An Angel Debates the Devil

His attendant didn’t want to bother him because he was in retreat. He [the attendant] came to the cave and said, ‘I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to interrupt you, but there’s going to be a war tomorrow and they are preparing to fight below your cave in the valley, so don’t come out of the cave.’

Of course the two armies are approaching each other.

The First Panchen Lama jumped up, ran down the mountain to the valley.

He is already very famous and is a very great teacher. He stood between the two armies, ‘If you’re going to kill each other, you have to kill me first’.

Then all the generals are like, ‘What do we do? What do we do?’

He said, ‘Bring the 2 generals here, I have to talk to you.’

Then the two generals came on their horses and he said, ‘Listen, you know me, I’m the First Panchen Lama. I’m like the biggest Lama in Tibet, and I’ve got money. I’ll tell you what, if you guys agree to go home, I’ll make each of you a rich man for the rest of your life’.

He gave them both gold. They’re like, ‘Deal!’ They agree to not have a war.

So this is the person who wrote the poem that I’m teaching tonight.

My teacher started teaching it 40 years ago and he never finished. He passed away before he finished it.

So I thought I would like to translate it into my language and teach it to people.

13 years ago I started to translate it and teach it.

You want the good news or the bad news?

Good news—we are halfway finished, in 13 years.

Bad news—we still have to finish half.

Tonight, where we’re reaching: What’s this poem? Why is it so special?

It’s called [shangdep?]. [Shangdep?] is a very rare ancient word and it means a very, very bad argument. Like the worst argument you ever had with your wife or husband.

We call it ‘debate’ but it’s really not. It’s a violent kitchen argument. It’s a fight between the devil and the angel.

I don’t know if you have this in Mexico, but we have in the US.

For me it’s about ice cream.

My wife, she bought some ice cream recently and she said, ‘I bought it but you can’t have it’.

Then I’m like, ‘Why did you buy it if I can’t have it?’

She’s like, ‘You can have it when I tell you you can have it, and you cannot have it when I don’t tell you you can have it’.

Then a few days ago she had to go to work for 4-5 hours, she does massage work.

Then the conversation started inside my mind and the devil said, ‘You know, these are separate ice cream bars, she’s not counting them’.

Then the angel says, ‘Your holy wife, she told you don’t eat the ice cream’.

Then the devil’s like, ‘It’s just one ice cream! Just look at how many calories, it’s only like 25 calories, come on.’

Then there’s this conversation in your mind.

What we’re talking about tonight is a part… This whole poem is a conversation in one person’s mind.

The bad part of the mind is saying bad things like, ‘Oh you should yell at the guy, the guy who yelled at you, you should yell back at him’.

Then the angel is like, ‘No, no don’t yell, don’t forget about karma, when you yell he’s going to yell back again.’

It starts out as a mental conversation in one person’s mind.

Then it gets very, very deep.

The angel says, ‘Think about emptiness, think about emptiness’.

The devil says, ‘Yeah, think about emptiness. Sit down, close your eyes, don’t think about anything. Don’t think about anything, just close your eyes, nothing exists, everything is empty’.

This is a very bad idea about emptiness. It’s a very old bad idea about emptiness.

Tonight we’re going to start listening to the conversation between the devil and the angel.

(12:55) You know how your friend whispers in your ear when you’re trying to make a decision. This whole tonight, tomorrow, and the next day, we’re going to talk about the person who is whispering in your mind all day.

If you meditate a lot, you can get to know this person. Even if you don’t meditate at all, this person is always in your mind. ‘One ice cream, she’s not going to come home and count them, you can say it fell out of the refrigerator.’

Tonight is a special night, after 13 years of this poem, the two guys are going to have a special fight tonight.

That fight will continue tomorrow and the next day. It’s extremely valuable for your life. Who is talking in your mind, and when should you listen to them and when should you not listen to them? Because sometimes they have a really good goddamn suggestion.

In my opinion, we have to get to know the person who is talking in your head.

(15:19) Here’s the usual one.

In English we call it your conscience. ‘Oh, maybe I shouldn’t eat the ice cream. If my wife finds out, she’ll be so hurt.’

So there’s a good voice in your head and it keeps you from doing bad stuff.

You start to lie at your job, then the voice says, ‘Don’t lie, you’re not supposed to lie.’ Then if you’re like me, you make a small lie instead of a big lie. We all have this voice in our head. The angel voice, the conscience, that’s a very beautiful voice.

In these three days, you can learn how to talk to that voice. And you develop it like a strong muscle. You develop the angel voices stronger in your mind.

Other kinds of voices: The Inner Voice of Creativity

(17:00) But the talking in your mind.. there’s also other kinds of talking in your mind.

This is the company that I helped to build in NY.

It’s the largest jewelry company in the world. It’s one-quarter billion dollars per year. We sell 300,000 diamonds every day. Warren Buffet bought the company in 2009. That’s why Geshe Michael has time to go to Mexico City.

But, in my business career, I learned the poem that you are going to learn tonight and tomorrow and the next day, and my teacher taught me how to find other voices in my head.

Usually when we talk about a voice in your head, it’s a conscience, or ‘You shouldn’t eat the ice cream’.

But there’s other kinds of voices in your head if you learn how to listen to them.

For example, in business, we took our business to Japan. Takashimaya, the largest department store in the world. They were selling grapefruit for $100 each.

We tried to sell them our jewelry. We showed them deep red rubies, diamonds, green emeralds, purple amethyst.

Then they said, ‘No, we want a light blue gemstone.’

When we produce a ring, we have to produce 30,000 rings every day. I cannot create a new jewelry with a stone which is too rare.

At that time, there’s no light blue hard gemstone in the world.

There’s aquamarine which is a little bit gray, it’s not very nice. And there’s a stone called Topaz. In nature, it’s color is exactly pee pee color. Like if you have a bad cold and the pee pee is kind of brown.

One stone out of a million is this bright blue color. Something happens underground.

So I decided to meditate about it and find out. I have two gemology degrees, and I used what my teacher taught me in this poem.

He said, ‘You have many kinds of voices in your mind, in your head. One is your conscience. ‘Don’t eat the ice cream’.

Then you have a second voice. ‘Ah, she won’t notice anything’.

By the way, she did notice.

But you have other voices in your mind. You have creative voices in your mind.

Some days you have a beautiful day and you get these cool ideas.

So I asked my teacher, ‘How do I find my creative voice in my mind?’

And he taught me how to find it. It involves silence. There’s a practice of silence that you have to keep. Then you can find this voice of creativity in your mind.

Then you just close your eyes and you ask the voice, ‘How can I make a blue topaz?’ If your ears are very sensitive, you will hear the voice and you can do amazing things.

I started the diamond business with 7 dollars. Warren Buffet bought it for a quarter-billion dollars in 2009.

What happened?

We went from 3 employees to 10,000 employees.

‘What’s his secret?’

I’m going to teach you in the next 3 days. Because it comes in the poem. It comes in the poem. You happen to be...in 13 years, you are at the correct class.

We will teach you how to listen for this voice and how to talk to him.

There are many other voices in your mind.

Today me, Anatole and Aisha, we are working on a song, an amazing song, unbelievable, you can hear it next month.

But you can get in touch with your artistic voice, and it’s a real conversation. Either you’re crazy or you’re successful, I don’t know. But it’s amazing.

(25:35) This is Raju Gona. His name is Raju Gona, he’s Indian.

He’s 40 years old. He works as a day laborer in Madhya Pradesh, India.

He makes $4 a day and a voice talked to him yesterday, ‘Don’t go to work today’.

He has the ability to talk to that voice.

He says, ‘Why?’

[The voice says] ‘Go out to the field’.

‘Why?’

[The voice says] ‘Go to this field, go out to the field’.

‘Why? There was just a big rain storm, so why should I walk in the mud?’

[The voice says] ‘Trust me. Go. Don’t go to work today. Go to the field’.

He walked out in the field. He picked up a 20 carat diamond. Almost flawless.

It’s worth $100,000. Twenty-five thousand days of his salary because he heard the voice.

When was that? Yesterday.

Check it out on the news. Search ‘indian guy found diamond’.

What I’m trying to say is, there are bad voices in your mind. ‚The best way to eat the ice cream is there’s two boxes. Eat the whole box and she won’t notice it, because the other one isn’t open yet. So just eat the whole box.’

That’s one voice that I had.

But there are many, many other voices in your mind.

The goal of these three days and the poem, this part of the poem, is to teach you how to listen to that.

I gave you two examples.

One is the guy who walked out, yesterday, check it out online.

The other is my jewelry company.

Listen, I hate business. I don’t know anything about jewelry.

But I know how to listen to the voice.

That’s what we’re going to do for two days.

Now I warn you, don’t come tomorrow morning. We have a special class in the morning. Every week, two days per week, I teach ancient translation. It doesn’t matter where I go in the world, I teach at the same time on the same day, the whole year. There are about 100 crazy people who listen to that class in the whole world.

One of the best ones is sitting right there, can you stand up, Word?

Tomorrow morning, just by accident, I have to teach a class. You are very welcome to come. It’s a very deep class, it’s about emptiness.

If I teach it correctly, you won’t understand anything. But it’s a very good seed in your mind.

Then Saturday/Sunday, the rest of the time, we will talk about how to find your inner voices.

So if you have time, come. If you don’t have time to come, I will try to give you the basic information tonight. Then you can talk to the Mexico City or Guadalajara ACI team. The best teachers of ACI in the world are in Mexico.

Will you guys stand up, teachers in Mexico, stand up.

They travel all over Latin America. This year, in the next few months they will go to Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Columbia, Costa Rica. They are great teachers.

So if you cannot come tomorrow and the next day, just connect with them and they can teach you more.

If you can’t come tomorrow or the next day, at least talk to one of them before you go home. You have a karmic connection to one of them. It’s like going to the ice cream store, 31 flavor ice cream store.

So don’t be shy, after the class introduce yourself. ‘I don’t have time to come the whole weekend, can you guys help me? Geshehla says you can help me the whole year.’ Rest of your life.

So grab them, don’t be polite. If you learn to hear these voices in a good way—by the way, if you hear them in a bad way, they will take you to the mental hospital.

But if you learn in a good way to listen to your inner voices, the rest of your life will be successful.

Your relationships will be successful, your family life will be successful.

I never wanted to be a businessman. I never wanted to make a huge amount of money, and I never wanted to marry the most beautiful woman in the world.

But it happened because I listened to the inner voice.

So please don’t lose the chance. And it’s free. I mean, we’re always trying to figure out how to feed them, but they are happy to help you for free.

Choose the flavor you like and talk to them after the course.

So I tried just to give you an example of an inner voice.

It’s not just about morality, ice cream morality.

It’s also about creativity and having fun.

If you can learn to listen to your inner voice, it is very fun to be alive because everything is amazing.

