The Secrets of the Four Truths

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Meditation assignment

For the next few months, meditate 5 days per week on one of the three meditations we did this week:

1- Think about the teachers that you carried into this life before the age of 12

2-  Think about the books or the music or the poetry that came to you from your past life before you were 12 years old

3- When you were a kid, people around us told us, this is where the world comes from, this is who made the world, this is how everything happens. I don’t want you to worry about did they teach you something correct or did they teach you something mistaken. I just want you to think about how did it come to you, who taught it to you, and where did they come from.

And then because we are studying Diamond Way, we have to think about those people, like our parents or our schoolteachers, is it possible they were Buddha? Buddhism says there are countless Buddhas in the universe, and Buddhism says they can show any way they want to you. And Buddhism also says that when a Buddha comes to you as a normal person, they might do something nice to you, or they might do something to hurt you if it teaches you something. So there’s a chance that the teachers who came to you as a child, and the books and information that came to you as a child, and the ideas of where the world comes from which came to you as a child, might be delivered by Buddhas. 

[2:52]

Good morning. Okay, it looks like a big party in Malacca. Nice to see you. Okay, today I just want to give a short introduction about what's happening. I think we'll just start with the projector slides. This program is really preparation for an event that will be happening in October. Actually, can we see the next slide?

Arya Diamond Way transmission

So this is a place called Dragon's Head. It's a very sexy name, but we didn't give it the sexy name. It had the sexy name for about a hundred years. A long time ago, the cowboys called this area Dragon's Head, and that comes from the shape of the river. In Arizona, we don't have any rivers, very, very rare. And these guys, Stanley and Xiaoping, came to me about a year ago, two years ago, and they said, Grandpa, can we buy this Dragon's Head area? Then I said, it's fine with me if I don't have to pay; you pay. Then they are very brave, they said, Okay, we will pay. And we bought it. It's about a million square meters. And it's very, very beautiful so we should thank these guys. And Xiaoping is online [Stanley is translating next to Geshe-la]. Hi, Xiaoping. She's having special meetings with President Trump. It's called a visa meeting, so she couldn't come. But they have offered that we could use this place. There's a beautiful classroom there. If you know about European art, there's a famous painter called Van Dyck. In America, it's called Van Dyck, and I think it's his grandson. And he bought this property and he built a big studio for himself to paint and it's a really, really beautiful studio. It's funny, when we bought the land, the owner said, If you don't like this building, we will destroy it for you for free. Then we said, Well, maybe we'll keep it. And it's very beautiful. The whole wall is glass because he was an artist and he needs light. So we will have the Arya’s Diamond Way “transmission”, I call it, there. 

But it only fits five deer and 130 people. And also several pigs, wild, wild pigs, you know, there's a family. Then Tim was taking applications for the transmission in October, and I think it's almost 3,000 people. So if it's possible, 30 people have to sit on each person's lap. No, but I want to tell you our plan so you don't get nervous. So, 130 people we will choose, and then we will have branch transmissions happening around the world. And I would like to make it live around the world so I will get up early. The only place we don't cover is Australia. Australian people have to come to Singapore. Or if you live in Hawaii, then you have to come somewhere else. And we're working on this, Tim is planning everything. So be happy, don't worry about it. “Geshe-la, Geshe-la, who are you choosing to be the 130?” With my health… So I have a kidney disease, advanced kidney disease. Probably pretty soon I will get a third kidney. You only have two, I will have three. But I'm thinking in the next two years, I would like to focus very much on Diamond Way teaching together with how to see emptiness directly, and I think that's the best thing I can give to you. And they go together. That's why Diamond Way and Diamond World, same thing. So there's a special way to teach Diamond Way if you have touched the Diamond World, and up to now I didn't teach it much. I touched the Diamond World 51 years ago; I never met anyone else who touched it. And at my age, 53... No, I’m kidding, 73... I cannot prove to you that I touched the Diamond World. If you touched it, you will know, but otherwise you don't know. And maybe I'm telling the truth, maybe I'm not. So my suggestion, my teacher used to say, “you never know, maybe he's telling the truth.” Then better to take the teaching and you can have it, and if grandpa goes to another world, you got the teaching. So that's the plan. So I'm going to work really hard for two years. We might have a small interruption, like three months, and then I'll keep going, I hope. We are very lucky. Where I live, we are two hours from Phoenix and that's the best hospital in the world for kidney. Last summer, they finished their 2,000th kidney transplant. I think only 10 people disappeared, so it's pretty good. And so it's easier for me if we can do the transmission at Dragon's Head. It's about 10 minutes from my house and I never heard of this place. I lived there for 20 years and then suddenly it just appeared, which seems to be your karma. Okay, so that's the plan for October. 

[15:27]

“Geshe-la, who are you choosing to go to Dragon's Head?” I feel like a farmer and I have a big group of seeds in my hand. And at this time in my life, I have to try to plant as many as possible and I don't know which seeds will grow. Some groups will disappear in the next five years, some will continue for a thousand years; I don't know which is which. So I try to pick the people who are helping the most people, the best chance to grow after we throw the seeds. So I have two kinds of students. One helps me all day, every day. And then some other ones give me headaches every day. And I've been teaching for 50 years and I'm okay with everybody, it doesn't really matter to me. If the person will help more people, I will bring them to Dragon's Head. So even the ones who cause me to be bald, and all the ones who gave me gray hair, if I think they will help a lot of people, I will bring them to Dragon's Head. Okay? That's the decision I have to make. And I also, personally, I'm trying to choose different people from different countries and different languages. 

There's a story in the Christian and the Jewish Bible. Supposed to be, God saw that there's going to be a big flood in the world. And he called some guy named Noah and he said, There's going to be a big flood, it will cover the whole world and you have to make a boat. And Noah's like, I live in the desert. It's like he lives in Rimrock. There's no water there, there's no ocean there. But he believed in God so he started to make a big boat in his backyard. All the neighbors think he's crazy. Then God says, Make it big enough for a lot of animals. And Noah's like, How many animals are we talking about? God says, I want one boy and one girl of each kind of animal in the whole world, and after the flood kills all the other people and animals, you Noah, have to make extra babies. It’s a big job. And then bring one boy and one girl, like camel, turtle, dog, everything. So Dragon's Head is similar to Noah's Arc. I have to pick people who I think can spread the teaching, and people from many different places. And I think that's the safest way to spread, to keep it alive in the world. So if you come, be happy and come, but remember, there's one person out of 30 who can come. Please don't get mad at grandpa, that's the best I can do. 

And then, next picture.

We're going to have satellite transmissions around the world. Then, wherever you live, whatever language you speak, whatever country, I encourage you to talk to Tim. And write to him soon, don't write to him the day before. And we will have a local transmission in your place. Those of you who have strong groups in other countries, my idea is mom and dad come to Dragon's Head. Like Ella's son in Shenzhen, he can have fun on his own in Shenzhen. The mom comes here, the son is playing rock and roll at home. And we had an empowerment in last March at Dragon's Head. We did the same system - we brought 130 people and then we had a branch empowerment at the same time in Kyoto, and it was very successful. So we'll take care of everything. If you're from some strange Indonesian country, mom and dad have to leave the kids there and come to Dragon's Head. Things like that. So that's the plan. 

Next picture.

Do I have a clock? It's a good idea to have a clock. Here we go. I have an idea after the empowerment. This is a special museum in Phoenix, Arizona. It's called Musical Instrument Museum. I really really like this place, and especially for my friends when they come to visit Arizona and they say, You guys don't have anything in Arizona. And it's a new building, it's a very beautiful building, and it has many many rooms like this. And each room has musical instruments from different countries and you put on special earphone and you walk through the museum and each time you come close to a different instrument, that instrument will play in your ear. And it's really fun to go to different countries' rooms and suddenly the music is very strange. Then you can hear Jimi Hendrix also. They have Jimi Hendrix’s guitar. And that place has a beautiful auditorium, it's about 300 I think, Rob? Three-hundred people. It was built for music and it's the best auditorium I ever saw. 

So I think you know the story - like five years ago, some company come to me, “We are from Netflix. We want to do a movie about Geshe Michael. Will you help?” And I'm like, okay, it's all right. And so they came, they start filming. Then we had a meeting and they said, “Geshe Michael, you have two choices. One film we can make - we put the fake hair on your head, take out all the white hair, we fix everything. You look very handsome and you never say anything stupid. And we can make a movie like that. You know, you look like Brad Pitt.” They said, “or you can take the second choice.” Then I said, What's the second choice? “Second choice, we will follow you around the world and each continent, we will choose one person in the audience who never came to your teaching. And we'll see after the teaching if they become successful or not. But it's a little bit risky. If they fail, then you also look stupid.” Then I said, I'm brave, let's do the second kind of film. So they filmed all over the world. We chose one person from each continent. For example, we chose a guy in Peru. Then, after six months, big big problem. He got in trouble with his work, he got in trouble with his wife, and he got in trouble with his finances. This is before I taught him, okay? Then we tried one lady in Europe. She's younger, I thought she would be okay. We met her in Kyoto, I think. She's very bright and very healthy. Then we start. I get telephone [call]. She's in Germany, she's in the hospital, she might die tomorrow. I don't know what happened. Then the movie guy is like, “Okay Geshe-la, we're running out of money, can you pay for the movie?” Then I'm like, wait a minute, you didn't tell me I have to pay for the movie. Then I collect money, give them money, and I think finally I called them. I said, Come to my house. And I said, Cancel the, what do you call that? Brad Pitt movie. Cancel the movie where I go around the world and everyone gets rich. Let's just make a movie about dying because everybody needs this movie. And I will talk about my experience, maybe we can get permission for you to come in the hospital and film the [surgery]. They got very excited and the movie's finished, I think. Then they said, we always have a premiere. We call “premiere”, then they show the movie for the first time and all the rich people come. That's you guys. No, just for free. And I want to do it at the Musical Instrument Museum. They didn't get permission yet. We have backup in Scottsdale, the Jewish Community Center. Nice place. But I have a dream - the day after the transmission, all you guys going to Phoenix to the airport, then in the morning, we can all see the movie. First time. I'm hoping it will be at that museum. 

And I think that movie is important to teach people how to die. I went to Princeton. We are building a business school, DSEU. To get American permission to have a degree, MBA degree, it's like 10 years of trouble. We are halfway finished, it looks very good. But we have to go to many universities and study their MBA program. I like to study how much wisdom they are teaching from Asia. Very good progress in America - Princeton has like 5,000 courses, 2 are about Asia. Understand? You cannot learn this wisdom in Princeton University and you cannot learn it at Harvard. Then I checked how many courses at Harvard and how many courses at Princeton about how to die well. The number is perfect. [Geshe-la gives symbol which means both “okay” and “zero” with thumb and pointer finger touching, and rest of fingers fanned out.] It means nobody. That's very strange because all of us have to die. We all have to go there so I think it's important to learn how to die. And I'll tell you something and it's obvious, but I'll tell you again. In this physical universe, anything that can happen once can happen twice. Don't be stupid. If you can come here by accident once, you can come here by accident twice, because the odds are infinite, the dice are infinite. We should spend the whole day learning how to die, and we should teach our children. It's something our world should do. So, anyway, that's something we'll do together during the transmission. Then after that, some guy will be in the back with his cell phone, he will steal the movie, it will spread everywhere. It's okay. 

[37:54]

Next picture.

This is across the street from the Musical Instrument Museum. You can walk there. This is the Mayo Hospital. These are the kidney specialists of the whole world. Then I have to go there every week or every two weeks; I spend sometimes the whole day there. And I asked the doctor, If I have some good, good students, and they are at the Musical Instrument Museum to see the premiere of a good movie, can they just walk across the street and watch me get my things [surgery for new kidney]? And she's like, No! So, anyway, we can crash it, I think. But I thought, if you want to, you can go across the street and see the place. So actually, this place is very connected to your transmission. It's all connected together. I like to call it nowadays “transmission”. I feel it's more “transmission” than “empowerment”, but sometimes I forget and I call it “empowerment”. So, in one way, I spent about 30 years learning Diamond Way from my teacher. He won't teach me unless I memorize the sadhana. [Tibetan] Like that. And he required it. Then, we are living together for 25 years, and he taught me many times, almost every day, for 2-3 hours privately. And we are living in a Mongolian temple, some of you guys have been there. Then we have a small group of monks. I was the youngest monk, all the monks are 75 or older. So we have about 15 monks at the beginning and about once a week, we will do all the different sadhanas for different empowerments. Then my teacher wouldn't help me at all. He said, You have to come, you have to recite. Then I’m like, So give me what I have to recite. He's like, You figure it out. He didn't help me, nothing. Then we are reciting 3, 4, 5 hours, I don't know what they are doing. Then, one by one, I learn, I collect all the sadhanas, many different lineages. Then we have to memorize them. So, by accident, I learned many other transmissions. And that's how I first heard the Diamond Cutter, was reciting with the Mongolian monks. So I have transmission in this way for 25 years. 

Then, that's not the most important transmission. When I say “transmission”, what I mean when I say “transmission”, is I want to transmit to you what happened to me when I touched the diamond. That's the real transmission. So, they go together. There's a reason why they call it Diamond Way, and there's a reason why diamond is important when you touch emptiness. They are very, very connected. So I call it “Arya Diamond Way”. Again, if you don't believe me, I don't really care. But if I'm you - “just in case he's correct, I will learn it.” Someone told me, big, big, big teacher told me, “You did not see kongxing.” And I'm like, Why you say that? “You cannot fly.” Then I’m like, there is no book out of John’s 300,000 books, there's not one that says arya has to fly. Then my whole life, I just got used to it because if you fight about that thing, it's a very, very bad karma. It's the worst karma. So, 51 years, I'm just like, yeah, okay, okay. But now, I have kidney problem so I'm thinking I should pass on that knowledge while I have time. 

So next two years, I have a plan, some of you heard it already. I worked for 17 years translating these four books. This is the greatest teaching on emptiness ever written. In English, it's 2,000 pages. It's by Tsongkapa, it's called DGONGS PA RAB GSAL, Illumination of the True Thought. I'm thinking about 15,000 hours I worked on it. I finished it in January, something like that. Then, I always like to write an introduction to the book. Maybe it's the only thing people will read, definitely the only thing they will understand. This book is completely correct, he doesn't miss one thing about emptiness, and it's very difficult. Then I thought I would like to write a ... Usually, I write an introduction to make it easier for people. Then I thought 99% of people, they won't be able to read it. So the introduction, I will make something everyone can understand. And I will tell a ... I call it grandpa's story. I will tell a grandpa's story about how to see emptiness yourself then everybody can read it and relax and enjoy. It's like sitting on your grandpa's knee and grandpa tell the kid a story. And I worked really hard on that story, I had this inspiration to connect it to how the Buddha taught emptiness himself. And that's the first teaching that Buddha ever gave in this world, and we'll talk more about it. It's called the Four Truths, Four Arya Truths, and each one has four ideas inside of it so it's 16 ideas. And this is how Buddha taught emptiness. It's also the first teaching that Buddha ever gave in this world. After he got enlightened, he didn't teach for seven weeks, he didn't talk to anybody, he just stayed quiet in the forest. And he said nobody can understand, then they will disrespect him. And I really did feel the same way for 50 years. But if I have to go to the next world, I will try to explain. Then I would like to use those 16, I would like to use his outline, his structure. So my plan for the next two years - just follow Buddha's own structure, but plug in my own experiences. So that's what we'll be doing here. We finished the first four perfections in our preparation study. We have two more left: shamata / vipashyana, how to see emptiness and how to reach the level of meditation you need to see emptiness. So, I have some good news. We have 31 really god damn good teachers teaching this week. [applause as teachers stand] I don't see 31. I feel like they are my kids. I was on the airplane. Some lady sit next to me, “Do you have any kids?” Yeah, I’ve got 31. Then she goes like this [checking Geshe-la out]. Anyway, I'm very proud of all the teachers. You guys are very lucky to be here and have them teach, it's a lot of hard work. So together me and the 31 teachers, we will review all of the preparation for Diamond Way, and I will finish the last two perfections. Then you will be ready. Mazal? 

We have about 10 minutes, if anyone has a question. If you don't have a question, I will take a grandpa nap. 

Question: Why spend time translating difficult books?

[Student: So Teacher, I want to ask you, when you mentioned about this book [Illumination of True Thought], you said that 99.9% of people will not be able to understand it. Then why do you spend so much precious time of your life to translate this book? And what kind of people do you want that they can understand this book?]

Yeah, that's a very good question. The way I design my own day, I'm a member of Lindsay Jilk's Good Night Book Club, proud member. So I go to bed at 10 o'clock every night and Rob bangs on my door, he takes the computer. Because I don't trust myself, he takes it. And then 6 o'clock, he gives it back to me. Then starting at 6:00 until about noon, so 6 hours, from 6am to noon, I do my own practice. So meditation, yoga, and I translate. I translate for two reasons. One is to help other people who maybe will read it someday. But also mainly for myself. I have to struggle with it, I feel like every day I'm wrestling with Tsongkapa, and I learn every day new things. Somebody told me, “Geshe-la, you gave Diamond Way in 2004 or something. We can just pass on the 2004.” Then I’m like, I spent 22 years wrestling with Tsongkapa every morning for 6 hours. Somebody can figure out the math, I don’t know, 6 x 22 x 365 ... 47,000 hours I wrestled with Tsongkapa. Not every day. But I changed, and the Diamond Way I'm teaching this week is not at all what I taught 22 years ago. And to be honest, that's why it's important to stay close to the teacher. This teacher is moving target, he's always moving. Then, honestly, the people who stay close, they get new things every day and it's a good reason to stay close. I also evolve every day. So what I'm teaching you this week is completely different from what I taught before. Then don't go home and say Geshe-la said what he taught in 2004 was wrong. I didn't say that. First grade is correct, eighth grade is correct, but it's good to get all eight grades. 

Okay, last thing. So when I finish a new book, I always write an introduction. So when I was in Xi'an, I visited Xuanzang's tower, I went to Chang'an tower, and I got this powerful inspiration to connect Lord Buddha's teaching of the sixteen parts of emptiness to my experience. And I finished. And it's a small introduction, it's 125 pages. We have a bad word in English, okay? If I use it, don't tell my wife - it’s really good shit. No, and it’s really powerful and it’s what I will teach for the next two years, and it will be printed inside the book. But Stanley, Xiaoping, myself, we would like to offer each of you a copy while you are here. So that kid [Stanley] translated the whole thing. So far it's in English and Chinese. I'm sure that they [audience] will also translate into other languages. It is a good thing, some of you, to do during this week. If you can finish by the end of the week, we will pay for it. And it's free. So everyone will get a free English copy tomorrow, and Chinese. And I'm sure by the end of the week German, Russian, Ukrainian, things like that. Then I will teach it for two years, then everybody see kongxing. They ask me, “What are you going to do after that, Geshe-la?” Then we all going to start a big diamond company, Warren Buffett say he will pay for everything. Just kidding. 

Then I'd like to especially thank Jasmine and Tim. Thank you. If you need a big job done, just call Jasmine. Okay. I'll see you guys tomorrow. And again, thank you, all the teachers. Thank you.

Okay, hi, good morning. Thank you for coming, thank you for waking up. And here we go. Usually I don't lead a lot of meditations at these events, but there are some meditations that would help you touch the diamond world, especially in the system of the sixteen aspects so I'll be leading some meditations this time. Tim said I get paid extra, two zeros instead of one zero. Okay, all right, here we go. 

So, sit up straight. By the way, it probably won't take a whole hour, probably 45 minutes. Okay.

Meditation: First memory of this life

Small smile on your face. Forehead relaxed. Eyelids relaxed. Push your shoulders back a little bit. Pull in your lower tummy a little bit. Dantien, I think you call it in Chinese. Not too hard, but just a little bit. Feet are flat on the floor. Hands are any way which is comfortable for you, but they should be very relaxed. 

Then try not to move. My nose is itching suddenly, but I'm not going to move. And then we're going to watch our breath. I know there's a tradition to watch ten breaths, but in my life experience, I like to watch a hundred breaths. It takes my mind a hundred breaths to calm down. So we'll be counting 100 breaths. Exhale is the first half, and the inhale is the second half. My exhale is usually a little longer than my inhale. And everybody's different, but my exhale takes about four heartbeats and then the inhale only takes about three heartbeats. And I like to use the exhale to imagine my teacher's name and this way the breathing has some good seeds. So let's try a hundred breaths. Keep your face relaxed. Try to be quiet for your neighbor. And try to be patient and loving if your neighbor is not quiet. Okay, here we go. 

We'll do the preliminaries of meditation. First one is to bring a teacher to meditate with you. So you can choose a teacher in this life, or it could be some teacher you had when you were younger, and it can even be a teacher you haven't met yet. But ask them to come and meditate with you, and they will bless you with their presence. I like to say knee-to-knee, their knees are very close to your knees. And they feel very happy that you are meditating so they're showing you a soft smile. Try to get this picture clear. It's so clear that you can feel the warmth of their body. 

Then offer your teacher something as a gift. I like to offer something good I did in the last day or so. 

Second step is to think of something that you did this week which was not very nice. For me, usually I said something a little bit harsh to someone. And try to be very clear - when did it happen, what did you say? And then think, if this person is coming from your pictures, then it's pretty crazy to be upset at them. 

Now think of something good you did this week. Most of us have trouble thinking about something good we did. And this step is very, very important so take it seriously and find something good you did this week and be happy about it. 

Then make a prayer that you learn something new today. Sometimes for me, this is the hardest preliminary, but just make a little decision that you will be open to learn something new today. 

And then finally, think about the good people in your life, the good people around you, and make a prayer for their long life. If we don't have the support of good people around us, it's very difficult for us to be good people. 

Now we'll start the meditation. This week in the meditations that I lead, we will go through the 16 different aspects of seeing emptiness and we'll be trying to see how it connects to our Diamond Way practice, and we'll be going in order through your life. So this first day's meditation, first, I'd like you to meditate for a few minutes - what's your earliest memories about this life? What are the things that you remember in your life that you were youngest? And just relax and think of... If you can't think of anything, think of the earliest thing you can remember and then slowly try to go back. And have fun. And we say, follow wisps of memory. It means tiny, tiny memories, not very clear memories, try to follow them like smoke, back further. And if you practice this for a few weeks, you can find many early, early memories that you forgot. Then you start to reach a special ability called, in ancient language, it's called, CHOS RGYUN TING-NGEN DZIN. CHOS RGYUN TING-NGEN DZIN. And you can start to remember teachings you had, perhaps before you were born. So here we go, and have fun. If you have a memory that's not clear and maybe you feel like you are making it up, that's fine. Just follow it. Okay, here we go, We'll be here for a few minutes. 

Then please choose one of those memories that is connected with a certain person, like I think your mom or your dad might be common. 

