Серия ежедневной практики, курс 06 — Четыре силы для устранения негативной кармы (1999, Институт Ваджрапани, Калифорния), занятие 4

[Speaker 2]
Session four.

[Speaker 1]
I want to repeat one thing from yesterday to make sure you got it straight. Don't forget that the power we talked about last night, which is stopping, I think it was. Was it stopping, right?

I think... No? Okay.

Don't forget you can work backwards on that. And to me that's the most interesting one. Okay?

Don't forget you can work backwards. You're not just dealing with the future. Okay?

You're not just stopping and removing bad seeds that you know about and trying to stop a habit that you've been going to do in the future. Don't just look at it that way. Remember that you can proactively do search-and-destroy missions on problems that you have no memory of but that are exhibited in your life, like in your body, or in your work, or in your relationships.

Okay? You can go and work backwards from a problem you're having. Okay, I have this physical problem.

I must have done X in the past. Therefore I'll go after that karmic seed. And then start doing the opposite.

Okay? And then the normal reaction I get from people is like, I had a lady who... I told her that her physical problems were caused by some kinds of sexual misconduct.

And then she said, I've been pretty good. I only committed adultery once. And then I said, Well, but it's probably from an older life.

You see what I mean? It's probably something from your past life or something like that. Because she clarified that pretty well.

She confessed it. She talked to her husband. Everything was finished.

That was all right. But it just seemed from her physical condition that she must have still had some seeds from it. And so we talked it over.

And she... This was a serious thing. She had like...

What do you call it? Lyme's disease plus something else. But cognitive disorders.

She'd be in the middle of her homework. She would always get A pluses. She'd get hundreds.

And then she'd be in the middle of her homework and forget how to spell that. You know? And...

So she did this purification. She went back and went after that purification. She said, Well, how am I supposed to purify something that I have no attraction to anymore?

You know what I mean? Like, I don't have any intention of doing that anymore. And I have no attraction to that anymore.

I said, you have to do it on a very subtle level now. You see what I mean? Like, don't look at magazine pictures of other guys.

You know what I mean? Don't look up in the bus station. Keep your eyes down.

You know? No, seriously. On the chance that the guy you glance at might be someone's husband.

You see what I mean? On a very subtle level. You go down to a very subtle level of morality, of keeping your vows.

And then that attacks the old karmic seeds that you don't remember putting there. And that you're not even interested in anymore. Okay?

But you still have them. So, don't assume that because you don't have a particular... Like, you're not attracted at all to killing, but you have certain health problems that are related to killing.

It means you must have been attracted to it in the past. So, now you have to be super careful about... What's the easiest way an American can kill somebody?

In a car. In a car. Okay?

And we just sit there, talking, driving, you know? And if you are interested in clearing up a physical problem, like a back problem, then concentrate on things like that. You know?

Stop at stop signs perfectly. Look both ways perfectly. Why?

So you won't get in an accident? No, it doesn't have anything to do with getting in an accident, frankly. Okay?

It's respecting life. And it's going to attack seeds from your past life that you still are carrying around because you have a physical problem. Okay?

And dedicate it to that. Like, stop. Be super careful when you drive.

Just dedicate it to that. You see what I mean? Like that.

And get your morality down to a very subtle level. I won't drink drinks anymore in my car when I'm driving. I mean, even milkshakes, okay?

I won't... I can drive with you and drink it for you. And I won't...

And then I won't use my cell phone in my car. So just decide. Something like that.

And dedicate it to that health problem. Okay? That's the way it works.

That's the way that power works. Okay? Now on to power number, since we're going completely out of order.

What are we? Three. We're going to do class three, which is power number...

I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Anyway.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, so we're going back to class three, having finished class four. And that means we're going to cover the power of the antidote.

Okay? Antidote action. All right?

Which order? Original order or practice order? Yeah, third in the practice order.

It's two in the order of the sutra? I don't remember. Is it?

I don't remember. Okay. But I don't have to do homework.

Okay. The text says, and you have a quote in your reading that says, this is the most important of all. Okay?

This one is the most important of all. Okay? And you should think of it that way.

So this is the most important of the four powers. And I have a quotation there from the first Panchen Lama, where he says that. Okay?

You know, the current Panchen Lama is locked up somewhere. He's a kid. And he's locked up somewhere.

We may never get to see him. And so maybe dedicate it to him once in a while. Okay?

We need him. All right. And then it goes through the different kinds of antidotes that you could use.

And there are six. Okay? The classic ones are six.

Where do you find these six? I'm sure it's in a sutra someplace, but the most popular place to find them is in Master Shantideva's second most famous book. I mean, everybody knows his Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

And no one ever reads his Shiksha Samutaya, which is called the Compendium on Training. Okay? Training your mind.

And it's a very, very beautiful book that's not very famous, but it should be famous and it will be famous. And His Holiness is teaching it in Bodhgaya in December? January.

Over the millennium. So, we'll talk about it. You should try to go.

Anyway. But I'm going to give them to you from the early Kadampa work that we were talking about. The steps on the teaching.

Okay? Because he writes a beautiful commentary on them. And he does so by taking snippets from different sutras.

Okay? So you're going to get the Buddha on why it's important to do these six things to make up for what you did. Okay?

It's like going... What is this? After school they send you to a...

Detention. Detention. Isn't there a better euphemism?

It's a make-up class or something. Make-up activity. I'm going to skip the first two because I want to talk about them in more detail at the end, after the break.

Okay? So we'll skip to number three. Geshe Trolumba.

Okay, here we go. This will be the third one. Okay?

And I'm going to write the... It's a bad number. Say, Sangat...

Depa. Sangat... Depa.

Sang means secret. Ngat means sacred words or... Or secret words.

The Sanskrit is... Mantra. So sangat means secret mantras.

Okay? Depa means to recite them or to repeat them on your rosary. Okay?

Or mentally. Okay? And I'll read you a selection, he says, from the...

This is a tantric word called the King of the Three Pledges. And it says, suppose you close your eyes and then picture the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. And suppose that in this state of mind you repeat the hundred-syllable mantra of whom?

Vajrasattva. Vajrasattva. Eight thousand times.

Sorry. You will then come to see the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas even with your eyes still closed. Okay?

And you will be freed from every bad deed that you've ever done in the past. Okay? So that's...

He quotes a tantra. So that's Geshe Drolungpa, the early Kadampa, quoting a tantric text from the Kangyur to prove that if you do mantras you could remove your bad karma from the past. How do mantras work?

Okay? And it seems like too easy to be true. Okay?

