Серия ежедневной практики, курс 04 — Семичастная практика развития доброго сердца (1999, Голуэй), занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
The Asian classics Institute presents the seven-point practice for developing a good heart with Geshe Michael Roach recorded live in Galway, Ireland Session one I think first I'd like to do a short meditation.

[Speaker 1]
Also, I wanted to emphasize one thing. It's our tradition to teach for free and so although we've asked a donation for the weekend, if you'd like to come and if you can't afford it, or you just want to come for free, just come, okay? And don't think about that, all right?

A lot of people in Ireland asked me during this weekend to teach meditation. So we'll be mixing how to meditate with what to meditate about, and I think first I'd like to talk a little bit about meditation. I think in in the Christian religion and in the Buddhist religion, we have the same custom of prayer, and I know when I was growing up in the Christian Church, I didn't quite understand what I'm supposed to do.

They say you sit down there on your knees, and you just pray, you know, and I didn't know quite how I'm supposed to do it, or what I'm supposed to do. And I used to just try to think with God, you know, I used to think about God, and then I used to think I'm talking to God in my mind, and and that was good, and it was an important beginning. Later, I went to study with Tibetan Lamas for many years, about 20 years, in Tibetan monasteries, and also in other monasteries around the world, and they have a very beautiful system of meditation.

So I thought, regardless of what your beliefs are, or what you plan to do, I think it's good to know how to pray. And I think meditation is a nice way to pray. So whatever your background or your beliefs, I think it's useful to know how to meditate, and I'm grateful for the Tibetan Lamas for teaching me that.

So I thought I would like to do that first. It's a good way to calm your mind down, and it's a good way to start the weekend. Each day, each time we meet, I'll do a little more meditation, you know, a little bit more.

And then the idea in Buddhism is your church is really, the main church is in your home, and you make a little place in your home that's going to be your meditation place, and then every day you go there in the morning by yourself, and you be quiet, and you do your meditation. It doesn't have to be a lot. It's like a half hour, 45 minutes, but those of us who have been trained a lot by Tibetan Lamas, every morning we go in a special place in our home, and we meditate by ourselves quietly.

So I'd like to do that first, and it doesn't matter what your background is, or it doesn't matter if you ever tried it before. It's a great way to do prayer. Whatever your prayers are, it's a good way to learn to pray.

So, first we have to sit down, okay? There's a special way to prepare your house, to prepare your room. We'll do that tomorrow.

We'll talk about it tomorrow. I think tonight I'd just like to teach you how to sit properly, and then how to start a meditation, and then each time we meet I'll do a little bit more, okay? So, it doesn't matter, you know, you've seen these pictures of Buddhists, and they sit like this, and like this, and like that.

You don't have to do that. If you like to, it's okay, but it just should be that your back is straight, okay? And when you're at home, try to put an extra padding under your back, like at the back of your body, under your backbone, and it should be up a little bit higher than the front.

And then they say there are seven points in the meditation, but it should be that your shoulders are even. I have some students who meditate like this, not like that. Can everybody see all right?

Okay. And then it shouldn't be that your head is too far back, like some people start dreaming like that, not like that. We say then your mind starts to wander.

It shouldn't be too low like that. I have some students who their head starts a little bit low, and then gets lower, and lower, and then... I have a few who snore during meditation, okay?

Actually, I have a few who fall asleep. By the way, sleep is very important for meditation, okay? You can't meditate when you're tired.

You have to have enough sleep the night before. One of my good lamas, I asked him, what's the best way to prevent being sleepy during meditation? He said, sleep at night.

And that's a good advice, okay? It's hard to meditate if you haven't slept enough, okay? Also, we try to meditate in the morning before eating, okay?

If your stomach is full, it's very hard to pray, okay? You get sleepy, and you can't concentrate. I think all the blood goes down to your stomach or something, so it's important to to do it in the morning before you have your first meal, okay?

My lamas, Tibetans, love tea. I don't know if you ever had Tibetan tea. The first thing I ever met a Tibetan monk in India in the mountains, and I was 20 years old, and I went to him for wisdom, and he said, the most important thing for wisdom is to drink tea.

And he gave me his tea, and it tasted like chicken soup. It had salt, and butter, and some soda in it, and it tasted like soup, but he said, this will make your meditation very good, you know. So anyway, have some tea in the morning, or juice.

Then you sit up straight. Shoulders should be straight. Head should be straight, okay?

People ask me, should I close my eyes or not? This depends on each person. In the ancient books of Buddhism, they say you can do either way.

If you are distracted by too many things, you can close your eyes. If you are getting sleepy, you can crack them open a bit, but keep the eyes down like that, okay? So, they say look down.

You can keep your head like this, but your eyes are looking down like that. Some books in English are mistranslated from the Tibetan. They say, watch your nose, and I have many friends who go around like that, you know.

It's not like that. It means just don't focus your eyes. Just put them right here someplace, you see?

A good meditation you already know how to do. When you're reading a good book, and you're just sort of off in another world, or you're watching a good film or movie, and your mind is all there, and you're not aware of your body, and your breathing is very nice and slow, and that's a meditation. Meditation is just a kind of deep concentration.

Then we put your feet on the floor nicely. Then you take your left hand first and put it down with the palm up, and then after that you take your right hand and put it on top of it like that, and then you put the thumbs like this, okay? I used to get distracted by this.

My thumbs will fall down, and I start to think about it, and I stop meditating, and you'll learn to do it, okay? Sometimes you can just have them down flat like that, okay? But it should be done, left hand down first, and then the right hand down.