Like I can remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen and my parents were sitting on chairs at the kitchen table and they were asking me words to see if I could spell them. And then in Diamond Way, one of the most important practices is to try to re-remember or remember those early things in a different way. And we don't have to decide that it's true, but we can just think about - what if those people were Buddhas already? So what if my mom and what if my dad at the kitchen table were already Buddha? And what if they were trying to prepare me to follow a spiritual path myself? And it could be true and it could not be true, but it is certainly possible. So try to re-remember those early things and thinking that maybe it's possible those people were Buddhas trying to help me. And just enjoy, you don't have to force yourself, but just think if it could be possible. In Diamond Way, we begin by thinking it's possible. We're not sure, but it's certainly possible. Okay, enjoy and spend a few minutes, and we'll be almost finished. 

Then try to imagine that there's a beautiful golden light coming out of this building from all of us. And that light goes forth and touches all the people, step by step, it covers the whole world. And each person it touches, it brings them a little bit of happiness. 

Then slowly, you can open your eyes, take a stretch. 

We have a little time for questions. And grandpa's questions are strange - you can ask any question about your dog or about your sister, okay? 

Question: How to balance teachings from other sources?

[Aynurna: May I start, dear teacher? Hello, my name is Aynurna Spekova. I'm from ACIM. And, teacher, I have a question which consists of two parts. The first part, you say that you never met any Aryas, but there are some modern philosophers, such as Eckhart Tolle, K.T. Byron, Mirza Grimnar Begov. And when I read their books, it looks like they had this experience because they use the same words like you do when you teach us. That's why there is a feeling that they had this experience of touching the diamond world. And I want to explain why it is important for me to understand because there is this second part of the question. When I teach my students, I create programs, and I understand that I need to use skillful means because there are not just people who are ready to perceive our wisdom. There are people with so much agitation, mental afflictions, and I see that I need to use another technique, let's say, psychology, coaching, I don't know, quantum meditations, etc. And I see that those other innovators and thinkers, they have some techniques, and may I trust those knowledges and insert them into my programs? Why it’s important is because there are two different things. On the first hand, I see that I need to make new programs. It's kind of diamond mining, it looks cool. But on the second hand, I'm afraid, I'm scared that I'm doing this mapo tofu stuff and I'm ruining our wisdom. And I have these contradictions. Could you please explain me how to keep this balance because I see that people need new forms of delivering knowledges. Thank you.]

All right, good. I think one thing about Diamond Way is we have to understand that we don't really know what another person is thinking. Even a person who seems cruel, or a person who is saying harmful things, in Diamond Way, it's possible they are Buddha and they have secret plan to help somebody and we cannot see that plan. So I would say it's possible that there are many Aryas and there are certainly many Buddhas. If somebody is a Buddha, they are already an Arya, right? And so, I would say, we never know really who the other person is, we really don't know. So maybe it would be more correct to say I never met a person that I felt could explain emptiness correctly from their own experience. And I don't mean every teaching I heard about emptiness was wrong, I don't mean that. But I mean there are details and there are subtle points that if you have not seen emptiness directly, you wouldn't be able to talk about them. 

Then, is there a time and a place when we should teach something which we know is wrong if it will help another person? So I was in a country when I was young, when I was 20, a hundred years ago, I was in a country where they believed this world is resting on the back of a turtle. And when there is an earthquake, the turtle's stomach is not feeling well. Then I saw some kids, they were throwing stones at each other. And I told them, no, no, you shouldn't do that. Then they're like, why? Then I said, the big turtle doesn't like that. Then they're like, oh no, the big turtle will be upset. And they stopped throwing stones. So we can use big turtle stories sometimes and that's fine. But you have to be careful to move beyond the big turtle when the people are ready, you have to say goodbye to the turtle. Then you can go halfway to correct which is Einstein and Hawking, they are halfway correct. There's four famous schools of Buddhism in ancient history. Three and a half are wrong and they were all taught by Buddha. And it means Buddha understood that people need more simple explanation, then you can go to more correct. So I think it's good to use, like refer to writers who you know are not perfect, but they are helpful. But as soon as you get a chance, keep pushing people up higher. In fact, that's what I'm doing here today with what we call the Arya's Diamond Way. 

Okay, we have time for another question.

Question: What do I need to know to avoid going to lower realms?

[Stanley translates question from student: So I'll just summarize. Basically, she's saying that she heard your talk on TheKnowledgeBase of teaching in 2018 where you mentioned that if people really understand emptiness, particularly the emptiness of the person, then 95% of chance you will not go to the bad places. But if you only understand the emptiness of the object, then you are the rest of the 5%, you will still have the chance to go to a bad place. And you mentioned that if you reach the third stage of the second path, then 100% you will not go down. So that's one saying you said. But also, on other teachings on TheKnowledgeBase, you also mentioned that if people can hear about the teaching on the pen, then they must have collected a huge amount of merit, then they'll be fine, they don't have to worry. It seems like there's some conflict of these two statements.]

Okay, good, yeah. So we're going to talk about it the whole week. And you know, when we are in the geshe course, when we study Lower Middle Way, which is one of the meanings of Bore bolumiduo, Prajnaparamita, we study something called Salam Namshak, Salam Namshak. That's the first book I ever translated. I think 1976, just after you were born. And that means, Salam Namshak means defining the stages at which different understandings come to you. And it's very famous that there are five paths in Buddhism. And they are not five different paths to the same city, they are five parts of one path between two cities. And we studied them, and we learned the definitions, and the scriptures say what happens at each stage. And in fact, on Saturday here, we will have a translation class. We have twelve translators and each one is doing a different school of Buddhism, and by coincidence, your question is going to come on Saturday because we're going to be doing Tim Lowenhaupt's book. And the nickname for that book is Prajnaparamita and it always teaches what happens at each path and each part of each path. 

So, roughly, the second path is called Jor Lam, Path of Preparation. And it's divided into four parts: chur, dzinmo. sepa, chu chok, four parts. And in one of those parts, you understand the emptiness of something like a pen very clearly. And after you understand that, it's impossible to take birth as an animal, for example. So I always tell my ... you want to hear a joke? All right. So nineteen years in the diamond business, and I use all the money to help my monastery. I will take maybe a few hundred dollars every year to buy clothes and shoes. Then twice a year, I will collect all my salary, the company will give it as a donation to our charity. And this way, they get a tax exemption also and they are very happy. So twice a year, I have to go in and say, Okay, it's time. And the CFO, he will give me a number. He'll say, This is how much you earned last six months. Then when you become geshe, there's a blackmail, you're supposed to give a big gift to the monastery. And if you don't have money, most of us don't have money, you're supposed to go find sponsor for the monastery. So I spent 25 years debating under the Indian sun. Like three, four hours a day. Terrible sunburn. Then I told the monastery, I would like to offer debate ground with a roof because we debate outside. Which is a nice custom, especially at night with the stars. Then it's very expensive. So twice a year, I have to go to the owners of the company and say, Okay, give me my salary. Then I take them out to dinner and this time I give long explanation, You owe me $100,000, but I need like $500,000. And they're like, Why? They're very tough people, Israel people. Then they're like, Why? Then I said, I've finished my geshe, I have to offer something big to the monastery, I need $500,000. Something like that. Then in the diamond business, there's a secret hand language. Like this [tapping fingers on Stanley’s hand]. And I can see under the table there, husband and wife [communicating by tapping on each other’s hands]. Then I'm like [waiting]. Then husband says, Yeah, okay, we will do it, we will pay for that. Then I asked him, You are Israel people, you are Jewish people, you don't believe any Buddhism at all, why do you agree to such a big thing? And he told me, “You know, I'm not stupid. There are many religions in the world, could be your religion is correct. Then after I die, if I start to go to hell, I can tell Buddha, no, no, I gave.” So he said, to be safe, we should give to every religion something. Okay, so if the Lower Middle Way scripture, it says if you understand the pen very well and you die, you will never go to a lower place. And mainly it relates to understanding subjects as opposed to objects. If it's possible, it's correct, then god damn learn the pen. And if it's correct, you don't have to go to the hell. If it's not correct, it's okay, you lost a few hours. I support my boss's opinion - if possible it's correct, I will learn the pen. Okay, cool? 

By the way, after you see kongxing directly, which is the purpose of this class, you cannot make any more karma for a suffering body, it's not possible. “Oh, so Geshe-la, when you see emptiness, then next life you don't have suffering body?” No, you still have bad karma from earlier and it takes time to wear out that bad karma. Seven lifetimes, 490 years. Then you say, “Geshe-la, that's a long time to have bald head, 490 years.” After billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, 490 is not so bad. And it feels wonderful to know when it's going to stop. It's such a wonderful feeling.

Diamond Way teaching from 2004 versus now

All right. So I hope you got a reading; if you don’t have a reading, find a reading. You will get more after Grandpa writes it, I’m just underwater. We finished the first few pages… there’s the museum. Page 4, on the bottom. Gina [request to put up idim], Geshe-la cutting diamond.

So this picture is Grandpa cutting a diamond. I was in the diamond business for 19 years in Manhattan. Honestly, we built the largest diamond jewelry company in the world, and I think there’s over 10,000 companies generally of that level. So I always tell my friends, either I understand something or I'm very lucky. And I think if there’s a chance that understanding emptiness will help you be successful in your life, then I think it’s worth the time to learn about it. And that money, again, I never took money. Nineteen years I took the bus to NY. To NY and back is almost 4 hours a day. And we made a lot of money but I never bought a car, but I was able to make donations and most of the early money for John’s project came from the diamond company. So personally I would say even if you’re not Buddhist, and even if you believe there’s nothing after death, it’s still smart to learn about this system. And like my boss said, “Who knows? Maybe it will help you after you die.” 

So our company does not cut diamonds, and why I joined the diamond business, we’ll talk about it. But when you see emptiness directly, and when you come down, within two or three minutes, you start to think - how can I remember what I saw? And there’s nothing in this world that is really close to śūnyatā. Then you start to think, “What’s a good metaphor? What’s the closest thing in this world?” And every arya who ever lived understands this is the diamond. In Buddhism we have many diamonds. So I will introduce you to Rob Haggerty, some of you went to his classes. He also has Chinese name - Yī bǎi. If you can tell me, okay, here’s the easy question - in the Vajra Chedika, in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, how many times does “diamond” come in the Diamond Cutter Sutra? 

[Student: zero]

Yeah, exactly, zero. Not only “diamond” doesn’t come in that sutra, “cutting” doesn’t come in that sutra. Then there are some countries where they call it the Diamond Sutra. But if you’re Arya, you’re like, Ohh [leaning over in pain], no, no, no, Diamond Cutter, Diamond Cutter. 

Yī bǎi, Sanskrit for Diamond Cutter Sutra, name of the sutra?

[Tin: It’s Vajracchedikā]

Yay, $100. Rob, Rob, wait, he’s going to recite two lines of some scripture. Anything you like.

[Tin reciting scripture]

Yay! Yeah, that’s hot. Okay, so Vajra Chedika. 

Yī bǎi? Why Chedika? Why cut the diamond? Why call the book “cutting the diamond”?

[Student: Diamond is the hardest thing on earth, and when we learned about Diamond Cutter, the knowledge is stronger, or is it harder than the diamond itself, that it can even cut the diamond.]

Yay. Nice, nice. Okay, cool. 

So here [in idim], if you look between the fingers, you can see the small raw diamond. People ask me, Did you do blood diamond? My company doesn't buy or sell rough diamond, we only use cut diamond which we buy in Europe or we buy from India or Hong Kong. So I never went to buy diamonds in Africa. But after I was already vice president, I really, really want to learn how to cut the diamond. And it's very, very secret, they will not teach you. And I had to pay a lot of money to some guy to teach me. Rob knows the guy, you can believe he charged me a lot. And I cut diamonds after work at night, start around 8 o'clock, go to almost midnight, in the diamond district, upper floors. And one day I finally understood how to cut. There are some secrets of how to cut correctly. Suddenly I saw it and I cut it perfect, and I showed it to my teacher. He said, Now you understand diamond cutting. I said, Yeah. Then he said, So quit the business now. Selling diamond is a good business. Cutting diamond is dirty, hard work and they don't make much money. But it was useful to know. If you go to that Mongolian temple someday, there's a tiny, tiny monk's house behind the temple. There's a dirty, dirty basement. And I bought a diamond cutting machine, I put it down there. Secretly, I used to cut the diamonds. Then sometimes the diamond falls off and it hits the diamond wheel. Diamond wheel is 3,000 RPM. Then the diamond will go [flying away]. And someday, if you don't have enough money, go to that little house, go to the basement, try to find all the diamonds I lost. So finally I quit because I was losing too many diamonds. You ask how to recognize an Arya, for example, honestly, they would be obsessed with cutting diamonds. That's one sign. 

All right, next picture.

There's an old couple with some fruit, then there's a Xiaomi electric car, and there's a rocket ship. So recently we came to China and we gave teaching in Hangzhou. And I need a ride from the hotel to the teaching place and I came out of the hotel. Hotel is crazy, there's some rich guy, he got us one night room on an island in a lake in Hangzhou and you have to walk across the wooden platforms to get to your room. Very expensive, very exclusive, and very full of mosquitoes. Sometimes those rich people really suffer to be rich. Then we come out to the parking lot and there's a bright yellow Xiaomi, this car. And Stanley's like, Geshe-la, I rented the car just for you because I want to show Americans what a real car looks like. Then we got in. It's all [very fast] Then I'm like, I need one of these. We stop at the car dealer, I said, I'll take one, I don't care how much. He said, You're not allowed to take it to the United States. Then I'm like, dang. Really beautiful car and great electricity, it charges in eight minutes, you can drive it for the rest of your life. It's amazing. 

But a rocket ship, now that's the way to go from New Jersey to New York, in a rocket ship. And actually there's no... 

[cheering] Where'd you get that? Yeah. Xiaomi is unbelievable, but a rocket ship is ... If you could get a private rocket ship… you can't drive Xiaomi from Hangzhou to Rimrock, but rocket you can take. I'd rather have a rocket. 

Then I taught Diamond Way twenty-two years ago, something like that. I taught it for how many years? Six years? Seven years? Something like that. And we did a good job and I translated many great Diamond Way classics. We keep saying 15,000 pages, I don't know if that's correct, but I think it is, it's a lot. More? Something like that. 10 or 15,000 pages. And I did homeworks for every class. I didn't quite finish the work, it was too much. I finished teaching it, but I never had time to finish all the translations. So that's a really, really good Diamond Way course, it's a Xiaomi Diamond Way course. 

By the way, my teacher took me. There are two tantric colleges in Tibet. My teacher was the vice president of Gyume Tantric College in 1951. And my debating teacher became the head of Gyume Tantric College. You want to hear, can I tell Grandpa stories? Okay. When you get to be Grandpa, you like to tell stories. So, my teacher, Tenzin Trinlay, became the abbot of Gyume. Then John Brady got a very good input center in the same village. And those ladies, excuse me, they kick ass. And they really type amazing for 20, 25 years. Now they're on the third generation so there's the grandma, the mom, and the kid are all working together. That Gyume Tantric College has a very famous set of books. It's the 12 most secret books of Diamond Way and I couldn't get it, they wouldn't let me look at them. And when my teacher became the abbot, we went and offered him tea and cookies and tried to butter him up. Then I said, “Rinpoche, this 12 books set from Gyume, very famous. Now you became the abbot. Can I just type it?” Then he [gives] big smile, he's very kind and very gentle person. Then he's like, [smiling] “no way.” Then I told the ladies, there's like 20 ladies there, I said, I was hoping to get these 12 books. Then about six weeks later… in those days, no internet. They will send a disk to America from Asia. When the disk comes, I have to check what's on the disk. The 12 books are on the disk. By the way, someday I'll teach you what's in the 12 books, but it's about the Buddha, his partner practice, with his partner. So I wrote to the ladies, “Wow, how you get these books?” Then they wrote me back, “ladies have way.” But, I don't know. 

Okay, anyway, this picture here, in English we call “apples and oranges”. Do you like apple? Yes. Do you like oranges? Yes. Usually people like apple more or they like oranges more. In English we have an idiom - when we say these two things are completely different, we say “it's apples and oranges.” Then that old Diamond Way course is apple. And I debated at the Tantric College, and our course is better by a hundred times. Really. In 2,000 years, nobody made a course like that so if you get a chance, you should study it and I have students who are teaching it. But, the new course is rocketship and it's amazing. So if it's me, I like apples and oranges, but it's completely different. And my plan is to teach it for the next two years in different ways to different groups. If I have to leave this world, I would like to finish that. Just two years, okay? And that's what I'm starting today. So, have fun. 

Empowerment 

All right. Next one.

Yeah, everybody was studying Gibson's translation, right? Good translation of the whole path, and that book is very famous. I think that's the book Tin was reciting, I think. Right? Yeah. And it's a wonderful, wonderful preparation. Mainly, you have to learn the six perfections to prepare for Diamond Way, and so far we've finished four. And what I'd like to teach you this week, we will begin learning the sixteen parts of emptiness. This was the first teaching the Buddha gave in this world and it has strong connection to Diamond Way. So, in Sanskrit, “diamond” is “vajra”. Say Vajra. Vajra. I like this word, “vaj”. “Vaj” means power. And all English, normal English, comes from Sanskrit. And then we say there are cognate. Cognate means English word which came from Sanskrit. So the root for diamond, vajra, is vaj. It means extreme power. 

Yī bǎi, $100. Okay, what's the question? What's the English cognate for “vaj”? Especially my mom will say the same thing.

[Student: It's vegetable.]

Yay! In the ancient times, they believed vegetable has extreme power. I believe croissant has extreme power. So anyway, but in the ancient times, they will say vegetable has extreme power to help your life, and vajra means powerful. Vajrayana - Diamond Way, Vajracchedikā - Diamond Cutter, Vajradhara - holder of the diamond in the secret way, Vajrapani - diamond in the hand in the secret way. And you have to ask yourself - why they keep talking about vajra? What's so important about diamond? And we're going to answer that question in this week. As far as Gibson's book which we were reading to prepare for this transmission, I would say the most important thing is the presentation of the six perfections. 

By the way, one very important thing. “Geshe-la, in English some people say empowerment, some people say transmission. What's the difference?” So in October we will have an empowerment transmission. Why is there two names? What's the difference? Empowerment means, mainly, you are empowered by the teacher, and specifically you are empowered to do certain practices and you are also empowered to teach. So you will get many empowerments inside the empowerment. I remember one of the early empowerments I got, and I remember the year because I had just joined my company, 1981. And I remember because I had to go get the empowerment a few weeks after I started working and I remember telling people about my new job. I didn't know at that time I will be in that prison for 19 years. But I remember it was about 5,000 people I think, and I was about number 4,000. And you know the teacher [fast unintelligible talking] and I don't know what's going on. No idea what's going on and there's no explanation. And I remember someone translated something, gave us a copy, and there was a vow, we were supposed to take a vow that we cannot do sexual misconduct, which means you cannot have sex with another person's wife or husband. But the translator made a mistake saying you cannot have sex. And I met a guy like 10 years later. His wife was very upset. Understand? He kept the vow. 

So I made a promise to myself - if I ever give empowerment, I will clearly tell the student what the hell is going on. And I really believe that. So this empowerment in October, I translated the whole empowerment into English and Chinese. I put it together from many ancient sources including, we found the original, the very earliest records of this empowerment, and it was first given by a nun. Inside the empowerment there's a short sadhana. Sadhana means a daily thing you can recite to become that female Buddha. And it was written by a nun, I don't know, almost 2,000 years ago. And that copy, handwritten copy, was found in Dunhuang, and I don't think anyone has translated it before. How long is it? No, the whole book. The empowerment text is 650 pages. 

So I have an idea. We will have three days empowerment. I take a hammer and hit you on the head for three days, that's what happened to me. Just kidding. For two days before that, I will teach you the whole empowerment in English, translated into many languages. So before you sign the contract you get to read the contract and there's no problems with your husband or your wife because we translated correctly. So you will get the whole package. So that's a three day ceremony. And it's fun, we do many different things. We did in March for a small group, main group in Dragon's Head, branch group in Kyoto, it worked very well. “Geshe-la, you sure that tantra blessing will go over the internet?” Yeah, I tried it, don't worry, it's fine. So three days empowerment, two days training. Then earlier in the week two days training for ... We have a small helper's group because there's many, many activities, many things you have to do. In each activity is a separate empowerment and different kind of… you can say permission is a translation for empowerment. Personally, I prefer the word transmission. So empowerment means you have permission to do this thing, this thing, this thing, including you have permission to give empowerment to other people. To me, transmission means some kind of blessing that I received from my teacher are passing on to you. And you can't see it, and you can't buy it, you just get it. I prefer to call it transmission because I did get the transmission, especially touching the diamond, and I would like to pass it on. Okay. Next picture. 

By the way, I'll review for like 15 minutes what we studied before, and then I'll take questions for 15 minutes in the first session each day. So you can start thinking of short questions. I'm happy to answer them. I don't care what question you ask, I can twist it to something useful. This is what we learn in geshe. 

The perfection of giving

Okay. So I think a good background in the six perfections is a great way to go into a transmission. So the writing here says, “first of the six perfections, moving beyond tuna fish sandwiches.” So when I was growing up, maybe Nick, you're the same, I don't know. I never learned to cook anything. When I was growing up in my home, in my family, until I went to college, I never cooked one thing. Then in my generation, right John, our parents teach us to open a can of tuna fish. That's how much cooking we know. Then when I was at Princeton, after the school, you are finished, the cafeteria is closed, and I have to work. I was working, I was driving truck. So I will stay for two weeks, drive truck, and eat out of tuna fish can. Then when I got to Mongol Temple, my teacher Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, he refused to take money. So he said, Don't give me any money, but you have to cook. Then, I'm like, Well, we should buy a lot of cans of tuna fish. Then, he's like, No, no, no, no, you have to learn how to cook. And I think that was the most difficult thing to become a monk - it was cooking. And I cooked for eight years, three meals a day, and I was the worst cook in history. But I believe it was important for touching the diamond world. 

So I was only with my teacher for about two months before I touched the diamond world, but I was already working really hard to cook for him, and I do the gardening, Elly and me used to shovel the snow. That was before global warming - there used to be white stuff coming out of the sky. Big, deep, and we would shovel for hours. So I was basically slave. But I believe that giving, first perfection, it really helped me to touch the diamond world. And helping your teacher is extremely powerful karma. If you're interested to see emptiness, giving in the sense of giving service to your teacher, there's nothing more powerful. To collect that karma, you have to have a teacher. So, really, to touch the diamond world, I would say you have to serve a teacher, and obviously that means you have to find a teacher, and that's a long, long subject. But basically, look for a good person. Sometimes famous person is not a good person. Try to find a good person. My teacher is like my father and for many years when I was going to New York to work, I don't want to tell everybody I'm a monk. So they said, do you have a family, do you have a wife? “No, I live with my father.” Grumpy old man, that part is correct. So for many years they thought I live with my father. So try to find a good teacher. Should be a good person and they should know what they're talking about. 

