«Дар освобождения», курс 19 «Ретрит благодарности», занятие 9

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we're going to do some meditation, five minute pieces. Even I can concentrate for most of five minutes. Okay, we're going to do the five perfect conditions outside of ourselves.

Where is Sabrina? She always knows, she always knows them. Pressure, pressure.

Pressure. Yeah, enlightened being came to this planet. Okay, so that'll be the first one.

A Buddha came to this planet two and a half thousand years ago. Maybe other ones came, maybe you can find some other ones, I don't know. Okay, ready?

Five minutes about how lucky we are that a Buddha came to this planet. There are dark planets where no Buddha ever came. And they're very unhappy planets.

Whole planet is unhappy, so we're not like that. Alright, you ready? You want to sniffle now?

People are always asking me for investment advice. Turn off your phone. Okay, here we go.

Everybody ready? Nobody's going to crinkle a paper after that? I think some people, they go to the store and they say, give me the paper which makes the most noise.

And they bring it to Diamond Mountain. You ready? Everybody ready?

Here we go. Came. What's the next one?

My teacher talks like Star Wars. He had a car accident, he hit his throat and he talked like that. What's the next one?

Yeah, the Buddha who came to this world talked, he said things. Sometimes I think, my Lama came to America, right? 1972.

And there was almost no Lamas in America at that time. And he said something. Anybody else need to?

Then he, I'm thinking like he came to another planet and he... 20 years later, one great Lama came named Lati Rinpoche. And they sat outside on the porch in two chairs and they talked almost the whole night.

And then I realized he must be lonely, my Lama, in America. And I didn't think about it. He has to just talk to us.

And then he met a very high Lama and then I thought, oh, he's been lonely for 20 years, stuck in America, teaching crazy hippies. So like that. You ready?

Okay, the Buddha who came spoke. They said something. Here we go.

Start this thing. What's next? Yeah, teaching still survives in two places, in the heart and in the computer.

Okay. Are you coming or going, lads? I think we should give Tim a hand.

Yeah, yeah. Diamond Mountain has been here for 12 years. Nobody ever rang the horn before.

This week, twice. And he didn't get much sleep last night. We didn't get much sleep last night.

It wasn't a very big thing. Somebody's fire alarm decided to go off all the time. It's hard to sleep.

So they wanted to share it with us. Okay, teaching is still here, in people's hearts and in the book, video, internet. Ready?

We still have Gina to design all the nice books. What's the next one? Yeah, nice, living, strong lineage.

Accurate and complete. Okay, complete. Everything's there.

There are five great subjects of the open teachings, which is what the Geshe studies. And for people who don't have time to spend 25 years in the monastery, Lam Rim. They take all the five and they make Lam Rim.

Lam Rim is like instant oatmeal. But I'd like you to study the Geshe program also. So that's what the ACI courses are, 18 courses.

That's granola. Then we have 18 courses of the secret teachings, in this place only. And you cannot buy the book.

You cannot find it online. It's really secret. It's 10,000 pages.

You have to, somebody has to give you empowerment and then they'll teach it to you privately. And I'm very proud of that. The old system is that those things are secret and you cannot find them on the internet and you cannot buy them.

You have to finish the ACI 18 courses. Then you're allowed to study the higher teachings. So we taught them here for seven years, like 2003 to 2010.

And if you're serious, you can study those, but you have to finish the Geshe course first. In Tibet, you cannot go to the, there are two tantric colleges, you cannot go unless you're a Geshe. Lam Rim by High Geshe.

Okay, so we have a nice complete image. All right, here we go. And a complete kitchen.

Yes? Oh, that's a good thing to mention. Up here is a list of the people in this room, how many ACI courses you finished.

And I appreciate if you can try to do two or three every year. So before Guadalajara, or before you come back here in March. By the way, to keep coming to America and Mexico, it's expensive and it takes a lot of time.

And it hurts your other work, it hurts your job, and that's okay. It's important. So, if you have to change your job, change your job.

No, find a job that allows you to work at home or have more time, because you have to live two lives now. You have to have your professional career, and you have to come to these teachings as long as they're available. I told the people in the seven-year Tantric course, this will not last forever.

This is very precious time. I can't teach the Lam Rim again. It's 20 years.

So, don't miss it. If you can, don't miss it. If you have other things to do, then adjust to other things.

You can find a job, take less money, and you can't be a star in two things. Maybe you can. But find a job that's flexible, and the boss doesn't get upset if you say, I have to go to Diamond Mountain for 10 days or something.

Okay, that's what I did. I had a job like that. I told the company boss, I said, I have to, first I make myself invaluable.

Then I said, I need to go to the monastery for study. Every month I have to go for two weeks or something. Then he said no.

Then I said, okay, fire me. Then he said, maybe not. Then I said, I was very smart, I said, you cut my pay 50%.

You cut my salary 50%. He said no. I said, if you give me 100%, I will give you back 50%.

I will throw the money on your table. You cannot, I will not take more than 50% salary. Then there's a lot of pressure for him.

He has to agree, I go to the monastery. And I could have been the top, top, top vice president, but I was just a little vice president. And that's okay.

You have to give up something. Then you have time to come. Because when the day comes that you're old and you're going to die or something, this will help you, that will not help you.

Alright, here we go. We have a nice strong tradition, complete, pure, better than before. Buddha can teach, but they are limited to the rules of their country.

