Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful and some good trends enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy him and find it useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. If that house is the Dalai Lama's control center in America, All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 This is episode 271 bliss and Buddha versus,
Speaker 3 00:01:14 And as I defined millennial or apocalyptic consciousness, suppose the millennial consciousness, you know, it is a consciousness of that. At first we think it makes everything sort of completely automatically taken care of and leads to self-indulgence, which is why the Western civilization or all authoritarian Chinese to all authoritarians civilizations have been afraid of a Japanese too. Um, there was one, um, uh, S a splinter group of the Shingon, uh, school in Japan. She didn't go on an order of Japanese tantric Buddhism that got involved with one of the defendants called the unexcelled yoga. Tantras where they have male, female union icons of the Buddha who hits a modular and chakra soundbar that's kind of thing. And they were like rounded up and executed in the 17th century by the shoguns. So Japan too, not only Europe was afraid of this notion of sort of post-millennial or apocalyptic consciousness.
Speaker 3 00:02:08 The idea that, you know, total fulfillment of all energies of the being could be possible in any time in the universe. And so, as that's defined, once you have that, instead of leading just to self-indulgence, which may be the first thing, it actually leads to putting ourselves in a situation where there is no excuse, external excuse for not putting our full life's energy into the task of evolution, which is what we're, what is the meaning of our life from the Buddhist perspective, and that this is debatable. We can argue about this, but, um, the meaning of life. So that's, we we'll we'll work on that today, but I thought also I would do read another section, begin with another thing from the dream like here, too, that I didn't read yesterday. And I would team theme today's session on the beam electricity a little bit, because not just because I translated the people like here at D, but that helps because then I don't mind reading it.
Speaker 3 00:03:06 And, uh, I, I don't like Dharma translation needs a lot of people. I mean, I would improve this. This is not that good, but there's some nice things about it. But, um, you know, in the first section of the, the molecule team and the first chapter where before they have met them and security, and all the people have come from the Chubb Vaishali city, like San Francisco, New York, whatever, big, big metropolis to CVM like LT and, uh, to see the Buddha rather, uh, out into the AMRAP Holly Grove. And, uh, when they, they do this thing where he first shows a kind of miracle, they make offerings of Juul parasols to the Buddha, all of the, all of the middle-class people from by Scholly bring these UL pterosaurs and they offered them to him. And then they asked him the question of the Sutra. They say, how does the bodhisattva purify the Buddha land?
Speaker 3 00:03:57 How does the bodhisattva once having embarked toward unexcelled perfect enlightenment, how does that boards up a purified, the Buddha land, which is a very different question than we usually think where you asked, like, how do I get enlightened? But this was a second order question. It was having a resolve to become perfectly enlightened. How do I purify the Buddha land, which is a kind of social, no cosmological political, um, you know, altruistic question really, rather than so much a self development question, you know, and that is the question of liquidity, you know, turns is that question, how do we make this Buddha land? You know, I nowadays call it a Buddha verse because we have universe. So Buddha verse, I prefer that universe turns into one. We all in universities where everything turns into ourselves, that is, you know, our oneself, unfortunately, usually. And, and, uh, one thing cannot be infinity.
Speaker 3 00:04:53 You know, infinity is not one, you know, infinity cannot be one, there's no one infinity because infinity is not an identifiable thing that can be then measured. Here's one of there's another, you know, infinity is infinite and four it's never encompasses will. And therefore it defies one oneness, infinity as well as multiplicity. So, so we always think of one infinity, but that's a mistake. So, um, whatever it's anyway. So typically that turns into enlightenment around where everything turns into enlightenment. How do we perfect if you're a five means also perfect under the sense of not newly make, but actually reveal the underlying, but a virtual nature of things since everything is about whatever is how do we purify our misperception of failure to perceive it, something like that. That's the question. Anyway. So then what up takes those Juul parasols that they offered and he, he performs them miraculous transformation of energies, where suddenly everyone sees the whole world in folded in a great canopy, like a planetarium.
Speaker 3 00:05:59 I finally, when I was trying to translate it, I was trying to figure out what a canopy like that would be. This was a canopy that covered the entire billion world galactic universe to translate the Buddhist expression, 3000 great thousand galaxy. You know, I like the universe. So a canopy that went around the whole galaxy, and then in that canopy, people could see everything in the galaxy, all the living beings, not just this planet earth, but all the planets, because there are many planets, there's many realms of heavens, many realms of Brahma. Daddy's many realms of Indra, datas, many Olympus's, many Hells, many crocodiles, many dragons. When you see monsters, people could see all of them and all the different realms reflected all interpenetrating lead. Somehow seeing that all of the infinite reality was all interconnected with their present situation. And he first did that as a piece of performance art, just to get them psyched up, you know,
Speaker 3 00:06:54 And then, and then they asked that question, you know, then, then they, they praised him for that. You know what? I'm not going to thank you again. I'm not going to praise him for that and said some lovely hymns. You know, he said, you know, uh, he said leader leader, you know, blue bullet men, human bull, man bull, we behold a revelation of your miracle. That was an episode of the Buddha. <inaudible> Shabbat was the suburb and radiant fields of the <inaudible>, the bliss Lords. That is the name of the book of the bliss. Lords appeared before us and your extensive spiritual teachings that lead to mortality make themselves heard throughout the whole reach of space, et cetera. You know, they praise him about this wonderful vision. And then they say, Lord, these 500 young, the choppers are truly on their way to unexcelled perfect enlightenment. And they have asked, what is the body suffers purification of the Butterfield, please Lord, explain to them the bodhisattvas purification of the Butterfield.
