Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:14 Welcome to my monster podcast. I'm so grateful and 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 U S to help preserve Tibetan culture. If that house is the dilemmas cultural center in America, all best wishes. Have a great day. This is episode 240, so welcome everybody. I'm very, very happy to start this course. And, um, it's, uh, more or less a full known, which is auspicious. And, uh, but it doesn't matter what the phase is. We'll make it on as patients. And, um, I've been wanting to do this for some time and I give all credit to Michelle lo for organizing and pushing and pulling it together and inspiring this. And, um, I really do, and I wanted her to give the first welcome in fact, but she gave it online.
Speaker 0 00:01:55 She sneaked in and gave it online to many of you. So she didn't want to repeat it. And she surprised me completely. It was without consultation. She jumped to the famous Lama Chapin, which my translation of the <inaudible>, which in Tibetan means offering to the guru to the teacher, to the mentor. Um, and, um, from an earlier book I did, and I also did it in this civic, central Tibetan Buddhism. And she, she read from that because she wanted to emphasize something that we want to share over these hundreds of hours, hundreds of hours, or however long it takes. Um, which is that, um, the nice thing about Buddha and, um, Buddhism and actually Indian religions and Indian traditions in general is that, um, for some reason, the Indians were a little less scared of God after the Vedic period, after Buddha's period, they, they were not so scared of their gods.
Speaker 0 00:03:06 And I said, they rather liked him. They developed dark tea where they loved them. And they also believed that their gods loved them when, not in the Vedic period, but lady bird, they were scared and they did sacrifice and ritual all the time, but they did. And, uh, so the idea that a human through practice could become gods, like even in the theistic forms of Indian spirituality were sort of cool. They were into that, like, be that on Tara, you could be brought mom, then some Brahmans who would nervous about they wanted to keep their hierarchies. So they said, well, yeah, you can be near Brahma. You can really be Brahma. They, they backed down from Shankaracharya as great a drama with, you know, um, people like Romano, John Mudd, they got into qualified non-dualism and then they got into dualistic, not intense or so brilliant philosophy philosophically.
Speaker 0 00:04:03 And the language is so good for philosophical and scientific thinking sounds Curtis. And so in the case of Buddhism, Buddha's whole thing. Once he became a Buddha was not really to be worshiped by other people, but it was for other people to be bought or to type was his entire saying. And he was, he surprised everybody including himself when he did attain, but that they call unexcelled perfect enlightenment, a realistic, perfect enlightenment. We can't even say he was astonished at the nature of reality, that reality when you discover it, and this is sort of a foundational point of our whole course, when you discover reality, it is excellent. It is wonderful. It loves you. Reality is not necessarily an old tribal patriarch. It's not necessarily only a great mother, but a little bit more like a great mother than an old tribal patriarchs. Just like a mom, 10 salons, you more than dads do.
Speaker 0 00:05:11 Although dads try and they're good. They're good too. But moms are really the ones, you know, cause dads don't just bear them, you know? And so they're a little more disconnected from it. So when he discovered that reality, he was amazed. He had expected whatever, you know, he'd been working at it very intensively for many years, many lifetimes. And when he discovered how wonderful it was, how free it was, et cetera, he was smiling from ear to ear. You know, he had that really big Korean that you often see on Buddha statue. It's not always, but to some cultures to pinpoint it, look a bit serious, but mostly you see that big smile. And why was that? Because he discovered that reality is bliss. And when you know that you are blessed when we suffer is because we don't know what it is and we are trapped in unreality and we're struggling with it and fighting with it and afraid of reality.
Speaker 0 00:06:17 And that reality itself is blessed. So, so he, but he was clever about people. He didn't announce that right away, at least not to the humans around him, because he knew that they would be suspicious because we do suffer ordinary us. And if someone comes and tells us, it's a whole bliss, we tend today, what are you trying to tell me that Brooklyn bridge or what are another way to be skeptical? So all he said was he didn't hide it. He just said, it's the freedom from suffering. It's the cessation of suffering freedom from suffering, no more suffering. So that was sort of the conservative minimalist way of saying bliss, you know, later on, he definitely said bliss and to certain people even right away. So, um, and, but, but the other thing was, of course he said anything I say about it. And that's why it was so surprising to me because what I discovered was something that I couldn't couldn't fit.
