Углублённый курс ACI: Колесо жизни в Сутре сердца (1999, Сан-Франциско), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
So we're continuing with the Wheel of Life. And I thought tonight, just for good luck, we'd use the modern one, okay? This one was painted by Ori, Karen.

And, yeah, thank you. And we're gonna... You know, the challenge last night, or what I asked you to try to do, was decide what do you want in your life, right?

Like, I always wanted to play Bird's 12-string guitar, and you just have to plant the seeds, okay? So, maybe for some people it's a little more serious, like, I want to overcome breast cancer, or something like that, you know, or I would like to be financially independent, or it could be I just want peace of mind, inside my mind. I'm okay, I don't need a lot of money, or, you know, I can live in the body I'm in, but I would like to have some peace of mind.

I would like to be happier. And in some people, of course, you know, we would like to see poverty eliminated, war eliminated from the world, outer peace, as well as inner peace. The cool thing about a system which works is that when you use it to achieve your individual goals, you automatically serve the world, okay?

Wouldn't that be logical, that if a certain method worked to get you everything that you hoped for in your own life, that automatically, by nature, those same actions would serve the world, you see? And it doesn't become two separate things. You know, I get what I want, and then after that I go take care of others, or I go take care of others first, and I'm a martyr, and then later maybe I'll get something for myself.

What if the only way to help the world were to make yourself healthy and happy first, okay? What if that were the way to change the world, you see? And that's the way it is in this system, okay?

By trying to achieve your personal goals, whatever they are, you serve the world, all right? And it doesn't matter if what your goal is is to pay off your credit cards, or you just don't want your husband complaining to you anymore. Those are goals, right?

In this system, if you use this system to achieve those goals, you automatically help the rest of the world. And wouldn't that be a good system? Wouldn't a good system maybe should be like that?

It's not like you get left behind if you want to serve the world, or you have to... If you become successful yourself, the world gets shortchanged, or something like that. What if it were that by achieving your own dreams, then automatically that helps the world?

And that's this system, okay? That's the system we're talking about tonight and tomorrow. So please recall personally the goal that you have in your own mind.

If I was the Wizard of Oz and I could give you anything you wanted tonight... See, people just come up with a piece of paper and I did something, right? What would you ask for?

What is the issue in your own life that you would like to see your dream, some dream that you have, or some problem that you have? What would you like? If I could give you anything you want tonight, what would it be?

I'm going to stop for a moment, which is very rare for me. And I want you to... It's hard, okay?

I want you to think. And I'll also think about what I would like. Because sometimes I talk all the time, I don't think.

So we'll go for one minute. Just think in this week, what's the most important thing in your life that you'd like to achieve right now in your life? Here we go.

Okay, so keep it in mind as we go, all right? Keep it in mind as we go. That goal will require a seed, a seed in your mind.

Last night we talked about a pen, right? And we talked about a pen, right? And we said that it was coming from your mind, because when a dog looked at it, they didn't see a pen, they saw something to chew.

And we said if you left it on the podium, and the dog left the room, and the humans left the room, at that time it was... Which one? Neither, okay?

When the dog and the human are in the room, it's both. When the dog leaves, it's only a pen. When the human leaves, it's only a chew toy.

When they both leave, it's blank. It's nothing yet. When one of them walks back in the room, it will become that thing, okay?

Things are coming from your mind, okay? Why does the dog have a seed to see a chew toy, and why does the human have the seed to see a pen? Well, the human helped someone communicate in the past.

That planted a karmic seed in their mind. That seed opens. By the way, sometimes if you want to try hard, do this like 50 times, and see if you can catch the pen coming from your mind to the black stick, because that's how it's really happening.

It's not that your mind... It's not that you are opening your eyes, and you see a pen out there. That's not what's really happening.

You open your eyes, a seed splits open in your mind. It's a quarter of an inch high. It's luminous.

It's made of light. It flies from your mind, and it sticks on here like a label, or like a sticker, like a... What do you call those things?

Overhead projector. What do you call those things? Like a transparency, okay?

Like a pen image comes from your mind, instantaneously comes to this thing and covers it, and you think you see a pen. Okay, let's try it again, okay? And if you meditate a lot, one night you will catch it.

You will catch this little tiny thing opening in your mind, and this pen coming out like that, okay? Onto the pen. Then you see it as a pen.

The dog has a different seed. The dog has a different luminous picture coming out of their mind, and they see something different, validly, correctly, right? Is it real?

First of all, is it coming from your mind? Is it real? Even though it's coming from your mind.

In the monastery, if you say that, you get hit. You get beaten, okay? They'll hit you with a rosary.

You think rosaries are for praying? They got these dots across your head, red dots all day, red dots. Then people laugh at you.

Other monks laugh at you all day. Haha, you got a rosary, man. What stupid thing did you say in class?

And you say, by the way, you never sit that close to the teacher. That's just something you learn. It's, I said, even though it's coming from my mind, it's real.

And the teacher got angry and hit me. What should I have said? It's real because it's coming from my mind, okay?

It's real because it's coming from my mind. It's not enough to say, even though it's coming from my mind, it's real. The only reason it's real is that it's coming from your mind, which means anything that wasn't coming from your mind was not real.

It's not real, okay? Which means if you want to change things like your credit card balance, where do you start? In your own mind, okay?

You make adjustments in the seeds in your own mind. If I want to be financially independent, according to this system, okay? I'm not talking other systems.

Frankly, I don't give, I'm not interested in other systems. I don't think they work, you know? I've been in business many years.

I've been in relationships all my life. I don't believe in any other system, okay? In this system, if you want to be financially independent, you must consciously help another person to become financially independent, and that's the only way.

There is no other way, okay? And I believe that. If you want a partner, if you are lonely and you want a nice partner, you must find a lonely person, and you must help them not be lonely, and that's the only way to have a partner, because a partner is coming from a seed in your mind, and that seed is planted when you are kind and helpful and give companionship to a lonely person, okay?

If the pain is coming from your mind, then so is your boyfriend, and so is your credit card balance, and so is your body, the condition of your body, okay? If you want to fix those three things, then you have to plant the right seeds. There's no choice, okay?

Then somebody will say, I know people who never studied Buddhism and they got rich. It's dumb luck. It's just dumb luck, okay?

They did some kind of charitable thing in the past. That seed has floated up by accident to the top of their mind. I spent the morning today with a very successful businessman.

He made a $250 million company, and now he can't do it anymore, and he doesn't know why. He's suffering because he doesn't know why. He doesn't know why he got successful, and he doesn't know how to...

Now that he's being less successful, he doesn't know how to change it, okay? Because he got successful by accident. Some random seed floated up to the bottom of the seed pool, and it opened, and he was successful for a while, and then it died, as all seeds do, and now he doesn't know why he can't succeed.

It's the same. All things are coming from your mind. All things are coming from seeds in your mind.

You can only plant a seed in your mind by providing what you hope for to someone else first. Then you plant a seed. That seed is...

What do they say in the real Yoga Sutra? It's janma vedanya. Janma vedanya means maybe it will be experienced in the next lifetime, second chapter, Yoga Sutra.

Maybe generosity performed in this lifetime will be... The result will come in the next lifetime, okay? It's called...

What is it called? Namiki Drabhu. You can have Zen Dila Nama Mimpa, it can ripen in this life, it can ripen in the very next life, or it can ripen in any other lives up to a billion after that, okay?

So the whole exercise of trying to be kind to others so that your life will change is hopeless, okay? You will never see the result in this life, okay? Be nice and be generous and maybe in a thousand years you will be a rich person, okay?

No, that's if you don't know how to sharpen the seeds in your mind, okay? If you don't know how to sharpen the karmic seeds in your mind, they could go off in a thousand lifetimes, okay? That's the way they are.

Whichever one floats to the top, it's like a lot... My Lama called it the lottery. He was really excited when Vanna White came out on TV and chose a billiard ball out of a big wheel.