Speaker 3 00:07:49 And then he does the Buddha does. He has very good, good question. Young man, who questioned to the, to the target, to the transcended Buddha about the purification. I but feel as good, therefore I'll explain it to you. And he goes on explaining like how great the universe is, how great the book is after first saying that. In fact, one thing you must understand about the Butterfield, the book covers is that it is not a bunch of rocks. It is not a bunch of just Dyke, you know, stones and hydrogen atoms. And what have you Butterfield? Hey, Buddha verse of bodhisattva is Springs from the aims of living beings. A Buddha verse is a collective minefield of living beings, not just human beings, I must say, but living beings, that includes gods don't ever believe that Buddhism is atheistic. Buddha knew the gods. He talks to them. He knows them. He just doesn't think any one of them is that big a deal.
Speaker 3 00:08:47 They say a little bit, you know, puffed up. So a lot of them unfortunately tend to get, I mean, you couldn't understand it. If you were a God, you know, you're roll around in some universe like, like lives and dies over it. And you, you know, you, you know, pretty big stuff, you know, trans galactic, whatever, you don't need a spaceship. And, uh, but they still are a little, little too egotistical from the Buddhist perspective. They don't understand the strange thing to understand about the boundary of self and other, which is where it lightened. It lines. You know, they're just big and strong and powerful and cosmic and galactic, et cetera. And there's, they're a little foolish. So, but they, but Buddhism is theistic. They believe in these guys. In fact, Buddha works with the gods. Once it becomes enlightened the gods and become his foremost disciples, Brahma, the creator of India is his main disciple, but I will not teach the world. If Brahma doesn't ask him to Brahma is like Jehovah. Same. Don't think that he left out some people over there in Arabia and Mount Sinai, whatever. And, uh, since the gods can travel around, you know, they don't just sit on their dinky little mountains, they've found Buddha. And he talked with them and they were especially happy about Buddha because they're sick and tired of everybody blaming it all on them.
Speaker 3 00:10:02 And they said, oh, here's someone has realized we didn't actually make the whole thing. And we don't know what to what's here. It goes. And we're just a big shots in here. You know, we're like that, you know, we live up on the Palisades here or whatever it is, you know, the big, big guys. And we don't really know how to take care of everybody. And we feel responsible actually, and we feel guilty. And then we know that people hate our guts when they lose their child, their only child. And they lose their loved one. They lose their mate. When they lose their own lives, they sit back and shake their fist. Say you set up a gun, you could have made it nice. You could have like landed me in Palm Springs for another 10 years. What is this? And it's not their fault.
Speaker 3 00:10:39 They can't control that real estate. And then the Buddha comes along, but whoever comes along and Buddha sees that and he realizes they're as much victims of their own confusion as everybody else. And they're really relieved. And they said, get out there and tell those beings to lay off, stop blaming us, teach them. Zoe has done. It is Brahma who comes to know, you'll see an old ancient Buddhist paintings is Brahma himself. For these four faces is four faces looking in four directions who comes and brings the wheel of diamond to the Buddha, always thousands spokes. We lived on where he brings it, where it's kept in the Brahma heaven, you know, at this wheel of Dharma, incredible thing with thousands of folks, he brings it and says, turn it, go ahead. Then Buddha says, now what's used, nobody will know what's going on. They won't.
Speaker 3 00:11:25 And then the Obama then shows a, he sh he's creates a vision for the Buddha of a great Lotus pond. And then he shows that the sun rays come and the Lotus took them different lotuses. And some of them open and some of them don't quite open and some of them wait and open the next day. And he says, beings are like that. They weren't all maybe immediate to understand, but in the long run they will. And they'll all blossom like that. So he has, he gives a thing like that to encourage. But then Buddha is like a premadonna. I know when he keeps saying, nah, I won't, he makes Brahma go to more and more lengths to ask him. Then Indra has to come. You know, the Indra's like Zeus, you know, Olympus standard bearer, you know, and Indra comes and he starts handing over some things and saying, please, please, please.
Speaker 3 00:12:02 So really he really plays it up. He knows very well, he's going to give us teaching, but he makes them, it makes the gods really like get into it right before he does. And then he, so then, so then he talks about this Buddha verse. Anyway, he says that he makes it an amazing thing, you know, about how should one wish to, for example, when he says that the Buddha versa, but it's up to the Springs from the aims of living beings. He then says, for example, Rob NACADA, Juul mind, which is the name of his main interlocutor, is it should one wish to build in empty space when might go ahead. In spite of the fact that it is not possible to build or door or to adore in anything in empty space in just the same way you should've bought it. Sanford who knows full well that all things are like empty space.
Speaker 3 00:12:46 We used to build a Butterfield, the Buddha verse in order to develop living beings. He might go ahead in spite of the fact that it is not possible to build or to a door in a Butterfield and empty space. And then after sort of first setting a foundation avoidance, you know, and setting the fact that in a way it's impossible to build up. Whatever's not because there is no such thing as the universe, but because this already is whatevers. So it's not a matter of building one from scratch. A matter of revealing the one that is here, you know, but he said, bodhisattva doesn't care about, have a wants to go in the mode of building one. Even if one he knows, or she knows that maybe Buddha already built one, but you it's. As long as it doesn't look like one to me, I want to build one type of thing.