And I think one of the most important sources here is... Interestingly, it's a book called Pramanavarttika by Master Dharmakirti, which is the root text for logic. You know, Aristotelian logic in Tibet.

And it has nothing to do with the tantra at all. But in there he explains how mantras work. And what he says is you have to have two things present for a mantra to work.

Okay? Mantras work if two things are present. And I like this because I was sort of suspicious of mantras.

It seemed too easy. Like maybe the Buddha should just teach everybody mantras and go home. You know?

The first thing is that the mantra must have been originally spoken, uttered by a by a holy being, like an enlightened being. Okay? Some holy being must have uttered that mantra first.

Okay? Secondly, he says, mantras don't work unless the person who's reciting it has moral purity. Okay?

You have to be keeping your vows well for a mantra to work. And that's what that's an open teaching. That's in Dharmakirti's logic book.

Okay? Those are the two requirements for a mantra. And mantras you should learn from your tantric master.

Okay? People ask me, do I teach tantra? Or do I practice tantra?

And what tantra do I practice? You know? And then I like...

I mean, certain things it's hard to... I mean, if you say I'm going to do a sadhana, then they know you're doing something, right? And so it's hard to...

You're supposed to hide it completely. I mean, people are supposed to wonder if you even know what the word tantra means when you're a tantric master already. You see what I mean?

That's the way tantra is supposed to be secret. His Holiness was apologizing at the Kalachakra. He said, normally in an anantara yoga tantra I'm restricted to 25 people.

Now 5,000 people showed up. So he's like... You know...

And really it should be passed on in small groups. It should be kept very sacred, very holy, very secret. It shouldn't be given...

It shouldn't be granted to a person unless you're intimately acquainted with them. You know everything about them. And that's for the teacher and the student.

You know? They say in Tibet that the one yak chained to another if one yak falls off a cliff what happens to the first one? You see what I mean?

And they say the teacher has to examine the student and never grant tantra unless he knows he or she knows they're totally ready. And then the student from their side shouldn't accept an initiation unless they're already intimately acquainted with that teacher. You would be willing to give your life for that teacher.

You know, if you're standing up with like marpa on the top of the house and it says jump you should just jump. You know what I mean? And unless you're ready to do that then you shouldn't take a tantric initiation from somebody.

And you shouldn't be ready to do that unless you've known them for a long time and you believe in them. You see what I mean? You shouldn't just do it because, oh, he said so.

You know? That would be totally wrong. I mean, so tantra should be passed on quietly, secretly that's the meaning of the word tantra from master to disciple among people who are intimately acquainted and who would die for each other mutually.

You see what I mean? Those are the conditions under which it should be taught. And as a preliminary the student has to forget it and master the sutra teachings.

Like, take those... I'll catch you in a second. Take those 18 courses.

Okay? So people ask me would I teach them tantra? I said, yeah.

Just two little requirements. Finish the 18 courses. Keep a book for three years.

See you in 2003. Okay? So I wrote a little thing about it, about my feelings about how it could be passed on properly in America and how it might...

tantra might work as a system in America. And you see, every time Buddhism moves to a new country you have an opportunity to wake up things that went sleepy in the old country. Like Sojong.

The monks and nuns confession that we do twice a month. We did it in the Kalachakra with the Namgyal monks. ...

You know, and... I'm not saying they were doing that, okay? I'm just saying that's the speed at which it's done in Tibetan monasteries now.

And that's a shame. That's not right. You know?

And there's a part at the end where they say, does anybody have anything to say? Does anybody have anything to say? Does anybody have anything to say?

No? Okay. Well...

... I've never heard of monks or anything. But I assume in the old days you actually said something.

You know, like you said, yeah, yeah, wait a minute, I was checking out this girl in the bus station, you know. And... you know what I mean?

Probably... probably they were supposed to say something like that. What I mean is when Buddhism moves to a new country you have a chance to actually revive it back to the original meaning.

And... and then it will get corrupted here in a few centuries. You know?

But that's their problem. Okay, so... Anyway, I think we have a chance to revitalize tantric practice.

Take it back to something secret. Take it back to something very sacred. Don't put tantric images all over calendars and fronts of books and write books about secret things.

I'll tell you something very true. Of the people I know who have broken the vow of secrecy with tantra, one of them died this horrible death of lung cancer. The other one died this horrible death of throat cancer.

The other one had this liver cancer. And they all died like, boom! Six months, four months.

You know what I mean? All these people who finished all these great projects in which they would show the whole world these secret mandalas and things like that in books and computers and things like that. And I'm not kidding.

You know? And it's not right. And we have a chance to take it back to where it should be.

So anyway, I feel very strongly about it. I wrote a thing about it. We're going to hand that out afterwards.

But it basically says I'll be happy to teach people tantra, but in my mind, you have to finish the 18 courses. You have three years to play around with it. And keep your book for three years.

Keep your vows for three years. Okay? Keep your bodhisattva vows.

Much less the people who don't know them. You know, you're supposed to be checking them every two hours or so. Okay?

Did you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, I did. First, what you're speaking about, for those of us that have received initiations, that it's like we've made it through it, we were barely awake, and then there was your commentary. What advice do you have for us?

You know, then you're running around getting books, and you're asking people who you think are more experienced, what was that really about? I think this is what I think happened, but, you know, am I already accumulating all this really heavy negative karma because I'm not keeping my vows right? And what's going on?

And, you know, three years have passed. And so what...

[Speaker 1]
I'd say first thing, make sure you know what the minimum commitments are and keep them. Like, you can't say I didn't know what was going on and now I know I didn't know what was going on, so I stop it. You can't do that.

Keep your minimum commitments. And then, find someone especially who can keep you the vows. Teach you the vows.

What's the first... Those of you who took the Bodhisattva Course at Vajrapani Institute, Bodhisattva Vow, where's the L&B? L&B.

What was the first cause of breaking your vows? Not knowing. Not knowing.

It's none. Ignorance is no excuse in the law or something, you know. You still get the karma.

It's not as bad as if you clearly knew it, but it's still bad.

[Speaker 2]
But the whole thing is kind of muddy, you know. You don't know. You're not sure of the vows.

You're not even sure of how to do the sadhana right. You never know how to carry on it. So you have this printout of a sadhana and you're going, well, I think it looks like this and then this book says that and I talk to this lama here and this guy says...

[Speaker 1]
Well, the best you can do is to get someone to help you that you trust, okay? But technically speaking, you shouldn't take it in the first place unless that lama has the time and the relationship with you to sit down for a year. My lama took 15 years to go through the sadhana.

Four times. Five times. Six times.

Word by word. And that's the way it should be. Now, there's a lama shortage in the United States and, you know...