Where do the inner voices come from

(37:50) Now here we go to the poem.

This is the style of this tradition, and we go deeper. If you don’t like it, I don’t care.

We’re going to go deeper. I don’t teach any other way.

Here we start to go deeper.

I think if you go deeper you can use it more successfully.

We’re going to start right now.

Where does that voice come from?

You had that voice in your mind your whole life already.

‘It’s strange, Geshe Michael, you don’t want to be fat but you want to eat all the ice cream. Isn't’ that strange?’

There’s a voice in your mind, right?

Who is it?

Where does it come from?

You grew up with him or her. Ever since you’re a little kid there’s someone talking in your head. And if I ask you, ‘Who is that?’, usually people will say, ‘It’s me’.

Now we do deeper.

It cannot be you.

Cannot be you.

It’s what my wife tells me all the time. ‘Honey, you can’t talk and listen at the same time.’

I’m like, ‘Yeah, so I’ll just talk all the time’.

She says, ‘No, you have to listen to me and other people in your life. You talk all the time. When you’re talking, you cannot listen.‘

We also have a MBA university in Japan and in the US. It’s a basic principle that in business, if you learn to listen a little more, you will be successful.

I know it’s strange, but listen, okay?

The reason I talk about my business life is to prove it works.

Warren Buffet bought the company, quarter-billion dollars. Maybe, maybe I figured it out. Maybe.

Or I’m just lucky.

So maybe I can give you a good suggestion. Maybe it’s possible. So here’s my suggestion.

That voice you’re listening to in your head is not you. Because when you talk you cannot listen at the same time.

Now there’s many, many possibilities.

Some ancient Indian thinkers, Mind Only school. ‘Oh Geshehla, when you listen to your own mind telling you a new idea about blue gemstones’…By the way, it costs $6 to find that stone and make it, you sell it for $600.

Then some ancient teachers, they say, ‘Oh your mind was talking 2 seconds ago and you’re just hearing it now. It’s still you.’

I agree. You cannot talk and listen at the same time, your wife is correct.

But what if you talk one second before and one second later you hear yourself talk, that’s okay. But then you cannot decide what to say. Because that you is already gone. He might as well have lived 1,000 years ago.

Someone talking to you from 2 seconds ago and someone talking to you from 10,000 years ago, they are exactly the same. They’re not there anymore.

Can you learn to talk to yourself and give yourself revolutionary new ideas?

No.

By the time you hear it, the talker is gone.

Watch.

Flavia, say, ‘Geshehla, stop eating the ice cream’. Okay, go.

[Flavia: Geshehla, stop eating the ice cream.] [Pause]

Why?

There’s a time gap.

By the time I say, ‘Why’, that Flavia who asked me about the ice cream, she’s gone.

‘Yeah, but Geshehla, she’s only gone for two seconds, it’s okay’.

Look, you cannot shake hands with a person who is gone for 2 seconds. It is not possible. You cannot shake hands with a person in the past.

You cannot listen to yourself talking because the talker is gone by the time you hear them.

You are not talking to yourself, just get used to it. Someone else is talking.

The person who told Geshe Michael, ‘Don’t eat the ice cream, she may count them’.

By the time I hear him talking, he’s gone.

You are looking for your advice in the wrong place because you is not there anymore, you is listening.

‘So Geshehla, just tell me who’s talking and I promise I will listen if they have good advice. Not about ice cream, but business okay, I will listen’.

The Pen

So we have a mystery. We're supposed to be studying for 13 years a poem about the devil talking in your head. But by the time you hear him, he's gone.

Where did he come from and where did he go?

They told me I had to stop in 20 minutes. Some of you are very busy this weekend. You don't have time to come.

You would rather work hard for the rest of your life and not make a quarter billion dollars. I understand. It's okay. You don't want to learn how to walk out and pick up a diamond on Wednesday?

That’s okay.

So let me teach you tonight what to do, okay?

And I'm going to teach you about the pen. This is the best way to learn where things come from, including the voice in your mind.

I promise to make it quick and painless.

There was a guy in Singapore, I started to teach the pen. He raised his hand.

He said, ‚Listen, GesheMichael, I paid to come here. You taught the pen last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before. Why do I have to pay again?‘

I said, ‚I have to teach you because you still don't understand.‘

Okay, real. By the way, the Singapore people came to me and said, he's not from Singapore. Okay? I won't say where he's from, but the Olympics might be there right now.

So anyway, what is this thing?

It is a pen. Okay?

If a little dog comes in here and he looks up at this thing and I go…, what will he do with this?

He will chew on it.

Does the dog see a pen? No.

Do they see a white and black stick? Yeah. They see the white and black stick as something to chew.

The human sees the same white and black stick as a pen.

Who's correct?

Both, equal right. Human is right, animal is right.

The dog can chew. He's happy. The human can write. It's okay. It is a different thing for the two beings. And who's correct? Both are correct. The dog can chew. It's okay.

The dog went home to his wife. I saw the most stupid guy today.

He talk up on the stage for one, two hours.

He didn‘t chew it once. Such an idiot. That really, dogs have this conversation.

Okay, now, big question.

We sit down. Put this white and black stick, we put it here.

All the humans go out of the room, all the dogs go out of the room. At that time, what is it?

(Someone shrugging with their shoulders)

She gave a good answer. That's the usual answer I give to my wife.

At that time, it's nothing. If you want the deep meaning of (?) that's all.

It's not black thing or something like not stupid like that. It's just that when the people go out, when the dog goes out, it's nothing yet.

Okay, now, if the human comes back in and they look at it, it changes. It becomes a pen.

Human goes out, it goes back to? It is nothing. No dogs, no people.

Now the dog comes back in. He walks up here. It changes. It becomes a chewing toy.

By the way, that's 3000 years of ancient philosophy. You know everything now.

Really. You think I'm kidding? I'm not kidding.

Okay, now big, big question. Is the pen coming from the pen or is the pen coming from me? Which one? Show me with your hand.

Comes from me. Comes from me.

Why? No, just say, whoo whoo.

It must be coming from the human.

If the pen was coming from the pen, the dog wouldn't be interested in the pen.

That is absolute proof that the world is coming from you.

Let's play the emptiness game.

Raise your hand. This is how I keep people awake. This is how I find out who's asleep.

Use your finger point. Not this one. This one.

Point to one thing in this room that is not coming from you.

Like that. You found emptiness. There's no other emptiness. That's pure emptiness. Now you understand everything.

Where's the voice coming from that tells you, make this investment or marry this person, or go to this class tomorrow? Where does it come from?

It comes from you. Yeah. You have a seed in your mind.

There's a seed in your mind.

How do you plant a seed for a pen?

Very, very simple. Do you like to have a pen?

Yeah, it's good. I can use it.

If you want to see pens, you need to plant the seeds in your mind for pens.

If you want a quarter billion dollars, you have to plant the seeds in your mind for a quarter billion dollars, and you can do it. And it's fun.

If you want to see a pen, you must give other people pens.

You must share what you have with poor people.

People say, okay, I share with my wife. Now this doesn't count.

I share with my kids. Good, not enough.

I share with my parents. That's also nice. But share with strangers what you share with your family. That plants seeds.

Okay, so now, how do you plant the seed? We're done. Perfect time.

How do you plant the seed in your mind to hear the voice?

Use your own voice wisely.

Use it to help other people. Say sweet things. Say nice things. Don't use your mouth for bad things. Only plant good seeds.

That kind of talking to other people with kindness and with generosity, it plants the seeds in your mind to hear the secret voices.

Then the rest of your life is so fun. They talk to you at the most interesting moments.

You're walking down the road, turn left. Look over there.

See it? No.

Look better. Oh my god, there's a 20 carat diamond.

I'm telling you the truth. It will be like, your life will be like that.

I'm not a greedy person. I live in a small house. It's the smallest legal house in my town. I drive an old car. I don't have a fancy car. I have one suit. You're going to see it again tomorrow. But I have a tremendous amount of money to give away. And I give away many millions of dollars. It's fun and it's exciting, and you can help people.

There's no entertainment better than giving away money and helping people.

I don't need the internet. I have a thing called my life. And every moment is fun.

But you have to listen. You have to learn how to plant the voice.

So the next two days we will learn how to plant the voice, and it will start talking to you. And it's amazing fun. I can't tell you how much fun it is.

Cool?

Q&A

Alright, I have seven minutes extra because I'm so efficient.

You guys have anybody have a question? Any question. I don't care.

(Participant) My question. I teach kids in schools to prevent obesity and violence. I'm a student of (?) We are getting ready very soon to plant the seeds (?). There's a lot of people who haven't sent their documents. So we can actually do this at a higher level.

What is the seed that I need to plant so these people take responsibility so we can help them?

(Geshe Michael) Okay, cool. Nice question. Good question. Very, very simple answer.

I'll say the problem again. You have a dream to do a big project. Certain people need to sign off on the project, give their approval. They agreed, but they're being very slow. That's the definition of a government.

But there's an easy solution. People are waiting for you and need to do things. There's two people with a small son named Kiri who live in Guadalajara. The husband is waiting for six months for me to send an email. Every time I see him, I say, ‚I'll send it soon‘. So in a small way, you and me are causing delay for other people. And that plants a small seed in your mind.

Then when that seed opens, all seeds weigh a thousand times. Sorry. All results weigh a thousand times more than the seed. Big trees come from little seeds.

Big delays by people in your life come from small delays that you do.

So clean up all the small delays you are giving people. That will plant the seed to stop the big delays.

Okay, one more question if we don't delay.

(Participant) You mentioned a moment ago, we do have a voice inside. This voice doesn't come from us. This voice is not us. And yet everything from experience included to this reality, this moment, comes from us. Therefore, (it is supposed to be me?)

(Geshe Michael) Good. Good question. It's a beautiful question. If the seeds I plant create everything, then that voice in my head that says, ‚Don't eat the ice cream.‘ It's coming from me, but it is not me. How's that?

It could be me from a thousand years ago. But it's not me in this moment.

It came from me. It sounds like me. But by the time, say boop, then the boop maker is gone by the time I hear the boop.

There's a new telescope in the sky. James Webb Telescope.

It's so powerful. It can see light coming from the creation of the universe. When mercury goes around the sun, the light that comes from mercury to your eye is delayed by the gravity of the sun. That means the universe is curved.

By the time you see the light from mercury, that mercury is gone a long time ago.

By the time you hear the voice in your head, the person who spoke is gone.

That's all. You did create that voice. And the goal is to create that voice.

So it is coming from you and it was you, but it's not you now.

Cool?

We're going to learn how to listen to it.

I just want to say last thing, okay?

It's the most fun thing in your whole life to hear those voices and to do cool things.

It helps other people, and that makes you super happy.

I'll see you tomorrow.

