Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful some good friends enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy them and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet House us to help preserve Tibetan culture. Tibet house is the Dai Lama's cultural center in America. All best wishes have a great day.
Speaker 3 00:00:48 This is episode 322, meeting Bill McCarthy.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 So he's sort of the most powerful God in a way. And so he says he agrees with the Buddha that this impure. So then, but then Jerry Butcher honestly says what he thinks. He says to the God, he says, as mebrak, I see this great earth with its highs and lows. It's thorns, its precipices, its peaks, and its abysses as if it were entirely filled with shit. I, I translate ord you here. I'm so young. I'm, I'm untenured and young at that time, skt word is the word for shit. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be vulgar, but that is what is written in Sanskrit, not Ur. How can I do that? It's trying to be polite. Why did you see such a Buddha field as this, as if it were so impure? Reverend Shai put is a sure sign that there are highs and lows in your mind, and that your positive thought in regard to the Buddha wisdom is not pure either.
Speaker 1 00:02:07 Reverend, she butcher those whose minds are impartial toward all living beings and whose positive thoughts toward the Buddha wisdom are pure. See, this Buddha feel as perfectly pure there upon the Lord touched the ground of the billion world galactic universe with his big toe. And suddenly it was transformed into huge mass of precious jewels. A magnificent array of many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems until it re assembled the universe of the Tata jewel array called endless virtuous jewel array, that everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder, each perceiving himself or herself seated on a throne of jewel lotuses. So in other words, the Buddha just did this little miraculous thing. He just to put his toe on the ground. And then everyone for a moment saw the world as perfect. And that's described metaphorically as if everything was made of Jewel.
Speaker 1 00:02:56 And the way the Buddha Buddhist pure lands are very elaborately described in the Buddhist sutra. You know this, the jewel lotus means. Of course, when we might think of everything as jewel, that's just a visual thing. If you think tactile of jewels, it's sort of hard. Like who would wanna sit on a bed of diamonds? It would be terribly uncomfortable. But heavenly jewels, you have to understand the sense with universe are soft and squishy and they're warm and they have light inside them like light bulbs. And they're kind of like this, like diamond neon, ruby emerald sort of incredible gushy swooshy thing, you know? And even the bodies of beings are made of this, you know, so that your, your veins are pure ruby flowing in like, in like topaz skin, you know, that is warm and soft though, but it's yet intensely exquisite and beautiful and valuable and everybody's body's transparent, et cetera.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 They don't actually have coarse blood flow and, and anatomy animals, they just have these like hologram type of beautiful bodies. The gods do like jewels, just everything is like a jewel. And then also in those JUULs, they don't have plumbing, they don't have problem in those Juul universe. Every energy is brought to them. They don't need to eat food. You know, the energy just goes in through the pores and comes out and goes back and forth and they live in this jewel lottos, and then all they do is need to samati. It's like the ultimate zendo. You're there forever. You never have to get up. You never have to ask Sasaki Rose used to say, you don't have to go out and change the sheets. You never have to bother <laugh>. It's just a fantastic environment. Totally perfect. You're like in suspended state where you can achieve enlightenment.
Speaker 1 00:04:17 That's all. That's what a pure butter land is, the perfect situation for you permanently to achieve enlightenment. The perfect facility, not just like some dharma center is, but the whole world is the perfect facility. That is the claim he's making here. And he temporarily shows it to people. They suddenly feel they're installed in this jewel lotus and everything is jewel and their body's jewel and their mind is jewel and they're totally clear, perfect environment, but it only holds if then he says to, she rubs it in on Shai Putcha who says, now Sha Butcher, do you see the world as perfect? Everything perfect? Oh yes, I see it. He says, and then everyone, a lot of people, this always happens. You see when this splendor of the beauty of the virtues of this Butterfield shun fourth 84,000 beings in that assembly conceived the spirit of about Xcel perfect enlightenment.
Speaker 1 00:05:04 That is to say, seeing the perfection like this, they conceived the will, the ambition to create the world like that, to get into the energy of creating it like that, to be a Buddha themselves for the sake of all others. 84,000 of the people in the assembly conceived of that will to enlightenment. And the 500 TAVI youths who had already, already previously conceived that will to enlightenment, who had accompanied the young tavira, all attained the conform tolerance of ultimate breathlessness. That's a kind of level of realization of emptiness. It's called the tolerance of non-production or breathlessness. The idea that all things are unproduced uncreated, this is a empty, that means it's a kind of, that's a complicated, they, I'll explain it later, but it's kind of realization of emptiness, a level of wisdom that is then the Lord withdrew his miraculous power. And that once the but afield was restored to its usual appearance, then both men and gods who subscribe to the disciple vehicle thought aas all constructed things are Im permanent.