I'll tell you a funny story, that's my job, okay? I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. We have fruit trees. The economy of Phoenix, Arizona used to be fruit - dates and oranges. Then every house, my house, we had eight orange trees. And we were close to a busy street and it's impossible to eat all the oranges, there's too many. So the kids have permission to throw them at each other. And we develop a special system - there's a big fence, and a busy road, and the friend will watch over the fence, and we will sit behind. He'll say, “now!” and you throw the orange, like that, and then it hit the car. Then we hear [splat] and then [car brakes] and then they go [people complaining], and we go “yeah!” Then, the best car to hit, number one goal, New York or New Jersey. We don't like the New York people. They always drive black car in Arizona. We throw special oranges for them. Then when I was trying to find a… I have to come back to America from Himalayas and I'm trying to find a teacher. Big, big teacher told me, Go back with your mom, take care of your mom until she dies. Then I'm looking for a teacher. Somebody said, The greatest teacher in the world is visiting America in a small Mongol temple in New Jersey. 

Okay, Yī bǎi. No guessing, Nick. What's a synonym for New Jersey? What's a nickname for New Jersey?

[Student showing armpit]

Yeah, yeah, good. Armpit of America. Why? All the oil that America needs comes to New Jersey by ship and then they make gasoline at the port, Newark. And stink very bad, like armpit. And if you commute from Mongol temple to New York, you go through the armpit. The nickname is Cancer Alley. If you take the bus through there, you will get cancer. So anyway, that was my job. People said, if you want to study with that teacher, you have to leave the beach at Del Mar, California and never surf again and live in New Jersey. And you have to make those decisions. I chose a teacher over California beach and I'm extremely… I feel extremely lucky that I made this choice. And I was in the New Jersey hell for 25 years and I'm glad, and it was the right decision to follow my teacher and don't follow the beach. And now I went back to the beach. No [laughing]. But you have to make choices sometimes. I saw many old people on the beach, looks like they're going to die soon. Sometimes I think that could be me and I'm glad I chose New Jersey because teacher was there. And I do believe to stay near your teacher is completely necessary. That's my opinion. 

Okay. Questions? No question, I will go take a nap.

Question: The experience of becoming a planet jumper

[1:00:51]

[Student: So Grandpa, I want to ask a question. Basically, if I can really become the planet jumper,  traveling through all the planets, does it mean that in my world nobody will suffer after I become the planet traveler?]

Okay, good question. This is a delicate point. The Jing says, the scripture says, when you touch diamond world, some people also become bodhisattva at that time, and some people do not. So in my case, I did become a bodhisattva on the same day, and that was maybe roughly less than half an hour after I come down. And again, I didn't talk about this for, how long, fifty years, rarely, to close friends. And there's no way I can prove it to you. And I admit that, but it's true. For me, that experience was to travel to all the worlds in the universe, and to meet each person directly and each animal directly. It's a very, very unusual experience, and you see the person or you see the animal face here [close in front of you], in my case. And they always look as nice as possible, I mean, they are young. All the frogs you meet are nice young frogs, but they look a little bit worried because they know they have to die, and they know they have to suffer in this life. And you don't talk, but you communicate. And you are aware of their pain and you're aware of their fear. And because you just touched emptiness you know you are close to become Buddha, 490 years, something like that, if 70 years is normal. Then you communicate with them, and you're like, don't worry. There's a song: “Hang on. I'm coming.” But you communicate without talking, that you don't have to be scared, I'm coming to take care of you. So that's the experience that you have. And I would say in less than half an hour, you meet every living creature in the universe. And there's levels of bodhisattvas before that - there's a thing called sugarcane bodhichitta, tastes almost like bodhisattva. But to really help people, all people, all creatures, you must touch the diamond world first. Cool? 

Question: How to handle inner loneliness?

All right. Okay, one more question I think.

[Almira: Geshe-la, my name is Almira, I'm from Kazakhstan. I congratulate all who are near who are the teachers today. And my question is how to handle inner loneliness? I have close beloved people. I have the opportunity to buy something I want, but it brings happiness just temporarily. It doesn't fulfill this inner loneliness. How do I manage this? Thank you.]

She can buy things but they don't fulfill her inner loneliness.

[Almira: I can buy something. I have close people but it is not so happiness. What I can do with my inner loneliness? Thank you.]

Okay, answer: So, you know I grew up Christian and I love the church. I have a very great church and I love to go to the church and I remember great teaching in the church. Jesus said, if a person steals your sweater then contact them, “Excuse me, are you the person who stole my sweater?” Yeah. “Do you also need a coat? I also have a coat.” This is Jesus’ philosophy. If people hit you on this cheek, then say “this one [other cheek] also available.” I grew up with that, and to be honest, it seems too much. It seems too far away, cannot reach that. But sometimes I will remember, and sometimes if someone hurts me I will try to give them even more. And the feeling after, if you develop that habit, the feeling is extreme happiness and the opposite of the loneliness that you talked about. So if you want to be really happy, keep giving, keep giving, ridiculous things. You give somebody… I gave somebody a house recently, and they're like, “do you have another one?” I'm like, I don't know, even that one I have to pay for a long time. But keep trying, give more and more and I swear you will be super happy. I'm the happiest person I know, except for my teacher. But just keep giving and you will feel deep satisfaction. Someone give you a small lunch, you feel deeply satisfied. 

See you later.

[5:17]

Descriptions of the Five Houses

Okay, today we want to start the class with a special announcement, and we'll end the class with a special announcement. But, I guess about two years ago, we had an idea called Five Houses. And the reason we had that idea is all the ... so, Grandpa's teaching too many years and there's too many courses and if a new person comes today and they want to finish all the old ACI courses, it would take 32 years. And then you would be 34. No, I'm just kidding. So, we feel like it would be good if we could split up the ACI courses into five different tracks and it would be like a university. 

So, when you get to Princeton, I think after the first year, you have to decide what's your department. During that year, you take lots of different courses to find out what's your love, what do you love. So I think when we finished Pabongka Rinpoche's Lam Rim, Steps of the Path, it took 14 years and that's just one topic. So we had an idea to create like five departments, like physics department, music department, literature department, and so we created the Five Houses. We announced it over a year ago and everybody got really excited and we asked everybody to go online and tell us what's your first choice for your department and what's your second choice for your department. Then we got too busy and we didn't have time to create the department because I'm just too busy. And then we had a good idea - stick it on Jamie Plant and Bo and Ora. [applause] Ora helped design all of the ACI courses and all of the Diamond Way courses, 20-something years ago. And I think she came when she was 19 or something, so, I expect your kids [pointing to someone in audience] by 18. And then Jamie and Bo have organized, I believe, it's about 15,000 classes online at the Knowledge Base, free, free online. They are the only two organizers of a project which came to me, I think, and said, Geshe-la, we don't need any fundraising, and we don't need you to do anything, we'll take care of it. And they took care of it, they paid for everything, it's free. So they have a vision of all the classes I taught in the last 40 years or something, and together they are willing to help. We have courses, we have the ACI courses, but many courses I didn't quite finish. The old Diamond Way courses, I never finished two of them or three of them. So anyway, they're going to help decide what we have to finish, finish it, and create five different departments called Houses. 

So if I’m a normal person, Tim, how do I choose my house and what do I have to do, and does that mean I cannot go to the other houses’ programs?

[Tim: First of all, I'm very excited to be working with Jamie, Ora, and Bo to develop the curriculum. And one of the things we have been thinking a lot about is how do we attract new people who have different ways or entrances into the teachings? So a lot of us are nerds, we're very much into the classics and studying the technicalities of everything. But we found that not everyone is as nerdy as we are. And Geshe-la has taught so many things in so many different ways, that maybe Jasmine, we might have a program that's five times this size and that's your problem [laughing]. 

But really, the idea is how can we reach more people, people with different capacities / different minds? And so the idea is with the Five Houses - it's five different types of people. So we're going to be asking you - where do you think you belong? And I know that all of you are nerdy and want to be part of the Classics House. But I know a lot of you might have interests in other areas that might actually align more with what's in your heart. Like any university, there will be several courses that are the foundations for everyone across all five houses like the foundation of the three principal paths, an understanding of meditation, an understanding of how seeds work, an understanding of the other side from the Diamond Cutter Sutra - the emptiness side. And that foundation will then allow you to enter into one of the other five houses. And I'm super excited that now we're beginning to create what that content is going to be, those tracks, in all the other houses. And thank you [Geshe-la] for helping lead us through this.]

So I want to emphasize one thing. Houses are mainly like a university to learn to be a teacher. So if you want to be a meditation teacher, you join that house. If you want to teach philosophy, you join that house. And everyone is welcome to come to the classes of every house, so same as before. But if you want to become a teacher, we'll help you to specialize in what you enjoy. I believe the teacher training for each house begins with three years and goes up to five years, but it won't be 14 years or 25 years. If you want to study for 25 years, we can do it. But that's the idea. So if you're interested especially to be a teacher, Tim and I will go through the Five Houses right now. We have some pictures, and you kind of see which one you would like to join.

The last one is called Diamond House. Everybody wants to be in Diamond House so we're asking you to name two houses - Diamond House and what else do you want. And then we'll erase the Diamond House. No, but of course you can… I think most people will take one of the four houses and then they will be in Diamond House. But it will be like a department in the university. And my department, we are very small at Princeton, I'm in the religion department. I think we might be the smallest department, but we have a big feeling that we are a family and after 50 years, we still meet each other. I'll start, and you [Tim] do the next one. 

Starting at the top, at the top is Classics House. That means people who like to study Jing. People who like the ancient books. Mainly, that will be the 18 original ACI courses. So, if you join that house, and you become a teacher, you would teach mainly the 18 ACI courses. 

By the way, I challenge Francisco to find and steal the scene from Harry Potter where they're doing the hat and the houses in the next 20 minutes. I challenge you to find that cut and we'll show it illegally. For example, Rob is from Slytherin House. 

Classics House is easy. The courses are clean, the courses were created a long time ago. They do need a little bit of cleaning up. By the way, it doesn't mean you're not allowed to teach it if you want to teach it. Anybody can teach. So it's not that you're not allowed to teach them if you don't join Classics House, but the Classics House guys will receive special training how to teach and it will be easier to get the materials. We didn't update that website for 35 years, and that's what these three kids are going to do. Okay, you explain the next house.

[Tim: The next house is the Samadhi House, in the second picture down. That's what I think I look like when I'm meditating. Don't put the picture of what I actually look like. The idea here is there's a lot of people who are primarily attracted to meditation. They would much rather be meditating than memorizing the Jing. I know a lot of people that even in New York, they offer a lot of meditation training and a lot of people that come in are accessing the teachings that way. And so if you would like to be a meditation teacher, and there are lots of ways we can teach this to the world, and we need your creativity on how we can create courses to do so. Because we know a lot of people, they go, “Oh mindfulness, meditation, what is that?” They have this natural attraction to it. And we’ll teach people how to correctly mediate, the pitfalls of it. Maybe we could use the Devil-Angel text as a course of all the wrong ways?]

Nice segue! We have a copy, Lindsay? Never walk around without a copy. We need one Devil Debates the Angel. I’m the boss of Advertisement House and Fundraising House. Okay, keep going.

[Tim: So the Devil-Angel book presents all the wrong meditations to get to the right meditation. And honestly, it’s very humbling when I realized, oh, I’m doing those. But the idea is that can we help people meditate, and meditate in a correct way that can really help them? How to plant seeds in meditation, the correct seeds, the most powerful seeds. So if you are attracted to that, just imagine yourself… I mean if this is what you want to look like in meditation or whatever you think you look like…]

By the way, the book that Tim mentioned is here. In Tibetan it’s called BDAG ‘DZIN GSHAGS ‘DEBS. Say BDAG ‘DZIN GSHAGS ‘DEBS.  BDAG ‘DZIN means holding to self-existence. What’s that look like? Yī bǎi? What does it look like when you are holding to self-existence?

[Student: Like the devil?]

Give me an example at work.

[Student: When your boss yells at you and tells you, whatever, you didn’t do the project on time, and you think that the boss is not coming from something that you did in the past, that when you yelled at other people in the past.]

Okay, good.

[Student: In other words when you think he’s coming from his side, he’s self-existent.]

Sometimes a person gives a $300 answer to a $100 question.

We started teaching this book 14 years ago. My teacher began it and never finished it, and luckily we were all able to finish it. And I put some commentary in it. I think the core of the book, there are 28 wrong meditations on emptiness. And you think it’s strange to write a book about how to meditate on emptiness the wrong way, but actually this author, who lived about 400 years ago, he was a genius. By the way, he wrote the De Lem, he wrote the first three courses of the Diamond Way course. And if you get a copy, I predict while you are reading it you will say, Huh, I thought this was a correct emptiness meditation. And then you can improve your own meditation. So you know, we brought copies in suitcases and probably it ran out already. No? Okay. You should make it run out. But there is also an ebook copy. Now, if you live in mainland China, it takes many years to get approval to sell books in China. My Diamond Cutter business book is selling, approved by the government to sell in China, and I have some friends from Guangdong who saw it in the Beijing book store. But it took 25 years to get permission and it’s not legal for us to send you books into mainland China without that permission. So we are working with the publishers almost every day and it looks good. But in the meantime, we can’t mail you a book in the mainland. But it is legal to take it home with you, and we have lots of them. Everywhere I teach, I have lots of them. So I promise we will keep bringing books to the events. You cannot take a box of a 100 home, that’s called illegal importing. You can take 3 or 4 in your suitcase, that’s fine. So I suggest you try to get the book. And we will talk more about the Good Night Book Club, Lindsay’s project later in the week. 

Third house is my turn. This is called Mountain House. Some people say, Geshe-la, I am not attracted to the old books, they are very boring. In fact, I agree. If you are having trouble sleeping, read some of those books. But this idea to do retreat, I think, is very sexy. “I heard about Kat and Connie, John Brady deep in 3-year retreat. It sounds very exciting to me.” Then if you have this kind of attraction, we would like to train you to teach people to do retreat. Lots of people try retreat, almost everybody is doing it wrong way. And I’ll show you a slide tomorrow from Forbes magazine. Okay. So the third house is retreat house, called Mountain House. The Classics House, we have all the 18 foundation courses of ACI, they are finished. We have to clean them up, we have to make them easier to get, and they will still exist, ACI, to provide those courses. But in the case of retreat, we don’t have a good course. Many of us did retreat, but we didn’t create courses, like 18 courses of how to do retreat. So the people who sign up today for retreat house, which includes many people who finished 3-year retreat, they will help design a course for other people.

By the way, it doesn't mean you have to do 3-year retreat. Like Stanley has an organization called Innovation Retreats, you can stay 3 days up to 3 weeks - how to use retreat for new ideas in your business, and I have been teaching courses for his organization. For example, how to design a new kind of gemstone. I discovered a new gemstone called swiss topaz. It’s very very popular and it’s very very profitable. You make it for $60, you sell it for $600. In fact, the first ones were made in Hong Kong with a secret process which I created during a retreat. So retreat house and Stanley’s innovation retreats will teach people how to get new ideas in retreat.

[Tim: The next house is called the Staircase House. In the classic language, we call it Lam Rim, Steps on the Path. A lot of people come to us and they're like, “This sounds awesome. Like, this is amazing. I don't have time - I have two kids, I work full time, I don't have time even for myself. But I need something that I can do right now. I have problem X, and I need a solution now. I need a practice I can do.” And the Lam Rim, the Steps on the Path, is everything you need to do from the beginning to the end. It also happens to be a preparation for the Diamond Way too. The text we are studying, which was translated by Gibson, is a Steps on the Path text. It’s short and very profound. And so the idea is, can we help people who need a practice right now? Now the more that you study Lam Rim, the more that you recognize that it is everything anyway. I grew up in Lam Rim. I met Geshe Michael through the Steps on the Path. All the training I had was through that. Stanley and I’ve called each other Lam Rim brothers. So if you are particularly attracted to this type of teaching, which is designed to be very accessible and very relevant, the teacher of the Lam Rim that we studied for 14 years taught normal people just like us. But what he didn’t have was a microphone. So he taught to a room this size without microphones and he was trying to reach normal people in their normal life. And so if you're attracted to that and teaching that… and we're actually in a Steps on the Path class this entire event, the last two perfections, that's the place you'd like to go.]

Okay, last house, Diamond House, secret teachings of Buddhism. Basically two choices there. We created a Diamond Way course at Diamond Mountain Retreat Center. It's thousands of pages; fifteen, eighteen, seventeen courses? Almost finished. And people like J.B., Connie, people are teaching it, Jigme. They're teaching it very nicely, very deep, very traditional. Grandpa is now starting two-year course for Arya's Diamond Way. And if you join Diamond House, you can learn two ways to teach Diamond Way, and you can focus which way you prefer to teach. 

So it's very much like a university. At Princeton, you can finish ... I finished a religion degree and then I did a Russian degree. You can do two. You know, learn how to teach in one house and then finish, and then if you want to learn how to teach in another house, you can do. No one's stopping you from teaching, basically. If you want to teach, it's a free country, almost, free world. But you can do a better job if you get training. But you're very welcome to go to courses in all Five Houses. It's just my opinion, if you seriously want to learn to teach one of these five, that's going to take five years of hard work in that field, similar to a university. And we want to give you that chance. So, to repeat, you're always welcome to come to all the courses. Of course, you will teach your mother everything you learn; if you want to be a certified Five House teacher, or if you want to be a certified Princeton graduate, you have to go to Princeton University. And then, probably you should choose a specialty and become a master, and then move on to your second specialty.

[Tim: Ale, can you put the slide up? So, how are we going to get started? Oh, let's watch this first.]

[Sorting hat scene from Harry Potter movie]

[Tim: So when you put that hat on, what will it say about you? “Not Slytherin. Must be Staircase House.” So what would the sorting hat say to you? Okay, go back to the slide. And so, here's our form.]

[Tim: We also are going to be asking you some questions because we're looking for help. This isn't something that we can do by ourselves. I was told yesterday that I have to hire 15 people, three for each house. I'm sure there are 15 people here who would love to volunteer for a year or two to help grow each of these houses so we're also going to be going through that as well. So please fill out the form. Or, the best thing to do if you're really, really interested, maybe talk to myself or grab one of the Five Houses staff members. Elevator pitches, 30 seconds. I'm going to walk out the back door so I don't get pitched. No, but if you're interested, please let us know. Thank you for your time Geshe-la.]

I'll repeat. You're always welcome to come to all the houses' classes. If you'd like to be a teacher, you should find your department and learn how to teach in that department. Then if you want to learn to teach in another department also, like at Princeton, you can do that. It's a lot of work. You can do it if you want, you don't have to do it if you don't want, but we are trying to create well-trained teachers. And thanks to Tim for his hard, hard work.

Okay, let's have a class also. So don't forget to go online and just choose your house. When I applied to college, I applied to 20 colleges. In America, that's what you do and if you get accepted, you go to the one that you like. 

Levels of morality (the second DW perfection)

Okay, we're going to go back to the…  we just finished the cooking for your teacher, or working for your teacher.

Again, I graduated from Princeton and the next day I went to be with my teacher. And many, many friends wrote me and said, “Oh, he joined a cult.” And “why are you a cook in a little Mongolian temple? You should be a lawyer at the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna”, which is what my roommate did. Everybody said, “Oh, that teacher is taking advantage of you.” And I just kept my mouth shut, I didn't say anything, just served the teacher. And I'll tell you honestly, the Atomic Energy Commission guy… you want to hear a story? [explaining to Stanley for translation:] Atomic Energy Commission for the world. They control nuclear bombs for the world... He told me, “You're so crazy, I could give you a job, you can make lots of money. You're sitting in a little Mongolian temple with a bunch of old monks and wasting your time.” So Princeton, I think it's 250 years old, there are some old rules there. One rule - you have to learn to swim. If you can't swim, you can't graduate, which I think is a really good idea. My roommate doesn't know how to swim. He sued the university. He's a law student, he's very good at it. He won the case and he didn't have to learn to swim. Five years after graduation, he's walking near a river and he fell in and he died because he couldn't swim. He left a wife and two kids. He's the one who said I was really stupid to stay in the Mongol temple. 

If I know I have to die, I would rather die in the Mongol temple, at least they can help me afterwards. So anyway, I just ignored all my friends. Many, many people write me nowadays, “Can you help me? I got cancer, I'm going to die, I don't know what's happening next.” Many, many people come to me from Princeton, my old friends. 

I went to the Mongol temple and became Chibita. Ta means horse, Chiba means the whole village owns this one horse. Then all those Mongols came to America just after World War II. In 1945 they were 40 years old. In 1975 everybody was 70 years old. They don't speak English, they cannot drive a car. So my teacher said you are the horse for the whole village. I have to drive everywhere and everywhere. Luckily they are a kind of Mongol speaks Russian so I translate for them. Very, very busy. Why I include it here? For me that's the second perfection. Which is what? You can say morality. 

We went to Peru. ESA? What's it called? The National Business College and we taught there and we had breakfast with the president of the university. He said, “Can I ask you a question?” I'm like, okay. “Are there different kinds of morality in Buddhism?” Then I'm like [excited], Yes. He said, “What kind of different kinds?” Then I said, well, there's DONG PA'I TSUL KHRIMS. DONG PA'I TSUL KHRIMS means you promise not to hurt other people. For example, there's like 20 monk vows about not taking monk's cloth from the people, not asking for more monk's cloth, not stealing monk's cloth, not keeping monk's cloth. There's all these monk's cloth vows. So first level Buddhist morality is don’t hurt other people. 

Then he’s like, “Well what's the second level?” Then I said that's bodhisattva morality. So if I'm a monk, if I keep an extra pair of clothes for more than like 48 hours, that might disturb my meditation. How many pairs of shoes do you have at home? [pause to think] That information is in your brain. That means it's wasting space in your brain. That means having those extra shoes is hurting your meditation because it takes space on the hard drive. So first level Buddhist morality - reduce how many things you own and your meditation will be more clear. Second level, he says, “Is there a second level?” Oh yeah, there's a second level called bodhisattva morality. Then if you're a bodhisattva and somebody offers you three warehouses full of silk, you must accept it. You cannot say no because maybe someday you can help somebody who needs clothes. Second level morality is much bigger than first level morality. 

First level: don't keep extra shoes if you're not wearing them. Second level morality: if someone offers you 100 pairs of shoes, take them immediately because you can share them with poor people. Don't just think about yourself. Third level morality, he says, “Is there a third level?” That's secret morality. What's secret morality? If you get empowerment or transmission into Guanyin and someone offers you some silk, [pretending to put on silk and look proudly beautiful] you should put it on. “Wait, even if you're a monk?” Yeah, you should, and they do. You put it on and you imagine you are Guanyin. It helps your meditation. 

