Серия ежедневной практики, курс 08 — Сутра сердца: медитация на пустоту (2000, Сокел), занятие 8

[Speaker 2]
Session five.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I always seem to forget one thing from the last class. Actually, I just run over so long that I feel embarrassed to keep going.

But unlike some people we know. Okay. In Hong Kong, I kept them like an hour late and then they're getting kind of yancy and then I said, it's not like the last person in town here.

Anyway, one thing I forgot to mention, you know, when they go through the 12 doors of sense, which basically means the six subjects, meaning your eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and the six objects, which is things you see, things you hear, things you spell. The point of that, one of the points of that teaching, which is like the most radical part of the Heart Sutra. It's probably page four, the second paragraph and the third paragraph.

Okay. They're also talking about non-duality. And that's one of my favorite subjects, because it's one of the biggest Dharma rumors, you know.

And those of you who've taken the Diamond Color Sutra, you know what I'm talking about, but I'll say it again. People say you enter into a state of non-duality. And then a lot of people have misunderstood that to mean that somehow the subject and the object become one.

Okay. That's not possible in Buddhism. The word for subject state of mind is yul chen, that which possesses an object.

You see, I mean, they can never be the same thing. Just forget it. Okay.

It can't, it's not that during the direct perception of emptiness, your mind melts into emptiness and you become one with emptiness or something like that. That's not correct. That's not how it happens.

That's not what non-duality means. Okay. Non-duality in this case, Lord Buddha, through Chenrezig, is talking about a non-duality.

But the non-duality is, there's no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. And there's no object of those six. Okay.

To a person who's in the direct perception of emptiness. That's all. Okay.

Like, while you're seeing emptiness directly, you can't be aware of the state of mind which is perceiving that emptiness. Why? It's not emptiness.

I mean, it's very simple. Okay. You can only perceive ultimate reality.

Your mind, which is perceiving ultimate reality at that moment, ain't, it ain't ultimate reality. So you can't be aware of your mind at that time. Okay.

Does that mean you're mindless? No. Okay.

It just means that you can't be watching your mind and watching emptiness at the same time. Because one is ultimate reality and one is normal reality. And only a Buddha can live in both at the same time.

Only a Buddha can perceive the ultimate reality of something and at the same time see its normal reality. Okay. So that's all.

So there's an, that's an important reason why he mentions the twelve doors which are divided into six subjects and six objects. Or you talk about the eighteen dhatus which is six objects, six faculties, and six subjects. You see, I mean, that's the reason Lord Buddha mentions it here.

To emphasize that during the direct perception of emptiness, you can't distinguish between the person perceiving emptiness and the emptiness which they're perceiving. Okay. Does that mean they somehow become one?

No. It just means that you can't watch both things at once or else you'd pop out of it. You see what I mean?

That's all. Very simple. Okay.

But it has implications on the rest of the sutra. We're now in the last paragraph on page four. Okay.

There's no suffering. There's no source of this suffering. There's no stopping the suffering.

There's no path to stop this suffering. That's a statement that the four, what kind of truths? Arya Truths.

We're not going to call them noble anymore, right? That's a bad translation. Noble, it doesn't have anything to do with being noble.

Okay. Arya means someone who's seen emptiness directly. These are four true things which someone who has seen emptiness directly understands.

What? Everything around me is suffering. This life is not going to go anywhere.

You know, you got, it's funny, the whole effort to collect things throughout your life is hopeless. You must lose them all. You know, it takes like two seconds to realize that.

Whatever you're going to spend your 20 waking hours, you know, 16 waking hours trying to get, you must lose it. So, what's the point? You see what I mean?

What's the point of doing that? That's suffering. Okay.

The whole life is suffering. Secondly, what's the cause of that suffering? You reacted stupidly to stupid events around you, and you're going to have a stupid result.

Okay. Which is more stupid events that you can react stupidly to. You see what I mean?

And that's why samsara is called a circle. Okay. It's self-perpetuating violence.

Okay. Somebody yells at you, you yell back, you create an imprint to see them again, they yell at you, you yell back, and it's a circle. The word in Tibetan is korwa, means circle.

Okay. That's the source of suffering. There's an end of suffering, which means you can actually reverse the process of aging and death.

Okay. And I don't think we talked enough about it. I mean, I'll sneak in some Tantra, I got nothing to lose.

I'm not going to get any notes from anybody in the next week or so. Okay. In the highest stage of Tantra, they talk about channels inside your body, you know, subtle channels along which some kind of, through which some kind of energy moves.

Okay. You have a main channel that goes through your body, starts here, and goes down the back, in front, about half an inch in front of your backbone, ends up down here. And then there are two other channels running parallel to it, all the way down.

And if the energy is moving through those two other channels, then the middle channel is choked off. And if the energy is moving through the middle channel, then the other two channels are choked off. So the nature is that it's either moving in this one or in those two, but never in both.

You see what I mean? And these two happen to twist around the main one in six spots in your body, and those are called chakras. So chakra sounds very sexy, nice little flower thing, which is choking you to death.

Okay. All right. So I mean, stop thinking of chakras as nice beautiful little mandalas or something.

Okay. These are points where those two other nasty channels twine around your major channel. And every time, this is the main point, okay.

Every time you misunderstand your world, those two side channels choke your other one a little more. Okay. They pinch your, they choke off the energy flowing through the main channel.

Every time you just misthink about somebody yelling at you, they choke a little more, much less when you respond. When you respond, they choke even more. You see what I mean?

So misthinking about the guy yelling at you chokes this thing. Then getting angry chokes it more, and then when you say something, it chokes it more, until there's no energy moving to your, the central channel. That is what causes people to get old and die.

Okay. That process of choking, and it doesn't happen in a day. Rome wasn't built in a day, and your body's not killed in a day.

It's the general, it's the gradual process over years of tiny little chokes. You know, tiny, these things are in millimeters. These things are tiny, and it's just a tiny little choking motion on that, repeated over and over.

Every time you get irritated, you know, in the space of a few minutes, that's happened like 20, 30, 50 times, and each time is more damage to your body, more damage to your life, and then finally it kills you. Okay. And when you think correctly about the guy yelling at you, it opens the knot slightly.

The six knots open slightly. Every time you understand the thing about the pot, every time you look at someone who's yelling at you, and every time you have the slightest little idea, you know, I'm creating this thing. This thing was created by me.

I'm not going to respond the way I used to. Then there's this tiny little crack opens in the channel. Okay.

And those channels, that thing opens also at death, naturally, flows free for a short time. You get this intense emotions at death, at the end of the death process, and also during a very heightened sexual activity, you know, at an orgasm or something like that. Then for a short moment that, I mean, that's a tiny, tiny indication of what it would be like if you were enlightened.

