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Karma Yoga: Disciplining One’s Actions

Yoga is a whole lifestyle, which includes disciplining the mind and one’s actions and life all day long. In this podcast, Lama Marut reviews yoga as it is taught in the Bhagavad Gita and then concentrates on the practice of “karma yoga,” especially as it pertains to being very careful about one’s morality and not harm others. We must discipline ourself to retrain our instincts in order to avoid suffering and eventually attain the freedom yoga promises.

This podcast was taken from a teaching given at The Shala yoga center in New York City in December, 2007.

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Cleaning Past Bad Karma

Can we destroy bad karma from the past before it ripens? In this podcast, Lama Marut points out that karma itself is “empty” and therefore certainly can be changed. And he tells us how – through exercising the “four forces” of refuge, regret, restraint, and reparation.

This podcast was extracted from a teaching given as part of Kelly Morris’s Conquering Lion Teacher Training Program in New York City, December, 2007.

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Morphing Buddhism without Losing the Core: An Interview with Lama Marut, Part 2

As Buddhism comes to the West, it must change to fit the new times and culture. The traditional patriarchal orientation of Asian Buddhism cannot last here, nor can the traditional division between the monastics and the laity. But the essence cannot be watered down if Buddhism is to survive here. The fundamental teachings on emptiness and dependent origination are the core, and their radical implications are central to the religion of Mahayana Buddhism.

This interview was conducted in July of 2008 in Tucson, Arizona

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Emptiness and the Possibility of Becoming Perfect and Immortal: An Interview with Lama Marut, Part 1

In this interview, Lama Marut decries the tendency of Western Buddhism to dumb down the Buddha’s teaching and present it as just a handmaiden to modern psychology. The Buddha’s teaching is not merely a coping mechanism to help us suffer a little less. It is meant to produce perfect happiness and full Buddhahood, and these high goals are possible to reach because everything is empty of having any nature of its own.

This interview was conducted in July of 2008 in Tucson, Arizona

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Reaching Jesus

Our spiritual path involves the attempt to “reach” the divine, and in two senses. First, we reach the divine in the sense of seeing them in our world as the divine. The sacred is imminent, but we don’t recognize it. Once we “reach” the divine in the first sense, we are close to “reaching” in the second sense. Once we see Jesus in the world around us we are ready to become Jesus.

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008.

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Be Perfect, as Your Father in Heaven is Perfect

Jesus’s said it was possible to achieve perfection, and we must believe that if we are ever going to achieve perfection. If there were a hard-wired “self” that existed as a limited, suffering being, perfection would be impossible. Fortunately, the self is just an idea, a concept, that can be changed over time. It is our destiny, our higher calling, to reach perfection in this life. And on the way to that goal, we will all one day have a direct and transformative experience of the sacred.

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

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They Know Not What They Do

Jesus’s last words on the cross were, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We do not know what we’re doing; we are very, very ignorant. We must recognize our ignorance before we can replace it with wisdom. Four types of ignorance – four types of ways our minds turn things around -- are identified in this podcast.

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008

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The Truth Shall Set You Free

There’s a freeing power to the truth, for we are imprisoned by our ignorance. Error has kept us in chains. And one of the principal manifestation of error in our lives is thinking that things exist in ways that they cannot -- essentially, objectively, and as unitary things that exist as wholes apart from our minds that construct them into those wholes. Things must be coming from us and not at us. The truth shall set you free!

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008.

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The Kingdom of Heaven Comes Gradually

As we move toward the highest spiritual goal – the perfect happiness Jesus called the “Kingdom of Heaven” – we have to maintain a regular and on-going training. Daily practice and self-discipline is mandatory; we achieve our goals only gradually. But we are getting closer and closer to the “Kingdom of Heaven,” and the proof of that is the miracles – like the internet itself – which are springing up all around us. Our experience of the world is just the product of our conceptualisations of it. Things are coming from us, not at us. We need to plant the karmic seeds to see the world as perfect.

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

You Shall Reap What You Sow

Jesus taught karma, just like the Buddha and other teachers of the Eastern traditions. We can’t achieve security and peace by bringing insecurity to others through making war on them. We all receive what we have done to others. And the wisdom side of religious traditions teach us why it is possible to work the cosmic rules and achieve the “Kingdom of Heaven” here and now.

