Углублённый курс ACI 03 — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: обмен себя на других (2004, Нью-Йорк), занятие 8

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, we're going to actually have a class now. We need someone to read. Anicinina, are you up for that?

We have great honor to have a most senior, beautiful, amazing nun here from Hawaii. Just the English, of course, okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. So, they've been doing all these beautiful meditations today.

I have one for you. This is a, what do you call it? It's a dark meditation.

It's a meditation to increase your bad qualities. Okay. New idea.

Okay. In this part in the Bodhicaryavatara, Master Shantideva presents, it's a very, very weird idea. He says, we're going to do a meditation, and we're going to try to cultivate jealousy.

Okay. Like, we're going to try to develop a negative thought. Okay.

We're going to try to make you worse than you were when you got here. Seriously. Okay.

And then people for centuries have asked, are you sure that's a good idea? You know, okay. So, we're going to try to practice jealousy.

And I want you to get really good at it. Okay. All right.

Now, this is the real, this is how this goes right now. You ready? Okay, so you've got to sit up straight.

Put down your stuff, whatever it is. James says you've got to sit in front of your chair. He didn't have a four-pound veggie burger for dinner.

Okay. Count ten breaths. Try to concentrate on your breath.

Now, try to think of somebody that you're jealous of. Somebody you're competing with. For me, it's usually another American Buddhist teacher who is slightly better than I am.

Okay. But somebody like that, okay. Somebody you know.

Maybe it's another musician who is a little more successful. Maybe it's another dancer who is a little bit more agile. Maybe it's another nun that everybody listens to more.

Think of one person. Now, the name of this chapter is Dakshinyamje, right? It's exchanging myself with others.

So, switch places with them. Now you are that other person. Switch places.

Switch bodies. Now they are looking at you. Who's looking at you?

Me. I'm looking at me. I'm in the other person's body.

Now, practice jealousy, okay. Be as jealous as you can. Be as jealous as you can.

I hope they don't get any money. I hope old Michael Roach doesn't get any money. I hope nobody likes him.

I hope he gets into some kind of trouble, some kind of problem, scandal, something good. I hope he gets all fat and his bald spot gets bigger and bigger. I hope nobody likes him.

I hope he forgets all his Tibetan and everything else. Practice that for a few minutes. Okay, stop.

Stop already. Okay, this is called a walk on the dark side. Now, when you first started, you came to the class the other night, right?

And we did Exchanging Self and Others. And we said, when you go to the restaurant and you're sitting with Christy, right? And she wants a salad and you want dessert, right?

You have to order a salad, okay? You have to put yourself in their place. Put yourself in their shoes, right?

So when you go out to eat with somebody, first of all, you don't pick an Indian restaurant because that's what you like. You pick, I don't know, something you don't like because you know they like it. You put yourself in the other person's body and then you only go where they like, you see?

And that's just a very, very holy practice. But when you do the one we're doing today, it's a different thing. This is an evil practice, okay?

Really, we call it the dark side. And when you really understand it, it's very disturbing. It's a very disturbing practice.

It's very difficult. You switch places with somebody who might be jealous of you or competitive with you and you just think of all the bad stuff you would like to happen to you, okay? You practice being jealous.

You switch bodies, but you stay in your sick mind. You stay in your own mind, get it? He's trying to show you how sick your mind is, you see?

It's very sad. It's a very difficult meditation. It's a very disturbing meditation.

Master Prajnakaramati objects. He says, this is dangerous. If I meditate on jealousy, won't my jealousy get worse?

Won't I just get better and better at jealousy? And then Master Shantideva says, no, no. It'll be so obvious to you how sick it is that then you'll be scared to be jealous again, you see?

It's very nice practice. It's so unpleasant to meditate on this state of mind that when you come out of that meditation, you make some kind of decision. I don't want to be like that anymore.

I don't like that. I don't want to admit that I'm like that. Really what you're doing, Master Shantideva is saying, look at yourself.

Look in the mirror. This is how you think about everybody. You see somebody, he says, practice pride, practice competitiveness, and then practice jealousy.

If someone's better than you, practice jealousy. If someone's equal to you, practice competitiveness. If someone's worse than you, practice pride.

And then switch places. It's a very, very difficult practice. It's very unpleasant.