Back should be very straight. They say try to be aware of each bone in your back, and try to pretend like it's a stack of coins, and they're stacked very nicely on each other. Then at the beginning, also try to relax your face, okay?

Sometimes you go like, like my lamas before they meditate, they go, okay, and always breathe through your nose. Don't breathe through your mouth, okay? Unless you have a bad cold, okay?

So try that for a while, okay? We have a custom at the beginning for about 16 centuries. There's a book named Abhidharmakosha, and it says, watch your breath.

And when I first got to India, and they told me, watch your breath, I'm like, I can't, I can't see anything, you know, and they said, no, no, it's not watching it. It means you feel the breath inside your nose. So you put your mind on the inside of your nose, right here in the opening, and you feel the air coming in, touching your nose, and you feel the air going out.

So it's like you're living inside of your nose right here, and you're sitting there like a guard, and you're watching people come and go, you know? You're just feeling the air. It's a little bit cold when it hits your nose coming in, and it's a little bit warm going out, and you just put your mind on the touch of the air on your nose, okay?

So try that. I won't interrupt you, okay? Watch it go in and out.

They say, don't think of any other thing. When you think of something else, like, bring it back to your nose, and put it right here, your mind. Put your mind on your nose, okay?

Try for a few minutes. I'll try to be quiet. Quiet is very important when you're meditating, okay?

Try not to move around, or don't think about anything else, just the air touching your nose as it comes and goes. Your mouth should be loose and relaxed. Now I'd like you to try something with your breath.

You try to count up to ten breaths without thinking about something else. And it's like a game. You try to keep your mind on the breath, and the feeling of the air coming in and out of your nose.

And each time the breath goes out, you start a new number. So the out-breath begins number one, and then the in-breath is the second half of number one. And then you breathe out again, and that's number two.

And then you breathe in, that's the second half of number two. And you breathe out again, that's number three. And the game is like this.

If you think about something else, like if you start to think about your work tomorrow, or you start to think about what you're going to drink or eat after this class, or if you think about your friend, or something like that, then the game, the rule of the game is you have to start over again. You have to start back at one. And the goal is to try to reach ten without thinking about something else.

It's very difficult, actually. And sometimes you're so absorbed that you get to 15 or 16 before you realize you missed ten. So try it now.

Out-breath is number one. In-breath is the second half of number one. And see if you can get up to ten without thinking about something else.

If you catch yourself thinking about something else, then you have to start back at one. And be very honest with yourself. It's a little bit hard.

Okay, see if you think of something else. Okay, try. We'll try for a few minutes, okay?

I think you might have to start over five or six times. That's fine. It means you're honest.

Okay, relax. That's good. That's a good start.

And then each time we meet we'll do a little bit more. I think one thing important to say about meditation is that you have to have something to meditate about. You see what I mean?

I think a lot of people in America or Europe who hear about meditation, they think it's just to watch your breath go back and forth. We don't think... Buddhism doesn't teach that because it's not very useful, just to watch your breath.

They say cows and rabbits also watch their breath, but it didn't help them much. It's just to concentrate your mind, just to get your mind calm. You know, usually you've had a very busy day, and watching the breath is just to begin the meditation.

And then when your mind is calm, then you're ready to pray. Then you have to think about something, you know what I mean? Then you have to move it to something meaningful.

So we're going to talk about meditation each time, but now I'd like to talk about something to meditate about. So I'll teach you the technique of meditation, and then I'll give you a nice subject to meditate on. So now I'd like to start on that, okay?

I'm going to be writing a lot of things on the board. Tonight what I'll do is just go over the meditation in a rough way, and then during the next three days we'll be going over it in great detail. So I thought I'd just give you an introduction to this meditation.

And then if it sounds interesting to you, we can do it in more detail over the next three days. And you're very welcome to come. There's no requirements, there's no obligation.

If something's interesting, keep it. If it's not interesting, forget it, okay? This meditation has a special name.

You know the first Dalai Lama, this Dalai Lama is number 14. The first Dalai Lama lived about 500 years ago, and he said you should always put some foreign words on the board, and then they'll think you're smart. Okay, so we'll start like that.

And I'd like to ask you to say the words with me, and then they say it has some influence on your mind. These teachings have been passed down for two and a half thousand years without a break. You know, somebody somewhere in Tibet or India was learning it for the last two and a half thousand years.

And so there's some kind of blessing to the words. So please say lo. Jong.

Lo. Jong. Okay, so we'll be studying Lojong.

Some of you did a little bit in Dublin last year, and this will be a little bit deeper. We're going to go a little bit deeper on one of the most famous Lojongs. Lo means your heart or your mind, okay?

In Tibetan, there's about 10 words for mind, and it's very hard to, it's very hard to translate into English. This Lo, this mind, means like your heart, like a good heart. And then Jong means trying to practice or trying to develop it.

So this is a special kind of meditation that we do to try to get a good heart or a happy mind. And, you know, I lived in Buddhist monasteries for 20 years, and I was trained by many Buddhist masters, Tibetans. I spoke their language for many years.

But I started out as a normal Westerner person, you know. I was born in Los Angeles, California. My grandparents, one of them is Irish.

That's why I like to come to Ireland. And I'm just a normal Western person like you, you know. I came to my first class, I remember, just like you.

You're sitting there. I remember the first class I came to. And I always had all these fears, you know, like I thought maybe these guys are crazy, or maybe they're going to teach me some strange thing or something like that.

But I didn't really become a monk until I was 30. I studied for 10 years before I became a monk. so I had a chance to try everything before that, you know.

