Углублённый курс ACI 03 — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: обмен себя на других (2004, Нью-Йорк), занятие 6

[Говорящий 1]
We'll do a meditation. Sit up straight. Don't squeak your chair.

Guenkaji, when he taught us meditation in 1973 in India, and he said, whatever you do, don't think about monkeys during the next 10 minutes. I don't know why. Okay, here we go.

Count your breaths to 10, okay? Try to keep your mind in your breaths. If you lose count, start over again.

Now, think of the lama or guru teacher. Could be somebody who's alive now. Could be Jesus, could be Buddha, could be Master Shantideva.

But imagine that they come and they sit on top of your head. Small teacher, Buddha, like four inches high, sitting softly on your head, facing the same way. You can feel the warmth of their body.

You can feel the... when they move, when they breathe, you can smell, they say, smell of goodness coming out of them like an incense smell. So not just a picture, it's a real person.

Then ask them to bless you during meditation. And we're going to meditate about other people. This is the subject of our class.

And it's very simple. And the mind doesn't like to do it. The mind doesn't want to do it.

The meditation is just think about someone you're going to be with tonight or someone you will be with tomorrow, like someone in your family or someone you have to work with or someone in this group that you're spending time with tonight or tomorrow. And just think about what they would like to do, what they would like, like what would they like to drink, what would they like to eat tonight or tomorrow? What would they like to do with you?

What would they like to hear you say to them? What kind of things do they enjoy? This is the greatest happiness meditation you can do.

People want to be happy. We all like to be happy. This is the greatest meditation for happiness.

So, thinking about what someone else would like to do tonight or tomorrow. So, we'll spend about five minutes. Pick one person and try to think what they would like tonight or tomorrow to do.

Okay, then we'll start. I'm going to give a pitch tonight. You want to give me one copy of each?

And can you help get the projector going? There's a computer on a projector. Is it ready?

Oh, it's okay. Can you do it? Yeah.

I'm going to give a pitch and then they're going to try to get a projector going. Yeah. I guess most of you know John Brady.

He's standing there. Yeah, yeah. He was foolish enough before three-year retreat to offer to be the director of ACIP project while I was in retreat.

So, without knowing what he was getting into, he agreed to take it. And this is a project that started in about 15 years ago. We started it about 15 years ago.

And what happened in Tibet was there were 5,000 libraries in Tibet, beautiful libraries. They contained ancient books from India that had been brought to Tibet a thousand years ago for translation. And then about 300,000 Tibetan books.

And every book is like Shakespeare. You just pick up this book that we're reading. This is just one.

There's 300,000 books like this. This is just one. If you read this book, it will change your life.

If you read this book, you'll get Ultimate Delicious. You'll get, you're just happy. Like the meditation we just did.

If you just do it every day, a little bit, you just feel happy all the time. You see? Because there's something wrong with our mind.

We don't want to think about other people. And then if you just allow your heart to think about other people, just a little bit every day, you just feel happy all the time. That's just one book, okay?

And there are 300,000 books like that. They're so beautiful, you know? And only, I don't know, when the Tibetans got out of, when they were attacked, like my monastery, Seramay, in our library, we had beautiful books, incredible books like Diamond Cutter Sutra.

The only explanation in Tibet was in our monastery, okay? And in 1959, it was bombed. And my lama told me, he came out, and he said there were planes flying over the monastery.

And they said, they thought it was the Americans had come to save them. So they started waving towels. And then the planes just turned around and came down and started shooting machine gun cannons at them off the wings.

And then these casings are falling down, brass casings like this tall, shells. And the monks are picking them up. They don't understand what's going on.

The monks are like, oh, the Americans are sending us butter lamps. Hope these will be great for butter lamps, you know? They're like, we can make butter lamp things out of this.

This is wonderful, you know? And then a couple of monks are falling down, and then a bomb lands. And then they're like, oh no, this is something else, you know?

And then they bombed the monastery. Our library burned. And there's no copy left in Tibet.

The diamond cutter commentary that we used for that book that's so popular in Taiwan and other places, no copy left, all burned. 5,000 libraries were burned, okay? Just burned down.

And then, you know, some of us Western people started to get interested in the books. And we found out that we couldn't get them. When I studied in the monastery, I had to learn to read upside down.

Why? There was only one textbook left, okay? And the teacher would hold it on the desk, and then you had to read it upside down while he's teaching it.

So I learned to read Tibetan upside down, you see? And this book was written on like toilet paper with charcoal and cow's urine because they didn't have enough money for ink. So the monk who memorized it, he would write what he remembered on this really terrible paper in India and in the refugee camp.

And then we would study that. That's all we had to study. And, you know, people didn't remember some pages and things like that.

So we started to try to find the books because some books left Tibet before 1959. Some books got out. Because there were Russian explorers and Japanese explorers and Chinese explorers.

There's one crazy American explorer, Theos Benarn, who went to Tibet, and they brought books back to their country. So there's a small collection in Japan. There's a collection in Russia.

There's a collection in Mongolia. And we found those. And we began to copy the texts and then send them to India.

And we taught the refugees how to type on computers. And we got computers. Like, Citibank gave us 25 computers.

We backed up a truck to Citibank Skyscraper and came down in the sprayed elevator, 25 computers. And we each took one with us to India, you know. And we all wore suits, so we got through customs.

And it was really funny. But we would do that. And then we would take computers to the refugees and teach them how to type their language.

And now hundreds of refugees have been taught. And we've saved 300,000 pages of books. That's about 2%.

Okay, that's about 2%. And a few people have helped, you know. Like we got a grant from National Endowment for the Library of Congress.

We got a grant from George Soros, very wealthy industrialist. We got a grant from wealthy diamond dealers in Belgium. We got a grant from Tokyo.

And we've gotten nice grants. But we're always broke, okay. And we can't save all the books.

There are many Tibetan refugees. These are all women now, are the stars. The monks are sort of slow.

And I'm honest. And the Tibetan refugee women are like really fast and they love it. Because they can bring their children in and work with the children there.

And they can't get other jobs in India because they're not citizens. So they're not allowed to own a business. You're not allowed to own a Circle K or a 7-Eleven in India if you're a Tibetan refugee.

So they can't work. So the women just, they don't have anything work. So we give them work.

We employ a lot of refugees. And they love it. And they just crank out these things.

Then we put them on CD-ROM and we give them away. And we've given away 100,000 CD-ROMs. And now it's on the web. You just take what you want.

And then we translate them like you have in your lap. And then we print them in books like Diamond Cutter Book. And we give them away like that.

So we're just asking you to help, okay. And it's nothing, okay. It's really nothing.

It's the cost of a movie, okay. Give $5 a month. Or give $10 a month, okay.

Not asking you to give more, okay. I mean, you can check a bigger box. There's a bigger box.

But we can do it if everybody gives a little bit. I'm not thinking that somebody's going to give $100 or $200. It's not like that.

If you can give every month $5 or $10, we can save the books. We can get enough. We will have enough, okay.

So there's a thing we're going to pass around. And if you can help. It's this credit card trick, you see.

We learned it. You sign up. John gets your credit card number.

And for the rest of your life, they take $5 out a month. And you don't even miss it. You don't even know.

And really, I do it. Christie and I do it. And it's easy.

And if we don't save these things, nobody will save them. The refugees don't have any money. And we're also saving the great yoga books in India.

John and his staff have found 30,000, 40,000 manuscripts rotting in the libraries in India. These are older Sanskrit books. And we're saving those also.

All the knowledge of yoga is there. And it's just rotting, okay. And we have a little project in Africa, in Ethiopia, helping Jewish and Christian Africans to save their ancient books.

They've come to us and asked us to help with their manuscripts. So we're also doing that work, okay. So just do it, okay.

And don't whine about it, all right. Don't make John and me do these embarrassing schticks, okay. This is a book that's rotting in India as we speak.