But Master Shantideva says, it gives you a look into the window of your own mind. And then you'll want to stop being like that. So he says, go ahead and do it.

And he says, without hesitation. You see, that's what he means. Don't be scared.

Don't think it's going to make you a worse person. Just go ahead and do it. Switch places with someone that you're jealous of.

But keep your old bad mind. And then practice being jealous at who? At you.

And how does it feel? How do you like it? You can almost hear Master Shantideva saying, how do you like it?

How do you like being the person that the other person's being jealous of? Feels pretty bad, doesn't it? Well, how do you think everybody else feels when you're jealous all day?

Usually when you think about competing with somebody, you're like, I hope they find out that I just got this check last night from Christine, because they'll be jealous. There's this idea that maybe they'll be happy in a way. They'll say, ooh, he's so cool.

I don't like that. But really what jealousy is like, ew, I hate that, I hate that. He shouldn't have anything nice happen to him.

He should have only bad things happen to him. I should get all the nice things. And what you see for a moment, you get a window into your own mind.

Just for a moment, you admit who you are. And it's very unpleasant. It's really unpleasant.

And he says, keep practicing that way. Keep practicing. This is a meditation on the dark side.

It's a very sad meditation. It's a very strange meditation. And as we go further, there was a place where it switched.

Those of you who came to the afternoon course, first we were just watching out for the other person. Oh, you like salads, I like desserts, I'll order salad. I'll be a nice guy.

And then at some point it switches into the dark side. And then it's like, you mean Geshe Michael? If my Tibetan god as good as Geshe Michael and I'm his student, that he wouldn't be happy with me?

He'd be jealous of me? He'd start competing with me? He'd start wishing nobody came to my classes?

Are you serious? He thinks like that? It comes in the verse like that.

And he says, who wants to be like that? I'm not coming to those classes anymore. It's very sad.

It's very depressing to say, oh, he is a man of fine qualities. He is. Meaning, I just got a taste of how you really think, Great Lama.

One of us got, if we knew Sanskrit good, you'd get jealous of us, like you do of Ardengo or somebody like that. No, you'd get jealous. Now we know who you are.

Now we see you. And it's very sad. It's very depressing.

Normally, when you meditate, you don't want to look at the negative part. You want to think you're a nice person. You don't want to admit that every single person at work, you would love to see them fail.

Even if you wouldn't get a raise. It's the weirdest thing. It's the weirdest thing.

I've seen it in big companies. Everybody wants everybody else to, really, most people want the other people to fail. Even if it would hurt everybody.

Somebody else fails in their department, they're like, he, he. That's the way we are. And somebody's better than us, we're like, no, no, they must fall.

Why is the National Enquirer, the leading newspaper? Or I was in England. I forget what the magazine is.

Everybody reads it. It's like The Sun or something. I don't know what it is.

It is only, every article is about some famous person's failures or scandal or they got cancer or they're having a divorce or they're cheating on their wife or something like that. The whole thing. Why?

Why is that the most successful newspaper? Because we're all like that. Because we want, we love that kind of thing.

That's what we really want to read about. Because that's our mind. We're jealous of everybody else.

We want them to fail. And then when they fail, we're like, yes. And then the first thing you run out and you tell somebody, right?

Did you hear about, you go to Dharma centers. I go to Dharma centers. I go to give talks.

All they want to tell you about is some new problem with some monk or nun. I don't want to hear about it. No, but did you hear this one?

I'm like, no, I didn't hear this one. I don't want to hear this one. That's all people want to talk about.

Why? Because you want to be number one. You want to be the big shot.

You want everybody to think you're cool. And you don't want to see anyone else get anything. It's very sad.

So this is a very depressing meditation. Let's go on. Okay.

Okay. Who wants to go? One of you guys?

Michael, wait. Did you do one?

[Говорящий 2]
When something wrong befalls him, all of us will watch a long time feeling a kind of joy. We'll assume that he becomes a laughing stock for everyone to ride it in all circles.

[Говорящий 1]
Oh, this is just, A, the person should fail. The other person should fail. I'd love to see them fail.

And then secondly, I'd make sure everyone knows about it. Okay? So it's one thing to fail.