Speaker 3 00:13:26 That's the Buddhist helpless wish it was a Buddha versus he is so great. You can relax in a Buddha versus if you're a bodhisattva, it's the only place you can relax. You see, because if you're by yourself and you take this vowel for all beings to be happy, then they're all having a horrible time. All of those beings, they're all. So then you always got to try to make them be happy because you have that values. So then a Buddha versus a land where you don't have to bother with it because the ground itself makes them be happy. You see the air or the winds make them be happy. There's like a thunder bolt and a clap of thunder. And it says, impermanence, you know, it's the cloud itself speaks to the beings. So that's what I put a verse. Does it all works to liberate and evolve and develop and delights, living beings, whatever it does, you know?
Speaker 3 00:14:06 So you have, when you've made a whole land that does it automatically, it's like you've made a movie, you know, you just turn it on and play as people like it. It's like the universe becomes that movie that entertains, everybody lives, lifts them in towards enlightenment. So that's why you want to make up whatever it's juicy. But then you know that it's empty. Then you go ahead. Then Buddha goes on. He says a Butterfield, but a verse of about a subway as a field of positive thought, a Dasha positive thought means that we never give up the will to make something good in the world. That's sort of the key of, she mentioned my book, but the real title of my book before, before the press got ahold of it and that's okay. I think they did the right thing, but it was really the politics of enlightenment, but they made me change it because they said, well, nobody even thinks there is such a thing. And they, they want, you know, few fanatics might, uh, might get it, but people won't be drawn to it. I still think that's how that's hopeless. Politics of enlightenment. What is this? Politics is a bunch of crap. Can't have <inaudible>.
Speaker 3 00:15:08 So, but that's what, that's what causes alignment is, is based on positive thought. Positive thought, a Dasha means that you don't give up. You don't, you want, you know, it is not the art of the possible real politics is the art of the impossible. You what's the use of the art of them that are possible. You don't need to argue, just slap it together. You know the impossible you need art for what's impossible. No, because you don't give up that people can all be fed. You don't give up that there's enough to share for everybody. You don't give enough that you don't give up that the KKK Dirk wits will actually realize how beautiful people of other races are and what other religions are and so forth and stop burning churches, et cetera. You don't give up that. We can pass a bill in the legislature that says that any county that allows anybody to burn somebody's church, they have to rebuild that church out of their Texas. And they have to do it immediately where all the other counties will boycott their frontiers and barriers and things. That'd be a good bill. I think that they would then stop these drunken teenagers going out, trying to impress them, wearing a white sheet and running around, burning down churches. They're burning them like mad. Still, you know, it's kept out of the press, but it happens all the time. So positive sock means that you don't give up on anybody.
Speaker 3 00:16:23 Even Stalin, even mouths don't even Hitler. You don't give up on them. Hitler died. He's roasting someplace in some oven where he doesn't have even the luxury of dying just has to stay roasting there. He's got another like million neons or two sizzling away, the Hitler burger. And you don't give up. Anyway, you say, no, it's still enough. He's had a half an hour that it would be enough for that for anybody. And you get them out of there, you know? And then you send them to like permanent, like, you know, Zendo swift agender forever. So he encounters his own ugly mustache. And, uh, you so positive thought means you never, never give up. And so it says when the bodhisattva attains, enlightenment living beings free of hypocrisy and deceit will be reborn in his book averse because the land itself has made a positive thought <inaudible> versus a field of high resolve high resolve means, uh, you know, messianic, determination.
Speaker 3 00:17:25 You know, we will make all beings happy. There will be no one without exception who will be no exception who will be left out of the universe. You know, when she attains enlightenment, living beings who have harvested the two stores of merit and wisdom and a planted, the roots of virtue will be born in, in her Buddha would averse. I bought a up that was Buddha versus a field of virtuous application. And when he goes on, on the field of Samati, it's a field of wisdom. It's a field of the 10 virtues. When I bought it out for teens, enlightenment living beings who are secure and long life, great, and wealth chased in conduct enhanced by true speech. Soft-spoken free of divisive injuries, a droid and reconciling factions, enlightening in their conversations, free of envy, free of malice and endowed with perfect views of the nature of reality.
Speaker 3 00:18:09 We will be born in his book of hers. Those are the 10 unfold, you know, virtuous things, you know, the, in the positive way, you know, there's a good, there's a, there's a negative 10 commandments. You all know that at a positive one, you know that the Buddhist 10 prohibitions and 10 injunctions don't kill don't steal, don't commit sexual misconduct. Don't lie. Don't speak harshly, don't speak divisiveness, don't speak stupidly frivolously. Don't have malice, don't have greed. And don't have a distorted view of the nature of reality, such as the view that there is no life after death. For example, there's a popular one around here.
Speaker 3 00:18:50 So, you know, he goes out to all, he sort of paroles the whole, Bodhidharma all of the different types of meditations and practices and ethics and insights into physics and so forth and sciences. He puts them all in here and he finally says the purity of his Buddha verse reflects the purity of living beings. The purity of the living beings reflects the purity of her intuitive wisdom. The purity of her intuitive wisdom reflects the purity of her teaching. The purity of his teaching reflects the purity of his trends, then dental practice and the purity of his transcendental practice reflects the purity of her own mind. So that's where the Buddha land is, is in the period of purity of the Butler lab. But the verse of the book itself, as in the period of its own mind, her own mind, he says to too sharp to the questioner rev NACADA, and then <inaudible>, you know, things, what you are all thinking, which is if the Buddha Shakyamuni had a pure mind as a bodhisattva and made this book covers the book covers the universe ha where we live and to his book covers, which is a land of pure generosity and pure this and that.