Speaker 1 00:06:05 And then others conceive unex, spirit of UNL totally perfectly, then conceiving the spirit of unl totally perfectly led. What I said to you is that moment where a being and the revolution suddenly conceives the desire, the will to perfect enlightenment, the will to perfection, the will to the perfection of evolution for the sake of all beings. It's the root of true altruism. It's the root of the buddhi life. It's the root of developing the Buddhist for soul. Almost you could say the <unk>. And once what being develops that then their whole course of evolution, all their future rebirths are changed. The quality of their existence has totally changed because they're living out of a vow, out of a will to be totally interconnected, to be living in and for all beings, even though they don't immediately perceive that their wisdom is not at the level of being able to perceive that their emotional commitment is to that. But of course, then of course, that emotional community then all comes and energizes the will to develop the wisdom so they understand it. So they know how to live up to being connected to all beings.
Speaker 1 00:07:10 So that's the way the thing is set up. That's the first chapter of the ur. Now the second chapter, then after that in the ur, they introduce, introduced him Ur to himself, who is the main protagonist of the sutra. And he is not the Shiam Buddha. The first chapter is set in the Buddhas grove and Vik isn't even there. And in the last couple of chapters, they all go back to the Buddhas grove vi. Ur himself goes back. But Viti is a layman who lives in the city and he's sick, supposed to be pretending to be sick. He's actually great. He's a Buddha, almost like a budha, but he's a layman and he doesn't, she shows the form of an ordinary layman, but a wise old layman sort of. But then he pretends to be sick, you see he's going, oh, I'm so sick. He's going around sick, he's sick.
Speaker 1 00:07:52 Oh, I feel terrible. I'm all, oh, he's like moaning and groaning and sick. He's actually beyond, he's sort of a almost anep, so he doesn't really have to be sick, but he sort of has a kind of diamond health as he puts it. But he's purposely being sick to teach people layman, because then he gives him a chance to give a long sermon about how the body, the ordinary body is a pile of dung and it's a scrap heap and it gives you pain all the time. And why work your life long for your body? Your body's gonna rot and turn to ashes or turn to dirt to fertilizer. And if, why are you spending your life feeding your body and clothing your body and housing your body and medicalizing and messing with your body? Put your energy into your mind. He says, then if you put your in your mind, it become enlightened, you'll get the diamond body of Buddhahood, he says.
Speaker 1 00:08:38 So it gives everyone this speech, that's why he's going around going being sick. And furthermore, he's setting up the drama of the suture because he knows that if you put out, if you become sick in the Buddhist community, everyone has to come and see you because everyone has to go and visit the sick. It's like within the etiquette of the Buddhist community, nobody cannot visit the sick person. So they introduced him, people like Kti, how he is and how he lives. Then he gets sick, you know? And then in the second chapter, and uh, then third and fourth chapters are very interesting because the Buddhas there in his grove there. And then he tells everybody, now you have to go and visit the UR team because Vim ur at the end of the chapter where he is introduced over at his house, by him sitting there alone, he says, Buddha is, uh, is is not kind.
Speaker 1 00:09:21 Buddha is, uh, unpassionate. He's not sending anybody to visit me, and I'm sick and I'm a Buddhist. I'm a member of the community and nobody comes to visit me. So he really, the Buddhist security sucks. They're no good. He's thinking, he purposely thinks it just out loud kind. So of course Buddha reads his mind, he says, oh, we better send somebody over to vi. So then he says, okay, Shari Puto, why don't you go see Viti? He's sick. Go ask after his health and give him a cheer 'em up, you know? So Shari PTU says, oh, no, no, but I don't think I want to go. So then he asks all these people, nobody wants to go. Why is such a learned person? Well, because Viveur has a big mouth. You see, they don't want to go vi. Ur is the uncompromising mah teaching of skill and liber technique.