You see what I mean? When you have like an orgasm, it's open for a second, for a millisecond, you see what I mean? And then you get this feeling.

If you were able to overcome your emotions, the anger, desire, if you were able to understand emptiness, that thing would be wide open all day long. You see what I mean? So imagine what you'd feel like.

I mean, that's... No, that's how a Buddha feels all the time. I mean, you're talking, the best experience you ever had physically, it was open for a millisecond.

And you can get to the same place by understanding emptiness and refusing to respond negatively to other people. And then you'll get that thing open up like that all day long, all the time. You see what I mean?

And that's the goal. Mentally, your body will be like that. As that thing opens, then the body itself starts to change.

It goes from skin and blood to light. I mean, mentally, this bliss takes over. Physically, the body changes into light.

The girl's body is also caused by that choking. And those things all withdraw and start to disappear. And then you become a body of light.

So all this thing is very, very interesting. It's not like some kind of theoretical thing where you're just a nice guy, and then one morning you wake up and there's Avalokiteshvara in the mirror or something. It's not like that, okay?

It's a very scientific, purposeful, knowledgeable thing that you keep your vows. Every two hours, you keep checking your vows over and over. And then very gradually, very steadily, those channels open.

Your body starts to transform. During that process, you know, it's not like one morning you wake up and you're made of light, okay? They start to open, you feel better.

They open more, all your backaches go away. They open more, suddenly you've got much more energy than you ever had in your whole life. They open more, and suddenly your ears and your eyes and everything else starts to improve, you know?

And then it's actually a reverse of the aging process. 99.9999% of all living beings don't know about this stuff. There's this gradual choking, and then they die from it.

It kills them. It causes the slow aging of the face and the body, the hair, and then, you know, pinch by pinch, you die. If you can reverse it, then slowly the body just begins to change.

So there's this cool thing between body of light and normal body. You know, there's like a, you can say if you're practicing Tantra intensely, maybe a three to five year period where your body's actually reversing. And think of how it would feel, you see what I mean?

To understand that that's happening, to be in control of that process. And you have to think very, you have to think, man, I can do that, you know? You can do that.

You just have to keep your vows. It's very, very simple. Every two hours, open up the book, look at the next vow.

How am I doing? And it works, okay? How did I get to that?

Anyway, oh, that's stopping suffering. And then the path to stopping the suffering is to change your karmas by keeping your vows. What's this big thing about vows?

Why can't we just be a nice guy? There are 84,000 good karmas. There's 84,000 nice things you can do to other people, okay?

There's like 60 of those that are extremely powerful, you know? Like, once you become a Buddhist, once you understand Buddhism, once you've agreed to be a Buddhist, or once you understand these things, you have to choose out of 84,000 good deeds, what are you going to work on? You see what I mean?

So, Lord Buddha said, look, here's a list. These are the best 64. They're called Bodhisattva vows.

You know, there's 84,000 nice things you can do for other people. And I'm not saying they're bad. They're not bad.

But if that's all you do, it just takes you a hell of a long time to get the body to change. Here's 64, that if you concentrate on them, the body changes a lot faster. And for those of you who keep them well, I'll teach you these other things called Tantric vows.

They're even faster. They're even more powerful. But they take a lot more faith, and a lot more knowledge of emptiness.

And you shouldn't work on those until you're pretty strong on your Bodhisattva vows. Okay? But you have a list.

See, vows, I don't even like to call them vows. They should be called speed lists, you know? These are speed lists, you know?

Here's some vows if you wanted things to go faster. They're called Pratimoksha vows, ordination vows. Oh, you're not satisfied with that?

You want something faster than that? Here's Bodhisattva vows. You want to know how to pull it off even faster?

Like, you're at a certain age where you decided you gotta do it now or never? Then here's Tantric vows, and you keep them. But they're hard to keep.

They require a high degree of faith, high degree of trust in your teacher, and they require a high degree of emptiness knowledge. And so they don't work unless you have all those. Somebody can give them to you, somebody can explain them to you.

But if you don't have a strong foundation in Lamrim, and in emptiness, and in your Bodhisattva vows, they won't work. Okay? I think, I'll tell you some Tantric vows.

I'm not supposed to, right? I'll tell you ten of them. Okay?

These are, I think, Vairagyana? Anyway, these are real secret, okay? Okay?

Don't kill anything. Don't steal things. Don't commit adultery.

Don't lie. Wait, I said Tantric vows, right? Okay?

Etc. I mean, I'm just saying, these idiots say, oh, I don't need those regular ten virtues because I've got Tantric vows. And it means they never read their Tantric vows, you know, because it's the same thing.

Okay? I mean, what I'm saying is they're very much based on the same thing. What I'm trying to say is, you keep your ten Buddhist virtues well.

Respect life. Respect other people's property. Respect other people's partners.

Try to tell the truth all the time. Try to bring people together with your speech. Try to speak kindly.

Try not to waste your speech. Be happy when other people get things. Be unhappy when something bad happens to them.

And for God's sake, don't think that things that don't cause things, cause things. Figure out where money really comes from. That's the ten.

Those are the ten. Okay? You keep those ten nicely, you will see Tantric deities in your lifetime.

You will meet Tantric deities in your lifetime. You go get a million Tantric initiations with all the water and the sprinkle on your head and the bells and the big hat and special thing that no one gets to see except people who come to this initiation. And it doesn't make you see Tantric deities.

Okay? It doesn't do that. It's very interesting, you know?

It's almost like the humble get to see the Tantric deities and the people who need the big bells and everything, they don't get to see Tantric. I don't know. Just keep the ten, you know, mainly.

Okay? So that's the Four Noble Truths, Arya Truths, end of page four. He says they don't exist, meaning what?

From their own side. Okay? We don't have to say that.

Everybody knows that. Okay. Page five.

There's no knowledge. There's nothing to reach. There's nothing not to reach, you know?

People think it sounds mystical to say, oh, Lord Buddha said there's nothing to reach. I can sit at home and drink alcohol and, you know, space out. And I have this special Tantric Lama who said I can get to enlightenment this way.

You know what I mean? It's just ridiculous. Okay?

What he means is, there's no knowledge, what? From his own side, you know? If you want to hear your mind tell you I'm seeing emptiness, right, then you have to keep the ten virtues.

That's all. Okay? That's also a projection.

Okay? The thoughts you hear spoken in your head, are you the listener or the speaker? That's a long story, okay?

Depends on what school you're in, right? But basically, you're the victim of these thoughts, you see? You don't initiate a thought.

Come on, you're listening to them. That means they were spoken a millisecond before you heard them. You're not speaking them, get it?

You're not. There's somebody else there speaking them. I mean, everybody, everybody has thoughts in their mind.

