA SHAM THABS SDUG BSNGAL MA BRGOS PA Then we're supposed to wear this skirt.

And it has to have a certain shape. SDUG BSNGAL means circular. So you're supposed to tie it just right.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (6:28 - 6:33)
If you don't tie it right, you broke a vow.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (6:34 - 9:27)
Then some people, some monk will say or some nun will say, oh, it's not a big deal. I mean, you know, how you tie it, it's not such a big deal. Then in tantra, in secret Buddhism, when you say, oh, that's not such a big, that little vow is not such a big deal, you broke a big vow.

Okay? In the high, high Buddhism. You have to respect all of the, even the little vows.

And if you don't, if you say, and even in your mind, if you say, that's not a big one, you know. There's one, there's many vows about proper shape on the lower robe. If you don't tie it right, it looks like elephant trunk on the right side.

So that's the vow. You are not allowed to tie your robes like an elephant trunk on the right side. Then if you say, that's so silly.

I mean, who cares about elephant trunk? TSA LTUNG TZANG means it's not just a breaking tantric vow, but complete breaking tantric vow. DE BZHIN DU BYA GZHAN GYI TSA LTUNG YANG BYA BZHIN PA We also have, many of us have bodhisattva vows.

You shouldn't take bodhisattva vows unless you know what they are. So it's good in Guadalajara that you took the course first. That's the proper, that's the correct way.

Somebody say, do you promise to keep the law, but you don't know what the law is? And you say, okay, I promise. Then that's foolish.

Maybe the law will include you cannot have hot chocolate at Starbucks.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:32 - 9:41)
Then if you promise before you hear the vow, you're in trouble.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:41 - 10:17)
So I'm very happy that people in Guadalajara studied the vows first, and that you're going to take them after that. You're allowed to take a vow, you're allowed to take the beginner's vow, bodhisattva vow, without studying all the other vows. And that vow is called GZUGS ZEM.

And it means, I would like to be a bodhisattva.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (10:20 - 10:21)
That's okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (10:21 - 11:00)
You can take that vow. So that ceremony here will be two parts, which is traditional. A vow to think like a bodhisattva, and then a vow to act like a bodhisattva.

Think like a bodhisattva is easy. I want the world to have no war, no hunger, no lonely old ladies in the nursing homes. And that you can take.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:02 - 11:16)
When the teacher gives the bodhisattva vows, obviously they should be keeping them as a good example to them, people who take the vows.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:19 - 14:23)
Okay. Anyway, he said those of us who have bodhisattva vows, we also broke them like rain. Already this morning.

SO LTA RGYUD PHANGS PA DANG, BYANG SEMS KYI GNYER BYED BYANG SEMS, GYI RTZA LTOS SANGS RGAGS, GYI RPONG PO SANGS RGAGS, GYI RTZA LTOS RNAMS SNGA MA SNGA MA LAS, PHYI MA BYIS MI BUM RGYUR GYI PHYIS Then he lists different kinds of vows. Basic morality vows. Serious ones.

Lesser bodhisattva vows. Serious bodhisattva vows. Pretty serious tantric vows.

And very serious tantric vows. He gives five examples. Then he says, PHYI MA PHYI MA BUM RGYUR GYI PHYIS Each one is a hundred thousand times more serious than the last group.

Each group is a hundred thousand times more PHYI means heavy. DA NANG RNAMS RANG NAS DA LTA'I BAR NGO DANG ZHIG CHEN NA RANG BYAG GI NGAN SONG GI RGYUD CHA TZAM MANG PO GRUB ZIN YOD If we really do some good accounting, of our vows so far this morning, then all of us have collected enough bad seeds to go to the hell realms many times already this morning. GRUB ZIN YOD PAS NYID RER YANG MI DGE'I CHOS SDOM GSUM BYAS RGYAL GYI GNYER PA SOGS MANG PO CHUNG ZHING So every day we are doing the same.

We broke the ten... You have, in the Christian, you have ten commandments. Moses' ten commandments.

In Buddhism we have also the same, almost the same ten. So even if you didn't take any vows yet, you have, every Buddhist person has to keep those ten. No killing.

No stealing. No fooling around with other people's partner. No lying.

No dividing people with your talk. No saying stupido.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (14:27 - 14:29)
No gossiping.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (14:31 - 16:12)
No unhappy when other people get things. No happy when other people get a problem. And stop believing that other people's fault for your problems.

Those are ten. So every Buddhist person has to keep these ten, even if you didn't take a vow. SDOM GSUM BYAS RGYAL GYI GNYER PA SOGS MANG PO CHUNG Then many of us have other vows.

Morality vows. Bodhisattva vows. Secret vows.