So in India, 2,000 years ago, it was many small kingdoms, many small kings. And political, difficult for Buddha to teach deeply. But later, it got more deep.

And Tsongkapa is the deepest. Okay, here we go. Oh, sorry.

Last one. Yeah, we have Mr. Wu's and people like that who want to help us. GZHAN PHYIR GNYIS TSE Ben Kramer.

Love for others. Love for the sake of others. GZHAN PHYIR GNYIS TSE TSE is love, right?

Heart love for others. Meaning, they will build a temple, they will build the cabins, they will build the kitchen, and we just have to come and open our mouth. I feed birds every morning.

I have about 50 birds. I like the babies. They're like this.

And the mom has to chew the food and put it in their mouth. So we are like, all we have to do is open our mouth. And then Chaz will put the food in.

That's all. We have great sponsors here. About the career, I wanted to say one more thing.

If I stay in the diamond, I was very high paid in the diamond business. Our company is the biggest in the world, diamond company. And I got the big pay, really high pay.

And then when I left to come here, everyone said, you are crazy. And if you count the money which karma brings me now, which I use for diamond mountain and things like that, I make 10 times more per year. I make 10 times more than before.

This place costs several million dollars. This building costs over a million dollars. The cabins cost like three million dollars.

I don't know. So you're not going to lose anything. So don't be afraid.

Oh, I won't be vice president of Apple Corporation in China. Don't worry about it. The money that you need to help people, it will come 10 times more.

That's my experience. I make 10 times more than I used to make for Dharma. If you count all the money which comes by karma, not by my boss.

Boss is not steady. Karma is steady. Okay?

Karma never fire you. Okay? Alright, so I mean you're not going to lose anything.

You'll have more than before, much more, 10 times more. Alright, so next meditation, we think about how lucky we are. We have Mr. Wu, people like Mr. Wu, we have many friends. Beijing is helping a lot. Shanghai is helping a lot. Guangzhou is helping a lot.

Germany is helping a lot. Even Mexico is helping a lot. Today I heard that Taiwan group is already sent, yesterday I think, for building the translation school in Guadalajara, $93,000.

So I'd like to thank Guadalajara. Where's Nick and Aaron? They're working.

Oh, he's there. Look, let's give him a clap when he comes in. He said, Geshe-la, we got almost $100,000 for Guadalajara.

I said, what do you mean almost? He said, well, it's $93,000 and that's before the Taiwan tax. So when you send donation out of Taiwan, you have to give 20% to the government.

Anyway, $73,000 is not so bad. Are you ready? You can just think of Mr. Wu's face for five minutes. Okay, it's on the building. It's on the building. We are so lucky to have those great sponsors.

Many countries, many, many countries. Singapore is unbelievable. Singapore is doing great.

Okay, Mr. Tim is... Can you pick three people that I can bother? This is for sharing with us something nice they learned during the three-day retreat.

Just three people. I'm going to make a five-minute timer.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Okay, during my three-day retreat, I have two sharings and I have one question. Okay, the first sharing is that today, this year, I'm 48 and this is my first time to realize that I have to thank my Joe.

I have been a teacher for 21 years and I left this teaching career in 1998 and then I started to be a psychology consultant. I thought it was all my own effort and I tried to be the best of me and I worked my ass off to be the best of me. The strange thing that I found is that since I entered this area, all the spiritual teachers that I met there, they were like the top class, for all over the world.

I thought it was because of my pure luck. I thought it was because of me. I worked so hard, so hard, so that I made this happen.

For example, like in those hypnotizes and all those areas that I met, like a highly assistant, etc., etc., I met all these world top class teachers. But when we were doing hypnosis, we met cases like patients that they went back to their previous lives and several cases like that, that they went back to their previous lives. I felt very confused, so I went to India to study for a month and then went to the United States to study another month, to study other systems.

So until this moment, all the confusions that they got resolved, it's like all disappeared and my soul come to settle down. Now I know that I have encountered the best teacher in Buddhism. While I was being really grateful for my job, I also felt a bit frustrated because everything was arranged from my previous life already.

It's not like my efforts anymore. The second sharing that I want to share with the others is the system of emptiness and karma really made a breakthrough for my whole career. So this whole knowledge is really a breakthrough for me.

It's very well integrated. So from now on, I have to plan for my future life.

[Speaker 1]
One more minute.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so I have a question. In this whole seed system, do I have the main homework of this whole karmic system, this whole karma thing? What's the main seed for the main karma?

I think until the next retreat, five minutes, anytime you have.

[Speaker 1]
So lunch time, breakfast time, night time, before coffee meditation. Just say, okay, I have two, five minutes. I have enough time for two, five minutes.

And then do two. Do the next two. That's the main homework.

Okay, thank you. You speak so many different languages. Well, that's interesting.

I really had very, very lovely retreats, and I had the great ...

[Speaker 2]
What country?

[Speaker 1]
Israel. Israel? You never mentioned.

The other time you mentioned Germany, and I don't know if Vietnam. You never mentioned Israel. Israel is a major Dharma country.

They have 51 ACI groups in Israel. 75. 75, yeah.

So I really liked actually the meditation of ... I remember one point, I was kind of tired because I was ... I had a great lack of sleeping in the temple, so it was really nice energy and inspiration, but you wake up in sunrise somehow.

