Wisdom in the Time of Chaos

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Course Introduction

Nila was supposed to translate tonight, but she had to go to bed. Okay, that's his [Aldo’s] new daughter. Okay, tonight is a special program. So I went to Princeton University, then I got permission to go study in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery for six months, but I stayed for 25 years. And I finished the Geshe course. First white guy. Then they have a special course after that and there's a special college. There's two colleges in Tibet and they're called [gyupa?]. But gyupa means have a magical life. Your whole life is like magic. Strange, happy, beautiful things happen to you. Like, I don't know, I was in a ... we have a special ceremony twice a month. We call Diamond Way. And there's an angel called the Angel of Diamond and we're supposed to go have dinner together. So I was in New York, I just finished my Geshe, and we went to a restaurant to do tsechu / tsok. And this big Jewish lady came out. And New York waitress, they don't put the plate like this [sweetly]. They're like, [putting plates down roughly]. 

Then she's like, [roughly] ‘what do you want to eat?’ 

Then we order everything and we ate a lot because it's a holiday, twice a month. Then she came out, we had dessert. And then we're finished and then she came again and we said, ‘can we have the bill?’ 

And she got angry, ‘Are you crazy?’ She said, ‘you come here to do tsechu, and you think I'm going to charge you money?’ 

We’re like [mouth open]. She’s a big Jewish lady. Tsechu is secret, nobody knows. She's like, ‘I'm not going to charge you guys, are you crazy?’ 

Then she went to the kitchen, and we're all like, ‘wow, wow, must be the angel, must be the angel’. We got excited. We’ve got to go touch her, we have to bow to her, you know. We ran to the kitchen, and there's this old guy cooking. And we're like, ‘where's the angel? Where's the angel?’ 

[The old guy said,] ‘Huh?’ 

[We said,] ‘I mean, where's the big Jewish lady?’

[The old guy said,] ‘We don't have anybody like that’. He's like, ‘I don't know what you're talking about’. 

So that's a magical dinner. 

There's a special teaching that you can learn how to have a magical life. And every day is like that, some magic happening in your life. I think the most important thing is it's really fun. It's very magical. And in the monastery, you have to finish Geshe before you can study magic. When I say magic, I don't mean you pull a rabbit out of a hat, you know. I mean your whole life is like magic. Cool things happen your whole life. In Tibet, if you finish Geshe, you're allowed to go to the magic college. And I went there, I finished this course. Then I want to teach it to my students. So I did the Geshe course in seven years, 1991 to 1998. Then I did a three-year silent retreat [where you] just meditate for three years. And then after that, I taught them magic and it took seven years. So the whole time investment is 17 years total. And then I taught about a hundred people. And I translated about 30,000 pages. And it's a beautiful course, but it takes 17 years. So my friends came to me and said, ‘look, could you do a little bit faster?’ And I said, yeah, I think it would be fun to do a nice modern magic course. Then if anybody wants to do the long one, I will send John Brady, Connie, I will send those guys. Then if someone wants to do the relaxed magic course, then come to my course and I'll do it like three times a year. And then you just relax and you have fun. So tonight's talk is part of that course. And you guys can do that course, you don't have to come to any other country or something; you can finish it online. I'd like to welcome the people online right now. If it sounds fun, you can try. And it's free. It should be free. My teacher never charged me for 25 years. I gave him my bank book and he said, ‘what's this?’ I said, ‘that's American bank book. I give to you’. Then he said, ‘I don't need it’ and he threw it at me. It hit me on the head. It's like, I never forgot. He said, ‘I don't need your money. I'm happy to teach you magic’. So just tonight relax, listen. If it's interesting, you can do more. If it's not interesting, you can have a nice nap. It's a late siesta. I don't mind, I'm fine. My advanced students, they know how to take siesta with their eyes open. I have one student, her name starts with Jig and ends with Me. Super advanced siesta in the class [eyes open and nodding]. Even if I don't say anything, she'll go [head nodding]. Don't tell her I said that. It's also magic. 

And by coincidence.. and in the magic system, there's no coincidences. Tonight's the most important night of the whole course. And it just came at this time, I don't know why. So this is the most important class of, you know, seven years or something. So enjoy, okay? Have fun. And whatever you do for the rest of your life, just remember this class. So, we’ve got our pictures?

Yeah, the textbook for this course was written 600 years ago and we translated it recently. And then it was translated into Spanish; they finished two weeks ago. So I'd like to thank Rosa Van Grieken, Oscar Leon, and Brian Mendoza. Can you stand up? They translated very well into Spanish and this is the first night it's available. Then I checked the price, I also ordered it. Use the QR code. Then I saw it's $10 and something like that. So I don't like to charge money because my teacher also threw the book at me. So we're going to... I'll pay for it, okay? For this group only, not for your family. Okay? So order it online, and I'll take care of it. Okay, Rosa? She's like, ‘Geshehla, you agreed that they could pay half’. I say, no, I changed my mind. So just take one. And I'm teaching from that tonight, and for about another year or something. Then we'll go to a deeper book. Okay, so anyway, next picture. 

We made a set of 12 posters about magic, how to do magic, and this is one of the first posters. And the advice of the poster is find your heart teacher and that's the most important magic instruction. First you have to find your heart teacher. And by the way, it could be anybody. It doesn't have to be the old man who comes to Mexico City. Abuelo. [laughter] But tonight we're going to talk about how to find your heart teacher and that's the most important subject. Okay, here we go. Not ‘important’, ‘most important’. Mucho más importante. All right, next picture. 

By the way, when you study magic, the [heat?] goes here. So this is John Brady's project. We started 37 years ago with Hewlett Packard Corporation. And we started to put data entry centers in all the monasteries and they input the books. There's 300,000 ancient books. Our goal is to input all of them and then translate maybe a few hundred. So this is the National Library of Mongolia. We've been working there for about 30 years. And I had to start the project; I went there for many years. And something happened to me there. So I was working late in the library every night. At that time Mongolia was very poor, still poor country. So the lights in the city, they stop at 6:00 or something, then you have to walk to the hotel in the dark. So we finished around 8:00 and I went with the librarian; we start to walk to the hotel and it's dark. And then I heard something and I saw something move. And the librarian's like, ‘get back, get back’. And I'm like, ‘what is it? What is it?’ And out of the street came like an animal like this [hunched over]. And I'm like, ‘what is that?’ He said, ‘don't get close, don't get close. They'll bite you’. And I'm like, ‘what is it?’ They ran, they ran by us, like this big [knee high], small animal. And he said, ‘don't touch it, don't touch it’. And I'm like, ‘what is it?’ He said, ‘it's a kid, human kid’. I said, ‘but it came out of the street’. ‘Yeah’, he said, ‘Mongolia is a cold place’. And I'm like, ‘what's under the street?’ [He said,] ‘That's the sewer. Poo-poo, all the poo-poo in the city is under the street. And those children live in that sewer. They are orphans. They don't have parents. Parents died or something. And they will freeze to death, Mongolia is very cold so they live in the sewer because the poo-poo is warm’. And they smell terrible and they are animals. They cannot speak a language. They can't speak and they are dangerous. And they will try to steal something from you. And if you push them, they will bite you like a dog and you can get a serious injury. Ian lost his computer this way. The kid knocked him over and stole the computer. I remember because I had to pay for it, as usual. 

Finding Your Heart Teacher(s)

It made me think a lot about parents. Until that day, I didn't really appreciate my mom and my dad. And I started to think, if I don't have my mom and my dad, I will also be like that animal. Why not? If I don't know how to talk, I don't know how to act with other people, I don't know how to... I remember my mom and dad teach me to tie my shoes. I remember. How to wear clothes. I remember they will teach me new words at the dinner table. Like, I don't know, ‘operation’. And I'm like, ‘operation’. They teach me words in the kitchen, I remember. One by one they teach me. First time I saw an automobile, mom's like, ‘car, car’. I'm like, ‘cow, cow’. She's very patient. She's like, ‘not cow, car. Car. Now cow, car.’ Still, when I say ‘car’, I think of that day. She made me not an animal. She's the first candidate for your heart teacher. She's your mom. So, I was at my brother's house. I go regularly, every 20 years. He lives in Seattle. I live in the desert, I don't like the rain. Then he said, ‘I’ve got all these pictures of mom, you want to take some?’ Here's the one I took.

That's her wedding day. So that's the first person you can check if you want to find your heart teacher. For many people, it's your mom. Then some American will always say, ‘I don't like my mom’. And I say, I don't care you don't like your mom. When she got pregnant, she made a decision. She can have an abortion. She decided she will risk her life to give you life. I don't care if your mother talks to you like, ‘I told you a thousand times’, she's the most unbelievable person in your life. Before anything, she is willing to give her life so you can have life. Then that's pretty heart teacher, I think so. 

By the way, tonight we're just discussing possible candidates for heart teacher. If you study magic, if you want to live a magical life, which is also called Diamond Way, Vajrayana, then you have to find your heart teacher. So tonight we will just discuss the possibilities. And then in the morning, I'll teach you a meditation. And it just takes about half an hour to learn the meditation and then you can do it. That meditation is like a magnet and it pulls your heart teacher. So we'll learn it tomorrow. 

After that, then Tim and I will work on a translation together. The mother book that he's translating, which is called The Perfection of Wisdom; in Sanskrit, Prajnaparamita. I always give $100 prize in the class. If the student can answer [they get] $100. Now I forgot the question. Okay, here we go. I know those DCI guys are like [eager]... Okay, in Sanskrit, Prajnaparamita. In English, Perfection of Wisdom. Now, if you are Chinese, you cannot answer. If anyone can tell me in Chinese, $100. Who's going to tell me in Chinese? Not you. You also Chinese, give me a break. Okay, Singapore, Singapore. Thank you for coming, by the way. Thank you for having grandpa next year.

[Jenny: Is it Xing Jing?]

No, Perfection of Wisdom. Prajnaparamita, I'm watching your mouth. There's Chinese in front of her. 

[Jenny: bōrě bōluómìduō]

Yay, $100. You guys split it. By the way, how I keep people awake in my class? $100. $100. They're like [eyes wide open]. Okay, so listen carefully. 

So anyway, that's the first possibility. Two and a half thousand years ago, they were saying, maybe it's your mom. In fact, those sutras are called the Mother Sutras. Tim is translating them. So we'll be working on that tomorrow after the meditation. 

By the way, Sunday night, we have free rock and roll concert. Domingo, Sunday night. And we can celebrate the weekend. We just got back from Vietnam two days ago. We brought the Vietnam band with us. 

So that's the first possibility for your heart teacher, is your mom. Listen, in the Diamond Way, in the world of magic, your heart teacher doesn't have to be some old, bald Tibetan monk. Can be your mom, can be your sister, can be your dog. Okay, we don't know. One person will change your life, that's your magic teacher. ‘Geshehla, do I have to be Buddhist?’ No. Who cares? I don't care. You want to go to a temple? Fly to Thailand. Who cares what you are? Magic is everybody. Do what your mom did, do what your dad did, but do it with magic. Then no problem. Very fun, very happy. You will be a better Christian. Next picture.

