«Дар освобождения», курс 6 «Ретрит страсти», занятие 11

[Говорящий 1] (0:04 - 40:48)
This part of this text, which will take 10 years to get through, this is one of the earlier parts. We're about, I don't know, 10% into the text. He has begun to discuss how to share ideas with other people, how to be a teacher, and how to be a student.

We finished a lot of how to be a student. He's going to come more. There's more coming.

But he gives some suggestions about how to be a good teacher. You could all have the capacity to teach. I think one thing about our group of people is that you have seen that, in our group, that people have become teachers.

We didn't import Tibetan Lamas to become the teachers. I think there's a great advantage to being a teacher in your own culture. If you're from Guadalajara, then you can speak better to the people in Guadalajara than some Tibetan guy.

The Tibetan Geshes have never been out of the monastery. Rarely. One, I took to the bus station one time.

He couldn't buy a bus ticket. He was over 50. He didn't know how to count the change or buy a bus ticket.

I think normal people, normal everyday people, lay people, who are trained seriously, can be the right teachers for this world, for the modern world. They will be normal people who haven't lived in a monastery, who have studied hard and trained themselves well. I think they are the teachers for this time.

At this time in history, I think they will be the teachers. It's happening. It's very beautiful.

You will teach. You should teach. It's working.

We did go to British Air. We did two days of public talks at their corporate center at Waterside in Heathrow Airport. Then we did a three-day retreat for some of the leading executives and some of the leading union members.

The strike was solved within six months, I think, after that. I don't think it was us per se, but I think we contributed to that. That's the kind of, you can bring real contributions to the world.

See, some Tibetan monk is not going to walk into British Airways and talk to the vice presidents. You know what I mean? You can do that.

You will do that. You can apply these ideas to the real world in a non-sectarian or non-religious, what do you call it, in a secular way. I don't think, it wasn't our intention to get the vice president of British Airways to have a picture of the Buddha on their desk.

It's not important. The important thing is that they learned useful ideas that might help their corporation be a, it's what, 20,000 people, 25,000 people, that it would be a more humane place and a place of greater peace and understanding between all the workers and the management. You know, everybody doing yoga and meditating and believing that by serving each other that they could become more successful.

I think who's going to teach those things is you. But who's going to do those kinds of programs, it's you. Anyway, we went through the proper motivation.

We just completed a section on the proper motivation for being a teacher. Basically, you should think about helping the people who are participating in the class and not concentrating on your own motivations. Like, I should look good or I should look smart or I should get something from them, money or attention or sex or whatever it is.

It should be, you are seeking to make their life happier and more successful. That's the main motivation. Now we're more into physical things.

Like he said you should bathe well. The Buddha, I mean, before every sutra, he takes a soshin. Say soshin.

Soshin is a special tree in India. You cut a twig off and you clean your teeth with it. They didn't have toothbrushes or koge.

The Buddha often will clean his teeth with a soshin before he gives a talk. So you should look pleasant and be, what do you call, scrubbed up and wear nice. Look nice, I mean, why not?

And look happy and look friendly when you teach. He's getting into that kind of thing. Then he says, DE YANG BDAG LTA BU'I PHYI'I STON PA LA, RDIN DAG BDUG RTEN DU Remember that these are records of a lecture given in Tibet.

Twenty-four days of teaching given in Tibet. And the Lama, who is the teacher of the current Dalai Lama's teacher, the current Dalai Lama's grandfather teacher and my teacher's teacher, he's saying, look, I'm giving this talk and I'm up on this big throne. And he says, CHOG TU RNAM PA'OG TU MA BAR ZHUGS PA means, and all the Rinpoches are sitting down there in the audience.

Rinpoche means, in this context, a reincarnated Lama. So the Dalai Lama is the 14th. And the Panchen Lama is, I think, the 10th.

But there are many incarnated Lamas in the monastery. And they get recognized when they're five years old or something. Rinpoche's reincarnation is down at the end.

He was recognized last year. Rinpoche passed away in 2004. And our teacher, that's his reincarnation.

So they get special privileges. That's a long story. But anyway, this Lama is teaching a lot of reincarnations during the talk.

And he says, I don't feel comfortable. It's a little weird for me. Here are all these high beings in the audience.

And I'm up here teaching them. I don't feel comfortable. TSER ZHING BDAG GIS MIN DU, it's uncomfortable for me.

