Углублённый курс ACI: Колесо жизни в Сутре сердца (1999, Сан-Франциско), занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
So, we were talking about the Wheel of Life and we decided to go at it through the system of Nagarjuna. So, Nagarjuna lived about 18 centuries ago in India, about the time of Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutras. And he wrote that small poem about the Wheel of Life and he divided it into three different parts.

He said, three of the twelve links, and I'm showing you the twelve links now. Tonight we're going to work on the traditional twelve links rather than the modern painting which Ori worked on. And three of these twelve links are negative emotions.

Nagarjuna said, Arya Nagarjuna said, you can understand the wheel most correctly if you understand that three of the images in the twelve are negative emotions. I'll try out this thing, let me see. Number one, which is ignorance, tamo marigpa, which is indicated by a blind man, who doesn't know what they're doing.

That's the first of the three negative emotions in the wheel. Then we could skip to number eight, which is, sorry, that's eight, right? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, gepa, sepa, which means, it's a man overindulging in drink, and that represents fresh desire or initial desire.

And then number nine, which is called gupa-lemba, or grasping, or taking, is the ninth, and that's sort of an advanced desire. So there's an initial desire, an advanced desire, and then there's an ignorance. And only those three of all of the twelve links are negative emotions in the human mind, okay?

Ignorance, a kind of desire, which is beginning, and a kind of desire, which is grabbing, all right? Those three negative emotions in a human being trigger karma, okay? And there are two links which represent karma in the wheel, all right?

What's the first one of those two? Yeah, the potter at link number two, okay? That's called the sanskara or fresh karma.

This person is making new karma. For example, I don't know, I don't know. Let's say at some point in your life you were attracted to a man or a woman, and then you did something to upset a relationship that they already had, okay?

So we're allowed to, it's fine to hit on somebody if they're free, all right? If they're committed to someone else, then that's a bad karma, okay? So you could say you see somebody, you talk to them, you find out that they are married or they're in a committed relationship, and then you don't stop.

You keep trying to interest them in you. That would be the second link. That would be a fresh karma, all right?

That would cause a fresh karmic seed to be planted in your mind at number two. There's one other link which is karma. Which one?

Yeah, it's number ten. Chupasipa in Tibetan, which is a pregnant woman, okay? It means this karma is about to produce a rebirth which happens in link number eleven.

So these are, this karma is about to go off. It's about to explode, all right? Like a very pregnant lady, all right?

This karma is ready to produce some kind of suffering in your life. This could be two years later, you are in a relationship, and then the person comes home and they start texting somebody all the time with a big smile on their face and hiding the phone when you say something, okay? And then you get nervous, right?

That means the karma has, the karma sat in your mind for two years and then it started to open. So that's, you know, that's messing around with someone else's relationship earlier, a couple years earlier, and then this is a karma which is ripening this year in your own relationship, to hurt your own relationship, okay? So, what we've been talking about is what is it, what is the force which is acting under the ground when you plant a seed, you know?

I planted seeds for my garden already in Arizona, okay? And I know they won't come up until the summer, you know, it's an act of faith, right? I plant them now, and I'm very careful, I give them, you want to know my secrets?

Starbucks coffee. And they like Epsom salts, okay? Which they provide, I don't know, it's alkaline or acid, I don't know, but they do something good.

And then, you know, lots of, what do you call that, mulch? And then there's something else, just like fertilizer, systemic fertilizer, okay? So anyway, the secret is the Starbucks coffee.

You go to Starbucks and you say, give me five pounds of used coffee, and they give you the used coffee. They're happy to get rid of it, and you can have a regular supplier if you develop them, okay? So, I make this very toxic mix for my seeds, and I'm very careful about it, you know, and some Epsom salts, and then some systemic fertilizer, and there's some other things that I'm not telling you.

And then you plant the seed, it's very weird, it's very dumb, you know, you just stick your finger in the ground and drop a seed in and cover it. It takes like a second, it takes one second, you know, and then you don't sit there and watch, you go into the house, and you wait until June, you know, and then something will happen. And the mystery of life, right, the mystery is, what's happening under the ground while that seed is there?

After you stick the seed in and cover it and put the Starbucks on top, and then from that time up to the time that it, like a calendula, starts to grow, right? And there's a big beautiful flower. What happened under the ground?

And it's sort of a deep mystery, right? Something is impossible is happening. Somehow the Starbucks stuff gets under the ground and touches the seed.

It must be the case, right? I don't know how it works. And somehow the Epsom salts get under the ground and they touch the seed.

And there's some kind of contact between the seed and the coffee grounds and the water, right? And then it wakes up something in the seed. I don't know how it happens, but it's like somebody is shaking the seed and saying, wake up, wake up, you know, and then the seed is like, huh?

And then it wakes up. It's a mysterious time of a plant's life, of a flower's life, right? The same is true for your partner and what's happening with your partner.

Your partner started texting a little too much and you're getting nervous, okay? And they're sitting there and texting all day and then you're wondering, what has happened between the time that you were interested in somebody else's partner and the time that your partner starts texting? What happened to the seed?

The seed entered your mind. By what medium? How did it enter your mind?

How did the seed in number two get in your mind? You can say by action, but how did it get inside your mind? How does a seed...

You are talking to someone else's partner and you've realized it's someone else's partner and you don't stop. You keep hitting on them, right? Who records the seed?

You do, but how? You watch yourself. You're watching yourself all the time.

You have a permanent video camera behind your eyes, right? And your fingers, and your ears, and you are the witness, okay? You don't need St. Peter to keep a book up near the pearly gates, okay?

You have your own consciousness. Maybe St. Peter is a metaphor for your own consciousness. I don't know.

Maybe it was originally that. But you don't need some outside person keeping a record of your good deeds and bad deeds, okay? Your own mind records them.