Speaker 1 00:10:09 He's the UN person. He's like the unmatched eloquence. He exposes everyone's pretensions and hypocrisies and confusions, whether they're a saint or not. And so they all recount these experiences that were very uncomfortable for them. And of them, I thought I would read several of them, but one of them I thought I would read particularly is, um, yeah, I would particularly as the one where he criticizes Shai poi there. The story that Shai Pietra tells about himself was, it's so perfect in relation to the dualism and the non-dualism. It illustrates so beautifully what I've tried to tell you to introduce the mah, the universal vehicle. So he says, the Buddha says <unk>, you go to inquire after the illness of the la <unk> says the Buddha. It's your turn. You're the head elder. You're the foremost of the wise. You're a saint. You have nothing else to do.
Speaker 1 00:10:55 You go see him. Thus having been addressed, the venerable Shai Putcha answered the Buddha, Lord, I am indeed reluctant to go to ask the vi vi ur about his illness. Why? I remember one day when I was sitting at the foot of a tree in the forest, absorbed in contemplation that La Chave ur came to the foot of that tree and said to me, Reverend Sherry Prap, this is not the way to absorb yourself in contemplation. Now, you have to realize here, it doesn't have an impact unless you realize that Sha Pra is like St. Peter or St. Paul or something. I mean, be off St. Paul was a bad guy for, I mean, Shara Butcher was a really good guy. He's a saint. He's the patriarch. Everyone respects Shariputra. You know, armies will stop and lay down their weapons when they see stra in India at this time.
Speaker 1 00:11:47 And he's an icon in Buddhist art for thousands of years. I mean, this is a saint, a great saint, a great meditator known as the, he was known as the greatest transit edit. There's a famous story about him. One day he was meditating and a little devil was there hitting him on the head with the hammer. And one of his friends had to come and shoo away with the devil. One of his friends who had a little demonn, who had magical powers could see that, and to shrew it away, and sh Pucher never even knew, it never came out of his trance. When he did, when the guy rose him from his trance, he had a little headache, but he was a great yogi and a very saintly person. So for to that kind of person, it's like walking up to real big shot guruci, you know, who could sit there and can stop their breathing for two days.
Speaker 1 00:12:29 You know, who they've stuck in a, in a, in a tank in the manager clinic and noticed that he only took up a one ounce of oxygen in three weeks or something. I mean, this is a real adapt, you know? And yet vi goes to him and he says, this is not the way to meditate, shower fu, to, no, no, no, you don't meditate like this disturbs his meditation first. Although he says reverend, he's reverential to him. He treats his office, have a monk and a priest and a saint reverently. But philosophically he's critical and psychologically he's critical. And how does he criticize? He says, you should absorb yourself in contemplation so that neither body nor mind appear anywhere in the triple world. Did any of you, some of you have, I know, have dabbled with zen? Do you remember the famous thing that Dogan heard when he attended enlightenment?
Speaker 1 00:13:18 Some of you who know Zen must know that his teacher woke up some guy who was asleep in the zen though next to Dogan, and he whacked them one. And then he said to him, you should only meditate by casting off body and mind. The teacher said, and Dogan heard that, and then Dogan achieved enlightenment or one sat. I mean, there are many SAT authors you achieved. You shouldn't even encourage the idea that there's only one sort of pop off that's enlightenment. But he achieved that enlightenment at that time. His first major breakthrough. The sleep in this with the idea that you should only practice having cast off body and mind. Because if you have no body in mind to start with, when you meditate, how can you meditate? And yet you should meditate having cast off body in mind, without body in mind appearing anywhere in the triple world. What does that mean? Triple world means for the the desire realm, the form realm, realm of pure form and the formless realm, these different somaia, vasts, Buddhist cosmos, mental psychophysical cosmos, and your body and mind appear nowhere within that. What would that mean? You're sitting there, but yet your body and mind are not appearing anywhere.
Speaker 1 00:14:26 That means you are meditating with your wisdom going omnidirectionally, where you are not indulgent in being a body sitting there, you are not leaving a, an intact a sense of intrinsic identity or intrinsic objectivity about your body. As this body is sitting here from within, you are not allowing that to remain intact. You are not allowing your mind to remain intact. And as what my mind is now, now meditating, I am not gonna think I'm gonna disidentify from that thought. So my mind is doing that. Your wisdom, critical analytic, critical intelligence is focused on everything that appears to you, body or mind, and seen through it. Not allowing it, not accepting its apparent objectivity, not finding it. Look for your body, close your eyes and look for your body. You can't find it. If you look, if you don't look and assume I'm sitting here, you can assume it.