Those three sets. Then we broke them already today. If we sit down and count, RTAG TU GZHAN MNGON CHOS NO MI RTEN ZHIG GZHAG RGYAL MI GNYER DE CHEN PO'O DANG, DBANG PO'I RDZOGS BKOR DROG, CHOS PO RNAMS NI MED DROG TZAD These are the bodhisattva vows.

For example, then of course we already collected enough bad seeds to go to the hell realms. This morning already. DE DAG CHEN PO'I GNYEL BA If you broke them seriously, it will take you to the hell realms.

SBYING GI YI DAG By the way, I mean, there's a Christian writer. I like him.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (16:14 - 16:19)
His name is C.S. Lewis.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (16:20 - 18:05)
I don't know, he lived about 80 years ago or something. Then he said, there is a devil in the world. There is a devil.

And his greatest accomplishment in modern times is that nobody believes in the hell anymore. If you say, you are going to hell, people say, that's not modern thinking. That's like from middle ages.

Then I was watching, I don't have a television, but I was in my friend's house. This was about, I don't know, 20 years ago. There was some invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, I think.

Kuwait was a very wealthy country. So all these soldiers, they just went and stole the gold and the money from the banks, and they stole the new cars, because they are from a poor country. Then they just went crazy.

They stole everything they can steal. And they put it in the new cars. Then they heard, some army is coming to fight with us.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (18:09 - 18:32)
So they all get on the highway to drive back to Iraq in the new cars, filled with gold. Then they showed on the television, the airplanes came down and bombed the cars.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (18:32 - 19:31)
And there are so many cars, they cannot move. So, at two o'clock, those guys are driving a new car with a big box of gold in the back. At five minutes after two, they are burning inside flame.

Then it happens in the world. Things like that happen. You are driving with your friends, you are listening to Jimi Hendrix.

Then some car accident. Suddenly you are inside the fire and you are dying. Each person dies in some way, and most of them unexpected.

Suddenly you are underwater, you are drowning.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:36 - 19:39)
You know, what happened?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:43 - 19:45)
You were watching your pen.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:46 - 19:49)
You were looking at a pen.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:50 - 20:17)
Then suddenly you are like, I wonder what it tastes like. Sorry. It's much better to chew.

Why didn't I think to chew it before? You died and you became a dog between those two minutes. You died and you became a dog.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (20:17 - 20:19)
You don't know.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (20:23 - 20:43)
You don't think to yourself, why am I chewing this pen? You just, why am I holding this pen? I should chew it.

Then the seed in your mind changed.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (20:44 - 20:51)
The seed to see a pen got old.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (20:54 - 21:33)
All seeds die when they produce their result. You have a debit card. You are born with a debit card.

You will be allowed to see 3,000 or 4,000 or 10,000 pens. Then the seed will finish. Then the other seeds will come up.

And you will think, why didn't I chew this?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:36 - 21:37)
Then you are a dog.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:40 - 21:45)
And the seed to see an arm [?], it will finish.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:46 - 21:50)
You are living on a debit card.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:51 - 21:58)
Who got the debit card? Joe. The guy Joe.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:01 - 22:02)
Last life.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:02 - 22:34)
He or she worked very hard. Like your parents. Got you a big debit card.

And you were born with a debit card. Then they are using it up. Look at, then you will see a paw.

Because this is also coming from you.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:36 - 22:52)
And this is also coming from you. And when those seeds wear out, which they must, every hour you live, it uses up the debit card.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:55 - 23:00)
Then you will have fur and a paw.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:02 - 23:06)
You will be chewing a pen.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:07 - 23:10)
And we will be kicking you out of the room. Get out.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:14 - 23:16)
It's true. It's really true.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:17 - 23:46)
So don't think you have to die and your spirit has to go to Mars and come back. It's just a seed change in the mind. And your car full of gold is on fire.

And it happens to everybody.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:46 - 24:17)
It happens to everybody. So don't think you have to die and your spirit has to go to Mars and come back.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (24:18 - 24:23)
It's just a seed change in the mind. And it can happen in two ways.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (24:23 - 24:39)
It can happen in two minutes. On the road back to Iraq or to the Guadalajara airport. It can happen anytime.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (24:40 - 24:44)
So we shouldn't leave those seeds inside of us.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (24:46 - 24:50)
We should clean them every day.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (24:54 - 25:05)
If you take out the bad seeds you're like, huh, oh my god, I could save the world with this thing.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (25:11 - 25:12)
Billions of people.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (25:13 - 25:51)
Six billion, seven billion people. 1.4 billion people speak Chinese language. 1.2 billion people speak Spanish in the world. Mother language. English only 500 million. But 500 million extra as a second language.

So with three languages you can cover half of the world.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (25:55 - 25:58)
We're doing it here.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:00 - 26:20)
Wow! Like that. So if you have good seeds, this is not a pen anymore.

This is a sword or something. I can bring peace in the whole world.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:20 - 26:23)
I can bring peace to the world.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:23 - 27:58)
Wow, look at that. It depends on your seeds. Alright, so anyway, big bad seeds will create hell realm.