I went to college in America. I did all the things that normal American people do. For example, I surfed a lot in California for many years.

I had many girlfriends in high school. I tried drugs. The first time I met the Dalai Lama, I was with my mother.

And I paid my respects, and he said, sit down. And in those days, it was easier to meet him. He wasn't so famous.

This was 25 years ago. And so the first question he asked me, did you use any drugs? And my mother's sitting next to me.

And I can't lie to the Dalai Lama, but I don't want my mom to know. And I didn't do a lot, you know. I did two or three times to see what it's like.

So I said, yeah, I did. And she's like, so he asked me what it's like. And I said, oh, it's interesting.

But I didn't do it after that. So I've tried all the normal things. I was in business for 15 years in a very large company.

And our business now does 100 million dollars per year sales. I helped to start the business. So I've tried everything.

I've tried business life. I've lived with ladies. I've tried drugs.

I tried surfing. You know, I went to college. I did everything.

I tried alcohol, you know. I've traveled all over the world, you know, many, many countries. So I've basically tried everything that people try to be happy.

And I like to be happy, you know. I mean, the reason I tried drugs or girls or other things is because I enjoy those things. I want to find something that makes me happy.

I really did. And I was not lazy. I worked very hard.

You know, like when I had girlfriends, I would work very hard to find the best girlfriend. Or when I traveled, I would find the most exotic country. Or if I did drugs, I would do it in a peyote, in a special canyon, in the Indian cinema, you know, or something like that, you know.

Like always, it was something special. So I can say, honestly, I've tried almost everything. In business, we were the biggest in Manhattan.

The biggest manufacturing company in Manhattan. So everything I've done to extreme. And done many, many things.

But this lojong, I think, has made me really happy. And so, I'm not trying to make you Buddhist. I don't care.

I think Christianity is wonderful. My Irish friends gave me a Christian cross last year. I'm still wearing it.

I wore it all over Asia. The Mongolians, we went to Mongolia just now. Half a million people were watching on television, and I wore it.

And they said, why are you wearing that? I said, same thing. You know, and it makes you happy.

You know, lojong makes you happy. It really makes you happy. I mean, I, on sometimes when I was trying a drug, I only tried two or three times, but you get to some very great happiness or something.

I used to drink some French wine and drink too much, and then you reach this little place of happiness just before the headache, you know. And, but this lojong is cheap. It's free.

And you can do it every morning in your home. You can do it in your church. You can do it while you're praying.

You can do it in your office. You can do it all the time with your family. It doesn't matter.

And it just makes you happy. You know, it really makes you happy. So, I like you to try it, and I don't have any other reason to come to Ireland.

I'm starting next March a long retreat, three-year silent retreat, and I think this will be the last time for a while that I'll be in Ireland. But I, I want to leave you with something beautiful, and lojong is very beautiful. It's basically the same as Christ's teachings, especially the Golden Rule.

But I think the nice thing about Tibetan is in Tibet for thousands of years, they've had this very nice system of like almost a scientific system for for being happy, using the same principles as Christ. You know what I mean? But I find it to be very practical.

You know, like they covered all of the practical details of how to be happy. Christ taught the same thing, but I think what's nice, the Tibetan Lamas have made a nice system about it. So you can keep a very, you know, it's a very practical thing.

It's like a recipe in cooking. You just do this, you do this, you do this, you do this, and then you're okay. And they have many teachings like this.

This is probably the most important one. So it's, it's very short. There's only seven parts.

There's only seven steps. And it's very powerful, and you can meditate on it. I'll teach you to meditate, and then when you close your eyes, and after you breathe, and your mind is calm, and then you start the seven steps, you see.

So I'm going to introduce the seven steps tonight, and then we'll do them over the next, we have seven classes after tonight, and we'll go deep, deep into them, okay? My students ask me to teach this especially because they haven't, we've had thousands of hours of classes in New York and other cities, but we haven't had a chance to cover this in detail. So it's kind of a special chance for me to teach it.

I learned this system from a very great Tibetan Lama named Khen Rinpoche, and he was the abbot of Serra Tibetan Monastery. In Tibet, this was one of the three largest monasteries. In Tibet, there were 10,000 monks there.

Now, in the new Serra that was built after the invasion of Tibet, we have about 3,000 monks. So it's one of the greatest monasteries in the world, and he was the head of that, and this instruction was taught to me by him. So I'll start going over the seven steps.

About halfway through, we'll take a short break, and please have some, we have refreshments, Kevin? Yeah. Have some tea and things like that.

This is an excuse for me to get scones, because we don't have scones in America, and I'm addicted to scones. That's why we come back to Ireland so much. So anyway, we'll take a break about halfway through.

During the break, if you have any kind of personal question about your own meditation, or some problem, or anything, I'll be sitting here, and just come up, and don't be shy, okay? Just say, you know, what about this? You know, if you have some question, or any kind of personal thing, you have some meditation problem, or you're thinking about something, or something I said, you have a question about it, just come up and talk, and don't be shy.

There'll be like five people there, and you just step over them, and okay? These New York people are very, they come very fast, and you have to come faster, okay? So, first part of Lojong, I thought I should tell you the name of this, of this special book.

Please say, Dön. Dön. Dönma.

[Speaker 2]
Dönma. Dön.

[Speaker 1]
Dönma.

[Speaker 2]
Dönma.

[Speaker 1]
Dön means like a point of instruction, okay? This second Dön, which is spelled differently in Tibetan, means seven, number seven. Ma means the book of instructions on seven points, okay?