BCUG GI CHE BA BSAM NAS, DU KHU BYAS But I'm pretending to sit up here, higher than the reincarnated, the tukus, right? The reincarnated Lamas. Because what I'm saying is higher than all of us.

The ideas I'm expressing deserve to sit on a throne, up higher. They deserve to sit up higher. And if I'm saying them, then they deserve to be higher.

And this gets into a thing. Once you're in a group of people who know the score, who have studied for a while, you shouldn't let them disrespect the teaching. In a teaching, you should insist on good behavior.

There shouldn't be outbreaks. There shouldn't be disrespect. There shouldn't be friction between the students.

You have to be a little strict on that. And it's proper. So I've taught...

People have come to me who I considered my teacher. And they've asked me to teach them the things that I know that they didn't learn yet. And then I have taught them.

And then they try to slip into... I don't know. Being...

I don't know how to say it. Being my teacher during the class. And I say, no.

In the years that preceded you coming in here, you were my teacher. But during this class, I'm the teacher. And you have to respect the teaching.

You can't talk during the teaching. You can't wander around. You can't interrupt me.

During this, I'm passing on to you something sacred. And as long as I'm the mouthpiece for that, you have to pretend I'm the Dalai Lama or something. You can't misbehave in my class.

And then after the class, you're the boss again. And you can tell me to go clean the toilet and I have to. But during the class, if I'm speaking these ideas, I'm the boss.

And you should insist on that. Once the students know the score. If they don't know the score, you can't do much.

But once they know the score, you should insist on a certain... What do you call it? Protocol or etiquette during the class.

They can't interrupt. They can't wander around. They can't get up.

If you're thirsty in a class, you're thirsty. You have to wait. If you have to go to the bathroom in Tibet, you have to wait.

You have to sit. And if you're tired or you have a headache, you don't have a choice. You have to sit and pay attention and be respectful.

That's tradition. Because of the sacredness of what's being spoken. And you shouldn't let it be interrupted or any kind of interruption or misbehavior by the student.

You should be... You should insist on good behavior. Then after that, they can misbehave.

After the class, they can be Americans. But during the class, they should honor the teaching. And you should insist on it.

THEG SANG UTSANG DU CHAGS SHES MA NYAM PAR YOD PAR SHIN DU LAS PO YIN He says nowadays in central Tibet, which was called Utsang, there's a very strict tradition during teaching. The students are required to sit attentively. You're not allowed to drink, eat.

You just pay attention. You forget your body and you pay attention. And you honor the teaching.

Even if you're very sick, you just sit there and you listen. Then you run to have your diarrhea later. Like that.

He says, that's good. I like that. DE MIN LA CAN DGA' ZHIG NAS CHOS RGYUN LA MA YIN ZHES LA MA PHYI MA BAR ZHAG NAS CHOS PO BA'I LUG GI YA TSEN CHEN YANG GSUM He said, I heard some reports that disturbed me that some chukus, reincarnated lamas, have been going to...

We call it dravidakyan. Dravidakyan means just a monk who worked his way up through the ranks and wasn't a reincarnated lama. Had to work up from cook to geshe.

He says, and then these reincarnated lamas send him a note and say, I want you to pass on to me the lineage of Mahamudra or something. I need Mahamudra. I didn't get Mahamudra yet in this life.

I'll meet you on Tuesday and you're going to give me the lineage. Then they come in and the reincarnated lama sits up on the top and they set the geshe down there. They say, okay, give it to me.

Give me this transmission that I didn't get yet. He says it disturbs him very much. Like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he still takes teachings from people of many different traditions and he'll put them up on the throne and he'll sit down on the ground and he'll honor them.

It's a very good custom. namar chi marshar na chi pu yin gyi tsing yinpud shing gi dang tsel shepa'ang lo ma la dzum dang che te che go When I say that your face during a teaching should be shining, I mean that you should be in a good humor while you teach. You should be smiling and laughing and everyone should be happy.

He says, you should have a smile on your face. Dzum means smile. Dzum dang che te che go.

ngun kyang long du lama rimpo che, de yuk chak tu nambay kha kyun zay tsul kyang yin But there's also that system that long du lama rinpoche used to have where he sat in the class with a big stick. When the student didn't give the right answer, he got the stick. He said, that's also a pretty good custom.