Your awareness of what you are doing records a deed, okay? So if you were there, if you were listening and watching when you were hitting on the other person's partner, it's planted. By watching and by listening, okay?

And you're always there. So in Buddhism, unfortunately, it doesn't help to sneak into your room and close the door and do things that you shouldn't do. Because the witness is always watching.

You are the witness. There's no other person. You might as well do them in front of other people and at least you could confess it afterwards or something, you know?

It doesn't help to hide things because it's recorded by you being there to watch yourself do it. And that's how a seed is planted in your mind. So, I don't know, two years ago, I was on the subway and I'm talking to this lady.

The test in Buddhism of fidelity is would you be saying those words if your partner was standing next to you? Would you be saying exactly those words and acting exactly that way, you know, if your partner was next to you? That's a mental test in Buddhism.

Once you commit yourself to a relationship, which you should do slowly and with great consideration. You shouldn't do it easily. But once you do it, you're supposed to imagine that they're next to you all the time.

And then you don't do goo-goo eyes at anybody. You wouldn't do it if they were watching your face. And so if you're on the subway alone, then you don't do that, you see what I mean?

If you're in a committed relationship. Why? Because it's a sin?

Because it's... The idea in Buddhism of sin is very interesting, you know. Is it wrong to hit on somebody else's partner?

Why is it wrong? Yeah, because you wouldn't want it to be done to you and it will hurt you. It will hurt you, okay?

It's not... It's interesting, the definition of bad karma in Buddhism is an action which comes back to hurt yourself. That's morality.

If you ask a Buddhist what is good and what is bad, any action which would come back and hurt you is evil, is wrong, okay? And so it's dysfunctional, you know. It's like, if you want to have a nice partner, nobody wants to have a partner who's not loyal, right?

I don't think so. Nobody wants to have a partner who's not committed to them. Then nobody should ever fool around with other people's partners because that's how you plant the seed.

That's where it's coming from. It's not coming from anywhere else, okay? So the only person who is...

Morality in Buddhism is... The litmus test is would it come back to hurt you, okay? So in link number two, you are witnessing yourself do a dumb thing, okay?

If you understood where loyalty in your partner came from, would you be making that pot? Yeah, you are blind, okay? You have to be blind to make a bad karma, and that's why number one is the blind man, ignorance, okay?

What's ignorance? You don't understand that... By the way, if you succeed in hitting on this person, why did you succeed?

Because you were good before that. You were self-controlled before that, okay? It's not that you said something to them and they agreed to fool around with you, okay?

You were loyal a year before that, and that's why you get to meet this person on the subway, okay? And you don't understand that, okay? You don't understand that.

So you do something hurtful, and then that will come back to you later, okay? It will hurt you, okay? So at number two we did it on the subway, and then two years later we had the pregnant woman, all right?

Now, what I promised to teach you, what I promised to talk about was what's happening, what forces are at work in the human mind under the ground between two years ago and today, okay? As in a garden, when a seed is being, what do you call it? Triggered, right?

It's being armed and set off by things that are nutrients that are dropping down to the ground in water, right? Then what is it in the human mind that can trigger a seed? And why are we exploring this question?

We said that if you knew how, we said that every human being has countless seeds, all right? If you did a kind thing a year ago, okay? If you said something nice to somebody a year ago, all right?

You said, you know, I like how you sing, you know, I like your song, you sing very well, okay? And if you said a true praise to someone, a true kind word, right? That karma doubles every 40, sorry, 24 hours, okay?

Each karmic seed in your mind doubles every 24 hours, okay? So in 20... I have irises.

Anybody have irises? You don't have... You don't live in this city.

I have these irises. You plant a bulb, okay? And then they grow.

If you don't cut them, if you let the leaves grow and suck sunlight the whole year, right? And they will. If you don't cut them down, then they feed the bulb.

The sunlight feeds the bulb. And then they split. The bulb splits, like a cell in a human body.

It splits. And then it splits. Each of those splits.

And then each of those splits. And then next year you have like 20 flowers where you only had one iris. And then after a couple years, you have to dig it up and spread them, because they will prevent each other from having food.

It's too many kids in the ground. It's too many bulbs together. You see what I mean?

Karmas are the same, okay? Karmas in your mind split every 24 hours, okay? If you said a kind word to someone a week ago, I don't know, it's something like a thousand now.

It's something like a thousand seeds now. Why am I talking about that? Every one of us has millions and millions of seeds.

Unopened seeds are laying in our consciousness, okay? Who decides which one opens tomorrow? What decides which one opens tomorrow?

What I'm trying to say is each one of you, we talked about five goals that I've noticed people have in traveling, you know. We have ACI in 85 cities, okay? I travel to, I don't know, how many cities in a year?

20? 30? 20 to 30 cities in the world, right?

And I listen to people, and they have the same questions. People want the same things. First thing is financial independence, okay?

Nobody wants to be in debt. They would like to have a nice house, a nice car. They would like to have enough money that they don't have to think about money ever again.

And I'm not saying they have gold spigots on their toilets and stuff like that, although I've seen that in the diamond business. But, you know, I'm just saying it would be nice to live your life with enough money to do anything you want, you know? And not excessively, and not in a greedy way, but especially in donating money and supporting other people's dreams and projects.

It would be nice to have sort of a limitless pocket, you know, just so you could help other people. That's a beautiful thing to have, okay? Many people ask me that.

It's interesting, the people in the world, China, or Buenos Aires, or Moscow, they all... I'd say 80% of the people who want money want it so they can help other people. It's kind of cool, okay?

You wouldn't guess that. Of all the businessmen we teach or like that, business people around the world, I'd guess about 80% want to become wealthy because they want to help other people. And you wouldn't expect that, but that's the way it is.

So that's maybe the first goal that people have. Second goal is it's lonely to live in a big house with gold bathroom spigots and have no one there, you know? So people would like to have a family.

