Серия ежедневной практики, курс 04 — Семичастная практика развития доброго сердца (1999, Голуэй), занятие 8

[Speaker 2]
Okay, I want to introduce Winston McCullough. He is from McDonagall. His ancestors are from McDonagall.

He lives in New York City.

[Speaker 1]
He is one of my best students. He has been trained, I trained him many years. He came to Tibetan monasteries and trained there.

[Speaker 2]
I like him because he is a family man. He has a beautiful son. He has another son on the way.

He doesn't know his son. And he is a business executive and he has also taught business at Columbia University. So I think he is a beautiful combination of ancient wisdom and practical knowledge of the modern world.

[Speaker 1]
I would like to propose that he come and help, with the help of Tom Flynn, to do a course in the springtime in Galway about how to meditate. There is an ancient book, it takes about 10 classes.

[Speaker 2]
Tom has been through it and Winston has done it many times. I think it would be really good to keep it going while I am in silent retreat. I think Winston would be especially good and Tom would help also.

So I would like him to do a half hour, 40 minute presentation on how to track these 18 pledges that we just talked about.

[Speaker 1]
This is a method of, it is one thing to go to a weekend seeing and you hear about all these things, but if you don't have a daily regimen, if you don't have a daily schedule about how to do it, I don't think you will do anything at this retreat.

[Speaker 2]
So listen carefully and then try to keep it. I use this method, every Tibetan Buddhist that I train uses this method. It is required in the secret teachings of Tantra to keep this method.

It is a very very beautiful method, it is very powerful. So I would like to introduce Winston.

[Speaker 1]
Geshe Michael is very kind, infinitely kind for coming to teach us and for all the things that he has done over many years so that we could get to the point in 1999 where we can all be sitting here studying these things together. It is amazing and he is an unbelievable, deep teacher of philosophy and obviously understands these things very personally and has internalized them. That is very clear as we spend more time with him.

So we are very grateful for all the things that he has taught us in our minds and things that he has modeled and shared with us in his heart. These are the things that we are after in our life. So just to say thank you and express gratitude.

We all feel this way. He is also an amazing manager. It is not just that he teaches us to understand the philosophy and the goals that we have spiritually, but he was a manager of a big division with 100 employees.

So he also imparts to us tactics for how we can put these things into practice in our life because it is one thing to have a concept and learn some philosophy and then it is something else to go away each day with our family or in our job with our colleagues to put these things into practice. As he said, it is the very little thoughts that we have and the little acts of kindness or of disregarding others that are what transform our hearts. So it is great that we come and learn these things this weekend.

It is even greater if we go off and have a method or have tactics to put these things into practice to help to transform ourselves. So this is not philosophy, this is just a practical way to put what he has taught into practice throughout the day. So we call it a six times book.

And the idea is that understanding what things being neutral. As we have gotten a glimpse of what this means, we realize that there is all kinds of potential in our life. The people that we bump into in the street, our families, the people that we meet at work, all the people we see day to day, all the situations that we are in, even all the objects, the way the sun looks to us, the clouds, the rain, all the things in our life have this amazing potential.

And if we realize that that potential is there, the next question obviously is, what do I do? How come I have met someone who has been able to create the causes for this potential to become great and for life to be happy, for things to seem magical to us? What is the method?

What are the causes? How do we do it? So the six times book is really the practical tactic for how to do this.

So this is something we need to go out and do tomorrow, start it tomorrow, do it the next day, stay with it as long as we can. Then there will be a time where I started this and then I stopped for a while, I didn't really get it, I started up a week later, a month later. So it's something to definitely make a decision today if you can, to try to make a commitment to do it.

And then if you're not able to follow up, don't get down on yourself, just pick it up a week later, something like that. So it's a six times book. And here's how it goes.

I think we have some books for you. And you take a book and on the left side you divide it into six boxes, like here, into six boxes. And I'll write it up here.

And then we're going to also do something on the right side of the book. So first thing in the morning, you get up and you load your book. And you do it like this.

And one way to do it is take the list of 18 practices or 18 special pledges that Geshe Michael just gave us and take those 18 as a list of activities that we're going to try to follow. And then there's a special way of tracking them during the day. So the first one was, let's see, what was the first one?

The Three Laws. And there's actually 16 on your list, but Geshe Michael described how the first law is really three laws. So the first law is keep all of your commitments.