Right? It's one thing to have a scandal in your life. But he should not only have a scandal, everybody should hear about it.

We should put this on the internet. Who's talking? Me.

Who am I talking about? Me. Get it.

You're processing it towards yourself. Get it? You're going to do this meditation at home.

It's very depressing. Nobody wants to do it. But it opens your mind.

You see, it opens your heart. Oh God, that's what I'm really like. I really do enjoy it when other people fail.

And I've seen it in the company, in corporations. It's very depressing. People in the same office, they work together for five years.

Somebody makes a big boo-boo. I was in this office. This lady sent a package of diamonds to the wrong address, uninsured.

You know, $50,000. Somebody, Mrs. Smith is going to open up this box with $50,000 in diamonds in it. And she's under no reason for her to give them back.

You see what I mean? And everyone's like, Oh, that's too bad, man. And we're all going to lose money, you see?

We're all going to get our bonus cut this year because of this package. But still, everybody in the room is like, Did you hear? What?

Oh, she's so stupid. Five years, perfect record. And now she sent this package to this guy with no address and no registration and no insurance.

$50,000 in diamonds. And someone's going to open it up. They don't even know where to send it back to.

And everyone's like, Yes, this is cool. And everyone in the company is going to lose their bonus. You think the boss is going to take the loss?

He's going to say, We can't get bonuses this year. There was this accident. But still, everyone has a good day.

It's the weirdest thing. That's who we are. Okay, next one.

This miserable little person goes around saying that he somehow compares to me. What are they my equal in learning or wisdom or looks or statues or money? Oh, by the way, first we were doing competing, right?

Now we're doing arrogance. So first the meditation was on competition. Now we're doing meditation on arrogance.

You're supposed to pick somebody who's not as good as you in something. Maybe it's money. Maybe it's books.

Maybe it's brains. Pick somebody who's not as good as you. And then switch.

And then switch. Is that right? I get confused.

Someone better than you. Yeah. Sorry.

Is it? I don't know. You guys have to figure it out.

Oh, yeah. They've got to be better than you. Okay, they've got to be better than you.

Pick somebody smarter than you, more handsome than you, more money than you, and then switch. Now they're looking at you and they're saying, this little worm, Michael Roach, he doesn't know anything as much as I do. And he's going around begging for money for all his projects.

It's like, oh, it's money. He doesn't have any money. He's got this bald spot.

I've got this on his hair. You've got to practice arrogance towards yourself. So you put your sick mind in the body of someone who's better than you and you practice arrogance towards yourself.

Got it? Now if you get confused, you're doing it right. No, if you get confused, you're doing well.

If you get confused, I forgot, am I him or am I not him? Or am I better than him or worse than him? I don't remember.

You're doing it great. That's fine. If you start to get confused of who you are, you're doing it well.

So don't be disturbed. So now we're going to practice arrogance. And there's this list.

I'm smarter than him. I learn more things than him. I look better than him.

I have a better social status. In India this was a big thing, right? Caste system.

And then I have more money than him. So practice arrogance. And what you'll see is that that's how you feel towards other people.

What you'll see is that you do that all the time. You walk down the street, you see some drunk guy. You're on the subway, you see some slum.

And you're like, huh, I'm better than them. You'll catch yourself. The next time you start being arrogant, you'll say, wait, I was just arrogant this morning.

Oh no, that was some practice arrogance. This is the real thing. You know?

You'll catch yourself. You'll say, oh, I am arrogant. After a while you'll catch yourself.

Oh, I am an arrogant son of a gun. You'll catch yourself. I was just being arrogant this morning.

Oh, that was meditation. This is the real thing. I'm being arrogant here in the subway right now.

You know? And then you'll be able to stop it. That's what Master Pashnakaramati says.

I think we stop there. Because then it starts to get nice. It starts to get nice.

So you have to come back after refreshments. Or else you're going to just be stuck with this depressing meditation. So we'll take like a 10-15 minute break.

And please, if you'd like to say hi to Christy or myself, we'll be sitting up here. If there's too many people, don't worry. We'll do more people tomorrow.

Have a nice break. Okay. I'll tell you tomorrow.

That way I don't get yelled at. Then, what was the other thing? Oh, we'll also be doing tours of the Far East in the spring.