They would like to have a partner. Of course, all over the world, people would like to have a partner. Everyone would like to share their life with someone else, someone to come home and tell about your day, right?

Especially to eat with. I think it's very lonely to eat by yourself. You know, you cook for an hour, you eat for five minutes by yourself, then you clean for half an hour, and it's all silent.

And the eating is especially poignant, you know, you just... you don't know whether to eat fast or slow, you know? I read science fiction novels.

But anyway, people would like to have a nice partner. That's a human... And it's a good...

According to the higher teachings of Buddhism, that's a good instinct. Two people who are committed to kind acts can do much more than one person. They can do more than twice as much.

They can do like ten times more. If you have a beautiful partner, then together you can serve the world more. The Buddhism says that.

And then third goal, I think everyone would like to have youthful energy. Nobody would like to have a sickness or a bad back or be tired all the time, like that. We would all like to have energy all the time.

I think then, once you get the basic requirements of life, right? Once you get those three things, people want peace in their mind. You can have a partner and not have peace, mentally, right?

You can have objects and a partner, and you can have a beautiful body and not have peace in your mind, right? So, we would like to have peace on top of the others. By the way, the idea that you should choose between those four is to me ridiculous.

It's just foolish. It's a sour grape stinking. You know, okay, I think I might be able to reach peace, but not the partner.

Or, you know, maybe I could do money, but I'll never be young again. You know, those are all stupid, okay? You shouldn't think like that.

Then finally, of course, we would all like to have world peace. And we would like to see peace in the outside. We have already, each one of us, all the seeds in your mind to see all five things.

You already have millions of seeds in your mind to have all of those things happen in your life, okay? You just need to put the Starbucks coffee on them, okay? You need to sprinkle something on them that makes those seeds grow, okay?

And that's all I want to say in these three days. That's all I want to talk about. We will talk about limbs number eight and nine.

In Tibetan, it's called gepa-sepa and gupa-lemba. Gepa-sepa, the man-eating, and gupa-lemba, the monkey-grabbing, fruits from a tree, okay? These two are the water and the Starbucks coffee and the Epsom salts, which turn fresh karma into karma which is about to explode.

Into what? Financial independence, a beautiful partner, a new partner, or fix your old part—upgrade your old partner. Fix them.

Whatever problems you have with them, remove those problems, okay? I'll tell you something cool, all right? I'll tell you something very profound, okay?

If you have a problem with your partner, like, okay, 80% I like my partner, you know, but after six years, I couldn't teach him to put the toilet seat down, you know? Even a monkey you could probably teach to put the toilet seat down in two years, but something about my husband, he can't learn it, you know? And then I will give them a karmic solution to that, you know?

All right, something more serious, like he doesn't give me affection anymore. I come home and he just, frankly, I go to, you know, I open up my arms for a hug and he goes like this, and then he goes on his laptop, you know? And it doesn't even occur to him to give me a hug.

He doesn't even think that I might like a hug, you know? Much less indicate any interest in a hug. Even to pretend to enjoy a hug, he doesn't even think of it, you know?

And he used to, but now he doesn't, you know? So, how do you change that kind of thing, you know? What do you do to change that thing?

You can fix any shortcoming in your partner. Now, here's the cool part. You can fix it so well.

If I teach you tonight how to get your partner to hug you and you do the karmic solution, you follow the karmic solution, right? You plant a seed, and then you reap the results of that seed. That seed is so powerful that when I meet you, next time I come back to New York, and I say, how's the hugs going?

You'll say, huh? And I'll say, you know, remember what you asked me about last time I was here? And you'll say, I don't remember.

And I'll say, you know, your husband, you know, the hugs and your husband say, I don't know what you're talking about. My husband gives me fantastic hugs, you know? What I'm saying is, your memory will change.

It will wipe out all memory of the shortcoming of the partner, okay? Imagine that. You not only fix them, but you forget they had a problem.

You both forget they had a problem, because karma is that powerful. Karma is creating everything, okay? So, how to get those seeds to ripen?

We all have enough seeds in our mind already to have financial independence, to have a beautiful partner, to fix our old partner, if you already have a partner, to find a partner if you don't have a partner. And then we all have enough seeds in our mind for youthful energy. You can go to a Dharmamitra's class for two hours and still walk afterwards, okay?

We all did that today. That was really fun, by the way. And I appreciate that.

And I also appreciate Cecile teaching a beautiful class. She has a special... She should teach next time.

I hope she will come and teach Dragon Dance. Where are you, Cecile? She has a yoga called Dragon Dance, which I made her send me a DVD.

She went up in her attic, I think. I don't know where it was. And she did the whole thing on a DVD and sent it to me.

And I do it in my house like every week, you know? And it's very beautiful. So, we were blessed with great yoga teachers, but everyone would like to have that kind of youth and energy to do everything that Dharmamitra wants you to do.

All the strange poses, right? You have the seeds in your mind to do it already, okay? You already have the seeds.

You just need the coffee, the Starbucks coffee and the Epsom salts. You need number 8 and number 9 in a good way, okay? Number 8 and number 9 are nasty, okay?

Number 8 and number 9 are bad. And the wheel is bad. The wheel shows you how you get in trouble, all right?

Let's go over 8 and 9 to understand how negative seeds are. Our sundepa, say sundepa. Sundepa.

It means there's a selection process, there's a lottery of seeds in your mind. You have billions of seeds in your mind. By the end of this evening, some of them will be...

Sundepa means, do you have those... We went to Taiwan. We were bored.

We got in from the airport at midnight. We stopped on... We had to drive four hours to Taichung, right?

And we stopped at this, you know, 2 a.m. in the morning, the equivalent of the New Jersey Turnpike highway stop thing. And there was this claw thing. You put in a Taiwan dollar and you pull levers in the claw.