It's a rare commentary on the Yoga Sutra, okay. And we'd like to save it. There's 30,000 books with it.

And we don't have any money to start that project. We don't have any money to start that. So if you can help, help.

Then here's the thing about the Tibetan tax. And you can see some beautiful text there, okay. And we'll pass those around, okay.

This particular brochure, the second brochure, you can just write above here if you'd like to give $3 or $5 or $10 a month. And the rest is self-explanatory. But we don't have a check-off for a monthly deduction from your credit card, so.

Okay, just do it, okay. Nobody's making, he used to have a good job. He quit his job to do this.

Now he's broke, okay. And I did it and I feel bad. And no, he'd give it his whole life for that, okay.

And we can give five dollars. He gave his whole life and all his funds, okay. All right, here we go.

Oh, and then we'll show a, if we get it going, we'll show a little blurb during the break. The Discovery Channel did a nice piece about his project. And Xerox Corporation was so impressed that they used his project for training their managers, management at Xerox Corporation.

And people like that have done films about his project. So we've collected them together. We'll show it during the break, okay.

While you're all rushing over to him. Okay, we're going to read the verses. I'll just pick on somebody.

I think Lady Ruth would be an honor. And she's one of my teachers, she's here. Okay, ready?

[Говорящий 2]
What should I read?

[Говорящий 1]
What need is there for many words? The children of the world work for their own sake. The able Buddhas do their labor for the sake of others.

Come and see the difference. This is one of the most famous verses of this book. And those of you who are new, this book was written 13 centuries ago by a very famous monk in ancient India, Master Shantideva.

And I think this book is one of the top five Buddhist books ever that affected all of Asia for thousands of years, two and a half thousand years, okay. So at this point in this chapter, this chapter is about selfishness. This chapter is about taking care of other people.

This chapter is just thinking about what other people want, which we never do. You see, if you try to meditate on this, and you got to, okay, this doesn't do any good to come to this class for a weekend. Oh, hi, Sophie.

And it's not going to help you at all, okay. It won't change anything. I mean, just learning this on the surface is like buying a maple-covered donut and licking it once on the top.

It's like, okay, it's sweet, but it's not going to stay with you. And you have to meditate every day. And you had a meditation right there.

You have to do. People are always asking me, what should I do for my meditation? Should I contemplate the void, or should I calculate the universe, or things like that.

But I'm like, just sit down and think what somebody who lives with you wants for a half an hour. That's something you never, ever do. And then you'll be happier.

It makes you happy. This is the key to happiness, right here. And it's easy.

And you just sit down, you get into a deep meditation, and you do what we call che gom. You review, you analyze what the other person wants. And your mind will avoid it, okay.

Your mind will go, oh, wait a minute. I got this project. I got to do the homeworks for this class.

I can't think about this class. Your mind will come up with all this other stuff you have to do, and you have to say, shut up. By the way, Master Shantideva has got all this conversation with the mind.

He's like, tell your mind this. If your mind says that, tell them to shut up. Tell them to think about what somebody else wants this afternoon.

And then that's a big struggle, and you have to work at it. And then Master Shantideva's big shtick is, if you practice it, you get good at it. You see?

If you practice it, you get good at it. And the word practice and the word for meditation is the same. Apyasa or gompa in Tibetan, the word for doing it over and over again is the same.

You just do it over and over again, and then it becomes part of your nature. You become a kind person. You become someone who thinks about what other people want.

And that's ultimate delicious. He called it last time rochok. It's like uttara rasa or something like that.

Like the supreme taste. It's, you get happy. It just makes you happy.

And people are trying to be happy, and we're not very good at it, right? Just sit down 15, 20 minutes a day. Think about what somebody else would like.

And you need a meditation teacher. You need to learn how. There's certain technique.

You need to learn some basic stuff. Then you should do it on your own. And there's flyers out there about ACI courses, free courses in New York City.

You can go for a couple days after work or before work. And just learn how to meditate. It's not much, okay?

And then go do it by yourself in your house every day. And then you just get happy. And that's what you want, right?

So try it. I mean, we work eight, 10 hours a day because we think it will make us happy. And it doesn't.

But you still got to eat, right? So okay, go and work. But for the happy part, sit down, meditate about what somebody else would like today.

And then make that a habit. Some people are born considerate. Most of us are not, okay?

No, some people are born kind. They think about what other people want and they don't worry so much about what they want, you see? Like even if they don't feel well, even if it's hot, even if it's cold, even if things are stressful, they don't even think about themselves.

They're just thinking about other people, you see? There's certain people who are born that way. Now we say that's a karma.

And that karma will wear out, okay? So most of us aren't born considerate. We have to work at it.

Some people are born considerate, but they still have to work at it, you see? Like I was studying a ballet book, some Russian ballet master, and he said, there's two kinds of ballet dancers. Some people have talent and some people don't.

People with talent, people without talent, you just have to work harder. Every day you have to practice harder. And then you'll get good at it.

But he said the dangerous thing is the people with talent. Because they think they don't have to do anything. They think the talent will just stay there.

They think it was God-given, right? It was karma-given. Karma wears out.

Why? Just by producing your talent. Every day you have the talent, it wears out, you see?

So this Russian ballet, Moscow ballet teacher, Moskva Ballet, he was saying, the talented people, they have to work harder. Then you can sustain that talent. So whether you are a nice person already, you already think about other people all the time, or whether you don't think about other people all the time, you still have to do this meditation every day.

Otherwise you'll lose it, okay? And people lose it over their life. They're what he called grumpy old men, right?

No, people lose it. As you get older, you're starting to lose the karma for your body. Your ears wear out.

Your eyes wear out. Your bones wear out. And your mind wears out.

And your kindness wears out, normally, okay? Like as the other good karmas start to wear out, that made your body, that made your health, that made the job that you had, they will wear out. They always wear out.

And then the seeds in your mind for kindness, or being considerate, or thinking about other people, if you don't work hard, they'll wear out, you see? So if you're a nice person, you have to meditate. If you're not such a nice person, you have to meditate, okay?

You have to do it. You have to keep doing it. You lose progress by doing nothing, you see?

It will just wear out. And then you'll just be, you won't even know that you're a meaner person. You'll just be a meaner person.

And one thing about being a meaner person is you're not aware that you're a meaner person. You see what I mean? When the karma wears out, the karma to be aware of the karma wearing out wears out.

Get it? No, really. Like you'll just get more selfish every year that goes by, and you won't notice it, you see?

Because you're selfish. Got it? Okay.

So what this verse says, look, I don't know, you know the theory in Buddhism. We've been here, there was no first life. There was no first life.

You can't point back to your first lifetime. How did you get into this lifetime? The energy of your last life pushed you into this realm.

The energy of your last life pushed you into this realm. And it was a great life. It was a really good life.

You were the Dalai Lama, or close. Or you wouldn't be in New York City, in the wealthiest place in the world, healthy, smart, compassionate, giving up a weekend to go hear something about kindness and selfishness. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have excellent karma.

You have extraordinary karma. You were a really nice person in your last life. And that energy shoved you into this life.

What shoved you into your last life? The life before. The energy of the life before.

So, when you ask a Buddhist person, what was your first life? They say, no such thing. No such thing.

And then the scientist gets upset. The scientist says, there has to be a beginning to everything. Why?

There has to be a cause to everything. Big mistake. Like in the monastery they go, ptah, wah, sah.

Sah means, they go like this, sah, sah. It means, you should be ashamed of yourself for saying such a stupid thing. What's it mean?

It means, here's a guy saying to you, oh, there had to be a first life. And then you say, why, Mr. Scientist? He says, because everything has a cause.

Ha, ha. Oh man, you don't get it. If there's a first life, that didn't have a cause.