My lama kept a big rosary. I had a teacher who kept an extension cord with them. If you didn't give the right answer or you were getting sleepy or you weren't paying attention, he gave you the extension cord.

In our monastery, there's also a fan bell custom. Five big monks will come grab you and they'll slap you against the wall and pull up your robes and give you a fan bell on your butt. That's also very convincing.

There's also that custom. SA CHE THUG NAS BYAS PA SOG ZING ZING PO BYA ROG GI SONG BYA LTA BU DANG He says, don't be like a crow building a nest when you teach the Dharma. We were traveling by high-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing.

It was winter and it was beautiful. There are many, what do you call, special kind of tree, but a lot of them had nests in them. It was winter so the leaves were gone.

But the nests are all tangled. He says, SA CHE ZANG ZING, SA CHE THUG NAS means you didn't prepare for class well. There wasn't proper order to the instructions.

You mess it up and it looks as tangled as a crow's nest. You get confused and you present the earlier stuff later and the later stuff earlier. You haven't prepared for the class well.

I've asked Rob and Cherie. Where is Cherie? Cherie is our registrar for the courses, the formal courses.

There are 36 formal courses, at least. She keeps the records of who has completed what courses. We're going to put up a list of everybody's name in this place by tomorrow afternoon.

It will have next to your name one of the courses that you haven't completed yet, according to her. I don't care what you think. I ask her and I believe whatever she says goes.

They didn't finish course three. They didn't finish course four. Then you're going to tell me I finished them but the teacher didn't send the homeworks in.

Then I'm going to say, I don't care. You got to finish according to her. Then there will be next to your name a course, the lowest ACI course that you haven't finished on record.

I don't know if you have those records with you, but you can take it. Then I want you to finish it by the next 10 days. It's not a big deal.

You sit there with the tapes. You can do it in your car. The questions are very similar to the Arizona driver's license exam.

If you see a red eight-sided sign, should you speed up? Should you turn right? Should you stop?

It's not very difficult. It will make you a better teacher. I'm asking you to finish within three months the lowest ACI course that you haven't finished on record.

Why? Because then you won't mix up, when you're teaching, you won't mix up things. You won't mix up things.

There's almost no Tibetan school that I'm aware of in the West which requires the students to learn well the material so that they can teach it well. You should be glad that you are in a group like that. You are required to do quizzes, exams, homeworks, and you're required to know the stuff in the proper order.

If you do a Julia Child recipe backwards, if you do things in the wrong order, it's a disaster. Like the souffle just flattens out and nobody can eat it. It's the same with dharma.

If you present it in the wrong order, if you mix things up, you can hurt people. You should continue your training. Every day you should do a little bit.

It's not like you spend, what, Dr. Sykes, he did all 18 courses in a weekend or something. He wrote out the answers from the answer sheets. He wrote them out and submitted 18 courses in a weekend or something like that.

Don't do that. Do a little bit every day. It's like having vitamins or something and it stays in your system if you do a little bit every day.

Then you'll be a good teacher and you won't make crow's nest class. Okay. GSANGS RGYUD TZAM LTA BU DANG, GANG NAS RNAMS SHAG STE LAS BLA BA RNAMS DONG PA MI DGE'I RGYUD TZAM LTA BU Don't be like an octogenarian eating dinner.

Meaning, don't skip the hard parts and go to the easy part. Like they go for the pudding and they leave the steak. Because that's all they can choose.

You're in a lineage which is known for going for the hard parts. Our lineage is known for skipping the easy parts and going for the hard parts. If you're going to teach this lineage, you got to...

What does it mean, a hard part? A hard part means something you're not sure about, something difficult for you. In the debate ground, for example, in our lineage, in the debate ground, you always bring up the things that you don't understand yet so that someone can beat you and show you what you don't know.

Then the people who want to be safe, they memorize the Heart Sutra and that's all they memorize. So every debate, they pull it over to the Heart Sutra. Don't do that.

Do the opposite. What you're comfortable with, skip it. What you're uncomfortable with, attack it.

When you teach, teach the students the difficult parts, the easy parts they can get from somebody else. You go for the hard stuff. All right.

SDUG GIS NGO BO LAS PAR MI SHES PAR U THON PA LONG BA KHAR BA LA BRTEN TE SGRO BA LTA BU MI ROL U TSUG GIS THON PA LONG BA When you get to a hard part, don't give some fuzzy explanation. We don't want fuzzy explanations. Like you don't really know the answer, so you kind of...