It goes over all these teddy bears, right? And then you drop the claw and it goes like this and you try to get the teddy bear and we spent like $20 and we got a 50-cent teddy bear. And that's sundepa.

That's the meaning of sundepa. You have hundreds of teddy bear seeds in your mind, right? And there's some kind of energy that comes out and all these slippery seeds and it pulls one seed out.

It selects a seed and it arms it like a bomb. It arms it like a nuclear weapon, okay? There's something about eight and nine which arms the seeds in your mind, the negative seeds, okay?

And then you have trouble with your husband or whatever. You have trouble. So let's look at how that works and then we're going to do the opposite.

We're going to apply that to the opposite. I think, by the way, when you teach this, which you should, and we'll go over this again and again. We're going to do maybe five, six.

We got to two links. We got to one percent of the wheel teaching in three days, okay? Some of these things will take years, all right?

It'll take many trips to finish the wheel, okay? But tonight let's talk about these two. Let's not leave it as negative.

Let's not say this is a wheel that tells you why you're going to die with nothing, okay? Because it's true. That's what the wheel was designed to teach, right?

But Buddha was... And many teachers, I think, and I'm encouraging you not to do this. Many teachers leave it at that.

They don't go further. Lord Buddha wanted us to learn to reverse the wheel, to use the power of the wheel for positive goals, right? Learn how you got in trouble and then back up the wheel, back it up, and make the opposite happen, okay?

That's our goal. By the end of tonight, by party time, we should have enough information to teddy bear, claw the good seeds and create whatever goal you want in your life, okay? So choose a goal, have a goal in mind.

It could be something you haven't reached yet that you want to reach, or it could be something that you... some problem that you have now. Same thing, okay?

You can learn to... I wanted to learn to play upright bass, and I didn't know how, and I planted the seeds, and it just came, okay? It just came like that.

I think it took like two days or three days, okay? I'm not bragging. I'm just saying it's cool.

It's fun. I want you to learn how to do it. Then anything you want to do, you can do.

It's cool. It's fun to play jazz. We played at the Paris Jazz Festival in a basement with 20 people, and then people said, you mean you played in the festival?

I didn't say in the festival. We played in a basement nearby. Next year, Cecile's getting us into the festival, okay?

Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa. Okay. So how do eight and nine work, okay?

Eight and nine are very basic. Eight is one. Got that?

Eight is one. Got that? What is one?

What is one in relationship to seeing a cute guy on the subway who's got a wedding ring on? What is number one? Number one is like, I like to talk to him.

He's cute. I saw a movie last week. The hero was married, but they had a bad marriage, and they cheated on their wife and lived happily ever after, which is really funny.

But anyway. So, ignorance means, ignorance is looking at the guy and saying, he's cute, you know? Let me talk to him.

I'll say something to him. All right? That's ignorance.

Okay? It's to think that something good could come from that. All right?

If he says yes, it's not because you said anything, okay? It's because you were loyal a year ago. Okay?

It's weird, right? It's kind of weird. That's number...

So, number eight is a way of thinking that I can get things if I take them. The way I get things is to take them. That's number eight.

Eight is one. Eight is number one. Eight is misunderstanding how things work.

And the whole world all the time is misunderstanding how things work. And so they suffer, they get old, they have financial problems, and they get divorced, right? And they have unhappy relationships.

The whole world, everyone in the world, they don't understand how things work, okay? That's number eight. Eight is not understanding how things work, okay?

It not only plants the potter, it triggers the pregnant woman. Does that make sense? Got it?

It not only plants the potter. Number two, okay? The fresh karma.

Misunderstanding your world is what selects and triggers the negative seeds in your mind, okay? And it's nothing more than that, okay? If you didn't want to have any more problems in your life, the first thing you would have to do is what?

Just change how you think. Just change how you get things, okay? How do you get money?

How do you get money? Do you get a job? Do you get a job?

Which is better, stocks or stock investments or property investments? Which is better? It's a dumb question, okay?

It's a really foolish question. Many people lose money in stocks and many people get money in stocks. Many people lose money in property and many people get money in property.

Therefore, it doesn't matter. Which is better for getting a boy, pink lipstick or red lipstick? Don't tell me it doesn't matter because Sephora is there.

I see you coming in and out of Sephora. You can't come out of Sephora for less than $300. I know that.

You are selecting cosmetics. Will it be Lancome or I forget the others. No, you do.

You select things because you think it will make a difference and it makes no difference at all, okay? If you planted the seed and put on black lipstick, everyone would think you were beautiful. I'm not kidding.

And if you don't plant a seed and you put on any expensive Lancome lipstick, everyone will say you're overdressed or something. You see? Got it?

It doesn't matter what choices you make in your life. It doesn't matter. Financial choices, partner choices, yoga studio choices, it doesn't matter which one you go to.

It really doesn't matter, okay? Plant a seed, go to any yoga studio you want. You will end up thin and strong and beautiful, okay?

Don't plant a seed. Go to 12 yoga studios and you will hurt your neck. I'm not kidding, okay?

It doesn't matter which one you go to. It doesn't matter which kind of lipstick you use and it doesn't matter what kind of training you have and what kind of job you get and what kind of business you enter. It doesn't matter.

Plant the seed and you will succeed at any business. Don't plant the seed and you won't succeed. Oh, but I saw people succeed who didn't plant seeds.

They didn't know they planted seeds. They planted them by accident and they got an accidental result and they couldn't repeat it. Okay?

And movie stars, great business people, they can't repeat. They say, I don't know what happened, I lost my edge, I don't, you know? They didn't understand in the first place why the good thing happened.

So, number eight here is just not understanding the habit of not understanding keeps us selecting bad teddy bears in your mind. Okay? Got it?