Middle bad seeds create, we call ghost, like hungry ghost. What is a hungry ghost? I don't remember this story.

Let me think about it. The Buddha had several great ... I think I'm going to get this story slightly wrong, but I'll try.

And then maybe we take a break. Or maybe we have a presentation. The Buddha had two famous, very famous disciples.

Maudgalyayana and Shariputra. You know Shariputra from Heart Sutra. Then, I forget, anyway, they went together to ask food from one family.

Then you're supposed to take your bowl and ask for some food.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (28:02 - 28:18)
Then they went to one house, and the guy opens the door, and the husband opened the door.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (28:18 - 30:18)
The wife is sitting at the kitchen table, and she's holding a baby in her arms, and then there's a dog. They are eating fish, and one dog is trying to jump on the table, and the mother is like hitting the dog. Then they're like, what do you want?

If you will give me any food from your table. Get out of here! Who wants to give food to you?

So the monk, I think it was Maudgalyayana, he quietly went away. But Shariputra didn't go away. He said, do you know what you just did?

That monk who was just here, if he wants to get a McDonald's hamburger, he can go to another planet in one minute. He didn't say McDonald's, okay? But he has a power.

He can fly to other worlds. He doesn't need your old fish. He's trying to help you.

He can eat anywhere he wants. Any planet he wants, he can eat in five minutes. And I'll tell you something else.

He talked to the husband, where's your father? He said, my father died last year. What's behind your house?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:20 - 30:21)
Small lake.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:22 - 30:33)
Did your father ever go to the lake? Yeah, he likes to fish. You are eating your father this morning.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:35 - 30:44)
After he died, he was born in that lake as a fish, because he killed so many fish.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:45 - 31:04)
You caught him this morning. You are eating your father. Where's your mother?

Oh, my mother also died last year. Did she love this house?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:04 - 31:07)
She loved this house.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:08 - 31:13)
She was born as a dog who loves this house.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:14 - 31:21)
You just hit your mother because she's trying to eat your father.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:23 - 31:29)
Where's your neighbor? Do you have a neighbor? Yeah, there's some guy.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:31 - 31:32)
Where is he?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:33 - 31:48)
He also died last year. How did he die? I think maybe accident.

You know it wasn't an accident. You killed him because he was fooling around with your wife.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:50 - 32:05)
He was born again because he's attracted to your wife. He was born as your son and your wife is hugging him right now.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:05 - 32:15)
So you are eating your father, hitting your mother, and your wife is hugging the man you killed for fooling around with her.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:15 - 32:24)
And your wife has the kid who is the reincarnation of the man with whom she cheated on you.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:24 - 32:52)
Okay. But it means if you are attached to a house when you die, sometimes you can be born as a spirit to stay in that house. Then they talk about haunted house.

We believe there are ghosts and they stay in that house.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:52 - 33:09)
So that's if you do serious bad karma, you are born in the hell, medium, as a ghost, and then a small one as an animal.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (33:11 - 33:41)
CHEN PO SHES PA DE'ANG, MI ZAD LTA RGYAL ZHIG MI DGOS KYI When I say a big bad karma, I don't mean you... you have a gang called Zeta I think. Zeta?

Zeta? Gang? They wait outside in the roads at night.

They kidnap people or shoot people.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (33:41 - 33:42)
Forget it.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (33:45 - 34:25)
He said, when I talk about bad deeds, I don't mean you are waiting on the road to kill somebody in their car. BSAM PA'I KHONG DROG BZHIN DU PHRAG POR Even if you have very serious few minutes of very serious anger, SKYE MTHU LA GYI RGYEN and if you call your student a mangy old dog, dirty old dog, he's talking to lamas.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (34:25 - 34:29)
His lecture is to lamas.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (34:30 - 34:36)
Of course you are a lama. You are not going to wait in the road at night and kill people in their car.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (34:40 - 34:59)
But yesterday I saw you got very angry and you called your student a dirty dog. That's enough for a big bad karma.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (34:59 - 36:35)
The anger, intensity of the anger, it makes it a terrible bad karma. Anger has a special power. I was thinking this morning when Jasmine led the meditation, then I thought, oh it's so beautiful.

For me the sound of the Chinese language, it sounds like music. And even her English sounds like angel to me this morning. Then I thought, we had a good fire puja last night because we made a lot of good karma.

Then this morning I have this, I still have the karma from last night because I didn't stay for the party, I went to sleep immediately. So I still have a little bit of that good karma this morning. I didn't destroy it yet.

How to destroy good karma? Anger. Destroy it completely.

Immediately. Thousands of seeds.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (36:36 - 36:43)
Get angry at some person or traffic or weather.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (36:44 - 36:58)
It destroys good karma. So be careful about anger. I think maybe we stop there.