You see? If there's a first life, nothing shoved you into that life. It doesn't make sense at all.

Then they say, no, no, there was an explosion. Everything blew up by accident. Yeah, okay, everything blew up.

But what made it blow up? I mean, there has to be somebody to light the match. Somebody has to set the fuse.

Somebody has to push a button. Something has to happen. No, nothing happens by itself.

Everything has a cause. This is science. So you don't have a first life.

You have been everything over and over. You've had countless lifetimes. So now there's two people in the universe.

There's like Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Muhammad. There are these great beings who come to our world. There are great beings.

And in Buddhism, we believe that these people are visiting countless planets. We believe that they might be all the same person. Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Moses.

They could all be the same person. Very easily they could all be the same person. And they show themselves on this planet.

They come to help people. Then they teach. Now, you know what happens.

We're not so great with their teachings. And they get corrupt. And we have wars between different religions and stuff like that.

But they're all teaching the same thing. I mean, the original message is all this beautiful, beautiful message, right? And then what we do with it is another question.

But these beings, like this guy here, he's saying, you should sit down and meditate. For what? You should meditate about what's going to get you what you want.

Okay, I like that. Okay, how do I get what I want? Take care of other people.

Ignore what you want. That's how you get what you want. Who could think of that?

No, I mean, who could think of that? You'd never think of that. If I gave you a hundred years to figure out what makes you happy, the last thing you'd think of is, just take care of other people.

Don't worry about yourself. You're telling me that's the way to be happy? Yeah, then you get everything you want.

Oh, and if I try to look out for myself, I don't get what I want? No, it's the worst way to look out for yourself. Also, if I really want to look out for myself, and he starts the last verse on Sunday night, okay?

Take care of other people. Then you get everything. Who would have thought of that?

It's the last thing you'd think of, right? So, these beings, look at the difference between them. Here we are, we try to take care of ourselves first.

Like if I say, take your favorite food. You're in a restaurant, right? And you know the person you're with doesn't like what you like.

So, are you going to order what they like, or are you going to order what you like? To get what you want. To get what you want, should you order what they like, or should you order what you like?

Order what they like. It doesn't make sense, right? Who could figure that out?

You see, that's the only way you get what you want. Didn't like 20 restaurants in a row, you'll get what you want. You see, it's like that.

That's karma. That's how karma works. You want, if you want to get what you want, don't take what you want.

Take care of other people. And then everything you want will come. So anyway, these people figured it out.

Somebody figured it out. These Buddhas, these Jesus people, Moses, these people figured it out. And here we are, you and me, we're like sitting with somebody like, no, I want what I want.

Weren't you at that lecture Friday night? I was there. I don't care.

I want what I want right now. But that's not how you get what you want. I don't care.

I want what I want right now. You see, like, look at the difference. He says, look at the difference between you and these other people.

Somebody can explain this to you a thousand times and you still take the last donut. Right? Because that's what I want.

No, if you want something, make sure you take what they like. No, I want what I want. Duh, you didn't hear me.

Did you hear me? And we're like that. We're like retarded, spiritually retarded.

And then there's these Buddhas, and they're like, they understood everything. They walk into a restaurant, they only look on the menu at what the person next to them wants. They don't even look on the menu of what they like.

They don't take the menu to look at what they want. We're going to have this verse, okay? They have ordered their eyeballs.

They ordered their eyeballs in the morning. Eyeballs, we're waking up. We are opening our eyes tonight, this morning.

Okay, now, eyeballs, you cannot look at anything you want all day. And you're like, what? It's like, you can't look at what you want all day.

What do you mean? I mean, we're going to a restaurant tonight with so-and-so, and you're going to take a menu, and you are not even going to look at the desserts, you know? Because they don't like desserts.

They like salads. No, no, not salads. Yes, you are only going to look at the salad section, you know?

And the eyeball says, no, I won't do that, you know? You have to boss around your eyeball, okay? You have to tell your eye, when you wake up in the morning.

You're only going to look at what other people want. This is totally foreign to us. We can't even, you laugh because it's such a weird idea.

You laugh because that's who we are. So, look at the difference between us and a bodhisattva or a Buddha, somebody who really gets it. We're like animals.

They're like Einstein, you know? We're like bugs. They're like Einstein, you know?

We're like ants. And they're like geniuses, you know? No, the difference is weird.

The difference is scary. The difference is a thousand percent difference, okay? Now, what this first verse says is very beautiful.

Your lifetimes have been beginningless. You've been around for countless lifetimes. You've been around for billions of years.

You were around before this universe blew up. You were around during the last universe. And the universe before that, the universe before that, the universe before that.

You haven't just been around for a few lifetimes. You have been here through countless universes exploding and dying out to the last star. You were there.

And then you were there when the next universe blew up. You've been there all that time. And the Buddha and Moses and Jesus, they were there with you, as retarded as you.

There was a day when Jesus or Buddha was sitting next to you in this class. You've been in this class countless times. You sat next to Jesus or Buddha.

And they were just a schmuck at that time. They didn't know anything. They were just like you.

You and Jesus sat in the same class, for sure. Why? Countless lifetimes.

Countless lifetimes. You sat next to Lord Buddha thousands of times. Learning this book.

You sat next to Lord Buddha, listening to this verse countless times. But he got it and you didn't. That's what look at the difference means, okay?

It's kind of like, puts a thrill up your spine. You know, it's like, he got it and you didn't. And then he worked and worked and worked and worked and changed himself.

He got the message. When you open up the menu, you look at what the other person wants. And you don't even look at the dessert section.

It's really unthinkable for me, at least. Okay? And he got it.

And he didn't just get it the next night or that night they went out and he started doing it, right? Big difference between hearing this stuff and doing it, right? If you don't hear the rest of this stuff, it doesn't matter.

If you start doing it tonight, you will change, you see? The first verse is like, don't forget that. You sat next to Buddha.

You sat next to Jesus. You were Moses's buddy in countless lifetimes. No joke, no joke.

At one point you were in a class together. He got it. You didn't get it.

Now look at the difference. Look how far they got and look where you are. Now look where you are.

Look where they are. Come on. You can do it, okay?

That's this verse in a nutshell. Next verse. Who's gonna do it?

If you fail to practice perfectly, this exchange of your own happiness with the suffering of others, you will never reach that enlightenment. And even here in the cycle of life, there is no happiness. This is a very interesting verse, okay?

He says, if you don't get on the stick and learn this practice of looking at the menu as if you were the person sitting with you tonight, right, in the restaurant, if you don't get into this practice, you'll never get enlightened. You'll never get there. You'll never be this being, we talked about it the first night, who can go to a billion planets at once and take care of other people, like Jesus, like Buddha, like Muhammad, you'll never get there.

If you don't look at the menu that way tonight, you'll never get there. Now the other guy, there's this other guy, do you know? It's called Kacigma.

Kacigma means the other guy. There's this other guy throughout the whole book, the whole Bodhicaryavatara, there's another guy. And he keeps making objections.

And then the whole book is a debate, right? The whole book is like, Master Shantideva says, you should look at the salad section on your menu. And then some guy's going to say, but I don't like salads.

And then Master Shantideva has to give his reply. There's this objection and reply. So guess what the other guy says here?

Master Shantideva just said, you're not going to get enlightened if you don't look at the salad thing on your menu. And he says, I don't care. Who needs it?

Like, I either don't believe it or I don't care. Let Buddha be Buddha. Let Jesus be Jesus.

Moses did a good job. Let him do it. Who needs me?

I'm just having a hard enough time paying my rent. I don't have to be the next Buddha in the world or something like that. That's all over my head.

I don't even believe that I could change into a being who could serve billions of other creatures at the same moment. I just don't buy it. And I'm frankly, I'm not interested.