You have it right now. You're having thoughts roll through your mind. You don't have control over those thoughts.

You're not thinking those thoughts. Those thoughts are being directed at your ear, at your mental ear, by somebody else. Who?

Mr. Karma, okay? You know, if you're tired of hearing depressed thoughts, angry thoughts, unhappy thoughts, then change your karma, and he'll say something different to you. You're not saying those thoughts.

It's not, it's not voluntary. Those thoughts are being thunk at you, okay? No, I'm not kidding.

They're being thunk at you. You're just listening, okay? And change your karma, and then there'll be different thoughts coming.

That's what no knowledge means. That's what no knowledge means. There's nothing to reach, there's nothing not to reach.

If you reach enlightenment, it's going to be because you understood emptiness. If you don't reach enlightenment, it's because you didn't understand emptiness, okay? Next he says, second paragraph, page five, is the end of gomlam, okay?

We're at the end of the fourth milestone. I'll repeat the milestones. A, you got fed up with life, and you decided to come to LMB and learn something.

B, you worked really hard at serving other people and meditating, and then you started to have some insights into emptiness. Three, you saw emptiness directly, and then you had all that extraordinary 10 hours after that 20 minutes, okay? Four, you used what you understood for seven lifetimes on your boss at work, okay?

For seven lifetimes, you used what you understood in real life. You know, at a certain point, if your lama's really good, they'll force you to go back to work. You have to go back to work now.

Why? Because you're on gomlam, you know? Now you have to deal with these things, you know?

Now you have, you have to go through the boss thing 10,000 more times until you cannot react the minute he starts to talk, because you understand his emptiness. You see what I mean? It takes practice.

That's called gom. Gom means practice, practice, practice, okay? Now we're at the edge of the end of gomlam, okay?

It's called gyunte pacchimilam, final moment, okay? And he says, thus it is, Shariputra, that warrior saints have nothing to reach, and because of this, they are able to practice the perfection of wisdom, and stay in this perfection of wisdom. This frees them of every obstacle in their minds, and frees them from all fear.

They go beyond all wrong ways of thinking and reach to the ultimate end of nirvana. I think the coolest thing here is when you get pretty far along the path of habituation, after you've seen emptiness directly, it's called Kale Jigme. Say Kale.

Kale Jigme. Kale Jigme. Kale Jigme means nothing to fear again, never, nothing to fear again, okay?

In fact, it was such a popular expression that a lot of Tibetans are called Jigme, and it just means, once you understand about the projection thing, once you understand that everybody in this room, you are projecting right now, you know, everyone in this room, whatever you see around you is your projection, once you understand that, nothing can frighten you anymore, okay? You have a clear way out. You see what I mean?

You have a very clear way out. You can't say, I don't know how to get enlightened now. You can't say that anymore.

Maybe you could say it a few days ago. Now you're stuck, you know? Now it's just clear.

Everything around me is a creation of my perceptions. Is it voluntary? No, it's forced on you by your past karma.

You don't like what you see? Then change your karma, and in six weeks, six months, it'll straighten out. And then I have people say, oh no, no, I heard it takes 67 times 10 to the 10th eons, which is true, 10 to the 60th power.

75 times 10 to the 60th power plus 76 times 10 to the 60th power plus 77 times 10 to the 60th power. Technically speaking, after you get bodhicitta, that's how long it takes, okay? Eons, billions of years of each one of them, okay?

How can you say that I can do it in one lifetime, you know? Ah, big difference. If you understand the emptiness thing, good deeds go from good deeds to perfections.

You see, what's the difference between giving and the perfection of giving, you know? Like, what's the difference between giving somebody five bucks and the perfection of giving using five bucks? It's just, yeah, it's just understanding the emptiness.

While you're giving the money, you say, I've seen this person as grubbing my five bucks, because I didn't have good enough karma to see me grubbing five bucks from them. And then, I'm seeing the paper, which is just a green rectangle, as being worth about half an hour of my life, you know what I mean? And then, I have to look down and see these skinny hairy legs, which is why I really like robes.

I have to see those because I didn't have enough good karma to see something made out of light, you know what I mean? And as you do any good deed, if you think about those things, the karma is accelerated infinitely, okay? It becomes tantric power karma.

It will ripen in this lifetime. The whole principle tantra is described as tse me la, tse to lo kang du pe le de tse me la min pe na. No, it's fast, path, because you're using your knowledge.

You know, what I mean to say is, every time you give something to somebody now, just a pen or a cup of tea, don't be lazy, okay? Don't be lazy. I'm seeing a cup of tea because I have the karma to see a cup of tea.

I'm seeing them take it because I have the karma to see them a certain way. I have the karma to see my arm as blood and flesh. And that could all be different.

And I dedicate this good deed to that. I'm going to make this turn into light, so I can show other people how to do it. It's one thing to go around talking Dharma, and people can smell that you haven't had it happen to you.

People are like dogs. I have this dog in New Jersey, Doma. She's got a notch on her collar for each High Lama she's bitten.

You know, and... Okay. And...

Anyway. But... But she's got this thing.

When somebody walks in the house who doesn't like dogs, she just knows. Like, she just knows right away. She's like barking.

It's really strange. It's weird, you know. People are the same.

They can smell it if you're talking about something that's happened to you. And they can smell it if you're talking about something that hasn't happened to you. So there's this thing where the kindest thing you can do for other people is figure this stuff out, use it, and get somewhere with it, and then show other people how to do it, you know.

They're like, look, you can turn your body into this thing. Oh, cool. When did you do it?

Well, I'm working on it. I'm planning on it. Any day now I'm going to start keeping my book.

But in the meantime, you've got to do yours, okay? It's like, you know. Who wants to hear about it?

Okay. On page 5, in the middle, actually the last paragraph, we start moving into the fifth milestone. The fifth milestone, the last milestone.

This is enlightenment itself, okay? I'll write the Tibetan word up here. Say, milo blam.

Milo blam. Okay, if you look at page 5, the middle paragraph represents the end of the fourth milestone, gomlam, path of habituation. And then the last paragraph on page 5 represents the beginning of enlightenment itself, okay?

Lord Buddha, in his description of your spiritual future, has reached the end of the unenlightened side. And milestone number 5 is enlightenment itself. Milo blam means nothing more to learn.

Milo means nothing more to learn. Blam means path. The path where you have nothing more to learn.

It means enlightenment, okay? The middle paragraph on page 5 is a bridge. The middle paragraph is meant to say, look, you get what I said about mental images?

Do you understand that the reason you see this cylinder as a human arm is because your karma is not good enough yet? Do you understand that if you keep your book, do you understand that if you check your behavior every two hours, this data would turn into Tara's arm? Do you get it?

