«Дар освобождения», курс 14 «Красота учителя», занятие 9

[Geshe Michael Roach] (0:00 - 1:41)
So, we are talking about, I think it's the seventh benefit of having a teacher. By the way, I wasn't satisfied with how I explained the Abhidharma yesterday. Six causes and five results from the Abhidharma.

So, if I get a few minutes, I'm going to give you a better explanation, okay, more clear. But I was taught that about thirty-five years ago, so I need to go refresh it in my own mind. Okay, if I have some time, I'll do it.

So now we have a quotation by Drogon, are we good [?] Adam? Drogon Tsangpa Gyare? Good, okay.

Drogon Tsangpa Gyare was a famous lama from born 1161. Passed away 1211. His monk name is Yeshe Dorje.

I found this quotation in other places, but it doesn't say what book, so I don't know what book.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (1:42 - 1:46)
Maybe just oral tradition.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (1:54 - 3:42)
Dung tak jung na wang kur yin. If your lama, what do you call, thrashes you, how do you say it? It means...

My lama only hit me really one time. Like that, but more than once. Dung tak jung na wang kur yin means, it's like it gave you empowerment.

So I'll tell you the one time my lama hit me, okay? So, mainly I built his house. First there was supposed to be one room.

Then he said, I need a guest room also for my guests. Then he said, why don't we build a second story, and we will have classes on the first story. So it came out to be a very big place.

Then we lived in a, where we lived there were about, when I came there, there were about 15 Mongolian monks from Mongolia. Very old. One was blind.

Very hard Geshe. Then very tough.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (3:45 - 3:54)
For example, he had a rare book of Abhidharma in his room.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (3:55 - 4:40)
Then I lived in a garage for about five years on a cement floor with a crazy drunk Mongolian man. One night he was drunk, he walked on the highway, and he got killed. He got hit by two cars on a very big highway.

Then after five years they said, okay, it looks like you are serious. You can stay with this old blind monk. But you cannot use the toilet.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (4:43 - 4:52)
Before my toilet was a jar in the garage.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (4:54 - 5:18)
So one day, he has this very rare book of Abhidharma. Then I said, Geshe La, can I borrow the book? I'm studying Abhidharma.

He's like this. No. He's blind, he cannot see the book.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (5:23 - 5:27)
You can use it in my room.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (5:27 - 5:57)
Then he will count the pages with his hands. Very, very, very, a little bit too tough. But one day he said a beautiful thing to me.

I didn't want to eat meat, but all those monks are eating meat. Then I have to cook for them.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (5:59 - 6:06)
For eight years I was a cook. Every day I have to cook meat.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (6:06 - 6:13)
They don't just cook meat, they grow the sheep, they kill the sheep, and they cook it.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (6:18 - 6:32)
In Mongolia, a nice dinner is you put a dead sheep in the table. Whole thing. Boil it.

Give everybody a knife.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (6:36 - 6:57)
Then I have to cook all these things. Then I thought, I don't want to eat meat. How can I not eat meat but I don't want to insult them?

So one day I said, I feel a little bit sick.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (7:00 - 7:07)
I think I have to go to the doctor. So I borrowed my lama's car.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (7:08 - 7:44)
Drove to the doctor's office. I sat in the car for like one hour. I didn't go inside.

Then I came home. Oh, I went to the doctor. He said, I'm not supposed to eat meat.

Then they said, okay, you don't have to eat the meat but you have to cook. Since that time I didn't eat meat. That was about, I don't know, 1980.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (7:47 - 7:49)
Thirty-five years.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (7:50 - 8:59)
Then people say, if you don't eat meat you will not be strong. That's a stupid idea. Strong comes from helping other people.

It's not in the meat. Then one day he was yelling at me. The blind monk was yelling at me.

His name is Geshe Yom Poun [?] by the way. You not eating meat. That's stupid.

I said, Geshe La, I don't like to eat meat. He said, no, no, not eating meat is good. But you're not making much karma from that.

You should take a vow not to eat meat. You should go to your lama. Get down on your knees.

