«Дар освобождения», курс 21 «Ретрит радости непостоянства», занятие 7

[Speaker 1]
Okay, get ready for meditation. And pull in your stomach a little bit. That straightens your spine.

A little bit of smile, even if your tooth is aching. Relax your forehead and come to your breath. Follow your breath.

Now think about that you will die before the sun sets today. And it doesn't matter how strong you are, how good is your yoga, how healthy you are. There are things that can kill you before the sun sets.

Body is actually very fragile. Many things can kill you suddenly. It's a miracle you didn't die yet.

Not even a car can live for 30 years, 40 years. You're still alive. It's just karma.

It can finish any time. Think about it. It doesn't matter where you go.

It doesn't matter where you live. There's no place which is safe. If the time comes, death will find you in a rich city or a poor city.

Rich country, poor country, it doesn't matter. And think it doesn't matter what doctors you have or what medicine you have. When the karma is finished, death comes.

There's no doctor that can help you. And there's no medicine that can help you. Then again, bring your mind back to the idea that you will die before sunset.

Try to decide what would be a good way to spend the day, last day. Then come back to your breath. Three deep breaths.

And you can stretch. Open your eyes. I brought the book.

This is the book we're studying. It's a copy from Tibet. The cloth is made in Tibet, handmade.

It was my teacher's favorite book. He made notes in it, you can see. When I passed the Geshe exam, he gave it to me.

This paper is made from a bush in Tibet. It's a little bit like these bushes. You can play with it if you want.

Don't mix the page numbers. Then Tim's going to pick somebody. I asked him to pick one lady and one man who are going to...

The lady is going to give us three of the problems of not doing death meditation. And the gentleman is going to give us the other three problems of death meditation. So it's easier for the lady.

They don't have to be in order. Okay? How do ma?

Okay, let's go Tim. Lady first. Six problems of not doing your death meditation.

Zhongwen is okay. Geshe can speak English, but... That's okay.

If you don't think about death meditation, you will focus more on the outside things like food and clothes and fame. Okay, what number is that? Number one, okay.

Okay, two more. Wait, wait, wait, she has to do it. The second problem is, even though you are thinking about death, you will not practice today.

You will delay it and you will think tomorrow, which is never. Okay, good. You always think it won't be today.

San? The third one is, even though you practice, it's not pure, which means your motivation is not pure when you are practicing. Okay, good.

So, Tim, you have to give her this. This is a reward. Okay.

This was made by hand at Mahatma Gandhi's ashram. We went to Mahatma Gandhi's ashram and they make them by hand. Okay, I need a boy.

The boy doesn't get a dress, okay? Not worried. Not worried.

Okay, number four, number five, number six.

[Speaker 2]
If you don't do your death meditation, you will regret.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, when you die. Number five. Two more.

Two more. Anybody? Help?

If you don't do the death meditation daily, you are not disciplined in your practice. Okay, good. No enthusiasm.

What's the last one? You are always angry if you don't do your death meditation. Everything bothers you.

Yeah, yeah, good. Stupid little things. So, you get a Gujarat shirt.

This is from Mahatma Gandhi's home state. Home state. I hope it fits.

You are kind of strong. If it doesn't fit, just give it to somebody who didn't do yoga. Okay, cool.

Good. All right, let's go. Let's keep going.

How many people thought about dying this morning? Well, brush your teeth. Wow.

All right. Okay, did it help a little bit? It helped me.

I was irritated at somebody. And then I look in the mirror and I was like, ah, let it go. Let's just be nice to them anyway.

It's my last day. I can cut them slack. You know, it's okay.

They bug me, but it's okay. I'm going to die anyway. They can bug somebody else tomorrow.

Okay, good. Adam, de shindu. Yeah, good.

De shindu means, in the same way, dulabapna. That's a good word to learn. Dul means what?

Do you know? Time, like Kala Chakra is dungkor. And pap means what?

Pap means to fall down. So dulabap is an idiom in Tibetan. It means when the time comes.

You know, when the time comes to die. When the time befalls you. Okay, dulabapna, when the time comes.

chiway min supay sa chok kang nang mey te There's no location on this entire planet where death cannot reach you. The hand of death can reach you in any location. And then he quotes the Mitharparitam.

Mitharparitam is the book of impermanence, right? And that says, kang tu ne na chiway min supay sa chok de ni yukpa mayin te There's no place on this earth where death's hand cannot reach you. sa chok de ni yukpa mayin te par nang la me You can go in a space shuttle.

You can go up... par nang means you can go up in outer space and hide there. gyat su nang nang me You can take a submarine under the ocean.

You can hide under the ocean. riwo nam kyi sep tu shug nang You can go to a huge mountain like the Himalayas and you can drill a cave and you can hide in the middle of... sep is a rare word that means in the middle of a mountain.

sep tu shug nang min And there's no place that you can get some protection. Then, I don't know, we travel a lot and we travel sometimes to poor countries and we travel to rich countries. Somehow you always feel safer when you come back to Phoenix or something.

It's safer than, I don't know, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. But it's not safer. No place is safer than another place.

If you travel a lot, you kind of get that feeling after a while. Maybe while you're in Bishkek, they blow up the United States. You know what I mean?

You don't know. There's no safer place. And there's no more dangerous place.

It's all the same. Death can reach you any place. When the time comes, du la pab na, then death's arm can reach any place.

It doesn't matter if you're in a safer country. It doesn't matter. I used to fly to India a lot for my Geshe studies.

Sometimes Rinpoche would go. And then I always felt better because I'm sitting next to Rinpoche, my teacher. We're sitting next to each other on the plane.

Then I feel safer. This plane is not going to fall down if Rinpoche is on the plane. I'm okay.

I'm safer. I was sitting on the window seat. He was sitting in the middle seat.

Then we took off. I was bored. There was a newspaper in the pocket of the seat.

So I read the newspaper. It says, terrorist bomb went off on airplane under the seat of one person. One person fell out of the airplane.

I'm like, oh no. Even next to... It really happened.

It blew up and just one person fell out. I'm like, oh man. It's not even safe next to Rinpoche.

Okay. SHES GSUNGS PA DANG I remember this newspaper. NGON RGYAL PO SEL RGYAL GYI PHUS There was an ancient Indian king named Prasenajit.

PHUS PA SKYES PO His son was named Viduradaka. ZHAG BSKYEN RNAMS SOS PA TZAM PA He decided to kill all the ZHAG BSKYES There's ZHAG BSKYES and there's ZHAG BSKYES. So don't get confused.

ZHAG BSKYEN is the people of Lord Buddha. So Lord Buddha was part of the ZHAG BSKYEN clan. Then ZHAG...

Sorry, ZHAG BSKYEN. Then ZHAG BSKYEN is a place in Tibet. The dirt there is very pale, which is ZHAG BSKYEN.