That's my dad, okay, and he was messed up, they got divorced. He was in World War II when he was 17 years old in a submarine in the Pacific. He has one job. If they shoot another ship with a torpedo, if they succeed, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that ship will sink. And two or three hundred guys will jump off the ship - they are swimming in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Sharks are already eating them because there's a lot of blood in the water. So the submarine has a machine gun on the deck, outside. They will come out of the water and one guy's responsibility is to shoot the people in the water because some will survive and they will fight again. So my father is that guy. He's like 17 years old. This is his job and he killed many people. And when he came home he was messed up and alcoholic, bad alcoholic. And then he has a gun in his hands [in the pic], he has a rifle. He used to take us to shoot the deer. I shot one deer with him. He gave me a knife, he said, ‘you clean it’. My arms were in the inside of the deer and it's still warm and it's looking at me. Then I told my father, ‘that's it, I can never do this again’ and he got very angry, but I never did it again. But he was a very good businessman and I found a newspaper article. He built a big part of Anaheim, California, and he built some big hotels in Japan. And he was very organized and he was a good businessman. My Tibetan teacher met him. I was afraid when they meet each other, I was afraid my Buddhist teacher won't like my father. Then my Buddhist teacher asked my father, ‘what's your job?’ [My father said,] ‘Right now I'm building houses’. [My teacher asked,’ ‘How many houses?’ [My dad replied,] ‘100. It's a neighborhood, 100 houses.’ Here's my teacher [bowing to my father,] ‘Oh my god, you're real bodhisattva. You're a real bodhisattva. You put 100 families into their home, you're a real bodhisattva. We talk about bodhisattva, you're doing bodhisattva’. Then after that, for the rest of my life, my dad's like [proud of himself for being a bodhisattva], ‘I like your teacher, he's a good guy’. But I learned business, I learned how to do business, and it's very useful in my life. My mom taught me to talk. My mom taught me to love people. My father taught me how to do things, how to live, how to make a living. I have many students who didn't have my father. Understand? So I know how to do business. It's because of my father. So I'm not sure, now we have two candidates for heart teacher. Maybe it's my mom. Maybe it's my father. 

Ah, but we have some more.

So my mom had four boys and.. I'm on the right by the way, and I had three brothers. Two of them are still alive. I learned how to fight from my brothers. A fight in our house is not like a fight in your house. We will pick up the chair and break it on the other person. All the doors have holes in them. Several windows are broken. So we lived together for, I don't know, 16 / 17 years with my four.. we are four brothers. We learned how to take care of other people and we learned how to deal with problems and we learned how to solve conflict. And I use it a lot in my organizations. I started a company in New York. We started with three people. Later we have 10,000 people. We sold the company to Warren Buffet, [it made] a quarter billion dollars every year. We started it by using these ideas, but also I have a lot of skills how to treat the employees by fighting with my brothers for many years. So I think it's lucky to grow up in a big family. Many problems. A lot of tension. Serious problems. My little brother tried.. the little one tried to commit suicide, the second one did commit suicide. By living with a family you learn about problems and deep love, we have deep, deep love for each other. So maybe those three small irritating hobbits are my heart teacher. Maybe they're my heart teacher. Maybe it's not my mom, maybe it's not my dad, maybe it's those super irritating.. especially the two little brothers are super irritating. Maybe they're my heart teacher. 

I'm trying to… we should all think about it. What is a heart teacher? In this tradition, they were sent to you by God. Nothing less than that. They were sent for that. There are some secret people in your life who were sent to you. They're not little stupid irritating brothers, one of them is an angel. Which one, I don't know. 

Okay, so there are some angels in your life. I mean real angels. They are fake, they are not what they look like. They were sent by the home office [pointing to heaven’s above], I call central casting. They are movie actors. They were sent into my mom to teach me for.. now it's 70 years. So in this tradition, you have to be suspicious. There's two or three angels in your life. They were assigned to you by the big office. Before you were born, they were prepared for you. Your job in this life is to find them, is to recognize them. ‘I lived with that irritating little guy for 30 years, he's not an angel, are you kidding me?’ The ones you think are not an angel are usually angel. The ones you think are angel are usually not an angel. Those nice polite children like Kyeri, they're not angels. It's the irritating ones, like Juan Jaso, those are the real angels. But your job in your life.. I swear there's two or three in your life. I'm giving you candidates. Think about it. That meditation is a very powerful, healthy, holy meditation. To be suspicious of other people, ‘maybe she's an angel’. That is religion. To think like that is religion. ‘Maybe there's one here, I don't know’. That kind of paranoia, holy paranoia, ‘maybe it's her, maybe I'm the only one in the whole room who's not an angel. Maybe they let me talk so I can become an angel’. Try to look innocent. Tim's like, ‘no [not me]’. Anyway, I appreciate that you let me talk and I'll try to do a good job. But you have to take me with you when you go home, okay? The big house, Casa Grande. 

Okay, next candidate. 

So when I was, I don't know, ten years old? This is not me by the way, but the uniform is what I used to wear. So I was an altar boy in the church for like ten years and I really enjoyed it. And in my church, the priests were unbelievably great. No misbehavior, no problems. They are extremely compassionate, extremely intelligent, extremely big faith. And it was so nice to be with them and they changed my mind. Ten years, I worked close with them. And they were so kind and so good. And they teach me Bible all the time and it's like eating churros. The Bible from them tastes like churro. The church is like churreria for me, wonderful place. So when I think about who's my heart teacher, myself I have to think maybe it's one of those.. I had four or five priests and they're all different and they're all amazing. I'll give you an example. On Sunday we have three services - 11:00 in the morning is for the lazy people, 9:15 is for the people who have children, 7:00 a.m. is for the hardcore Christians. If you really want to talk to God, you come at 7:00;  9:00, 11:00, everybody's like blah, blah, blah. The 7:00 people are like [listening carefully]. So we get an assignment and me and my older brother, we got 7:00. We don't like it because it's so early in the morning, it's a day off. But it's kind of cool, there's a secret room in the back. In my church there's a cross much higher than this, two times higher than this ceiling. And there's a secret room behind the cross and we meet there and we put on our robes and we get the wine ready, find all the bread, we get all the prayer books ready. My job is to light the candles. If I spill the wax, I get in trouble because it's very expensive cloth underneath. Then we come out and my brother has to carry the cross and then I have to carry the incense. And then the priest will come out behind us. So we came out. There's my brother; I’ve got the incense. And the priest come out. And we're on the stage like this [looking around] and there's not one person in the room. This church holds 2,000 people. I don't know, that day everybody wants to sleep. Then we come out and we're like [mouth open]. I'm like to my brother, ‘we get to go home’. They show cartoons on Sunday morning. ‘We get to watch TV’. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we look at the priest. And he's like... Then he said, I'll never forget, I'm crying. ‘When one or two are gathered together, God is also there’. He said, one [Geshehla], two [Geshehla’s brother]’. We're like, no, no. He said, ‘one, two, we're going to do the ceremony’. And we did the whole thing. And it was the most beautiful thing in my life. Because he said, ‘I don't care if the people didn't come, God came. Let's do it’. And it was so beautiful, I'll never forget it. So maybe they are my heart teachers. Especially that one priest. His name is Urbano, Paul Urbano. So, anyway, maybe he's my heart teacher. 

So when you do the meditation, you have to think about candidates. It's like a presidential election. Who's going to win the Rob Haggerty Heart Teacher Contest? Is it Rob Haggerty? Is it your brother? Is it your mother? Is it your priest? Who is it? 

Okay, next candidate.

Something happened to me when I was in fourth grade - I discovered science fiction and my mom did a very stupid thing. There's a science fiction book club and the parents pay.. don't tell Kyeri, okay? The parents like sign a contract - every time the kid finish one book, the company will send another one. Then I start to read one book every day, or every two days. Then it's expensive. We don't have money. My mom was a single mom, she's a school teacher. I remember one day the garbage truck came by and we were watching the garbage truck. And she said, ‘you kids want to know something interesting?’ And we're like, what? She said, ‘you see those guys that throw the garbage out?’ They smell really bad. The work is terrible work. She said, ‘they make more money than your mom’. That's school teachers pay. I think it's in every country, and it's always been like that. The most important occupation in the country, to teach the children, is usually the lowest pay. I was in Mexico City when the teachers came here on strike and I had a good time talking to them. All over the country, they came here and [unclear]. Anyway, my mom said, okay, you can join the book club. And I read hundreds of books. And in those days, science fiction is.. we call hard science fiction. It has a lot of astronomy and physics and real hard science fiction. And this author, Robert Heinlein, he was a military officer. He graduated from the National Naval Academy. And he's a great scientist - he designed first spaceships and things like that. But he's a moral genius and his characters are exploring morality. Is it okay to hurt someone if they're going to hurt many other people? He filled his books with these questions, especially this one; if you have a chance, read it. The title comes from the Bible - Stranger in a strange land. Jesus, stranger in a strange land. So when I think about who's my heart teacher, maybe it's the people who wrote the books that changed my life when I was a kid. Maybe they are the secret angels. Maybe the science fiction book club company bosses are not greedy, they are trying to help me. Because it changed my thinking forever. That's what allowed me to go to Tibetan monasteries. I had this big vision in my mind and it came from science fiction. So maybe those guys are my heart teachers. 

So this meditation which we are doing, and we'll do tomorrow, I'll teach you how to do it in meditation. And it's easy, and anybody can do it, and you don't need special training. But if you want your life to be magical for the rest of your life, then you have to explore: who is my heart teacher? Who was the one teacher of my heart? Who was it? If you think about it, your mind will expand. Your life will change. You'll be very happy. And also you'll be very successful. I don't care about business, I never liked business, but I made the largest jewelry company in the world by using these ideas. And we gave it to the libraries to save the ancient books today, many millions of dollars. The books are free online; Tim's books are free. But you can make more money, you can make that kind of money. You can give away a hundred dollars every day of the year. His job is to... He has a wonderful job. Everyone loves him. He just runs around and gives a hundred dollars. So finding your heart teacher also helps you be successful in your spiritual life, but in your business life. I'm not greedy, I have a small, small house. Of all of my friends, I have the oldest car, I don't care. But I like to have money to help people. If you meet your heart teacher, if you meditate about ‘who is my heart teacher’, it's very powerful for success in your life. I have no business experience - at university I majored in religion. I didn't know anything about business but I'm looking for my heart teacher. That state of mind makes you very successful in business. And it's like magic and it's super fun. 

So I went to the hospital [unclear] some surgeries. I’m like, okay, let's do it. And they're like.. the lady, the doctor said, You're a strange person, aren't you scare, are you scared? I said, no, I'm okay. She said, Can I ask you a private question? I'm like, what? [She asked,] Do you meditate, do you know how to meditate? I'm like, yeah, I do a little bit. 

So anyway, it makes your life happy but also more successful. All right, next picture.

Okay, this is my English teacher when I'm 16. She went to the University of Chicago, which is the best in the world for English. She was old and she was mean. She can't even smile in the class picture. And this is her system - you have to write an essay every night. Like six, seven pages, every night. And she reads all of them carefully. She has 180 students, she reads all of those 180 essays every night. And when she finished with your essay, it looks like World War II because everything's red ink. She's like, cut, cut, you talk too much. When I was younger, I found out how to play the game in the school. You just write as much as possible then the teacher's like, okay, you're good. She's like, no, cut, cut, this is unnecessary, this you could say more elegantly. Then she gives you a grade for the composition. So I'm used to A, A, A, A, 100, 100, 100. I'm used to that. Then she also made a new rule - if you misspell one word, the grade drops one point. Like A goes to B, B goes to C. You misspell four words, you're not going to college. We're all like this [scared]. We look at every word, we look in the dictionary. And she's crazy, but when I finish her class, I can write. And it helped me for the rest of my life. $100. How many books I wrote? Roughly, I don't care. Due to her, due to her, because of her. $100. Just guess. Oh no, Kyeri. 

