Базовый курс ACI 3: Прикладная медитация (2019, Аризона), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
So, yesterday we talked, we're doing class two of course three, which is called Applied Meditation. Applied means use it for something. Don't just go in a cave and meditate, okay?

And we were talking about, it was confusing for me for a long time. There are six preliminaries and there are seven ingredients, okay? So, it can be confusing, okay?

Six things to do before you meditate and seven things to do before you meditate. Alright? Okay?

So, for me it was always confusing. So, I'm going to try to confuse you more. Okay, six preliminaries that we talked about in the first class.

Thanks for the yoga class, by the way. I had a good time. And you're a great teacher.

Thank you. Really. By the way, tonight we're going to talk a lot about teaching meditation and it's similar to teaching yoga.

So, the more chances you get to teach, the better teacher you will be, okay? I teach about 180 days a year. When I'm at the college, I teach six classes a day.

So, I teach, I don't know, couple hundred classes. Two or three hundred classes. Four hundred classes every year.

So, hi Maria. So, try to teach as much as you can, okay? Every time you get a chance, then teach.

And with yoga and meditation, you know, it stopped a long time ago that we didn't know yoga, you know? Like, someone came, taught us all yoga and we couldn't teach yoga. But now I think most of the people can teach yoga.

And then you go to a second stage of teaching where you start teaching each other for fun, okay? And my lama, I remember the first time I went to his class in New York. I was still at Princeton and I used to commute to his class in New York.

And somebody asked him, well, what's going to happen when all the Buddhists, when we all become Buddhists, you know? Well, what happens then, you know? And he said, what do you think, they all retire?

And they sit around and teach each other because it's fun to teach, okay? And they know what the other guy is going to say before they say it. It's okay.

So, it's like that. You can teach the people in your own Dharma group, you know? Like Singapore, you have a very sweet group that Jenny Wong built over many years with her team.

So, when you get to where you all know everything, which is called Buddhahood, like if you know the whole meditation class, then teach each other. We do that on DCI tour. We just rent a room in the hotel and we all go there and we say, who wants to teach a class?

And somebody says, I'll teach a class. And then you get experience. You get more and more experience.

So, teach each other, okay? Practice teaching each other and encourage each other to teach. It's not, what do you call, egotistical.

You are gaining experience that will be helpful for when you meet people who don't know yoga or they don't know meditation, okay? So, when you're with your friends, like on the way down here, we always stop at the yoga studio in Tucson. They never have a class when we need it.

So, we don't even ask them for a class. We just rent the room. We rent the back room and we go in and we make noise, we play loud music and we say, who's going to teach?

And then somebody teaches. So, when you're with your Dharma friends, don't waste the time. Do your yoga every day.

Do your meditation every day. And you're much more likely to do it if you get in the habit of, when you're with your friends, don't go out to dinner, don't go to a movie, don't talk about Trump, okay? Say, let's do our practice.

Let's get our practice done, okay? And then get your practice done. Then you can go out for a huge dinner, guilt-free, without guilt.

And then the next day you have to do yoga again because you have a big tummy. So, use the time with your friends to gain experience in teaching and encourage each other to teach. And be honest with each other.

Say, what was that? You promised you wouldn't do splits and then you did something worse. You know, just kidding.

Give your friends suggestions. Because among friends you can be critical, right? You can say, you know, you should talk a little bit louder or your music should be Neil Young or stop this modern music, Anatole.

Give each other suggestions, okay? And that's a big teaching. You learn more from each other than you do from me, okay?

But just get in the habit when you're with your friends. Meditate together, do yoga together. And rotate, who teaches?

Then you get a lot of experience. Then when you have to teach a larger group. I think DCI teaches yoga to more new people in the world every year than any other organization.

I think so. We do 30,000 people a year. In the beginning yogis, maybe, I don't know, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000.

And our teachers are good because we teach each other every day, okay? So, do that. Alright.

So, here's the six preliminaries that we went through yesterday. And I just want to show you where we put the seven ingredients, okay? And then you won't get confused, okay?

So, six steps to start your yoga. And one of them has seven steps, okay? This is called, GYOR GYUR.

Say GYOR GYUR. GYOR GYUR means preliminaries. How to start your meditation practice.

And the other is, by the way, GYOR GYUR THUGS. Say THUGS. THUGS means six.

Six preliminaries, okay? And then, YEN LAG BDUN. Say YEN LAG BDUN.

Which literally means the seven branches of the tree. And a bank branch is also called a YEN LAG. Anga in Sanskrit, okay?

Like ASHTANGA means eight limbs of yoga. ASHTANGA. ASHTA ANGA.

ASHTA ANGA. It means eight branches. I don't like to call them the eight branches.

I find it kind of irritating when people call the seven limbs. And like seven limbs, you know, arms, legs, few others, I guess. Boys have more.

But I don't know, it never sounded very good to me. It means ingredients, like a recipe, okay? So, there's six preliminaries.

What do you call seven? It's like this. Six is like this.

Seven is like this. Don't ask this to Chinese people. Everyone show a different thing.

Okay. Seven. Seven.

Like that, seven? What's this one? This is eight.

Get out of here. Okay, anyway. Seven ingredients, okay?

And they go, they are part of the six. They are inside one of the six. Here we go.

Here's the six. Number one, create a beautiful space for your meditation. Create a beautiful meditation space.

And that's really fun, okay? That can be really fun. Don't whine about it.

It's not like washing dishes, okay? Like, enjoy it. Make a beautiful space.

I like it when I visit my friends and I can see their meditation space. It's something beautiful, okay? So, choose a beautiful, make a beautiful place.

It's fun to make a beautiful part of your apartment where you don't throw your clothes, okay? Everything else you can throw your clothes. I have old underwear everywhere.

It's like flowers. But, that one space is nice, okay? Number two, put forth beautiful offerings every morning, okay?

Buddhas like flowers. I don't know why. They like water.

They like incense, okay? Things like that. Churros.

It's good if you have a churreria near your house. Okay, number three, go for refuge and think about bodhichitta. It just means, you can think about the challenges in your life, your work challenges, your personal challenges.

Take refuge, which is just refuse the desire to say, I didn't do anything. That's all. That's refuge.

That's gong shing. That's tongpa nyin. That's shunyata, okay?

Forget that I didn't do anything. That's taking refuge, okay? Then think about bodhichitta.

Think about it this way, okay? Don't think I'm going to save all living beings when I become a Buddha. That's too far away, okay?

I like the DCI. It's a nice way to say it. I will become the best person I can so I can be a good example for other people.

And in that way, I will become a human virus, okay? When we had class with Utta today, or we had a lot of classes with Anatole last week, you can see they're doing their yoga. They don't have to say anything.

You can see all the impossible things they do. They must be doing something. Then they're a virus.

They don't talk about it. They just do it. You can see from how they move, they're doing their yoga every day, probably.

And that's bodhichitta. Like, I want to be a virus. I'm going to be a good example for everybody else.

Don't think bodhisattva, bodhichitta, forget it. Love virus. I want to be a love virus.

They used to call them bodhisattvas. Now they call them love virus. Okay.

Alright, number four. You're supposed to invite a lot of angels to your room. Okay?

If you get in that habit, it's very nice. It's very sweet. Because, I'm not saying you can see them or talk to them.

I guess you can after a while. But it's nice to know they're there. You can feel they're there.

If you invite them, you feel something in the room. I like this custom in Islam. During the prayers, yeah, we had an imam come and teach us and they go, shh, shh, shh, in the middle.

And after the ceremony, he asked us, any questions? We said, why do you go, shh, shh, shh, shh? He says, I'm talking to my angels.

Every time they pray, they have angels watching over them. So, they talk to them. You're like, you know, watch my back tonight.

And stuff like that. So, invite them and feel them there. Okay?

Feel them there. That's number four. Okay, number five.

Sak jang. Say sak jang. Just before you meditate, get a big hit of good karma.

The biggest one you can do. Like, I don't know, it's like taking a hormone just before you... steroids?

Before you run in your... Just before you meditate, do some heavy good karma. And just before you meditate, do some confession.

Clean the dirty stuff from this week. Okay? Then you're ready to meditate.

Then you have a lot of power to meditate and you don't have obstacles. Okay? You can't possibly confess all the lousy stuff you did last week.

It would take you more time than meditating. Okay? So, just pick the top two, top three.

I yelled at my mother. I didn't pay my taxes. I made fun of John Brady's hair.

Stuff like that. Okay? Pick the worst ones you did.

Okay? You can't think of all of them. And don't get depressed.

Okay? Everyone makes mistakes. If you didn't make mistakes, you wouldn't be here.