He got all excited, you know, and I thought... I had this doubt about him. I said, is he excited about Vanna White?

You know, and then he said, no, no, not the girl. It's the concept, you know? What she's doing tonight, picking the lottery numbers for the New Jersey State Lottery, you know, that's exactly how the seeds come up in your mind.

It's just random luck, you know? They just float up to the top and then your consciousness picks one and then you're poor for 20 years, okay? Or your boyfriend leaves you, okay?

And that's the way life goes, okay? But there's a way to rig the game, okay? There's a way to make your balls float up to the top, okay?

And that's what I'm interested in. And that's what I'm interested in teaching you, okay? And it's fun, okay?

It's cool. You can design what happens in your life in the next few weeks and years, okay? Just learn how to sharpen a karmic seed.

So, why does that relate to the Wheel of Life? We're going to discuss that tonight. In the Wheel of Life, the purpose of the Wheel of Life is to clarify the opposite, okay?

Is to clarify the opposite, okay? What causes negative karmic seeds to open quickly and powerfully in your mind, okay? Why are you having trouble in your life?

Why are you in debt? Why did your last boyfriend leave you so ridiculously when you were perfect, you know? And why did the doctor say you might have cancer, okay?

Why did it happen to me, okay? The Wheel of Life is... Or why is there a war in Afghanistan?

Why are people being killed as we speak, okay? The purpose of the Wheel, a big purpose of the Wheel is to clarify how and why negative seeds suddenly ripen, okay? So, by studying that, you can learn the opposite.

You can master the opposite, you see? You can take your good seeds and you can mine them, okay? Every person in this room has enough good seeds to be totally financially independent, to be completely young, have extraordinary energy, right?

Every person in this room already, from thousands of lifetimes, has enough seeds in their mind to have a perfect relationship, okay? You have been everything and you have done everything. You have killed six million people.

All the boys in this room have been Miss America countless times, okay? It's nothing new, all right? You've done everything countless times and you have millions, billions of seeds in your mind to make anything happen.

So, can we? The Wheel will teach us what triggers the negative seeds in my life. Why did they go off?

And then we're going to twist it around, okay? We are meant to unturn the Wheel. That's what Lord Buddha wanted.

Learn how disasters happened in your life. Find out why your relationships didn't work out. Find out why you didn't have enough money.

Find out why you have a health problem, bad back. And by finding out how those seeds were triggered, right? Out of all the billions of seeds in your mind, what triggered the ones for a bad back and a bad marriage, okay?

What triggered them? Because if we can learn that, we can turn it around. And we can purposely trigger the good seeds, which all people have in their minds, okay?

We all have about 50-50 good seeds and bad seeds. Can we reach into the mind and trigger good seeds, right? Quickly.

So, we're going to do the opposite first, all right? We're going to study how a negative seed happens. We're going to need another...

So, look at the Wheel one more time. We're going to be dealing with the outer rim, the black rim, all right? We're going to zoom in on the black rim to see how to get the good seeds that are already in your mind to ripen now, okay?

So, I think we'll go to this one. That's what's happening now, okay? He's choosing bad seeds, all right?

That monster represents decay and destruction in your life, decay of your relationships, decay of your financial situation, if it was ever good, and the inevitable decay of your body, okay? That monster represents that. You know that now, okay?

We want to turn it around. So, now I'm going to focus in on the 12 links, all right? And I'm going to explain them, all right?

We start at 1 o'clock. The Wheel starts at 1 o'clock. And then it goes like a clock.

It goes through 12 links. It's called the Yenlak Chuni, the 12 links. I'm going to go through the links quickly, and then we'll focus on the links which cause karmic seeds to ripen, okay?

And then you can apply that to your positive seeds, got it? So, we'll talk about the Wheel in general, and then we'll focus on your good seeds, all right? How to make them work.

Okay, they gave me some dilly-wopper here. I'm going to try. So, this is...

Ori has painted it upside down. If you feel more comfortable, you can do a headstand. But I like it, because it makes you feel like you're entering the Wheel when you look at the middle, like you're inside, okay?

So, this represents a blind person, all right? This is ignorance. The first link of the 12 links...

Please repeat after me. Dangbo. Marikpa.

Dangbo. Marikpa. Dangbo means number one, link number one, at 1 o'clock or 12.30, something like that. Dangbo means number one. Marikpa means avidya, ignorance, okay? Ignorance.

It's not just misunderstanding. It's misperceiving, okay? It's not an absence of understanding.

It's a wrong idea, okay? What is the misunderstanding? I'll take a vote, okay?

You ready? This is to see if you've been serious in the last 24 hours. If your personal goal for attending this class is something to do with your finances, please raise your hand.

I guess everybody else is independently wealthy. If it has more to do with personal relationships, raise your hand. Higher?

Okay, I don't know what's going on. I guess a lot of people don't have any goals. If it has to do with your personal health, how many people?

That's weird. Inner peace, inner peace. Oh, that's amazing.

Cool. External peace, peace in the world. Okay, good.

So what should we take? I don't know. I'll take what I was going to take anyway, regardless of your vote.

That's my usual system when I weaken into democracy. Let's say you're having trouble with your partner, okay? I have trouble with my partner.

Let's say I have... My partner is criticizing me, okay? They come home.

If you've really cooked for another person, if you've really been there, it involves the following. You go to the grocery store, right? That's already an hour and a half out of your day.

To walk out of your apartment towards the grocery store is already to spend an hour and a half. You can't come back faster than that. I don't think so.

Then you come back, it's an hour and a half later. Then you look up a menu, a recipe, and you pick a nice one because you want to make a special dinner. And then you cut vegetables or other stuff.

You cut, you peel, you wash... You do a pre-wash of the dishes so the place doesn't look like a wreck when the person comes for dinner, right? You want it to look nice.

And then you start cooking, and you cook and you cook. You cook for like... With the peeling and the cutting, the sous-chef work.

If you have a sous-chef, you don't do that. But I don't. Then it's another hour and a half.

It's about another hour and a half. Then they come home. And you say, look, I made you the spinach quiche from Julia Child.

Or what's her name? I'm into Simcha nowadays, if you know her. She was Julia Child's collaborator, but she didn't get famous.

But anyway, so I made you a spinach quiche. It took me like... I've been working three hours so far.

And they say, I was thinking to have a pizza. I was thinking to have a pizza. And you know, I'm not really into spinach quiche today.

So three hours of work is suddenly dissolved. What do you call it? Heartlessly.

What's a better word for that? Callously. Yeah, they don't really care what you feel.

There's no thought that maybe you feel bad having spent three hours. They just say, I was thinking about pizza. I already ordered a pizza.

It's on its way. And then there's just no consideration of you. So let's say, my husband is not considerate of my feelings.

Or they criticize me. Then human nature, human nature is to do what? What do you do when your husband says, I ordered a pizza already?

Yeah, you get mad and you say something to them. You say, yeah, you're the kind of person who would eat a pizza instead of a spinach quiche. I understand.

It's all right. That's who you are. And you say something back.

You criticize them back. That is ignorance. That's number one.

Ignorance believes that the husband came home and said something unkind because they were thoughtless and not because you said something unkind to someone last week. Ignorance blames the other person. Knowledge, wisdom says, the minute the husband says, I was thinking of having a pizza, a well-trained spiritual person looks at the ceiling.

An untrained person looks at the husband, and the eyes go narrower. But seriously, a trained spiritual person, they go like, the minute somebody gives you a hard time, criticizes you, you're like, why, why, why, why? That's a meditation posture, okay?

If no one told you, in high school, did you cross your legs when you were thinking about your girlfriend in class? No. You stared at the ceiling.

And you're thinking. What are you thinking if you're a spiritual person? Yeah, where did this come from?

Who did I criticize recently? Who am I criticizing on a regular basis? Because if I stop, this idiot will stop.

Okay? Got it? Okay?

Got it? That's a spiritually trained person, and it takes training. We're talking training.