[Kyeri: 137]

127. $100. She taught me how to write. And I went to see her when I grew up, I went to see her. She was retired and I went to see her. I begged her, can I come thank you, I want to thank you. And she said, you can come. So I went to her house with my friend and we said, we want to thank you. Because she didn't rest - she worked six, seven hours after school. And we said, we just want to thank you. Then her husband came in, he said, honey, we're ready to go to dinner. She's like, you boys go home now. We’re like, But we want to talk. She said, listen, I gave you everything I had, I don't have more; now I'm retired, I'm going to dinner; you boys go have a good life. So, maybe she's my heart teacher. Maybe it's the meanest teacher from your high school.

Okay, running out of time. I’ve got more candidates. Neil Young. So, when I was, I don't know, 16, 17, he was the most unbelievable guitar player. I want to play like him and I want to look like him. I still want to look like him [nice hair]. Next picture. 

Oh, I look like him, right? And that's my first girlfriend. And she's my wife. We met 60 years ago. Caliente, we're still caliente, we still have a very interesting life. She taught me a lot. She's the only person in the world saying, ‘that last talk you gave was so stupid. That last talk you gave, so stupid’. Everybody else is like, [excitedly] ‘Geshe Michael, Geshe Michael’. My wife's in the audience, she’s going [shaking her head like it’s not good]. She’s like [motioning to go to next topic] ‘change’. And I had many, many magical moments with her. Countless. Cannot count. If there's an angel in my life, she's the angel. Take care of me my whole life and keep me in the magical world. She refuses to talk about bills and bank accounts and what we're going to do next week. I'm like, we’ve got to decide this thing about the bank account. She's like, ‘it's the most beautiful evening in Arizona, the monsoon rain has begun. Come with me outside. Sit in the chair, have a drink, watch the rain’. I'm like, I'm busy. [She says,] ‘Shut up with the busy, come with me’. So she teaches me to appreciate life and she lives in the magic all the time. So maybe she's my heart teacher. Who knows? Except after that [photo], she made me wash the dishes all the time, for 60 years. It's okay. Okay, next. 

These are two crazy Israeli business people and they are hard as diamonds T.ough, tough, tough people. And the three of us start the company and they taught me real business. Global business. So our company has many branches in the world. We start with three people, we start with three diamonds. We rent half a table from another guy. I'm like, I have to pee-pee. He's like, you didn't pay for the bathroom key, there's a McDonald's across the street. I'm like, I just got to pee right now. And then the guy's like, no, you only rent half the table. Then later, together, we do 300,000 diamonds every day. The armored cars come under the building, we dump the bags of diamonds. And they taught me. And at that time I was studying with my Buddhist teacher. My Buddhist teacher is called Khen Rinpoche. Their name is Azrielant. Israeli [name] - Azrielant. So, I'm like, sometimes they're so tough, they say, do this, do this, do this, do this, get it done. I'm like, I can't, it's impossible. [They say,] ‘Let me see your business card. What's it say?’ Michael Roach. [They say,] ‘What's it say under that?’ Manager. He kick me out, ‘The card says Manager, you manage, I don't care. Make the money’. I'm like, okay. And they taught me business. So sometimes when I meet them, they yell at me just like my Lama yelled at me. During the daytime, they yell at me, during the nighttime, my Lama yells at me. Sometimes I get confused, I call them, hey Lama. Sometimes I call my Lama, Mr. Azrielant. I get confused, am I in the Buddhism during the day or am I..? It's very possible they are my heart teachers. We have 42 organizations now in this group, in 45 countries. We were in Vietnam two days ago. And then we were in China the week before that. Two-hundred thousand people. How can we do that? These crazy business people taught me. Maybe they're my heart teachers. You need that. If you're going to teach people Diamond Way, you need to organize things. Just to organize this talk, it's a huge amount of work for Tim and for all of his team. And I think we should give them a hand. Can you give them a hand? We want to thank you. But you need to know how to work to do charity. You need to know how to work. And they taught me how to work. I was in that jail..or company, for 19 years. We usually worked until 2:00 in the morning every night. I learned how to work. People don't talk about it much but I think if you have a heart teacher, they will also teach you how to work hard and that's very important. Same as teaching you how to write, same as teaching you to learn how to read - how to work. And I'm very grateful to them. We're still very close friends, we still send each other love emails. I didn't work there for 26 years; we're still sending these love letters to each other. So I think maybe they're my heart teachers. 

Okay, we got more candidates? I don't remember. Oh yeah.

I worked in the diamond business secretly as a Geshe. Nobody knows I'm a Geshe and they don't know why I'm working there. Then they say, where do you live? And I say, I live with my father, two hours away, it's two hours by bus. Four hours on the bus every day for 19 years. And they said, who's that person you go to stay with them every day? I say, it's my father. Then after many years, like after 10 years, they found out slowly, oh, I'm a Geshe. And then I have many Chinese employees, and Thailand, Vietnam. And they asked me, can we meet your “father”? So I said, okay, come on. They drove for two hours. My teacher said they can come up to my room and have tea with me and you [Geshehla] shouldn't come. Then I'm like, oh no, here goes my reputation, he's going to tell them all the bad stuff about me. So they had a long meeting, like one hour, and then they all came down. My job at that time, I was the cook so I have to cook dinner for them. They're all like, oh, your father is so gentle, he's so sweet, old man. This is the guy who hit me yesterday. You think those beads are for counting mantra? Red spot [on Geshehla’s forehead]. He'd give me red spot frequently. Then they're like, oh, he's such a sweet old man, he says you're a wonderful student, he says you're his best student. I said, he said that? Anyway, he taught me for 25 years. Got me through the Geshe course. Refused to take money. And I had the pleasure to be his slave for 25 years. All the dirty work and I enjoyed it. But I don't know, I dug out the treasure house, septic, many times. I'm like, Rinpoche, we have trucks that do that. He's like, yeah, but why waste $15? He'd give me a shovel, he'd say, You can do that. I'm in the poopoo up to here to clean up. He always saved money and give it to the monastery. So he taught me everything. In the debate, he beat 5,000 monks. Five thousand monks and many Geshes, he beat all of them. If he says the sky is not blue, don't argue, he will beat you. Later, you will say, okay, it's not blue. He was so strong. And he killed me, 25 years no rest. And with the books also killed me. 

SDUG BSNGAL NANGS RGA LA MA KHOR LO RDOG PA YOD YIN NA CHAGS KYI RGYUD LA MI YID DANG CHOS SU DANG NAS SU MYITS SUGRI GONG NAS ZHIG PA GYUR DANG DANG DROD LUNG DE LTA DANG MI YIN PAS THAG PA'I DUS DE NAS ZHIG NI GCIG GIS CHAGS KYI NYING PO LA GCIG GIS PAR DU BWAK 

[He said,] ‘Made a mistake’. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You have to memorize the book. If you make a mistake [get hit with the beads]. So anyway, maybe he's my heart teacher. Heart teacher's supposed to be Buddhist monk, shouldn't be a 16-year-old blonde girlfriend, right? Shouldn't be your irritating little brother? Shouldn't be your high school English teacher? Should be a monk, right? Should be a Geshe. By now you know the answer. Not true. When you came to this talk tonight, they said, oh, big Buddhist master is going to talk - ‘Who's your Heart Teacher?’ Very possible it's your wife or your husband. Very possible it's your high school teacher. Very possible her name is Nila, two-month-old baby, his [Aldo’s] baby. Oh, she's going to teach him a lot. Right now she's teaching him how not to sleep. It's very useful in life. Then he gets to sit and listen to his wife, Ria, talk to the other mothers about what's the best way to get milk out of your breast, for six hours. I know the conversations. But maybe.. who is your Heart Teacher? 

A few more. I still have a few minutes. Two minutes, right? Okay, next one.

This is the Geshe examination and 3,000 monks helped to examine. It takes about three weeks. Each one asks you questions. And so they are my classmates; we suffered together for 25 years. We start with 60 classmates, four graduated. The rest died or left the monastery. But you feel so close, this is your real family, it's the other Geshe candidates. You can't answer the question and they're like [whispering the answer to you]. And you debate together for three, four hours every day for 25 years. So you are tight, you are close. And they teach you.. maybe they're your Heart Teachers. 

Next one.

I think we're almost done. In our tradition, we also have historical teachers. This is the one who wrote the book that Grandpa gave to you today, 600 years ago. Maybe they're your Heart Teachers. The historical teachers like Jesus, like Mohammed. So maybe Buddha. Maybe they're your Heart Teachers. 

One more candidate. Last one.

‘No Geshehla, you showed this one already’. Yeah, but she taught me something else. She's the first close person in my life who died. And she died very young, she died 46 or something. So she taught me something else - she taught me how to die. Everybody needs to learn. All of us will die. Everybody in this room, we will die. I have some medical problem, I have to do a serious operation this year. I don't know what will happen. But I know how to die because I learned it from my mom. So that's a beautiful thing to teach somebody. We all have to die and they don't talk about it in the school. At Princeton University, there's no course called ‘How to Die’, but we all have to die. So if you can find someone who help you, who show you the way before you have to go. And man, she had an amazing death. It was a slow death. And she was so gracious and so kind and so brave. We were just kids but we have this example of how to die well. Even dying, she'd take care of other people. And what happens after that? 

That's the end of my talk. Those are the possible heart teachers in your life. Each one taught you something valuable. You are a collection of all the pieces which they gave you. If you are lucky, you had great teachers your whole life and that's not an accident. There's things you can do to attract great teachers and it's not too late. Each one of us has a lot of life to live and there are many teachers available. And we have to change how we think. We have to treat everybody as our potential teacher. And then your life is super happy and super magical. And that's the most important teaching I can give you about magical life. Meditate about your teachers all the way back to mom. Make it a daily practice. And you will find many teachers you didn't know, and to be grateful to them. You will be very happy person and super successful. 

Thank you, Aldo.

This meditation is called Finding Your Heart Teacher. It's based on the class we had last night. So we'll do the traditional meditation warm-up. There's a seven-step warm-up, which is, I don't know, maybe 500 years old, something like that. And then we'll start the meditation. And that warm-up is called, in the ancient language, it's called SAK JANG. SAK means during 15 minutes before your meditation, you do some instant coffee good karma. Like very fast good karma. JANG means you clean out some of your worst bad karma. And so it's a very quick shot of, it's like an espresso of good karma and clean out some bad karma. Then you meditate fast before you can make new bad karma. Most of our karma is mental, like 90% is mental. Nobody sees it except us. So it is possible to finish the preparation and you still have a few minutes to make bad karma, and then start your meditation. 

Okay, so we're going to go through the traditional warm-up. This will be about a 35 minutes, something like that, meditation. When you meditate in a group, you have to be more tough than by yourself because you might disturb the person next to you. So if you feel uncomfortable and you want to move, you have to sneeze, or you have to check your phone to see what's the news in the last three minutes, in public meditation, you have to control yourself. 

So get comfortable in your seat. I enjoy.. you know, I don't always sit with my legs crossed. Sometimes I meditate on my couch at home and it's comfortable and it's fun. I was in Japan recently and we walked by a statue shop, and they had a small statue of Maitreya. Wooden, the statue, and it's the next Buddha, coming soon. I always say sooner than you think, and because of that, he's always like this, he’s got his one leg crossed and the other one's out like that. And it means he's coming soon. So he's not in a lotus posture. And I kind of like that one. I bought the statue, I keep it in my desk. Okay, so get comfortable. You're going to try not to move for about half an hour or something. So get very comfortable. And every person's body is different, okay? So what's comfortable for you is not comfortable for the person next to you. Just be.. the main thing is be comfortable. Park the car and get out of the car and leave the car there. Okay, this is the car [your body]. Park it and your mind will take a trip. Then come back and get in the car and you can go. 