That's a potential. I'm describing how you can actually become an enlightened being. Do you get it?

Do you see how emptiness and karma work together? Emptiness is the quality of your cylinder here, and karma means you could have been projecting a V8, or you could have had a Bhaji Yogini. You see what I mean?

And you have to think about that, okay? That's expressed in the middle paragraph there. Middle paragraph is like, look, Bodhisattvas figured it out that this potential is there.

You know, they're like turned on to the potential, okay? My arm is empty, therefore I can become Bhaji Yogini. You see what I mean?

My arm, the way I see my arm now is a projection of my mind forced on me by my past behavior, and if I clean up my act, then I can see Bhaji Yogini's arm. I can wake up sometimes. It's very gradual and it's very, very sexy.

I mean, once you get on a roll, you know, once you start seeing it happen, you're like, Mindopa. Mindopa means unstoppable. You know, you start seeing a few effects of the things opening, and then you're like, I know why that's happening, and I know how to keep it going.

And then you're just unstoppable. Then you're like, Man, I smell water. You know, it's coming.

You know, and then you just feel like nothing can stop you from that time. So everybody here can do it. The middle paragraph is describing that emotion, that, yeah, hey, if what that crazy guy said is true, I could become Thay in my lifetime.

You know, and then you're like, Wow! You know, okay, that's the potential thing. Then right after that begins the fifth path, okay?

Milo blam. Which is enlightenment. So the last paragraph there, all the enlightened beings of the past, present, and future, too, follow the same perfection of wisdom.

Perfection of wisdom being, I call it the pen thing. Pena paramita. Okay?

You know, understanding why I perceive it as a pen. Okay? Understanding why I perceive this as an arm.

Okay? That's perfection of wisdom. And they reach the matchless state of a totally enlightened Buddha.

Okay. That's all. I mean, you got the smell now, and then you have to roll with it.

Now the rest of the class is all downhill. It's all anti... No, it's all anti-climatic.

You have a definite smell that this thing is possible. Now you just have to ride on it. If you don't know how to keep a book, talk to somebody how to keep a book.

You cannot get enlightened on fuzzy good intentions that go on from year to year. It doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen.

Tundu, sixth session, means six times a day, you stop, you sit down. You know, people tell me, I'm in a busy workplace. I can't stop.

I say, tell people you have to take a dump. You know? Even my boss never stopped me.

You know what I mean? And sneak in that stall, lock the door, pull out your book, you know, check your next bowel. And maybe poop a little, just to make sure the bathroom smells right.

Okay? And... No, really, don't give me these excuses, you know?

You find time to eat. You find time to drink. You find time for all these things you want to do.

Don't give me this thing, you can't do two minutes checking your bowels every two and a half hours. And that gets you enlightened. It just gets you enlightened.

Okay? That's really it. Going to teachings the rest of your life may not get you enlightened.

Reading all these books may not get you enlightened. Stopping six times a day, checking where is your heart at. You know?

Have you been a little selfish in the last half hour? You know? That's the kind of thing that gets you enlightened.

Okay? Alright. I like this next thing.

It's the mantra. It's very sexy. Okay?

I'll read it for you. Thus are they the sacred words of the perfection of wisdom. We're on page six.

The sacred words of great knowledge. Sacred words of the unsurpassable. Sacred words that are equal to the one beyond all equal.

Sacred words that put a final end to every form of pain. Sacred words you should know are true, for false they cannot be. Sacred words of the perfection of wisdom, which here I speak for you.

Okay? Then repeat, okay? tadya ta gate gate para gate para sang gate godi so ha ha Okay?

Ha ha ha. Okay. This is the mantra of the perfection of wisdom.

Okay? It's the mantra of the Heart Sutra. There have been books written about this mantra.

Okay? And you should just repeat it all the time. Anytime you have time.

Okay? tadya ta gate gate para gate para sang gate godi so It's very, very good for problems. You know, serious problems.

Automobile accident, cancer, people come into your room that you don't want to talk to. You know, gate gate para gate para sang gate godi so And it's powerful. It's a very powerful mantra.

Okay? It's very powerful. It's what we call an open mantra.

Okay? I think people don't know, maybe. There are two kinds of mantras, secret mantras and open mantras.

This is an open mantra. So you don't need an initiation to recite it. You can recite it now.

Of all places, it's in Master Dharmakirti's work on Buddhist logic, written around 700 AD, called Pramanavarttika, second chapter, in which how mantras work is explained. And I think some of you have heard it. Two things have to be there for a mantra to work.

If two things are there, you can do miracles with mantras. Okay? If they're not there, you can't.

Okay? The first part is easy. The mantra must have been spoken by a holy being.

So no problem here. We got puppet Chenrezig is being moved by Lord Buddha's concentration. Okay?

So, Chenrezig is good enough, I think. Avalokiteshvara. The mantra has been spoken by Avalokiteshvara.

Okay? Now the hard part. For the mantra to work, the person reciting it must be keeping their vows.

Okay? They must be making a decent attempt to track their life and their heart's progress throughout the day. So basically, if you're keeping your book and making an honest attempt to lead a good life, then this mantra will work for you.

And if you're a nasty person and a selfish person and you're not checking your vows regularly, it won't work for you. And that's all. So keep your book and then use the mantra.

Okay? And it's very powerful. I love the meaning of the mantra.

Okay? It's like this. Tathagata means, this is the way it is.

Tathagata means, this is the way it is. Gate means, the first gate, right? Means go.

Okay? Go. Go where?

Go follow the first path, the first milestone. Okay? Go to Tsoglam.

Go to the path of accumulation. Okay? Which means, go to your lama.

You know, give up your emphasis on a worldly life and go. Okay? Gate.

Gate. Okay, that's the first go. The second gate is, gas.

Yeah, go to the second path, path of preparation. Prepare to see emptiness directly. Meditate like hell.

You know? Study like crazy. Find a qualified teacher, stick to their side.

Listen to teachers on emptiness over and over and over again. Okay? So, first one is gate.

Leave your worldly life behind. Second one is gate. Find a sweet, holy, authentic teacher and glue yourself to them and start studying emptiness.

Meditate like crazy. Okay? Gate gate.

Paragate. Para means, go beyond. Paragate means, go beyond.

Okay? Go beyond what? Go beyond the state where you haven't seen emptiness directly and go to the state where you have seen emptiness directly.

Paragate. Get your ass in gear. Paragate.

Okay? Move it, man. You know, go, keep going.

You know, go, go past che chok, go past that ultimate thing about the pot, go to the next few hours, get to the 20 minute thing. That's paragate. Okay?

So, remember we said that now the Heart Sutra, now you can really see that Lord Buddha has meant this sutra as a roadmap for your entire spiritual life. Okay? And he's just wrapping up now.