Just the habit of wrong think, wrong think selects the bad seeds in your mind. All the problems in your life are coming out of your mind and they were selected by the habit of misunderstanding how stuff works. Got it?

Which is number one. Eight is one. Got it?

If you're not, I'll go on. You'll be one step closer to the refreshments. All right.

What's the difference then in between eight and nine? Okay? What's the difference between eight and nine?

Eight is a habit of misunderstanding how stuff works. Okay? If you want a boyfriend, how do you get one?

If you don't have a boyfriend and you want a boyfriend, how do you... Some lady asked me, okay? Can I tell this story one more time?

She was from New York. So she came to me, Geshe-la, I'm very successful, I'm an Ivy League graduate, I graduated in architecture, I have a very good job, I have a beautiful apartment, you know, expensive apartment, and I love my work. Okay?

I have good work, I enjoy my work, and she's also a yoga teacher. So she got everything. But she came to me and said, I don't have a boyfriend.

I need a boyfriend, you know. And I said, well, what do you want me to do? She said, can you do a Mo?

Okay? Can you do a Mo? Mo, they know, all these guys from New Jersey, they do Mo's in New Jersey.

So, I was trained to do Mo's in the old comic way. It's a dice. You throw a dice and you predict the future.

You predict someone's future. You make choices for them based on the dice. And if you're really old-fashioned, you use the knuckle bones of a sheep.

Because everyone's from the steppes of Russia. These guys are all from the steppes of Russia. So they use sheep bones.

And you carve numbers on the sheep bones, right, dots. So this lady came to me and said, you're a Buddhist monk, you can do a Mo. I said, yeah, I'll do a Mo.

Okay. I said, what kind of Mo do you want? She says, can you tell me, I want to know where I'm going to meet my boyfriend.

Will it be on the internet? Or will it be in a dance club? She said, will you do a Mo for that?

So, I'm like, this is dumb. But that often happens in my life. So, I'm like, yes, I'll do a Mo.

So she, I get the, you can do a Mo in a cup, right? But you can really make a good show of it. And that's important.

People believe a big show, you know. So, you could use a kapala. What's a kapala?

It's a human skull, okay? It's half of a human skull, you know. So if you're a big-time Mo-er, you use a human skull, you know.

And then you put these sheep knuckles on it, and then you've got to go like this. If you're really going to impress the person, you should do a mantra, okay? And you've got to do it low, okay?

Like, om mani padme om, om mani padme om. And you can show the whites of your eyes, it's really good. Om mani padme om, om mani padme om, om mani padme om, om mani padme om.

Then you're supposed to throw that. You throw it. You don't just like, wimp it out, you know.

You flop it. And then there's this big thwack. Sometimes it splits the skull open.

That's really dramatic. Then you go, ah, ah. You know, and she's like, Geshe-la, where am I going to meet him?

You know, I said, oh, you shouldn't say right away, you should make a big deal, you know. Oh, oh, oh. And then I'm like, she says, will you be in the nightclub?

No, no, I'm not in the nightclub. Then she's like, oh, that's good. And I said, why?

And she said, the kind of boy you meet in the nightclub is the kind of boy you meet in the nightclub. They won't be loyal. They'll go hang out in nightclubs, you know.

So she's like, so it's on the internet, right? And I'm like, no. You know, and she's like, oh, that's good, because those kind of boys love their laptops more than their girlfriends, you know.

And then I'm like, she's like, well, where am I going to meet him? And I said, then you have to make a lot of drama, you know. You turn the dice over.

At a nursing home. Go to a nursing home. Then she was really cute.

She's really cute. And she said, Geshe-la, you don't understand. I said, what?

She said, I want a young boy. Then I'm like, I said, no, you don't understand. You have to plant a seed.

Plant a seed and do anything. Sit at home. He will knock on your door.

I've had people, that happened to them, okay. Plant the seed, and the boy will come, because the boy is coming from your mind. We talked about that the first night, right?

The pen. We proved that a pen was coming from your mind. Boyfriends also come from your mind.

Plant them and relax. And don't go to clubs, because they have a lot of smoke and they're kind of dumb. And don't go on the internet, because that's also dumb.

So, plant a seed, go sit in a park or something. There was a lady in, I'm not allowed to say the city. There was a lady in Eastern Europe, in an unspecified country in Eastern Europe.

She's the Oprah Winfrey of her country. She's famous in her country. She has a Sunday afternoon show for eight years.

And she's known all over the country, right? And she asked me this question, how do I get a boyfriend? I've been on the TV every Sunday afternoon for seven years, and everybody in the country knows I don't have a boyfriend.

And it's just embarrassing. So, I need one. So, I told her this thing.

And she did the nursing home thing. She went and took care of a lonely person. And then she was walking down like Fifth Avenue of her country, and she bumped into somebody.

Because she was looking the other way and he was looking the other way, and then she looks up and it's this big handsome guy. And they hit it off. And she got married last summer.

She got married. And we were on her show. We did like a two-hour show.

It's really cute. And it was a big celebration, you know, because she got married. She met the guy.

But you see, she didn't find the guy. She planted him. And she could have walked down the other side of the street, and she still would have run into him.

Got it? Like plant a seed. Ask people how they met their girlfriend or boyfriend or wife or husband.

And it's always some weird story. You know, I was on a bus and I tripped over her purse. According to Buddhism, there's no accidents.

Plant a seed and trip over someone's purse. It doesn't matter. And they will come.

Same with money. And the same with health and strength. And the same with inner peace.

And the same with world peace. Okay, got it? It's very beautiful.

She got a partner, you know, she got a beautiful partner. But if she had been doing it the old way, right? She would have gone to a club.

That's number eight. Okay? She would have fought.

She could get a boy in a club. That's number eight. And then number nine, she would have gone to the club.

That's number nine. Grasping, grasping. And she would have fought for a boyfriend.