Just think, if you didn't make mistakes, you couldn't come to Diamond Mountain. Okay? The reason we're all here is we're not good people.

We're not perfect. We still have to go to class. We still have to meditate.

So, I think it's great that we do so many bad things. Then we can come to class. Okay?

So, just clean the number one. You know what they are. You never tell anybody.

When you confess, you always tell them number two, number three. I know. You never really confess the number one bad deeds except to yourself.

But do it to yourself. That's called Sakyong. That was number?

Five. Number six, ask for the blessing of these holy beings. Help my mind during this meditation.

Help my mind during this meditation. It's always good to ask for help from your Lama. It's always good to ask for help.

Okay? Even in your mind. Hey, help me out.

I'm having a bad day. Help me out. Learn to ask.

What did Jesus say? If you don't knock, they can't open the door. No one's going to unlock the door, but you have to knock.

So, just ask. I need some help today. Come on.

This is what I'm paying you for. I need some help. Okay, now.

I gave you six, right? Guess which one has the seven ingredients in it. Number?

Number five. Sakyong. Sakyong.

So, there's going to be seven ways to do Sakyong. There's seven different ways to do Sakyong. Okay?

Unless you're doing a 15-minute meditation or something, which is okay if you're in a rush. Better than nothing. It's like a headstand in the afternoon.

Okay? If you can't do your yoga. Get used to doing headstands in weird places.

Okay? We do them in the airport all the time. We do them on the plane.

In the kitchen, you have to wait until you're halfway over Hawaii. Then everyone's asleep. You can do your headstands in the kitchen.

But if you can do 10 minutes of yoga, do it. If you can do 15 minutes of yoga, do it. If you can do meditation for 15 minutes, do it.

Then you don't have to do all these seven steps. But, if you have like 45 minutes to do a meditation, you should do these steps. Okay?

You should do these steps. It makes the meditation really yummy. Okay?

The meditation gets easy. Great things happen. You get happy because your meditation is so cool.

Alright? And if you don't do this preparation, it's like running a race without exercise. It's like doing ballet without stretching.

If you want to kill yourself, do ballet without stretching. So, we're going to talk about those seven. Okay?

And I thought we'll do a nyam chi for $100. Words not here, right? Nyam chi.

Ten, nine, eight. Who said that? I hate you.

You just give the answer because she keeps the money. Yeah. $100 for the young man.

Wow. Where'd that come from? It's a way of teaching lam rim where you actually do it together.

Okay? Nyam chi. Chi means to teach.

Nyam. He got half of it. I didn't point that out.

But, still worth it. Yeah, you keep $50, give him $50. $50 for you, $50 for him.

No. No, he can have $100. The girlfriend usually ends up with $80 or $90 anyway.

There's a bad joke I could tell about that, but I'm going to control myself. So, here we go. We're going to do the seven together.

As a nyam chi, we do them together. Now, I'm going to take you through the preliminaries. Seven, seven ingredients of the tasty cookie called meditation.

And, I'm going to take you one by one. Okay? Then, I want you to notice, you all did it many times, okay?

When you did something many times with me already, then, then study how I teach it. You see what I mean? Once you've already done the lion's dance a thousand times, then see how I teach it.

Okay? So, I'm going to take you through the, just the normal seven preliminaries, okay? One of which is not.

And, I want you to, then I'm going to stop and I'm going to ask you guys to tell me, what, what did I do when I taught it? What are some things I did when I taught it? Okay?

Alright? Just try to notice the technique of teaching the seven. And, what do you notice?

Okay? Usually, you just sit there and do it, right? Now, you have to sit there and do it and also think about what I'm saying.

Just refreshing. What, what do I talk about? What do I add?

What do I don't add? Okay? Ready?

Alright. Get ready to meditate. Put down your notes.

Blow your nose in a strong way into the microphone. Whatever you teach. Boom!

It's very good if the student is sleeping. Sleep. Eh!

Okay? Write that in your notes, okay? Before you start the first preliminary, you have to, you know, get people to blow their nose.

Put your stuff away. And, for God's sake, turn off your cell phone. This demon of meditation.

They used to say, DRA NI BSGOM PA'I DRA Say, DRA NI BSGOM PA'I DRA DRA means sound and it also means enemy in Tibetan. So, they say the sounds in the room are the enemy of meditation. But now we have cell phone BSGOM PA'I DRA.

Cell phone is the enemy of meditation. Okay? So, turn it off.

You too, Geshe Michael. I think so. Okay.

Alright. Then we'll start. I like what came to me by accident this morning, which is the reason you've been suffering ICHI SHOG KUN through yoga for all these years is for meditation.

Those yoga poses are called ASANA. ASANA means a sitting exercise. How to prepare your body for meditation.

So, use your yoga. All this flexibility you have, use it. Use the inner strength.

Use the muscles. The goal of yoga, why yoga was invented, was to make it easier to meditate. That's all.

It's not to look good, which is also a good thing. Or show off. Okay?

Its purpose is to meditate. That's why they're called ASANA. AS means us.

Really. ANA means maker. How to sit her downer.

ASANA. Where was the Buddha enlightened? Vajrasana.

Vajrasana. The seat of the diamond. Nowadays they call it Bodhgaya, but the old name is Vajrasana.

Seat of the diamond. ASANA. Seat.

So, the word for yoga poses is poses for sitting. Poses to help you sit. Okay, here we go.

Then please relax your face. A little smile is very helpful. Chronically with your chi.

Make sure your back is straight. Eyes can be slightly open, but don't look out of them. Or they can be shut, but don't get sleepy.

I find it's helpful to close my eyes, but look up a little bit. Also in yoga. Dursti.

Fingers are important. Should be relaxed. It's very good for the prana if the first finger and the thumb are touching, or you can experiment.

You can investigate pariksha, how it feels to not quite touch that thumb and the first finger. Try not to wrinkle your forehead. Try to relax your forehead.

There is a habit that we all have to wrinkle your forehead when you meditate, when you concentrate. So try not to. The eyelids should not be tense.

And to warm up for the meditation, we're going to do some breathing. We're going to take ten slow breaths, just to slow down the mind. And we're going to count them from the out-breath first, and then the in-breath.

One out-breath, one in-breath. That's one. Try to make the out-breath as long as you can.

And at the end of the out-breath, then try to tighten your stomach just a little bit. So when you reach the end of your out-breath, then add a little bit more out-breath, and automatically your stomach will clench, and that makes your back stronger. Okay, here we go.

Ten long breaths, long exhales. Don't worry about the inhale. Through your nose if you can.

If you have some kind of cold or allergies, then through your mouth is okay. Then I'd like you to think about one of your teachers. It doesn't have to be your spiritual teacher, your lama.

It could be any of the teachers in your life. We have had many teachers. We're all very, very lucky that we had teachers guiding us through life, who have been through life before, and they teach us so many things.

Our first grade teachers are our mother and our father. Even if you don't have such a good relationship with your mother or your father, still your mother risked her life, and she went through incredible pain and trouble to give you your life. She almost traded her life for your life.

She taught you how to talk, how to walk, how to eat, how to poo-poo, how to act around people. Your parents taught you so many things you need in this life. Without them we would be like animals.

Then we have school teachers, very dedicated people. They don't get much credit, they don't get much money, but they help our society, they help our world, they help our children. We have other kinds of teachers, sports teachers, music teachers, art teachers.

Maybe you have religious teachers in your school, or your church, or your synagogue, or your temple, your mosque. You have people teaching you about beautiful ideas, deeper ideas. They were not perfect, they all have problems too, but the world is better if we have them.

Our world is more rich if we have priests, and rabbis, and imams, and people to help us about spiritual things. They are also human, they have their problems, but if we didn't have them, this world would be a very poor place, and maybe a more violent place. Then you have your deep relationships, your wife, your husband, your children, your parents, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts.

All of these people have taught you, your personal friends have taught you, and most importantly, your enemies have taught you in your life. People who gave you problems, people who gave you trouble, they made you strong, they made you examine your life for mistakes. So, the first thing, the first step of the seven is to invite one of those teachers to come and sit in front of you.

They are alive, they are not a statue, they are not a photograph, they are a real person. They are sitting in front of you. They are warm.

You can smell the beautiful fragrance from their body. Their eyes are blinking, their chest is rising up and down. They are alive.

They have come to this room, knee to knee, to sit with us. And the first of the seven ingredients is to prostrate to this person. If you come across God or an angel or a Buddha in your life, in the whole life that you live, if you ever meet a real Buddha or an angel or a messenger of God or whatever, and you see who they are, you will automatically get down on your hands and knees and you will throw yourself on the ground.