No, you have to do what you can do. I'm not saying that they're doing what they can do because they know this is the best we can do for people in the time we have. And there's a shortage of qualified people.

But I think we have an exciting opportunity to take it back to its original intent and small, secret, underground self of tantric practitioners who are really heavily doing it properly and getting the results from it, these amazing results from it. But in fact, it all starts with keeping your vows well. And that starts with keeping your normal pratimoksha vows and your bodhisattva vows well.

That's the main thing. So I'd say keep those. What you have to do is collect the karma to wheel in a tantric master.

You know, you don't go searching for them. You put out the honey and you wait for the bees to come. You see what I mean?

It's that. It's really like that. They will be, despite themselves, forced into your presence if you keep your bodhisattva vows and your pratimoksha vows.

And then pray, you know, every day. May I meet my tantric master. Hey, I'm keeping my vows.

What's happening? Are you here yet? You know, okay?

Really. Wheel them in. You know what I mean?

Seriously. Seriously. And it works.

All right. I like this. When they get to the mantra they talk about some signs of purification.

How do you know when things are getting purified? And they talk about dreams. Certain kinds of dreams.

You've seen it in the Lam Rim. The whole original text is here. And you can read it there.

It includes things like vomiting up bad food, vomiting up yogurt or milk, white substances. In the dream. Yeah.

I guess if you really do it it's even better. And then there's a whole long list here. Flying is considered very good.

You know, flying without aid of any airplane or anything. Just like that, you know. And being on top of holy places.

His Holiness mentioned in the Kalachakra and it's true. It's stated in here also. Coming into some crystal palace, seeing great assemblies of holy beings there, things like that.

Those are signs that the mantra purification is working. Okay, next one is say, kusuk chepa.

[Speaker 2]
Kusuk chepa.

[Speaker 1]
Kusuk means holy images of Buddhas. That satsa factory thing. Okay.

And this means making any kind of a painting, drawing, statues, trying to reproduce the Buddha's image. Okay, or an enlightened being's image is an antidote power that you can use. It's a make-up activity that you can do.

So Lama Serpa telling you to do a hundred thousand satsas is great. Okay. That's real.

It's in the scriptures and it says that. And in the scriptures there's a beautiful quotation which I wrote for you here. They say, suppose you just got through mushing your hands in a bucket of vomit.

Whoa. And then they say first wash your hands and then take some, they call it chema pur means powdered incense, and you like go like this. And the image is of making a Buddha statue, you see.

It's like, do something useful. Let something holy touch your hands and it'll help with the purification. See what I mean?

And they say it's like rubbing incense onto your hands after you've washed them. Like you've washed them but they still have this little smell, you know. And then you you touch these holy images with your hands and it's almost you get the image of this power coming into your hands from the image, you see.

And they say that's the important to do that. Okay. That's number four.

[Speaker 2]
Go ahead.

[Speaker 1]
Of course, yeah. I don't think it would come under this one. It would come on number one.

Same thing for reproducing text. And, yeah, but I think it comes under the first opponent power. Okay.

Which we're going to do backwards, right? Number five. And then go.

Say sangye sangye la la chepa chepa sangye la sangye la chepa chepa sangye la means to the Buddhas, to Buddhas. Okay. Chepa means making offerings.

And this refers to like setting out water bowls, setting out beautiful offerings, painting a stupa or caring for a stupa. And I want to read you, there's this, I have a favorite paragraph here. When the author, when that early Kadampa Geshe talks about this one, he quotes a book called the, it's called The Incantation of the Pile of Flowers.

But anyway, it's a whole tantra about using flowers. So, I thought Maya would like that one. All these flower gardeners here.

Suppose that a certain person honors a Buddha by supplying to them everything one would need to be comfortable for the length of a hundred or even a thousand years. Meaning, suppose you feed and clothe and make beds for this Buddha for a thousand years. If, on the other hand, there's a person who feels the wish for enlightenment, bodhicitta, and goes to a stupa of a holy being who has passed beyond, if they make offerings of flowers, or they sprinkle even a palmful of scented water, smear on the shrine water mixed with scents or with crushed powder of flowers, or light some incense or offer lamps or anything of the like, and then out of sheer joy they dance before the shrine singing out, I bow to enlightened beings. It is not within the realm of possibility that such a person could ever pass to the realms of misery, meaning lower births, okay? For even a thousand centuries that were made of eons instead of years.

Okay. I kind of like that one. Anyway.

The implication is that you can wipe out your old bad karma, you see, by just making offerings to a shrine dedicated to a holy being. Say Sangye Dang Sangye Dang Chang Sem Chang Sem Senzin Senzin Okay, Sangye means Buddha Buddha Dang means and Dang means and Chang Sem means Bodhisattvas Senzin means to keep their holy names. And what this refers to is just hearing the name of a holy being, you know, like the...

and then there will be a few quotations that you can read about what happened to people who under certain circumstances heard the name of Amitayus or heard the name of another Buddha. So it's just repeating the names of holy beings. And then you have certain sutras that are recited in Tibet for purification, like the sutra of the 35 Buddhas or something like that where you repeat the names.

You just repeat their holy names. Okay? Just say their names out loud.

And there's a practice here I want to turn you on to. Okay? Which is very, very powerful.

And that's... It's quite acceptable to make up a mantra with the holy name of your guru. Okay?

So I'd say something like OM TSE CHEN SUPA RINPOCHE AHUNG Something like that. Okay? Try it.

I'll give you a transmission. No kidding. OM TSE CHEN LAMA SUPA RINPOCHE AHUNG Okay?

OM AHUNG is the three embodied speech and mind of an enlightened being. Okay? OM is called GO DREN.

You always start a mantra with the GO DREN. It means starter offer. Okay?

TSE CHEN means embodiment of great love. SUPA LAMA RINPOCHE You know. And then AHUNG is like nailing it down.

It's called the GYE DAPA. Nails down the mantra. Okay?

It's like nailing a coffin or something. It's like... They call it putting the seal on the mantra.

Okay? And then repeat it a million times. Okay?

OM TSE CHEN LAMA SUPA RINPOCHE AHUNG Okay? And then just say it a thousand times. Every time his name goes into your ear you get this incredible blessing.

Just the name. Just your Lama's name. TSE CHEN TSE CHEN How do you say TSE CHEN?

In Tibetan or...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Is it always better to say the mantra out loud?

[Speaker 1]
There's a debate about it. She said is it better to say a mantra out loud? Generally they say yes.

And then they say how loud? And they say not so loud that you bother anybody because then they collect bad karma. Okay?

But loud enough for you to hear. Because if you can hear it spirits around you can hear it. Something like that.