She would have competed for a boyfriend with all the other girls in the club. Okay? That competition, that grabbing, that attempt to out-grab or faster grab than other people grab, is number nine.

And that's why you got a monkey trying to get fruit off a tree. And we're all like that. We're all like that.

Okay? We do that all the time. Okay?

Number eight is the wrong attitude. I should go to either a club or... or on the internet.

That's number eight. Number nine is going to the club and duking it out with the other girls over some guy. Okay?

No, really. And it's all crazy. And it's all stupid.

Okay? Just plant a seed and then relax. And you'll bump into the guy on Fifth Avenue.

He's rich. He has a house in Berlin. He's a wonderful musician.

They're deeply in love. You know? And she planted him.

Okay? So, that's the... This wheel represents the way we do business in our life.

We don't understand how stuff works. How does stuff work? What you want in your life, you must make an attempt to supply it to someone else first.

And that's the only way you can plant a seed. Okay? It's the only way.

So, give up all your old ideas about how to make stuff work. Okay? You want something?

There's four steps. Okay? I put a book on your chair.

It's not free. Okay? It's a trick.

It's a trick. You did get a book? No.

I don't see books. Did you get a book? Go to page number...

So, I'm getting you attached to the book. Go to page number 446. Go to page 446.

It's in big print. Anyone can see. On the left side, it says the four Starbucks stamps.

Okay? It's the four Starbucks stamps. Got it?

446. 446. And they're all over the book.

I put them in three or four times. These are the four steps from the Abhidharmakosha, from the 4th century, in the 4th chapter. Say, shi, sampa, jorwa, tartuk.

Shi, sampa, jorwa, tartuk. The four ways to make... to plant a seed.

Okay? The four ways to plant a seed. The four ways to make stuff happen in your life.

Okay? This is the good part of the class. Okay?

I don't have a clock. I'll keep going if you don't stop me. Do you guys have...

Somebody have a watch I can borrow? This is not the group to ask for a watch. Okay.

I'm supposed to stop at 8.30, right? Am I right? 8.45?

A.M. or... All right. Give me five more minutes.

We got to get through this. All right? This is the answer to your question.

Okay? This is number eight and number nine. Done on a good seed.

Done on a good seed. Make a partner. Improve your current partner.

Get out of debt. Get oxygen money. As much money as you want.

Comfortable money. And... And we'll get to saving the world also in four or five minutes.

Okay? Number one. Say what it is you want in your life in a single short sentence.

Okay? I want a boyfriend. Or I want enough money to be comfortable and help other people.

Or I want to be healthy and young and have good energy. Or creative. Or intelligent.

Or I want to have inner peace. I want to have peace in my mind. Okay?

Or I would like to see a world where there's no poverty and no war. Say what you want in a single sentence. That's a she.

In this case, that's called she in Tibetan. Sampa. Plan who it is you are going to help get the same thing and which Starbucks you're going to take them to to talk about it.

Okay? I gave this talk in Buenos Aires for hours. And this man ran up afterwards and thanked me in a good suit.

And I was like, what do you do for a living? He says, I'm the manager of all the Starbucks in Argentina. You know?

It means, pick a neutral territory. Okay? Don't pick their place and don't pick your place.

It could be a park. I like Starbucks because it's kind of anonymous. You know?

So, choose a person in your life who wants what you want. You cannot live without this person. You must find them.

Okay? If you're looking for a boyfriend, who do you have to find? Someone who's lonely.

Okay? Who's perfect? Where do you find them?

Nursing home. Packed with lonely people. Okay?

Go to a nursing home. All right? There are hundreds, thousands of lonely people there.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Go there. If you want a boyfriend, go to a nursing home. Choose one of those people.

Okay? You can take them out to Starbucks also. It's a big trip for them.

I have an old lady for twenty years. She's eighty-seven. We had a big party for her.

We did jazz for her. She has a crush on Kevin. And she has a crush on Nick.

And she has a crush on Johnny O. And I'm just trying to get in there. So, serve an elderly, serve a lonely person.

Pick them first and then take them and make a plan. Say, I'll visit you once a week.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Lonely people are like birds. Okay? Or animals that you feed in the forest.

They like regularity. Okay? They like, I'm coming every Friday.

Okay? At four o'clock. Birds like that also.

If I don't get up at the right time, the birds bang on my window. Okay? They're very persistent.

Hundreds, you know. So, pick a person and be regular with them. Okay?

The worst thing you can say to me, if you want to know how to rile me up, there's a few ways. But one is to say, I don't know any lonely people. You know, and I'll say, I get a look like, you think about it for 24 hours and you check back in with me.

So then they think for 24 hours. Then they always come back and say, I found 10. I found 10 lonely people.

You just didn't ever think about them. Okay? They're all around you and you didn't notice because you were lonely.

You see what I mean? Anything you want, you're safe. There's always somebody else around you who wants it.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
There really is. You just never noticed because you didn't care because you were thinking about yourself. Okay?

So that's number two. Number three is very simple. Do you have to succeed?

No. Will you succeed? How are you going to succeed if you don't know how to get a boyfriend?

How are you going to help somebody else? You know, it's crazy. How do you get money?

Help other people make money. What do I do? Take them out to Starbucks.

What should I do? Make suggestions about how they can make money. How can I do that if I can't make money?

That's why I'm taking them out to Starbucks. You have to try. Just try.

That plants a seed. The trying plants a seed. Okay, got it?

You just try. Give them moral support. I'll go out with you once a week.

We'll make a plan for your credit card debts, you know, even though yours is worse than theirs. Okay? No, see, that's not contradictory.

That's actually how it works. Okay? If you think about it, it has to be like that.

And it will always be like that.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
You don't have what you want, so you're helping someone else get it, and you're giving them advice to get what you don't know how to get. Got it? Okay.

So, do that. Now, step number four is what we talked about last night. It's very simple.