In the monastery, there's a style of debating. Somebody will say, does emptiness imply that things don't function? You're not clear about that, so you say, that reminds me of a teaching that someone gave me about the proper sitting posture.

Then you redirect the debate over to that rather than answering the question, which was, if things are empty, can they still function? If you're not clear on something, tell the student, I'm not clear, and I'll get back to you tomorrow. Then go work on it.

Be honest. What you don't understand, be honest. What you don't remember, be honest.

He says, don't be like a blind person with a cane, struggling through something you don't understand. Say, to be honest, I didn't work that out myself very well. I'll get back to you in a couple of days.

Then go work really hard for a couple of days. Everything you need to know is in the 18 courses, right? 36 courses.

It's all, the transcriptions are finished. I think Venerable Jigme organized that. It took like, I don't know, 10 years.

They're all searchable. If you don't remember the five this's or the six that's, you can just search it and then get back to your student the next day. Be honest.

Say, I don't remember. I'll get back to you on that. Go work on it.

Get it clear and then come back. KHOR LA LTA BU MI RUNG DE YANG BDAG GIS KHYAB CHENG RNAMS PA RIN PO BYAS DE LTAR GSUNGS TE CHOS BYAS PA PO ZHAG LAS TSUL YONG DU KUN NONG LAS PAR CHOS Then my own precious teacher, says Pabongka Rinpoche, he gave me some private advice about being a teacher. I like it.

It's very sweet. ZHAG LAS TSUL YONG DU When you are walking to the teaching place from your bedroom, start to think of why you're doing it. Start the process when you open the door of your house to leave your house to come to the place where you're going to teach.

Start the process when you get in your car to drive to the center where you're going to give the talk. As you drive, start to examine your motivation and correct it before you get to the class. It's going to be too late when you hit the class.

You'll have 15-20 minutes, half hour, on the way to the classroom. Then start working on your motivation. Why am I trying to be famous?

Am I trying to get attention? Am I trying to get a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Am I trying to get some money?

How can I help the people who are going to listen to me today? Try to struggle to bring your mind to that. Nobody's perfect.

No teacher is perfect. Every teacher has ulterior motives that are not pure. Struggle to make them as pure as you can.

Be aware of the holes. Be aware of your weaknesses. I have a weakness for money.

I have to be careful about the money. I have a weakness for cute boys. I'll be careful in the class about the cute boys.

You know what I mean? Be honest with yourself and watch yourself. Then as you come to the class, get your motivation cleaned up and spruced up for the class.

All right. NYON MONGS PA ZHIG TU DAG SEMS TE ZHAG NAS RANG GIS CHOS KHRIG STENG DU CHOS GANG BYAS PA DE TSAG GIS KYI LAM MA RNAMS THO TSE GSOS ZHUGS PA BSAM LA Whatever subject you're going to teach, as you approach the teaching chair, it could be on the ground. Traditionally, it should be higher.

But it depends on what your students are comfortable with. If you're in Beijing and it's the first time you've been there, you should sit on a metal folding chair with the other people. It just depends.

Then as you approach the teaching chair, visualize as well as you can the Lamas who have passed on that teaching in the past. If it's Mahamudra, it would be the first pension Lama and the Lamas who have come after him. If it's bodhisattva things, you could visualize Master Shantideva and some of the major Lamas of that lineage.

If you're going to teach emptiness, it could be Arya Nagarjuna and Vidya Gokila and Je Tsongkapa and first Thai Lama. Like that, you can visualize them. They say in a vertical way, with the oldest Lamas at the top and the younger, the later Lamas, later centuries Lamas are lower, in front of you.

SANGS RGYAS KYI LAM RIM THOB TSE SU ZHUGS PAR BSAM LA PHYIS CHA LEN GSUM TSEL Then it's tradition. I don't do it, but I don't know. Maybe we can start.

The teacher, by tradition, makes three prostrations to the throne before they get on it. Because they're visualizing all of the Lamas who have taught that subject before in the last 20 centuries or 30 centuries. They are visualizing them on the throne before they get on the throne.

So they, by tradition, you make, you bow down to the throne before you give a teaching. CHAGS SUM TSEL DE'I THAMS CA'I GCIG LA GCIG TIM GYI RANG GI RTZA BA'I LAMA TIM Then imagine that those Lamas start to melt into each other, from the oldest to the newest, to your own teacher on the throne. Before you get on the throne, they are melting.