Okay? And they say if you're alone out in the woods then you can yell it. You know what I mean?

That's fine. Like the more people that hear it the better. The more beings that hear it.

They say NA LAM DU DO NA LAM DU DO means if even a whisper or a few syllables of Lama Supa's name get into your ear canal huge blessings. Okay? So don't be shy to do it.

And don't think it's somehow not official because it's not 2,000 years old or something like that. Just to repeat your Lama's name and to hear it and to think of it is great. Then on a deeper level if you're engaged in like deep meditation Dzogrim, something like that if you want to do it mentally you know that you picture the mantra at your heart or something like that and you read it mentally and hear it in your mind that's also very powerful.

Depends on what you're doing at the time. Okay? SNANG DE YIN DE NYID KYI YIN For those of you who know Okay?

[Speaker 2]
This is the Om.

[Speaker 1]
This is Sechen. This is Lama. You're tricking me into saying it again, right?

Lama Supa Rinpoche Rinpoche Ahun Ahun Okay. Okay, so say it on the way to your coffee, tea and drinks and, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
About mantra recitation is it okay if I find that sometimes I'm speaking on the in-breath is that okay?

[Speaker 1]
He said is it okay to do a mantra on the in-breath as well as on the out-breath. I'd say very auspicious and the reasons I can't tell you right now. Okay?

It's almost impossible to say the hundred syllable mantra without Yeah, yeah, it seems like. Yeah, it seems like. But they say try to say it clearly rather than quickly.

Don't worry about how many you're doing. Say it clearly.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, did you say that if you did a Vajrasattva mantra in front of somebody, a Buddhist, and a Buddhist thought that it was 8,000?

[Speaker 1]
Well, the original scripture, one of the original scriptures says 8,000 and that's the scripture that the Kadampa Geshe has used to demonstrate how to do the mantra. And then he goes on to some more detail which you'll get in your reading. Okay?

Let me ask a question before we Is there anything in the reading that we can give out now or that you want to give out now or do you want to wait until the whole thing is ready?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, do it now.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, fine. So you have three, four stops to make during the break. Pick up your fire-offering thing.

Pick up your He has the Tantra in America thing and one of the readings that was finished while the other guys were on their way to Kinkgrass. And then Rob has a very beautiful Dengi Top It's a basis a foundation power and it's a it's a general confession it's called a generic confession that's used in the monasteries in Tibet. And it's a compilation of all the three great confession books.

And it takes about 30 seconds. That's the one they do like that, okay? They do it three times in about a minute.

Very powerful general confession for anything I may have done in the past that's in my karmic pocket that I don't remember. Okay? So I thought you should have that.

So we've put it into the reading and we've also printed it as a separate sheet that you can carry around. Okay? So he's got that.

Right? And some reading? No.

No. Okay. And she's got who's got the notebooks?

Binders are The binders are down there. So I suggest you pop all this into your binders as soon as you can. Otherwise they'll all get separated.

Okay? That's it, right? And then I repeat but if in any case you're not going to LMB you have to give Debbie Bai your name because there's one reading that's not translated yet that we're going to mail to you and that's the most important one I think.

Okay? Okay, so we'll take a rather long break. Also request that you do your quiz during the break from the last class.

Okay? So you have five things to do. Okay.

Please. Thank you. We'll do a mandala.

Want to do a quick mandala? Mr. Phil. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Please repeat.

Do re.

[Speaker 2]
Do re.

[Speaker 1]
Sa mo la.

[Speaker 2]
Sa mo la. Ten. Ten.

Do re. Do re.

[Speaker 1]
Sa mo la.

[Speaker 2]
Sa mo la.

[Speaker 1]
Ten.

[Speaker 2]
Ten.

[Speaker 1]
These are the first two of the six antidotes that you can do. We did the last four and these are the first two. Okay?

We've already done three through six. Now we're doing one and two. Now why did I do it that way?

It's very tantric. No. It's because these are the two most effective ones and I wanted to spend a little special time on them.

These are the two most important ones. These are the two that work the best. Do re means scriptures.

Sa mo means on the profound subject meaning what? Emptiness. La ten means use them, read them, study them.

Okay? Then say dong yi la mo. Dong yi la mo.

Dong yi means emptiness. Sunyata. Dong yi means emptiness.

Dong yi la mo means take an intense interest in emptiness. Okay? Take an intense interest in emptiness.

These are the two most powerful antidotes. Okay? And what I suggest is and I do this, okay?

By the way, let's say if you did something negative, you know, and you know, like in the morning you got angry at somebody and you yelled at them. Then what you do is in the afternoon you purposely you know, take some book or video is nice, like the sixth class of the Diamond Cutter Sutra course at Vajrapani. Okay?

Which is used a lot by people in New York. And then something that relates to emptiness. Something that teaches emptiness.

Okay? Just take it and go spend like 15 minutes is fine. Okay?

One of the tricks of an antidote is that don't don't make it so onerous that you're not gonna do it or you're not gonna do it happily. Make it 15 minutes. Okay?

Study emptiness for 15 minutes. Okay? Whether it's an audio tape or a video tape or a book or something like that.

Read a paragraph about emptiness. You know? And reflect on it.

And dedicate it to the thing you did this morning. Say, I dedicate to the time I got angry and talked to that person this morning. You know?

As the opponent power. As the antidote power. And to facilitate that in the reading for this class we gave you a teaching on emptiness.

There's a whole teaching there on emptiness. I think it's about 10 pages or something? Maybe a little longer.

20. 20 pages on emptiness. You could just read a part of it.

That was a lecture that was given on Halloween night in 1997 or 8 or something like that. And we were in the middle of Master Shantideva's emptiness chapter, which is the ultimate chapter. And it was getting very heavy.

And then there was a public talk. And in the middle of this, all this Master Shantideva emptiness stuff, this thing came out, comparing the worldview of Western civilization and the worldview of Buddhism. You see what I mean?

And where do they overlap and where do they clash? Because that's your task. You know, that's what you're going to have to do with your life, is, you know, forget kindness, giving, patience.

It all pales compared to... You have a much larger task, which is you have to reconcile the whole worldview of your civilization with that of the Buddhist scriptures. And they are totally at odds.

They are totally different. The root theory, the root ideas or concepts on which your whole civilization runs are defective. They're wrong.

According to Buddhism, at their basis, at the very foundation of our civilization, the way we view the world is completely wrong. And that's causes all this... That's why this world doesn't work.

And never will. You see? There'll never be a time when, with that worldview, you won't have wars, and problems, and poverty, and everything else.

It can't work. It'll never work. It's not like there have to be certain adjustments made to Western worldview and it's going to work.