We're talking classroom hours. We're talking three jewels, hours at three jewels. My Lama said 3,000 hours.

3,000 hours it takes to go like this. And not to go like this. Okay?

Really, I'm not kidding. My Lama said 3,000 hours. 3,000 hours at the three jewels.

I don't know how many courses that is. If John Stilwell is talking, it's probably faster. I don't know.

So, so anyway, you're like this. Who did I criticize last week? That's wisdom.

Ignorance is, well then, go ahead, have a pizza. Ignorance gets angry. All right?

Then ignorance will say something. Ignorance will say something, and that's the second link. Here's the second link.

Okay? Second link is a guy making pots. All right?

It's a guy, I'll try to give, let me get to you straight up. What? Okay, that's ignorance.

I don't understand. Oh, Potter, you're right. Okay, there's the Potter.

Okay? He's making a pot. That's link number two.

He was stupid just before that. He was blind, and then he made a pot. Pot represents karma.

He planted a new karma. How? Criticize the husband back when the husband criticized you.

Okay? It takes stupidity to do that. Okay?

The first link is being dumb. Second link is making new karma. He's making new karma.

That's the Potter. Okay? He, what did he do?

He said, yeah, you go buy a pizza. That's, yeah, that's who you are. All right?

He just made a pot. He made a new pot. In the traditional presentation, this is how to, let me think about that.

This would be the next step. Okay? Where's that?

Three? No, sorry. I'm sorry.

Hang on. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Traditionally, in presenting the wheel, you made karma in your last life. Okay? And then you were born into this life.

And the first moment in this life was when your mind came into your mother's womb.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
This represents, the monkey here represents your mind coming into your mother's womb. This is the traditional, which we're not going to do, of course. All right.

Next step. This is called namarupa, name and form. Okay?

Ori, there's got to be obviously two guys. Is that a second guy on the right? Oh, okay.

There's got to be two guys in the boat. Okay? This represents your mind and your body inside your mother's womb.

First your mind, your consciousness enters the womb, and then your body and your mind start to develop inside your mother's womb. Okay? This is link number four.

Sipa-mingsu. Link number five. Empty house.

This is your sense organs. Okay? Nothing has happened yet.

You can say at this point that your body has come out of your mother's womb. That's okay. But you now have eyes, and ears, and nose.

Okay? And a tongue. And you can feel things with your body.

Okay? Your senses have formed, but they are like an empty house. Okay?

We're following the progress of a child. All right? This is called contact.

And it's represented by a couple making love. Okay? It's a couple making love.

It's an unusual perspective, but I think it's kind of cool. But traditionally it's a couple making love. Okay?

And it means contact. Okay? Sparsha in Sanskrit, rekpa in Tibetan.

Contact. Contact between what? It's a philosophical contact.

Your eye has started to encounter objects. Your ears have started to encounter sounds. And there is contact between the outside world and your senses.

Okay? First contact. The child first hears a noise.

The child first feels a touch. The child first sees an object. Okay?

That's contact. In the wheel, it's represented by a contact between two people, metaphorically. We're up to number seven, which is feeling.

Traditionally, in the wheel of life, feeling is represented by a man with an arrow in his eye. Okay? A man who has got an arrow shot into his eye.

Definitely having some sensation. Okay? It means at this point, the child is having feelings.

Good, bad, and neutral. You can divide it into three. You can divide it into five.

Okay? You can say, good feelings, bad feelings, or neutral feelings, three. Or you can say, mentally happy, physically blissful, pleasant, mentally unhappy, physically painful, and neutral.

And you get five. Okay? So feelings, this is feelings which happen after there's contact with an object.

You start to feel something about it. I like that, or I don't like that. Okay?

That feels good, or that feels bad to me. Okay? That's number seven.

It's called Dumbhatsarva. Vedana. Here's link number eight.

In link number eight, there's a man drinking, okay, beer or something. He's supposed to be drinking alcohol. He's over, what do you call it?

Over-indulging. Yeah, over-indulging. All right.

It's a person over-indulging. And it means the beginning of desire. I like that.

Okay? First you didn't have senses. Then senses grew.

Then those senses contacted objects. And then that contact bore feeling, and then feeling, feeling led to, I want that, or I don't want that. Okay?

So, wanting or not wanting is represented in the Wheel of Life by a person over-indulging. In like, they're supposed to be drinking alcohol or something. Okay?

Next step. This is called, how would you say it in English? Gupa lempa means grasping.

Grasping. It feels good to me. I want it.

Then I grab it. It's an intensification of the desire from the last link. This is the same as the last link, except it's a stronger feeling.

Grasping. Gyepa sepa means wanting. Eight is wanting.

Nine is grabbing for the thing. I want the thing. I'm grabbing.

Go after the thing. Try to own it. Try to possess it.

Okay? That's number nine. In Tibetan it's called gupa lempa.

Okay, number ten. Number ten is drawn two different ways. One as a vulture, and one as a pregnant woman.

Okay? One as a pregnant woman. Two different ways to draw it.

It represents karma, which is just about to give its result. Okay? It represents karma, which is just about to give its result.

Your husband has walked through the door and laid eyes on the spinach quiche. Okay? Now that karma from last week is about to open.

That karma is about to open. Okay? The planting of the karma last week, when you criticized a co-worker at your job, was link number two.

The potter. Okay? The man who was making pots was the karma last week when you criticized someone at work.

That's fresh karmic seed, just planted. It's like, I planted my onions already for the summer. Okay?

I already planted them in January, and I live in a pretty cold place. Okay? So, those were step number, link number what?

Two. Okay? Then when spring comes, and they start showing their little buds, and they start coming up, that's karma number, that's number ten.

Okay? That karma is pregnant. That karma is about to give birth.

Normally it's a, oftentimes it's represented as a pregnant woman. Okay? Step number ten.

Step number eleven.

[Говорящий 2]
Where are you?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's claws there.

Don't get confused by the claws. The claws are coming from the monster, right? He just, those are, we cut the, we cut the image out and the claws were overlapping, so ignore the claws.

And you have a child coming out of a woman's uterus. Okay? The child is coming out of the mom.

All right? And that's birth. Link number eleven is birth in this life.

Karma is ripe. Karma was ripe, and now the child is born. In our example of the husband, what moment is it?

I was thinking of a pizza. Got it? That's number eleven.

This is the birth. The karma ripened as he came to the door, and then the karma flowered as he opened his mouth, and the child was born. In this case the child is a criticism of you.

Okay? All right? The child was born.

All right. Number twelve. Link number twelve.

You see a vulture eating the intestines of a person, and on the right you see a front view of a Tibetan burial, and they would carry the body in a bag on someone's back to a mountain, and they would cut it up and mix it with flour, like barley flour, and they would feed the meat to birds, to vultures. And the idea in Tibet was that you're already gone, your spirit is already gone, and it should be a last act of generosity that your body supplies the nutrition for another living creature, because you no longer inhabit it. You are gone.

Okay? The Tibetans believe you are gone at that point. Then you should do something useful with the calories.

They should feed somebody. Don't bury them. I had the honor to drive the Dalai Lama's senior tutor, Ling Rinpoche.

I was his chauffeur for a whole day, and I picked him up in one town in New Jersey, and I had to drive him for like three or four hours. Then they told me, everybody warned me, I was young, I was 26 years old, okay? And they told me, He is Yamantaka.

He is the Lord of Death. Don't say anything. Don't say anything to him.

You know? Just drive. You know?

And I'm like, I was shaking, you know? And he got into the car, and I'm like shaking, you know? And one of the lamas in the backseat, it was Kyongla Rinpoche, he said, Michael knows Tibetan.

So Ling Rinpoche goes, Oh, really? You know? And then he said, How old are you, boy?

And then I'm like, I'm not supposed to talk to him. You know? And then I said, I was 26, and I said, 62.

And then in Tibetan, I said 62, because I was so scared, I mixed it up. And he says, Oh, good sign. You're going to live a long life.