So I was tired in the afternoon one day, and I went to a tent, and I saw these beautiful hummingbirds coming next to the tent. It was awesome. And I was doing this to help you, and I realized how many people helped me in my life.

But I didn't realize that they helped me. And I can ... There is a famous hypnotist who says, it's never too late to have a happy childhood.

[Speaker 2]
So ...

[Speaker 1]
Thanks, John Bandler. Bandler, I say that. So in a way, I really felt that, wow, I didn't realize I had such a good support in my childhood that I was not acknowledging, and that was a good revelation for me.

And I had a lot of other things that I really liked. I have one question that bothered me a little bit. You have to answer that for me now.

Okay. If there are like, as you say, like three, four Aryas that sort of last two thousand years, and there are so many, there are like millions of people who practice Tantric path, and so it doesn't seem very effective then. Or I don't know.

I think there must be more that we don't know about. These are official Aryas in the scriptures. Okay.

But like, just that example again, like what about all, like for example, Milarepa, he became a Buddha in one lifetime. Also, I mean, there are a lot, I think there are ... Yeah, it must be that if they became Buddha, they must have been an Arya.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So, anyway. But I had a lot of insight, and it's really hard to share it in 30 seconds that I have. I just wanted to thank, because I also, part of what I felt, that it's really full of angels, and it gave me the ...

Israel is a place which is awesome, but it really has the thing that a lot of people are really into, he is wrong, and I'm right. It's very strong in this, that we have the right ideology, and everybody else are not. And I was living now a year in something in New York, which is a bit like that, by the way.

It's a tough place. So, to be around angels is like a place where you can rest, you can rest in it, you can rest in love of people who see you and they are forgiving, not for forcing or taking, or it's amazing, it was an amazing experience, and thank you so much for that. Yay.

It's called Silver Fox. We'll talk about it. I need it lined up.

Last one. Up to Tim. Thank you, Tim.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you all.

[Speaker 1]
Wait, which country, which country?

[Speaker 2]
Ah, we are USA.

[Speaker 1]
America.

[Speaker 2]
I came with my husband, my husband came with me, so it was very interesting, because we've been married over 40-some years.

[Speaker 1]
Yay.

[Speaker 2]
And to my recollection, this is the first time that we've spent a day together in prayer and meditation. So, it was an interesting experience. The first day was just trying to get everything organized, figuring out how we were going to work with each other, and the second day was just delightful.

It was sweet, and it had a flavor to it that I haven't felt before between us. It softened my heart a lot. Break that 40-year habit.

Yeah. Break the 40-year habits. That's hard.

And what was really interesting was the next morning when I woke up, I was just, as soon as I opened my eyes, I realized I was enveloped in happiness. I just felt a deep happiness that was just magical. It was beautiful.

It was a wonderful experience. So it gave me, it increased my faith in the process, in the scriptures, and in what you gave us to do. So that was deepened very much.

And personally, I saw myself in my demons, the addictions, my cravings. I saw laziness, and I thought I was trapped in this before I came, and when I got into the meditations, I realized that that's why I came, because I didn't want to be trapped in that. And one of my goals was to help me get over this obstacle, get over the hump that was keeping me in this quagmire.

And I believe that happened because I began to see myself not as an addicted person and not as a lazy person, but one who did not want to be that way. And so that was a major shift in my own personal self-concept, I guess. So that was a beautiful thing to have happen.

And another, I didn't know how to do the mantras very well, so I asked, I hope she doesn't mind if I say, but I asked Vimala what to do, and so she suggested a mantra out of a Georgiou. Sorry, Georgiou? Georgiou, Georgiou?

Georgiou. Thank you. And so we took a walk up the Wash, and we went up to the gate, and as we were walking back, I started saying that, chanting it out loud.

And there was the name of Buddha, Buddha's name chant, mantra. And about halfway down, a cardinal flew across the pathway and lit in a bush and just kind of sat there and chirped and sang to us. And so I asked Vimala later, I said, are there cardinals around here?

I've never seen a cardinal all the time that I've come to Diamond Mountain to do service. And she says, oh, well, that's pretty nice that a cardinal came across that they used to tap on their windows in retreat. The cardinals would come and sit and tap on the windows of the retreat.

And so that gave me a lot of faith, too. I don't know, it was just a really warm feeling, like what we do, we're heard. Or that I don't know how to express it.

[Speaker 1]
Cool, thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Tim, that's all. We have to do a little class. All right, let's do some class.

In the book, Pabongka Rinpoche talks about eight things which Joe gave you. He mentions the name, he doesn't tell you what they are. So if you check the Chinese translation, you won't find it.

Those eight are not in there. So I went to the YCIP database and I brought them home for you. Okay, this, I got them in a book by, it's a lamrim, by a lama named Khe Tsang.

Say Khe Tsang. He was born in 1689. He attended the greatest monastery in the world.

I mean, you know, it is the greatest in the world, anyway. And you can meet a Khe Tsang if you go there someday. The lineage still exists.

Unfortunately, he split into two at some point. So there's two of them running around. That happens sometimes.

Okay, so I took his presentation and I put it in order. Okay, so here we go. First one.

What is the first one? Yeah, okay. Like, I have enough lifetime to study.

So here's his explanation. Okay, TSE PHUN TZOGS PA TSE, TSE? PHUN TZOGS PA TSE means lifetime.

PHUN TZOGS PA means super cool. If you shorten that word, it becomes PHUN TZOGS. We have a famous monk in New York called PHUN TZOGS.