So three different levels of morality. Chibita, say Chibita, public horse, that's higher kind of morality. You should have a good sized car and you should be available all day for old people. It's trouble to own a car - insurance, gasoline, everything, trouble. It's a lot of trouble to live in a community of several hundred old people who knock on your door every hour of the day.

I was supposed to raise some money for John Brady with the wealthiest woman in the world, A.S. I have an appointment to meet her at Lincoln Center to see the ballet. Actually, I just want to squeeze her purse to help John's project. I did a lot of strange things for John. Then the neighbor died, one of the Mongols died, old man died. Then my teacher said, “Okay, it's your turn, you have to go to the funeral home. Do prayers for three hours while they take the blood out of his body.” If you're a monk, you find out about these things. In America, when you die, by law, they take the body to a nursing home. They put it on a cold steel table, it has troughs on four sides. Trough means where the water goes off the roof, for example. Then they make holes in your body and the blood comes out and goes into the trough and goes into a bucket and they throw it out. Then they replace it with formaldehyde. It's a chemical that keeps your body from rotting. 

Then I told my teacher, “I can't go to watch this.” I'm supposed to do prayers for three hours while they change his blood. I said, “Rinpoche, I'm going to meet the richest lady in the world. She's going to help John Brady.” You know what he said. He's like [arms crossed]. He doesn't have to talk. “You shut up, go to the funeral home.” Then, very funny, this rich lady had an assistant. She was a modern dancer also. So I sent my friend to Lincoln Center. Thousand people are coming to the opera. I'm like, “Look for two ladies. One is the big one, she's the rich one. The other one's legs look like telephone pole, she's the modern dancer.” They went there. 

And that’s the kind of… you're trying to help your teacher. In Diamond Way, this is the second perfection, this is morality. This is the three levels of the cloth. You do what your teacher needs. You do what your teacher asks you to do. My teacher is very great. He's very traditional, there's no negotiation.

Okay, one more story. When I first met him, he didn't speak much English, and I had learned some Tibetan in the Himalayas. So we used to talk half-broken Tibetan, half-broken English. And then somebody paid for him to learn English at George Washington University. So one of my first jobs, he said, “You're going to drive me to Washington DC. We will spend three months there, I will learn English.” So I drove him. Long story, where I slept. So he went to the university, I drove him. Then he came home, I drove him home. Then he's like [gathering papers and handing them to Geshe-la]. I'm like, Rinpoche, what's that? “Homework.” Then I said, Why you give it to me? He said, “You're going to fill it. You're going to write it for me. Every day. Why you think I brought you with me?” Then I'm like, Rinpoche, you are supposed to do the homework. 

One thousand dollars, because I don't want you to forget. We have enough? One thousand dollars. Ready? Get your arm ready. What was his answer? Wait, wait. You have to say it with the right sound. Star Wars. 

[Student (sounding like Darth Vader): I am your teacher.]

So Diamond Way, second perfection, ultimate morality: If your teacher tells you to do something, you do it. Shut up and do it.

Okay, see you next class.

[1:52]

Okay, good morning. You guys look sleepy. Or maybe I'm projecting, probably. All right. Okay, so today after the first philosophy class, Jasmine has worked very hard, and we have the Preface, the 125 page description about seeing emptiness. It's ready to give you. [Applause] Then teachers should know never hand out something at the beginning of class. Then everybody's like this [reading], and they don't listen. Okay, good. 

So I'd like to continue meditations that would help you in the flow of seeing emptiness directly. And my idea is to kind of go in order, but when you do it at home after this program, I would spend maybe two weeks on each one. and do them in order like that. Like spend two weeks on the one I did yesterday, and then spend two weeks on the one I did today. 

So please get ready to meditate. Do your last coughing. 

When you meditate in a group, then obviously it's important to try to be more quiet than usual so we don't bother the persons next to us. And it seems like every time we meditate in a group, some new coughs will come right away. So be patient with the people next to you. They are living in a human body and a human body is a changing thing and sometimes it has to cough. So be patient with each other and don't spend much time worrying about the person next to you. I think if you are going to have a good meditation practice, you have to learn to ignore the problems that come up in your life and your world. 

Meditation: Your first teachers in this life

So sit up straight. I had a yoga teacher, David Life. He used to say, your backbone is not a straight thing, it has several natural curves in it. Personally, I found it useful to pull in my lower stomach and then the backbone down near the bottom doesn't cave in. 

Relax your hands. There’s a big fight - which hand should go on top, should you touch your fingers, which fingers should you touch? If you meditate for many years, I think you will find a comfortable way to keep your own hands, and it may not be the same way that the person next to you does. Personally, I like to almost touch the first finger and the thumb, but not quite touching. 

Relax your eyes. I found it helpful not to try to shut them too hard. 

Try to relax your forehead, all the wrinkles in your forehead. And I like a small smile, but not too much effort. 

And then slowly and naturally come to watching your breath. And as you go through the meditation, sometimes check in with your forehead and the corners of your mouth to make sure they didn't get tight. We're going to do a hundred breaths again. 

Gently and slowly start to focus on the breath. It might be ten or twenty breaths before you really come to the breath. Exhale is first half, inhale is second half. If the exhale is a little longer than the inhale, that's nice. 

[100 breaths]

Then please bring one of your teachers to come and sit with you. I like to say knee to knee, but not quite touching. 

There's a way that your mother looks at you and your teacher looks at you with the same expression of warmth. 

People often ask me how to stay close to their teacher or how to get the teacher to stay close to them. My own experience is even if you're far away from your teacher, if you keep inviting them to sit with you in meditation, morning after morning, then because they are coming from your seeds, it helps you to be with them in the future. 

Then offer them some small beautiful thing. Almost a private thing that other people can't see. 

Then bring to mind some mistake you made in the last few days. Maybe you hurt someone else or you tried to hurt someone else. Try to get the feeling that when you hurt another person, you're actually hurting yourself. 

Then think about something you did to help another person in the last day or two and be happy. 

Now make a small prayer that today we should learn something that will help us spiritually. 

Then think about your spiritual friends, especially those around you today, and make a prayer. Think of one or two special ones and make a prayer for their long life and health. 

Now we'll start the real meditation. 

In this tradition, in the tradition of the Lord Buddha, logic is very important because there's many things we cannot see with our eyes and our ears which are very, very important. So we have our physical senses - we have our eyes, ears, we have our hands. But there are very, very important things we cannot see with our physical senses. Then we have to develop the muscle of our logic. I think we would all like to develop our yoga muscles. If you just do a little yoga every day, naturally your body's muscles get stronger. In the same way, we have to develop the muscle of our own logic. We cannot help other people really if we don't see emptiness, and we cannot see emptiness if we don't develop the muscle of our logic. And just like yoga, that's a daily process. You can't develop your logic muscle once a week or something like that, you have to do it every day. 

If you do develop your logic muscle, it’s a very, very useful muscle. Even in your family life or in your business life, if you have a strong logical muscle, you can achieve many things that other people cannot. 

And especially today we're going to try to look backwards from the beginning of our life and use our logic muscle to see where we came from before this life. If we can expand our perception of ‘me’ past the beginning of this life and past the end of this life, we can achieve much greater things to help people. 

On the day that we do see emptiness directly, after that experience, and I would say from my understanding that during the direct perception of emptiness, our central channel is full of prana for the first time. And then after we come down out of that experience, which we'll talk more about this week, we have some important, very important experiences called jetop yeshe. It means the wisdom that comes after the direct perception of emptiness but on the same day. And again, I would say that we have those amazing understandings all the rest of that day because prana is left over in the central channel. And my own experience is that after you sleep that night, and also the next day, most of that prana is already gone back to normal. 

Then one of the most striking experiences in the hours after you see emptiness directly is you can observe your own death. And I don't think anyone who ever saw emptiness directly was hoping to see their death at the same time, I don't think so, but it is one of the sixteen experiences of emptiness. 

Those jetop yeshe, those experiences after you come down, they are not very long, they take a few minutes each. They come unexpected, they go unexpectedly pretty soon. And you may not be sitting in meditation, you may be standing at that time or walking. So that perception of death comes and you see yourself die and then that perception goes away. 

And then like a separate wave, there comes to you the perception of the first few years of your next life. So it only lasts a few minutes and then that wave also passes. But during those few minutes something very important happens - like you're looking through a window briefly, you can see yourself as a baby and then you can see, in my case, it was several people taking care of the baby who were my future teachers. 

And in this way an Arya becomes aware… it reminds them that the people who taught them in the beginning of this life were coming from the same place. Every person in your childhood who helped you and taught you was planted, logically, in the lifetimes before. So if you would like to have that experience in this life, in the coming months and years you would like to have this experience where you see your future birth and your future teachers, it's important to think about the teachers you had in this life when you were very young. And I would say the teachers you had starting from your birth… it means your parents… and I would say the teachers you had up until you were about twelve, these teachers especially are connected logically to what happened in your past lives. They are not the beginning of a new life, they are the leftovers from the last life. 

So I'd like you to spend maybe the next ten minutes and just think about the people who were your teachers up to the age of twelve. Some teachers what they did you can remember directly, some teachers what they did we can only see logically. Logically, I know my mother gave me mother's milk. Personally, I can't remember the actual drinking the milk. But you can push back the curtain of your childhood if you meditate on it regularly. And if you spend some time on it, you can remember things about your early, early childhood that you didn't remember lately. And my experience is you can push back beyond the beginning of this life and you can learn a lot about where you came from. 

So let's spend just a few minutes, and when we meditate together I'm just doing a short version that you can continue for the next few weeks and you can go deeper on your own after this retreat. 

So think about your earliest teachers. What do you remember about your earliest school teachers? And what do you remember before that, that when your parents were teaching you things like learning to talk or how to put your clothes on, things like that. Try to get more and more detail. It's okay to use logic, it will turn into direct perception. And when you do this meditation it's always with a feeling of gratitude. We wouldn't be alive, we wouldn't know how to speak, we wouldn't know how to put our clothes on without those teachers. Okay, here we go. And have fun and enjoy. We're not going to do very long. 

[silent meditation]

Then dedicate the good deed of this meditation to helping other people. If you don't meditate almost every day, there's no possibility you will see emptiness. And then open your eyes, take a stretch. 

We have time for one question. 

Question: Can we become Buddha in this life even though Geshehla said He will be Buddha in a future life?

[Student: A short introduction of myself. I heard the pen story in 2018 and before that I had 8 years of practicing Zen. So after that I had some moment of satori and I made a prayer that I should spread the pen story to 8 billion people. And since that I did 900 online sessions about the pen story. So my question is - last time in March you said that you only heard about Diamond Way after 2 years of touching emptiness. And I understand that the Diamond Way network you build in your lifetime this time will help, logically speaking, it should help you become a Buddha next lifetime right away. That's one thing. Is it correct? Number 2 is - in the next 2 years of your teaching… by the way I have finished all my Diamond Way preparation course 5 times in total before so I'm very excited for the coming 2 years. As I understand logically, if you teach us for 2 years, the goal is not only for us to see emptiness directly. In Diamond Way we are supposed to be able to become a Buddha in one lifetime. And I want to ask you if you can only become Buddha next lifetime but we can become Buddha this lifetime, will you be jealous of us? Is it a correct logic?]

Yeah, I think it is. I saw directly what will happen to me and I will become a Buddha after 7 lifetimes, the next Buddha. Of course Diamond Way goal is to reach enlightenment in one lifetime, and the method is to recognize the Buddhahood in the people around us now. And I propose that if your Diamond Way study is successful, there will be days when you think you are the only person in this room who is not a Buddha. And I often feel like that when I am teaching 900 people - that they have a plan to let me teach until I figure out who they are. But I agree, I have those two perceptions. I believe what I saw when I saw emptiness is correct, and I have had days when I meet people and see them as a Buddha without trying. It is the promise of Diamond Way teachings that you can become a Buddha in this life, and there are many different tantras. There are, survived from India, 990 sutras and tantras. About half of those books are tantra. Mr. Binh from Vietnam, our organizer in Vietnam DCI, he once wrote me. He said, In my country a lot of people don't believe in the Diamond Way and they don't believe Buddha ever taught any Diamond Way. Then honestly, I got a little bit irritated and I printed the 550 tantras and I mailed it to him. I said, Ask them where this came from. So, to be honest, I am going to leave the question like that. About becoming Buddha in one lifetime, those parts of the tantric writings which talk about that, there is a debate. Even in those books there is a debate. Sixteen is not an uncommon number, they will say fastest is sixteen lives. I believe one lifetime is possible and we should try. And that's all I can say. Okay, thank you.

[8:38]

Okay, hi, good morning. Okay, good, let's start. I always have lots of announcements and I always forget them. So this is the Preface to these books [Illumination of True Thought]. First of all, I would like to thank Stanley and Xiaoping for translating, and the pure gold staff. And those two kids [Stanley and Xiaoping] also donated the cost to make it and so it's free for everybody. Nancy Karin will remember 50 years ago, one hippie named Abbie Hoffman. He wrote a book called Steal This Book and then he encouraged all the young people to steal the book from the book store. So please steal this book. It means you can copy, give to anybody. For example, if you fly home to your country, you can give it to the person sitting next to you even if you don’t know them. Just kidding. 

Me and Jasmine, we made one more plan. We don’t know Grandpa’s health, we don’t know Grandpa's future, and I think it would be very important to have a signed copy and have a photo. So there’s 900 people, there’s one Grandpa, so Jasmine is going to arrange the schedule. And it’s important to keep it. I’m not a big person, and I will pass, but to have an Arya’s signature is very important, okay?

So many of you are teachers, many of you are teaching. I will teach you something about teaching: never hand out the book at the beginning of the class. Everybody will [have their face in the book]. Hand it out at the end of the class. Jasmine will take care of it and you will get a copy of it at the end of class. Again, I can’t do anything without my mouth [meaning translators] and I am very grateful to Xiaoping and Stanley for translation.

Geshe-la’s examples of doing the perfections as preparation to see emptiness

Okay, here we go. We reached the picture of the temple. So what I wanted to talk about was, if you want to see emptiness, there is a reason why there are 4.5 perfections before that. And so far we have been going through the perfections that I was doing when I was 22 and you have been studying for the last 2 years. 

So number one was giving, and I showed you a picture of Mike cooking terrible food and giving it to his teacher. In the beginning my teacher ate meat. And in Mongolia and in many parts of Tibet, they eat meat; there is not a lot of other food. So I have to learn to make momo, dim sum. So I have to cut the meat, tiny tiny pieces. It takes 3 or 4 hours. Then I have to crush the spices in a mortar. So to make momo takes about 4 - 5 hours. And I told my teacher, You know, we should just buy hamburger in the store. “No, no, the taste is terrible. There’s oil in the machine.” Then, Rinpoche, we have spice grinder, we don’t have to [banging it in mortar] for two hours. “No, no, the taste is not fresh.” So, you know, 4 or 5 hours, 8 years cooking. Then I go to work in New York, start the diamond business. Then he has to make his own momo. Sometimes I don't get home till 2 or 3 in the morning. One day I came home early. He's making momo. He has package of hamburger from the store. Then I'm like, You said it needs to be cut fresh. He said, Ah, that's tremendous waste of time. Okay [seeing how it is]. 

By the way, later he stopped eating meat. He got sick and he decided to not eat meat. One day… very rarely his friend will come from other countries. He's so happy because he's in a foreign country alone, there's no other people he can talk to. When his friend come, he will talk to them all night, whole night. Then he will introduce me to his friend: “This is Mike, he gave up meat, but not his mental afflictions.” That's how he introduced me. So, for giving, it was cooking.

For the second perfection, morality, I think it was taking care of the old people there. What's the Asian word? Chibita. Public horse.

For patience, we are ... and by the way, I'm talking how to prepare to see emptiness. That's why we studied the first four perfections in the last two years. What's the third perfection? You can say patience or not getting angry. 

That Mongol town near Princeton, 45 minutes from Princeton… by the way, my karma built Princeton 250 years ago and my karma built that Mongolian temple 45 minutes from Princeton where it doesn't belong. So 700 years ago, Chinggis Khan came out of Mongolia, took over most of the world all the way from China to Austria. He killed 400,000 Austrians in one week. We should all be speaking Mongolian, but then he died, just by himself, nobody killed him. Life killed Chinggis Khan. They told like five generals, you stay here near Austria, we go home elect a new leader and we'll be back. And 700 years later, they still didn't come back. So there's one pocket of Mongolians left in Europe. And their name is Kalmyks. It means ‘got left behind’. And their country recently got independence again. There's an independent country called Kalmyk. Interesting to fundraise there John, just if you need more work. 

But when the Germans attacked Russia, they went through the Mongol small country. They want to kill all the Jewish people and they want to kill all the Asian people. People don't know about the Asian people. So they took many of those people and put them with the Jewish people in the concentration camp. But to keep a Mongol in a concentration camp is a little bit different. They are extremely tough. The toughest of the tough jump over the fence and live in the forest for three or four years and those are the ones who came to America, New Jersey. Survivors. They are hard, hard, hard people. One out of a thousand who survived the concentration camp. So this is ... I'll introduce you to Ida Bolderiff.

This is our temple. This is where I saw kongxing [emptiness] directly. If you have a chance, you should go there. I still support this temple, it's still there. I told people they should build a stupa there. My teacher used to say, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. But next to the temple is a prayer wheel house, on the right side. That was built first, on another location, on the next street, and they moved it to this place and then they built the temple next to it. And Ida Bolderiff has four sons. Their shoulder is this big [wider than Geshe-la and Stanley put together]. Unbelievable. I asked him one day… He was a very angry man, very angry. I asked him, How did you move the prayer building, wheel building, over here? How did you move it? He said, Oh, me and my sons just pick it up and we carried it here. Then I'm like, whoa. They really hated that there's an American white boy in their temple. And I think eight years they hate me. And we try… Rinpoche, my teacher, he's also not Mongol. So we are both strangers in the community. We have to work every day to make them happy. We are like slaves. Jigme knows, it was very difficult. 

I asked my teacher, Can I become a monk? And he said, Not yet, not yet. He keeps saying, Not yet, not yet. After eight years, he said, Okay, you can become a monk. So I lived as a monk for eight years before I took the vows. Then one day, this guy [Ida] come to the kitchen door. Bang, bang! [Knocking heavily on door] Then I opened the door, then he rushed in and he pushed me, pushed me. And I'm looking at the window, I think maybe I can jump out the window. Then he’s like [looking huge], “They say you're going to join the brotherhood. They say you're going to become a monk, white boy.” Then he says, “My family want to offer your cloth for your robes. And we love you.” I’m like [nervous in front of huge guy and also very happy.]

So this represent which perfection? Patience. Don't get upset. And it was a long eight years and it was a hard eight years. But I think that me and my teacher, it helped me to see emptiness. Every day, all day, we have to be patient. Mongol like to drink arak. You know arak? It's a heavy alcohol. Then at a funeral, everyone get, we call smashed, completely smashed. And after my teacher came they had a funeral. They're all drinking heavy liquor, vodka, which they learned from the Russians, they were also Kazakh. So they drinking, drinking. Then my teacher came out of the house, grab the bottles, [throw them on the ground], break all the alcohol. Then these guys [big angry Kalmyks]. “Can't drink in the temple.” My teacher was short. Here's Ida [big tough guy]. Here's my teacher [looking up at Ida], “No drinking!” [Ida reluctantly agreeing,] “Okay.” Big patience, and I think it helped to see emptiness. That's why we studied those perfections this year before we had this class.

What's the next perfection, which we covered already? I didn't start the class yet. Yeah, joyful effort. Okay, listen, I told the AI… I have difficult relationship with some of my students, but I have more difficult relationship with my AI. The AI doesn't listen to me better than my students don't listen to me. I said, I need a short Tibetan man working on the sidewalk. This is the closest I could get, I'm sorry.

Looks like from Brooklyn or something, American guy. So one time I came home from working in New York and I have to walk from the highway. Always, my teacher taught me to go around the temple one time, then come into my kitchen and my bedroom. It's almost dark and I'm walking around the temple and I tripped. Rinpoche is on his hands and knees and I said, What are you doing here? He said, The sidewalk is cracked here, I'm fixing it. He was almost 80 years old and he's fixing the sidewalk in the dark for the Mongol people. I'm like, what are you doing? He said, ,'JES LAS CHU BA'I DGE BA. Say, 'JES LAS ,'CHU BA'I ,DGE BA, special karma if you fix temples, if you support the Dharma. That sidewalk is the circumambulation sidewalk. Then even today it's there after how many years, I don't know, many years, 40 years or something. People still using it. If you fix it, and people use it for 50 years, even if you die, you're dead, you went to another world, in New Jersey some guy is walking around the temple, then that karma is sent to you special delivery. If you help Dharma, like, I don't know, you print a book, and then you die, and somebody reads the book after you die, the karma goes to you wherever you are. So I think my teacher was practicing fourth perfection. He's so excited when he finds a new kind of concrete. We built the fire puja platform, we did the whole concrete. We did the garage also, we built the garage.

Now we're ready to start this class for this year. Those four perfections that I talked about so far were very important to help me see emptiness. It's not just reading emptiness books and it's not just meditating. You have to do the dirty work also. Do the cooking, do the driving, be patient with the ... I call them the survivors from hell, from the concentration camp. And serve the dharma. Do the dirty work. If you need some dirty work to do, you can talk to Jasmine, maybe she has some good cleaning or something. No, but she's a good example. It's extremely difficult to prepare a program for 900 people, plus a thousand people online. I'd like to give her a hand. Please live long life. Me and Tim don't want to work so hard.

How to reach shamatha

So I'd like to start to talk about shamatha. I reached shamatha and I didn't tell people for 50 years, I didn't talk much about it. And because of my health, I think I should talk about it. We'll see what happens. So the first picture here should be a forest. Yeah, there you go.

I'm trying to present these preparations to see emptiness with the 16 aspects; that's how Lord Buddha taught it. And as I mentioned, it was the first teaching Buddha ever gave. The teaching which I'm giving you, Buddha gave to five people and that was his first teaching. By the way, all five of them saw emptiness directly after they got the 16. They are the first people in this world to see emptiness directly. So I'm kind of following the same plan and teaching you with those same 16. Buddhism is a strange religion because every generation that goes by, Buddhism is more and more clear. Xin Jing is two pages, three pages. Gongpa Rabsel is 2,000 pages. This was written 2,000 years after the Heart Sutra. And if I have a choice, “Geshe-la, you have to go on a desert island. You can only take one book. You can take Heart Sutra or you can take Tsongkapa.” I will choose Tsongkapa because 2,000 pages of explanation. Heart Sutra was taught to superhumans. We are not superhumans, we need an explanation. So in my opinion, you will learn more from this book [Preface]. So in general, the teachings of Buddhism in this world, unlike other traditions… like, I grew up Christian. In my opinion, many of the ideas of Jesus have been lost. But in the Buddhist tradition, every generation they get more and more clear. Except for the 16. Those 16, basically, they disappeared. The first teaching of Lord Buddha, the first teaching which caused five people to see emptiness directly in their lifetime, that teaching is lost and my hope was to wake it up again. So that's what we're doing for two years, we're doing the 16. So 16 aspects, 16 ideas, 16 practices. This [idim of a forest] represents number 13. “Geshe-la, why you start with 13? Why don't you start with 1?” They're all mixed up. I found the original 16, they are not the same order. They're all mixed up so I will not teach them to you in number order, I will teach them to you in practice order. So the two years kind of starts today. [Applause] I couldn't wait until the empowerment to start the 16, I'm sorry. So don't tell anybody.

