«Дар освобождения», курс 26 «Реальность кармы», занятие 15

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Let's talk about the third form level here.

[Student]
By the way, the third of the second level?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
No, the third of ... there's four form, four formless. And we're doing the third one.

These four have sexy names.

[Student]
These four have boring names.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
First form level. Second form level. Third level, fourth form level.

Infinite space. Infinite consciousness. Nothing at all.

And peak, peak, peak. Okay, we'll get to those later. Okay, all right, we're on the third one now, third form level.

Five components, five components. What's the main difference between level two and level three? Level two, you're inside the thing, and you're like blissed out.

Body and mind. So, the difference between second and third, you have to think of a person as they get drunk, okay? I know nobody here got drunk before, but I mean, just watching other people.

You know, first they're silly, you know, and then aha, aha, and then if they keep drinking, there's like a flatline, a heartbeat flatline.

[Student]
The feeling, the mental feeling, goes from happy to just like unconscious, like okay, flat, like, and that's the difference between two and three.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's like you took a very heavy drug or something. Like five sleeping pills or something.

[Student]
First one, you're happy. And after five, you're like, okay, just the mental feeling is like, okay, I can't say it, you just have to, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The body feeling is still like this, you know, very linked in, very like you're doing in a good, good yoga pose, you know. So the body feels charged like, I don't know, a ballet dancer, right?

[Student]
When your balance is really good and everything's charged, you're like, if your body hurts, if you have like knee problems, or you just did a crazy Ashtanga yoga class or something, you can sit in a chair, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
If your knees interrupt your meditation, you should sit in a chair, okay? Or try many different kinds of meditation cushions and you will find one. I know a guy that I studied with, he likes bricks.

He likes to sit on bricks. So, we have bodily, you're wired. In the body, you're wired.

[Student]
In the mental feeling, went beyond, beyond mental pleasure to an indescribable plateau.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And again, it takes maybe an hour to get there.

[Student]
So we are just going to pretend, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Plant a seed for that. As we did when we tried to imagine our past life, okay? The first couple weeks that you try to imagine your past life, you will get some funny stories like from Fantastic Four movie or something.

And then like Bertha said, suddenly you will hook up with a real memory or something real will come.

[Student]
So, we will try the third form realm, and imagining that you are doing it, can cause you to reach it, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
So, these are the same. Body feels wired.

[Student]
Mental feeling changed to and the mental feeling went from a pleasurable state to dissolution. We still have single point mind, and two more things.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
DREN PA and SHES BZHIN are very strong at this point.

[Student]
DREN PA and SHES BZHIN are very strong.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Who can tell me what's SHES BZHIN? That's DREN PA. SHES BZHIN is the fire alarm, okay?

[Student]
SHES BZHIN is the smoke detector.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
When it smells the smoke, it will go beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep. Okay?

[Student]
So, SHES BZHIN means, it's a little alarm in the back of your mind.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
You know, you're supposed to be focusing, I'm inside the heart flat line. And if you think about one of your four coffees [?], in this third level, your fire alarm should go beep beep beep beep beep beep. Then you use GZHAN BA [?].

What's GZHAN BA?

[Student]
Pull it back.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
My father loved fishing. In the Second World War he was on a submarine, so he loved the ocean, and he bought, when he was, you know, when I was around 15 he bought a PT boat.

[Student]
What is a PT boat?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
PT boat is a 50, it's a 20 meter boat with two torpedoes, and they will attack a huge ship. They will shoot the torpedoes and then they will pray. John F Kennedy was a captain of a PT boat, yeah, it's like kamikaze, it's like suicide, you know.

Then he'd take us out three, four days in the ocean, play poker and fish. And the fish is a big one, like tuna, you know. And you have a special belt with a big hole in it, just below your important place.

And you go like this, you go, okay, why am I talking about that? That's chenpa [?]. It gets away, the mind goes away.

[Student]
Then let it loose, then pull it.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
So, it's like that. You don't go like this, you see. You go, then relax, pull it.

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Then my father would bring us home to clean the tuna, you know. You start at the pee pee place, and you cut up to here, you know. Then you pull out the guts, you know.

Then about 15 years later, the doctor told him, you have a heart problem, you know.

[Student]
We have to operate, you know.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
But don't worry, we can take a blood vessel from your leg, and we will cut you from your pee pee place up to here. Then I'm like, karma, karma, karma, karma, you know. I didn't know about karma, but I thought, wow, that's really weird, you know.

Anyway, he survived, but it was really messy.

[Student]
Okay, so at the third level, feeling, the mental feeling, what?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Flat line. Okay? You guys are sleepy.

You guys are sleepy. You want to do something else?

[Student]
Yeah, physical feeling, what?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, boom.