Speaker 0 00:07:20 The reason it was surprising was there couldn't fit in any of my previous concepts of they would be this or that. You know, even, even bliss. What I thought, what might be blessed, it doesn't fit in that. Although then bliss is the closest word or freedom from suffering is the closest thing I can say about it. But the problem I have with you guys is I can't really explain it to you. I can't, I experienced it. It is fantastic. It is beyond explanation because explanation uses concepts and dualistic language and they say, and that doesn't mean it's useless. It's incredibly valuable. It brought me to the brink, but it can't capture it. So the right away, you have to make the, you know, you have to be clear that you can't just pick it as a formula, say, well, it's bliss or it's Nirvana or it's this or that.
Speaker 0 00:08:11 And then that'll settle it because you'll believe that no, it will not able to surpass this whatever concept you try to put all it reality does. And, um, but he said part of my experience of it is that I know all of it. I know all about it. I know all about all of you. I I'm completely one with the vast infinite reality. I, my body is a reality body. It's infinite. It's not just this bag of skin or what's inside this bag of skin. I'm going to keep saying in this relative bag of skin for a while, because then I can stay close with you. Cause you used to know me and you know, all that that's Siddhartha, then it became Buddha and so on. And he looks a little funny now. And uh, I would say Buddha probably looked like from the description, he looked like Spock or Kirk or McCoy when or Picard actually, because the better transporter room is in the new star Trek engine.
Speaker 0 00:09:12 You know, like, uh, ships. And in that, in those transporters, when they'd be mound, there's a moment where their, their body is just sparkles. You see that perimeter of their body and it's just sparkling. And then they disappear, right? Cause they transfer ideas. They transfer themselves into atoms and molecules and rays and they get sent off somewhere. And then they reassembled is the notion and the transporter beam, right? So Buddha was half transporter, beaming old at all times I think because they have a story about some painters who tried to paint him. He was sitting for them because his friend, the King in that country wanted to send to portrait, to Persia, to his friend who was a King in Persia. And <inaudible> the guy couldn't come to India and he couldn't go there. So he wanted to send a painting of the Buddhist. So they tried to paint him, but they couldn't paint him.
Speaker 0 00:10:07 It was too difficult to see that sort of coruscating bright luminous entity. So Buddha then had an idea because he wanted them to be able to paint him. So he said, come to see me on the next windless day over about this part of the palace grounds. I'll come in from my monastery to those grounds and meet me there. And they said, okay, they didn't quite know it out of mind, but what it was was he went and sat on the other side of one of those big pools, like in front of the Taj Mahal, you know, the big, big tank, but they call it in India, marble tank with water and then the very, still no wind. And so they could look in his reflection in the water and the water dampened, the shining, you know, the rays had the whole sort of change, changing metamorphosing energy field.
Speaker 0 00:10:59 That was his supposedly chorus body, his emanation body, they call it in Buddhism. So, so Buddha said, I am there and I know all about all of you. And what I know is that you too can experience it, but not just from listening to some slogan that I say or some concepts that I give you, there is a path you can follow to unlearn and to critically critically overcome the network of concepts based on a misunderstanding of reality, ignorance that has you trapped in thinking that you were separate from the universe and that you were having a fight with it to dominate and get more of it to own your, of your own, or to fight it off from trying to dominate you, you know, and then time rolling and getting old and then fearing death and sickness old age and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 0 00:11:55 And so that's because you have a role, you have a wrong understanding of what you are in connection to that reality. And so it's the process of critically seeing through this false perception that you have, and then gradually gradually opening the blinders kind of away from your vision and opening your mind and heart to their virtual reality. And then it will, you will experience it. You can't because it is you because, and you inevitably will experience it because it is you. And it is reality. And unreality kind of wants to be peeled off of reality. And reality doesn't appeal. Reality is just there. And it's actually what you were made out of reality. Okay. And the world is made of that, all, everything in the world. So you're all, it's all one reality. Really. It was all which supports all it's different. It's nice differences.