And then we're going to follow these 18 practices over a number of days. So if we're going to keep 18 practices or pledges, we're going to take the number of pledges that we're keeping, 18, and just divide it by three. And you'll see, it's a little math.

So put number four is change your mind and stay the same. And so on. And then we'll put 7, 10, 13, and 16.

So in the morning, you can get up and load your book like this. And write down the name of each pledge. So let's say we're going to start tomorrow.

So on Tuesday, on Monday, we load up the book 1, 4, 7, 10, and so on. The next day, we do pledge number 2, number 5, number 8, and so on. And then the day after that, we do number 3, number 6, and so on.

And so in three days, in this case, we're keeping 18 pledges so we can cycle through the pledges. And then this is how we do it. The idea is that maybe an hour or two into the day, on Monday, we pull out our book, we've loaded it over a cup of tea, say first thing in the morning.

And then 9 o'clock at work maybe, or 9 o'clock getting the kids off to school, we pull out the book and we say, okay, keeping my commitments, how am I doing? So the idea is we're checking our thoughts and our speech and our behavior specific to each of these pledges. So I usually write down the time.

So something like 9 o'clock, you'd say, what activity have I done, say in the last 24 hours, where I kept my commitments well? And then what did I fail to do in terms of keeping my commitments? And then what could I do as an antidote for that?

So I have a business job back in New York and I'm in the process of moving partially out of that job. But I still have commitments to my boss there that are very important commitments. If I don't keep my commitments to my co-workers and my boss at my job, I'm probably not going to do such a good job keeping my commitments to my teacher and to serving the Dharma and my Dharma friends.

So I need to train my mind to keep my commitments. And then if I do it at work, it will also transfer into Dharma practice. So I owe my boss a letter that I have to write to someone else, which is I'm writing for him.

And I haven't done it yet. So the first thing I'm going to do is say, didn't finish letter. And this was like Wednesday afternoon, last day I was at work.

It was 3.30 in the afternoon. I had some time. I could have fit this in.

I knew I needed to do it. I know a little bit in terms of Buddhism that I need to do this because I need to keep the commitment to people. So very specific action.

Think about the time that you did it, the time that it occurred. Think about the situation. Think about, I put my boss' name, Larry.

So I'm thinking about Larry's reaction perhaps, that I haven't written this letter, he wants it to be written. I'm thinking about the seed that it's planting in my mind for not keeping a commitment like that. Very small activity, but it's important to be very specific and concrete about how it affects our mind and how that's going to create an enjoyable or an unenjoyable perception of the neutral world that I'm going to bump into in a month or a year from now.

So being very specific. And then something positive I did is keeping in touch with my family. So I have a family commitment.

I have a wife and a small son. And so I'm going to say just kept in touch. And again, a specific time of day where I made a phone call or I sent a postcard like that to keep in touch.

Very specific and then thinking about how it's a tiny little change in my heart and all of these changes incrementally are what create the causes for eventually to reach a Buddha paradise. And then in terms of... I'm glad I made this mistake because I always make this mistake and this is like the classic Western thing.

I think maybe because of our training we're used to being too hard on ourselves and we don't recognize the good things that we do enough and we're too quick to notice our faults. And I do this often. I wrote down the negative one first.

Sometimes I even write the negative one in the positive box. And then I make an arrow. So it's important the concept of equal time.

Do a confession and then as Geshe-la said, do the rejoicing part, the rejoicinal. Go through this activity of being really happy. And I am really happy that I thought about my family.

I thought about the importance of them hearing from me like that. That's really important. So be happy about doing that deed too.

And then third thing is that the to-do is, you might call it an antidote or something to make up for not keeping a commitment in some way. So this one is sort of easy. When I go back to work Tuesday morning, I'm going to finish that letter.

Which is coming up pretty soon. So I'm going to say, Finish letter by noon time. And then I'm going to go back and if I actually wrote the letter, I might circle it or something.

Say I did that. So the idea is that with each of these six pledges, write down something specific that's consistent with that pledge. And then something where we're not keeping that pledge.

And then write down an antidote. So nine o'clock you might do this. If you divide the day into six pieces, it might be something like two and a half hour intervals.

So around 11, 11.30. I'd pull out the book again. And write down a positive, a negative and a to-do. So changing your mind or staying the same is number four.