Then the last line of this verse is, yeah, but look, even if you're not interested in that, that's okay. Even if all you want to do is to fill your own stomach. Even if all you want to do is to get a nice apartment.

Even if all you want to do is to have a nice job. You still got to do this thing. You still got to switch yourself with other people.

Okay? That's what this verse is about. I don't care if you don't want to get enlightened.

Even if you're some kind of animal, spiritually, and you just want to take care of your own stomach, it's not going to work unless you do this. Okay? You have to switch yourself with others.

You have to watch out for other people. Even if you just want to take care of your own lousy self. Okay?

That's the sales pitch, this verse. Okay, next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
Forget the goals of the world beyond. Even in this life, none of the things you hope to achieve will come about. Those whose duty it is to serve you will do none of their work, and those whose masters you serve will never pay.

[Говорящий 1]
At this point, by the way, if the guy's a Buddhist, right, we've said to him, you can't get what you want in your next life if you don't take care of other people. If you don't look at what's on the menu for them. Okay?

And then he says, I don't frankly care about that either. I'm not worried about my next life. I believe in the Marlboro commercials.

One life to live. Or is it Budweiser? Budweiser.

One life to live, you know? Drink up. Drink now, you might die tomorrow.

You know? One life to live. They say one life to live, you know?

There's nothing going to happen. You just disappear. You just kind of float away, and you're not there anymore.

Okay? They say that. And then the guy says, I believe that, you know?

So I'm just trying to make a living. He says, look, if you don't think about what other people want, you can't even make a living. Okay?

You won't be able to make a living. If you don't take care of other people, people won't work for you who are supposed to work for you. Okay?

Like if you're a manager at work, or even if you just go into a Krispy Kreme donut place and ask for a donut, they'll say like, get out of here, or we don't have that donut, or you don't have enough money, or something like that. People that are expected to help you, serve you, they won't do it. And people that you serve, like your boss, they won't pay you.

They won't pay you what you're supposed to get. Okay? And you've had both happen to you probably, right?

That's from not taking care of other people. What he's trying to say is the karma of going into Krispy Kreme donuts and having them like, you know this, you know, we were in Scotland, right? And you walk into the only coffee shop in 200 miles, you know, and you sit down, and they're all standing over there, and you say, hello, I'm here.

And they're like, did you want something? And you're like, yeah, it's a coffee shop, I kind of wanted something. And they said, well, come up here and tell us what you want.

And you go up there and you say, well, I kind of wanted, we don't have that. Well, could you make, no, taking too much time. You know, well, do you have this?

No, we don't have that. Do you have anything? No.

And then you come to New York, you know, and you sit down, and then they run over, right? They run over to your table, and they're like, what would you like? And they're like, yes.

Because they're getting this tip thing, you know? Whatever, it's your karma, you see? It's your karma.

Now, every other country in the world, that's one thing about America. We have the materialist thing down good. You know?

Like, we don't know much about spirituality, but as far as material things, you can get, they even look afraid. Like, you fly into America, you go to the, is it Ombanpan? At the JFK International Terminal.

We jump off the plane, we have an Ombanpan hot chocolate, right? And they're like, they look scared not to serve you in 30 seconds, because an American won't stand for it. You know, an American, if you don't got that chocolate right there in 30 seconds, they're like walking away already, you know?

And they're calling your boss up and everything like that. Like, people look scared to serve you, you know? And then overseas, you can just starve in a restaurant.

I was in Russia. I was in Russia, you know? I was like, I sat there for an hour.

Finally, this guy, yeah. No, we don't have that. Okay, give me a Coke.

We don't have that either. Give me a juice. We have, we don't have that.

We have grape juice. Give me a grape juice. Okay, they brought me a vinegar, a glass of vinegar.

I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. And then they just blow you off, you know?

And then you say, I'm leaving, you know? Yeah, yeah, you do. And they say, they say, well, take your credit card back.

We already charged $100, you know? And you can't say anything, you see? That comes from karma.

Okay, no, it comes from watching out for other people. So what he says is, in your daily life, you're spoiled in America. People won't want to serve you, even if they get paid to serve you, they won't want to serve you.

And then the people that you're working for, they won't appreciate you, they won't take care of you, they won't give you a nice benefits package, all that, okay? Now, Master Prajnaparamiti, who's he? Yeah, this is Naropa's sidekick, a thousand years ago.

He wrote an explanation of this book. We've been using it. He said it's not about that at all.

It's not, why would Master Shantideva write about restaurants and, you know, Krispy Kreme donut places? Why would he bother? What's the big spiritual benefit of that?

This thing has a deeper message. This verse has a deeper message. You have committed to be the waitress of the world.

You know? If you're a bodhisattva, you're already committed, I will serve the world. I'll be there behind the cash register, all day, every day of the week.

I will be your servant. You already agreed to this. You're a bodhisattva.

You took some vow. I will serve the planet. Anything they want, they get it.

They're the boss. Then I have people come up to me, they say, I like that bodhisattva thing, but I got mad and I yelled at so-and-so. They want to take advantage of me.

You see? They take advantage of me. There's no such thing for a bodhisattva.

No such thing. When they take advantage of you, you are making the money. You see?

When someone takes advantage of you, you're coming out on top. Get it? You see?

Get it. If you can find someone to take advantage of you, stick around them. No, really.

It's a great opportunity. Please use me. Please abuse me.

What do they call that when they take advantage of somebody? They're like internationally... What's that word?

Exploit. Exploit me. No, a bodhisattva is like, exploit me.

Why? Because it's the smartest thing you can do. Even if you just want money, let them take advantage of you.

Exploit me. Use me. I'm your servant.

So, this is what the verse is really about. Prajnakaramarthi says, this is what the verse is really about. You sold yourself already.

You promised to be the servant of the world already. Now, if you don't do your thing, what happens? If the person in the Krispy Kreme donuts doesn't bank on that money, who gets hurt?

He gets hurt, the customer gets hurt, and the owner gets hurt. If the worker doesn't do what they promised to do, the customer doesn't get their donut, the boss doesn't get paid, and the worker doesn't get paid. Nobody gets anything.

You see, get it? If the worker strikes, goes on strike, what do they call it in India? Bankarao.

Bankarao. 500 people go on strike. We were in my store one day.

They were on strike. We almost got killed. They said, what are you doing in this store?

We're on strike. The city's supposed to be closed down. We almost got beat up.

We were just trying to buy some socks or something like that. It was so funny. But if they go on strike, who does it hurt?

It hurts the worker. It hurts the customer. And the owner doesn't get paid either.

Okay? So who's he talking about? Who's on strike?

You. Okay? If you refuse to take care of other people, if you go out of here tonight, and you go to a restaurant, and you look at the dessert thing, if you use their eyeballs, you already sold your eyeballs to them.

They own your eyes. They didn't agree that your eyes should look at the desserts. They like salads.

If your eyes go to the desserts, you're not working for them. You're the worker. You're not doing your job.

Then no one's going to get paid. What's he mean? What's he mean?

You guys are sleepy. Was it the Republicans or what? What's that mean?

If you don't do your job, right? Like if you don't go to the restaurant and look at what they want, you're not going to get enlightened. And then they're not going to, the big transaction, the big company is the enlightenment company.

And all the stocks are owned by every living being, right? You're going to let all the stockholders down. If you don't do your job, if you don't do what you're supposed to do, the whole thing collapses.

The whole economy, the whole enlightenment economy collapses. If you've sold yourself to other beings and you don't act on it, then no one's going to make any money. Meaning, you're not going to get what you want.

And they're not going to get what they want. It's all going to be a big flop. This enlightenment thing is going to go bankrupt.

Get it? You're supposed to be the slob who's doing the work. If you don't do your work, the company is going to fall.

The owners, which is every other living being, is going to fall. That's how Prajnaparamita takes this verse. Okay?