You know? And then this weird thing happened. His attendant was in the backseat, and this high lama, Rata Rinpoche, was in the backseat, and they both fell asleep.

The whole drive, it was like magic. It was like suddenly they just fell asleep in the backseat. And then he starts asking me questions.

The whole way he asked me questions. First he says, I heard you know Abhidharma. I said, Yeah, I learned a little bit.

He says, Quote the first chapter to me. I did it. Then he said, Quote the second chapter.

And then I was working on the second chapter, and I quoted it. Then he says, Quote the third chapter. And I stopped.

And then he said, Okay. Then we were driving, and we drove by a cemetery. And he hits me with his elbow.

He says, What's that? And I said, It's a cemetery. And he said, What's that for?

I said, You know, after people die, they dig a hole, and they put the body in there, and they cover it up. And he says, Ha ha, waste of space. And I'll never forget that.

This is the person who trained the Dalai Lama, right? And later he gave us an initiation. Later he gave us Yamantaka.

And that was my first time I received the third initiation. Okay? So anyway.

So I got that permission from him when I was 26. Anyway. So this is death.

All right? The last link, link number 12, is death.

[Говорящий 2]
All right?

[Говорящий 1]
All right. Now I'd like to go through it. That's the traditional presentation of the 12 links in honor.

These are the 12 traditional links of the Wheel of Life. I took you through it in order to explain how you came into this life. Okay?

But tonight, tonight, we are more interested in what? Most people, I don't know. Oh, the husband, I think.

Let's take care of the husband. Okay? Can we explain the husband?

Why did that seed come up? Okay? I've been also nice to countless people in countless lifetimes.

Why did the seed from last week, for criticizing someone at my work, why did that seed choose to come up right after I cooked Julia Child's spinach quiche? You know? Why did that seed go off?

Because if I can figure that out, I can make my husband be considerate, appreciative of what I cook. He might even cook. That's going a little far.

No, I mean you can do that too. Okay? You can design what happens with your partner.

All right? And that would be nice. If there's a little...

Most people's partners are like 75% cool. You wouldn't stay with them unless they were 75% cool. But there's the other 25% also.

You would like to make some improvements. Okay? And it's always like that.

And admit it. And then make them. Make the improvements.

And make them perfect. Why settle for less? If you can change reality, then get something you want.

Okay? So if you understand the wheel... Now we're going to go back to the wheel in a more subtle form.

Okay? The wheel has been taught in many, many different ways. We just went through it in a lifetime and a half.

Because the first link happened in your last life. Okay? The first link happened in your last life.

You yelled back in your last life. And then you were born in this life. Okay?

That's how we just traced... Actually, there's three lifetimes in a normal cycle of the wheel. At between number 10 and 11, the person was born.

Right? So that's the pregnant lady and then there was a child. So normally it takes three lifetimes to go through one round of the wheel.

There's an Abhidharma presentation where you go through the whole wheel in one second. Okay? In a minute of your life, all 12 links go off.

Let's say a minute. Okay? In one minute of your life, 12 links go off.

And there's a way to teach it that way. And we're not going to do it that way. Okay?

We're going to do it the way that... Who did it? Nagarjuna.

Arya Nagarjuna. So now pull out your sheet of paper with the cool guy on the front. I'm going to give you a break in like 10 minutes, so don't despair.

Okay? If your knees are sore or something like that, your butt... I need a copy.

Anybody? He'll take notes for you. So, if you don't have a copy, will you...

Miriam, do you have more? Will you raise your hand if you don't have a copy? This is to see how long you can hold up your hand.

And someone will come by. Maybe when they're in your area, you can raise your hand again, okay? Just so you don't kill yourself.

Okay, so I'm going to start reading. We have about 10 minutes before the break. Let's go through Nagarjuna.

By the end of tonight, we will learn how to trigger positive seeds that you already have. Okay? You already have lots of good seeds.

Why did the creepy seed open the night you cooked the quiche? Okay? And can you stop that kind of thing?

Can you make nice seeds open? Because you have both. You have billions of both.

Can you control the process? I think when you teach something, you should have tried it yourself. Duh!

Okay? I mean, like if you're going to sell a vacuum cleaner, you should throw some dirt on your carpet, and you should try the vacuum cleaner out on your carpet. Because otherwise, you go to this person's house and you try to sell them a vacuum cleaner, and they're like, well, how did you like it?

And they say, well, I haven't used one. And it's kind of weird, you know? So, I personally use these things, and it works, okay?

I personally use them, and they work, okay? What you want, you can have. A beautiful relationship, or you can have a, I don't know, healthy body, or you can have a financial, whatever you want financially, okay?

And inner peace, right? You can have it. It's doable, all right?

So, here we go. Gyagar-gedu pratitya samutpada hrdaya karika. In the language of India, this text is known as pratitya samutpada hrdaya karika.

Say, pratitya samutpada hrdaya karika. The Tibetan text that I have misspelled the Sanskrit, okay? It's not unusual, all right?

There were different ways to spell words, and also, because most Tibetans, by the time it was carved, didn't know Sanskrit, they miscarved it, okay? Those of you who care, the I in pratitya should be long, and the A in pada should be long. It should be pratitya samutpada, okay?

Pratitya means depending on another thing. One thing depending on another thing, okay? Sam means together.

It came into English as com, C-O-M, like committee, okay? Ut means very much like uttanasana, right? Very much stretch.

Tan means stretch, right? As in tenuous or tendon. So utt means very much.

Pada means to go into existence, to walk into existence. Pada comes from the word, the root pada means foot, or to step, or to come. And it came into pedal, and pedestrian, and podiatrist, and tripod, and, okay?

The Greek tends to go to O, the Latin tends to go to E, from the Sanskrit A, okay? So samutpada means, pratitya samutpada means stuff came together, one thing triggered another thing, and stuff happened. Stuff came together, one thing triggered another thing, and something happened, okay?

What? You didn't understand what you were doing last week. You said something to someone at work.

You made a pot. Step number two. That triggered a pot, all right?

Now I want you to appreciate something, okay? I don't know how to do it here. Watch the arrow, okay?

I'll try to do it this way. Watch the cursor, all right? If you want to be successful in your life, okay?

If you want to be successful in your life, you only need five of the links, okay? You can get away with five. If you understand five, you'll be all right.

Let's go back to Nagarjuna. It's in here. pho kye du ten chen dewa chenway nyingpo chik lyur chepa hrdaya, hrdaya means heart.

Hrd, hrdaya, hrd is the root for heart. Sometimes the H becomes a hard sound. H, hardyak, cardiac.

Okay, so cardiac and heart both come from hrdaya. So hrdaya means heart. He's going to give you the essence.

He says, look, forget the twelve links. I can give it to you in like five. I can give you the whole story in five links.

What story? How to make your husband truly appreciative of you, which would be very beautiful, you know? By the way, you can tackle your husband's character step by step, okay?

You can start with appreciation. Then you can go on to affection, and then loyalty, and then equality, and then perhaps listening to you. No, I mean you can tackle the qualities of your partner one by one with karma, okay?

One by one. You can mold them into a truly kind, loyal, sensitive, affectionate person, okay? But you have to know the links.

You have to know how, okay? It's not enough to plant random seeds if it might take a billion lifetimes for them to open. We don't have time, okay?

Who cares? Let next lifetime mind take care of himself. So, all right.

Djam pa shun nu gyur pa la chak tsa lo. I bow down to gentle voice, become young, okay? So, in a Buddhist book, when it starts by bowing down to Manjushri, the angel of wisdom, which is called gentle voice.

Manju means gentle. Gosha, or Sri in this case, means voice, okay? Gentle voice.

Whenever they bow down to Manjushri at the beginning of a book, it means emptiness will be important in this book. It's a sign. If you bow down to the angel of wisdom at the beginning of the book, it means emptiness is going to be the subject of this book.