And then Europe in the summer, including Israel. So, yeah. So, if you're interested in catching us on tour, it'll be business talks, yoga talks, Buddhism talks, and bowling talks.

Talk to Chirky La. She's the tour manager. And she can tell you what's happening.

We're off on tour. I'll try to get you home, okay? I know you've got to go out anyway.

Next person.

[Говорящий 2]
And when I hear thus, my own high qualities proclaimed among the masses, I'll swim in the joy of it, with the thrill of happiness passing up and down my spine.

[Говорящий 1]
This is just that thing, you know, if you want to, if you're doing a jealousy meditation and you want to develop it further, then make sure things are advertised. You know? Like the other person's trouble, you find out the other person had a scandal, then you make sure everybody knows it.

That's step two. So when you're developing arrogance, first you're just arrogant, but then about being better than the other person. But then you advertise that you're better than the other person.

So it's step two. Again, he's saying step two of doing proper arrogance training is to not only think that you're better than other people, but make sure everybody knows it. So that's for your arrogance meditation.

And you'll find out that you've been doing this meditation your whole life. And then hopefully you'll stop. And I include myself.

Okay, here we go.

[Говорящий 2]
And in the case that some material benefit should happen to come to her or to him, then I'll leave them just enough to live on and to take the rest by force, since it's me who's doing the job.

[Говорящий 1]
At this point, now it's like, I don't know how to say it. You're like a bodhis...I don't know. You're someone else looking at yourself.

You're someone else looking at yourself. So I'm like Nanette, and I'm looking at Geshe Michael. Now Geshe Michael has gotten a little bit of money.

Or now you could even be Geshe Michael looking at Geshe Michael. So Geshe Michael, someone came up during the break and gave Geshe Michael a $20 bill. So I'm like, Geshe Michael, I saw you got $20.

Yes, sorry, I'm working. You don't get it. I'm working what?

I'm working for others. So you've got to be a schizophrenic here. Like you say, Geshe Michael, yes, I see you got $20.

Somebody gave you $20. That's right, hand it over. Why?

Got to help other people with it. But I was going to buy some. Okay, okay, okay, you can have a dollar, two bucks.

You can have enough for a hot cocoa with Christy after the class. Give me $18. Because I'm doing the job, meaning I'm working for other people.

So you've got to be the schizophrenic. Half of you will want to keep the money. Oh, I got $20.

Then you've got to negotiate with yourself. You can have two. Okay, you can buy a cocoa after class.

I get $18 to support, oh, let's say the God's Door Retreat Center long-term retreat program that will be announced tomorrow. Something like that, okay? All right, here we go.

He or she should lose this happiness and constantly come to my pain. In all of them, for thousands upon thousands, this one has hurt me in the cycle of pain. Geshe Michael, I see you've got ten minutes to relax.

Yeah, like I gave 19 classes in a row. I'm taking a break. I think we'll just cut that in half, you know?

You didn't finish that reading for Arizona that's due in a week. You can rest for 15 minutes, and then you're going to get back on your laptop. Okay, so anytime you see yourself get a break, you have to check if they really need a break.

You have to do a schizophrenic thing. So like, I see you've got some free time. Yeah, I finally got some free time.

Do you really need all that free time, or could you maybe help somebody else with it? You see what I mean? And then you negotiate.

By the way, sometimes, as Krishnaji might say, you need the free time. Sometimes you really should relax. I saw Swami Vishnu Devananda.

He had the four principles, right yoga, right eating, right study, right meditation, and then the last one is right relaxation. And I like that. And then it says under there, it says, look, if you keep working every day, all day, even for the Dharma, you'll burn out.

You'll hurt yourself, and you'll hurt other people. So a Dharma person has to know wisdom about when to go see a movie. And then you'll find out the movie was created by some tantric movie company anyway.

And there's a big message there for you. Even when you relax, go see a movie. Like we read science fiction novels at night.

There's a lady in New York, who's our pusher, who ever since three-year retreat she would sneak science fiction novels to us. And she still does. Thank you.

No, but then you take a break. You say, okay, tonight I'm going to read about Randolph Thor and the Sword of Colander or something. And then halfway through the book you realize this has a message for me.

You see, this has a tantric message for me. So nothing is wasted. You must relax.