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Jesus was a Radical

Jesus’s message was revolutionary, and we as spiritual practitioners should try to imitate Christ. The spiritual life isn’t to learn to fit in better with society but to break from it and to try reach the “kingdom of heaven” which is within each of us. We can’t serve both God and Mammon, the spiritual life and shopping mall culture, at the same time. We have to make some choices, beginning with turning off the television!

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on Christianity given in New York City in April of 2008.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Terrorist Activity Against Your Self-Cherishing

Other beings give us the opportunity to overcome the very source of our own suffering – our self-cherishing. We need to develop techniques to go against the grain of our selfishness; we need to dismantle our pride in self in order to be happy. This podcast reviews some of the radical methods for winning the “big smackdown” with selfishness and for doing what we must do to be happy and live a kind, compassionate life.

This podcast was extracted from a set of teachings on compassion given at a retreat in South Lake Tahoe, California, over Thanksgiving weekend, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

The Four Great Facts

The “Four Great Facts” keep us balanced between the two extremes of a) thinking things exist “out there,” on their own, objectively, and b) thinking that things don’t exist at all. First, nothing exists “naturally” or independently, but (second) that doesn’t mean that things don’t exist at all. Third, everything exists “merely by convention” (“nominally,” or because we project them), but (fourth) everything exists without existing naturally. What this means is that nothing exists independently, but everything does exist interdependently. Which also means everything can change!

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Things Exist. . . But Not How They Seem

The “Middle Way” of Buddhist philosophy is located between the extremes of thinking that things must exist the way they seem, on the one hand; and thinking that if they don’t exist as they seem they must not exist at all on the other. Things do exist, but they do not exist objectively. They exist when we perceive them, and not until then. Science itself is not an objective observation of the world but rather a set of ever-changing projections about the world.

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Stop Honking in Gridlock!

The training in wisdom – how things exist and how they don’t – saves us from perpetuating our suffering. When an unpleasant thing or person occurs, our wisdom helps us overcome our inclinations and break the cycle that brought us the unpleasant thing or person in the first place. Getting upset at things we ourselves created is like honking in a traffic jam – it just makes things worse! Nirvana is not somewhere else; it is potentially right here and now, if we stopped creating the causes for our own suffering.

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Why We Should Do Good Things

It’s one thing to do good actions like giving because someone told you to do it or because you think it would be nice to. It’s quite another thing to give because you understand why. Lama Marut in this podcast goes into the emptiness of the “three spheres” of giving – and therefore why such an action works in beneficial ways to yourself. Understanding how things are really working can magnify the benefits of one’s good deeds. This is the way to enlightenment – knowing that karma itself is empty and just a projection like everything else.

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Why We See Things The Way We Do

Using the example of a pen, Lama Marut shows how it is empty -- there’s something not there we thought was there. There’s no “pen-ness” to a pen, that is, no essence. It can’t exist “out there,” objectively or inherently, as a pen. It is not a pen until we conceptualise and label it as a pen. And all things exist only like that. But what causes us to label the things in the world the way we do? And how can we change those causes such that we would be forced to conceptualise our world and everything in it as perfect?

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Suffering Beings Aren't 'Out There'

The highest form of compassion or “bodhicitta” is divided into its “deceptive” and “ultimate” forms. The former is the wish to help alleviate the suffering of the beings who appear in our world. But ultimate bodhicitta is a transformative mystical experience that allows us to understand that there are no suffering beings who exist in any other way than as projections coming from us. This is the “good news” or “gospel” of emptiness: all things can be changed because all things are empty of having any nature of their own.

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

There's Something Missing Here

Understanding emptiness is the key to changing our lives quickly. But what does it mean? Something you thought was there isn’t there. This is the essence of wisdom: things don’t exist the way they seem to. Lama Marut in this segment explores the example of an irritating person – someone we think exists as such from their own side, intrinsically or inherently – and shows that an essentially irritating person is impossible.

This podcast comes from a “Dharma Essentials” course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra taught in Los Angeles in April, 2007.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org

Riding the Tiger of Guru Yoga and Getting in Touch with Your Inner Sadhu

Finding and learning how to think about the spiritual teacher is one of the high practices of yoga which are designed to work very fast. . . because it is so dangerous. Lama Marut here urges us not to domesticate the tiger that is your practice by making it safe. The purpose of one’s spiritual life is not to try to fit into samsara better. Rather, we must think of ourselves as alienated rebels, like the sadhus of traditional India.

This podcast comes from teachings on the philosophy of yoga given in Vancouver, Canada, in March, 2008.

Write to us at: podcast@aci-la.org