How many people, when they were falling asleep last night, did the meditation that we talked about? Wow! Awesome!

So, it was worth all the money, Tripedi. To get one person's mind to change for like $400 is worth it. It's rare.

Do it tonight. Okay, what was I talking about? So, you went to the old lady, right?

We had a nice birthday party. We had a wonderful birthday party. Didn't we?

That was awesome. It was really awesome. We spilled stuff all over her white carpet, and I dealt with that the next day.

Okay. When you go to sleep tonight, if you're Kevin, and you played her favorite 1940s songs, right? He's the only guy alive who can play all her songs.

And if you are Kevin, and you want to do step number four. Step number four is a secret weapon, okay? Step number four is like number eight.

Step number four is like step number eight. Got it? Before you go to bed, if you are Kevin, think about the birthday party and what a cool time we had and how happy she was and how happy we made her.

Okay? That kind of reflection on a good seed that you already planted sharpens it. It's like a Starbucks coffee on a flower seed, and it just explodes.

The seed explodes all night long. Your subconscious is working on the seed again and again and again. It's the secret to life.

It's the secret to happiness. Okay? Anything you want.

Just think about something you did for somebody else that was similar to what you wanted before you go to bed. And that's all. And it doesn't have to be recently.

Okay? We had her birthday party in January, I think. We had it like a month earlier or something.

Was it December? December? Yeah.

Or it could have been last year. It doesn't matter. Okay?

Those seeds don't get old. There's no expiration date on a seed. Before you fall asleep, think about something good you did for somebody else.

That's like the teddy bear claw thing. Thinking before you go to bed about how you helped a lonely person will select the seeds for a boyfriend. And plop!

And you'll bump into him on Fifth Avenue. Seriously. I'm not kidding.

Okay? And I'm not just talking about boyfriends. Okay?

I mean, you think it's silly for a Buddhist monk to talk about a boyfriend. I don't think so. The whole world wants those things.

Everybody in the world would like to have a nice partner. Everybody would like to have enough money. Everybody would like to be healthy.

And everybody would like to have a peaceful heart. You can have them. What are you going to do about the save the world thing?

Okay? Then I'll stop. I promise I'll stop.

The girl who got the boy, she came to me and she said, you know, I got the boy, but I have some misgivings about it. I said, what are the misgivings? She said, it feels a little selfish to have helped an elderly woman just to get a boyfriend.

You know? That's not real charity, is it? It's more like a business.

You know? I'll visit you if I can bump into a boy on Fifth Avenue. You know?

And I said, are you telling me you're not seeing her anymore? And she said, yeah, why should I go visit her? You know?

And I said, oh, you're really stupid. Okay? There's a seed for meeting the boy, and there's a different seed for keeping the boy.

And the seed for keeping the boy is to keep visiting the old woman. How long? Rest of your life.

As long as you want the boy, you have to keep visiting her. Now you... She said, well, what's the seed for me to keep together with him?

Obviously, visit her together. Go visit her together. I have friends who understand this.

Every week, Becky does that with her boyfriend. Right? They visit...

She and Gunnar visit a lonely woman... man, woman in Phoenix every week and to keep their relationship tight. New seeds every week to stay tight together.

Okay? Last thing. So, somebody said to me, it seems selfish.

You know? This whole thing seems selfish. Now we have to go to link number nine.

Okay? What was the old thing? You're competing.

You are competing with the other girls for this boy. Okay? Or you are competing for a promotion at work.

Okay? Or you are competing to have the best headstand in Dharmamitra's yoga class, which is going to be a long jump for all of us. So, that's the old system and that triggers negative seeds in your mind.

Okay? That triggers bad stuff in your life. That triggers an unhappy life.

The rest of your life will be unhappy. Okay? How do you reverse that?

If you just go to the nursing home and help the old woman, and then you come home and bump into... because it's... and then you quit visiting her.

That's a selfish thing to do. So really you are planting two seeds, aren't you? You will always get a boyfriend if you visit a lonely person.

It must create a boyfriend. It will always create a boyfriend. Okay?

But if your motivation is self-serving and selfish, the boyfriend will be a selfish son of a gun. Okay? Understand that.

It's very profound. Okay? It's one thing to get a boyfriend.

It's one thing to get a boyfriend who you can live with. Those are different seeds. Okay?

Some people are living with one that they don't want to be with. You see what I mean? So you can't be selfish.

How do I prevent... So she asked me, how do I prevent being selfish? When you go to visit the old woman, have bodhicitta in your mind.

Okay? Bodhicitta. What is bodhicitta?

Bodhicitta is the positive version of number nine. Okay? If you want seeds to explode, if you want seeds to be powerful, then help the old woman with bodhicitta.

Okay? Then this lady asked me, how do I do that? And I said, it's very simple.

Okay? After you get the boy, two weeks after you get the boy, okay, call your friends and invite them to a restaurant. Three or four girlfriends.

Call them and say, let's go out to a restaurant at, I don't know what, 7 p.m. Meet me at such and such a restaurant at 7 p.m. Caravan of Dreams or something. Okay? Where is that?

Fifth Street? Sixth Street? Sixth Street and First Avenue.

It's still there. I was really surprised. Or the sign is still there.

I'll meet you at Caravan of Dreams at 7 p.m. I have a surprise for you. Okay? Then tell your new boyfriend, come to my apartment at 7 p.m. All right? Then he will come. When he comes in, have ready for him three huge glasses of water. Three huge glasses of water.

And ask him to drink all three. Then take him to the restaurant. You will be late.

Because, you know, they're already there because they went at 7 p.m. and he just got to your apartment at 7 p.m. and he had to drink the water. Walk in the door with him and make sure you're holding, what do you call that? You're holding arms, right?

Linked arms or something, you know? And then the girls are going to be watching you in the restaurant. They're going to say, she came, she's here, but she's with somebody.