He's saying, gate, get it? Number one. Gate, get it?

Number two. Paragate. Get it?

See emptiness directly. Then he says, parasangate. Go beyond perfectly.

Sam means perfectly. Samgate. Parasangate.

Which means, get to path number four. Okay? Get onto the, get onto the fourth path, the path of habituation.

Okay? Then what will happen to you? Bodhi.

Okay? Bodhi, enlightenment. Okay?

So this is a whole code word, right? Right here is a whole code, in code is the whole contents of the Heart Sutra. Then he says, soha.

We said soha the other day. Soha means, bam. Soha, it's called shitsuk in Tibetan.

Shitsuk means, bam. Meaning, that's it, man. Okay?

And often times they'll say om at the beginning. In the ancient, in some ancient commentaries they say, om tad yatha, gate, gate, parah. And you can add om, it's okay.

Om is body, speech, and mind of an enlightened being. And what we call naden means a mantra beginnerizer. Okay?

So om, gate, gate, parah, gate, parasangate, bodhi, soha. Soha means, shitsuk means, god damn we did it, you know, bam. Okay?

It's called, shitsuk means, you know, sign sealed and delivered. Okay? Soha.

All right. Then, there's a wrap up. Chandrasekhar says, okay, Shaliputra, you got it?

That's how you practice. Okay? He's just finished answering your question.

Shaliputra's probably like, oh my god. He's like, you know, does that answer your question? Okay, that's in the middle of my, page six.

You got it, Shaliputra? Okay. And then finally, at the end of page six, Lord Buddha wakes up.

Okay? Lord Buddha has been in meditation all this time. And then he says, lekso.

Lekso, lekso. Okay? Very, very famous.

Okay? In Tibetan Buddhism, the lekso is very, very famous. Okay?

Lekso means, true, well-spoken, true. And then he says again, true, true. Okay?

Now there's this big, big deal in debate ground. They say, is Lord Buddha enlightened, you know? Yes.

Does Lord Buddha know everything? Yes. Does Lord Buddha ever say anything wrong?

No. Well then, why does he say it three times? You know.

And here's what the commentaries say. Okay, the first time he says true, he's telling Chenrezig, you got it, man. You really understand emptiness.

Okay? So the first true is directed at Chenrezig and says, you got it. I'm proud of you.

You really did that well. Okay? Who was speaking, by the way?

Anyway. Okay. The second one is, is he's expressing his pleasure that Chenrezig has spoken accurately.

So the first one is, true, you've spoken accurately. The second one is true, meaning, I'm really happy that you've spoken accurately. That's the second.

The second true is like, you know, I'm proud of you, Chenrezig. Okay? The third true is called Dengajin.

Dengajin means a seal of approval by Lord Buddha. Meaning, now people in centuries from now can take this to be my word. This is true.

Now this, I'm, it's Lord Buddha saying, this is a true teaching. You know, he's putting his imprimatur on the teaching. The third lexor is, this is something that anyone can study and read, and it represents Lord Buddha's ultimate word.

Okay? So that's why Lord Buddha says true three times. Okay.

Then everybody in the universe rejoices and is happy, and everybody starts crying and everything like that. Okay. And, that's all.

Okay. We have something else here. What was that?

Oh, it's something we started out at the beginning. It's on your homework. Just that, if somebody asks you, who taught the Heart Sutra, what are you going to say?

Lord Buddha. Yeah, Lord Buddha. Then they're going to say, oh, is it Lord, we went through this, but let's do it one more time.

So is it Lord Buddha's speech? Is the Heart Sutra Lord Buddha's speech? Just say yes or no.

You can't, in the debate ground. No, in the debate ground. You can't interrupt something, right?

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Yes or no?

[Speaker 1]
No, no. So the Heart Sutra is not a sutra? No.

Not necessarily. Yes, it is. You didn't tell her about not necessarily.

Yes, it is. Oh, you say yes, no, or not necessarily. I'm saying yes.

Oh, so it is a sutra. It is a sutra. Even though Lord Buddha didn't speak it.

No, I didn't say Lord Buddha didn't speak it. Oh, Lord Buddha did speak it. Lord Buddha did speak it.

Oh, so Lord Buddha is the one who, 500 years after his death, says, thus did I hear once. No, Lord Buddha didn't say that. I'm sorry, I wasn't following you.

Is there something? No. Lord Buddha didn't say that.

So are the words, thus did I once hear, part of the sutra or not? Yes, they are. So they are spoken by Lord Buddha, right?

So they are. So they're not sutra. Yes, they are.

Because they're not the word of Lord Buddha. They are the word of Lord Buddha. But Lord Buddha didn't say those words.

That's right. That's perfect. Perfect.

No, perfect. Perfect. Okay.

Yeah, perfect. That's called, as we said, it's called Je Tsong Nangway Ka. It means, Lord Buddha said, you can add that to my sutras in the future.

It's okay to add. I heard this one time. And that's a proved sutra.

Okay. Then what about, ready? No, not me.

The directors don't get exceptions. Okay. The whole part spoken by Chenrezig is the Heart Sutra.

Yes or no? Yes or no? It is part of the Heart Sutra or not?

Yes. So it's a sutra, right? Because it's a Heart Sutra.

So it's the word of the Buddha, right? So the Buddha spoke those words, right? Yes.

No. They love that. You do a yes or no in the monastery, you get Bo Ching!

Anyway, it's better than going on a wrong road on the note. Yeah, this is the word of the Lord Buddha. Okay, it is a sutra.

Why? Because it's Jing Gi La Pe Kha. Jing Gi La Pe Kha means through a divine act of the Lord Buddha.

Okay, I, or, you know, through the blessing of the Lord Buddha, this event is taking place. These two people are talking, driven by Lord Buddha's concentration. Okay?

That's all. And by the way, the beautiful thing, if you study Prajnaparamita, is that the Jinggirlapeka, Lord Buddha does that with wind going through trees, with the sound of waves breaking on a beach, you know, the sound of your own heartbeat, things like that. Lord Buddha does, that is a recognized form of Lord Buddha's speech.

Like, you can be sitting at the edge of the ocean at night, and watching the waves break, and listening to the sound, and you can get a Dharma teaching from them. And it is Lord Buddha's speech. Like, Lord Buddha does that kind of thing.

And that's the second kind of speech of Lord Buddha, called Jinggirlapeka. Like, almost like magical speech of Lord Buddha. So this thing, this whole sutra, up to the leg so, leg so, is what we call magical speech.

Meaning, Lord Buddha's blessing has caused these people to speak. Okay? Then the third one, who says leg so, leg so?

That's easy, Lord Buddha, okay? Is that Lord Buddha's speech? Yeah.