Speaker 0 00:12:51 The differences that are helpful and friendly because it's not an underlying oneness that is outside of it that somehow supports it. It is itself, both the differentiated relational things and the ultimate reality. It's like absolute relativity. And when you know that, then your sense of being a part from it is much lighter and you can surf it and you can deal with it and you it's, you could enjoy it blissfully apparently. Oh, so that's what he said. So that forced him, you see to be a kind of educator actually. And he presented what he understood, not as something that people had to believe, like a religious thing, like, Oh yeah, I met God. He told me, believe in him, he'll save you. Which is, you know, and I'm his Emissary, you know, that's what usually the religious founders does, you know, they introduce you to the savior, but Buddha said, there is no savior.
Speaker 0 00:13:48 There are a lot of saviors actually, who are working to help you, but they can't complete the job cause none of them are on <inaudible> because you have your own power. So you are your own savior. Actually, if you, if you understand that, and then once you save yourself, you can help save others too. And you become one of the many saviors and helping people, but there's just no one thing that sort of do you can't look outside for that. You can look outside for help and you should, but not for the final salvation for the liberation, for the Nirvana. Now you will note that my cessation and freedom, those terms that I use to describe it are negotiations. And that's because you need an allegation to critique what you think is reality, which is this difficult situation of you versus everything else where you're losing all the time.
Speaker 0 00:14:40 Cause it's more than you are. Right. It's really simple. Right. And actually I discovered that like a scientist, by my experience, I didn't come up onto a slogan that I'm going to say, and then you say it and then we'll say it and keep saying it and we say it that'll make it. So no, it doesn't work like that. It's an experience, you know, because we have to, we have to find our own reality and our reality encounters, everything else that's reality. It's cause it's the same as it. Did we get it? And they like that. Okay. So, so then Michelle and welcoming the people online and hopefully you'll get to see that. I don't know the electronics involved, but earlier this afternoon, sitting on a nice porch with, with our favorite friend Hunter Amman and get Aish, particularly love handle, man, you know, because he helps you bring on Shambala.
Speaker 0 00:15:34 Did you know that Katie loves hanamanas for just in general, but he also loves the bed things because he discovered to his amazement that Honda Mon helps bring Shambala out on the planet, you know, a few hundred years from now, whenever it happens or even now, if we understood it now it would happen. You know? So, um, yeah, and I shouldn't, Michelle was there and then she read that verse. She read this verse and she'd just, I wanted her to do it again, but she didn't want to repeat it. So it says, um, it's from the Lama chipper, which comes from, uh, which is a Tibetan work written by one of the pension Lamas of the greatest, uh, first pension Lama, uh, who created, uh, the Dalai Lama guy, you know? And, um, but it's based on the Indian, uh, texts from Buddha called the vagina rosary tantra.
Speaker 0 00:16:30 Um, and the first, very first verse because it's, um, you know, it's offering to the mentor, uh, or we say worship, but the Trump are actually means make Pooja, you know, make an offering. And here's the first verse it says, and this is what you recite when you practice this yoga. It says through the great bliss that state, I myself become the mentor deity. So right away when you're just starting to study, you become the guru. You imagine that you do from my luminous body light, rays shine all around massively blessing beings and things, making the universe pure and fabulous perfection. And it's every quality. So why Michelle read that to my surprise and delight is that it sort of underlines from 2000 years later, this thing about the guru in this tradition wants you to be the girl because they are not just teaching you.
Speaker 0 00:17:36 They want you also to teach others. And again, it's not converting others. This is a very important point. I want to bet. I tried before I, before we read the Hartsutra together, which we will do, I want to really emphasize this. Um, it doesn't mean converting them to Buddhism and Buddha his own time. There was no Buddhism to convert them to. There was just, um, India and people got so turned down by the prospect that he offered, what they could learn, what they could unlearn and then learn that they dropped everything, their coat starting, including their clothes and their hairdo and their job and their family if they had, but mostly they were, they were seekers, so they didn't have families. And he had, he had left his family actually, uh, six years earlier, uh, to be full time, you know, all the time. And he said he would come back for them and he would do something better for them, which actually he did, but it was quite painful for them when he left. And, um, Paul, there also was very upset because he left at a time when he was about to inherit the throne of the kingdom and the father wanted to retire because you know, so long a lifespan. And that was the system. When, when your son had a son, when you were the King, then you could abdicate and he would become, the crown Prince would be King. And then his son, the crown Prince, and it would go on like that. So then you get some time in retirement because India was always quite spiritual.