But you should negotiate. If it's too much, you should take some away from them. Because you're working, they're working.

Then the second half of this verse, Gyaltsabje cuts this verse. He says the second half and the first half are a different subject. The second half is for many hundreds of thousands, I don't know what your translation says, he has hurt me.

We're on to a discussion about watching out for me, watching out for number one. There was a book, a disgusting book came out like five years ago called Watching Out for Number One, and it was a big deal. That's a bad word in Buddhism.

Watching out for number one is like using four-letter words. It's just a dumb idea. So, watching out for number one for thousands of lifetimes, that's what he's talking about when he says hundreds of thousands or thousands of thousands, I don't know.

It means many, many lifetimes. He has hurt me. Watching out for myself has hurt me.

Alright, next. Oh my mind, you have wasted countless eons waiting, wanting to do only whatever would serve yourself. But with all that exhausting effort, all that you've been able to gain is nothing but suffering for yourself.

This is the thing about you know, when we give business talks, and I said we give business talks, thousands of business people have come to these talks, you know. I'll tell you a secret, the Pentagon just sent a lieutenant colonel for training, okay, no kidding. I'll tell you.

We train business, large corporations, large organizations, and they send people and we train them, you know. And the first thing they ask is, you know, is ethical business a good thing? Are you teaching how to be nice in business?

I said, no, I don't care about that. That's not what we're teaching you. I'm teaching you how to make more money.

That's all I'm teaching. I'm not interested in preaching to you. I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business.

I just want to teach you how to make more money. You learn it, you go away, you make more money. Now it happens to be that the only way to make more money is to be generous with other people.

Now that's just the way it works. I'm not trying to make you ethical. I'm not trying to make you generous.

I'm not trying to make you a noble person. I'm just trying to make you rich. I just want to make you rich.

You see? And the only way you can get rich is to be generous. Give money away.

That's all. If being nasty could make you more money, I would teach you how to be nasty. But it doesn't.

That's all. I'm not trying to make you a nice person. I'm trying to make you rich.

And the only way to get rich is to be a nice person. That's all. So here too, watching out for other people, taking care of other people.

When you go to the restaurant, order the thing that the other person likes. Why? It's the only way to be happy.

If there was any other way, that would be fine. If taking cookies for yourself and not giving something to someone, if that worked, it would be okay. But it doesn't work.

It just doesn't work. So I'm not trying to make you ethical. I'm not trying to make you moral.

I'm just trying to make you happy. The only way to be happy is to take care of other people. First.

That's all. That's what he's saying here. For years and years, you thought that getting what you want was what you wanted.

And it's not what you want. It doesn't make you happy. Watch out for other people.

Take care of other people. Do what they need. And then you get what we call ultimate delicious.

Say roto. Ultimate delicious. Now you get everything you wanted and it's just happy.

Your whole life is just happy. This demon that I have to take care of myself is just hurting you. It hurts your whole life.

It ruins your whole life. Take care of other people first. And in a short time, you'll get everything you ever dreamed of.

I have everything I ever dreamed of. Really. I can't tell you.

I have everything I ever dreamed of and much more. And I'm not even very good at taking care of other people. You see?

No, but you get everything you want. You don't have to worry. Sit back, relax, you'll get everything.

Take care of other people. All right, next one. If you had at some point in the past and so now you must be certain to devote yourself to whatever would serve the needs of others.

The word of the able ones is something infallible and so later you will see its benefits. This is this thing. It's a long story.

We don't have time tonight. You can't see this thing yourself. Karma.

You can't see it. Why? You hurt somebody today.

You will get hurt in six months. You can't see that connection. Right now you can't see it.

You may believe it. It maybe makes sense to you. But you can't see it directly.

You see? Karma you can't see directly. So at the beginning you have to trust.

I always tell the business people, you know, give away 5% of your income. And I make a plan for them. There's like a, here's a bank account.

It's in your name. I can't get to it. You deposit your own money there.

Only you have the signature. I make it easy for them. Just try it for six months.

If it doesn't work, you can bail out, you can take the money out. That's okay. But at the beginning you have to trust me that much.

5%, you have to trust me that much. Put that much in the bank. Put it into an account.

After six months we're going to give it away to your charity, not mine. Anybody you say. Not me.