Okay, close your eyes softly, if that's good for you. If you didn't get a good sleep yesterday, you can open your eyes slightly, but don't look through them. And if you get sleepy during the meditation, you can open your eyes slightly. Your mouth should be a smile. If your meditation is good, you will smile most of your life, even in your sleep. So it's good habit to smile. That also takes pressure off of the chakra in your forehead. Then tighten your stomach a little bit. Don't too much, but just a little bit. Shoulders are open like wings. And head is, try not to let your head come down, but don't raise the chin up too high. And if you know about yoga, you can maintain Drishti, special way of holding your eyes. So even with your eyelids closed, you can look to the horizon and very slightly up. So if you open your eyes, you will be looking ahead and up a little bit. And that's a good habit for when you do your yoga asanas, your exercises. And then please start to watch your breath. Keep your small smile. Forehead is relaxed. 

And start to notice your breath. We're watching the out-breath first, and then the in-breath, and we're going to count those breaths. And it's traditional to start with the out-breath is the first half, and the in-breath is the second half. It’s the goal to be able to count 10 complete breaths without thinking about anything else. I've been trying to meditate for almost exactly 50 years and I personally enjoy doing 100 breaths. So I will try to sit without moving and I will count 100 breaths. Then maybe 10 of them are really focused. So we're going to count to 100 breaths. Exhale then inhale is one breath. If your mind wanders to something else, don't go crazy, just come back, estimate what number you're on and continue without making a big deal about it. Okay, here we go, 100 breaths. 

[10 minutes of watching the breath]

Now I'll do the first of the preliminaries. Try to think of someone that you really admire. It could be a living person, could be someone who is already in the past. And ask them to come sit with you, facing you. And we're going to meditate together. After many years of trying this meditation, I feel like it's more important to feel their presence, actual presence, and don't worry so much about the details of their face and things like that. So imagine that someone you really admire has agreed to come and sit in meditation with you. And I like to stay there about 10 breaths and then move on to the next step. Okay, here we go. 

Now think of offering this person a small gift to celebrate their good qualities. The person I'm thinking of is always very organized and gets things done on time. So I like to maybe offer just a single, very beautiful flower from my garden to thank them for their example. We'll stay here for 10 breaths. 

The next preliminary is to think of something negative we did in the last few days. Maybe we hurt someone or maybe we had some bad thoughts. And the important thing is to recognize them and to recognize that we have this capacity to do this bad thing. And then that thought, to admit that you have this capacity, is called cleaning the bad deed. So let's clean a recent bad deed. We do too many to count all of them, but just think of one and that will represent all the other ones. And clean it from your heart. Ten breaths here. 

And then think of something good you've done in the last few days. I find that most people have trouble doing this step. So take it very seriously and try to find some good thing that you are doing usually. And enjoy. This is a big, big part of each person here or you wouldn't be here. So you must be a special person to be here. So, enjoy. We'll spend 10 breaths here. 

The next preliminary is to request teachings. ‘I hope that in the next day, I will receive teachings. Maybe they will be formal teachings, but maybe they will be just things that my friends are saying. That shows they are really special people’. And it's kind of a prayer: ‘May I listen carefully today to what people say to me and may I say see the teaching inside of what people say to me’. Okay, here we go. Ten breaths. 

And then the last preparation here. We will request those good people in our life to stay with us. Okay, so think of the special people in your life and ask them to stay. Okay, 10 breaths here. 

That finishes the warm-up and now we’ll start the meditation. This meditation is called Searching for Your Heart Teacher. And we're going to go through a bunch of candidates and think about maybe they're my heart teacher. I asked my Lama what was the definition of a heart teacher and he said the person who helps you the most in your whole life. So I'll go through some choices. We'll spend just a few minutes thinking about each choice and then we'll bring up the next choice. Okay, we're looking for the person who helped us the most in our life. And all of the candidates helped us so, you know, you don't have to reject the ones who didn't help you the most. Okay, first and foremost is your mom who risked her life to give you your life. And gave you the heavy, heavy first years of education of how to live in this world. So think about your mom and some of the things she gave to you. Just appreciating your mom is a powerful, good karma. And the word meditation means mental habits. So we're trying to make a mental habit of thinking about our mom and thanking her for all the things she gave to us. That attitude of thanking is a very powerful meditation. So think of just a few things that your mom gave to you and then we'll go on. Personally, as you noticed, I like to spend about 10 breaths on each topic that way I don't lose my focus during that part of the meditation. Okay, here we go. 

Okay, now your father. Will be meditating for about 5 more minutes. 

Now your teachers in your school. Think of one of the teachers who helped you the most. 

And now today, finally, your friends. Classmates in school, people you work with who helped you in your life. And appreciate them, think about what they taught you. This search for your heart teacher, you can continue it for several weeks and we spoke about many of the options last night. But we're going to finish today with friends and schoolmates who are good examples for our life. Okay, 10 breaths here. 

Then lastly, it's a good way to end the meditation with the last preliminary which actually comes after the meditation. Just trying to train your mind in certain thoughts, one by one, one by one, it's a very powerful good karma at the source of all good karma, which is inside your mind. Then it's a nice ending to the meditation - offer that good karma to other people. It's a lot of fun to give away money, but if you get used to it, it's a lot of fun to give away your good karma. So 10 breaths about golden light coming from your heart and spreading throughout the world and sharing this good karma. Just trying to decide who is your heart teacher and doing that meditation day after day for several weeks, it's an extremely powerful good karma, maybe the best. So let's share the good karma. Ten breaths here. 

Then slowly open your eyes. I think we are all busy people and sometimes we feel a little bit stupid to sit for half an hour and do nothing, but actually meditation is the most powerful thing.. it's the most powerful way to spend your time. It's not a break and it's not being lazy, it's a powerful good action. Take a stretch. My Chinese friends do this [rub their hands together and then press them to their eyes]. 

And thank you for coming. Some people came from around the world, thank you. And we'll see you in 20 minutes for a translation class. I don't care if you like the translation class, it's a deep, deep drill into your heart and it will change you very deeply. So just come and have fun. Twenty minutes peepee break. Okay, bye. Thank you, Flavia, for the translation. Nice translation. 

The Story of the 1st Panchen Lama

Here we go. Today it's a short class, 

Okay, so about 35 years ago my teacher started to teach us a special book. It was written about 400 or 500 years ago and it's by the first Panchen Lama. He was a very great writer of poetry and he's a great philosopher. 

I like him because he did a lot of retreats, he had a place very similar to Diamond Mountain. And when he was... I told you this story, but he was in a retreat in a cave, and there was a disagreement between two mafia bosses and they both brought big armies. His food bringer guy, who brings the food to the cave, he said, there's a big problem - down in the valley these two mafia guys are going to have a fight. So a big fight in Tibet is like this:

Oh, Aldo, yesterday big, big, big war in Tibet. 

By the way, this is an old Tibetan joke, okay? 

What happened? 

Two people hurt their foot.

So anyway, these two guys are going to fight with their armies and the assistant told him this is going to happen down in the valley, you can probably see from here. So he's like, alright, give me my backpack. His backpack is heavier than my backpack. And he said let's go down. He went down there. He stood between the two armies, and he said, ‘everybody calm down. No one's going to fight. Let me see the two generals, come here’. And they came, and the two... it's like the Bhagavad Gita if you know. Everybody's ready to kill each other and he talked to the two generals. He said look, ‘why is my backpack so heavy? I’ve got two kilos of gold here. And if you guys go home, I will give each general one kilo of gold’.

The two generals are like, yeah! Okay. They took the gold, they went home. So I like him, he's probably funny, he's very funny.

And he's a great poetry master. I was reading his poetry many years ago, about 25 years ago, his secret poetry. You want to hear this story? Okay. Abuelo likes to tell stories. Anyway, I heard there's 12 secret books in my teacher's Diamond Way monastery. Then I want to read them. Then I couldn't get permission. Then my main debate teacher, he became the abbot of that monastery. So I went there and I schmoozed him. I said, can I see those 12 books? And I made him a big dinner and everything. I said, can I see those 12 books? By the way, it also includes how the Buddha became enlightened with his partner, with his spiritual partner. You know, like Ria and this guy [Aldo]. Then I said, can I see the books? And he said, no. Then I'm like, argh.

Then in those days, there's no internet, and I will get new books on CD-ROM by the mail, from the airmail.

So came some new CD-ROMs from... we have about 20 women are working to save the ancient books. They are typing next to the Diamond Way college, it's a same refugee camp. They sent me the CD-ROMs for one month and I'm looking at them and I'm like [mouth open]. The 12 books are there. All of it, all the 12 books are there. Also, all typed, all finished.

Then I contacted this director. You know her, Sunam Hlamo. And I said, ‘you got those 12 books? Nobody can get them’. She said, ladies have special ways. [laughing]

So I read them. There's a beautiful story of how Lord Buddha and his partner practiced to reach enlightenment. I think it would make a good movie. Because when the sun comes up, the first light of the sun breaks the earth, touches them together. They both become enlightened at this moment. It's very beautiful.

So anyway, also this teacher has secret poetry. So of course if it's secret I want to read it, and it's unbelievable. I translated about, I don't know, 50 poems. Then I did three-year retreat. During three-year retreat, the most naughty boy in New York, John Stilwell, he published that poetry in a book without my permission. So if you could find a copy, you could read some great Diamond Way poetry. And that Panchen Lama also wrote this book.

This book is an argument in poetry, and the devil and the angel are arguing in the poetry. You know those pictures of the devil and the angel in one person's mind. So it's a very, very beautiful poem, and it's very long. There are 600 verses, and my teacher started to teach it, but he never finished it. He passed away before he finished it. So I always wanted to finish the book, translate it. And I've been working on it for 14 years and I finished it last week. Okay? [lots of applause] Then to teach it is going to take another 14 years I think. Then Rosa and me will publish it. 

So we are ... I don't know what verse we're on... we're on verse number 338. After 14 years, we're halfway through. Okay, I will try to speed up. So, let's go see.

Now the Dharma... we're going to talk about it tomorrow. In the ancient books they call the Dharma one big ball of brown sugar. Raw sugar, brown sugar. And in India is a big sugar-producing country and the kids run around with balls of sugar. Then they say, wherever you bite it, it will taste delicious. So, it means... and we're going to talk about it tomorrow night... if your mind is in the right place, every Dharma you hear will connect with other Dharma that you heard.

Anywhere you bite the sugar ball called the Dharma, it's the same.

So we are studying also The Song of My Spiritual Life. 

We are studying The Devil Debates an Angel.

We are studying The Perfection of Wisdom from Tim this morning. 

Monday we study Mind-Only School with Word Smith, and then with Gibson we're going to continue with his book about dependent origination, I guess.

All of them tie together and if you want to have some fun, you can try to see how do they connect. I'm teaching you from five different books in three days, but in the Diamond Way especially, there will be a secret connection between the five. So if you want to have fun, try to see the connection.

Okay, here we go. I'm going to read the English to you first, the poetry, and then we'll talk about the poetry. And the last 15 minutes, we'll do Q&A. 

So I did the Geshe program for 25 years. We debate for three or four hours every day. Sometimes 12 hours. So Geshes enjoy Q&A and you're free to ask any strange question. Not only I don't mind, it's more fun for me. By the way, I think I heard every question possible about 20 times, but maybe you can find a new one. What I mean is no pressure, okay? You can ask philosophy question, you can ask job question, you can ask how to fix your husband question. I'm open to them. So that's in about 15 minutes before we stop. 

The Angel Talking…

Okay, now, first picture you guys.