Speaker 0 00:19:16 And so the dad said, okay, great sound. You're going to take over and I'm going to retire. And I said, no, I'm sorry to have to hang in there. I'm retiring. I'm not taking this road. I'm going to go find enlightenment. And father was really upset, but I don't want to tell that story at length. But what I wanted to say is this, the Dalai Lama recently, that was a little bit in a film on David. Boehme the physicist who was a friend of his. And I happened to see it as an online premier cause I was on a panel that answered questions and discuss it after the film. And I was so pleased when he said it's so clearly he always says it when he gives talks in America or Europe or anywhere other than Tibet or with his own people, uh, he says that he doesn't want to convert them to Buddhism.
Speaker 0 00:20:05 He gives even teachings and he says, I'm not doing this to cover it. And he said it very clearly and not film. He said in my entire life, he said, I have never given Buddhist teaching with an intention of making people into Buddhists. He said, and you're like, I'm proud of that type of thing he was saying. And he really means it too. And the reason he means it is that he believes in this time of history, Buddhism, you can't actually say in history in the past that Buddhism was not kind of a missionary tradition because when, because Buddhism, the religious side of Buddhism was, was a created by those who couldn't really do the education, but like the people who did. So they supported the institutions that were, you know, the amount of plastic universities or the Zen centers or whatever it was, where people were meditating and learning and studying and critiquing their ignorant worldview and finding a realistic one.
Speaker 0 00:21:02 And that day for them, it was kind of like a religion. Like they believe what they were doing was good and they felt they couldn't necessarily do that in that life. But the ones who really using it, we're really exploring reality like scientists and they were educating and uneducated and educating themselves massively over millions of them over thousands of years to a great effect. And so you can't say, in other words, is that actually, when, when I first heard Darla Maduro was in Harvard divinity school, he had said something to me bottled before, way back in India, before we brought him there. But at Harvard divinity school, he said to the people there, the theologians, the sample that I was trying to say, you don't need to do it, but he was doing, he said, I want you to know. I don't believe in God. He says,
Speaker 1 00:21:55 They were like,
Speaker 0 00:21:59 I had to translate. I wasn't really translated, but here and there, he would break into that. And I was a bit translated that time. And uh, and then, uh, he said, well, why do I tell you that? Because, uh, if you might get to like me, if you didn't know that, and then later once we were friends, if you discovered, I didn't believe in God, you might faint.
Speaker 0 00:22:25 And he said, I have gone through a thing, thanks to Thomas merchant originally. He said, and since then other Christians that I have met where I used to think Buddhism was better. And, you know, they were kind of childish who believed in it, father God, you know? And I was, I used to think that, and that sort of Buddhist to kind of think that he was admitting, but then he said, however, now I, since I met Martin and then other people, I disagree with that. And I think that they can get to the place, the reality, their own way. And for some, it may be the personal God idea is good, better even send a non-personal God or different types of things. And so I no longer presumed that and I don't, you know, but I want you to know that right up front. And then of course he said to them, which is, of course they, they can't really agree with the way their current theologies are stacked up in Christianity.
Speaker 0 00:23:20 He said, I do believe in this day that we're all intermingled in this global pluralistic world where we're on one, it wasn't city, you have every conceivable religious institution within a few blocks of each other, all different religions. We can't be competing to convert people, or it will create terrible conflict in the future. This was long before the moral majority, you know, the, of the religious right in America, then the Ayatollah and Iran and the fundamentalisms and the ISIS, you know, crazy stuff. And all of the traditions, fundamentalism, not just in Islam, but all the, all the traditions, all of Islam, the most spectacular one lately, but it was long before that. And he said, this will bring terrible trouble. If we don't try to look into it, our founders teachings and our theologies, and realize that what's good for me may not be good for you and to therefore leave the other ones alone and not try to convert.
Speaker 0 00:24:17 You're not to compete for converts. And he may, and he really meant it. And I must admit when he would tell me that I would kind of hard because I, I loved the Buddhism so much and I wasn't really a Christian proper Christian. Uh, I D I didn't really believe in a creator. And, uh, I didn't like religious piety. I had a thing. I was not into like rituals. And like, I still don't like sanctimonious behavior on the part of the sphere, spiritual people. And, um, you know, I like it sort of down to earth thing, you know? And so I, and so I discovered that it was the Tibetans. They're wonderful, you know, uh, theologies are food allergies, let's say, and I'm sorry. So it was a bit better. I really, I did. And so I wouldn't say yes, yes, you're holding this, but I didn't completely agree with him until about 15, 20 years ago, I had this dream and in the dream, I was sort of out in a big tent, somewhere in a mega church or maybe, or a preachers tent, and they would go, and they were, might've been black church maybe.