Speaker 1 00:15:20 But take one minute and look at your body. You won't find it. You know, you go like this, you can't, you touch a piece of arm, that's not your body. That's a piece something. Where are we really? We are nowhere within the triple world really. If we really knew you think we're on the planet earth in New York, et cetera, how do you think it looks from 20 trillion light years away where we are? If someone had a vision that encompassed time in its different moments simultaneously, where would we be? Like, you know, like a camera that, you know, that takes something image moving across a thing, you know, like a time exposed thing that goes click, click, click like that, you know, and you see the moon going across like little bits. If someone had a consciousness like that, what would we look like? Where would we be? <laugh>?
Speaker 1 00:16:10 So this is radical critical wisdom meditation. He's saying to chai puter, don't just be someone sitting there. I'm sitting here under this tree meditating. I'm now up into some form realm. I'll come back down, leaving intact a whole cosmology as if it were objectively established as a thing in itself. All things, the form realm is empty of being the form realm. The tree is empty of being the tree. The foot of the tree is empty of being the foot of the tree. The body is empty of being the body. The mind is empty of being the mind. Don't leave it sitting there, body mind under a tree, absorbed in contemplation, in some dualistic way of abstracting yourself out of a sort of left cosmology, left as a thing in itself, entirely sitting there. Do you follow me? What he's saying? That's what he's saying of being the, he says, you should absorb yourself in contemplation in such a way that you can manifest all ordinary behavior without forsaking cessation.
Speaker 1 00:17:08 You have achieved nirvana. <unk> has achieved Nirvana Niro sensation of suffering. He has exploded his self-centeredness of a certain kind. Definitely he's a saint. He doesn't care about himself in some way. On on in a normal psychological personality level. Nirvana is your way of being in the world. When you are truly free, you are a free being in the world. The world seems free to you. You can be aware then that it doesn't to others, and you can help them see it as free effectively, because it does seem free to you. But that short of having fully realized that that is a contemplation, that is a way of being absorbed in contemplation. Here I am in Nirvana, that is a contemplation. I am now gonna be ordinary though by being ordinary. By being humble. Say someone insults me, Misha Puter, I'm the great saint. They say, you're a jerk. Shall I put, well, I'm gonna be in nirvana, I'm gonna be humble. And that will be, that will be an ordinary way, and I'll just be ordinary with that person and that, and yet I will be, will not lose Nirvana. Nirvana does not in depend on me having an image of being in Nirvana. Nirvana is my freedom to be anywhere I want.
Speaker 1 00:18:27 If I need to be humble, to be ordinary, if I need to be unenlightened, if someone is considering me unenlightened, I can be unenlightened and I do not lose enlightenment. You should absorb yourself in contemplation in such a way that you can manifest the nature of an ordinary person without abandoning your cultivated spiritual nature. You should absorb yourself in contemplation so that the mind neither settles within, nor moves without, toward external forms. You should absorb yourself in contemplation in such a way, in and out as same, within and without our same, they're equal. We are equally within ourselves and without ourselves.
Speaker 1 00:19:10 If we realize relativity, you should absorb yourself in contemplation in such a way that the 37 accessories of enlightenment are manifest without deviation towards any convictions, without getting hung up on any attitudes or any dogmatic ideas you should absorb. The 37 accessories are like wisdom, meditation, concentration, memory, et cetera. These are the accessories of enlightenment. They're sort of the actual mental functions into which the enlightenment breaks can be broken down useful to see how it functions. You should absorb yourself in contemplation in such a way that you are released in nirvana without abandoning the passions that are the province of samsara. And that's very challenging. You can have emotions here at pra. You can even be, because how can you be with people if you're so cooled out? You're so burnt out, you're so blown out. How can you get close with people and really help them passions? You can, but you do not have to abandon the passions to be in nirvana at all.
Speaker 4 00:20:14 That's what he's saying.
Speaker 1 00:20:17 Reverend Shai puter, you can use those energies in a totally different way. That's what he actually means. That's complicated. But very interesting, Reverend Shai puter, those who absorb themselves in contemplation in such a way, are declared by the Lord to be truly absorbed in contemplation. Lord, when I heard this teaching, I was unable to reply <laugh> and remain silent. Therefore, I am reluctant to go to that good man and ask him about his illness.