Okay, this is the... I think it's called the Angel of Freedom. Yeah, Libertad. I love this angel. I love that street in Mexico City where you go down the street and it's just one angel after the next. Paris has like three of them on the bridge or something. Mexico City has like 20 and this is the nicest one I think.

So in the poetry first the devil will talk for maybe, I don't know, like 10 pages, and he will say crazy, mean things and then the angel will answer him. So, lucky, today the angel came back.

We had the devil for, I don't know, maybe six months we had the devil. And it's kind of irritating, he's kind of irritating. The devil in your own mind is kind of irritating. [Devil talks] ‘Shut up’, [devil talks] shut up, [devil talks] shut up. Finally he shut up, and the angel got to come back.

So I'm going to read the poetry and then we'll talk about what it means.

Because the first Panchen Lama, in this funny story, he is hiding great great philosophy, very deep, very deep. I finished the book last week, but I'm going to write an explanation, because you can't understand what... it's very deep. You can't understand the poetry without an explanation, I think so. So that would take, Rosa, that would take a few days, huh? 

Okay, the beautiful lady came back, and just relax, I'll read the poetry slowly. 

Here she starts talking. 

Verse 338

People eat, people sleep, 

They go, they stay, 

All the rest.

They move their body

An inch;

They reach out, 

They pull back– 

They say a single word, 

They sing a single song;

They look with their eyes, 

And they live in distraction,

And all the rest of it. 

Two hundred dollars. You ready Rob? Did we run out of money yet? I put some extra in there. Two hundred dollars, okay you ready? And it's a difficult question, that's why it's not one hundred dollars.

Why you guys so serious? You're supposed to be ah, ah, ah. [all excited] 

Okay, listen, inside of this verse today, there's a heavy Vajrayogini statement. Two hundred dollars, tell me what it was.

[Student: The Tibetan?]

I don't care, any language.

[Student: How about BRKYANGS]

Yeah, good. Okay, two hundred. There's a famous resort, Cancun right? It's almost the same, BRKYANGS BSKUMS.

It means one leg is stretched out, and one leg is bent. Okay, got it? Very famous. 

It means if you really understand Diamond Way. Diamond Way means hidden, okay?

Hundred dollars. What is usually hiding in the Diamond Way? Ay-yah. Those Guadalajara teachers are probably sleeping. Okay, so something is hiding. What's hiding in the Diamond Way?

[Student: The open way.]

That's a pretty cool answer, but nah... it's a cool answer, but not yet. 

[Aldo translator: What did he say?]

The open way, the non-Diamond Way.

[Student: The divine?]

You're getting closer, but no cigar. We say, no cigar, it means you didn't guess exactly. One more try, three times then I stop. 

[Student: Emptiness? The hidden potential?]

No. Okay, what was your class about just before Grandpa started today? I heard a rumor. I heard a rumor that a very good question came up in the class. ‘Geshehla, last night you talked about many heart teachers. Then you forgot to say which one's the real one’. I didn't forget, I was tricking you. Okay? Which one's the rea ... I gave you like, 12 choices.  Who's the real one?

Anyway, I think in your life, you will find that your heart teacher is maybe not the one you expected. Sometimes it is the one you expected, in my case, but anyway. So anyway, he's hiding Vajrayogini in this verse as if it was your heart teacher who looks like a normal person.

He says, I'm talking about normal people. They walk, they sit, they talk, they reach for things, they reach, they [unclear]. Then in Diamond Way secret language, we call twilight language, reach and take, this is Vajrayogini. Okay, understand?

If I go this slow we never finish. 

So, he's describing, she's describing, ‘oh, there's just normal people’. When the teacher says ‘just normal people’, you have to say, haha, I know what you're talking about. Like a waitress in a New York restaurant, just normal people.

So, he's, she's talking about, let's just talk about normal people.

Verse 339

Okay, I'll continue okay?

They have their desire, 

They have their hatred, 

They have their dark ignorance. 

They have all of the 84,000 different types

Of negative emotions,

And everything else

With jealousy,

They refuse to share (the things they have),

Deceiving people,

Cheating others– (they lie to other people.)

All of that comes 

From causes & conditions

Close at hand. (Which are very close by)

All normal people have many negative thoughts, all normal people do bad things to other people, and the causes for that are always close by.

Like me and Aldo. Angel and the devil. They live together in your mind. She says the devil's always close by. Every nice person can get angry in two minutes, right? So they're talking about that. 

Alright, one more. 

Verse 340

[In front of us we see

Starting, and stopping;

Things that exist

From one moment

To the next.

And each and every

One of them

Exists through its

Separate labels.]

In front of us we see things start, we see things stop.

We see things that exist from one moment to the next moment. Each one of them exists through labels, its own labels.

How much money we got left? $100. I don't know, it's the afternoon, they're so sleepy. $100! Ready? I mean I could change it to $3 if you want.

It says here, all of these people, all of their problems, everything caused by labels. If you can give me a pretty good example of existing through labels, I'll give you $100. How come Word’s not having a heart attack? He already took my money for many dollars. 

Wait, never pick a translator! We say it's like stealing candy from a baby. No, it's okay, it's okay, Rob, it's bad luck to stop. It's bad luck to stop. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. It's okay. But if it's not exact ... 

[Gibson: The classical example is the pot on the stove, that you project your seed on the pot.]

Yeah, that's a good one. Can you give us a little more detail? 

[Gibson: And when we say name and term, it's actually just picture in your mind.]

Or you can say label, yeah. Then how does that work? What's there, what's really there? What was there in the first place? 

[Gibson: Oh, we can only see the shape and color?]

Yeah, good. Okay. 

[Gibson: And we couldn't decide that is a stove, and that is decided by our label and picture.]

Yeah, good. Okay. Rob, don't give the money yet. Where did the label come from? 

[Gibson: It's by your thoughts, and by your language, and by your action in the past.]

Okay, Gibson, one more detail okay? That picture of pot on the stove, on the stove there's only silver color, round shape. You cannot see a pot with your eyes, it's not possible. Your eye is very stupid, your eye can only see colors and shape. The eye has to call the brain, Hello brain! ‘Oh, what do you want now?’ We got something out here, you have to decide what it is. ‘Okay, what's it look like?’ We got a circle. ‘Okay, what else is there?’ Silver color. ‘Okay, what else you got?’ Black straight stick, something. ‘Okay, hang on, let me let me call the fingers’. Call the fingers. ‘Hey fingers, you got any heat out there?’ Yeah. ‘Oh okay’. They [brain and fingers] hang up. Then talk to the eyes. ‘Okay, I figured it out, Geshe Michael is making tea for his teacher. It's a pot on the stove’. 

Where does the picture come from? Why does it see a pot? Because karma in the mind, and that picture comes out of the seed in the mind. You're doing that your whole life, you're doing that right now with Geshe Michael. Geshe Michael's not giving a talk, you are creating Geshe Michael. Nice job, thank you. Then those seeds are opening in your mind. Pictures are coming out, but it's too fast so you feel it's out there. Okay Gibson, take the money anyway, okay? And thank you for your hard work to be a translator and to translate The Song of My Spiritual Life because we really enjoy the book, thank you. 

Okay, so things are coming from mental seeds, and you plant those seeds, and they are creating everything. In the ancient book it's called ‘label’.

Then if you ask an American or a Mexican, what's an example of a label? You know, you go to the grocery store, they put a price on a label and they put the label on the package of bread or something. That's a label. Your mind is putting labels on things.

Hey, Venerable Kading, what's the most irritating label in the grocery store? This is just a normal question. Why put a label on an apple? How many million people today are like, god damn it, label [trying to peel the label off the apple]! Then you have to eat the glue after you take the label. But anyway, you understand ‘label’. I want to hang those guys. All right.

Okay, one more verse. 

Verse 341

They all depend 

Upon something else;

All of them are born

From causes & conditions–

They all come about

Through a process

Of mutual reliance (dependence);

And every single

One of them

Is a companion to me. 

So, she's talking about how you put labels on things, and she says everything you see around you, you are putting labels on them. If you understand that things are coming from your labels, if you really understand, you would never be upset again in your whole life. Because it's your label. Every person around you... irritating person, you created them.

You want to hear a Diamond Mountain story? So I just finished teaching this idea. You can't be angry at people who irritate you because it's coming from you. You cannot blame the other person, ‘you're a stupid person, you really irritate me.’ You can't blame it on the other person. Number one, you created them. They are also a pot on the stove. Their mother thinks they're genius, okay? Always, right? They always think that.

So I gave this teaching then some new students came in, and there's a one very irritating lady from, I don't know, East Coast somewhere, and she's complaining about Diamond Mountain. And all the Diamond Mountain veterans, like Earl Bernie, they are standing around her and I said, how do you like Diamond Mountain?

She said.. there's an English expression, ‘I'm surrounded by idiots’. Everyone around me is an idiot, and there's all these Diamond Mountain veterans standing around her, and they just go like this [nodding and smiling, knowing]. Because when you say you are surrounded by idiots, really what you're saying is, ‘I'm a total idiot’. The world is a mirror, okay?

So the angel, she starts talking about how labels are her friends, and if you understand labels you're not lonely anymore. There's always you and the thing that you created.

If you're alive, if you're still breathing, you have many friends, which is all the things which are being created by your labels.

So she's going to start a very interesting conversation. She's going to say, ‘I always have friends, I'm never alone’.

Why? 

‘I have all the people I made. I have everything I created with my labels. I live in a world, and I live among other people, and I created all of them’.

And she says, ‘this is dependent origination. The world depends on my seeds. Therefore, I am never alone’. And devil is always alone. 

And that's the name of this teaching this time, okay? I think it's called... what do I call this thing? The devil's loneliness.

The devil's nature is to be lonely. 

When you don't understand seeds and you don't understand where things come from, you are truly alone. But every person who understands dependence, the world they create, and the people they create, they cannot be lonely. Every good person is making friends.

In English we say, did you make any friends when you went to school? 

But in Buddhism, you really made the friends! You created them! 

The person who understands Dharma is never alone because they have all the friends they created.

Then I'll tell you one more story, then we'll do Q&A.

So I have an amazing friend in China, and he's a wonderful guy, he helped to build the cafeteria at Diamond Mountain. And this teaching, this poem really disturbed his mind.

Then he said, ‘Geshehla, so, I'm not lonely. If I plant good seeds, I'm not lonely’.

That's correct.

He said, yeah, but all those people my seed created them, they are me. They're just part of my mind. So you said if I understand seeds, I will never feel lonely. But when I understand you talk about seeds, I feel more lonely, because I'm the only person in the world, you know? All those other people, just my seeds made them. Geshehla's sitting in a room with, you know, 200 Geshehlas. Then that feels really lonely. If I listen to you, if I believe your label idea, your seed idea, I feel more lonely. I feel like everyone is just made by me. Then he said, those people are not real, they are just part of me.

Then I said, you should study a special book by Dharmakirti. You should study a special book by Dharmakirti.

What's the name? It's [gyushen dupa?], means The Proof of Other People. So, Dharmakirti lived about... I don't know, over a thousand years ago. And he wrote a book about this question. If I make other people, are they Michael or are they other people?

And Dharmakirti said, they are other people. They are other people created by you who are not you. Your seeds are so good, they can create a person who is not you. And that person is real and they are separate person.

Then he said, teach me this book, teach me this book.

Then I'm like, you know, my schedule is full for the next 20 years, okay? I'm like, I'm sorry I don't have time. And when I say I don't have time, I say I don't have five minutes, okay? To the end of my life I don't have five minutes. I know, I know, okay? So don't ask me to teach you this book.

He's like, how long will it take to teach me the book? It's pretty short. 