Speaker 0 00:25:22 Cause they were very animated. The people they were, you know, like, Oh yeah, I feel the field spirit. You know, like I feel saved, you know, like say on thing. And it's a very lively, you know, an energized, you know, jumpy up, you know, like how he kind of couldn't Delaney have their own style, you know, and then going, Jesus, Jesus, you know, and then I realized that that Avalokiteshvara is their great bodhisattva who is considered the incarnation of the compassion of all Buddhas. So it was definitely Buddhist savior figure. Sometimes female, sometimes male, different embodiments, not just one environment, but still that's basically the guy or the girl, if he's in a female form. And, um, and, and, and somehow some voice said in the dream, I made my own voice in the dream as I was waking up, it said he really means it. He's happy. They're being saved by Jesus. Why on earth would he want them to be saying, I'm sorry, <inaudible> a name. They couldn't pronounce.
Speaker 0 00:26:31 Jesus is two syllables. It's so easy. No problem. I swear. I was like a Tiffany. So then I realized that his oldest was a hundred percent serious and I'm a hundred percent serious about that. And it's hard because, you know, I talk about, but I, you know, and Buddhist knowledge and put a science to be able to think Buddhist LK, that's a religion. I'll be Buddhist. I don't care if you, I mean, if you're already are Buddhist, that's all right. As I tell them how I'm not, please don't feel bad. Your homes, you didn't convert me from Christianity. I was really not religious before. Uh, I was maybe a spiritual seeker, but I wasn't religious. I didn't believe, especially in the, the, the sole creator. I definitely did not believe in that. I liked Jesus, but I still do. I liked him more from everyone about Buddhism actually.
Speaker 0 00:27:18 But the point is, uh, this course, our teacher training is to port fit. Two points. Another story I wanted to tell you today, I once went, met a very distinguished alumni. I won't mention names in Butan. Oh, 30 years ago, maybe. And, um, I had at, at that time recently, several friends of mine who had taken long retreats. I think one for six years, one for three, maybe one on Bubby, both for six. I can't remember, but terrible things happen to them. Uh, one of them was killed in auto accident. The other one was like, you know, having difficult living somewhere, working as a carpenter or whatever it was. In other words, it wasn't really working out for them after this marvelous long retreat. And you know, the three year, three month, three day retreat, which is a total isolation retreat, which is not the way we were doing it.
Speaker 0 00:28:13 Uh, they were paid. People were taken out of their ordinary life setting to go and do that kind of a trip, which has its place, which is worthwhile. But, you know, they, they, they maybe weren't quite Buddha as he had, they were close. They had made progress, but they were not there. Then they had a lot of problems. And so I said to that Lama, you know, I'm very worried, there were a few other stories like that. So I said to him, you know, you guys are having a lot of people doing these long retreats. And I think that's great, but I wish you would focus on the fact that after they finish, we don't know what they're going to do. They don't know what they're going to do. And the time they spend doing it, if they're young and have the money to do it, to support themselves while doing it and pay the fees and the, you know, whatever the rent, then that's their schooling time when they sort of find their way of making a living in life.
Speaker 0 00:29:05 And so why don't you implement a policy? And the thing is they don't even after three and a half or six years, they still don't speak to Benton that well, cause they're retreats. So they're not hanging out, chatting with people, even though they learned enough to read some texts, they couldn't teach in a Tibetan monastery, and you don't have that many. And you have your own Tibet and teachers anyway. So although they're supposed to be Buddhas, they're not going to be teaching and you're a monastery. And then they come back here. And then, so I'm enlightened. They can tell the world, but that doesn't give them a job. Some will maybe form a group like a Dharma center or called or a, uh, you know, write some books to become famous, maybe a few, but most of them will be living in grandma's attic 15 years from now.