It's a part of the sutra. We call Shenesumbeka, means, Lord Buddha's speech that came out of Lord Buddha's mouth. Okay?

So I guess we'll call it Lord Buddha's speech. All right? And that's about the end of the sutra.

What I'll do is, I think it may be good to take a break here. Did we take a break yet? No, not here.

We'll take a short break. I have a suggestion. If you're going to be around tomorrow, then don't get in line.

Or let other people get in line first. People who are leaving tonight or something like that, who won't get a chance to talk to me, and then please think of the people behind you in mind. Okay?

And let them have a chance too. So don't ask me about your three dogs and your aunt. You know, one dog each.

Also, one thing, before we take a break, I think I'd like to say, you know, I worked at my Lama's Dharma Center. I was the dishwasher for eight years. People used to ask me, what do you do?

I'd say, I'm a dishwasher. And I had these wrinkly hands from washing dishes. They had 14 pairs of rubber gloves.

And we served our students really well. And oftentimes we had no money at all. I can remember times when we would serve all the students tea and food and everything, and then they'd leave, and we wouldn't have anything to eat.

I'm not kidding. We were really broke at the time. But we kept doing it.

And we should do it. But it used to kind of disturb me. I mean, I didn't get angry or anything, but it used to disturb me that people could study bodhicitta and study bodhisattva behavior, and then trash the bathroom, trash the kitchen, eat everything out of the refrigerator and leave.

And then just got through with the whole nine years on the Bodhisattva Charvatara, and still trashing the bathroom. And it just used to freak me out. I'd feel bad, like I'd say, don't they realize that we don't have any money?

Don't they realize that we're not charging anything, but they should help. And then later in my life I realized that it's just that nobody mentioned it. It's not that people are not thinking about it or something.

Dharma should be free. And my dream, especially in the United States, is that no one ever charges for a dharma class. That's the way it should be.

And as I said many times, I said many times in Sara Monastery, Christopher knows, teachers don't get paid. And not only that, but normally they support their students. So it's a big responsibility.

You take on a student, you pay for them. You pay for their food. You know, Geshe Lothar's room, he's now vice abbot of the monastery.

He's got three kids sleeping on the floor. They're cute kids, but I imagine it would be nicer not to have them sleeping on the floor in your room, you know, and you're vice chancellor of the biggest monastery in the world. But that's the way it is.

And I really, really believe in that. And I believe that the karma of offering everything for free will mean that we will never have any serious needs. Dharma centers will be healthy as long as you keep things free.

And there's a second thing. You've got to stay joyful about it. You see what I mean?

And that's two big things. It's one thing to make a radical decision that our center's not going to charge for teachings. But then to go on and be happy about it when you're hard up, it's very necessary.

If you get bitter about it, or you feel resentful about it, you destroy all the karma. Then you really will be a broke Dharma center forever. You know what I mean?

So it's very important to never charge for Dharma. And it's very important not to get angry or resentful when you have hard times financially. You've got to keep it rolling for free.

Even if you have to go out and earn some money to do it. So anybody who's in the Dharma business should be willing to go work themselves to keep the center open. That being said, you've got to help LMB.

So during the break, there's no charge, but there's a bull over there. And they always lose money. Every time we come here, they say, this time Geshe Michael, your students have to pay for their rooms.

And I say, okay, I'll let everybody know. And then 23 people show up without registering. They're like, oh please, please, it's real late, I don't have a place to stay.

And then LMB's always, you need some money? You're alright. And then they always go broke after a few years.

It's really funny. Especially when my students come. So everybody has to help make up for that.

Try to help, okay? Usually when I come to LMB we go to a movie afterwards. Not tonight, okay?

And I say, you know, it's expensive. Can you afford 12 bucks? And everybody says, yeah, no problem, I'll do the popcorn.

And then I say, well, LMB needs $10. And they're like, well, no. So don't be a cheapskate, okay?

I mean, okay, pop for 30, 50 bucks. Throw it in the bowl. I'll do it too.

And just do it, okay? You can figure out your finances tomorrow. So maybe, you know what I mean?

Just do it. Don't resist it. Give them a nice big fat offering tonight.

Really, it's respect for the Dharma and respect for yourself, okay? And to keep the place going. It's not an easy place to keep going.

It's a very difficult place to keep going. So just pop, okay? Alright, take a break.

Okay, this is just sort of, I'm going to make a few comments and then we'll take a few questions, okay? People ask me, what kind of retreat are you going to do? We're going to figure it out in the next week.

No. There's a thing in Tibet called Nyenchen. Nyenchen means three years, three months, three days retreat.

And it was a great tradition in Tibet. And it sort of died out among the Galupas recently. And I think it's a really good idea and I would like to see us recover that tradition.

I've trained a lot of Kagyu students for their three-year retreats and they have a very strong tradition of it. And every time I saw a Kagyu going to a three-year retreat, I'm like, wow, we should do that too, you know? And it just seems like a beautiful, important thing to do.

And so, we've been, there's a group of about six, seven people will be in three-year retreat. We've been training for about two years to the instructions on how to do the retreat and what to do during the retreat. And we've been helped by a lot of great lamas of different traditions actually have helped us prepare.

And so we have a place in Arizona. We went to this guy and said, Dotty Watkins is here. It's her idea.

She said, you've got to meet this rancher. And we said, yeah, she said, maybe he can help you out with your three-year retreat. So we went and asked him if we could have five acres of land out in the desert near this mountain.

And then he said, it went back and forth for months and then finally he said, how about you guys buy 5,000 acres, you know? And so we're like, all we really wanted was 5 acres. And I got angry when he said that.

And then we started thinking about it. And we came up with an idea to use the place. So it ended up like that.

We had designed these really awesome adobe cottages to stay in. And apparently they might be built by the time we're out. So we were in Mongolia and we saw these Mongolian yurts.

They're like beautiful little houses made out of felt. Collapsible houses. They're like tents, Mongolian tents.

But they're sort of larger. And very comfortable in hot weather and cold weather. They just don't do well in rain.

But we don't have any rain. So it wouldn't do well here. So we've got, we've shipped some yurts from Mongolia.

And we're going to be, there's a crew coming to set them up in the next few weeks. And we'll be staying in those indefinitely. And then we'll be seeing each other occasionally.

The five, six people. Probably we'll do our Seichus together and things like that. And then they'll be on and off back to back Lerung.

Lerung means four to six week tantric retreat where you don't see anybody else. And you don't speak. And the whole retreat will be strictly silent.

We won't be saying anything. I'll tell you a little bit about the property. it's something like it looks a little bit like this.

These are called the Dragoon Mountains and it's a national park. National forest. Kornado National Forest?

And no trees but it's a national forest. And anyway it's these mountains that look a lot like they look a lot like Sara Monastery in Tibet. And then it's about a, I don't know it's something like a five miles long piece of land.