That's where one of the four great traditions of Tibet started. It's called ZHAG BSKYEN. But the ZHAG BSKYEN clan, this king decided to kill all of them.

Lord Buddha's tribe, Lord Buddha's village. The king decided to kill all of them. ZHAG BSKYEN RNAMS SOS PA TZAM PA'I SKABS MOD DGAL GYI PHUS PHAR SKYES PO MA GTON BYAS PA RDZUS GCUG GIS Then Maudgalyayana was one of the people there.

He has miracle power. So he decided he will just pick up the army and put it on the other side of a mountain. PHAR SKYES PO PHAR SKYES PO MA GTON BYAS PA RDZUS GCUG GIS RDZUS GCUG means through his miracle power.

CI'I CHAG RIGS means... It's called the mountains of iron, which are supposed to surround this earth. When you do the mandala, there's a special mountain around the earth.

So he decided to put them outside the mountain. It's like put them in the Gobi Desert or something. CI'I CHAG RIGS KYI RGYAL BAR He decided to carry them.

TZAM KYANG GDOG THAB MED PAR Then the Buddha said, don't bother. It's not going to work. Death is coming.

And it doesn't matter if you have some Buddhist powers. You can't stop this war. There's nothing you can do.

He said, don't try. Don't even try. Because death is stronger than you are.

ZHAGS SKYES BU BU MO'I RGA' ZHIG DE BZHIN GSHEGS PA'I LUNG ZHIG YIN NANG DU BAS PA DANG Then there's a very sad story. On the day that the soldiers came to the village to kill the people, a lot of the younger people, like teenagers, they ran to the Buddha's house, Lord Buddha's house. Some of them hid behind his ropes.

Some of them hid in furniture in his room. One small one even tried to hide in his bowl. And they all got killed, standing next to the Buddha.

So Buddha's there. They are holding on to the Buddha's clothes. Soldiers couldn't kill the Buddha, but they killed the people holding on to Buddha's clothes.

So, when we talk about refuge, go for refuge, I go for refuge. BU DAG ZHAR NAMS DGAR BYA MI DGAR MA ZHAR NAMS DGAR BYA MI Like in Sri Lanka. And they do this refuge.

Then many people think it's a Buddha statue. I go refuge to Buddha statue. The statue will help me.

But it's very famous in the real Buddhism. The statue can't help you. When you make a prayer or you go for refuge, you're not going to Buddha statue.

Because statue cannot help you. Even real Buddha cannot help you. If real Buddha is sitting there and a death comes for you, even the real Buddha can't help you.

Forget the statue. Statue can't do anything. So when you take refuge, real refuge is what?

A pen. Maybe in the future there will be a stupa shaped like a pen. That idea will help you.

Everything coming from me. If I plant good seeds, I don't have to die. Somebody asked me yesterday, do you really have to die, Geshe-la?

I said, no. They said, well, why are you giving this one-week class about have to die? I said, that's more dramatic.

First you have to talk about everybody will die. And everyone gets sad. Then at the end of the week you say, but, you don't have to die.

If you change your seeds. Does this pen have to run out of ink? No.

Who made the ink? You did. If you keep giving away pens, this pen will never run out of ink.

But Geshe-la, I never saw a pen that didn't run out of ink. Geshe-la, I never saw a pen that didn't run out of ink. Understand?

When you're close to it, you will see it. Other people already saw it. Many people.

The dogs had a meeting. One dog said, you can write with the pen. Then all the other dogs said, I don't think so.

It's very hard to be a dog teacher. Okay. MA RGA'I BU, SKYE BAR SOGS KYANG, SDOG THAD MED PA SANGS RGYAS SU GNYIS MED GANG SANG DU ZHAGS PA Then there's a special...

When you do the mandala, here's the Mount Meru, Sumeru. And on top of that, there's a special paradise. Small temporary paradise called the heaven of the 33.

And there's a special house there called the palace of the sun. And some people ran to that, but they got killed anyway. SNAM SRED PA ZHIG ZIN PA LTAR PHYI BA'ONG NA RGYAL BU BROS PA DANG When death comes for you, it doesn't matter how fast you run.

It doesn't matter how fast you run, how fast you go. SBYOR PA'I LUS BA SBYOR PA here means wealth, like pound-jore comes from that. So LUS BA means to ransom, to give a ransom.

So you can't buy... When death comes to you, you can't give them a bribe. It doesn't matter how much money you have.

Like government people, you can bribe. But when death comes, you can't say, you know, if I give you 50 bucks, will you wait for half an hour? You know what I mean?

RTOG GI YUL RGYAS PA YUL RGYAS PA means to wage war. YUL means battlefield. RGYAS PA means to wage war.

YUL RGYAS PA So it doesn't matter. You can't wage war against death. You can have an atomic bomb.

You can have a good rifle. You can have a whole army around you. But when death comes for you, you can't fight.

There's nobody to fight. So GANG GI KYANG MI PHEN Nothing's going to happen. I'll help you.

TSOM LAS KYANG I skipped that part. Yeah. So these are carving mistakes.

The carving said SEMS MED and I fixed it to TSOM. You have to... Translation is a fun thing.

You could spend like two hours on SEMS MED and then figure out it was miscarved. So TSOM LAS KYANG This is also a book, but it's not the MI RTAG PA'I TSOM. It's not the impermanence TSOM.

TSOM means book of advice. DRANG SONG CHEN PO NGA'A NGON SHES KHAR LA RGYANG RING RDOG BA YANG GANG NA GCU'I PHYI MA'I PAS GNAS DER BYIN PAR NUS MA YIN DRANG SONG What's DRANG SONG in Sanskrit? DRANG SONG means went straight.

What's the Sanskrit for straight? Yeah, Siddhas. So that's the Tibetan word for Siddhas.

NGON SHES NGA'A means... The order of the words here is ancient and it's out of order, but it means they have five kinds of clairvoyance. They can see the future.

They're like Ant-Man. They can see what's happening in a subatomic level and things like that. CHEN PO NGA'A NGON SHES KHAR LA RGYANG RING RDOG BA YANG They have a power to fly into the sky, like in a good Chinese movie.

All those guys are like... I saw Jackie Chan, The Myth. The lady is always flying like this.

After the Jackie Chan movie, they always show the mistakes in the movie. And she's coming down and the wire got stuck and she's like... So these yogis can fly in the sky.

But death is faster. Death is faster. It doesn't matter.

There are people who can fly in the sky. Those movies are correct. There are many people who can fly in the sky.

But they can't fly that fast. They can't fly fast enough to escape death. Death is faster.

Death is always faster. GANG LA GCOD YUL CI MED PA'I GNAS BDE'ER There's no place they can go where death cannot reach them. There's no such place.