In Tibet, ma also means woman, and it's said that all wisdom has a feminine side to it, you see what I mean? So, even books are named, it would be like the lady of seven points, or something like that. And we think that traditionally, the male energy is sort of compassionate energy, and then the female energy is wisdom or knowledge, okay?

So, that's the two sides. So, books are always given a feminine ending if they talk about wisdom or knowledge, okay? So, Dön.

Dönma means the instruction in seven steps, okay, or seven points. It was written by somebody named, written down by Geshe Chikawa, and he lived in these years, and he was a Tibetan. I say written down because it was, this teaching that I'm going to teach you was actually about two and a half thousand years old, and it was passed on in secret for over a thousand years.

So, from teacher to student, in private groups, quietly, it was passed on for about one and a half millennia. And then finally, it was written down around 1100. You see many old manuscripts, they are a little bit different, but the one I'm going to teach you is is something we've put together from all the manuscripts, okay?

Why it was kept secret, I'll tell you later, okay? It's very beautiful, and why nobody wrote it down for 15 centuries, it's sort of interesting. Okay, first part, first of the seven steps, say ngun dro.

I had a lot of trouble with this, you know, it doesn't exist in English, it's like Vietnamese or something, and I remember I was in India studying with these Tibetans, and I would say nun, and they'd say non, mun, and I'd say gun, and they'd say non, mun, and they would yell at me, and I'd try to make this sound, it's very hard, but if you practice, it's okay. Say again, ngun dro. Ngun dro.

Ngun means before, dro means comes, ngun dro means preparation, okay? Preparation. Yeah, dro means to come, and ngun means before.

So ngun dro means prepare yourself for the main meditation, okay? And this has three parts, okay? And I'm going to just tell you the parts briefly.

First one is called, say dam dro. Dam dro. By the way, why do I put up all these words?

Out of you, two or three of you will get very serious, you will learn Tibetan, you will learn how to read the ancient books. They have 200,000 ancient books that we have found already. Last week we started in Mongolia a new project to find more.

We think there's about a million books there that the communists didn't burn, okay? And they're all wonderful, they're just fantastic, and so try to get western people interested in reading, learning to read them, because somebody has to translate all these things, okay? So I'm training like about a few hundred people in New York to read them, and we need more people to learn.

So I'm just putting seed in your mind, okay? Maybe this life, maybe next life, okay? Dam dro means spiritual opportunity, okay?

Dam dro means like spiritual opportunity, and it means this, we believe it's very difficult to get any time to meditate. You see what I mean? Like there are maybe 250 or 300 million American people, and they're all working very hard.

Like when I was working in the company, we had to work 50 weeks a year. We had to work, I got up around six o'clock to get on the bus. It's two hours to New York City.

I would work 8 to 12 hours and then come back for two hours. So that's about a 16-hour day, 14-hour day. And this is typical, especially in the New York area.

People will get up at six o'clock, they'd be home about eight o'clock. You have time to eat, watch some TV, and then sleep again, and then go back and do it again. And then, I don't know about your boss, but my boss would make me work two Saturdays a month.

Then on Sunday, you get to wash your clothes. And that's my life, you know. I did that for 16 years.

And this is typical in the United States. I mean, maybe that's a little bit rough, but at least 40, 45 hours of work and about 5 to 10 hours of traveling. And your life goes like that.

That's your whole life. And Sunday, you're washing your clothes. Saturday, you're sleeping all day to recover.

And that's it. And they give you a check and you spend it to buy a house that you can't see because you're at work. You know what I mean?

And then you die and your children sell it and waste the money. not really. And to really have any time to think, you know, just to have a few moments, a few hours to to think about, why am I living like this?

You know, I used to work in the diamond business. We did diamonds, huge tables full of diamonds. Every day 30,000, 40,000 diamonds wholesale, you know.

So big packages, bags of diamonds. And it was like, you would sit there and the diamond business is all about negotiating. The diamond business is all about making deals.

Why? Why is talking so important in the diamond business? Because diamond is worth nothing.

You see what I mean? It's just a little rock. And there's many kinds of plastic that are more beautiful.

So you have to talk this person into the you should pay a lot for this thing, you know. And they say, why? And they say, it's so pretty and it's so rare and it's so hard.

And they say, well you know, I like amber just as well and it costs a few dollars. You know, they say, no, no, you have to have it. You see, you have to talk the person into wanting it.

You see what I mean? And so a lot of the diamond business is making deals and and trying to give the impression that this thing is valuable when it's really just another rock, you know. And and so you sit there and you and you have to talk like that and negotiate like that and a lot of your time is spent like that.

And you try to make a crazy deal, you know, like it's very typical. The big diamond dealers are Chinese or Indian or Persians or or a lot of them come from Australia now, but they'll come into your office and they'll say, here's a big diamond, you know, and you look at it and you say, well, how much do you want for it? And they say, a million dollars, you know, and you say, I'll give you a thousand.

You know, I mean, and then and it's like crazy, you see what I mean? Like it's just worth whatever someone will pay for it because it doesn't have any value. So you just start fighting like that and if he can find someone to pay more, he'll go somewhere else.

And if not, he'll come to you. But the point is to just be outrageous, you know, he asks a million. I say you can have a thousand.

You know, and somewhere between we'll probably meet after three weeks of fighting. He'll sell it for four hundred thousand dollars or something, you know what I mean? But imagine this kind of deal where somebody comes up to you and says, you work for 50 weeks a year and I'll give you two weeks vacation.

You know, how do you like it? You know, and I'll let you buy a house, but you can only sleep in it. You know, you can't.

