For the recording, welcome. We are ACI course 7, first class, January 19th, 2025.

Welcome back to those who were part of this group before, and welcome to those who are new to the group, but old to me and welcome to those who are new to the group and new to me, very happy to have you.

We always start class with setting our motivation and establishing our refuge. So we'll just do it. 

General Class Opening

(0:52) Let's gather our minds here as we usually do.

Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. See them there with you just by way of your thinking of them. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy, great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them. That beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. Then we hear them say, 

Bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way.

Feel how much you would like to be able to help them recognize how the worldly ways we try fall short. Maybe they work, maybe they don't, but either way, the friend goes on to have some other distress.

How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever.

Deep down, we know this is possible, understanding a little about karma and emptiness, we get a glimpse of how it's possible, and so we grow that wish into a longing, and even into an intention.

Then we turn our mind back to that precious, holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet, to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way.

And so we ask them, please, please teach us that. They're so happy that we've asked. Of course they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create.

We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise:

Here is the Great Earth

Filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers.

The Great Mountain, Four Lands wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind I make them the paradise of a Buddha

And offer it all to you.

By this deed may every living being experience the pure world.

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami

I go for refuge until I am enlightened

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest,

May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest,

May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest,

May all beings reach their total awakening

For the benefit of every single other. 

Course Structure

(7:49) Those who are new to my ACI courses, I think you see that I don't use the platform, mostly. Because they're so busy and I want to be able to set my own schedule and not have to negotiate. So I just do it myself. Set the little red hint. But that means we use a little different system for getting our assignments graded and submitted. It still seems to work so we'll keep doing it until somebody tells me I can't. 

What I need from those who are taking this course for completion from me is that after each class and before the next one, you complete your homework and your quiz and your meditation assignment. So you listen to the class, then you read the reading, and you look at that homework without looking at the answer key, and do the best you can to answer the homework. 

Then look at the answer key and correct your own homework.

If you got the answer, all the points included and accurate, you get all the marks for that question. If you have to adjust it a little mark off half or one point, if you completely leave the whole thing blank, take off five points.

I mean the worst you can do is leave the whole thing blank. And if your name's on the paper, you'd still get take however number. You know what I'm saying? So be kind. It's not about the score, it's about comparing your answer to the answer key answer to learn a little bit more the nuances of the material.

Then study it again like the next day, put it all away and take your quiz from memory, and then get out your answer key and compare and give yourself your marks for your quiz.

So you're grading your own homework, your own quiz. Do at least one session of the meditation, which technically is our contemplations. You can just sit down over a cup of tea and think carefully about that subject matter. Then mark the date and time of your meditation. We need at least one from each class for the papers to be accepted by the dean. So it needs to be written down by the time we get to our completion of the course. 

The last class is a review of the final exam. I like to do that review by way of you guys teaching it to me. Everyone gets a couple of different questions, preassigned, that you get to deliver to the class. You don't have to if you don't want to, but those who do seem to have a good time doing it. Then you study the material again, put all your notes away, take your final exam. 

The final exam, we arrange a system where you switch with a friend and they grade it for you. That way hopefully each of you will mark the final of somebody else. So everybody gets to review somebody else's papers and we give a deadline for having that all accumulated and sent to a TA, who then compiles all the material and sends it to the dean. Part of the information will be how you want the dean to send you your certificate, which now it's all done by email.

All of that seems to run really smoothly, especially when we get our papers submitted by the deadline that we all decide on at the end of class. Natalia is putting the telegram group contact up there and Luisa is our TA. She will help you with any problems you have in that email string that you get from me. So reach out to her if you have trouble and she'll help us get all of our papers submitted to the dean on time so you can all get your certificates.

If you can't get your homework done, email me and say, I just can't get it done. My dog died. I'm not going to say, Don't come to class. I might, but I never have. But try really hard, pretend that I'll say. Don't come to class if you haven't done your homework so that you make it a priority for yourself. 

The reason I'm strict with it is because I want for you the karmic seeds of completion of doing what you said you were going to do. We make a commitment, we carry it out. Those seeds, it has nothing to do with me. It has to do with the seeds being planted in your mind, and I want you to have those. So please help me help you get those completion seeds. It's really, really important. All right, so I think that's my usual spiel.

Introduction of ACI7

(14:57) For those who have been with me for a little bit, we just finished ACI course 6, which was the introduction into the Prajna Paramita, the perfection of wisdom level of teachings. The Diamond Cutter sutra is what we studied in course 6. If you remember, the Diamond Cutter sutra was a teaching by Lord Buddha that came about because somebody asked him, oh, what's the Bodhisattva to do? How should we live? How should we think? How should we practice? If somebody has entered into the Middle Way, what does that look like? 

That whole sutra was Lord Buddha's answer. If we got the gist of that sutra, Lord Buddha would talk about dependent origination and emptiness, and then he changed the subject, and talk about how much merit you make if you cover a billion planets with all kinds of jewels and offer it to the Buddha. 

That's a lot of merit. But you know what? If you study and share the Diamond Cutter sutra with somebody that's more merit, incomparably more merit. Then he'd go back to dependent origination and emptiness. He never pointed out the connection, but there is a connection, isn't there?

Between merit making and understanding emptiness, there's actually two ways it's connected. One is, the more goodness seeds we plant the more goodness seeds we have that better we'll understand this idea of emptiness and dependent origination. The better we understand this process of dependent origination and emptiness, the more goodness we want to make. 

It's this beautiful upward spiral. It makes amazing that course 7 hot on the heels of Diamond Cutter sutra would be Bodhisattva vows. Do you see the connection? Because Diamond Cutter sutra is all about how a Bodhisattva is supposed to live. Not because Buddha said, You have to live like this to be a Bodhisattva. But because the Bodhisattva behaviors that they avoid and that they do are the behaviors that if we avoid making, we stop making the seeds that are perpetuating our suffering.

If we do their opposite, we plant those virtue seeds. We are planting the seeds that will, when they ripen we'll ripen as Buddha, Buddha and Buddha paradise emanating. So we would want to ask after Diamond Cutter sutra, Well specifically, Buddha, what's a Bodhisattva to do? And that's where we go next.

(19:20) We learned that the reason we avoid certain behaviors is because we don't want to experience the result of that behavior because that result will bring about some suffering for myself and others. Yet we can't really see directly that connection between that little white lie that I tell and years, weeks, months, lifetimes later, nobody being trustworthy in our life.

If we could see the connection, we wouldn't need to take vows, we wouldn't need to study. Geshela always says, if our ribs crush when we accidentally step on a bug, how many bugs would we step on? One, if we're not paying attention. None if we're watching and see somebody else's ribs crush when they step on a bug. Buh, I'm not doing that. 

But a cause and a result can't happen at the same time—not in our natural world and not in our karmic world either. There's this delay, and as a result of the delay, we don't get the connection between our behavior and our experiences.

To avoid doing a deed out of understanding that is really a great, great goodness. But we only gather that goodness when we're in a situation where we could do that deed and we don't. Which for most of us, those negative deeds are few and far between. 

But if we take a vow to avoid a certain behavior that we don't even do very often, we are gathering the goodness of keeping the vow every moment. It doesn't have to wait until we're presented with a situation where we choose between doing that behavior or not. 

If we take a vow to avoid a certain behavior, we are gathering the goodness of keeping the vow now, and now, and now, and now, and now.

Do you see?

There's a power in avoiding wrong deeds and there's an increased power in taking a vow to avoid a certain deed in terms of the mathematics of gathering the goodness. 

Sweetly, the Bodhisattva vows are the only vows in the group of vows that Buddhists might take where we are supposed to learn about them, and even try them on for size before we decide to commit ourselves to them as vows. 

So this course 7 is everything you need to know about the Bodhisattva vows and how to get them, and how to fix them, and how to use them so that you can make your decision as to whether or not you want to take them as vows.

Once you hear about the behaviors, you can start using them as guidelines. The instant you hear them. They are helpful guidelines. 

Again, the benefit of taking them as vows will become more clear as we finish up this course towards the end.

Just because you're taking this course and complete this course does not in any way obligate you to taking your Bodhisattva vows. In our lineage, in order for a preceptor in our lineage to be willing to give you your vows, I have been instructed at least to be sure that that person asking for vows is properly prepared. Properly prepared means do this course. So whether you intend to take your vows soon, or later, or ever, please finish this course. Then, if fired to formally take your vows, you can go to the person and say, See? I've studied and you won't have to scramble to get your course prepared. 

Why are we studying the Asian Classics Institute course series of classes, course 1 through 18? Why? 

The answer is always, when Geshehla says, why are you doing this? He goes a 100 dollars, why are you?

Because they're suffering in my world. 

So saying, why are we going to study Bodhisattva vows?

Because they're suffering. I still see suffering in my world. 

In what we call a human world, we are in what's called the desire realm. Which makes up a part of the cycle, which in Sanskrit is called Samsara. Which is this circle of pain and disappointment that's perpetuated because we don't understand where our happiness actually comes from.

And because of that misunderstanding, we go trying to get our happiness in things, from things, by doing things that are mistaken. That in fact seem to bring happiness, but don't actually. 

Within the cycle of Samsara, they say, there are three kinds of suffering. I have some vocabulary for you in case you are interested. 

Vocabulary Class 1

(27:45)

DUK-NGEL GYI DUK-NGEL suffering of suffering

GYUWAY DUK-NGEL suffering of change

KYABPA DUJE KYI DUK-NGEL pervasive suffering

BODHICHITTA the wish to get enlightened for the sake of every sentient being

JANGCHUB SEMKYE Bodhisattva

JANGCHUB SHUNGLAM central path, highway

MUNSEM Bodhichitta in form of prayer/wish

JUKSEM Bodhichitta in form of action

Scriptures & Teachers

Lord Buddha (500 BC) Sutra of the Essence of Space, 

Sutra of Skillful Means

Je Tsongkapa Lobsang Drakpa (1357- 1419)

Master Asanga (350 AD) Levels of the Bodhisattva

Master Shantideva (700 AD) Compendium of Advices

Master Chandragomi (925 AD) Twenty Verses in the Vows

Geshe Sewang Samdrup (mid 1800's) String of Shining Jewels (NORBUY UTRENG)

The Three Kinds of Suffering

The Suffering of Suffering

In the three kinds of suffering, DUK-NGEL GYI DUK-NGEL is offered as the first kind of suffering. This is Tibetan.

DUK-NGEL = suffering

DUK-NGEL GYI DUK-NGEL = is the suffering of suffering. What it means is the obvious kinds of suffering that we experience from time to time.

Obvious suffering is the headaches, the overly tired, the lost jobs, the upsets that we have on and off throughout the day.

For most of us, we don't have the suffering of suffering constantly. Like somebody who has chronic pain, has suffering of suffering constantly. Most of us don't. Thank goodness.

These are the obvious distressors. 

The Suffering of Change

Second kind is GYUWAY DUK-NGEL.

GYUWAY = change. So the suffering of change.

At first blush, it means that any pleasantness that we experience is going to end. It's going to change, and in changing from that pleasantness, it becomes unpleasant. 

The way I, an ordinary being creates the cause for a result that's pleasurable is by being kind to someone or something, but doing so in a mistaken way, doing so for mistaken reasons. So still being kind with ignorance.

It's good to be kind even with ignorance, but it plants a seed that is a discreet series of seeds that will wear out because of the misunderstanding.

Any pleasantness wears out.

We learn that as we grow up and we don't really consider it a suffering because we expect it. Of course, the bowl of ice cream's going to come to an end, right? We don't really want ice cream forever, do we?

But, can't the pleasure of ice cream last forever even without the ice cream?

If the pleasure is not in fact related to the ice cream—which it's not, by the way—why does it have to wear out? Why does the pleasure have to wear out just because the ice cream wears out? Why can't just breathing be pleasure?

But the way we've created our pleasures with the misunderstanding of where pleasure actually comes from, makes pleasures that wear out.

Any pleasure that ends with some kind of disappointment or loss is a suffering. Buddha would say, if a pleasure ends and we're in any way upset that it has ended, then the pleasure was a suffering. 

It's tough, because many people who superficially hear about the three sufferings, they say, Buddha says a child's smile is suffering, a beautiful sunset is suffering. I don't want any part of those kind of teachings. I want to enjoy the sunset. I want to enjoy a nice meal out.

Their conclusion is mistaken. Buddha is not saying everything is suffering, so go live in a cave and don't do anything. He's not saying that.

What he's saying is, when we recognize that there's nothing that we go after for our pleasure that actually gives us the pleasure we're seeking, it's to wake us up. Something else must be going on here, because happiness is what everybody wants. Hopefully being Buddha in Buddha paradise emanating is the most happy thing we could imagine. In fact, they call it bliss, which is beyond happy, I guess.

So GYUWAY DUK-NGEL is called the suffering of change. 

Sumati calls it, ‚and then it's gone‘—the suffering of, ‘and then it's gone‘. Meaning the ice cream, the cookie, the beautiful sunset, and then it's gone.

The Pervasive Suffering

Third kind of suffering, KYABPA DUJE KYI DUK-NGEL.

There's DUK-NGEL = suffering

KYABPA DUJE KYI = pervasive suffering.

Pervasive means covers all—every being, every moment, every experience. Pervasive.

Pervasive suffering has many subtleties. At this level it refers to the nature of our condition in which we are burning off the seeds of this life, from the moment of this life's conception.

What that means is that pervasive suffering is the fact that we are dying now, constantly—aging, illness, death, forced rebirth.

Those four are the condition of any being in Samsara. 

Deep down we know it, but we've learned to subjugate it, suppress it. Because if we had that forefront in our mind all the time, we'd go mad. We really would, and we wouldn't function. 

Yet, Buddha points it out repeatedly. Because we get complacent when we keep it so squished down that we don't use it to motivate us to change our behavior. Iff we believe that these three kinds of suffering are in them, from them, well then we ought to be depressed, dysfunctional humans that just eat chocolate and don't function. Because there'd be no reason to do anything, because nothing would work to ever help us be happy. Thank goodness none of these three sufferings have to be. 

In the course of the ACI training, we're learning how to see that more and more clearly so that we can actually reverse this process. Buddha said there's a cause.

He first points out there are these sufferings, because many of us as humans refuse to admit them. 

Then he says, And you know what? All of those sufferings, they have causes and anything that has a cause, if you stop the cause, if you stop making the cause, you can't have the result, and there's a way to do it.

What are those? The four Arya truths, the four realizations that we come to as we're coming out of that direct experience with ultimate reality for the first time.

There is not any experience that we as ordinary humans, if you are, and I don't know, there's not any experience that we can have that's not one or the other of obvious suffering, the suffering of change or pervasive suffering.

Technically pervasive is within the other two. All driven by a misunderstanding of where happiness comes from.

When we stop the misunderstanding, we stop perpetuating that cycle. 

The goal of Buddhism is not to be able to not react when unpleasant things happen. We're not learning how to be a robot.

We're learning how to logically recognize cause and effect relationship, to logically choose how we want to respond to either a pleasant situation or an unpleasant situation to be able to use that experience to plant seeds for the end of suffering for everyone. That state of mind is our growing Bodhichitta. 

We are studying at the Mahayana level now, that level of capacity where our heart resonated with hearing someone say, Look, you're really meant to become a being who can help all beings stop all suffering forever. Not everybody hears that message and goes, Whoa, how does that work? Maybe I can do it feels right.

Those who do have those seeds to hear that and our ears perk up, that's the level we're now studying at—the great capacity vehicle. Bodhichitta is that thought sustained, deeply held thought, ‚I want to reach my total Buddhahood so that I can help others stop their suffering forever. That's the only reason I want my Buddhahood.

The Two Different Kinds of Bodhichitta

Buddhahood will be sweet, beyond sweet. But I don't just want my Buddha paradise. I want those emanations that are out there helping everybody. Paradise, great side effect. But I want that omniscience that knows exactly what the other needs to give up, what they need to take up, and knows exactly how to be with them in such a way that they will wake up to that. Not just go to them and say, You reap what you sow. 

You need to act like this because that doesn't work for anybody, not even for Buddha's emanations, to tell people what to do. They wait to be asked. They show by example. Then, when somebody asks, they say, sit down, have you got 20 years? I'll tell you how to do it. But until then, you just be for them what they need, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant. It's hard. It's a hard job. 

Blissful but hard.

So first comes our Bodhichitta that‘s in our thoughts. Our heart has opened, our mind puts words to it. Yes, I want to be a Buddha so that I can help everyone. Bodhichitta.

As long as things are going pretty well, our Bodhichitta will probably stay strong, and maybe it'll stay strong forever. But we could imagine that in our efforts to grow our goodness, we are also ripening seeds of past mistakes from lifetimes. And we may hit a period in our life where everything seems to go wrong, go wrong, go wrong.

It would be human nature to go, I don't think this is working out. Maybe I don't really want to be a Buddha for the sake of all beings, and we can lose our Bodhichitta. Life can get hard enough that we could lose our Bodhichitta. And it's actually one of the main practices of the Bodhisattva is to guard our baby Buddha like we're guarding our newborn baby. 

I just met a three month old great nephew for the first time, and mom was so protective of baby, he's so helpless. Our fledgling Bodhichitta is like newborn baby, and we'll learn how to guard it now.

Bodhichitta is defined by Lord Maitreya as the wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. I think we've all heard that many, many times. 

Then there's another definition of Bodhichitta, which in Sanskrit means Buddhamind. That use of the term Bodhichitta is the word for the direct perception of emptiness.

That experience of ultimate reality is said to be our Bodhichitta. 

Another version of Bodhichitta is that direct experience.

Now, when that experience is triggered, if our study and our practice has been with a state of mind of the wishing boda, the one in the words, I want to be Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.

Ifour direct perception of emptiness happens with a mind, imbued with Bodhichitta, then when we come out of that experience the words, we become what's called a Bodhisattva on the first level. 

Technically, to become a Bodhsaatva, we reach that by way of seeing emptiness directly with the mind imbued with boda before that happens as we are inspired by the words, I want to be a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. 

We can be called a Bodhisattva. We can even call ourselves a Bodhisattva. But we're still in that level where we could lose it. 

Once we've had the direct perception with that mind imbued, the ability to lose our boda has decreased tremendously. You can still, but you're locked in pretty much once you've reached that first Bodhisattva Bhumi. Meaning you now know where things come from. Even though they still look like they come from themselves, you no longer misbelief. You just misperceive, and it gets a lot harder to lose the Bodhichitta.

(48:21) Bodhichitta in Tibetan, JANGCHUB SEMKYE, we learned it I think in course 1 or 2. 

JANGCHUB means Buddhahood, SEMKYE means the mind that wishes to become that.

SEM = that like a suffering mind.

KYE means= to become, to be born. 

JANGCHUB SEMKYE = this mind that wants to be become Buddha. Bodhichitta. 

The Two Kinds of Suffering That Come With Death

(49:13) There's another way to divide the sufferings of our samsaric world. The second way of dividing it is into two. So there are two kinds of suffering that make up Samsara. The first of this life, whatever life you're in, the suffering of this life, which refers to those three that we just talked about: obvious suffering, the suffering of change, pervasive suffering—the suffering of this life.

Then the second kind of suffering is the suffering which occurs during and after the moment of death of this life. We've learned in a previous course that the mind that we have now, and now, isn't new to us in this life. And it won't be new to us in future life. It's never the same two moments in a row, but it's your awareness of your subject side. There will always be an awareness of a subject-object-interaction between.

This thing that we're calling ‘my mind‘ is this awareness of the subject, meaning our me. That mind had to have a last moment of a previous life in order to have a next first moment of this life. We showed that in some previous course.

Then that first moment of this life goes to the next moment and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. Until the seeds for this mind in this life wear out. 

But the Me that those seeds are making me believe is connected to this life. As that Me experiences the changes that happen as the seeds for this life are wearing out, that Me doesn't understand, and it gets afraid. It experiences pain, it misunderstands, it resists, it has hallucinations, and it loses its identity. It loses all it intellectually knows. It loses its connection with a sequence of thought as the awareness just continues to (change).

That process that we call dying is so chaotic and ungrounded, and out of control, and not recognized as something familiar that it has its own unique kind of pain—the pain of death. It's not really a physical pain, although there is pain for some. It's an existential pain, because there's a part of you that believes you're disappearing. Actually that part of you is, but this mind is going to go on. Some mental seed is going to be the one that pops at the last moment of this life that projects us towards the first moment of the next life. The kind of seed that is, directs our mind to fill in the details of the rest of that lifetime.

So the state of that mind at the moment of death is crucial to the next circumstances of the next lifetime. If that state, that last moment is one of cruelty, hatred, anger, the world that's going to come out of that is a world of cruelty, anger, hatred, greed, can't get your needs met. It makes the different kinds of realms that we'll learn about in course 8. 

Why am I going there? Because that suffering of death and the next lifetimes are way worse than those three sufferings that we're so desperate to avoid in our human life. 

To recognize that is what motivates our renunciation. So when we were learning (in the) first course—Lam Rim, the three Principle Paths, renunciation, Bodhichitta, correct worldview—our renunciation was, Oh, I'm sick and tired of things going wrong.

When we get deeper, it's like my renunciation includes, Oh my gosh, if I go flying through the windshield of my car tonight, I could very well end up in a hungry ghost realm, or a hell realm, or an animal realm. None of which have any opportunity whatsoever to contact my seeds of Bodhichitta. Which will still be in there. But a mind that can't do anything but survive is not going to grow its Bodhichitta for a really long time.

So the second way of categorizing suffering is meant to crank up our renunciation. I really, really, really need to use this lifetime with all these amazing opportunities and advantages for study and practice to make as much progress as I can, because the same is true for every being I encounter. They're all in the same boat. And look, I'm fortunate enough to have the teachings that show me what I can do to make a difference. Then how can I not do something to help that bug? And we go, oh, that's ridiculous. It's just a bug. But no. Bodhichitta says all sentient beings, that means bugs too.

(57:54) Recognizing our own suffering is one thing, and we should use it to motivate ourselves to stop making that mistake that perpetuates it. But then recognizing that, oh my gosh, every being I see, I know I've heard about in realms I know of and in realms I don't, they're all in the same boat. Oh my gosh, oh my God. I've got to do something about that. That's taking our renunciation and turning it on to others. That's what grows our Bodhichitta. I've got to reach that state of omniscience that grows out of great compassion and wisdom so that I can influence those others in such a way that they can stop their suffering too. Bodhichitta.

So we can't grow our Bodhichitta without renunciation, renunciation for our own suffering. And then turn that to recognize everybody's suffering. That's where our Bodhichitta comes from.

Let's take a break. Get refreshed. We have a little more to do.

(60:00) I had previously said the word Bodhichitta can be used in two different ways. One is, it can mean ‚I want to reach my total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings’. Or it could mean the direct perception of ultimate reality. That state of mind that has that, not state of mind, that experience.

There's two more ways that the word Bodhichitta is used, is divided.

There's a homework question and even a final exam question that says, ‘What are the two meanings of Bodhichitta? Or what are the two ways to divide Bodhichitta?‘ 

It's not clear which one they're talking about. A careful student would say, there's two ways to divide Bodhichitta, into this way and that way. When you do that on your final exam, your final grader can give you extra credit. 

The Second Way of Dividing Bodhichitta: In Form of a Wish and as Action 

The second way of dividing the word Bodhichitta is Bodhichitta in the form of the wish and Bodhichitta in the form of action. 

Bodhichitta in the form of the wish means how wonderful it will be when I really can reach that state of being able to help others in that deep and ultimate way. So the feeling we get when we say, I want to reach my total Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Like ‘How wonderful it'll be when I can do that‘ is this wish to act like a Bodhisattva, this wish to do what I need to do to become a Buddha. But it's just that feeling. It's just the want, the want, the want to, the wish.

That's a great thing. That's a hugely powerful thing to just have the wish.

When we take that wish and we decide I'm going to do something about it, I'm going to do something with it, meaning I understand what I mean by those words of the wish enough to recognize that my behavior is the tool through which I create the me that's going to be able to help that other in that deep end ultimate way.

So when we take that heartfelt ‚Oh, I want to help everybody‘, and decide I've got to change my behavior to be able to do it, and then we do change our behavior. That's this other Bodhichitta. We are working at changing our world through our behavior, and that's another form of Bodhichitta.

In this arena of studying our vows, these two are the wish to live like a Bodhisattva but not actually doing it yet. And then the taking my Bodhisattva vows, which means I'm going to put that wish into action. 

When we put those vows into action, the action we're bringing on is training ourselves in the six perfections. Learning how to give and share and be more generous. That practice expands over time beyond just that kind of material generosity. It's giving love, it's giving safety, it's giving the wisdom, the dharma through which others can grow their own Bodhichitta. 

Moral discipline, choosing those behaviors really intentionally, consciously, to what to avoid, what to take up.

It's the seeds that creates safe world, a world of safety. 

Then the not getting angry, which the practice of patience, it has so many levels and leads into the practice of joyous effort. Meaning we get to a point where we're having a good time enjoying ourselves, whether things are pleasant or not, it's all opportunity to create these seeds for Buddhahood for everybody. So who cares whether you're last in line at the grocery store, or who cares whether you get the best seat at the theater? You're using it all and enjoying using it all, whether you feel good or not, et cetera. 

Then all of that, with your underlying meditative concentration, that also means our off cushion time concentration on our mindfulness of our behavior, ethical mindfulness, and all of that driven by our growing understanding of the marriage of karma and emptiness, also known as profound dependence. 

We can aspire to do all of that, and we can take our vows and start to try. Those are two different ways that the term Bodhichitta is divided. 

The Bodhisattva Vows

(67:43) The Bodhisattva vows are vows to avoid certain behaviors.

That's one thing. 

Then, we can take those vows to avoid and turn them into the positive to see what kind of behaviors to cultivate. As we're cultivating the positive, we are clearly not doing the negative. So we're both keeping our vows and more carefully planting the seeds that are more fun anyway for creating our future Buddhahood.

The scripture doesn't emphasize turning on the positive. But my guess is if you've been working with your six times book where you have a negative and a positive, you've already been doing it, and you've probably already recognized that it's a whole lot more fun to do the positive than just avoid the negative. So feel free to focus on the opposite of the Bodhisattva vows for your behavior. And as we learn the Bodhisattva vows, we will learn greater details about what it is we are avoiding as we keep our vow. That allows you to greater creativity at seeing, Oh, what does this look like in its positive, in life?

The Texts we are Studying

(69:30) For your homework, you still need to know the texts that we will be studying from. Geshela always carefully uses scripture as the source of his teachings on all of these subject matters. 

In your reading, you have these various parts of these various texts that will help us understand the vows and the meaning of the vowed behavior. These texts will also show us the ritual. They're the ceremony that we go through and what the master of ceremony does. What the disciple does. How you set up an altar. Everything you need to know about getting, keeping and fixing your vows comes out of these texts that you're going to hear about in the first class.

I only have the Tibetan for two of the texts.

Again, homeworks will say Tibetan track or English track. I don't teach the Tibetan track, so you're on English track, whether you want to be or not. But I'll share the Tibetan to help plant seeds to help keep the Tibetan language alive. That's why I do it. 

The first text that we'll be using, the name of it is JANGCHUB SHUNGLAM.

JANGCHUB is short for JANGCHUB SEMPA, which is Bodhisattva.

SHUNGLAM means central path. So Bodhisattva’s Central Path is the literal name of the text. Geshe Michael translates it as Highway for Bodhisattvas.

The highway is the road that you can go faster on, and it has few stoplights, so you can get from here to there more swiftly on a highway.

So this text is this text about how we become Bodhisattva, and from Bodhisattva to Buddha with few stoplights.

It was written by our hero Je Tsongkapa Lobsang Drakpa. We all know his dates 1357 to 1419. It's like a mantra. 

A second text we'll be studying from is NORBUY UTRENG. 

NORBUY = a jewel, like the wishing jewel

UTRENG, U means light and TRENG means string.

So String of Shining Jewels, the name of the text. By this man Geshe Tsewang Samdrup. Geshe is his title. Sumdrup. We don't know his dates exactly, I don't know why. But what we do know is that he was one of the teachers, one of the tutors of the 10th Dalai Lama, and the 10th Dalai Lama‘s dates were 1816 to 1837. He didn't live very long. So it meant his tutor was already an adult by 1816, and the Dalai Lama would be being tutored his whole life. He died at 21. So this author was an adult by 1816 and still alive 20 years later. You get the idea, early to mid 1800, this fellow Gshe Tsewang Samdrup. He must have known something if he was the tutor to that Dalai Lama. So this is a big Lama, this Geshe Tsweang Samdrup. 

He gives a summary and an explanation of all the vows. He speaks to ordination vows, he speaks to Bodhisattva vows, and he speaks to secret vows. For your reading, you won't get the secret vows part of Nobuy Utrang. But you will get the part of it that have to do with the Bodhisattva vows.

This text's reputation is that its explanation is concise and accurate. It's used a lot in the monastic training for how to keep those Bodhisattva vows, how to keep their ordained vows as well. We'll use it mainly and see how it explains Je Tsongkapa‘s text a little bit better.

(76:29) Pabongka Rinpoche, we know as the teacher of the Lam Rim that Geshela just finished teaching. He refers to this particular text as the only book you really need for all your vows, String of Shining Jewels.

Then, Geshehla also explains to us that all of these vows, of course, their original source is Lord Buddha's teachings. But Lord Buddha didn't just teach ‚These are all the Bodhisattva vows in one teaching‘, because that's not how they came about.

The Bodhisattva vows would come about according to some situation that happened that made it clear that it wasn't obvious to people that this behavior would bring about that result. So the Bodhisattva vows evolved through the course of Lord Buddha's teachings. He knew them all, he knew what was necessary. But you can't just lay out a bunch of rules and tell people ’Live like this‘ until people see that there's a reason to live like that somehow. 

In the Buddha‘s sutras can be found the different vowed behaviors that come to be put all together later and called the Bodhisattva vows. We've learned that the term sutra, a Sanskrit term, usually means a written text that came about as a result of something Lord Buddha taught verbally. 

Buddha didn't write his books down. They got written down later and we're told that he gave his approval before he passed for that to happen.

However, the word sutra can also mean a short book, and so rarely the term sutra is not a Lord Buddha text. Geshela is very careful to help us see the difference.

There is a sutra called the Sutra of the Essence of Space. I don't think you need this for your homework, but just in case. A Sutra of the Essence of Space. It has in it 13 of the 18 root Bodhisattva downfalls that we'll learn about. Number 5 through number 17 comes from the sutra called the Essence of Space.

There's another sutra called the Sutra of Skillful Means. It speaks about one of the root vows, number 18.

There are other sutras, of course, Geshela only gave us those two. 

Another text we'll be studying is a Arya Asanga‘s text called the Bodhisattva Levels.

In that text, Arya Asanga writes about the four root vows in his chapter on morality. 

Between the two sutras and Asanga‘s Bodhisattva Levels we have all the 18 root Bodhisattva vows being taught to us.

Another text we'll study from is by Master Shantideva. His dates are 685 to 763 AD (ca 700 AD, the exact dates differ in other publications).

He wrote his famous Guide to the Bodhisattva‘s Way of Life, and he wrote a less famous Compendium of Advice. In that compendium, all 18 root vows are put together in one place, apparently for the first time.

Then there's a text called the 20 Verses on Vows by someone named Master Chandragomi. His dates are 925 AD-ish. 

This apparently is the classic source for an explanation of the first four root vows and the 46 secondary Bodhisattva vows. We'll learn the difference between root vows and secondary vows.

Altogether we have 18 root vows and 46 secondary vows, which gives us 64 Bodhisattva vows covering most situations of our daily lives. Giving us guidelines of what behaviors, what reactions to avoid, and if we brainstorm their opposite, what positive behaviors to train ourselves in.

In english, when we hear the word vows, my mind would automatically go to the Catholic church and the nuns and monks. I totally misunderstood that religion growing up and I just thought, oh man, they get these vows and they're restricted. It's so strict and they can't do anything fun. It sounded like restrictions. 

Then technically, if we get married, we're taking vows. We say them as vows and we're in a sense committing ourselves to a relationship, which is putting a restriction on ourselves if we're thinking of it that way. But it's a misunderstanding of vows.

Because rather than restrictive, they're helpful guidelines and tools.

Two examples come to my mind. In the United States we have this old organization called Automobile Association of America, the AAA. It's an insurance company and it's a travel company. If you were a member and you had a driving trip coming up, which we used to do more of. You could go to them and say, I need to get from Los Angeles to New York City. Give me a map that will show me how to get there. Going through Memphis, stopping in Columbus, Ohio and ending up in New York City. 

They would make you a personal little travel bible. It would have a map of each section of road and it would actually have also information about the geography, and information about places to see along the way. Everything you needed to know to enjoy your trip and not miss anything along the way, and where to go if you had trouble and who to call. It was really all encompassing. They called it a Triptych.

To have this bible for your trip, you go page by page. Every 200 miles, you change a page so you have such ease in your trip, in your vacation, because it's all taken care of. You just follow the map and you can't get lost. Our vows are like that. Our AAA triptych to Buddhahood if we think of them like that. Not restrictions at all, but rather just follow the program and it'll go so easy.

My other example about vows isn't exactly about vows, but this experience where years ago we decided to become vegetarian for ethical reasons. Back in 1989 it was kind of hard to be vegetarian in Tucson then. But I was in a job position where I was making decisions all day long for people. When I finished work, I didn't want to make another decision. I didn't care what I ate, I didn't care what time I went to bed. It's just like, don't ask me to make any decision. 

We'd go out to dinner and it's like this whole menu full, you had to make decisions. So I didn't like going out to dinner. Then we became vegetarian and just about anywhere you went, there'd be two options on the menu. You could have a salad or you could have a burrito with beans. It's like, ah, it's so easy to go out to dinner now. 

No decision, this or that. So easy. 

Having Bodhisattva vows is kind of like that too. All these other choices of behaviors, they're just not available anymore. Because I have these lists that I go by. They're not restrictions, they make life easier. Do you see?

Hopefully you'll see that as well from our Bodhisattva vows. Otherwise we struggle with them. If we see them as restrictions, our own subconscious does not want to do them. If we see them as our AAA Triptych to Happiness: What page am I on? Let's go. Let's do it.

Geshela says, try them on for size. When you learn them, as we learn them, try them on for size. Don't take them as vows. Just see what it feels like to avoid those behaviors and do their opposites, and see if life's not just a little bit more fun.

When you come to the conclusion, oh my gosh, I can do this. That's when you would say, let me take my vows to do this.

Then the power of them just takes off after that. 

We'll learn. There's actually a ceremony where you commit yourself to growing the wish, to just trying them on for size without having vows. Then there's another ceremony that you do when you decide to take the vows formally.

But curiously, the ceremony is the same. We'll talk about it, how you know which one you're doing. That'll be another class.

That actually completes our class 1 really early. I'm going to put those extra minutes in the bank. Because there'll be classes where I need extra time, and then I will have it for you. But I will let us go early unless there's questions.

Actually, there's one more question on the homework. Question 8 that Geshehla said, Get it from the reading. Although I have time to cover it, I'm going to do the same. Get question 8 from the reading. If you have trouble finding it, let me know. It's about a verse from Three Principal Paths about all beings are your mother, and they're stuffed in a steel cage of grasping self. In your reading, it talks about the meaning of that and that's your question 8. Okay.

Class Dedication

Remember that being you wanted to be able to help at the beginning of class. 

We have learned stuff that we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way. And that's an extraordinary goodness. So please be happy with yourself. Think of this goodness, like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands.

Recall your own precious, holy guide. See how happy they are with you.

Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them.

Ask them to please, please stay close, to continue to guide you, help you, inspire you, support you. And then offer them this gemstone of goodness.

See them accept it and bless it, and they carry it with them right back into your heart. 

See them there. Feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good. We want to keep it forever. And so we know to share it,

By the power of the goodness that we've just done

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom

And thus gain the two ultimate bodies

That merit and wisdom make. 

Use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere.

See them all filled with happiness, filled with the wisdom of loving kindness. 

And may it be so.

Thank you again for the opportunity to share. That break between end of October and now was too long, too long for me. I won't let it do that. I won't let my schedule do that again. Okay. Thanks for being here. I will see you again Thursday.

Vocabulary Class 2

TU SOM GOM study, contemplate, meditate upon it

NYECHU DOMPAY TSULTRIM morality of restraining yourself from bad deeds

1. 10 Non-Virtues (3 for body, 4 for speech and 3 for mind)

2. Vowed morality (for ordained monks and nuns, novice monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, one day vows

GEWAY CHU DUPAY TSULTRIM morality of collecting goodness

SEMCHEN DUNJE KYI TSULTRIM morality of working for the good of living beings

Pratimoksha (Sk) vows Freedom Vows (not hurting others)

Bodhisattva vows Vows to help others and be considerate of them

1. TSATUNG root vows, literal: primary fall down, 18 vows

2. NYEJE secondary vows, literal: bad did, 46 vows

Vajrayana vows Diamond Way Vows

For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 7, class 2. It's January 23rd, 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do please.

Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[General Class Opening]

Review Class 1

(7:42) Last class, we learned the principle commentary that we're using to study the Bodhisattva vows, and that principle commentary is the Heart Sutra, right? No.

So you're saying it's some other text? Who's going to say yes? The first one to say yes. Raz, you can tell us what it is.

(Raz) It's Highway for Bodhisattvas by Je Tsongkapa Lobsang Drakpa.

(Lama Sarahni) Perfect. Highway for Bodhisattvas, which means how you get there, right? A highway is the road you take to get there. So it's not rules for Bodhisattvas. It's how you get there. Geshehla pointed out that that's a big difference. To our minds it's a big difference to read a book that tells us how to get there versus a book of rules. Technically it's the book of the vows, which seems like rules. But think of it as your AAA triptych. That doesn't mean anything to any of you but me and Mike. But anyway. 

Then we learned that there's another summary of the precepts that we'll be studying from. That summary is Diamond Cutter Sutra, right? 

No, it's some other text. Francisco, what is that other text? 

(Francisco) String of Shining Jewels by Geshe Tswewang Samdrup.

(Lama Sarahni) Beautiful. From around the 18 hundreds. Geshehla points out that he called his text a String of Shining Jewels referring to all these different vowed behaviors were going to learn. It's like this necklace of beautiful, valuable, attractive, precious necklace that we wear around our neck outside our clothing, so that other beings will actually see. We'll learn about our vows. That we actually get an instruction in the vowel taking ceremony to not advertise your vows, like ‚I have Bodhisattva vows and I'm keeping number 26 right now.‘ 

But rather wear them like a beautiful necklace, meaning your behavior will reveal that you know something special, that you are someone special just by your behavior being these shining jewels like a necklace. It's really beautiful to hear that insight into the title of a text that's basically, here's what you have to do, this, this, this, this, and this.