PHRAD PA'I THA NA GRANGS SANGS NGON GZHAN NGA THOB CING GCOD DU YOD PA DE PHYI DAG LA PHRAD PA'I PHYOGS KYANG If you could run away from death, if you could move faster than death in some kind of special airplane or something, then the siddhas who have the five kinds of clairvoyance, they know death is coming ahead of time. So they could fly away, but they can't. Nobody can fly that fast.

PHYOGS KYANG, DE YANG PHRAD PA'I MI THAR BA SPYOD BAR GYUR LA But even those people died. Historically, all those people died. THOB KYI KYANG RDOG MI NUS TE Then powerful people die as well as sick people.

When I got to the small monastery in New Jersey, we had ten monks. Some were very strong, big guys, strong. There was one monk named Geshe Gelden.

He taught me Abhidharma. He's from China, Inner Mongolia. He taught me for many years.

He had tuberculosis. When he came to India, they cut out his lung. They held him down on a table and they cut out his lung.

One lung. So he was always like this. He'd teach like, And guess which monk died last?

Everybody thought he's going to die first. And then one by one, all these big monks died. I was with one monk.

He was very strong. Geshe Yom Pal. I used to live with him in his house.

One morning I came into the kitchen and he has his piece of toast. And he's like this. And I said, Geshe-la, he's like, Geshe-la.

Then I touch him. He was dead. He died with the toast like this.

Then body ran out. Karma ran out. He's eating his toast.

And then he died. Body was stuck like that. Try to get him in the ambulance.

Try to move the toast. Get the toast out of his hand. He was very strong.

He died first. So we don't know. Sometimes the sick people last for a long time.

I always take care of this old lady, right? Mrs. Hancock. Then the other day I was doing death meditation.

I said, maybe she outlived me. Who knows? Maybe I will die first.

She's very sick. She's very old. Then I don't know.

So they give the example of a lion. So lion. You see lions.

Singapore, Singa means lion, right? Singapore is the city of the lion. Singapur.

So you always see lion on Singapore money because it means strong. It means strength. But you have to meet a real lion to really understand how strong they are.

So we went to Mr. Wu's place in Xi'an. He keeps a lion there. A tiger.

A real tiger. Strong one. And I felt sad.

Mr. Wu, it's not very cool to keep a lion. He said, no, no, you don't understand. Somebody brought it from India and they were hurting it.

And I bought it to protect it. And I keep it in a cage. He keeps it in a huge cage.

And then he said, don't get near it. And you're like looking at it. And then he goes, blah!

And they're so strong. Their arms are like this. And the iron starts to break.

He's very powerful. So here they talk about a lion. LAM MO CHE DGOS BAR MO CHUNG BAR MO means your paw or your palm.

BAR MO Like when you measure, when you buy wheat in Tibet, you buy it by the BAR MO. So you always bring your biggest friend. They have a big BAR MO.

But when a lion BAR MO, when they strike an elephant on the head, they can kill it. With one strike, they can kill an elephant. Very powerful.

You have to meet a real lion someday. It's very frightening. If there's no cage, it's like you're dead.

You're just dead. Nothing can save you. NUS PA'I RTOGS YOD KYANG Even if you have that kind of power, CHU BA CHUNG SA NA BAR MO KHUNG But even the lion, when death comes, their BAR MO goes like this.

When you die, your... KUM means retract. Your hands retract.

What day it is? KYANG KUM Stretching and retracting. Like this.

That's a long story. KUM DE'I PHYI DRO Then even the lion has to die. When death comes, the lion's power doesn't help.

Death is more powerful. RTOGS LDAN GOR LUS RGYUR BA'I RGYAL PO YANG RTOGS KYIS MI PHAN PAR CI DGOS Then there are ancient kings called Chakravartin. CHAKRA means what?

Wheel. And Vartin means empowered by. There are special kings in ancient times.

They are called Chakravartin. And there are four kinds. You're going to learn it in Germany, in level eight.

Why? Because they are leaders. They are leaders of the world.

They are the example in Buddhism of leaders. So when we talk about... Level eight is about leadership.

We're going to start it in... We always start in Germany, first time. It's very interesting if you read about them in the Abhidharmakosha, third chapter.

Those wheels are what? They are spaceships. They are, what do you call?

Flying saucers. They can carry like 10,000 troops or 50,000 troops in one of them. That's how they control the world.

It means many thousands of years ago, people came to this world in spaceships, and they had spaceships, and they could control the whole world. And they were called wheel kings. So Buddhism has Chakravartins.

They are very special karma. So Buddhism believes that the people came here from another world in these ships. And you can read it in the Abhidharmakosha.

It's about 1700 years old. So they're very powerful. Their ships have unbelievable laser guns, and nuclear weapons.

But they still have to die. We can't find any of them alive now. They're all dead.

They're all gone. Even the spaceships are gone, and everybody's gone. DANG PO'I PHYI DGOS RANG GI RGYUD NOR MDZAD LA RGA' BA DER BAG NA PHYI BA DE NOR GYI LUR YOD PA'I TSOS TZAM BYAS KYANG Given that people are so interested in money in the world, you would think that money could be used to delay your death.

You could buy off death. If you came from another world, and you watched modern people, they have such obsession with money, you would guess... TSOS TZAM means you would guess that money must make you able to cheat death.

Maybe you can buy more lifetime. If you came from another world, and you said, why are these people so interested in money? Then you would think that, oh, maybe they can buy more life.

TSOS TZAM BYAS KYANG, GOR RGYUD KYI RGYAL PO NOR BU RIN PO CHE But even with a NOR BU RIN PO CHE, you cannot buy more lifetime. You cannot buy five minutes. There's no place in the world you can go and buy five more minutes of life.

It doesn't matter how much money you have. What's a NOR BU RIN PO CHE? DU MO RIN PO CHE, RUNG PO RIN PO CHE, LA MO RIN PO CHE, DA LTO RIN PO CHE, MA BANG RIN PO CHE, BDAG CUNG BU YOD BUM PA This is the Long Mandala, right?

And there are eight jewels. One of them is the jewel of the jewel. And it's like a super bank account.

But it doesn't help you when you die. Nobody can buy five more minutes. Somebody asked me in New York, can you come see my mother?

She's very famous. Her husband wrote The Sound of Music. Can you come see my mother?

She's dying. It was very, how do you say, poignant because she has all the money. She has unbelievable amount of money.

She had three or four nurses, full-time nurses. Fifth Avenue apartment. Big apartment.

Oxygen tanks in every room. Every room had oxygen lines. So she could walk to one room, breathe, then walk to the next room, breathe.

They said, can you help her? I said, no. I mean, I can do prayers.

It's Lindsay Krauss's mother. And we did prayers and left. And then she didn't die for another five years.

She just stayed like that. But you can't buy more time. You see what I mean?

It doesn't matter how much money you have. You can't buy it. That's why when you waste somebody's time, you are stealing something big.

When you waste other people's time. When you're late to class. If you're the teacher and you're half hour late to class, you waste 100 people's time, half hour.

