Серия ежедневной практики, курс 08 — Сутра сердца: медитация на пустоту (2000, Сокел), занятие 7

[Speaker 2]
This is the continuation of session four.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's start again. I have a request. The bookstore said, you told everybody they could only have that book if they got the initiation, so all these people want to bring the books back.

Keep it on your shelf till you get the initiation. Okay? That's all.

All right. Then comes my favorite part of the Heart Sutra. And I'm just going to...

Let's recite it. Ready? marikpa, me, marikpa, sepa, mepa, ne, kashi, sepe, pardu, yang, medho.

Okay. Let's see where it is on your thing. It's page four.

Next to the last syllable. Next to the last paragraph. It says, There is no misunderstanding your world.

There is no stopping this misunderstanding. And the same is true all the way up to your old age and your death. And to stopping your old age and your death.

Okay? People come up to me and say, I never heard any lama talk about stuff the way you do. They will say, I heard...

You know, Buddhism is a very effective thing, but I never heard anybody get up and say, it will cure your death. Or it will cure your old age. Or, you know, you understand emptiness and karma, you can reverse the aging process.

You know what I mean? That you could become 16-year-old in your body and Mahatma Gandhi in your mind. You know what I mean?

I haven't heard people describe Buddhism like that. I've been to meditation retreats. I've heard about engaged Buddhism.

I've heard about, you know, different kinds of philosophy. But I never heard anybody really make a big deal about that. That's the whole point of Buddhism.

Please. Okay? I mean, Lord Buddha said there's four problems of the world.

He said, ye, ga, na, chi. You take birth, you get old, you get sick, you die. And he said you can fix that.

Okay? And I don't think there's any other reason to be a Buddhist. If you want to just pace out for a while, heroin is...

I heard. I haven't tried it. And I'm not criticizing those other things.

I'm just saying that's not what Buddhism is for. Buddhism is to change the inner workings of your very body and mind and become a Tantric deity. We are mistakes.

We are boo-boos. You know, our bodies and minds are evidence that... You know, Salim calls him Joe Karma.

Joe Virtue in the past didn't do so. He didn't do well enough. I mean, he got us to LMB.

He didn't get us to Buddha Paradise. You know? And so we're like unfinished products and defective products.

And we live in a realm that cannot work. Nothing here works right. Okay?

So the whole point of Buddhism is to fix it. Okay, what he's talking about is the Wheel of Life. And we'll do a quick Wheel of Life.

Those of you who don't know, this is a painting that was designed by whom? Which Tibetan artist? Trick question, okay.

This painting was first painted under the direction of Lord Buddha. Lord Buddha was approached by a king named Bimbisara who was trying to give a present to another king named Udayana. And he couldn't, and he said, and they were exchanging things of gradually increasing value until finally Bimbisara got stuck and said, you know, there's no wealth in my kingdom which is worthy of the last present that I got from Udayana.

So he went to Lord Buddha and said, what should I do? And Lord Buddha said, have the painters paint me. So they sent the painters out and you know, six weeks later, Bimbisara's like getting irritated.

They haven't come back yet. So he sends a messenger to Lord Buddha's encampment and comes back. The guy comes back and says, are the artists still there?

He says, yeah, the artists are still there. He said, well, did they get... how are they doing?

He says, they haven't painted anything. He says, what's going on? You know, he says, they just stare.

They sit there all day like that staring at Lord Buddha. And they don't move, you know. Because he's so beautiful, you know.

And so then Lord, you know, Bimbisara sends a message, you know, I got to get this present on the road, you know. And Lord Buddha had this idea and he said, tell you what, let's put up a sheet, you know, and I'll stand on the other side. And then you put strong lamps on the lights on the other side and then you can just draw my outline.

You don't have to look at me. So actually it has an outline of Lord Buddha's shadow on the sheet. And then they filled it in later.

And that's how... Then he said, oh, just one more thing. In addition to my portrait, you might want to paint this other thing.