We call it chicken posture. Like this.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:01 - 9:04)
That's how you take a vow.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:04 - 9:25)
Then you should hold your hands together. You should say, I promise I will not eat meat in my life. He said, that's more karma.

So you are, already you are not eating the meat. Why not get extra karma?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:28 - 9:33)
Make a promise not to eat the meat.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:33 - 9:41)
Then you will have this karma. Anyway, that's what I remember about Geshe. He told me that.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:44 - 9:46)
Why am I talking about that?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (9:46 - 10:40)
Oh, why my lama hit me. Geshe Yom Poun's house is about 300, maybe 100 yards from the temple. From the house which I built for my lama.

Then we are standing in the guest room. We are looking at the forest. Geshe Yom Poun came to do some prayers with us.

Then he had a cane and he used to go like this when he's walking through the forest.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (10:41 - 10:44)
He will hit the tree.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (10:44 - 10:58)
He knows where he is. Then I knew that that Geshe was giving trouble to my teacher. There was some jealousy or something, I don't know.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (10:59 - 11:02)
It looked like that.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:02 - 11:23)
Then he was coming down the path. Then I thought, I will make my teacher happy. I will make fun of this blind lama.

Then it happened very fast.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:25 - 11:27)
He hit the tree.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:28 - 11:54)
Then I said, ouch! Then, fight! He just hit me like that.

Then I'm like, ouch! Second ouch! Then he said, never criticize another monk.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:57 - 11:59)
Never criticize another monk.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (11:59 - 12:15)
Never. Okay, okay. So I got empowerment once.

CHEN LA'BYUNG NA DE LA BYUG It means, then you get a real blessing.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (12:19 - 12:25)
If you want a blessing, that's a blessing for you.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (12:25 - 14:45)
BKA' KHYUN DRAG PO DRAG NA YIN Fierce criticism is a fierce mantra. BAR BYED THAMS CAD DE'I SEMS It will clear away all your obstacles. So there are special mantras.

You're supposed to go like, and you stop obstacles. And when your lama calls you, you say, you are so stupid. That's like a special mantra.

It clears away all your obstacles. My lama repeated this mantra often. Okay.

GSUNGS PA BZHIN NGAN SONG GI LAS ZE CHE DU RGYUR BA DANG As this quotation is saying, it hurts to have criticism from your teacher. It's very uncomfortable. You are trying to make a teacher happy.

But instead of happy, they get upset. And they say something to you like, that's so stupid. I think it's one of the biggest hurt in the world is when your lama criticizes you.

It's a most discouraging thing in the world, I think. Then, because it hurts the most, it is using up the most bad karma. Those things which hurt the most, they are using up old bad seeds.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (14:49 - 14:56)
So they say you should be happy when your teacher criticizes you.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (14:56 - 15:01)
It takes a lot of courage to live with a teacher who is criticizing you.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (15:06 - 15:10)
It's easy to leave.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (15:13 - 16:03)
With my teacher, hundreds of students left. They said, why should I stay here? This guy criticizing me.

I can get an apartment. I can live by myself. I don't criticize myself.

But many years later, I realized I don't criticize people very much. My students. Why?

It's not because it wouldn't help them. It would help them. But I don't like them to not like me.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (16:08 - 16:11)
I want them to like me.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (16:11 - 16:21)
So they do something bad. Then they say, is that okay, Geshe La? Yeah, that's okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (16:29 - 16:45)
It's just to make myself feel comfortable. Then I realized when my teacher criticized me so much it's because he loves me.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (16:47 - 17:14)
He's strong enough not to want me to like him. He just wants to help me. He's not worried what I think about him.

His love is so strong for me. Love is so strong.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (17:16 - 17:24)
He's willing to have me be angry at him all the time.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (17:24 - 18:40)
I think some parents, it must be the same. I haven't been a parent, but I think it must be the same. Do you love the child enough to discipline them sometimes?

Even at that moment they don't like you. So if you find a teacher who's trying to correct you it takes a lot of courage to stay with them and to understand they are trying to help you. If you stay many years with this person you become very strong and your study, your meditation will go crazy, fantastic.