With your husband walking over to the phone to call for pizza, what's that terrible pizza, cheap one? Domino's, yeah. He's like, what's the number for Domino's, honey?

You know? And when he's, okay, when he's walking over to make the call for the pizza, how do you feel? He asks you.

Not only does he say, how about, I was thinking of pizza. That's thoughtless and heartless and callous, right? But then he asks you for the phone number.

Okay? That's like, he's totally clueless that it hurts you that he's not going to eat what you cook for three hours, okay? It hurts, right?

He's totally clueless. Then any normal person, I don't know how it is with you, but I feel a physical tightening in my chest. I feel some kind of a deep down, it must be some kind of prana thing, I don't know, but I feel like I can't breathe a little bit.

There's a little spot in my heart, in my chest, where I can't breathe, and I'm getting angry. Like, he hurt me. And then I'm like, you know, you can look up the goddamn Domino's number.

You want pizza instead of Simcha's spinach quiche, then you can look up the number. Now I have a question for you, okay? This is important.

This is crucial. If you want to be happy in your life, if you want to be successful and happy in your life, okay? Are you angry?

Are you getting angry? Yeah, I mean, you start to feel that pain in your chest. I do.

And that's a sign that anger is starting, right? Anger has started. There's a tightening in your chest, and you feel, into your mouth comes the words, you look up the goddamn number, you know?

Then that means you're getting angry, right? Question. Think carefully.

Are you angry at your husband at that moment? Of course you are. Who else are you angry at?

Domino's? No, he's there. He's standing there dialing the phone number.

You're angry at your husband. I think so. I'm not trying to be philosophical.

Let's just talk. He's there. He's standing there.

He's dialing Domino's number. He doesn't care. He says, okay, I will find the number.

I'll 411. You'll pay the 75 cents, you know? You know?

No, you're angry at your husband. That's true, okay? Is there a husband there that you are angry at?

Yeah, he's dialing the phone. The phone is moving. There must be a finger.

No, it's just plain real. He's there. Someone is dialing the phone.

Does your husband exist at that moment? Yes. Is there a husband there?

Yes. Is he irritating? Yes.

Is there a husband there who came from criticizing someone last week? Yeah, that's the one you're mad at. Okay?

All right? That's where he came from, okay? By the way, the fact that your husband came from you criticizing someone last week is pratityasamutpada, dependent origination, okay?

Pratityasamutpada. That is how things really happen. Everything in your life happens because you did something good or bad to someone else before, and nothing ever happens any other way.

Nothing, okay? Last question, okay? Here we are.

Is there a husband dialing, what was the company? Domino's, who you're angry at, who did not come from your own behavior last week? Okay?

That's emptiness, and emptiness will save your life. Okay? Emptiness will save your life, okay?

The husband you're angry at is the one who did not come from what you did last week, and that husband is not there, and never was, and never could be, because there's nothing in your life which is not coming from how you treat other people. Okay? So the great irony of every wrinkle in your face as you grow older is that you grew them towards things that didn't even exist.

It's one thing to have wrinkles all over your face, right? It's another thing to understand that none of them, that they were all developed by feelings towards things that were never there, that were not there.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
It's a tragedy of life, okay? If the husband didn't come from you, it'd be okay to get pissed off when he calls dominos, okay? But if he's coming from you, can you really make a face at him?

I mean, you should go in the bathroom and make a face in the mirror at the person who really did it. I'm not kidding, okay? And you won't, because you will forgive that person.

We are very forgiving of one person in the world. Okay? May I forgive others as I forgive myself.

Okay, got it? All the sadness, it's a barometer that you have link number one. It's a barometer.

It's a litmus test. Do you understand the world? Anytime you feel sad, anytime you feel angry, anytime you feel jealous, you are in link number one.

You have ignorance. You must have, okay? You cannot feel angry at anyone if you understood they were coming from you.

It's not possible. Nobody goes in the bathroom and yells at the mirror and says, why the hell did you make the husband call dominos? You know, nobody.

They blame it on the husband who had nothing to do with it. He has nothing to do with it. It's coming from you, okay?

It's like the dog yelling at the pen. Why aren't you a chew toy? You know, you make it.

Okay, got it? So, link number one. What I'm trying to say is, why did Nagarjuna bow down to Manjushri at the beginning of his explanation of the wheel?

Because the book's about emptiness. What does emptiness mean? Emptiness means that any time you get angry at another person, the person you're angry at is never there.

You are wrestling with phantoms, okay? Then, understand the tragedy of unhappiness in human being, okay? Understand the tragedy of poverty, or hunger, or sickness, or old age, or not having a beautiful partner.

It has all come from you, okay? And the ones you're angry about and upset about were never there. And that's emptiness.

Got it? Emptiness is not some weird philosophical Buddhist thing where you stare at a wall and try not to think about anything. That is...

I don't know. I wanted to say filthy or something like that. That misunderstanding is...

It's like selling people fire extinguishers that you know don't work. And when a fire breaks out, they will suffer. Okay?

Telling someone, stare at a wall, don't think about anything, is to ruin how the ideas work. Okay? They won't work.

When you need them, they won't work. Okay? If you understand emptiness, you're going to use it when?

When he starts dialing dominoes. And that will help your life, okay? So this book, Nagarjuna says, this book is going to be about emptiness.

What is this book? He's going to explain the wheel in a shortcut. Okay?

Five steps. He dumps seven of them. Okay?

I'm going to do a little bit more. I know I promised you a break, but I always do that. yen la che dak chu nyi khang dupey ten jung sung de dak nyonmong ne dang dungyal dang sungpo dak tu sepa du You can group all the twelve links into three groups.

You can take the twelve links and you can group them into three groups. What are they? Page two.

dangpo gyed dang gun yonmong You should memorize this verse. If you're learning ACI or something, you should memorize this verse in Tibetan. Okay?

It should be in your mind stream when you die. You should carry it to your next world, okay, with you. If you're going to learn anything, learn this verse.

Okay? dangpo gyed dang gun yonmong nyi dang chupa le yin te hlakma dungyang dungyal yin chu nyi chu nyi sung du du The twelve things can be grouped into three. Link number one.

Tell me the picture and you can have... Tell me these pictures, you can have your refreshments. If not, I'll keep going.

What's link number one? The blind man. What's link number eight?

Yeah, I know it's desirable. What was happening? Yeah, he was drinking.

Francis knows that. And what's link number nine? Yeah, he was grabbing at something, okay?

He was grabbing at something, okay? Those three. Number one, the blind man.

Number two, the person over... What do we say? Indulging.

And the third one, grasping, okay? These three are negative emotions. Out of the twelve links, three of them are negative emotions.

All right? Those three. One, eight, and nine.

You should just have it on your lips. You should have it like a mantra. Somebody says, hey, which three of the links are negative emotions?

One, eight, and nine, okay? Then what does he say next? Nyi dang chupa le yin te.

Number two and number ten are karma. Number two and number ten are karma. What's happening in picture number two?

Making pots. What's happening in picture number ten usually? A pregnant woman, okay?

Both are karma. One was the karma last week when you criticized a worker, a co-worker. One was the karma in the instant that he starts to say, I was thinking of having pizza, okay?

The second one is an onion seed which is about to pop out of the earth. The first one was when I first put the bulb in the ground. Okay, got it?

Fresh karma, and then ripe karma. Karma that's about to trigger, okay? If we could figure out the mechanism which takes a seed from two to ten, we could control our life.

You could make a... I heard the company... I met the president this morning.

The company's up to $250 million now. It went up another $50 million, okay? You could make a $250 million company with no experience and with no knowledge of business and no interest in business.

You could make a $250 million company, okay? No problem. If you could isolate what triggers a seed, what makes a seed go from fresh, just planted, to just about to go off.

What is it under the ground that makes the seed somehow ready to explode? Because then you could take that power and apply it to all the good seeds inside of you. And then you'd just have a pleasant life the rest of your life.