You have to trust that much at the beginning. Then how do you trust this guy? When I give a business talk I get up and say, I started the fastest growing company in the history of New York City.

And it's now like $250 million a year. So trust a little bit. No, I mean, trust it a little bit.

You have to trust at the beginning. You look at the person. Does he look like he's happy?

He looks happy. Then try it. Try it for six months.

Try it for five weeks. Whatever. At the beginning it has to be ka means somebody's word for it.

Because I can't show you karma directly. I can't tell you what's going to happen tomorrow from what you did yesterday. I can't do that.

I can't show you. At the beginning you trust a bit. You try it out just a bit.

Then you get these results. Then you start doing 10%, 15%, 20%. Now I have business people doing 100%.

Like, this works. This works. So at the beginning just start small.

Take the word for it. Take my word for it. It works.

I'm standing up here. I got everything I ever dreamed of. Take my word for it.

And then slowly you'll see. That's all. Next verse.

[Говорящий 2]
If you had at some point in the past undertaken this very action then it's completely impossible that you'd be living like this in something so opposite to the excellent bliss of Buddhahood.

[Говорящий 1]
This theme happens a couple of times in this book. People come up to Master Shantideva and say, OK, look, I tried it. What?

I gave away some money last week. Yeah? And look, nothing happened.

Not really. People say that. And I've been patient with people and still I meet people who get me angry.

I've been patient. I tried what you said and it didn't work. And then he questions them.

Like James's thought. He's like, scientist question. Exactly how much money did you give away?

Well, I was really thinking about giving away the money. So you didn't give the money away. Well, not exactly.

And I mean, if you ask somebody questions, if somebody says, I tried that, it didn't work. If you push them and you ask them, it turns out they didn't really do it very well. And that's what he's saying.

Look, did you try this practice in the past? What practice? Exchanging yourself and others.

Have you tried this practice? You can say the dark side of the practice or the light side of the practice. It doesn't matter.

But what Master Shantideva is saying, you don't need to tell me. People come up to Michael Roach all the time. Geshe-la, I've got to talk to you.

This is half the people in the line. I won't say which half. I've got to talk to you.

I've got to tell you something. I'm not keeping my book. I didn't do my meditation and I didn't go to the initiation that came in between.

And I also feel miserable. I'm not happy. Can you tell me what to do?

And I'm like, get out of here. Don't come tell me you didn't do that. I'm not interested.

I can tell that you're not happy. I look at you. I know you're not happy.

You don't have to tell me you're not doing your meditation. You don't have to tell me you're not doing your book. You don't have to tell me you didn't go to teachings.

I look at your face and I know. Go confess to somebody else. I don't mean it.

I can tell. I can look at your face. I can tell.

You don't need. What's the use going to tell me? Go meditate.

Take the time you waited in line and go meditate. Anyway, Master Shantideva is just saying that. He said, look, I can tell you wouldn't be here in a body which is going to die if you had practiced this.

You wouldn't be here with all the rest of us if you had done this in the past. You would already be in some kind of paradise. I know what you did in your last life and I can't even see it because you're here with me and I'm in the wrong realm.

I'm in the wrong place. I'm in a body that's going to die. If I don't practice well, I will die.

I will get old. I will catch something and it will kill me if I didn't catch it already. You see?

You don't have to tell me. I know that you haven't practiced this because we're here. I know I haven't practiced it because I'm still here.

That's all he's saying. He said, I can look at you. I know you're here in this deadly place.

Place of death. And I know you didn't practice this because if you had really watched out for other people, if you had taken care of other people, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be in this trouble.

That's all. Last? Last.

[Говорящий 2]
As such, you must become accustomed to thinking of others as you do. Of yourself, when you believe that a couple, a drop of semen and blood belonging to someone else could ever be the person you call yourself.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, last verse, then you get to go home. Sorry to keep you late. He's repeating the old story.

Two parts of the old story. What you call me, what you call me is artificial. Is there a Michael Roach?

Yes. It's not this Buddhist thing that Michael Roach is an illusion and I believe in Michael Roach so I'm crazy or something. I'm here.

I ate the sugar-free chocolate chip cookie. It's gone. I must be here.

I'm here. I'm here. I exist.