You stole something big. So don't waste other people's time. Don't blah, blah.

They can't buy it back. They can't say I lost half an hour talking to Geshe Michael about internet stuff, about Facebook, what I saw on Facebook. At the end of my life, you can't give it back to me.

You took it. You took half an hour of my time. I can't give it back.

So you have to be careful how you... You can waste your own time, but don't waste other people's time. RGYAL PO LA DAM PA'I RDO LAS This is a sutra called Advice that Lord Buddha Gave to the King.

The sutra's name is Advice that Lord Buddha Gave to the King. This is sort of an allusion to one of the hell realms. He doesn't say it directly, but there's a hell realm called DUD SBYONG.

In that hell, you are born in a valley and there are mountains on four sides. Then every once in a while the mountains fall into each other and they squash everybody. They crush everybody.

The mountain... You have been there many times. When I talk about it, you have some memory of it.

Deep down inside you feel uncomfortable when I talk about it. Because you have been there many times. And the walls just come together.

The walls of the mountain come together and they crush people. Then they open again. And then the people body recovers and then they crush them again.

And they go through it thousands of times. And you've been there, you remember. Some part of you remembers.

That's why people get nervous in small spaces. PHYOGS SHES NA RIGS CHEN PO SA BA SA BA means very stone, pure stone mountains. BSTAN PA, strong.

GNYIS MO DANG BSTAN PA In the core of the mountain is even stronger stone. MA ZHIG PA MA RGYAS PA Nothing can destroy them. Nothing can crack them.

NYAMS PA MED PA, SHIN TU PHRAG PA Extremely, what do you call it? Tightly knit stone. PHRAG PA ZHIG TU THUB PA THUB PO Dense.

ZHI RNAMS LA RIGS BYING They touch the sky. And SANG DOG STE They can crush things between them. RTZA DANG ZHING DANG ZHING GAL PA When they move together, they crush the smaller plants, and then they crush the trees, and then they crush the trunks of the trees, and they crush the branches of the trees, and they crush the leaves of the trees, and then they crush the people, and the small animals, and then the humans.

They crush them. And even the spirits there, they crush them. BYUNG PO THAMS CAD CHE MA THAG means to dust.

They crush them into dust. CHE MA THAG CING DBONG BA LA NI RGYAL PA'I BRDOD PA'AM When that happens, you can't run away. There's no place to run.

You see these movies where the hero is getting crushed between two iron things? That comes from your memory. The writer of the movie was remembering.

DOG GI RDOG PA There's no place to run. NOR GYI RDOG PA You can't offer money to one of the mountains. TSE DANG TSE DANG SNGAGS Normally TSE means stuff or substance, But here it means like magic substance, like powder, magic powder.

It's called ZAD. SNGAGS means what? Mantra.

High tone means mantra. SNGAGS. Low tone means word.

You can do mantras and you can sprinkle magic. What do you call? Some Lama gave you some powders and it's not going to help you.

MEN means like super drugs, like Soma or Shada. MEN GYI RDOG PA LA BA NI MA YIN NO You can't stop it. You will die.

They will crush you. Who said that? Yeah, Buddha is talking to a king.

RGYAL PO CHEN PO. O king, DE BZHIN DU SBYUG PA CHEN PO ZHIG GIS BDAG'ON TE When the four mountains of life start to crush you, it doesn't matter how fast you run. It doesn't matter how strong you are.

It doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter if you have gold, silver, mantras, magic powders, special drugs. RDOG PA LA BA NI MA YIN NO You cannot stop those four mountains from crushing you in the middle.

Then what's he going to say next? ZHIG GANG ZHES NA What are the four? What is the name of these four mountains?

RGA BA Aging GNAS PA Illness CHI BA Death DGOS PA Problems DGOS PA means problems. The problems of your life. Those are four mountains surrounding you all the time.

RGA BA Aging GNAS PA Sickness CHI BA Death DGOS PA just means the troubles of life. RGYAL PO CHEN PO RGA BA NI DAG LA BAPA BYONG The purpose of age, old age, is to destroy your energy, your youthful energy. Every year that you gain more and more of your youthful energy is destroyed.

Just years destroy your energy. It's not that old people are lazy. Their energy got destroyed.

By who? By life. DAG LA BAPA BYONG ZHING DBANG NA BA NI GNAS MED PA BYONG Sickness destroys your body piece by piece.

Every time you get sick, a little bit of it stays. You can get better. You get over your cold or the diarrhea stops finally after nine days.

But there's some damage that's done to your body and you can't recover that. Your body gets a little bit older. Your body is damaged.

You never really recover completely. Every time you get sick again, it damages parts of your body and they never recover. GNAS MED PA BYONG DGOS PA NI PHUN TSOGS PA THAMS CAD BYONG Trouble means anytime you get something nice in this life, trouble will come.

You get a nice boyfriend, some trouble will come. Something will mess it up. You get a house.

You get a new house. You know YOD PA'I SDUG BSNGAL and MED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL? MED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL and YOD PA'I SDUG BSNGAL?

Trouble where you're getting something but you're not receiving it. No, it's the suffering of not having something and the suffering of having it. Scott told me some joke.

What was that? The happiest day in your life is when you get a swimming pool. The two happiest days of a boat owner's life is the day you buy it and the day you get rid of it.

Everybody wants a boat. Every man wants a boat. The happiest day is when you get it.

But the more happy day is when you get rid of it because it's just a lot of work. So you buy a new house. You finally save enough money.

You move in and then, I don't know, the next day something cracks or something's leaking and then starts the suffering of owning a house. Before that you have the suffering of not owning a house. But they're the same.

It's the same amount of trouble. So trouble comes to all things. New car, new house, new boyfriend, new child.

People get so excited when they have a child. And they should, right? Then the trouble starts.

My brother's daughter just had a child and I went to see the child a few weeks ago. I'm just looking at this kid and I'm like, he's so innocent and happy. And I'm like, will you be a murderer?

How many people will you hurt? How many disappointments will you have? What will the world be doing when you grow up?

What kind of wars? Will you live in a safe place or not? I don't know.

Who knows? America could change. We don't know.

I just look at him and I'm like, oh man, you got so much trouble ahead of you. So gupa, gupa means trouble. It's attracted by nice things.

BYOMS SHING, SPYI BA NI SOGS SBYOMS And then death destroys your life. When death comes it destroys your life. DE DAG LAS NI SBYOR PA'I GRUB PA'AM RTOG PA'I RTOG PA'AM You cannot run away from those four.

It doesn't matter how fast you run. RTOG PA'I RTOG PA'AM It doesn't matter how strong you are. It doesn't matter how strong you are.

GNOR GYI RTOG PA'AM You can't stop them with money. MDZA'I DANG SNGAGS DANG MED NAM Tantra, mantras, secret substances, doesn't help. ZHI BA LA BA MA YIN NO This ZHI BA means to stop them.