I said maybe eight hours, but I don't have five minutes.

Then he said, I have a proposal.

What?

You teach me tonight. Teach me this book tonight. Then we'll start around 7:00, and we finish, I don't know, in the morning at 5:00, something like that.

Then I'm like, you know, I also have to sleep.

Then he said, but I have a real good proposal for you. I will make you pizza. Fresh pizza. I will get a cook from the Hilton Hotel, he will come here. This guy's very wealthy. With the white hat, he will make fresh pizza. We will eat pizza all night.

Then I'm like, I don't know.

Then he said, you see that picture on the wall?

I'm like, yeah, it's kind of ugly. It looks like a starfish or something. I said, what is it?

He said, that's a piece of ginseng, ginseng root. It's a very rare bush, plant, and very expensive. And the rich people in China, they collect them, and they have, this one's 200 years old, this one's 300 years old, you know? He said, this one's $5,000, this one's $10,000, that one's $50,000. Geshe Michael, I’ll make you a pizza with $50,000 ginseng on top.

Then I'm like, okay, let's try.

Then the cook took down the picture, cut the ginseng, and he made a pizza, and we started the book in the evening. You were there, what time did we finish? I don't know, we quit at 3 a.m., we couldn't finish. The pizza is finished, the ginseng is finished. But someday we should do it, okay? We can use Mexican chili, it's okay. Okay? It tastes better to me. If you’re serious to go to nirvana, then have my wife's enchilada chilis.

So you created all the people around you, but your seeds are so good that they are separate people, and to live with those people is to be in Vajrayogini's heaven. Okay? That's how we go there. You don't go in a Tesla, you go in your mind. Okay? No BYD, sorry. 

Okay, all right, questions? And Rob, you want to choose? Don't confuse, this is not where we give them money. 

Q&A

[Student: Thank you Geshehla for teaching us. I have two questions. First, I want to know how many heart teachers we can have?] 

Yeah, it's a good question. If you think about labels, and if you understand that you created your heart teacher, then you can have eight billion heart teachers. If you include the animals, it's a hundred and eight billion. Did you know one hundred and eight? Okay, so yeah, you can have many. It's not that you have to say, ‘I'm loyal to Geshe Michael, I only have one’. I think if you live a long life like I have lived a long life, you will develop a relationship with one heart teacher but you will see them in many places, inside of many people. That's my personal experience. 

[Student: Thank you. And my second question. I'm confused about motivation. In Lojong, you teach us that we have to take care of us and others. And sometimes I heard that the higher motivation is to take care of others, and you don't think how you will get for you. So I'm a little confused about this.]

I have a beautiful answer, okay? The good thing to have an abuelo teach you is abuelos have many stories because they live a long time. So at Princeton University, to get your undergraduate degree, first four-year degree, you have to write a thesis. Even as an undergraduate, a young student. And at Princeton you have to write one after three years, and you have to write one after four years. It's a lot of pressure. My classmate committed suicide because he couldn't finish his thesis. It's a lot of pressure.

So I went to India, I finished my thesis about Dana paramita, Perfection of Giving. Then on top of the thesis, you have to do, we call it defense, you have to answer questions. So I went into the room and two tough, tough professors there. If you don't give a good answer, you don't graduate. Then they asked me many questions about Dana paramita, Giving, Perfection of Giving.

Then finally, we come to this point. And they said, you did a pretty good job, but we have one final question for you. When you do giving, when you try to help all living beings, are you one of those beings? 

And I didn't have an answer clear in my mind and then a lawnmower came outside. I heard the answer in the lawnmower, it's a strange thing. And I said yes, you are one of ... you are saving all living beings, and you are one of them. So, when you save all living beings, you must save yourself also, otherwise you didn't save all living beings.

Then they look at each other, and they say, pass, with honors! Like high, high degree. Oh my gosh! 

All right, don't forget. 

Okay, another question? This is the last question.

[Student: Hello. Thank you, Geshehla, for teaching us.]

You're welcome. My pleasure to be here. 

[Student: My question would be, when we are talking that out there, there are just like colors and shapes, and from that point, we are like interpreting reality based on dependent origination, and from there you label, etc. Then that would imply that colors and shapes are not empty, and they are existing in their own. Where would be colors and shapes coming from? So if we just see colors and shapes, where would be colors and shapes coming from?] 

It's nice to have you here, by the wa from Peru. Yeah, nice to see you. This morning we talked about the difference between the higher middle way school and the lower middle way school. So we can use this green bottle. The color is green and the shape is a bottle shape. 

My mind labels ‘bottle’, and I enjoy this bottle. It's good for me to drink water. So my label came from a good karma. If you hate sparkling water, the same green color and bottle shape came from your bad karma. Then my seed opens, green color comes out, bottle shape comes out, water comes out, I feel happy. I made the bottle.

Then new question comes up. The bottle is one thing, but the green color and the bottle shape, that was here before I came on the stage. So who made that? I wasn't even here.

The Lower Middle Way says, oh, that green color and that bottle shape was made by somebody else. That was here when you got here. The raw data doesn't come from you. The color and shape is really out there.

Then the Higher Middle Way says, no, everything comes from Geshe Michael. The raw data, the green color and the bottle shape, came from you. 

‘But I was in the back’.

Come on! You created the whole universe. You're also not sitting on Mars right now, but you created Mars, okay? You can create many things that you can't see, then you can see them.

So, that's the answer to that question.

Okay, cool?

Alright, we'll continue tomorrow. We'll continue with the angel and the devil, and then in the evening I'll teach The Song of My Spiritual Life. We'll go back to Diamond Way. 

We did Diamond Way last night, we leave Diamond Way for two classes, then we go back to Diamond Way, right?

Then you have to say, ‘no Geshehla! It's all Diamond Way’. Okay?

All right, see you tomorrow. Thank you.

Hi, you guys. We’re going to continue with Devil Debates With An Angel. If you have the translation, it’s at verse 342 and don’t forget the Angel is talking; she’s talking now.  

I too am a friend

To each and every one;

If they could never be,

Neither then could I.

Neither could they be

If I myself never were.

We are mutual friends,

Each who defines the other.

[Verse 343]

If one of us is there,

Then both of us can be;

If one of us goes missing,

Then both of us go missing.

You cannot fly

With a single wing;

You cannot walk

On a single leg.

At this point she keeps telling him ‘if I think like you, then I will have a lonely life’ because the person who doesn’t understand emptiness, they have a lonely mind and they will be more lonely in their life also. So she keeps saying if you understand emptiness then you have friends, and you can live together, you can be partners with other people. And by the way, this class is 75 minutes so we’ll have Q&A at the end of the class. Any question you have, doesn’t matter. You guys look sleepy; you had hard yoga, I heard. Maybe it’s siesta time in Mexico City.

Then this whole verse now is about what we call NANG TONG. This is a famous couple, like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The famous emptiness couple is called NANG TONG. That’s what this whole class is about - NANG TONG. I like to teach you how to teach emptiness to people. So this class you’re going to learn how to explain emptiness even to your boyfriend. Right, if people have new boyfriend or anything like that. So when we talk about a pen.. it’s a very easy way to talk about emptiness. Everybody in the world, if I ask you ‘where does this pen come from’, then I think most of us will say it’s from some factory someplace. ‘It’s made of plastic, and it comes from some factory maybe in China or something.’ And we believe that about everything. ‘This came from this place’, ‘this came from this place’, like that. And that misperception is stronger when you have a strong emotion. Your mind is unclear when you have a strong negative emotion. Like if someone comes up to you and say, ‘Man, I didn't know you're so stupid’ and then you start to get upset at them because you believe the pen was made in the factory. You don't believe this person was made by you. So until you do believe that you made this person, you will always get upset at other people. Then of course you will say something back, ‘I'm not stupid, you're stupid’. When you hear yourself talk, that's karma, okay, that's karma. We had it yesterday in Tim's book. Do we have a lot of money, Rob, or do we have a little money? Oh, not as much, okay, I'll slow down. LE-LE JIKTEN NA-TSOK KYE DE-NI SEM-PA DANG DE-JE. Okay, very famous. Very famous verse from the Abhidharmakosha. Okay, $100, tell me roughly what it's about. First verse, Fourth chapter. 

[Student: The multitude of worlds comes from karma, and karma is the movement of mind and what follows.]

Now, there's a problem. Sometimes the person gives a $200 answer to a $100 question. Yeah, that's excellent, thank you. 

Okay, so SEM-PA means your mind moves, right? SEM means mind, chitta. SEM means chitta, and then SEM-PA means chittaka. And it means the movement of the mind, anytime the mind moves a little bit. So when someone says, ‘you're stupid’, and then you feel like, ‘I'm not stupid, you're stupid’, even before you say it, the mind moves a little bit. That's pure karma. If you want to know what is karma, it's not to say, it's not the words, ‘I'm not stupid, you're stupid’. That's not the real karma. The real karma is the very lightning fast thought, ‘ah, I'm going to call them stupid’. DE-NI SEMP-PA means, that's karma, is anytime the mind goes like this [moves very slightly], just this much. And that created this world and all the stars you see at the night. And it's hard to believe. Then he says, DE-JE, the last two syllables are DE-JE. That means secondary karma, what you say and what you do. It's not pure karma. 

Okay, when you say, ‘you stupid guy also’, that's not pure karma. The pure karma came one moment before. That movement of the mind, when the mind moves.. the mind is very soft, especially some people's mind is very soft, just kidding, haha. And when you think something, it presses into your mind, it creates an imprint in your mind. And then that becomes a karmic seed underneath the mind. So in this case, where did the pen really come from? I don't know, you had only one pen in your purse and somebody needed a pen very badly, and you're like, ‘it's my only one, but okay, you can have it’. Just before you said, ‘you can have it’, the mind moved a tiny, tiny bit. Like, they need a pen, and your mind goes, ‘oh, maybe I can give them my pen’. Then that thought, tiny thought, one second thought, makes an impression on the mind. And in a few minutes, that has become what we call karmic seed. Then later, when you hold up the pen, and if you came to this class, and I say to you, where did the pen come from? Then you look like this, you say, Geshehla, you mean, where did it come from, or where did it really come from? Yeah, I'm talking realmente. Okay, where did it really come from? Then you have to say, ‘oh, a few weeks ago, I gave a pen to my friend’. In the moment, tiny moment, that you decided to share your pen, that created a karmic seed in your mind. Then this thing is just to your eyes, to your eyeballs.. eyeballs cannot think. They have a mirror in the back, they have special cells in the back of the eyeball and when you hold up a white stick, the mirror reflects it. The back of the eye has visual cells, and they just copy the same shape and color but your eyes cannot decide this is a pen. The sense organs, they don't think, they just record. Then the mind has to decide, what is this white stick? If you shared your pens in the past, then you have seeds in your mind to see the white stick as a pen. And when somebody holds this up in front of you, in a millisecond.. if you split a second into 65 or something, in that much time, the karma seed opens and it makes a picture in the back of your mind. It opens like an egg. Then the picture of the pen is like a baby chicken. It comes out, and it comes out usually through here [third eye], through this area. And then a picture of a pen, it lands on top of the pen, I like to say like chocolate sauce on the ice cream. All my examples are food, I don't know why. Churros, ice cream. So anyway, this [white “pen”] is like a vanilla ice cream ball. It's just a white stick, by itself it's not a white pen. Then your karma seed opens and a picture comes out. Yesterday we called it a label. And it covers the stick and you see a pen. 