This is really true, what this book is saying is really true. In my case, why can I read all these things and why can I do Geshe?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (18:40 - 18:45)
Why can I read all these things and why can I graduate as a Geshe?

[Geshe Michael Roach] (18:46 - 18:49)
First foreign person in many hundreds of years.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (18:54 - 18:59)
It's his blessing by criticizing me.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:02 - 19:42)
All the time, correcting me like a horse. Don't go there. Finally, like a donkey, you go the right way.

Maybe you can call me Senor Burro. Sa'i nyingpo'i do from the sutra called The Essence of the Earth. I think this is pretty famous in China.

It's one bodhisattva named Kshitigarbha.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:43 - 19:44)
Kshitigarbha.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (19:49 - 20:37)
DE'I SEMS PA NI RGYAL PA CHE BA PHAG TU MED PAR NGAN GROR KHYAMS PAR RGYUR BA'I LAM LAS If a teacher takes you into their care, if they adopt you, you can have karma which would cause you to wander around animal world and the hell world for many, many lifetimes. But instead of causing that, that karma will ripen early, too early.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (20:46 - 20:50)
And there will be some problems in your life.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (20:50 - 21:11)
RIM means, this is different spelling of RIM, right? It has an extra S. This RIM means very contagious disease.

MO DGE means financial problems.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:14 - 21:19)
Not enough food, even not enough food.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:20 - 21:51)
LUS DANG SEMS LA GNOD PA CHUNG BA'I Hurt your body and hurt your mind. BYANG BAR RGYUR Then that financial problems and that sickness that you have by studying Buddhism that will finish the karma of many lifetimes in the lower realms.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (21:51 - 21:51)
Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:00 - 22:13)
Then DGE SKABS means problems in your life. And MI LAM means even your dreams will be purified.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:18 - 22:19)
Your dreams will become sweet.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (22:22 - 23:20)
DE LA SANGS RGYAS CHE BA BAG TU MED PA LA DGE BA'I RTZA BAR BSKYED PA CHEN PO'AM LA PA GSUM BA LAS CHUNG BA RNAMS SNGA RTOGS CI GYIS GZIL GYIS NON DTO One morning with your teacher is better than all the karma, all the blessings of all the Buddhists in the universe for many thousands of years. GZIL GYIS NON The last piece there GZIL GYIS NON PA means no comparison. Completely billion times better.

Okay, we have about twenty minutes. We reached the eighth benefit.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:23 - 23:26)
This is the last one.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (23:27 - 25:37)
DGE PA NAS SKABS DANG THAR TU GYI DON THAMS CAD BAS MED DU SGRUB PA NI All your short term goals and all your ultimate goals you will achieve effortlessly. SDOM LTA BU STE means SDOM Here this SDOM means it's like a summary of all the other seven benefits. SDOR NA LAM MA BSTAN TSUL TSUL BZHIN BYAS PA'I DE'I JIG RTEN DANG JIG RTEN NAS BDE PA'I YUN RTEN THAMS CAD KYI RTZA BA YIN ZHING Finding a teacher, having a sweet relationship with them, this is the root, he says, RTZA BA means root of all good qualities.

Then they say JIG RTEN DANG JIG RTEN NAS BDE PA JIG RTEN means worldly qualities. So we had a charity you know. We were feeding many poor people and we were saving those books, right?

Then I told my teacher you know, we need a government what do you call? Registration for the charity. Then he said, okay, you do it.

Then I'm like, no, no, we need a lawyer. No, no, lawyer is a waste of money. You do it, you do it.

I don't know Rinpoche how to do it. I don't know how to do it. Then he always says the same thing, you go to the library.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (25:37 - 25:38)
You know.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (25:42 - 26:04)
This is before the internet. Then actually I'm happy when he says go to the library. I can read science fiction book in the library.

But then I have to learn how to do the registration.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:09 - 26:15)
Then I'm like, Rinpoche, we have to hire an accountant.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:17 - 26:43)
Go to the library. Learn accounting. Then it's like, everything's like that.