That's not the point. It can never work. It's defective.

At its most foundational level, I got that from Tutankhamen, it'll never work. Okay? It just won't work.

Okay? It can't work. The worldview behind science, the worldview behind economics, the worldview behind all our political systems, from communism to socialism to capitalism, is wrong.

It will never work. Can't work. The most basic thing about it is mistaken.

And it doesn't matter how much you adjust it. And on a personal level, you can adjust your vitamin intake, you can adjust your exercise program, you can adjust your relationships, you can move to a new apartment. It won't help.

You see? There's no adjustment you can make. You're always thinking adjustment, adjustment.

You know, if I just had a person who was 10% more pleasant to be with, if I just had a 10% raise in my salary, if I just had 10% more time to exercise, or if I used 10% more makeup or vitamins, things would be alright. It's not like that. There's no adjustment you can make in your physical surroundings that will work.

Because the whole thing is broken. The desire realm in which we live, in Tibetan, I mean, the whole idea is it's a broken realm. Things don't work here.

It's like trying to get a car that's defective to work right. It came out of the factory defective. You can't fix it.

It's broken. You know what I mean? And it doesn't matter if you adjust this or that.

It's not going to work. The whole world view of your civilization is very dangerously mistaken. And it causes the suffering of mankind on our planet.

You know what I mean? The whole world view, at its root, is wrong. Okay?

Why? This is, by the way, how to purify your best bad karma. I'm talking about how to purify your best karma.

Think for this about 10 minutes. Read that essay at the back of the reading for 10 minutes. And you purified hundreds and hundreds of bad karmas.

Okay? Why? You know?

I'll give you the most basic thing, okay? I remember reading it in the New York Times. My Lama is a Mets fan.

Okay? Even before they won the World Championship, the World Series, right? They were the worst history...

It wasn't... Casey Stengel's team had the worst record in history. The most losses of any Major League Baseball team ever.

Even in those days, My Lama supported them. You know what I mean? And...

You know, and so, we're reading the newspaper one morning, and it's like... What's the guy's name? I don't remember now.

Anyway, Rodney something... Rodney Harris. Anyway.

McDougal. Anyway, the two best pitchers are out... The three...

Two best pitchers are out drinking beer on a lake, in a speedboat, and getting drunk, getting smashed. And then they... This is...

And then it gets dark, and they're still having fun, you know, and they... And they start speeding around the lake in the speedboat in the dark. And then they go under a dock and...

at an angle. You know. And one guy gets decapitated.

And the guy next to him gets a scratch on his head. You know, and then this guy has to live with this life, you know, for the rest of his life. And...

And the other guy's head came off. And... And then...

What caused that? You see? You have to ask, what caused that?

Why did that happen? Two guys are sitting in a boat. They're both the most talented athletes around.

You know. One gets his head cut off, and one gets a scratch. Why?

You see what I mean? And then you get into the Western explanation, which is, the boat was traveling at a certain angle. This guy's body was at 45 degrees.

This guy's body was at 38 degrees. Not kidding. This is the Western explanation.

The dock was 3 feet high. His body was 4 feet high. You know.

The velocity was this. His skull had a resistance to collision of 2.4, you know. And the dock...

No. This is the Western explanation. And therefore he died.

Therefore his skull was crushed. You know what I mean? And that's...

They stop, you know. And then if you're a kid, what do you say to your mom? But why?

You know. And they say, Oh, do I have to go through it? The boat turned, you know.

And the guy was sitting on the left, and the other guy was sitting on the right. And then the kid says, What? Why was the guy sitting on the left?

He got in first! The boat was tied on the right side. And then the other guy got in after that and sat down next to him.

So, that guy was sitting on the right. You know, and if you're a kid, you're like, No, I understand that, mom. But why did he get on the left side?

Why was the boat tied up on the right side? Well, there's this thing on the left side where they couldn't get in that way, and they had to tie it on the right side, you know, and that's how. And you're supposed to take it.

And after getting exasperated with your parents at a certain age, you give up. You say, Okay, you don't get it, mom. I want to know why.

You're showing me how. You keep telling me how. You refuse to answer the question, Why is he on the left side?

Okay? And Western civilization itself, science breaks down at that point. And they're masquerading that they answer everything, because they can blow up a bomb.

You know, then they know everything. You see what I mean? So, you're supposed to stop asking.

You know, why did the guy get on the left? Don't ask that. Where did stuff come from?

Well, there's a debate, you know, it's either a big boom or a big bang. You know, and I kept saying, look, Buddhist scripture says big bang is impossible. Master Shantideva, by the way, the reason we got into this was Master Shantideva.

Why? He says, look, two choices about how the world came about. Well, three.

Four. Okay? Well, not three.

One is Tso. Tso means, there was this big guy, sorry, there's this primal energy that just happened one day, and then that created the world. You see what I mean?

Like this energy happened, and then the rest of the world came from that. That's called Tso in the non-Buddhist systems in ancient India, which means big bang nowadays. Okay, big bang.

So, there was this big explosion, and then all of the things that happened after that are a random result of the collisions of the junk that came out of the big explosion. Okay? So, we're supposed to believe that this thing today is happening due to the infinite possibilities of the bumping in of particles to each other has created this group of people studying karma today.

That's the big bang theory. Okay? Really.

There's no intelligence behind it. They don't accept a divine being. Okay?

It's a totally random thing. This group of people here, and the skin, and the noses, and the ears, and all the brains here, have all come about because of some primal explosion that happened, and then things bumped into each other in a certain way, and you came out with your nose. Okay?

No, that is the scientific argument. Don't... I'm not being funny.

Don't doubt it. That's what the argument boils down to. Random.

It's random. It just doesn't... And then you say, why did the first thing blow up?

And they're like, that's why we call it the big bang. It's the original blow up. You see?

And then you say, well, don't things have causes? And they say, yeah, things have causes. We've identified the first cause.

Come on, the idea of a first cause is stupid. You know? That's the most stupid thing I ever heard of.

You know, really. Oh, a cause which wasn't caused. A thing that happened without a cause.

You know? To go around bragging that science has figured out that everything has a cause, so you can figure out how everything works, except for the most important one. Okay?

It's just unacceptable. It's voodoo. It's primitive.

And you bought it. Why? Because your first grade teacher said so.

And no better reason. You know, if you'd been born in Tibet, you'd be saying everything was karma, and you wouldn't know why either. You know what I mean?

That's what K.W.J. said. K.W.J. accused the Tibetans. He said, you all guys go around talking about future lives and past karma.