And it's very, it's undeveloped totally. And we would we're hoping to put in the top third to have like small adobe retreat cottages. And we thought that if we had that much property we could fit about 500 people in retreat in your own cottage.

And you wouldn't have to see anybody else. I mean I think it's very important that you not see anybody else. So once we got the offer of this much property we thought it would be cool to do it that way.

To have an area where you'd have your individual cabins and you wouldn't have to see anybody else. And that really when you do retreat it should be like that. We're talking somewhere between milestone one and milestone two.

Like at some point you just make a decision that that's what you want to do. In the middle we'd like to have a traditional monastic, or traditional university of sacred arts and sciences. And we got this idea in Mongolia when we visited Mongolia.

And they had in the middle of the country they had a little hill and they had eight colleges around it. And so we'd like to have a you know like something like that. And it would be a college of philosophy.

Like the things you learned this weekend. On a very intense level. And then a college of Tibetan medicine.

Herbal medicine. And my idea is to create masters and not dilettantes. Like I want to have a five to ten year program where you come and you become a real Tibetan doctor.

It's not that you just learn a few things about it. Like you commit to a five to ten year program. And my dream is to make it free.

You know, so like you sign up for five to ten years. As long as you keep up your grades you stay there for free. And then you're taught by a real Tibetan master.

And you learn to do it. And then we crank out actual American Tibetan doctors. Then a school of sacred movement.

Like dance. Tai Chi. Things like that.

And my idea is to bring over real masters from Mongolia. Tibet. China.

And what I'd like to do is have an endowment that's large enough to pay them a serious salary. And not this kind of geshe starvation rate that they have. You know what I mean?

And like treat them like a regular college professor. And I think we can especially attract... We spoke to a lot of elderly masters overseas who would live longer if they were taken better care of in the United States.

You know, medical facilities and stuff like that. And they're interested in coming. Like we recently picked up a Newari tantric dancer and a Mongolian dance master.

And you know, two women Tibetan doctors from Mongolia. Great masters of medicine. Things like that.

So then art and architecture. You can learn Tarka painting. But you'd have to sign on for five to ten years.

You'd have to stay there most of the year. And you wouldn't have to pay, but you'd have to become a master. Okay?

Then I forgot the college of serving other people. Like a place where you can go and learn to do hospice work. Or prison work.

Or addiction work. Based on Buddhist principles. A place where you could come and learn to help other people.

You could learn to do accounting. You could learn to do an incorporation for a Dharma center. Tax exemption.

How to write grants for funding Dharma centers. Stuff like that. Just a whole school of how to help other people.

Then what did I miss? School of languages and translations. Where you could learn Sanskrit or Tibetan or Pali.

You could learn to translate the great scriptures. And you could help with our preservation project. The input project.

So far we've input about two hundred thousand pages of scriptures. We have about two or three hundred Tibetans typing all day. And we put out those scriptures on CD-ROMs for free.

So that would continue there. What was the other one? I forgot.

Music. Music. Sacred music.

And then thinking over here to have a business college and a conference center. That would take off on the book. Now we've been giving seminars around the world for business people.

How they could make more money. And be, you know, and more compassionately run their businesses along Bodhisattva principles. And that would be what's it called?

Saddle rock or something? Spirit rock? No.

What's it called? No. What's it called?

[Speaker 2]
Canyon?

[Speaker 1]
Canyon Ranch. Anyway, there's a canyon ranch nearby. They have like forty acres.

And they charge up to like a thousand dollars a day or something. And what we thought was it would be an honest living for the students at the college that they could serve business people at the conference center. You know, like in your white tux and everything and serving mint juleps.

And that would be an honest way that these people could support themselves. You know, if they needed extra money and stuff like that. That they could help business people learn Bodhisattva principles to run their businesses better.

You know, Doubleday was really excited. They proposed a book to me and they went all over the place. So I think it's going to take off.

Time Magazine came. Amazon called today and did an interview and stuff like that. So I think it would be a good thing for everybody.

Then there would be a monastery, nunnery. A school of retreat arts like how to meditate properly, what to do during retreat, how to set up your retreat. You know, there's no place you can go really and get that right now.

I mean, you can meet individual lamas to help you, but it's hard to find that kind of thing right now. A school for developing children's programs. Children's education, Buddhist education.

We did a lot of good things. We've had a children's group in New Jersey and New York for 20 years now. But I'd like to do more work on that and I think it's important.

Then over here, there's a big highway right here and then over here is a big piece of land and we thought we could have a spiritual retirement community there. The first students of Holy Lama Yeshe are getting 60s and 50s. I think most of us didn't lead a very material way of life and the idea here is that you could live on the cheap, like you'd have your own little adobe house and the electricity there is like solar and you could have your own garden and you wouldn't have to have any money basically.

Then my dream is that there's this big symbiotic relationship. These people feed their experience into the college and they help people. Especially like a lot of these people know how to run a Dharma center or how to earn no money and stuff like that.

And then you did put in the bowl, right? And then these people are coming down to help buy groceries, help people take a bath, and then they get the virtue of helping sick people or elderly people and these people get the stimulation of going up and helping with the college. And then there's this symbiotic relationship where the virtue of serving people makes these people really great students.

You see what I mean? They understand Madhyamika like nothing because they've been serving other people. And then these people are serving the students by they all have some kind of specialty that they learn during their life.

And I would like to see this symbiotic thing going on. And then this would be a complete quiet zone. You know, no cars, no trucks.

And this is where we'll start the three-year retreat would be up here. There's a little piece up here and that's where we're starting the three-year retreat. Where's your hospice?

Well, there's a prison over here. No, this is a hospice. I mean, part of it would be a hospice.

Salim Lee in Australia has already built a place in Perth. It incorporates hospice, you know, low-level medical care. You know, not like surgery and that.

And then your private house. So you move, you go from a you have a private home and then when you need hospice, my idea is that hospice would be students coming down to provide hospice. But you stay, you have the dignity of your own home and your own place to live.

And then as you if you don't, you know, the text on Dzogrim, I was just reading one yesterday and said, in the event that you don't succeed in finishing your practice, you know, and then there's all these instructions on how to die, you know what I mean? And it was almost like a footnote. It was like, you know, for the dummies who don't make it, here's how to die right, you know.

First of all, I would have liked to think that hospice wouldn't be there. No, I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

I mean, it would be a failure of our mission if there were a lot of people dying. but if it should happen, says the text, then you'd have very qualified masters. My idea is to attract elderly masters.

My lama I met when he was almost 60. He started English lessons at close to age 60. And, you know, we've been together for 20-25 years now.