And so Lord Buddha ended up in the corner. And this painting resulted and Lord Buddha designed every part of it and went on to explain it. That's the Wheel of Life.

This guy here is the Lord of Death. Death itself. And that's what I think Buddhism is all about, you know.

You want to get rid of this critter. All of the lamas say, we don't believe Lord of Death is some ugly, you know, Stephen King thing holding the wheel. This represents a condition which is inside of you the moment you're born.

The moment you're conceived, this condition is inbuilt, built into you. And you carry it until it kills you. And it's part and parcel with your body.

Then here there are the five realms of existence. You can only see two of them. Animal realm and human realm.

And here there's a description of the three main negative emotions that cause us trouble. Here's a teacher leading people up. Here's a demon leading people down.

And then the important part, the guts of this Wheel of Life are the twelve links around the picture here. And they go in the order of a clock. They go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

So they go this way. And there's two ways of studying this painting. Say lungjung.

Lungjung. Lungdok. Lungjung.

Lungdok. Lungjung means front ways, progression. Lungdok means I should say, Lungjung is how you get into trouble.

Lungdok is how you shut it down. And how you get into trouble. There's an old lady, an old blind lady.

Somebody asked me, why is it a lady? And I was checking the database and I found like 40 or 50 references to the old lady. But nobody says why.

So I don't know. We're making an old man then.

[Speaker 2]
Also, could it be wisdom is feminine? In this case, wisdom is blinded? The absence of wisdom.

[Speaker 1]
It could be like that. Maybe it could be like that. I don't know.

I really don't know. We could try to find it. It'll probably be in a sutra somewhere.

So anyway, here's a blind person. And that represents ignorance. Ignorance is simply not understanding where things really come from.

That's all. Not understanding. Don't forget where we are in your five milestones of your spiritual life.

You decided to concentrate on your spiritual life and not so much on your worldly life. That was the first milestone. Then the second milestone, you study, study, study, study, serve people, serve people, serve people.

You get some idea about emptiness. Intellectually. Okay?

Then in the third milestone, you saw emptiness directly. And that whole incredible day, you saw all those things. Now what are you supposed to do for the next seven lives?

You get used to it. That's gomlam. You get used to what you saw.

You use what you saw. And this is a great summary of what you do for the next seven lifetimes. This wheel of life is the next thing that comes in the Heart Sutra.

And he says, you want to know what to do? To get from seeing emptiness up to your own... What's that guy's name?

Bernard Sean. What's his name? Bari, right?

How to pull that off? Go through the... Learn the machinery of samsara.

Learn how it works and learn how to shut it off. It's just like this huge monster machine. And you figure out how this machine works, and then you learn how to shut it down.

That's all. I'll give you a quick rundown. You don't understand what you're doing.

So you create new karma. Due to that, your consciousness enters your mother's womb. The rest of your body and mind form in your mother's womb.

There reaches a point where your sense powers are well formed. Then you're able to make contact with the outside world. Then you have your first sensation of feeling, bad or good.

That leads to a desire to get things. Strong desire. That desire increases strongly.

And then finally, at the moment of death, this immature karma, due to desire, is strengthened until it's about to trigger a new life. You're born into a new life, and you die. That's a summary of the way it works.

I'll do it more slowly in a minute. That's a basic summary. Where do you shut this process down?

Where do you get to enlightenment and nirvana? Which is where Lord Buddha is pointing to in this picture, okay? And in the old days, they used to write a shloka down here, which is here.

tsampa shashing yungwar ja sanggye ten la jukpa ja dampa khyen la lang chen shin chida denny shoma ja And another verse. kang shi ratu bagyur be chundu di la chukyur wa chikyeway khor rabang shing dungyang thangpa jawa sho He's pointing to the moon, and he's saying, you can get to nirvana if you can reverse these twelve links. And there are some paintings that put Lord Buddha inside, and they're considered very inauspicious.

That's an incorrect way to paint it. Buddha is out of the circle. He's not in there, okay?