$100. Señor Rob. Now I forgot the question. People in the audience, they hate that, you know, Geshehla forgot the question. When the picture comes out.. I told you, this pen is just a white stick. And I told you the pen is coming from seed in your mind. There's a very simple proof of that. And in Buddhism, when you say proof, it means proof. And you cannot study the Geshe course unless you do about 12 years of logic because we study logic every year for about four or five months. So here's a logic. If logic is correct, it's always right. If the logical method is correct, then that thing has to be true. Buddha cannot change it, God cannot change it. If something is logical, it's true. And you can say, I don't believe it. And you can say, I don't like logic. And I'll say, why? And you'll say, because when I was in the school, I hated logic. Then I will answer, you just used logic yourself. You said, because blah blah blah. Okay, we live on logic, we all use logic. Okay, a hundred dollars. There's a logic which proves that this pen is coming from my karma seed. And that logic, we call in English ‘airtight’, nobody can fight with it. If you accept that logic, you understand emptiness. Now must be pretty sexy logic. Who can give me for a hundred dollars? Except Word. 

[Student: If we can say that it comes from our mind, because if it was definitive, then we could show it to a little dog and the dog would see a pen.]

Now, sometimes the question is a hundred dollar question, but somebody gives a three hundred dollar answer. Okay? Yeah. So, you know, I'm teaching for many years. Some people love it, some people say, ‘ah, it's stupid’, but I never met anybody who said that a dog can see it the same way as human, I never met one person. Now, listen. If the dog sees it as a chew toy and the human sees it as a pen, it must be coming from you. It must be. That means it's not coming this way [from the pen]. It's coming from you. If you say a dog wants to chew on this, then you accept emptiness. Then if you want to teach emptiness, like to Conalep people, which is unbelievably great project, and I'm very proud of all the, especially Guadalajara, Mexico Summit. When we go to China, Vietnam, Japan, we show them the picture of many Guadalajara guys speaking to Conalap students. And it's free. It's free for the students and they do a good job. I don't know what's Conalep, of course, I have to look it up on Wikipedia - 310 vocational colleges in Mexico. And to teach those guys for free, it's beautiful, unbelievable. And you really made Abuelo very happy, okay? Now, if the Conalep team says, ‘come teach with us’, and when you get there they say, ‘you're going to teach the emptiness’, grandpa is going to give you a suggestion. This is the easy way to teach emptiness to Conalep, and super correct. After you teach the pen, after you talk about seed, after you talk about the dog, then half the people will be asleep, okay? I'll be honest. They're like [falling asleep]. [Students cheer as Conalep pictures are shown] Yeah. I was so happy when I see this picture. And also I believe the Conalep team raised the money to buy the chairs for the audience. That's awesome, that's super cool. Super cool. That's one of the four ways of collecting students, by the way. Give them things, okay? Yeah, so here we go. When it comes time to teach emptiness and half the people are confused and the other half are sleepy, say, ‘everybody raise your left hand’. We are planting a seed for what, by the way? Diamond Way. Raise your left hand. Point your finger. Okay, you ready? Now, point to one thing in this room that is not coming from your seeds. Then you have to be an actor, you know? Then you have to go [looking around]. At least move your hand, okay? Then, very important at the end [point at yourself, looking confused], then they would say, ‘everything comes from me’. Even me comes from me. But the question was, how many things in this room don't come from you? Make a big show, okay? It wakes up the audience and they never forget. Take like two minutes, okay? Don't forget to stop with yourself. Then you got to do this mudra [Tibetan offerings with mudras] That's called mudra. What's the mudra at the end of this thing [finger pointing around room looking for things that don’t come from you]? How many things don't come from you? Nothing. Okay, you have to go like that [shrugging with arms open to indicate nothing]. Okay, nothing. Nothing in this room don't come from you. Emptiness is double negative, always remember. How many things in this room don't come from you? Then the answer is, no. And then they will never forget it, I think so. Someday they will understand it. So, again, when you talk about seeds, you are planting seeds. You are planting seeds inside the audience when you talk about seeds. 

And I have a new DCI level, Delayed Gratification. Let's do that.You have to wait to get the good result. My most beautiful angel wife, Veronica, who says hello to all the ladies, especially. In the spring, she always drags me out in the garden. I want to translate, she wants me to help in the garden. We plant watermelons. I remember the first day she taught me how to plant watermelon. I told her I thought the watermelons came from the back of the grocery store. She said, no, no, you have to plant them. Then I'm like, how do you plant them? And she's like, oh, man. Then she brought a handful of watermelon seeds, ‘okay, I'll show you how to plant them. It's very difficult. Make a hole. Put the seed in the hole .Cover the hole. Then, that's all’. I'm like, wow, that's cool. Then I sat down. She said, what are you doing? I said, I'm waiting for the watermelon. She says, you're going to sit here until October; it takes time for the seed to open. That's a good example, okay? When you teach your audience at Conalep about this, emptiness, they are not going to jump up and suddenly use karma all the time, but you planted a seed in their mind. Maybe one year, maybe ten years, maybe next life, they will use it. What's the best place they can use it? In the kitchen when you have a fight with your family member. This is the first place you can use emptiness. ‘Why this person said this bad thing to me? Oh, oh, I planted a seed. I did the same thing’. What's the stupidest thing you can do? When someone calls you stupid, how can you prove you're stupid? ‘I'm not stupid, you're stupid’. Then you turn the wheel of life again. 

Now, here the angel's talking about NANG TONG. So we finished TONG, we finished half. TONG means find one thing in this room that does not come from your seeds. Then you have to say [shrugging with arms open]. There's nothing. Okay, that's emptiness. That's TONG. 

But today, the angel's talking about NANG TONG. What is NANG? There's a word in Tibetan, Nang, low tone, nang, that means ‘inside’. In Tibetan Buddhism, when you say a person is a Buddhist, you say Nang Pa. They are inside person, nang pa. But if you give it accent, if you say strong ‘NANG’, that means a picture came out of my mind and created a pen. So anytime you have anything, there's something there and there's something not there. What's there? Nang, picture came from my mind, made the pen. That's called Nang. And together with that, always together, is TONG. Okay, nang [showing pen], tong [shrugging with arms open]. Okay, you can do the mudra. You ready? Nang [put out pen]. Tong [shrug]. And they always go together. They always go together. And the angel, in these pages, she's again and again, she's talking about nang tong, nang tong, nang tong. The whole world is picture coming from your mind. How much of the world is coming this way [toward you]? Every stupid person you ever met, if you're 72 years old, you met a lot of stupid people. They came this way [from you]. Not this way [at you]. If you're like, ‘God, I met so many stupid people’, that means you're so stupid. Okay? Then if you think like that, you have a happy life. Like, I don't care what's your philosophy, I don't care what's your religion, but I'm against unhappy. I'm against that. You don't have to be Buddhist, I don't care. You don't have to be philosopher. But if you are unhappy, if your life is not happy, I'm against that. It means you don't understand what's going on. The result of not understanding nang tong is you get more and more unhappy; every year goes by, you are more unhappy. It's a test, okay? Ask somebody, you understand emptiness? ‘Yeah’. You understand seeds? ‘Yeah’. Geshehla, you taught for 100 years already, are you happy? ‘No, not at all’. Then you don't understand. Then you don't understand emptiness and seeds. It's a test, litmus test. Okay? If you understand, you are getting happier all the time and your life is fun and things are working. When I left Diamond Mountain 2009 or something? 10? I was broke. Total, super broke. Now I'm throwing away $100 bills and I don't charge for these classes, I don't get paid. I teach for somebody's university. Legally, I cannot get paid but the money just comes. If you understand nang tong, everything will go wonderful. I have to have a serious operation, maybe. They will put a new kidney and some good person is giving me a kidney. And in the next year probably I have to go get one. And it's not a big thing. It's 98% success, something like that. But it's trouble, it's dangerous. One percent danger. So the hospital has many examinations to see if I have the proper blood vessels and if I'm healthy enough. And by the way, it doesn't hurt at all and if they don't tell me, I don't know. But they say you will know when it fails, you will die. So I'm like, okay, then they have to test me. I did 35 tests so far. Checked the heart, checked the blood, checked everything. Then the psychiatrist calls you. When Geshe Michael talks to a psychiatrist, it's very funny. She's very professional. They have to make sure you're mentally ready to change your body. ‘Do you ever feel sad?’ Never. ‘Well, do you ever get upset?’ Almost never. ‘Do you ever want to kill yourself?’ No, not at all. ‘Do you take drugs?’ Why? Then she said, ‘how's your marriage?’ She said, ‘marriage’, [I said,] perfect. The word came in my mouth before she finished the ‘marriage’ words. She said, ‘marriage’, [I immediately said] perfect. If you understand nang tong, even [if] difficult things happen in your life, still you feel happy and lucky. You feel really joyful. Someone says you're going to die, you're like, ‘cool, I'm looking forward to new experiences and what happens. Why not? Why not?’ Like that. If you understand nang tong, you feel.. what's DCI advance level five? New DCI level. The name is ‘Enjoyable’. I told my boss, Seiji, he said, ‘what's the new DCI level this year?’ I said, it's ‘Enjoyable’. He said, Geshehla, I don't know if I can market ‘enjoyable’. But after I taught it in China, people really enjoyed it. And you can change your life if you understand nang tong. Definitely you can't be angry at anybody anymore. Definitely you cannot blame anybody else for your life. Every detail of your life is coming from you. 

Then as you get older, you realize you have less time, and then you realize, I don't want to waste my time. I taught in Vietnam last week. I was talking about my jewelry company. We used this nang tong, I use nang tong from the first day. We started the company with three people. First day, the only thing I can get is nang tong. We start the company with three people, we have zero dollars. I have a five dollar suit from the Goodwill from a guy who died, but lucky he's my size. Then we made the largest jewelry company in the world. It's a quarter billion dollars, every year. We built the company on nang tong. Then Warren Buffett bought the company in 2009. So I was talking to the Vietnamese people who bought my jewelry company. Warren Buffett - what did he do this year, anybody know? He retired. I think he's 86 or something like that. He retired. Older? Anyway, he retired. Then I said to the Vietnam people, I said, why? He got old. Then I asked them, how much money he has? One guy knew the answer, I was a little bit disappointed, I lost $100. He has $365 billion and he retired. Then I said, what does that show? $100, $100? We're not running out of money, right, Rob? Okay, good. We can run away tomorrow. Why did he retire? $100, yeah. Not Juan Jasso, he’s always collecting my money. 

[Juan Jasso: He retired because he run out of time and he cannot buy more time.]

Nice, $100, yeah. Even the richest men in the world, or one of the richest men in the world, he cannot buy more time. So when you understand why Warren Buffett retired and when you understand Nang tong, you don't want to fight with other people because it takes time. And you don't have time, okay? Your time has a number, your hours has a number. Even if they don't come from you, but they do come from you, don't waste your time fighting with people. The only person who loses the fight is you. You lose your hours, no one can give you new ones. Talk to Mr. Kidney, I know. Your time has a number, don't waste it. Don't fight with people. Have fun. Enjoy your life. When someone try to fight with me, I say, ‘you know I got this kidney thing, I gotta go to the toilet, I'll come back later’. Then I never come back. Okay? Don't waste your time. Have fun with your life. Your life is short, don't waste it fighting with people. Then your mind is more clear, you have a good marriage, for example, and you make a lot more money. And I prove it to you. 

So here, she says, I'm a friend to everybody. I like friendship. I like it when people make connection because it reminds me of nang tong. Okay, got it? She likes company. She likes pairs. And the devil is a lonely person. When you fight with people, when you don't understand that bad people are coming from you, you will get more and more lonely. Your life will be more and more lonely. 

All right. One more verse. 

[Verse 344]

And so we can say

That each one of us

Is of greater kindness

Than the other.