Alright. What's the Sanskrit for PHUN TZOGS? Atisha.

Atisha. Super cool. Mr. Super cool. ,DANG PO NI SNGON GYI PHAN PA'I TSE RING PO'I PHANG PA DANG, ,PHANG PA DANG GNAS PA NGES PAR DGOS, If you're going to master the Dharma in this life, two things have to happen. Number one, Joe has to throw, we call PHANG PA, Joe has to throw into the future life a long life for you. The Tibetan is called PHANG PA.

PHANG PA means Joe stands on the end of his last life, like Joe stands at the end of his life like a person standing on the Titanic ship and he throws a life preserver for you and then he falls off the Titanic and then he catches it. He's the thrower and he's the catcher. Understand, your past life said, okay, I got to take care of my next life and he threw a lot of life years into the future and then when he got there, he accepted them from himself.

All right, understand? She understands, Angel understands. Okay, PHANG PA DANG GNAS PA NGES PAR DGOS So when we receive that life, we have to take good care of it.

So if you're a real Dharma person, you want to be a Dharma teacher, you have a responsibility to take good care of your body and your life. People ask me, hey Geshe-la, you want to go skydiving? No, you want to go bungee jumping?

I said no, Joe gave me a precious body. I can't risk it. I can't do anything risky.

And I hate yoga, but I do it every day. Because I have to take care of what Joe gave me. And I take like 20, my doctor gave me 25 kinds of vitamins.

I think it's mostly to keep her golf subscription current, but okay, I eat them. She likes to play golf. It takes a lot of money, so I should take all these extra vitamins and things.

She sells the vitamins also. But I do all that stuff. I take care of my body, because it's precious, and I don't do risky things.

And if the dance teacher comes to Diamond Mountain, I dance around. Because yoga doesn't give you so much cardiac, but dance gives you cardiac, so you should do yoga and dance. Okay.

,DE PHYIR LAS LA RANG BZHIN GYI DON LAS BRTZAMS PA'I DGE BA, ,YOD RING PO SOGS PA CHUNG, ,DE PHYIR LAS LA RANG BZHIN GYI DON LAS BRTZAMS PA'I DGE BA, SOGS PA CHUNG Then how to keep that body healthy is to do things for other people and for yourself. ,PHYIR RING PO MA BYUNG NA, Now he says a very beautiful thing. ,PHYIR RING PO MA BYUNG NA, If you don't have a long life, ,YOD RTEN GZHAN GANG YOD KYANG, it doesn't matter what else you have.

You have those ten, you have five, five, eight, seven, eight, four, it doesn't matter if you die. Okay. So this is almost the most important one.

You need to take care of your life. If you don't have this one, the rest, they don't matter. They don't matter.

I used to give bonuses. In China you give at New Year, in America you give at Christmas. You give a bonus for the whole year.

Then my boss will call me, did you give the bonuses yet? No, not yet. Okay, come to my office, show me what bonus you're going to give.

And then I make a long paper why my department should have the biggest bonuses. Each person, this person is doing great job in Thailand, this person is doing great job in Hong Kong, this person in Israel, this person in Belgium. I have the best staff, they should get the most money.

He said, he take that paper, he crumpled up. He said, I have a different paper. I said, what's the paper?

How many days they came to work last year? He said, the rest doesn't matter. If they're not here, it doesn't matter.

You see what I mean? How good they are, what they did. If they don't come to the work, it doesn't matter what else they do.

You give the bonus to the person who came the most days. That's it. This is similar.

If you have a long life, you can do many good Dharma things. If you don't, it doesn't matter. All those great lamas from history, they all had a long life.

First Penchen Lama, how old? 92. He lived till 92 in a time when the average age was 45.

He lived double age. There's a nice pig outside. Anyway, if you didn't see one yet, oh, he's probably a demon.

If you don't live a long life, SOS SAR GROD PA LA RGYEN THAG PA LTA BU YIN Very cool. Very cool. Stanley will like it.

Are you finished translating that poetry for me? First Penchen Lama. The whole book.

Get some help from your friends. With a little help from your friends. SOS SAR GROD PA LA RGYEN THAG This is cool.

Say SOS SAR GROD PA LA RGYEN THAG So somebody did a bad thing. They killed somebody. Then they took to the court and they said, what shall we do with this person?

They said, you have to execute them. Like hang them or something. Then you are taking them from the jail to the hanging place.

They are walking. Then somebody said, wait, wait, stop. What?

I have a diamond bracelet for him. Let me put on the diamond bracelet. Sounds stupid.

They are going to die in one minute, two minutes. Oh, you will look better if you have a diamond bracelet. What's the diamond bracelet?

All the other things. Five inside, five outside, eight no problems, past life Joe, eight, four, that's diamond bracelet. If you don't have this one, the other ones don't matter.

Someone is going to die in five minutes. You don't give them nice clothes and jewelry. It doesn't help if you are not alive to put on a nice dress or something.

Nobody likes a nice dress on a corpse. Here we go. Second one.

What's the second one? Huh? What was it?

No. Of the eight that Joe gave you. Yeah.

What's the photo? Let's go to the photo. All those handsome and beautiful DCI teachers standing in Vietnam with Ruby, most beautiful.

Okay, we have Singapore, Bulgaria, China, Austria, America, Xiamen, but everybody looks nice. Okay? Everybody looks like, oh, I want to study with this person.