[Student]
Okay, then two mental functions are strong. Yeah, the smoke alarm, watching to see if the mind goes someplace else, instead of the beating heart, instead of the beating heart, okay? If it goes someplace else, a strong pulling it back, and of course single-pointed, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
That's five, okay? You guys ready to start, or you want to wait till digestion? What?

Everybody clear about neutral? It means you're not like, okay, last one you were like, wow, this is cool, sugar.

[Student]
This one is more like a drug, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Emotions are flat. Like, I don't know, these big wushu guys, you know, somebody hits them, they're like, okay?

[Student]
Somebody cut them, they're like, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
No emotion. No emotion. Beyond emotion, okay?

Okay, all right, let's go. Let's get ready. Make your noise now.

Turn off your phone. Alex, did you get the $50? Whose phone was that?

Whose phone was that? Whose confession [?]? You think it was from the hotel?

Yeah, but me and Alex need some extra, you know. Okay, let's go. I'm not sure it's going to work in the afternoon, but we don't have much time.

Let's try. When you meditate in the afternoon, if you did your preliminaries in the morning, you can just go straight to your breath. So, let's spend a little time on our breath.

Long exhale. Focus on the sounds outside, like the air conditioner and the small noises in the room. Now compare that to the beating of your heart.

Now let go of the air conditioner and drill down into the heart.

[Student]
You are the heart, and it feels really nice.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Very peaceful. Very blissful. Body is turned on.

Body is very straight, very aware. Stay in the heart. Be the heart with that blissful feeling.

[Student]
Now imagine it's like someone put earplugs in your ears, and earplugs on your feelings, and it's just everything, all the feelings stop in the mind. You went deeper into the heart, to a place where there are no emotions.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Stay there for five minutes.

[Student]
Keep your watchfulness strong. Be ready to pull the mind back deep into the heart.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Three long exhales. Then you open your eyes. Much more difficult for me after lunch.

I know, you also?

[Student]
Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, let's try the fourth level. Maybe there's a nap in there. Somebody asked me, what's the Je Tsongkapa text?

It's called NAM BSHAD SNYING PO'I RGYAN. NAM BSHAD SNYING PO'I RGYAN. It's called Jewel of the Essence.

It's his comments on Maitreya, Abhisamayalankara. And I think Gyaltsab Je had something to do with the text. He may have written it down.

Okay, fourth form realm level. DREN PA YONGS SU DAG PA. DREN PA YONGS SU DAG PA means, there's only three parts, okay?

[Student]
Only three components.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I'm sorry, four. The single mind, mind stays on one point, that's the same.

[Student]
The neutral feeling is the same.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The ability to keep your mind ... the ability to bring your mind back is called perfected.

[Student]
Very perfect, very easy.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Watch, watch. Okay, you're not fighting. Okay, how many parts we got?

[Student]
Three, yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, one more. This is debatable, okay? I checked it in a few other books, and I'm ...

anyway. It says you're no longer making good karma or bad karma. The karma is neutral, okay?

So those of you who know Tibetan, there's a BTANG SNYOMS in number B, and there's a BTANG SNYOMS in number C, the same word. Then, BTANG SNYOMS, the first one, it's explained as 'DU BYED BTANG SNYOMS in another text. It means karmically neutral.

You're not making good karma, you're not making bad karma. Normally, if you're happy, you're making good karma. So, the flatline is so flatline that you're not even making any ...

there's no detectable good karma or bad karma.

[Student]
So, like that.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I'm not totally comfortable with that. I'll check it more, but that's what one commentary said.

[Student]
It's supposed to be, if you reach the fourth form realm level, you're making very good karma.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
But, I'll check it. So anyway, at this point, your mind is still flatline.

[Student]
Your feelings are still flatline, but it's much easier to stay there. There's less resistance from your mind. At three, there was some resistance, and at four, it's like you're cruising.

Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
You want to try?

[Student]
So, what's the main difference between three and four?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, less resistance from your mind. It's more of a flow. If you go off a little bit, it's easy to come back.

Okay, you ready? Then we'll go to maybe a half hour of karma, because we still have to finish the karma. Okay?

[Student]
Daniel noticed something, but where is Daniel?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
He's not ... Oh good, so tell him I covered his question, okay? You want to know what his question was?

[Student]
He's the only person who asked me this question.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Geshe La, you never finished the Tantric Wheel of Life. Okay, let's just meditate. Come to your breath.

Let's do ten very slow exhales to bring the mind in. Now, bring your mind to desire realm mind, watching the air conditioning noise. Don't look at your heart yet, you're just focusing on the air conditioning.

Now come to the beating of your heart. Compare it to the air conditioning and then you think, oh, I'd rather stay with the beating of my heart and let the air conditioning go. Now, focus on some kind of very nice feeling in your body and very, very relaxed, pleasant feeling in your mind as you are in the heart beating.