And he's got out, and you can get out too. And the trick is, you break the cycle here. You use the knowledge of what you saw in the direct perception of emptiness to break the cycle here.

You shut this machine down between number one and number two, okay? I'll give you a real-life example, okay? I really like real-life examples.

Because when I was working in business, I was 15 years in a corporation in New York City. You know, philosophy is real nice when you're sitting in a monastery. But the minute you hit a real workplace, and you know, you're not Geshe Michael anymore.

You're just another schmuck. And they're screaming at you and saying, I want this done right now. And you say, how many people are you going to assign to my project?

None. Well, how much programming time can I get? We don't have any programming time.

When do you want this done? Tomorrow. You know, you know the story.

So, it's the real, you know... It's one thing to see this real-life thing. It's another thing to...

How does that really relate to my own life, you know? And here's a real example, alright? It's basically like this.

And I told you a thousand times, somebody that you don't like at work, comes into your room, and says something to you. You know? And this happens to everybody every day.

Unless you're sitting in tantric retreat. And then it's probably happening more often in your mind. But somebody comes into the room and says, you know, I really like that last lecture you gave, but you're really stupid.

You know, or something like that. No, I mean, it happens fairly frequently. Okay, and you know, somebody just says...

And usually they know what to say. You know, I mean, if it was too obvious, you could not believe them. But it's always something that you...

What I mean is, if the world is full of tantric deities, they know how to push your buttons to improve you, right? So, they come in and say the one thing that would hurt your feelings, you know? And then, what do you do about it?

You see, I mean, at that moment, you have a choice to break the circle, or to not break the circle. You have a choice at that moment, okay? Here's how ignorance would respond.

Ignorance would say, the blind person would say, which is called misunderstanding your world here. Ignorance would say, yell back at them, respond to them. You know, an eye for an eye.

You know what I mean? It's right. You know, they're attacking you, and you should give it back to them.

You know, you should give back at them. This is justice, you know? Self-defense.

And ignorance tells you that, okay? What happens technically, what's going on when you respond? No, you're stupid.

Okay? Somebody says, you're stupid. When I was in Mongolia, the Mongolians all, I was saying in English, but they got it, you know?

Somebody comes up to you and says, you're stupid. Your boss comes up to you at work and says, you're stupid. And then you say, no, you're stupid.

Okay? And this is, in our broken, dysfunctional, suffering realm, this is considered to be the right thing to do. Why?

You get some kind of satisfaction about calling them stupid back. You know, that's it. What's happening on a karmic level?

You're perceiving them being unpleasant to you, because your mind is forming an image out of that data, forced to do so by having done that in the past. You yelled at somebody in the past, it put a seed or an imprint in your mind, and that's the only reason you're interpreting these squares and circles as somebody being unpleasant to you. Okay?

Like, somebody could be standing right next to you, and the person leaves the room and they say, oh, that was so nice what they said to you. And you're like, are you kidding me? Did you hear what they said to me?

They say, no, no, I took it a whole different way. I thought they were trying to, like, encourage you or something. You know, that just proves the emptiness of this comment by this person.

It's not a criticism, or a helpful comment, from its own side. It's whatever your karma makes it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, by the way, I gotta dispel one thing immediately. Do you have a choice to perceive it differently at that moment? You don't.

Okay? You don't. Somebody comes in and says, you're a stupid idiot.

You know? You can't take those... You can't...

You perceive it as a criticism. That's real. That's reality.

Your karma has forced you to perceive it that way. The person standing next to you might just say, this person really cares for you. They're giving you this helpful criticism.

This happens with lamas all the time, right? He's like, no, no, he hates me. He's criticizing me.

He's trying to hurt my feelings, you know. And the other person says, no, no, they love you. It's only the people who love you who give you suggestions like that.

But your karma is to take it as something painful, right? That's not something you can just make go away, by thinking positive. You know, forget thinking positive.

Throw it out the window. It doesn't apply in Buddhism. Okay?