Then your homework asked you for Lord Maitreya‘s definition of Bodhichitta, the short definition. I don't remember actually saying this is Lord Maitreya‘s short definition, because we know that already. But I do remember saying it. I'm going to challenge you. Anybody remember it in Tibetan? We didn't do it in this class, but we were supposed to memorize it. And in I forget which course, 2 I think. Anybody remember? Want to try? Yes, no. Yes, no. Okay. How about in English?

(Julia) The wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all living beings.

(Lama Sarahni) Perfect. (…) Nice. Thank you. 

SEMKYE PA NI SHENDUN CHIR YANGDAK DZOKPAY JANGCHUB DU

Remember that? Anyway, comes again later.

Then, why do we want to get enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings?

Because they're suffering. When in doubt, answer any question, ‘Because they're suffering‘. 

We learned that all suffering in the desire realm can be found in one of three different types. I want to make up a wrong reason of those types. One of the types is the kind of suffering you have at night. One of the types is the suffering you have during the day. And one of the sufferings is the type you have when you're dreaming, right?

No, you're saying there are other three kinds of sufferings. Claire nodded her head. Okay, so what are those three kinds of sufferings?

(Claire) The first kind is suffering of suffering. It's mental or physical pain. The second type is suffering of change. It means that all good things must end. And the third type of suffering is pervasive suffering. It means that old age, illness and death, and everything, our existence is imbued with suffering.

(Lama Sarahni) Yeah, very good, very good. And those are all caused by eating the wrong kinds of food, right?

(Claire) By our mental afflictions, which trigger karma.

(Lama Sarahni) Right. Mental afflictions, which trigger karma, perfectly. Mental afflictions and what they motivate, which is karma.

All of that suffering is due to karma, behavior, how we interact with others. Sweet. Thank you.

Lastly on your homework was explain those lines from the reading that were actually from the Three Principle Paths that said, 

They're swept along on four fierce river currents chained up tight in past deeds, hard to undo, stuffed in the steel cage of grasping self smothered in the pitch black ignorance.

Who would like to give us a commentary on that verse? Anybody? Olga. 

(Olga) It's like meaning all beings have been our mother, and all they are in this cycle of pain because of their past deeds. Meaning this steel cage is this grasping to self existence. So basically we want to develop this wish, because we are the only ones that can save them.

(Lama Sarahni) Nice, nice. Those four fierce river currents are the forced rebirth, sickness, aging—in any order—and death, and then the forced rebirth. We're stuck in that cycle in that river, and further stuck inside a cage of selfishness because of our misunderstanding. That very river with the four currents is caused by the results of our behavior that's pushed by our misunderstanding where results really come from. So well said Olga. 

This verse is about growing our Bodhichitta, our wish to help all those beings. Every single one is stuffed in that steel cage of grasping self. But you know what? So are we. We recognize it for ourselves first and have had the goodness to hear someone say, look, it's unnecessary. It's a big mistake. We can not only get out of that cage but disintegrate it completely. And then it is like, what can do that for me, can everybody do it too? We come to recognize that in fact, to be able to do it for ourselves, we need to see ourselves trying to do it for others—who technically have to do it themselves. But without others we can't do it our ourself in order to become the one that shows the others how to do it for themselves. Do you see? We all need each other. In some very weird way, we all need each other stuffed in the steel cage. Like sorry, we start there and to grow the ability to help others, we try to help others even though until we're omniscient, we can't help the others. But by trying we create the goodness that sees our qualities grow to the point where we can in fact help the others. By then we've shown them how to help others, help others. So by the time we get there, a whole lot of other people are also getting there, maybe even ahead of us because of our ability to help them help others, you see? It really is this amazing, beautiful upward spiral that comes from just trying.

That's what's so sweet about this whole morality that we speak about. It sounds so black and white. You either do your vows or you break your vows, and there is a component of that. But when we look at life and they say, Oh, make other people happy, and that's how you get happy. Have you noticed that there's really nothing you can do that will make somebody happy?

We can try. We work out something really special and detailed for somebody special, and we do it for them and they go, oh, nice. Or they even go, what are you doing? They even get mad because their reaction to what we did for them is unrelated to what we did for them, isn't it?

But we had in mind, I'm going to do this for them, because I want to make them happy. And that was in your imprint. Now, the apparent result was they got upset and oh my gosh, have I ever gotten upset before when somebody did something nice for me? Yeah. So not a surprise, we might get a nasty result to something we did that was trying to be kind. But it doesn't negate the kind seeds we were trying to plant. 

I hope that's helpful in our effort to keep our vowed behavior, that the immediate result that you get does not reflect whether you were successful at keeping your vow or not. It's an important piece.

How to become a being who can help others in an ultimate way? TU SOM GOM

(22:50) How do we become the kind of being who can help others and their suffering forever? The teachings say, TU SOM GOM. We've heard that before.

It means study—TU, meaning hearing classroom hours. The teacher talking head conveying information to you. Geshela says just thousands and thousands and thousands of hours, because of the seed imprinting that we're doing while we're sitting there listening to recordings, doesn't have to be live, et cetera. Lots and lots of study. 

SOM means contemplation, meaning think about what you just learned. Not just memorize it, not just do the homeworks, although do the homeworks. But really think about the ramifications of it. Do I agree with it? Is that what my life shows? Think about it.

GOM means meditate. Meditate on it. The term GOM does mean meditate, but it means meditate in the sense of habituate it too. I love that version of the word. Meditation means deep, single pointed concentration on the objects such that you can penetrate to its true nature. GOM means getting so familiar with the concept, the idea, the instructions, that we can actually live by it. We can use it to help us choose our behavioral reactions to pleasant and unpleasant circumstances.

To get used to something means it becomes easy to do. Even on the verge of automatic. How cool would it be to have your Bodhisattva vows be your automatic behavior?

TU SOM GOM is what we do to grow these qualities in ourselves such that we can see ourselves being able to help that other in that deep end ultimate way. 

The GOM, the habituating. When we say that the habituation shows in our behavior choices, what we're talking about is morality, discipline.

Every interaction we have with an other has some component of morality in it. 

What does it mean, morality? What does it mean, virtue and non virtue, good karma, bad karma.

We finished course 5 a little while ago and we learned those definitions of white karma, black karma, neutral karma, good karma, bad karma and merit, didn't we? #

They were pretty specific. The bottom line being a deed done whose result is unpleasant, was a deed that was unkind. A deed done whose result is pleasant for us, for the doer of the deed, was a deed done with kindness. But the problem as you know, is that we do the deed now. It plants a seed in our mind and that seed doesn't ripen necessarily even in this lifetime, let alone in a way in which we can connect: I did this deed, I got that result.

We have an automatic state of mind that says, I do this deed now and the next thing that happens is its result. I stick the car key in the ignition, I turn it. The next thing that happens from turning the key is the car starts up. Therefore turning the key must start the car. 

Is that true? It happens, but it is not in fact cause and effect. It seems like it's cause and effect. But there comes a day when you do that same thing and the car does not start. Which if it ever happens differently, then that means that that action is not in fact the cause of that result, because it means it was depending on something else that wasn't there that one time.

How many times have we done something for someone thinking we're helping them, and we insulted them instead. Or doing something even with a good intention and it goes wrong.

We had a mouse problem. We got a live trap instead of the killer trap, and we caught our little mouse and that little mouse was so ferocious about getting out of that trap that it pushed its nose through the little square. It cut its nose and the nose swelled so it couldn't get the nose out. It's like, I was trying to be nice to the mouse and I hurt it. It was horrible. And that happens a lot. We try so hard to be kind.

In college, when I would go home to visit my parents, I would always clean my mother's kitchen for her, and she loved it. She didn't like cleaning the kitchen. It's not that it was dirty, I just knew that I could please her by giving it a good clean. So I went to visit David's parents one time, and his mom was out doing some volunteer work, so I cleaned her kitchen for her. She was so insulted and angry with me, I don't think we ever got over it. I was like, how could she be upset by that? It was just like this. I see now it's just totally karmic result. 

It took me a long time before I figured out that oh my gosh, I do that. I do that to David. He goes out of his way to do something special for me. I don't get mad, but it's just like, oh, nice, thank you. And he still tells this story about one of those times. 

We think we're doing some really big kindness, and then our result is they didn't like it. What's the matter with them? 

Vows as Guidelines

(32:28) Similarly, we have these cultural norms that we use to guide our behavior.

For instance, in the United States, many years ago it was illegal to drink alcohol, to even have alcohol and to make alcohol. I don't know how long that lasted, but then pretty soon it was not illegal anymore, and now it's acceptable practice and it just becomes illegal if you're younger than 21 I think. 

Yet, the effect of alcohol on one's mind is the same kind of negativity, whether it's legal or illegal, it's still harmful. We choose what's acceptable behavior or not according to our laws, according to our culture, according to what mom and dad taught us, and just go along with believing they're right because everybody does it. 

Again, how this seed is planted, governs how it's going to come back—whether everybody does it or not doesn't make much difference when it's coming back to us in this negative way.

Because of this factor that we can't directly see, what we do now, what result that's going to bring. It's beneficial to have guidelines and reasoning to be able to follow the guidelines of someone who's been there, done that, so that we can trust their guidelines. And have the reasoning to be able to at least get an idea of how if I see myself lying to somebody, it makes sense that I will get lied to. To be able to reason that out helps us even when it seems like we can tell a little white lie and get some positive result. If we remember, oh, being lied to can only be a result of having lied to somebody else. The strength of our blaming that other person for the hurt we feel from their lying to us helps us not react so badly to them.

When we see it's like, oh my karmic seeds made them do that. 

Did they do it? Did they lie? Yes.

Was it unpleasant? Yes.

Should we blame them for it? A little bit, but ultimately, no.

It does not mean put yourself in harm's way and just have compassion for the mugger who's going to beat you up for your wallet. It does not mean that.

But to have these—two guidelines and logic—helps us decide to choose our behavior. It's self empowering, that personal responsibility aspect. Really, it's hard to take personal responsibility when you don't know what's going to bring a good result and what's not. But when we have guidelines and logic, now the personal responsibility becomes doable, not always perfectly. We'll talk about what we do when we try and don't get it quite right.

(37:22) We're talking about morality because every circumstance of me and my world is the ripening results of some behavior that created the causes for that result.

What I perceive myself thinking, doing, saying towards others is the cause for what I perceive other thinking, saying, doing towards me.

If I want a world where I, let alone others, also experience nothing but pleasantness, I would have to be aware of myself thinking, saying, and doing nothing but pleasantness to others, right? Doing pleasantness towards others is what we mean by morality. Being kind is what we mean by morality.

Not following rules, not having laws. It's just plain choosing kindness to the best of our ability no matter what. That's the hard part. The no-matter-what is the hard part.

Morality is refusing to be unkind to another, no matter what. Being kind, no matter what.

Our ordinary human mind: But what about me? Yeah, but they're going to take advantage of me. But I'm going to get walked on. 

Only if we have taken advantage of others walked on others, right?

The Three Types of Morality

(40:10) Je Tsongkapa teaches us that there are three types of morality to master in order to truly gather the goodness that will serve as the causes for the results of reaching Buddhahood.

Technically, no matter how much we want to become Buddhas, just the wishing, the wanting is not powerful enough until we apply ourselves to the behavior that creates the goodness that will force us to see ourselves in that way when it ripens.

It's a different idea. I want to be a Buddha. ‘I'm going to make myself a Buddha‘ is different than ‘I'm going to make the karmic seeds that will force me to see myself as a Buddha someday‘. It lands us right back into the here and now, whereas the other state of mind seems to be over there in the future—I'm going to be a Buddha someday. 

We just won't ever get there if we're not making the causes for it now, and now, and now, and now, and now. 

He says it takes fierce efforts to learn about and then train ourselves in these new behaviors.

There are these three levels or three types of morality, three types of being kind no matter what. There are three types of vows that correspond to the three levels of morality, although not quite directly.

The three levels of morality are in the Tibetan:

NYECHU DOMPAY TSULTRIM the morality of restraining ourselves from harmful deeds

GEWAY CHU DUPAY TSULTRIM

SEMCHEN DUNJE KYI TSULTRIM

Guess what word is morality? TSULTRIM, TSULTRIM, TSULTRIM

TSULTRIM means morality, being kind no matter what.

1. The Morality of Restraining from Harmful Deeds

This first one, NYECHU means bad deeds.

We see in our reading good deeds, bad deeds all over the place. I don't like those two words. They sound too black and white. Kind deeds and unkind deeds, we could say. But that sort of waters it down a little bit.

So I'll just say that, if when you hear me saying good deeds, bad deeds, you get a little resistance in your heart because they sound so judgmental. I'm feeling that too. I'll try to modify it, but I don't want to water it down. There are things we do that are unkind and they'll come back to us as unpleasant. 

There are things, like the same thing, I could say, that's a bad dean and it's going to come back to you as unpleasant. That's what makes it a bad deed. That's what I mean. But it drives it home, doesn't it? To hear it as bad or good, but I'm going to not use it so much, because I don't like the judgmentalness of it. 

NYECHU means bad deeds, unkind deeds.

DOMPAY means restraint and TSULTRIM is morality.

So this first level of morality is the morality of restraining ourselves from harmful deeds. Harmful deeds being a deed that when it comes back to us will be experienced as unpleasant, as ourselves being harmed in some way.

The morality of restraining ourselves from making negative karma. 

Again, what's a negative karma? What's a bad deed?

Any deed we do, which brings us suffering as a result. It really doesn't include the other. What makes a karma a negative karma is that when it comes back to us, we will not like it. It's really simple.

Any thought, any word, any action that brings harm to others or yourself is said to be a bad deed, a negative karma. Geshela says it's saying the same thing. To say a deed that brings harm to another, and a deed that brings harm to myself. Those are synonyms, aren't they?

When we have these vows that we choose to follow, it's not because Buddha gave us these rules and we have to follow them because Buddha gave them to us. It's not because Buddha will get mad at us. It's not because God will get mad at us.

It's because those deeds make imprints in our minds that must bring about a result that will be similar and bigger.

1. 10 Non Virtues

There's two parts to this first level of morality, the morality of restraining from harmful deeds.

The first part, or give yourselves two categories in this kind of morality, is the avoiding the 10 non virtues.

Buddha teaches there's 84,000 mental afflictions that motivate our behaviors. Geshela pointed out, they say there are 84,000 Buddha teachings.

Do you think that's a coincidence? I don't think every teaching addresses one mental affliction, but there's something about that number. Actually we'll learn more about numbers later, long time later.

Out of those 84,000 mental afflictions, there are apparently these top 10 that instigate all the other 83,990. If we can work with those 10, all the rest becomes secondary. 

We know these top 10 non virtues. There are 3 of body, 4 of speech, and 3 of mind. Remember the 3 of body are: 

1. killing—taking life, 

2. Stealing—taking anything of value, whether you think it's of value or somebody else thinks it's of value, or the owner that you took it from thinks it's of value. It itself has no value other than what somebody thinks it is valued at. So why would you take something that you didn't think was valuable? It must be under there somewhere to take something from somebody. 

3. Interfering with another's committed relationship, any kind of relationship. 

Why are those negative deeds? 

Because the result of taking life is guess what? Your life gets taken.

The result of taking something of value is your valuables get taken.

The result of interfering with relationships is your relationships get interfered with.

Not in the exact same way necessarily, but in any way that's unpleasant.

Then we have the four of speech:

1. Lying, which means giving a false impression

2. Divisive speech, means speaking badly of others to somebody else because it means that the one you're speaking to will think a little less highly of the one you're speaking badly about.

3. Harsh speech, means your speech that's hurting somebody and

4. Idle or useless speech, gossip, et cetera.

Again, why are those negative deeds? Is there something bad in those words, those letters than sounds that you put together?

No, it's how it's going to come back to us.

Is it pleasant to be lied to? You could make a case. Like yeah, if I've got, I was going to say if I've got terminal cancer and my doctor lies to me and says, you've probably got six months, and he's thinking to himself, I think she's got three days. Then my belief that I've got six months may actually give me six months instead of the three days that he's really thinking I've got. Maybe it'd be nice to be lied to. Showing that it isn't actually something in the lying that hurts, it's when we're lied to and it hurts. 

That's the result of the kind of lying that we're talking about here. Lying to get some personal advantage.

Divisive speech. The result of divisive speech would be, you're in a group of people and nobody respects you. They look down on you, they can't see any good qualities as a result of having pointed out the negative qualities of somebody to somebody else. You're going to have the experience that people see you in that way. That's unpleasant.

Harsh speech. Harsh speech comes back to us as harsh speech, harsh sounds, harsh noises, lousy songs, out of tune pianos, harsh, unpleasant sounds. 

Idle, useless comes back to us as useless, boring, uninterested in what's going on. Our own mind ripens that. 

The 3 of mind:

1. Coveting or craving is the first one. 

2. Ill will and 

3. Wrong view.

All of these have various levels of meaning. Coveting or craving, we often call it jealousy, but it's really more than that. At one level it's wanting what another has, and because they have it and we don't, that's where the jealousy comes in. That's where it's unpleasant. 

Our human reaction to that is, well, they don't deserve that, I do. And we like them a little less. We may or may not actually do something to get the thing from them that would be pretty like out there. But we like them a little less, and if we like them a little less, we're going to be a little less nice to them than we would if we liked them. Just human nature. 

Another way of saying this craving or coveting is being unhappy when someone gets something they want or they get something that you want. Just being unhappy.

Then ill will is being happy when someone else gets hurt. Usually we're happy when someone else who's getting hurt is somebody we don't like, or somebody who has hurt us. It's like, yeah, right. They made that karma, they hurt me. We're even rejoicing a little bit in their ripening negative karma.

Whose karma is it to see them have that? Yeah. Oh shoot, man, I thought I had it worked out right so I could blame them for their own bad karma.

Then wrong view, one wrong view is believing that we cannot reach total enlightenment. Another level of wrong view is not believing that karma is true, not understanding karma accurately.

If we don't believe that our current behavior brings us some personal result, then we believe that we can get away with things. There's no correlation between our behavior and our experiences. So what does it matter whether I'm kind or not? Without understanding this correlation of behavior and experience, morality just goes out the doorway.

That wrong view is actually the most serious of them. We can believe I can't possibly reach total enlightenment, and if we still believe that our behavior creates our future experiences, we could create a nudge of goodness that misbelief in our ability to become Buddhas will change. 

But if we don't believe in karma and consequences, we won't do enough goodness to bring us to the understanding of karma and its consequences. As so the worst wrong view is to not believe that our behavior creates our future circumstances.

I don't believe that modern civilization doesn't believe in karma. Almost every culture, religion has some level of ‘we reap what we sow‘. It's just on a pretty superficial level, and fortunately we have the goodness to have heard a deeper explanation of that such that we can apply our own reasoning to see how that truth ‘we reap what we sow‘ applies to every moment in every circumstance.

Again, it puts some personal power into our own hands. It's my behavior that's going to create my future, so we can do something now about life in our circumstances. Then the leap of faith is how long is it going to take before I see the result? I'm working on some things that it just seems to be taking a really long time. It's getting frustrating.

Let's take a break and we'll go into the second level of morality.

(61:10) We're still inside this first kind of morality, the morality of restraining from harmful deeds. We had the basic ones, avoid the 10 non virtues.

2. Vowed Morality - The 8 Kinds of Vows

The second category of this is called vowed morality. Geshela did not give us the Tibetan, but I think it's, DULWA TSULTRIM, which means vowed morality.

We don't take vows to avoid the 10 non virtues, because we wouldn't be able to keep them well enough. The 10 non virtues are so ubiquitous. 

But we do get specific vowed morality to follow that we can keep, at least well enough. 

There are eight kinds of vowed morality. Vowed morality means you take a vow in front of someone that says, ‘I determined to avoid these behaviors‘. Then our task is to actually avoid those behaviors.

In order to prepare our minds for receiving our Bodhisattva vows, the scripture says we would want to have been working with one or more of these eight vowed moralities for some period of time. Because in doing so, we would be planting a lot of goodness that would help sustain our ability to receive the Bodhisattva vows and to be able to live by them. That's why we're talking about these 8 kinds of vowed moralities:

1. Number one, not meaning the first one that you would take, but the highest of them I suppose you could say, is a fully ordained monk‘s vows. There are 253 vows that a fully ordained monk lives by. We'll learn more details in course 9. 

2. Fully ordained nun‘s vows. Nuns get 364. We tend to go, why do nuns have more? But recall that the more vows you have, the more goodness you make and the faster your progress. So it's like yay, we have more vows. 

3. Intermediate nuns vows. They get 42.

4. Novice monks, 36 and 

5. Novice nuns, 36 and they're the same 36

Those are all ordained people vows. Typically once you're ordained, one of the vows is to wear the robes or something equivalent. Traditionally, one would live in a monastery and own nothing. You would give everything away, move into the monastery, and own nothing but your robes and your begging bull and your mala probably. Nowadays in the west we really don't have access to that. So although there are western people ordained in the Tibetan tradition, they still need to make their own living and have their own place. It gets tricky to keep all of those vows and you get instructed in how to do that.

That's one through five. Then six, seven and eight are lay person vows, sets of vows for laypeople, not ordained.

6. Lifetime layman's vows, 6 and 

7. Lifetime lay woman's vows, 7, of which there are five and they are the same five. Why they distinguish between men's vows and women's vows? I don't know.

8. One day vows. The one day vows is a set of vows that we have taken a ceremony from someone who has them for the first time, and then we can give them to ourselves repeatedly whenever we feel the need. Those eight vows are vows that guide us in living for 1x24 hour period of time, like an ordained person. You do all the same avoidances that an ordained person does, but only for a 24 hour period of time. To do so means that you spend the day mostly at home, you eat before noon, you contemplate and meditate and study instead of whatever you would usually do on a Sunday for 24 hours. You are doing exceptionally goodness of avoiding the usual harms that we make by going out for a cross all in the morning, and then doing the things we do on a usual Sunday day and night. It's a way of gathering goodness to from time to time give yourself the one day vows. 

The scripture says, to keep number 1-7 of these vows—any one of 1-7 of these vows—well before you elect to take Bodhisattva vows will be what we do to prepare ourselves to receive our Bodhisattva vows. Technically that one day vows is not enough to prepare us for Bodhisattva vows. But my guess what they mean by that is if you only do it now and then, so there are some people who aren't. Well, I know one woman who, she was in retreat, she was not ordained, and she took the one day vows every morning in retreat.

She was living every day like an ordained person during this retreat that she was in. When she finished that retreat, she marched to her preceptor and said, ‚Please give me ordination‘, because she saw that she could do it, at least in retreat.

I would propose that if you use your one day vows frequently enough, they would serve as qualifying factors for getting your Bodhisattva vows. But most of us don't do that.

That said, typically in one's Buddhist career, if you weren't born into Buddhism, you would ask for formal refuge in which we get given 12 refuge advices. They're not vows, they're often called vows, but they're not. We practice living according to our refuge advices for a while. We learn more. At some point we learned about the five lay vows and we might go to our teacher and say, please would you grant me the five vows?

They would say, do you really think you can keep all five? Our tradition gives all five or none at all. Other traditions say, you pick which ones of the fives you want to keep and we'll build on them. Our tradition says, all or nothing.

Then you live according to those five for a while, and then you go back to the teacher when you're ready. I'm ready for my Bodhisattva vows and I'll show you why. I've lived this way according to my refuge advices. I've been working on my lay vows, I think I'm ready. Then they'll agree or they won't. 

I don't see that pattern happening so much in our lineage. Because it's this rare opportunity that everybody's there and you can get your refuge five lay and Bodhisattva vows all in one fell swoop. It's because we're ready to get that. So Geshehla has said, that's fine. But if you yourself want to do it in this more stepwise fashion, feel free to connect with your teacher and say, ‚Give me these things slowly and let me really work on them so that I know I'm really prepared well, when I'm ready to formalize my Bodhisattva vows.‘ By then you've already been living according to them to some extent, and so you are already gathering goodness. But once you have them as vowed behaviors, as we've heard before, the amount of goodness we make having Bodhisattva vows is greater in moments than when we just determine I'm going to live like this without having the vow. 

These vows are guidelines for behaviors, not restrictions on your personal happiness. When we understand them in that way, they free us because all that, ‘Do I do this? Do I do that?‘ It just falls away. Here's what I do. It makes life easier, fewer decisions.

3. Freedom Vows—Pratimoksha Vows

(73:45) When we are ready to take any of our vows, on the day that we're receiving the vows— the scripture reminds us—we want to have our intention to keep those vowed behaviors really, really strong in our mind. 

The freedom vows is what we're talking about now, Pratimioksha vows. Those vows are said to stay in our mindstream until the end of this life. 

When we take our five lifetime lay vows, for instance, we would want to have very strongly in mind, in heart mind, I want these vows because I intend to keep them for the rest of my life.

There apparently have been instances where people would say, I want these vows and I'm going to try them on for size for the next year. Or I'm going to keep these vows while I'm in retreat, but not when I'm out. Nobody knows that this is what is going on in your heart or mind except the Buddhas. But nobody else in the audience knows what your motivation is. It's up to us to have it strongly and the preceptor, their job is to remind you and to inspire you and have you have that in your heart at the time you're getting the vows. But it's not like something we can just turn on and off. That's why working with the Pratimoksha vows (???) when we get our Bodhisattva vows. Bodhisattva vows are imprinted in us in such a way that they go on forever. They don't end at this lifetime because of the vastness of the wish, would be my guess. I haven't heard an explanation of why. But they're based on the wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, and that's going to take more than a lifetime.

That brings us to the second level of morality.

2. The Morality of Collecting Goodness

(76:33) GEWAY CHU DUPAY TSULTRIM

GEWAY means goodness. CHU DU means collecting. 

This morality is the morality of collecting goodness, kindness.

The avoiding harming are the deeds that we do to stop perpetuating suffering, and the morality of collecting goodness are the deeds that we do that plant the seeds that through which we will go on to become those enlightened beings. Whether the enlightened being we mean we will become is a Nirvana being, or the enlightened being we intend to become as a fully enlightened being that. The difference will come in the third morality. 

These are how we collect the two great masses of good energy that will push us to Nirvana and beyond, eventually. This is the method deeds and the wisdom deeds.

In our dedication prayer, we dedicate that other beings collect the collections of merit and wisdom that make the two ultimate bodies. This is what we're talking about here.

The method deeds means collecting those good deeds that will bring about the physical body of our Buddha.

The wisdom deeds are collecting the wisdom that will bring about your mind of your Buddha you—the omniscient mind and the direct perception of the no self nature of every existing thing simultaneously with the appearing nature. 

Those two combined are called the practice of the six perfections. Which is what Bodhisattvas do.

The first 4 (of the 6 perfections), 4 1/2 says Geshehla, make up the method deeds: 

1. Our practice of giving real things, but also giving love, giving protection, giving the understanding of how to change their world, giving the Dharma.

2. The deeds of morality, here refusing to be unkind no matter what. Meaning doing the previous level of morality, but now with this a little higher motivation.

3. Not getting angry when our natural habit would be to do so. Not getting angry doesn't mean suppressing that feeling of anger when it comes out. It means there it is, but I'm not going to do what it's making me think I should do. Every time we don't react in the way our anger says we should react, we've burned it off and planted something different. Eventually the situation will be there and that feeling won't even come. But it takes time. It takes repeated being in it and responding differently. So it's not just patience, or forbearance, or tolerance. None of those words quite get what we're talking about here.

4. Joyful effort, having a good time doing our good deeds. When you look back at the giving, the moral discipline, the not getting angry, this having a good time doing all of those is what makes joyous effort. At first we have to push ourselves to give more and more of ourselves, and it's not so fun. But as we get less and less attached to our things, to our time, to our reputation, to whatever it is that we're using to give, it does get more fun to be sharing what we have, who we are. When we're less attached to our stuff in our time, it's easier to choose not to be unkind in a situation where somebody is threatening our stuff. You see, as we're less attached to our things, then it's easier to do not killing, not stealing, not sexual misconduct. When we have less attachment to things. Then as our avoiding harming gets more effortless, then our not getting angry gets easier as well, because our blaming the others factor has been shipped away on our perfection of morality. It's more pleasant actually to be in an unpleasant situation and not react badly, starts to actually become pleasant. So you're having a good time when good things are happening, you're sharing them. When bad things are happening, you're burning them off and planting something different, and you're just enjoying yourself regardless of your outer circumstance.

The first four, creating the seeds for your physical body of Buddha, which will be the body that's enjoying its own paradise and the body that's emanating as what anybody else needs or wants at the moment. Cool.

Then concentration and wisdom are cultivated. The concentration is cultivated so that our mindfulness in our giving moral discipline, not getting angry, joyous effort increases. As that mindfulness increases our goodness, our concentration on our cushion gets deeper and those feed each other to the point where our concentration on our cushion can be at the level from which we can turn our minds to the true nature of our object of contemplation. Getting deeper and deeper glimpses into the empty nature and dependent origination nature of every part, of every moment of the three spheres. Growing our wisdom all the way to the direct perception of ultimate reality from which we can now do our giving, moral discipline, not getting angry, joyous effort and even meditative concentration with the wisdom that we now have that before we were cultivating.

This beautiful cycle again comes up. 

(85:45) It turns out that when we're avoiding harming with the 10 and then the vows, we end up doing the kinds of things that we're guided to do with our four and last two perfections. The first level of morality feeds into the second level of morality, and the second level of morality helps us fine tune our first level of morality. They go together.

We're not training in new actions. We're doing the same behavior that we're training ourselves in, but with this different quality of mind, different motivation.

3. The Morality of Working for the Good of Living Beings

The third kind of morality is SEMCHEN DUNJE KYI TSULTRIM

What is SEMCHEN? Anybody remember?

(Claire) Living being. 

(Lama Sarahni) Living being, implying suffering, living, being. Buddhas are not SEMCHEN. They are living beings, but they're not included in SEMCHEN, suffering living beings.

DUNJE means working for the good of living beings.

The morality of working for the benefit of sentient beings. I don't know why they don't say Che Chen TAMJE SEMCHEN, which would be all sentient beings. But that's what we're talking about here.

This morality is doing the first two moralities, restraining from harming and gathering goodness with the state of mind of doing so because of our wish to help others stop their suffering forever. The other two moralities done with Bodhichitta is this third morality.

We won't get to the third morality without working on the first two. We don't have to wait to add the third morality until we've somehow perfected the first and perfected the second. We're working on them all together.

When we are Mahayanists, growing our wisdom, the practice all comes together. But they are three different levels of morality and one could be a practitioner of just the morality of avoiding harming.

Again, to review, the three types of morality are

1. the morality of restraining from harmful deeds,

2. the morality of collecting goodness and 

3. the morality of working for the good of all others. 

The Relationship of the 3 Kinds of Vows–Individual Freedom Vows, Bodhisattva Vows, Tantric Vows

To practice those three, we get three types of vows.

1. We get our Pratimoksha vows. Pratimoksha is Sanskrit, it means personal liberation vows.

2. Bodhisattva is also Sanskrit, and then 

3. Vajrayana vows. 

These don't directly correlate, Pratimoksha with avoiding harming, although it seems to, and Bodhisattva with collecting goodness. Because Bodhisattvas are collecting goodness for the benefit of all others. 

Then the Diamond Way vows are still doing all three, but with this cranked up motivation and worldview and practices that are doing these three moralities, same behaviors, but with a different state of mind through which the seeds planted are strong enough that they're said to be able to ripen your Buddhahood in that lifetime. 

It's a long story what that means.

Vajrayana vows are powerful vows, but it means they're equally powerful when broken, when damaged. It's not something to jump into before we are habituated to some extent to our Pratimoksha and Bodhisattva vows, because we won't be able to keep them well enough to actually get the result that they're intended to bring. 

We can see how they build upon each other. Apparently in Je Tsongkapa‘s time, there was rumors that once you reach your Diamond Way vows, you don't need to bother with your Pratimoksha or Bodhisattva vows anymore. And Lama Tsongkapa‘s answer to that is: He says, that viewpoint is tremendously dangerous. It's like a huge hailstorm that destroys the crops of happiness of others. You should throw it out like garbage. That idea, that Diamond Way vows trump everything else is just so wrong. They're built on the other ones, and so require even more careful avoiding harming others and working to collect goodness. 

The 4 Advantages of Taking Vows: The 4 Wonderful Qualities of Vows

(93:28) There are four advantages to taking a vow to do these behaviors, meaning the benefits of having vows. This is called the four wonderful qualities of vows. And we already have heard that they become the deeds that plant the seeds that create our Buddhahood. What more benefit do you need than that?

But there are these four specific factors about vows that if we understand them will help us keep our vows better, called the four wonderful qualities.

1. Vows being taken from someone else

To receive a vow, a vowed behavior, you go to someone who you must know has those vows, and you must have the awareness that they're keeping those vows—which means they must know them and be following them. You have enough faith or confidence in that person that you ask them, ’Will you give me my Bodhisattva vows?‘ We'll learn, what if they say no? We'll learn about all that stuff. 

But suppose they do say yes, and they coach you through getting your vows in such a way that when you make your vow, you actually get the vow. It comes on like a factor in your aura, they say. Then, because they inspired you and you know that they're the one that granted you the vow, it helps us develop our conscientiousness, meaning our concern for what others would think if my preceptor were to become aware that I am disrespecting my vows, breaking my vows. We have a healthy sense of personal responsibility to uphold what they gave us. 

This factor of taking the vows from somebody else is something about vows that helps us grow, our ability to have concern about our impact on others and the impact that has on our relationship with this being that we asked to give our vows. Do you get that? It's not about shame, it's not about guilt, it's not about what are they going to think of me? Will they judge me? It's about what I think of myself and my behavior in order to uphold the promise I made to this other person.

2. Taken with Pure Motivation

When we took our vows, this preceptor gave us a sermon that was to inspire us and have our motivation clear. Then we kneeled before them, and just as they said, when I snap my fingers, you'll receive your vows. You had this really strong pure motivation to keep those vows, to learn that behavior, and to do it in order to help all beings free from suffering for the Bodhisattva vows at least. 

Then by remembering that strong, pure motivation that you had when you took your vows, that is said to be a factor in our ability to choose our behavior according to the vows, even if nobody else would ever know. This part of the benefit of vows, the pure motivation that we had when we got the vow, helps us develop our self conscience regardless of whether anybody would ever know I hold myself in high enough esteem that I will avoid that and do this because I'm worth it. Because I had that pure motivation. Do you recognize these two states of mud mind? 

TRELYU and NGOTSA, I think we've talked about them before. Conscientiousness and self consideration as factors in choosing our behavior.

3. Fixable

Third factor about vows, which is their good quality, is that they are fixable. When we damage or even fully break any of our vows, Pratimoksha, Bodhisattva or Vajrayana, they can be restored almost fully. Some fully, others almost fully, but enough so that the goodness gets gathering again once we get them restored.

This is meant to encourage our efforts, because it shows us that even if we fail, we repair them and we try again. Whereas if we had vows that were break them once and for all, who would even try? The fact that we can fix them and repair them and try again is like learning a new sport. If you had to be perfect to learn to play tennis perfectly, who would ever start? You're expected to make all kinds of mistakes and then learn from our mistakes.

In this way, vows being repairable encourages us to just try even if we fail.

4. We can keep them nicely

Then the fourth one is the factor that if we're careful, and we have the first and second quality strongly, meaning our self conscientiousness, our concern for our impact on others, especially our vow master, and our self-conscious, high self-esteem that says I can do this, I will do this. If we have those two strongly, we won't break the vows in the first place.

It's built into the vows that when we have this high consideration for our behavior, we can keep the vows. They're not so difficult, is the point. 

This factor is, we can learn to keep them nicely. 

These four good qualities of vows, four wonderful qualities. They help us develop our conscientiousness. They help us develop our self-conscious. They encourage our efforts because even if we fail, we can repair them, and we learn to keep them nicely if we have factor one and two strong in our mind.

(102:46) There are two kinds of Bodhisattva vows, not meaning two different kinds of Bodhisattva vows, but within our Bodhisattva vows there are two categories.

One is called the TSATUNG, and the other is called NYEJE.

TSATUNG means the root downfall. There are 18 root downfalls. The vows are called downfalls, because when we break them, we fall down. Literally.

If we leave them broken, we fall down to a lesser realm next lifetime.

If we don't leave them broken, we repair them, we have fallen in our efforts and we pull ourselves back up, we repair them and we start again.

The NYEJE, NYE means bad and JE means deed, did bad.

Sow we have root downfalls and we have did-bads, which means they're not quite as bad as a root downfall. But it is something I did that damaged a vow, which means it's going to come back to me in a negative way. So it really means perpetuated some suffering there.

The scripture says, all Bodhisattva vows fall into one or the other of these two categories. They're either a root vow or a did-bad vow, implying that there are no other Bodhisattva vows than that. Because apparently over time in the tradition, additional Bodhisattva vows got added along the way. When Je Tsongkapa did his clean-up everything, he recognized that, oh, wait a minute, that wasn't a Buddha‘s one. 

He points out that there are 18 root downfalls and 46 secondary downfalls, and no more and no less. And that the root downfalls require four factors to be present for the behavior to be a full break. When one of those four is missing, then that behavior falls into the category of one of the secondary downfalls, that did-bads.

Basically the behavior categories are all the same for root downfalls and secondaries. 

It's just to what extent we were fully mistaken, fully mentally afflicted when we did the deed that qualifies it as either damage to a root vow or damage to a secondary vow. The rest of this course, we‘ll be learning what those four factors are and how a secondary vow comes out of these different states of mind that are missing all four. Then, when we know these four negative factors, again, we can turn them positive to see what positive four factors would help us keep our vows really strongly. The scripture doesn't point that out. It's like implied when you learn what not to do. Flip it over and it gives you clues as to what to do. It's really, really helpful to look at it that way as well.

That's class two in the nick of time. Any burning questions? Good. Thank you. 

[Class Dedication]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share. Have a nice weekend.

Vocabulary Class 3

SEM Bodhichitta, the wish for total enlightenment

MUN SEM Bodhichitta in form of a wish

JUK SEM Bodhichitta in form of action

JORWA Preliminaries

SULWA DAPPA (SOLWA DABPA) requesting the lama for vows and 

offering a mandala

TSOK DRUPPA inviting all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to 

join

DOMPA NYURDU KULWA requesting the vows be granted quickly

TROWA KYEPA feeling joy on the opportunity to collect

immense good karma

BARCHE DRIWA teacher asking about obstacles

NGUSHI actual event/ceremony

JUKCHOK conclusion

For the recording, welcome back. We are aACI course 7, class 3, January 26th, 2025.

Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class opening]

Review Class 2

(7:26) Last class, we learned about those three different types of morality in order to better understand the basis from which we can grow our Bodhisattva vows. If you recall those three different kinds of morality, well, let's do it this way.

Consider those the three kinds of morality.

They are the behaviors towards our Lama, the behaviors towards our parents and the behaviors towards everybody else. Right? 

No, Flavia says no. Oh, so there's more than three moralities, is that what you mean? No. So there's three different moralities than that. Oh, you said yes. Once you say yes, you get to answer, Flavia. What do you say are those three levels of morality? 

(Flavia) It is Pratimoksha vows, or individual freedom. So those are the vows, that if you keep them, you get to be free. These other are the Bodhisattva vows, that you do to help every living being. So you want to get enlightened for the benefit of living being. The third one is the tantric vows, which is the fast method. You try the fastest methods so you can do it in one lifetime.

(Lama Sarahni) So you're saying the three different levels of morality are those three different vows, which means if you don't have vows, you're not keeping any morality at all. Right?

(Flavia) No, because morality in this context means something different. In this context, morality means that whatever you do is whatever you're going to get. So it's different than having a moral compass. This needs wisdom too. 

(Lama Sarahni) So there are three different reasons that we apply to our behaviors that make up the three levels of morality. Shayla says yes. So Shayla gets to describe what are those three?

(Sheyla) The first one is to restrict bad actions. 

The second one is accommulate good or merit.

The third one is to do both of those, but for the benefit of every single being. 

(Lama Sarahni) Perfect. Yes. So Flavia, you were not incorrect, but you gave a right answer to a different question.

Then we also learned these four wonderful qualities of the Bodhisattva vows, which still it just… You know the four I'm talking about, how they're quite qualities of the vows I don't understand. But give me those four. Who can give me one of them?

(Raz) The first quality is we take it from somebody who is really dear to our heart and who has all the qualifications, and we look up to him. So we try to keep this vow. When we are close to breaking the wow, then we just stop ourself and we think of the person how much we'll disappoint him or her. 

(Lama Sarahni) Perfect. Who can give me a second one? 

(Olga) are done with pure intention, meaning that you have the intention to help all living things, and when you're about to break the boat, you just recall that intention.

(Lama Sarahni) Nice. And who can give the third one? Julia? Thank you. 

(Julia) Both are fixable. So if you fall, you can repair and fix it.

(Lama Sarahni) Right. It encourages us to try even if we're going to fail. That's a big piece. And the fourth one.

(Liang-Sang) If we do the first three well we wouldn't break it in the first.

(Lama Sarahni) Exactly. How is that a quality of the vows? I don't know, but it's something to know. So good, thanks. Yes. Mike's hands up. Is there a fifth one? 

(Mike) No, I have something completely different for this. 

It was the morality is accepted from others in an excellent way.

Motivation is for taking it on is extremely pure.

If one fails in morality, one can recover.

One can develop a sense of reverence for the morality, and a sense of maintaining and preventing oneself from failing.

(Lama Sarahni) Yeah. That's from the reading, right? Those all are saying the same thing. Geshehla describes those four in this way to help us relate to them. So yes, you are correct. Good. 

Lastly, on your quiz, what did Je Tsongkapa said about the idea that practitioners of the secret way don't have to follow their other two sets of vows anymore?

(Olga) I don't remember the exactly phrase in English, but it's like a completely mistaken idea, that it's like torment that cuts the happiness of all beings. But this only shows misunderstanding on the inferior and superior teachings that must be put in the garbage.

(Lama Sarahni) Exactly. Nice. Thank you.

Yes, Luis's hand is up. 

(Luisa) I have a question that I have been thinking of with this. We say that nothing is good or bad in itself. There is no bad deed or good deed, that it depends on the result that it brings to my life. But then when we read the vows or the 10 non virtues, then they are expressing a way that in my understanding implies those actions are per se in it from them, in them, from them. But bad.

(Lama Sarahni) That says that? There's something about the words that says that?

(Luisa) Like not killing. Then it implies that killing another being is bad. And then somehow it makes me think, okay, there is some nature in the action that will bring me suffering. Yes, the Buddha knows what will bring me, but then it also gives this, or it makes me think how to understand, apply emptiness to the vows, apply emptiness to actions that appear to be wrong in themselves. 

(Lama Sarahni) And your conclusion would be, oh my God, I've got to keep from killing anybody. When we understand the emptiness of killing, it doesn't negate it. It makes our understanding of why to avoid killing others with greater intensity, greater strength.

(Luisa) But it's because I am assuming that killing is wrong.

(Lama Sarahni) No. It's when you get killed, you will not like it. When you get stolen from, you will not like it. That's why they're the 10 non virtues. 

(Luisa) But it could happen that someone who wants to die will say, if I get killed, then I will like it. Right? I don't know.

(Lama Sarahni) They still go through the pain of death and forced rebirth.

(Luisa) But that pain is also empty. No?

(Lama Sarahni) It is. But see, I am feeling that when your mind hears something as empty, it makes it unreal or less real or inconsequential. And that's a common automatic result of thinking of emptiness and it's mistaken.

(Luisa) Okay, thank you Lama.

(Lama Sarahni) Yeah. That‘s why we study, study, study. It's not easy to understand. 

The Great Divisions of Bodhichitta

(18:05) That class was supposed to be about selling us on the worthiness of Bodhisattva vows as something to learn about at least, and maybe even someday decide we want to commit ourselves to.

Then our next question would naturally be, when I'm ready to get my vows, how do I do it? What do I do? And then taking these vows. The process is swearing before somebody in person and a whole lot of others who are there, but we probably don't see them. Swearing to work diligently to become a Buddha so that we can help others in that deep and ultimate way. That means we're really committing ourself to a set of behavior avoidances, and learning to do their opposite based on this state of mind, the state of heart that we're calling Bodhichitta. 

In the course of our career, we've been loading the term Bodhisattva with more and more understanding, deeper and deeper levels of what it means. I want to reach total Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. That form of the wish, called the deceptive form of the wish, it's not deceptive. It's probably the most amazing truism you ever said to yourself. But it's in deceptive reality. It's an appearing set of words that we give meaning to, so it's called deceptive Bodhichitta. 

Ultimate Bodhichitta, meaning that wisdom of the direct perception of emptiness while we're in it, and then after we're out of it, we're not seeing it directly anymore, but we still have that influence on our mind, which now influences our deceptive Bodhichitta, doesn't it?

There's another way to divide Bodhichitta, that we heard about last week or the class before, called the wish in the form of a prayer and the wish in the form of action.

MUN-SEM = the wish in form of a prayer

SEM = the wish

MUNLAM = the prayer

My guess, when you say a hyphen, it means this is a contraction, a shortened form. My guess, it would be MUN-LAM SEM KYE.

SEM-KYE being the wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings, SEM. And MUN-LAM being a prayer.

One way to divide Bodhichitta is by way of the wish in the form of a prayer. Meaning I really, really do want to learn and become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. But wanting to and setting about to do it are two different things.

So the MUN-SEM might be like, Gosh, it would be really nice to take a vacation to Hawaii. I can think that every day and never actually book any tickets or pack my bags. It would be sweet, but if I never act on it, nothing much is going to happen.

To have the MUN-SEM Bodhichitta, the heartfelt wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, even if we don't do anything significant with that, it's still a major breakthrough in the quality of our heart mind. 

JUK-SEM means our Bodhichitta in the form of action. It seems like it would mean the wish to act like a Buddha. Which if it was just the wish to act like a Buddha to become a Buddha, that doesn't necessarily mean we ever do anything about it either.

Here JUK-SEM means, because of my MUN-SEM, my wish to reach Buddhahood, I've grown in my capacity to implement that wish, and now I'm going to act according to those behaviors that have been set forth for us to show us what to avoid, and so what to take up, in order to plant the seeds that when they ripen will be the ripening of movement along the path to that total Buddhahood. Because that's motivating us in everything that we do, once we take our MUN-SEM and activate it by changing our behavior. We can activate our Bodhichitta using the guidelines of the Bodhisattva vows, even before we take the vows to do so. We'll get goodness, lots of goodness. 

We can even activate our behavior changes and not do a very good job at it. 

The scripture says, we are still making greater goodness than someone who neither activates their Bodhichitta nor has Bodhichitta.

To be a lousy Bodhisattva is better than no Bodhisattva at all. Which is kind of helpful. Hopefully it will help us be less tentative in taking our Bodhisattva vows. If we're thinking, oh, I can't possibly keep these well, so I won't take them. Scriptures, Buddha, Lamas are saying, no, no, if you want to try, then trying and failing is better than not. That's supposed to help us.

The Difference between Bodhichitta in form of a Wish and as Action

What is it to have MUN-SEM and JUK-SEM?

Geshela says, true MUN-SEM is when we encounter any being, we have this reaction to them as if they are our most precious child. He said, any being we perceive, every driver whizzing by the highway, every bug that gets smashed on every windshield of every driver, every ant crawling around in your bathroom sink, every cockroach on your kitchen counter: Oh my only child, I love you so much, I want you to be happy. Here, little ant, can I feed you? What can I feed you? What would you like? Truly, do we have that? 

It's hard enough to get the little ant out of the sink before you turn the water on with a little kindness. The first 50 ants, okay. But after that, come on, right? We lose our patience. True. Em MUN-SEM wouldn't.

There's another one, another only child. Oh my gosh.

It's hard. It's hard to conceive of.

We cultivate that by understanding those beings‘ situation. There are different levels of understanding those beings‘ situations.

We don't actually know what they're perceiving themselves as, do we? But if we decide, well, I don't really know of that ant‘s suffering, and so come to the conclusion, it doesn't matter that I turn the water on, we're misunderstanding our misunderstanding of what they're perceiving themselves as.

I don't know what they're perceiving themselves as. What I do know is that I'm perceiving them as this little teeny ant, who's at the mercy of this giant and the elements. It can't be nice for anybody to be going about your business, minding your own business and all of a sudden get washed away by a flood.

I don't know, maybe they want to get washed away by a flood. But if it was me in their shoes, I don't think I'd like it and so I shouldn't do it to them. That's the basis of considering their situation.

Yes, they're empty of self nature, so I don't know. But because of that, I want to be kind to them, more kind to them. 

MUN-SEM is this, I wish I could do something to help beings get out of this mess. I have some inkling of how it is possible to stop all this suffering, and I want them to know it. I want them to be able to do it.

Then the JUK-SEM is the actually doing something about it, doing something to help them. It may or may not be in the moment with the ants in the bathroom bowl. I mean we try, and probably will fail with some of them. But everything else we do is also being done in order to help those ants, and the drivers whizzing along.

Even though they're not in our immediate experience. They've become part of our world because we saw them once. 

Our Bodhichitta wish includes them, more and more tangibly. Real MUN-SEM is having this deep, deep compassion for any being we see, whether they're in obvious suffering or appear to be having a nice lunch. We know it's going to end. All of them in the desire realm are experiencing that aging, illness, death, and forced rebirth. So by way of the four sufferings, we know what they're experiencing, and we know at the end of those four, they have the sufferings of death and what comes up later. Which probably is going to be worse than what they're in now. 

All of that hopefully opens our hearts instead of shuts them down, and we're wanting to grow this state of heart to be more and more constant in us. 

Petra was one of the retreatants during Geshe Michael, Lama Christie‘s great retreat. Now she's venerable Petra, and she used the phrase,

Getting my Bodhichitta to be my permanent address

instead of now and then going to visit her Bodhichitta from time to time according to the circumstances. She's coming from that space constantly.

I love the phrase. It felt so right. Get my heart in that permanent address, Bodhichitta 85713. 

The vows would come in a natural pattern, says Arya Nagarjuna from 700 AD. He wrote the ceremony that we use to give vows and to restore our vows when we've damaged them. In his discussion of how to give the vows, he actually only talks about how to generate this wish in the form of the prayer, the MUN-SEM. He gives a ritual to take a pledge to generate the wish in the form of a prayer.

You don't actually take vows, but you go before that Lama and say, I really, really, really am going to grow this wish so strong in my heart that it's there every moment. It's coloring everything that I experience, every instant. That state of mind will lead us, will inspire us to avoid harming others and to gather goodness, and doing both influenced by the wish to help all beings stop their suffering ultimately.

To just have this strong Bodhichitta is enough for the behavior to take over. 

(35:42) Where do the vows actually come in?

The later commentators on Nagarjuna‘s ceremony say, look, Nagarjuna. If the one doing the ceremony is intending to devote themselves to growing the wish, then that's what the ceremony empowers them to do. If that person has already grown their wish, then the same ceremony is empowering them to have the vows come on. They don't distinguish different ceremonies for the different Bodhichittas, same ceremony. 

Je Tsongkapa still says, look, it still seems like it would be a stronger practice to dedicate ourselves to growing the wish first. When we feel like we have it strongly, then to dedicate ourselves to taking the actual actions. We're doing the actions while we're growing our wish, of course. But you don't have the vow component yet in terms of needing to fix this or restore that. But once we have our confidence, we can go back and establish our behavior as vowed behavior.

They say during growing your Bodhichitta in this way makes it more firm, makes the vows more firm. 

But as it has evolved, the Bodhichitta vow ceremony incorporates both—the wish and the action. So you're swearing to do both in your vow taking ceremony. Geshe Michael suggested that when a ceremony is being given, it's up to you—the student—to determine whether you're taking it as the wish or you're taking it as getting the vow for action. Nobody needs to know but you.

It's helpful in your relationship with the one who's giving the vow ceremony, that if they are also part of who you go to for advice, to tell them. But they aren't necessarily who you go to for advice. So you don't necessarily need to declare yourself. It's what you know you're doing yourself. You yourself need to have it clear when the ceremony day comes along for you. 

The scriptures say, keeping the vows and doing the acts of a Bodhisattva is saying the same thing. The behaviors are the same, the behaviors we avoid, and so the behaviors we apply are the same. The additional benefit of having vows to avoid those deeds is that we're gathering the goodness of keeping the vow every moment we're avoiding the vowed behavior, as I explained before.

The Vow Ceremony

(40:18) Suppose we feel ready to actually ask for and receive the vow ceremony. It has several parts, it has three main parts and the different parts have multiple parts as well. 

Here are the three parts of the vow ceremony for Bodhisattva vows:

1. JORWA, which is the preliminaries, and there's these five different parts to it.

2. NGUSHI, which is the main event. This is the actual receiving of the vows.

3. JUK-CHOK, which is the conclusion.

The Preliminaries

Within JORWA, the preliminaries, there are these five parts.

The JOWRA, the preliminaries to the Bodhisattva vow ceremony, is actually more important. It's the most important part.

The NGUSHI, the actual main event, goes by really quickly. Of course it's important. But the preliminaries get us all primed and ready for the main event.

After the main event, this conclusion part is where the vow master encourages us to be happy about our vows, tells us what's happened in the universe because of getting our vows. 

We're going to go through each one of these different parts so that you know exactly what's going on as you take your ceremony. Which is, again, the beauty of Bodhisattva vows, is we're supposed to study it first. We're supposed to understand the vows, and how to repair them, and how to keep them so that we can feel ready to actually take the vows. And then when we do know what's going to happen in the ceremony. Other empowering ceremonies you don't get to know about beforehand for other reasons, for good reasons.

1. Preliminary—Calling Forth the Lama

(43:22) The first step in the preliminaries, in Tibetan is SOLWA DABPA, which means asking the Lama to give the vows and offering a mandala. It is written into the ceremony that one does. 

If you're the person coming to take vows, you don't have to bring these papers with you. You don't have to know it. They'll provide you with what you need for all of this. But what will happen is that we'll be instructed to make this formal request, and anytime we request something of our teacher, we make them an offering.

Yeah, it's like a bribe. They don't need your bribe. Our own mind benefits from seeing us give them something that's valuable to us in request for them to do what we're asking them to do.

Traditionally, we use as the offering what's called the 37 pile mandala, which is a prayer of offering a pure and perfect world that's been made out of the transformation of our mental afflictions. 

It's that prayer that has the bowl with the rice that somebody's putting piles of rice on, and then the rings, and more piles of rice. In the end you've got this wedding cake of rice and jewels and stuff with a diamond on top. It's a practice. It's a beautiful merit making practice to learn, and it's going to be taught at the Diamond Mountain Retreat in preparation for a Mandala festival that we're hoping will become an annual event. 

If you don't get to go to Diamond Mountain and learn it there, ask for it. It's been taught online, you can learn how to do it.

The first preliminary is asking the vow giving master formally for vows, and making a offering of the mandala. At this point in Je Tsongkapa‘s description of the ceremony, he goes off on an apparent tangent. That's not a tangent at all, of course, about 

• who can take the vows,

• who can give the vows,

• what should the one who's taking the vows do to prepare all the details that we would want to know in order to be properly prepared to go through the ceremony for our vows.

He gives us some really nice Gelugpa lists, for those of you who like lists.

The 4 Qualities of the Vow Taker

The vow taker, that means the student, there are certain requirements, four requirements:

1. That vow taker may be ordained or not, but they need to be human. So the first requirement of a vow taker is a human, who's ordained or not, doesn't matter.

2. They should have some form of MUN-SEM, wish to reach Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Some form of compassion for those suffering beings. Of course, the stronger the better.

3. They must intend to keep those three moralities: avoiding harming others, gathering goodness, and doing both for the benefit of all sentient beings. If we have any other intention than that combination of those three, then we can go through the ceremony and hear the finger snap, and not actually get the vows. How we would know, we'll talk about it more as we get further into this course.

4. is based on one's level of morality going into getting these vows. They should be at the very least keeping the avoiding the 10 non virtues pretty well. We had heard in a previous class about the eight different kinds of vows and of those, someone wanting Bodhisattva vows, should have been practicing any one of the first seven for some period of time. That's vague, but already having made some efforts to cultivate a stronger morality than ordinary human being, morality for some period of time before asking for their Bodhisattva of vows. We can see why. Because of the goodness done by intentionally avoiding some habit in order to be able to change. It means we've shown ourselves that we can change. Which will increase our ability to change more as we take on our Bodhisattva vowed behavior. They say, if you're not ordained, your avoiding harming others vows would be the five lifetime layperson's vows. One can take those five first, and be working with them before you ask for Bodhisattva vows. 

Our tradition, I'm not sure how they're doing it now at Diamond Mountain, I've not been involved. But when Sumati and I were taught how to give the vows, the Bodhisttava vows, we were taught when someone takes their Bodhisttava vows, they also get their five lifetime layperson's vows, whether they want them or not. They get all five, not some. 

In preparing to take Bodhisttava vows, whoever is teaching you about the vows, for our tradition needs to also include, which we will, about the five layperson vows. That's the vow taker. 

The 7 Qualities of the Vow Giver

(51:32) Now the vow giver, they need to have some qualifications as well. Both from their side. If somebody says, can you give me Bodhisttava vows? They need to check their own heart. Do I have these qualifications to give those vows?

The person asking someone for vows, these are the six different things that you would want to spy on them about Before you ask them, will you give me Bodhisttava vows? 

1. Vow giver, they may or may not be ordained. They say probably it's better if they are ordained. I would guess it has to do with them being a more powerful karmic object in our mind as the one coming to them to ask for vows. But it's not necessary, the ordained part.

2. They say, it's best if that same person can give you the higher vows later on. If you're cultivating a relationship with a teacher, and there you've got one or more who's helping you go along the path, you're growing this relationship with them. The one you might ask to give you Bodhisttava vows, if you have the higher vows in mind for the future. There is some benefit to having them be the one you ask for giving you the Bodhisttava vows. Again, most of us, we don't know if we're aspiring to the higher vows, we don't know who that person is, it's going to give them to us. We don't know. It shouldn't block us from asking someone who we don't even know if they have the higher vows. There's no reason that a student would know whether a teacher has Diamond Way vows or not, technically.

3. The vow giver can be either a man or a woman. Nowadays, let's say anywhere in between. 

4. They themselves should have some form of the wish. They should have some level of their MUN-SEM. How are we going to know that? Really by watching. Watching somebody's behavior is the best way to judge.

5. They should be keeping their vows well. Again, if we don't know what vows they have, how are we going to judge whether they're keeping them well or not? We know the 10 non-virtuous. They're the basis of every other vow. We can spy on them, and see, does it look like they have this strong morality? If they have this disciplined morality, I can probably conclude that they are keeping their own vow morality pretty well. But simply by watching, and paying attention.

From the vow givers side, if they've been asked, they would need to ask themselves, have I been keeping my morality well enough that I could in fact confer vows on somebody else? And be honest with ourselves.

Once we have vows, technically you can be given permission to give vows once you've been given them. It may seem like, oh, given Bodhisttava vows is a long, long way away.

When Geshe Michael Lama Christie first came out of their retreat, we formally asked them to be students, and to take us into the Diamond Way. We explained why we felt we were qualified, and so forth. They said yes. Then we were there on the property, and Geshehla was preparing to teach Uttara Tantra in Tucson before the start of Diamond Mountain's Diamond Way series. He taught the Uttara Tantra to a bunch of us who were there so that we could be teaching assistants for when it would be offered in Tucson. Sumati and I were just babies in the whole system, and someone asked Geshe Michael for Bodhisttava vows. We already had ours. Someone asked Geshe Michael, would you give Bodhisttava vows before class, couple of days from now? He looked at the person, he turned and looked at Sumati and I and said, they'll give Bodhisttava vows on Sunday. This was Friday. It is like, what? 

Who were we to give vows? He said, don't worry, I'll teach you how to do it.

He did, and we did. Then subsequently we were asked to give refuge, and we were asked… Once it starts, it starts. It's shocking when you get assigned that task first. It wasn't after three year retreat. It was at the beginning. So don't sell yourself short that maybe somebody's going to come to you someday soon, Can you give me Bodhisttava vows? Then you check your heart to see, do I have the goodness that they see in me? Do I see it in me that I can give Bodhisttava vows? Then let me know. I'll teach you how to do it after you get yours. Of course not before. 

They should be keeping their vows well. You have to have vows in order to give vows. Kind of a bottom line rule. 

6. This vow givers should be practicing their six perfections pretty well. They're working on their sharing, they're working on their moral discipline. They're working on their not getting angry, they're working on their joyous effort. We should be able to see that happening in someone when we're around them long enough to see them in different situations. That's the tricky part when most of our teachings are online. I can be perfect in a little box for two hours, but just wait till after I get out of the box. You don't know. I keep my vows pretty well, anyway. Analyze, check, follow, spy, ask people who study from them. Ask people who are around them, what are they like when nobody's watching? Truly we're supposed to do that. We're supposed to do that for the person we ask to be our teacher. We're supposed to do that for the one we ask to give us vows. We're supposed to do that for the one who we ask for a higher way as well. If you try really, really hard to find somebody who has these qualities and you just can't find one, you can technically put an image of Shakyamuni Buddha on your altar and get your Bodhisttava vows through the ceremony from the being that statue represents. If you're really stuck on a desert island, and you're ready for your Bodhisttava vows, you can get them. But Lamas all say, don't be lazy. Find somebody who's got vows. Find somebody who's giving vows. Get in on the ceremony.

7. They need to know the vows. They need to know the ceremony. They need to know how to give the vows. Which includes being able to perceive people's reactions during the ceremony, and know how to help them stay on track. Especially know how to do the CHU CHOK, the enthus at the end, and then afterwards be available to help that student when they need help to stay on track. The one you take your Bodhisattva vows from would remain available to you. If you take it in a big crowd from somebody you don't really know and you're going to use them in that way, you would need to remind them, I did body savo from you. Can you help me in such a way? They're not likely to say no.

Let's take a break and we'll go back to what the vow taker does to prepare.

The Preparation of the Vow Taker

(63:27) The next section that Je Tsongkapa talks about is, what should the vow taker do to prepare? So the first thing vow taker does on the day of the ceremony is that you make the place beautiful: clean, nicely decorated, uncluttered. Where you receive your Bodhisattva vows, it doesn't have to be in some proper temple or in front of a stupa. Any place can be transformed into the place where your Bodhisattva vow ceremony will happen. Although, if you're a new student and you haven't learned how to create a sacred space, then you rely on either senior students, or the teacher to show you how to do that.

But once you know, or once you're the one who knows, then you do it, and you show others how to do it. You don't have to wait for the vow master to come in and say, put this here and that there you've learned how to do it.

1. Clean the Place

First you clean the place, unclutter it, make it lovely. 

2. Set up an altar

On that altar for Bodhisattva vows, you have an image of Shakyamuni Buddha. It can be a statue, it can be a Thangka around it. You can have images of other teachers, other sacred beings, as you wish.

In front of that image, you put forth the traditional offerings:

• water bowls, representing water to drink, water to wash

• flowers,

• incense,

• lamps,

• perfume, lotions,

• delicious food and 

• beautiful music.

You put flowers. It's traditional to have a big bowl of fresh fruit. You wash the fruit well, and dry it before you put it in the bowl. When you set it in the bowl, you set it with the fruits‘ flower side up. You know how the apple has a stem? When we set an apple on a table, we set it with the stem side up. That means we're putting the flower side down so the flower opens. The pistol and stem do the thing, and then the apple grows.

You know how the apple goes underneath and there's the little sharp points under there. That's the flower side. When you put it in the bowl, upside down. The orange where the little green thing is, that's the stem upside down. It's a little hard with pineapples. They don't stay upside down very well. But stick it in the bowl. It seems upside down, but it's right side up. It's flower side up. The flower represents the results of virtue. So the flower is not on there obviously, but that's where the fruit came from. Do you see the connection?

3. Set up a Seat for the Vow Giver

(67:50) You set up a seat for the vow giver. They call it a throne, but it doesn't have to be a big fancy throne. They need to be sitting higher than the people who are receiving the vows from them. If everybody's going to be sitting in chairs, then you need the vow giver maybe in a chair on something so that they're higher.

However you set it up, vow giver is seated higher than the vow takers.

4. Show the Vow Giver your Respect

Then at the beginning of the session of the ceremony, you go to the vow giver and show your respect. Which in the Indian tradition, from which this came, you prostrate to them and touch their feet. We don't see that happening too much at Diamond Mountain. But having learned it formally, when you go to do your Bodhisattva vows, feel free. It is likely that we'll feel self-conscious about it. The vow giver may also be startled, but do it anyway if you wish. 

5. Offer a 37 Pile Mandala

You offer the mandala offering, again, that 37 pile mandala. This is all built into the session. You don't have to personally do it before them.

6. Requesting the Vows 3 Times

You request the vows three times. Again, it's in the ceremony, how to say it, what to do, and when to do it. They say, in that requesting the vows three times, that's the time for us to really feel deep, deep, deep about why we want the vows, our strong intention to try to keep them, understanding that we'll mess up, and we'll fix it. But understanding the power of having the vows, we want this really strong feeling within us that I'm setting myself up for walking through that doorway of becoming a Buddha someday. Without really wanting the vows, they aren't going to grow at the point of the ceremony when they're supposed to grow. 

7. Kneel Down

Then, at the time of the actual event, we'll be instructed to kneel down in front of the vow giver. One can squat in the chicken squat, meaning you've got both feet and heels on the ground and you're down on your knees. Or you can put your right knee down, and left knee up, like the Catholics do. Whichever position you're going to feel more stable and undistracted while you say your repetition and ask for the vows.

You're in that position maybe five minutes, so you want to be solid.

Your hands will be in vow taking position, which for sutra is your right hand holding your left. Here's my right hand, my right hand holds my left. Here's refuge taking position with your palms together and your thumbs inside.

Do you remember that thing? Here's the church. Here's the people, your thumbs inside. But for vow taking, left goes into right, more like this. It's we're asking and your fist goes at your heart.

You're squatting like a chicken. Your hands go in this position, and the vow master is going to say, repeat after me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're holding it, and squeezing it to your heart to keep your heart open, and wanting those vows.

As soon as that part is done, they'll say, sit down, and you can sit back down.

Responsibilities of the Vow Giver

1. The Vow Giver explains the Benefits of Vows

Next, the vow giver's responsibility is before that actual event happens, the vow giver gives a talk about the benefits of vows to enthus our enthusiasm and our motivation. The vow giver gives a sermon. Now, the vow giver's responsibility is to write that sermon. It may be different if you take your Bodhisattva vows, and you retake them from someone else, which you're welcome to do to renew them, restore them. Their sermon may be a little different than the one that you heard before. They will always be in some way motivational based on karma and emptiness, and the levels of morality. When you get to be the vow giver, you get to write your own sermon to enthus the students. That's kind of fun. 

Geshela said, Scripture says, if you give offerings to all the Buddhists in the universe, that's a great goodness. If you take Bodhisattva vows, but then don't even keep them very well, the virtue of just taking the vows is greater than making all those offerings to all those Buddha by someone who doesn't have Bodhichitta. 

Like I said before, an aspiring Bodhisattva who is trying, is making greater goodness than someone making offerings, big offerings to lots of Buddha who doesn't have Bodhichitta, doesn't have even a shred of that wish.

Really, pat yourself on the bath for even being in a class that's talking about wanting Bodhisattva vows, because you have the seeds for it. You may not think so highly of yourself, but I'm saying, knock that off. You're here, you're growing your Bodhichitta, and that's a great, great goodness.

So vow giver gives the pep talk.

2. Explain the Seriousness of Breaking the Vows

They will explain which vows are most serious to break, and which are less serious. They're all serious, but some are more serious than others.

3. Make the Student Happy/Encourage Taking the Vows

They should try to make the vow taker happy with encouraging words. They'll pump us up about how special we are and the benefits of getting Bodhisattva vows, and they'll throw in their: Look, because of karma and emptiness, everybody is eventually going to reach the place where they and the suffering of themselves and all other beings. You've heard it now, why waste your time? You've been cursed with knowing where you're headed eventually. You can take three times 10 to the 60th countless eons to do it, or you can decide, let's go a little faster. 

2. Preliminary—Calling forth the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas

(77:24) We've reached the second part of the preliminary.

What was that first preliminary?

The asking the Lama to give vows, and offering the mandala.

All that we just heard was Je Tsongkapa’s tangent about who can give, and who can take those vows. So we're back to the preliminary second stage TSOK.

TSOK usually means gathering. 

So second one is TSOK. TSOK means collection. It usually means collecting practitioners to have a big party. But here we're invoking all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to come and witness the taking of your vows. 

The vow master does this invoking, but they're instructing us to call out to those Buddhas and visualizing them coming from all the directions of space. I don't know about you, but when I call forth the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and I peak, I don't see them there. But I know that they are there, because of what it took for them to come to see themselves as Buddhas. That compassion through which they were able to overcome their obstacles to omniscience responds to my request, and they show up, whether I can see them or not. So when we call forth the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, there they are to witness us getting our vows.

3. Preliminary—Request to Grant the Vows Quickly

Third preliminary is DOMPA NYURDU KULWA. It means we make a verbal request to be granted the vows quickly. Something about the quickly. It will say, the master will say, repeat after me, and it will be these phrases of asking to be granted the vows quickly, quickly, quickly.

4. Preliminary—Feeling Joy

TROWA KYEPA means feeling joy. We will be instructed to reflect on the incredible virtue that we'll be able to collect by doing these Bodhisattva activities, and thus keeping our vows. It's by avoiding these Bodhisattva behaviors, is doing the Bodhisattva deeds and keeping the vows. We'll be instructed to feel joy and eagerness to get the vows, because of how much more powerful our seed planting will become once we have those vows. They'll remind us of the marriage of karma and emptiness, and how that works, so that we can understand what we're committing ourselves to. That the deeds we're going to avoid, and so thus the opposite do are the deeds that will make our future projections be Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating, meaning you, the vow taker.

Geshela said, if we've been studying and practicing Buddhism for a while and nothing particularly special is happening in our lives. Then he says, probably we're not tracking our behavior well. We're not keeping our vows well. If we have vows, we're not keeping them well. We're not making this concerted effort to change our behavior based on the instructions given, based on seed planting wisdom. Because when we are doing that, it means we're changing our behavior from what we used to do as ignorant suffering humans to even these little baby steps at behaving differently. 

Those seeds are so different than what they used to be, that they're shaking loose the old ones and adding to any other new more virtuous ones. That has to be reflected in some kind of outer shift in our perception. It doesn't mean if you're not seeing purple sunsets every day, you're doing something wrong. But a little magic here and there. 

Some, what we would usually call a strange coincidence. No. These are results of your practice. It's a matter really of noticing them and giving yourself credit for having created them by a change in our behavior. Instead of just going, oh, wasn't that weird that I ran across that person who, I don't know, whatever the little magic would be for you happen to mention. I can't think of an example right now. But I think you get what I mean.

Magic is probably happening in your life and you're just taking it for some kind of granted, and not giving yourself credit for having created that magic by your change of behavior.

The master's going to get us like, oh boy, my vows are about to come. We want that eager Christmas morning, what's in the package feeling.

5. Preliminary—Lama asks About Obstacles

(84:38) Next, the vow master asks us about obstacles. They're going to ask a series of questions. You're not supposed to answer out loud. You're answering in your heart. They‘ll say:

1. Do you really want to be a Bodhisattva? Meaning do you really want to benefit all sentient beings? Even that one… Fill in the blank as to who that one might be for you. Bodhisattvas don't leave a single one out.

2. Do you really want to get these vows?

3. Do you understand the vows? Meaning are you sure you know what you're getting into? Remember, vows are going into your mindstream, not for just this life. These are forever vows. It's a little bit weird. It's like, well, wait a minute, what if I had my Bodhisattva vows from before, and then I didn't even meet my Bodhisattva vows this lifetime until I was 35? What was happening from zero to 35? Was I breaking my vows all those time? Or was I keeping them, and I just didn't know it? What's really going on here? And I don't have an answer.

4. Do you believe you will be able to keep these vows at least a little bit? That's why we learn them so that we can answer those questions to ourselves.

So before you even ask somebody to give you vows, ask yourself those four questions. Do I really want to be a Bodhisattva?

Do I really want these vows for forever? 

Do I understand them well enough to know what I'm getting into?

And do I believe I will be able to keep them a little bit?

You can't answer those now. You haven't heard about them yet. By the end of this class, you'll have heard about them enough to be able to think about it, and over time decide.

Lama says, if your answer to those four questions are, Yeah, pretty well. That's enough for your state of mind to be able to grow and sustain those vows. 

Yeah, pretty well. That's enough. That's kind of nice. It doesn't have to be, Yeah, I'm going to do it perfectly. Just, Yeah, I think I can. I want to. I think I can do it. I'm going to try. That's enough.

The Main Event

(87:47) Then we get to the main event, NGUSHI, the main event. You'll be in your vow taking position. The vow giver asks you three times:

Do you want these Bodhisattva vows?

Each time you answer, ‚Yes I do‘, out loud. If you do. If you've changed your mind by now, that's fine. You just sit back down, and don't take them.

Yes, I do. By the third time, the first two times they'll say, you're seeing me, the vow master, as a standin for Lord Buddha. Then on the third one they say, now see me as your vow master. See me as your vow master, and know that when I click my fingers, your vows will turn on. They come on a light in you, and they shine like an aura within and beyond you.

They get you all prepared.

You say, yes, I do.

By the third, yes I do, they snap their fingers. 

When you hear the snap, that's the light switch of the vows coming on within you. 

Then, you're supposed to think, wow, I've got my vows. Like, whoa, that most precious thing has just bubbled up, or been set within, whatever suits you. But you want to really own it. Own it strongly.

The Conclusion

Then comes the conclusion. The conclusion has four parts. Conclusion is JUKCHOK. The Lama will instruct you to ask the Buddha to understand that you've just sworn to him or her to become like them.

You're instructed to face the Buddha image and say to them, I just want to make sure that you know that I've just sworn before you to become you to become a being who can help all others. I swear I will keep these vowed behaviors to do so.

Then you make three prostrationS in each of the 10 directions. 

You go around three times to the east, each of the four directions. Then forward again, and back again. So 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 and 3. It's a lot of prostrations.

You take your time, you're huffing and puffing by the end. That's all right. We're showing our honor to all the Buddhas of all the 10 directions.

Next in the conclusion, the Lama gives a concluding sermon, if you will, where they pump the student up with the benefit of vows. Typically that includes saying how all the Buddhas and all the high level Buddhi Safa Bodhisattvas have become aware of those who have just received their vows. They say, it's like to get vows, sends a shock wave through the universe that's like an earthquake, even in the paradises.

If there was a Buddha or a Bodhisattva who somehow was not attending our ceremony, and they were looking the other way, whoa, somebody just got Bodhisattva vows, and their focus (comes) right in on you. So just in case there were some missing, they now know you.

We've heard that before. When we have Bodhichitta, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas know us, and they take us into their family, and they treat us like their only child. Here it happens again. They become aware of us. Omniscient beings know everybody all the time anyway. But it's one thing to be aware of all the faces in the crowd, and it's another to see a face and go, ah, come, come, come, friend. We become individually recognized. We've joined the family of the Buddhas, it's called. It's quite beautiful. 

They encourage us to take joy. The Buddha and Bodhisattvas are like, Yay. Doing their rejoicing festival. Then we get to do the same. Lama instructs us to do a Thanksgiving offering to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, and the Lama will do it as well. Which again, we offer the 37 pile mandala, this time as a Thanksgiving. 

There's a different way we handle the mandala, whether it's a request to receive something, or an offering of Thanksgiving, and we learn how to do that. 

(94:20) Lastly, the vow giver gives the instruction for the new vowed person to not advertise our vows to those with no faith. You don't walk around with your badge ‘Bodhisattva‘, but you show your new behavior. You show off your vows through your behavior. Meaning we don't impose our vowed behavior on anybody else.

That's what it means to not advertise your vows.

You know, killing's a bad thing. You should be vegetarian.

How well is that going to go over? Versus, You want to come for dinner? If you don't mind, we're going to eat all vegetarian. Not to worry, we'll feed you enough.

Then give a nice dinner, vegetarian. And that's all. You don't have to say anything else. It plant seeds. It gives a positive, uplifting influence.

Sooner or later, some of those people that you've positively uplifted and influenced will come to you and say, how do you know how to do that? Did you learn somehow? What is it you're up to? 

Then, Yay, you got 20 years? I'll teach you everything I know. Or just start with the pen.