Okay, we are starting with 13. It's called ‘marga’ and that means ‘the path’, and it's one of the 16 aspects of mastering emptiness, and that's shamatha. I didn't have a dictionary for 25 years. When I need to know what an ancient word means, I can just go to the greatest geshe in the world, he lives upstairs. So I'd like to describe shamatha to you, that word, as a real experience. Sham means peace. Shamatha means staying peacefully, staying in peace. And there are two things you need, two tools you need during your meditation to see emptiness directly. You need the energy of the four perfections which we learned already before we came here. But the tools you need during the perception of emptiness directly is the shamatha and vipashyana. So the rest of the time we're together this time, like four or five days more, I will teach those two, and that's perfection number five and perfection number six. You need the cooking, you need the cleaning, you need the driving, you need the cement work [all] as gasoline to run the car. But now we're going to talk about the car. So the car begins with shamatha, and it means like perfect meditation. 

We did a three-year retreat at Diamond Mountain. Before that, I taught all the stages of meditation. There's a beautiful poster picture. So I did my three year retreat in 2000 to 2003. Then John, Connie, Kat, Gyelse, those guys did it from 2010 to 2014. I think Jigme did a year and a half with a bunch of wild monkeys called coatimundis; we found one at Stanley's house. But I was very happy because I would talk ... I wouldn't talk to them, but I'd write to them, “How are you doing? How's your three year retreat?” And I remember Earl said, “Geshe-la, I think I'm on stage nine, I think I'm on stage nine.” So they have three years to worry about what stage are they, which is a good thing. 

So all of us heard about shamatha. “Geshe-la, if you claim that you saw emptiness, then by implication you're saying you reached shamatha, because you cannot see emptiness directly without it.” So I thought I would just tell you what shamatha feels like and then you know where you're going. It's very, very helpful. Okay, so here we go. And I made some pictures for you.

Number one, if you reach shamatha, you can meditate for one hour perfectly. And I always say what? Not including the preparation, not including the hundred breaths, not including the preliminaries, HLA-GYA-MA, seven limb preliminaries. Just in pure meditation, pure focus, you have to be able to stay one hour. If you cannot stay for one hour in perfect meditation, it's not possible to see emptiness directly. It cannot happen. “Excuse me, Geshe-la, I came to a teaching, you said half-hour. Now you say hour.” You are the serious people. I tell you the truth. I don't tell the beginners one hour. They will quit before they start. But I promise, I'm telling the truth today. It has to be one hour, and I mean inside of deep meditation. And it is kind of your choice. It's difficult to find the... That means you have to meditate for an hour and fifteen minutes or something, and many people don't have that much time. They have family, they have to go to work. It's kind of your choice, but you cannot see emptiness if you do not stay in an hour meditation daily,  regularly. Not possible. 

If you do see emptiness directly, and if you have a real bodhisattva experience, it will help directly billions and billions and billions of people. Then, I love my family. My family keeps increasing every six months, fat little babies. I call them xīguā [watermelon]. They don't walk, they roll. So now I have three grandkids, new, mostly new. And it's a lot of work. My wife is having her second motherhood. She's completely exhausted all the time. You know how if you're married and you lay down on the bed with your husband or your wife and it's a quiet time to talk about the day. We lay down, I say, “How was your day, honey?” She's like [snoring]. Don't tell her. She's asleep in one breath. Of course, that family is very precious to me. But billions of people, if you weigh, we can't ignore billions of people. If you see emptiness directly, if you have a bodhisattva’s experience, one person can save billions and billions of people. I have seen myself babysitting a planet, it's one of the things that you see. Now that's real babysitting, eight billion kids. You have that capacity, you can do it. You have to see emptiness. It has to be an hour of meditation. It's not punishment, you know, I'm not going to hit you with a stick or something, but it's your choice. 

Now you don't sit down and start with an hour, okay? That's kupe lega. Kupe lega means idiot work. I'll tell you how to reach one hour. And there's only one way to reach an hour, and if you don't do it, you won't reach an hour. Start with ten minutes. How many did I say? Ten minutes. Forget one hour. My teacher used to say, “Mike, Mike, come to the window.” What? “Look outside.” There's a rabbit. We have a rabbit in the Mongol temple. Then he's like [imitating rabbit sitting and twitching nose]. He said, “Even rabbit can sit still for one hour.” But a human being cannot. Human being have to practice. Start with ten minutes. “Geshe-la, I have an idea. I'll do ten minutes at six o'clock, I'll do ten minutes at seven o'clock, I'll do ten minutes…” It doesn't work like that. Ten minutes in the whole day. I'm teaching you the successful way to reach shamatha, and I have reached it, and very, very few people have reached it. Start with ten minutes. Then every week, on a day, could be Saturday, could be Sunday, I don't care... In my country, generally, Sunday is a quiet day. Do you feel it, Anatole, in your house? I mean, the whole America is quieter on Sunday, I think so. So every Sunday, increase one minute. 

And take Sunday off, don't meditate on Sunday, take it off. And my yoga teacher taught me this, David Life taught me this. Always take two days off every week. Your yoga doesn't get better if you do it seven days a week, it gets better if you do it five days a week. So Sunday, take a happy break, don't allow yourself to meditate. Overeat breakfast, work in the garden, watch a good movie, take a break. “Geshe-la, what's the second day of the week? Is it Wednesday or Thursday?” God will choose the second day. Just kidding. The second day will choose itself. Your day will be a disaster. The cat, Pumpkin, will get sick in the morning. That's what happened this week to her. Then, meditation cancelled, take the cat to the hospital. The second rest day will be arranged by your karma, you don't have to worry about it. But, don't let it be two second rest days, then you will lose the habit. Even if you have to come home from the cat hospital at midnight on the second break day, meditate. 

If you start with ten minutes, every week you increase one minute, you can reach one hour in one year. And that's fine, that's perfect. Don't rush. Those people who rush will never meditate for an hour. Just slow and steady like a ... What's that retreat center in the Bahamas? Shivananda. Swami Shivananda said, Just be like a donkey. I used to work with donkeys, I mean real donkeys. And they just walk like that [steadily], and they don't think, they don't look at anything. They just look at the ground and they walk. Just shut up and be a donkey. One minute a week. So the first sign that you reach shamatha, you can meditate for an hour without moving and with good focus. All right, I'm going to stop there about shamatha. We'll continue in the afternoon, but I’ve still got five minutes, right? Okay, question.

Question: Having bodhichitta when having the dpe

[Student: Geshe-la, I have a question. I understand that there's a chance that when you see emptiness, during this process, you will also develop the real bodhichitta. I also understand that in the Hinayana path, there's a chance that you can see emptiness without having bodhichitta. So how can I make sure that I can have bodhichitta when I reach emptiness?]

That's a very beautiful question. There's a big debate in the ancient books - can you see emptiness directly if you're not a bodhisattva? This person in this book [Illumination of True Thought], he says, definitely possible. And I'll give you an extreme example. This is a commentary on Chandrakirti. Chandrakirti is a commentary on Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna is a commentary on Xin Jing, Jin Gang Jing. I was in Ukraine, I think. I was sitting in the back of the car. Like many years ago, I was starting this translation. And I remember Scott and Orit were in the front, and I was in the back. It was a long drive to the airport and I'm working. Then I stopped and I said, Stop the car. And they're like, You okay, you okay? I said, No, no, you’ve got to hear this, you’ve got to hear this sentence. Then Scott's like, What? Chandrakirti said, if a person is totally anti-bodhisattva, they don't care about anybody else, but they are studying karma in this book, emptiness… If they want to get rich and they don't want to share it with anybody but they just follow the instructions, which, by the way, means sharing strategically just to get more money, without compassion, will it still work? Can they still become rich? Chandrakirti says, yes. If you follow the laws of karma, even without love, they work. Nobody can stop them. So it is possible. And I've heard my teacher say some physicists kind of understand emptiness. So it is possible, but it's worthless, it doesn't help anybody. With bodhichitta, it's much more powerful. In my experience, I reached the bodhichitta about 15 minutes after I saw kongxing. So, in theory, you can see emptiness first and then on the same day you can reach bodhichitta. So, to summarize, I would say go for the bodhisattva experience then you have something worthy to use this powerful weapon. 

Also, last thing. Geshe-la has many last things. If you have that bodhisattva experience, which we'll talk about, it's very difficult to have a really bad day after that. You can have disasters, but it's difficult to have a bad day. My water pipe broke in my kitchen, but I just got back from visiting a billion planets. Maybe the water pipe's okay. So, it's worth it. You will never have a really bad day. 

Don't forget to pick this up [Preface book]. Thanks Stanley and Xiaoping. Take care of this book. This is a nuclear weapon. This is more powerful than a nuclear weapon. So traditionally, we don't throw it around, we don't leave it under the chair. I'm thinking, if they ever find a cure for HIV and there's only one copy of the cure in the whole world, you would be like [really really careful] You wouldn't throw it around. You would take care of it. So I'm trusting you to take care of it. Take good care of it. Okay, thank you.

A sign that you've reached shamatha

All right, good morning, here we go. What's the next picture? Should be some young man talking to two older people.

We were in the middle of shamatha, and in my case, I first learned about meditation from my teachers in the Himalayas in like autumn of 1974. I was meditating really hard and I can tell you some tips. One of the tips is if you reach shamatha… and, you know, the ‘sham’ means peace, you will be a nicer person, surprise! And I don't mean spaced out. So spaced out looks like that [mouth open, staring vacantly into the sky]. Okay, that's not shamatha and a person who has shamatha is not like [mouth open, staring vacantly into the sky]. So what does it look like if a person has shamatha? So during those months when I developed shamatha, I came back to Princeton for six months to finish my degree, and I can tell you some of the signs that a person has shamatha. 

I got permission to stay in a house. I didn't have any money when I got back from the Himalayas, and it's a beautiful story. I don't know, I had $700 when I was in the Himalayas. Life was cheaper then - you can rent a bed for 25 cents per night; it's a macrame. Macrame means it's a wooden frame with a string, and the string is wonderful for bed bugs. They sleep during the day in the string and they're very tiny and you can't see them. Then the whole night they drink your blood. Then, I don't know why, but they like to digest holding on to the wall. So when you wake up, it's like there's many small light bulbs full of blood on the wall, hanging on the wall. So that was scholarship money and I used it all up. 

Then I remember I didn't have money for a cab to the airport so I took a rickshaw; it means a guy running with two sticks running with the wagon. And I have a sitar also. And there's no internet, I can't tell anybody I'm coming. In my area, there's one telephone for three or four cities, at that time, which goes overseas. So on the plane, I'm trying to think where I'm going to sleep when I get to Princeton. Then I was active in the church, Christian church, and I used to be, we call acolyte, You help the priest to give the wine and the bread and everything. And this house on the front of your paper, that's called Proctor Foundation.

It's 250 years old. It's a big house, maybe nine bedrooms. The priest can live there and in my Christian religion, the priest can marry. And I helped to choose the priest; the old priest retired, we interviewed a lot of new priests. So he's in charge of all the students. Then I thought, he's living in a big house across the street from the university. If I can just meet him, maybe he will let me stay in the house for six months. So we landed at Kennedy Airport, very late came to ... Princeton is like maybe an hour-and-a-half or two hours from Kennedy. Then it's like nine o'clock at night. The university is pretty closed at that time and there was one late night eating place for students who can't sleep. And I thought, you know, I'll go there and I'll figure out a way to meet the priest. And so I went there and there's only one person in the whole cafeteria and it's the priest. He's like waiting. And I'm like [surprised]. Then I sat down with him and he goes, “Do you need a place to stay?” 

And I’m like [nodding yes]. 

He said, “We have a big house.” 

I said, I know. And the top story you can see, it's empty, there's nobody there. And I'm like, I don't want to tell him I don't have five dollars. 

And he says, “You can stay for free.” 

I'm like, Okay. 

Then he said, “But I have two children. Two years old and four years old. And my wife and me didn't get to have a good date for many years since the kids were born. So if you agree to babysit the kids two nights every week so we can go out, you can stay for free.” 

So, I'm like, Okay, it's a deal. 

I remember the first night they went out - the two-year-old is like an angel, the four-year-old is like a devil. I think they wrote that book. And start screaming, kicking the door, breaking window, you know. And so, I was there for six months. And we should have a stupa there also, because I reached shamatha there and I think it's because the house had a blessing. Many priests lived there for 200 years or something. Einstein's house is on one side and my Buddhism professor's house is on the other side so it's like perfect. And I worked hard to take care of those kids. 

Then I said, “After graduation, I have to go live with my Lama in the temple.” I didn't go to my graduation because I had to work. So I used to drive a truck to make money; the graduation ceremony needs truck drivers. Everybody [for the graduation ceremony] gets this nice uniform and the square hat; I never got one, I'm driving a truck. Then the morning comes I'm supposed to go to live with my teacher. The car came, I'll tell you about the car later. And the family said, “Mike, sit down.”

And I'm like, I’ve got to go. 

And they said, “Well, we have an idea.”

And I'm like, What? 

They said, “You live with us, you stay with us rest of your life, free house. Just little babysitting.” And I really almost did. Princeton is a very beautiful town. It's a very kind family. And he said, “Look, you have a position at the seminary, you can become a priest. I got you a position.” 

Then I'm like, Ohhh, I’ve got to go. 

But what I mean is that, if you reach shamatha, I think one of the signs is that you have great harmony in your life and you have a great love for other people and people can feel it. Even they don't know what you're doing sitting down for so long. By the way, that's them asking me to stay, it’s the closest picture I could find, the last picture [couple and young man in front of car]. That’s the AI version, okay? He's actually more handsome, she's more beautiful. They're still alive, he's like 90. 

Okay, next picture.

Yeah, I call this shamatha in a vacuum. It means when you hear stories about people who reach shamatha, it feels like they are sitting in a jungle by themselves, and you know, eating berries from the trees and things like that. But I would say there are many conditions around you that you can put them together and it will help you reach shamatha. And again, our whole week's classes is supposed to focus on the last two perfections. So in our preparation for Diamond Way, which will finish this week, we have time to talk about the last two perfections. 

Few wants, easy satisfaction

Next picture, the pot.

Okay, good. So I had permission to use the church house kitchen. Then the family will make their dinner and I will quietly make my dinner on the side. And, if you ask my wife, my holy wife, Veronica, she'll tell you I only know how to cook one thing, which is dal, Indian beans. So in India I learned how to cook Indian beans and I am cooking it every night, one pot, same thing. And no other expenses. Like, I'm living on nothing. And I still had my truck driving job so I made some money. My mom was dying at that time. And so, we call in Abhidharma, this book, DUCHUNG CHOKSHE. And I like this, I like this expression, it sticks in my mind but I didn't know why. But, DUCHUNG means you don't need much. Like if you get some small bowl of beans every day, you're okay. At Princeton, there's a rule that the student who drives the truck to deliver the food supplies to the rich kid's restaurant can sneak in and eat lunch. And the religion department has free coffee and milk in the morning. So for breakfast, I go to the religion department, I drink all their coffee. For lunch, I make sure I'm on the schedule to deliver food to the rich kids. And then for dinner, I cook my own beans. And that's called DUCHUNG. 

The other half is called CHOKSHE. So DUCHUNG means you don't need much. CHOKSHE means you are friends with your old stuff. Rob asked me, “Geshe-la, you always wear one pair of shoes. You got any other ones?” I have one or two. But I think my friends know I wear these like 300 days a year. And I don't feel sad or anything, we are old friends. And my clothes are the same. My wife said, “Can you please change your pants every six or seven days?” Then I feel like friends with my old clothes. That's Abhidharma. 

Say DUCHUNG CHOKSHE. DUCHUNG CHOKSHE. DUCHUNG - I don't need much. DUCHUNG, my expenses are almost zero. CHOKSHE means the stuff I have is my old friends and I feel happy. I feel ... how do you say? It's like sitting with old friends. The Abhidharma says this combination is very powerful for shamatha. And my life has changed a lot since those days and because of my philosophy, I think, a lot of money comes to me all the time. This morning, how much, I don't know, twelve thousand something? I get ... can I say? I can say. I get payment ... I'm the only person who's supporting both armies in the Ukraine-Russia war. I think my books are something like number three foreign author in Russia. And many troops from Ukraine met me in Ukraine and said they read my books in Donbas. Donbas is the state where the fighting is toughest. And there's some crazy soldiers - they have all the Diamond Cutter books in the back of the car and they open the car and they give the book and then they close the car and they drive to the next place. So I think I'm the only person paying tax for both side weapons. But I don't need the money, I don't use the money, I give it to my students. [In Khen Rinpoche’s deep voice:] I'm your teacher. So I have more money now, but I don't use. It's not for me, I don't use it. That's DUCHUNG CHOKSHE. Then you can develop shamatha. 

Reducing opportunities for false importance

Next picture. 

In most universities, when you finish your PhD, you have to write a small book called a thesis, right? A dissertation. At Princeton you have to write it after the third year and after the fourth year undergraduate and it's big big stress for the senior students, big stress. There's a deadline, you have to reach a deadline. I remember one of my… you know those beautiful high towers at Princeton? Like 300 meters high. So one of my classmates, he's so pressured about his senior thesis, he finished it, gave it to his department, climb up the tower and jump off and kill himself. Because so much pressure. So I'm finishing my dissertation during that shamatha time. I wrote it about basically Shantideva and Gampopa because that's what I studied in Himalayas. Then during the whole dissertation I'm bragging about my trip to Himalayas. Then I remember I was typing it. I had to borrow a typewriter from the department; you go to the secretary's room at night and use her typewriter. Religion department. Halfway through the dissertation, I'm like, “Stop, you're not writing about Gampopa, you're writing about yourself. You're doing this Geshe Michael bragging about yourself by talking about Tsongkapa.” Suddenly I realized that I'm boasting, the dissertation was a lot of boasting / bragging. And I remember I erased a lot of it, I took a lot out. There's still some there. Princeton keeps a copy of every dissertation; Anatole got one recently. So I still have this habit, but I was fighting it very strong and I think that helped me to develop shamatha. So be aware of your focusing on yourself and do your best to reduce it. It's very difficult to teach and reduce your ego, reduce your pride. When you teach it's very common you feel [prideful]. 

So, you know, people ask me, “I want to reach shamatha. Should I put my left leg up first or should I put my right leg up first? Which one?” I say, “You should put other people's legs up first”. Which way you put your legs, it doesn't matter; it's how much do you take care of other people. And if you want to develop shamatha, if you're serious about shamatha, and you cannot see emptiness without shamatha, cannot, impossible; if your mind is too distracted about yourself, you cannot reach this level of focus. It doesn't mean you have to give up all your money or you should run away from your family or even your dog, it's just you should be aware. Every human being has pride. Every human being cares - you don't comb other people's hair in the morning, you comb your own hair, if you have hair. So pride is part of every human being. Thinking about yourself first and then thinking about other people is almost definition of a human being. If you want to reach shamatha, you have to fight with this habit. You don't really win that war until you become a bodhisattva. But if you don't fight it, you cannot reach shamatha, I don't think so. So just be aware and try to focus on other people. 

Next one. 

Letting go of fancy clothes and hair

This is a few months after I saw emptiness and recently, Rob found a picture of me. For college, I used to work in the summer, I used to build houses. Then I would go surfing every day after house building until dark. And then every other day, I would go to San Diego football team's gym and lift weights with them. By accident, Rob found one photograph. He likes to show it to people, “Guess who this is?” But what I realized during those months, I believe that if you want to develop shamatha, you have to reduce your focus on how do you look and how do you dress. Every human being has this kind of pride. We all have this kind of pride, that's why there exists a thing called ‘mirror’. We like to look in the mirror. We all have it. I think to get shamatha, you have to know that you have it. You don't have to solve it completely; I think that's almost impossible until you become bodhisattva. But you have to know who you are and you have to reduce it. Don't worry about your clothes so much, don't worry about your hair so much. Why? Your mind cannot focus on those small things and focus on the big things at the same time. It will get too crowded inside. You should look nice, you should wash your clothes once in a while. 

I got a haircut in Singapore. Why did I get a haircut? Jasmine came to my place six months ago; we were sitting at Peach Tree Cafe together. 

Then she said, “Geshe-la, there's a hair cutter across the street from the cafe. Let's go over there.” 

And I'm like, why? 

“You have to get a haircut.” 

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

“No, no, no, you don't understand. In China, some scientists developed a new method to cut people's hair, take the hair, make real diamond.” In my time, you can do it, but it would cost like ten million dollars or something. But, of course, Chinese scientists much better than any other scientists, and they developed a way to do it not that expensive. Then she said, “We will cut your hair and I will make video while we cut the hair. Then we make diamond and we do auction. And we give the money to charity.” 

Then I said, I live in this town for twenty years. We call incognito. Nobody knows who I am and I like it. If you ask someone, “who's that guy?”, they will say, “he's the owner of the cafe”. They don't know anything about Buddhism, nothing. Then I told her, Listen, we can't do that. In this town, I'm unknown and I want to stay unknown. Twenty years I'm hiding. That's why I don't want three thousand people coming to my little town of five thousand people to do empowerment. It will be in all the newspapers. People will bother me all the time. So we said, don't worry Geshe-la, we will just be ten minutes away from your house, it's okay. The corner of 179 and 17, it's fifteen minutes from my house. “We'll put a few hundred people there and nobody will know.” When Anatole and I used to go to dinner in our town, we will go to the gas station and sit on the sidewalk. So I would like it if we can keep everything quiet. Understand? And we will have other places far away. 

Okay, so anyway, we had another person make the film and she brought the hair back [showing diamond]. Okay. Now, I just told you I try not to do things to increase my pride. My friends say, “Don't worry, you can't increase your pride, it's already really big.” But Jasmine asked me, Can we auction it? And so we've been auctioning these diamonds. In Singapore, with Jenny Wang, we had an auction. We made enough money to support 50,000 children next year, 50,000 kids in Mexico. And so, I would like to auction these diamonds, Jasmine will do all the work as usual. 