It is a criticism, and it hurts. And don't think that, you know, oh, being nice or thinking nice thoughts about this guy is gonna make it less of a criticism. It doesn't.

Okay? They're gonna fire you. They're gonna cut your pay.

You're gonna be out in that stupid unemployment line. That's for real. Okay?

That's not like, oh, this is really not so bad, you know. Well, it's bad. And it doesn't have to happen if you didn't have the karma.

Okay? What I'm saying is that I'm not talking about wishful thinking. I'm not talking about, oh, just smile and try to make it better.

Make what better? You know. See your enemy as your friend.

Who's that? See your enemy. Who?

Your enemy. So I am seeing an enemy. Yeah.

In the first place. You see what I mean? Didn't have to reconstruct my world every five minutes.

You know what I mean? I'd much rather he just didn't walk in the room than to go through all his mental exercises. Oh, he's my friend.

And besides that, I'm gonna fire you. Oh, you're my friend. I'm not talking about dealing with crap.

I'm talking about removing the crap. Okay? There's a big difference.

You wanna go through your life doing crap management? Or do you wanna go through your life without any crap? And that's the difference.

It's a big difference, you know. Buddhism was not meant to be a means of handling crap your whole life. It's a means of removing it permanently.

So it never happens. Okay? Now, in the meantime, it's useful to know how to manage crap.

But ultimately, you wanna get to a place where it just never happens to you. And that's the goal of Buddhism. Okay?

So, the guy came in to you. He's calling you stupid. You have wisdom.

You shut down number one. You shut down link number one. And you say, you're a very irritating person.

I don't like you. I don't like to be called what you just called me. But you know what?

I'm just gonna love you. And I'm not gonna say anything back to you. Because I hate you so much.

Okay? No, because I don't wanna see you again. You know what I mean?

It's a very... I mean, to me it's like telling them, I don't want you back in my life like that. You know?

People come up to me and say, you're so great. I say, what? Yeah?

They say, yeah, I've been practicing patience with you. It's so good. You know, it's like this kind of very subtle insult that people do in my school in New York now.

Anyway. Yeah. Just...

You respond with kindness. Why? Because it will make your reality change.

That's all. Okay? Because it's right?

No. Because Lord Buddha said to do it? No.

Because Jesus said to do it? No. Because the government says to do it?

No. Because your school teacher said to do it? No.

Because your church leader said to do it? No. Because it's noble?

No. Because it will get rid of them. Okay?

And your world will start to change into a paradise.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
It's very interesting. It's the right thing to do because it leads to happiness for all sentient beings. Okay?

And not because it's anything else. Look at all you have to look forward to. The nursing home, cancer, you know, what do you have to offer people until you teach them these things?

So the best thing you can do for everybody is not to talk back to the guy.

[Speaker 2]
I think it's important people know not to say that thing about that I'm trying to get you out of my life.

[Speaker 1]
You can think it, but don't say it. That's for sure. That's counterproductive.

No, I'm assuming you wouldn't say this. And of course, of course, it's a joke, right? It's just a joke.

They will change. The reality will change. And it doesn't come, again, you are not manipulating external circumstances.

You are not like reasoning with them. Look, it hurts my feelings when you attack me like that. Please, don't do it.

That's not how you remove suffering. You stop being abusive to other people. And you will not see abuse to yourself anymore.

That's how you shut down samsara. This is very beautiful. Lung dok means shut down samsara.

Turn it off at its weak spot. That's it, right there. At that moment, when someone is being unkind to you, at that moment, when someone is attacking you, you just love them.

You know? You just say, I'm sorry that I have to hear you. I'm sorry that I'm in this realm.

I'm sorry that I created you. And I'm just going to love you back. For both of us.

For both of our sakes. I just want to stop this cycle. Why do they draw it as a circle?

Why is it called the circle of life? If you respond to the person the way you've been trained to respond by your culture for thousands and millions of years, you will just go on another turn around the wheel. Okay?

It's not right. It doesn't work. You go for an eye for an eye.