All humans react the same way when they meet holy beings. Without training, without being told, they will get down on their body, on their face. They will stretch their body on the ground in front of this holy being.

If you ever meet a Buddha or God or some angel, you will do that yourself. No one has to teach you. No one has to tell you.

This is real prostration. You can't stand up in front of those beings and you won't even try. In a meditation, we don't want to move our body.

Our body is part. So, we want to do a mental prostration. We want to bow down.

And it's very helpful to bow down to something that you admire in this teacher. What is it about them that you really love? By the way, I also wanted to add it could be a historical teacher like Muhammad or Jesus or Buddha or Tsongkapa or Nagarjuna.

It could also be your heart lama. And if you haven't met your heart lama yet, it could be the person you are dreaming of to meet in the future. And bow down in your mind.

You can't bend your mind down like you can your body. You can't put your hands on the ground and your knees on the ground with your mind. The way you bow down with your mind is to sink your mind.

Ting ngen dzin, right? Samadhi. Into the beautiful quality that you love about this teacher.

Sink your mind into that quality. This is mental bowing down. And you're already meditating.

Before you start to meditate, sink your mind into some beautiful quality of this person. So I'm going to be quiet for a few minutes. And please think about good things.

Of course, every person you can think of, me also, Buddha, Tsongkhapa, it looks like we all have problems also. We have our own faults. We make mistakes.

But when you do this first of the seven ingredients, don't think about what's wrong with your teacher. Think about what's right with your teacher. What's the most beautiful thing about your teacher?

Of course they make mistakes. Of course there are things that they do wrong. But in this meditation warm-up, sak jang, we want to make good karma.

So we're going to think about the most beautiful thing that we enjoy about this teacher. Here we go. It's going to be about two minutes.

Sink your mind, samadhi, into that beautiful quality. Try to feel it. And then slowly come out.

Open your eyes. Take a stretch. Drink something.

Non-alcoholic. Okay, I'm going to... I've been teaching meditation for, I don't know, 35 years?

No, 45 years. What are some of the things I do? What are some of the things I did?

Anything, tell me. Let's go. Teacher training.

Yeah, get people settled down, okay? Don't try to meditate. It takes about five minutes to get a crowd to settle down.

Just forget it. You can beg them not to move, they will move. You can beg them not to do the zipper thing, they will do the zipper thing.

Okay, so, let them get settled down. Okay, yeah. What's something else?

By the way, that means you also have to have Kleenex tissues available. Seriously, if you're going to have a good meditation class, have some tissues around the room. Next, what?

Say again? You do it as you say it. Do it as I say it?

Yeah, you demonstrate what you teach. Yeah, blow your nose, wake them up. Yeah, do it as you say it.

That's good. Anything else? Just yell.

Raise your hand and yell. Yeah, good. Go through the body.

Go for the trouble spots. Okay, what are the trouble spots? Everyone, almost everyone when they focus, this gets wrinkled and this goes down.

Okay? Your mom said it was going to stick, your mom was right. Stuck.

My mom told me that it didn't help. When I type, I'm always, when I play music, Okay, so yeah. There are trouble spots in the human body.

Shoulders are like this. Fingers are clenched. Eyes are clenched.

Okay? What else? Raise your hand and yell it.

[Speaker 2]
Maybe like...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I told you, don't hide the microphone. Yeah, excellent point. Very important.

That's probably the most important point. They have to bring a teacher in the room. Now there's a lot to say and it took me many years to understand.

Okay? Rule number one, do not make yourself the teacher. Okay?

Do not say, I'm the mama, focus on me. Okay? If you want people to criticize you or have a bad meditation, say, meditate on Geshe Michael.

Okay? So you have, in my many years of experience, don't refer to yourself as the teacher or the mama. Okay?

If they feel a connection to you, it will come. Okay? You don't have to talk about it.

Some of the people will and some of the people will not. And don't worry about it. Some people will respect you as a teacher and some people will criticize you in the same room.

And don't worry about it. Don't make yourself the big teacher. Okay?

Don't say, meditate on me. And don't assume they want you to be their teacher because maybe they don't. Okay?

Maybe they don't have any other place to learn meditation but they don't like you. No, it happens. Okay?

So don't assume they came here to be your disciple and they're going to throw money at you or donuts, probably going to throw bills at you for the room and stuff. So, that's a very important point, Athir. Make sure you give in a meditation class that they have the freedom to bring a teacher who's important to them.

Okay? Don't push a teacher on them. Go through all the religions.

In this room we have people who grew up in Islam, Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism. We have everything, Buddhists, Atheists. So, respect them.

Then talk about different kinds of teachers. Don't push a teacher on them. Nobody likes it.

They want to meditate on their sweet teacher. So, mention all the teachers you can think of. I often mention a dog.

One guy insisted to me his main teacher is his dog. Okay. Even dog.

To me, it's important to leave it open. Your future heart teacher. A lot of people say, I want to have a heart teacher.

I didn't find them yet. When you're a beginning teacher, you're like, but it was me. And they're like, nah, it's not you.

So, get used to it. Don't be so proud. Maybe you're not the root lama of anybody in the room.

That's okay. You can be your own root lama if you want to. So, don't be all, a lot of people get in trouble.

Teachers, ACI teachers, many people got in trouble because they want to be the lama. So, just relax. Being a lama is a lot of trouble, actually.

So, relax. Some people will be attracted to you. And that's a beautiful thing.

And, you know, like me and Jing Mei, I think about it. We've been together 25 years. I don't know, 100 years.

And we have this rich relationship. And maybe some people will, and maybe some people won't. That's okay.

That's not your business. You're in meditation teaching. Don't sell yourself.

Some will take you as a teacher. Some will not. That's okay.

Let them find their... One pair of jeans does not fit the whole world. Trust me.

I took a certain friend of mine to the store to buy jeans. No man should ever go to the store when his woman is buying jeans. She tried 45 pairs.

None of them fit. Now, to think one pair of jeans is going to fit everybody in this room, it's impossible. One lama is not going to fit everybody in this room.

So, don't sell yourself like that. Just say, I'm here to help you learn how to meditate. I'm sure you have other teachers.

I just want to give you my ideas, my suggestions. Okay? Good point up here.

Very good point. Who else? Yeah.

Say again? Yeah, I like to use humor. It's not everyone's style, to be honest.

My lama never used humor. He used his fist and his rosary. Nah, he only hit me like once or twice.

But, I probably deserved it. But, in general, in the modern world, people enjoy if you're relaxed. Okay?

I told you a hundred times, I'll tell you again. I sneaked into a meditation class that my student was giving, and I sat in the back like a proud papa? Proud father?

You know. Probably Tsatsi and Victor. When your kids are doing something right, you're like, must be genetical.

Then, I was thinking, oh, this is going to be great. And then, my student was very nervous, and like this, and they were drinking coffee. And then, the two people in front of me, there were two ladies in front of me.

I was hiding behind them. And one of them turned to the other one and said, I don't know what kind of meditation she's teaching, but I don't want to learn it. And I broke my heart.

Come on, she's a good teacher. So, you have to be meditating to teach meditation. Okay?

And just like in a yoga class, we could tell today that Uttara has a good practice at home. People can smell it if you have a good meditation practice, or you don't. Don't try to get up and fake a meditation class.

It's hopeless. Anyone can tell. Even your dog can tell.

Your dog's like... Okay, other things I did. Anything?

Yeah, good. When you take them to the breathing. By the way, I didn't jump straight into inviting your teacher.

You have to get their posture straight. Then you have to get their breath straight. There's things you have to do before you start the seven.

Like zero. Number zero. So, yeah.

Get their breathing straight. Emphasize the out-breath. If someone asks you why you do the out-breaths first, what's the answer?

There's two answers. Anatole.

[Speaker 2]
In a normal life, when you're born, the first breath is a breath in, and when you die, the last breath is a breath out.

[Speaker 1]
But we would like to reverse that process or change it.

[Speaker 2]
So, we would like to breathe out first and make that the first breath, and then breathe in so that we can bring the winds into the central channel.

[Speaker 1]
It's a statement about death. It's an objection to dying. No, I'm not going to end the breath with the out-breath.

I'm sorry. I'm changing things. I'm not dying the way I used to die.

I'm not going to take a last breath, and then it's done. I'm going to, and then I'm going to stay alive. So, the purpose of meditation is to become a Buddha.

Buddhas don't die. Buddhas don't take their last breath. So, it's a tradition to start the breath with the out-breath and then always take an in-breath.

There's another reason to take a long out-breath. What's that?

[Speaker 2]
Can I say?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
To take the tidal breath, like the air which remains in the lungs, take it out.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Get the tidal air out of your lungs. So, every time you breathe out, you never breathe out all the oxygen.