And now the feeling of the mind and the feeling of the body as if you were ... someone gave you anesthesia in the body and the mind. Three breaths, three slow breaths.

And then come out. I had a thought about that question, the two tang nyoms. Let me check some ...

I think it's physical neutral feeling. Because up to now it's supposed to be physical bliss and neutral mental feeling. And I think the point on this one is, you're supposed to feel like someone gave you that anesthesia before operation.

Your body doesn't have any more sensation. So you don't feel sharp and wired physically. You're just not aware of ...

your body feels like it's numb. But I'll check. Okay, let's do a little karma.

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Sorry? Yeah, there's three tang nyoms.

[Student]
Let's call it three.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
There's three. We'll talk about it. Okay, we were on ...

you guys want to switch to the Lamrim text? We have about ... I think we have about 15 minutes, something like that.

Am I right? 3 or 2.30? 3.

[Student]
2.30. I don't know.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
What's the schedule? Stop at ...

[Student]
yeah, okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, we have about 15 minutes.

[Student]
Oh, stay in the lion's dance? You sure? Okay, let's do that.

I'm up for that.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, due to popular demand. Okay, so now we go to the four formless realms. Are they really formless realms?

Ronit says no.

[Student]
Why do you say no?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Why? Yeah, they cause the formless realms. They're not formless realms.

Okay? They cause. If you do that meditation a lot and you die, you will be born in the formless realm.

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
So, here's Tsongkapa on the four formless realms. Okay? By the way, sometimes they call them kye che.

Kye che usually is a [?]. It's from Vasubandhu's book. It means the 18 categories.

Sorry, 12 categories. Kye che. Sorry, 12 doors of sense are called kye che.

12 doors of sense. It means the six objects and the six powers and consciousness. So, six and six.

Six and six. In Sanskrit it's called ayatana. Ayatana.

But sometimes they call the four formless realm meditations kye che also. Okay? So, don't be confused.

Okay, sum ni nam kha tha ye kyi kye che. These have cute names, nice names. The names help you remember the meditation.

The first one's called infinite space. Space with no end. Endless space.

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
suk dang tokpay du she rakpar tong ne, du she de yang dang yang du nambar shik ching nam kathaye so nyangpay du she yang dang yang du gongpar chepe, ngu shi du su te ngun tu gyur pa'i sem se chikpa tsung den dang chepa Oh, there's the definition of it. Okay? During the four form realm meditations, we were focusing on the heart, right?

And there was some awareness of physical, the physical heart.

[Student]
Then as you go into formless meditation, you're going to take the heart, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And you're going to let it break down and dissolve.

[Student]
So, we'll start at the heart. Beating heart.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Awareness of some piece of meat in your chest, right? And then the transition is very similar to the air conditioner to the heart.

[Student]
So, if you're teaching it, you have to say, now compare your heart to endless space.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
So, between those two steps, at the fourth step of the form realm, you are still in your heart, right? As you go into the formless realm meditations, let your heart break down like a sand castle.

[Student]
The like a sugar cube that gets wet, you know?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
So, you're going to focus on your heart. Then let that, it's called here, the picture of physicality in your mind.

[Student]
And let that idea of physicality dissolve.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Then for me, what comes next, it always felt to me like horizontal. I don't know why.

[Student]
The heart dissolves like sugar.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Then the mind just stretches out infinitely. It goes infinitely. It never stops.

So, it's a feeling of like, you just start spreading and you keep going and you never stop.

[Student]
As wide as the universe.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay? Let's try. We don't have a lot of time.

Let's try to go there. We're going to go, we're going to watch the breath. Then we're going to dissolve the heart.

What's the condition of the body? Numb. Anesthetized.

What's the emotion? Nothing. Nothing.

[Student]
Neutral.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Also anesthetized.

[Student]
Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
But there should be this sensation of the heart dissolves and the mind starts to just leak as far as space. Okay? By the way, this last ...

we did four so far, right? We did five if you count the air conditioner. If you count the desire realm.

[Student]
We did five if you count the desire realm.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Now we're going to do six, but just to give you a heads up of the where we're going, when you do the lion's dance, maybe the whole thing takes an hour. Okay?

[Student]
And you don't stop.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
You don't stop. You go, you go from one.

[Student]
You go from air conditioner. Four. Four.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And then purposely you come back.

[Student]
Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
That's most of the lion's dance. Okay?

[Student]
But, you're going to have to do something over here. Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
You're going to park here for a while. There's something beyond the formless realm. Okay?

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Just to give you a preview. Okay? Okay, we're going to do a super short formless number one.