It's in an important piece of receiving our Bodhisattva vows to be instructed. It's not that we keep them secret. You're not talking about them. You're not advertising them. You're just showing them by your behavior.

Lastly, you have a party. We didn't say that you also put out a little table of party snacks. But we can, and we should. Because it is worth celebrating. One or more people have just declared themselves on their road to the end of all suffering for everybody. That should be celebrated in some way. So you're allowed to sing and dance and have some snacks, and enjoy each other to end the ceremony.

Then ta ta. 

So that is class 3. You are now experts in how to receive, and give the Bodhisattva vows, almost. You haven't seen the ceremony yet, but it's coming. 

[Class dedication]

Thank you very much everyone for the opportunity to share.

Vocabulary Class 4

TSA TUNG root downfall (there are 18 Bodhisattva root downfalls)

PAMPA defeat (to be defeated by your mental afflictions/the enemy)

(Detailed Vocabulary from Tibetan Track)

DAKTU SHENMU root downfall of praising yourself, or criticizing others

CHUNOR MITER root downfall of failing to give the Dharma, 

or material assistance

SHAK KYANG MI-NYEN root downfall of failing to accept someone‘s apology,

or striking another

TEKCHEN PONGWA root downfall of giving up the Greater Way, or teaching false Dharma

KONCHOK KORTROK root downfall of stealing what belongs to the Three

Jewels

CHUPONG root downfall of giving up the highest Dharma

NGURMIK TROK root downfall of taking away someone‘s robes and 

the rest, or of removing someone from the status of an 

ordained person

TSAMME NGA root downfall of committing one of the 5 immediate 

misdeeds

LOKTA root downfall of holding wring views

DAKTU praising yourself

SHENMU putting down another person

CHU MITERWA not giving Dharma teachings to someone

SHEJANG MILEN not accepting someone’s apology (or suggestion)

TSOKPA striking another person

TEKCHEN PONGWA giving up the Greater Way

DAMCHU TARNANG teaching false Dharma

NYEPA LA CHAKPA desire for material gain

KURTI LA CHAKPA desire for the respect or admiration of others

NGURMIK TROKPA taking away an ordained person’s robes: 

forcibly removing the signs of their ordination

RABJUNG LE PAPPA making an ordained person give up their vows

PA SEPA killing your father

MA SEPA killing your mother

DRACHOMPA SEPA killing an enemy destroyer/an arhat or one who has 

attained Nirvana

DESHEL LA NGENSEM KYI TRAK JIN trying to harm a Buddha

GENDUN YENJE creating a schism among Shakyamuni Buddha’s followers/the Sangha

For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 7, class 4. This is January 30th, 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. 

[Class opening]

Review Class 3

(8:14) Last class we learned about the ceremony for actually receiving our vows. We learned that there are five parts to the preliminaries to that ceremony.

There's the preliminaries, the main event and the conclusion. And in the preliminaries there are these five different parts that prepare us for receiving the vows:

1. The first is we make that formal request to be granted the vows.

2. Then we invite all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to come witness what we're about to do.

3. Then we take that vow taking posture and properly make our request to the vow giver asking to receive the vows. Quickly, quickly, quickly. There's something important about the quickly part.

4. We're instructed to reflect with joy on the opportunity we have, or we will have, by getting these vows for collecting vast amounts of goodness by way of our Bodhisattva activity. 

5. The vow giver asks, Do you really hope to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all living beings? Do you truly want these vows? Do you know what they are? Will you be able to keep them fairly well? Our answers are all in our own mind, or you can whisper. As long as your own, to your self honest answer is, ‚Yes, pretty well‘ to all of those questions, then you are primed to receive the vows.

You next quiz question was, describe the type of person who can grant those Bodhisattva vows.We learned 

• they could be men or women, 

• ordained or not

• they need to have the vows, 

• they need to be keeping them well

• They need to know the ceremony 

• They need to know the Bodhisattva training, how to teach Bodhisattvahood, 

• and they need to be one who's willing and able to help the student attain their goals, to help the student be able to use their vows to guide their behavior.

• further, they should be someone who is practicing the six perfect. But it qualifies this by saying in the sense of them being satisfied with what they have and what they get. It's kind of a clue of how we might assess whether someone who we think is on the Bodhisattva track. 

We really don't know anybody's mind, do we? But one of the ways that we can gain confidence in someone is to watch them and see how they respond in difficult situations, and see how they respond in situations where there's not enough to go around. In situations that typically would trigger someone's selfishness, and need—the what about me? You watch this person and it's like, wow, their what-about-me line is really high. I hardly ever see them do the what-about-me thing? That would be the kind of person that I would admire and maybe go to for advice. 

• Finally, they should have an ability to concentrate and have respect for the Mahayana. We don't really know somebody's ability to concentrate, but we can see by their behavior, their demonstration of their respect for the Mahayana teachings.

Next, we were asked, describe the kind of person who can take the vows. Who can get our vows?

That person needs to be someone who really wishes to have them. Who has compassion, who knows the vows. By knowing them still wants to get them, wants to keep them, and who has already been training themselves in some level of morality, intentional morality training. They say at the very least, practicing avoiding the 10 non virtues for some period of time. Now that's vague. Does that mean a month, three months, six years? The one you go to receive the vows will be the one who assesses whether or not the one who has asked is prepared. That's the job of that vow master. 

Lastly, your quiz asked, what are the four steps to the conclusion of the ceremony? 

1. Is that we turn to all those Buddhas and Bodhisattva and confirm that they have witnessed us swearing our oath to them to keep these behaviors. And then to demonstrate that we make those three prostrations in each of the 10 directions. 

2. The vow master encourages the students in their vows by describing what an incredible good deed we've just done. The instruction to the vow master is, Tell them that there's been a earthquake in Buddha paradises everywhere, and now every Buddha looks upon you the new one with vows as one of their very own children.

3. Students and vow master alike make a thanksgiving offering by using the 37 pile mandala prayer, and the actual ceremony if you're been taught that. Out of our gratitude for those Buddhas and Bodhisattva giving us the opportunity to give the vows and to receive the vows.

4. We are instructed to keep our vows privately, using them to guide our behavior. It's through our behavior that we show that we have vows to those who know about them. In particular, it points out that we are reminded to never use our Bodhisattva vow behavior for our own praise or gain. It's really curious that they point that out specifically. Because it just seems like once we've declared ourselves on our Bodhisattva path, the risk of self praise or self gain would be really low. But our ego self, our ignorant what-about-me self is a very slippery character. All the while that we're like, I have my Bodhisattva vows, I'm going to avoid these behaviors, I am improving myself so well, there's a part of us that doesn't like that. That part of us is takes delight in tripping us up, fooling us. So it's something to be on the alert for. We may someday find ourselves justifying some behavior, justifying that it's somehow a way of keeping my Bodhisattva vows when really deep down I just want to get something from me. It's explaining to us that yes, we've made major progress to get to the point where we have Bodhisattva vows. But don't get complacent. 

The Bodhisattva Vows

(19:25) At this point, hopefully it comes up in our minds to ask, well then what are these vows?

If I need to know them before I can get them, then what are they?

We've finally reached this section of this course where we go through these vows one by one, and in a certain amount of detail. I watch my own mind, and my own mind wants this explanation to be really black and white: 

Tell me what the vow is. Tell me how I avoid it. Tell me what I do when I damage it.

And I'll just do that. 

But we'll see that there are many, many gray areas about the meaning of these vows and how they relate to our actual life situations. The beauty of that is then that we can see how to actually use them to guide our own behavior. If they were so specific that they only pertain to a certain kind of situation, and you never found yourself in that situation, you wouldn't know whether you would be able to keep your vow if that situation came up or not. 

They sound like they're very specific, but they're meant to pertain to real life, and the things that we come across in real life. Then it gets a little harder to really say, Have I damaged that vow or not? By the actual literal meaning of the words, I didn't get close. But what about the subtleties of seed planting? We'll learn how to negotiate that. 

Of course, how you use your vow master is when you can't figure it out. They're the one you're meant to go to.

The first time I received my Bodhisattva vows, it was from his Holiness the Dalai Lama. I couldn't, Sir, I don't understand how to keep this vow. Can you help me? 

He is not available to me. So it's useful to get your vows from someone who is more available to us for when we need, and then use them in that way. 

(22:40) Let's get on with it. Here's our entire vocabulary for class 4:

TSATUNG and PAMPA

We're talking about the vowed activities of a Bodhisattva for the next several classes.

TSATUNG = root downfall

TSA means= root and TUNG = downfall

There are 18 Bodhisattva root downfalls. A root downfall means a behavior that's a really, really serious mistake in our Bodhisattva morality.

It's a serious mistake, because if we fully break one of these 18, we destroy our Bodhisattva vows in our mindstream. 

We're going to have 64 Bodhisattva vows. 18 are these root downfalls, and the other—whatever number that is, that's called secondary downfalls.

When we break one of the 18, it doesn't mean we've also done the wrong behaviors of all the rest. But because we've so seriously disrespected one of those Bodhisattva vows, all the rest of them are damaged as well. 

When one's broken, and we heard that the benefit of vows is that they're repairable, we repair them all, not just the one that we broke.

Lama Tsongkapa says, Yes, it's true that even if we have fully broken a root downfall, we can take the ceremony again and we can get our vows back.

But he says, unfortunately, that fully breaking a vow does something to our mind that even though we restore our vows, they're not restored to the full glory that they were when we first got them. 

As a result, we won't be able to reach the first Bodhisattva bhumi in this lifetime. Which means that because of the negativity planted by that serious break, we either won't be able to grow our Bodhichitta strong enough for our direct perception of emptiness to be imbued with it. Or we won't be able to reach the direct perception of emptiness, even if we have Bodhichitta strongly. We won't have the goodness to have both happening—in that lifetime. It doesn't mean we won't be able to achieve it in another lifetime, even the next lifetime. But not that one in which that new vow was fully broken. 

Lama Tsongkapa‘s point is not to discourage us, it's actually to encourage us. But to encourage us in such a way that we take this seriously enough, that we don't get sloppy and allow ourselves to fully break a root downfall.

That said, it takes a really, really dark and ugly stay of mind-heart that it's sustained in order to fully break a downfall. We'll talk about those four conditions so that we understand well what to watch for that could get us close, even close to fully breaking a root downfall. There are four factors that need to be present, and if any one or more of the four are missing, when we do the deed that's damaging the vow, we haven't fully broken that downfall.

We have gathered non virtue, yes, and we have damaged secondary vows as a result, but it takes these four ugly states of mind to fully break a vow. They're pretty hard to have and sustain for someone who is on their spiritual path sincerely. So we'll see them soon.

This other vocabulary word PAMPA, it means to be defeated. The root downfall means a behavior that if we do makes us fall down, and literally it means go to a lower realm.

PAMPA means defeated. We've been defeated.

We've been defeated, means we've been defeated by an enemy. The enemy, of course, is our own mental afflictions, which is what caused us to do the behavior that broke the vow in the first place.

Interestingly, the four most serious, fully ordained monk and nun vows are also called PAMPAs, defeats, being defeated. Those four are killing a human, stealing anything of value, sexual intercourse, and lying about one's spiritual attainment. 

Those are the four worst things that an ordained person could do, any one of which would cause their ordained vows to disappear.

By comparison, the first 18 Bodhisattva vows are given this name as well, PAMPA, to indicate the seriousness of breaking them. If we do one of those behaviors of the 18 root downfalls, it means we've been defeated by our enemy, mental affliction. The different vows are behaviors that different mental afflictions motivate.

The root downfalls are considered the heaviest harmful deeds that can be done by a person who's claiming to want to help all beings stop their suffering.

The root downfalls and secondary vows are all worded in the negative. We say, I will avoid such and such and such, which is different than saying, I will do such and such and such.

Success is actually built in. Because as we've said before, once we take a vow for avoiding certain behaviors, we are keeping the goodness of the vow every moment we're not doing that behavior, regardless of whether we're in a circumstance where we might. Then, when we are in a circumstance where we might, that's when our ethical choice making behavior guided by our vows kicks in. But how often is that? 

Hopefully rarely.

Yet, every moment we're gathering the goodness of keeping vows. It's a really powerful tool when we understand. 

Keeping our vows is gathering goodness fast, and that goodness grows. When we see ourselves keeping our vows, well, Geshe Michael asserts, we will see changes in our life and our circumstances.

To keep them well we need to understand them, and thank goodness they say with Bodhisattva vows, learn them before you decide whether you think you can keep them or not. Which means we can learn them, and start to live according to them, even before we decide, Yeah, I'm going to take these as vows. Because I've already shown myself that I can keep them. 

It's nice. Thank you Buddha, for making it so easy, so much easier for us than it could be. 

Root Downfalls 1-9

(35:50) Tonight's class, we will cover the first nine of the 18 root downfalls. The 18 worst deeds of Bodhisattva in the making could do with those four ugly states of mind that we haven't heard about yet… (I lost train of thought on that sentence. I can't finish it.) That we're going to learn to avoid to do.

Root Downfall 1—Praising yourself and criticizing others

Here we go. 

The first one is called the root Downfall of praising yourself and criticizing others. When it's stated like that, it almost sounds like I'm supposed to praise myself and criticize others. Of course that's not the right understanding.

I will avoid the root downfall of praising myself and criticizing others.

I've seen people, they get on their social media and post their Bodhisattva vow for each day to help others. And they say Bodhisattva vow number one, praising myself and criticizing others. Anybody who's learned them knows exactly what that person means. But anybody who hasn't learned them would read that and go, Wow, this person's going to practice praising themselves and criticizing others? I don't think I want any part of that.

You are not going to do that. But when you're saying them even to yourself, oh, my bodhisattva vow number one is praising myself and criticizing others. Your own mind is hearing those words. Part of your mind knows, you mean you're going to avoid that, but that's not what you said. You're going to give confusing messages to your own subconscious if the wording that you use when you recite your vows is imprecise.

I'm going to ask you in Je Tsongkap-ien fashion to be precise when you write or say your Bodhisattva vows even to yourself, especially to yourself. 

I will avoid making that root downfall, that big mistake of praising myself and criticizing others.

Let's see what that really means.

It is about a very specific circumstance, and the behavior needs to be motivated in a very specific way under the influence of a specific mental affliction.

This one in particular is motivated by pride. That pride makes us want to have some self gain. Under that influence of the self gain, that pride makes us want, we criticize another person. Because in doing so, we think that means that we will be seen as better than them. If we point out another person's faults to someone else, that someone else will think more highly of us. That's the mental affliction thinking. Wisdom mind goes, That's crazy.

Especially if you're criticizing someone to someone who understands anything about karma and emptiness. They're going to go, whoa, you just made a big mistake, honey.

But under those mental afflictions, our rational thinking can fly out the window, which is why this takes training. In this first root downfall—I will avoid praising myself and criticizing others—there's actually two different actions going on.

Geshe Michael writes out these 18 root downfalls. There's more than 18, because the first four have two each. Then some of the others, they only are one. But they have three different parts to them. So there's more than 18, but they're just called 18.

This one has the praising myself as one behavior, and criticizing or putting down someone else as the second behavior. Either one done under these four ugly states of mind would fully break that first vow. Which then means all the rest of them are negated as well. I mean not completely, but to the point where we need to refresh them all.

We're doing both of them, praising ourself and or criticizing another, in order to gain greater respect or admiration for oneself. The commentaries go on to express that actually this Bodhisattva behavior avoidance is meant for very much more specific circumstance. That is one Mahayana dharma teacher to another.

If someone who's sharing Mahayana dharma praises themself over some other teacher of the Mahayana, motivated by believing that by doing so, they would get some gain of sponsorship, or increased reputation. That will break the vow if they have those four states of mind—again, I haven't gotten there yet.

Or if that person doesn't praise themselves, but criticizes some other teacher, tries to denigrate their quality of teaching, or what they're teaching. That would then draw the person they're talking to to admire them more.

Both of them are motivated by this wrong pride, which is why they're called one vow. 

Because the mental affliction is the same. To break the vow does not require both, one or the other will do the job. The one that you are speaking the praise or the criticism to can be anyone who would understand what you're saying.

You don't break the vow if you tell your dog what a lousy teacher that other teacher is. But if you tell a human who understands your words, the human doesn't necessarily need to understand the dharma, et cetera. But you could see how it would be a stronger negativity if you, the Mahayana teacher, is talking to another person in the dharma who understands a bit about karma and emptiness. You either praise yourself or criticize another, and that person hears and understands, Oh, that other person, they're not so good. I should stay away from them. 

The breaking of this vow actually contributes to schism. It's creating divisiveness, motivated by wrong pride, plants the seeds for pulling people apart. Divisiveness and schism is a really serious negativity in the mind of someone who claims I'm going to be a totally enlightened being because everybody's suffering and I'm going to help them stop it. You see?

The breaking of the vow occurs when the person that they're talking to, here's hears and understands. Oh, this person's better than that one. Here's and really misunderstands, but here's an understands, understands that you're praising yourself or understands that you're criticizing another.

Of course, it's just plain negative karma to praise oneself and criticize others anyway. But it only breaks the vow when it's this circumstance having to do with teachers of the Mahayana. 

Geshela did share that one might find themselves in a situation where they hear another teacher person teaching the Mahayana dharma, what they're calling the Mahayana dharma. But you recognize that what they're teaching is very mistaken, and one should act to clarify those mistakes—either by debate or by scriptural authority, or by having the person who's misteaching show the scriptural authority that they're teaching from.

But the state of mind of pointing out the error would need to be out of compassion for them, out of concern for the students, and out of concern for the purity of the dharma lineage. Not out of I know better. You've been taught wrongly, letting our puffed up ego takeover, and have that be what's pointing out the mistake. The words may be the same, the actions may be the same, but the motivation is completely different. The concern is for the teachings, the student and the teacher, not for showing what we know. 

The 4 States of Mind that need to be Present to Break a Vow

For that deed to actually break, the downfall, we need to have these four ugly states of mind, or parts of our motivation active, and to some extent sustained in order for the vow to be fully broken, a full downfall.

The 4 States of Mind

1. Our behavior is done, motivated from a really selfish state. That mental affliction is so strong, that's making us need to get what we feel is most important for us. It is pushing our behavior, ugly for a Bodhisattva, a professed Bodhisattva. But meeting it must happen. This is the first root downfall. We must be at risk.

2. We do the deed and we're glad that we did it. 

3. We're willing to do it again.

4. When you rethink about having done it, there's no shame. 

We'll go through these four again in greater detail. But if you think about it, your intention is colored with selfishness, and so you think it's right. If you think it's right, you do the deed, it gets finished. You're glad you did it, because you think it's right. It was right to do. I'm glad I did it. I‘d do it again. And when I think back about it, yeah, good for me, no shame.

If you think of those different scenarios, strong, selfish intent, glad I did it, willing to do it again at the time I did it, but now that I think back about it, Ooh, maybe that wasn't the best way to handle it. 

A little regret, a little shame. With a little shame, a little regret, the full vow is not broken.

Did we create a series of really ugly seeds? Yes.

Will we want to purify it? Yeah.

But we didn't fully break the vow.

Do you see the difference?

If we do it, and we're not glad we are doing it, or glad we did it—doesn't fully break the vow.

If we do it, but I don't ever intend to do it again—doesn't fully break the vow.

We've learned before. A healthy sense of regret is that we call a negative emotion that's a virtue, because you can see how it's actually protective. It's a protective state of mind to have this little bit of regret.

Maybe I'm just not quite doing it well enough. Maybe my Bodhichitta is not quite as strong as it could be.

We tend to hear regret, and it's like, oh, guilt, shame. Try to work with that word regret, and find the feeling that's motivating, instead of putting ourselves down. Because it's so protective of our Bodhisattva vows.

Of course, if we don't ever get close to those behaviors, you don't need regret either. But sometimes those mental afflictions get so strong.

Of course the bottom line is just avoid praising oneself and criticizing others, and then we won't be tempted to do it when it comes to our spiritual practice. We'll be not tempted to do it when we're in the position of the teacher either.

Again, for breaking this vow, this action of praising self and criticizing others, needs to be verbal. Like thinking it in our minds. Don't let the thought go on, because that'll turn into verbal. But the vow isn't damaged until you say to somebody else something that qualifies as either praising self or criticizing another.

(55:25) In ACI, Geshe Michael didn't talk about thinking of these vows in terms of seed planting, or thinking of them in terms of what's the opposite of the behavior to be avoided. As I was working with them in my training, it occurred to me that if I could understand what the opposite behavior would be, and I trained myself in the opposite behavior, I would also be training myself to avoid the negative. It would be like it's growing something in me, as opposed to avoiding perpetuating something in me.

So I one day sat down with all my vows, and I rewrote them in the positive, which they'd be unique to me.

Everybody who writes their vows, and rewords them positively, you're going to have your own take on it. When I looked at those, it's like, oh yeah. I can see where those positive behaviors plant the seeds for actually those five, I can't remember what Geshela calls them, but the abundance, the health and long life, the partnership, the still mind and the save the world (referring to the 5 Goals of every person in life).

All these vows that are stated in the negative, if you turn them around and do the positive, you can see that different ones would be planting the seeds for one or more of these different five results to come.

Which ultimately the five altogether is Buddha you and Buddha Paradise emanating.

It really helped me to just do that exercise of seeing what the positive behaviors would be so that I could better keep, better avoid the vows that are stated in the negative. Do you see?

If we grow the habit of praising others, and just leaving ourselves out of it completely, we plant these seeds for being respected and admired. All the ways that we are praising others, we're going to hear be said about ourselves, even in our own mind. Which could become the danger of pride getting strong. I planted all these good seeds, now everybody says how wonderful I am, I must be wonderful. Then we could spiral down unless our emptiness understanding about that wonderful me gets strong as well.

Root downfall number one—I will avoid praising myself and belittling others, especially teachers to teachers, but anybody.

Root Downfall 2–Avoiding Giving the Dharma or Material Assistance

(59:01) Second one, I will avoid not giving the dharma or material assistance.

Again, we've got two: failing to share the dharma, or failing to share material assistance. Again, there are specifics that the person who's requesting the material assistance, for us to break a vow by refusing them, they must be in serious need and they must be in a position of having no other support system.

Geshela‘s example is, there's somebody who's got diabetes and their kidneys are failing. They've lost their job, and they've gone to their family and friends for help, and everybody's tapped out. They're at the place where they need kidney dialysis twice a week, and they don't have the funds, and they can't get there. They come to you with your Bodhisattva vows and they say, Please, can you help me get my dialysis?

Then the circumstances for oneself in order to break that vow by rejecting their request is that you actually have the resources to help them. You just don't want to use your resources on their behalf. 

The vow is broken only when you are their last resource, and you have what they need, but you fail to help them.

You could help them get resources from somewhere else. If you can help them get their need met, you don't have to personally use your resources to avoid breaking the vow. If you can get them to a government agency, but you choose not to even help in that way. Out of this motivation of, I don't want to part myself from my resources,

—whether it's my money resources, or my time resources, they're in absolute need. You're their only hope. You have the ability to help in one way, shape or another. Out of stinginess, attachment, you say no.

Again, it seems like how in the world could a Bodhisattva ever do that? 

How often are we in the position where we are the only hope for someone? I don't know that I've ever been in that position. This means that you don't break a vow when you see somebody in need, and you don't stop your car and go buy them lunch. For this vow to get broken. You you have to be specifically asked by them. You check out, who else do you have to go to? How can I help you get this resolved? If we make the effort, we don't break the vow—whether they get their need resolved or not. It's being willing to use our own resources, time, money, whatever, to try to help them, that protects the vow.

The mental affliction that motivates the behavior that breaks the vow is stinginess, attachment to our stuff, to our importance. It's related to pride, actually.

Luisa says, what about people begging on the streets? Are they asking directly or not?

No, they're not. Even if they come up to you directly and say, would you give me money? You can ask them, am I your only hope? They might say yes, but you know there's another driver behind you. The thing is that when we get asked for help, in this other space where we're not their only hope, and maybe we have the perception, oh, they're probably drunk or drug addicted, and if I give them the money, they're just going to go hurt themselves with drugs. So I won't give them the money, because I don't want to contribute to them hurting themselves—is what we say in our mind. But deep down in our heart, we judge them in such a way, they don't deserve my help because they're broken in some way.

It's delicate, because you're right, you don't want to facilitate them drinking alcohol. That breaks a different vow. But we don't know for sure. Alternatively, instead of giving money, give them your lunch, give them a knit cap if it's cold. Have something in your car other than money to give them, and then offer it to them, and don't have your feelings hurt when they say, oh, no thanks, I really just want money.

It's like, okay, sorry. At this point I can't do that. But check your heart. Geshela‘s point was always, check our hearts. That if we're really not giving to try to protect them, then we're making good seeds by refusing them. But if we're just being stingy or scared of them, different seeds.

(Luisa) Sorry, Lama. On those lines, if it is someone close to you, and yes, you might be their last hope. But it has been a constant, how to call it, misbehavior, or it sounds to be a bit abusive. Still it would be that we have to do it, because then it could be a dangerous thing for that person. If you're trying to teach them also to take some responsibility, but at the same time it reached some point of no return, where if you don't help, then it might turn into something extremely dangerous. Then in that case, you should give because you're the the last hope?

(Lama Sarahni) Yeah, if you really are the last hope, and that's the hard question to answer. Maybe today you really are the last hope. But with further investigation, further finding, there is a government agency, or there is someplace that by withholding your support and connecting that person to that agency or group, your tough love actually helps them better than your giving. But it does take judgment. Then somewhere along the line, it does take that strength of what they call tough love. I don't know what that line is. But in terms of your Bodhisattva vow, having that vow does put you in this position that if you really are the last resort for them, and the only resort is your personal resources, not some other way that you can get them help, then you should give, to protect your vow. Just probably there's some other way.

We were talking about material things. I'll avoid giving the dharma or material things. So not just now and then, this very specific circumstance they've asked you, you're their only hope.

Then for dharma, to not give the dharma still means withholding some aspect of your dharma wisdom, because you think, wrongly of course, that somehow by sharing it you'll lose something. By sharing your wisdom, you will be seen as not higher than them anymore, or you'll see that somehow giving your wisdom to someone else makes you have less of it. It would be a real misunderstanding, but must happen.

If you put yourself in the position of teacher, the teacher would ideally want their students to grow beyond them, to grow in their wisdom, to grow in their goodness, to grow in their realizations, even beyond the teacher.

But then, if the teacher still has ignorance in them, they're going to feel like, whoa, my student knows more than me. The ego's going to get in the way. In a very ugly perverted way, the teacher might withhold something from a student that's gaining realizations, realizations, realizations. But the teacher doesn't tell them that last little clue, because when they do that student's going to go off and get better than the teacher. For a Bodhisattva, it doesn't make sense. They couldn‘t ever do that. But for someone who still has human ego ignorance, what-about-me, we could see a mental affliction growing in that way. It must have happened because we have it as a Bodhisattva vow. 

The mental affliction in both vows of these is attachment, clinging, possessiveness to either our materials, resources or our position related to the student, our position of perceived wisdom, possessiveness. Which is why these two are both one vow, and we break it by doing either one. Doesn't take both.

Six to seven, I went 13 minutes past our break time. I'm so sorry. Let's take a break.

Root Downfall 3–Failing to Accept Another‘s Apolog, and Striking Another

(73:35) I will avoid the root downfall of failing to accept another's apology, and striking another. This one also has two parts. Either one breaks the vow, it doesn't take both. They are both motivated by the same mental affliction. That's why it's said to be one vow.

Breaking the vow related to striking another person is a very specific situation, that’s related to the not accepting the apology, but not dependent upon. It's a situation where someone has done something to you that you didn't like, and they've apologized for it. But that Bodhisattva in the making has stayed angry about them, angry towards them about that. That anger builds up over time, and eventually because of that anger that from before that's grown, grown, grown, you get in a situation where you want to get back at them, and you hit them or throw something at them, or get somebody else to do the same. 

(75:21) The mental affliction is anger. This anger that's justified because we're sustaining it. We justify our anger when we continue to blame that other for the distress that we feel. Somebody does something, we feel hurt, we get angry, we blame them for hurting us. That makes us angry, and we justify that even when they say, I'm so sorry. But we don't believe it. We expect they will do it again. So we stay angry, and anger grows into that wish what's retribution, and we hit them or get somebody else to hit them.

To break this vow, that other being needs to be human. The one who gets hit that we're angry with is human. The building up of the anger is a big part of breaking this vow. 

So the second half, it's actually the first half, I'll avoid failing to accept an apology.

In this situation someone is apologizing for something that they did wrong to us, but we just refuse to accept their apology. We stay angry. The refusing to accept the apology is this mental affliction that actually wants to keep the anger alive. Something in us doesn't want them, they apologize, but we refuse to accept it so that we can stay angry with them. Do you see how un-Bodhisattva-ish it is? We think, oh, I couldn't do that. But watch out and see. 

The breaking the vow is refusing to listen to their apology. They're apologizing, we're hearing it, but in our mind we're going, they don't really mean it. I don't want to accept it. It's like we think that by accepting their apology, we're saying that what they did is okay. And it's not okay. But we have this misjudgment somehow that feels we need to protect ourselves from their future bad behavior by failing to accept their apology, because that means they didn't do wrong, and that means they can do it to me again. And that's not true. But we might have those beliefs born of past experience, both being hurt again and again, and past seeds of apologizing to somebody but doing the same thing again to them.

If that can happen to us, it means we've done it. Not you and me, but this mind stream. Refusing to accept the apology and the staying in anger and hitting somebody, are born of this anger that for some perverted reason we want to stay justified in keeping. It's just hurting ourselves of course, and coloring our behaviors such that we could go on to totally break our Bodhisattva vow.

Root Downfall 4–Giving Up the Greater Way and Teaching False Dharma

(80:18) I'll avoid the root downfall of giving up the greater way and teaching false dharma. Again two in one. The Greater Way, of course, refers to the Mahayana. The Mahayana, we know, has two great divisions: the teachings on emptiness and the teachings on Bodhisattva activities—the method side, which are also called the teachings on compassion.

To reject or give up the Greater Way means to disrespect the Greater Way, to put it down in the sense of saying, those teachings really can't help us in any way. The Buddha never taught them. Somebody else made it up. The Mahayana is invalid teachings. 

Again, it's like who could be well trained enough to get Bodhisattva vows, and then say something like that about the Mahayana teachings? It's just like I can't imagine it happening. But seeds shift. Seeds change. We hear things from other people, and we misunderstand. There are Buddhist traditions that believe that the whole Mahayana was not taught by Buddha. It was taught by someone who came later who added to the Buddhist teaching. They don't believe any of the scriptures that are the Mahayana scriptures, were actually taught by Lord Buddha. Because all their lineage ever learned was the early sutras, the first turning of the wheel. It's valid for them, and they have compassion, and they have wisdom, and they have love. But they don't have the Mahayana teachings as Buddha's teachings. They don't have Bodhisattva vows, so they don't break Bodhisattva vows by saying, Those Mahayana teachings are not Lord Buddhas. But then we might find ourselves in a group that studies the sutra and might come to see their logic, and start to doubt.

If we have our Bodhisattva vows, our Bodhisattva vows help protect us from that situation if we're following and tracking our vows. Because we'd find ourself in a situation like that and say, oh, wait a minute, I think I'm in with the wrong group. Bless you. You guys are wonderful, but excuse me, I need to go be with Mahayana. 

The second half of the vow teaching false dharma, means one is in the position of sharing, teaching the dharma with others. And this person, through their experience, comes up with their own interpretation of the teachings, and then teaches that interpretation to others as if it was what was originally taught by Buddha.

Geshe Michael has taught us, teach the lineage purely, teach the way you've been shared, use the scripture, use the logic, teach what you've learned. When you have personal experience, share that according to how you might help others with it. But clearly identify, these are my experiences. These are my thoughts that came out of studying the scripture according to its pure lineage. 

So it's not the sharing one's own modernization of the teachings, it's the giving the impression that this is what Buddha taught that breaks the vow. If we understand that, if every generation that shares what they learned with the next generation, if each sharing gets twisted a little bit, it doesn't take very many generations before the teaching is so twisted up, it won't work.

I looked at it, if we call 25 years one generation, there have been a hundred generations since Shakyamuni Buddha 500 BC. If there have been a hundred different variations, then what we would be getting now would be who knows what. When it's handed down as purely as possible with these other clues as to how it pertains to the modern world at the time, then we have a lineage that continues to work, the teachings that continue to work for people. 

As teachers or soon to be teachers, it's important to make this clear distinction: This is what I've been taught. This is what I've experienced, and may my experience help you apply what you've been taught to gain your own experience. But then when you share with others, share it accurately. To not do that, but rather to take one's own interpretation and say it's Buddha‘s, that's what breaks this vow. You see? 

(88:12) To break the vow, we must know that we made it up. We like the idea, and we teach it to others as Mahayana Buddhism, and the others accept it. Actually, if you do all this and teach it to someone else and they go, oh, you're full of it—you don't break the vow. Which is interesting. The other person's reaction contributes to whether you break your vow or not.

The mental affliction here is ignorance. 

Root Downfall 5–Stealing What Belongs to the Three Jewels

(88:54) Number five, I'll avoid the root downfall of stealing what belongs to the Three Jewels. This one's a little confusing. The Three Jewels—Buddha Jewel, Dharma Jewel, Sangha Jewel. Come on, those are not steal from-able, are they? 

The Buddha Jewel is the emptiness of the mind of a Buddha. You can't steal from that. So it doesn't mean that literally. It means stealing from Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, meaning your Dharma center, the resources or material things of the Dharma Center, or from the ordained people. Not just Aryas would be Sangha Jewel, but anyone in one sangha. So not even ordained people Sangha. But if you're involved in a group of people studying together, stealing from any one of them. Stealing from the center would mean literally taking something that they have and making it yours. Geshela says by extension, not for breaking the vow, but for careful behavior, even breaking something that belongs to your Dharma center and not replacing it would be perceived by our own mind as a kind of stealing from the Dharma Center. Of course it‘s a serious negative karma.

Stealing a Buddha image, stealing books, taking it. To really break the vow, the state of mind needs to be, oh, there's that thing. I want it. It should belong to me. It would be beneficial for it to belong to me. Then either I get it, or I get somebody to get it for me. And once I have it, we have that, ‘This is mine, this is mine now.‘ Do you see?

It's a very strong taking, and keeping for oneself, and having ownership again with those four states of mind. You don't see it as wrong. You're happy you did it, you would do it again, and there's no shame. 

There'd be no doubt about it being right for you to take that Buddha image. The Dharma center's got six of them. It'd be great for me to have it. Do you see?

To break this vow, any one of those three, taking a Buddha image, taking something else from the Dharma center, or taking something not given from a Sangha member, any one of those with this wrong state of mind breaks the vow. It doesn't have to be all three, of course.

I'm looking for my note about what the mental affliction is here. Ignorant liking. I don't have it written down, but ignorant liking would be it. Willing to do something wrong to get what we want.

Root Downfall 6–Giving Up the Highest Dharma

(93:16) Number six, I will avoid the root downfall of giving up the highest dharma. 

This is referring to any of the three levels of Buddha's teaching. Usually we think of the highest dharma as meaning the Mahayana. But the commentary explains that giving up any of the dharma levels is what this vow is meant to help us avoid. But what it means to give it up is very specific.

To clarify the three levels: 

1. The first (level) is the dharma of the listeners, also known as Shravaka. It's a track upon which practitioners are classically studying the teachings on the four Arya truths. The truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path to get there.

2. The second level is the group of what are called self-made Buddha, Prayatka Buddha, that are neither self-made nor Buddha. Classically, they study the 12 links of dependent origination, the wheel of life. 

3. The third group is the dharma of the Mahayana, who study all of those.

The vow is talking about giving up anyone of these three. And of course if you give up the Mahayana, you've given up the other too, because they're included in it—the paths shared.

To give it up means this teaching was not spoken by Lord Buddha. That's what we heard before about giving up the Mahayana. Buddha didn't teach this. It's hugely disrespectful. This is the same. If this Bodhisattva says to somebody that those four Arya truths Buddha never taught that. I can't imagine, could you imagine? Or Buddha never taught the 12 links of dependent origination. Oh my gosh. Or Buddha never taught the Heart Sutra. Somebody else said that. It did seem like that. 

To break the root vow, we're dismissing all of the teachings within each one of those categories, not some specific teaching within it. 

Again, it would be out of a mental affliction of ignorance. Ignorance in the sense of just not really knowing historically what Buddha taught and what Buddha didn't teach, but also ignorance of not understanding the seriousness of the seeds you're planting by hearing yourself say to somebody, Buddha didn't teach that.

So really, with these root downfalls, when we also apply those four states of mind, it's like, I don't think I could break these 18. Like they're not so hard to keep.

As long as my good seeds carry me along in this same way, of course. Which seeing myself keeping the vows will help me carry my goodness along. But if I get sloppy about it, who knows what could happen. One good flare up of a mental affliction, and we could lose track. 

Geshela says, when we are tracking our vows, we can use the onion skin thing. We're not going to get close to the actual breaking of the Bodhisattva vow, but work our way out. What's the most mundane thing that I can avoid doing, that as long as I avoid that I will never get close to inside? Concentric circle idea.

To honor all of the Buddhas teachings is going to keep us out here. Nowhere close to where we might say, Buddha never taught that. How come somebody's studying only that? Again, we are so well-trained, thank you Geshe Michael, that we can hardly conceive.

Root Downfall 7–Taking Away the Golden Robes and the Rest and Removing Someone From the Status of an Ordained Person 

(99:19) Number seven, I will avoid the root downfall of taking away the golden robes and the rest and removing someone from the status of an ordained person. 

The meaning underlying this is to avoid harming an ordained person in either of two ways, says the commentary. First to physically remove their robes and take them away. An ordained person only has robes. So if you take an ordained person's robes away, you leave them naked in the street, and they don't have a home to run to with a closet full of clothes. So you leave them completely vulnerable.

The other way is to force them to disrobe, meaning force them to break a vow or to declare that they give their vows back. When we take vows, there are Bodhisattva vows, even at the cost of my life, I think we say.

What if we got in that horrible situation where we got arrested for being a Mahayana practitioner, and they're holding the knife to your throat, give back your vows or you're toast. Seriously? Would you say, I can't give back my vows? Kill me if you must. I hope you don't, because it's bad karma for you, but I'm not giving up my robes.

But on the other hand, you monk or nun, might recognize, well, if I tell this person, I'll give up my vows, but deep in my heart, I'm not giving them up, then they won't kill me and I can live longer and maybe I can help that person come to see the truth. In which case, sure, I'll give up my ordained vows to protect my Bodhisattva vows so that I can live long enough to help you. It is not black or white.