By the way, you can shut down the bad ones. They can just go into cold storage. Seriously, there's a way to do that, okay?

So, just try to... We'll take a break now, but I want you to try to... Just try to...

What I'm trying to tell you... Understand what I'm trying to tell you. Between making the pots and being the pregnant woman, okay?

Between those two steps of karma, something has sharpened the karma. Something has made the karma come to ripen and just about to explode, okay? If we could figure out what that is, you could have anything in your life, okay?

You could have a truly happy life. And that would change the world. And that would save the world, okay?

It's beautiful. We'll talk about it tomorrow, okay? Anyone who understands the wheel, who understands what takes the karma from number two to number ten, is saving the world.

You are Spider-Man, okay? You are Transformer. He saved the world three times, okay?

I'm not kidding, okay? I'm not kidding. If you understand what's happening between two and ten, and if you apply it to your own life, you automatically save the world.

The rest of the world. Even if you don't do it for yourself, do it for somebody else. Do it for the rest of the world, okay?

Your husband will stop calling Dominos, and you will also save the world, okay? In the same moment, in the same effort, understand what takes the karma from two to ten, and you save the world. And you make your husband appreciate a good dinner, okay?

Got it? Isn't that cool? Just you need to know one small thing, and that's after the break.

You don't get to hear it after break. Okay, thank you. We'll take a 15-minute break.

Okay, we'll start. We'll start. We were talking about, before I ate the cupcake, we were talking about what is it that triggers a seed, okay?

So, in link number two, which is what? What's the drawing? A potter.

A guy's making pots, okay? In link number two, we are making fresh karma, okay? We are just starting a karma.

In our example, I was critical of a person at work last week, okay? And I made a fresh karma, all right? Then, in link number ten, right?

Chupasipa. The woman is pregnant. The karma has been sharpened.

The karma has been charged. What do you call it in a bomb when you do something and then suddenly it's very dangerous? You arm the bomb, okay?

You arm it, okay? So, a karmic seed, when you first do it, is like a potter's pot. It's like an unarmed bomb, okay?

It cannot go off. It doesn't have the trigger in it to go off. And then, something happens underground, right?

Isn't it mysterious in the case of a plant, right? Something is happening between the time you put the seed in the ground and the time that the fruit comes up or the flower comes up. Something mysterious and beautiful and extremely powerful is happening under the ground.

Like, did you... If you're a gardener, maybe you feel that, you know? You plant this...

I plant... I like... People bring me...

They're called seed bombs. And they're like little dirt clods. They're little balls of mud.

And somebody goes and gets wildflower seeds at random and wraps them in a little ball of mud that's about half an inch across. And you just take your chances. And I love those things.

I love to throw them all over the garden. You're not supposed to plant them. You're supposed to close your eyes and go...

And then you plant them, right? That's number two. That's link number two.

Nipa duché ki le. That's fresh karma, okay? Then that seed lies in the earth of your subconscious.

That seed stays in your subconscious, right? And something happens to it. Something waters the seed.

And then you... And then suddenly it's a pregnant woman and it's about to explode. Like we have one...

Where'd she go? Maybe she went to explode. I don't know.

We had a nice talk over the break. So our question, and what I want to leave you with tonight was, is there some convenient practice that all of us can do to somehow select, out of the millions of seeds in our mind, the good ones? And can we trigger them?

Can we arm them? Can we make them go off, okay? In order to do that, we should study what the wheel has to say about negative seeds going off.

What triggers number two? What takes number two to number ten is number eight and number nine. Somebody asked me to sign a Wheel of Life book, and they said, could you write something for me?

I said, eight plus nine. It wasn't just because I was in a hurry, okay? Eight and nine are crucial for us, okay?

That's the key to your happiness, all right? If you want to be successful, and you want your partner to be beautiful, and you want to be healthy, and you want to live in a world which has peace and prosperity in the whole world, then you have to understand the process of eight and nine, okay? And it's subtle, okay?

What arms a karmic seed in your mind? What makes a karmic seed go off? In negative terms, okay?

In negative terms, eight is initial desire, nine is intense desire. Eight is initial desire, nine is intensified desire. Those two cause the pot to become a pregnant woman.

Got it? Those two make a seed start to explode, all right? It's not as simple as saying you shouldn't want things, okay?

It's not as simple as saying you shouldn't desire anything. That's a mistake. That's a classic, ancient, idiotic mistake, okay?

Over the last 25 centuries, people looked at the wheel, number eight was called initial desire, number nine was called advanced desire, and people concluded that they shouldn't want anything, which is ridiculous, okay? Every painting you ever saw of Buddha Amitabha's paradise was a paradise, okay? It wasn't like of the Bowery, you know.

No, I mean it was nice, okay? It was desirable, okay? It's not wrong to want nice things in your life.

To think that it's wrong is foolish, okay? People ask me, are you tight with the Dalai Lama? I say, yeah, we're really tight.

And they say, are you really? And I said, come on, man, we had dinner together. It's like, you had dinner with the Dalai Lama?

I'm like, yeah, I did, you know, me and like 500 other people. And they're like, what, where was this? And I'm like, oh, it was down in Washington, D.C., and they had a fundraiser. This is like 20 years ago, okay? I'm with my Lama, Khen Rinpoche, and he says, let's go down, you know. And the Dalai Lama was introduced by this guy.

And I said to Rinpoche, I said, do you know who the guy is? And he said, is he a congressman or a senator? I said, no, no, not a senator.

And then he stared at him and he said, oh, I got it, it's Indiana Jones. I said, yeah, his name's Harrison Ford, okay? And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then he introduced him. Then we all had dinner together, right? In like a football field.

And we could almost see him down around the goal line. We were on the 50-yard line, you know, with all these tables. And nobody's eating.

Everybody's staring at the Dalai Lama. And I don't know about the other people, but I was really curious. What will he eat, you know?

And, you know, I thought he would just use his tantric third finger and go like that. And they brought the food out and they set a big plate in front of him and he grabbed a fork and he grabbed a spoon and he went, ha, ha, ha. And I was like, God, it looks like he's enjoying the food.

And he asked for seconds. And he knocked that out fast. And everybody's trying to talk to him.

He's like, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then this thought came into my mind. Because of his purity, he is enjoying dinner more than anybody in this room.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Like we're all eating dinner and he has a higher capacity for enjoyment than everybody else in the room. Does he like the dinner? Obviously, he was enjoying the dinner.

Was it some kind of clean, pure, happy liking? Yes. Is it wrong, therefore, to have pure, happy liking?

No. You can enjoy donuts. You can enjoy watermelons.

You can enjoy having a nice job that's interesting and creative and pays well. You can enjoy having a beautiful partner. You can enjoy having a body that functions well and it feels good, you know.

And you can enjoy having a beautiful state of mind inside. These are not wrong. And that's not desire.

And that's not number eight. And that's not number nine. Okay?

Got it? That's not what desire means in the wheel. And it's not what desire means.

Is it wrong to desire that everyone in the world should have enough money and enough food? It's not wrong. Okay?

To think that's wrong is foolish. Is it wrong to enjoy a pizza? No.

Enjoy a pizza. I would even say the opposite. I would say a truly spiritual person enjoys pizza more than other people.

Okay? Like Dharmamitra. Go to Dharmamitra's class, right?

Obviously, he's enjoying himself. And he's a very spiritual person. So, desire doesn't mean that you have to deny yourself the things which you like or that it's wrong to like anything.

That's a very foolish idea. It means trying to get them the wrong way. Okay?

Desire, in this case, means trying to get things the wrong way. And then that becomes number eight. And that becomes number nine.

And that takes your karma... That triggers the negative seeds in your life. Okay?

That triggers the negative seeds in your life. Example, okay? Like, I met with a film attorney today.

We're working on the rights for the... We're drawing up the contracts to make a film, a Hollywood film out of How Yoga Works. Okay?