You don't know the least bit of proof for it. You only believe it because you heard that from your parents. And you don't know anything more than anybody else.

Why? You see what I mean? And you just believe it because you grew up with it.

And now you're getting nervous, you know. Oh, all my teachers said that, and now he's getting up there saying that. Because why did you believe them?

You just believe them because they got there first. That's the only reason. You see, your whole civilization's viewpoint is being passed down through a lineage of first grade teachers.

You know? I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

And you believe it because they got there first. And you believe it. Okay?

The whole idea about the Big Bang, and I keep making a joke to my students, well, there should have been a Big Bang to cause the Big Bang. And then this guy came up to me in class one day. He's a doctor at...

It's that funny place. It fits him. Bellevue.

[Speaker 2]
And...

[Speaker 1]
And he comes up with a newspaper and he goes, New York Times front page. Scientists theorize Big Bang before the Big Bang to cause the Big Bang. Second Big Bang.

You know what I mean? And then you're off on to infinite Big Bangs. You see?

It's obvious. It's very obvious, you know? So, you either accept that, says Master Shantideva, or you accept a Divine Creator.

Which, in the Judeo-Christian... What do you call it? System, assumes a guy who could do anything, and who's allowing cancer, AIDS, kids dying in car accidents, people burning up in houses, people...

10,000 people crushed under their houses in Turkey last week. For what? I mean, already it's ridiculous.

You don't have to have a... go to seminary for four years to figure it out. You see what I mean?

It's just unacceptable. It's just totally... Right then, it's already unacceptable.

You know? You don't have to... to go read Martin Buber and all that.

You know? It's just obvious. You know?

That's unacceptable. A totally compassionate being who crushes these ants in Turkey. You know?

For what? Uh... They dissed him or something.

You know? Something like that. You know?

It's crazy. It's unacceptable. It's untenable.

Okay? And then, third one, karma. Oh, you just say that because you're a Buddhist.

No, how about the idea of... of things coming from similar causes? You know?

Bad things happen because of bad reasons. Good things happen because of good reasons, that came before them. Is that so hard?

You know, those two things, they have to be similar, and one has to come before the other. Does it sound... Which one of the three sounds better?

I mean, if you're going to be... neutral. I mean, if you're going to be...

What do you call it? Unbiased. If you just came here from another planet, and you said, Okay, people of the world, give me your three worldviews.

You know? We'll vote. Us Martians will vote on which one sounds better.

You know? Oh, there's this big guy who made everything and made everybody, and he crushes the ants every once in a while. You know?

Or there's a big bang that happened from nothing. And we're all just the result of random things. You know?

The reason why you have a freckle on your left part of your nose, and you're a happy person, it's all random. It just comes from how particles bump into each other. Or, you know, everything good comes from things you did good, everything bad comes from things you did bad, and it's all carried in this mind stream that you carry around with you.

You know? Three choices. You see what I mean?

And spending ten minutes talking about that wipes out infinite numbers of old bad karmas. Why? And that's what the essay is about at the back of your thing, okay?

But that's the guts of it. Why? Well, if you understood emptiness, you'd cut that thing out.

Yeah, you're all over. Everything's finished. If you understand emptiness, are you going to yell back at your boss?

You see? If you've got worldview number three, are you going to do something bad to somebody who does something bad to you? Are you going to respond to violence with violence?

You know, it would be insane if you held worldview number three, okay? It'd be crazy. If you understood that this boss is yelling at you because you yelled at someone in the past, would you yell at him?

Of course not. Okay? That's just crazy.

You'd never do it. So, thinking for ten minutes about that is going to have the net result of what? Sooner or later, you're going to stop doing every single negative thing you ever do, and then you'll be in tantric paradise in like six weeks or something.

You see what I mean? And that's a powerful thing. That's the most powerful thing.

That's the thing that really matters, okay? The emptiness of your boss. Okay?

I like boss because everybody's had one or has one, you know, even if it's your wife or something, okay? But everybody has one, okay? And they irritate you, you know?

And you've got to figure out what to do about it. You see? That's the...

That's the purpose of life, right? It's to figure it out and to stop it, okay? No, that's to stop it.

You want to stop it, okay? And whatever your worldview is now, it's not working. Okay?

I mean, that's another reason not to buy the New York Times worldview. It doesn't work. You know, you've tried it for X number of years.

It didn't work. You're still not totally happy. It just doesn't work.

So, don't be lazy. Reject it. And move on to something, you know, see if it's something else.

Those two things. Study scripture. Think about emptiness.

The ultimate antidote for bad deeds, okay? If you understood emptiness, you'd never want to do a negative thing again. Okay?

Because you'd realize where it's all coming from. And Master Shantideva says, you've got to... The implication here is you have to change the whole...

the entire collection of assumptions that your whole world holds. You know? You're going to have to change the entire assumptions of your whole world.

You know? What's the way to fix your health problems? Stop hurting other people and beings.

It's the only way. Why does penicillin work? Because you have the karma.

Are you saying that penicillin could stop working if people's karma changed? Guess what? It's not working as well as it did 10 years ago.

It's not inherently existing. You see what I mean? If penicillin was inherently existing, it would continue to cure people throughout hundreds of years.

It doesn't. It won't. Its efficiency changes.

Its power changes. Because people's karma changes. Okay?

You've got to get used to that. There is no medicine in the universe which works. That's why the Heart Sutra...

Buddhists kept saying, not this, not this, not this, not this. Things don't work the way you thought they did. You can't get what you want by what you thought was the right way.

Big question. Which is better investment policy, investment strategy? Take risks or be conservative?

In Tibetan logic, they say, phung sum pa means... There's a third alternative, okay? Give away your money.

Okay? No, really. And if you laugh, you don't get it.

If you were a corporate mogul in modern America, you would be trying to give away your product. Like, if you were in charge of General Motors, you'd be trying to supply cars to third world countries for free. Because that's the best way to get your stock up.

It's the only infallible way to get your stock to rise. Get it? And that's the absolute truth.

It's not some noble sentiment, okay? Forget that. It's the way to get everything you ever dreamed of.

And that's a change in worldview. You'll never become a tantric deity if you don't change your worldview pants. Okay?

Or skirt, okay? Okay? You never, never.

It's impossible. You've got to start thinking like this. What would be the implication to the society of America if everyone started thinking like that?

I mean, people would be competing to be kind to each other, you know? Companies would be competing to give away their products to poor people. You see what I mean?

Why? Not because it's noble. Because that's the smartest way to get more money.

Okay? It's very interesting. Anyway, ten minutes of thinking about that is worth all the purification you can ever do.