And that's fine. I would like to attract these elderly masters to this place, with a good salary and with medical care and attention. In my experience, it's the elderly masters who are very interested in transmitting everything they know, you know.

Like when you're a hot shot 45-year-old Geshe, sometimes you're not so far-seeing, you know. You're not like very concerned about lineage and transmission and everything else. But when you get into your 70s and 80s, you mellow out a lot, and then you're really concerned that this lineage should continue.

And then you're much more willing to pour it into a nice 20- or 30-year-old student, you know what I mean. And I'd like to attract that kind of... And we've had a lot of nice talks at Sera, even in the last trip to Sera.

And in Nepal we met some great teachers, dance teachers, who said they'd be willing to come. And I'd like to recover... One of these colleges is a Tantric college, and I'd like to recover the arts of Tantra that were lost in Tibet.

Like in the Galupa monasteries, Tantric dancing is not very strong anymore. The Tantric college at Sera is gone completely. There used to be three Seras, Sarajay, Sarame, and Ngakpa Datsun.

And all the monks from this Tantric college were killed. So I'd like to recover that college. I'd like to rebuild that college.

And then I'd like to get really great masters to recover the Tantric arts, all of the Tantric arts. So that's the idea. That's called Diamond Mountain.

There's a mountain over here called Black Diamond Mountain. And so we used it as an excuse to call it Diamond Mountain. There's a prison nearby.

We'd like to do prison work. We have one student who's in charge of that. We have another student...

There's a very beautiful project run by Dottie's... Poor Prieta, Mexico, a very poor part of Mexico, is 40 miles away. And we'd like to do work there for...

There's a vocational training school and a nursery, a food program that Dottie and her people have started. And we'd like to help them. And I think that you can't really meditate or study well unless you're doing things like that.

So I'd like to see this whole thing where we're circulating down to our Prieta and people are helping people there. We talked about setting up a Tibetan data entry center. I didn't have enough money.

Dottie went ahead and started it anyway. So they have computers and handicapped children are typing, learning to type already. So we'd like to get that going.

And those are projects we'd like to do down there. The additional interesting thing is Lama Sopa looks like many of the international operations will be moving perhaps to New Mexico nearby. So I think we could have this big interchange of people and ideas and work together on a lot of great things.

It seems to be the way things are going. So that's the idea in Arizona. What will happen during the first three years is we'll be in retreat.

People will try to finish the purchase of the land. We have questions about the water and questions about the mineral rights which we're working on now. If necessary, we might move around the mountain or something like that.

It's going to be... We'll start here in the three-year retreat area. My hope is that before we get out, the team of people...

There's about 50 people who are interested in working there almost full-time. I think the initial team would be about 20 people. They're going to start preparing better retreat facilities and then the first college here.

Also, I forgot to mention, there's a 4,000 acre piece over here which the state of Arizona told us if you purchase this piece, you get this piece, the use of this piece for free. Actually, you pay 10 cents an acre per year or something like that. But you're supposed to run cattle on it.

We asked them, could we run cattle and just keep them alive forever? It looks like that's all right. We'd like to have an animal sanctuary here.

We've attracted some beginning funds from some diamond dealers in New York, Indian diamond dealers. Lama Sopa has offered a beautiful stupa here. He likes the idea and his idea was that cows would just wander around the stupa.

That's another additional project that would be going on there to try to save the lives. That is the center of Arizona, a cow-killing country. We thought it would be a nice statement to have a non-violence center.

That's the idea right now. Anybody have questions about that? If you want to come out and help, does anybody know the website?

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[Speaker 2]
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teachers now, and they are doing the 15, the 18 courses will be covered in the next three years in New York City, on a very deep basis. Or you could do it straight by correspondence, but better if you can find a human being to do it with, alright? So that's my first suggestion.

Second would be, and if you want to know about them, talk to Bonnie, who's right there, raise your hand, don't be shy. She and her husband, Michael, distribute the courses throughout the world. They do about a thousand courses a year, and we don't, they cost about 50 bucks to make, you can either help us pay for them, or if you can't pay for them, you can have them for free.

And that's just the policy we have. So, you know, you can order them, you can copy them as much as you want, we don't care, there's no copyright on them, you can rip off the tapes, there's hundreds of Australians studying the courses, they've never paid for one, I think. No, I mean, what they did was they got one and they just kept copying it and passing it around, and, you know, that's wonderful, that's fine, I don't care.

And then these guys are going to try to, yeah, these you can get, this is a summary of the 18 courses and how to order them. And then they'll be available on the web, there's a couple guys here, Kent Sandberg and his compadre are working on it now, and you can get some of them just downloaded from the web for free. And that process is going along well, so you can just, you can listen to them on the web for free, you can download them for free, and this is a description of all of them.

What is the website? That's lamrim.org, that's one place. I don't want to put any pressure on you to finish it or anything.

[Speaker 2]
Is it Worldview?

[Speaker 1]
Is there a dot? Dot what? Worldview.org, you got to put the hyphen, or you'll get this Korean fundamentalist group, okay, or something like that, I don't remember, okay. You may want to take their courses too, but, okay, but this will give you up-to-date, and then the, I don't know, the classes in New York start in late February, I think, and you can find out about those. Second thing, daily meditation. Set a time, and make it the same time every day, like 6.30 to 7.30, or 7 to 8, or whatever you want, but must meditate deeply one hour a day, not counting water bowls, sadhanas, wandering around looking for the incense, you know what I mean? Okay, one hour in deep meditation, okay, or it doesn't work. Same time every day. Third thing would be, you got to do your book.

We're kind of tending to call it a six-time book now, okay? Six times a day, stop and do your book. If you don't know how to do a book, then talk to somebody, okay?

And then lastly, two retreats a year. If you can, four to five weeks each, okay? Lerung, if you know what a lerung is, try to do a lerung twice a year, six months apart.

My experience is, it keeps you going well for about four months, and then you start to degenerate, and then by the sixth month you better be back in retreat, okay? So twice a year, ideally three to four or five weeks. If you can't, my experience is that on the seventeenth day you reach a peak, you reach a threshold, and it starts to become really beautiful, okay?

So you can just discount the first fifteen days. So if you never do more than two weeks, you'll never know. Retreat will always seem to be a pain in the ass, you know what I mean?

Because you didn't break over that threshold, you see what I mean? My personal experience, it's almost invariably around the fifteenth to the seventeenth day that you get some kind of breakthrough, and then the rest of the time is like dessert. So you've got to try to arrange your life that you can do that.

Okay, we'll do a short mandala and a dedication.

[Speaker 2]
This is the end of session five. You have been listening to The Heart Sutra, A Meditation on Emptiness, with Geshe Michael Roach. To contact us on other courses available, or for further information, please check our website at www.world-view.org.