So, they came to us. The directors came. They did one of the most important movies in the 20th century, and I'm proud to say they're going to do ours.

It was Legally Blonde No. 2. Okay?

But so, we're with the lawyer today. We're like drawing up all these contracts and stuff like that, you know? And so, people...

So, we started to interview actresses and actors, right? We started this process. Rebecca's working on the casting.

Where is she? Yeah, she used to be a casting director, and so she's working on the casting. So, we're like interviewing people, right?

And we're asking them, you know, how would you get a part in a... Let's say you followed this system. If you understood how to create the seed to get a part in a Hollywood movie, right?

Then how would you get the seed? How would you get the part? Okay?

How would you get the part? And the process has been very eye-opening for me because people come, you know, to... What do you call it?

Audition. And they're so vulnerable, you see? They want it so badly, you know?

Every young lady wants to be the star of the movie, you know? And I can see where people would take advantage of people. It's a very powerful position, right?

To say, yes, you're going to be the next star, you know? And you're not. You see what I mean?

And then... So, they are coming, and I'm watching them, and I'm thinking, do they understand how to get the part? How do you get the part?

You know? I had a very successful actress gave a testimonial one night at one of our teachings in China, okay? A very successful actress.

And we asked her, how did you become successful? And she said, something strange happened to me. I was at an audition.

There were a thousand other people there, you know? For one part. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I should help someone else get the part, you know?

And she tried to help someone else get the part, you know? And they chose her. You got it?

Do you see? What's the natural... What's our natural human behavior when we are competing for a part in a Hollywood movie?

We will try to make the other people look bad. We will compete with them. We will stare at them in the line, you know?

And wish that they don't succeed. Right? Like that.

Yeah. We will try to put ourselves ahead of them. Right?

That's number eight. Okay? That's number eight.

Competition. To try to get things through competition. That's wrong desire.

That's ignorant desire. Why is it wrong? What makes it wrong?

Does God dislike it? He does, but that's not why it's wrong. Okay?

Why is it wrong? It doesn't work. It just simply doesn't work.

Okay? Desire is wrong, and approach is wrong, morally wrong, if it doesn't work. Try those pants on for size.

These are Kevin's pants. I forgot my pants. Okay?

And I'm like, Kevin, can you help me? He says, I got an extra pair of pants. You know, they're kind of big, because he's much bigger than me.

But try those pants on for size. Okay? Just try those pants on for size.

Okay? What? Something is evil, or something is morally wrong, if it doesn't work to get you what you want.

Then it's wrong. Okay? And by the way, then it will hurt other people.

Okay? If you try to get the part in the movie by competing, or trying to make the other person look bad, then you are hurting yourself, and you are hurting them, and that's evil, and that's wrong. Okay?

Because it doesn't work, and you won't get the part. So in Buddhism, right or wrong is defined by does it work or not. So in this case, what would be right?

I want to be famous in Hollywood. Let's say I want to be a famous actor. I don't want to, but if someone wanted to be a famous actor, according to this system, what should they do?

They should plant a seed. They should plant a seed. Don't send out resumes.

Okay? Don't compete. I met Harrison.

I was a consultant on one of their films, right? Kundun, right? So I went with them.

I met them. I taught them about... They wanted to know what the Geshe course was, and we spent a lot of time together.

I said, how did you get your first part? He says, I was a carpenter. I was doing cabinets in Hollywood.

I was installing a cabinet in this lady's house, and I turned around, and she said, you're the one that I wanted for this part. It's all... It just happens that way, right?

It's not by sending out resumes. It's not by going to acting school. It's not by buttering up the director or the casting person, right?

It... The seed is planted by making sure someone else gets what they want, which is similar. Okay?

That's how the seed is planted. And that... The opposite of that is number eight.

Okay? Acting in the opposite way will trigger negative karmas that are sitting in your mind. Okay?

Acting in the opposite way, competition, trying to make yourself look good, okay? Pushing aside other people is number eight. Okay?

It's wrong. It's mistaken, and you won't get what you want. Okay?

That's number eight. So what would number nine be? What would be an intensification of that?

That's where you would actually hurt somebody to get what you want. All right? Where you would actually hurt someone to get what you want.

So understand this. What we call normal human behavior is constantly selecting negative karmas from your storehouse and making them ripen. Okay?

Competitive activity. Not sharing things. Not serving other people.

Not making sure other people get what you want. In order to get what you want will continually cause negative seeds to open in your mind, and you will have a sad life, and you will be unhappy, and you will not get the things you want. And that's number eight, and that's number nine.

Okay? That kind of behavior ripens negative seeds in your mind, and then you have an unhappy life. Okay?

It's very sad. Normal behavior in this world is what causes the pain of the world.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Trying to get things through any method other than helping others get what they want is mistaken, and it will only ripen negative seeds in your mind. Okay? It will only ripen negative karmas in your mind.

So then how do you ripen a good karma in your mind? How do you sharpen a good karma in your mind? Tell me.

Yeah, anytime you want something, help someone else get it first. Okay? And that causes positive seeds to rise up in your mind.

Okay? And you will get all the things you want. It's a very strange system.

Okay? It sounds strange. By the way, there are worlds where people already do this.

There are whole planets where people already... They consider us savages. Okay?

They look at our world and they say, oh look, they're so sad. They think to get a movie part you have to compete, or you have to send out more resumes, or you have to go to acting school longer, or you have to butter up the director. They are so funny.

Okay? They are hurting themselves. Okay?

If you want a part in a movie, what do you do? You help someone else get a part in a movie. That's all.

Okay? We have a woman, you guys know Summer Moore? She's been trying to get a part in a Hollywood movie.

She moved to L.A. from Colorado. How many years ago? Fifteen, ten years ago?

So finally she came to me and said, okay, tell me how I get a part. I can't get a part in a movie. I said, you go help someone else make a movie.

And she did. She did these charitable films for a charity. And she just got signed for a huge multi...

what do you call? Multi-film deal? She's the star of a multi-film national film deal.

Okay? She just planted the seed. Alright?

That's planting the seed. We have to talk about how to sharpen that seed. Okay?

It's not enough to go running around helping other people get the things that you want. It's not enough. Then, that's how you plant the seed.

But then you know, you have to know how to sharpen the seed. And there's a trick. And if you learn the trick, then you could have anything you want.

Okay? And it's very frustrating for me to stand up here and see anyone not get what they want. You know, I come back and...

I always come back in like six months. I say, did you get your part in your movie? No.

Did you try to get a part in a movie? Yes. What did you do?

I send out more resumes. And I'm like, well, is that what we agreed you would do? No.

Did you help someone else get a part in a movie? No. Did you get your part?

No. I want to hire a guy to just walk around me. Big, strong, bouncer type guy.

You know? Why? He's just going to walk around with me everywhere I go.

And then when I come back to New York in six months, I say, did you get the thing you were hoping for? No. People come up to me.

They come up to me. They have the gall to come up to me. Geshe-la.

What? How can I get a part in a movie? I'm like, didn't we have this conversation six months ago?

Yeah. What did we decide to do? I was supposed to help someone else get a part in a movie.

Well, did you? No. But how do I get a part in a movie?

You know? And then I'm going to go like this. I'm going to go like this.

And then he'll just pick them up and throw them. You know? Because I'm so tired of it.

I'm so tired of saying the same thing over. Venerable Ningbo says I should have a tape recorder in my pocket. It says, why don't you try helping someone get what you want?

And then I can have a cupcake or something while it's going. I'm not kidding. You don't know how frustrating it is.

And how sad it is. Because my friends, people I care for, people I love, who want things, who want to be happy, and I see they're not happy and I'm like, did you take care of somebody else? They're like, no.

Are you happy? No. Then I'm like, that's how I lost all the hair, okay?

I was tearing it out, you know? So I suggest, I'll give you a beginning, and then tomorrow we'll go into the detail, okay? I'll give you the beginning of it, because we ran out of time.