Starting around 1993, I think, in New York, I started teaching ACI. And I made a rule at the beginning - I don't make any money and we don't charge anything for the classes. Nancy was there. And so we kept that tradition for ACI up to now. “No, Geshe-la, I paid to come to Malaysia.” You didn't pay ACI to come to Malaysia, you paid the hotel and the food and all the rest. We don't charge for students, and the teachers don't make any money. Then, honestly, it's difficult to ask a teacher who has a family, “Oh, Nick, we have very noble ACI, we don't want to charge the student. You just tell your wife you don't have any money this month.” So we are always trying to find way to keep the program free, but feed the teacher's kids and dog. Understand? So please make a bid on these diamonds and buy them for some ridiculous price, and we will use the money… because of the new Five Houses structure, I estimate we need 15 new staff. We have to pay for that and I don't want to charge the student. So please participate in the auction. If the diamond is too much for you, there is a special coin which we made in Xi'an. By the way, I don't like being a salesman, but I will do it for the dharma. I'm willing. It's a silver coin from Xi'an. It has some ancient letters on the back. It's a mantra about diamond. My calligraphy. So, if you want to, if the diamond is too much, Jasmine will tell you how to get a coin. We have a few coins left from Xi'an. Okay, I finished my advertising. Please help us support the teachers. Nobody is going to get rich teaching at Five Houses, but at least they shouldn't go hungry. 

Reducing possessions

Okay, next picture.

So at that time I was playing music, and I was playing sitar. I had two sitars. They were very expensive and I used to play concerts. So, at that time, I played a big concert in the university. And then, John [Malpass?], we played together, we made money for supporting some other kids at that time and we donated all the money. And then suddenly I realized - what am I going to do with this sitar? I realized I have an attachment to the sitar. And I felt really like I want to focus on my meditation and I felt the sitar was a little bit blocking me from my shamatha. So I called the two kids up to my room and I gave them each a sitar. It's very expensive, and they are four years old. I'm like, here's one for you. I left it in the house and I went to stay with my teacher. He enjoyed music. He loved to watch symphony on the TV, like a hundred instruments played together. And he's like, “now that's cooperation”. He said if you try to have a symphony in a monastery, you will never. He’s like, “that's wonderful”. But I didn't play music all those years when I was there, I didn't play for 25 years. I play nowadays. Me and John Brady promise to play for you in October. [Singing:] Born to be wild. 

But I think when you're deep into developing shamatha, probably you should reduce your valuable possessions. I believe music is a good thing, I believe it’s very healthy for you. But these instruments were very valuable. When you teach this to other people, there's a very easy method. You say, “how many pairs of shoes are in your closet back in Romania?” Nobody will say, “oh, I don't have”. Everybody will go like this [thinking and counting]. That means that memory is in your mind. Your mind is like a computer drive. It has a megabyte or a kilobyte capacity. Everything you own is taking up space in your mind. If you can remember any of the pairs of shoes you have in your closet at home right now, that is keeping you back from shamatha a little bit. So it's important to know that, it's important to admit it, and it's important to do something about it. 

First time my teacher taught me this, I took a lot of stuff from my closet and I took it to the garbage can in front of the temple and I threw it in the garbage can. Had dinner, took shower, went to bed, woke up at 2am, went out to the garbage can, [taking things out of garbage can], “this thing I really need”. I'm not kidding, I remember. So you have to be tough. After the garbage truck drive away, I thought I should run after the garbage truck. But, let it go. And then, a little bit of room in your mind and easier to reach shamatha. 

Nowadays, I have a lot of responsibilities. We have 41 organizations. My life is meditating, teaching, and fundraising. Me and John have the same life. It's hard. What I mean is, that bodhisattva idea, it's not a bad thing to own a lot of things if you are using those things to help other people. So there's a balance. The sitar at that time was expendable, I can give it up and my shamatha will be greater. So think about it. If you are owning things because you want to use them to serve people, keep them. If you are owning things because you are like me and you are too lazy to clean the shoes out of your closet for 12 years, then be tough and get rid of them. Okay, got it? 

Wisely reducing social life

All right, I'm going to do one more. 

Yeah, this is a really fun concert we did. We’ve got Mike Hoffman on piano on the left, Grandpa played guitar, Mrs. Anatole / Aisha, singing, teacher Rob Haggerty played drum in the back, Sarah is singing. Where is Sarah? ACI / Five Houses. She sang a nice jazz song. And then there's Anatole on piano and his son Kyeri also played piano. “Geshe-la, why you show this picture?” That was a couple months ago. We had a fun time. If you look carefully at Anatole, you can see a hat over his shoulder. That's my friend John, different John. He's the best guitar player I ever met. We played music together at Princeton and we made a lot of money and it helped to pay for the airplane and everything. Oh, I'm sorry, that's Jaso. You have to look behind Sarah's butt - there's a green shoulder. That's my friend John. 

So when I went to India, I had a lot of friends at Princeton. We were a pretty well-known band. We played in a bar in town, every week we played there. I practiced Russian during the breaks in the bar, my homework. We get paid pretty good, and free drinks. So the bartender told me, what are you always studying during the breaks? I said, I have a Russian class the next morning, I'm memorizing Russian words. Then he's like [pouring drink], “You need a white Russian”. I think it's milk and vodka, I think so. Okay, look, I wasn't a Buddhist yet. 

But after I came back from Himalayas, I thought I should cut down my social life and I had an instinct - either you can have your old social life like party / play music, but it will hurt your shamatha. So I purposely cut my social life down and I had one close friend during those six months and that was my friend John. We are still close friends. So I say, if you want to get to shamatha, you have to reduce your possessions, you have to reduce your pride, and you have to reduce the things that you own, and you have to reduce your social life. You don't have time to do all those things and have shamatha. I don't mean you should go to all your friends and tell them, “Shamatha is more important to me than you”, but just wisely reduce how much you go out. I go to the cafe almost every day, I have social life there, I meet people. That's business, that's how I do my work. But I think my good friends know it's difficult to get me to go out just for fun. And I love people, I really enjoy people, but you have to make some choices. If you want shamatha, you have to reduce the things you're thinking about. 

I don't know where this one came from. Where is he? Oh, he's on the left, yeah. Good friend. He came to India with me. 

So anyway, reduce your life. Simplify your life. It's easier to reach shamatha. If you don't reach shamatha, you cannot see emptiness, it's not possible, it cannot happen. 

Okay. We have five minutes for questions. 

[Harmiz: Good afternoon, Geshe-la and everyone. My name is Harmiz and I'm from Iran originally.]

Yay! 

[Harmiz: I'm the only Iranian.]

By the way, we love Iran. 

[Harmiz: Thank you. Iran loves you, thank you.]

And we hope this stupid thing will stop, we hope so.

Me too, and I hope I'm the seed for that because I'm the only Iranian here.

[applause]

[Harmiz: Thank you. I was not expecting that, thank you very much. You always say that when you want to do meditation, before you start, you should invite your teachers and offer a gift. I just want to say hearing your voice, not just listening to it, but even hearing it, takes me to meditation level. I can hear to your voice and just solve the hardest mathematics question; I'm a math teacher. Or sit and just play one of your videos and come up with a new idea of a new course. So I'm in that phase and now I'm going to ask a question, just like what we do in meditations. We have an object and we want to focus on it. So I just would like to do my meditation right now, properly, and start with an offering to you and Diamond Way. As I'm the only Persian speaker here, I just offer my help to start joining maybe your translation team and start translating your teachings to Persian, and considering the population of Persian readers, I hope it's a good offer and I sincerely hope you accept.]

[Harmiz: I just want to say I'm new to this, maybe we can start with the easy ones. 

So here's my question. When we do meditation, we have an object to focus on or we have questions or we need to do some fixations or some dullness to find ways of dealing with our dullness. And I think you noticed that I'm using all the keywords I learned from Gift of Liberation teaching of yours to just let you know I knew some stuff.]

Question: How to distinguish a real message from a fake message?

[Harmiz: So sometimes when we do this, we are blessed to see things or hear things or feel things. My question is how can we know these things that we see are from the source? How can we know they are legit? How can we know that we can rely on them? It's not just from our mind or our desires. I'm so sorry people here are asking about emptiness, I don't even know the expressions. They are very high level and I'm so sorry my question is very basic but it has baffled me for many years and if I know the answer it will help me greatly to move forward so I appreciate your answer. Thank you.]

First I ask Rosa to stand up and Lindsay to stand up. These guys will give you all the books to translate into Persian. And Rosa can help you choose the right books to start with. And she did it many times and successfully and I would love nothing more than to see the books in Persian. I think it's very kind. 

We're going to talk about the answer to your question. Here's something interesting to think about. All the real objects around you are coming from seeds in your mind. And all the things that you think you see which are not real are coming from the same kinds of seeds. For example, if you think someone at your job is trying to hurt you and then you find out they are actually trying to help you, that idea that they were trying to hurt you is also coming from your seeds. So the real things around you and the fake things around you are both real because they are both coming from the same seed bank. And a lot of times in meditation you will have some urge to do something. You stand up from your meditation, “I got a message from Lord Buddha, I have to increase my chocolate ice cream intake.” Then you have this pause and you have to think about it ”Will that chocolate ice cream help me and other people or will it hurt me and other people?” And it is possible that a demon will send you an idea in a meditation. It is very possible. You shouldn't carry out every idea you got in your meditation otherwise I will eat chocolate ice cream all day. And that's why we have these books, that's why Nick's team is working so hard to translate the books. They give you guidelines. This idea is a good idea, this idea is not a good idea. Both ideas came in your meditation. So my answer would be study. This book [Illumination of True Thought], for example, extremely difficult. If you have trouble sleeping, I learned in the Geshe course, read one page. You will go to a deep sleep. It's very difficult. But keep trying. Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying. Keep opening the book. Even randomly. We'll talk about a special method before you go to sleep. Just open it. 

Let's do that. [Opening Illumination of True Thought to random page] It says, “bow down to compassion.” Then go to sleep and your mind will improve. The more you study, the more you can distinguish between a real message and a fake message. 

All right. Oh wait, I got a message I'm supposed to have lunch.

[1:38] 

Okay, so please close your eyes. And make a small smile. It's good to start your meditation with a smile. Pull in your tummy a little bit. Relax your fingers. And your feet are flat on the floor. If there's room, which there is not today, I like to do a half-lotus in a chair. Check the corners of your mouth. Check the eyelids are soft. 

Where to focus the eyes during meditation

There's a thing in yoga you know called drishti. And it means, where do you focus your eyes? And I think most of us, when we close our eyes, we look down, behind the eyelids. And when you do yoga, you'll find that it really helps to keep your eyes open and focused just over the horizon. So I encourage you today, during this meditation, try putting your eyes in different positions and see if it affects how you meditate. Most of us, when we close our eyes, we look down behind the eyelids. And then the neck tends to bend down, and that kind of makes you, after a while, makes you a little sleepy. Then you can experiment with keeping your eyes just over the horizon, like a yoga drishti. And that brings your neck straighter, and it brings your head up straighter, and I think it helps you concentrate better.

Then there's another tradition that says, when you meditate with your eyes closed, you can focus on, what's it called… bhru-madhya. Bhru-madhya means between your eyebrows, and a little bit higher. It's called between your eyebrows, but it's a little bit higher than that spot. And I think it's not comfortable and not healthy to hold that very long, but it can help you concentrate very deeply. 

So your eyes are closed and you're looking up as if you were looking at a spot above the line between your eyebrows, and then go into the skull slightly. And personally I've done that my whole life, and I think it can be very helpful for a few minutes, and then bring your eyes back to drishti, to the horizon. 

Then remember if you had a bad sleep last night, or you stayed up late, it can help to stay awake if you open your eyes very slightly. And the extra light coming in can help you stay bright, and then when you feel bright enough, you can close your eyes again. 

All this time while you are checking how your eyes are doing, make sure your mouth doesn't start to scowl, because when people are thinking deeply, they tend to scowl. In my life, I've seen thousands of Buddha statues. They have many many different expressions, but almost never did I see a Buddha statue scowling in meditation. It seems like a small secret smile is more helpful.

Meditation: Not A Mistake

Okay, let's go into our breathing. A hundred breaths. First half is the exhale, second half is the inhale. See if you can count four heartbeats on the exhale without straining. And then the inhale can be a little faster, maybe three heartbeats. And let's go to a hundred like that. 

[100 breaths]

Then we'll start the preliminaries.

Please invite a holy being to sit with you in this meditation, knee to knee. 

My teacher said it was very important to see the holy being looking at you with a lot of love. Their eyes are open; your eyes are closed, but their eyes are open and they are looking at you with a strong feeling of love.

And offer them a gift. We all made a lot of effort to get here, especially the organizers, Tim, Jasmine. We all worked really hard to get here. And, you know, we're not perfect, but we're trying really hard. And you can make this as an offering to your teacher.

And let's check in if we have done any negative deeds, said something negative or thought something negative, in the last few days. And let's tell our teacher about it. The karma of a mistake can be very serious but once you talk about it, once you tell somebody else, the power is broken.

And then give equal time and equal effort to think about something good you did. Just coming here is a very, very good karma. And just enjoy it, think about it. 

I think most of us learn new things by living through another day and interacting with other people. So make a prayer that today we can learn new things from so many good people here, almost a thousand people. So make a prayer that today you can learn something good from one of the people in this audience. 

And this sangha, as I talk to people here, I realize this community around the world is growing much much bigger than I knew. And I think we can make a prayer that all of those people in this community should have a long and healthy life so they can continue their practice.

Then today’s meditation is called “Not a Mistake”. In this life, each one of us had a very special karma to meet the dharma and to study with other good people. I call it like Diamond Way suspicious. It seems like possible that there are Buddhas all around us who are helping us to learn and develop ourselves in this lifetime. Seeing emptiness directly is not an event which happens at some time in your life, it's more like a wave that started a long time ago, far away in the ocean. And the power of that wave started many lifetimes ago, and that wave has been building up lifetime after lifetime, getting stronger and stronger. And what we're trying to do in this program and these studies is we're trying to help the wave to break in this lifetime. So if we're going to see emptiness in this lifetime, it means that there were people trying to help us to see it for many lifetimes. 

In the monastery, we have special kids. They're called trulku. Trulku. And these are teachers who died and they were reborn as children who came to our monastery. And I've seen many trulkus come to the monastery. And it's very interesting how people help them to develop from a very young age, sometimes two or three years old. And kind of every older monk in the monastery is secretly trying to train these baby monks. Like, we'll give them some candy and we'll say, Oh, if you're real trulku, you would share this candy with the other kids. And I never met a trulku before I was, I don't know, almost 30 years old. And it seemed to me, every trulku I met in the monastery was a very, very spoiled kid. I went to Ganden Monastery for winter debating, and I stayed at the house of my teacher's teacher, he's trulku. And there's a stupa there for the teacher, and I used to walk around the stupa. Then that brat kid enjoyed to ride his bicycle the wrong way around the stupa and he hit me many times on his bicycle. Then one day, his assistant, who was his assistant in the past life when he was the great writer who wrote… he wrote down Pabongka's Lamrim. And he said, Rinpoche wants to see you in his room privately. And I think he was eight years old. And I went to his room and we were alone and he looked at me and he said, Every time I hit you with my bicycle you get angry, I think you need to study Lamrim. 

So these trulkus, at some age they wake up. It has a special name, bakchak sepa, the seed opens. Until the seed opens, many people are helping them secretly. And we are the same. You have been preparing to see emptiness for many lifetimes. And you have many, many friends that you don't even recognize. It's called mishepa shenyin, they are spiritual guides around you when you are very young. And when you do see emptiness directly, you will see them coming to you in the future. But you can be sure that there have been many spiritual friends that you don't recognize in your life, I would say up til the time you are twelve years old. And they purposely said things to you to prepare you, and they purposely did things to you to prepare you, and I would say especially they shared books with you.

So here's a fun meditation you can do. It will help you to see emptiness, a lot. I want you to go back and try to remember before you were twelve years old. What books came to you, and what songs came to you? Maybe people gave you books in the school. Maybe your parents gave you books. Anatole's son Kyeri, I think he reads a book every day. And the head of all the schools in our state just wrote him a letter to congratulate him on his abilities. So all of the friends of Anatole's family, we are secretly giving Kyeri books that we think will help him become a Buddha. And somebody gave us books like that. And somebody sent us songs like that. The songs on the internet don't come from record companies, they come from Buddhas, and they are trying to send us messages. 

So we have a few minutes more. I'd like you to think about some books or some songs that you read or you heard before you were twelve. And maybe they were sent to you by a Buddha. And just to think about that list is a very, very healthy, powerful meditation.

Okay, so here we go. Books and songs you met before you were twelve, and what kind of message did it give you about becoming a Buddha? We'll be silent for, I don't know, five, ten minutes.

[silent meditation]

Then please dedicate the good karma of this practice. Anytime you have some quiet time during the day, you can pause and think about the books or the songs that were sent to you secretly before you were twelve. And the words of the books and the words of the songs were trying to send you a message about love and compassion.

And please dedicate this karma today that everyone should receive the same good things in their early life. And we should all recognize more clearly the Buddhas around us. Okay, you can take a stretch.

We have about five minutes. Then if anybody has any questions...

Question: What does it mean to not stay in anything?

[Stanley translating for student: So teacher, I come from [] province where [] is located. So I’m a jewelry designer and my question is really about the teaching of no self, or no sign, not staying in anything. For example, if we should do the practice of not staying in anything, not staying in signs, then why should we have a specific visualization in our meditation? Isn't that a sign? Or when we do giving, if we should practice the giving of not staying in things, then why should we try to remember what we did good in giving? The last part she mentioned is when she's doing some design work, drawing things, sometimes she feels like she falls into a state where she calls it the no-self state, where nothing really exists around her. Is that a kind of meditation too?]

I'll give you an example. My suggestion is when you are designing new jewelry, when you are meditating, never have a banana in your ear. That's the worst thing. You cannot become Buddha if you have a banana in your ear. Then you will smile and say, “Geshe-la, no problem, I never put a banana in my ear.” That's exactly the same as not staying in the jewelry business or not staying in your house. That's the meaning of not staying. Don't stay in a place you could never go anyway. So remember, never work on jewelry with a banana in your ear. It means the jewelry you are working on… and my job for 19 years was counting diamonds. It's not some kind of sexy James Bond diamonds. Counting tiny little diamonds. That was my main job and I never tell people, but I was counting diamonds for 19 years. But those diamonds that I'm counting, the ones that don't come from me is zero. That's what it means “don't stay in the diamonds.” That's what “don't stay” means. And you cannot stay there anyway. Counting the diamonds or designing jewelry with diamonds that did not come from you is impossible.

To put it positive way, cause and effect way, all the diamonds you ever touched in your jewelry business were coming from you. There's no diamond you ever touched in your jewelry business which didn't come from you. And I have a new word for you guys. The way the pictures come out of your mind… I was trying to make a picture of those pictures coming out of your mind, and what does it feel like when you're making a cup of tea and the pot is coming out of your mind. And I have a new word for our vocabulary. It's “cascade”. In English we say “cascade”, it comes like a waterfall. It goes like this [like waterfall coming out of you]. It's 65 pictures per second, but they are cascading one by one. It's a waterfall of pictures coming out of your seeds. 

Poo-poo? [“Cascade” in Mandarin is “pùbù“] 

[Stanley: Yes, pùbù]

[Laughter]

They are coming out like that. And someday you will see it. Yeah, that's pretty good. Someday you will see it. You never worked on a ring or a diamond for that ring that was not cascading out of your seeds, out of your mind. And when we say “don't stay there” it means don't think there's any jewelry you are working on which is not cascading from your seeds. And it's funny because you can't stay there anyway. It's like Buddha said, Don't sit on a chair made of oxygen. You can't do it anyway, there's no such chair. That's what it means. There's nothing around you and there's nobody you ever meet who is not cascading from your own seeds. And that's all the poo-poo truth. [Laughter]

Okay, we're going to take a poo-poo break and we'll see you in about 15 minutes.

So you guys with the slides have to lead grandpa.

Yeah, so here's the first slide. Okay. I wasn't following the class very well and now I decided not to follow it at all.

Big, big surprise. So, today I would like to talk about using jing, using the ancient books. And using it to see emptiness.

And in my own ... when I saw emptiness, I saw my first real teaching of those books was Shantideva and it was in the Himalayas. And actually my mom was there. So, my mom was a school teacher of ten-year-olds.

And she got breast cancer. And then it got worse. She had a very big operation.

They cut out all the ... what do you call this? Lymph nodes and her breast. And then she got worse and worse. Then she started to have epilepsy.

And I remember one day she had epilepsy in the classroom. And then the school said, you have to go home. You can't teach.

Then my teacher told me, bring her to the Himalayas. There are some very famous TCM doctors. Traditional Chinese medicine.

And also great teachers, my teachers. So, she came. It was a terrible journey.

She never went outside the United States. And she was very sick. So, I went to pick her up in New Delhi.

And it's like a 10-hour taxi ride. Then brought her back. She was laying down in the taxi.

And took her to the TCM doctor, famous TCM doctor. And I knew him. Because I got hepatitis while I was there.

And then he came out and he said, you don't have to bring her back to me. Because I can't help her. Then my teacher said, have her come to the class every day.

And we can teach her how to die. And every day they put her against a pillar. And she listened to the Shantideva book for like almost two months.

And I saw the power that the book had for her. And then when I got back, when I was finishing at Princeton, my teacher, the first time I met him, he was teaching Heart Sutra at Columbia University and then at Princeton. And when I look back, I think those meeting the holy books, meeting Shantideva, meeting Nagarjuna, meeting Heart Sutra, I think is one of the main ways to see emptiness.

And I don't think it's possible to see emptiness if you don't meet the books. It's interesting in the ancient language, they don't say read a book. They don't say PHRAD CHA LOG.

PHRAD CHA LOG means to read a book. They say PHRAD CHA'I CHUN RGYAL. RGYAL means to meet a holy being.

Just to meet jing. So, it's interesting to me because I love books. They don't say read a book.

They use the verb that means to meet the Buddha. When you read Heart Sutra, when you read Diamond Cutter Sutra, they will, the verb is you are meeting the Buddha as a book. So, it's very famous you need shamatha and vipashyana.

You need deep meditation and you need wisdom to see emptiness. And that meditation ability it does not happen in a vacuum. It's not about you sit down and meditate and you see emptiness.

That's not, it's not like that. You have to create a whole meditation environment in your life. And we talked about some of the details.

You should be less concerned about your appearance. You should be careful not to collect too many things that you have to worry about. I would say you should, and this is a difficult one, I'm sorry.

You should get your finances in order. Not having good finances is one of the main obstacles to meditation, and I'm surprised Kamalashila didn't put it in the poster. And I don't mean you should be rich because that's also distracting sometimes.

But I mean you should be responsible with your spending. Don't spend too much money. Don't spend more than you have.

Don't be American. If you spend more money than you make, it disturbs the back of your mind. Even you're not aware of it, it disturbs the back of your mind.