Only on Sundays you can see it in the day, you know, and I mean, if someone come up to you and make you that offer, you say, you're crazy, you know, what are you talking about? But in America, that's how we live, you see. We work 50 weeks so we can have a big house, and you can only see it on Sundays.

And they give you two weeks vacation. I mean, two weeks, come on. It takes one week to do your taxes.

And then it takes you one week to fix your house. And it's gone and you have to go back to work. If you're a very good employee, after 10 years you get three weeks.

You know, but to work for 50 weeks so you can have two weeks vacation is... that's normal, and people don't question it. That's not dendro, okay?

Dendro means you have some life, you know, you have a chance to do something. And it's very short, you know, up until 25 years old you're foolish. After 50 years old you're starting to lose your energy.

Between 25 and 50 you have some time, but then you're expected to work. And then you don't have much time to think about your spiritual life. You don't have much time to think about what's going to happen after you die.

You don't have any time to think about why are you here? Why did you come to this country? Why were you born here?

What are you supposed to do with your life? You see what I mean? Like, you get caught up.

They train you, they school you, they educate you, and then they throw you into a job. And then by the time you wake up, you're too old. And they're telling you, go home now.

You know, here's your pension. You know, and you don't have time to think, why am I here? Or how did I get here?

Or do I have to live like that? It's almost like I'd have to live like an animal. You know what I mean?

You're almost like an animal. It's almost like a deer or a cow or a horse. You know, they put you through school.

Then they put you in a job. And then they take you out of the job. And then after a while the children put you in the nursing home.

And then you're thinking, what? What happened? You know, what was I supposed to do here?

Why was I here? Why was I born here? What was I supposed to do here?

Why am I dying here? And what's the meaning of all this thing? You see what I mean?

Delngar means, Delngar means, take some time out. You know, Delngar means, be careful, while you're still young enough to think about it, to get away from the job a little bit, to get away from the family a little bit, to get away from the school a little bit, go out someplace and think, you know, why am I here? And what am I doing?

And do I have to do this normal thing? Do I have to just get old, every year older and older, and then finally you can't walk, you can't think? There was a beautiful woman here last class in April or May, Mrs. Thresher, right?

And she's gone now. She's dead. She died.

And for what, you know? She got old and she died. And she was happy, and she was clever, and I think she paid for one of the scones or something.

She brought us scones one night for everybody, and now she's dead, and she's gone. Delngar means, take some time and be careful in your life It doesn't mean don't have a good job. You should have a good job.

You should help other people with a good, you should learn some skill that helps other people, be a teacher, fix cars, you know, make something useful for people. You should do that, but don't give it your whole life, okay? Because your life will end and then it won't have any meaning, you know?

Take some time, make time, make a special time and say, that's my time to think, to meditate, to contemplate, to think about my life, to study inner spiritual things, and make sure you have that time. Kevin gave me a hard time. He said, people in Ireland expect a seminar in the morning, you know?

And I said, no. He said, how about just one morning, Michael? I said, no.

That's my meditation time, you know what I mean? And I try to be strict, and my friends help me. But, you know, you have to, dzel dzor means you set your time and you make sure you have your special time for your prayer and your meditation.

You learn how to meditate. You don't have to go to a church. It's beautiful in a church.

I think especially when you're alone in a church, it's even more powerful. But if you don't have time, you can make a small place in your house and pray there every morning and meditate and think. And you need some training about what to think about.

And that's called dzel dzor. Dzor means make your time, and make sure the time that you are young enough, strong enough, you have a good mind, healthy, not too many kids running around yet. It's very rare.

You have to take care that before you get too old, before you get too busy, you get this habit of taking a certain amount of time during the day. Like, I normally do my prayers until 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at least. Then I start studying something.

But I don't do any work until about noon or one o'clock. And it took me many years to get enough money to do that, you see what I mean? And enough time.

But you have to make it a goal that, okay, I will have a special time, even if it's only like from eight o'clock to nine o'clock or something. But dzel dzor means that. You're not going to be young forever.

You will be like Mrs. Thresher. Someday they'll say, oh, you know, they were here last class. Where are they now?

And they say, gone, you know. And life moves so fast and so busy that you have to make the time, you know, put a little time now. Reserve that time and don't let anybody touch it.

The most famous early American was Benjamin Franklin. And he was famous for business. He started the big printing business in America.

And he started with nothing. He had one piece of bread when he came to Philadelphia. He was poor.

And then he bought one thing and then he bought another thing. And then finally he had this big business. Then when he got very big, he took his foreman and he called him and he said, I'm going to give you the business.

And he said, what? He said, I'm going to give you the business. And then I'm not coming until noon.

So you run the business for 10 years and then I'll give it to you. Everything. But you pay me for, you know, a certain amount each year and I'm going to retire.

He's like 35, 40 years old and he retired. And then he had time to invent electricity and fire stations and post offices and the library. And no, and that's what he did with his morning.

But he made this deal. He made enough comfortable. He's comfortable.

And then he said, okay, that's enough. And he gave the business to his foreman. And then the foreman paid him every year a little bit.

That's what you should do. Delngar means that. The first preliminary.

Make some time in your life to do something. Because before you know it, you'll be old. And you won't have time.

Second thing. We're still on number one, okay? We're going kind of slow.

Please say chiwa. Mitakpa. Chiwa.

Mitakpa. I have older people tell me, I can't write those funny letters. And then somebody like this little girl will come up afterwards and everything's written out perfectly.

In Australia we had one like that. Chiwa means death. Mitakpa means you won't stay here very long, okay?