Hopefully we never find ourselves or anybody else in that situation. Hopefully we also are never in a position where our hearts would be such that we would want to hurt an ordained person, or disrupt them. It would take this ugly state of mind that sees them as some kind of threat, or some kind of evil. I have real ignorant disliking that out of anger, we would want to hurt them, and probably the best... That's not right. The strongest way to hurt an ordained person would be to do something that would make their vow be damaged. Which we just saw. Their four main ones are killing, stealing, sexual intercourse, lying about their spiritual practice, amongst others.

Root Downfall 8–Committing Any One of the Five Immediate Misdeeds

(103:15) Number eight, I will avoid the root downfall of committing any one of the five immediate misdeeds. 

Those five immediate misdeeds are deeds done, the karmic ripening of which will be your projection of yourself in the worst hell realm in the very next lifetime from the end of the life in which you did that deed.

So, you do one of the five. At the end of that lifetime, directly to the worst hell. You have a bardo, but you don't have an in between lifetime. That we could, right? We can have negative seeds and some other seed is the projecting karma, and that negative seed from the lifetime stays for a while, and maybe it doesn't ripen for 16 more lifetimes before it sends you to the hell realm. Immediate misdeeds mean immediate next life, worst hell realm. Why? Because they are so seriously negative. What are they? 

1. Killing one's father-least worst,

2. killing one's mother-second worst, 

3. killing an arhat. Someone who has overcome their mental afflictions and seeds for more due to seeing emptiness directly and learning to live according to them. 

4. trying to draw blood from a Buddha with evil intent trying to harm a Buddha, and

5. causing a schism within the Buddha Sangha. Like the worst of the worst is causing a schism in the sangha. But causing a schism in Buddha‘s, Budhha Shakyamuni‘s Sangha, in which those two great disciples come and fix it within 24 hours. I think we've studied this. So technically, nowadays, because Buddha Shakyamuni and his sangha are not walking this earth that we are directly aware of, we cannot do misdeed number five. It's great negative karma to cause a schism in any group of people, let alone a group of Dharma practitioners. But it's not breaking this vow.

Then we also are protected from not being able to do the fourth worst, no second worst, trying to draw blood from Shakyamuni Buddha, from a Buddha, with evil intent. It goes to the medical lab, gets blood drawn that's not breaking the vow. But killing mother, killing father, killing arhat. 

Now our minds go, do you have to know they're in our hut to break the vow? I think so. You would have to know it's your mother, know it's your father, or would you? But to fully break the vow, remember: I think it's the right thing to do. I'm happy about it. I do it again and no shame.

These immediate misdeeds, it's not clear to me if those four apply to them or not. Logically they must. But regardless, just avoid them. Avoid killing any human, and you won't kill your mother, you won't kill your father, and you won't kill an arhat. 

And then do our best to avoid killing or contributing to killing to any life, and we reduce our seeds to even be in a position where we might kill mother, father, arhat. Do you see? Our concentric circles?

Root Downfall 9–Holding Wrong Views

(108:20) Number nine, just in time, I'll avoid the root downfall of holding wrong views. Holding wrong views here refers to two classical wrong views. The first is denying karma. The second is denying past and future lifetimes.

So of course, there's a whole lot more wrong view in what's called wrong view. But what breaks the Bodhisattva vow is to have known about the laws of karma, the four laws of karma. And then because of, I'm not sure what we apply our reasoning and our experiences, and we come to a clear conclusion that it cannot be true, that a kind deed must bring a pleasant result and an unkind deed must bring an unpleasant result. We could kind of see how we might get to that. If in life, every time we're kind to somebody, they're mean to us back again.

It could happen, couldn't it? If we have the seeds of having been nasty to anybody who was nice to us before.

If it was always like that, how would anybody ever convince us that those two are not related. But every single time I'm nice, they're mean to be back. Every single time? Well, there was this one time that somebody wasn't mean. Ah.

That's enough to prove it. But it wouldn't prove it, would it? If our experience was, No, everybody's nasty. Everybody's mean to me. It doesn't matter what I do.

Do you see how this could kick in? Hopefully not. Once we're well trained enough to apply our logic and check our behavior and do our four powers, et cetera, 

When we don't understand that the consequences of our behavior match the circumstances of it, we will justify doing anything that we want to get what we want, whether it works or not. That means karmic consequences are not running the show here—wrong view. Because then it doesn't matter what we do.

The second is denying the existence of past and future lifetimes, because that leads us to the same conclusion. Well, if I just have this one lifetime, then I should do everything I can to get the happiness that I want in this lifetime. Because in the end, it's just gone, done. So there's no reason to discipline ourselves to a certain behavior to get a result that might come 16 lifetimes from now. 

On the other hand, we really can only, until we have some direct experience of past or future lifetime, or some direct experience of the truth of kindness brings pleasure and unkindness brings unpleasure, we're at the mercy of logic and faith. So we're not meant to just buy the truth of karma, and buy the truth of past and future lifetimes without learning the logic, and applying ourselves to it to convince ourselves to try to live by it, of the benefits of trying to live by it. Don't just take it on faith.

But don't flat out reject it. That's what breaks the vow, to somehow come to the conclusion that karma, those four laws of karma, no way are they true. It just cuts the vow. Past, future lifetimes. Before I used to think it was true, or maybe it was true, but now I see, nah, not possible. Flat out reject, is what breaks the vow. Doubt is fine, doubt is healthy. Don't leave it. We have other vows to not let our doubt lie. But don't beat yourself up for wondering: I'm not sure about this karma thing sometimes. 

To break this Bodhisattva vow, we have to come to this firm conviction of one or the other of these negations, and declare that we don't believe in either of them. So this one isn't one or the other that breaks the vow. It's both because they go together. If you don't believe in karma, then past and future lives don't make sense. If you don't believe in past and future lives, karma doesn't make sense either. They go together.

I encourage you to memorize these first nine root downfalls in those words:

I will avoid the root downfall of blah, blah, blah,

So that you can rattle them off. You have them in the reading. I think in your student notes as well, the verbiage of them, hopefully make them easy for yourself to say and understand. 

[Class Dedication]

Thank you so much again for the opportunity. Always helps me to hear these again. Have a great weekend. I'll see you Sunday. 

(Student Question) I have a question on the root downfall four. 

Teaching the false Dharma. So if we teach other non Buddhism, let's say we teach yoga theory and all that, and it's definitely different from Buddhism. Are we considered as teaching false dharma? 

(Lama Sarahni) No. Only if you say Buddha taught this, right? Which you're not saying. You're teaching yoga. You, the Bodhisattva can teach yoga. There's another vow about not putting your effort into non dharma things. But we'll talk about that. That's not this vow.

Vocabulary Class 5

(Detailed Vocabulary from Tibetan Track)

DRONG SOK JOM root downfall of destroying towns and such

MAJANG TONGNYI TEN root downfall of teaching emptiness to a person who is 

not yet mentally prepared

DZOKJANG DOK root downfall of causing a person to turn back from total 

enlightenment

SOTAR PONG root downfall of causing a person to give up the morality 

of freedom

NYENMU root downfall of holding that a person cannot eliminate 

desire and the rest by following the way of the learner

SABDZUN MA root downfall of professing the complete opposite 

(saying you have seen emptiness or dieties directly, 

when you have not)

CHOKSUM KOR LEN root downfall of accepting what belongs to the Three 

Jewels when someone presents it to you

TRIM NGEN CHA root downfall of rejecting the practice of quietude and 

giving the possessions of meditators to those who 

practice recitation

SEMTONG root downfall of discarding the wish for enlightenment

LOKTA holding wrong views (not believing in karma and

believing there are no past and future lives)

For the recording. Welcome back. We are ACI course 7 class 5. This is February 2nd, 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. 

[Class opening]

Review Class 4

(8:20) Your quiz asked you, what are those first nine root downfalls? In the interest of time, I'm just going to say them, but be prepared that some future class we may be asked to recite them. 

1. I will avoid praising myself and criticizing others.

2. I will avoid failing to give the dharma or material things.

3. I will avoid failing to accept an apology and or striking someone out of anger.

4. I will avoid giving up the greater way and teaching false dharma.

5. I will avoid stealing what belongs to the three jewels.

6. I will avoid giving up the highest dharma.

7. I will avoid taking away an ordained person's robes or causing them to lose their ordained vows.

8. I will avoid any of the immediate misdeeds, and 

9. I'll avoid holding wrong views.

Then your quiz asked, what are the two parts of those first four root downfalls? 

The first is, I will avoid praising myself and criticizing others. So praising self, criticizing others, and if you recall, it doesn't take both to break the vow. Either one will do the job in those specific circumstances with the four chains intact, which we haven't talked about the four chains in detail yet. 

Second, the two parts are failing to give the dharma, failing to give material things in those specific circumstances. We fail to give material things all the time, and that's not breaking the vow. It's blocking our abundance, but it's not breaking the vow.

Then third one, not accepting an apology, and then staying angry to the point where you hurt somebody. I mean literally hit them, and it says, or throw something at them. So you wonder what else it means. But you stay so angry that you hurt them, or get somebody else to do it for you. 

Then the last one, giving up the greater way is one part, and teaching false dharma is the other part. Meaning teaching something as dharma that you made up as opposed to clearly identifying: this is my experience and this is how I think an explanation is, but not calling that and Buddha taught it that way. 

That's the main piece of that one. 

Root Downfalls 10-18

(12:07) All right, so let's go on to the next nine root vows number 10 through 18.

Liang-Sang says sometimes it says ‚and‘, and sometimes it says ‚or‘. But for both it doesn't require both to break the vow, either one. Whether it says ‘and‘ or ’or’, the meaning apparently is one or the other will break the vow—within those given circumstances of each one, plus the four chains. Which again, we haven't done in detail. That's coming in next class.

Root Downfall 10–Destroying Towns and Such

So number 10, I will avoid the root downfall of destroying towns and such. The ‘and such‘ means cities, counties, countries, whole areas. If you start from the smallest group place, call it a village, a city would be the next biggest. In my country then you go to counties, and then from county you go to state and from state you go to the United States, and from there you would go to continent, right? And it just keeps getting bigger. 

It's interesting, because I mean we're destroying towns and such just by living, right? I mean driving, we add to air pollution, and we use up the roadway. So again, this vow has specific conditions to actually break the vow.

Geshela pointed out that Bodhisattva vows and Diamond Way vows are designed for practices of busy people, different really than the Pratimoksha vows, the individual freedom vows are designed for monastics, right? People that withdraw from the busyness of their life. Lay people can keep Pratimoksha vows as well, but they're just those five, as we know.

In Buddha's, the busiest people were those in charge of running the country, and running the businesses that ran the economy of the country. So really the noble, the royalty, and the aristocrats who is like your target audience for the Bodhisattva vows and Diamond Way vows.

The royalty in those days, they like owned everything, apparently. 

And so they were in charge of the rules by which it was all used and allocated. So, if you were one of them, you would be the one who is ordering some kind of either supporting a place, or leaving it alone, or actually destroying a place to use it for something else perhaps. All the way up to ordering the defense ministry to do something. So really, we're talking about people who are in charge of making the orders about how other people behave in a village, a city, a town, a country, et cetera. If those people are on their spiritual path, and they take Bodhisattva vows, then they have a vow to not make the order to destroy anybody's place within their own jurisdiction or outside of it.

(16:56) So technically, says the commentaries, in modern days, unless we are a king or a ruler of a country, city, town, et cetera, we probably are not in the position to make the order destroy that place. So they say this is one of those vows that we really don't have the circumstances to actually break.

Woo hoo, right? We could add it to our rejoicables list, even if we aren't sure we kept any of our other vows, we kept this one. Because I'm just not in charge, so I can‘t break this one. But when talking about the concentric circle thing, we can look to see to what extent am I damaging the area by my use of it, et cetera.

At our other house, we ended up having pack rat troubles, and we tried all kinds of different things, both karmically and worldly to discourage the pack rat. But once they get into your car, and under your house, they own it. We realized that in our back alley, just outside our fence, we had this big beautiful cactus, the prickly pear cactus, that's their favorite. There's all this stuff that the pack rat gathers.

One time we undid a pack rat midden, an old one. We found somebody's car keys. They take stuff, and keep it. We caught the poor pack rat. We agonized over it, but we decided we needed to catch it, and move it to someplace more suitable. 

Then we hired somebody to dig up the cactus, because otherwise new pack rat comes in. We did it very compassionately, as compassionately as we could. But we knew, it was like we were destroying somebody's town, city, country in order to protect what we called more valuable town, city, country, our personal place and our neighbor's place and et cetera. It's not breaking the Bodhisattva vow, but we did do four powers and fire puja and so forth, because we were out here in the concentric circle thing of this particular vow, the willingness to destroy somebody's house. At least we moved them first, but we're not proud of it. These things happen. 

(20:12) Je Tsongkapa points out that for this vow, even if we were a person in charge, the motivation is that you really want to destroy those places, and you want to destroy those places because you're afflicted with your ignorant liking, your ignorant disliking and your ignorance itself.

It takes this really huge mentally afflicted state of mind for someone who has Bodhisattva vows to go and be in a situation where they would choose to order something to happen that's going to destroy somebody's town and such.

They point out that this vow does not include striking people that live in those places, although it's probably going to happen. Because that's covered in root vow number three. The one who orders some kind of fighting or war. If they've got Bodhisattva vows, they break this one, and they break the one of striking others out of anger, assuming it's some kind of ignorant dislike. And it says the vow does not include destroying the property of the sangha—although it probably will if there's any sangha there. Because that's covered in root downfall number seven. Do you see? So it may be, that one given vow gets broken, and within it others get broken as well.

That's number 10. I will avoid destroying towns and such.

Root Downfall 11–Teaching Emptiness to a Person Not Yet Mentally Prepared

(22:015) Number 11, I will avoid the root downfall of teaching emptiness to a person not yet mentally prepared. So again, this has very specific circumstances plus the four chains in order to fully break the vow. The words of the vow don't fully convey it as none of them seem to do. The point of this is that person A is the person who has Bodhisattva vows, who's teaching emptiness to somebody, and person B is who they're teaching it to. In these circumstances, that person B must be reasonably new to these teachings about emptiness. So they really haven't studied it carefully yet. 

Then person A's description of emptiness is a high level, high enough that the person B listening might get scared, like higher than they could understand. And that this person B already has a certain amount of wishing Bodhisattva, meaning they have this feeling in their heart that they would like to become a being who can help others get free from their suffering. You can have that feeling really strongly without knowing much about emptiness. It's that really, really strong compassion. Then, as a result of what they've heard you say, or person A say about emptiness, they actually get afraid, and because of that fear, they turn away from the Mahayana teachings and they take up the Hinayana teachings and practices. When person A becomes aware that person B quit the Mahayana, is when person A's vows get broken. 

It brings up a lot of questions about how does that really work? What if you teach somebody emptiness and you never hear from them again? You don't directly know how your teaching influenced them. But they see themselves switch down, but you never learn. Have you broken your vow? I don't know the answer. They don't go into those specifics. It sure seems to me you would need to know.

Then, how would you know if you're teaching someone higher than they were ready to hear? When you're teaching, you would need to be watching their face, watching their response, and change the subject if you need to—if it looks like they're flipping out. I know when I hear teachings, I usually put on a poker face. I'm not willing to let anybody see me going: I don't understand. I just go (poker face). 

How would the teacher know if they were teaching…? I don't know the answer to these questions. Underlying all of it, of course, is our intention. Is in our intention of teaching somebody emptiness something in us needing to show them that I know the highest. In which case you just blast forth the highest, any chance you get. 

We've been taught to teach emptiness by way of the pen. That is technically teaching the highest. But if you've listened to Geshehla share that in different audiences, you see that he gives different emphasises to after people agree, oh, the observer is bringing something to the party. Where he goes after that matches the audience as a general rule. But then there could be a given person in the audience. You get where I'm going. If our intention in sharing is to help people understand, then the likelihood of our just showing how smart we are, and going too high, too fast is less likely to happen. We'd be more sensitive to the feedback from the audience. 

The commentary says, if you've checked the person and you really believe they're ready, and you give them this high explanation, higher than they are ready. But you really thought it was a good match, and then they think about it and they leave the Mahayana for the Hinayana, you don't break your vow. Because you tried your best to match them, and it just didn't work.

And if you teach emptiness to a non ionist-Mahayanist and freak them out, it's a non virtue, but you don't break the vow. It has to be very specifically somebody who's already got a Mahayana heart, and what we teach them about emptiness, they go, oh man, I don't think so. And they drop down.

How do we know when we are teaching emptiness properly, or when we're hearing somebody else teach emptiness properly? Geshela says, a good clue is that someone who understands emptiness well will always be speaking about virtue or merit or ethics, morality, karma within the same conversation as emptiness. Emptiness in its own context is actually not helpful. It needs to be colored with the connection to behavior choices, and it gives us a good clue that the person who's teaching emptiness knows at least something about it. 

If we do hear an improper teaching on emptiness by someone, we would want to help that person understand this connection between emptiness and morality better—not to show off what we know, not to put them down. But to help them be more effective in helping people, because they're obviously trying to help people. You probably wouldn't want to do it in front of the audience, if they have an audience. But if we are well-trained in emptiness and dependent origination, our strength of understanding can help us in our motivation and efforts to help someone else understand better. It can be hard.

So number 11, I will avoid teaching emptiness to a person who's not yet mentally prepared.

Root Downfall 12–Causing a Person to Turn Back From Total Enlightenment

(31:50) Number 12, I will avoid causing a person to turn back from total enlightenment. Like, why in the world would we ever do something like that? It sounds like, gosh, that one must be impossible. However, Je Tsonglapa says, this would happen if there's someone, that already has some level of Bodhichitta—the wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all. So they're on the Mahayana path, and for who knows why, the one, the Bodhisattva with vows says to them, you'll never be able to carry out the six perfections and actually reach Buddhahood. If you strive instead for the goals of listeners and self-made Buddhas, then you'll manage to liberate yourself from the circle of suffering. Then, because of your words, your advice, they actually decide to turn away from the Mahayana, and take up the Hinayana, or some other path perhaps. And that's when you break your vow. The downfall is complete when the person you said that to goes, oh, okay, and drops out of Mahayana. You're essentially saying to the person, you're not capable of the Highest Path, why don't you stay on the lesser path? Then they take your advice.

Geshela said, of course everyone is capable of the highest path just by applying the habit. Master Shantideva‘s famous lines:

There's nothing we can't learn

if we grow the habit of it.

He didn't mention the motivation behind this one, number 12. It sure seems that there would be a certain amount of arrogance on one's own part, and then a certain amount of misunderstanding as well. I suppose I could envision, I don't know, someone… I can't even envision why we would ever say to somebody ‚six perfections is going to be too hard for you‘. 

Root Downfall 13–Causing a Person to Give Up the Morality of Freedom

(35:23) Number 13, I will avoid the root downfall of causing a person to give up the morality of freedom. The morality of freedom in Sanskrit is Pratimoksha. We call them individual freedom vows. We learned that there were those eight types of freedom vows, and they're called individual freedom vows, because if we, the individual, keep them well, we will get free. And if we don't, we won't.

We can think too that individual freedom vows means, it is an individual act. They are the deeds that I do that plant the seeds in my mind for the results that I want. I can't rely on anybody else's deeds. I can't blame anybody else's deeds for my behavior. It's a personal practice, and personal results. We make our own goodness, we make our own harmfulness. 

We break this vow when because of something that we do or say to another, they give up their vowed morality. 

Je Tsongkapa says, again, there are specific circumstances here. Because that person would need to already have been keeping their Pratimoksha vows, they would have to have had some, and they're keeping them properly. Then you would say to them, oh, what's the use of keeping those freedom vows? Come on up to the Greater Way, develop your wish for enlightenment instead. By getting Bodhichitta, practicing the Mahayana, you'll be able to stop all your wrong deeds. You don't need those freedom vows, because you'll be practicing the Higher Way.

Then, when because of what you said, that person does turn away from their personal freedom vows, your downfall is complete.

Again, thank you Geshe Michael for training us so well. I hear this, and it's like, I can't imagine it actually happening, because we understand how those behaviors build upon each other, karmically speaking. But it must happen out of arrogance, out of misunderstanding, I don't know. Seed shift and stuff happens, and we already have heard what Je Tsongkapa has to say about this idea that once you have your higher vows, you don't need to bother with your individual freedom vows anymore.

He said,

That idea is as dangerous as a fierce hailstorm on the tender spring corn crops. It destroys your happiness, and the happiness of others. We should throw that idea out like trash.

The higher vows are built upon the Pratimoksha vows. They're just more subtle ways of keeping those basic five, and helping us avoid the 10 non virtues. So to say it would be right to give them up is totally wrong, right? Totally mistaken, either through our own ignorance or mal…, what's the word? You would have to dislike that person so much. They admire you and you dislike them, and you want to cut them off in this really perverted way. 13

Root Downfall 14–Holding That a Person Cannot Eliminate Desire and the Rest By Following the Way of The Learner

14, I will avoid the root downfall of holding that a person cannot eliminate desire and the rest by following the way of the learner. 

‚The learner‘—it's a newish term for us.

In the learner category is terms that are a little more familiar, the listener and the self-made Buddha. So learner is a catchall for those two levels of practitioner. 

Listener, it's a long story what they actually mean by that. For now, let's say they're a practitioner whose main focus of study and practice is the for Arya truths—the truth of suffering, the truth of all that suffering has causes, the truth of the cessation of the suffering (if you stop the causes), and the truth of how to do it (the path to stop the causes).

Self-made Buddhas, who are not self-made and they are not Buddhas yet, they study and follow the 12 links dependent origination. They appear to have a no direct teacher in that lifetime, but they have these great seeds from having studied and served teachers before, that they're getting teachings from other places and being able to gain realizations without an apparent teacher. But they're focused mainly on those 12 links of what perpetuates the cycle in order to stop perpetuating their cycle of suffering. Meaning their parent goal is their personal Nirvana.

Learners, those two levels of practitioners, are focused on reaching the end of their own suffering. 

This downfall happens out of saying to someone at either of those levels, no matter how much you study, and train in your tracks of practice, you won't ever be able to eliminate the mental afflictions in their entirety. The breaking the vow comes when that other person understands what you have said.

Only when they understand.

Other vows, they have to make some behavior choice change.

This one, they only need to understand what you've said. They need to know about the Hinayana teachings and practices. And then they hear you say that those practices don't work to help you reach Nirvana.

It is not true that they don't work. They do work to take us to the end of our mental afflictions and seeds for more. We practice them too.

The same things the learners practice, the Mayahanists practice as the steps shared with those of lesser capacity. 

So the person that hears you say that doesn't have to believe you. They just have to hear what you're saying, what you mean by that, and you break your vow.

Those lower way teachings, called lower way teachings, they are teachings by the Buddha. They serve everybody. They take us along the way very purely, very beautifully. And the higher way understandings come out of the behavior choices that we make as we understand the lower way teachings better and better.

Geshela says, it's just stupid to put them down. That seeds that break our own growing wisdom to disrespect the lower way. He says, to do so means that a person has not studied any of it very well. Because otherwise we would know how valuable that they are. 

In your reading it'll say, there's a vow 14 ½ between 14 and 15, that is not listed in our usual 18 root downfalls. They come to the conclusion that it was left out in the Je Tsongkapa list of 1 through 18, because it's a repeat of number one. This 14 ½ is avoiding praising self and criticizing others only. It has a little different connotation from the first vow, criticizing. 

So this vow 14 ½, that's really part of vow number 1, has the same motivation— wanting material gain or wanting fame or admiration. But it has more specifics given to us. It says that the person with the Bodhisattva vow, that's in danger here, is someone who is practicing the Mahayana, reciting, reading, teaching it, but motivated—themself is motivated—by getting material gain, getting praise or fame and you say to your students or somebody else, ‘I'm a practitioner of the greater way with no interest in material gain or fame. But that other teacher. They're sharing Mahayana too, but I know that they're doing it motivated by wanting to get more sponsorship, wanting to increase their reputation.‘ 

The downfall is complete when you've expressed this praise and then the criticism. So this one takes both. When you've expressed it and someone else has heard it, you break your vow, because it's grounds for creating a schism, number one, and it's a lie. You're saying you don't have motivation for gain and material fame, but you do. You're saying the other one does. H would you know for sure?

So saying it about the other person may, or may not be a lie. But saying that you aren't teaching for gain and fame when you are, do you see the circumstance is more specific for this vow 14 ½.

But then Je Tsongkapa points out that master Shantideva in his text, he says, come on, this vow is subsumed in vow number 1. And that the common theme between the two of them is some level of jealousy, right? You wouldn't even bother to criticize somebody else if you weren't a little bit jealous of them. To point out that someone's teaching wrongly in order to help them, that's not criticism, that's helping. And hopefully we wouldn't do it in front of their audience. Criticism is this intentional pointing out something—true or not—about another person to other people. The only reason we do that is so that we could influence how people think about them. Jealousy or ill will would be going on underneath there. 

Root Downfall 15–Professing the Complete Opposite

(50:50) Number 15, I will avoid the root downfall of professing the complete opposite. Professing the complete opposite is code word for telling a lie about the profound, and telling a lie about the profound is code for saying or implying that you've seen emptiness directly when you haven't. 

The circumstance that Je Tsongkapa points out is that you might be teaching emptiness to someone else. You have not seen it directly yet. But you say to that other one, now you meditate as I've taught you, and you'll come to see emptiness and become just like me.

So technically they haven't said outright, they've seen emptiness directly. But the implication is, I did. If you come to see emptiness directly, and you become like me, it implies that I've done it too.

To say that implication, it's enough to break this vow when the other person grasps your words, is what the commentary says. When they understand what you just said.

You are telling a lie about your own attainments. Does the other person have to know that? Technically not. You hear yourself saying that to someone, and when you are aware that they've heard you versus, what did you just say. Excuse me, I wasn't listening. They had to have to be aware that they heard you. Your mind breaks your own vow. They don't have to say, you've never seen emptiness directly. What are you doing saying things like that. 

If you have ordained vows, you also broke your ordained vows. Because you've lied about your spiritual attainments.

Then, if we have five lifetime layperson‘s vows, we've also broken one of those. So don't even give the wrong impression.

Root Downfall 16–Accepting What Belongs to The Three Jewels When Someone Presents it to you

(53:35) Number 16, I will avoid the root downfall of accepting what belongs to the Three Jewels when someone presents it to me. This means something has been offered, given, dedicated to the use of a temple, a center, a sangha, a sangha member, a monastery, and somebody takes that, and gives it or offers it to you, and you accept it. You would need to know that it had been taken. It makes you wonder when somebody offers you something, if you should ask them, where'd this come from? It's a little delicate.

But again, there's more specific circumstances here. Je Tsongkapa's commentary says, typically this vow getting broken would be in a circumstances such as when the officials of a particular area are exacting a punishment on another area, and they take an object or money from one monastery in the area that's being targeted, and then give that object or money to the monastery in their personal place. For the monastery to accept it, whoever's doing the accepting, if they have Bodhisattva vows, it would behoove them to check, to find out where that object or money came from before they accepted it or not. 

If that was happening on an individual basis, we would need to know that the object was stolen, or forcibly acquired. In this vow, it's not about us stealing it, or even about arranging for it to be stolen. That was in a different vow.

This is accepting it when it comes back. So, if for instance, we're the one who arranges for somebody to go take something from wherever, and bring it back, and give it to me. When I accept it, I have both broken the vow about stealing from the Three Jewels and the vow about accepting what's been stolen. Because I got somebody to do it for me, right? Both vows get broken.

But you can break one or the other, as you can see. If you're not the one arranging for the being stealing, you don't do the number 5—stealing what belongs to the Three Jewels. This one is accepting what has been stolen, accepting stolen goods. 

Root Downfall 17–Rejecting the Practice of Quietude, and Giving Possessions of Meditators to Those Whose Practice is Recitation

Number 17, I'll avoid the root downfall of rejecting the practice of quietude, and giving possessions of meditators to those whose practice is recitation.

Geshela says, really, this one means making unfair rules. And so the specific circumstance to break this vow is that you are the one in charge of the rules of behavior in a given monastery. So you're the Abbott, and in your monastery, there's a group of people who mainly focus on their meditation practice. And there's a group of people who mainly focus on their learning, reciting, debating, mantra recitation. A more actively involved group versus the meditatively involved group that are more withdrawn.

You, the Abbott feel like, well, all these, they were actively doing their dharma practice. They do more for the monastery. Their sponsors are impressed with them. Sponsors give more money when the practitioners do more mantra, I guess. And so your preference is for the support of that group over the support of the meditators, who don't seem to do much. As a result, the support that comes in for the meditators, you relocate and use it in support of the studiers. Making that designation between the two and then actively taking the support from meditators and giving it to the other group is what would break your vow.

Master Shantideva says,… Remember Mr 3 thoughts? They thought Master Shantideva didn't do anything but eat, poop and sleep. When in fact all he did was meditate, and write those extraordinary texts. He was doing more in his meditation than outside. But nobody could see it, and so there was this disrespect for him.

We will learn the story. 

Technically this is one of those vows that unless we are in charge of a group of people practicing, and their support systems, and their ownership of things, we really can't break this vow. Because we're not in the position to say, Hey, take those things that belong to the meditators, and give them to the reciters. Thank goodness we're not in a position to do that.

Again, the underlying mental affliction in the Abbott is this judgment between the two, and a misunderstanding of the power of practice and making this in a way, it's another form of schism. But it's pointing out our judgments and prejudices. And so for our onion skin theory thing, yeah, we're not ever going to get to the center and break this vow, but to what extent are our prejudices influencing our support of others, our fairness towards others?

All right, let's take a break. We have just one big one to go.

Root Downfall 18–Giving Up the Wish for Enlightenment

(62:40) Okay, drum roll. Here's the root now number 18, I will avoid giving up the wish for enlightenment. It comes specifically from the sutra ‘Unskillful Means‘. So sutra ‘Unskillful Means‘, direct words of a Buddha, written down by somebody else. But one of the vows that came directly during his time as a Bodhisattva vow.

It really does mean giving up our intention to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And the thing is, with this one, it only takes an instant for the vow to get broken, and it in fact breaks all of our vows. Because in the next instant, you are no longer Bodhisattva. What makes us Boddhisattva is our wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. 

And technically, what makes us Bodhisattva on the first bhumi is having that wish in our heart when we actually experience emptiness directly and come out of it.

In the instant that we say, I changed my mind. I don't want to become a Buddha. I don't want to help all sentient beings. To hear ourselves, to be aware of ourselves having that thought, our 18th vow is broken and we are no longer Bodhisattva. But it takes this full on, ‘I quit‘ attitude. It's not, I don't think I can do it. This is so hard. This is going to take so long. I'm not sure how am I ever going to do it well?

That's not breaking this. This is, we try, we try, we try and something happens and we just go, nevermind.

There's a famous story about, I'm not sure who, the one that ended up with one eye, Merupa? Is that him? This great Bodhisattva. He's walking along one day and somebody taps him on the shoulder, he turns and he looks, he sees this old hag. It's always an old hag. Somehow I relate to that. And he doesn't, I mean, he sees the old hag, the old hag is a demon. The demon is upset with his spiritual progress, and wants to interfere. So the demon shows up as this old hag. And the old hag says, oh, you're master Merupa, the great Bodhisattva, right? And he goes, well, yeah. And she goes, I need your eyeball. And he goes, okay. Because he's a Diamond Way practitioner, he reaches in with his left hand and pulls out one eyeball, I don't know which one. And he very respectfully hands it to her. She takes it and she goes, Ew, you touched that with your left hand. She throws it on the ground and she stomps on it. And he goes, he thinks to himself, man, if people are going to be like that, I don't think I want to help him. And boom, he lost his Bodhisattva vow. 

The rest of the story is, he had instant regret. Then, I haven't heard the rest of the rest of the story, but I'm going to guess that he ran and renewed his vows with somebody really fast. But the point is, you can see a situation like that, you do for somebody, you do for somebody, you do for somebody, you do for somebody, and then they turn around and bah. And your heart goes, well, they're going to be like that? I quit. 

It's very dangerous. Yeah, very dangerous, because this vow and vow number 9, the one about holding wrong views, neither of those two require those nasty states of mind to fully break. They don't require the four chains that we're going to talk about next week.

We can break vow 18 the instant we say, I quit. So don't ever say that. Don't ever even think it. Yes, you can have doubt. Yes, you can get discouraged. That won't break your vow. But no matter what, uphold your, what do they call it? Pull your bootstraps up, right? Hang on tight.

They say vow number 9 and vow number 18 are the most serious two, Bodhisattva vows. Number nine is so serious because if we lose our understanding of the connection between our behavior and our experiences, future experiences, we won't care about keeping the vows. And if we lose our motivation to help all sentient beings, we don't have vows to keep anymore. 

Advice on How to Track Our Vows

(69:22) Geshela says, please start working with these behaviors whether or not you even have them as vows. Because the first time we hear them, we are most open and fresh, and eager to explore them. Then when we hear them again, our mind naturally says, oh yeah, I know, and we miss the details.

Start tracking them, write them out, a little piece of paper, print them out, if that's more convenient. However, there's something about seeing yourself hand write something to make your own little list. It's useful for the imprint, and then use a system that you're checking them every couple of hours through your day. 

Not, again, to beat yourself up about them. Just to increase this awareness of our behavior making choices, that we're learning to follow to avoid these certain unpleasantnesses that we might do towards others, and train ourselves in their opposite—the pleasantnesses, the helpfulnesses.

Through the years the keeping the book system has evolved, and it's helpful to use the system that's provided. But feel free to make a system that works for you. The point is to have it already written down, and then just stop every couple hours, look at it and think about your previous couple of hours. It could be as simple as writing a plus minus, or just checking it off. You don't have to sit down and write anything. It's helpful for our own mind if we do write specifics, but make your bookkeeping your own so that we'll do it.

I confess, I don't write my book every day anymore. I did it for many years. The app on the phone, Keep My Vows app, that's really helpful to have it pop up and check. It's a little, like they come up randomly, which is helpful. But the main reason for it is to establish this ability to be on the lookout for what we're thinking, saying, doing. With vows it's saying and doing, more than thinking, thinking stuff comes later. But the thinking is what motivates the behavior. Yeah. 

Geshe Michael found Pabongka Rinpoche commenting that Je Tsongkapa‘s commentary on the Bodhisattva vows was the best description of those vows that he had ever found. And that's in your reading. So read your reading, make notes upon how it helps you gain insight into what behaviors to avoid, and so what behaviors to train in doing, based on Je Tsongkapa‘s descriptions. And then expand them to fit modern life as you need. 

Geshela said, if you recognize in any of these 18 vows some behaviors that we did before taking our vows, before we're ready to take our vows. He said, think carefully before taking the vows as to whether or not you feel you could really avoid that behavior once you have vows. 

I don't know, in a really, I guess obvious situation would be if you have the habit of stealing stuff, and it's a really hard thing not to do, and you're getting ready to take vows that says, ‚I won't steal from a temple‘. You either have to say, I'm never going to go to a temple, or I'm really not going to steal when I get there. And if you don't think you can do either one of those, then don't take the vows. Don't set yourself up for failure. When you can live according to the vows, and still change your seed planting, it's just having the vows makes our seed planting all that more powerful. Do you see?

We've heard them now, we are welcome to start changing our behavior accordingly. 

It's helpful to memorize those 18 so that we can rattle them off. Geshela even said, say number 1, I will avoid… I never found that so helpful. But however, you can get them into a phraseology that will actually rattle around in your heart, so that you're familiar enough with them that when a situation pops up like, oh, there's my vow about that. We want to be that familiar with them.

Again, we are done early in this class and we will stop early, and someday I will need those extra minutes.

[Class dedication]

(79:11) Liang-Sang had a couple of questions. Are those any more clear?

(Liang-Sang) Would you be explaining to us about the other one, about the setting motivation when we are not doing the dharma activities?

(Lama Sarahni) Right. That's coming in the secondary vows. So one of Liang-Sangs questions was if we teachers study yoga, or we teachers study hypnotism, or we teachers study other stuff, are we breaking the vow that says, we'll focus only on the dharma. By the literal words of the vows, it would seem like that we're not allowed to study or teach anything but Buddha Dharma.

As we understand what is and isn't dharma, we understand that our motivation behind our sharing, or learning, is what establishes anything as a dharma or not dharma. So a Bodhisattva could very well be a yoga teacher who's teaching yoga in order to help people gain the circumstances that will lead them eventually to the end of all their suffering. How they get there isn't up to us necessarily. It would be driven by our motivation, and then how much motivation does it take? 

Do we establish it for 30 seconds before class, or does it take two minutes, or do we have to have it in mind the whole time? And again, there's no black and white answer to that. To the greater extent we have our Bodhichitta in mind as we're doing our deed is the greater extent within which the Bodhichitta is planted in the new seeds, and the stronger it will be when those seeds ripen. So any amount is better than none. So when we set our motivation at the beginning of our day, when we set it again at the beginning of a new activity, the more the better. But at least once a day. 

(Liang-Sang) Thank you. I have other questions, but I think others put up their hands. I think I let them ask first. 

(Lama Sarahni) Okay. But we'll come back. Flavia's hand went up. 

(Flavia) Yeah. I have a funny question. When we studied the Bodhisattva vows, it's many details, how we break them, the four chains, and the mindset. But in the lay person vows, that are included in the Bodhisattva vows, I don't remember at least hearing any extra, I dunno explanation about how to break them. 

(Lama Sarahni) About the five layperson vows, whether it takes the four chains to break them completely? That's a great question. I'd have to go back in my notes to see where that's listed. When we get lay vows as a separate set of vows, we give a sermon, we talk about them, and I'm pretty sure that teaching is in there. But when we get those lay vows as part of our Bodhisattva vows, they're just all slurred together. And so it's not clear. So I'll make a note to check and see if I can get you the actual answer. When we think about it, the four chains are reflections of the four parts of a path of action. Do you remember that teaching? What makes a karmic seed complete? And so that would be the influence on any of those five lifetime layperson's vows. The extent to which the four factors of a complete karma are intact would establish how strongly that seed was planted, and that's going to establish how ugly is the result. Yeah. 

So I'll make a note. 