Change your mind. Meaning work to transform yourself internally. But then stay the same.

Don't do it in a showy way so other people notice. The point is just internally to try to transform our hearts. So what did I do?

This morning I was in a little unusual circumstance. But I meditated. So it was a little hard to meditate.

But I went ahead and did that. And I'm trying to change my mind. So I'm trying to understand and build these teachings really strongly into my mind about the seven point lojong.

So I did a meditation about the seven point lojong. So I'm just going to say I meditated. Even though it's easier to meditate at home in your usual place.

So I did a good job meditating. So I'm happy about that. And it's good to be happy.

It's good to have a certain kind of pride for doing things right. And then that will let us help other people later. What I didn't do so well in terms of changing my mind was I met a self-existently impolite driver driving somewhere yesterday.

Not really. Someone honked the horn when I was driving too slow because I'm driving like a lefty stick shift and I'm probably on the wrong side of the road. And so this person very inappropriately honked the horn at me.

And what I didn't do was instantly think I was rude to someone in the past. So now I have to bump into someone who's honking the horn and seems a little rude to me. So I didn't think about that.

So I wasn't transforming my mind in the way that I have a commitment to try to do. So I'm just going to say a little irritation at this driver. It may seem really silly.

Geshe-la talks about these incredible, deep, loving, philosophical things. And then why am I talking about just a little thing like driving a car? You can actually change the drivers.

You can change the quality of the drivers. You can change the quality of New Jersey drivers, for example. And you can make them good drivers.

You actually can. And maybe it's a different chemistry in Galway, so you have to work on it. It's a little while in Galway, I don't know.

But you can actually do that. And then I would write some kind of to-do. So something I'm going to do.

So tomorrow I'm going to be driving, or let's say tonight I'm going to be driving somewhere. So the first time I'm driving on the right side of the road and someone honks, I'm going to think, okay, I created this unreasonable impoliteness. So I'm just going to say pay attention tonight when I'm driving.

And then at the end of the day, I'm going to look back at these and I'm going to say, did I really do that or did I forget to do that? And if I really did it, I'm going to just make some kind of note that I really did that to-do. With the to-dos, good idea to make them very small, very doable, very concrete, something that you really do.

Don't make a promise that you're going to do some great antidote, which it's hard for us to follow up on. Because then it's a bad idea to get used to not meeting these commitments, these little things we say we're going to do. So make it very small, very simple, easy to do.

But then when you do it, think about what Geshe Michael's been teaching us. And do it with an understanding of what it's causing for us, rather than just kind of I'm supposed to do this. Not that kind of idea.

My parents taught me to be kind or some kind of influence, some outside influence. Try to do this book with our own understanding of why we're doing it and how it can work for us. And thinking about the goal that we have in mind.

Ultimate goal. And so then we go through the day like this. So maybe 2 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 7 o'clock, 10 o'clock, something like that.

And you just pull out the book. It's very simple. It's a funny thing to do.

And I admit that when I was first taught, it took me a little while to start to do it. And I just started. At the end of the day I would write some things down.

And then I stopped for a little while. And then I started. And then I kept it up.

And once you keep it up, I think there's some kind of threshold. Once you keep it up for a number of weeks, it'll just become a part of your life. And it'll be like you get up and you brush your teeth and you get dressed and you load your book.

And you get to work and you have a cup of coffee and you open your book. And it just becomes so second nature that you couldn't imagine not doing it. And you actually get this.

It's like a close companion in a way. Like your book is like... I do my vows because I work in a corporation.

And some people have very beautiful books. And I think it's nice to do it like this. That are folded up in a nice cloth, like a scripture.

And I'm in a business job. And I tried to do it like that. And then I found I just couldn't do it because I go to these long meetings.

And I can't really pull this book out. So I put it in my business calendar. So my boss just is impressed.

Like, oh, he's getting very organized. He doesn't see the results. But he sees I'm trying to get organized.

Like keeping my calendar book. And so you just get in the habit of doing it. And it's really, really helpful.

It's the thing that reminds you... It's what makes you recall your Buddhist goals and the ideas of Buddhism all throughout the day. And you do it every day.

And it's very simple. And it probably takes five or ten minutes total of the whole day. So it's really quite easy to do.

And if you think about... You'd easily give up five or ten minutes just for anything, basically. It's so easy.

But you have to get into a habit of it. I just took a little training course at work on communications. And the training instructor said that if you do anything...