So don't get confused. This is ZHI BA. The others were ZHI BA.

So this ZHI BA means you cannot kill them, these four. ZHI BA Then I went and got you the original. It's a little bit different but it's mostly the same.

It's a little more detailed. We'll do one more little piece and then we'll take a break, okay? ZHES GSUNGS PA LTAR CHOG ZHIG NAS RI CHEN PO SA BA RGYUR PA ZHI TSUL RUB TSUL RUB means when the four mountains decide to come together and crush you.

TSUL RUB DE RTZA DANG ZHING SOGS MTHAL BA BYAS PA ZHING DBANG NA And it crushes even the... It crushes forests and stones and then people. THAB GANG GI KYANG RDOG PA DGA' BA ZHING You can't stop it.

DGA' BA DANG Aging RGU PA DANG Trouble SNGA BA Sickness ZHI BA Death These four RDOG DGA' BA Difficult to stop. Nobody can stop them. Nobody can stop them.

Then I finished what I was going to teach for the whole week but we went faster. I don't know why. Maybe because we didn't have translation.

Or the translation is at the same time. So I'm just going to keep going. We'll do some of...

We'll do some of DGA' BA DGA' BA and we'll just do more. So let's take a break there and we're going to start on the second reason why death is certain. We're going to start on the second reason.

What was the first reason? You can't stop it. You can pay money.

You can run. You can hide in the space. You can go on a submarine.

Death will find you. We'll go to number two next. If you need a number two, go.

We're on the second reason why death is sure. We're on the second reason why death is sure. Ready?

,RGYUD RTZE NYID PAR, ,TSE LA SNGON PAR MED CING, ,RDU BYED PAR MA BYAS PAR, ,YOD PAR BSAM PA NI, In English there's an expression, life is like a candle. It means when you are born the candle is lit and then every day it goes down, down, down, down. The second reason why death is certain is that it's always subtracting.

Every day you are losing. You are born with a debit card. Every day you live you are spending karma.

How many karmas? 65 per second. 65 good deeds per second you are losing.

You are using them up. That's why people get old. Is it possible not to die?

Yeah, how? Recharge your debit card. Keep recharging your debit card.

Because you were born with a debit card. You were born with like, I don't know, 10,000 life dollars. Then every day you live you are using up 65 per second.

But if you put more money in the credit card, the debit card, you can live forever. That's what Buddha did. That's what a Buddha does.

They reinvest the seeds. They get into an upward cycle. What's a downward cycle called?

Sansara. Upward cycle, I don't know. Buddhahood?

If you can make good karma faster than you are using it, you are not going to die. Is it easy? It's not easy.

Maybe. The first step is to understand the pen. Because your life is the same as the pen.

You just have to make more seeds. Tantra. Tantra is the only way to do it fast enough.

It's the only way to make enough new seeds not to die. It's the only way. So you have to study tantra later.

Is tantra part of Lam Rim? It is. At the end of the Lam Rim, there's tantra.

So we will do tantra at the end of the Lam Rim. It's part of the Lam Rim. So Lam Rim is cool because you have both open teaching and you have secret teaching in part of Lam Rim.

We're allowed to teach people tantra after they finish Lam Rim. So we will do part of the Lam Rim course. GYIS RTZA ZIN LA NUS PA MED PHYI BA LA NGES TE Death is definite because SNGA MA'I LAS KYI GANG PHANG PA DE LAS LHAG PA NUS PA NI CHUNG ZAD TZAM YANG MED Most people who didn't hear about the pen are using up their debit card and they're not adding any new seeds.

And then they must die. If you don't know how to recycle, if you don't know how to reinvest your seeds, then you will die. If no one taught you about the pen, you have to die.

PHANG PA DE NUS PA CHUNG ZAD TZAM YANG RGYAG TU MED PA RGYAG here means add. There's no way to add credit on your debit card. RGYAG TU MED LA SKYE GCIG RE RE ZHING CI DAG LA BYAS NYER BYAS NYER BYAR DU GRO BAR Every minute you live in this life, you are stepping closer to your death.

Generally, you are flying from Shanghai to San Francisco to Tucson or Phoenix. Generally, you are traveling everywhere. But on one way, you are walking directly towards death all the time.

Whether you're sitting in Mexico or you're flying around India, a part of you is walking straight towards death. Every minute you are one step closer. CHUN GZUGS LAS What's CHUN GZUGS?

GZUGS is avatara. GZUGS is? Charya.

Yeah, Bodhisattva Charya Avatara. Who wrote it? Yeah, Master Shantideva, famous book, Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

He's going to quote it. If we have time, we should study that book. It's unbelievable.

It's great. Super cool. Maybe in VIP programs or something, I don't know.

NYIN SEMS BDOD PA YANG MED PA TSE DI BDAG TU GOS GYUR ZHING NYIN SEMS BDOD PA means you can sleep at night, but your stepping towards death doesn't slow down at night. Day and night, you are stepping closer to death. Day and night, your feet are moving.

Doesn't matter whether you're sleeping or watching TV or sitting in the Dharma class. Part of you is walking towards death all the time. And your life is shrinking.

Your lifetime is shrinking. How much you have left, we don't know. Did you reach halfway?

We don't know. We don't know. Could be tonight.

Could be 20 years from now. We don't know. Better to get ready now.

If you know something's coming for sure, get ready. And then you don't have to worry about it. SNAN PAR GOS NAS YONGS MED NA Nobody's going to give you extra lifetime from someplace else.

No one's going to show up from... There's no Mr. Wu who's going to show up with extra lifetime and hand it out. There's nobody living in some country that has extra lifetime.

BDAG DAG CHI BAR CI MI RGYUR Why do you think you're some exception? Nobody can give you extra. SOM LAS DPER NA THAG NI KYANG PA LA SPOS NI GANG DANG GANG BCUG PA'I SPOS NI STING LA STUG PA LTAR MI RNAMS SOGS KYANG DE BZHIN NO So in Tibet they like to make carpets, Tibetan carpets.

We have a carpet factory at our monastery. If you watch them work, it's very interesting. They start with a ball of yarn and then they have a wolf and a...

Wolf and a wolf. Anyway, they go like this and then they go like this. And they have a big ball of yarn.

And they keep pulling the yarn and they make it into the carpet. The carpet is called your life. The carpet is called your life.

There's different pictures on the carpet. Oh, here she's born. Here she went to school.

Here she got married. Here she had kids. Here she got old.

And then the ball gets used up. The yarn gets used up and they make the last part of the carpet called your life. And that's where you die.

And then the yarn is... There's only so much yarn to make the carpet. Tapestry of your life.

And then it's finished. And the ball is finished. Every day there are new pictures on the carpet, but then someday the yarn is finished.