Get it? At least nod your head. My Lama would say, look, if you can't, if you're still asleep, just nod your head.

It's okay. Okay, I get it. Okay, all right.

Actually, he has an electrical cord that he keeps, but we're not allowed to do that in America. Okay. Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
The ignorant throw away the excellent joy that brings one happiness. In worlds both seen and unseen, the suffering that they cause to others causes them to embrace unbearable pain themselves.

[Говорящий 1]
Here they talk about ignorant people. And how do they say it? Say it again.

Oh, no, let me see. Say it again for me, because I don't have it. Ignorant throw...

No, no, no, it's fine. Go ahead, read it, read it. The ignorant throw...

Oh, the ignorant... Okay. I just have the Tibetan.

I don't have that. Yeah. Seen and unseen, dur star dur star janma veda niya.

Those of you who were at the Yoga Sutra, right, Lady Ruth? They had... It's dur star dur star janma veda niya.

You will see things or you won't see things. It means you'll get results in this lifetime or you'll get results in the next lifetime. Okay?

Now, American people, I don't tell them much about next lifetime because they don't believe in it. But you'll get results in this lifetime. Okay?

So, if you don't watch out for what other people want, you won't get results either in this lifetime or in the next lifetime. You won't get them. So, if you refuse to take care...

If you refuse to be exploited by other people. If you refuse to serve other people. And there's this line, right?

What's the line at which they're taking advantage of you? And for a Buddhist, the minute they're taking advantage of you, you are taking advantage of them. And you got to get used to that.

Okay? You got to get used to that. It's a very hard thing.

People don't like to be told you're being exploited. You should be happy being exploited. But if you're a Buddhist, if you understand this thing, if you understand this text, no one can exploit you.

No one can take advantage of you. You are getting the advantage anytime you work for someone else. Anytime you serve someone else.

The person who's making out like a bandit is you. And you have to understand that. Otherwise, you're going to be half...

What do you call it? Half... You're going to be not into this practice totally.

Okay? Now, at some point, you're going to break down. You're going to say, oh, Geshe Michael said I should serve you, but now you're just flat taking advantage of me.

You know, there's a point. There's a limit. When you really understand this, there will be no limit.

There will be no limit. You see? There will be no limit.

There's stories about guys who said give me your eye and the Buddhist saying he reaches into the eye socket and takes out his eye and gives it to the guy. You can do it. And you don't lose anything, you see?

You don't lose anything. I gave a business talk last night. Was it last night?

Okay. Yeah. And people are saying, this all sounds very naive.

I say, do you know what the fastest growing company in the history of Manhattan has been? No. It's the company I started.

Well, do you know what's the biggest jewelry company in the world? It's the company we started. Are you telling me that you...

Yeah, it's $250 million a year. The company that we started using these principles, the income now exceeds the income of the state that I live in. The combined economy of the state I live in is smaller than the income of the company we built.

How? We do it this way. You got to get it.

You're not losing anything. You're getting everything. This is the only sure way.

It's very cool. And it's more fun. Making other people happy is more fun.

And you're not losing anything. $250 million a year now, that company. You're not losing anything.

You'll get everything. This is how to get everything. You see?

You can have your cake and eat it too. Don't get scared. Don't be wimpy.

People want things, you give it to them. Now, there's an exception, and you should know. If you know it would hurt them, you don't give it to them.

If a guy comes up and says, I need 50 bucks for a heroin fix, you don't give it to him. If a person comes up and says, I need to buy a gun, I want to hurt somebody, I want to kill myself, that's not included. No, I mean, people sometimes want things that hurt them.

That's not included. But if it's not immoral, if it's not going to hurt them, if you have the capacity to do it, or you have the capacity to find someone else who can do it for them, you do it. And you're not taking advantage of, you're getting advantage from them.

And I'm speaking from the company that we started, it's $250 million a year now. So why are you asking for money for John Brady? I gave all the money away already, okay?

Just so you know, I'm not like being crazy, okay? Every single cent, okay? Why?

You figure it out. Okay. All right.

Let me make sure I did it. Oh yeah, something on the homework. It says, describe the two kinds of ignorant people here.

Okay, describe the two kinds of ignorant people here. And he also says, Gyaltsabje calls them infant. Infant, those of you who are studying courses more deeply, that's chiba in Tibetan, pratyakyana in Sanskrit.

And it means a person who hasn't understood emptiness yet. A person who hasn't understood emptiness yet is ignorant. Why did you bring in emptiness?

We were on donuts, we were on money, that was all clear. What are you bringing this emptiness thing for? Emptiness just means this.

Tomorrow is empty. Tomorrow is like a blank screen. This is emptiness, okay?

That white screen is emptiness. Tomorrow is emptiness. Heyan dukkham anagatam.

Tomorrow is emptiness. Tomorrow is available. In the business book we wrote, we called it available or potential.

Tomorrow is just a white screen. Anything can happen. That's what emptiness means.

It doesn't mean blackness. It doesn't mean close your eyes, don't think about nothing. It doesn't mean there's no good and no evil.

It doesn't mean those things. It's just a blank screen. Tomorrow and next week and next year, they are a blank screen.

What you put there depends on how you treat other people. If you take care of other people, if you be the exploitee, happily, with wisdom, exploit me, take advantage of me, make me run around here, Geshe-la, anything you want. I understood.

Then everything you want will be up on the screen. So ignorant means, first thing, it means people don't get that. Who's that?

Everybody. Everybody. Just don't get it.

People just don't get it. You go out of here and you got something, oh, he said I had to be nice to people. Yeah, I'm not in the mood today.

Oh, they said I had to be nice to people. It's not because the church said so. It's not because of that.

It's not because your mom said so. It's not because your school teacher said so. It's not because it's noble.

It is noble, but that's irrelevant. It's that it's the only way to get things. It's the only way to be happy.

It's just, be the servant of other people. So ignorant people, A, they don't get emptiness on a deep level. And B, they're ignorant because they don't know how to be happy.

They don't know what's going to make them happy. They don't know what's going to make them unhappy. And then they do things that don't make them happy.

All right. I think we'll save the next verse for after refreshments. Are you ready to go with your horse and pony show?

Okay, we're going to play that video during the break, maybe without sound, I don't know. Does it have sound? Okay, you can put this up to the speaker manual.

And then you can see about saving the books. It's a film about saving the books. And please have some nice refreshments.

Please feel free to have refreshments. If you would like to come up and say hi to Christy and myself, we'll be sitting over here. Like if you have a private question or you just want to come up and say hi, we'll be over here.

We can't probably do everybody who wants to do tonight, but we'll be doing that every night. And then don't worry, you'll get in there somewhere. And don't forget, either before the donut or after the donut, you have to sign up on John Brady's thing to give him $5 a week so that these books don't disappear in this planet, okay?

All right, thanks. This next verse is very, very famous. I think it's one of my favorite verses from this book, okay?

And who gets the honor of reading this one? I don't know, maybe not. We're on verse 134.

Every single harm that comes in this entire world, every fear that comes, and so too every pain that ever comes, comes from grasping to myself. What use for me then is this, the single greatest demon? Okay, this doesn't need much commentary, but it's very famous.

It's like, where does all the pain in the world come from? And where does all the trouble in the world come from? And the single biggest demon in the world, the devil, right, is taking care of yourself, grasping to yourself, taking care of yourself.

Now, there's two kinds of taking care of yourself. You have to know. It's two different ones.

Two different kinds of taking care of yourself. First one, well, there's three, right? Anyway, first one's not bad.

You should take care of yourself, okay? Like, you shouldn't feel bad. Should you have dessert?

Yes. You know, should you enjoy your life? Yes.

Should you be happy? Yes, okay? Like, it's not like, it's not like a virtue to be unhappy, you know, like, you go to the restaurant, make sure they get their salad.

But you're also one of the people there. You're also there. You're also one of all living beings.