(Tom) I mean you started to talk about it just before Flavia's question, about the motivation. I was wondering, how much does our motivation affect the action of our vow? Meaning, I don't want to kill someone. That's not my intention, but every day I walk around, I'm stepping on a bug, right? I don't want to speak of someone in a negative way, but sometimes it can come across that way. But that wasn't the intention. So just wondering how much…

(Lama Sarahni) Yeah. Right. So seed planting and vow breaking are like variations on a theme. Vow breaking, seed planting that breaks a vow, is the very worst of the behavior that we could do of that behavior. And that's what makes it a broken vow. It's what would make it a root downfall versus a secondary downfall. And when, let me see if I can use an example. Like yours, I don't intend to kill anybody, but I walk on the grass and probably I squished a bug. That is a seed of accidental killing some small creature, even though I was trying not to. All those factors, the accidental, the killing, that I was even trying not to, are all included in that seed. So they are factors in the seed ripening. If it ever gets to ripening, because we haven't purified it well enough, then the circumstances would be inadvertently getting killed by somebody who didn't intend to do it. Which would be a different circumstance than being murdered by somebody. 

So all the details of all the aspects of a deed completed are included in that seed. Which is why the karma and its consequences is such deeply hidden reality. Because there are all those nuances of what our awareness is doing. Like included in that planting would be the time of day, the season of the year, the location you're in. All of that is in every seed planting. So, the power of the intention is one of those four factors that are included in that complete path: proper identification, proper, not proper, the level of identification, the level of motivation, the level of the action taken, and the satisfaction with having completed it. 

So when you add the walking on the bug in the grass factor of satisfied with completing it, if we have that healthy sense of, I regret any bug I squished, as I walked on the grass, it changes the seed, right? It doesn't have the strength to actually ever make it over the threshold—if I understand it correctly. Because you're missing the ‘I did it. I'm glad I did it‘-factor. So this healthy regret—not guilt, not shame, just darn, I just can't do it perfectly yet, is actually protective. 

(Tom) Thank you. 

(Liang-Sang) The 9th and the 18th, which is most difficult, because once we break it, we break it, right? So I've been thinking about this wrong view. To what extent is this wrong view? Because honestly, I mean I'm holding wrong view all the time. 

(Lama Sarahni) Me too, me too. Right. So what we learned was two specific wrong views. You've already decided karma and its consequences is true, because you took Bodhisattva vows. And, we've already decided there are such a thing as past and future lives, because here we are studying and we took Bodhisattva vows. So the fact that we have Bodhisattva vows means we believe those two to enough of an extent that we declared ourselves on the path. We've already proven to ourselves the truth of those two.

To break number 9, something has to happen where we revisit our logic about those two. And either one, if we revisit the logic and come to the conclusion, nah, karma and its consequences can't be true. Well then there's no need for past and future lives. And if we come to the conclusion, past and future lives can't be, well then karma and its consequences can't work either. Because it takes more than one lifetime to get those results. So it would have to take a situation where our seeds shift such that we rethink our belief and come to the opposite conclusion. Then we end up rejecting the need for a moral behavior. 

(Liang-Sang) And then on the other question about, you mentioned that if you haven't taken the vow, Geshe Michael was saying, if you know you cannot get rid of the habit, then you don't take the vow first. But in the case whereby you have already taken the vow, and before you took the vow, you thought maybe I could get rid of my anger, for example. But as you go deeper and deeper, you realize that maybe previously you are not detailed in realizing those, a lot of emotions coming out. But as you go, you travel the road, you realize, hey, you really have this anger inside you. And I mean, giving back the vow will not be the right thing to do, am I correct? 

(Lama Sarahni) That's correct. Right. You don't. You could, but you wouldn't want to because you're going to give back all of them. And if you're working with that one, or more than one that have to do with anger, and you're keeping your other ones reasonably well, the goodness of keeping the other ones is going to help your effort in working with your anger to protect you from fully breaking the ones that have to do with anger. So again, the anger, the number 1, is you're teaching dharma, somebody else's teaching dharma, you're so angry with them that you're going to praise yourself, and criticize them. No, I'm sorry, that's not the one. You're so angry with them that… Start again.

You're in a situation where you're so angry with somebody that you're going to stay angry even if they apologize, and that that anger is going to go on affecting you in such a way that it makes you want to hurt them—whether you ever actually hurt them or not. Right? Your anger is festering and growing. So if through that anger that's persisting, you are repeatedly saying to yourself, man, I regret this anger, but I can't stop it. Right? I really regret this anger, but I'm not going to hit the person. Maybe I'll yell at 'em. But to be working with it, to be struggling against it protects the vow. Those four chains. I don't think it's wrong to be angry at the person. The fact that somebody's even asking the question means I understand that it's wrong. So you already don't have one of the all four, I can't stop it, but it's still there. 

I don't think it's wrong. I would do it again. I'm happy I did it. I‚d do it again and… I forget I'm losing my thought process here. But you're trying not to do it again, even though you are doing it again, so you don't have the fourth one happy about it. And you don't have the first one, which is, yeah, I'm right to be angry with them. So you don't have the four chains, so you're not breaking the vow.

Are you damaging it? Yes.

Are you making more anger seeds by staying angry? Yes.

Are you not replanting the old way of responding to the anger? I hope so. Because then that's burning off those anger feelings by not doing the deed that replants them. 

Say you do some other deed, that's still out of anger, it's different, right? The circumstance is different. The seed planting is different. So yes, we can have Bodhisattva vows, and still have anger, and not break the vow. And then you'd want to say, okay, anger is what I want to work with here. Different ways to do that. Yeah. Good. No, don't give back your Vow. 

(Liang-Sang) And I have one other question, is that we have a kind of like a dharma group whereby people, a 10 class and they put their name there. So we have people who registered their names, and not turning up for a year. So then we were thinking of, we can do a spring clean. But if we do a spring, we were thinking if we do a spring clean, then we are cutting this person off from this dharma learning. So we haven't done it, because we were thinking what is the best way to, not to affect the person's learning, but yet doing some spring cleaning. 

(Lama Sarahni) So you would check, those who are in charge would check their motivation. Is the motivation for the spring cleaning, because they're signed up and they never show up. So why should we continue to provide them with the opportunity? If that's our motivation, don't spring clean.

If the motivation is that the system's getting clogged with all these names of people that don't show up, it's not benefiting them, it's harming others, because now we don't have enough space for other people, or it's costing more. Well then, yeah, spring clean. And maybe halfway in between would be to put out a message. Anybody who's receiving this message, give us a thumbs up by February 15th, or we're going to spring clean your name off the list. You're welcome back anytime. And then see who responds. Motivation is the key. 

Good questions. 

(Liang-Sang) Thank you so much.

Vocabulary Class 6

KUN TRI SHI “KUNTYI” wine wrapped around a pole, the 4 chains

NYONG MONG mental afflictions

NGOTSA shame

TRELYU consideration for others

TRELMEY

MUNSEM the wish in the form of the prayer

(Detailed Vocabulary from Tibetan Track)

CHU DU MALOK to be willing to commit the particular wrong deed again

NGOTSA TRELME to not have any shame or consideration about doing a 

wrong deed

GANG-GU to derive a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction out of 

doing a wrong deed

NYEMIK MITA to not consider a bad deed to be wrong

NGOTSA SHEPA shame, to avoid doing a bad deed out of one‘s own 

conscience/self-esteem

TREL YUPA consideration, to avoid doing a bad deed because of 

concern for what others will think about oneself

The 4 Forces:

TEN GYI TOP basis force

NAMPAR SUNJINPAY TOP destruction force

NYEPA LA LARNDOKPAY TOP restraint force

NYENPO KUNTU CHUPAY TOP antidote force

For the recording, welcome back. We are ACI course 7, class 6. It's February 6th, 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class opening]

Review Class 5

(7:40) Last class, we learned the second nine of the 18 root Bodhisattva vows.

1. I will avoid destroying towns and such.

2. I will avoid teaching emptiness to a person not yet mentally prepared.

3. I will avoid causing a person to turn back from total enlightenment.

4. I will avoid causing a person to give up their morality of freedom.

5. I will avoid holding that a person cannot eliminate desire and such by following the way of the listener.

6. I will avoid professing the complete opposite.

7. I will avoid accepting what belongs to the three jewels when someone presents it to me.

8. I will avoid rejecting the practice of quietude and giving the possessions of meditators to those who practice recitation. That's pretty specific.

9. I will avoid giving up the wish for enlightenment.

Number 11, I will avoid teaching emptiness to a person not yet properly prepared.

We learn that we don't actually break that vow until some result has occurred. Do you remember? So the breaking of the vow happens when the person that we we're teaching emptiness to, a Mahayana practitioner that we are teaching emptiness to, our teaching causes them to have a mistaken understanding, and they get scared. And as a result they give up the Mahayana, and focus instead on the Hinayana level of practices and teachings.

We don't break the vow until that result happens. Technically no matter how bad our emptiness teaching is. But I don't throw that in to say, so teach emptiness, it doesn't matter. My point is, the vow is very specific how it gets broken. It's still a guideline for our behavior, not just to say, oh, I can't ever break that vow, so I won't worry about it. But rather, how would I get close? And we don't get close when we're careful to teach emptiness carefully according to the level of the student. And how are we going to know that? Except by watching their reaction, seeing whether they do the homework. It's the emptiness teacher‘s, Bodhisattva emptiness teacher's job to see how it goes.

Then the 13th root downfall is the one that says, causing a person to give up their morality of freedom.

That means someone who is keeping their Pratimoksha vows, you encourage them to come up to the Mahayana. Because they're keeping their freedom vows well, they have the goodness to hear someone say, wow, you're ready for Mahayana? And they encourage them to come up to the higher teachings. And in the process that Bodhisattva encouraging the person to come up also says, and when you do Mahayana, you don't need those lower vows anymore. And because of what we said, that person goes, oh great. I'll kill, steal, lie, because now I'm a Mahayanist, and I'm doing it for the benefit of all sentient beings, so it doesn't matter if I do those lower negativities. Do you see?

And it's like, what does Je Tsongkapa say about that conclusion, that as a Mahayanist you don't need your lower vows? That's like a rain of hell on your tender corn crops that are going to destroy your whole crop. Which means it destroys your prosperity, and it destroys the happiness of other people, because the people you were going to feed with those crops, they're not going to get it. So, disastrous, to imply or say outright once you're at Mahayana level, You don't have to worry about your Mahayana or your Hinayana vows. Because the Pratimoksha vows are the foundation of our Bodhichitta, as we all know. Okay, so thank goodness we're so well trained.

And then lastly, your quiz asked the 18th and which other vow are particularly serious and don't require having all those four chains in mind to be present in order to break the vows?

We remember from previous previous class, it was vow number nine, which is, I will avoid holding wrong views. And if you recall, that meant we had already gotten over those wrong views—the wrong view of not knowing or believing in karma and its consequences, and not knowing or believing in past and future lifetimes. Because those two beliefs, the implication of them is, well then, my behavior and my experiences actually have no connection. When in fact our behavior and our experiences are deeply integrally connected, just not one after the other. 

So either of those wrong views would lead us to feel that there's no consequences from our actions, and so morality wouldn't matter, and so my behavior doesn't matter. And with that attitude, none of the other vows, they would not make any sense at all.

(16:31) Then we learned that of these 18 root Bodhisattva vows, the behavior through which we keep or break them is very much more specific than what just the words of their title imply. And yet historically anyone who receives a tantric initiation at any level receives Bodhisattva vows whether they were aware of it or not. 

And then they may or may not ever get taught what they are, in which case how would you ever know whether you're keeping them or breaking them?

The Lamas wouldn't do that if we are in such great danger of destroying our chances by having vows and not knowing them. But Geshe Michael's premise is, how can you really have and keep those vows if you don't really know what they are?

So in our lineage, the Lamas are always careful to teach about Bodhisattva vows before the student, and lets the student decide when they're ready to commit themselves to both the wish—the prayer, and then to the action, actually getting the vows. And they're the only vows that we actually get. That is what he always says. And yet we learned about five lifetime lay vows before we took them, if you did. 

But ordained vows, in the freedom vows, Pratimoksha vows, which is where those five lay vows are. The other vows in that category are ordained vows, and the One Day vows, Mahayana vows. And with those traditionally you are not taught about those vows. You can hear them. If you attend an ordination ceremony, you will hear what they are if you know what you're listening for. So it's not that they're secret and you're not allowed to know. But you don't get this opportunity to hear what they are and think, do I think I could live that way or not? 

When you're moved to take ordination, you have this idea of what that means of committing yourself, and then you take them and then you learn what you've vowed to give up.

Bodhisattva vows are unique in this way, and special in this way. And another way that we've learned Bodhisattva vows are special, is that those vows carry on in our mindstream beyond this lifetime. Our freedom vows, our individual freedom vows, they apply to this individual life, so they end at the end of this life. And the ramification of them going on is deep. I haven't thought it really through, so I don't know. Maybe we've had them before, and I was in my forties when I got 'em the first time in this life. What was happening the rest of those 43 years if I already had my Bodhisattva vows and I didn't even know it?

Anyway. 

So thank you to the Lamas who explain the specifics of these vows, so we're not left trying to figure it out ourselves from the wording of the vows.

The 3 Consequences of Breaking a Root Downfall

(21:25) Now then, we also have heard repeatedly that to fully break the root downfalls, we have to have these states of mind called the four chains active for 16 of those 18 vowed behaviors that we are avoiding. And when we see what those four are, we'll see why the root downfalls are root downfalls, and why they're so serious when they're broken. Because of these four states of mind that are included in the doing of the deed. They're so ugly, they're so negative, that they have such a strong impact on our mind that it blocks other stuff growing in our mind in a strong way.

So if we break a Bodhisattva root downfall, there are three serious consequences of that.

1. We Cannot Reach the 1st Bodhisattva Bhumi in This Lifetime

The first is, we cannot reach the first Bodhisattva bhumi in this lifetime. So this lifetime that we have taken our vows and are trying to keep them, and we break one. That deed has such a strong negative influence on our mind that we no longer have sufficient virtue that could ripen into our direct perception of emptiness with Bodhichitta in our heart.

We reach the first Bodhisattva bhumi as we come out of the direct perception of emptiness for the first time, having gone into that experience with a mind heart imbued with our wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It means we're on the conveyor belt to our Buddhahood, not just to our Nirvana, beyond Nirvana.

So breaking a root vow, any of the root vows, blocks that ability. 

2. We Can‘t Accumulate the Goodness to See Emptiness Directly

Second serious consequence of breaking a root bow is that even as we still accumulate other good deeds, the effect of the breaking of the root bow is such that those good deeds can't accumulate, they can't contribute to the virtue such that we would start towards that direct perception of emptiness.

So not only does it block the ability to see emptiness directly, it blocks the ability to gather the goodness. So it's double whammy, because it takes extraordinary virtue seeds to ripen as the direct perception of emptiness. And by breaking a root vow, you have blocked whatever virtue you had from growing, and you've blocked the ability of new virtue to add to your old virtue.

It's like your virtue bank account is frozen, and you can't access it to even add new to it. Like you have a new bank account, virtue bank account, that's going in. But that virtue isn't growing, it's just sitting there.

So what's already there has been damaged and what's going in newly, it's like we have such negativity in the mind that even as good as we're being, the negativity just sucks its goodness down to where it can't get over the threshold. It can't even grow. 

We've heard that, yeah but you can restore your vows, and we'll learn how. And even when we do what we need to do to purify and restore those vows, the having broken the vow negativity still has this influence on our mind of this life, such that we still can't reach the first Bodhisattva bhumi. So yes, we can restore our vows, and yes we can start growing our virtue again. But not such that that virtue will ever make it over the threshold of manifesting as the direct perception of emptiness with Bodhichitta in our heart. So our vows get restored, but not to their full glory of what they are when we first get them.

It all has to do with the influence of the negativity that was involved in breaking, fully breaking, not just damaging, fully breaking.

3. We Can‘t Find Spiritual Teachers

So then the third consequence of breaking a root vow is that it makes it very difficult to meet spiritual teachers in our future. They don't say which future, they just say future. So my guess, it's future this life, future future lives, because it's so disrespectful to have vows and then fully break.

The 4 Chains

Now, the good news is that it takes these four very specific attitudes in our mind as we do the deed to actually fully break the corresponding vow. Those four specific terrible negativities need to stay there.

So it gets slippery when we hear this about the four chains. We see how serious they are to avoid, and then we hear what happens over time. Anyway, we'll get there.

We'll study these four, called the four chains, so that we can understand them, so that we can avoid having them, so that we can think of their opposite and grow those states of mind instead that will help protect us from ever having all four in mind.

If we don't have even one of the four when we do that ugly deed of one of the Bodhisattva vows, you don't break the vow. You damage it, you create negative karma, but you don't break the vow and so you don't have this block to the first Bodhisattva bhumi, or this block to still adding to your root virtue. But it could be close.

If you don't break the vow, you don't get the results of breaking the vow. If you do, you do. It's pretty straightforward.

KUN TRI SHI “KUNTYI” the 4 chains

NYONG MONG mental afflictions

NGOTSA shame

TRELYU consideration for others

TRELMEY to not have condideration for others

MUNSEM the wish in the form of the prayer

So these four chains. They're called, KUN TRO SHI. It's spelled like this, TRI.

SHI = the number four, but when Geshela says it, listen carefully, it's somehow KUNTYI SHI, that R is rolled back or something so you can't hear it. KUNTYI SHI.

KUNTYI means like a vine wrapped around a pole, like ivy wrapped around a sapling tree trunk. The Ivy's going to choke that little tree, and probably kill it. So KUNTYI is this different way of talking about mental afflictions, NYONG MONG. They are these binds that wrap around our mind and choke out its goodness.

And it doesn't just wrap once, right? It wraps a lot, which is how it comes to be called the four chains. Because we're like all chained up by it, and we can't get free. The word KUNTYI is used in other contexts as well for mental afflictions. In the Abhidharma level of teachings, the Abhidharmakosha apparently gives a list of what are called the KUNTYI, but they're not related to these four. Well, they're not directly related to these four having to do with our Bodhisattva vows. They're just the word, not just, they're the words that Abhidharma uses for these main mental afflictions and you'll know them when you hear them.

Abhidharma lists the KUNTYI, the chain, of a lack of sense of shame, meaning not having enough self conscientiousness to avoid a wrong deed. Meaning avoiding a wrong deed, even if nobody would ever know. A high level of self conscientiousness is, I won't do that even if nobody would ever know. To not have that state of mind is a KUNTYI, it's a chain.

Then to not have the TRELYU, the consideration for others, the sense of avoiding a negative deed because of the impact it would have on the other person, or anyone who became aware that we did it. To use others, others as our criteria for choosing a behavior. To not have that consideration is one of these chains. Not related to the Bodhisattva vows, that the Abhidharmakosha is pointing out.

Then it also says, to do a deed out of jealousy, it’s a mental affliction and so they call it this chain. If we do a deed out of stinginess, if we do a deed out of wild desire, if we do a deed out of regret—which is curious, if we do a deed out of dullness or drowsiness, if we do a deed out of outright anger, and if we do a deed out of wanting to conceal our faults, all of those are states of mind that are called a chain, a KUNTYI. But they are not the ones we're talking about that are the four chains that are involved in breaking a Bodhisattva vow. 

Chain 1—Not considering a Wrong Deed as Wrong

So the four chains, the first one is to have this state of mind where you do not consider what you've done, or what you're about to do as being something wrong. So let's just take the first Bodhisattva vow, praising myself and criticizing another. We heard about how specifically it's two Mahayana teachers, and because of your mental affliction, you're going to intentionally either praise yourself to get the advantage, or criticize that one to other people in order to get them to not like them so much. Either one.

The first of the chains is to decide and do either one of those deeds, not thinking that it's wrong. If you don't think it's wrong, you're going to do it.

Je Tsongkapa says, when you're planning the deed, you don't think it's wrong.

When you're doing the deed, you don't think it's wrong.

After you've done the deed, you don't think it's wrong.

And he says, and forever after. Anytime you think of it, not a wrong deed.

So if we're trying to think, how would I avoid that? It would be anything that we do, we could stop and consider, is there any way that this deed could in any way be a wrong deed? It's slippery, because we could easily fall into the, well, I can't do anything right then, and so woe is me. I'm just a jerk and I'm going to give up. And that's not the point.

It's to just have this healthy sense of I'm trying my best. I'm trying to sort it out. I'm going to try to keep my motivation as pure. And then for this particular vow it would be, okay, maybe there's some other way I can get my point across, and I don't have to criticize them to somebody else to do it. Because we've considered maybe that would be a wrong deed.

To not have that consideration at all ever, we would have to have this really ugly state of mind, really ignorant state of mind, and then have to stay that way in order for the vow to be broken. So Geshela says, it's great to always have a little bit of doubt in your mind about the deed that you're going to do, are doing, have done. Might it harm somebody?

Chain 2–Being Willing to Do it Again

(41:07) Second chain is that you are willing to do it again, if, when we had no belief that what we did was wrong, then of course we'd be willing to do it again. In the same situation, you'd do exactly the same thing.

This would need to be in your mind during the planning, says Je Tsongkapa, and during the deed and after.

So then if ever we realize that no, I won't do that again. Even if I still think it's right, something happened that made me decide, no, I won't do that again. Even better would be if at some point we said, figured out, oh man, that was a wrong deed. Our next thought would be, I don't think I'll do that again.

So again, that little bit of doubt helps us think, is the deed I'm planning to do something that regardless of what the apparent result was, I would do again? Is my motivation and my conviction in the doing the deed‘s necessity so strong that I'm going to be willing to do it again?

When we don't have that, we have a bit of regret. Regret usually comes after the fact. Technically we can learn to have a little bit of regret even as we're doing something. We'll talk about it later. It's an unpleasant state of mind that's a virtue, they say. Because regret means I did something wrong, and I'm really sorry. It's not pleasant, but it's a good deed to have it.

Your reading will say, the classical monastic example for this chain number 2 is, for an ordained person who's overwhelmed by sexual desire, and they know they're going to break that vow, and they know it's a wrong deed, but know they just can't help themselves. And they regret it even before they do it, but their regret isn't strong enough to override the desire, and the event happens. They don't lose their ordained vows because of that event.

They've damaged them, they've created negativity, yes. But because of the, I know I just can't help myself, I know this is not keeping my vows well, that state of mind is actually protective.

The secondary Bodhisattva vows, they are easier to damage and break, because we damage and break them regardless of the four chains. So technically they all come out of the root 18, and when we do a deed that damages a root vow, it doesn't fully break it. We would be able to find that deed in the secondary vows where if we had kept the secondary vow better, it would've helped us protect our root vow.

But anyway, we'll get there.

To do a root vow behavior without all four chains, damage is one or more of the secondary vows, is what I'm trying to say.

Chain 3–Enjoying to Have Done it

The third chain is that we enjoyed doing it. We are enjoying doing it, when we did it. They don't mention it, but probably we're enjoying planning it out. We enjoyed doing it, and we were satisfied that we have done it. And we already said chain number 2 was I'd be willing to do it again, can see how these go together.

And if you (don‘t) think it was wrong, you're more likely to enjoy doing it. I mean it's not a given that you enjoy doing something that you know is right, but in order to not enjoy doing something, one would probably have to be thinking there's something wrong with what you're doing. By being glad, we'll want to do it again, we would be willing to do it again.

Any regret helps us protect our vow. Because with regret we're not going to enjoy it. With regret, we're not going to want to do it again. With regret even a little bit implies that we understand that even though deep down I still think it was right, I see that I still have a little bit of regret that this was the way I solved my issue. And this holds for while we're doing it and any time afterwards. We can have enjoyed criticizing that other teacher, and going to do it again and didn't think it was wrong. And then sometime in the future we go, oh, maybe that was a mistake. Yuck, yuck. That wasn't so pleasurable after all.

They say, the vow then is not broken. You got to work this one out. Because our intellectual mind is going to go wait, it was broken. And now, to suddenly decide, oh, that wasn't fun after all, all of a sudden the vow is not broken. Well do I need to restore it then, or don't I? Is it back to its full glory, or isn't it?

I don't have answers to that.

It shouldn't make us complacent. Well, someday in the future I'll regret what I just did and I'll just wait until then, and then my vow will be restored and everything will be back in virtue making mode. But how long did that take? And how much suffering did I perpetuate in my world while I was getting my vow unbroken all of a sudden?

So it's encouraging to hear we're not doomed when we have these four chains. But it shouldn't be so encouraging that we will let ourselves let fly with our mental afflictions and justify our behavior, because of the damage that gets done. 

So that's three of the four. 

Chain 4–Not Having Neither Shame Nor Consideration

The fourth one, it has two parts.

NGOTSA and TRELYU, are the two protective states of mind.

NGOTSA means shame, and TRELYU means consideration.

It's those same first two that the Abhidharma was pointing out as their two of their however many that was, 10 I think, mental afflictions.

NGOTSA, they translate the word as shame. Shame means I did something that was wrong, and I'm embarrassed if someone would hear about it. This NGOTSA is self shame. It's a sense of, if I do a certain deed and nobody ever knew about it, I would still feel upset. And so to have that sensibility when we're choosing our deeds, we choose a deed based on avoiding a deed that we ourselves would be embarrassed for ourself, if we did it, even if nobody ever knew. To me, shame isn't the right word. Self-conscious is often used, but that isn't quite right either. That's just self-awareness. Conscientiousness is a little better. Self conscientiousness is closer, I think to this idea of holding myself accountable. But then usually conscientiousness means because other people will see. And here this one NGOTSA is, doesn't matter if nobody ever knows about me, I am better than that. It's really a self consideration.

To not have NGOTSA when we do our deed contributes to the breaking of the vow. You see how? Because if you don't think the deed, the criticizing the other teacher is wrong, and you'll do it again, and you enjoy doing it, well then when you think to yourself about having done it, there's no sense of gosh, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Even if nobody ever knew, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Because the other three chains say no need to even think about it that way.

But if we have this sense of, Is this the kind of deed that I want my own mind to see me do? If we have that habit, even if we think the deed is right, and we think about it carefully, it's like, well, maybe I don't really want to do that. I'm sure it's right, but maybe there's some other way I could do this deed. You see how it's protective of your vow? And then you would say, so the deed, I was planning to do that. Now my NGOTSA is telling me not to do that, also will run into the weather or not I'm willing to do it again. If I'm not willing to do it the first time, hopefully it means I'm not willing to do it a second time, or third, or fourth, or fifth. And then our self consideration will also help us assess whether the deed that we've done or doing was an enjoyable thing.

So our self consideration is a strong protective state of mind. And when we don't have it, as we're planning, as we're doing, as we're thinking about that deed, that's one of the chains that allows us to fully break our vow. 

The other part of that is TRELYU. To not have TRELYU, which the word for that is TRELME, he didn't give us the word for the not having NGOTSA. TRELYU is this word for consideration. Meaning consideration of the impact our deed will have on others, not just the karmic impact but the influence that we would have. 

So like an obvious level, or a gross level of that would be, suppose people in your neighborhood know you're a Buddhist, and know you're vegetarian. Know that about you, but they don't know that you're also a Diamond Way practitioner, and they don't really even know what those are. And they see you out at a local restaurant  doing TSOK, which includes apparently eating meat and drinking alcohol, which the practitioner are not actually doing, but it looks like you are.

And the neighborhood people go, What's up with you? You're vegetarian. What are you doing? Do you see? 

Now, on one level maybe it's time for them to know. But on another level maybe they're going to say those Buddhists, they say they're vegetarian one moment and the next moment they're not. It's like I can‘t believe them. It's one's responsibility to uphold the neighborhood's high opinion of other Buddhists. About me, I don't care. I do care, but you don't have to care. But the impact it would have on their opinion of other Buddhists. That's what we're talking about here. Not just, what are they going to think about me? Because we are at Bodhisattva level. So it's tricky, this TRELYU state of mind, it's really a powerful, beautiful state of mind, our consideration for how we impact others in their worldview. 

And when we don't have that consideration, I don't care one wig how the neighborhood thinks of other Buddhists. That's not my responsibility. My responsibility is get them to Buddhahood as quickly as possible, and this is how I'm going to do it. And it's like, do you see? Very easily could become so this is right, I'm enjoying doing it. I will do it again. And in the gross vernacular, screw everybody else, the total opposite of Bodhisattva state of mind.

We can see how ugly these four are. This fourth is, I just don't care About my impact on anybody else, and I don't care (about) the impact on me. Do you see how ugly? No wonder all that virtue gets locked up. It does not get Like disintegrated. It just gets frozen. Your virtue bank account gets frozen, says Geshe Michael. You can't draw from it, and you can't add to it. For forever? Well, for until you restore your vows, but then even then you can't quite restore it to full glory. But still it'll start accumulating again, and next lifetime will be the one that you hold your Bodhisattva vows more carefully and can reach the Bodhisattva bhumi in that lifetime, hopefully. No guarantee. Bodhisattva vows are not vows that are said to ripen in this lifetime.

(Joana) I have a question regarding this lifetime thing. So is there kind of imprint in the seed that marks, this is the lifetime we broke the vow. So this is going to the frozen bank account, but you can't withdraw, in this picture. And then when we start our next lifetime, there's no information in the seed, so you can draw from? How does our seed know when my lifetime is over and the bank account is open again?

(Lama Sarsahni) I don't know. It doesn't open the bank account just by dying and getting reborn. You have to do something to open the bank account back up. So we're going to learn how to open the bank account back up. But the moral to the story is, don't close the bank account, whatever you do. But do you see how specific those root vows are? What the exception of two: the holding wrong views and the ‘I quit‘. Not just I don't think I can do it. This is so hard, it's going to take me forever. It's like. I quit. Which would be the ramification of deciding that behavior doesn't create my future. That's almost the same thing as saying, I quit. Because there's no connection at all. So, to break any root vow breaks all your Bodhisattva vows, because of those four chains that need to be intact with the 16 of them. And because of the ramification of those two states of mind from vow 9 and vow 18. Do you see? 

So when we look at our 18 root vows, they aren't really that hard to fully break. Because you have to have those four really ugly states of mind. And hopefully none of us are even close to those. However, that's why we check our vows regularly. Because it's not the vows we're checking. We're checking our behavior. We're checking our states of mind. We're checking the level at which we blame other for our experience. Because when we've got full on blaming them, that's when we believe that our action towards them is the right one to do. And if it's the right one to do, I'll do it again. And it felt good. And because it's not wrong, of course I have no self shame about it, because it is right. And of course it's going to have a favorable impact on others, because it's right. 

Okay, let's take a break. 

(64:10) In those four chains we can see how actually the fourth chain—not having self conscientiousness or other consideration is a key to all four being intact. Which means that to have this healthy sense of self conscientiousness and other consideration, it's protective from breaking our Bodhisattva vows. 

It's protective in damaging our secondary vows.

It helps us even work with our 10 non virtues, virtues.

It's really healthy state of mind, to have this my self-worth holds me to this behavior, and it won't let me do anything less than that. Unless we're wildly mentally afflicted, et cetera. But even then, we don't have the ‘Don't think it's wrong. Enjoy doing it. We'll do it again‘, when we have this healthy sense of my own self-esteem and my concern for the impact on others and their opinion. Not about me, but about whatever, however that influence would impact them.

Then when we look at all four chains, those four states of mind need to be active while we're planning, while we're doing and ever after. And that would take a really diluted, selfish, ignorant state of mind and it's hard to even conceive.

We're so well-trained before we get our Bodhisattva vows. How could that even happen? But it must, because this is the set of vows where we learn about these four chains.

Flavia asked last week, do the four chains apply to our five lifetime lay vows? 

I went in and checked the ceremony for the five lifetime lays, and I checked the course 9 where Geshela talked about that, and I don't find any discussion about those five requiring the four chains in order to be broken.

So they still require the four parts of a path of action to be fully broken, and we had that long discussion about what that looks like in How Karma Works. But the four chains specifically apply to our Bodhisattva deeds, and then later they're extended also… Well, I don't want to say that. They apply to the Bodhisattva root downfalls. Not even the secondary ones, that we'll see in a minute why.

Check Your Vows 6x a Day

(68:22) There's a practice some people do, where six times a day you recite these verses and part of that recitation is to recite the title of all your vows: your refuge vows, your ordained vows, your Bodhisattva vows. Then, at the end of the 18 root downfalls, not the 46 but the 18, there's a verse that says, 

16 of these I can do with all four chains.

Not the thing is wrong, not to want to stop it, to do it with pleasure and gladness, with no shame for myself or consideration for others.

Two though I can do without there being all four, holding views that are wrong and abandoning the wish.

So it's a nice review of the four chains that we can tell ourselves a couple of times a day to help us not grow those four chains, to have them in the succinct way of describing them to ourselves.

We can check, do I have that self shame in a positive stake, or consideration for others?

Am I thinking the thing is right or wrong? Not right or wrong in it, from it. But seeds planted that when they come back to me, they will be something that's helpful, or seeds planted that when they come back to me will be something that's not helpful. That's probably a better way of describing right or wrong. Because it's not the deed, it's the result the deed will bring that establishes it, as we know.

We have learned that there is a practice whereby six times a day you check your vows, you check your behavior according to your vows. I think everybody's learned how to do that. They call it keeping the book. We have refuge advices. We have our Pratimoksha vows, maybe we have our Bodhisattva vows, maybe we're just going to try them on for size.

Every couple of hours you check your behavior against one of them. If you have two or three of them that you're checking a day, you'll go through the 18 every six days, and then the 46, that we're going to learn, might take a little bit longer. But when we actually write our book at the beginning of the day, the writing it and rewriting, and rewriting, it helps us learn the vows, at least the names of the vows. And then using them to guide our behavior. We do the onion skin thing of course to help us. Now we have also these four chains, not to do a separate box, but to be looking in our mind for the behavior that we're noting. It's like, did I do it because I didn't think it was wrong? Did I do it because I knew it was wrong but I thought it needed to happen? Would I do it again?

You don't have to stop and write it down, but think about it with your keeping your Bodhisattva vows. Geshela in this class, people were just learning when he was teaching this class for the first time, and he said, I know people have trouble stopping what they're doing every couple of hours to do this. Because there's always another phone call, there's always something else you need to do that's more important. He says, when your timer goes off to keep your book, whatever you're doing, whoever you're with, Excuse me, I have to go to the toilet.

Nobody ever says no to you. And you are going to the toilet. So it's not that you're lying. You're just not necessarily going to use the toilet, except just sit in the stall and write your book, right? You've got privacy. You can turn your phone off, or you can at least ignore your phone. It really is a very skillful way. Probably they wonder what's up with that Sarahni? She's always going to the bathroom. Doesn't matter, right? Who cares?

The purpose of keeping our book is to train ourselves in our mindfulness of our behavior in the in-between time. So it's not training us to write something in a book. It's about watching in the two hours in between. And sometimes that's hard to do. We get focused on the writing of the book, not the behavior that it's teaching us to do. Geshela has always said, if your mind knows it's being tracked, it will behave so much better than if it thinks nobody's looking. So again, those two states of mind, NGOTSA and TRELYU are who and what's looking. Iit helps our ego mind behave a little better. It's very helpful.

Repairing the Vows

(75:01) What happens when we realize we've broken a Bodhisattva root vow, which then means all our vows, all our Bodhisattva vows are broken. That state, a full break of a root downfall, had to happen with the four chains and that's called a big impurity. We've created a big impurity. In order to repair the vows from a big impurity, we need to restore some amount of our MUNSEM.

MUNSEM means our prayer, our wishing Bodhichitta. The mind that wishes to have its Bodhisattva vows back. The mind that wishes to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. That MUNSEM needs to come back.

So the wish in the form of the prayer.

If we can get that back, even just a squeeze, then with that we can go back to the one who gave us our vows and ask them to please give us our vows again. My guess is they're going to grill you, to see what happened, and is your MUNSEM back. But it's not like it has your wish in the form of a prayer needs to be as big as it was when you first started. The bigger the better of course. But the scripture says, even just a little bit because a little bit. Because even a little bit of your wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings is enough to recognize, oh my gosh, that deed wasn't so right after all.

And then that, they don't use the term unbreaks the vow, but it sounds like that's what they mean. Suddenly the vow wasn't broken. But you still have to take it again. So figure that one out. It's not that it gets unbroken. But the state of mind is there that can fix it. Yet again, it won't fix it to its full glory.

What if you can't get at the one who gave you the vows to begin with? I don't know.

Then they say, and there are circumstances with our root vows in which we damage them but don't fully break them. And there's a circumstance called committing a medium impurity, and circumstances called committing small impurities.

Impurity means to have planted seeds in our minds that are minor damages to those vows. There's a criteria for what's medium and what's small, and what you do to restore the vow is different for a big impurity, for a medium one, and for a small one.

Committing a medium impurity with our root downfalls means doing any one of those 16, not number 9, not number 18. This doesn't apply to them. The doing any one of those 16, not thinking it was wrong. So you think it's right. But you only have one or two of those other three negative states of mind.

So you have the first state of mind, you don't think it's wrong, but then maybe you're not willing to do it again, this one time and never again.

Or maybe, I'll do it again, but I'm not enjoying this.

Or, somehow the shame and consideration is not there, but you have the other three. 

Or it's there, but you're missing one of the other three.

You see, the important piece in a medium impurity is the fact that you don't believe that what you did was wrong. But what makes it a medium damage is that you don't have all three of the others. So you don't have all four chains. 

You with me?

Any one of those 16 that is damaging in this way, the first one and any one or two of the others, needs to be repaired by collecting three or more people who would understand, and confessing before them. Doing a four powers of purification with three people who would understand you hearing you do it.

A small impurity is doing any one of those 16, knowing it's wrong, with one or more of the other factors also present.

You know it's wrong, but for some reason you're going to do it anyway. But because you know it's wrong, even as you do it, you don't have all four chains intact. Even if you have all three of the others. Which probably you have number four, insufficient self consideration, other consideration, that you would let yourself do something that you know is going to come back to hurt you—whether you'll do it again, whether or not you're having fun doing it. Do you see?

How these work together makes sense when you try to piece it together.

If we don't think the deed is wrong, regardless of which of the others we have intact, as long as there's not all four, it's a medium damage to the vow. If we know it's wrong, then regardless of how many of the other three are present, it's a small impurity and the way we repair it is that we confess it to one other person who would understand. Do your four powers with that one person. 

Geshela said, when we do a small impurity and confess it to one other who would understand, we restore the vows to their former glory. So it's only when all four chains are intact that the vow is so broken that it can't be restored for those 16.

That means our four powers of purification practice as our confession and restoring our vows is a pretty important practice to get used to doing regularly. So that if there's any little damage to those vows, we get it fixed right away.