Who's more kind to you, seeds or emptiness? I don't know, I'm in love with both of them. The seeds created churros, the emptiness created the seeds for churros. I support seeds and emptiness and they support each other. Thank you for the churros yesterday, by the way, we had a good time in the back. I told you the Nick story yesterday? I didn't tell the audience? I gave a talk in Mexico City like five years ago? Who's the gentleman from Leon? Alfredo. He brought like a thousand people to the audience. Then somebody's grandmother made me churros. Not a small bag of churros, a big bag of churros. Then I brought my whole team, especially Nick Lashaw, and I asked them to hold the churros while I give the talk, and then I'll eat them after the talk. Then during the talk, I want to use nang tong for.. I want to use a churro for example. And I look at Nick behind the curtain, ‘Hey Nick, you guys give me one churro, I need for example’ And he's like [mouth full, shaking head no]. So you can make fun of him, okay? If you meet Nick, if you meet somebody from our group named Nick, just say hi [and shake head no while pretending mouth is full]. They ate all of them, not just one. I don't know how they did it, it's unbelievable. All right.

But you, you're alone. 

[

But you,

You must remain there

Alone, and lonely.

You have none of them

To be with you—

And it’s all because

You believe that things

Are real.

]

She's talking to the devil. Nobody wants to stay with you because you think everything is real. Real means not artificial. Not artificial means I didn't make it myself. And that's not true. You made everything. My teacher, I lived with him for 25 years. He taught me Tibetan language. I don't have a dictionary, for 25 years I don't have a dictionary. I just go upstairs and ask him, ‘what's this word?’ then I get a beautiful explanation. And I remember I asked him, I heard the word CHUMA. We were having tea at a restaurant on the highway to go visit his students in Washington, D.C. And I said, in this philosophy book, I saw the word chuma, what is chuma, Rinpoche? What is chuma? He said, you want to know what's chuma, I'll tell you what's chuma. And he picks up this fake milk for the coffee. You know those little cups in the hotel? They have these little cups of fake milk. He goes like this [making a face at the fake milk], he goes, that's chuma. It means fake. Created by you. Not real. So in one sense, everything is fake. Everything is fake milk. Chuma. It means created by your mind. You created everything. 

All right. Next picture, you guys. I’ve got two more minutes, then you got 15 minutes. There's a picture of a lonely person. 

I think it would be interesting in your groups after the program.. Mr. Tim, I think it'd be really interesting to discuss at length why, if you don't understand nang tong, why is it that loneliness should come? Why is the devil more lonely? I think it's a very interesting question. Okay, I'll give you that homework. Okay. As usual, Tim, I only covered a little piece, but what I did cover is, don't forget, nang tong. Say nang tong. Nang means I made everything. How much things I didn't make [which is nothing, is] tong. Okay, there's none of them, okay? Which means, technically, for the rest of your life, you cannot criticize another person. And then you will tell your friend, ‘but I saw Geshehla criticize somebody right after the program, it was strange’. And it's true. I learned the pen 50 years ago. Directly, 50 years ago. Exactly, this month. And I still get upset at people. So it takes a lot of practice, okay? That habit is very old. Those bad mental habits are very old. 

Okay, yeah, let's go. Questions. Rob. 

[Student: I'm thinking about little kids in my town. They are kids, they come with low resources. They were born in low-income families. So I'm thinking, when it’s safe to teach them that everything comes from them?]

Yeah, good question. I have this problem when I meet people with serious disease. And I'll tell you a story. So I lived with my teacher for 25 years and he gives me all the dirty jobs, of course. And one of my dirty jobs is people will come to the temple, Mongolia temple. And they want to see all the strange paintings and the ancient books and the statues. And he told me, ‘look, I'm tired of talking to the tourists, now this is your job. When people come to the temple, you have to answer all their questions.’ So I was young and I felt proud he gave me this job. Then I remember from the local town south of Howell, south of the temple, it's an orthodox Jewish town. The whole town is old Jewish. Everyone wears the hat and everything. And a bunch of ladies came to the temple and they saw the Wheel of Life picture. And they said, what's the meaning, it looks so frightening? So I explained about karma. I said, the first law of karma, if you kill somebody, you will be killed. In fact, I translated it this morning, we're working on a new set of books. There are three great Buddhist books that are letters. In Christian you call epistles, the epistles. We also have famous letters. Three very famous letters to kings. So I'm translating them together because I want to make a book for business leaders. Then today we reached this part. If you kill people, you will die. Then this Jewish lady group said, What about six million Jewish people died in World War II? Whose fault? Then I'm 20 years old, I don't know how to teach Buddhism yet. And I said, of course they killed somebody, that's the law of karma. Oh, man. Then they got so angry at me. They ran out of the temple, never came back. Then my teacher said, You know, you can't always tell the exact truth in the audience, okay? You have to judge the age and the experience of your audience before you teach them these things. So I think for children, if the truth will hurt them, there's a Buddhist principle that you should make a softer truth. And if the truth will hurt them, you are doing violence. So it's very important to judge the level of the student before you teach them anything. And if you have to make it softer for young people, then make it softer. But I'll tell you one thing. Young people are sometimes completely logical, it's very irritating. And I was teaching.. I had a children's class for 15 years because I was involved in an abortion before I became Buddhist. Then my teacher said... I said, how can I clean the karma? Then he said, you have to teach children. So I said, how long? He said, until the seed is finished. Then I said, how do I know the seed's finished? He said, you will know. So I taught these kids for 15 years. Recently one of them came to visit me. He's 55 years old, he's a rock star. So anyway, one day in the class, the air conditioner broke. And the kids are getting a little bit wild because it's hot and they're hot. I always bring several parents to the class because I don't want any trouble with the parents, they hear everything I teach the kids. That's also a smart thing to do, by the way. So I told the parents, you hold the kids, I'll fix the air conditioner. And I got a ladder and I climb up the ladder and I'm fixing the air conditioner. And there's a kid, he's about eight years old, he's pulling on my pants. I'm afraid I'm going to fall, he's really pulling on my pants. Then I said, don't do that, Grandpa's going to fall down. He's pulling, pulling. Then I said, what do you want? He's like, Mike. He called me Mike. ‘Mike, that's not how you fix the air conditioner’. I'm like, how do you fix the air conditioner? ‘Go out on the street, walk down the street, try to find a family whose air conditioner is broken. Help them fix the air conditioner. Your air conditioner will never break’. Then I'm like [argh]. So sometimes the children are more ready than you think. Definitely they are more logical than their parents. And their mind will change when sometimes the adult's mind will not change. But be careful, don't hurt them. 

Okay, one more question. I'm sorry I talk so much. Online question? How about Malaysia? I didn't say lazy, I said Malayyyysia. Any questions from you guys? 

[Student: So the question is, yesterday in the Q&A session, Geshe Michael said we have countless number of heart teachers. Does that mean we don't really need to decide who is my heart teacher? Just need to keep suspicious that everyone could be?]

Okay, good. Good question. Nice question. Practically speaking, I have a strategy. Do that meditation every morning. Brief, you know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And you don't have to work through all of the possible heart teachers in the same morning, spread it out for the whole week. But I suggest the same categories. Start with mom, dad, siblings (brothers and sisters), school teachers, church teachers, work teachers, husband / wife. I didn't say it, but I'll say it today - dogs. Go through the list every morning for two weeks, three weeks, and try to decide which one is your heart teacher. My teacher defined heart teacher as the teacher who was most kind to you. So it's a kindness competition. And you have to listen to all the candidates. So one by one, go through all the people in your life who gave kindness to you. And then after two weeks, three weeks, decide temporarily who's most kind. And then keep doing that meditation sometimes for the rest of your life and the answer will come to you. This answer you shouldn't go digging with a time schedule. You don't have to find your heart teacher in 23 minutes, okay? You have your whole life to find them. But the meditation about the people who have been kind to you, it will get bigger and bigger and bigger and it will take over your heart. And you might have some surprising results. Like, I don't know, I was married earlier in my life. The person really hurt me, but nowadays I think maybe it was a great kindness. So they are in the competition and sometimes you will find surprising answer to your heart teacher search. Okay? 

All right. Grandpa needs to take a rest. Half hour and we will start that Diamond Way preparation at 6.45. Now, $100 I won't give you, just general information. What's the difference between Mexican Coca-Cola and American Coca-Cola? Real sugar. In the whole world, only Mexican Coca-Cola has real sugar. Me and Rob sometimes we drive half an hour to go to the Mexican store to find Mexican Coca-Cola. So don't forget you have to dance later tonight. Maybe you want to start drinking Coca-Cola now. Okay, see you in half an hour.

Okay, good morning. We're going to do the Song of My Spiritual Life.  We were planning two classes about Song of My Spiritual Life which is preparation for Diamond Way. We're going to repeat this same classes... not the same classes, but we're going to have two more Five Houses presentations this year, including grandpa, and I'll give you the advertisement at the end of the class.

Okay. So, we have to go through the Spiritual Song in order to start the Diamond Way. There's a rule that you have to finish Lam Rim before you do Diamond Way. There's about 50 Lam Rims; the main Lam Rim started about 1,000 years ago exactly. They are step-by-step how to prepare for Diamond Way. So I chose the one that I thought would be best for you guys - it's the Song of My Spiritual Life, and again, the Spanish translation is finished, the e-book is ready. Grandpa gave away a copy to everybody; if you didn't get one, just tell them Grandpa said I'm supposed to get one for free, okay? And because I’m very experienced teaching Buddhism, 50 years, I know the big class is Friday night and not Sunday night because people have to go home. So I put the sexy class on Friday night, did you notice? We had a hard teacher class, okay? So I actually moved the two classes. So just so you know, for the first time in history, we're going back in the Lam Rim. Okay, we're doing Lam Rim and reverse. 

And so that means tonight I have to talk about the lineage. And to me it's one of the coolest things about this tradition. We have a lineage that's two and a half thousand years old, and you know, I studied ... I studied Greek also, I studied biblical Greek at Oxford. So there's a small biblical Greek private school next to Oxford, and they put it there so you can tell people I went to Oxford. And in my university I studied ... my degree is partly Christian history. And what's interesting about this lineage, the more time that goes on, usually the lineage will get lost due to war, due to disease, due to death of teachers, we lose the information. But in this tradition, because of your karma, it gets better and better. The lineage gets stronger and stronger every generation. So, it's kind of cool to learn a little bit about the lineage. And you are like 43rd generation, okay? [Tibetan of lineage teachers], You can list 43 main teachers of the Diamond Way. And so, we're going to talk tonight a little bit about the great lineage. The books didn't get lost, the books didn't get corrupted, they got more and more pure. And one of the reasons is the Martians. Is there a slide about a Martian? It looks like Rob, but it's Matt Damon. No, keep going. There's a guy in a space helmet and it says, it says ‘the Martian’. There you go.

So in general, science fiction has gotten worse and worse as our lineage got stronger and stronger. There's a similar thing going on with rock and roll - it's getting worse and worse. I don't know why, but 1968 was the peak, okay? But the only modern science fiction guy I like to read is this one. He wrote this. This is a story about a guy from Earth who goes to the Mars and I think when he gets there he has some problem with his spaceship and he's supposed to die, but miracle thing happens to him on Mars. And we had a very similar thing happen in our lineage. And 1,700 years ago, a great teacher named Asanga, he did a retreat for 12 years. He wants to meet Maitreya. Supposed to be Maitreya is the next Buddha to come here. And he's very close, just so you know, he's supposed to come soon. So Asanga wants to meet him so for 12 years he did a retreat. 

[10:40]