Speaker 1 00:20:45 It's not that he says he won't go an earlier translator that says, I don't want to go, or, no, I'm afraid to go or something, or I won't go. I refuse to go. Something like that. But he doesn't say, I will refuse. This means I'm not enthusiastic about going. I'm reluctant to go. But Buddha takes that and says, well, okay, you're excused then. And he ask another person and he ask another person, and they all have a story. So you read through those chap, these chapters, and uh, they're both monks. Now, vem Ur is very famous for being, uh, a layman who is wiser than many great monks. So some people thought that sort of the main point of the security sutra was to sort of show that you don't have to be a monk, but that's too simplistic. He equally rejects many, uh, people for their dualistic attitudes.
Speaker 1 00:21:39 He even go gets the devil actually bi just gets after the devil. It's one wonderful incident where <unk> although, uh, with the vow of, uh, temporary vow of, uh, of chastity is approached by the devil whose name is Mara, who actually lives in a heavenly plain. He doesn't live underworld. There's another one in underworld, but that's not the, the figure of the temperature. You know, the devil, the tempt, he's approached by Mara who comes and says, I want to, I have to have, I have to have 12,000 extra girls. <laugh>. He says, all goddesses, and I think you look lonely. So I'm bringing them down to, Hey, wait on you hand and foot for a while. So the guy is like, really a bit tempted, but he's saying, no, no, that's not proper. I shouldn't do that. You can't do that. And he was trying to sort of vainly ply, refused, and then vi ur up. And as soon as he sees vi ur ma tries to flee, you know, he wants to go. But vi ur has like a magical problem. The devil can't budge. He's stuck there and he's very uncomfortable. So vi Ur says, uh, uh, I forget the name of the <unk>, but he says to the bozek, <unk>, that's <unk>.
Speaker 1 00:22:51 Uh, this is not really <unk> tries to appear as Indra, the king of the gods. So he says, <unk> This isn't really Indra, that's like Zeus. In other words, he appears as Zeus. This is not Zeus, this is Mara, the, the evil one, the devil, the tempt. He's just come here to lead you astray and give you all these girls, and you become like a, a liber teen and you'll waste your life just living it up in some superficial, egocentric manner. And so you should be aware of this couch, this guy. He's not Indra, but he's Mara. So then Mara says, okay, well I'll have to feel like that. I'm gonna split, I'm gonna get outta here. You can't go says <unk> you have made a gift of these 12,000 girls, so therefore you shouldn't give them to this <unk> because he is a <unk> who will be corrupted by them, but you can give them to me.
Speaker 1 00:23:36 Yes, I want them. So then Marice trying to get away, but his magical thing is holding him there. Then the, then a voice from the sky, brak probably, but they don't say it says, Mara, you won't be able to leave until you follow through on your gift and give the girls to ve. So then he gives the 12,000 goddesses to vi. They have big numbers in the mayana know they go right away from numbers. So then vi Ur says, this is great. I'm glad you girls came said. Now I've always thought that Mara overworks you and that you have a very boring time up there. Now admit it, it's no fun being Mara's girls. The MA's like a pimp reel, isn't he? Sort of like LiRo Mara says, it's no fun just working in his, on his string of girls, and there's no reason why you, you are very intelligent.
Speaker 1 00:24:26 You should achieve <unk>. And he gives them some teaching about the something called the joy in the dharma and the pleasures of the dharma and real pleasure. And he gives a long thing about, about liberation and freedom and inside and the the different pleasures that are the real pleasures of the mind of becoming free of mine. And they being very intelligent goddesses do achieve high stage of incite. Many of the different ones, different stages. Right away, Mara's and Amara still can't get away. He's sitting there stuck and having to watch his girls being trained and become enlightened is really pissed. So they become quite enlightened. And he says then the future therefore goddesses, you will now know what is true pleasure. And you'll realize that the pleasure of the heaven, of pleasure of Mara. And he has a very heavy duty heaven of pleasure. He has in the different pleasure of heavens.
Speaker 1 00:25:16 There's one he, he lives in one called Yama, which means completely strife free above him is a heaven, which he can send people to, which is called the heaven of a manifesting whatever you desire. That is, you know, you have any desire and you can emanate it and you can enjoy it. You know, you, if you want to be a different body, if you want to have like 10 lovers, if you want to have like swim in a pool of honey and anything you want, you can completely create it by mind. It's a heaven of purely malleable energy forms. And then the heaven above that is one where you're so jaded by the earlier one, you can't even think of what you'd like. So the one above that is called uh, <unk>. It means where you, you can enjoy vicariously all the emanations of others. So all you're doing in that one is you kind of sit there and other people have fantasies and you enjoy them.