Speaker 3 00:19:55 And the other, since it is so impure, since it is so imperfect, is there all so many holocausts since there are so many innocent deaths, since there are so many unnecessary accidents and earthquakes and nail Ninos and like horrible situations and wars and landmines, amputating, and maiming people and, and poison gases, and what have you and idiotic domestic violence all over the planet. This is there so much of this on the planet. How could the Buddha's mind have been pure? What kind of, what is that? The watsy slug? He must have been thinks. Shariputra the head monk, you know, the OCEARCH I put is like the OSHA. So he's thinking this to himself, that Boulez socks, what a land, this bullet around like, Ooh, smells to high heaven. So poor guy, Buddha reads his mind.
Speaker 3 00:20:55 I already put, uh, is it the fault of sun and moon that those blind from birth cannot see them? And he says, no, but it's not their fault. Four guys should know what's going on. This is just so shy, Bhutan. It is not my fault or the fault of my whatevers that you, I put tra and other beings who are indulging in their delusions about what they think is real thinking that all of this imperfection, all of this injustice, all of this violence and sadness and sorrow and suffering, and the fundamental problem of all of us that we feel, we are a separated, isolated being. And we are versus the universe when we're really in our super realistic mode. We really think that, I mean, of course we don't feel versus we think we might have my loved ones. I have my family, I have my view.
Speaker 3 00:21:44 I have my country have my president is on my side. My Senator, my Congressman, well, no, a few, not so much that we think that duty anyway. And we think we have somebody on our side, in our more light moments. But when our real moments, we really feel here, we are all hidden away here, terrified and frightening frightened. I was thinking, you know, it was morning. I woke up thinking, I had said how frightened we were, but I didn't even remember that. We were really even frightened to jump into an ice cold crystals. Street's dream for the Tata Hora. And you look at that wall and you think you walk up the hamper with your bed and see whatever Trenta jumped in. And then you wish you hadn't come. And people weren't looking at you and you know what a shock it's gonna be when you're frightened. Maybe I have a heart attack. I jumped into that. Like, what is it? 45 degree water, whatever it is. We actually frightened to put our foot into a little stream. Something we even know is going to be joyful. We're going to feel like bubbling crystals. Once we go through the shock, as long as the heart keeps beating. And yet we're terrified to jump in it, but terrified and everything terrified to cast the vote, terrified to speak up in a group. When we see some people delivering some BS, some of those registers.
Speaker 3 00:22:58 So the fundamental thing that it's us versus the universe, and we're losing, that's the fundamental thing, you know, how can this therefore be put on land? So then the Buddha does this thing. This is the mill and the edge of the millennium, you know, puts his foot on the ground. They don't actually say if he's sitting or standing or what he is, oh, he's sitting here. So I guess he puts his foot down like this, sitting on the lion's roll. And they say, that's right, like a mountain and so forth. Sat upon a majestic lions run to teach the Dharma. So he was sitting and he put his, put his toe down, his big toe. The minute he put his big toe down, everyone presence suddenly saw the place there upon the Lord, touched the ground with his billion of this billion world, galactic universe with his big toe.
Speaker 3 00:23:44 And suddenly it was transformed into a huge mass of precious jewels and magnificent array of many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems until it resembled the universe of the tatagata retina view. Ha which means Juul array called unintentional dotnet view, Hardy infinite array of Juul excellence. Everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder each perceiving himself or herself seated on a throne of Juul. Lotuses. It's sort of like the ultimate Zendo. It was like to say, but you have a Juul zafu 2, 1, 2 no-no because you were made of Juul. You know, and even the distraction is samadhi. There's no problem. And you, and you don't even have, you know, as, as, uh, as, as AKI bridge with you, you don't even know everything is even your pee is Juul peed and Juul cockeye, you know, and you don't even have to get up. You don't have to have toilets and worry about the low flush water, the whole thing, and you, and you don't have to wash. And the air is filled with Juul, energy and so forth. And so you were just totally in a, in a situation of total samadhi and there's no obstacle, there's no obstacle everything in your mind. It's a symphony of insight. That's what they meant by Juul, Lotus and jewel. Your body is Juul plasma items.
Speaker 3 00:25:00 And, uh, you know, if you have like any kind of, you know, ducks or things, they're just Juul, Dharma ducks, you know, and they come by and they go quack, you know, this is subscribed in Buddha landing. And the crack says selfless does. Voidness all things are devoid of intrinsic reality because they are totally interrelated. They just speak the Avatamsaka Sutra. They speak to project. Pardon me? To suitor. They speak, they call it chakra. Tundra has absolutely no problem in such a brutal land and just sees that. And then they say, <inaudible> they say, they say, what do you think? Shall I put her? How's it look, do you see the splendor of the virtues of the Buddha verse and shepherd who says, I see it, Lord here before me as a display of a splendor, such as I never before heard of, or be held and the Buddhist who drew this Buddha versus always that's pure, but the transcendent Lord makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults in order to bring about the maturity of inferior, low minded, you know, inferiority complex living beings. Really, you should really say, you know, like Bucky fuller used to say, we're very rightly we have this inferiority complex, which now in this stage of our power on this planet, as human beings is, is totally sitting. Self-fulfilled, you know, we have this complex that we can't the lifestyle to the planet sucks, and we can't have enough everybody. So, and we won't stay here forever. So we cook up some ideology that it only has to last for so-and-so long. And then we're going to record it just in time, you know?