Class 1 - The Seeds for Creativity

27 July 2024

We've been talking about basically how to have new ideas and where did they come from. We're going to talk about that. Because the devil debates the angel about that.

Whenever you talk about emptiness, you have to talk about the thing that is not there in the empty place. So I take Aldo out to dinner with Ria to celebrate. I say, Don't worry, I'll pay for dinner. Then we have a big dinner in Mexico City. Then I reach into my pocket for my credit card. I'm like, Oh, I'm so sorry I changed my pants before I came. They have one minute they break Guru Yoga. Maybe doesn't have a credit card. That feeling when you reach in your pocket—and it is very embarrassing when you invite somebody to dinner, you have to say, Oh Aldo, I just saw emptiness. But emptiness should have something that's not there.

We call in Tibetan language GAKCHA, the thing that emptiness is empty of.

When we teach the credit card story in DCI, for a hundred dollars, what kind of credit card? What company?

It's called Discover Credit Card.

It's a special credit card in America for people who don't have money. They'll give you $10 on Wednesday if you pay $200 on Friday. It's like the credit card that's not a credit card. It's a fake credit card.

So in the Aldo and Ria dinner story, the credit card that Geshehla doesn't find in his pocket should be a Discover card. Because even if it is there, it doesn't work.

That's emptiness.

Emptiness is something that's not there, that is fake.

Why are we talking about that?

Where do the voices come from?

(4:30) I love the story of this guy. I am so happy it happened this week, it's good luck.

I showed it to you last night. Two days ago, this farmer in India found a 20 carat diamond on the ground. He was supposed to be someplace else at that time,

But he heard a voice in his mind.

Listen, it's not like God talking to you, okay? That's a different thing.

I start to open refrigerator to get the ice cream. Then God's voice is unique.

Don't do that.

Sounds just like my Tibetan teacher.

The teacher, I live with him for 25 years. He had a car accident before I met him, and he talks it just like Star Wars.

Don't eat the ice cream.

So, when God talks to me, he has my Lama's voice. Don't eat the ice cream.

So this Indian guy, it's not like he got the voice of Star Wars or God talking to him.

Turn left. Look down. Look, there is a diamond.

It wasn't like that. It is not like that.

He just had a feeling.

‚I have a feeling I won't go to work today.‘

He's not expecting a message from God. He's just getting a message inside of his own mind, and it doesn't sound like someone talking to you. It sounds like yourself talking in your mind.

So listen to the difference:

(Speaking in a Star Wars voice) ‚Don't go to work today. Go out in the field and look down.‘

(Speaking in a normal voice) ‚I don't feel like going to work today. I think I'll just walk around.‘

When I say a voice in your mind, I'm talking about the second one (the normal voice).

It is possible, Buddha will talk to you. I don't know. It doesn't happen a lot.

But inside your mind talking all the time, that happens all the time.

I'm talking about that voice, and it feels like that voice is part of you.

You say, ‚I had a thought.‘

You don't say, ‚I heard someone talking in my mind. Therefore I'll go to the toilet now.‘

It's not like that.

You say, ‚I feel like I got to go to the toilet now.‘

It's not like, (speaking in a Star Wars voice again) ‚You go to toilet now.‘

You just feel like it.

And you think you feel like it. You say, ‚I feel like I have to go to the toilet.‘

But what this whole poem is about, after 13 years we reached this special part. Those voices you hear in your mind that you think are you, they're not you.

You are the listener. You are not the speaker.

What did Geshe Michael's wife, Veronica, tell him 1000 times that he didn't listen? ‚When you're talking, you can't listen Michael.‘

I had a three hour meeting with Anatole and Aisha. In the last two minutes I realized I didn't let them talk about anything. I’m like, ‚Goodbye. Oh, by the way, how's your CSP program?‘

We went to like three hours and I didn't ask them about their program.

You cannot talk and listen at the same time.

Someone else is talking.

This is a very deep thing about trying to be a happy person.

Listen, you don't have choice what is talking in your mind. You don't have choice.

Ask any depressed person.

Someone's talking in my mind. It's not me. ‚Let's be sad today.‘

‚Yeah, okay. Can we not be sad?‘

I said, ‚Let's be sad today.‘

No depressed person wants to hear that. But they cannot stop it.

Why?

It's not them talking. They're just listening.

Those voices are coming from somewhere else. Stop thinking it's you. It's not you.

Maybe it sounds like you, it is not you.

But, for $300, now everybody woke up.

You know what I hate in China? When I say 300, half the people raise their arm before I ask the question. Maybe I will know the answer.

Now I forgot the question. Oh yeah.

Who's asking the question in your mind? Who's talking in your mind?

By the way, it's a short answer. Don't give me two minute answer.

(Participant) It's me created these thoughts in the maybe past lives. So it's me, but in the past.

(Geshe Michael) That's a hundred dollars so far.

Where's the voice coming out of? What's the voice coming out of?

(Participant) So it's me, but different.

(Geshe Michael) I'll give you a hundred. Somebody has to help you for 200. Still 200 left.

(Participant) From my seeds.

(Geshe Michael) Yes.

So the whole world doesn't understand that. And it makes them unhappy all the time.

You don't have control today about what your mind is talking.

Does that mean you don't have any control? Hundred Dollars.

By the way, if you're wrong, you pay me a hundred Dollars.

Do you have control?

(Participant) Do you don't have control of the voices. Because when they will start seeds opening, in that moment. But you can plant the seeds to decide which voices are you going to listen.

(Geshe Michael) Now there's a special problem in your case. It's a payment problem. I asked a question. I offer a hundred dollars, but she gave a $200 answer.

Perfect answer.

Yeah. I cannot control what my mind is talking right now. But I can control what my mind talks about next week.

And I'm not talking, ‚Let's go to the toilet now.‘

I'm talking about great ideas for your future. Like unbelievable cool ideas for your business or your family life. Personally, I don't care who's telling me to go to the toilet, actually. I don't care. I have to go anyway. But if I can plant a seed to have a great idea next week for my business, or for my tour of Latin America, then, ‚Tell me more Gehse Michael. Tell me more.‘

So I'm glad you asked. Maybe it wasn't you.

Where do the Seeds come from?

(17:17) We saw her yesterday. Now there's three choices.

There's three choices.

Number one, those just come from anywhere. They come from nothing. Those thoughts come from nothing. Some people get them, some people don't get them. There's very few people I'm jealous of. I'm a jealousy expert.

But actually no one's interested to do what I do. So there's no one to be jealous of. But Elon Musk, I'm jealous of him. He took a big hit last week. His salary went from 40 billion foot to 20 billion. I'm so sad for him (speaking in a ironic voice).

But this asshole, excuse me, don't tell Veronica. He send the Tesla car into space for fun. I hate him.

Just for fun. I really want to do that.

So, you know, where does he get his ideas?

How come he has those ideas?

First possibility. They just come from nowhere.

Just pop up in his mind. And sometimes you believe that. We all believe that sometimes. Why did you suddenly remember the ice cream that's been in there for six weeks, Geshela?

It just popped up in my mind. It feels like that. That's the first possibility.

Second possibility. A car bumper created a pizza.

Something completely different created something completely different.

That's the second possibility.

There's no connection between the cost and the result. You can kick a car and you'll get a pizza.

You are laughing, but that's a serious second possibility.

So far, two possibilities.

Number one: you can have a great idea in your business or your family by accident.

Number two: you can do one thing, kick a car and a pizza will come tomorrow. There's no connection between the car and the pizza.

Two completely different things will be cause and effect.

That's a second possibility. What's the third possibility?

Third possibility.

We just had peach trees, peaches in my house. We got beautiful, delicious peaches. Just this week. Where did they come from? We planted peach pits about four years ago. Now we have a couple hundred peaches. Super delicious.

Why?

Peach makes peach. Peach makes peach.

So now you have three choices.

If you want to plant something good in your life, don't do anything and it will come.
Choice number two. I don't know. Pick your nose three times on the left side. Then suddenly peaches will come in your house and you'll have a good idea. Second possibility.
Third, possibility. Do something connected to getting good ideas. So actually in our business, Dharma Business, you just have to find the cause which is similar. Nothing is accidental. Everything comes from causes. Everything comes from causes which are similar to the result. Peaches make peaches.

If you want to have great ideas… By the way, my teacher forced me to start a business. ‚You go to New York City, you start a business.‘

I'm like, ‚Sure‘. Because in the monastery business, you never say no to your teacher. But the great students are masters of delay.

(Teacher) ‚You go to New York, you start a business.‘

(GMR) ‚Very is soon. I‘ll go. Yeah, very soon. Next week.‘

(Teacher) Are you going to go to New York?

(GMR) Very soon. Very soon. I'm happy to go to New York.

Six months later, (Teacher) ‚Get your ass on the bus. Go to New York. Start a business.‘

I really didn't want to. I was very happy in the monastery for eight years. I can stay there forever. But after several years, I understood. He wants me to prove to myself that this system really works.

He said, ‚Don't tell me you are going to Manhattan every day on the bus. You are going to the Dharma laboratory every day on the bus.‘

It's a four hour commute, two hours each way.

He said, you plant the seeds on the way to New York.

(26:06) By the way, I talked to the AI for half an hour.

Put the pen in the dog's mouth. Dog chewing pen. Dog holding pen between teeth. Dog sucking on pen. Dog about to write in the pen. Dog swallowing a pen.

Then finally I gave up, okay? I'm sorry.

Maybe your AI is more AI than my AI. Mine's not artificial intelligence,it‘s artificial idiot. It's still AI. But the next one, he did pretty good.

(27:23) She's not eating the plant. I said, I want a plant coming out of a lady's throat.

Then the artificial idiot, he's like, What?

I'm like, I can't buy a picture online of a tree coming out of a lady's throat. I need you to make it.

And he's like, Huh?

I'm like, ‚Plant coming out of women's mouth.‘

Really, I tried for half an hour on the airplane. That's the best he could do. But I think, really, you should make a copy of this picture. You should take a photo right now.

I have the copyright. Nobody else wants it. I want you to remember, after this program is finished, just remember this picture.

Please learn to plant a voice in your mind of some beautiful thing you want.

You don't have good ideas by accident. Nothing comes from nothing.

(Singing with Aisha) Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could. But somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

That's an old Broadway play. It's called Sound of Music. Maybe you know.

The song says nothing comes from nothing.

Nothing ever could.

That's dependent origination, emptiness.

Then,

Somewhere in my life or childhood, I must have done something good.

Just learn how to plant those voices. Okay?

Why are we talking about that?

Tomorrow, just so you believe me, I'll show you the verses. That will do a good job to confuse you with foreign language. But for tonight just get the feeling.

I never planted peaches in my whole life. I bought the Crickets Cafe, Cricket is a small grasshopper. I have to change the name. Legally I have to change the name.

I made Blue Sky Cafe. Somebody tried to sue me. ‚That's our cafe's name‘.