You respond with this, oh, you're stupid. Then you just see them again. And then you respond, you're stupid.

And then you see them again. And you've been on this for years and years. The point is not some rebirth crap.

It's not that. The point is that you have to keep meeting. Rebirth is not so bad.

It's like half an hour. Okay? It's a whole lifetime of meeting people like that.

That's the real problem with this wheel. It's a whole lifetime of disappointments, ups and downs, people you love dying, getting old, not being able to get the things you want. That's the suffering of life.

You know what I mean? So, that's how you shut it down. This guy is making pots.

That represents fresh karma. Okay? It's putting new karmas into your subconscious.

New imprints by saying stupid back to the guy.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And then that pot stays in your subconscious. I call it like airplanes waiting at an airport to take off in line. And there's a prioritization, okay?

If you did bad karma with great violence or with great devotion. And most importantly, okay, get this. If you do a good karma understanding emptiness.

Okay? Like if you say, I'm going to consciously be kind to you because I understand you're only my projection. Okay?

Then suddenly the karma takes off like a jet. If you do the slightest good deed, understanding this emptiness stuff. If you understand while you're doing it that this person is my projection, I don't want to meet them again like that.

I refuse to say anything bad to them. That karma is like boom. That karma ripens in this lifetime.

Okay? Very powerful. The science of manipulating your karmas that way is called tantra.

Okay? Which is why the lamas are always saying, you can't practice tantra if you don't understand emptiness. You see what I mean?

It doesn't work. Okay? The only way to get that much karma to ripen that fast before you die that this arm becomes Tara's arm is to do it knowing this stuff about projections.

You're a projection. I'm having it. I don't have any choice.

You're from my old karma. I can't like shut you off right now. But I am definitely going to shut this thing down because I'm not going to respond to you the way I used to.

Why? Because I'm tired of seeing people like you. I want to be surrounded by compassionate, understanding, lovely, 10th level bodhisattvas.

You know what I mean? And you can do it. You see, we gave a business seminar two nights ago, three nights ago in New York City.

Here's this hard-nosed business executives, you know. I said, what would happen if you kept this up over a period of time where you just didn't respond to anybody with negativity? They already went through the emptiness stuff in an hour and a half in a big corporation, you know.

And they're like, ah, I get it. This lady's like, I got it. I said, what would happen?

She said, well, theoretically the bad people around you would get less and less. I said, yeah, and then what would happen? And then you'd be surrounded with more and more pleasant people.

And I said, yeah, and then what would happen? She said, everybody you ever came in contact with would be beautiful, physically beautiful, compassionate, understanding, dharma-oriented. You know, like she was saying all this stuff.

She got it right away. It was really incredible. And that's what starts to happen.

You know, it really starts to happen. You can't get rid of all the beautiful people around you, you know what I mean? You're like a guy, lock your door, put a sign up, don't bother me, tell one and all, you know.

And you open the door and there's like twelve beautiful people come in, you know. And I'm not kidding, it works. It really works.

It really, really, really works. You just got to do it. So that's where you break it.

I think there's a homework question. I got one more homework question. Just one note.

This is making fresh karma. This is when you yell back. This is when you yell back.

And that yelling back, your awareness of yelling back, when you hear your own voice in your own ear, the karma is planted. That's where karma stays. That's how karma gets planted.

Your awareness of the own noise coming out of your own mouth, when you hear it in your ear, it's planted in your subconscious. That's it. Now how does it ripen?

How does it come back to haunt you? That's link number ten. You go from two to ten.

Link number ten is ripe karma. It's a pregnant woman. Link number two is making pots.

Making pots means you put the karma into your subconscious. I always see it swimming around like a fish in a fishbowl. I always imagine it around my stomach.

I don't know why. It's down there swimming around. And then the karma ripens at link number ten.

And then it comes up to your conscious mind. And then I always see it as a pair of sunglasses. Like rose-colored glasses or, excuse me, crap-colored glasses.