You never breathe out all the air. And what happens during meditation is it builds up. So, if you don't, it's a very easy, very effective way to keep a good state of mind in meditation.

It's long exhales. After the natural end of the exhale, exhale a little bit more. Just like...

Watch. A little more. Then take the pause.

And then this air doesn't build up in the body. If it builds up, you get a nervous condition. And if you ever try to do a long retreat, longer than two days, you will experience what we call lung, which is in Tibetan, which is a build-up of this prana.

And your hands start shaking and you start getting headaches and your breath speeds up, your heartbeat speeds up, you get pains all over your body. And it can last for years. So, it's a very simple, easy way to teach people breathe out and then breathe a little bit more.

It's also useful in a lot of yoga poses, like twists. So, breathe out, and then breathe a little more, and then twist. But if you forget everything else we talked about tonight, that's the most important thing.

If you forget to teach that, you could ruin their meditation practice. It's like making people do poses that hurt them, which many yoga teachers do by accident. So, it's very important that you teach them to exhale twice, in a sense.

Anything else I did? Yes, Mr. Stanley?

[Speaker 2]
First of all, you give explanation of each ingredient, and then you actually leave time for us to meditate on it. You don't just talk and move on. You stay and pause and let us meditate on it.

[Speaker 1]
Good. I went to a meditation class by one of my students. They talked the whole time.

They didn't meditate. I was like amazed. I was like, why I have to see this?

It's a DCI teacher has to think, why I have to see this? This guy talked the whole time, he didn't meditate. Don't do that.

People came to meditate. If you want to upset them, talk the whole time. By the way, if you team teach, which I've also seen, one teacher is more pushy and does all the talking, and the other teacher is like, and they never get to say anything.

It's sweet to teach as a team. Two people teaching meditation is very sweet. But equal rights, okay?

Anything else? Yes, ma'am?

[Speaker 2]
We also talk about that we can see our teacher is not perfect.

[Speaker 1]
He has some defects, but not to point on them, only in good things. Yeah, good. It's important to say, look, your teacher is not perfect.

This morning, how did I put it? Everybody has mixed karma. We all have mixed karma.

Karnat lende. Karma shukla krsna yoginis tri viddhi mitare sham. Fourth chapter, Yoga Sutra.

We all have white and black karma, okay? So, naturally you're going to see your teacher make mistakes. Where do I often go with that?

By the way, we should thank you because she did all the yoga poses for the DCI photo layout, for the manual. Thank you for that. I can do that.

We are using it in many countries. You are famous, just nobody knows you. That's beautiful yoga practice.

Thank you. What else about that? Yeah?

Where do I go sometimes? Come on, if you want to say something naughty. What's the famous joke?

Yeah, don't smell a fart twice. Dugri yanggyal manun. Say dugri?

Yanggyal? Manun. If the person next to you make a fart, don't go, just turn your nose the other way.

If you're smart, look, oh, look over there. Of course your teacher has some farts, but don't smell it again and again and again. Try to think about the good qualities.

They have a few, probably. Everybody has some good qualities. Everybody.

Even Trump has some good qualities. He can't be president forever. It's illegal.

That's a good quality. Thank you. Alright.

Anything else? By the way, we'll take a break soon.

[Speaker 2]
I try. When you asked us to select teachers, especially parents, you mentioned many details, like how your parents teach you to talk, and how without them you have to poo-poo, you know, even this. And I think this part, it brings a lot of strong appreciation.

It's very important for me.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. It's the first commandment in many religions, is that, you know, honor your parents. And there's a reason for it, okay?

Also, I'll tell you something, a motivation I have when I talk about parents, okay? If your parents are happy about your Buddhism, your practice will succeed. If your parents are not happy about your Buddhism, you will have some difficulty.

It's not impossible, but you will have difficulty, okay? So, I was driving with a guy, his name is... I forget.

His name... Oh, he's called... I forget, anyway.

Maroon. He's from Lebanon. He lives in Ireland, okay?

And we were driving in his car. He was driving around. And his daughter was with us.

Little daughter. She's like six, seven years old. And she doesn't like me, because daddy meditates in the morning and doesn't pay attention to her.

So, she figured out it's my fault. And she's like, Daddy, why you do this meditation every morning? And Maroon was very cool.

And he said, Well, honey, daddy has to do this meditation. She said, Why? Why you don't want to play with me?

And he said, Well, daddy, you know, daddy used to get angry all the time. And then daddy had to meditate. And then he said a beautiful thing.

He asked her, Did you see daddy get angry since he's meditating every day? And she's like, That's right. That's true.

Daddy didn't get angry. You okay, daddy? You meditate.

Okay? So, you need your family's support. So, if you're a teacher, whenever you meet the parents, tell them how cool they are.

Thank you for having your baby. They're my best student. You must be the best parent in the world.

Right? You have to, as a teacher of Buddhism or anything else, you have to get the parents on your side. And you have to get the kids on your side.

And it's not untrue. It's totally true, everything they did for you. Now, in America, there's a problem that many people have trouble with their parents.

We don't have a culture in America of respecting your parents. We don't have it. We disrespect our parents a lot.

And we don't thank them until we have kids of our own, right? I saw Nick. I was there two days ago.

The baby came out. Me and Veronica were there. And the parents were, both sets of parents were there.

And then Nick was like, Thanks mom. Thanks. Oh my god, thanks.

Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. Oh my god. You did this twice?

Everybody figures it out when they have their own baby, what your mother went through. But in America, it's very common that people won't respect their parents. People won't thank them.

And I think, in the world, one of the basic causes of peace is respect between the generations. You see? If the children respect the parents, if the parents respect the grandparents, then society is healthy.

And people get along. And the world works better if everyone respects their parents. So, you can make a teaching during the meditation preliminaries to cause this kind of harmony in the world.

If the parents respect their parents, if the children respect their parents, then there's much greater harmony in society. So, use the meditation preparation as an excuse to give a sermon about parents. And in an American audience, you have to say something like, I know, maybe you don't like your mother, maybe she wasn't the one you thought was perfect mom, but look, she almost died to give you birth.

Maybe she helped you. A little. You know?

So, in America, where we don't respect our parents, I think it's good to talk about it. Okay, anything else? If you're giving to me quick, you're going to have a pee-pee break.

Yes?

[Speaker 2]
You give options when you, especially when you say, you have to close our eyes.

[Speaker 1]
You give options. Yeah, good. That's a very cool observation.

Give people options. Some people don't feel comfortable when they close their eyes. And the scriptures say, you can close your eyes or not close your eyes.

What's an important other option to give people? Your hands, there's like four positions, right? One, two, three, four.

Okay? Five. Okay, left hand down, right hand.

You can go like this. To keep it up, it's distracting. You can just put it down.

It took me like five years to figure it out. By the way, if you're in a hot room, this works better because there's air conditioning here. I'm not kidding.

I did retreat in 120 degrees, 45 Celsius. I was in the yoga just dripping. And it snowed.

The first three weeks it snowed. We didn't have any heat. So I learned, when you're cold, when it snows, this is better because your body builds up heat here.

And when it's hot, then move the fingers to the knees and it creates air here. And you don't get so hot. So give people options.

Especially about what? How they sit. How they sit.

Don't force people to cross their legs. What's the joke I like to give in DCI? Why didn't Buddha sit in a chair?

And everyone's like, I don't know. I'm like, there weren't any chairs. So Buddha had to sit like this.

But you don't have to. Now, technically, if you can sit in a half lotus or a full lotus, it will help your meditation. And I don't say, you never heard me say that, right?

On a DCI tour, you never heard me say that. Because I don't want everyone breaking their legs. But between us Buddhist people, teachers, if you can do a lotus, a half lotus or a full lotus, practice.

It's just practice. And it's yoga. And you can keep it for an hour, two, three hours.

If you practice. If you don't practice and you try to do it, you will permanently damage your knees. The knees are very easy to permanently damage.

So don't push it. Do it for a minute, then do it for five minutes, then do it for ten minutes. Then you can sit like that for two, three hours.

It's okay. I have another, just among Buddhists, if your legs fall asleep, let them fall asleep. Don't move.

It hurts for five minutes. Then you can't feel anything. It's like dentist.

It's kind of nice if they fall asleep. Be careful how you stand up. My friend broke his ankle when he stood up too fast.

But let them fall asleep. Don't freak out. It's okay.

It doesn't hurt anything. They just fall asleep. Then you can meditate better.

It hurts for five minutes. Or maybe ten. And then let them fall asleep.

Okay. Anything else about that one? Let me think if I have anything to add.