Everything changes, okay? And I think in Tibetan, it's famous for the death meditation. Tibetans, have a very good system of what happens to you after you die.

They have a very good explanation of it. What it feels like to die. What happens to you while you're dying.

What happens to you after you die. How it feels. Where you see.

What you see. Where you go. And that was my interest when I became, when I first went to study with the Tibetans, it was because my mother was dying.

She had breast cancer and she was getting very very bad. Like she was a school teacher and she started to black out during the school. It reached her brain.

And then they told her, you go home now because you're frightening the children, you know. She would pass out during the class. so I went to India and I talked to the Tibetans and I said, you're supposed to know about death, you know.

And they said, yeah, we know. We know how you die. We know what it's like.

We know what happens to you. We know what you think about. We know what to do.

So I said, will you teach my mother? And they said, yes. And so that's how I started.

She came to India. She'd never been outside of this small town, you know. And she flew all the way to India.

And we went up in the mountains and they trained her for three, four months how to die and what to do while you're dying. So Chihua Mitapa means to think about dying, to prepare for death. Tibetans say that death is, of course, a big part of life and you should prepare for it.

And not in a like a panic, not like a frightening way, but very calmly, very purposely prepare for it. And then, you know, young people tell me later. And then I say, wait a minute, you don't know who's going to die.

You know, somebody in this room will die first. And you can't say, you can't point to one person and say, oh, it's going to be this person. You see, I mean, I teach many people in in New York and other places and people die and it's oftentimes it's not the one you thought, you know.

I stayed in a small monastery in America, Mongolian, and we had 15 monks at the beginning, Mongolian monks. Now there's none of them left. They're all dead.

They were old when I got there 25 years ago. And one of them had a tuberculosis from the refugee days and his lung was cut out and he would walk around like this and he died last. You see, all these big healthy monks, Mongolian, you know, and shabby.

And they like scones or they call them borsig. They like borsig and they eat a lot of them, the big Mongolian guys. So all these big healthy monks died first.

You know, over 25 years. And then he was the last one. If you had asked everybody who's going to die first at the beginning, everyone would say Geshe Kelden, you know.

He outlived all of them. You don't know, you know, we don't know. So Chiyo Mitapa means the second preliminary is to meditate about dying and to prepare for dying.

And we'll talk a lot about that. I think it's a thing that the Tibetans have understood much better than we do. Because they're not afraid of it.

In Tibet, you're supposed to talk about it and think about it from the time you're 15 years old. You're trained to think about dying. And in the West, especially in America, nobody wants to talk about it.

I didn't see a dead person till I was almost 30. You know, they don't encourage you to look at them or think about it. It's considered morbid or impolite to talk about death, but everybody in here will die.

You have to prepare for it. Okay, and they're very good at it. The last preliminary, then we'll take a break.

Say korway. Korway means our life, the life that we lead. Nye mik means problems.

Okay, problems. You know, Buddhists or Tibetans, they say everything is suffering, everything. And I heard an interview with the Dalai Lama on TV and the guy said, why do you Tibetan people say everything is suffering?

It's very depressing. You know, and the Dalai Lama, you know his answer to everything. He starts giggling.

And then he said, what are you laughing about? First you say everything is suffering, and then you're laughing, you know. And he says, well, it's better to face the truth.

You feel more comfortable, you know. Uh, what does it mean everything is suffering? I mean, is it just depressing or what?

They say three kinds of suffering that we have, people have. First one is straight pain, you know, just normal pain, like a dentist, or a headache, or you're having a fight with your wife or your husband, divorce, or some kind of problem in your life, or feeling sad, or feeling depressed, okay. These are all first kind of suffering.

And everybody can agree, okay, I have this suffering sometimes. I mean, I don't fight with my wife 24 hours, you know, we have some peaceful moments. And then, then you say the second kind of suffering is called suffering of change.

Okay, so it means you have a few good things. They're hard to find in your life, but you know, all of us are healthy enough to come here, right? Uh, you have a place to stay tonight.

You're not going to get wet, I think. You know, you have something to eat today. You have a mind, a good mind.

You're listening. You understand that it's important to do something with your inside, you know what I mean? So everybody here has basic good things.

You have some good family. You have friends. You have a job.

You have a place to sleep tonight. You have some food. You know, you have a good mind.

But suffering of change says that you'll have to lose all of it. 100%. You know, everything good about your life, which is not much, you have to lose.

If you have a house now, you will lose it. Tibetans have a joke. They say either you lose the house or the house goes looking for a new owner after you die.

You know, you lose the house or the house loses you. But either one will happen, you know. You're healthy now.

You're young. Young people have this sort of a prejudice about their parents. They say, I'm never going to look like my mother, you know.

I'm never going to look like my father, you know. They said the same thing. Okay.

They said that also. Age comes to everybody. You can't stop it, okay?

Whatever health you have now, you will lose. Whatever good looks you have now, you will lose. Whatever intelligence you have now, you will get stupid, okay?

What happens? You either die or you get stupid. It's one or the other.

Okay, really. It's hard to believe when you're young, okay? When you're 40, it's easier.

Okay? You're already forgetting a lot of things. Okay?

And it just goes. Your mind goes. Your eyes go.

Your ears go. Your teeth fall out. You know, it's not like your parents want to do that.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
No, that's the... It's the way it is. And that's the second kind of suffering, okay?

We say the tale of the dog. I don't know. In one of my earlier attempts for happiness, I went to Mexico and drank tequila.