RGYAL CHOG RGYAL SANGS KYIS This is also RGYAL SANGS RGYAL TZAL, the seventh dharma. SKAD NAS SKAD CIG TZAM ZHIG BSDOD DBANG YANG MED PAR The moment you are born, the clock starts ticking. Nobody has any power to slow it down.

No one can say the clock should slow down. CI BDAG BZHIN RJE SBYUNG DU BANG ZAL GYIS RGYUG PAS You are not walking towards the Lord of Death. You are running.

Like those Olympic runner guys. You're not just walking towards the Lord of Death. You are running as fast as you can.

BANG ZAL means with great running ability. You are racing towards the Lord of Death. GSUNG PO ZER YANG PHYI BA'I LAM CHEN LA SPYOD DU Even right now if you say, are the people in this room alive, most of them who are not sleeping from jet lag, you can say, yeah, they're alive.

But actually you are on the Lord of Death's road already. The moment you were born, you were born on the road to the Lord of Death. Is this person alive in this room?

Yes. But they are walking on the road to death. Already they are half-dead.

Already they are half-dead. NYES CAN GSOS SAR GCIG PA'I SNANG SOGS DI RGYAL BA It's so sad to see the whole world like a criminal. Like in America they still have death penalty.

Very stupid. Very cruel. Because sometimes you make a mistake and you kill somebody by accident.

So better to keep them locked up for their life. But still in America they have a death penalty. You can still kill people.

So it's like you take them out. They don't allow you to make a photograph. I don't know why.

They don't allow people to watch it on TV. They take them out of their cell and they walk them to a special room and they kill them. We are all like that.

We are all on the way to the killing room. They don't want to show on TV the people they are taking them to the room to kill them. They never show it on TV.

They never show them killing them. There's a big problem now in the United States. It's illegal to make those drugs.

They buy them from India or other countries and they don't work sometimes. They kill them halfway and then they wake up. And then they have to use more.

Then they run out because it's illegal. To make the drug in the United States is illegal. Then they run out and the guy is not dead yet.

So they don't show on the TV. But they don't want to show leading the person to this special room. But we are all ready on the hallway.

We are all ready. They show us on TV but we are the same. Somebody is leading us to the poison room.

We are all the same. Then they shouldn't show any TV. If you are not going to show the person who is being led to the death room, you shouldn't show anybody because everybody is being led to the death room.

Okay, got it? Seventh Dalai Lama. ZHES GSUNGS PA BZHIN, SKYE NAS GSUNGS From the moment you are born, BYED BA'I SA to the place of your execution, UKH RE RE YUN TZAM YANG BDOD PA'I SKABS MED PA You cannot stop for a break.

It's not like... When they kill people in the United States, they give them a special breakfast. Probably it's Geshe Michael waffles.

But there is a custom in America. If they are going to kill you today, you get to have any breakfast you want. You can say, I want eggs, I want waffle, I want orange juice, fresh orange juice.

It's called... what's it called? Last meal.

You can have any meal you want and they will cook for you. So even those guys get to take a break. On the way to kill them, they give them a nice breakfast.

But we don't get it. We don't get a break. Every time you breathe, you are one step closer.

You can't say, I don't want to get closer to death. It doesn't matter. You take a breath or you don't take a breath, you are one step closer.

Every moment you are closer. And you cannot take a break. You cannot stop for breakfast.

There's no break. You go closer every minute. You don't get to take a break.

There's no vacation. There's no pause. You are going.

,LTA SPANG ZAL GYI RGYUD PA LAS KYANG, ,RGYAL PAR GYUR NAS GROR ZHIG, You are racing towards death faster than a horse on a racetrack. ,LTAR RGYUD PA'ANG NYAL SO BA CHUNG ZAD TZAM DOD, Even a horse on a racetrack can take a break. They can slow down and take some extra breath.

Even in John Brady's yoga class, when he's not looking, you can break the pose for a few seconds. You can take a break. Except he has an eye in the back of his head also.

But people who are alive, there's no break. You can't take a rest. You can't say, today I want to take a rest.

I don't want to get closer to death today. During the time you're in the retreat cabin, you are closer to death. In the monastery, yoga is secret.

You have to have special initiation, and then you can do it in your room, but you can't show people. If you go to Sarah, Pao went to Sarah, I don't know, but you never saw anybody doing Niguma Yoga. It's secret.

People do it in their room. And then there's a little club of people who are doing Niguma Yoga. And we know each other.

And you see them on the street, you're like, did you do any yoga? Yeah. One day my teacher came to me, my yoga teacher, secret yoga teacher.

He's also my logic teacher, which is strange or not. Then he said, did you do yoga today? I said, yeah, I did.

I did an extra half hour. I did an hour and a half. He says, you're one and a half hour closer to die.

I said, thanks a lot. I'm kidding. So even a horse in a horse track can take a break.

,DOD SRID KYANG, ,'CHI BA NI DGE CIG, ,CHI KYANG MI DOD PAR GYUG NAS, But we are running towards death without a pause. ,'ONG BA'I, ,SKYE CIG MA RE RE KYANG, ,CHI BA LA NI YIN DU GRO, Every minute that passes during the day, we are closer to death. We are closer to death.

,TSUM LAS, This is another collection of... It's a lojong. This one's a lojong.

,SPREN NA NGES PAR ZER PA DANG, ,KHONG PA GANG DANG GANG POR BA'I, ,SRED PA'I DUNG DU BSTAN PA LTAR, ,MI NGANG SOGS KYANG DE BZHIN NO, So he's talking about people who have been convicted and sentenced to die. NGES PAR ZER PA means those who have been convicted and sentenced to death. NGES PAR ZER PA means definite diers.

KHONG PA What's KHONG PA mean? Don't say meditation or I'll throw something at you.

[Speaker 2]
Convictuated.

[Speaker 1]
Convictuated. Not even that. This KHONG PA, with this spelling, NO ZA means to take a step.

So you have to learn. GONG PA means to meditate. KHONG PA with an S means to get used to something.

KHONG PA without an S means to take a step. The verb is POR BA. So KHONG PA means a step.

POR BA means to take a step. But literally POR BA means to reject something. Throw something away.

Like GNYIS BOR BA means what? Throw out the garbage. But it's the verb that's used for taking a step.

To throw a step. KHONG PA BOR BA GANG DANG GANG, every step you take, SRED PA'I GRUNG DU BSTAN PA LTAR you are getting closer to the execution room. There's a big problem in the United States.

They decided the drug is more humane. It's more kind to shoot the drug into somebody, but it doesn't work all the time. And there's no way to test it.

So sometimes they shoot you. They have five guys stand with a gun. Only one gun has a bullet in it.

So the guy doesn't know if they killed the guy or not. So they all aim at the person's head and they all pull the trigger at the same time. Because they don't want somebody to have bad dreams for the rest of their life that they killed somebody.