Speaker 0 00:29:53 And they won't have a thing. So why don't we do it this way? You identify the people you think are the really good candidates. We go to Naropa. And I was a younger professor those days at Columbia. And I said, I'll help. And we'll create a special graduate program for them. Get them an MFA, uh, like, or, or ma, and then the, then they go in for either the PhD to be an academic. I didn't realize then there wouldn't be enough academic jobs. So I, I thought that I was doing that. So I thought that's one, one outlet. And the other one is to be a therapist, which has really, there are a few long retreatants in some of the traditions who are really successful therapists and really have helped a lot of people. That's a wonderful thing and they can make a living in that way.
Speaker 0 00:30:37 And so then they, then they do the retreat as field work, and then they write it up after the retreat and they get whichever kind of degree they want what he was saying. All of that is great. I've been worrying about it myself. He's had this elder Lama and there were some younger ones there who are operating those retreat centers and he ordered them to do this, but nobody ever did anything. No, I was unable. I don't have a zillion dollars. I wasn't enabled to do it, and I've always wanted to do it. So what, this is Michelle and Richard and Mary have trained a lot of people. And then people form our yoga studios and they don't necessarily convert people to Hinduism are actually in those studios. They just teach them how to take care of their body and health and a few maybe go on, go to India or something, or they become, or they under their own turtle as they become kind of devotees of pretty snow or whoever it may be, um, about Todd and jellies, something like that, maybe they do, or maybe they don't, maybe they become Chris, Chris hen, hen Chris's hinged, Jews, Jew, booze, hidden booze, you know, all these different things because the Alana Watson, if you already are a Buddhists, any of you, that's okay.
Speaker 0 00:31:56 I am sort of, uh, but, um, uh, but on the other hand, if you already are you and your family isn't, then you know, you should really make a place in your heart for whatever they do. If you get, when you visit them, maybe go to their church or their synagogue or their temple or whatever, and be respectful about it and try to encourage them that they are on the path. That's great. And of course, you're teaching them something about life just by being nice and good and caring, but especially there's the dilemmas as everyone should stay with their grandmother's religion, because otherwise grandma will be too unhappy. That was what he says, my grandma's gone. So I don't to worry. And, uh, but, but, uh, you know, younger people, this is, this is, this is the point. So what this teacher training is not to convert, although we'll be talking a lot about Buddhism and automatically also about Hinduism cause yoga cause the India knowledge in general, the culture and civilization of India, we see as a higher culture actually than the Euro American culture.
Speaker 0 00:33:04 In fact, because we see it as teaching people based on their inner realizations of their highest spiritual leaders, ways in which you can operate your own body in a more pleasant and helpful and energized way and live your life more beneficially for yourself in the short term, and also help more helpful to others and, and, you know, health prosperity, kindness, and spiritual advancement by serving others. They had it better worked out. We feel, and don't, you can point to India today with all its problems. But remember it was conquered by other cultures and extractive European Barton's colonial culture was 4,000 years. Actually the Muslims were maybe better because the first 500 or 600 were Muslim invaders, but they settled down in India at least. So they circulated the wealth within the country after the first violent invasion and, and domination, but that should have they sort of settled down in the country, but then the British and the European and the Portuguese, et cetera, Dutch, French, British, and finally mostly British.
Speaker 0 00:34:14 They extracted tremendous amount of wealth from India. It was the Juul and the crown of the British empire. And so it's difficult. A lot of the difficulties come that they still haven't recovered. They've been independent now for 60, 70 years, and they're beginning to assert their own culture, but still they're run by people who are kind of trained by the British and even their con there they're in the sub continent as one country in a way is sort of a leftover of the colonial thing because the Tamo people, the Kerala people, the Bengali people, the Punjabi beat people, they are really different nations of many tens. And even hundreds of millions. The pajama UOP is like 200 million people, you know, more or less one nation, for example, one of the biggest in the world by itself. And so by being a kind of leftover of an empire with their parliament buildings and everything, having been built by British, they're still, you know, they still haven't recovered there.
Speaker 0 00:35:12 The local culture that Gandhi wanted them to culture cultivate, you know, but his spinning wheel, the whole thing. Okay. So I would say that that if one says, well, there's a greater spiritual knowledge and we honor India without, and we look to India for an inner science Dolman was very strong on that and that, and the materialistic sciences maybe need the balancing of these inner to, to control the exterior sciences, that manipulate nature in such a way. So as to magnify greed in the form of consumerism, that is polluting the planet to death and in, on the four on hatred, into, in the form of militarism that could be blowing the planet up at any moment. And then, and so we are looking for a cultural difference. So in what makes a yoga stellar and an American city let's say, or Mexican wine or Colombian, well, it is a cultural difference.