Speaker 3 00:26:28 And so he said, shall I put to this Butterfield is always dust pure, but the transcendent Lord at a target that makes it appear to be spoiled by many folds in order to bring about the maturity of inferiority complex living beings. For example, shall I put dry? Well, he gives some examples, some cosmological, these we wouldn't get necessarily, but the point is that, that, uh, and then also in the same thing, Brahma, God comes and says to, should I put it? Yeah, this is really a perfect world. Shall I put a D I can see it, this perfect. God says, so again, you know, don't say Buddhism is <inaudible> God right there, Brahma. I butcher his calls him in between before he has division. He says, don't say that the Buddha verse of the, of the target that is impure, she shall I put you on the Buddha, put a verse of the tatagata is pure.
Speaker 3 00:27:16 I see the splendid expense of that Buddha verse of Lord Shakyamuni as equal to the splendor of, for example, the abode of the highest days managing what Jerry Falwell would do. If God came down and said, don't say this as a bad planet, I see this planet as this perfect, beautiful Buddha versa, Buddha Shakyamuni, poor Jerry, sit news busy, but that's what that is. So that is God and that culture from mine, but I'm not as God, but I'm not as Jehovah. And he's talking, he's an actor in the Buddhist suitors in the Buddha, in the Buddhist mythos, the Buddhist reality. So, um, so there we are. We are, that's the setting. Okay? That's our millennium setting where you're already been with the planet has already been beings on our planet have perceived that setting throughout the civilizations of Asia from then till now they weren't waiting for this or for that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Buddha.
Speaker 3 00:28:18 That's the same thing. Kingdom of God is the whatever's that's the same thing is within you. It is there. There's no difference. And the mode of having millennial consciousness, apocalyptic consciousness is really actually a socially suppressed thing. Ever since these things happen, everybody would have had that vision because in that vision, everything is an advantage for your evolution. We, how, why aren't we on lifelong retreats ourselves? And that doesn't have to be defined necessarily in some macho militaristic aesthetic way life-long retreat could be with the family. It's, it's easier with being among her and none, but it could be with the family. It could be in a, in a paradise. It could be on Tahiti. Know it doesn't have to be in some Coles, differing plays in some way. It doesn't have to be all alone and so forth. We're all, all alone. Anyway, ultimately, because we could all die at any moment, making us all alone and some cosmic way, we all are all alone. Even we are most beloved, the most beloved matrix of friendship and family. We're still alone because we can die at any moment. And then no one will be going with us through that.
Speaker 3 00:29:29 Normal, no normal being real. And so why aren't we on that retreat? Because why? I'm not because I got offended. I got offended. I got hurt by living. I got to teach this. I got to finish building that institution. I got up, I finished that book. I got it. Finished the house, still trying to finish my house. 30 years later, nailing away. My kids are so sick of it. There he goes again, hammering with. And uh, then after that, I'm going to meditate at that house, whatever retreat I'll be dead, but that's okay. It'll be ready. So why aren't we, why are we wasting? You know, the house I'll die. The body I'll die. Oh yeah. I'll have that retreat. After I'd become an adept to yoga, I'm going to go do yoga. I'm going to go pump up and join the health club and not buddy. And I'll be fine. I'll have a retreat. And my body will be dead.
Speaker 3 00:30:27 We always finishing something on me. We've got some other duties, obligations. I'm thinking, this is why monastic life in a Buddhist civilization is not a, it's not a bummer. It's not a downer. It's not a big executive withdraw. It's like a huge escape from men's number of anxieties. It's called an escape. We say ordained, but ordained is not from the Asian languages. Ordain comes from Western monastic language, being transposed to be the equivalent of an Eastern monastic theme. Eastern monastic thing is not ordained it. His graduate liberate his Cape yet exemption. It's like a tax exemption. Don't you love tax exemptions. When you get it's like an exemption, the Reverend venerable ABAs convert exemption on 40 people. Whoa, that would change our attitude. We'd be right. Hey, I'll have one. Give me an exemption. I've been trying to get exempt for a long time. I keep paying and paying. I want an exemption. That's the language of exemption because when you lay life, what is lay life? Sure. You have like a few like juicy moments here and there. Like once a week, maybe once a month, like 40 years ago, we had one, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the rest of the time it's like pay, earn, work, get up, ignore that pain, take an aspirin. Equitrend and then when you get older, then they give you a little coat of buttons. They get these old actors out there can't even cure your arthritis.
Speaker 3 00:31:58 Exemption means you get out of all of this problem. A lot of it, the world supports you. You get life. I like to say lifelong MacArthur fellowship, just be monk or not. And you don't have that one thing that genitally organized orgasm, and you can reverse in there. And you can have like Eros libido flowing in your tongue, a painting, the circulating in your samadhi. You know, you don't have to have it organized that way. It's not even that good a way as any, like Libertine will tell you to read the comments from even Kamasutra is not just some sort of Playboy thing. They talk about having a party and like what kind of a calling card you give it, which bouquet diffuses all throughout life bliss. Does you withdraw from that re habitual, socially programmed productive, supposedly enhancing the collective subordinating of your individual desire. Actually, really? It's a delusion that you're giving something up. You're giving up a delusion. So why aren't we doing that? Because we think the world is so imperfect. We, if we did it and we think we are so imperfect, what? Me Tam me. No, wait, I got to plant this field here. I got to make my next million. I got to watch my investments. Then I'll give her some of it to something, lighten people down when I get them great. I, me, I couldn't have right, man. I'm just a businessman.