And then everything you see looks bad. That's how karma ripens. What is it out there?

It's decibels. It's consonants. It's vowels.

It's sticks and balls and ovals. And then your karma comes up like sunglasses and forces you to see this as a yelling person. Because all that's there, your eye and your ear can only detect noise and shapes.

What makes it into an unpleasant person? Your karma. Your karma is like sunglasses.

Ripening of karma means that karma comes up to your mind and determines how you see everything. Everything around. You'd be blissed out by every single object in this room.

Totally blissed out by every single object in this room. So here's ripening of karma. And then just before you die, you start to get some unreasonable fears and desires.

That's number 8 and 9. And they trigger birth. They trigger rebirth.

But the main thing is this. If you want to shut down this wheel, right here, between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock, you stop yelling back. You stop number 2, which is the potter making new pots, right?

Why do you stop yelling back? Because you sit there and you say, I don't like this person. I really don't.

How can I avoid this thing in the future? Oh, I just don't answer back. And then I don't make a new imprint.

And then there's this joy. By the way, is it easy? No.

I always remember 10 minutes later, after I yell back to them. I always remember 10 minutes later. I'm saying, shorten the reaction time.

First half an hour later you remember, then 20 minutes later you remember, then 10 minutes later you remember. Sometime your mind will get so sharp that as you open your mouth, like, you can always tell a good Buddhist in New York, my students, you know, because they're always going, you know, and I love to see that. That's virtue in making, you see what I mean?

Because the mouth opens and the finger comes up, and then they kind of go like this. And that's a sign of virtue. You see what I mean?

In that moment they're perceiving emptiness. Not directly, right? But they're like, oh, wait, I'm seeing this thing because of, and if I, yeah, I have to see him again.

And that's self-control. That's keeping your vows. And that's all.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yes, Shiloh. What if my projection is acting in a dangerous way? So they're yelling at me, right?

Or saying something unpleasant. And if I respond and they're saying, don't do that? You know, like with a child, or with someone who's responding to you in a way that's creating bad karma.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. It's very important to understand that. She said, well, let's just say, basically, you see somebody doing something dangerous or harmful, and it's going to hurt them if they do that thing.

Are you supposed to say, oh, I'm a good Buddhist, you know, you just go ahead and mug this lady. You know, it's too bad, but I don't want to collect any bad karma, so just go ahead. Your bodhisattva vows require that you go to the assistance of someone doing violence.

I mean, sorry, being done violence too. Meaning, if you see a wrong being done, if you see violence being done, you have to do something. You have to stop that person.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you have to be more careful when it's directed at you, because you can fool yourself so easy. You know what I mean?

But, oh, this is really an unjust violence, I have to stand up for Michael Roach. Be careful with those. But, in general, 99% of karma collection is your motivation.

If you truly believe that this person is harming another person, you're required to stand in and stop them, even with force. Okay? But there's a very interesting small print in the bodhisattva vow there.

It says, without any negative emotions. Without anger. Without any hatred.

And actually, you're much better at doing force to people without anger. Like, if you've ever done boxing or karate, you're much better if you're very level-headed. You can wipe them much better if you're not angry.

You see what I mean? In other words, there may come a time when you actually have to restrain someone from doing harm. But there's never a time when to be angry or to hate them would be useful.

So, it's just a cold calculation that this person is going to hurt themselves, and I should stop them. And what happens in practice, real reality, you stop them once, out of compassion. Then they come back at you again.

And then you stop them again with half-compassion, then they come at you again. But now you're angry. And you have to watch out for that.

I mean, they will come at you repeatedly. And then you have to get some kind of endurance. Your compassion has to have endurance, that it doesn't turn to anger by the third time they say the thing to you.

Okay? Yeah, one last question, then we'll stop. Yeah.

You have to talk loud.