I have pain. I have happiness. I'm real.

I do exist. But I'm artificial in one sense. I can decide how far I stretch.

That's a decision. That's a decision. It's not inherent in you.

You decide how big you are. Do you stop at your skin? Do you stop at...

People can cut their arm off. If you get gangrene in your arm you will cut it off because it will kill you. Then you make a decision to shrink me.

I've had that. I used to shoot insulin into Rukjo every day. It's an old man in hell.

Then he got gangrene in his foot and he said, I'd rather die than have my foot cut off. Then later he said, cut the foot off. No, because he shrunk himself.

Voluntarily. He said, I will shrink to my ankle. I'd rather have most of me alive and I will divorce myself from my foot.

Now my foot's not me anymore. The foot's not Rukjo anymore. Cut it off.

And they cut it off. I had another friend, she had both her legs cut off at the knee. Diabetes, right?

And she said, cut. She said, I don't like it, but I'll die if I don't do it. She shrank the me.

Now you can do the opposite. You can decide to stretch the me over one or two other people. People who have a child, a mom who has a child, they automatically do this.

Like, okay, now you're as important as me. Why? Because you came out of my room.

No, they stretch themselves to another person. So what Master Shantideva is saying is, stretch yourself to other people. Don't struggle trying to take care of other people like you do yourself.

You don't have to do the Jesus thing. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There's a cheaper way to do it.

Just stretch yourself a little bit over other people. Then watch out for number one. Because number one's bigger now.

So you don't have this trouble in your mind, oh, I have to buy her an ice cream and I have to buy me an ice cream. Don't think like that. Let's go get one cup of ice cream and we won't even share it.

We will eat the ice cream. That's the way to do it. That's a very holy practice.

You just change who you are. Last thing he says and then I'll let you go home. How many times did he say that already?

He repeats his old Shantidevian thing. You can get used to anything. You can get used to anything.

Human beings can get used to anything. If water got shut off in New York City tomorrow, there'd be a system for getting water at Central Park. If a bomb blew up the whole southern part of Manhattan, there'd be a program for the people in the northern part of Manhattan.

Within a day, within two days. People get used to anything. People can adapt to anything.

Just keep working on it. Keep trying to make yourself bigger. Include one person and then two people and then three people in you.

Then take care of you. Now you have eight legs, four pairs of shoes to buy, eight socks every morning. Then every day just add another person.

You'll get used to it. People like... I've met many ladies.

Susan McKenna's not here so I can talk about her, right? Is she outside? Oh, okay.

She used to be this hippie, you see? No, in India. We went to India.

We had 80 people with us. We got on this really bad highway. She gets out of the car.

She says, I'm going by myself. I can't take it. She walks to the railway station in the middle of Bengal's...

Bihar state. This is like the worst, most dangerous place in India. She's like, I'm splitting, man.

She gets on this train. You were there. I wouldn't get on that train.

She tried to get me on the train. I said, no. So she just took off.

But now she has a baby. In fact, that's why she's out back now. Now she has a baby.

She has a child. So she changed her. She got used to it.

She doesn't think about hippie anymore. She got used to it. Now I have four legs.

Now I have four arms. Now I have two stomachs. Now I have two mouths.

Now life is different. I have to take care of her. We have to be safer now.

We have to change now. Because she just changed me. She just adjusted me.

She made me. You can get used to anything. Right, Susan?

She's right there. You can get used to anything. A human being has that power.

Don't forget to practice your dark side meditation. These talks don't do any good if you don't meditate. So try it tomorrow.

I like the eye meditation. How many people tried it? Ooh, nice.

Yeah. Good. That was from yesterday.

Watch your eyes. Only look at things that help other people. Okay?

Alright. We'll give away the good karma. You ready?

Who wants to do?

[Говорящий 2]
Visualize in your hands everything beautiful that you've ever tasted, seen, touched, past, present, and future, and offer it in thanksgiving for these teachings.

[Говорящий 1]
Chanting And then give away all the good karma that you've created in the virtue of hearing these practices, and all the efforts you make to have the realizations that they bring, and give it away to some specific cause. Let's give the karma today away to the long life of our Holy Lama, Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Tharchin. And Geshe-la and Kristi-la.

Chanting