I tried 2000 names online, cannot find a name. Finally, Peach Tree Cafe. There was a Peach Tree Cafe in Georgia. It went bankrupt. I took the name.

But I never grew peaches in my life. The first day I had the cafe, I had some Chinese friends with me, Stanley and Allison. And we planted three peach trees.

That was five years ago. Now there's like, I don't know how many, 300, 400 peaches, and I feel so happy. It's such a cool feeling.

Everybody come to the cafe. I would like to have a latte and a croissant.

I'm like, ‚You know I planted those peaches?

Just buy a peach, we charge $1 for the piece.

Actually, I don't want a peach.

Okay I give you, I made it. I'm so proud.

What I'm trying to tell you: if you learn how to plant the seeds for great ideas, and you just try it, you'll be so happy. The rest of your life will be super fun. It is super fun.

I don't care too much about success, but I like fun, and it's fun to be successful.

Listen, it's really, really fun to have great ideas every day.

You just plant them this week, they come next week.

They don't come because you want them to come. It's like constipation.

You can't have a good idea on demand. It doesn't work like that.

You just drink that stuff today. Tomorrow it's like woo, and a good idea comes.

Of course, in this group, we're talking about good ideas which help other people.

That's the most fun of life. Okay?

I'm 71 years old. I tried everything.

The day I met the Dalai Lama first time, with my mom, the first question he asked me—we're having a private meeting. This is 50 years ago—in front of my mom he says, ‚Did you ever take LSD?‘

Then I'm like, here's my mom, I‘m like, ‚Yeah, kind of‘.

My mom's like, ‚What?‘

I said, I can't lie to him. He was curious. He wants to try it.

He was thinking to try it. Then he tried it. He actually tried it, and then he said, nah, meditation's better. Because you can get what you want. Okay? When you take drugs, most of the time you get some terrible thing. But when you plant seeds, you get beautiful things, what you want.

So you can control the process, but you have to be patient.

If you say, teach me to make a peach in my hand, then I say, I can teach you to make a peach, but it doesn't work like that.

You have to plant it and then it will grow, and you just have to be patient.

And you have to follow instructions.

My wife said, ‚If you want to have peach tree, go ahead, plant a peach tree. But you have to water it well every week.‘

I'm like, okay.

She said, ‚Did you hear the word YOU?‘

I always plant new flowers and stuff, and then she has to water them.

You can have a peach tree, but you have to do the work to water it.

You have to prune it in the late autumn. You have to do many things.

If you are willing to do the work, we will have a peach tree.

So do you want to do the work?

I heard two people, I think.

I can teach you the plant an idea tree.

Show the lady with the voice tree.

I can teach you to plant that. But there's one thing about seeds. Only one person can a seed in your mind. For $500. There's only one person who can plant the seeds in your mind to have good ideas every week.

What's the proof of that?

(Participant) Well, you are the only person that can plant the tree because with your seed, you do it.

(Geshe Michael) Stop, stop, stop. I'll say it again. No one else can plant the seeds I'm teaching you these two days, nobody else can do it.

It's like Geshe Michael‘s Peachtree. You have to plant it and you have to water it.

What's the proof of that?

By the way, with so much money, I only offer it two times, three times. Then I stop.

(Participant) There is a perfect proof. We can prove it right now. Let's take one hand, take one finger and try to show what in this room is not coming from me.

So the only person is me.

(Geshe Michael) No. Maybe it's a good answer, but it's not the one I want.

One more chance. I'll give you a clue: If another person could plant those seeds in your mind…

I'm getting frustrated. One more try.

(Participant) The Buddhas.

(Geshe Michael) She got it. Yeah, listen. Buddha loves you. Buddha loves you more than you love you. If it's possible to plant good things in your mind by another person, Buddha would've done it 20 years ago. There's no one more compassionate than that. But he cannot plant a seed in your mind. Only one person can plant a seed in your mind and that's you.

That's the nature of seeds.

If you want to have fun for the rest of your life, if you want to do successful, beautiful things for other people, you have to plant those seeds. I'm going to teach you right now.

What voice do you want?

You have to decide what voice do you want. I made a short list.

Here's some choices.

I want a voice which tells me how to make money.
I want a voice that tells me how to have successful emotional relationships.
I want to have a voice that teaches me how to be happy all the time and never depressed.
I want to have a voice to be a nice person.

There are many choices.

My suggestion, grandpa‘s suggestion, tomorrow is 49 years since I had my big breakthrough. 49 years. So I can give you 49 years of good suggestion.

Focus on the seeds for creativity.

Then you can be creative in money, creative in relationships, creative in happiness, creative in everything.

I want to suggest that we focus on how can you plant the seed to have super good ideas. It's the voice of all voices.

Then you can use it for money. You can use it to find a good husband—which is rare.

I'd like to teach you how to plant the ment seed to have new ideas about new ideas.

In general, there's a technique for planting bad seeds and making them strong in your mind, and there's a technique for planting good seeds in your mind.

You guys learned it a long time ago.

I'll give you an example of how to grow bad seeds in your mind.

This happens to be bad deed number 9 of the 10 bad deeds.

This is bad deed number 9. For $1, what's bad deed number 9?

(Participant) Celebrate the bad things that happen to other people.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah, good. Nice. When you say celebrate, that's a $50 answer.

If you want your bad seeds to be strong, you can do number 9. Every bad thing you ever said to somebody else, every time you heard somebody else, think about it and be happy. He really bothered me. He yelled at me like 10 times. Then I was patient for a while. Then finally I told him what I really want to tell him. I'm so happy. That's rejoicing in bad seeds. Rejoicing in bad seed helps bad seeds to grow bigger.

Be careful about that one.

Listen, next time you want a good idea, you have a challenge in your life, you need a big extra income in the next 10 days, and you ask your mind, do you have any ideas?

And he says, Yeah, come on, talk, talk. You are always talking. Come on.

Rob, he came to my early classes in New York, 27 years ago. When we both had hair. I used to interview every student at my lunch hour at my diamond business and one guy came, he wants to join the ACI class.

By the way, ACI is 30 years old recently, and I'll tell you more about that in about five minutes.

But one guy came to me and we sit down for lunch. I said, you really want to take this ACI 18 courses?

Yes, I really want to take it.

Then I said, Why?

He says, I want to learn to meditate.

Then I said, why?

He said, I want my mind to stop. I want my mind to stop talking. It makes me crazy. Please teach me how to meditate. Teach me how to stop my mind.

I said, Yeah, you come to the course, we can talk about it. By the way, what's your occupation? What's your job? I rob houses, all over Manhattan I break into apartments and steal everything.

Then I'm like, oh, really? Interesting. I said, how did you start this kind of work?

He said, I need a lot of money.

Why?

I am a heroin addict. I have to shoot up every day.

Then I'm like, oh, I never talked to anyone like that.

He says, you know, but it makes sense because I want to stop my mind. The reason I want to meditate is my mind makes me crazy. My mind talks terrible things all day and I want to stop it. Just teach me how to get my mind to shut up.

But sometimes when you want a new idea for making enough money to pay your rent next week and you ask your mind for an idea, finally your mind is completely quiet. Now listen, you have to plant the seed the week before.

Don't tell me I don't have any peaches today.

Did you plant the peach tree?

No.

Then you don't get peaches.

But I want them now.

In this system you cannot have it now.

It never works that way. I'm sorry. If you want instant peach trees go someplace else. It's not possible. Okay?

You cannot plant a peach tree in two minutes.

You cannot change your mind in one day.

You can plant the seeds, you can make them grow fast and it works 100% of the time. But you have to be a gardener. You cannot be a manufacturer.

It takes time.

The more you know the faster it goes.

If you want bad seeds to grow faster, when you put your head on the pillow at night, we call it anti coffee meditation: Think about all the people you heard this week. I'm so glad I upset my mother. I'm so glad I had an argument with my wife. I'm so happy I told my boss what I really think about my boss.

That's like a bad meditation when you go to sleep, and that's how you can make your bad seeds stronger.

Now, I want to teach you what I understood after 49 years is a great system for having new ideas come in your mind every day.

A hundred dollars, tell me how many companies and organizations I am running right now. Nobody can guess. 42 international companies.

Some of them have 150,000 clients.

How to do that? Just plant the seeds. Plant the right seeds.

What's after 49 years of planting,

What's the best way to plant the seeds for new ideas and new concepts to make new companies?

I'm going to tell you, and you won't believe me, but I don't care.

By the way, I did not tell people before.

But for the specific seed to have great ideas every day after 49 years of trying this system, here's my opinion. Tada.

What is it? It's sitting in that terrible translation class, completely confused. What they talking about? We're supposed to discuss it, but I didn't understand anything.

What did Tim say this morning? If you don't want to learn anything, go to a class where you understand everything already. If you want to learn something new, go to a class where you don't understand anything.

There's a system in the monastery. The Geshe course is 25 years. Every year you change to a different course. You go up for 25 levels.

Then sometimes in level eight, your teacher will say, don't come to my class today. Go to that Geshe’s class.

Well, he's teaching level 20.

What's the teacher say?

I am your teacher.—It means to shut up and do what I told you.

So you are level eight. You finish eight years of your Geshe study.

Then the eighth year teacher tells you tomorrow for the next week, you go to the 20 year class, and for one week you go to a class you don't understand one word.

Also you have to debate with the 20 year class that night, every night, three, four hours. ‚You can't tell me what's the definition?‘ (…)

It's like that for two hours. It is very embarrassing, but for 12 years those ideas cook inside your mind. 12 years later, you enter the 20 year level class and suddenly you understand everything because you planted the seeds.

(In 5 in I take questions. Because I did 25 years of Geshe debate, I enjoy every kind of question. Personal question, philosophy question, silly question. I don't care.

Any question you want.)

So in my opinion, the best way to plant the seeds to force your mind to talk to you next week and give you new ideas is to sit in the classes about new ideas.

We hold them twice a week. Saturday morning Arizona time, which is World Central

Time. Eight o'clock, or Monday night, 4 to to 6:30 Arizona. The class is free. We hold it if I go to China, we hold it at the same time. If I'm in Europe, we hold it at the same time and just come and enjoy. You can turn off your camera, you can eat ice cream for two hours.

Also try to take the ACI courses.

It's called 30, 30, 30 Program.

Number one. It has been 30 years since we started ACI in New York City at a tiny little place called Three Jewels, and in the last 10 or 15 years, that little place has become the number one yoga and Dharma center in the United States. We have the director here (Hector Marcel). Thank you.

Anytime you're in New York, go see it.

It was 30 years ago, we started it. One of these thirties, I don't remember which one, by 2030 in six years from now, I taught steps of the path now for how many years?

14 years. I'm going to finish soon, and then I'm going to record 100 meditations. Free recording. I've already started actually.