Then part of your mind is worrying. So, reduce your needs to fit your income. Now there's a word for that.

I taught it to you a long time ago. Two days ago. Okay, it's dam dam dam dam, dam dam dam.

A hundred dollars. Oh, by the way, you have to give me the ancient language and then you have to translate it. Less fuel and easily satisfied.

Yeah, you know it's not part of the lam rim actually. But reducing your expenses below your income is a great way to focus. Focus your mind.

And you can do it. You're just lazy, okay? It takes about 10 minutes. Just don't spend what you don't have.

Okay, and you'll be able to focus. But you must have a relationship to the ancient books. In the Geshe course, the first 12 years is Abhisamaya Alankara.

It's 75 pages. It takes about 45 minutes to recite. And you have to memorize it.

But we're going to study that book tomorrow with Tim. That means every baby monk in the monastery, and there's thousands of baby monks, okay? They have Maitreya whispering in their ear all day. 

They have Maitreya whispering in their ear all day because they are reciting this sutra.

And it feels like that, it feels like ... All day, what you memorize is under your subconscious all day. 

 And you can feel that it's like that. All day, all the sutras you have memorized. He will whisper in your ear.

My friends, when I was younger, they say, you guys spend too much time on the books.

Just be a nice person, just be a good person. You don't have to read all those books. I strongly believe that's a serious mistake. These books are not romance novels.

They are like electricity. When you connect with them, you are like... Then you can see emptiness. I strongly recommend everyone to do this. I spend five or six hours a day to study these sutras. Almost every day.

 I finished the Geshe course thirty-two years ago. But I think it's important to meet the jing every day. John Brady, I'd like to show off the new books that John Brady finds.

This book Stanley and John both worked on it. Kamala Shila who designed our meditation system. If you took ACI course number three,it's all from Master Kamala Shila.

Most people don't know, he wrote the only long commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra from India. But most people don't know I've been working on this book for more than 15 years. Recently, Stanley's team found a copy in Dunhuang. This is one of the pages. This is how I keep people awake. If you're a teacher, it's a good method to keep people awake.

You talk about Diamond Cutter Sutra, they fall asleep. You talk about a hundred dollars, everybody wakes up. Oh, those people who are in Singapore, you already know the answer. Why are those holes important in the book? It's just to check if you were asleep in Singapore. Why do Chinese people always raise their hand before they know the answer? They are reading my mind. Rob says, why do Chinese people always raise their hands before they know the answer? Do you know the answer? Because those two holes are connected by a string. After that, the whole thing is called the Sutra. What is the Sanskrit word for this string? 

Sutra.

Nice job. So this is a beautiful explanation of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. By the person who invented our meditation system. And this author himself is the one who invented our whole meditation system. The red color is what? One hundred.

In the Sutra, what are those red characters? One hundred. What's the question? What's the red color? What's the red color? What's the red color? What's the red? This is Chinese, and the black one is the explanation in Chinese. One last question.

One hundred. Wait, you got to show the picture. You have to put the picture on the paper. The jing. Some chicken was walking on the paper. Do you see the little scratches? Like at the very bottom. Like at the very bottom. That's not the jing. Because the pure Chinese is in the red color. Then some chicken was walking on the paper. A tiny tiny lettuce. And as you can see, there are a lot of small characters in those larger characters. What are those small characters? By the way, it's handwriting. It's Tibetan handwriting. Thank you.

Good, $100. Why I ask that question? I'm still waiting for Anatole to give me a high, high, high resolution copy, because I cannot read the notes. JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG. JPEG, JPEG. All right. Unfortunately, on the left, you can see half the page is lost. So, usually John Brady spends his whole year in the airplane. And we did fundraising, and we bought him a time machine. So, he will be traveling back to Dunhuang during Tang Dynasty. To bring the rest of the page, okay? He promised me. All right, okay. So, that's actually the next project that we have. This is the book after this one. Then this one, by the way, you four guys come, you ready? Come up. It's Tim and Jasmine. Yeah. So, these four books, I was hoping to sell. To fundraise for the translators. But, last night at two o'clock, Buddha woke me up. And he has a different plan. She has a different plan.

And we would like Max, and Ira, and Peter, and Maria, and Yulia to come up. Let's go. Okay.

Didier, Max, Yulia. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Yulia.

Didier, Yulia. Yulia? Yulia, no, no. She here? Yulia? No? She fell asleep? Yep.

Is she here? Yulia Belyaeva? How do you say her name? Max, how do you say her name? Yulia? Yulia Belyaeva. Yulia, where are you? Can someone call her? She's in the emergency room. Okay.

So, these guys, with John and Connie leading them, they worked for many years to find students, teach new students. And the amazing thing is those students are at war. Their students' countries are at war.

It's the longest war in this century. It's longer than World War I, it's longer than World War II. I think close to a million people have been injured or killed.

And still these people work together. And they make peace together. So, me and the translators, Jasmine and Tim, and Stanley, we would like to present these four books to you separately. And ask you to keep doing the good work. Jasmine promised me to put a preface in each one. So, Stanley is going to give Peter his copy. Jasmine is going to give Maria her copy. Now, listen. Tell her, if Peter is not a good boy, she can... Jasmine is going to give this book to Maria. And tell Maria, if Peter is not a good boy, you can beat him with this book. Tim is going to give this book to Max and Ira. Julia and Evgeny. This one, we can do Rob for Julia and her husband, Evgeny. Before you guys go, I want to say two things. This group has expanded. The size of the Ukrainian and Russian Sangha is incredible. And for example, when we look at everyone who submitted requests for transmission. Even bigger than the English speaking group worldwide. The Ukrainian community was almost a thousand people. 

I don't know. And English came in just around seven hundred. So it's an amazing, the work that you're doing is incredible. Please stay and please keep teaching.

Okay. Alright. I think if they keep working hard, the war can finish soon.

Alright. Next picture, you guys. 

On the left, Veronica. There are 735 meditation caves. By accident, they found 60,000 books in a sealed cave, 125 years ago. And those books, unfortunately they were stolen by many colonial powers. France has a big collection, England has a big collection. I saw the Russian collection. And the Americans also stole a lot. It's my dream that we can give them back to Dunhuang. And we are fundraising, Stanley's group is fundraising to help bring the books back. So it's about 60,000 books are there. And I hope we can get images of all of them. The images are not available much and the ones that are available, as I mentioned, you can't read them. They're not clear enough. Why I show this picture? So, Dunhuang was most powerful 1400 years ago. And sometimes the past generation sends us a message and we don't see the message. So what message was sent from Dunhuang? Retreat and the great books go together. Meditation, retreat, and studying the great books. That library is surrounded by meditation caves. And those caves are amazing. Inside painted very beautiful paintings. 

about how to see emptiness and use it in business.

But the reason I show the picture is 1,400 years ago, people understand the book and the meditation and the retreat are not separate. And they built places like this to do all three together. Okay, next picture.

We're going to have a special panel discussion in the next class, and we're going to talk about this Good Night Book Club. And if you want to see emptiness directly, I think one of the most important things you can do is what you do in class. Sleeping! Okay, and recently Stanley came to me. It's really irritating to me, people only believe something if Harvard University is doing it. Geshe-la, Harvard University just report that sleep is the best way to have intelligence. And I'm like, Stanley, yeah, let's make a thing called Good Night Book Club. Okay, the story about Good Night Book Club, I never had a television. And in 25 years in the monastery, I think I only saw one or two movies with my teacher. Then COVID came, and I used to travel 182 days a year. And I used to stay home 183 days a year. Why? Wife cannot complain. Honey, I'm home most of the time. Then, you know, suddenly COVID came, and I'm sitting at home. And I have too much free time, it's also dangerous, right? And I start watching internet. First, I watch Korea's soap opera. King's Affection, Extraordinary Attorney Wu, John's Life doesn't ... they're good, they're really good. Then it's just half hour or something. Then I start to watch short movies. Then I start to watch long movies. Then I start to watch war movies. Then I start to watch dirty movies. And you know, worse and worse and worse. And then I don't sleep. And I remember ... oh, and then I heard about my friend Will Duncan. He has a small retreat center in Arizona. At nine o'clock, he turns off the internet. And I heard about it a long time ago. But I thought I was strong enough to control myself, and I'm not. I thought I was strong enough to control myself, and I'm not. And I start to understand I'm doing something wrong. And then I put my ... when I go to bed, I put my phone and I put my computer in a drawer. And then one night, I remember I woke up around two o'clock. And the drawer is next to the bed, and I'm opening the drawer. I'm trying to get to the phone. So, if you know my wife, she's a Buddha. She wake up immediately. What are you doing? Sounds like my old lama. What are you doing? I said, I need to look on my phone. Why? Sleep. It's sleeping time. It's time to sleep. No, no, I have to find out something. What? When I was trying to sleep, a question come in my mind. Deep, deep question. And she's like, oh, honey, what's the question? I said, every person has fingernail and toenail on them. Which one grow faster? Then I will ask the AI. ChatGBT. Even he don't have fingernail or toenail. Then she look at me, she said, you're crazy. This internet. Do you understand now? Do you understand it's addiction? You're addicted. No, no, I can stop. You cannot stop. You're real addicted. Then, she's always right. Then I decided to try to follow Will Duncan's system. So, 10 o'clock I lock up, well, 10 o'clock I put the computer and the phone in a drawer. And I wake up at 6. I always heard John and Connie wake up at 4. I don't know if it's correct. But I always admire them. I said, oh, I wish I could wake up at 4. Then, usually I wake up at 9. So, I tried this new system. Go to bed at 10. Wake up at 6. All my business friends say, you are crazy. Now you got worse and worse. Geshe-la, when you work in the diamond business, you always work till 2 a.m. in Manhattan. And you always go back to Manhattan at 6 o'clock. Then you're a real tough guy. You don't need 8 hours sleep, Geshe-la. You work for 20 years with 4 hours of sleep. You are going to waste your time, which is the thing you fear the most in your whole life. So, I tried it. 10 o'clock, get in the bed. 6 o'clock, get up. If you do it for a few weeks, the clock is inside. I always wake up at 5.59. Because I have a really irritating alarm. So, I'm like, 5.59. Turn off the alarm. Then he's like ... Then, go to bed at 10. And I lock it. I lock the computer. In this hotel, Rob comes to my room. 9.59.59 Can't you come at 10.15 sometimes? I'm always in the middle of a good movie. Then Rob's like ... Then I'm like, okay, here's the computer. Where's the phone? Then he give it back to me at 6 o'clock. I'm going to recite this mantra until I die. I think I can do a million before I die. I think I can recite it a million times before I die. You have to try it. You have to try it. Why we can give those big fat books to those guys? My productivity increased 300%. Rosa almost had a breakdown. She's like, Rosa's like, okay, Geshe-la, me and Anatole finished your last book. It's out. It's out. Angel Devil. Then I said, good, because I have a new one. Then she's like, can't you wait a few weeks? Then it's just three times production. And I feel so fresh. And I feel so happy. And I don't have the guilty feeling that I am watching crap on the internet. So, I really encourage you to try. And I'm going to repeat this mantra until I die. And I'm going to say it again and again and again. Someday you have to try. Just try it for two weeks. You will never give it up. And you feel, your health is, sleep is the basis of health. And we'll talk more about it in the next class. Rosa designed a special bag. You got my bag, grandpa? He carries my bag everywhere. I have this bag with me all day. It holds my computer. It has a lock on it. There's a time lock. I can't open it, even I want to open it. And Rosa designed all that. I'd like to thank her. I feel like it saved my life. Because the stuff on the internet is very addicting. And it's very bad for your meditation. I think if you are addicted to the internet, you cannot see emptiness. I don't think so. I don't say internet is an evil thing. I don't say that. I use it many times every day. I go to the ALL website. I use the search program. Probably about a hundred times a day. And for me it's very, very precious. And if you can, I hope you support the ALL project. Next picture. If you'd like to join, there's the QR code. Lindsey, can you stand up? She will send you two books a year or four books a year. Every time we make a new book, Lindsey sends it out to the people who sponsor. This money goes to the translators to pay for their salary. It's basically one dollar a day or two dollars a day. Then it's not going to kill you, okay? And it will save the most valuable thing in this world. So, you really should help. Okay, and please, please help. If you want to help today or tomorrow, we have trouble in the United States. Understand? No. Anyway, our government stopped insurance for poor people. We don't have national hospital, for example. If you get sick in America, you need thousands of dollars. Or they will not treat you. So, we used to have government insurance. And it was canceled. So, that's a big expense for all of our team. One tire on one American bomber airplane costs half a million dollars. One wheel, the rubber wheel, it costs 500,000 dollars. One wheel on one bomber costs half a million dollars. Bomber, when you say bomber, you mean the plane that dropped the bomb? Oh, okay. One wheel. Not the two. Two together. Oh, okay, I see. Then all that money, all that insurance money went to that. So, grandpa have to think of ways to raise more money. I made a red box using classical Chinese red lacquer. The box cost me 1,000 dollars to make. And it has all the books which we translated so far. Seiji's book just come out two volumes. Similar to Seiji. Cannot fit in the box. So, it's on top. Now, grandpa propose to sell this box for 12,000 US and I will donate the money to the translators in family insurance. If you want to pay more than 12,000, I won't complain. If you like to help, talk to Rosa or talk to Lindsay. Okay, thank you. If you really serious to see emptiness, you need to read those books. Little bit. When you go to sleep, read for five minutes. Don't even read the book, just close your eyes or open some place. Buddha is not stupid. Buddha saw 2,000 years ago, he saw you open the book. He will send you a personal love note in the sutra. You can trust it. But if you don't have the book, you can't do it. So, I'm asking you to get a book. Do we have another slide, Francisco? Oh, that we did already. Okay, then that's it. We have time for one question, and then we'll take a break. Geshe-la, we have a question from someone online. And this person asks, my grandfather is 93 years old, and he is recommended to do a surgery. My dad is the eldest of the siblings, so he was assigned the responsibility of deciding if he should do the surgery. But he's kind of afraid of the outcome of the surgery. Doctors say it is dangerous, but it is more dangerous not to do it. So what advice do you have from the perspective of the teachings we're learning here? Thank you.

Good question. This is a question from someone online. My grandfather is recommended to do a surgery. Doctors say it is dangerous not to do it. But it is more dangerous not to do it. My dad is the eldest of the siblings, so he was assigned the responsibility of deciding if he should do the surgery. But he's kind of afraid of the outcome of the surgery. So what advice do you have from the perspective of the teachings we're learning here? Thank you. When I wrote the ACI course on Diamond Cutter Sutra, what's one number? Six. I remember I wrote it in the hospital. And my teacher had the same problem. So he was already 80 I think. And the doctor said you should have a surgery, prostate surgery. And I told him what the doctor said. And I asked him the same question. You know, Rinpoche, how do you decide you should do the operation or you shouldn't do the operation? And his answer was two steps. And I believe in it. And he said, first of all, find a doctor who's compassionate. Find a doctor who's a good person. It's interesting, he didn't say the most expensive, he didn't say the most skilled, he said find the most compassionate one. And he was picky with doctors. He kicked out many doctors. And it takes patience to find a compassionate doctor. So when you start asking your friends, suddenly you will have 20 doctor choices. And be patient. Be patient. Meet them one by one. Check if they seem to be compassionate. That's the first rule. Second rule, shut up and do what the doctor tells you to do. And don't worry about it. So I followed that advice. I had four operations in the last few years. But I followed this advice. And I believe in it. So that's the best you can do. And don't be afraid to don't be afraid to go to a good doctor. Good doctor. Then many patients get in trouble because they don't listen to the doctor. So, listen to the doctor. Talk to the doctor. If the doctor is too busy to talk to you, lock them in the room and talk to them. And then do what the doctor says. And decide, whatever is the result, I will serve people. Then you don't have to worry. Okay, we're going to take a break.

It's so nice to have an intelligent tech team. I'm very grateful to Brian and Francisco.

Thank you. Pachi. Thank you, guys.

Very, very nice. Okay, so, we thought maybe you guys would start to get bored of seeing emptiness. So, this class we're going to do, I'll continue a little bit.

And I thought it would be nice to have a panel discussion. So, you get some pangmao to ask the question, fat cat. And we'll have a little, just for fun.

We'll have a little conversation, half hour on this. Okay. Next picture, you guys going back to the original class.

Yeah. Skip that one. Next one.

Skip that one. Ah, okay, here we go. I'm still talking about a topic that I call no emptiness in a vacuum.

But it is shamatha. It means you don't get shamatha just by sitting down and meditating. You don't get shamatha just by sitting down.

You have to have a whole support network, spiritual support network in your life. And we talked about some things already. And this is a dormitory at Princeton.

And the whole university has a truck company. It's called, what's it called, Reunion's Truck Company. Reunion.

It's called Reunion, but it's not just Reunion. It's called Express Reunion. And we do all the trucking for the university.

So we deliver all the food and supplies to all the dormitories, all the restaurants. If a professor wants to move to a different house, we move all their stuff. I moved a piano down a flight of stairs.

That was cool. And we do all the trucking for ... They have reunions, they have like two weeks of heavy, heavy beer drinking at the end of the year. Thousands of students come back.

The next day after reunions finish, on top of those beautiful Princeton green grass, they will put eight foot by four foot plywood platforms. Three meters by two meters. And our job is to bring them, and we put them down, hundreds of them, and they dance on them.

And they get very drunk. And they throw up on that, everywhere. The next day, I have to go and carry those things to the truck, put them in the truck, take them to the warehouse.

That's my job. At the end of the day, I smell like beer mixed with vomit. And I got a full scholarship to Princeton.

But it doesn't include your personal expenses. So, I had to borrow money during my four years, five years, I had to borrow money. And I work like a dog.

Three or four jobs. I was a Russian research assistant. And I played rock and roll in a bar once a week.

And I saved every dollar. And the day before I went to the Mongol temple, I went to the office of the treasurer of the university. And I'm like, I owe you $15,436.

Yeah, just slapping down cash, small bills. And I'm like, you count it, and you'll never see me again. Then they count and count and count.

Okay, it's time. Then I feel so free. No debt, no money, no debt.

So, I got the handle to work. Since I was, I think, 15 or something. I left home at 16, and I never took money from my parents again.

And I have a new proposal for shamatha. Tina Lu, all the parents are clapping. Good idea.

I have another proposal for shamatha. It's called, get a job. Get a job.

And I don't mean Geshe-la should, excuse me, prostitute himself on the stage every day to raise money. I mean, you should get a real job. And I have thousands of students in my life.

And I told them, you have to pay for your food and your house. You cannot ask other people to pay for it. My teacher forced me to get a job.

And he said, you go to New York, you get a job. And every time I said, he said, shut up. Get on the bus, go to New York, find a job.

And it was the best advice I ever got. You have to have food. You have to have a place to stay.

And he forced me and I did not want to go to New York. I hate New York. And actually, I fought with him, she knows, silently.

Mahatma Gandhi called it non-violent, non-cooperation. And I always find a reason why I can't go to New York. And I really thought if I stay in the Mongol temple and meditate all day, I have a better chance to see Kongxin.

And now, from looking back, he forced me to go to work. That's why I built the jewelry company. At that time, I had an inheritance.

My grandmother's family helped to start Chevrolet company. And she died and my mother died suddenly together and the money went boop, boop, boop, came to me. So, I really don't have to work for many years.

And my teacher said, go to work. And I rarely listen to him completely, but this time I did. And I have to say, it's a really, really healthy thing.

It forced me to meet normal people. Usually, we are surrounded by OM MANI PADME HUM and to meet normal people, normal families, working really hard and all the sufferings a normal person has. I think as a Buddhist and as a teacher, it's important to be around people like that at least a few hours a day.

Nowadays, I have our cafe. I spend, not a lot of time, I spend a few hours a day with normal people. They have medical problems.

They have financial problems. They have family problems. They have emotional problems.

They have drug problems. And then I really learn how to help people. And I have some students, I asked them for 20 years, 30 years, please, please, get any kind of job.

I don't care. There's a special job in America. You get a job in the movie theater.

You just take the ticket and you put it in a box. I have one special student. I beg her on my knees, just go there.

They take everybody. And for, I don't know, for 30 years she refused. She don't refuse to my face.

She does the worst kind of refusal to the Lama. Oh, okay, I will do, I will do. Then every day is tomorrow.

And in this way, 30 years passed. And I remember I took her to a restaurant 30 years ago. And I sat down and I said, you will not be happy if you don't work.

And you will never be a great teacher because you don't understand normal people. And I said, don't ask me any more questions until you have a job. That was 30 years ago.

Nothing changed. Person didn't change. Still borrowing money.

People are afraid to have this person in their house if they have a couch and a refrigerator. They will say, just let me sleep on the couch for two nights. Two years later they are still on the couch.

And somehow the refrigerator is public property. Don't be like that. Make your own way in the world.

Do any kind of job, it will connect you to the people that the bodhisattva is supposed to help. Do any kind of job, it will connect you to the people that the bodhisattva is supposed to help. I feel very strongly about this.

And my teacher forced me. And God bless him. Buddha bless him.

As usual, he was right. As usual, he was right. I'm not saying ten hours a day.

Get part-time job, two hours, three hours. Meet real people. Take whatever salary.

It's okay, you're not going to get rich, it's okay. I have friends who are 60, 65, they are still writing to their parents, I need money this week. Okay, that's my opinion.

If you want to be a bodhisattva, work at a job, part-time, okay, two, three hours. Then meet normal people and see what it feels like to make money, hard work hard. Then ask them to pay $12,000 for the box of books.

Because then you know how hard they worked for the money. Okay? Alright. Okay, next picture.

So, in the Himalayas, at that time, it was terribly poor. And it was cold. Many people died in my town while I was there from the cold.

And when I got back to Princeton for six months, winter was just ending. And all those rich kids, they are throwing out this year's winter coat. Because they will just buy another one next year.

I saw them throwing out these great coats. And I went to the boss of my truck company. I said, let me borrow three or four trucks.

And I parked them under the dormitory. And I put signs all over the dormitory. If you have an expensive new winter coat you want to throw out, just open the window of your room.

And throw the coat and try to hit the truck. I got hundreds of coats. Then that yellow house has a basement.

And I got a team and we have boxes and we put all the clothes in boxes and we shipped them to the Himalayas. I think this helped me to reach Samatha. You say, Geshe-la, I don't have time.

I'm a busy Dharma teacher. I don't have time to drive a truck and pack boxes. But do you want to see emptiness? Yeah, yeah, that I want.

Do you want Samatha? Because you cannot see emptiness without Samatha. Not possible. Yeah, yeah, I want Samatha.

Then do something small and something real for other people. Just stupid truck. Then later I used to collect shoes and everything.

Later I sent to the monastery. And I got a letter back from the monastery. Those shoes are very helpful, thank you.