Leaving the little damage seeds, those seeds grow, the ugliness will grow. And my guess would be that would be what would contribute to a circumstance where all of a sudden, we lose our whatever factor it was that was keeping us on the path and suddenly we either quit believing about karma and emptiness, past and future lives, quit wanting to free all beings, and to reach Buddhahood to do it. Or do one of those other 16 with all four chains intact. That's going to be a ripening result of some gathering selfishness that we're learning how to protect ourselves from. That's what this is all about. So let's review the four powers of purification. 

The 4 Powers of Purification

(85:50) It's this method through which mental imprints that we know we have that when they ripen will be perpetuating suffering for ourselves and others. We decide, I don't want to let those seeds continue to grow, and in fact I'd like to be able to damage them enough so that either they ripen sooner, lesser, or I damage them enough that they can't ripen at all. 

We learned from Lord Buddha that there's a specific process that we can do called the four Powers of purification, sometimes called the four Rs:

1. Refuge

2. Regret

3. Remedy and

4. Restraint

Sometimes the order is different. That's not so important as all four need to be present, worked upon, as we work to damage those negative seeds that are the potential for unpleasant perpetuating suffering in the future.

1. Refuge—The Basis Force

So the first one, refuge, is also known as the basis force. So this is just a review. We've learned this in How Karma Works course. We'll hear it again in Guide to the Bodhisattva‘s Way of Life. There's actually a whole practice module that you can listen to. I've never taught that specifically, but there is one.

The basis force means recalling our refuge. We're recommitting to our level of refuge, which Bodhisattvas have Mahayana refuge. Which uses the steps shared with the lesser idea of refuge, and grows it. But regardless, refuge still is recalling the power of karma and emptiness that is the explanation for reality.

Our refuge is directed towards Buddhas who are beings who have used the marriage of karma and emptiness to transform themselves from suffering being to fully enlightened being. So they know and are directly perceiving what we need to do as well.

We rely upon the emptiness that they teach.

We rely upon the emptiness of them.

And we rely upon the emptiness of ourselves, our own mind, as the basis that gets transformed by changing our behavior from selfish me to Bodhisattva wannabe, to full on Bodhisattva someday. Because of the different way in which those seeds are planted at those different levels.

So when we reestablish our refuge, we are mentally reasserting, I understand that everything I experience is a ripening result from causes made by what I was aware. My own mind was aware of me thinking, doing, saying towards another.

We let that sink on in really deeply, to reconfirm that that means my current behavior creates the circumstances of my future. So I really am personally responsible for what I experience and what I create. And it's hard. It's a heavy burden, the Mahayana refuge.

2. Regret—The Destruction Force

In our four powers we have this set of seeds we're wanting to clean out.

The first thing we do is tell ourselves, tell whoever we're confessing to, I understand karma and emptiness in this way. And then where our mind will usually go is, and so by this deed that I saw myself do, the seeds that planted in my mind will probably come back as somebody doing that to me. And when that happens, I realize I am not going to like it. 

And so that means I regret having done that to the other. Even if at the time I did it, it seemed like it was the right thing to do.

I just didn't have the right state of mind that recognized what seeds I'd be planting.

I didn't think it through enough to think, will I like this when it comes back to me?

What grows is our regret. That state of mind that says that was a mistake. Not, I'm wrong, I'm bad, I'll never get this right. But, I just perpetuated my own and others' ignorance and distress.

A healthy regret of an educated Buddhist, is what they call this.

It's not a whiny mental affliction that brings us down. It's a healthy, virtuous state of mind.

What they call this regret is the destruction force. So the way we destroy those seeds is by regretting having made them. 

That's not so hard, is it?

And then they describe regret so beautifully with that story about the three hot and tired guys that run into the bar. They're in a hurry, they're exhausted, they're thirsty. The barkeep comes. She buys into their hurriedness. Well, you have that. She pulls it off the shelf, pours it into the three glasses. They go clink, salut, down the hatch. A few moments later, one guy seizes and drops over dead. And the other two guys are looking like, what just happened? The second guy seizes, drops over dead. The third guy's got regret. He knows what's coming. He knows, we shouldn't have drunk that stuff. There is no self-judgment, no blaming the barkeep, you don't have time for that. It's just, I shouldn't have done that. Regret. Is a really helpful story I find to help remember that feeling of regret. To turn that on when we need it.

With that deep regret will come the state of mind, I'll try really hard not to do that again.

3. Not do it again—The Force of Restraint

And that leads to the power of restraint, a necessary factor. Because if we say, oh yeah, criticizing that other teacher. I see it was a wrong deed and I do regret doing it. And the next time I'm in their presence, I do it again. It's like, I stopped taking my own mind seriously. It takes the wind out of the sails of my regret, to say I regret it and then do it again. So regret is the destruction force, but restraint is the power that carries the destruction through time.

So they tell us, when you establish your power of restraint, be realistic. It means I am not going to repeat that deed…and then fill in the blank there. If we're purifying something that we do habitually, don't say, I'll never do it again. Because 10 minutes later you'll be doing it again, and then your purification didn't work. and you've lied to yourself. So future purifications won't work very well. 

So you can say, I will not do that deed again for the first 10 seconds when I see that person who triggers my anger. I'll count, like 10, 9, 8, 7, and then yes, my regret will or my anger will come and I'll regret it and I'll purify it. But I kept my power of restraint. Yay. And that will help us keep it better and better and better. Establish a power of restraint.

4. Remedy—The Power of Antidote

Then we also think, and I want to do a makeup activity, a remedy, an antidote. And the antidote, one method of training, our antidote that can help us with our power of restraint is to establish what the opposite behavior would've been, and do as our antidote that opposite behavior in some other place. Doesn't have to be towards the person involved in the behavior you're purifying. But train yourself in the opposite behavior will contribute to lessening the seeds of the original behavior, so that your power of restraint gets better, and you're planting the goodness of its opposite. So you're pulling away from it in these two different ways.

Scripture, however, gives us these different methods for our antidote power. The most powerful one being study, learn, think about, meditate on emptiness, on the empty nature of the three spheres of the situation that you're purifying. But in general as well.

So studying emptiness is the general purpose antidote to anything, because what it's anti-doting is the ignorance, the belief in things‘ identity is in them, from them, which is had to be a component in the situation in which we behaved badly to solve a problem. We believed that our behavior was going to solve that problem, because the other person was the problem, and our behavior would fix it. That's why we do stuff. And all those seeds have this misunderstanding in them, that if we're chipping away at the misunderstanding, then that's lessening all of that misunderstood behavior that we've done. The specific one we're purifying and all the rest as well. All my wrong deeds from all time by studying emptiness, and it needs to be serious effort.

So we have the four, the basis refuge, destruction power, regret, the power of restraint, specific, when I won't do it again, that I can do. And then the antidote, the specific deed or deeds that I will do to make up for the negativity. How long? How many? Until the karma shifts for recurring things. Until it's fixed, say the Lama.

I think we've heard this story about one of Khen Rinpoche's community members had been in the Vietnamese war. His job was to clear the jungle of the enemy, and he never actually saw himself kill somebody, but he shot his machine gun into the jungle and he came home saying, I probably killed people. How do I purify that?

And Rinpoche knew that his father raised sheep to eat. So Rinpoche gave this student the assignment, buy that sheep from your father. Give him the money for it, and then you take care of that sheep until it dies in natural death, which apparently takes 12, 15 years. As the antidote to probably killing people, protect the life of this sheep. It didn't get eaten. For 15 years he bought food and picked up after that sheep, as his antidote. So sometimes it takes a long time to fully clear, and we rely upon our Lamas for that advice. 

(101:37) Lastly, in your reading you'll see, that Aria Asanga‘s text about the Bodhisattva vows. He says, actually, there's two ways to totally break your Bodhisattva vows. Two ways to lose your Bodhisattva vows.

One is to break a root vow, and the second is to go to the one who granted you their vows and formally give them back. So you can do that if some circumstance were such that you just didn't think you could keep them anymore. Better to give them back than to just break them.

But then, if we examine the vows carefully, we actually come up with three ways that our Bodhisattva vows can be lost, meaning all of them.

The first is to break a root vow with the four chains intact. That's what we talked about all night. That breaks that root vow, and it means we've lost all of them.

Second way is to hold those wrong views. Something happens. We rethink, this karma and emptiness, past and future lives, and we use clear thinking logic and come to the conclusion, can't be true. We lose all of our vows, our Bodhisattva vows at that point. We probably lose our refuge and our Pratimoksha vows as well, but we are not talking about that.

And then the third way is the 18th vow, to give up our wish for enlightenment. To say, I quit. But giving up our Bodhichitta can happen in two ways. We can formally go to the Lama who gave us our Bodhisattva vows and say, I can't do it. Or we can have that fit of a mental affliction where we quit.

Each one, a little different circumstance.

So it's useful to think of those, and just think about what kind of circumstances could possibly happen that might affect somebody in this way. And then, when I do that kind of mind challenge, I do think, okay, I really want to avoid those behaviors. But then I also turn it around and think, well, what would the opposite behaviors be like? What would I be like as a being who just couldn't do that? And then that gives me little glimpses into how I want to train my own behavior as opposed to, I'll avoid this, I will avoid that. Do you feel the difference? It's like we're already avoiding that stuff, and so we just go along doing the same old, same old. Whereas if we're brainstorming, what would it be more like to be this high level Bodhisattva who really is keenly aware, Is this deed a deed that's contributing to suffering or not? Or removing suffering?—as we're deciding what we do next?

It gives us a glimpse into how we can raise our own behavior and opinion of ourselves, standard for our own behavior. And that's why we have vows.

The guidelines of those behaviors were given to us by an omniscient being who says, these are what we need to give up and take up. And as ignorant beings, we couldn't come up with that on our own. We'd come up with a different set, and probably we'd be missing something. So our vows are not restrictions. They're not because Buddha said so. They are, whoa. These are clues and helpful advices from someone who really loves us.

Okay. That's our class six. A lot of juicy material in class six that I know I've chewed on for years, and still don't completely understand. But understanding enough to try to live by them to the best of my ability.

[Class Dedication[

Thank you everyone for the opportunity. Thank you for doing your papers. I'm so impressed with everybody.

Vocabulary Class 7

TSA TUNG root downfall

NYE-JE done bad, secondary vows

NYE MEY an exception to the rule

Master Chandragomi

(Detailed Vocabulary from Tibetan Track)

NYONMONG CHEN to commit an offense out of a negative thought

KONGTRO anger

TRAKDOK jealousy

CHAKPA desire

NUSEM malice

NYONMONG CHEN MAYINPA to commit an offense due to some other thought

JENGE forgetting (what you are supposed to do)

LELO laziness

SHEN SEM SUNGWA misdeeds which are prohibited in order to maintain 

others‘ good opinion of both, the practitioner and the 

Buddhist way

DUN DANG JAWA NYUNGWA misdeeds which are prohibited in order to keep one’s 

activities few

TSULCHU pretending (to be some holy person in the hopes 

someone gives you sth)

KASAK flattery (saying nice things in the hopes someone gives 

you sth)

SHOK-LONG hinting (to someone else that you need sth hoping they 

will give it to you)

TOP KYI JELWA forcing (hassling or harassing people to get sth they 

don‘t want to give you)

NYEPE NYE TSUL baiting (giving some minor gift, hoping they will return 

sth substancial to you)

For the recording. Welcome back. We are ACI course 7, class 7, already, on February 9th, 2025.

Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class opening]

Review Class 6

(7:42) Last class we learned about that topic called the four chains, those four mental afflictions that must all four be present for 16 of those root Bodhisattva downfalls to occur to be fully broken. So there are four things we want to understand pretty well, and so who wants to be brave enough to share what those four are going? 

(Raz) The first one is I have the desire in my mind to commit the wrong deed again in the future.

(Lama Sarahni) Okay, that's not number one, but that's one of them. 

(Raz) It's not number one?

(Lama Sarahni) Not number one.

(Raz) Okay. I thought it's number one. Okay, then I have the lack of any shame or consideration. Then I have the sense of enjoyment and satisfaction after I did wrong deed. And then the third one is, failing to consider what I did was wrong. 

(Lama Sarahni) Correct. So technically that's the first one. But the first one is that whether the thing was right or wrong.

(Raz) But in the reading, it was in this order, right? Desire, lack of shame, enjoyment, and the last one was the failing to consider it was wrong. 

(Lama Sarahni) Yeah, you know I think that that has to do with the syntax order. Because then, when they teach about the big bad deed, medium bad deed, lesser bad deed, it says if you have the first one where things are not wrong, then you only need one or two of the others. Do you remember that? So don't mark yourself wrong. If you have all four, I don't care what order. As long as once you understand that the thinking it's right or wrong is a major player.

Good. So thank you. So everybody got what he said, right? The four, okay, because you all know it. Good.

It takes all four present in your mind for the deed that we do to break the up of vow. It doesn't take all four to make a negative karma, obviously. So it's being very specifically stated here.

Then your quiz asks, what's the difference between shame and consideration, the NGOTSA and TRELYU? Anybody want to try to do that one?

(Joana) Consideration would be, I'm thinking about what other people think if I do it. And the shame one is what would I think about myself? Do I want to be this kind of person? So this is more considering my own self picture.

(Lama Sarahni) Right, regardless of whether anyone would know or not. And because of those two states of mind, you avoid doing the behavior you are thinking about doing for one or both of those reasons. They're very protective states of mind to be thinking as we're making a choice of behavior. Will I be proud of myself regardless of anybody else? And what impact will this have on others?

Whether we are caring about what they'll think about me, or what they'll think about Buddhism, or any other impact we might have. Maybe our deed that they see us do, they will think, oh, then I should do that one too. And it's like, whoa, then I'm not going to do that, because that'll make them do it someday. So there's a lot in that one called consideration for others. 

Then your quiz said, why is it wrong to feel comforted by the fact that you can retake your vows after you've broken a root vow? Because we learned that even though we can restore the vow, we can't restore it to its fully enough power for us it to help us restore the virtue accumulation that could ripen into reaching the first Bodhisattva bhumi in this lifetime. I don't know the exact mechanism of that. Regardless of understanding it, it would catch our attention. Because reaching the first Bodhisattva bhumi in this lifetime is sort of like our, what we're driven to try to achieve. And whether we actually achieve it or not in this lifetime is one thing. But if we fully break a Bodhisattva root vow, there's no hope. Then that would discourage us in such a way that we'd even quit trying, and then that makes it worse, of course. 

Then lastly, on your quiz it said, there's three ways you can lose your vows. What are those three ways? You remember there's sort of three ways in which there's actually four.

One is to hold wrong views, to go from right view to wrong view.

The second was to give up Bodhichitta, either I quit, or giving your vows back formally.

The third one is to do any one of the 16 with all four chains intact. Because if you break one root downfall, you've broken them all.

Introduction to the Secondary Root Vows

(15:39) We've finished the eight root downfalls, they're called the TSA TUNG.

TSA TUNG = the root vow.

This class, the next couple of classes, 7, 8, 9 and 10, maybe not 10, are covering the secondary vows. Secondary vows are called NYE-JEs.

NYE-JE = a done bad

I did a done bad.

We're studying the NYE-JE explanation by Master Chandragomi. So his text that you'll be using.

We'll be learning the difference between the root vows and the secondary vows.

One of the differences is that to restore the secondary vows, we confess them to at least one other person who would understand what we're explaining, along with a doing of the four powers. And those secondary vows can be fully restored by confession.

There are two main ways of breaking a secondary vow. Two motivations behind doing the deed that breaks the vow. One of them is that we do the deed in a mentally afflicted way. Meaning we have active wrong states of mind that push us to do the deed, like anger, jealousy, pride, greed, resentment, revenge. All of those ugly emotions that make us do the ugly things that we do.

However, we can also break these vows in what's called a non afflicted way. Which means we break them just out of laziness, or out of not paying close enough attention to our behavior.

One could argue that even when we're lazily not paying attention and letting our behavior be by habit on automatic pilot, that's still afflicted of course. We're afflicted with our ignorance, our selfishness, our I want, I don't want. But they're not being influenced by these major full on mental afflictions. And so the way the seed planting is happening is different, and they're making it clear that either way the doing of the deed breaks the vow.

These secondary vows are grouped according to the Bodhisattva’s efforts to practice the six perfections. Remember, before we have experienced ultimate reality for the first time, our efforts and our perfections of giving moral discipline, et cetera, are being done with our intellectual understanding of emptiness and karma. We are gathering the goodness needed to see emptiness directly, and t

Then after that we continue to do those deeds of giving moral discipline, et cetera. Now with a mind that knows that emptiness and independent origination of the three spheres of the given situation. So now our deeds done actually do become causes for our Buddhahood, whereas before that they were causes for our Buddhahood indirectly, because they were more directly causes for our wisdom. And it's the wisdom that makes our six perfection, the perfectionizers that leads them to being the perfections of a Buddha You.

So following me?

These secondary vows, they're directed towards behaviors that damage our efforts to practice giving, moral discipline, not getting angry, et cetera, so that we can gather the goodness to get us to the direct perception of emptiness, and then afterwards to gather the goodness that will move us to our Buddhahood.

Secondary Vow 1–Avoid Not Offering the Three to the Three

The first seven of the secondary vows are said to be seven behaviors that act against the perfection of giving. The vowed behavior is to avoid certain behavior that would act against our perfection of giving. It's like it's a double negative going on here. So we would say for instance, the first of the secondary vows is, I will avoid not offering the three to the three Jewels. Like the actual verse is,

I will avoid not offering the three to the three.

So we need to know what threeTo what three.

What this is speaking to is that we make offerings of our body, speech and mind to the three Jewels a minimum of once a day, hopefully more than that. 

So the three Jewels, we know, Buddha Jewel, Dharma Jewel, Sangha Jewel. And then thanks to our holy Lama Geshe Michael, he makes it clear that the Buddha Jewel is not Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha. It's the emptiness of Shakyamuni Buddha's mind and the emptiness of our own mind. Which once we understand about emptiness and independent origination, we understand that that emptiness that we're understanding about their mind is in fact the promise that we can reach it as well.

So we're not taking refuge in this being Buddha who doesn't even walk among us anymore. We're taking refuge in their emptiness. Which is how they became Buddha—from having not been one.

Then the Dharma Jewel refers to the cessation in the mind of a being who's experienced emptiness directly, and the subsequent realizations that they gain by applying that wisdom to their behavior, to weed out those mental afflictions. 

So the Dharma Jewel isn't the teachings, the books, et cetera. It's the wisdom gained by someone who used those teachings to reach that experience of ultimate reality from which they have eliminated three wrong beliefs—three out of 84,000. But three important ones. And so we're taking refuge in that state of mind of being free of those three mental afflictions and how we get there.

Then the Sangha Jewel means any being who has had that direct perception of emptiness, and so now has that wisdom that they can share or demonstrate with others. So again, we're not taking refuge in the Sangha as in the ordained people, but rather in those who have seen emptiness directly, ordained or not. 

The common denominator in this of course is the understanding of emptiness and dependent origination. So when we are taking refuge, we want to be having some level of understanding of the marriage of karma and emptiness in mind as we are doing our refuge taking, whether it's in words or in actions. And then to offer our body, speech and mind, it means doing something physical that demonstrates that you are choosing your behavior according to your growing wisdom. By speech refuge is you're saying something through which you demonstrate to yourself that you're trying to remember. You're trying to make your choices with some understanding of karma and emptiness in mind. Body, speech, mind. And then the mind offering is the thinking of the karma and emptiness that you're doing as you offer your body and your speech. So mostly we make our offerings of body, speech, mind to the Three Jewels by way of our prayer and our prostrations.

And so we sort of are on automatic pilot as we prostrate. I offer my body, my speech, my mind to you, the three jewels for the benefit of all sentient beings. We hear ourselves doing it, so we get credit. The credit is stronger the more consciously, intentionally we're holding in mind what we're doing as we do that. And I admit, I'm an automatic pilot when I'm doing mine mostly, and I'm just missing an opportunity to plant seeds in a more strong way. So I encourage you don't get sloppy like I've gotten.

So first of the secondary vows is, don't forget at minimum do something at least once a day that shows yourself that you have reverence for the Three Jewels. And to fail to do that is what breaks the vow.

Secondary Vow 2–Avoid Allowing Improper Thoughts of Desire to Go On

(29:15) I will avoid allowing improper thoughts of desire to go on.

We have desire, constantly. That's what moves us to do something, to do anything, is out of some kind of desire. Whether it's a desire to avoid or a desire to get, we're motivated by desire. It's not that this vow is saying, I will avoid it to go on.

It's wrong desire, and wrong desire means that because of our misunderstanding of how we satisfy that desire, or how we even try, we are willing to make choices that are harmful to another in order to get what we want.

So when we're talking about desire, we're talking about sensual desires, food, any pleasures of the senses, food, drink, sex, anything. There's also a state of desire where we're never satisfied with what we have. And then there's a state of desire for, it's an attachment to having others praise and honor us.

So when we are in any situation where those states of mind are arising strongly, to let those states of mind continue to influence our decision-making right up to doing the deed is what it means to allow thoughts of desire to go on. It means ignorant desire is what's underneath our decision about what to do next to get or avoid the thing we're after.

To let those thoughts go on and you choose your behavior, and you do your behavior is what breaks this vow.

When we are in such a situation and we're recognizing, oh, this desire for that last piece of cake, even though I know that it is got somebody else's name on it, I let that desire go so far that I take the piece or take a bite out of the piece, or change the name on it, and I don't struggle against that breaks the vow.

If I'm struggling like all that piece of cake, oh man, I really want a bite. I know it belongs to somebody else, I really shouldn't take it. And you take a bite, right?

The struggling against it protects your vow.

Did you make a seed where somebody's going to take something that was supposed to be yours? Yes. But because you struggled against it, even though you failed in your struggle, you protected this vow. Do you see? So the struggle is protective in these secondary vows. It seems silly. It's like, come on, who's going to struggle and not win the struggle?

I think we can all find situations where, not this situation, not that situation, but I could find one, right?

This wrong desire that they're talking about letting thoughts go on about is this willingness to do something that if somebody did it to you, you wouldn't like it. That's the criteria. And when we find ourselves faced with such a situation, struggle, struggle, struggle. Our struggles will help us, and hopefully they will help us avoid the behavior.

Geshela pointed out that there is non mentally afflicted desire. To just want that piece of cake is not breaking the vow. It's billing, willing to give into that wanting the piece of cake to the extent that you take it when it's meant for somebody else.

Do you see the difference?

We should desire things. It's okay to desire things. Our wisdom desire is the pleasure I want from that thing is not really in it. So if I want the pleasure that I think it's going to give me, I want to share some pleasure with somebody else. Maybe with it, maybe with something else. Then I can have it.

Again, this vow is not saying, cut off all desire and if you don't, you break your vow. It's not just desire.

Secondary Vow 3–Avoid Not Respecting My Elders

(35:36) Third one, I will avoid not respecting my elders.

Here, the elders that we're talking about are those who have taken their Bodhisattva vows before you have. I got them on this day, somebody else got them a week ahead of me. They're my elder—no matter what age they are, no matter their apparent behavior to me. Anyone who has vows, who've had vows longer than I've had vows is my senior. 

This is saying, honor and respect that, and show it by our behavior. Make them a plate of offerings. Hold the door open for them. Help them in their task.

That means we kind of need to know when somebody got their vows. And I don't really know how to know that. We don't walk around with little signs: I got my vows in 1993. Because that would be advertising I'm senior to you.

It might be wise to just assume everybody has vows senior to you and treat everybody this way. Then we wouldn't get close to damaging this Bodhisattva vow. 

It's interesting, it's in the group having to do with avoiding behaviors that would damage our perfection of giving.

So think about the connection there. With all of these, think about the connection. 

The first one is failing to give, make my body, speech, mind offering to the Three Jewels. The second one, letting improper thoughts of desire to go on. What does that have to do with giving or not giving? Yeah, I either take the cake, or I leave it for the other guy, or I get it out of the refrigerator and I go take it to them. But it's not me giving them the cake because it was theirs to begin with that had their name on them. 

It's seed planting that would make it harder for us to give something that is ours to give when we have the opportunity to do so. Because anything that increases our attachment to stuff decreases our ability to let go of it, to give it away.

The beauty of our perfection of giving practices grows in us this “letting go of our mine-ness of things“. This belongs to me, this is mine. I need this to survive. As our relationship with our things, and our reputations, and things that are part of us get looser and looser, our ability to give them away at a moment of notice when somebody else could benefit from them. It gets so much easier when your sense of this thing is the source of my safety, my happiness. When they're not that anymore, great. Somebody else wants them? Here, here, here.

These vows are showing us where we block that ability as we reach that state of mind that my stuff isn't my safety, my comfort, my protection. It's actually kind a burden. We move into the perfection of moral discipline. We do our wrong deeds trying to protect ourselves and our stuff. When we don't need to protect our stuff anymore, our practice of moral discipline gets that much easier. And when our practice of moral discipline gets easier, we have less need to protect ourself. And then our practice of not getting angry gets easier. Do you see? Each one builds on the next. So these first seven are an important foundation for the others to come. So this one, I will avoid not respecting my elders. What has that got to do with the perfection of giving?

Think about it.

Secondary Vow 4–Avoid Not Answering a Question

(40:56) Number four, I will avoid not answering a question.

Do you think of answering questions as being part of your perfection of giving?

Yeah, it is. Even just answering, where's the coffee shop close to here? You can say, look it up on your phone—which is an answer. Or you can say there's a good one down the block and to the left, there's another one down the block and to the right and then to the left. You can take your time to answer. You can be flippant, or you can ignore them.

This vow is saying, if the question was a sincere one, then don't give an irrelevant, or flippant, or inadequate answer. So it's not just a Dharma question, especially a Dharma question, but this is talking about any question. To not answer a question, or to give a flippant answer, which I'm prone to do, means that you disrespect the need of the person who's asked the question. You think, come on, they know that. Or, that's a silly thing to ask. We have some judgment about it, and we answer or don't answer based on that judgment. A Bodhisattva has pledged to help other beings be happy, worldly and ultimately. Does it feel good to get a flippant, disrespectful answer or no answer at all? No. 

There are these things called NYE MEYs.

A NYE MEY means an exception, an exception to the rule. 

There are lists of these exceptions for certain of these different vows. 

For this one, number three, not respecting the elders, and number four, not answering a question or answering flippantly, you don't break either one of those:

• If you are sick and so you can't show your respect, and you can't answer.

• If you are asleep.

• If you're too groggy.

• If you are in a situation where you were teaching and the question interrupts the flow, you don't break this by not answering.

• If you are listening to a Dharma talk, and someone asks you the question and answering the question would distract yourself and others, or you would disrupt the whole teaching, then you don't break the vow by not answering.

• And then lastly, and we'll hear this one repeatedly, if you need to teach the person a valuable lesson by not answering, or giving the flippant answer, you don't break the vow by doing so.

However, points out Geshe Michael, we can easily fool ourselves with this one by thinking we know what the other person's lesson needs to be, or that we know that by our behavior they'll get the lesson we intend for them to get. Until we are at a certain level of perception of another's mind and karma, we're fooling ourselves if we think, oh, I can teach them a lesson in this way.

Now, it implies however, that there will come a time in your Bodhisattva-hood where you will be in the position to see that you could help them in a deep way by doing a behavior that would appear to break your vow. And we'll have another vow that says, I'm willing to do that for them, for their benefit. But until we're at that level, it is tricky business to say, I was going on the exception of teaching them a lesson.

Secondary Vow 5–Avoid Not Accepting a Sincere Invitation

(47:12) Number five, I know this is just dry lists and I'm sorry. But we've got 46 of them to do, not all tonight. Number five, I will avoid not accepting a sincere invitation. 

So any invitation, but it's not accepting the invitation out of pride, out of anger or out of just plain laziness, is what breaks this vow.

It has the exceptions, the NYE MEYs:

• If you're sick. I'm sorry, I'm too sick to go to lunch with you.

• If you've already accepted another invitation, and you can't be in two places at one time, yet you don't break your vow by saying no to the second one.

• If it's too far away and it would be difficult or dangerous for you to get there, you may say no without breaking the vow.

• If you are aware that the invitation was given out of some wrong motivation and you don't accept it, you don't break the vow.

• If by accepting the invitation it diverts you from some other virtuous act, you don't break the bow. Another kind of slippery one, because suppose someone we don't want to go to lunch with invites us to lunch, and we're looking for some reason why not to go to lunch without breaking the vow. We would go, I think the temple needs to be swept. I'm so sorry. I need to go do the virtuous act of sweeping the temple, so I can't go to lunch with you. Is it a virtuous act? Yes. But come on, honestly. If they hadn't invited you to lunch that you didn't want to go, you wouldn't have gone and swept the temple. It wasn't like you already had the intention to go sweep the temple. Do you see? Slippery.

• If you are very wise, and you need to teach that person a lesson, you might not accept their offering. Slippery that one. 

Notice, said Geshe Michael, that just not liking the person is not in the exceptions. As a Bodhisattva, we have pledged to become a being that will bring all beings to their ultimate happiness. And it doesn't mean all the beings that I like. It means everybody. 

And so if somebody who doesn't like you invites you to lunch, sorry. Go, make them happy, be kind. You might surprise yourself and find that, oh my gosh, they've got some likable qualities after all. I mean after all, they bought me lunch. Or maybe you beat them to the check, right? After all, I got to buy them lunch. They just gave me the opportunity to get some great practice of giving merit. 

As Bodhisattvas, all those beings are our children.

Yes, they are all our mothers, which is how we grew our Bodhichitta.

But now that we have our Bodhichitta, now they are all our children.

Secondary Vow 6–Avoid Not Accepting Money, Gifts etc When They Are Sincerely Offered

(51:40) Number six, I will avoid not accepting money, gifts, et cetera when they are sincerely offered. Wait a minute, we're working on our perfection of giving. What does that have to do with accepting offerings? Think about it.

The NYE MEYs here:

• If you know you'll get attached to the money or gift that they are offering you, you can respectfully refuse it. Because to be attached means it's mine. If anybody tries to get it, use it, take it from me, I'm justified in doing some unkind thing to keep it. And so if somebody's going to give you something that you know that's going to happen, it's all right to say, thank you so much, but no thank you. And you don't break the vow.

• If you think that they would later regret having given it to you. Then you don't break the vow by saying politely thank you, but no thank you. We heard this story once Khen Rinpoche had given this inspiring class to a group of people in Washington DC in the home of a very wealthy woman. And she was so inspired that at the end of class she said, Rinpoche, I want to give you this house so that you can have it to live in, and use as a Dharma center. Please bring your Sangha to Washington DC, I want to give you this house. They had no place at that time. It would've solved a big problem. But he saw that she was in this blush of the inspiration of that class, and given a little bit of time, when she found herself needing to find a new place to live and need to go buy a new place, she would've thought, whoa, why did I do that? And that regret for such a good thing is such a negative thing that he said, thank you, that's so generous, but I can't accept it. Other situations will come up. So he probably hurt her feelings by not accepting it. But he saw that it would be worse.

• If you think what's being offered could be stolen goods. We don't break the vow by not accepting it. How you would know that, I don't know. But if you had any suspicion whatsoever, if you're brave enough, you ask them. But even still not quite sure if you could trust the answer. But to the best of our judgment.

• If you have reason to believe it will financially hurt the person to accept what they're offering, then you can decline it.

• If you have reason to believe that they had already dedicated it to someone else. Like suppose somebody had already pledged their $10,000 to some other project and now they hear yours, and it's like, oh no, I want my 10,000 to go to you. And that means the one it had been pledged to, whether they knew it or not, has been diverted to you. You don't break this vow by saying, no, no, please, I can't accept it.

• If it would be a problem for you to have it, like it would disturb others to see you with it. I don't know, if you were an ordained person in a culture where the expectation of the ordained were to wear their robes all the time and never any jewelry. But unbeknownst to everybody else you were Bodhisattva and even had Diamond Way vows and you had a student who offered you a big diamond, but you as the ordained person would not wear this diamond necklace around your neck to show it off for everybody, because it would damage the whole Sangha's reputation. Even though it would be a really, really great good deed for that person to offer you that piece of jewelry. As an ordained person, you don't have jewelry, you don't wear jewelry. So delicate situation. As a Bodhisattva, yes, you would accept it if it fits all these other criteria, with the intention that when you find the next person who would benefit from it, you're going to pass it right along.

So number six, I'll avoid not accepting money and gifts when they are sincerely offered.

Secondary Vow 7–Avoid Not Giving The Dharma to a Person Who Wants it

(58:12) Number seven, I will avoid not giving the dharma to a person who wants it. 

The motivation for breaking this vow is out of laziness. I just don't feel like going to the trouble to share the Dharma. Or out of anger. I am mad at that person, or mad at somebody, so I'm not going to comply. Or any other mental affliction other than attachment.

Why did they specify its attachment to the dharma when we're failing to give the dharma is not included in this secondary vow? Any guesses?

Because it's a root vow, right? We had a root vow that said, I will avoid failing to give the Dharma out of pride and possessiveness.

So if we fail to give the Dharma out of attachment, we haven't damaged the number seven secondary vow. We've damaged or broken our root vow. That's why they make it clear in the secondary vow, that it's not out of attachment that we fail to give. Do you see?

It doesn't mean if you fail to give out of attachment, you're okay. It means you broke the root vow.

But what does it mean to fail to give the Dharma? Why would anybody do that?

Do you have the file for the Heart Sutra? Sure.

But one could be in a situation where suppose you're teaching emptiness, and you leave out a little link, like a link that might help people really put it all together and come up with some deeper understandings. But out of your wanting to be the best on the block, I'm the teacher, I need to stay above everybody. I'll just leave out this one little link. If they figure it out themselves, great. But I'll keep something for later. Do you see? It's ugly. It would be this state of mind of, out of possessiveness, I'm going to keep something for myself, because it keeps the hierarchy in place.

That's the root vow. So this not giving, secondary not giving the vow, is out of any other mental affliction, or just plain, I don't feel like it. 

For a Bodhisattva, I don't feel like it is an inadequate excuse.

There are exceptions to the rule. Let me give you those and then we'll take a break.

• If you're sick.

• If you need to teach somebody a lesson, and you know what that all means.

• If the student is just asking for the teachings to have an opportunity to be critical or disrespectful of you. Like if you somehow know that, you can not agree to give the teachings and not break this vow.

• If you know that the person asking just couldn't understand the answer to the question they're asking, you don't break the vow by not answering it. 

• One of these exceptions is, if they are not sitting properly. I'm not exactly sure what that means. But in this tradition there are certain body postures and things we do with our physical body that convey disrespect to the teacher, or the place that we are in. And that's culturally dictated. Like in the Buddhist tradition, to show the bottoms of your feet towards the teacher, towards the altar, towards the statue is considered the worst thing that we can do. But growing up in the west, I would never have known that if somebody hadn't told me. Because it's not an automatic thing. So according to one's own culture, what kinds of behaviors are disrespectful, and what kinds of behaviors show respect? If the person asking for teachings is somehow demonstrating their disrespect for you and/or the teachings, it's a clue that even though they're asking, they're not really interested.

• If you know that they would freak out if you taught it to them, then you don't break the vow by not giving the teaching.

• If you believe they are not really interested in what you are teaching, or if they have deep wrong views—like we all do, but not just wrong view. Like clinging to their own view.

• If you know they won't follow the teachings, even if you give it to them.

• If you think somehow the teachings you give would allow them to behave even worse than they are now, somehow.

• If you know they would take those teachings out to those who are not ready. 

All of these reasons why you don't break the not sharing the Dharma when you're asked. But mostly, people are sincere. They do want to know. You can adjust your level of teaching to their need. We are learning about all of that. 

Okay, let's take our break. 

(65:45) The next nine vows, they're vows to avoid behaviors that would go against our perfection of moral discipline. Moral discipline is avoiding harming others in obvious and subtle ways.

Secondary Vow 8–Avoid Not Reaching Out to Those of Sullied Morality

Sullied morality means someone who has broken their vows, or someone who does wrong deeds, or has done wrong deeds—anyone with a poor morality. We have a tendency to avoid people that do behaviors that we don't do, that we've learned to avoid.

I don't hang out with drug gangs in the alley, because I don't do that kind of behavior. Because I'm afraid of them, I even avoid it. And it's like I'm not saying, go to the drug gang in the alley. But as a Bodhisattva, our attitude towards them would be one of compassion. And I hope someday I have the strength to help those apparent people that think that what they're doing is right when it's not right.

More likely we might know someone who maybe is closer to our own community, whether it's a Dharma community, or a neighborhood community, and they misbehave in some way. And so they tend to be ostracized and nobody helps them. Maybe You, the Bodhisattva, would break this if you had some opportunity to reach out to help them in some way and we didn't.

Just a silly example. That person in the neighborhood that nobody likes because they misbehave. Their lawn is overgrown, and it needs mowing. You, the Bodhisattva, get brave enough to go knock on the door. Hey, can I mow your lawn for you, free?

And if they say no, okay, fine, I tried. If they say yes, great, you mow the lawn and leave. 

To just not bother when we could have, would be breaking this vow. 

It gets a little slippery, because there's always somebody in the neighborhood that would fit this. To what extent do I have to go find them and take their garbage out for them to not break this vow? And when the circumstance is there, and we're aware of it and it presents itself notice. They're not my problem, they're a problem person. That's what we're working with for our Bodhisattva vows. 

Geshela said, as Bodhisattvas, we can't just ignore those people that we don't like or are a little afraid of, or we think are bad. They are suffering more than the rest. And their suffering will be even worse when they are reaping the results of their not kind behavior. So our compassion would really be greater for them than it would be for the people that we enjoy having compassion for.

Now, if and when we do reach out and try to help these folks, we of course must not become influenced by their morality. And if we see that we are susceptible to that, we don't break the vow by not staying involved. You may try and then have to back out. 

The scripture also says, there are times when people need to be moved on. Meaning if this is occurring within a Dharma community, and somebody is repeatedly not abiding by the agreement. Then someone may need to get that person out of the community. It's happened a couple of times unfortunately at Diamond Mountain. It is unfortunate, and it's not a not Bodhisattva activity to move those people on.

But it needs to be done in a very skillful way, of course.

So there are exceptions to this failing to reach out to someone of sullied morality. 

• If you getting close to them would alienate others, then you don't break the vow if you don't reach out.

• If you would be badly influenced by them. You don't break the vow if you don't get involved.

• If you are a great Bodhisattva and you need to teach them a lesson. 

Geshela said something that I don't understand. He said there are certain ordained prescribed behaviors that requires ordained people to not follow this vow within their system. I don't really understand what that means. My ordained vows are not—I don't have full vows, so I don't know what that's talking about. But I just wanted to be complete so you've heard it.