So you have to take care of yourself, too. That's okay. That's not bad.

The bad taking care of yourself is where you say, I want the dessert, and I don't care if they get the salad. You see what I mean? The best thing is if you get the dessert and they get the salad, right?

Okay? No, I mean, that's okay. It should be like that, okay?

Remember we said, this practice is called dak shen nyam je. Dak shen nyam ma means, take care of me and take care of you the same. Take care of me and take care of you the same.

Then remember the other guy said, there's too many people to take care of. I can't take care of everybody. It's too many, you know?

And then he said what? He said, just change you, okay? Take care of yourself.

Don't take care of other people. But now the border, the boundary of where me is should stretch around you, too. Okay?

So you don't have to give up your selfishness. You can keep your selfishness. You watch out for number one.

You don't take care of other people. It's okay. That's fine.

But, me is a little bigger. Okay? Me covers you, too.

And then people say, I can't do that. I'm not choky la. She's sitting there, I'm standing here.

You can do it. Mothers do it, right? The moment, I met a lady today.

She's having a baby, right? And she's already thinking of that baby as herself. You see?

It's not like you had to take her into a class and she had to meditate about it and you have to force her to think of this baby as herself. She just thinks the baby is me. The baby is, I take care of the baby, like me.

Same thing. We are one. So anyway, yeah.

You stretch this around other people. And then you just take care of yourself. That's fine.

And the biggest demon is to, is the second, the second way of taking care of yourself is bad. That's like, I'll take care of myself and I won't take care of you. You separate other person.

I will get dessert. If you get salad, that's okay. If you don't get salad, that's okay.

I mean, that's your problem. It's not my problem. Who likes salad anyway?

You see? That's the bad one. That's grasping to me.

Now there's a deeper grasping to me that causes all the other grasping to me. And we did this at the Yoga Sutra. I thought it was a good idea.

You know how we say the world is made by karma, right? Like all the things in this room are made by karma. All the people in this room are made by karma.

So I ask you, can you point to me a person in this room which is not made by you? Okay? Like, put up your arm like that.

Ready? Everybody put up their arm. On the count of three, you have to point to somebody in this room that you didn't make.

Okay? We are looking for someone you didn't make. One, two, three.

Oh, she's pointing at nothing. There is no such thing. People say, teach me emptiness.

I studied eight years with this mama. I still don't understand emptiness. That's all.

Raise your hand. Point to someone who's not coming from your own mind, from your own karma. There is no such person.

There is no such person. But when you walk into a restaurant and you just take the dessert and you don't buy the salad for the other person, who are you taking care of? Who are you taking care of?

Point to the person you're taking care of. Point to the person you're... There is no me like that.

What? I'm not sitting here? Yeah, you're sitting there.

I don't like dessert? Yes, you like dessert. What do you mean I'm not there?

The person that should get the dessert because they want the dessert, that doesn't exist. That person doesn't exist. You think you're taking care of somebody when you eat dessert and they don't get salad?

There is no such thing. There's no such thing. If you take a dessert for yourself and they don't get salad, then you killed all the karma.

The karma is finished. The wheel, the energy, karma energy is finished. You got one dessert?

Stupid. Nothing else. Finished.

Dead end. But if you give away the food, if you give away for somebody else, then the karma keeps going like this. You see?

So, who wants the last dessert? There is no such person. So, two ways that you shouldn't worry about yourself.

Number one, don't take the last thing and ignore other people because you won't get what you want. Number two, the person you're trying to give the last dessert to doesn't even exist. No such thing.

The person who's going to be happy when they get dessert, there is no such thing. No such thing. You got to think about it.

It's a big boo-boo. It's a big boo-boo. It's like you take the last dessert and you throw it in the toilet or something.

You mean, it's a mistake. When you eat it yourself, that's the biggest mistake you can make. You're hurting yourself and you're feeding it to someone who does not exist.

The person who takes the last dessert and eats it, they don't exist. You have to think about it. All right, next verse.

Chintamani.

[Говорящий 2]
Until the day that you give up your own self, you'll not be able to stop the suffering. Until the day that you let go of fire, you will not be able to stop your hand from burning.

[Говорящий 1]
This is this thing where, oh yeah, I remember. I was in high school and there was this football star named Richard Diller. Okay, now you never heard of Richard Diller.

Okay, but he was like six foot two and extremely handsome and he had the right shoes on all the time. And he was a halfback on the football team and all the girls liked him. And they ignored all the rest of us.

And he's like, it's just really frustrating. And then he was good at everything. And then one day we had a physical education class, gym class, and we went to the swim pool.

And we all jump in and Richard Diller can't swim. And I was like, wow, Richard Diller can't swim, you know. This is really great.

And not only that, the coach comes up to me and says, you teach him to swim, you know. And Michael Rowe is like the wimp of the whole class, you know. It's like, I get to teach him how to swim, you know.

And it was so great, you know. So we start swimming and he's got his head down in the water, you know. And he's swimming and swimming and then finally he comes up and he goes, I can't breathe.

I can't breathe, you know. And then, I'm sorry, no. I can't see anything, you know.

He's like this, I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I said, open your eyes.

He goes, oh, okay. No, it's like he was all scared. It was really good.

And I said, open your eyes. And he goes, oh, you know. He's like, okay.

And there's this thing in Buddhism. They say if you, like if there's a pot on the stove and it's been cooking for a long time, like I always burn my dal. Rinpoche calls me pot burner.

Why? I start a pot of dal, then I go start to read a book. And then I smell this burning smell like 45 minutes later and I run in the kitchen and it's just all this black smoke coming up.

And I pass this lineage on to Christy. Now she burns all the pots now. It's really funny.

Same thing. But if you run in and you take a hold of the pot and you hold it like that and you say, ow, ow, ow, it hurts. It's burning, it's burning, ow, ow, ow.

You say, drop it, let go. What, what, what, ow, ow, ow. You just have to let go, you see.

Just drop it, let go, you know. And it's like that. He says it's like that.

He's like, just open your eyes. Just drop the pot. Don't hold it and scream, ow, it hurts, ow, ow, ow.

Let go, you know. He's saying that. He's saying, let go.

Let go of what? Me. Let go of me.

Now, is there a me here? Am I up here? Yes, I'm here, you know.

I met some people from the yoga sutra class later and they didn't get it, you know. I tried to explain it real slow and I tried to go, no, you know. And then I got this thing.

I was sitting with them somewhere and they said, they said, well, after all, there's no me, so it doesn't matter. And I'm like, oh man, I didn't do it right. You know, something went wrong.

You know, something went wrong. Of course there's a me. I'm here, there's a me.

Should me be happy? Of course. It's not like I shouldn't be happy and everybody else should be happy.

It's not like that. I should be happy. Is there Michael Roach?

Yes, I'm here. I'm here, really. I ate those cookies, sugar free.

I gave them out because I was embarrassed because I was talking so much about it. But everybody got one and I tried to take one for every person and Christy caught me at that too. But I'm here.

I should be happy. I'm here. I'm really here.

But there's also a me which does not exist. There's also a me which does not exist. So, say, yugyu dak, me gyu dak, yugyu dak, me gyu dak.

Yugyu dak means the me which exists. There is a me here. I'm standing here.

I ate the cookie. That Michael Roach exists. And there's a Michael Roach that doesn't exist, never did exist, could never exist, will not exist.

That's the Michael Roach who does not come from my karma. The Michael Roach that does not come from my karma doesn't exist. So let it go.

Let it go. He's burning you. She's burning you.

Let it go. That one doesn't exist. That me doesn't exist.

Let go of that one. What is that one? That's the one who takes the cookie.

That one doesn't exist. The one who could enjoy the cookie by not giving a cookie to someone else. That one never existed.

Doesn't exist. Find me a cookie that didn't come from giving cookies to somebody else. See?