What's the name of it? Endless space. Endless space.

Okay, here we go. Let's come straight to your breath, and let's count ten slow exhales. Then jump straight into the inside of your heart.

Then you and the heart start to dissolve like sugar melting. And you start to spread sideways, horizontal, in all directions like space. Stay with that.

Stay in it. Let it go on and on and on, and we'll stay there for five minutes.

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Body is numb. And please come back to your breath. Three long exhales.

[Student]
Give away the good karma.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Then you can open your eyes. Take a stretch. Okay, I know there's probably a lot of questions, and we'll ...

let's do it tomorrow. Okay?

[Student]
We have to get ready for the fire offering.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
If we are a successful lamrim group, then Chandra [?] should have too many helper volunteers.

[Student]
So, I know everybody's busy.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Everybody's planning a nap, but the best thing to do would be to help Chandra [?], or at least offer, offer. Most of you know about this kind of fire offering already.

[Student]
It's called shiway jinsek, peaceful fire offering.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The motivation of this fire offering is that there should be peace in this world, and imagine that the smoke is spreading. Eventually it will reach the whole world, right? The blessing of Los Angeles pollution reaches every city, eventually.

So, think about that.

[Student]
Every living being eventually will breathe some part of this fire offering.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Some of the pieces will reach escape velocity. They will go to other planets. They will travel with the cosmic dust, you know, and think about that spreading peace, okay?

Dress warmly, okay? And if you feel tired halfway through, then just go home, go to bed, you know, that's fine.

[Student]
I think we start at 6:30?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
We start at 6:30. It will go to about 9:30, and I think the important thing is just to relax, okay? You don't have to go like this, you know?

It's nice to enjoy a fire, and just think sweet things, peace for all the people you love, the people you know, okay? The custom is about 5,000 years old. I saw a fire offering in Varanasi with some Hindu guys.

They use a little hole in the ground about this big, but they are still saying SO HA. It's still the same, you know? So, we will offer ...

how many grains is it? Do you know?

[Student]
Twelve?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Sixteen? Six? No.

[Student]
Anyway, we'll offer a bunch of grains. Each one has a meaning, like this should remove sickness in the world, or this should make everyone financially comfortable in the whole world.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
So, there'll be a chance where you come up and you help to offer the grains to the fire. My lama was very insistent, you should do con stilo.

[Student]
Okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Like Santiago directing a choir, with a ...

[Student]
what do you call that? With elegance.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Elegance.

[Student]
Awesome.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
What do you call it?

[Student]
Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I don't want to see anybody go like this, okay? Okay. Look at their style.

Don't get too excited.

[Student]
Don't throw the grain at the fire. If you're keeping a six-times book, it's very appropriate to offer the book to the fire, at the end of the fire, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And then after the fire, after I go to bed, which will be as quickly as possible, if you want to stay and keep offering butter to the fire, ghee, everybody can come up and do two or three spoonful of ghee, okay? And then enjoy and be happy, okay? If you're one of the older students, you should be watching how it works, okay?

Every time my lama did a fire, I had a big notebook and I was writing down everything. If he turned his head, I said, turn head. So, I encourage you to ...

you know, the tradition has to continue. This year you're going to start preparing for Vajrayana teachings in Guadalajara. Then my dream is we pass it on, and you pass it on to your students, and your student pass it on to their student, okay?

[Student]
Yeah, so be very observant, and don't think there's always going to be some lama to do the fire. Learn to do it yourself, and then we can multiply the fires, okay? 134 people at Diamond Mountain.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
They did seven years of Vajrayana.

[Student]
Ten thousand pages of study, and they can all do their own fire offering, okay?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I think it's course number what? Four? Fourteen.

Fourteen?

[Student]
Twelve.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, when you get to course number twelve, you will have the paper, but it's better to watch before and learn how to do it, okay?

[Student]
There's a long, long additional ceremony of offering.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
You can do it in the middle. If the lama wants to go to bed, they skip it, but I think we'll do it tonight, okay? So, there won't be a lot of action during that time.

I'm sorry, Vandana. Fire offering is secret, but my lama, his tradition, is that nobody can see the mandala, sand mandala, except for someone who has initiation, okay?

[Student]
Then when they finish it, they put the wood on top of it.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Then you can't see it anymore. So, my lama allowed other people to come and watch the fire offering, and we did it many times in the monastery, and these old, old Mongolian-Tibetan guys will come and watch the whole thing, you know?

[Student]
And just for safety, I'm going to do the whole thing in Latin. In Latin, Latin language.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Like the mass. Or maybe I'll do Tibetan, okay?

[Student]
I'm not sure.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I'll choose later, okay? But it helps keep it secret, okay?

[Student]
Okay, see you there at 6.30. Can we do a few?