They look like a successful person. Okay? Then what did we say?

What's the Dharma rule about teacher's appearance? What's the Dharma rule? You cannot judge it.

Yeah, but you should fit the audience. So, if your teacher has six dirty puppies on their lap and they talk like that, then maybe they're a very high tantric master. We don't know.

But when we teach, we should try to look nice for the audience. Okay, here's the Kharo Puntsumtsumpa. Literally in Tibetan it means you have a nice complexion.

Kharo means you have a complexion, in this case. NYID PA NI KHARO ZAS ZHING YIB LAS PA Your appearance is nice. Your body is nice.

Okay, in Buddhism, a perfect body. Okay, don't get all depressed on me. Alisa Monte, I heard this thing.

What was that? Baryshnikov's teacher, when he first saw him, he said his knees are a quarter inch too high. You know, like he decided, yeah, you know, his proportions weren't perfect.

And the teacher, ballet teacher, can just look at the child and say, they're not going to be perfect. You know, the bones are a little bit too long or something. So in the scripture, this is called a dom.

This measurement is a dom. Certain number of finger, cun in Chinese, cun. Then dom, four dom, the measurement of your elbow to your tip of your finger is called tru.

This is tru. Four tru is one dom. Okay, and well proportioned body in scripture, this is equal to your height.

Okay, so my arm span is six feet and my height is six feet. So that means, that's supposed to be proportioned body. If you don't have one, don't commit suicide.

It's okay. Don't worry about it. I just want to teach you the Tibetan.

My teacher, we had, one day there were two monks in my temple in New Jersey. My teacher was very short and tough and he had a big nose, like Tsongkapa. Then we had another monk, he's very tall, very handsome and he doesn't know anything.

Then there was a movie, they made a movie about Tibet and they needed a lama in the movie. So the movie director came from New York City. He said, can your lama be the star of the movie?

I said, of course, you're so lucky if you have him for your star. Then the director came into our temple and he saw the tall handsome monk and he thought, that's my lama. Then he saw this other short lama, he's like, I don't need this one, I want this one.

Then I'm like, a-ya. Okay, so LUD DONG GANG This is misspelled here, should be CHU BZHIN MYONG BA'I The LUD DONG, the arm span is equal to the, is equal to four true. CHU BZHIN DGAG PA Proportionate, the body is proportionate.

YIN, DE CHE LAS LA MTHONG BA TZAM GYIS GZHAN DANG NAS TSIG NYAMS PAR GYUR Why is that important? When you look at this photo and new people come who don't know anything, they will judge by the appearance of the teacher, like the director from New York. They will say, the ladies have a nice business suit on, the gentlemen have a nice tie on, they must be good teachers.

That's a stupid idea. There are many terrible people who wear ties, but Joe gave us a nice appearance and you should use it. Really, when you teach, when you teach, don't be shy.

When you're dancing, you don't, you put on special clothes, you put a nice, you know, you look nice for the audience because they want it. All the women in the movies are impossibly thin, impossibly beautiful. Every man who watched the movie fall in love with them, tried to write to them a letter.

They don't realize the movie director purposely put this impossible woman in the movie. Okay, that's okay. Dharma teacher should be impossible.

Okay, okay, it's important. Okay, it's important. Okay, that was number two.

RIGS KUN TZAM TSOGS PA Here's the third one. What's the photo? What's Connie doing, that Canadian?

What's that all about? What's this picture about? She's teaching in Beijing, I think, outside of Beijing, and she had a good upbringing.

She had a good family. She had a good education. She came in a good family.

Okay, if your family was messed up, don't worry about it. My family was messed up. Everybody's family inside is messed up.

On the outside we try to look like a normal family. Okay? There is no normal family.

I didn't see one yet in my life. There's always problems. But generally, we have a pretty good family, and we have a good school, good education.

RIGS KUN TZAM TSOGS GSOS PA NI GZHIN DU GAL CHE BA This one is very important. SANGS RGYAS KYIS KYANG CHOG GI THUG GU BRDZAD PA BRTAN PA'I TSE Even the Buddha, when the Buddha came to this planet, MANG KHUR BA'I RIGS SU SKYE BA He came as a prince. He was high class.

Shakyamuni, right? Siddhartha. Siddhartha.

The prince Siddhartha. He didn't come as a construction worker or as a servant in the restaurant or something like that. He came as a king.

This is common in many religions. When you read the Bible, the first thing is Jesus' lineage. The first thing in the Bible is Jesus' lineage.

They think it's important to establish that he came from King David's lineage, his birth. MANG KHUR BA Let's do a dictionary entry, although we don't have time. Let's say MA NGA'A MANG PA'O KHA ZHUGS KYI KHUR BA KHUR That's okay.

MANG KHUR BA MANG KHUR BA means... MANG means many. KHUR BA means given the assignment or the task.

And MANG KHUR BA is a name for a special kind of king who is appointed, like we talked about it, president of the world, by the will of the people. The whole world has a vote. It's just like a vote in Burma or something.

One guy wins all the votes by some miracle. Just kidding. They bribe everybody.

Sorry. Used to be. It's better now.

So MANG KHUR BA means not just born as a king. Born as a king that everybody in the world wants them to be king. If you hold a vote, it will be unanimous.

Everybody will vote for him or her. That's called MANG KHUR BA. Buddha was born as that kind of prince.