Find me this cookie. Find me the cookie you ever got by not giving a cookie to someone else. It doesn't exist.

There's no such cookie. And the person who eats that cookie doesn't exist. The person who doesn't want to take care of other people because they want the cookie, that person doesn't exist.

That's crazy. That's just crazy. No such thing.

No such thing. Let it go. Let it go.

The one you're worried about, the one you're worried, oh, I got to get the cookie. I got to get the cookie. That one, let it go.

Let him go. That causes you all the trouble. That one's burning you.

Just like, oh, oh, life is so hard. I can't get what I want. I'm getting old.

I can't get money. People aren't nice to me. Let it go.

That one doesn't exist. That person is dumb. That person burns you.

That worry is causing you all your trouble. Just let it go. Take care of other people.

You see? Take care of other people. Let go of the pot, for goodness sake.

It doesn't make you happy. It hurts you. People standing there holding the pot.

Ow, ow, ow, ow. Shut up. Let go of the pot.

My life is bad. I'm getting old. Nobody likes me.

I don't have any friends. I don't get money. Let go.

Worry about other people. Don't let me... You're a Buddhist.

You're a yogi. Don't let me hear about you. It's just dumb.

There's no you like that. Oh, I didn't get what I wanted. I wanted this.

Shut up. Take care of other people. No, take care of other people.

You get everything. You can't stop it. It's so dumb.

The whole point, give to other people. What I want to hear from you is complaints for other people. She didn't get what she wanted.

He didn't get what he wanted. They didn't get the money they needed. They didn't get a house they needed.

We got to take care of these people. We got to take care of these... Don't let me hear me.

Me is a bad word. Me is a four-letter word somehow. Not really.

It's just dumb. That me is like holding on to a hot thing. The more you worry, the tighter you hold on to that me.

You're going to hurt yourself. Let it go. Take care of other people.

Then me gets everything. Really. I like fix my body.

I like fix my... The biggest company in New York's history. How?

Take care of other people. Don't worry about you. You'll get everything.

You don't have to worry. Everything will come. That's the only way to get everything.

Okay? Let go. Jump.

Jump. Just do it tonight. Jump.

Stop worrying about me. Just start worrying about other people, what they need. Then you'll get everything.

Then you don't have to keep complaining. It's really bad for yogis to complain. Unless it's for other people, right?

Like Pema didn't get what she wanted. That's a good complaint. All right.

Shimmer, shimmer, shimmer. Oh yeah, next verse. Who's up?

[Говорящий 2]
And so I shall give away my me to others, and I will consider others in the same way I do myself, in order that I might put an end to the pain that comes to me and the suffering of others as well.

[Говорящий 1]
This is easy. I don't see much to say about this. Okay?

Just give yourself away. Now, there's two ways to give yourself away, right? One is to give up that me that doesn't exist.

And the other one is to give yourself to other people. And people came up to me during the break, and they had hard questions. What, I'm supposed to let people just exploit me?

Won't they get bad karma? You see? My boss in the diamond business, he used to come in and he used to say, there's a strong box.

We have strong boxes, metal boxes with locks on them. I saw two strong boxes open on the way in today. And I'm like, well, yeah, but I trust all my people.

I don't lock them. And he says, lock them. And I said, why?

And he said, you might hurt them. You see, I'm not worried about the diamonds. But if someone takes something, it'll hurt them.

So in order to be kind to others, you should lock them. And so a person said to me, if someone's taking advantage of you and you just let them do it, that's okay for your karma. But aren't you giving them bad karma?

Won't they make bad karma? And that's true. That was a good thing to say.

I mean, gently. First, let them exploit you. Why?

They'll trust you. Like, work your butt off for them. Just let them work you.

Let people boss you around. Let people take advantage of you for a while. Then they trust you.

Actually, they start to depend on you, right? And then when it's ready, when the time is ripe, so that they don't make bad karma, you go to them and you say, you know, I've been helping you. I've been serving you.

I've been taking care of you. Now you have to understand what's really going on. Because otherwise, you're going to make a lot of bad karma.

So even like in the diamond business, first, I would let someone take advantage of me. Like another company or another vice president or something, I would keep sending them part of my budget or I'd keep sending them part of my stuff. Until they trust you, you see?

You serve them. But then at some point, you have to go to them and say, you're making bad karma. Then they trust you already, and then they change, you see?

Then you can help them. But first you have to let, give them freely whatever they want, okay? And again, it has to be moral.

It has to be, if somebody wants to buy a gun, can you go out and get me a gun? Yes, you might have to shoot somebody. It's not like, no, you don't have to do that, okay?

That's not the right kind of explanation, all right? Okay, next person. Hands up.

[Говорящий 2]
Now you'll have to realize, my mind, that I'm a person who belongs to everyone else. From this moment on, you are not allowed to have a single thought about anything other than what serves the purposes of every living being. It's something very wrong to look with eyes belonging to another and work for only my own goals.

It's wrong as well to look with eyes working for them and to do something that's not right.

[Говорящий 1]
We have one more verse, but this is sort of the, this is the last part that I want to talk about. And then we'll read the last verse, but it's pretty obvious. This is a special meditation, and I want you to try it, okay?

I want you to try it. If you don't do these meditations after tonight, then this class doesn't help anything, okay? It's fun to talk, but it won't help.

I want you to try this special meditation tomorrow. You know, when you walk into a room and you meet another person, you can tell everything about them from their eyes, okay? It's a trick.

They use it in business, okay? You just watch a person's eyes. You shake hands with a new guy, and you just watch their eyes, you see?

And their eyes will go to what they want, you see? It's very interesting. Watch a person's eyes and you learn, you don't have to talk to a person.

They used to ask me, I hired like 300 people in my company, and they all worked out nice, you see? They said, how do you know they're going to work out? So I just watched their eyes.

For two minutes, I just watched their eyes. I don't care about their resume. I don't care where they graduated from.

I don't care what kind of experience they have. Doesn't matter. I watched their eyes for two, three minutes, you know?

Like if there's a, if a person walks in the room and there's a plate of cookies there, and they're like, you know? Or there's some pretty girl or some pretty guy there, and they're like, they're talking to you, but their eyes are like this, you know? Or just stuff like that.

You can tell everything about a person. You don't need to meet the, you don't need to know their history. You can tell a person from their eyes, you see?

Because when we walk into a room, we look at what we want. We look at what's useful for us, you see? The eyes go immediately, you know, what's useful for me in this room?

They look at what's useful for me, okay? So, something interesting here. This is a very, very beautiful Buddhist meditation, okay?

You sold your eyes to other people, okay? You took that bodhisattva vow. Those are, Rinpoche tricked you in the initiation, right?

They throw in the vows before like five minutes of vows, and you're like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in Tibetan, and then you're like, oops, now I got bodhisattva vows. I swore to help other people. I sold myself to everybody else.

You own Michael Roach. I don't own Michael Roach. How much of Michael Roach's time do you own?

24 hours a day, okay? I'm at your disposal 24 hours a day. I don't have any right to do anything for myself.

I just work for you. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, rest of my lives, you own me. I'll just want to take care of what you want.

You already swore to that. Those of you who are in the initiation, it's a big responsibility. You own me, and not just my time, and not just my thoughts.

You own my eyes, you see? You decide what I should look at. It's very interesting.

If you say, I give myself to you, it means then the other person owns you. They own your hands, they own your time, they own your feet, and they own your eyes. So from now on, this is a heavy Buddhist meditation.

You can do it everywhere. You can do it on the street in New York. You can do it on the subway.

You can do it at work. You only let your eyes go to the things that will help the other people in the room. And they can't look at what you want anymore.

Very powerful practice. Very difficult practice. I'll say it again.