The Garjuna is melting into the next Lama and then there it comes down to your own teacher. LA TIM RANG PHYIR PHYI'I DANG DU ZEGS PA NA LAMA RANG LA TIM As you climb onto the teaching seat, your own teacher melts into you and gives you that blessing of that wisdom. The wisdom of 20 or 30 centuries has been distilled and enters you as you seat yourself.

That's cool, right? LAMA LAMA TIM PHYI LA DUD KHAR KHAR MA RAB PA'I MA MI DANG Then you do this thing, you ready? KHAR MA RAB PA'I MA MI DANG RGYUD MA ZIN PA'I DAG PHYI BU DANG MI LA LOB TANG PHYIN NA DE'I RTZE PHYIN NA DE LTAR LTA You go like this.

KHAR MA RAB PA'I MA MI DANG RGYUD MA ZIN PA'I PHYI BU DANG MI LA LOB TANG PHYIN NA DE'I RTZE PHYIN NA DE LTAR LTA And you snap your fingers. What is that verse? It's the last lines of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

It's a verse of poetry that is at the end of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. The business institute is called Diamond Cutter Institute. We'll talk about that maybe later today.

For a reason. Diamond cutting is very important for our tradition. The Diamond Cutter Sutra is maybe the most important sutra of all time.

It's the oldest book in the world. The Chinese edition is the oldest printed book in the world. It's in the British Museum.

We're going to try to liberate it. But don't tell anybody. In that, at the end of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the verse treats two subjects, emptiness and impermanence.

The verse treats two subjects together. It kind of interweaves two subjects, emptiness and impermanence. GAR MA means a star in the sky which fades as the sun rises.

That's talking about impermanence. RAB RGYUD means like a cataract on the eye, which, what do you call it? It affects your vision.

It clouds your vision. So we all have that. What?

We gave the example of trying to find a boyfriend. Then if your vision is clouded, it means you'll go to Sephora and you'll struggle over, should I buy the Lancôme or should I buy the, I don't know, Estée Lauder? You see people in Sephora and they look like they're getting a headache.

After you try on three or four, then you forget it. You're too confused. You just buy whatever.

They're trying to think, what would make me look more attractive to attract a nice boy? That's a cataract on the eye. That kind of thinking is a cataract on the eye.

In this system, the way to get a boy, infallible way to get a boy, it always works. Go to a nursing home. Find an elderly woman.

Help her once a week. Work to make her less lonely. Those seeds will be planted in your subconscious.

Then they will fester there. Then they will grow. They will manifest the perception of a boyfriend, which is a boyfriend.

Thinking you see a boyfriend is what it means to have a boyfriend. You can plant that by taking care of an elderly woman. That's to have clear sight.

That's to have clear eyes. To think that it matters how you look or what you wear. To try to think different strategies for finding a boy or starting a business or being more creative, having creative impulses.

These are all ignorant. What you want, you must provide to someone else first. Then that will manifest what you want.

How that works, we'll talk about maybe this afternoon. The mechanics. If you know the mechanics, you can be more skilled at it.

Anyway, to think that it matters whether you wear a lamp comb or Leste Laudere is to have a cataract on your eyes. The world is walking around with cataracts on their eyes. Karma rabri marme.

Marme means butter lamp. One of those little butter lamps. A tea light.

Then they pass. They die. But they also depend on their fuel and the ignition.

The sustaining of a boyfriend over a few years' time, who's loyal and affectionate, comes from the oil. The lamp is sustained by the oil. After you get the boyfriend, by helping the elderly lady, you can't stop helping the elderly lady.

Or he will wear out. The seeds will wear out. You will have your first argument.

You'll have your second argument. Then a year later somebody asks you, who's the person you most hate in the world? You know.

It'll be the person you once most loved. Because the seeds wear out. The seeds for a relationship are extremely intense.

It burns brightly. It's like a butter lamp made with very fine oil. It burns brightly and it burns quickly.

Unless you know how to perpetuate the seeds, the relationship must degenerate. People don't know that. They just go through cycle after cycle of relationships.

They suffer. If you understand that, you can help a lot of people. You can remove one of the main sufferings in the world.

So the example of a butter lamp is not just for impermanence. It's an example about emptiness. So karma rabri mambud na gyuma.