I hope to finish that by 2030. A hundred meditations by 2030.

To do that, I need funding.

For the teachers who go to other countries to teach free classes, I went to United Airlines. Aldo and his team have to travel to all Latin America countries.

It's a very important dharma job.

Please give us free airplane tickets. Not one company agreed, they even tried to charge us extra. So it's also a fundraising idea.

If all the people who take the A CI courses for free, if you could donate like $1 a day or 5 pesos or something, then I can afford to help these people.

Unfortunately, there's even those serious ACI teachers still having babies.

They should be too busy, but unfortunately they have more energy, so I need to give a little support to some of the people. So if you can join the 30, 30, 30 program, I don't care, 2 pesos per day. When we see people sign up, we feel encouraged. We

Feel brave. Oh, 200 people sign up. They all sign up for one peso.

It’s okay. At least they're trying. So please sign up.

I don't care. As long as the number is not negative, then it's good.

Please help. I need to help my kids and they're helping many, many people.

Let's do it.

Q&A

I'm Santi, I'm eight years old. When I grow up, I want to be a businessman. What seed should I sow to help people and be a millionaire?

(Geshe Michael) Let me think about it. Here's my suggestion.

If you want to be a millionaire, every day—this is a suggestion for everybody actually. Here's the real karma to have these good ideas in your mind.

My first suggestion was what?

Sit in the 20 year class. Sit in the class you don't understand.

Just be patient. I am planting seeds. I don't understand what the hell's going on. But I'm planting. That's the first suggestion.

Second suggestion, especially for you Santi. But for everybody, okay?

It's a very simple meditation.

You can do it all day. Silently you can do it in your own mind. Nobody has to know. It is, why did I just meet what I met?

Good things and bad things.

I don't know. Like Juan has took me to a new coffee shop today. It even has a great name, Madre Coffee Shop. I really enjoy the place. So beautiful.

Then just, I meditate when I reach the door. Geshe Michael ask Geshe Michael, ‚What did I do to make this place? What did I do to make this place?‘

You don't have to tell anybody you are meditating. Just inside your own mind: What did I do to make a place like this?

By the way, the seed might be 10 million years old. That's not the point.

Try to guess.

Just try to guess.

Maybe I built a nice coffee shop in a lousy little poor town in Arizona.

Why? Okay? Just say, ‚Why do I see Madre Coffee Shop?‘

Ask yourself inside your own mind.

Then with the negative star, I dunno, you meet some really irritating person and don't say anything to them, okay? But it's okay inside your own mind, ‚Why I have to see this person? What did I do?‘

Then try to guess whole day good things and bad things.

Talk to yourself. Why this happen? What did I do?

It's always guess, right? Maybe I did something like that.

Maybe I did something like that.

Sometimes you can say, definitely it came from last week, I got mad at my dog or something. When you keep asking yourself, ‚Why I have to meet this person? Why this happened to me?‘

Try to guess how did you plant those seeds?

That's the most powerful meditation to make good ideas come in your mind for the rest of your life.

Okay?

The cool thing is nobody has to know you are meditating.

You'll go to a party, you'll meet a very talkative Dharma student.

Let me tell you about the retreat I did, and I did a big meditation also, and also I can then you can be like it was…

Hector, there's a cute magazine. The New Yorker cute cartoon. Two people at a cocktail party. The guy's trying to hit on the girl and she's like, No, I don't want to know your secret mantra.

He's trying to impress her. You can be a secret meditator all the time.

By the way, it's a natural meditation. When something very good happens or something very bad happens, it's natural to say, ‚Why did this happen?‘

If you want to be a planter of future good ideas in your own mind, this is the most powerful method, and it's natural.

Yes, it's natural. Of course you should think, ‚What the hell did I do to meet this person?‘ Because you don't want to do it again, or you do want to do it again.

All right. So that's my millionaire advice also.

And your mom can help you with it, all right, thank you.

One more question.

(Participant) I've been working with the silent time meditation that you described in the Diamond Cutter. The challenge is to try to recreate a scenery when you are upset or a get angry with someone, and then you think about emptiness. Then you see what you can do for having a different reaction.

After a few days, I realized that the person I am most angry with is myself.

I am wondering if the karma activates when you do something for someone else. Does it have any sense to think about a conversation with myself trying to not getting angry with myself?

(Geshe Michael) Good. Good question. After I stayed with my teacher for several years, I got a phone call from my father and he said, your little brother committed suicide today. I was like, oh my God. I talked to my teacher and we had a very intense conversation. I'm like, My brother just killed himself. Then we always talk about hurting other people or helping other people. Then I said, if you hurt yourself, is it also bad seed? Because you always talking about other, hurting other people or helping other people. He said, your brother just destroyed his chance to become Buddha in this life. So in a way, he did the worst thing you can do.

And he said, of course, hurting yourself is one kind of hurting. Getting angry at yourself is one very powerful kind of anger, and it will make bad seeds.

Hurting yourself is almost more destructive than hurting other people. Because while you're hurting yourself, you don't have time to study Dharma, for example.

You are wasting hours that you cannot get back.

So definitely hurting yourself, is a very serious bad deed.

Getting angry at yourself is a bad seed.

So Geshela, what? Should I be happy when I do something bad?

In the Abhidharmakosha, there's only one negative thought in the whole world which is a good karma. That's regret that you did something wrong.

The only kind of sadness, which is good karma, is to be sad that you hurt somebody, and that's a good karma.

But you shouldn't hurt yourself. That's not productive. That's a bad thing.

You have to eat well, you have to sleep well, you have to use your hours well, you have to expose your mind to beautiful things. You have to take care of yourself.

That's your number one responsibility.

Last thing.

When I graduated from Princeton, you have to write a thesis. Then two professors in your department have to examine you about the thesis.

I wrote a thesis about the perfection of giving, and that was my graduation thesis. Then one professor is very smart. He said, ‚What's the definition of Paramita?‘

I said, you want to help all living beings.

Then he said, I have final question. If you pass, I will give you honors. Honors means super degree. He said, ‚So Paramita means you have to help all living beings?‘

‚Yeah, yeah.‘

‚Are you one of the living beings you have to help?‘

‚Yes?‘

‚Okay, honors.‘

That's the answer. If you promise to help all living beings, there's one you shouldn't treat better and you should not treat worse. You are one of all living beings.

You promise help everybody equally.

So you have to be nice to yourself also. That's your Bodhisattva vow, because you are one of the people. Cool?

Okay, see you tomorrow.

Class 2 - The Direct Perception of Emptiness

28 July morning

Some of you know today is a special day for me. July 28th is special day for me. 49 years ago, when I was 22, I saw emptiness directly and I had experience of Bodhichitta.

I didn't tell anybody for many years, but when you see emptiness directly, you are struggling to think of something in the world which is similar, and the closest thing in the normal world is the diamond, for many reasons.

That's why I joined the Diamond business because I wanted to touch diamonds every day. I went to 30 jewelry stores in my small town area in New Jersey where I was staying in a monastery and nobody would hire me. It's like trying to join the mafia, because you can steal a million dollars in two minutes.

Then I got very good luck and I found a new company was starting in New York.

And I worked there for 19 years just because I want to touch diamond every day. Then by accident it became successful. But it wasn't the purpose to make money.

I just want to touch the diamonds every day.

So today is a special day for me, and as I get more grandpa and more grandpa, I decide to tell people if they don't believe it's okay, but if you do believe it's very good for you.

I had an idea for this class.

Every year I have to write a new DCI level. Every year we teach 140,000 people, DCI. Every year I have to write 300, 400 page manual.

This year I wanted to focus on the Goodnight Club, goodnight book club.

It's a funny thing happened in Arizona.

I call it Goodnight book club.

Then everybody says Geeshela started goodnight book club.

Then Juan, he has his new show. He's in a rush. He don't say goodnight book club, he say Goodnight club. Then when he's really busy, he says, Geshela‘s nightclub. Then everyone thinks I'm dancing.

Anyway, the new I level for this year, it will focus a lot about this idea to put away your cell phone, put away your computer for eight hours.

It's very, very powerful to kick out your cell phone for the whole night. It makes you very clear minded. It's better than meditation.

So in this new DCI I level, we have to suggest some books, paper books that people can read when they go to bed. Then there's a lot of, there are some countries in the world where you're not allowed to publish books.

My books are very popular in those countries. There's one legal book in China, the Diamond Cutter business book.

It sold millions of copies in Russia, it's a number two bestselling foreign book.

But I don't have any way to tell those people about all my books.

But we are allowed to publish the DCI manual. So I thought to put a little piece of every book in the manual. There's 120 books.

I'm preparing like a chocolate sampler of all those books, maybe 20 pages, 30 pages from each book. Then it's good because I have to clean up all of my books. So this week I was cleaning up a book called The Garden.

First Picture.

This was kind of the first book I wrote, and it's a story. It's fiction.

But it's true, mostly.

This morning I thought I would like to read you a chapter about seeing emptiness directly.

I had the idea just to have fun and I won't read, I'll just read easy way, comfortable way. She doesn't even know I'm going to do it. So a lot of pressure for her. But I'll go slow and I'll speak in normal English, not book english, and it's like a vacation for you guys. You just relax. Your ? is telling you a story, but don't forget it in your life.

Then I don't know if we're going to have time, if we can't finish, I'll finish this afternoon. If we finish early, we can start the photographs earlier. Okay?

Here we go.

To punish you in the evening, I'm going to teach you directly from the angel devil text, which is very confusing.

So morning is a good time for spiritual things, and evening is a good time for confusing things.

So here we go. I'm just going to paraphrase it.

(15:10) I was a quiet bookworm, I just like to read books.

But in the garden I had studied with Shantideva, so a little bit I became a warrior. Warrior in this book means sattva. Bodhisattva means enlightened warrior.

So I was a warrior, but the battlefield was my normal home.

This guy is renting a small room in a small monastery and he's working in a library. He's starting to see his whole little world in a special way.

Before I met all of these masters in the garden, I felt like my life was living in a shopping mall. I'm just going from store to store to get things.

But after they taught me about Bodhisattva, even though I was still a small person in the world, I felt like I was a knight in shining armor.

When I met people, I feel like they're all my children, and every time I meet somebody, I try to be nice to them. I'll say some nice thing to them and if they are ready, I will tell them something about emptiness or something like that.

So I was more and more happy every day. But I also knew that I wasn't finished with my education, and I felt like a horse who comes closer and closer to the water.

I wanted to find perfection. I wanted to help my mother who died.

I wanted to meet Vajrayogini again. In this book, she's called The Golden One.

By the way, after I wrote the book, I taught it in Mongolia.

There was a famous Thangka painter in the audience.

He painted that Thangka on the left side. If you know Diamond Way practice, the fire coming out of the monk's heart, it has four parts. It's a (reciting Tibetan), very famous Diamond Way.