Speaker 1 00:26:06 Well, those that you like, you don't have to enjoy all of them. And these are the higher heavens in what's called the desire realm. And they even, those are lower heavens compared to the form realm, heavens or the formless realm. Heavens in the Buddhist cosmology. But that's where Mara dwells in that kind of area. So these girls have a pretty heavy duty time. I mean they live in a permanent jacuzzi heaven, you know, and yet the fantasy, they, you know, sense pleasure is not that great. Finally, it's course compared to inner pleasures of inner freedom, the inner openings, the inner sensitivities of the mind in opening to freedom is infinitely more blissful than since any kind of sensory bliss. Although of course truly great sensory bliss leads to that inner thing. It connects to it. But that's another subject. And so they learn this and they like it.
Speaker 1 00:26:56 So then they're all ready to go back or then they, they're ready to stay with him characters to stay on the earth plane and enjoy the pleasure of the dharma. But then v m says, actually though it would not be proper and suitable for you goddesses to hang around by shali here, the human males would all go insane. And he doesn't actually say that I'm embroidering, but they would. These are goddess, you know, and you know, you would be happy. And I mean everyone would think that Buddhism was weird and you know, we don't need you here. You know, who really needs you is Mara needs you. So I'm gonna give you back to Mara. And they say, no, no, don't give us back tomorrow. We don't wanna go back with him. Back to the creepy pleasure world of his. And he says, and he says, don't worry, I will teach you a teaching called the inexhaustible lamp.
Speaker 1 00:27:44 And that teaching is a teaching where your new insight, when it touches another being, it will kindle the same insight in them. Just like a lamp can light infinite other lamps without exhausting itself. So you will become lamps of the dharma in those pleasure heavens. And this is of course the worst thing for Mara because now everybody in his whole heaven is gonna become enlightened. So Vik sends them back and now, and you get the impression that that whole heaven is invaded by this enlightenment. And poor Mara, instead of living in his jacuzzi, even he may have to meditate and realize enlightenment. You never know, although he may be actually already enlightened in another sense, which we'll deal with later. So there's another wonderful incident. What I like about that incident is it again shows the difference between the mah and the monastic vehicle. Remember the Buddha under the Bohi tree was approached by Mara, and Mara brought his daughters, as they say, or his girls, and he, they tried to tempt the Buddha and the Buddha just didn't see them as anything attempt tempting.
Speaker 1 00:28:45 And he, there was a kind of wall of detachment around the Buddha and they just didn't penetrate that. But he doesn't, and then he changes enlightenment. They, they go away. When they're frustrated, they don't succeed. Mara disappears and then Buddha goes and teaches the world. So again, there's a dualistic idea that Siara is lurking out there. But here if Iur, he interacts with Mara, he grabs Mara's girls, he teaches them the dharma, he sends them back to Mara's heaven where Mara came from. He doesn't leave Mara's heaven intact as a place of ignorance. In other words, you follow me? So this is the universalism. It's not that he's greater than the Buddha. Buddha is actually doing that. Buddha is indivisible from V Security. It's just that he's showing this more aggressive universalism than Buddha shows. Buddha shows it in a more like we're just dropping out of the world guys. We're not really trying to change anything. He does this dualism, you see to get started. Kind of. It's of ignorant. So they don't just crucify him and throw him away, you know, they allow him to build big institution. So that's another great one. And then the third one I really like is the one about the giving gifts, but I don't think I'll do it
Speaker 1 00:29:51 Really. Finally, what is the dharma? The real refuge is the dharma. Remember I said, and what is the dharma? Remember finally what the dharma actually is, is the reality is nirvana is freedom. The real refuge in the dharma is really being in nirvana, attaining nirvana. It's very possible to realize this. We do anyway, we look for things. When you buy something, you inspect it, you know, you go, you kick the tires, you look into the motor, you study the play, you go to consumer guard, you take things apart and look at this reality and you come up to a certain level of satisfactory says that you know what? It really is what you're getting, right? We all do, right? We analyze it and look into it. We don't buy something without knowing what it is, right? So we carry, when we go into join the sciences, we analyze chemicals, you know, we analyze the universe as if we're astronomers. We look into atoms. If we're microbiologists, if we're physicists, we go down and smash quirks or whatever, atoms and look for quirks. We into a really investigating the nature of reality. The one thing we don't do in our normal world in the West is we don't put that same degree of energy and effort into looking internally with our own mind into primary reality of ourself.