Speaker 3 00:33:29 I'm Mr. Chauffeur. I'm a driver. I'm a gardener. Not me. No. And I'm so I'm so humbled to lead while every human being has a brain that is like mad it's being. So underutilized brain is like, it's, you know, a little wet things like little like pieces of like slimy. Karl are flapping in the breeze waiting for some energy to go through it. Sitting there like loss over here in this part of the sky, like blue, blue, blue, come on. I want to get into some action. And you guys have like a software program that just sort of runs it up and down the middle. You don't go into all the juicy foals and like feel something new and think of something different than think of like universal, like multidimensional orientations, sit around and look and like where I can pull some liver somewhere. So you can buy a microchip Pentium due-process process here and then sit there and completely for life.
Speaker 3 00:34:34 Instead of like using me, I'm a microchip, the whole brain is jumping up and flap down and shouted Steve jobs, you know, come on. It's distracting people from using us. I love my computer. My baby has like two gigabytes of like, love line there. So anyway, my point is that millennial consciousness is a consciousness that recognizes immediately. Who's zero didn't Buddha. Okay. How does foot like that? He put his toe like that. Everybody's so perfect place. And at first they would, oh, great. Everything's fine. Then they realized they were not the ones making it like that, that they were sort of being boiled up for a minute that they, that they didn't still even understand where they were quite. They still didn't really feel part of that blissful Juul thing. It was just an amazing thing. It's shattered for a moment, their sense of the intrinsic concreteness of their like crappy world that they were in this terrible one and being a terribly maladapted, ill fitted being into this terrible, hostile, dangerous, frightening world temporarily that was suspended.
Speaker 3 00:35:49 And they felt kind of a gushy oneness with it for a second. So that self-indulgence is really not such a danger. It's just that then. Okay. The world is perfect. It has all this energy. I have done worry about nothing more to worry about. I don't have to worry about where the next meal is going. I don't have to worry about what's happening. Everyone else has. All my loved ones are also stolen. They're perfect evolutionary throne. And all I can do is now focus on what is me? What is reality? What is this world? I have to come into a tumor with it. I have to fully unfold my awareness of it. I have to realize the space like equipoise samadhi, that illusion like aftermath, samadhi, the total selflessness of person and thing, the complete neutral interfuse of all things. That's. All I have to do is sit and some modify that.
Speaker 3 00:36:40 That's what you realize in millennial consciousness, because everything else is too boring. You want this deepest pleasure, then do the brain. You really want to put it to work. The brain becomes this incredible chamber, which processes everything. And you can, you know, every cell becomes an ice. Like, you know, I have a look at this far with his hands, thousands of hands with eyes in the palms. You know, every cell, every pore sees everything. We're actually are beings like that. We are like, we're moving. We're polymorphously intuitively perversely, intensely wise. We can know everything with every fingertip. We can be everything. And that's what you're doing. Millennial constant. You just open yourself. That's what the purpose of your life is totally open yourself.
Speaker 3 00:37:32 Totally be exalted, be part of the energy that is the exaltation of everything. And everyone be bliss and be blessed that is sort of so compelling within all beings and all things that it just helps them encourage them to unfold the blitz from within themselves. That's all there is worth doing. That's the meaning of being there when you have this millennial insight, but then Buddha picked up his foot and it looked like crap again to everybody. Then it's more complex. How do we do it? When our delusion is still our way of seeing we're still like narrowed down, you know, we we're oriented just to seeing this direction. And we like have this preconcept on our orientation is not just the fact that we have eyes that only look one way. We only see with eyes. We don't see with our elbow.
Speaker 3 00:38:28 We only see this one way. It isn't just that it's that where our whole like orientation is like narrowly like constricted because we're in this place where we feel there's so much, the feedback is so dangerous, so difficult. And we have come from forms of life where our armoring against the other self versus other has been so much more drastic. We're really others perceived as a giant mouth that wants to devour us. And we are trying to be as big a mouth as we can, to our, as much of it as it is, as we can to sort of, sort of try to get some sort of support on our side. We've been this kind of a life form. And so the revolutionary opening is more complicated than the whole of the military, just due to the whole of Buddha's teaching. And there's more open behind our teaching is how can you evolve beings?
Speaker 3 00:39:18 How can we do this evolution, how to maximize and make it as rapid as possible, which is that's the Buddhist interest you see in a way Buddha has no interest. When you feel this kind of feeling you don't care to do anything you don't. You're not trying to get anywhere. You're not trying to do anything in a way, as I said, last night is inconceivable. As it seems to us, every, you already are everywhere already. You're in all future moments, already, all different, multiple universe possible future moments because time has become, you're not anymore ascending to the appearance of the concreteness of time. You're no more sending to the appearance of the concreteness of matter. You're no more assenting to the apparent concreteness of yourself. You still perceive it, but now you see it. Like when you see an illusion, you know, when we go to the movies, we see some action happening there and we can get drawn in.
Speaker 3 00:40:17 We can weep, we can shrink in horror. We can freak out. Totally. I was doing my kids love to sneak up to me in a fierce movie, whenever they can drag me against my will throw some kind of horror thing or frightening things, suspense, this thing, you know, silence of the lambs. You know, they come in and they, when Jodie Foster's in the teller in the dark, there they come. And they love to put a popcorn in my hand, just at the moment, then I go, I just did a popcorn was just one of their favorite teas and they laugh. Let's see my one son likes to do that. My second son, it's his favorite thing. It's the daddy Geyser. You know, just when daddy just loses himself in the action and then freaks the popcorn because everybody in the audience he's so far, he's never put a big Coke in my hand.