Okay? And some special strong, like, whiskey. And we got very sick, you know.

We got very drunk. And the next morning we got... They said, uh, you need the tale of the dog.

This is the only cure. So, what's the tale of the dog? We say, you have to drink some more in the morning.

In the early morning. So, they say the tale of the dog. The tale of the dog means, uh, in examining whether something is good or bad, you have to examine how does it end.

You see what I mean? Like, if you're going to debate, uh, whether something is happiness or not, the decision is, does it end happily or not? You see what I mean?

And nothing does. So, Buddha says everything is suffering. You see what I mean?

Like, is it, uh, nice to be intelligent? Yes. But if intelligence always turns into senility, and forgetfulness, and not being able to remember your name.

I read an interview with Ronald Reagan. He was the most powerful president when I was, let's say 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Do you want to know his latest powerful action?

He's senile. He went to his house. He has an aquarium with fish in it.

And at the bottom there's a small white house, a plastic, uh, white house. And, uh, he got by his wife, Nancy, and he reached into the aquarium, and he pulled out this little plastic, uh, copy of the white house. And he turned around to the reporters and he said, this means something.

I, there's something important. I used to, there's something that I used to do here about this. You know, and he can't remember that he was president, and he can't remember that that's where he used to be the most powerful man in the world.

You know what I mean? And, and we'll all be like that. You see, I mean, so they say if, if that's where all intelligence or power leads you is to be like that, then, then it's suffering to be powerful.

You see? It's suffering to be intelligent. You see?

That's a Buddhist thing. If it ends like that, and it always does, then, then that's not happiness. That's suffering.

You see what I mean? Uh, then the third kind of suffering is just death. Okay?

I mean, in the end, you have to lose everything. Uh, and they will lose you too. I mean, don't think they're going to remember you more than a few years.

Okay? The most powerful people have disappeared. Their names have disappeared.

You can't remember the names of the most powerful people who lived before us. They're gone, you know? Uh, your name won't last.

They'll take your last picture, somebody will find it, your grandchildren or their children, and they'll throw it out. They'll say, we don't know who this is. You know what I mean?

Nobody will remember your name even. And that's the way we are. That's the way the life goes.

Um, we say you can stop those things. You know, we say in, in Tibetan Buddhism, you can reach a state of heaven. We believe in heaven.

Uh, it's the same as the Christian heaven. And I think the instructions for reaching it are a little more clear, you know, they're almost like a recipe or something. And, and so I don't mean just to leave you depressed.

I'm afraid somebody will go home during that refreshment. The goal of this talk this weekend and the goal of these teachings is to reach heaven and to, and to change these things. You don't have to die like that.

Uh, you don't have to get old like that. Um, there are specific instructions to, to change it. You have to learn to meditate.

You have to follow certain instructions, but it's very, we believe very straightforwardly, very clearly, very frankly, with no apologies. There is a heaven. Uh, you can reach there.

And, everything can come out quite nicely, but you need training. It's like learning to play piano or something. And it's about the same amount of effort.

Okay, to get there and to avoid these problems is possible. And everybody here can do that. And many people have done it.

and it, you have to have a little discipline and you have to learn how to do it and you have to follow it. And it's about like learning to play piano. If you have enough discipline to learn piano, you can probably reach, uh, some kind of heaven.

Uh, we believe even before you die, you can finish that, uh, and, and learn how to do it. And, and so I'm not just describing, uh, some kind of, uh, slow death and loss of everything for no reason. Uh, there's a way to stop it.

Christianity is correct. Jesus was correct. Uh, there is such a place as heaven.

You can reach there and you just need instructions. And you need a clear, uh, you know, clear instructions that have been passed down from generation to generation. And, um, they're there.

And this meditation is one of those instructions. If you learn it and practice it well every morning, uh, you don't have to worry about those things. Those things won't happen.

Uh, we believe there are, there is a way to do that. So, first you have to have a scone though. So, take a break.

Come back in about 10 minutes and then, uh, we won't take long. And if you have some question or something, just come up and, uh, ask, okay? Say, sem kye.

[Speaker 2]
Sem kye.

[Speaker 1]
Uh, this is really the key of the part that makes you happy. All right? And, uh, it's a special kind of meditation and we'll be teaching it, uh, over the weekend.

Uh, this is the really the most important part. And, uh, I'm not going to go into it in great detail. But, and by the way, if you try to read the sheet we handed out, it sounds like Greek, right?

Uh, don't worry about it. Uh, in the ancient tradition in Tibet, they would pass it down a little bit secretly. Like, if you try to read it from the paper, it just sounds like gibberish, you know.

And don't worry about it. We're going to go through each line. We're going to explain each line.

But that whole number two there refers to sem kye. Sem kye means, uh, a special meditation where you, uh, learn to love another person as much as you love yourself. Okay?

Like, this is almost impossible. Okay? It's almost impossible for a normal human person to care or to think about other people as much as you think about yourself.

You see what I mean? Like, people who spend one hour a day really helping other people and then 23 hours a day helping themselves are very happy. You see?

To really give up what you want for one hour and help someone who needs something is very... It makes you very happy. Now, if you can do sem kye, and if you learn how to do sem kye, 24 hours a day you are putting your mind into other people's bodies, in a sense.

You see? It's a training where you learn to put your mind in other people's bodies, and you take care of them. You see what I mean?

And it's a great skill. I mean, it's the essence of Christianity also. You know, do unto others as you would do unto yourself or something.

The golden rule. But really how to do it, you see, if you're just a normal person and you're just trying to make a living and you're trying to help your family and, you know, trying to get by in college or something, it sounds very good and very noble. Now, is there a nice easy way to do it?