Speaker 1 00:31:09 There's an incident in vi one of the incidents which the venerable al, who's the great vinaya master, master of discipline, you know, a master of ethics and he's ordaining a bunch of, uh, young Le Chavez as monks and telling them to announce the world and a 10 Nirvana and separate from everything and so on. Vier comes and says, well poll, this is a bad idea with these monks, these young men, they actually have the spirit of enlightenment of the Bodak. They don't actually need the monastic way and it would actually stunt, it would be backward step for them. And therefore you shouldn't orain people unless you're clairvoyant as to their former Mac Karma. Granted, they have forgotten in this life that they conceive the will to run excel perfect enlightenment in a previous life. But let's see how quickly they can remember. He then teaches them for about two minutes, couple of things, and they all remember that they want to be both. And when then if they do that, then they don't wanna be monks, although that's not that then that can be wrongly understood. Somebodies of us wanna be monks or nuns, but they didn't and it wasn't proper for them and he saved them from going through a complicated path because A, they couldn't remember their former life resolve. And B, the master was not clairvoyant about their form of life.
Speaker 1 00:32:27 So the bo vow is you don't say, Hey, I don't want to get a light until all other beings are, when you take the vow, you don't say that sometimes as a way of praising the boat. It's sort of stated like that, which again is only a mode of praise. Remember in a culture where a lot of people do attain enlightenment and even a lot of people do attain liberation. And so you can say, you can therefore think that you mean something when you say somebody's avoiding attaining it, cuz it's not that hard to attain, in other words, right? That implies that. But when you take the value, you don't say that. When you take the value, you say, I'm gonna become totally enlightened. That is to say a Buddha not just liberated for the sake of all beings. So I can benefit all beings effectively.
Speaker 1 00:33:09 It's a totally positive thing like that. And then when you become a Buddha, there's a thing where there's such to be three modes of becoming a Buddha. You can become like a king, like a boatman or like a, like a ferryman or like a shepherd. The most emotionally kind of satisfying may be to be like a shepherd or cow herd, a herdsman who shoves all the animals into the paddock and then goes in themself and closes the gate, right? So that everyone else enters before the herdsman. That feels most emotionally satisfying. It seem, it's most emotionally altruistic seeming the fairman is okay, you and the people arrive at the shore at the same moment that the boat touches the shore so that everybody's at the shore. But the king and the king may seem less, the king is crowned themself and gains power of the king and then uses the king power of the king to make the kingdom into a model kingdom and make everybody happy in the kingdom.
Speaker 1 00:34:06 So the king one seems kind of less, you know, you get to be king first and other people are not king, you know, but the king is said to be the most practical. How can you really help other beings unless you are a Buddha? You see, you have to have that wisdom of buddhahood and really know their situation, really know the nature of the world and then your compassion is really effective before that. It's a good wish, it's a great energy, it's a building sense of connectedness, but it can't and it helps you therefore, in that you get tremendous energy of the will to do something for these people. But the actual ability to actually do the necessary for the people, you don't get until you're really a Buddha for sure. I mean, you may growingly do something, but you won't know for sure until you have tonal awareness of the situation of the people, which you can't have until you're a Buddha.
Speaker 1 00:34:55 There's one thing we must remember about Ma Buddhism and all Buddhism basic rule. They say that note that that there are two kinds of teaching in Buddhism, what are called interpretable teachings and definitive teachings. The interpretable teaching is a teaching that while valid is something that can be interpreted as the person who understands it develops and will be lead to. So of the other kind of understanding, perhaps later in those it's sort of relative, it's conve, it's te relative, it's supervisory for the time, but it can be modified. And the definitive one is the one that is the way it is as it is and has to understood the way it is. And there's no deviation from it. You know, it's sort of the fi a final teaching. It corresponds to ultimate reality in a way right now it has said that all teachings about relative reality are interpretable.
Speaker 1 00:35:52 None of them in that sense, in a way can withstand ultimately seek seeking rational analysis, as they call it in Buddhism, if you look for a Buddha <unk> you, you won't even find a buddhi. If you look for a Buddha with your critical thing, you won't find a Buddha. If you look for a non Buddha, you won't find a non Buddha. If you look for yourself, uh, that means you yourself, if you look for your own world as an ordinary world, you won't find ordinary world. If you look for some extraordinary world, you won't find an extraordinary world. If you look for yourself as a Buddha, you won't find yourself as a Buddha. If you look for yourself as a non Buddha, you also won't find yourself as a non Buddha because everything about a relative world is only relative and has no ultimate status. The only thing that has alcy is emptiness to find an next extra.