Yeah, that's about it. Something I should say, which I haven't done tonight, is keep it moving. Okay?

Don't spend 20 minutes on the teacher. You can't meditate for two hours. You don't have time.

You have family. You have job. You have other things to do.

And you cannot focus that long. So keep it moving. Keep it on a pace.

If you want to know, I use my breath as a clock. I do 10 breaths on each one. If I have a lot of time, I do 20.

If I have a lot of time, I do ... If I'm at Diamond Mountain, I do 30 breaths. But normal for me is 10 breaths on each step.

And keep it moving. So my breath is my clock. Don't get stuck.

Don't get bogged down. Oh, look, my teacher is not so happy today. My teacher must be eating a lot of churros.

Keep it ... You have to keep it moving. What else?

Yeah, teach the real meaning of prostration. Teach the real meaning. By the way, when you read the reading, which I'm sure you're doing every day, I translated the greatest instructions for these seven from two sources.

One is Je Tsongkapa, Lam Rim Chamo, the great book on the steps of the path. The most famous Buddhist book in Tibet. 1,000 pages.

And I put it in your reading. If you don't read the reading, I get irritated. Because it's so much work.

The Nagarjuna is similar. I spent all day today on the homework for tomorrow and I didn't finish. Tim is giving me this vibe.

I'll finish tonight, I promise. Anyway, the reading is great. Now, in the reading, what kind of prostration do they do?

For $50. Alay. By the way, welcome Alay and husband.

They just got married two days ago. Yeah. We like it.

Thank you for coming. I know you have... I know this is the strangest honeymoon, but...

Anyway, we love you and we're very happy you're here. Nah, stay tishy. You both caught a good fish.

I think you both did a good job. What was this? Oh, yeah.

Oh, what kind of prostration? $50. Yes, Paul.

In the reading, what's the prostration? Huh? What?

Oh, yeah. Comes from Samantabhadra. Okay, cancel the bet.

You... You make prostrations to every Buddha in the universe at the same time. Okay?

It's not your favorite high school teacher. Okay? If you want to do the advanced version of this prostration, at the same time, you imagine your body splits into billions and billions of bodies and each body bows down to a Buddha in the universe.

Okay? It's very fun. You should check out the stars tonight.

The two biggest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are on each side of the moon. It's a very powerful night. If you have time, check it out.

There's two bright stars like sitting next to the moon. It's very unusual. It's Jupiter and Saturn, the two most powerful, biggest gravity.

That's why you're so smart tonight. Okay. Anyway, like that, okay?

I think that's all. So, technically, if you read the reading, the prostration can be done to every Buddha in the universe at the same time. And there's a very famous sutra that says all the Buddhas in the universe can fit on the tip of a needle.

All the Buddhas in the universe can fit on the tip of a needle. Okay? So, not so difficult to cover all of them.

Just get a, I don't know, get something and say, everybody get here. Alright. Okay?

So, if you want to do the big one, I'm teaching you the practical ones that I learned from my teacher. And my teacher was very, very extraordinary. And I learned a lot of things from him that you don't find in the books.

But he knew all the books also. Okay? So, that's useful.

Alright. The book says you should have a pee-pee break. Okay?

Then we'll continue. What's the next of the seven? CHAGS RGYAL BA'I PHYIR BZHIN Offering.

Okay. We're going to talk about offering. We're going to do it together and you're going to tell me some tricks that I learned.

Okay, take a break. Alright. We're going to continue.

So, please get ready to meditate. Turn off your phone. Blow your nose.

A lot of people failed in meditation because they're too serious. Many, many people. They got very nervous and what do you call it?

Tight? I have to do it. I tried to meditate for, I don't know, almost 50 years.

I think John Brady did more than that. And you got to relax. You got to have fun.

If you don't have fun, you will never be a good meditator. Don't be so serious. I didn't do the one hour.

Life is very short. Have fun. And you will meditate better.

And you will have all those... Buddhists don't like grumpy people. Nervous.

They don't come. They also want to have fun. Alright.

You guys ready? Is there anything you can make noise with? One minute from now?

Yeah, crumple something. Walking in and out of the door. Alright, here we go.

Second of the seven. How we're going to finish seven tonight, I have no idea. Okay.

Let's start with your breath. Long exhales. Let the inhale take care of itself.

We'll take ten long breaths. The second of the seven ingredients is to make an offering to the teacher who's sitting in front of us. Traditional offerings, like Samantabhadra, a special prayer, is to imagine the whole sky covered with roses, flowers, lotus flowers, any kind of flowers.

So the whole sky is covered with flowers. This is a very famous offering. In Tantra, we use the ...

... We use these offerings. You can wash your lama's feet with this nice pure water.

You can offer them a glass of crystal clear water. Second one. You can offer them flowers.

You can offer them incense. You can offer them a butter lamp or candle. You can imagine putting perfume on their body.

You can imagine cooking them a nice meal or giving them something yummy to eat. Or you can imagine music. These are traditional offerings to the lama.

And then every book says the same thing, but the greatest offering, and we had it in the Lama Chod Bang last night, is to offer the good things you've done this week. So, of course we made mistakes. We are not great people, but we're trying.

We're all trying our best. And we did some sweet things this week. We did do some nice things for other people.

So, in the highest form of offering to your teacher is to share with them something sweet that you did this week. Maybe you visited a sick person, or maybe you taught a yoga class, meditation class. Maybe you traveled around the world to get some beautiful teachings about Nagarjuna.

So, whatever. Those of you who have families or parents, you are serving all day, all night for many years. You can offer those karmic seeds to your teacher.

And this is the greatest offering you can make, because if the person is your teacher, they want to see you happy. To be a teacher, the reason we teach piano, or we teach a foreign language, or we teach meditation, is that we want to help the other person. We want to see them succeed.

So, if they tell us all the good karmas they're doing, then that's the best thing they can do to help themselves. So, of course, it makes mommy and daddy and mama happy when people are doing sweet things for other people. Then they feel proud, and they feel happy because you are going to become a Buddha quickly.

So, of course you can make other offerings. When we go to temple, we offer incense. When we go to church, we offer money.

We can do many offerings, but the highest offering is to serve other people and to love other people. This is the offering that pleases your teacher the most. The word for offering, my teacher often said, the word in Sanskrit for offering is puja.

And the root of the Sanskrit means to make your teacher happy, is the puja, is offering. It's the highest prayer you can do, the highest ceremony you can do, is to offer your teacher sweet things you've done for other people, especially this week. Okay, open your eyes.

Take a stretch. What are some tricks about teaching the second one? If you've been trying to teach meditation for almost 50 years.

What did I mention? What do I think is important? Yeah, it's the most important point when you teach people about offering.

Get them out of the idea that physical offerings are the most important. Because we grow up in a Buddhist family or a Muslim family or a Christian family, we're supposed to make zakat. We're supposed to make donation.

In the Christian, we're supposed to make weekly donation. We're supposed to burn incense for the ancestors. Those are good things.

Those are sweet things. Those are important things. We should do them.

But it's not the highest form of offering. The highest form of offering is to offer your goodies to your teacher. By the way, one thing I forgot to mention about the prostration, right?

Mental prostration. That's coffee meditation. There's two kinds of coffee meditation.

One is about your own good deeds and one is about other people's good deeds. So, when you bow down to your teacher's good qualities, you are doing a coffee meditation on your teacher. And kind of in number two, you're kind of doing a coffee meditation on yourself.

You're bragging. There's always kids. You see kids in every country.

It doesn't matter what country. They draw some very ugly thing at school and the teacher says, go home, give it to mom, you know. And they bring it home.

And if the mom is chill, she says, oh, that's so beautiful. Let's put it on the wall, you know. And then the kid is like, oh, wow, mom liked my offering.

So, your teacher is probably thinking, oh, this is, is that the best good deed you could do? But, but still they say, oh, amazing, oh, you made a tea for somebody, wow, you're special, you know. And 3,000 people died in Africa the same day and you ignored them.

I understand. That's okay. Okay, but anyway, yeah.

They're still happy with the small things that the kids do, right? They're happy, right? Anything else we mentioned?

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
I like the hierarchy, that you first do the physical one and then you slowly go up, which makes it very clear that there is a hierarchy and that the mental one is the most important one and you don't just jump into the mental one immediately.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I like that. I used to just jump into the offering your good deeds, but sometimes Buddha likes a flower, you know? Or sometimes Buddha likes some music.

By the way, when you offer music, if you want to have an interesting conversation with somebody, play, you know, play rock and roll in Taiwan, right? Where's Yao Li? Play old 60s rock and roll in Taiwan, who people never heard it before.