So you never know which person killed him. You see what I mean? MI NAM SOGS KYANG DE BZHIN NO Our life is like being led to the execution room.

All of us. We are already on the way. Somebody's leading us to the execution room.

ZHES GSUNGS PA LTAR LUGS GCIG GSOD PAR CI NA GOMS PA RIGS DU BZHIN YANG CI BA NYE BAR BZHIN I don't know. If you like to eat meat and you think it's stupid that they don't serve meat at these retreats, you should go to a slaughterhouse. You should visit a slaughterhouse.

You should go to one. There's one near here. I used to take my students there where they kill the cows.

First they put a hook here on this tendon. They put a hook through the foot. Then they pull it up upside down.

The cow is upside down. Then one guy has a knife and he slices here. First you have a gun.

It goes like that. It's a gun that... It's just for breaking the street.

There's a gun. At first you put it here and it goes boom. Then they're knocked out.

Then you put the hook on their leg. Then there's a chain and they go upside down. Then one guy cuts the throat and all the blood goes whoosh.

He does that all day. All day long he does that. He's covered with blood all day.

What's her name? Carola's friend in Argentina. Her main helper.

Her husband does it. Her husband does that for a living. All day long he just slits the throat and covered with blood all day long.

If you see it once you will never eat meat. You should go. Then they found out why we're doing it.

They won't let us go anymore. They won't let us go. Somebody took a video and they got angry.

So they don't let us go anymore. But if you see it once you won't eat meat. I think that when you order a steak in a restaurant they should bring a cow and tie it to your table and give you a big knife and say, you kill it, we'll cook it.

Then nobody will eat meat. Anyway, in Tibet and places like that they take the sheep one by one and they take them into the room and they kill them one by one. For 50,000 years human beings have...

They got the most calm sheep from 50 sheep and that's the father of the next generation. So they pick the most... What do you call it?

The sheep who's not going to fight. And each generation they take the sheep which is most cooperative. And the same with cows.

So for 50,000 years people took the most happy calm cow and that was the one they used to make the babies. So for 50,000 years they made animals who are too friendly and too happy to fight when you kill them. You see what I mean?

They are trained to be calm. And so they can watch them. The first sheep gets his throat cut and the next one's like...

They can't think to try to run away or something. LUS GCIG GSOS BSAGS PHYI NA When you're leading the sheep to the place of killing BSKOM PA RE RE ZHING YANG PHYI BA NYE BAR BZHIN Every step they take they are closer to their death. RANG BYAG KYANG SKYES NAS GSUNGS Starting with the moment we were born PHYI BA LA GCOG BYED SHAR RGYAGS SHAR RGYAGS means we are headed straight towards death.

So you take detours in your life, right? You move to California. You move to Guadalajara.

You go from Guangzhou and you move to Singapore. So you are moving like this around the world. But actually the moment you are born SHAR RGYAGS means you are stepping directly towards death.

You're not moving anywhere. It doesn't matter how many places with beaches like Thailand that you move to. You are going directly to death.

You're not going south, east, north. Every moment you are on a straight line to death. SHAR RGYAGS MIN GRO BA'I DUS MED There is no moment when you are not stepping.

Even when you are asleep at night, you are stepping closer. SNGAR TSE CI TZAM SONG ZIN PAS LHAG PO NI SHIN TU NAS MYUNG ZHING The time you have left is not much. Most of us have used up most of our lifetime.

Most of us have used up most of our lifetime. Oh Geshe-la, all the people over 60 have used up more of their lifetime. You can't say that.

There could be 25 year old people in this room who will die before us 60. When you get to 60, you are much wiser than other people. But how much time is left for each of us, we don't know.

The youngest person in here could die first. We don't know. There is no rule.

There is no rule. It could be the youngest. Somebody in here will die first.

Next time in October we will say, Oh, so and so died. We don't know who it is. Somebody in this room may die before October.

We don't know. It could be the youngest person. The time you have left, SHIN TU NAS MYUNG, is not much compared to what you have used up already.

DE YANG UKTANG CHOS TSOD ZHAG LTA BA BLO SONG BA'I TSE That time that you have left is shrinking every BLO, every year, every LTA BA, every month, every ZHAG, every 24 hours, every CHOS TSOD means hour, and every UK, every breath you take, you are cutting into the time you have left. The time you have left is not much, and every breath it's cutting less and less. The time you have left is getting smaller and smaller.

Every time you take a breath, the time you have left is getting smaller and smaller. SONG BA'I TSE CING This ZAD, normally ZAD is the honorific verb for to do, like ZAD PA CHU NI is the 12 Deeds of the Buddha, but with an AO prefix. Maybe that's a dictionary entry, Adam.

AON ZAD DAT ZAD It sounds like the verb to do, ZAD PA, because it's prenasal, but in this case it means to be used up. It's used for the rubber on the bottom of your shoes, or on a tire. ZAD PA It means worn out, used up.

TSE CING SNYING GCIG DA NI ZHI REN SONG And then one day it's time to go. One day it's time to go. ZHI REN SONG means it's time to die.

REN means time. It's time to die. BRAL REN DUG Time to go.

ZER BA ZHIG BLO BUR DU'ANG And nobody expects it. Somebody says, okay, this is it. This is your last day.

And you're like, whoa, wait a minute. I was going to do some... I have some projects I didn't finish.

In Shantideva it says, DE NI MA BYAS DI BYAS BYAS BLO BUR DU NI PHYI DAG NI MA'I DANG NI BLO DOL PA BZHIN It means death comes and people say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no. I'm halfway through writing a book. Do you understand that?

I have a project. I have my project. My project is not quite done yet.

Give me another hour. Give me another couple days. It doesn't matter.

BLO BUR DU PHYI BLO BUR DU'ANG It comes suddenly. DBONG BA'I PHYI MI'ONG SNYAM DU BLO BDE MO'I BDOD PA'I Even if you're sitting there thinking you're not going to die today, BDOD PA'I GNAS MED You can't stay. There's no way you can stay.

THA NA NI NGAL SKABS RANG RES LOD DER NI GAL BYED KYANG Even those people who are laying down in a peaceful, sweet sleep, SREG CI DE LA DKA' DE NAS They are running towards the Lord of Death. Like you come into a room and you see a child on a bed and they look so innocent and they look so beautiful and they are sleeping very quietly. But they are not.

They are running towards the Lord of Death. During the time they're on the bed sleeping peacefully, they are running straight to the Lord of Death. Full speed.

They are running full speed. RGYUGS TE DRA BA GSUM How many reasons for why death is definite did we have so far? Two.

So far we did two. What was the first one? Yeah, you can't stop it.

It doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter where you stay. And it doesn't matter how strong your yoga is.

When it's time, it's time. What was the second one? You can't control it.

Yeah, just think of a candle. Dennis is right. Just think of a candle.