RIGS SU SKYE BA SHES PA'I TSUL He decided to be born as that kind of prince. Buddha can take any birth he wants. And he decided to take a birth as this kind of prince, Prince Siddhartha.

YIN PA LA DE NYID JIG RTEN NA THUN PA'I RIGS SU SKUR BA'I RIGS LA BYA And these are the highest kind of family or social class in the world at that time. If he was born at this time, he will be President Xi or something like that. He will choose to be the President of China or something like that.

RIGS RTEN PA'I RIGS SU SKUR BA'I BYA DE BYED LAS LA SHES RIGS MA BA RNAMS RIGS KYI SGO NAS GZIL GYI GNAS NAS DE DAG KYI RANG GI GANG NA NYIN PA'ONG In most societies, people will respect the higher social standing and they will listen to what you say. If you teach the Dharma, they will say, oh, President Xi said that. We should accept it.

So they will respect you more. In most countries, if you have a high position, people will listen to you more. Jesus came as a carpenter, a laborer, very low class.

But it was useful at the time because he was starting a movement among the lower class. Okay? So he will choose to come as a carpenter.

He could choose to be a king also. Okay? Just average the best for your times and your society.

What is most useful? You take this kind of birth. So generally we are lucky because we, you know, the people in this room, your income is the top 1% of the world.

We are not rich, not many of us, but compared to the rest of the world, you are in the top 1%. You have money, you can fly to America, you can eat, you have a place to stay, you can have a house. Joe decided that would be better.

If you don't have any money at all, you can't fly here. Okay? All right.

Here's another one. Say, WANG CHUG PUN TZON SOGS PA WANG CHUG PUN TZON SOGS PA LONG SHOS DANG NYAN DANG YOD KHOR MANG BA STE What was the picture? This is the Greek Diamond Cutter book.

Why did we choose that? John Foley paid for that book. Okay?

In Greece. It took like three years, okay? Adriana worked on it very hard.

Where are you? Adriana, stand out. Yeah, yeah.

I only have one Greek student, so I gave her the job. It took me three years to learn her name, Karabatsios. It was fun to see her speak in Greek.

It's fun to see people speak their own language. What happened to the microphone? Suddenly...

Okay. So it means, the fourth one is you have enough money, you have enough authority that you can pay for the Greek Diamond Cutter book. It was a long process.

The first time we tried, the publisher went bankrupt and took all the money. The second time we tried, I don't know, they had a fight. Third time we tried, the country ran out of paper.

But, DBANG CHUB means you have authority. People accept you as a leader. You have enough money to do things and people are attracted to you as a leader.

And you need that. If you're going to be a teacher, people have to be attracted to you as a leader. It's not because you're the best person.

It's not because you're the wisest person. It's because Joe shared power with his friends. Joe shared his power with his friends.

DE PHYIR LAS LA RANG LA SANGS RIGS SMRONG BA'I GZHAN YANG SANGS RIGS KYI SDUG NAS One of the reasons why this is useful is if ... How many perfections are there? Are you sure?

There's ten. There's six plus four. There's four more.

There's four more. You want to learn them? Okay.

All right. So the first six are, of course, they make you perfect. They're not perfections, right?

They are perfectionizers. They are perfectionizers. They make you perfect.

They're called perfections, but they are perfectionizers. That's the first six. The last four are perfections that a good teacher uses to collect their students from Israel, China, Mexico, Austria, Russia.

Okay? What did Jesus call it? Fisher, yeah.

He met one of his first disciples. His disciple was a fisherman. Then he said, I'll teach you to fish for people, not for fish.

Then he said, I'll make you a teacher, and you can fish for people, not for fish. So if you want to fish for good students in many countries, you need the last four perfections. Here they are.

Number one, attract them with stuff. Give them pizzas. Give them ice cream.

Give them a place to stay. Give them programs that you go broke arranging. Okay?

Attract them with stuff. Attract them with things. I'll give you a computer if you work on this project.

Really, give them a salary to come to Sedona. Okay? That's a teacher's responsibility.

In Serra, in all the major Tsongkapa monasteries, there's no charge to the student. The teacher has to pay the student's expenses. When the teacher takes a student, they have to buy their clothes, they have to give them food, they have to take them to the doctor.

And that starts at seven years old, and it lasts until the student is 50. It's worse than being a mother or father. That only, Vivian knows, that lasts till 25 or something like that.

But in the monastery, the teacher has to pay for the student. And that's a good system. They don't charge the student.

They pay for the student. So that's the first of the four. You pay for the student's cost.

Dharma business is a bad business. The teacher's always broke because they're paying for everything. I will build the building.

I will build a cafeteria. You can have nice food. Please come.

If you don't have enough money, I'll pay for your airplane. Like that. That's the first one.

Second one. LANG DOR GYI GNAS SDOM PA'I NYANG BAR MA BA NYANG BAR MA BA means talk nice to them. Talk nice to them.

If they do small good things, say, oh, you're so smart, and you're the best student I ever had. The minute you tell them the truth, they will leave. Okay?

People say, Geshe-la, tell me really, am I a good student? I'm like, am I doing everything you want me to do? Then, you have to encourage people.

So, when you have a student, look at the good things they are doing. Focus on the good things they are doing. When they are strong enough, only a strong student, tell them the truth.

You have this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem. You have to fix it. If your Lama never criticized you, you're not a good student.