Speaker 3 00:41:02 Thank goodness. It's his compassion for me. So, so, uh, uh, so this is the question, you know, how, how to like open the beans? Oh yeah. If sure. If you were at being who was a Buddha, although you don't care about anything and although you for yourself and although you are completely undisturbed and bliss, and in fact, you can be aware of beings in hell actually. And because it's a of virtual reality, you at the same time are completely outraged by that agony and you insist and determined and even never look at this further, but it's up by light goes in and that's one of his jobs and shit he got about it. You know, <inaudible>, I'm sure you have <inaudible> in here. Geez. That's a big job. Why the Japanese love GCL is Jesus' job is he's down there freezing hell over all the time. When hell freezes over here, that's his job.
Speaker 3 00:41:57 He puts down, their fridge has a big truck that like emanates ice. It drives through all the Hells. So it isn't that, you know, they, they do everything they can to prevent them, but still it's a virtual reality for them, these health in a way, but being, but not for the beings in them, they know those beams. Aren't all the freaked out. They've gone into their ultimate paranoid state of being compressed of them versus the universe and the universe winning. And it's crushing them and grinding them to the ultimate way they think because that's their drama and the Buddha knows that it's unreal for him, but it's real for them. And yet still there's bliss there even being in such a state is just twisted themselves out of recognizing that they have blitz in the core of their cell and being in every piece of the agony is still blitz. I know that's a very weird concept, but that is the way it is. If you're a Buddha, apparently.
Speaker 3 00:42:50 So therefore even that doesn't discourage you. And even that, then you don't pretend those are, that other beings cannot have the horizon of infinite self torture. Despite the fact that you see them as blissful, and then imagine how frustrating it might be. Even as a, within a virtual reality, within a film, you know how deeply engaged you can become in a film. And if, especially, if you felt you were the film and you were the beings that were torturing each other, don't you hate tragedies. I hate them. People say, oh, I want to go see some tragedy. All this comedy is a bad sign in our culture. We should all get out there and gravel and tragedy, let's have some more unhappy endings. You get those from art critics, bunch of masochists. I hate them. You know, there you are. She's so beautiful. And he's so beautiful. And then they're like taking the poison and she thinks he's dead. And he takes the poison and they could have gone. And they could have won like the world Olympic ice dancing.
Speaker 3 00:43:48 They could have had a fabulous time. And they're like poisoning themselves. Cause some stupid capitalists in Montague's. We should all be like, you know, put in the Zendo for a few years, should have sent Roshi back in time to like Florence or Verona, wherever it was, it straightened them out. A bunch of morons. I hate tragedy. So when you get into you really hate it. You, you see how you can help. Here's the bad guy there, wait, there he is get 'em and they don't listen to you and they do it. And bam, they kill each other. And then at the end, you know, you're supposed to feel better about the fact that you're living in getting a lot, being paid, a living wage and being taxed to death and having your country ruined. I don't like that tragedy stuff posted getting your ass to the crappy way they treat us. It's already it's in our world and treat our fellows and brainwash us that we have to treat our fellows that way. We have to step over them in the doorways there in order to get to our restaurant and have our polenta with, with whatever it is. We just step over those guys. They train us that that's what we were taught. I didn't, I took him in with me. Let me know polenta for nobody.
Speaker 3 00:45:03 Yes. Plenty of polenta. It's rolling away. You know, they put nitrites oxide in it. They like, I don't know what they do with it to turn into plastic face mask where they can sell it to the gorillas. I mean, they have just nuts, you know? So they send us the tragedies. So then Buddha is sitting there in this tragedy. You know, he even tells her, but look, if you are going to be you versus the universe you're going to assist on. You're the real thing. You're going to have a tragedy. Endlessly. He tells you that. He says he's still smiling. Just if you insist on being ignorant, if you insist on your it versus everything else, then you'll lose it. You'll always suffer. You'll die to lose your loved ones. You'll meet your enemies will be sick. You'll get old. You'll be, you'll never have it. You'll be reborn. Then afterwards on pain, unpleasant manner. And you'll live in lower realms where beings are just chomping on each other all the time. You're not going to have a good time. If you insist that, you're it.
Speaker 3 00:46:02 You have to see through that. Then you can have a happy time. So, but I mean, I'm just, what I'm trying to say was imagine a being like a Buddha, imagine like how we can be when we would empathize. You know, when we would be able to feel that something that everyone else is us, you know, you, you know that you can do that because you didn't love all of you. You've had a child, all of you or you adopted one, or you were one, you've all had moments where you have just been out of your own skin and you really could feel another being and delighted in that. You all felt that way. Some moment you have and therefore, you know, that that's possible. And therefore, you know, you can't say, even though you don't really believe there is such a thing as a Buddha, it's not that easy to do.
Speaker 3 00:46:51 You can. Oh yeah. Oh sure. I know that. There's no way we don't know that way. Who do you think he is? I'm like guy who like wandered around in India. It's a little bit of a male chauvinist. Didn't want to have nuns. You know, like went around. Maybe he quit smoking something, forget that a Buddha doesn't mean some guy wander under that. Buddha means this being who fell in love with all beings in the universe, in that way. So much that he felt them. He talked himself as them. And you know, you have done that. You have felt yourself as another and you have delighted in that simultaneously, still being yourself. You've had those moments and therefore you cannot categorically say that it is impossible that someone could fall in love with all beings and feel him or herself as all beings and feel yet still him or herself.