The whole painting has special meaning.

I was hoping to go back to the garden and meet her again.

There is a garden.

The date was 28th of July, the book says.

It was summertime in the garden and I came there late at night.

This garden is in Arizona, in the desert. It's very hot. There's a beautiful tree there. It's a carob tree.

It has a long seed and you can make chocolate from the seeds.

It makes a huge, beautiful tree. Lives for many years.

The seed always grows the same size in the whole world.

If you plant a carob tree in Arizona, or you plant it in Mexico City, or you plant it in Spain, it doesn't matter. The seed will be exactly the same size.

From that carob word comes carat. The word carat, like one carat diamond, two carat diamond, three carat diamond. Because in the ancient times they'll use carob seed to weigh the diamonds.

So by accident, it's a diamond tree. In the picture you can see up the left.

I sat down and started to meditate in the garden.

In the garden, I learned to meditate from some of the Buddhist saints.

In that story, each chapter, a different Buddhist saint comes to teach the young men.

Is that book in Mexico? I don't know. I know it's in Spain, I don't know if it's in Mexico. Then I sensed somebody was coming into the garden.

There's a gate to the garden and there's a rose garden there, red roses.

Then I saw it's not Varjayogini, I call her the Golden One in the book.

Then I saw it's a monk, a very beautiful monk.

Then I realized the last master to visit me in the garden is Buddha himself.

He was not tall, but medium, a little bit thin and very shy, and he always moves very gracefully. Impossible to guess his age, but maybe 27, 28 years old. His whole expression is very simple, very modest, no pride, but super intelligent face.

His skin is different from human skin. It has a kind of light, soft light, not like those light. He has bare feet, he's not wearing any shoes.

Then I thought, uncontrollably, I have to bow down.

He is like, Sit there, sit. And I sit down on the grass in front of, there's a stone or wooden bench. He sat on the bench and he looks shy, like a young girl, like a young lady. He looks kind of shy.

After a while, he reached his hand out to me.

Then I saw he has a red rose in his hand. He didn't say anything. He is just like, Look at it. And he didn't say anything. So I just look at the rose in his hand.

I was too shy to look at his face.

I just look at the rose.

Then he suddenly, he took the rose back and he touched my chin. Like, Look in my eyes. And then he said one word, Rose.

Then he closed my eyes with his hand. But he keeps the fingers there.

When he touched my eyes, I meditate on the rose picture.

Then he opened my eyes again and he's still holding the rose. And he said, Do not think ‚Rose‘.

When somebody tells you not to think about something…

So I try not to think about Rose, and I try not to have the picture of his hand with the rose.

Then he opened his hand again.

He said, open your eyes. Then just for a second, I don't see a rose. I see little corners of the rose, but not the whole rose.

I just see a corner of the rose or something.

Then that's only like a split second.

I look at his rose in his hair.

I see a few pieces. He told me, Don't think about rose.

Then for like three seconds, I can see the pieces of the rose, but not the rose.

It's hard to explain, but what I saw for a few seconds is only shapes and colors. No rose.

So there's a red color corner of the rose, there's a green stick, just green line, but no rose. Then suddenly my mind makes a perfect rose. But for just a second I could see the pieces without the rose.

Then he's like, okay. Let's do it again. Then he let me see the rose. Look at the rose, and then he closed my eyes again.

Then he said, Rose. One word.

Then I start to get a picture of rose.

Then he pushed my eyes open again. Look, but don't look Rose.

Just look at. Then I see just pieces, little red, sharp.

For just a moment I can see the pieces without the rose.

What's happening there?

When a seed opens in your mind, there are some pieces in the world

Red color, little corners.

Your eyes, they cannot see rose. They can see the color, and they can see the shape. But the eye cannot decide what is this thing?

The eye and the brain is separate.

The eye cannot see rose.

I think the brain and the eye, they have telephone connection and the eye says, Hey, we got something out here.

By the way, the brain cannot see the outside objects directly. The brain depends on the sense organs.

What we got? What's out there?

Then the eye says, Oh, we got red, red.

What else you got?

Little triangles.

The eye cannot decide what is this thing.

Scientists say, the color and the shape hit the cells at the back of the eye, and then they take the shape and the color. But they cannot decide what is the thing.

Then eyeball says to brain, We got red, we got corners.

Then brain is like, Hmm, we're in the garden. I think it's a rose. And then the brain sends a picture to the eyes, you see? Then the eyes put the picture on the pieces and that's a rose.

You see?

That picture is coming out of your seeds. And the only way to put the seeds in your mind is to share a rose with another person.

The good things in life, you can only see the good things in your life which you gave to other people before.

When you share something beautiful with somebody, you plant a seed for a rose.

Then the eye, it's coming. Okay, all right.

Then he touched his finger to the ground.

We have two kinds of ants in Arizona. One is the red ant, they're pretty big and they are very nasty.

We dance around, my wife and I when they bite us, then we're like, Arghhh.

Then there's little black ants, and they are very peaceful. They don't bite.

When I took my cafe manager examination and course from the government in my state, they said, You are required to kill the roaches in your cafe.

But the black ant, they're super clean. Doesn't matter. They can walk everywhere.

They actually clean up.

So anyway, Buddha touched the ground.

Then he put the ant on the rose, black ant. They're curious and friendly.

Then he runs to the edge of the rose. He is like, Ahhh. He doesn't want to fall off.

Then he runs to the other side. It's like a mountain for him. He is like, Ahhh.

Then Gautama put the rose back on the ground and the ant went home, I guess. Then he took the rose in his hand again, and he put it to his own face.

He's looking at it like this, I couldn't see the rose, but I could see his eyes.

He's like super peaceful, super happy.

Then I'm thinking, he must see something different than what I see.

Then he said, Listen, when you first opened your eyes, you saw the pieces of the rose, just the colors and the shapes. Then your mind, your seeds, a new picture came out and made a rose.

But the ant, he looks at the same pieces and he says, Ahhh, mountain. For him it's very frightening.

Then Buddha said, When I look at the same colors and the same shapes, I see all of eternity. I see the mind of every being in the universe and I love them at that moment.

Then he get quiet and he closed his eyes.

Then he reached out the rose again to me, and he asked me a question, Who's correct? What is this thing? Is it a rose?

Is it the Lord of death?

Is it all the people in the universe and perfect love?

Then because I'm sitting close to Buddha, I understood everything quickly and I realized in his hand this all three things.

There's a rose, there's a mountain, and there's a universe of all people in his hand.

And because I'm sitting close to him, I understand very clearly: There's nothing in his hand.

If you have a seed, you'll see a rose.

If you have a black ant seed, you will see a mountain.

If you have Buddha seeds, you will see all the people in the universe.

By the way, that's a cool thing. According to Buddhism, there's no end to the universe. If you get in a spaceship and you fly, fly, fly, you will never reach the end. There is no end.

But still, if your mind is clean, you can meet everyone in the universe in 20 minutes.

Everyone in this room can do it. You can meet everyone in the universe, all animals, all humans. There's no number to those.

But you can meet them all in 20 minutes if you see emptiness and that's what all these classes are for. Alright?

He closed his hand again, and he opened the hand with the flour.

He said, This time I want you to see the whole universe. He goes like (making goo goo eyes), and I'm like (making goo goo eyes), and it's just all I see is a rose.

I'm like, I'm sorry, I just see a rose.

He says, I know. Because you can only see what your seeds force you to see. You look at this and you see a rose. I see all the people in the universe.

Then I closed my eyes and thought about rose. I opened my eyes and see rose.

Then he just stopped talking. He crossed his legs on the bench, and he started to meditate. Then I start to meditate.

Now I'll just read, okay?

The silence grew.

I lost the sounds of the garden.

I lost the smell and the feel of the garden.

I lost the feeling of sitting in the garden.

Finally, I lost a feeling of even thinking, and I lost a feeling of myself and everything was perfectly quiet.

I saw emptiness and it was only that and I saw it. There was nothing else.

When it was over, things started to come back.

I could feel myself coming down, and then I could feel myself again.

Then only after I realized, oh, I saw emptiness, in the hour that you see emptiness, you see many other things.

There's a list in the book, so just enjoy.

I knew then that I had seen a Buddha, and I knew that Buddhas are real.

I knew I will also become Buddha within seven lifetimes, have to die six more times. Then, because of that, I knew really there is future life. Because up until then, you just heard it from your teacher, you don't know really.

When you see emptiness, you see your future life for the first time.

People ask me, We heard you have health problems.

I'm like, Yeah.

Then they say, Aren't you worried? I said, why? I know where I'm going. I know who will take of me. It's like a really cool place. So I'm like, nice, good.

So if you see emptiness, you don't ever have to worry again, even about death, because you can see what it's like. Like you can see the restaurant. You just have to cross the street.

By the way, I still eat medicine and things, okay? I'm trying to stay for sometime. Then, I knew the path is correct.

When you see emptiness, something strange happens. You understand that people will not call you Michael in the future. I still didn't figure that out.

Your name change. Maybe it's like when you get married.

Then I knew how those seven lifetimes will be. I know my parents and I know who my teachers will be. I know they'll take care of me from the first day, so I don't have anything to worry about in the next seven lives.

Now, here's an interesting thing that happens when you see emptiness.

I knew that what I saw was correct, true. I couldn't doubt it again.

Thousand people can tell you, no, you didn't see emptiness.

You are crazy, you don't know anything.

Then you're like, yeah, okay, I'm crazy. Because no one can...

What you saw is true and you know it's true, and it's not just that you see truth, it's that you know you saw truth, and one ever can. It doesn't matter what people say. The biggest person in the world can say, You didn't do it. And you're like, yeah, okay.

Another thing happens on that day.

You understand all the books are correct.

There's 300,000 books, Buddhist books, each one is as good as the Bible.

By the way, the same content. But imagine you have 300,000 Bibles, different bibles and they are all 100% correct and you see that. Then you become like crazy person.

We have to go to all the libraries in the world.

We got to find them. We got to take picture, record them.

Somebody say, I found the cure for aids. I wrote it down. It works.

There's 40 million people with AIDS in the world right now. Most of them will die. Then you have the paper, you have the, what do you call it? The recipe.

Then how you feel about that paper?

You are like, let's make copies. Let's make an ALL database. Let's make sure we translate it.

How will you feel if someone gave you the only copy? 40 million people will die if you lose it.

That's how an Arya feels about the Holy books.

Then I had an experience of loving every living being.

A light came out of my chest, a pillar of light. It doesn't look like a Coca-Cola straw.

It looks like a rocket ship.

Later I learned it's called prana, and it came out no color, and it touched every living being. And I spoke to each living being in the universe. It's a very fun 20 minutes. First you meet your mom.