And it sounds like a bus with the brakes broken crashing into a taxi. But I had many interesting conversations in my life and people said, Geshe-la, that's not religious music. And I'm like, what's religious music?

Show me religious music. Because I grew up in the church, right? Princeton University Chapel is the biggest in the United States, maybe.

And the music is choir, ah, and you know, all this stuff. Then I went to the Buddhist temple, bah, ah, ooh, then I'm like, that's not religious music. And my Lama's like, what's religious music?

I'm like, ah, and he's like, oh, it sounds terrible. So, if you want to have a fight with someone, try to decide what's religious music, what's not religious music. I decided rap was not religious music.

Then Veronica's fighting with me every day. Even rap is religious music. I know, impossible.

Any music you love is religious, okay? Any music you offer is religious music. Come on, you know.

Every country has different customs, okay? Try to eat, I don't know. I have so many sweet students from Vietnam.

I should learn to eat Vietnamese food. So, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant. I said, give me the hot, spicy hot pot.

Oh, my God. Bleh. Then I take my Vietnamese friend, I took him, Stanley, two boots pizza, the best pizza in America.

What's the two boots? One is Louisiana, which is spicy food, and one is the boot of Italy, the shape of Italy. So, it's the best.

When I did my Sri retreat, we had a person fly a pizza from New York to Phoenix on the lap from the two boots, and I'm like, Stanley, I'm going to take you to the best pizza in the universe. He said, oh, thank you. He's like, do you like it?

Mmm. What's the best way to insult somebody about your food? It's interesting.

It's very interesting. This is a Chinese word. It means it sucks, Geshe-la.

It's lousy. I don't like it. So, come on.

Offer what's sweet to you. It's okay. What music you like.

It's okay. Buddha is happy. Trust me.

People ask me, Geshe-la, when we do the prayer, should we ring the bell with the left hand, or should we ring the bell with the right hand? I'm like, which one does Buddha like? Both.

It's okay. Buddha is happy. You are ringing bell, it's okay.

Don't get all freaked out about offering, okay? Of course offer the things that you enjoy, okay? I don't know.

My Lama has to get used to popcorn, and chocolate, and milkshake. Those are the highest offering. Okay?

Understand? Don't get cultural. Don't get cultural.

Buddhists are more, they don't have a country. They have all countries, okay? They like hot pot, Vietnamese, and they like pizza.

Everything is fine, okay? But offer them something, okay? Alright, here we go.

Ready for the next one? PHYAG BSAL BA'I ROL ZHIG CHOS ZHIG ZHAG PA You can hear the ZHAG PA. There's a special verse you can, about the seven.

Maybe I'll teach it to you sometime. Here we go. When Lamas forget the seven, they do the verse.

PHYAG BSAL BA'I ROL ZHIG CHOS ZHIG ZHAG PA ZHAG PA, ZHAG PA, ZHAG PA Here we go, ZHAG PA. Ready? Meditate.

Get ready to meditate. Ten breaths just to get into the meditation. Don't forget, even on a short meditation, long exhales.

So the third of the seven is confession, which in Tibetan is called ZHAG PA. ZHAG PA means to split a piece of wood with an axe. And so it means you open your heart, you open your chest, and you open your heart, and you let the Lama look inside, you let the teacher look inside, and you don't hide anything.

So, the main thing about our bad deeds, the mistakes we make, we work very hard to hide them. I also do it. We work very hard to cover our mistakes, to hide our mistakes.

We don't want people to know about our weaknesses or our bad habits. We want to keep them secret. And that makes the karma very serious.

So, if we can, even just mentally, in our meditation, open your heart and ask your Lama, please look into my heart, and I have made these mistakes, and I admit them. The thing that's strange about this third ingredient is you cannot hide anything from your Lama. It's not possible.

If they are Buddha, they can see everything you are doing all the time. So, we have this strange bad habit. We try to hide our mistakes, especially from our teacher.

We try to hide them. We don't want them to see. We don't want them to think we are a bad person.

So, we hide our mistakes. In this third of the seven ingredients, try very hard to talk to your Lama. I know you already know everything I'm thinking.

I know you can see everything I'm doing already. And I'm not going to hide anything from you. Maybe when I'm walking around in my normal life, maybe I'm not strong enough, and I will hide things.

But between us, in the privacy of my meditation with you, I want you to know everything I'm thinking, everything I'm doing, and I want you to help me purify my mistakes. I'm not so strong that I can never make this mistake again. Probably I will make it today, again.

But I want you to know I'm trying, and I want you to know I make mistakes, and I want you to know my mistakes, and please help me to clean them, and please help me to be stronger next time. Then you spend a few minutes and think about the biggest mistakes you made this week, and it's an honesty exercise. The name of the game is honesty.

How honest can you be to yourself and be honest to your teacher? You can't hide anything from them anyway. When you try, it's kind of stupid.

Just admit everything. I lived for 25, 30 years with my teacher. I made mistakes as a monk, and I made a promise to myself that I would tell him whenever I made that mistake.

I would go to his room. The first time was very embarrassing. I told him, you know, I broke this vow.

I couldn't help it. He gave me some practices to fix it. I made a promise to myself that I would tell my mama every time I broke a vow.

It got to be very funny. Sometimes later, when I knock on the door, he will say, are you going to tell me about broken vows? I say, yeah.

He said, go away. I already heard, you know. But it's a very, very good exercise to be totally honest with somebody in your life.

Maybe your teacher, your picturing. It's a good habit just to do everything honestly. In business, in teaching, everything is much easier if you're 100% honest all the time.

So, let's spend a few minutes and think about some mistakes we made this week. We don't have time to think about all of them, but think about some of the big ones, the bad habits. Okay, here we go.

We have to get rid of these seeds because the purpose of these seven is to meditate. We want to have a good meditation. If we don't at least tell our Lama about those seeds, we will not have a good meditation.

We will be distracted. And by the end of this step, you should believe that your heart is pure, that those seeds are gone. Okay, open your eyes.

Honesty kills bad seeds, okay? Honesty kills bad seeds. Okay, what are some things you can do?

What are some things I did? Yeah, good. With shakpa, with confession, the name of the game is honesty, okay?

Just be honest with one person in your life, totally honest. It's hard to be honest with everybody because your friends will move away if you tell them everything. But there should be one person in your life that you are completely honest with, okay?

In your business dealings, in your day-to-day life, I mean, I'm telling you from 66, right? From 66, it's just easier to be 100% honest everything you do. It's just easier, okay?

Taxes, business, personal relationships, everything goes better with honesty. It's like salt. Not like Vietnamese chilies, okay?

Everything goes better with salt. It's okay. Just be honest whatever you do.

It's just easier, okay? I'm telling you. I tried the other, it doesn't work.

Just be honest. Be honest about who you are and be honest about your bad habits, your mistakes, okay? The more honest you are, the better you can fight, okay?

Anything else? Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Actually, the Buddha already know all the bad things that we have done. You know that? We are like, oh, I know, you know already, so I can just share with you.

Everything, since you know. Yeah, so if you are kind of engagement.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think it's a good thing to say, look, they already know. You can't hide anything, so don't bother trying to hide it. What's another important thing?

[Speaker 2]
I think you also mentioned that like everybody did mistakes, you know? Then suddenly you feel that, ah, actually I'm not so bad. Everybody are the same.

So I think that part is very nice as well.

[Speaker 1]
I think it's important for a Buddhist teacher, ACI teacher, to admit that you also make mistakes, okay? I mean, it's just important. You can try to be a perfect teacher.

You will go crazy. Nobody believes you anyway, you know? I think it's more healthy for everybody and that's why I like to tell the story about going to tell my teacher when I broke a vow, you know?

Then the audience gets more comfortable. Oh, even Geshe-la had these problems. He also went to his teacher.

His teacher also told him to get the hell out of the room. You know? So I think when you're teaching confession, it's very powerful if you can just mention your own mistakes also.

And it just makes the whole room more calm. We all make mistakes, okay? We all make mistakes.

It's better if you say it. It makes everyone feel better. If you didn't make mistakes, you would already be in a Buddha paradise, okay?

If you're here, it's because you made mistakes. So don't try to lie about it. If you're here, you made mistakes.

We all know. You wouldn't be here if you didn't make mistakes, okay? This is where they put the dumb students.

Alright. That's all. I think encourage people to be honest.

By the way, we do sojong, right? The monks and nuns. One of the main things that monks and nuns do is sojong twice a month.

We're supposed to get together and we're supposed to tell each other the mistakes we made. That's the main monk's practice. That's the main nun's practice.

And nowadays in the big monasteries like my monastery, ... Okay. Stop.

Finished. And I'm like, when are we going to tell each other about the bad things? Oh, we finished.