In America, we invented what my friends in Australia call the American Embassy. We call it McDonald's. You know what I mean?

And this is the symbol of America around the world. You know, I go from airport to airport around the world. We were just in Mongolia yesterday at this time, or the 24 hours before that.

35 hours in the airplanes, you know, to get out. And there's a McDonald's everywhere you go, you know. Why?

It's fast food. It's easy. You know what I mean?

America's like, they don't care if it tastes good. It just has to be fast, you know. And and Sem Chey is like that, okay.

Like, Sem Chey is a fast way to learn to be like, to love people almost like Jesus loved people. You see what I mean? It's a way, it's a recipe or instructions for learning to love other people like that.

And if you train yourself a little bit, you can learn to do that. It makes you very, very happy. It's one of the keys to happiness, okay.

The more you can think about others and take your mind off yourself, you're happy. Now, why is that? There's this thing called karma, and we'll talk about it a lot, okay.

Everything you do has a reaction. You see what I mean? We believe that everything you do for others, good or bad, there's a reaction.

If you hurt other people, you have a bad reaction, it comes back to you. If you help other people, you have a good reaction come back to you. Sem Chey is like the ultimate help to other people.

And then the reaction is basically you get to go to heaven, okay. So, this is the key. Sem Chey is the key.

And we'll go through it. There's a special training. But it's somehow a special skill of learning to put your mind in other people's bodies, okay.

And to think from their point of view, and to look at the world from their point of view. And it's a very beautiful training. If you get to be pretty good at it, you'll be a very happy person all the time, you see.

And that in itself is very rare. To be happy all the time is difficult. It's probably the most difficult thing you can do, okay.

But if you have good instructions, it's easier, okay. That's what these seven points are for. Okay, number three.

Uh, sorry for the strange sound. Say, um This is a special meditation and a special skill. It's especially useful in business.

It's especially useful in family life. I worked in a huge corporation for 15 years. And and this is a special way to make things turn out right.

That business went from three people to a thousand employees. We started with fifty thousand dollars. Now it's a hundred million dollars a year in sales.

125 actually. And one of the in fact, Forbes magazine asked me about it and they wrote an article about it. And then Doubleday company has asked a book.

We wrote a book about it. It's coming out in February. But it's how to use...

It's a special skill that turns all your problems into opportunities. Gangrel means problems. And lamgyur means to turn them into opportunities.

And it's a special kind of meditation. You know, uh, you can use it to get to heaven. You can use it to make money, okay.

We say there's no problem to do both. Okay, and we don't say in Buddhism that you have to uh, give up everything and uh, be miserable. You can't listen to music.

Uh, you can't be joke. You can't be happy. You can't smile.

It's not like that. You can have a successful life and you can also go to heaven. Together.

It's no problem. Really. And it should be like that.

It's not like you have to choose uh, something like that. It's not like that. If you follow this system, this means it's a special kind of meditation ability that when something goes wrong, you can turn it into an opportunity.

You see what I mean? So opportunities are already opportunities. But then trouble you can turn into an opportunity.

You see what I mean? So then everything is an opportunity. Opportunities are opportunities, and trouble is an opportunity.

So a whole day is an opportunity. You see what I mean? And uh, it's a special meditation.

And we'll go over that. We'll be teaching that. And this is really, really useful.

If you've ever been in business, or you've ever had a company, or you've ever had a family, uh, bad things happen. Misfortunes happen, you know. And then how to turn them.

How to use them. You see what I mean? Anything.

Like yesterday, we were following somebody. They got in a car accident. We stopped and helped them, you know.

And then by the end of the day, it was a... I think it was a happy thing for everybody, you know. We got to know each other.

We helped them, and they were nice to us, and we learned a lot. And uh, you know, every bad thing, you can turn it around into something good. It's a skill.

It's an art. And uh, you have to practice. And that will be the third subject over the weekend.

Okay. I'm going a little faster now. Let's see.

By the way, if you have to get to a bus, or a train, or you have to go, please don't feel shy. Okay. People told me in Ireland, people will just sit there and miss their train, you know.

If you don't tell them. So, you know, if you have to... Just don't feel shy.

Just get up and go. Okay. In New York, sometimes there's a last train, and they just get up and go.

Say, dzong tse. Dzong tse. Dzong tse means, how do you know when you have succeeded?

You see what I mean? How do you know when you've reached the ultimate kind of meditation? And there's certain signs, and we'll go over that.

Okay. So, you know, sometimes you're not sure if your prayer has worked or not. You see what I mean?

You sit down and you do a prayer, and then afterwards you're like, was it enough? You know, or is that going to work or not? And there's certain signs.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And we're going to go over those. It's like special signs that you can understand if the prayer is going to work or not. If the meditation has reached a level that it's enough.

Okay. I'm sorry, that's number five. Okay.

Correct that. Okay. That's number five.

So now I've got to give you number four, right? Say it, tse chig.

[Speaker 2]
Dzil.

[Speaker 1]
Tse chig. Dzil. Tse chig dzil means, special meditation you can do all day long.

How to do meditation all day long. You see, technically you're only meditating for one hour in the morning or something. What are you supposed to do the rest of the day?

Okay. When you go to work, is there a way to meditate while you're at work? Is there a way to meditate while you're cooking in the kitchen?

You see what I mean? And there is. And this is a special way to meditate.

It's five steps of a meditation that you do all day long, and while you're in the kitchen, or while you're with your family. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Session one continues on the next CD.