Speaker 1 00:36:46 And this is the only definitive teaching, the teaching of emptiness. Also, remember is a is a negation. It's what's called an absolute negation. It has no affirmation in it of anything else. It imp implies nothing else. It only means that all things lack intrinsic identity. All things lack intrinsic reality. All things lack, transiency. And in transiency, impermanence is a may is a more preliminary stage of beginning to see the world dissolve from its sense of being objectively established as things in itself, the way we habitually perceive it. Impermanence is a very initial level of that. And there's course and subtle impermanence course. One is just sort of knowing that everything will die, will pass away. You know, in the future and in when you see it, you know it'll be gone at some point, but it still seems solidly there to you. Subtle impermanence is where you actually can perceive the vibratory nature of reality.
Speaker 1 00:37:41 They say you can actually see atoms, you can see things that sort of trembling subatomic energies in atoms. You see through things. You see the world as sort of vibrating as a sort of, you sort of see photons or something. You see the dance of neurons and photons, some sort of buzzing blooming vibration, they say. But even that is not ultimate reality. That's a, that's a, that's a preliminary level. The higher level of selflessness reality. Lessness can be called emptiness where you get free of all notions about things or no, or notions about, no notions about things as in where you strip away your normal conceptual grasping on things by grasping after the ultimate reality of things. Not by just pretending to suspend your grasping, but by trying as hard as as you can to grasp things in the ultimate way, you will begin to erode the grasping habit itself. And that is the, that's the only reli really reliable thing. So therefore all cosmological teachings have a great use for developing compassion, for developing generosity, for developing the wheel to realize wisdom and so forth. But none will withstand wisdom's analysis. That is why the foundation of the mah is in wisdom, perfect wisdom.
Speaker 1 00:39:10 I realize there's one more thing in <unk> I did wanna look at <unk> have a big talk. Look very closely at the fifth chapter where they talk about emptiness. It's very, very interesting. This was very beloved by the Dallas in China. And later it comes up again and again in Zen. But I'm not looking at that first dialogue with him in Jeri. I'm looking to where vi Ur actually begins to tell Jeri how to console an invalid. He gives the teaching of the personal selflessness and the objective selflessness or phenomenal selflessness in terms of the consoling of an invalid, cuz that's after all why Mori came to see him. Finally, finally, Mori goes to see if he m here to uc. Everyone else is scared to go, but Mori is not because Mori is the bod of perfect wisdom. He doesn't mind being scolded by the name of guarantee, but he and have the same intelligence.
Speaker 1 00:40:00 So he doesn't mind, you know. So then he goes there and he says, how should he, how should a BofA console another Bo? After they go through this incredibly deep ree sort of thing, he then says, how should you bo console another BofA who is sick? And then he gives one thing about impermanence and things which are kind of preliminary and about suffering and compassion, which I'm gonna skip because I want to go just this way. On page 45, he says, Manje Shri, a SIBO <unk> should control his own mind with the following consideration. Sickness arises from total involvement in the process of misunderstanding. That's ignorance from beginningless. Time sickness would be this world of imperfection, right? That's like the same. So sickness. Sickness is said. Sickness arises from total involvement in the process of misunderstanding from beginningless time. So it didn't come from anywhere, but it's just been going on beginningless.
Speaker 1 00:40:59 It arises from the passions that result from unreal mental constructions. And hence, ultimately nothing is perceived, which can be said to be sick. That's exactly what I said actually isn't parallel, he says, so it arises from the passions that themselves result from unreal mental constructions, which is the process of mis knowing the process of delusion. And therefore, ultimately that means actually, in fact, even when someone is sick, even this world that is imperfect, ultimately nothing is perceived, which can be said to be sick. There is is no world to be perceived, which can be said to be imperfect. As he said about the budha land. He said, you cannot build a house, an empty place, but you might try that, you wouldn't be able to do it, it's empty. Bud itself doesn't really try to build a budha land. A realistic budha land an intrinsically object to budha land in empty space. And he knows everything is empty space. So perfection and imperfection are two ways of seeing a reality that actually is pure emptiness and there are ways of constructing it according to certain type of relations, neither one being really real. Why the body is the issue of the four main elements, earth, air, fire, and water. And in these elements, there is no owner and no agent. There is no self in this body.
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