I don't mean to disrespect water bowls and satsangs and mantras and things like that. But you can sense from the last 15 minutes that the implications of this purification, you see what I mean? Then you'd get your rear end into a tantric paradise very quickly.

You see what I mean? Very powerful. That is the way to purify your old bad karma.

Why don't they tell us this? It's in the scriptures. I think they just don't say it that way or something.

I don't know. Also there's this big thing in Tantra. I will break some little vow, okay?

There's four levels of Tantra. There's four groups of Tantra. You know, Action Tantra, Activity Tantra, Yoga Tantra and Highest Yoga Tantra.

What distinguishes them from each other? Which one does Tara belong to? I had this student come and say, I don't know if I should do Tara anymore.

I heard there are lower Tantra. Which one is Tara in? She's in like two or three of them, okay?

Then you're like, why? Then you get to Je Tsongkapa's explanation and he says, she's in basically all of them, and the only thing that distinguishes them is the intelligence of the student. Meaning, going from external to internal.

So at the lowest tantric level, you need a lot of external ritual, hats, bells, drums, there has to be fires, you know what I mean? And then as you rise up in the tantric systems, you get towards Anuttara Yoga, the student is capable of handling the fact that it's all a view thing, you know what I mean? And without the external accoutrement, you know what I mean?

Not to say they're not important, they're extremely important. We have to have them, we have to use them. That's a whole other story.

What I'm saying is that you get taught exactly what you're ready for by enlightened beings, you know, and that's the way they do their thing. The Buddha taught, as we talked about last time at LMB, how many kinds of emptiness? Six, how many are right?

One, okay. And I didn't tell you about the two above that. That's another story.

Maybe when you're ready. Okay. That's all.

I think we take a break there. What time is it now? What time are we supposed to come back?

Can we do 4.45? How's that? Oh, I wanted to make a small announcement.

Oh, on the subject of emptiness, okay? And stuff like that. Just about the plans of teaching in the next few months.

There are some... We're going to do the Six Flavors of Emptiness in Connecticut in October. I'll let Orenz get up and tell you the schedule.

But anyway, if you want to learn the different kinds of emptiness, Connecticut in October. Okay. And we're going to do in December, January, be with His Holiness Master Shantideva's Unknown Text.

And then three weeks of intense teachings on the highest worldview from an incredible Geshe at Sereme. We're going to go there. He taught us the first half already last year.

And then this year we're going to get the second half. And he says a few sentences and then I translate. And it's heavy.

He does like five hours a day. And he's intense. He's like a Baptist preacher.

And I think, What do you think that means? You know what I mean? And then Christy's like...

But he's really, really, really good. He's the best teacher I've ever seen for scripture. Okay.

And very intense. And then... There'll be another ACI course.

The last one of the 18 will be in October, November. And we will summarize, basically, Master Shantideva and Lojong and a few other things. And then...

If you're into it, you could do a lot of this stuff by correspondence. And we have like 17 correspondence courses. That's...

I want to tell you the people in charge of that. The reason I'm doing this before the break is that you can talk to the people involved with it. So that's the Morse, Michael and Bonnie.

Okay. They take care of all the correspondence. There's a thousand people taking courses right now.

And you can do that at home. There's tapes. Sometimes there's audio.

I mean video also. And then a lot of this... You can take about 18 different courses like this one by...

And we don't charge anything if you don't have any money. It's not for that. Okay.

We have like 150 prisoners taking it who don't have any money at all. And we float it. If you're interested about the thing in India and Nepal, that'll be with His Holiness and then with Geshe Thubten Rinchen and then I'm giving a few talks on the Diamond Cutter Sutra at Bodh Gaya.

That would be Mercedes. You can talk to her. I'm talking during the break.

What's the other one? Arizona. Yeah.

Was there any more besides that? New York. Oh.

Who's that? Elizabeth, if you're interested in coming to New York for the last course. And then the last thing is we're building this thing in Arizona.

We're doing a three-year retreat starting in March. I asked this rancher for half an acre. He ended up talking us into 4,000 acres.

He says, you're going to need it. It's a weird story. But anyway, the idea there is to have a place where people could go.

First idea was long-term retreats, like say a month to three years or something like that. And it's up against the national forest. It's high desert, so it's cool.

But it's totally empty and it's against a... It's a national forest. It's against a very quiet place.

So, we're going to be building retreat cabins there. And units from Mongolia are being shipped as we speak. And the idea is that we want to accommodate everybody.

You know? You just come. If you need a place to do retreat, we'll figure it out.

Okay? Like we're serving you. So, just know.

I just want you to think like that. In the back of your mind, you have a place. You know what I mean?

And you just show up. You appreciate that, Winston? Okay.

And... No. And the idea is that...

Okay, there'll be like... No, there'll be like a thousand acres there just for retreats. You know what I mean?

And we'll work it out. But in the back of your mind, if you need a place to go, you have a place to go. And that's the idea of that place.

Okay? Secondly, when I was in Mongolia, I saw a traditional Mongolian monastic college. The custom in Mongolia was really amazing.

You finish your geshe. It takes like 15 years. You don't study the curriculum from Sera, or Ganden, or Drebong.

You do all three. And there's a different college for each one. Nobody does that in Tibet.

Then you went and learned your doctor... Then you went and learned... became a doctor, a Tibetan doctor.

You were expected to go finish doctor. And then you became a dancer. And then you did sculpture, art, architecture, music.

And I just freaked out when I saw it. I said, this is the way it should be. So, on the middle half of that property, there'll be eight colleges dedicated to those things.

And I'm going to throw in a college of serving others, where you learn how to do a tax-exempt organization, where you learn to keep care of finances, where you learn plumbing, electricity, building stupas, serving prisoners, hospice work, stuff like that. So a whole college dedicated to that kind of stuff. And then a tantric college, of course, which nobody can go to unless you finish the 18 courses.

And then a children's education center, where we develop stuff for children. And Bev's going to be there. And then...

The idea... What's the last thing? There's something else.

Oh, EBI. A Business Institute and Conference Center. Double Day has asked me to do a book on...

We had a business. We started with three people and ended up with a thousand people. We borrowed $50,000 to start it.

Now it makes $125 million a year. And they said, could you write down how that happened? And what it was...

I'm not the owner, by the way. I was finished. I mean, I got all my money and gave it away, and it's all over.

I mean, I'm broke now. But I mean, it raised a lot of money for a lot of monasteries and stuff. And then I retired.

But I wrote down how to do it. We did it secretly by bodhisattva vows. We ran the whole department by bodhisattva vows.

Nobody knew. It was just all the policies, all the business, all the negotiations, all the contracts were written by the bodhisattva vows. And it works.