It just became ... people just ... and ...

they lost the custom in the monastery. I'm sorry to say, 3,000 monks ... ...

Then everybody's like, can we go? And the nuns in our own organization, they are keeping a very good practice of sojong. They call each other on Skype and they actually talk about their mistakes.

So, if you can find at least one friend in your life that you can be honest with them, you can go to the coffee shop, do some shakpa. There's over-shakpa also, right? Someone wants to tell you for two hours about their ...

all the bad deeds. So, don't do that. That's over-shakpa.

That's over-shakpa. We don't want to hear about, you know, all your bad deeds. Just tell us a few.

Some people just want to talk about themselves over and over. Okay, don't do that. Alright, let's go.

You ready for the next one? CHAGS RANG RANG TSUL SHING ZHAG PA DANG RJES SU YI RANG YI RANG Rejoice. Coffee meditation time.

Here we go. By the way, we have about another half hour, okay? I'll try to finish.

OM MANI PADME IN SHEL DAG OM MANI PADME IN SHEL DAG Ten breaths. So, when I was living with my lama, he got invited. The pope in Rome, the head of the Catholic Church, a hundred million Catholics, he decided every church should invite other religion's people to give a talk.

So, my lama was invited to the local Catholic Church to give a talk. We actually went to the cathedral. Big, big, big Christian temple.

And I remember, I was his driver, so I drove with him, and then the priest met him, and he was a very nice priest. He said, do you want to see the cathedral? My lama said, yeah, sure.

And we walked down the middle of the cathedral, and my lama was like, take notes, Mike, take notes. There's some good stuff here. And he said, what's all those special windows with all the pictures and all the colors?

And the priest said, oh, these are stained glass window. What's all those people in the window? Oh, those are stories of saints, and people can look at them and remember the saints.

And my teacher was telling me, okay, Mike, let's steal this. Let's put stained glass in a Buddhist temple. Okay?

Write that down. And I wrote it down, which is not supposed to show the priest we're writing it down. Then, we went halfway down the cathedral, big cathedral, and on the right-hand side, there was a small room, and there were two doors, and the priest went into one door, and the woman went in the other door.

And my lama said to the priest, oh, father, what's going on over there? Why are the priest going in, and the woman's going in? And the priest said, don't worry, don't worry.

This is confession. The priest will listen to the woman through a window, and the woman will tell her mistakes, and the priest will help her purify the mistakes. Then my lama says, well, how do they purify mistakes?

He said, oh, they give them some prayers to do, Hail Mary prayers. You do 100 prayers or 200 prayers. My lama said, oh, that's a great idea.

We do that also. We do exactly the same thing. That's a great, great thing.

Then he turned around to the left side of the church, and he asked the priest, well, where's the other one? And the priest said, what do you mean? He said, where's the other room?

And the priest said, what do you mean the other room? And my lama said, where's the room where you, the priest goes in, and the woman goes in, and then the woman tells the priest all the good things she did last week. And the priest is like, wow, that's a good idea.

Maybe we'll start that. Then he started making notes. Make a rejoicinal instead of a confessional.

And it's a special little room where you go in and you tell the priest all the good things you did last week. And my lama, when we got home, he said, you know, it's amazing if this religion is 2,000 years old, and they don't have a rejoicinal. Didn't they figure it out that you have to have both?

You have to tell your teacher all the mistakes you made, but it is equally important, 100% equally important that you tell your teacher all the good things you did last week. You must reinforce the good habits you have, and you must confess the bad habits you have. So, this is called jesur jirang.

It means to be happy about the good things you did last week. You can also be happy about the good things other people are doing, because you have the karma to see them. So, please give an equal time, and we're going to do it right now.

Give it 10 or 20 breaths, and please think about all the cool stuff you've been doing in the last week. Everyone here, I know most of you pretty well, you are doing amazing things, so come on, let's have some heavy coffee meditation. Here we go.

And slowly open your eyes, take a stretch. Okay, what are some important things to talk about when you're doing this step? What's step number?

Four, yeah. What's an important thing to talk about if you're teaching? Yeah, you know, Alex is right, you can talk about it for two hours.

You can tell people, give equal time to coffee meditation, and they cannot do it. All over the world. You can tell people, don't kill, they will stop killing.

You can tell them, don't eat meat, they will stop eating meat. You can tell them to be happy about their good days, they can't do it. All over the world.

It's amazing. I don't know what it is. It's the same in every country.

People feel shy or embarrassed, or they feel like it's pride. You have to, one of your biggest jobs as an ACI teacher is not to teach people what they're not doing. It's to teach people about the good things they are doing already.

And they just can't hear it. So, say it again and again and again and again. You are already doing amazing things.

You are already a special person. And you can take it to the Lam Rim. You people in this room are one in three million.

You are one in three million people in this country. For every person here, there's 2,999,999 people who didn't make it into this room. Maybe you're special.

You got to, I don't know what it is. Everywhere I go in the world, people have trouble with this one. It's strange, right?

You think they will have trouble to admit their mistakes? No. They have trouble to admit their good deeds.

I don't know what it is. But you're going to have to, it's your life's work. If you're going to be an ACI teacher, if you're an artist, you're supposed to paint the greatest painting.

If you're a musician, you're supposed to make the greatest song. If you're an ACI teacher, you are trying to make people enjoy their good deeds. It's almost impossible.

It's the hardest job you have. It's a fun job, but it's a hard job. People have trouble enjoying how good they are.

It's a big, big job for you. What's the most difficult job you're going to have as an ACI teacher? It's not to get people to keep the ten good deeds, or get them to meditate, or get them to do yoga.

Those are easier than getting people to enjoy their own good deeds. It's very difficult. It's the sweetest thing you can give them.

Work hard at it. Don't be lazy. Don't be lazy.

If you're going to be an architect, build a great building. If you're going to be a musician, write the greatest symphony. If you're going to be an ACI teacher, create people who enjoy doing good deeds, and who enjoy their own good deeds.

It's very difficult, but that's your job. You're not there to teach them 18 more kinds of emptiness, like Geshe Michael does. If you can create students who have fun and enjoy their own goodness, your success, your teaching will be a success, and they will see emptiness directly.

Alright, got it? Big connection. Big connection.

Okay, that's all. And I'm speaking from experience. We teach 35,000 people a year in DCI.

We try to teach them the four steps. We try to get them to do coffee meditation. It's extremely difficult.

So, if you have new ideas, and you'd like to share them, I'm open to that too. If you have some new ideas how to get people to enjoy their own good deeds, we need help. There seems to be an international problem.

I'm not talking about pride. Everyone has plenty of pride. You don't have to teach pride.

Everyone has it already. Are you the smartest student in the school? Yeah.

Did you do any good deeds last week? I don't know. I'm a bad person, Geshe-la.

I don't do good deeds. Yeah, shut up. Alright, let's go again.

We still have ten minutes. Okay, ready? Here we go, next one.

Maybe we can finish this seven. Here we go. Five breaths.

Deep exhale. In this preliminary we ask for teaching. Please give me more teaching.

So, you can talk to your teacher. Then I imagine the teachers always say, well, what kind of teaching do you want? Then you're going to say, oh, I want more classes.

Can I have more classes? Can we do Nagarjuna? Then we can do Shantideva.

Then can we do Tsongkhapa? Can we have more classes? I imagine the teachers say, okay, I'm happy to give you more classes.

That's okay. Then you can say, I also want more private teachings. We call it Dhammak.

I want walk and talks with Geshe Michael. I want to come to his kitchen of his retreat cabin. I want to talk about my life.

I want personal teachings. Preferably Tantra. I want Geshe-la to share secret teachings with me in private.

I want that, okay? Then the Lama says, okay, we can do that. We can do that.

Then the Lama said, do you want the highest teachings? Do you want the highest teachings? Then you say, of course, I want the highest teachings.

Well, why didn't you ask for them? Well, what's the highest teaching? Highest teaching is when people criticize you, or you make enemies, and they try to hurt you.

These are the highest teachers in your life. So, in this ingredient of the seven, you are asking for teaching. Three kinds of teaching.

Number one, oh, I want special classes. I want classes. Okay, you can have.

Number two, what? I want private teaching. I want the special teachings.

Okay, you can have that. Number three, I want hard teachings. I'm strong.

I'm a strong meditator. I'm a strong yogi. I want hard teachings.

Hard teachings means, I want people to be angry at me. I want people to hurt me. I want people to cheat me.

I want people to use me and take advantage of me. And I want to be a peacock. Like from Seiji's text, I want to eat the poison of the world and become more beautiful.

So, I pray for those three kinds of teachings. I want all of them. Not just classroom teaching, and not just private teaching.