It means the Lama is afraid to tell you, as you will leave. Second one is talk nice to them. You're really trying hard.

Concentrate on what they're doing good. When they're strong, tell them what they're doing. I think it's the same in dance.

You can say, you do that pirouette very well, but they are doing everything else lousy. Then, just focus on what they're doing well and encourage them. Then, when they are strong enough, you can tell them the truth.

Your pas de bourrée is terrible and you can't do a pirouette on the other side. Only the best students get to be criticized by their teachers. Because the teacher knows they're not going to run away.

I had a lot of Chinese people working for me in New York in my office. I think a hundred or something. Then, I can't tell them I'm a monk or anything.

They just think I'm the boss. Then, slowly they find out. Then they say, can we meet your Lama?

Then I say, okay. Then they came to my monastery in, it's about two hours from New York. They came into the kitchen.

My Lama lives upstairs. Then I said, listen, I have to tell you something. They said, what?

I said, I live with my Lama for 25 years. He never said one good thing about me. He just criticized me for 25 years, all the time.

You don't do this. You don't do this. You're so stupid.

Then I said, so when you go up, so you think I'm a good boss. You think I have a good company. But he's going to tell you something different.

Then, just, I want to warn you. Then they went upstairs. I'm waiting downstairs.

I'm nervous. And they are talking to Lama, all these Chinese people. Then they came down, they're all smiling.

They said, what did he say about me? He said, you're the best student he ever had. I'm like, what?

So, in the beginning, talk sweet. But the real meaning of talk sweet, the deeper meaning, tell them what's a good thing to do and tell them what's a wrong thing to do. We call long door, long door.

Tell them what's good to do. Educate them. This is good to do.

This is not good to do. Drinking alcohol is wrong. It will make you stupid.

It addicts you instantly. One glass of wine, you will get immediately, it's so powerful. Don't do it.

And then over here, if you get some extra money, give it to somebody. So they will give you strange, don't do this and do this. Ultimately, that's the sweetest talk.

That's the sweetest talk. Let's finish the four. What the hell?

Okay. MED PA'I DON LOR GRUB TU SBYUG PA'I DON SPYOD PA Encourage them to do what you teach them. I taught you 40 meditations this week.

You have 40 meditations this week. Your suitcase going back to Israel or China is full with this little paper. You have 45 minute by the app, by the app, you have 45 minute meditations.

When you get home, do you know there's a special way that my old students keep their house clean? Do you know? They got hundreds of these.

They put them all over the house and the dust will collect on them. And then they just clean the house. Then the dust will collect on them.

They don't open them. Sometimes they put them in the outhouse, in the storage bins. No, she has some in the bookshelf also.

And they look like they're red occasionally, so I'm not. So the third one is, encourage the student, don't put this on your shelf. It's on your meditation cushion.

Don't put this on the shelf in the kitchen and don't look at it again. This is your teacher for the next three, four, five months. Or until Guadalajara.

If you're coming to Guadalajara, this is your teacher for the next month and a half. Then open it, look at it, do it. So number three is, encourage your student to do what you teach them.

It's not enough to understand Dharma if you're not doing anything. You can understand all this stuff and you don't do it. So number three is do it.

Number four is easy. In English we have an expression, practice what you preach. Do yourself what you're telling your student to do.

You should be a good example. That's number four. That's the most important one.

You tell your student, do yoga every day. Then they say, Geshe-la, you're all chubby and fat and you're not doing yoga yourself. Why are you not doing yoga?

If you do yoga yourself every day, then that student will do it. If you say be nice to people and then you get angry all the time, then it doesn't matter. I went to a teaching by a very high lama in Tucson and my friend came with me, who you know, and she has two small children at that time.

One is three, one is five, I think. Then there were 5,000 people there and the lama said, does anybody have a question? 2,000 people raised their hand.

Then he pointed to my friend and he said, what's your question? Then I'm like, wow! You get the first question of 2,000 people.

Then what's your question? She said, I have two small children. I want to teach them Dharma.

What's the best way? Then the lama's like, they said, you know, if you talk to them Dharma, they can't understand. They are too small.

You can't teach them Shantideva or Asanga or Nagarjuna. So what should you do? You know, it doesn't matter what you tell your kids to do.

They will copy what you do. If you want to teach small children Dharma, just be a good example yourself. Then they will copy mom and dad.

Kids always copy mom and dad. If mom and dad are arguing all the time, the kids start to argue. If dad calls mom stupid and mom goes, oh, you don't exist, I know.

You're coming from me. Then the kids will say, what's that mean mom? Why don't you get angry?

Why don't you tell dad he's stupid? They will learn from your example. So it doesn't matter.

I learned, I'm teaching for 40 something years. It doesn't matter what you say. People will copy you.

What you do, people will copy. It doesn't matter what you say. If you have one bad habit, the student will learn that before the 200 pages of Abhidharma.

I don't know why. So the fourth perfection of the last four, do what you're talking. Do what you're talking.

No one... I had a person who's worked for DCI. They don't work for DCI anymore.

They're always nervous. They're like always nervous. They're like this.

Then they're... I saw them talking to one person on the DCI tour. Then they're like, you want to learn meditation?

And then the person said, I don't know what kind of meditation you do, but I don't want to learn it. You have to be a good example. That's the best way to...

that's the only way to teach. Okay. Last thing, ultima causa.