She was talking about how to keep the material in your mind after the course ended and the teacher and the students went home. How to make it become a part of your life. She said if you do anything for 25, 28 days...

A lot of studies show if you do it for that many days consistently you'll probably stay with it. It's a good idea. Just make an effort.

Try to do it for five days. Do it for a week. Try to stay with it.

If you stop, then just come back to it when you have some problem. And it reminds you that you really need to do this. I was going to ask.

When you get your book full, what do you do with it? People do different things with them. I like to look at my books and go back and see.

Because I don't seem to be making much progress to myself in my Dharma practice. And then when I look back six months or a year before I find that... I'm like, wow.

Yeah, that's right. I used to react like that to that situation. And I'm better.

I'm honestly better at it. And then I look at other things toward the end of the book that are recent. I'm like, yeah, I still have to work on that.

That particular theme keeps coming up. That's something I have to work on. I have to keep working on that.

And then I think it's nice to do your book with a partner. So if you have a buddy that you're close to you can actually pull it out with them. And we have lunch and we pull out our book and we remind each other, oh yeah, it's time.

It's been three hours and I haven't done a book yet. If you don't have someone that you live with or bump into you can do it by telephone. And we have friends like from Geshe Michael's Extension students who might live in Maine or somewhere and we're far away.

And so we call each other up once a week and we say like, hey, go back to last Wednesday, third entry, what have you got? And we just keep our vows. And then maybe I say, oh, I missed that one.

I didn't write that down. So you share how you're doing and make it with someone who you feel a connection to, someone you feel comfortable with. So it's a good idea to have a buddy to support you.

So that's nice. What else to say? I think probably the most important point about it aside from just to do it is to be very specific and very concrete.

It's the little specific definite details of our life that are what transform us. We rarely get a chance to do something grand and glorious on a big scale. But it's the hundreds of thoughts that we have and little nuances to the tone of our voice.

It's the little things that we say when we talk to people. It's all those very, very small things on a very regular, consistent basis that mold our hearts and are really like the karma that we're collecting that's going to create the future kind of world that we live in. So it's sort of not very glorious or something, keeping this book.

It's just a practice that's very sweet, disciplined, very kind of minute way of managing our minds and our hearts as we go throughout the day. And so you go through and make your six entries during the day. And then at the end of the day, this is on the left side of the book, like on this side.

And then on the right side of the book, you do something like this. And you can also set this up in the morning when you load your book. So you're going to mention something about how your meditation went that day.

And then we're going to make a note of three really good things we did and three things that were not so good during the day. The six vows that came up as we do the book throughout the day may not have covered all of the really good things or not so good things that we did during the day. So if you did something really good that doesn't relate to any of these six vows or pledges, then you can write it here.

So you might have given something to someone that they really needed. Or you might have gone out of your way to say a really kind word to someone. Or you might have just thought at a crucial time when you were about to be proud or have jealousy or have some kind of irritation.

Right at that key moment, you remembered what Geshe Michael said about things being neutral and having potential. So you stopped yourself. And that's a great act, just that five seconds of recalling this idea.

So you write that down. And again, be very specific. Two o'clock, I checked my reaction.

When the pressure was on, I just remembered it. So at the end of the day, I'm going down and thinking about three really positive things I did that are going to transform my heart in a good way and three negative things that are going to be like blockers that are going to stop me from making progress. Again, very specific, very concrete.

Think about the time of day. Think about the person and how what you did may have affected them. And think about how it's affecting your mind and your heart as you're doing it.

So very, very important. So we have six entries during the day. And then we have three positive and three negative.

And then also, you can just make a real quick note about how your meditation went. One reason to do this is that if you don't have anything to say because you didn't meditate at the end of the day, then it's blank. And then if you have a lot of blanks, then it's reminding you that meditation is really a key way of practicing Buddhism.

I do something like I write down the time that I meditated. If I meditated with someone, meditated with Andrea, and I make some little note about how it went or some thought that I was having while I was meditating. Just some kind of comment about the meditation.

And you may find some kind of themes that are coming up. And so it's a way of just sort of checking whether you meditated and keeping a little note about how it went. So you write something down about your meditation.

And then there's an area up here. And sometimes monks and nuns have vows, special vows for ordained people. And sometimes they'll track their vows up there.