Speaker 3 00:47:41 Apparently when you do that, that's so intense that then you're not content to just be yourself. So you're in love. You're feel yourself as all beings, then you can be many beings interacting with those whole bees. That's what the theory of emanation is in, in Buddhas, in Buddhism, in Mahayana Buddhism, the theory of the mnemonic higher, the emanation is like you have your fantasy to be many beings to interact with many beings. It becomes possible because you can't bear when you hit, because why you feel yourself as beings. You feel the bliss in their cells and every element of their nerves in their, in their, in their atoms. You feel it in the, in the quantum forces, within their embodiments, you feel it. And then you see him and are they aware of it? Are they enjoying it? No. They're like not up against themselves. You see them all clamped up inside, cutting off their own sensitivity. You see their brain just sort of like a completely neglected except for one central channel of Google forward, left turn, exit 44. Meanwhile, they're worried because they were at feral hurtling metal. You know, they could be ripped their body apart if they just missed drive slightly. So they don't want to send too much.
Speaker 3 00:48:57 Imagine what you would want to do, feeling they're feeling from inside to like open up they're feeling from inside to themselves, but then how frustrating it, because you have to do something, you know, that you can, instead of explode them from inside with bliss, just sort of be a bliss energy in their Addams and just explode. You can't do it. Cause they would like feel like they were having a, you know, like the alien was company or this thing, you know, and those horror movies, you know, they would feel like this is like some sort of eruption, some horrible thing was happening. They'd have a fit, have a heart attack or something. So instead, what do you have to do? You have to become a Buddha, sit there and talk with your toe on the ground, blah, blah, blah. You're not the center of the universe.
Speaker 3 00:49:41 All the universe could be great. If you're just relaxed and be loving and don't be angry, don't be intolerant on these stupid, like understand what you are. Use yourself to the humans in anyway way you talk like that to the animals, you do something else to the gods. You do something else you interact with all life. And that way, imagine what a strong energy you'd have to do that. Just think about it. How strongly will you act when you had loved, really loved someone and they hurt themselves and you really love them. What are you capable of doing? You can die happily. Your child is suffering agonizing, or you see like a crushing thing coming at them. You will fling yourself in the way your lover. You will do that when you're still hot. You're you know, before you're disillusioned, you will, you don't if really love, you will love. We can do that. We can transcend, you know, it will just take us right out of our body. Love will. We we've all had an experience where the taste and therefore we cannot say that there is not a being that loves every being like that. <inaudible>
Speaker 3 00:50:45 think that way, the faithful pious, the great theistic Saint thinks that way. That's why they talk about the love of God. The love of Jesus, that they mean that. That's why I think that from a Buddhist point of view, psychologically to have a hard time, sometimes going a certain direction with it. Because if you add to that, the idea that that daddy could make a different where you wouldn't suffer and no one else would suffer, but doesn't the something that stops the power of the love a little bit like the idea that the beloved is a big mean nasty pain in the ass because he could make the world better and doesn't do what I mean, it's a little bit turns down the valve and that's why Buddha it's like, I didn't make it. And that's why God even supports the Buddha to say that, yes.
Speaker 3 00:51:37 Tell him I didn't make it. It's not my fault. You don't have to hate someone because you know, that's when we hate people, isn't it. When someone comes and beats us up because I'm policemen with a stick or some fascist or some, some torture or some wife, abuser or husband, abuser or child abuser, we don't hate the stick that the whip that they hit us with, we don't hate the bone. In their hand, we don't hit their finger joints. We don't hate the shoulder. The arm, we hate what we think is their person that chooses to hurt us, who we do. We hear tripped at the agency. You see? So if we attributed agency of our suffering to a person who has unlimited power over us, we are going to hate that person. We can't help it. That's why that, that's why God was happy about Buddha is happy. God likes Buddha. Don't worry. They won't burn us at the stake. God won't let them, but he's happy about it. He doesn't want to be blamed big, flagged it on Noah, come on, kill everybody, make them, and then kill them all. Come on.
Speaker 3 00:52:52 That's some nasty like child abusers, nith Amelie. Some guy that lived in a tent and like we used to whip his camel and then whipped around the household. We don't need those myths or rather we should reinterpret them better. We should like go back up Mount Sinai and have a little chat with the Bush. Really? Okay. You can burn your Bush commandments. We love them. They're great. Tell these people that you know, that there's no big bus like that. And therefore they can't behave around the house like big boss or around the temple. Tell them that.
Speaker 3 00:53:32 I'm sure he'll be happy to one of these days. I expect him to show up on top of the Kaaba, the really fierce form of it. Of course, it's only in the Kaaba. The rest of the Abrahamic guys have kind of cooled out. I sit for a couple of real fanatics, but in the Kaaba, it's still widespread. I, I expect him to show up on top of the cup, say, <inaudible>, that means compassionate. Don't give me this other big macho business having 200 wives, female genital mutilation. Don't give us that. We don't want to hear about that. I'm sick and tired of you. People doing that in my name. Imagine God, I love it must be pissed off. If he has like this total, all pervading awareness, millions of Qatar, I and lady out like thrown in the trash and his name by a bunch of male chauvinist idiots. I'm sorry. I can't help myself. But I, I believe that. So it's just such a thing against feeling, I guess, human feeling against human sensitivity. It's intolerable. We cannot tolerate it on this planet. It is not necessary Millennial consciousness. So, uh, so this is the drive. Anyway, that gives the energy to the enlightened beings to provide to us the methods of opening out our own sensitivity in this way.
Speaker 3 00:55:25 Any questions
Speaker 2 00:55:50 The Bob Thurman podcast is brought to you in part the generous support of the Tibet house, us Menlo membership, community, and listeners like you and these distributed, you're a creative commons, new derivatives license. Please feel free to share like, and post on your favorite social media platform, Tashi. And thanks for tuning
Speaker 0 00:56:23 In.