And then the other ones will say, who's she with? And they'll say, it's some guy, some really good looking guy. And they'll say, well, who is it?

And they'll say, maybe it's a new boyfriend. And then everyone will say, well, it can't be. It's been five years, you know?

And he's too much. It can't be. Everybody will say it can't be.

Take him to the edge of the table and give him a big French kiss. In front of everybody. Like, slurpy, you know?

Then what will happen? Everybody will be like, it's not her cousin, you know? Then you sit down, right?

Then of course, there'll be small talk. Oh, where are you from? What kind of hot job do you have?

I'm glad to see you with my friend. Then what's going to happen? He will have to go to the bathroom.

He will stand up and excuse himself and say, you know, I got to go to the bathroom. That's all part of the plan. He will leave.

Then what will happen? Of course, they'll be like, which club? Which internet site?

Come on, you can tell us. You know, where did you find him, you know? Which club?

Which internet site? And then you have to say what? Nursing home.

Then you say nursing home, okay? Then they'll all be like, we wanted a young one. No, then they'll say, what do you mean by nursing home?

And then you have to explain. You have to plant him. You know, the old system is hit or miss.

Go to a club, maybe you meet somebody, maybe you don't. Maybe you meet a creep and maybe you don't meet a creep, okay? The new system is just plant him.

Go to a nursing home, all right? Then what will happen? He'll come back from the bathroom, you'll finish dinner, you'll all leave.

What will happen? Seriously, what will happen? We're talking about a living example.

You are now a living example of a new system. You are now a living example of a new system, a revolutionary system, a completely different way of behaving, right? What will happen?

What will they do? Some of them will try. Not all of them.

It never is all of them. Some of them, the more intelligent ones or the lucky ones, they will say, well, you know, I'm desperate, let me try. I'll try.

What's the nursing, you know, tell me which nursing home you're going to. Maybe we can go together. They'll say something like that.

And then you go with them. They'll come with you, okay? And what will happen?

According to the system, if what I say is true, what will happen? They will find a boy. They will find a boy, okay?

Then what will happen? They will get three glasses of water. They will call them.

No. And then what will happen? I asked this question in China.

They got it faster than you guys. This guy raises his hand. He says, he was weird.

He had this leap in his mind. He had a leap of understanding, which is very Chinese, you know. Don't believe what the American newspapers say about Chinese.

It's not true. They're beautiful, gentle, highly intelligent people. And they haven't been brainwashed by all the newspapers and advertising yet, but we're introducing it.

So he's like, I said, what would happen then? And he raised his arm and he said, world peace. World peace.

And I said, why? And he said, can you imagine? There will be lines of people waiting outside of nursing homes, you know.

Can I meet her today? No. Come back next week.

She has an opening from 2 to 2.15, you know. Okay. No, I got to meet her this week.

I got problems, you know. I'm sorry. You'll have to go to another nursing home.

People will look for other nursing homes, right? And it will become a rarity, you know. There will be dealers who trade in the numbers.

They'll trade in the, you know, addresses of old women and old men who don't have families, you know. And no, I'm not kidding. This stuff got started by our group in Norway.

We have a group in Oslo. And the Norwegian movie theater industry just announced an official policy that if any person under 65 comes to a movie with a person over 65, the older person is free. Okay.

And that's what happens when this kind of thinking starts to spread. Okay. And then the whole society begins to take care of elderly people.

What about the people who want money? They will take care of people who are having financial problems. So it will become difficult to find a person who has a financial problem.

And that will be the end of poverty in this world. Half the people are receiving money from the other half who want more money. Okay.

Most war is caused by want, right? Most war is caused by disagreements about resources, right, or money. What would happen if everyone used this system?

And that's where the Chinese guy raised his hand. He's a businessman, hardcore businessman, Hong Kong. He said, world peace.

It will be world peace. And they were crying. Some of those business guys were crying.

And it was awesome. It was so awesome because they got it. And in that moment they had bodhichitta.

Okay. So don't think some bodhichitta is like something like Sangye Chuddha and Togye Chod Lamla. It's not like that.

It's reachable. It's practical. You can do it.

Okay. You can change the world. How?

Can you walk into the restaurant and say, I was thinking about going to the nursing home. Is it effective in convincing your friends? You see.

If not, you don't have to preach. Just walk in with the guy. Okay.

You don't have to get up and discuss karma. Just walk in with the guy, and you will convert four people. You know.

It means you have to be an example. I have to be an example. Of what?

If you're proposing that with the wheel of life you can change every aspect of your own life, have you done it? Or don't talk to us. Then go do it and come back when you've done it.

Come back and tell us when you've done it yourself. Right? It's so cool.

Why do people go to Dharma Yoga class today? Why do people like his class? He's a 70-something years old.

He does a handstand with no hands. He doesn't have to go out on the street and say, I'm a yoga teacher. There's a picture in what?

Esquire magazine. He's on a, what do you call this thing? He's on a manhole cover with no hands doing a handstand at 70-something.

Okay? So what is your responsibility if you wish to serve the world? What is your job now if you wish to serve the world?

What is your job? You have to be an example. You have to be an example.

Right? Of what? Happy.

Okay? Just happy. That's all.

Okay? People will look at you and say, I'm not going to go into that, but they'll say, I'm having what he's having. That's a whole funny routine that I do, but I'm not going to do it.

When they see you, they'll say, I don't know what he's doing. I don't know how he did it. But he's happy.

And he always has enough money. And he has beautiful relationships. And he's healthy.

He's always healthy. He must know something. You know?

He or she must know something. So what is your responsibility if you wish to help others in the world? It's the most difficult task that anyone can give you.

You must become a person who is so obviously happy that everybody wants what you got. That's all. Good night.

[Говорящий 2]
All right.