But the shoe with the stick in the back, it's difficult for walking. You don't have to send those. Okay.

Don't send high heels to the monastery. Alright. Okay, I think we're ready to have our panel discussion.

Rob, usually the panel guy will sit like there and face this way. Yeah. Where's Sharon? Okay, as you like.

So, I'll introduce the panel. Rosa Van Gricken. She publishes all the books.

Okay, and give her a hand. I usually don't have time to go to our office. Rarely.

She works there 10 hours, 12 hours a day. She makes all the books happen. I don't have to ask her, I don't have to tell her, I don't have to say anything.

She just takes care of it. And she never fights with me. Except this way.

Can you do this Rosa? Okay. But she never said no. And it's so good for me.

Thank you. Lindsey Jilk made a big mistake like seven, eight years ago, I'm guessing. Five years ago.

She's a real estate, big pung mao in real estate. Big business woman. And she lived in Seattle.

And she rides a bicycle for exercise. She went to the bicycle store to buy a helmet. And she accidentally ran into a bicycle helmet guy who is a Buddhist.

And she became a student of Rob. And recently she accepted a job from us and she quit her real estate. Probably much less money for us.

And she runs all the good night book club. And she runs the finances for the translators. Apparently if you learn Tibetan language you cannot count.

Nick, you know. Together with Ben Kramer, he's the boss of all the translators. Translator is the most stubborn animal in the whole world, right Sugeng? Right Tim? They are very stubborn people.

And he's a great boss. And somehow for ten years he kept the translators going. We didn't lose anybody.

Stanley, you all know. But I thought I would mention those of you who live in Singapore. When this program ends Rob and I will fly back to America.

All of us. And Stanley is going to give two talks in Singapore. One is on July 15th.

And one is on July 16th. The 15th talk is in English. The 16th talk is in Chinese.

If you're interested to join CSP If you're interested to join CSP it's really advanced Buddhism with business. Or our MBA program which is called DSEU Basically we have MBA or EMBA classes. And we have a special program called YLP.

For 18-year-old to 23-year-old. Mostly they are college students from all over the world. They go to university in California, Australia.

They go to Oxford, places like that. And we teach them how to mix these ideas together with college education. And it's very very popular.

Unexpectedly popular. And the development of those kids is unbelievable. Because if you take a normal teenager like your kids and you teach them these powerful ideas and how to use it in international business By the way, we don't use Buddhist religion and we don't use Buddhist language.

By the way, we don't use Buddhist religion and we don't use Buddhist language. Those kids are unbelievable now. And they go on special trips.

Soon they are leaving to come to Silicon Valley and they will be doing a training at NVIDIA, chipmaker. Then in the fall they will be at Princeton again. So, if you are a parent if it's me, I will send my kid to this class.

Most of the program is, for example, at Dragon's Head. They have to, in Kyoto they have to travel two hours to find marijuana. Then we protect them.

So, we take good care of them and they learn how to work also. So, I'm very proud of that. Okay, over to you Rob.

Any questions about the Good Night Book Club? Okay, welcome everybody to our little panel here. Is everyone having a good time? What? What? I can't hear you. That was a great yoga class today, right? Okay, how many people want to do the Good Night Book Club? Raise your hand.

If you don't raise your hand, I'm bringing you up on stage. Oh, that man right there. Okay, hands up.

Okay, we're going to ask the panel some questions about the Good Night Book Club. Okay, we're going to ask the panel some questions about the Good Night Book Club. Lindsay, we met in Seattle five years ago.

Actually, she quit her big job at the time. And she said, I want to meditate into the ethers. I don't want to work.

Please, teacher. What should I do? I said, get a job. I said, I'm coming to Arizona to work for Grandpa.

I have two rules. Do what I say. No drama.

Those rules she break immediately. So, she says she wants to help with the Good Night Book Club. And I don't necessarily know if she's a good worker.

So, I gave her one test. Can you show the picture? Not that picture. But, I want to join five houses.

This is my house in Arizona. Wow. I taught them in my class.

If Geshe Michael says, how was Rob's class? You all say, I also give them money and chocolate. So, I said, okay, you can do one job. Go pick the weeds out of my garden.

Yes, teacher. If you get in real close to the picture up there, can you zoom in on that? Is that possible? Can everyone see that? That is not a weed. That's my flower.

I said, what are you doing? I'm pulling weeds. How many weeds did you pull? Huge pile in the yard. I said, you're fired.

So, we hire her for Good Night Book Club. Not happy. This person doesn't want a job.

Okay, Lindsay. We're going to start with you. Can you tell us how the Good Night Book Club has impacted your garage cooling system? Actually, when she ships out the books, after her full-time corporate day job, she goes into the garage in Arizona and ships the books to all of you.

Why? Keep your answers. We're not going to talk all day, except for me. Short answer, because I want people to have the books.

Slightly longer answer. People ask me a lot how they can support the translation project that Yashla has, Nick runs, and there's 12 translators. They say, they say, do you need money? Do you need volunteers? And I say, yes.

And also, we need you to read these books. And that's how you can support this program. The whole reason we want to translate these books is so that you can read them and have your life be impacted by them.

And it's also fun. It's also fun. This is Rosa.

Everyone clap. For those of you who were in my class, I remember I get a phone call for a job. It was her.

Rosa also works in a small room. And a small dog. Actually, big house.

Small dog. Rosa, can you tell me one way that the Good Night Book Club has actually changed? Just like a real answer to how it changed you as a practitioner. Let's have Rosa tell us how the Good Night Book Club has changed your life.

When Geshe Michael had this brilliant idea of creating this club, I thought, wow, this is really amazing. Because just how he was telling about himself that during the pandemic, we kind of fell into this spiral down of being trapped by the internet and being trapped by watching movies all the time. I was doing the same thing.

And having this idea of creating the time to rest. Because I'm also a workaholic. In fact, I was always very proud of how late I can work.

But then in the morning, I couldn't have a good meditation. I was pretty cranky. Wait, did you say you was pretty cranky? You were? Kidding, kidding, kidding.

We'll talk later. So anyways, it's been incredible. And I see how it's also helped many, many people that I know.

So thank you. And I'll give you guys a chance to ask a question in a few minutes. So if you have a question inside of you about the Good Night Book Club, get it ready in your mind.

All right, everyone give a hand for Nick LaShaw. I don't know if everyone knows, but Nick is from New York. And he used to talk like this.

Hey, how you doing? Well, what's going on? Yeah, you got a book over there? Yeah, I read books. Give me your book. But now he speaks so nice.

Good Night Book Club, help him. It turns out all I needed was a good night's sleep. Nick is also a big surfer.

So actually, I want to know, hold on, do you do the Good Night Book Club? I know that look. All right, we'll give him a pass. Not everybody wants to see emptiness directly.

Kidding. Everybody does. Nick's amazing.

He works very, very hard for all of us. And he has a real heart of gold. And he's completely taken responsibility for the translator program.

And he's got a wife and a kid. He has a dog. Nick, what I actually want to know is, do you think that reading the books has changed the way that you maybe do your surfing practice? But I mean that genuinely, because for me it's been a real inspiration in my life.

All right, thank you for the question. We could joke back and forth, but I will spare you. So, I thought it was really cool that Geshe Michael gave the example of a wave in the teachings.

Because it gives me a little extra fuel to plant good seeds while I'm out there surfing. But for your question, getting enough sleep definitely impacts my surfing. Actually, I have a really, really bad day in the ocean and with my family if I don't get enough sleep.

So, this has changed my life actually because I used to be like Rosa. I would just work all kinds of crazy hours and now I'm much more productive in less time. But for the information in these books and how that changes me, it's like, I used to go to many different Buddhist teachers and I think they were good teachers and I couldn't understand anything.

Then I studied with Geshe Michael and then if I listened to those other teachers now I can understand everything. So, the way that he teaches it is like a key. Maybe that's the power of an aria.

And maybe for the first time in history that's how these books are being translated in a way that we can understand them. And I believe that's the technique that we are trying to learn from him. So, hopefully this program will be able to bring these ideas to more people in a more clear way.

Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. Okay, let's give a hand to Teacher Stanley.

Teacher Stanley's book. These are outside, these books? Yeah, there's Nick's book, two books. This is Stanley's book.

This one is 1,700 years old and that one is 1,800 years old. I know Teacher Stanley does the Good Night Book Club now, actually. So, just a small question for Stanley.

In the Mind Only presentation on page 162 do all four philosophical schools agree that form which does not communicate one's intent which does not communicate one's intent don't ask him. He should know this. He wrote the book.

He translated the book. I'm kidding. Not a test.

But actually there is something I want to know. Shenzhen. Teacher Stanley has $7 in his pocket.

Now Teacher Stanley is a translator. He's Geshe Michael's translator. He runs Innovation Retreat.

Classic Soft Power. The Vice President of DSEU. And the dishwasher for Xiaoping.

But what I've witnessed over the years is how much Stanley's capacity has grown. And this is only... I'm with Stanley, Xiaoping, and Geshe all the time, every day. I'm with Stanley, Xiaoping, and Geshe all the time, every day.

And I still know he's doing other projects behind the scenes, always. Do you think there is a relationship between the classics and how much capacity you have currently? About the non-communicating form. I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm not going to say that.

Hold on. Hold on. Let me write that down.

Non-communicating. Thank you for your question. We are really good friends and we help each other.

Every time I don't want to do my six-time book, his face just shows up in my mind. Nick said it's the same. First thing I want to say, really, it's good to have good friends around you.

I think that's one of our major source of power. I would say that too. Originally, the word Geshe before it becomes a degree, it means spiritual good friends.

I feel like that. I think eight years ago, Geshe told me and Xiaoping, you should start this program called CSP. It's a global executive training program.

The students' average experience in business is over 20 years. We have averaged five years of experience. I didn't know what we can do to offer.

I actually asked the same question to Geshe at that time. It's very similar to a prayer we always do. I don't know anything.

I make all the mistakes. I have nothing to offer. What value can I provide in this CSP program? I remember the answer Geshe gave us at that time.

You have the books. That's your greatest source of power. That could help everybody.

That's what we have been doing basically. I truly believe that the power is really inside the book. But if you don't read them, if you don't read them before you go to sleep, it feels like you are sitting on a whole mountain of gold.

Then you are still looking for money outside. All the great power, all the treasure, I think they are already inside. We just have to take them.

Read a few lines every night. To be honest, when I do any project that I feel like it's beyond my capacity, if you have a great teacher, they always give you things to do that is beyond your capacity. I always go to seek help from the ancient books.

One more thing. I'm looking at Sugeng. And I wanted to also mention that he finished a very beautiful book.

It's an ancient, ancient book about the Wheel of Life. And it's a beautiful book. Very valuable.

It's the best explanation I ever saw of the Wheel of Life. By the way, these books are all available on ebook. It's difficult to carry so many books.

They carried over a thousand books here in their suitcase. Then the customs officer always saying, why you have a whole box full of books? It's just for my friends. So, it's much easier if you guys can order online Diamond Cutter Book.

Diamond Cutter Press. You can get ebooks for all of these. Okay, do you guys mind if we go over a little bit to ask Grandpa a question? Are you sure? I can't hear you.

I think they're more hungry. Last question. For Grandpa.

All of us have been talking about personal practice. And you've been giving us your, you've been sharing your inner life with us. Oh, they were talking.

And so, a lot of students I noticed, whenever we bring up Grandpa and Veronica, everyone get very happy. They want to see more pictures of Grandpa and Veronica. And so my question is, how has the Good Night Book Club affected your own personal relationship in your life? I can say that my wife likes to go to bed early.

She often sleeps by 9 o'clock. She often gets up at 5. And to be honest, when she knew I was watching stupid movies, dirty movies, she was very unhappy. Now, if I'm not traveling, I put the computer and the phone in that bag and I put it on her side of the bed.

It means I have to sneak by her side. I heard to get to the computer. And I did try a few times.

Then she's like, what are you doing honey? All the husbands know how that works. But the Good Night Book Club has really helped our marriage. And it's extremely peaceful.

She's very, very happy. So we didn't talk about it, but I think it will help your marriage. And I encourage you to try it with your husband or with your wife.

Thank you. We were at the doctor with Grandpa talking about his kidney. And our doctor, I believe she was Vietnamese.

And she said, do you mind if I ask you a question? So it's me, Stanley, Xiaoping, Geshe Michael, Veronica, big room. What do you guys do? You always seem so happy when you come here. You know your kidney's not good, right? Like this is not good news.

But you don't look upset. He said, we do Good Night Book Club. So we walk out the door.

I'm the last person. I walk like this. Doctor grabbed me.

Can you send me his book? Is it in Vietnam? Is it translated into Vietnamese? Yeah. Okay, let's thank all our panelists. Thank you.

Thank you all the teachers. Thank you. Thank you all the teachers.

[2:53]

Well, you didn't burn down the hotel last night, congratulations. That was fun, thank you again, Jasmine, as usual. And Gyelse, Venerable Gyelse. My boss at the diamond company used to say, Don't worry, you can sleep on the plane. Okay, so get ready to meditate.

Relax your eyes. Make a small smile. Relax your forehead. Tighten your lower tummy a little bit. Push your shoulders back and down. And we'll start with a hundred breaths together. 

And please start your breaths. 

And then please bring a teacher, one of your teachers, to come and sit with you in meditation. There's a big debate - should you start by imagining their outline, or should you start by imagining the parts of their face? When you meditate in the next few months, what I'd like you to focus on, most importantly, is how much they love you. Don't worry so much about their nose and their ears, try to imagine strongly the feeling of their love for you. So I don't mind if the picture is not so clear, but the feeling of their care and their love for you should be clear. 

Next, please offer your teacher a gift. I think all of us here can offer all the hard work and all the time we spent to come here and learn. 

And please think of something you did in the last few days that was not very nice, and tell your teacher very openly, very honestly about it, and that will clean it. 

And then I'd like you to please dedicate all the good seeds that we planted by working so hard together in the last week.

Then make a prayer that we learn something new and virtuous today. I think when you have meals with other people at a program like this and you keep your ears open, you can learn a lot of fresh new ideas about being a good person. 

And now please think about some of your friends and your teachers here at this program and make a prayer for their long life. It's very difficult to practice by ourselves, without friends, without teachers. If we are lucky, then the good people around us have a long life, and it helps us a lot. 

Meditation assignment for next few months

Then we'll start the actual meditation.

This week so far, we had three kinds of meditation. And in the next few weeks and the next few months, If you can, I would ask you to meditate at least five days… well, I would say not more and not less than five days a week. One of those days is a regular day, could be Saturday, could be Sunday. And one of those days off not meditating every week is a day when you have special pressure, or one of your kids is sick, or you have a project for work, and you can skip one day of meditation. But the rest of the days, I would like you to sit down and prepare to meditate like we did here. It's good to do those same preliminaries that we did, but the breathing 100 breaths, if you don't have time, you can do 20 breaths or 50 breaths, as you like.

And meditation for the next two months, when you do meditate, I would like you to each morning or evening, depending on when you meditate… we did three different kinds of meditation this week. 

First we meditated on the teachers that came into our life before the age of 12. Could be parents, could be brothers or sisters, could be school teachers. But just to appreciate and thank the people who helped us start this life, and who probably, well certainly, came from our past life. Those people are proof of your past life; they didn't come from nowhere. And they taught us from the time we were born. So your first choice of three different meditations is to think about the teachers that you carried into this life.

Your second choice for meditation in the next two months, each one of us had books or songs or poetry that changed our life. We also carried those books or songs or poetry, we carried them from our last life. They are not a mistake, they didn’t come from nowhere, nothing comes from nowhere. And so your second choice of meditations in the next two months - think about the books or the music or the poetry that came to you from your past life before you were 12 years old. 

Your third choice of meditation, the third meditation that we learned together these last few days - when you were a kid, when I was a kid, people around us told us, this is where the world comes from, this is who made the world, this is how everything happens. We got some explanation from our parents and school teachers. I don’t want you to worry about did they teach you something correct or did they teach you something mistaken. Maybe the schoolteachers told you the world came from a big accident explosion. And then maybe your parents or your church or your temple, they told you, Oh, no, everything comes from very big powerful guy like Buddha or God. And in your meditation I don’t want you to worry about was that information correct or was the information not correct, I don’t want you to worry about that. I just want you to think about how did it come to you, who taught it to you, and where did they come from. 

So those are three choices you have for meditation and in the next two months I would like you to do one of them every day. And understand that what came to you before the age of 12 is a result that came from something earlier. And then because we are studying Diamond Way, we have to think about those people, like our parents or our schoolteachers, is it possible they were Buddha? Buddhism says there are countless Buddhas in the universe. And Buddhism says they can show any way they want to you. And Buddhism also says that when a Buddha comes to you as a normal person, they might do something nice to you, or they might do something to hurt you if it teaches you something. So there’s a chance that the teachers who came to you as a child, and the books and information that came to you as a child, and the ideas of where the world comes from which came to you as a child, might be delivered by Buddhas. 

Personally, I think there’s a misunderstanding about Diamond Way. You don’t have to pretend that the people around you are Buddha, or even just an Arya. You don’t have the capacity to recognize a Buddha or Arya for sure. But Diamond Way practice means you think to yourself it’s possible that some of the people around you are Buddhas, or some of them are Aryas. Just think it’s possible. That it’s possible is logical and you can accept that. We can’t say for sure they are or they are not. But just thinking it’s possible will make you a better person and a happier person. 

Okay, we have a few minutes. Choose one of those three meditations for this morning. And give yourself a chance in the next few months to do one of those three meditations every morning. If I'm in a big rush to go to the airport, I will meditate in my airplane seat. And I don't close my eyes because maybe I will miss the meal in the airplane. So sometimes my meditation is just kind of looking off into space and thinking about one of those three things. Maybe we have a rough morning and we don’t have time to sit down in formal meditation. But certainly we have a few quiet moments every morning to sit and think about one of these three. 

Okay, so choose one of the three for this morning. We’ll do about ten minutes silent meditation. And then we’ll have a little bit of extra time for questions. Okay, here we go.

[silent meditation]

And then please let’s dedicate this meditation and also dedicate this week of hard work together, and offer it to the people of this world. And then slowly open your eyes, take a stretch. Take a drink. And if you have any questions, I'll take questions. 

Question: Still having depression/anxiety

[Lindsay: I'd like to ask a question on behalf of a friend. The question is, this friend has very bad anxiety and depression, and that's what brought them and interested them in the dharma. But they've been practicing for years and they still have this problem very bad and they're starting to lose hope and wanted your advice.]

Yeah, so Lindsay says she has a friend who has anxiety and depression, and they've been practicing for a long time and it doesn't seem to be getting better. So first I'll tell you, as a joke, what my teacher used to say - Just imagine how bad it would be if you weren't practicing. Then, I think it always comes down to the same thing. When we have some kind of problem in our life, we all have a tendency to focus on ourselves. And I really do believe that the more you focus on yourself, you don't have time to think about other people. 

If the pot on the stove is coming from your seeds, and that's why it's important to see the pot on the stove, then you can ... if you see the pot on the stove is coming from your cascading pictures, then also the way you feel about yourself, and the way you feel about your life, those seed pictures are cascading out of your mind. And the word samsara, it means vicious cycle, vicious cycle. You focus on yourself - I'm not feeling happy, I feel anxiety. The time it takes to think about yourself is time you don't have to think about others. And it doesn't mean you should ignore your needs. You should take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't help other people at all. So go to the doctor when you have to, eat carefully, and do silly dances on the internet. [Cheering] All my friends are complaining to me for the last two days, “Geshe-la, my legs hurt.” That's a good sign. So take care of yourself with love. And if you can't do that, then it's not possible to take care of other people. 

But leave a lot of time to take care of other people because that's where your happiness comes from. So take care of yourself, feed yourself, comb your hair, put on clothes on yourself. Shantideva said it's not wrong to look nice, but don't feel pride about it. Think about a flower in the garden. Shantideva says those flowers don't think, “I'm so beautiful. I'm more beautiful than the other flowers.” Shantideva said those flowers just enjoy to make people happy. So if you fight your anxiety, fight your depression, because you want to be beautiful like a flower. I know about beautiful because I'm from Měi guó. [Laughter] Měi guó means beautiful country, but it means America also. So be a beautiful flower, be happy for other people. 

I can tell you, my life is not perfect. I have lots of problems. I have strange problems, I'm not even going to tell you. But generally, I try to take care of other people and that makes my life extremely happy. I like to brag, you know I like to brag, but sometimes I like to brag that I'm the happiest person I know. That's because I take care of other people. So it's a struggle to get the focus off yourself and turn the focus on other people. If you're lucky, you have a beautiful wife who will tell you, “We went to the Peach Tree Cafe, we had a meeting with three other people. Husband, the whole time you just talk about yourself. Anatole was trying to say something and you talked over him for two hours.” So try to get married to a good person. They will remind you to focus on other people. 

Remember the flower - flower is not bragging, flower enjoys to be beautiful to make other people happy. Dress nice, learn beautiful ideas, share them with other people because you want to be like a flower. 

Question: How to make Geshe-la stay?

All right, one more short one. Short question. 

[Student: Geshe-la, I met you 19 years ago and I was very unhappy, seriously depressed, because my parents just suddenly left the world and I feel hopeless. I tried so many different kind of psychology method of training, didn’t help. But meeting you really bring me hope and my life was radically changed after that. So [] mentioned about anxiety and depression, I got real depression at that time and I tried to kill myself several times but it didn’t work. But anyway, thank you so much for your teaching. So I hope, I really hope, that you can stay in the world for as long as possible to teach us. My question is, from my side, what can I do to force you, to make you stay and teach us, keep teaching us?]

Thank you for the beautiful question. So, many years ago, I couldn't be close to my teacher. The circumstances were difficult, I was living far away, and I couldn't get a chance to be close to them. So I studied all the seed system. Of course, the seed system will say, try to help other people to be close to their teacher. So I really worked hard on that and I did a lot of retreats to work hard on that. I remember a retreat in Flagstaff, and I remember, I was so sad I couldn't be close to my teacher that I just cried the whole time. Then my teacher was talking about flowers also. Flowers don't advertise much. They make some nectar, and it forces the bees to come. I have a beehive, I have 8,000 bees. I saw the flower doesn't go to the beehive, the bees come to the flower. And the flower's method is to be as beautiful as possible. That's why flowers have beautiful colors - it's all advertising. The flowers which have attractive colors survive in evolution because the bees are attracted, and the bees pollinate them. So, my teacher said, just find ways to serve teachers. And you don't have to go to other countries, you don't have to go to India. Mainly, what you find in India is not the teacher, it's diarrhea. So bring the teacher to you by helping other people to find their teacher and by supporting teachers in the world. So that's what I did and now I'm married to my teacher. It's pretty good. So that's my idea. Thank you. Thank you for your concern. And I'm doing the best I can to take care of my health. 

See you in a few minutes.