Speaker 0 00:36:10 You know what? It's not making it really just intrusion, although they will pay some people will see it that way. But one is honestly making a cultural innovation, which will interact a lot with the health system actually, because when people learn yoga well in numbers, they will have better health. And therefore that it's preventive. So then the doctors, if they think they're doing a business, rather than a service, they will make less money, but, uh, it takes a long time for that. So they won't be so upset about that. So that's a key point. Okay. Then second on the, on the preliminary prospectus of this teacher training, I made a big fuss about basic Buddhism, basic ethic because of its ethics, because, because Buddhism basically is said to be three things in its own literature, it has three bodies of literature, which one is called Vinaya.
Speaker 0 00:37:08 And one is called Vic used to say three baskets because the way they kept the books. So Vinaya, Sutra, and Abby Dharma, and then that's called the verbal Dharma or textual Dharma. It ended the Dharma in practice. The actual Dharma, what it is, is three educations and the educations are ID chic, SHA Trini, a district shiny, or at least economy and poly, you know, and these are education and ethics in a higher and higher education in ethics, higher education in mind, which involves meditation and also psychology, not only meditation, also exploring the mind psychologically and healing, it's traumas and things, and then education in science really, or they call it wisdom, which means discovering the nature of reality. So those are the three that's really part of it is the three educations. So we're going to make a big fuss about that. And, and, uh, of course there, it's very similar to the ethics of other traditions, but it has a kind of interesting biological basis in the theory of karma, the Indian one does, and Buddhism has sort of the easiest way of teaching that.
Speaker 0 00:38:20 So we are going to spend a lot of time on that today, coming over here, my beloved wife came along with us, Nana, who is the founder and the bill executive of men law, creator of men law with the help of lots of friends and a few employees. And, uh, she said, well, it's good. You talk to them. Yes, it will training teacher. Yes. But as it was good, you should tell them about how to learn, to manage their emotions. She said, because that's really what it is. It isn't so much being religious or something it's like, so when someone does or says something, you don't react. So then I invited her to teach, but which she said, Fastly doesn't want to do with, I'm supposed to be the mouthpiece. You know, like one of those like, like mod lawyers or something, you know, the real power is like, they're not Michelle and others had are just a mouthpiece, you know, but that's okay.
Speaker 0 00:39:18 I'm happy to serve. And the point is that I said, she, but I said, she should teach because she's better at not racking than I am. I'm still, after all these years, a little trigger trigger, I trigger it easily. And so, you know, I was, but compared to how I was before I've cried miles, believe me. So, so, uh, you know, I was educated playing lacrosse, you know, and a waspy education. So, um, I had an older brother used to beat me up. So I had to like frightened him by being more fierce. Cause I wasn't as strong. So, uh, so anyway, so that's, that's, that's that. So, so I want to talk a lot about, and um, and the ethical in this first section, we have three major sections I believe. And over the next period of time, it's not three years, but it's some long time and a lot of study in between.
Speaker 0 00:40:18 And in this first section we're going to, I'm going to focus on these basic things. Although there are some of them, some part of the basic things, the wisdom part is passion and the compassion part are quite advanced and quite powerful actually. So it takes, it takes a bit of doing a bit of meditating. So that's what we're, that's what we're going to focus on in these 10 days. And, and then, Oh yeah, but back to the sort of overall thing. So what you could get out of this hopefully is more enlightened. You become more enlightened. I, you know, I always say I'm not enlightened and that's true. And I don't pretend to be, but I have to say, I am a bit more enlightened than I was when I started. And I think my good wife and children will admit that the two different ones into a different green and, uh, different degrees.