I want the hard teachings that angry people give me, or people who cheat me, or my wife or my husband when they're yelling at me. I want those teachings, because I want to be strong. I want to serve the world, and only strong people can serve the world.

Then, that's all. I request teachings of those three kinds. But important thing to tell people, when those teachings come to you, don't complain.

When people get angry at you, when people cheat you, or your wife or your husband is unhappy with you, then take it as a teaching and use it to improve yourself spiritually. And don't whine about it. Because this morning, in your meditation warm-up, you specifically asked for it.

So, when it comes, I don't want to hear you complaining about it. Okay, open your eyes. Got it?

Okay, the best teachings you ever got were from your ex-wife, ex-husband, ex-boyfriends. Okay? They show you pain.

They show you anger. They test you. In weightlifting, I used to be a weightlifter, believe it or not.

I used to row racing boats for Princeton, and they kill you. They really kill you. If you don't pick up the heavy weight, the coach says, get out of here.

I want to see more than last week. So, that's the angry people in your life. You have to keep improving.

The only person who can improve you is irritating people, and bad drivers, and stupid people who have screaming babies behind you on the flight back to China. So, don't forget you asked for it during the meditation. They are just delivering what you asked for.

Don't get mad at the postman. Got it? Okay, one more.

You ready? One more? Two more.

Okay, don't worry. I'm going to put you to bed soon. Dad's going to put you to bed.

Ready? Two more. Here we go.

Three breaths. Next one. Ask those teachers to stay in your life.

Please stay in my life. Don't leave me. I know I'm a bad student.

I know I never do what you tell me to do. I know you keep repeating the same teachings over and over and over. I know my head is made of cement.

But please, please, please, don't leave me here alone. Don't leave me. Please stay with me.

I'm trying. I'm not very good. I'm not the best student in the world.

But I do come to Diamond Mountain. I do try to meditate. I try to understand all these things.

I'm trying. Remember, from my side I'm trying. And from your side, I know you have the power to stay alive in my world.

And I ask you, from my faith I ask you, please stay in my life. Don't leave me alone. Okay, open your eyes.

I think that one doesn't need much explanation. Lama karma is very expensive. You burn a lot of good karma by coming to Diamond Mountain.

We had a Chinese guest. A teacher came here. And we offered him many beautiful things and he refused them.

And we're like, what's the problem? He said, I don't want to use up all my good karma. My friend in New York, Michael Wick, right?

It's impossible to find a parking spot in his place. Then when he finds one, he drives past it. I'm like, what are you doing?

It's an empty parking spot. He said, Geshe-la, I don't want to use up all my good karma. I'm like, okay.

It's very expensive to have a teacher in your life. You are burning a lot of karma. Very, very expensive to have a real teacher in your life.

Keep thanking them. What's the best way? Do your practice, help other people.

If you're serious about keeping your lama, help other people. That's the payment that they want. That's the only payment they want.

They don't need your money. They don't need your chocolate bars. Something happened to my tongue.

Flowers, stuff, they don't need anything. They don't need anything you have. They just need your good deeds.

That's all they really want. If you keep trying, they will stay. If you keep trying, they will stay.

Alright? That's the payment. Okay, one more.

We have two minutes. Here we go. Sugeng, you have a question?

I know. It takes me two minutes to stop talking. I'm like a big truck.

Hard to stop it. Okay. Here we go.

Last meditation. One breath. Tonight I worked hard.

I flew to this country from another country. I took all the time off. My family is mad at me.

My boss at work is mad at me. Everyone is mad at me. I came here for some peace.

I drove out in the middle of this desert. I'm trying. I spend a lot of money.

I spend a lot of time. I'm happy about my progress. It's not perfect.

I'm not a great person. But dang it, I'm really trying hard. I'm doing the best I can.

I appreciate the chance to help people. I appreciate the chance to learn these things. I'm not a good person.

I'm not a perfect person. But I'm really trying hard to learn how to be a good person. I celebrate my success.

I've made some success. I'm still here. I didn't give up.

I will be stubborn. I will be a donkey. Dharma donkey.

I will keep trying as hard as I can. I'm happy that I'm trying so hard. I offer that to my teacher.

I offer the good karma of all my Dharma practice, all my meditations, all my painful yoga classes, all my practice, all my service, I offer all the good karma to other people. I send it to other people. May it help your life.

Then I like to tell people to make three deep exhales. Okay? And imagine golden light going out to the whole world.

This seventh of the seventh preliminary, which is the dedication of your good deeds, it actually goes after the meditation. So, it's a preliminary for meditation, but it goes after the meditation. It's the last thing you do before you stand up and go to work or something.

Alright, open your eyes. Those are the seven. Yay!

We finished them. Okay. I want to see if I covered all the homework.

I still have one minute. Yeah, all of these six preliminaries and seven ingredients for a meditation session have come from Tsongkhapa. 1357 to 1419.

If you have Buddhist friends in this group and you want to get into their bank account, the password is always 1357, which is Tsongkhapa's birthday. But you have to split the money with me. Okay.

The original Sanskrit book where these seven ingredients come from is called the Prayer of Samantabhadra. The Prayer of Samantabhadra. It's a sutra.

It's an ancient sutra. These seven ingredients, the six preliminaries, they come from this text. And I translated it in the meeting.

So, you have it. Then you're supposed to give the seven ingredients. There's a question of, where do the seven ingredients fit in the six preliminaries?

The answer is sak jang. When you do your confession, classically, you should especially confess mistakes you made against your vows. Like you made a promise you wouldn't break this thing and then you broke it.

So, three kinds of vows. First one is called freedom vows. Those are like monk's vows, layman vows.

Second vows, bodhisattva vows. And we will have bodhisattva vows, right, Jigme? At the fire offering.

People were asking me, are we going to get bodhisattva vows? If you took the course with some other deals I have made, yeah, you're welcome to take them then. Can I give them to you?

I will be one of the people giving them to you. So, don't worry about it. I don't give them very often.

Like once every three or four years. Alright. Then the third kind of vows is secret vows.

You can learn about those. Somebody sent me a text yesterday, email. Geshe-la, there's a secret book in Buddhism about yoga.

Here's the translation that's been published. And I'm like, that's secret. Anyway.

Secret vows. Don't ask me what they are. Finish your 18 courses.

Next question. What's the difference between a prayer and a dedication? It's different words in Sanskrit, different words in Tibetan.

MON LAM and NGO BA. Say MON LAM. NGO BA.

They are both similar. You say, I hope, you know, my mother's cancer is cured by my good karma. That's called a prayer, right?

I hope my mother's cancer is cured. That's called a prayer. Now, when you do blackmail, Dharma blackmail, that's called dedication.

If you cure my mom's cancer, I will meditate every day for three hours. I dedicate the karma of my practice to cure my mom's cancer. That's called making a deal with the Buddha.

That's the difference. Prayer is cheap. I hope you cure my mom.

That's called prayer. Dedication is prayer with BAG ZHI, deal. You offer a deal to Buddha.

If you cure my mom, I will keep my meditation for one year, every day. That's called dedication. That's the difference.

Okay, last question. Yay! There's a prayer that we have that you can use for the seven ingredients.

If you have a lot of time, like on Sunday, or you have a two-week vacation from your job, it's in the prayer book that we wrote. Where is that prayer book? Tim, do you have a copy?

Can they still get it? There's a prayer book called The Three Treasures. I translated the three great books of prayer, and they're all together.

One is called The Thousand Angels, One Thousand Angels. If you want to do a nice, slow, long, seven ingredients in a retreat cabin, for example, just use that book. That's the traditional book that's used for the seven ingredients.

It's called The Thousand Angels of the Heaven of Bliss, of Doshita Heaven. And you have it, so don't complain. Don't tell me you don't know where it is.

It's in the bookstore. If you want the online copy for free, you can have that. Talk to Tim.

And Gina, where's Gina Rivera? She laid it out. It's so beautiful.

The book is so beautiful. Very sexy, yeah. And I'm very proud of it.

Every church should have a prayer book. And we have a beautiful prayer book. Thank you for that.

All right. You ready, Sinema? Go ahead.

By the way, the one thing I did do tonight, when I taught meditation, that nobody noticed, was that you participated. Okay? You got to say something.

And that's a good way to teach meditation. Okay? So, when you teach, when you teach ACI, or you teach meditation, try to find a way that the students can participate and they can give their own ideas and things like that.

And then, they listen and they don't sleep. Okay? So, that's a big teaching trick.

Orit taught me that. Orit is a very good teacher about that. So, you know, get the students to find a way that they can participate.

Okay? And then they will learn more. Okay?

All right.