The heater broke. In New Jersey you have to have heat all the time because it's miserable cold. Rinpoche, we need to call the repairman.

You fix it.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:45 - 26:46)
His car broke.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (26:49 - 29:16)
You're American. They invented the car in America. You fix it.

Then I'm three months I'm out there like That one didn't work. I broke it. Then that's jiten.

Jiten means worldly skills. If you stay close to a good lama and you are serving them you will learn a lot of accounting and things like that. I told you there was a lama from Ganden Monastery.

I want to create chöndrel with him. I want to create Dharma connection with him. That's Lati Rinpoche.

One day I was with him and my teacher in the car in India. We were driving. It's like 12 hour drive from Sera to Ganden.

Because you have to stop for all the cows and the pigs. Actually it's only like I don't know, 60 kilometers or something. Then the car broke down of course and Lati Rinpoche he just like put on his robe and he go out and the drivers are standing there with the hood open and he's looking at the engine.

Lati Rinpoche is like what does this thing do? That's a cooling system. What's this thing do?

Oh that's a spark plug. Then he's like problem is here.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (29:19 - 29:20)
Fix this one.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (29:21 - 29:31)
He never saw an engine in his life and it's correct. So they have a good mind.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (29:33 - 29:53)
But if you stay with that kind of person a Buddhist person should be able to do anything in the world because you have power, you understand emptiness and you have love.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (29:55 - 29:57)
So there's nothing a Buddhist person cannot do.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:00 - 30:01)
You can fix anything.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:03 - 30:13)
You can do any government paper. Any practical thing in the world you can do. Practical thing.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:15 - 30:27)
Because a Buddhist person has logic Peace in the mind. Clear mind. Prana is flowing.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:29 - 30:46)
Like you have some computer problem. Buddhist person doesn't get like ahhh They're like hmm okay, I have to stop. Yeah, that's okay.

Oh, okay, fixed. Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (30:52 - 31:00)
Feel peaceful. Mind is sharp from your meditation. From your yoga.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:01 - 31:55)
Prana is flowing all the time from compassion. Then a Buddhist person you should think you can do any normal worldly thing you can do. It doesn't take much to learn those things.

Somebody will tell you we have to hire a sound guy for this movie. We need to hire an expert about the coloring. Then you can say, it's okay, I'll figure it out myself.

And if you're real, if you're meditating, good. And if your mind is strong, okay, this is how I do the lighting. You can figure it out.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:57 - 31:58)
Anything.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (31:59 - 32:10)
That's a worldly thing. That's a blessing of teacher. They give you courage.

And power.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:11 - 32:12)
You can do anything.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:14 - 32:28)
You can be an expert at anything in like six weeks. Like languages or learning musical instruments, things like that. Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:29 - 32:44)
Then also jikten le depa means if you stay around a good teacher, you learn the spiritual skills.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:44 - 32:45)
Patience.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:48 - 32:49)
Meditation.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:49 - 32:50)
Logic.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:52 - 32:53)
Compassion.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:53 - 32:55)
Those are the deeper skills.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (32:58 - 32:59)
You can learn both.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (33:01 - 33:56)
THA NA NGAN SONG DU MI SDUG BSNGAL LAS RDZOGS NAS BSRUNG YAG LAS SANGS RGYAS THOB PA'I LAS RDZOGS KYI BAR THAMS CAD GZHAN NYID LA BRTEN PAS MED DU GRUB PA YIN TE If you stay with a good teacher, you get the whole range of skills. And then he gives from this up to this. He gives from this up to this.

You can learn those skills. What's the lowest one? The skill to keep yourself out of hell.

Up to the skill to make yourself an angel.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (33:59 - 34:01)
The whole range.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (34:02 - 34:55)
Accounting is in the middle someplace. Whole range. You can learn if you stay with a good teacher.

BAD MED DU GRUB PA means without trying. We call in English osmosis. It will rub off on you.

The people that you hang out with, you become like them. It rubs off on you. So be careful who you hang out with.

If you hang out with lazy people you become...