Secondary Vow 9–Avoid Failing to Follow the Rules

(73:02) Number nine, I will avoid failing to follow the rules, which if followed would inspire faith in other people. So mostly this is directed at ordained practitioners who also have Bodhisattva vows. So the ordained are expected to uphold certain behaviors, and then in order to uphold the reputation of Buddhism and of their monastery. As Bodhisattvas, the Bodhisattva has a wider range of behavior and interaction with the non ordained world that would look like they're breaking their ordained person vows. 

They need to be doubly careful with keeping their Bodhisattva vows as to how they go about doing it, so that they don't give the ordained a bad reputation. 

Geshela says, but it applies to any morality. In the sense of the way we behave in the awareness of others influences those others, particularly if those others know you're a Buddhist. Even know maybe you're Bodhisattva Buddhist. In my community, nobody would know that, there are not many. But they do know we're Buddhist, or they know I'm something, right? Because everybody knows me as that lady who wears white. And so that means we're like a little goldfish and a goldfish bowl, and people pay a little bit more attention to you and the example that you set. And so then even our casual conversation is having a greater impact on people than it would if we were ordinary me and you. So this vow is, as Bodhisattva, we have determined to be a positive influence, an uplifting influence to the best of our ability on anybody at any time. So we behave in order to protect others' faith.

If you're in a Christian group, act like a good Christian. It doesn't matter if you're one or not. Now, if they ask you specifically, are you Christian? Give some good answer, that's open-ended enough.

So the rules that we are following well are avoiding those 10 non virtues, avoiding those five lifetime lay behaviors, and doing it with this attitude of setting this good example.

Secondary Vow 10–Avoid Performing Deeds Which are Only of Lesser Benefit

(77:35) Number 10, I will avoid performing deeds which are only of lesser benefit for all living beings.

This one sounds impossible to keep. So hopefully it's more specific.

I will avoid performing deeds which are only of lesser benefit for all living beings.

In Buddhism, there are natural rules and prescribed rules. The natural rules is the morality code that's universal—those 10 non virtues. To avoid killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, useless speech, coveting, ill will, wrong view. Not because those deeds are inherently negative, but because the results they bring make us unhappy, and make us want to do more.

The proscribed rules came about during Buddha's time when one of his disciples misbehaved in some way that caused harm to others. In order to prevent that from happening again, Buddha made a rule about avoiding that behavior, and that's how the monks and nuns vows came to be. And somehow it's how the Bodhisattva vows became delineated as well.

Mostly, the rules of surrounding ordained life have to do with restricted ownership of things, and how to get along with others when you live together, and then how to help them maintain their focus on their practice. Our Vinaya level practice is avoid, avoid, avoid.

Bodhisattva vows, as we know, are about helping others, giving more of ourselves, being more active, engaging in worldly life in a way that helps us create the goodness that we‘ll gain the realizations necessary.

It seems like ordained and Bodhisattva are contradictory. When we add Diamond Way vows, those add another level, especially for an ordained person who has Diamond Way vows. How do they live according to those without harming their ordained vows in a way that won't cause a bad reputation for other ordained?

It's tricky to do. And when a person in that situation has a situation where it appears they need to choose between an ordained vow, or a Bodhisattva vow, or a Diamond Way vow, this vow, the Bodhisattva secondary vow says, if you choose to uphold the ordained vow as more important than your Diamond Way vow, you have in fact broken your Bodhisattva secondary vow. 

It takes some training to be able to have all three, obviously.

But in the same way, if we as Bodhisattvas are working really hard on our 10 non virtues, and then there's some conflict, I really can't imagine what it might be, but some conflict between your 10 non virtues and your Bodhisattva behavior. If you say, no, I'm not going to take care of that person, because I have to protect my 10 non virtue, that would be harming this vow, because we've put our own need to protect our whatever over doing something to help that other person. 

Okay, I hope that was clear. 

Secondary Vow 11–Avoid Not Breaking the First Seven Vows of Morality When an Extraordinary Circumstance Requires it

(83:30) Number 11, I will avoid not breaking the first seven vows of morality when an extraordinary circumstance requires it.

Geshela says this is the most subtle and the most dangerous of all the secondary vows. The seven vows of morality mean the first seven of the 10 non virtues, the three of body, the four of speech. This is not referring to the ones of mind—coveting, ill will, or wrong view. Only what we do and say.

So this is saying, there may come a time when you as a Bodhisattva find yourself in a situation where you would be willing to kill, steal, sexually misconduct, lie, divisive speech, harsh speech, or useless speech, in order to protect and help in a higher way somebody or multiple buddies.

It does not mean that you don't get the result of those karmic deeds. You still do. But you, the Bodhisattva, are willing to take that negative karmic result someday, in order to help this other one in whatever way you're going to help.

You break the vow if you don't do that. 

And that's scary and dangerous. They say, however, the term “extraordinary circumstance“ is what helps us understand. For this vow to apply to us, we would have to be a Bodhisattva who has been a Bodhisattva for trillions of years. So we have perfected our practice of it. We are not yet full Buddhas, but really high level, well-versed, huge merit Bodhisattvas. And we must have extraordinary insight into the situation where it would be necessary to do something unusual, or even apparently harmful, in order to help others. And, we must have Mahakaruna, that great compassion that looks on every living being as if they were our only child.

So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, and you must have Bodhichitta. Well, isn't that already established by having been a Bodhisattva for a really long time? Maybe they mean ultimate Bodhichitta. It's not quite clear. And you must know there is no other alternative than to break that vow of morality in order to help that person. 

So it's not enough to just have our Bodhisattva vows to be required to break a morality in order to help someone. We have to have these five extraordinary qualities to even consider breaking a morality in order to keep our Bodhisattva vows. So if you don't see yourself as that level Bodhisattva yet, don't think, oh, those seven moralities are negotiable. They're not.

The classical example, we've heard it, in Buddha in one of his previous lifetimes, his previous Bodhisattva-hood lifetimes, he was a captain on a ship. On his ship he had 500 merchants amongst his group, and another guy. They're on their way home from their trip to the Treasure Island, and they have all their jewels and stuff. And the ship captain reads the mind of this one guy whose intention is to kill all 500 merchants and probably the captain too, in order to get the jewels, all the jewels. So out of his incredible compassion, the ship captain kills the guy.

When we first hear that story, maybe we hear, oh yeah, his compassion for the 500 guys, to protect the 500 guys. But then we hear the rest of the story, and they say his compassion was for the guy who was going to kill the 500 guys. Because he knew that the karmic negativity that that guy would make by killing 500 people out of greediness was so horrible that the Bodhisattva captain was willing to take on the karma of killing one person, to protect that one person from the karma of killing 500. That kind of compassion. The ship captain knew he would reap the result, and he was willing to do it anyway.

However, ship captain was also able to direct that man's mind to a higher place, they say. So not only was the Bodhisattva willing to take on the karma, which he did. But he also, his compassion allowed that man who was going to kill a whole bunch to actually benefit from getting killed.

Curious about the karma.

• If we don't have that awareness of the other person's motivation

• If we don't have sufficient karma to be willing to take that… we don't have sufficient compassion to be willing to take the karma of the negative deed we're willing to do.

• And if we don't have the ability to help that person's mind by our behavior that breaks the morality,

then we don't break this vow by not breaking our morality to help them. Is that clear? Okay. So don't give yourself permission to break those first seven, because you're a great Bodhisattva until you have these other criteria involved. 

Secondary Vow 12–Avoid Being Engaged in Wrong Livelihood, or Getting Support in a Wrong Way to Make a Living

(93:14) Number 12, I will avoid being engaged in wrong livelihood, or getting support in a wrong way to make a living.

This vow is originally geared towards the ordained Bodhisattvas. Ordained people traditionally don't work for a living, work for pay. They gather support and they live by donations. If no donations come, they don't have. When donations come, they use them to support their Sangha and others.

There are these five behaviors that apparently, as an ordained person one might slip into in order to influence your potential sponsors, in order to get more sponsorship. And they're called:

1. by flattery,

2. by hinting,

3. by baiting,

4. by harassing or 

5. by pretense.

This avoiding wrong livelihood for an ordained person means you are not allowed to try to get your sponsor to offer to you by flattering them.

You are not allowed to get them to sponsor you by hinting. Like, it would really be great if some sponsor made the merit of giving a hundred thousand dollars for the new temple cushions.

By baiting someone. Baiting means you put the worm on the hook and then you throw it in the water and the fish eats it. So baiting means you give some attention to the sponsor, special attention to the sponsor, and then they owe you. That's baiting somebody.

By harassment, knocking on the door, hello, I need your sponsorship. Then the next day, hello, I'm here again. Hello, I'm here again. Until they go, okay, get out of here. That's harassing.

And then by pretense. So you pretend that you're some high, special, amazing being, and they'll get a lot merit if they give to your need. It's pretense. 

For non ordained people, business people, those five still apply in some way. And even not in business, in our negotiations between people, we probably do some of these as well.

There's a commentary that came later by someone named Master Bodhibadra. He says, included in this vow is for those who do work for a living, make money for a living, this vow would pertain if we're making a living by any activity that's harmful to others, like pretty directly harmful to others, that the examples are trading in alcohol, trading in weapons, trading in silk, working as a butcher, and working for a grinding mill—grinding grains because you're going to grind bugs. 

It seems that there are a whole lot of other works that would be included in there that aren't mentioned. If we extend that out, there's nothing we can do as a human being that doesn't hurt somebody somewhere. At some point we need to live, at some point we need to make a living. The key is to be looking, where's my line that I refuse to cross? Yes, I'll work for a grocery store. They sell meat. But I will not work in the meat department. We make that determination, and then maybe at some point it's like, well, I don't even want to work in the grocery store anymore, for whatever reason. And then I go and find some other way to make my living. So they do say that, for instance, if you are a butcher and you've made your livelihood as a butcher, and now you've become Buddhist and it's like, oh my gosh, I can't do this anymore. Our responsibility to our family is to not just walk away, but rather get retrained. Take the time, get retrained, find some other way to make a living, give away your business, or sell it, or do something to get yourself out of that situation. And you're not breaking this vow while you're still in the situation as you're working to get yourself out of this situation.

It's a little helpful when we find ourselves in this position. It's like, oh man, I have a livelihood that I see now I don't want to stay in. Take your time to regroup and move elsewhere, and you're not breaking this vow while you do so.

Secondary Vow 13–Avoid Acting Wild or Frivolous

(99.45) Number 13, I will avoid acting wild or frivolous. Meaning acting in a way where we've let our guard down enough that our selfish habit, or old habits of what's fun could come bubbling up, and we end up doing something mean or unkind or harmful, because we've gotten a little out of control in our having fun. 

This has some exceptions, NYE MEYs:

• If we're struggling, f we're sincerely struggling to stop, but we can't control ourselves. Then as you are having fun and you do something harmful, you get the harmful karma. But you don't break the vow.

• If you're trying to stop another's grief or depression by having frivolous fun, wasting time with frivolous fun, to help someone's grief or depression, you don't damage this vow.

• If you're doing it to distract somebody from a wrong deed, you don't break the vow.

• If it would improve the environment to bring others to a better space, you don't break the vow by being silly. Thank goodness.

• And if it would attract people to Buddhism who wouldn't otherwise be attracted to it, you can be more frivolous and lighthearted in order to attract people to the Buddhist path.

Secondary Vow 14–Avoid Telling Others That They Need to Delay Their Nirvana in Order to Help Others

(101:50) Number 14, I will avoid telling others that they need to delay their Nirvana or enlightenment in order to help others. I will avoid telling others that they need to delay their progress in order to help others.

There's this Dharma rumor that Bodhisattvas delay their enlightenment in order to help others reach theirs first.

There's no better way to help others reach their enlightenment than to do what you need to do to reach yours. And what is it that you do to reach yours is you try to help others reach theirs. Which is why it looks like Bodhisattvas delay their enlightenment, because they're focused on others reaching their enlightenment. But they're doing so in order to reach their own, so that they really can help others reach theirs. Because until we have the omniscience, our Bodhisattva deeds trying to help the others aren't exactly what that other needs to give up and take up

It's what the scripture says, it's what our training says to try to help them with. But until we're omniscient, we don't really know exactly. So yes, we're helping the others reach their enlightenment in order to reach our own, in order to really help them reach enlightenment.

And maybe by the time we are helping them, they've already done it too. Because we got them started. So it may be that a Bodhisattva doesn't complete their path in that lifetime, and then they're back in another lifetime doing their Bodhisattva deeds again and again and again. It appears that they're delaying their enlightenment in order to come back again and again to help others, because that's all they do each lifetime—is help others.

But they themselves are on their trajectory by helping others to their own total enlightenment. And if they're at the threshold for reaching their enlightenment, they will not say, no, no, I won't do that now, because there's people that I need to help. 

They will not delay their own enlightenment. So to say that to somebody is wrong anyway. So don't tell them that.

When you hear that Dharma rumor said by somebody, or written in the book, point out to yourself and anybody else who's listening, this is a misunderstanding.

Don't disrespect the writer of the book. Say, this is a misunderstanding because of this reason.

Secondary Vow 15–Avoid Not Addressing Rumors About Myself

(105:50) I will avoid not addressing rumors about myself. 

You break this vow by not clearing your name when there's something messy going around. But the motivation isn't to get my name cleared. The motivation is to prevent others from collecting the negative karma by criticizing and speaking wrongly of a Bodhisattva, even an aspiring Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva doesn't care what the rumor is going around. The Bodhisattva cares about the people spreading the rumor and wants to set things right, so they stop making that negative karma.

Secondary Vow 16–Avoid Not Correcting Others Even if it Must Be Done Forcefully

(106:58) Number 16, I will avoid not correcting others even if it must be done forcefully. 

There may come a time when you, the kind thoughtful Bodhisattva, is in a situation where in order to protect or guide another person, you have to be forceful or wrathful. Like the mom when the three-year-old runs out in front of traffic, right? Smack his bottom, you do not do that. Mom looks like spit and mad mean as nails to have an impact on that child that they will not do that again. Is mom mad? No. She's terrified. She's acting out of this incredible love, and it looks forceful.

A Bodhisattva that's not willing to be forceful when the time is needed breaks this vow against our perfection of moral discipline. Do you see? This is slippery, moral discipline. I'm never going to be angry or hurtful or ever. So let your three-year-old run into the street again and again and again, right? Because I can't be. I sit them down, honey, you mustn't do that… It takes, in some situations.

A Bodhisattva is willing to be that. We're talking about probably not a three-year-old child here. We're talking about, I don't know, some student maybe. And to be willing to do the necessary, even though they're going to get mad, they're going to dislike you. They're going to… They might even walk away.

Out of your love, you‘d be forceful. It's breaking a vow to not do that given the circumstance that's necessary.

Again, it's not carte blanche to let your anger come up and blame people, and be mean to people because you're a Bodhisattva doing the wrathful thing. That will come back to us also.

These sound like they're black and white. They aren't. It's all shades of gray, given any circumstance and situation. But we have these guidelines that when we understand them to some level, and we have them percolating in our mind, they can be really helpful in giving us clues as to what choices to make in order to purify the ugly situation, plant seeds of merit goodness, and just plain plant seeds of goodness in the circumstance of ordinary everyday interaction with the others of our world. We see what to avoid doing. And then if you look at the opposite, it helps us see what kinds of habits to grow, which I find more useful.

Okay, so these are the first 16 of the secondary vows.

(Joana) The last one, I have a question. So what kind of karma are we collecting if we are being wrathful? Because in the example with Buddha, as a Bodhisattva killing this one guy to prevent him killing, he still collected the karma of killing for himself. So as a Bodhisattva, we would be willing to take on the karma. Is this correct?

(Lama Sarahni) Right. So if you take that example further, the ship captain was willing to take on the karma of being killed by someone who knew that in doing so, they were protecting that someone. And in doing so, they move their mind to a higher place. Isn't that part of the seed?

(Joana) So the intention would be part of the seed for the wrathful deed also. I mean the intention, yes, but it's still collecting the karma.

(Lama Sarahni) Right, right, right. So if I do the wrathful thing to my three-year old plants the seeds that somebody is going to be wrathful to protect my life, thank you very much. Be as wrathful as you want. Because that's what works in this situation.

[Class Dedication]

Thank you again for the opportunity to share.

(Detailed Vocabulary from Tibetan Track)

SHEWA LENJE when someone yells at you, don‘t respond in kind

TROWA LENJE when someone gets angry at you and says sth 

unpleasant to you, you don‘t respond in kind

DEKPA LENJE when someone hits you, you don‘t respond in kind

TSANGDRU LENJE when someone criticizes you, you don’t respond in kind

GU GYU restless desire

NUSEM bad thoughts

NYIMUK foggy-mindedness or sleepiness

DUPA LA DUNPA attraction for sense objects

TETSOM unnecessary doubts, being indecisive

Alrighty, welcome back. We are ACI course 7 class 8, already, February 13th, 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class opening]

Review Class 7

(7:47) Yay. So thank you everyone for sending your completed papers. It makes me very happy. 

Last week we learned the first half or so of the secondary vows, and we learned that some of those secondary vows have exceptions to the rule. Certain circumstances where even if you do do the behavior that we vowed to avoid, where it doesn't break the vow. Still makes negative karma. Karma that will come back to us as something unpleasant. But doesn't break the vow.

One of those vows that has exceptions, called NYE MEYs, were the one about avoiding failing to reply to a question. And they gave us 7 different circumstances in which if you don't answer a question, you haven't broken the file.

1. if you're asleep or still groggy from being asleep

2. if we're sick,

3. if we are engaged in a conversation with somebody else and somebody asks the question,

4. if you think it might upset the teacher to answer the question. Now what circumstance that would be, you'd have to imagine. Probably the teacher is there with you, and maybe it means we should turn in, offer the question to the teacher. I'm not sure.

5. if answering the question would disturb somebody else at a dharma talk.

6. If you are listening to a dharma talk and somebody asks you a question, you don't have to answer. And

7. when you are teaching a dharma (class), and somebody asks the question, but it would interrupt the flow of the teaching. So you don't answer, you don't break this vow. Probably you're going to come back and answer it later, but just in the moment.

Then you had a quiz question that said, what kind of person would you have to be to break one of the rules of body and speech out of compassion in a very extraordinary circumstance? Because we have a vow to not avoid doing that.

But we have to have a certain number of amazing qualities in order to not avoid killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, et cetera, in a circumstance where it would need to be done.

If you recall, in order to be one who could do those negative deeds and not break the vow, we would have to be a very high level Bodhisattva who's been being a Bodhisattva for a long time, eons of lifetimes. Who would then of course have great compassion, who also has that thing called skillful means. 

They said, specifically it means being able to influence that being's mind in a higher way by doing the negative deed that you did. For the case of killing it would mean that you could help direct that mind to a higher place.

And lastly, we would have to be a being who could see that there was no other alternative. So we don't need to be omniscient to see that there was no other alternative. But it is part of that quality of mind one experiences as a high level meditator to know things that as a ordinary human we don't know. And to know that what you know is valid. Versus to think we know something based on some intuition. That's a little bit different here. 

Lastly on the quiz it asked, what were those five wrong livelihoods as taught in the String of Precious Jewels? And what was the general kind of wrong livelihood?

The vow is, I will avoid having wrong livelihood.

The clarification is these particular five of

1. flattery, making a living by flattery. And it's like, wait, that doesn't make sense. In a outer world life, it makes sense if the way you make your living is by gathering donations and support from sponsors. So flattery means saying nice things to get something. So that would apply to our worldly life. If you flatter somebody to get what you want—to get the raise, to get the job, whatever. And it's like, well wait, just being nice to somebody, isn't that allowed? That's different than intentionally flattering something to get what we want. Do you see?

2. Then hinting means alluding to that you want or need, like implying something without coming straight out and saying, I need enough money to feed 50 monks on Saturday. Can you help out? That's different than going, well, we're going to have this big luncheon and…

3. Baiting means giving something small, so that they'll give you something bigger. Apparently in the old days, maybe still modern days, when you give a gift, the person who received that gift is somehow obligated to give you a gift that's a little bit more valuable than that. And then of course you give back, and you give back, and you give back. We heard that story about King Udriana and the Wheel of Life. Bimbisara and Udriana. And finally one gave something, the other one didn't have anything more valuable than that. So he was stuck. Like that. Calling upon that situation to get what we want. Again, in a culture where that doesn't happen, we might break or damage this vow by negotiating with somebody. If I give you this little bit, I can expect from you this bigger thing. So it might still happen in a culture that doesn't actually work like that.

4. Then forcing means hassling somebody until you get what you want.

5. And the fifth one was pretending, putting on this pretense in order to get things. And it's like, wait a minute. In our modern world we're supposed to do that. It's like we're supposed to be confident and show that we know what we're doing, even when maybe we don't. And so we would need to look at that somewhat, and get it straight in our minds how that is helpful or not helpful to the other person.

Then Master Bodhibadra, he said, look, any livelihood that harms others is what a Bodhisattva would avoid doing. And again, technically just about every livelihood harms others in some way, because we're samsaric. But ones that directly harm others, are more obvious. We would not take a job as a butcher. And if we are in a job as a butcher, as we are deciding when it's time to take our Bodhisattva vows, we would be figuring out how we could stop and make a living in some other way than being a butcher. So they pointed out trading in alcohol, weapons, silk, animals, and farming. Although it does still say et cetera.

I will avoid those five wrong livelihoods.

Then someone asked the question, like the one about I will avoid failing to accept an invitation. What about those big parties, and people are just going to be blah, blah, blah the whole time, and they're going to pass around food that has meat in it and alcohol in it. Do I break this vow by saying, no, I'm not going to go? Because it's just going to be a foolish waste of time, and the things they pass around I can't eat without breaking my vows. Do I break the vow by not going?

And again, remember that a Bodhisattva has declared themselves as a happiness making factory, and that any opportunity that we have to go try to make a little happiness is what we do, whether we want to go or not, whether it's going to be fun or not.

And yet, in that question there are all these different details to consider.

Did somebody specifically ask you to the party, or was it this blanket email, everybody's expected to come.

You could look at that and say, nobody actually specifically asked me. So I wouldn't break my vow by saying no.

But then check your motivation. Am I saying no, because I just don't want to go. In which case, change your mind and go.

Or, are you quite sure that while you're there you're going to break 16 other vows?

So because they didn't specifically ask you, you could say, well, I'm going to keep this vow to help me protect all those other vows. And in the future I'll consider maybe going when I'm stronger in my vows.

Technically, you are the judge of whether you kept or damaged your vows. It's not anybody else. There really isn't this black and white line. There is for each of us, but we're the judge.

And remember that NGOTSA and TRELYU, those two states of mind, my own self-esteem and the impact my behavior would have on others—positive impact, negative impact. And with those two states of mind, we look at the situation, and then make our decision as to what keeping my vow will look like, and what breaking the vow would look like.

In this question, they also said at the party, food's going to be passed around. If we're vegetarian and we don't eat meat, and somebody offers me meat, am I obligated to take it? What if it has alcohol in it and I've got my five vows, am I obligated to take it? So again, if it's laying out on the table, of course you're not. You don't have to take any of it.

If somebody walks up with a plate of food and says, here, this is for you. You Bodhisattva take the plate. This vow doesn't say you have to eat the plate of food, does it? Accept what's offered. You can turn around and offer it to someone else. Or you can turn around and set it down on the table. You're not obligated to partake of what they've offered you.

Well, what if it's the server person and they're going around to everybody and they stop at you? Are they specifically offering to you? Are you just one of the millions that they're offering to? You decide. You could say, ah, I'm just a blank face to them. So I don't break my vow by saying, thank you, but no thank you. Or you decide, wow, this is an opportunity where I can make a connection with this person. And yes, I'll take something off their plate and put it on my napkin. Again, we're not obligated to eat it. Go feed it to the dog, take it home, offer it to the homeless person. Do you see?

So again, it's like Bodhisattva is figuring out how they can raise the happiness level of anyone they're interacting with. And that's what these vows are about, showing us different situations in which ordinarily we would go, nah, I don't want to do that. And now it's like, let me see how I could do that—in this new heartfelt compassion connection making way.

And that attitude will help you keep the vow. Because that's the attitude all the vows are trying to help us grow. Okay?

(25:32) Class eight, we are covering the secondary vows still having to do with the six perfections. Wait, wait, I have to interrupt myself.

Geshela was asked, what about those situations where you took your Bodhisattva vows in this life, and then you're the little kid in your next life and you don't know anything about Bodhisattva vows apparently. Are you breaking your vows left and right as the little kid?

When we hear this stories about those holy beings that when they're little kids, they seem to automatically have this amazing pure behavior. And so I like to think, I hope that as a Bodhisattva who died with vows, I'd come back as one of those kids that does naturally take care of people, and want to do kindnesses. Rinpoche said, yes, that child still has their Bodhisattva vows from the previous life. But until in that life they take them, they receive them in a ceremony, they can't break them.

He didn't go into the explanation why. So we can take it on authority by Hlarampa Geshe telling us that, don't worry. If you come back as a human, your Bodhisattva vows will still be influencing you, and very likely you'll meet the circumstances of learning about vows, and wanting vows, and being able to receive vows sooner than later. And you won't break your vows while you're waiting for that to happen. So it's like, okay, good, thank you.

(28:11) Okay, so now let's go.

Vows number 17 to 20 are behaviors to avoid that would harm our perfection of patience.

Secondary Vow 17–Avoid to Responding With the Same

1. Avoid Responding With the Same When Someone is Yelling by Yelling Back at Us

So number 17, the words say, I will avoid yelling back in answer to being yelled at, et cetera. Because of the et cetera, it means there are other, similar things that we do in automatic reaction that block our ability to practice the perfection of patience.

When they flesh out those other situations, there are three more besides yelling back in response to being yelled at, and they come to be called the four points of the practice of virtue. Meaning to avoid these kinds of reactions is doing a virtue.

To not yell back when somebody yells at us is the first of these.

I will avoid yelling back when someone yells at me. That's how the vow is kept. Somebody yells at us, what's our immediate reaction? Mostly yell right back. It happens so fast, and then it's going back and forth.To not do that, to refuse to do that so hard. But the seed planted by not yelling back when you would have, it's huge. It's like you could say your NAMPAR SHEPAR has a little earthquake. Because all the seeds inside there were anticipating you to yell back and you didn't. I mean they're not doing that, but you get the idea. It's so dramatic to not yell back when someone yells at us.

Again, the crux of our Bodhisattva behavior is to stop perpetuating the cycle. Because of our understanding of karma and emptiness, we understand that yelling back makes more being yelled at. Which will make more yelling, which makes more being yelled at. Not necessarily by the same person.

We're making this determination to be the one that stops the cycle.

Then the second one, when someone gets angry with us and puts us down, the automatic respond in kind is to put them down back, in some other way.

My vow card says, the first one says responding with the same to someone who yells at us.

2. Avoid Responding With the to Someone‘s Anger Towards Us

The second one, responding with the same to someone's anger towards us. But it's not just angry to angry. I mean that is true. It is talking about that. But when somebody's angry with us, usually what they're doing is saying, you did this, you did this, you did that, and they're pointing out our faults. And then our response is, I did not. You do blah blah blah. And we point out their faults as if it's going to help. 

So this vow is saying, I refuse to participate in that, because I want to stop ever being put down out of someone's anger in the future. Not responding once. Maybe it's the last time, and you won't ever have it happen again. But maybe it happens again, and you still don't respond. And then it happens again, and you still don't respond.

Every time we don't respond we are reducing the number of times it's going to happen to us again.

When we're doing it with a certain amount of wisdom, attempted wisdom, it will chip away at those seeds very quickly.

Who was it that said, I think it was Master Shantideva, he says, pretty soon you'll be going looking for people to get angry with you to see how you're doing. You'll have weeded them out of your life, and you won't even be able to find somebody to get angry with you. Can you imagine?

The third one:

3. Avoid Responding The Same With Physical Violence

Responding the same to physical violence someone has done towards us. So somebody hits us, batters us, it is physically harmful to us. Again, the human tendency is to do it right back to them. They hit me, I hit you. In fact, they're coming at me to hit me. I'm going to hit them before they can hit me, is the usual attitude. 

It does not mean that you're supposed to stand there and take it. You don't break the vow by running away. In fact, it helps you keep the vow. To avoid getting hit, to avoid letting the other hit you is a Bodhisattva behavior.

Then the fourth one is:

4. Avoid Responding The Same to Someone's Criticism Of Us

The anger one was the anger and putting us down.

This one, they don't have to have the angry part. They're just criticizing, criticizing, criticizing, criticizing. And again, our human reaction to being criticized is to criticize back. And this Vow says, don't do that. Technically it means, anytime somebody's pointing out your faults. Our tendency is go, yeah, but you are blah, blah, blah.

So Bodhisattva will go, well that's interesting. I agree with you, or I don't agree with you. That doesn't matter. It's the not responding in kind that is the essence of this vow. If we do respond in kind, we have damaged our practice of the perfection of patience.

Perfection of patients means this growing ability to be in unpleasant situations, and not react unkindly. These are four very common human unpleasant circumstances that we can learn to not respond unkindly in. That grows our perfection of patience. So it's not just about not getting angry in the perfection of patience. It's about this ability to be in unpleasant circumstances and use it as an opportunity to grow your wisdom and virtue.

All right, that was number 17 got those four parts. But you can see that they're broad enough that they cover a lot of different situations.

Secondary Vow 18–Avoid Ignoring Those Who Are Angry At Us…

(38:15) I will avoid ignoring those who are angry with us by failing to explain ourselves in an appropriate way out of desire to hurt them, out of pride, or out of laziness.

We would need to be aware that someone is angry with us. It doesn't really matter whether we did what they're mad about, or didn't do. What they're mad about to keep this vow means you will go and try to clean up the situation. 

Maybe it means an apology, maybe it just means an explanation of your intention, or an explanation of your perception of the situation.

We're trying to clear the air motivated by our concern that their anger is festering. We're not there to clear our name. We do have a vow about stopping rumors about ourselves. This one though is more about our concern that their anger is going to go on, and so we want to try to clear things up with them.

We understand that whether their anger goes on or not, we can't really know.  And that whether their anger goes on or not, is our seeds ripening. So really, the way you would stop someone's anger going on or not, would be stopping your own festering anger. And that would not necessarily have to mean going to them and sorting it out. We would do something else to stop our own festering anger.

When we do, we would not end up being in a situation where someone we know is angry with us, and their anger could be festering, and so we want to help them stop it.

There's exceptions to this. You can think of 'em right off the top of your head, like what if you bring it up again and it's just going to make them madder? Do I have to do it? Do I break the vow if I don't do it? No.

What if you were that Bodhisattva that saw that they needed to learn a lesson?

What if the situation is that you hear someone giving a wrong spiritual teaching, or someone actually giving a really evil spiritual teaching, and you decide you're going to publicly reveal that what they just taught was so harmful? And they're going to get mad at you for doing that?

A Bodhisattva is out to decrease anger in the world, not add to it. But it's like, yeah, but what they're teaching is so harmful to others and harmful to themselves, that even if it's going to make them really, really upset, I'm willing to be the one that points out the error, and debate with them if necessary. Until I can see that they've got it right, or at least understand that they are wrong and stop teaching wrongly.

That could go very badly. And so even in this exception to the vow, we would need to be quite sure that we would be able to open that person's mind to the error that they're making, and to be willing to do it in public. It was a long, pretty specific story that Geshe Michael pointed out.

• The point is that there are certain circumstances where we might need to do something, knowing the person's going to get angry. Then doing it in such a way that we could come back and help them not let their anger fester, would be how we would apply this vow.

• Then another exception is if the other person, this one who's angry with us, is really just evil and nothing that we could ever say to them would pacify them. Like nothing we could say could get their anger to cool off, you don't break this vow by not going. How we would really know that I'm not so sure.

• Another is if you think the person would just get more angry if you brought it up again. Again to the best of our own understanding.

• Or if after trying to set it right with them, they just would stay angry anyway and somehow you know that then you don't have to go try.

• If someone would be really embarrassed or uncomfortable with your apology, you protect them from that embarrassment by not going.

• If the person just would not be helped by your explanation or your apology, you don't break the vow by not trying to clear it up.

Geshela summarized it all, which is just not wanting to go try to clear it up with someone is not an exception. It needs to be some specific good reason that would benefit them for not going. 

To not go clear the air, he said, is usually motivated by pride, or jealousy, or our own anger and hatred, or maybe even just that laziness thing. You intend to do it, but you just never get around to it.

Those kinds of mental afflictions prevent us from trying to clear it up with them.

Secondary Vow 19–Avoid Not Accepting an Apology

I will avoid not accepting an apology. Didn‘t we have ‘not accepting an apology‘ already? Root vow number 3. That root vow number 3 though had the component of our simmering anger. Gee, we were just talking about that in somebody else.

So we have this simmering anger, and someone comes to us with their apology, and we don't accept it. That break the Bodhisattva vow, but that would also make the circumstance of what we were just talking about, a person that they're angry with you, and you just won't be able to influence their mind. Gee, where did that come from?

This vow is the failing to accept an apology, their apology, motivated by our pride or our disrespect of them, or out of laziness. How to not accept apology out of laziness, I don't quite understand. But it's this state of mind of just ‘I don't feel like it‘. I don't want to. And so I won't make the effort to understand their apology. I won't listen to it. 

There are a couple of exceptions to failing to accept an apology, you can imagine.

• One of them, if you need to teach them a lesson. But you have to be the high level Bodhisattva, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• If the apology is improper. Like if it's clearly to you insincere and disrespectful. You don't have to sit there and listen to it. You don't have to accept it. And an An apology comes across verbally, and one that we might be able to recognize as not sincere is, I'm sorry if you think I hurt your feelings, but… That means the person has not admitted that they hurt your feeling. It could also come across as, I realize I hurt your feelings. I'm sorry, but this is why I did it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which means they're justifying it. Which means the apology isn't really an apology. And again, we're thinking about the other person's apology. But think about our own apologies when we apologize. Are we sincerely owning what the person's response was? Apologies are slippery things.

Secondary Vow 20–Avoid Letting Thoughts of Anger Going On

(50:17) I will avoid letting thoughts of anger go on. 

There are apparently three factors involved when our anger goes on.

1. One of them is that we don't consider it harmful to be angry. 

When you have a hammer and you're hammering in a nail, you are very careful to not hammer your thumb when you're hammering the nail. Because you know it will hurt. So you don't do it, until something fouls up, and you do it by accident.

When we get angry, and we let the anger go on, it's like pounding your thumb with a hammer and wondering why your thumb hurts.

It must mean that we think there's some benefit from hitting our thump, even though it's unpleasant, or else we wouldn't keep doing it.

So when we have anger, somebody does something, we get angry, we replay the video again and again and again. Feeling the anger again, justifying the anger again. And the doing of that means that we don't think that that feeling of anger is the same as pounding our thumb with the hammer.

It's as stupid, and it means that we don't think that it's harmful.

Of course, we're trying to justify our reaction, and so we replay it, replay it.

So this belief of whether anger is a harmful thing or not, just to feel it, let alone to respond to it, is it a negative thing? Is it a negative seed that will harm us later?

Our very culture, society, says, no, no, you mustn't stuff your anger. We are not saying stuff, your anger. In fact, it's healthy to feel your anger and let it out in a safe place, pound those pillows and get that anger out. Feel it, use it.

And these teachings say yes, every minute you call it up and let it go on, you are replanting seeds for more of it. Even pounding the pillow out of anger is replanting seeds for more anger.

But these teachings do not however say, stuff your anger, don't feel it. Don't call that sensation anger. Call it something else. They don't say that. They do say, feel it, recognize it. Understand how it makes you want to respond and do something else. 

Do the opposite, they say.

And if you can't do that, be like a bump on a log.

It doesn't make the anger go away. That feeling is still there. But every instant we're struggling against acting from it, we are burning it off, making less of it in the future. So every time we feel that thing we're calling anger, and don't respond, and in fact do something to cool it off, we are lessening the power of that sensation as anger in the future.

That sensation is not anger and its not anger in and of itself.

That sensation that tells you angry seeds are ripening is a tool, a clue, that we can use to learn to stop the automatic reaction.

Is it unpleasant? Seems to be. Until we actually do come to reinterpret those sensations, which really is a movement of energy that shows us we need to be on high alert for something. And the high alert can be, what's my response going to be? To burn this off and not replant anger.

You may need to come up with a one-liner that you always use.

The boss is yelling about something you didn't do, blaming you.

Can you come up with a true one-liner? I'm sorry, you're upset. True.

You don't have to defend yourself for anything. I'm sorry you're upset. Is there some way to help? And not say anything more—not address the issue, not answer the questions, just: I'm sorry you're upset. What can I do to help?

Every time we do that, when we want to yell back, criticize back, point out how the boss is wrong, every time we don't do those, we are stopping the cycle of anger, beginning anger. And that's what these vows are talking about. Just stop the cycle. Stop perpetuating the cycle.

So one, to not consider anger as wrong is a factor that allows us to continue to feel the anger and want to act from it.

2. Second factor is, we don't make any effort to counteract it.

If we don't think there's anything wrong with feeling anger, of course we're not going to counteract it. 

3. Third one, as you let it flow on, you actually have a little bit of some perverted enjoyment in it.

For whatever reason, either the sensation of anger helps us feel empowered, or it justifies why I hate my boss, or… Some reason letting it go on, not making any effort to counteract it, because we're enjoying it a little bit.

Those three factors are something to investigate in our own selves. You can't really investigate it when you're angry. But you can think back to past angry situations, angry making situations and see to what extent were those going on in my mind? And see if we can sort them out.

Another common thing in our society now is this idea of righteous anger.

Somebody was doing wrong to that person, and in order to protect the one who's being wronged, it's right for me to get angry, and be angry, and treat the perpetrator badly. The seeds are being planted such that somebody will have righteous anger towards us someday, and it's still anger be getting anger. 

So there are situations, there will be situations, where something dangerous is happening, and we may need to step in with force. Usually the force that we use to step in is that force of anger, and that's what gives us the oomph to go and address the situation. This is saying, generate the power of your wisdom and compassion and step in with force, out of your wisdom and compassion, not out of anger.

It would be interesting to explore when you get to that place, does that power from wisdom and compassion feel different than anger? 

It may have the same kind of sensation in our body. This tradition says, right, that's wrath. Wrath is this powerful force that comes out that's born of wisdom and compassion in the face of violence, let's say. Potential violence, or potential danger. Maybe that's better, potential danger—either towards ourselves, or involving other people.