Gyuma means illusion. Things are an illusion. You pick the red lancome.

You wear it. You meet a boy at a club. He falls in love with you.

Then there's an illusion going on. You think it was the lipstick. It wasn't.

It was the last trip you made to a lonely place. But the seed ripens through the lipstick. You think it's the lipstick.

That's an illusion. That's what illusion means. You attribute causes where there are no causes.

Gyuma suwa means the dew that forms on the grass in the morning. Then it's burned off immediately by the sun coming up. Your life will pass like that.

Your career as a teacher will pass like that. Get on the throne. Recite this verse.

See yourself give your last teaching. Then you're too old to get on the throne anymore. Start your yoga class and recite the verse.

Be aware that there will become a day when you can't do any asana except shava. No, really, it will come. You might as well think about it when you get on your mat.

Think, I'm going to do yoga today for some higher reason. The bones and the joints will fall apart on you. It doesn't matter how much yoga you do.

It doesn't matter what kind of vitamins you take. You can delay it, you can stop it. Chobur means a bubble.

That's self-explanatory. Mila means a dream. The thing about a dream is that you can live a dream.

I had a dream last night. It went for a long time. I did many, many things.

I had to sleep in nimbus or not sometimes. Because we gave the other room to one of the teachers. But I had this long dream.

Then I woke up. Then the dream just fades. I can't remember what the dream was now.

It was long and complicated and there were a lot of emotions in the dream. But ten minutes after you wake up, the dream is gone. Your life, when you reach your old age, you won't remember much of the incidents.

The big ones. The marriage that was 12 years long. You split up and it was so painful.

Now it's like you can't even remember the person's name. It will come. All the things that are important to you now, the big crises, they're going to mean nothing.

You won't remember the guy's name. MI LAM means it'll be like a dream. You wake up and you won't remember much.

So don't get all caught up in it. Don't be all sad. Things change.

We move on. Embrace the new things. Let it go like a dream.

MI LAM. LOG means lightning. LOG means lightning.

At the end of the dream, at the end of the 60 or 70 years of your life, it seems to have passed very suddenly. Days start to speed up. The older you get, days start to speed up.

You spend days like that. People are like, what were you doing three years ago Geshe Michael? I'm like, I don't remember at all.

Where were we two weeks ago? It was some Asian country. I don't remember exactly.

It just starts to accelerate. MI LAM LOG DANG DRIN LTA BU DRIN means a cloud. Cloud means you can look at a...

especially in Arizona, a cloud will form and then it will melt away. It'll come together and then it'll dissipate like that. So the events of your life are like that.

DUS BYED CHOS NAM DE LTAR LTAR DUS BYED CHOS NAM DE LTAR LTAR The original sutra says, DUS BYED DE LTAR LTAR BAR BYA Anyway, it's the same thing. Anything which has come about through causes is going to disappear. The fact that you are born is going to kill you.

Ultimately, it means that all things are coming from seeds in your mind. Those seeds age. Then the things they are creating pass away.

Relationships, health, finances, job, they will all pass away. As you sit on the teaching throne, it's a tradition to say, GANG MO RAB PA'I MA NGON DU RGYUD MA SREG PA'I PHYIR DE NYID LA THEG CHEN PO Then you go like this. Don't get all caught up in being famous, Geshe Michael.

They won't remember your name later. They'll say, I went to some teaching and I don't remember the guy's name. The last photo of you will be thrown out.

Somebody will say, who's this guy? Everyone will say, I don't know. I'll say, I don't know why I'm keeping this photo.

Then throw it out. Everybody goes like that. These big kings and emperors.

No one remembers them. They killed millions of people. Mao Zedong in China, it's passing.

This person who saved the country and brought it great prosperity and who killed millions of people. Then that memory is fading. It's very interesting.

If he can fade, you can fade too. Then don't get a big head about teaching. Get up on the throne.

If you can't say the verse, you can learn the verse in English. Then you snap your fingers and you say, don't get a big head today, Geshe Michael. Teach what you can.

Help people. Be honest. Be helpful.

Be compassionate and try to help somebody. But don't get a big head because you also will pass. This also will pass.

Okay? That's a tradition before you teach. Then there's more and we'll do that later.

Let's do a prayer in the night if Rob has any announcements. Jeff, Eddie, you ready?

[Говорящий 2] (40:48 - 41:47)
Okay. Namo Amida Butsu