Class 3 - A Gift of Liberation 31: How to Make Your Mind a Beautiful Place (2018, Thailand)

Geshe Michael Roach continues the Gift of Liberation series, taught originally by Pabongka Rinpoche in a 24-day lecture in the early 20th century. With exquisite detail and breadth of knowledge, Geshe Michael Roach brings these teachings alive to modern audiences and how to live them in our daily lives.

4:57 - Lam Rim Review Idim 109

6:21 - Explanation of what Lam Rim (Steps of the Path) means. The essence of every Buddhist book in one book, all organized in very clear steps to reach the ultimate goal of Buddhahood.

9:52 - In the beginning of Lam Rim it’s traditional, before you start to study anything, the teacher must do a sales pitch. When you become a teacher, don’t just teach, it’s your job to get the students excited about all the benefits and goals of the practice so they’ll get hungry and work hard.

12:06 - Geshe Michael’s Lam Rim teaching job is halfway finished. We all must become teachers and pass these teachings on ourselves to the next generation.

13:20 - Geshe Michael is teaching business people all around the world about meditation, emptiness, and karma. Many of them are not interested in meditation and have no intention of being Buddhist, they just want to be successful in business. That’s no problem. In this context, as a teacher, it’s also very important to do a good sales job about the benefits of learning meditation and these ideas. Specifically how it relates to the goals they are seeking, or the goals might not have imagined are even possible yet.

15:19 - In the beginning, this information may seem overly analytical or academic to some people. They just want to use their hearts to be a better person and they don’t want to learn all of this very detailed information about emptiness. In this tradition, you cannot open your heart without your mind! Understanding comes first. Without an understanding of emptiness you cannot love or open your heart fully. Geshe Michael explains why this is so.

16:24 - Explanation of why true love is only possible with an understanding of emptiness and dependent origination, and a practical example of how to use that understanding in a real life situation.

29:14 - Lam Rim review idim 110 - Turning darkness into light. Before you came to your first Buddhist class you didn’t understand anything about emptiness or any of the other steps of the Lam Rim. You thought the pen came from its own side. This is a type of darkness in the mind. After you came to class and learned, this darkness was transformed into light. Each time you come to class and gain more understanding, more darkness inside the mind will change to light. Eventually, if you come and learn for long enough, there will be nothing but light.

39:19 - Lamrim Review Idim 110: The Ultimate Portable Wealth. Nothing can put out this light. The understanding and realizations you gain from studying the Lam Rim you can never lose, even beyond death. It’s the only thing you can take with you when you die. This is the only sure property. It’s wealth, precious like diamond.

42:19 - Lamrim Review Idim 112: A Pound of Flesh - Story of Saudasa and Prince Sutasoma. This story comes from the beginning section of the Lam Rim on The Greatness of the Lam Rim teachings. One of the morals of the story is that even if you have to pay one pound of your own flesh for 4 lines of this teaching it would be worth it. Dharma is the most valuable thing.

55:02 - Lamrim Review Idim 113: The relationship between the teacher and student. Not a rigid uptight formal respect, rather a sweet relationship based on deep appreciation and affection. Your’e supposed to think your teacher is a Buddha who has come to the world just to teach you, but there’s 2 ways to respect.

1:04:47 - Lamrim Review Idim 114: The Three Cups. What to avoid when you're a student learning the Dharma.

1:08:28 - Q&A

1:11:00 - What can we do to help someone who is dying? Specifically someone who doesn’t have any Buddhist training. Geshe Michael tells a story of his experience of asking his teacher this same question when his father was dying, and how he tried to help his father using this advice.

1:15:18 - Death advice part 1

1:16:44 - Death advice part 2

1:17:45 - Sometimes, if they’re not a religious person, you have to trick them to do steps 1 & 2 above. Geshe Micheal tells the story of how he did this with his father.

1:19:35 - What you can do after they have died.

1:21:21 - Bardo time is lottery time.

1:25:20 - Recap of all the steps above to help someone who is dying, or has died already.

1:27:44 - You don’t have to stop talking to the person who died after 49 days. You can continue your whole life. You will meet them again. That’s one reason to become a Buddha. Death is a temporary separation. One reason to study emptiness is to meet them again.