I've gotten in the habit of starting to work on one or two specific things that I really need to improve. For example, Geshe Michael mentioned not being in a hurry, not being, what is it, don't be too, don't be fixed on speed. So I've been saying not rush.

And I have kind of a busy life in New York and it's crammed with too many things, so I tend to rush around. And it's when I'm rushing that my mental afflictions come up and I'm doing these negative things. And Geshe Michael accomplishes these massive projects and good deeds, and somehow he's never rushing.

He's always calm and relaxed, like going from activity to activity. And you can observe this in someone and think about, you admire them and you want to absorb that quality that they have. And I'm always rushing around and when I'm rushing it's me.

I'm saying something edgy to someone. So I just say, don't rush. And then at the end of the day, same thing, I write down, I actually slowed down and stopped and listened to someone for a minute and a half instead of doing something else while they were talking.

I actually listened to them, something like that. So that's how you keep the book. What else to say?

[Speaker 2]
You were writing at the top of your meditation. Is this known to make you sad?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, about the meditation? No, just above that. Oh, just above that.

This is just something that some people do. Maybe it's an optional part of the book, I don't know. But I'm working on something.

I'm always working on something. Like the past month, I've been trying not to rush around so much. So I just write a note in the evening as I'm kind of winding down my day.

I'm writing something about, I either got in a rush and I didn't keep this advice that I'm working on or I did really well. I stopped myself, I slowed down, I did something nicely. So I make a note about how I'm doing on this activity.

Sometimes I just write down Lojong as another one. Geshe Michael's taught us three ways of practicing Lojong. With the Jampa Method and putting yourself in Phil's mind.

Or putting the rope around someone. Put his face in it.

[Speaker 2]
It's always Phil.

[Speaker 1]
Or putting the rope around someone. Those three methods. So sometimes I've been writing that down and if I really did that, if I did that with my wife, for instance, I really thought of what she would want to eat, for instance.

And not just that I wanted this or I wanted half of what's on her plate. Maybe she needs half of what's on my plate. Did I ever think of that?

She might need it. So I'm just usually working on one specific thing as a theme because I know I really need to work on that. Are there other questions?

[Speaker 2]
I wanted to know, why do you not just take them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 as they are on the page or maybe I just didn't understand it?

[Speaker 1]
I think you could go just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 the first day and then 7 through 12 the next day and then up to 18 the third day. You could do that. We do it like this because there's a longer list of activities that are helpful.

There's different sets of vows and eventually if you're following some of those, certain kinds of vows have certain themes, let's say. So you might want to hit on the first kind of vow, first thing in the morning, and then the second type of vow. Different kind of theme with different kinds of pledges that we follow.

So that's the reason. So if you have a longer list of things you're keeping, you can just divide the total number by how many you have. You can figure it out.

So you choose from the 18 lines of the text that we did on page 11 and you just choose 6 for the day? You can go 1, 4, 7, 10 and so on. And then if you do it like that, in three days you'll cycle through to 18.

Or you could do just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Do that on Monday. On Tuesday, do 7 through 12.

You load them up first thing in the morning so it's not like you're picking the vow. You don't get to pick the vow just as you did something good, because it fits or something like that.

[Speaker 2]
And then whatever you say, sorry to quote this, but you say you've got commitments and it's the same way you had it. In the morning, at 9 o'clock, you're thinking only about your commitment. And then at 11 o'clock, you're thinking only about you change your mind and stay the same.

It's whatever vow or whatever it is you're calling to put in at each part of the day.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, at each time in the day, at these six intervals, two or three hour intervals during the day, you're checking at 9 o'clock, you're checking the first vow you wrote down. 11.30, you're checking the second one you wrote. Just that one vow.

So every two and a half hours or so, you're just checking one pledge and you write down a plus, a minus, and a to-do. At 9 o'clock, you write down a plus, a minus, and a to-do. At 11.30, you look at the second pledge you're going to check and you write down a plus, a minus, and a to-do. So you do a plus, a minus, and a to-do six times spread throughout the day.

[Speaker 2]
Hi, I'm in the process of learning and doing the Bodhisattva vows. Do you suggest you add this to that or do you concentrate on one or just add between two?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's fine. It's good. You could do these 18 and you could build in the Bodhisattva vows.

And if there are other pledges or vows or commitments that you've studied, then you would build them in as you go.