So they're all excited. So there'll be a business institute dedicated to that. That's in the middle.

And then we have an idea on the end, which is like another 2,000 acres. A place where either you could come as a student and commit yourself to, like, learning tantric dance for five years. I mean, I don't want dilettantes.

I was thinking serious people who want to spend five, ten years learning something well. Like, you either become a Geshe or you don't come. You see what I mean?

Or you become a Tibetan doctor who's really a Tibetan doctor. Or go stay with, you know, the yoga center in San Francisco where you go once a week or something. You know what I mean?

My idea is that people who are really into it come and they say, OK, I'm willing to spend five years. And they come out in five years and they can actually treat people properly. So that's my idea there.

So you can either come and get... And then my idea was you get an acre or two acres or three acres. It's yours.

And you build your own little adobe place. The cool thing there is that you can run the whole thing on solar. Everybody does that around there.

Even millionaires don't have... They're not hooked up to the grid. And the water is pumped up.

We figure you can live on $150 a month or something. But you can come and make your own place, adobe or a yurt, but you have your own property of a couple acres. And you live there.

And you take care of it. And you're independent. I don't think the Tibetan monastery thing is going to work in America.

Meaning, I don't think you're going to crush 30 Americans into a little building and they're going to get along with each other. I don't think it's going to work like that. I see you have your own adobe house, simple little cottage.

You don't spend any money. Your electricity and your water is all taken care of automatically. No suspenses.

You don't own a car. And you live simple. That's a monk's idea.

That's what monks are supposed to do. And you have your own little place and you study. And then on the far end is like a retirement community for Buddhists.

Because the first generation is hitting their 50s and 60s. And my idea is that you'd have a little inexpensive house there. You get two or three acres.

You build whatever you want. And then the students come and serve you as you get older. And then the lamas come and teach you what to do as you get older.

You know what I mean? And then your whole death is done right. You know, my mother, when she was dying, flew to India.

We brought her to India. She was literally dying. And parked her with Geshe Dargye in Dharamsala, propped her up against a pillar.

And for three months they fed her Dharma, what to do when you die. The Dalai Lama came and helped her. And then she went out perfect.

You know what I mean? And that's the way it should be. So the whole idea there, you have a retirement community where you come, you have a place, it's your own place, you're independent.

And then as you need more things, people are showing up to take care of you. And then you do the whole thing right. You know what I mean?

So that's the idea there, if you're into it. That's Winston, who's up there in the red. So my idea is that during the break, if you're interested in any of those things, you go and talk to the person.

So New York class is Elizabeth. Yeah. And then...

correspondence courses is Damaris. Oh! Anyone's interested in a local study course?

You know, like going to the courses with somebody else? It's... I'm thinking Maya, okay?

She's there. Okay. So local...

It's a study group. It's... Maya?

M-A-I-A. M-A-I-A. M-A-I-A.

Okay. You know my... Okay.

Arizona is Winston. Who else? India.

Oh, India is Mercedes. Okay. Then the separate people will get up and make a few announcements.

How's that? Oh, Connecticut is... That would be in New York, I think.

Okay. You want me to talk about Mongolia? Okay.

Lama Yeshe... I mean, sorry, Lama Zopa, we had a long talk. We're both intensely interested in Mongolia.

I've been going there for years to get books. You know, the very rare books that they have that were burned in Tibet. And we've had a project in Russia for six years finding...

We found 200,000 volumes there. There's a million and a half volumes in Mongolia. And we just negotiated permission to catalog them, which will take 40 years, just to catalog them.

And then when I was there, 10 people came and said, will you teach us Buddhism? Because all the lamas have been killed 70 years ago. And then 100 people came, and then 200 people came, and then last time they said, will you talk in a public hall, 1,000 people came, 300 locked out due to fire, you know, standing up.

And half a million people watching on TV for five nights, every night. And they're dying to learn Buddhism. So they're begging us to send Western people who know English and any Dharma.

You know, like you don't have to be a long-time student. If you know how to teach Lamrim, or you know how to teach a few subjects, they're dying to have you go there. But they don't have any money.

The first night each person came up, it took three hours to touch them all. And they each gave me 100 gukuls, or whatever they are. And so we're leaving, and Ora's got this pile of money, you know, and she counts it all night, and in the morning I say, you know, how much did you get?

And she says, $13, you know. And it's like that, they're totally broke, and the country is broke, and they're beautiful, beautiful, beautiful people, and their country is extraordinary, like pristine. And they're probably going to get attacked and taken over by China shortly.

So my idea is, you know, get in as fast as you can, and teach them as much as you can, and maybe if enough Westerners are interested, China will slow down a little bit. They take about three miles a year or something. So, if you're interested, it'd be really, really cool.

If you have any hope to help them, they really, really want to learn Dharma. And they got so excited when I sent a few people there. So, Lama Zopa and I had a long talk, and FPMT is going to start a center there.

And then anybody who wants to go, just talk to... Man, Thomas is not here. Who are we sticking on?

I'll give you Thomas' contact information, okay? Okay, there's a guy named Thomas who's running that, okay? That's about it, right?

Now, different people want to make different announcements, I think. Do you want to? Or are you going to put it on a sheet?

Or I'm just going to print you a sheet with the dates of all the stuff in India and Connecticut and Ireland. If you're Irish, you should go to Ireland and teach in there. Last thing, the thing about Arizona is like this.

The idea is just that you have it in the back of your mind. It's there. There's this huge thing.

And, you know, put it in the back of your mind. And the whole idea is to serve... I mean, anytime you think in the future of your life that you might need Dharma, a place to do retreat, a place to retire.

And I'm not kidding. Just think about it. Because it's there.

And we're trying to do it for people. The whole idea is that you just... In the back of your mind, there's always a place to go, okay?

To get your dreams fulfilled, okay? So, how to do it is our problem, right? Or if you can help, come and do the fulfilling.

You see what I mean? My idea is that you'll end up doing both probably. You see what I mean?

And we have a lot of cool people already who are moving out there, who... You know, they've been like doctors their whole life, and they're kind of in between. Like, they're kind of...

know they're going to need help with retirement, but they also have a lot to give to the place. So, I think it's going to be something like that, okay? So, just keep it...

Simla jakshu in Tibetan means keep it in the back of your mind, okay? All right, we'll do a mandala. All right.

Simla jakshu in Tibetan means keep it in the back of your mind, okay? All right, we'll do a mandala. Simla jakshu in Tibetan means Simla jakshu in Tibetan means keep it in the back of your mind, okay?

Okay, sorry to keep you so long. See you at... 5.

5. 5.15. This is the end of Session Four.