I want to show you four pictures. This is... I know the people in these projects would like me to say more, but we don't have time.

But at least I'm going to say something. Okay, number one. What pages can Rinpoche on?

My teachers. Yeah. We'll start with this one.

This is a monastery telephone. If you have a message, you tell... There's no telephone in my monastery.

You tell the kid he runs to the other place and he tells... If he meets his friend and starts to eat candy, the telephone connection is cut. Okay.

We have, I think it's 150 or 200 baby monks. You cannot decide to stay at the monastery until you are 21 years old. This is monastery rule.

When you become 21, they ask you, do you want to stay or not? Like 99% say yes. But we allow to have children just to put the seed in their mind.

But we don't keep... It's not like a jail. Like they can come, they can go, it's okay.

But they can start at seven years old. But they cannot become real monk until 21. They can wear the clothes, but they are not real monk.

At 21, when they are old enough to decide for themselves, not their parents, then we ask them, do you want to stay or not? We are not allowed to make a monk younger than 21. So we have, I don't know, 150 or 200.

Then last time I was in Singapore, I talked to my friend Candy Lai, and I said, we need help for the kids. I need to feed them. And they eat more than the older monks.

I built the school. I built their school. But I need salary for the teachers.

They teach them kids stuff. It's a nice school. I built the school.

I built... In India you build extra wire, extra steel, so you can add second floor later when you have more kids. So they contact me, the school contact me and say, we don't have enough money for teachers, we don't have enough money for food.

So if you would like to help, feed the monastery telephones, can you stand up Candy? You can talk to Candy Lai. And she's in charge of this project.

Maybe it's fun, you know, I support those kids. I started in 1978. And now one of them is like the abbot.

And I feel like... You know? Okay, sorry.

You feel happy. All right. Sara Study.

Okay, you ready? This is our... Every year we send, I think five or six students to study at Sara.

And we pay for it. We pay for the airplane. We pay for their food.

Usually I sell cookies at programs. And that money I use to pay for their airplane. Then I'm very proud that a lot of our Mexico team went and their Tibetan is getting good.

They're still studying Tibetan. They will be great translators in the future. And they're studying in the real languages.

If you went to Sara, can you stand up? Can you stand up? I'd like to give them a hand.

So you can see how many of them are working on the translation team. I mean almost all of them. So if you would like to help support this project, buy something from their table.

I don't know what they're selling. What are you selling? You can buy a raffle ticket for the Mexican Ritual Buddha.

I bought five tickets or something. There's a thangka. There's a painting.

There's a lot of stuff there. Buy like ten malas or something. You can give them to your friends or something.

Then it helps me to send young people there. Somebody sent me there in 1974. And that's why I'm here.

Somebody paid for me. His name was McDonald. He gave a scholarship to my school and they gave me the scholarship to go to the monastery for Princeton.

So I thank this family. I send them a letter, thank you. Many years later I say, thank you for paying for that young hippie to go to Sara.

Now he's an old hippie, happy. And we are very grateful to you. So somebody paid for me to go.

And that's why you're here. So just imagine what will happen. They will each have many students, but we have to send them for deep study.

And if you'd like to go, I think talk to Hero. You're the unofficial representative today. Talk to Hero.

Can you stand up? Okay. The money which comes from the malas and stuff will also be used for Baby Kenripuchi.

Around 180. 183. Go to page 183.

Got it? Almost. Okay.

This is the youngest photo I have of my teacher. That was when he... This photo is 1960.

Okay. He has a small mustache. His teacher got mad at him.

He said, take off that mustache. Who was his teacher? Chijang Rinpoche.

Who wrote the book you're studying down? Chijang Rinpoche. Okay.

That's the new rebirth of my teacher. Okay, next page. So the money which comes from the mala sales and stuff like that, we will use it for his education and stuff like that.

Okay. How do we know he's the real one? My teacher loves dogs.

Shih Tzu, he has many dogs. Then it's illegal. You're not supposed to have a dog in a monastery.

So he's also naughty. I don't know why I have to see a naughty teacher. The new one, everybody decides he's the real one.

But I didn't believe it. Then one day his dog got sick and he doesn't know English. But he took the dog some extra special food and he says, dog needs extra special food.

In English. Okay. Then I said, okay, he's Rinpoche.

Okay. All right. Last one.

So when you buy a mala or something, some of the money goes to take care of his education and to feed him and things like that. He's about 10 years old now? Okay, last thing.

Silver Fox video. Wait, blow it up. The whole screen.

Okay, now, this hand, I think it's Ben's hand. Ben Kramer and Kendra, his wife who's having a baby. So if you're from Taiwan, Taiwan people gave half the money for the food.

Taiwan people gave... Taiwan people gave half a million dollars for the food, for the three-year retreat. So I'd like to thank Taiwan.

Then you paid for some grapes also. But they didn't go exactly to the retreat. So watch this video.

This is Ben's three-year retreat. This is what he was doing sometimes. If you don't talk for three years, the animals trust you.

That's a kiss. That's a kiss. If you don't talk for three years, you can talk to animals because they talk like this.

They will trust you if you don't talk. It's very cool. The birds will come.

Snakes will come. No, I have five snakes in my retreat fence and we are friends. So that's a very rare animal.

I call silver fox. It's not a real silver fox. I call it silver fox.

But they are rare animal and you cannot see them usually. They are so quick and they are so sneaky. You cannot see them.