[Speaker 2]
Just if, right in the morning, you have to keep commitments and you check back and later on that day there's another commitment but it's depending on the bus journey. So you arrive at the bus stop and there's a whole lot of people and you know if you wait and leave everybody on the bus, you're going to miss your commitment. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
It's, yeah. Can I defer it to 8 o'clock? No.

There are often decisions. I'm not a, you know, I don't understand these things very well. I don't have a great answer for you but there's often a time where you have two pledges that seem to be in, you know, if you do one you won't be keeping the other.

And so we often have to make decisions about what to do. I think the main thing is to be checking our intention and our motivation. And if we're thinking, it's kind of like we're pretty safe if our intention and our motivation is good.

If the energy is right, you know, that we're thinking about other people and we're thinking about these practices. Then we have to make a decision and that'll probably be a pretty good guide. And maybe we're choosing between two good things that we could do.

And then if you have to, and then you do have to choose. So sometimes you can think about sort of a guideline of trying to follow the higher, what would be the more important or the higher or more powerful kind of guideline that you'd want to follow. And I think that's something that maybe we study, you know, and we learn a little bit more about how some kind of pledges or some activities might be a little more important or more strong or take some kind of precedence in a situation where you can you can do one or do the other.

[Speaker 2]
What if you get to no going for the jugular and you can't think of a single thing that that seems to be referring to?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, thanks. That's another really good point. I forgot.

Thank you. Yeah, often you have to sort of free associate. Like a lot of times you haven't, you know, you come up, go for the jugular and you've like been out hiking in the woods, you know, and there's no jugular.

You know, there's no way you could have kept or not kept this pledge, right? And then so start to go back and maybe you didn't do it today, maybe yesterday, there's something that relates to that. And maybe you go back a couple of days and you really can't think of anything, honestly, and even going back, you can't think of anything.

So kind of expand what that vow means a little bit. So free associate a little bit. Sometimes the pledges are very specific.

And they don't relate to your activities real explicitly, right? So free associate and so be a little bit broader. So you might just think about any kind, in that case, you might think about any kind of, you know, aggressive or unkind thing or even thought that I had about someone, you know, in the past 24 hours.

And in that case I could, you know, probably find something. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Winston, I'm kind of being devil's advocate here, but in the sense where it says rid, the one thing in this list, rid yourself of the biggest affliction first.

[Speaker 1]
Like, you know, it could seem to me to be very easy to be dealing with the minor things when really you're, you know, you're robbing the office of stuff or being angry with the family or, you know, there's a kind of abilities about that.

[Speaker 2]
And that's a curious statement as an objective.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think there's two, there's two principles that almost seem opposite. Like one principle is be very specific and track very small thoughts and activities. And then another principle is go after the big mental affliction that I have that I'm trying to fight.

And I think they're not, I think you can do both. And that's why I, that's why I usually have something up here that I'm working on specially. And I may have some, some thing about myself that I just don't like and I'm really working on it.

And it's, I'm, I'm, I'm almost obsessed with trying to clean this thing out of myself. So I'm thinking about it often. And that's the big one.

That's the big affliction that I have to go after first. You know, so I'm, I'm going after that one every day. But then at the same time it's, there's also these small things.

I think you can do both. I think they, I think they fit together. Okay.

So I guess last thing is, let's say if you're trying to do something like learn to play the flute, let's say. And you go to a concert and there's, and you see this amazing flute player and she's just wonderful and it, you know, it's, it moves your, your heart, you know. And you love this and you want to, so you want to learn how to play the flute.

You know, how would you do it? You've, you've gone to this concert. There's some weekend event.

It's moved your heart. It's given you, it's given you a beautiful, an idea of something beautiful that you want to be a part of your life. And how do you, how do you do that?

And so we have some practices that really strongly, you know, we're encouraged to, to try to adopt these practices. And so meditation is one. And Tom is going to teach you how to meditate.

And we can, we can help with that. And I'll mention something about how, how we can do that. And another is to continue to study.

And then a third, and we'll talk about, I'll mention the correspondence courses because a lot of people have asked. So before we go to dinner, I'll say something really quick about how to order them. And so to meditate and to study.

And a third is to just be tracking this book. And the six-time book is really a key. And, and, you know, a lot of us have been doing it and we do it together.

It's really very sweet. It's a beautiful thing to build into your life. And it really, really works.