But tomorrow I'll give you the detail, okay? There's a practice, which is part of a larger practice, which we will cover tomorrow, okay? There's a practice you can do that will trigger seeds in your mind, good seeds, okay?

It will trigger good seeds in your mind. Many people in this room already have all the good seeds they need to have whatever they want, because you have been alive for countless lifetimes. You have every kind of seed already in you, okay?

You just didn't know how to make them grow, okay? They're lying dormant in your subconscious. There are millions, billions of seeds, countless seeds are there.

Then you just have to sundepa. Sundepa means, how do you isolate a good seed and trigger it, arm it? How do you arm it, right?

So this is the trick, and it's very simple. I'm going to teach it tonight, in case some people can't come tomorrow, okay? I'm just going to start tonight.

I'll give you the basics of it, and tomorrow we'll talk about the detail, okay? And don't say it sounds dumb, because if you think it sounds dumb, then you're dumb, okay? Because it's simple, and most profound spiritual truths are simple, okay?

So don't mistake simple for dumb, because then you're not simple. Okay. As you fall asleep at night, when you lay down on your bed, your mind, your consciousness opens up, okay?

It becomes very, very vulnerable to outside forces. The Tibetans call them spirits. I don't think you have to say spirits.

I don't think you have to call it spirits. If you want to, you can. They call it spirit influence, right?

But as you fall off to sleep, your consciousness opens, and you reach a different state of mind, okay? It's called the sleeping state of mind, right? And the dream state.

Those two states of mind are very, very open, and huge changes take place in the mind as you fall off to sleep. This is just a basic Tibetan naropa. It's in the six yogas of naropa, right?

Dream yoga. Your mind opens, your consciousness opens as you fall off to sleep. So very great influences can be impressed on your mind as you fall off to sleep, okay?

The whole day is not as important as the last ten minutes, okay? The whole day is not as important as the last ten minutes. So this is how the last ten minutes of your day is supposed to go, and should go, okay?

You lay down on your bed. Don't go to sleep right away. Like, get comfortable.

I like the one elbow up thing, okay? You can put a couple... I keep three pillows on my bed for this final opening of the subconscious.

It's a conscious, it's a purposeful opening of the subconscious as you fall asleep, okay? It's a very sophisticated technique of triggering a positive seed in your mind, okay? That's our goal, right?

Number eight and number nine. How do you do number eight and number nine in a positive way? When you are falling asleep, your mind will focus...

Because you are tired and because it's the end of the day, it's natural that the mind will focus on problems, okay? And you know that, okay? As you're trying to fall asleep, your mind will...

I don't know exactly why. I think it's because you're tired, but your mind will focus on financial problems or problems with your partner or health problems or job problems or world problems, right? And your mind...

Everybody I know, almost everyone, as they fall asleep, they worry. They worry about stuff, you know? Especially if you wake up during the night, okay?

Like you fall asleep for a couple of hours because you're exhausted. Then somehow you wake up and you're worrying about stuff. You're thinking about stuff that has not gone right in your life.

That's when you make all these promises to do stupid things and hurt other people. Like, I'm going to get that person, you know? You make dumb plans in the middle of the night.

It's a bad time to make plans, okay? Don't trust your own mind in the middle of the night. So the mind will focus on financial problems, personal problems, work problems, okay?

Problems in your life. If you want to try link number eight and link number nine in a positive way, if you want to trigger heavy karmic seas in your mind as you fall asleep, you must focus on the good things you're doing in your life. Anything, okay?

Anything. It doesn't matter. This morning I smiled at somebody on the bus, okay?

If that's the only good thing you did all day, isolate that thing and focus on it, okay? Really. Really.

I'm trying to bring you your life's dreams, okay? There is no expiration date on these good things. If you haven't done a really good thing for three years, go back three years, okay?

It doesn't matter because the seed is in your mind and the seed is as fresh and as powerful as the day you planted it, okay? Three years ago, I gave up a promotion so that another person at work could have the promotion. I had the guts, I had the courage, which I no longer have, okay?

Three years ago I did a noble thing. And think about it, okay? And this is your mind, okay?

Your mind will slide back to some problem you're having. Yeah, but... Yeah, but my boyfriend said this today.

Then you're going to say, excuse me, this is... we call it coffee meditation, I'll explain it tomorrow. This is coffee meditation time.

Please come back over here. This is your mind, okay? We're going to think about the nice things we did today.

We're going to sundepa. We're going to select and to intensify positive seeds before we sleep because all night they will intensify. All night, eight hours, six hours, those seeds will double, triple, quadruple, hundredfold by morning because your consciousness is open, okay?

So, no. We're not going to worry about problems as we fall asleep. Come over here.

Come over here. Now, have you done anything nice today? Yeah, but my husband said...

No, no. Yeah, come back, come back. Did anything good happen today?

Did you smile? Yeah, but my... No.

And then watch, watch the attempt to grab the mind and move it to something positive is the meaning of meditation. That is meditation. That, action.

No, we're not thinking about problems as I fall asleep. After tonight, we're not doing that anymore. When you think about a problem before you fall asleep, the subconscious will work on that negative seed all night and it'll just make your life worse, okay?

So, no. We're going to think about nice things. You helped somebody.

You opened the door for somebody. And then focus on the details, okay? Focus on the details.

I was walking down the hall. I didn't have a lot of time. I was busy.

This older person was approaching the door. I paused for a few seconds and I opened the door for them and I asked them to come to the door. And that was a beautiful thing.

That was a beautiful action. That was well done, okay? That state of mind before you fall asleep will trigger positive seeds.

It will arm positive seeds. And then weird stuff will happen in your life, okay? I always wanted to make a film out of that particular book that I wrote.

They called me, okay? The guy called me. The director flew to my house from L.A. to ask me if he could make...

You know, I didn't go looking for directors or movie makers. I would have never chosen this one anyway. But...

No, but it turns out he's perfect. He's a beautiful, beautiful person. And what I'm saying is it works, it really works.

And it's such a pleasant practice. As you fall asleep, review the good things you've done for other people. It's so simple, okay?

That's all. And you will have whatever you desire because that will arm the karmic seed and that will trigger the karmic seed. It's very sophisticated, okay?

It's very, very spiritually sophisticated, okay? It's not some dumb thing you do while you fall asleep, okay? So if I never see you again, if you don't come back tomorrow, just do that, okay?

And you will have a happy life, all right? If you're after a certain goal, as you fall asleep, review any way in which you have tried to provide that thing to another person. If you're an aspiring Hollywood actress and you want a part in a movie, as you fall asleep, you should be thinking about what?

How you helped another aspiring actor or actress in any tiny way to get a gig. Okay? That's all, okay?

So your assignment, you know, until we come back again. And we'll continue tomorrow with more detail, okay? I love philosophy.

I'll give you more detail. But your assignment for tomorrow is, for tonight, start this practice. As you fall asleep, as you fall asleep, review the things you have done to provide someone else with your dream.

Got it? Clear? If you nod, you get to go home.

If you don't, I'll probably keep talking. All right. Okay, just try it, okay?

You don't have to suffer and struggle through life, okay? You can have a $250 million company. Just sleep correctly.

I'm not kidding, okay? It's so frustrating to watch people work so hard. Like, just lay down the right way.

You know, okay? I'm not kidding. I'm really not kidding, okay?

So, please try it. It's a very difficult practice. Many, many people come to me around the world and they say, I couldn't do it.

I tried, but I couldn't control my mind. It kept worrying. It kept going to my problems, you know?

So, don't be like one of those losers, okay? You have enough strength to suggest to your mind, come on, let's come over here and think about something sweet before we fall asleep, okay? Got it?

Okay, all right. Let's give away the good karma, okay? This is a tradition in Tibet.

You can just go like this if you want. I'd like to thank Jared and Myriad for a beautiful song tonight, singing a beautiful song. And maybe they could do the mandala offering for us.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah. Thank you.

[Говорящий 1]
See you tomorrow.