I don't care if she's alive or she's not alive, doesn't matter. My mom was dead by that time, but she‘d come to me and she looks great. But she looks a little bit worried and I understand why she is worried. She has to die. The people around her have to die.

Then I'm like, Don't worry, mom, seven more lifetimes. I'm going to be there. You just hang on. I'm coming as fast as I can. You don't have to worry. Just relax.

Then she's like relax.

Then my father come.

Like that. That one by one, my brothers, same mini conversation.

You look a little bit worried. Yeah, if you‘d have to die, you look worried also.

Then, Don't worry, I'm going to take care of everything. I know what to do. You don't have to die, okay?

Oh, wow, thank you.

Then one by one, my aunts, who I met like two times. Then all my school teachers, fifth grade. The worst one also came.

Her name, honestly, is Mrs. Buds. The worst.

I'm like, don't worry, I'll take care of you.

Then people I don't know in my city, then people in all the cities, then people in other countries, one by one.

Don't worry, I'll take care of you.

Okay, thank you.

Then start animals.

So I had a dog when I was a kid. His name was George.

George come.

Then cats, fish, birds.

All of them one by one, not one chicken representative. Each chicken.

One by one.

I'm like, I'll take care of you.

Then something unbelievable, start the humans on the next planet. I don't know, where's that planet? I don't know. I cannot point to the place. Then the whole thing, start over again.

You cover all the humans, animals, insects, personal interview, each one.

Then after 20 minutes, you finished every living being in the universe, and either I'm a big liar or it's something amazing. Either I'm a big liar or this is something unbelievable, but it's true.

Really, it's true. As I sit here, it's true.

Then finishes.

That's a Bodhisattva, that's a real Bodhisattva.

It is not just that you're nice to people or something like that.

That's real Bodhichitta.

(59:28) You see your death. Every human being, secretly, they think all those stupid guys who are dying, I'm not like them. Deep inside, every human being thinks, God, those old people so stupid to get old, so stupid to die. I'm not going to do that.

But an Arya sees their death and they believe it.

The earth's gravity is stronger than you. It's a battle.

When you were two years old, you learned to fight gravity, you learned to walk.

But in the end, gravity wins for everybody and you lay down on the earth and you die.

Interesting thing, okay, I'm almost finished. Don't worry.

When the Arya comes down out of seeing emptiness directly, they cannot see it again. They can't just say, oh, I want to see it again for 10 more minutes.

The karma is so expensive. You burn your karma credit card for your whole life in 20 minutes.

Then you start to see things like you see the pen the old way. You don't see it the new way. You cannot see that it's coming from you. You cannot see.

Some part of you still make mistake, even Arya.

What's the difference?

The Arya is wrong, but he knows he's wrong,

But cannot stop it.

You Latin America tour teachers, as you teach the pen, you are always seeing the pen wrong. I am sorry.

But even an Arya, when they teach the pen, at that moment they cannot see the emptiness of the pen.

Okay. That's all.

On this special day, let's do one minute meditation that we talked about these things.

Make a prayer that someday they will happen to you if they didn't happen to you already. I don't know.

Just one minute, make a prayer. Then we can sign books and photos, okay?

Here we go.

(Silence)

Okay, good. Thank you.

Class 3 - Review and Verses

28 July afternoon

(6:05) We're going to go back to the idea of where does the voice in your head come from.

If you don't remember anything, like if your friend says, ‚What did you learn last weekend?‘

You have to get ready. You can't say, I don't remember.

That guy said that the voice in your head is not you and you actually have no choice what the voice in your head is.

If you ever got depression, if you ever broke up with a boy or a girl, you know you cannot tell your mind to stop talking about something.

So get comfortable with this idea.

You do not control the person talking in your mind.

And it's not you.

Because those words were spoken before you heard them.

By the time you hear the words, the speaker is gone into the past forever.

So where do those voices come from?

They come from seeds in your mind.

As our friends said, those seeds are planted by you, and no one else can tell you what you think in your mind. It's impossible.

You can't tell you what you think in your mind, much less other people are.

If you have good seeds in your mind, that talker will be amazing.

They'll give you new ideas. You'll be happy for the rest of your life.

And if you don't learn how to control the process, then it will be like before you came to this program.

Almost everyone in the world is planting seeds by accident.

They don't even know they're planting seeds. Then those seeds open and they have the thoughts in their mind and they have no control about it for their whole life. Since you are a kid up to now, it's not you talking and you don't have a choice now what the voice now is going to say.

You have choice next week. You can plant special seeds.

Then next week's voice will be amazing.

It's so nice to live in a head where the talker is really cool, and every week better than last week. Once you know how to plant the seed, it's like never ending fun.

It gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

So that quarter billion dollar company in Manhattan, I got rid of it 25 years ago.

That was just beginning of the fun.

Then much more fun since then. Because I know how to plant the seeds for the talker in my mind.

Then he's always telling me, wouldn't it be cool if we went to Mexico City again next year?

What you learned this weekend: How to plant those seeds.

I'm going to repeat the steps. Then, if we have extra time, I will give you some headaches from the poem. If we still have time, we'll do some question and answer.

If you have any question, get them ready.

We're going to go through all the pictures because pictures are easy ways to remember things. (…) Here's the first. A hundred dollars.

What's going on in this picture?

$50: What's going on in this picture? $50: What's not going on in this picture?

(Participant) So woman at this picture planted that seed and it grown in the like from her to the trees or garden.

(Geshe Michael) What does the tree represent?

(Participant) It's her seeds that she planted some time ago in her mind.

(Geshe Michael) It’s a tree for her voice, right?

What was my other question? What's not happening in the picture?

She's not eating it. Okay. It's coming out.

(Participant) It's coming from her.

(Geshe Michael) I gave you a strange picture because people remember strange pictures. They don't remember normal pictures.

So when you think about this weekend, just remember this picture.

I want to plant a voice that comes into my mind and tells me cool things to do.

Like how I started the diamond business. We started with $7. But the person in my mind is very, very, in the diamond business we have special word, nudnik.

Nudnik means (making strange noises).

So I have this voice in my mind, ‚Do the diamond business, do the diamond business.‘

Then amazing, largest jewelry company in the world.

If you develop the voice, that is so fun. It is also nudnik.

Next picture.

This picture represents that there are many choices. But the one you learned here is only the best one. There's a special system.

(Participant) The special system is to plant seeds to have good ideas.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah, cool. Okay. Instead of what?

(Participant) Instead planting bad seeds to have like a good consultant.

(Geshe Michael) No, there are many good voices you can plant. Financial, family happiness, good health… You can choose many voices.

I think the creativity voice is the best one.

You can say it's the new idea of voice. Because that voice you can use for all the other voices.

I have a new idea how to make money. I have a new idea how to get the wife to cook and wash the dishes or the husband. Come to think of it. I think my wife did this already.

If you're very creative, you can be creative in many ways. So in this class we're focusing on the seed for creativity talking, okay?

Next picture.

(Participant) To have good ideas, the best thing to do is to go to classes that you don't understand.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah, good. I don't mean go to every class you don't understand, but easy suggestion: We have three classes every week. It's free and it's those translation classes. They're difficult and it's the difficult things that make you strong.

If you go to the gym, you know that. Don't worry, you don't understand everything. Oh, you don't understand anything. It deosn’t matter. Just sit there and listen.

Look, Dharma progress, it doesn't go like this. (Up, up, up)

It goes like this: Boop, Pfffff. (Up & down)

Okay? You will fail.

You'll stop coming to the class for three weeks. Then come back.

Meditation is the same. Meditate, meditate, meditate. Watch Netflix, Netflix, Netflix.

Then meditate, meditate, meditate.

Then Netflix, Disney, meditate, meditate.

It's impossible to go up all the time.

It's impossible. Just don't even think about it. You should mess up every month or something. Your patience with not getting angry—patient, patient,

Patient. Some guy driving his car, ‚This Mother***‘, then patient, patient, patient. Like this, okay? Nobody's perfect. If you're perfect, you don't have to come to this class.

Then it means you're going to mess up something.

Expect it and don't be too serious about it.

(in a whiney voice) ‚Oh no, I forgot my meditation.‘

Shut up, come back tomorrow. Okay? All right. Next picture.

That's so easy.

(Participant) That’s a bad with a lock that has a temporizer so you can’t open it until the time has passed. That helps you to avoid the computer or the iPad.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah. If you come with me when I finish the talk, I'll give you one. It's a zip bag and also a bag to carry. It's really, really nice and it is my favorite thing in my whole life. So if you forget to come with me, it's okay. No, I'll give it to you. We will get another one for Geshe Michael

Okay, next picture.

(25:15) Now before you answer, this is connected to the last picture.

(Participant) In order to experience what Geshehla read from the garden, you need a level of concentration that could come from putting your phone and laptop away for eight hours.

(Geshe Michael) That's the wrong answer and it's a good answer. Good hundred dollars. But what it means is, before I started the Goodnight book club, I actually stopped reading paper books. Because it's more trouble to carry them. I put all the books on my phone now. But still I enjoy to read before I fall asleep.

If I read my phone before I go to sleep, I don't sleep well.

If I read a paper book for 10 or 15 minutes, I sleep very well.

The time lock, my suggestion is at 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM. When I'm traveling and I'm alone in my hotel room, which is a very dangerous place, I know I cannot trust myself to put the time lock. So I will ask my friend. He comes 10 o'clock knocking at my door.

Then I'm like, okay, okay.

He say, Computer, phone.

I’m like, Yeah. Here you are. Goodnight.

(He‘s like) Hotel room tv remote control. Your room has two.

I don't know if you do this system, you will double your productivity.

Yves Saint Laurent said, ‚You can buy the eye makeup or you can sleep for eight hours‘.

Personally, I think a lady who slept for five hours and use a lot of Eve San Lauren, doesn't look the same as eight hours. Eight hours, very natural and it makes your face look nice. It's the cheapest makeup you can go to.

I tell you Mim, if she wants to go to Sephora, make some excuse. Don't go.

You cannot get out under $300. Take her to the drugstore. The same lipstick is $2.

Like that, it change your face and it makes your mind powerful. You can make twice money basically. And you don't know because you never did it.

I don't say one eight hour night is going to change your income.

If you do it for three weeks, your mind will get stronger and you feel super healthy.

I am grandpa, I go to the yoga class, all the 20 year olds are there.

They're like, wow, you just need to get some sleep. Get rid of the goddamn phone. Let him have how many hours? 16 hours a day? Then take eight hours for yourself.

The phone was supposed to save you time. But it takes your time.

So please, please, please, please, please, please try.

If you don't have the power to do it, get a friend. He bought a house near my house. He used to live a thousand miles away. Now he lives two minutes from my house when my wife is on vacation or something, 10 o'clock he comes to my house 10 o'clock. Get a friend. If you're like me, you don't have the power to do it yourself.

You need friends to help.