It's, it's something that, that really makes this stuff plant in yourself and you internalize it. So I encourage you just to, obviously, you know, as strongly as I can, I encourage you to begin to do it. And you don't have to be perfect.

And if you drop off, just start it up again when you can. So, you know, please think about doing that. And then another thing is like when you're, you know, when you're a kid, I liked sports when I was a kid.

So I had a poster of like Michael Jordan or someone on my wall, you know. And if you had, if you love this flute player, you might get a poster, you know, or, or photocopy her album and big and put it up on your wall. And think about it, you know, during the day and think about the effect that that concert, you know, had on your heart.

And this is something beautiful that we want to build into our life. Like we've, through some incredible fortune, you know, that may, that must have come from some previous cause. Like we've bumped into something that's just unique and powerful and beautiful.

So if I, like, if I wanted this flute to stay in my life, I would do whatever I could to, to help me to recall the concert, you know. So I would be like practicing my scales every day. And I would make an effort to learn how to do that.

And that would be things like meditation and keeping the book, these daily kind of practices. And I would, I would put a poster of her up on the wall. And I would, every morning I would, I would check it out.

And I would think like, oh wow, you know, remember that. Remember the beauty of that music. And that's not, I don't want that to be just a, something on a weekend that happened.

I want that to be something that becomes a part of my heart. You know, I want her to like be a part of my heart. So something like that.

So these things are really, these kind of tactics, you know, are, are very, very helpful. And they're the thing that, cause Geshe Michael, you know, goes back to New York now to teach. And for us students, he's going into retreat.

And we all want him to be in our hearts, you know. And what he's teaching and the qualities that he has. So this is the way that we do it.

It doesn't just happen. There are definite causes. And he's even taught us the causes and the things that we have to do to make it happen.

So the Six Times book is really great. And the last thing, a lot of people have been interested in ordering correspondence courses. If you're on the web or if you can get to an internet site, it's www.world-view.org.

Okay. And that's the way to order them. And then I, you know, we're told that it's a little bit of a hassle and it costs 15 pounds or something.

And you get a, you need to get an international, you know, money note or something. So a few people have just given us a request for courses. And if you're able to pay the cost to cover, just to cover the materials and the shipping is 50 pounds.

And if you're not able to pay, it's fine and we're happy to give it to you. We don't, you know, we don't, it's not a way that we generate revenue. You know, we're trying to give all of the teachings away.

So if you'd like to, you can give me, just write a note and say you'd like course one or three or whatever. And if you, and you can give me dollars or you can give me pounds and I'll just exchange it and then I'll pass that on to a person named Michael Moore in New York who will send them out to you. And it'll probably be a couple of weeks before you get it.

And we're happy to give them for free if you don't have the money to pay. It's totally fine. And courses that we would suggest, if you want to start to study, it is a really good idea if you have the interest now to kind of jump on it, if you want to study some of the correspondence courses.

Each course has 11 cassette audio tapes and it has the readings and homework and quiz and a final exam. It has notes that a student has taken and it has a grading key. And you can either grade it yourself or send the course in and we'll grade it and send it back to you with comments.

And then courses we would suggest, I didn't bring order forms and descriptions of the courses so here's a couple of suggestions. Geshe Michael has taught the entire Geshe program to us in 15 courses and there's three extra courses, 16, 17, and 18 that we're finishing right now which is a review of those first 15 courses. You might think about starting with Course 1 which is a nice summary of all of the Buddhist path.

So it's a nice introductory course. Course 3 is about how to meditate and it's some of the things we've covered here and other things in more detail. So Course 3 on meditation would be good.

And then Course 6, maybe as a second or third course is the Diamond Cutter Sutra which is a very special course and so you might want to take that. Course 10 is about the Guide to Bodhisattva's Way of Life. And that's the first of three courses on Guide to Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

So that's a nice kind of course to jump into also. Those are suggestions because we don't have the description. Angela has a description, like a paragraph describing each course so if you want to check that out.

And an order form. And then also if you go onto our website this describes all of the activities of Geshe Michael and projects and classes. If you click on Correspondence Course you can get a description and you can go through that process and send in an order form.

And if you order one course you get another description and you can continue to study if you like. So just to make it easier if you want to do this you can just let me know by the end of tonight and just give me your name and address and which course you'd like and then we'll get it out in the mail quickly to you.