You walk into a restaurant, you're looking for the table that would be best for the person you are with, and not for the table that you like. When you look at which chair to sit in, you're looking which chair would they like to sit in first. You see?

You don't own your eyes. They own your eyes. You see?

Where your eyes go is not under your control anymore. They own you. You gave yourself.

You are a servant of other people. It's a nice place to be. Das in Sanskrit, right?

That's why people call them Krishna Das. Das means I'm a servant. I give myself to you.

Everything of me, even where I look, is only up to you. So when you walk into a room, like tomorrow or tonight, if you're with your daughter that you're taking to college or something or whatever, then you walk in, you're only allowed to look at what they want. See?

You're only allowed to look at what might help them. And you're not allowed to look at anymore the things that you want. It's very difficult practice.

It takes a lot of mindfulness. Because your eyes are like flies, right? They jump around.

No, they go everywhere, right? So now it's this really bodhisattva control over your eyes, you know? I won't look at 31 flavors because I know she doesn't like 31 flavors.

I'll look at Dunkin' Donuts because I know she... I'll look out for a Dunkin' Donuts. You see what I mean?

Or did I get that reversed? Anyway, it's like that, okay? Try it.

It's very difficult. Now there's three levels of this practice, okay? There's three levels of this practice.

Number two, second level. They own your eyes so you can't look at them like this anymore, okay? Like if they upset you, if they say something which upsets you or that you don't like, you can't do this anymore, okay?

Why? Because they wouldn't do that with their own eyes. And they own your eyes.

Get it? They wouldn't do that with their own eyes, okay? So it's like she calls me stupid.

I can't go like this because she's not going like that because she doesn't want to go like that. You see what I mean? Get it?

She owns my eyes, okay? I can't even look at you like that. I can't even do that anymore to nobody.

Nobody. Somebody hits you on the subway. You can't go like...

Why? Because they wouldn't do that to themselves. And they own your eyes.

They control what your eyes... You see, it's very holy practice, very sacred practice. You cannot look at another person with a look that they wouldn't look at with them for themselves.

Because why? Why? They own your eyes, okay?

It's very beautiful. I gave myself das. I'm das in Sanskrit.

I'm your servant. Now I have to look at you only the way you would look at yourself. You don't go in the mirror and go like...

You're always like... Because you like yourself. You're never like...

Now, when you meet other people, they own you. So you have to be like that. Smiling eyes.

Even when they hit you in the subway. Even when they don't serve you. Even when they call you stupid.

You have to... Because they own you. That's number two.

That's hard practice. But it's a sweet practice. You can smell it, right?

You can smell what a sweet practice. Third one. You have to look at what they're doing as they would look at what they're doing.

Have a pure view. They're called nam dak in the Bodhisattva vows. You see somebody like bumping in front of the line or something, then you don't judge them.

You see? You don't judge them. You don't look at them like, what are they doing?

Why are they doing that bad thing? This is a very beautiful practice. You look at them and you say, looks like something bad, but I don't know.

Maybe there's some special thing they're doing. You see, especially with like your Lama. I would go up to Ken Rinpoche's room and he's watching baseball.

So I could look at him and say, ooh, you know, he's supposed to be a big Lama and he's watching TV. I can look at it that way. But then sometimes he would come downstairs and teach in the class and then he would say some funny thing from the baseball on TV and people would be happy.

And then one day he's telling me like, this is how I learn English. I watch baseball and I learn happy English because people who do the baseball announcing, they're all happy people. You know, like Scooter.

Scooter, what's his name? They're all like happy. So that's why I want to learn that kind of English.

That's why I watch baseball. And you don't know. You can't judge people.

So it means third level of your eyes. When you see something and you're not quite sure, maybe this is not so good. I don't know.

Just drop it. Don't judge people. Can you judge the theme?

You see, if someone is shooting a gun at somebody else, is that a bad thing? Yes. Can you judge it?

You should judge it. Meaning, don't do those things. But can you, are you sure what they are thinking?

Are you sure what they are thinking? If you don't have the power to read their mind, step back. Don't judge them.

That's the third way of looking at people. You know, you see people, they seem to be doing something, give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're doing something special.

Maybe there's some deeper purpose here. Maybe they're a special person. Maybe they're some kind of high lamas.

I don't know. It's not right for me to shoot a gun. It's not right for me to push in a line.

But I don't know what they're doing. I can't judge them. Now, if you see somebody hurting somebody, should you stop them?

Yes. Should Bodhisattva stop another person who's hurting somebody? You must.

But don't judge them. You see what I mean? That's the difference.

If you see someone doing violence, should you stop them? Yes. Everything you can do, you must stop them.

Put your body in the place of danger. You must do that. But do you judge them?

No. Okay? Are you sure what they're doing?

No. Looks bad to me, I have to stop you. Excuse me if I'm wrong.

Okay? Now, that's a Buddhist. That's a Buddhist thing.

You know? It looks like you're beating up this lady for her purse. Now, maybe there's some deeper thing going on.

I don't know. But I have to stop you. Okay?

No. That's a perfect Buddhist mind. Perfect Buddhist activity.

Okay? Perfect good karma. You don't know what's going on.

You don't know who they are. But you have to say, look, I can't read your mind. You might be some high lama.

You're beating up this lady. I have to stop you. Sorry.

You know? And then you can even hit them. Okay?

No, really. Really. You can even hit them.

If it's the only way to stop them, you can do that. But in your mind, you have to say, I love you. I care for you.

I'm trying to help you. And maybe I'm doing something by mistake. Maybe there's some deeper meaning here.

But, bam. Okay? No, really.

But in your mind, no bad karma in your mind. Okay? Happy mind.

There's many stories in Buddhism. You know, Buddha himself hurt people to stop them from doing bad karma. And you say, I don't know why you're doing it.

Maybe some special reason. But I can't tell, so I have to try to stop you. Like that.

So, three ways of looking with your eyes. I'll go through one more time. Number one, you don't own your eyes anymore.

When you walk in a room, you just have to look at what the people with you want. And you can't look at what you want anymore. And this is a very hard practice.

But you like it. You'll like it. Ultimate delicious comes from this.

Ultimate delicious. It's the most fun thing you can do with your eyes. Okay?

Number two, don't look at people like, anymore, because they own your eyes. Okay? And they only want to see this about them.

Okay? And then level number three, if you see something looks wrong, you can stop it. You should stop it.

But you don't judge the person. I don't know why you're doing that. Maybe some special thing.

But I don't know everything, so I have to try to stop you. Okay. Last verse and then we'll go home.

Okay.

[Говорящий 2]
Therefore, I should make all other people first priority, and anything that I ever find upon my person, I should take away from me, and seek some way to make a use of it for other people.

[Говорящий 1]
This doesn't need any commentary. Okay? Other people are first priority.

Other people go first. Like when you're in line for something, it's a very sweet practice. Try this in New York City.

Okay? Like you're waiting in line, you know, where were we? But it's obvious the person behind you is in a rush, or they need something.

Then you just step aside. You know, go ahead. You go first.

You know? And your whole life should be like this. You're about everything.

You know? Like there's someone behind you and they need something, and you're in a line, and you know, you're on a bus, or you're getting on a bus, and somebody else is, or you're getting on an airplane or something, and someone needs something, someone obviously needs something. You're just a Buddhist person, a wise person.

Just sacrifice. Let them go. You know, let them go first.

Other people are first priority. We are last priority. Everybody else is first priority.

We are last priority. And you'll be so happy. You'll be so happy.

This is the real key to happiness. So start doing it tomorrow and watch your eyes tomorrow. Okay?

Try it. It's a beautiful practice. Just do it a little bit tomorrow.

Okay? Mazaw? Mazaw.

Okay. We'll give away the good karma. Who's going to do that?

Any of you guys?

[Говорящий 2]
So now, thank you for coming. We'll see you tomorrow.