The telephone is very similar to alcoholic. We are all addicted.

What's your favorite place to look at the phone?

I sit on the special chair in the special room. After one hour my wife is (sound of someone hitting against the door)

Two people in this house also pee pee, you know?

I'm sorry, there's new news about Trump, okay?

So be careful. Maybe you don't have the strength to do it yourself. Get a friend, help each other and you'll never regret it.

You'll be a much more successful person.

Please.

I think McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Apple Corporation going to assassinate me. If it happens, you know what happened.

Next picture.

I like to have a mix of paper books when I go to sleep.

Sometimes I feel like I can read a little bit deeper book. Then I will read something like Diamond Cutter Business Book.

Sometimes I feel like I'm too tired. I feel tired at night, that's why you go to sleep. Then I'll read something like the garden.

I suggest you keep two books. One is a little bit deeper and one is more relaxing. You'll fall into a deep sleep with this book. You'll fall into deep sleep in six minutes. Even you read it in the morning, you will fall into deep sleep.

Next picture.

I did not show this picture. I was supposed to show it yesterday. I didn't show it. It's the last picture from yesterday. I told you there's one special method for planting seeds for inner voice.

By the way, this guy is doing it.

(Participant) The seeds 24/7 in all the things that I'm seeing, what seed did I plant to see that happening?

(Geshe Michael) Nice. 100$.

This class this three days is fun.

Why? Geshela didn't teach you a new meditation. When you don't do it, you feel more guilty than last week. Everybody likes to feel guilty. Me too.

I had a student, he said, ‚Don't teach me any more meditation.‘

I said, Why?

‚I already feel guilty. I don't do any of the ones you taught me before. Now you want to teach me a new one, I will feel even more guilty.‘

So this one, you just do it anywhere and nobody knows you are meditating. Somebody believe he's thinking about a girl. He's not.

He's thinking, What seed did I plan to meet that guy? I was having a good day. I was driving to work. Suddenly the radio plays Jimmy Hendrix. Then I was so happy. Then some guy, (making honk noise).

Then just think, okay? Do your meditation. Do your creativity meditation.

What seed did I plant for this stupid guy? Just think about it.

Then you go to work. Get out of your car. Forget about it.

Those are short one minute meditation.

Three times per day, five times per day.

‚Geshela, what time shall I meditate?‘

Meditate when something stupid happens and meditate when something nice happens. And say, ‚God, I just met the most amazing people in Mexico City. They were so nice. What did I do?‘

Those are your meditation triggers.

Something bad happened or something nice happened. Then say, Why me?

My teacher, he taught me in many strange ways.

Whole day, all day, everything. Make me watch the toilet, I will learn something.

He bought a television and he said, ‚I'm the boss of the monastery. I can watch television. You are not the boss. You cannot watch television.‘

Then I'm like, (mumbling noise)

Then he said, but if there's something interesting on the television, I'll ring a bell.

You wonder why those Lamas have bell? That's a television bell.

He said, ‚When you hear the bell run upstairs, there's something interesting on the television.‘

I work near the stairs. (Bell ringing sound) I run upstairs. Then he said, ‚Watch the news.‘

Then it's this lady. Her house burned down. She left on the iron and her house burned down. She started crying. Why me?

Many people do the same thing. Why me? Why my husband?

Then he said, ‚Okay, you can go.‘

I'm like, Why?

‚I said go, go.‘

Then I go. (Bell ringing noise) After one hour I run upstairs.

He said, ‚Watch this one.‘

The handsome TV guy, he knocks on the door of a poor person in New York City, bad part of New York City. A lady answered the door, poor lady.

He says, ‚You are the winner of the lottery. Here's $5 million check.‘

They love to show the on the tv.

She is like, Whaaaaahhhh. She's dancing.

Then he asked me, ‚What did she not ask?‘

Why me?

When you win the lottery, nobody says, ‚Why me?‘

When your house burned down, ‚Why me?‘

If you are on the creativity voice team, you will ‚Why me?‘ all the time.

When something bad happens, it's natural. ‚Why me?‘

But also when something good happens: Why me?

By the way, did you notice? I'm not telling you what to think. I just want you to ask the question. How you answer the question, it's up to you. That's your problem. I'm just asking you to ask a question.

Something good happens, something bad happens: Why me?

Then you answer in your own way.

I don't think this meditation will take more than two or three minutes. Because your life is moving. You can't sit for two hours and think about why some asshole cut you off in the traffic. We don't have time. But I just want you to ask for 30 seconds.

You give your own answer. You know the seeds in your mind. I don't, okay?

I went through the reading. We'll do a few little pieces from the reading. You can get the feeling of the reading and then we'll finish up with some Q&A.

I'm going to read the Tibetan is good luck.

(Word reading the Tibetan verses)

By the way, he's the best teacher of Tibetan language. He gives free class every week. Then if you don't come to his class, you're crazy. It's free. It's fun.

He knows how to teach people to read very fast. Better than I do. So don't be crazy.

Here's the translation. It's about the pen.

If this pen comes from the pen, it will never change. It will never run out of ink.

If the pen comes from the pen, it will never run out of ink.

If the pen comes from me, if the pen comes from my seeds,

then every time I use the pen, the ink goes out.

It's not the ink going out, your seeds are using up your seeds.

Big question. Difficult question: When you write with the pen and you write something, where's the writing come from?

(Participant) The writing comes from my seeds.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah. Good.

This is very difficult.

People say Geshela, the pen exists on its own side.

Then I say, why?

And I say, look, it can write on the paper, but the writing is not coming from the pen.

When you move the pen, your mind makes writing on the paper.

Now you have bad news.

Why?

Every minute of the next movie you see is coming which way?

Oh Geshela, I went to see Wolverine and Dead Pool.

By the way, my meditation system, you can go to the movie and meditate.

Why so stupid? What did I do?

So who wrote the movie?

You wrote the movie. Every minute comes up new pictures. Your mind putting those pictures. Don't forget.

Then things get old.

Some movie, when it ends you're so happy.

I'm so happy when the movie finally finished. I feel like I have to stay because I paid money. But I don't like the movie. When it's finished, I tell my wife, I'm so glad it's finished.

Why did the movie finish?

Your seed ran out. Your seeds ran out. And they will run out with your body also.

Your body was created inside your mother by seeds.

It starts with the chakras. Chakras come first. Then the channels. Then the bones form around the channels, and then the flesh forms around the outside of the bones. During the weeks inside your mom, 36 weeks, each week has a different chakra, for example. But then you're finished. All of those coming from seeds.

As you use your body, it wears out.

If the pen come from its own side, there's no reason why it should ever run out of ink. I'll say it again. If the pen come from its own side, it will never run out of ink.

If the movie is not coming from you, it will last forever.

But if it's coming from your seeds, it will get old and it will die.

Now, question: In this book, in the poetry, it's a discussion. It's a fight between two people. There's an angel and there's a devil.

Sometimes in the poetry, the angel is talking, and sometimes in the poetry the devil is talking.

Which one is talking this verse? And why?

(Participant) The Angel is talking because he's creating life from his own seeds.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah. She's explaining why you get old (the angel). She's explaining why your last relationship fell apart. It's good advice. It must be the angel.

Can Oscar come up to me? He's the second best bass player in this room. Can you read it from there?

(Oscar reading the verse in Tibetan)

If things are not coming from seeds

Nothing can be mine.

Money…

It says here: Not even your mouth can be your mouth.

Your nose cannot be your nose.

Your tummy can not be your tummy.

Your house cannot be your house.

Your spouse, your husband or wife cannot be yours.

Children cannot be yours.

If they don't come from seeds.

Things that don't come from seeds can never be yours.

Now it gets deep.

Things that don't come from seeds cannot be connected to other things.

When you say, Maitri is my son or grandson or something. You say you have a connection with this child. But if there's no seeds, there cannot be connection.

If Maitri comes from his own side, he cannot come from his mom.

He cannot come from his mom.

Only things which come from seeds can come from other people.

If the pen come from its own side, I can never own it because it is not coming from my seeds.

This connection is also coming from my seeds.

When I lose the connection, that's also coming from my seeds.

If things don't come from seeds, they will never get old.

If things don't come from seeds, no one can have them.

You got to think about it.

A world which doesn't come from seeds is impossible.

A pen, which doesn't come from seeds, cannot run out of ink.

You cannot buy a pen, which doesn't come from seeds.

Sometimes you need a pen and your friend gives it to you.

Sometimes you need a pen and you go to the store and they say, sorry, we're out.

You don't get pens from the store. You get pens from seeds.

You have to share all the things you have.

Then you get more.

Jesus said that over and over.

Jesus is a really cool seed master. He talks about seeds all the time.

What you want, give it to somebody else.

Somebody steal your sweater? Get their telephone number and ask them, do you also need my coat?

Someone hit you on this side. Say, Oh, this one also good to hear.

Only a seed master will talk like that.

Who wrote this verse?

I know the correct answer is you. But is it angel talking or devil talking and why? (Participant) The angel. Because he's coming from my seeds.

(Geshe Michael) You got that picture with the lady. Never forget this lady. If they're talking about seeds, they must be the angel. The devil doesn't like to talk about seds.

Gibson come up. He is a great translator from Taiwan. And I like to welcome his partner Emily. Gibson is specializing in what we call pocket Dharma books.

He's finished two of them already, and they are about 600 years old.

The idea is to have a small book that you can carry in your purse. Words translation,

Tim's translation. They are good if you have a fight with your husband. It is very heavy. Big book. I‘ll get this into your head. But Gibson specialty, he's been doing some we call pocket purse books.

He finished two, he's going to start his third one very soon.

Here we go. By the way, he also for many years has helped the team, which raises money to help Guadalajara team, to help refugees who are traveling between Central America and the American border. They have a nice beautiful rest house there. People can take a shower, they can relax, have some food, and then they get back on the top of the train. They've been helping to support that for over 10 years.

For Taiwan people, the team gives them this box and every night they put their change in the box. In this way we have raised many hundred thousands of dollars.

They also support the team, which is translating these books into Spanish. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you Emily.

(Gibson reading the verse in Tibetan)

Let me explain just one second. If you're going to join the Latin America ACI teacher team, talk to El Jefe and you can talk like this.

What are you guys going to do in Costa Rica?

What are you going to teach?

Oh, we will take people's hand. We will lead them to nowhere. We will teach them special meditation. Don't think about anything. Then we'll teach them when they meditate, think about as much stuff as you can. Yes, we will make them true meditation masters.

Who's talking?

(Participant) It‘s the devil.

(Geshe Michael) Yeah.

People ask me, you didn't come to Mexico City for so long. Then they say why you came back? Because I remember when I went to see the big cathedral in Mexico City, right next to is a Churria.

On that day I became very religious. I always want to go to the cathedral.

Alright, thank you. See you next year.

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