[Geshe Michael Roach] (35:00 - 35:01)
lazy.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (35:01 - 35:05)
If you hang out with people who are doing drugs or alcohol then you start.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (35:06 - 35:08)
You start to use them.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (35:12 - 36:00)
If you hang out with people who are on the internet all day then you also become like that. I was in Shanghai with my teacher, Chinese teacher, one of my Chinese teachers named Xia Liang. She was trying to put Chinese language into the wooden head.

Didn't work too good. Then we were in a coffee shop and then there were four young ladies. Maybe they were about 15 years old, something.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (36:02 - 36:10)
They are sitting at a square table in a nice coffee shop like that.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (36:11 - 38:30)
And they are cute, young Chinese cute girls in a heat [?]. But they are all going like this on their telephone. Like a chicken.

To do Chinese is much more difficult, right? Then for two hours they are having tea and they are all like this. Then I asked, we had to go.

Maybe she got tired of trying to put Chinese into wooden head. Then we stood up and we start to leave. Then I said, Xia Liang, excuse me if it's not polite but do you mind, can you ask these girls some questions for me?

She said, it's okay Geshe La, you are a foreigner, you can do stupid things. Then I said, can you just ask them why they go to have tea together if they don't talk to each other? Then she's like, blablabla Then they are like, blablabla Then I said, what did they say?

They are texting each other. Then I said, why don't they just talk to each other? It's a modern disease.

I think Stanley and Christine are writing a book about it.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (38:30 - 38:38)
Because this is a world global addiction with young people.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (38:39 - 39:16)
The older people like me, we can't figure out how to use it anyway. Then, if you hang out with these people who live in this box, the sky is so big, the mountains are so beautiful, the trees are so expansive, but they are living in four inches. Their life is inside four inches.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (39:18 - 39:30)
If you hang out with them you will also start to live in this little box and your mind shrinks and you don't see the sky.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (39:32 - 41:38)
So, be careful who you hang out with. If you find a really nice person then ask them to go to a coffee shop together or something. Maybe something will rub off on you.

If you see some kind of troubled people, unkind people, gossiping and things like that, don't dislike them and don't judge them. But also don't hang out with them. There's a saying in English, if you lie down with a dog you will wake up with fleas.

So, be careful who you hang out with. We have four more minutes. I'm going to use it.

BYAS LAM MED means Tsongkapa said YON DEN KUN GYI ZHIR GYUR DRIN CHEN BYED These are the opening lines of a very famous poem called YON DEN ZHIR GYUR MA ZHIR GYUR MA Say YON DEN YON DEN ZHIR GYUR MA Some people mispronounce it YON DEN ZHIR GYUR MA but it's a Danish [?] grammar case. ZHIR YON DEN ZHIR GYUR MA I think Carola is going to teach a little bit of it tomorrow. YON DEN means good qualities.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (41:40 - 42:15)
JIG RTEN DANG JIG RTEN LAS BDEB PA What's that mean? Worldly good qualities like accounting, fixing cars, playing rock and roll, then up to JIG RTEN LAS BDE BA higher qualities, like compassion, moving your prana, all of them.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (42:16 - 42:25)
ZHIR means the foundation. ZHIR means my lord, my lama.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (42:28 - 42:39)
DRIN CHEN means who is so kind to me, kind enough to criticize me.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (42:39 - 42:58)
It's a lot of trouble to have a student. And the more you have, the more trouble. It's like kids.

One kid is okay. My mom had four.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (43:03 - 43:05)
Four boys. No husband.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (43:09 - 43:55)
Extremely difficult. But then you have to take responsibility and take care of them. I think the best thing in the world is to have a teacher.

Second best thing is to have some students. Because it's a very sweet relationship. And you have many hard times together but in the end you are very happy together.

It's like, I don't know, like your kid grows up and you feel proud of that kid.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (43:59 - 44:05)
But you can't do it unless you have a good teacher.

[Geshe Michael Roach] (44:05 - 45:18)
Okay, let's stop there. Alhamdulillah [?]. Sadang Shed Tso Tso Shin Sadang Shed Re Chö En Dhamma Kuni Do Pa Chok