Speaker 0 00:41:14 And, um, and also I've had a kind of glimpse of the goal that is quite visceral. And I hope to get there soon, but I'm not pretending that I live at to go quiet, but, but in a way I can imagine that I do. And that helps me actually, that's part of the advanced practice. You can say, once you have a little understanding of selfless, that's our emptiness. Then you can use your imagination that way. And that is helpful because it's a slow growth. Everything is slow and gradual, you know, there are some people who say, Oh, this weekend you come and do this. You'll be enlightened to day live, that's fake. And they couldn't point it out the goal in a weekend, but then they, then they always have, Oh, then the preliminaries, then you might have to do 300,000 prostrations, which is like yoga major calisthenic, you know, like full prostration on the ground to try it, try a thousand of the Maven it's quite strenuous.
Speaker 0 00:42:10 And so it's very gradual, but there are sometimes quantum leaps, like you can have apifany type insights for sure. And those are ready to be welcomed and wonderful, you know, but not to be grasped at like, Oh, now I had an epiphany, you know, especially this business, the really key business of emptiness, the great medicine put great medicine, like medical concoction, which has the, which is the, the, uh, uh, yoga of emptiness, um, which is like a healing medicine for all the afflictions and addictive emotions that we have. Um, people can have when they really focus on it. They can have experiences as if they sort of disappear in Tremonti space and a little bit scary. They could overcome a little fear when they go to the edge of that, and then they can viscerally go there and have an experience like that. And then they feel that since they overcame the slight fear of it, maybe some people have a bigger fear.
Speaker 0 00:43:11 They feel that that's enlightenment and they're heightened. And then they go around behaving strangely, you know, because they wrongly realistically misunderstand them. Data is thinking that it's somewhere else. Instead of, instead of this baseline thing is only a stage in deconstructing the false perception of things. But then there is every more realistic one that fills that space. So an emptiness is equally the full space as the empty space, believe me. So, but they get confused by that experience. And then they run around acting foolish. And so we don't want to do that. Okay. So it's a kind of livelihood to have a yoga center and it's a service and it's their kind of therapeutic service for people. And it can be a spiritual service surf service as well for people who've become more advanced. And even if it's, for some of them, it's simply a health thing.
Speaker 0 00:44:10 It's a, you know, or even an athletic thing or something that's okay to sort of get started on being attuned to themselves, to inhabiting and occupying their own bodies in a way. So it's all right, it's a start. And then it might give them encouragement to go further. We will see, we will see if some of you who may already be over teachers. Some of you may already be Buddhist, not sure we'll, we'll slowly inventory that and stick with it. But, um, but beginner's mind will work with those who are we'll work with beginner's mind, you know, as the famous Zen master said, you know, he said, had a Suzuki Roshi of the San Francisco sends it, or I love that one thing that I meditate, but that one thing that he said, he said, well, of course everything is totally perfect, but there's always still a little room for improvement.
Speaker 0 00:45:03 I do love that. I don't know. I didn't, I never heard him say it never met him actually. Sadly I'm I'm open for questions. Yes, no. Okay. Michelle, do you have anything? Okay, good. Did I cover most places? I hope so. So I'm getting to that age where, when I, when I go somewhere and give a talk, I sort of just go ahead. You know, I didn't make, I don't make outlines, but I do kind of mentally make an outline, different things, pop up in my mind and the day or two before. And I respectfully want to focus on this, not converting to Buddhism thing and, and, and sort of having an attitude that whatever we're learning it's everywhere. Like I completely flipped out the last few days I was with rom Dallas and I was with Jay, Dave, you know, one, one sick, uh, group and one, uh, one, uh, handyman devotee group, you know, Baba Ram DAS and so forth.
Speaker 0 00:46:02 And I was totally getting their stuff. And I was reading it, especially guru Nanak, you know, the founder of Sikhism, he's like a Buddha. He's just like, it's amazing his, he has this thing called Moola mantra root mantra that goes on for 40 verses at the beginning of their Bible, which has become the Bible of the six S I K H and a. And it's just like a Buddha. It's like any Tibetan Lama, or here's a contemporary of these second and third dollar llamas. Uh, and, um, uh, he's uh, he was in India and in the middle of Hindu Islamic stress intention, he created a new tradition that sort of met both of them and found out sound the Holy part of both of them. It was wide marvelous.
Speaker 1 00:47:08 This episode of the Bob Thurman podcast is a part of the ongoing <inaudible> yoga teacher training course presented by Tibet house U S men law in the yoga space via teachable to learn more about this ongoing evergreen, please visit <inaudible> dot org. Thanks for tuning in.