[Speaker 2]
I can talk loud.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
In thinking about all this, I keep repeating that you're not supposed to do this stuff to make them go away. But isn't the next step that if you allow the person to yell at you, then if you understand this material really well, by allowing them to yell at you, knowing that they're creating bad karma, it's also your obligation to stop them from...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's what we just said. Yeah, that's what we just said. Your first obligation is not to respond badly.

Right. Your second obligation is to help them not to collect bad karma. And that's all within, you know, how ready are they to be reasoned with.

I found a very useful thing in corporate life, in doing a very heavy argument, is to drop your coffee cup. Okay, I'm not kidding. Okay, just drop it.

And the thing shatters, and everybody's got coffee, and it just, all the tension, just, you know, you're down on the floor, and, you know, it's very useful. Something like that. I mean, distract.

You have a person who's in the middle of a violent mental affliction attack. Just find a way to distract them. It's very powerful.

So, it just depends on that. Yeah, it is your responsibility.

[Speaker 2]
But if you're doing it to help other people, rather than getting rid of the ugly people in your life, don't you get, like, move the karma ripening along faster, and dissolve the negativity faster, and your motivation shifts?

[Speaker 1]
Two ways to get rid of bad karma. Okay? Two ways to get rid of bad karma.

One is the Michael Wick way. And the other is... No, and the other is the purification way.

Okay? Michael Wick's way is this. Michael Wick is this bodhisattva in New York City.

He's got this old junk car. He lives in the East Village. It's impossible to find a parking space in the East Village.

Okay? Impossible. Like, literally, you have to drive sometimes for two...

I think Elizabeth and I drove around for two hours one day. And then... So, he finds a parking space, right?

Empty parking space. We've been driving around for 45 minutes, you know? And I'm like, There it is, Michael!

What are you doing? He says, I don't want to use up my karma.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
So, this is like... This is like... You've got a parking center there anyway, right?

But it's the idea that one way to get rid of your bad karma is to experience the suffering that it's going to give you. Because then it will go away after that. You know what I mean?

But it's much more efficient just to do purification and get rid of it. You know what I mean? That's like the parking space thing.

Okay? There's other ways to get rid of it. And the main way to get rid of bad karma is to refuse to perpetuate it.

Okay? The main way to purify yourself of the karma of meeting irritating people or having sicknesses in your body is to refuse to perpetuate those negative activities. That's the whole point.

Medicine doesn't cure disease. Okay? Who is the doctor we talked to?

Who is that? They were getting depressed by the practice of medicine because they figured out that whatever they did, it didn't matter. Yeah, Yuri, in New York.

He came to me and said, I got to ask you something, Geshe-la. I said, what? He says, you know, whatever I do, it doesn't really matter.

Some people get better, some people die. You know what I mean? I'm very honest with you.

I'm a very qualified physician. And it bothers me to know, finally, after years and years of practice, that whether they get better or not is not really a direct result of the methods I undertake. Because sometimes I do the same thing for different people.

It kills one person, it cures the other one. He said it disturbs him. As a physician, it disturbs him, you know, deeply.

The fact is, you're not getting cured by the doctor. Okay? You're not getting cured by the medicine.

You're getting cured by your respecting life. Okay? On a very subtle level.

Are you telling me that if I have a back problem and I don't kill the bugs in my apartment, it'll go away? Yeah, exactly. Okay?

And if you don't kill the bugs in your apartment, and you go do yoga, the back problem will go away in a week. Okay? I'm not kidding.

If you do kill the bugs in your apartment, and you go do yoga for ten years, you'll still have a backache. Okay? Did the yoga cure your back?

No. Does yoga not cure your back? No.

If you do it having protected life, it'll work. If you do it not having protected life, it won't work. Okay?

It's not working by itself. Okay? And that applies to everything in the world.

Okay? I mean, that's the best thing I can leave you with for three years. You know what I mean?

The world's not working the way you thought it was. Everything's working on how kind you are to other people. That's the only thing that's making everything happen around you.

That's it. We gotta stop. Catch me next time.

Okay? Alright. Here we go.

[Speaker 2]
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... This is the end of session four.