Every moment you are losing. So when you think of the second reason, it's like you can think of a candle. The first reason is the last meditation you have on your paper.

What's the picture? What's the last picture? Yeah, amazing.

Two ladies doing amazing yoga. We call it acro yoga, right? Why do we have that picture?

Yeah, they're both dying while they're making muscles. They're both dying. If you spend one hour in yoga, you're one hour closer to dying.

They are very strong. They are very fit. They are very skinny.

And they are dying. It doesn't matter. So now, because we went super fast and you were so cool to sit here so patiently, we reached meditation 15.

You have to add it to your own paper. I wasn't supposed to get this far. What is meditation 15?

Death is certain because... It's the second reason. Meditation 15 is the second reason.

Yeah, so you draw a candle. Put meditation number 15 and draw a candle. Scott can find one online somewhere.

Just draw a candle. Maybe you can put a baby sleeping in the bed very peacefully. Same thing.

Same thing. So now, because you guys were so... because you weren't fidgeting in class and you were so patient, I kept going.

Usually I would give people another break. So we're going to add a meditation, number 15. It's a candle.

Now we're ready for number 16, which is the third reason why death is definite. You ready? RGYUD RTZEN GSOS PA GSOS PA'I TSE YANG, SPYOD BYA SLONG MED PAR MNYAD PAR CI BA BSAM PA NI Even in the time you have left, you won't have time to do much practice.

If you have five years left, you have three years left, you have ten years left, even if you decide to practice, you will find out there's not enough time. If you have ten years left, you have twenty years left, and you get spiritual and you decide to try hard, you will discover that time melts away very fast. You don't have time.

You think you have time, but you don't have time. Why? TSE BZHIN DU MTHUNG BA'I DE RING LA'ANG, SPYOD BYA SLONG MED PAR CI BA LA THUG SGROL TE Even if you have a lot of time left, you will discover that you can't make much time for practice.

Why? BLO GRUG CU TZAM BSDOD PA'I DBANG DU GTANG NA If you say that the normal human being lives 60 years, SEMS MED CHAR KUN DU MNYAL BA'I ZAD PHYED GA NI MNYAL BA'I ZAD You lose half of that 60 years sleeping at night. So we take a human life, 60 years, getting ready for bed, feeding yourself, etc.

It takes half the day. All the feedings, all the dressings, all the buying clothes, all the buying groceries, all the sleeping time. Cut 30 years right away.

How much time do you have for practice? Cut it by half. Because you got to sleep, you got to eat, you got to take a shower, I hope.

SGROL TE SEMS MED CHAR KUN DU MNYAL BA'I ZAD ZIN GSUM CHUNG PO DE'ANG If you take the 30, SREG SA BAR YON SOGS PAR BYED NA If you take out all the time you need to cook your food and get ready and blah, blah, blah. Grocery shopping. SREG SA BAR BYED NA If you cut that time, TZAM DE NI MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR LTA BU BYAS NA'ANG CHOS BYA LA BLO NGA LAS MED So say, MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR SPYOD LAS MNYAL BA DANG PAS GSUNG BZHIN GRUB PAR CING GIS BLO This is the last part of the three principle path.

MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR What's MNYAL SBYOR? Yoga practice. But here it means tantric practice.

What's MTHUN ZHIG? What's MTHUN GRUB? MTHUN GRUB is six times.

What's MTHUN ZHIG? Four times. So when you do a tantric retreat, like the three-year retreat that these guys did, every day is divided into four parts.

Every day you have four sessions of practice. In a tantric three-year retreat, or one-month retreat, or two-week retreat, we will teach you at the end of the lam rim how to do a MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR. And it's at the end of the...

Oh, sorry. MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR CHOS BYA LA MNYAL BAR DANG PAS GSUNG BZHIN GRUB PAR CING GIS BLO May I practice the four periods? The yoga of the four periods.

So we'll teach you later how to do the yoga. When you do a tantric retreat, you're supposed to do one session before dawn, and then you're supposed to do one session by noon, and then you do one session around the evening, and then you should do one session during the night. These are called four sessions.

MTHUN ZHIG MNYAL SBYOR LTA BU'I BYED NA'ANG CHOS BYA LA BLONG RNGUB If you add up all the years of a 60-year human life which are available to do your four tantric periods every day, there's only five years. A normal human being who really wants to do tantric practice, they will discover that out of 60 years, only five years is available for deep practice. That's all you really have.

If you live for 60 years, which is not sure, you really only have five years to practice. The rest is wasted. Cooking, eating, pooping, shower, sleeping, reading Facebook.

If you cut out all the stuff you have to do to live, make money, you only have five years out of your whole life to practice. If you add up all the time, it's only five years. BLO SNGA LAS MED That's all you have, five years.

RANG CHAGS BLO TSAR BRTZAD PA NA In Tibet and in China, New Year's is a big thing. New Year's is a big deal. According to the moon calendar, right?

Not the Roman calendar. So when it comes New Year's, everybody celebrates. First month of the year, February.

In February, there's one month celebration. You go see your family. You take everybody's gifts.

In Tibet, you have to eat a lot of YOD CHOBS TSAD. BRTZEN DEL AA MA ZHIG YIN ZER Everybody says, it's so wonderful, the New Year is starting. BRTZEN DEL here doesn't mean dependent origination.

It means, oh wow, this is so cool. The New Year is here. People from Singapore write me and say, Geshe-la, will you do a video for the New Year?

Then I'm supposed to say something happy about the New Year. BRTZEN DEL AA MA ZHIG YIN ZER RGA LTON CHE RGA LTON CHE means everybody celebrates on New Year. In America also, you drink champagne and get a headache.

DE NAS MNGON LAM CHEN MO'I DU CHEN SOGS Then in the following months in Tibet, you have the MNGON LAM CHEN MO'I, you have the Great Prayer Festival. So every month you have a big holiday, like Easter or Christmas. In America you have these holidays.

Working people love them because you get three days off. I used to be so excited when I got three day holiday. ZHIG YIN RGA LTON CHE So every month has its own little celebration.

Maybe it's your birthday, maybe it's your anniversary, but every month has a few days of Thanksgiving. There's some... TSE CHU There's some excuse to have a party.

And you get all busy. In America you have to make cookies, you have to cook turkey, you have to eat a lot of food. Who was that?

Who did Thanksgiving with us this year? It was Stanley and Allison? Allison.

We did Christmas. We did real Christmas. We made them eat like for two days.

Then we went to visit the old people and we sang Christmas songs to them. So every month has a holiday. Something to mark the month.

And then suddenly the year is over and it's New Year's again. Okay? See what I mean?

I know many women, they have large families. In America it's mainly the woman's job to celebrate people's birthday or cook for the holiday. I have some friends who say, it's so terrible.

I finish the kid's birthday, then it's time to make New Year food. I finish the New Year food, then it's time to do my anniversary. Then I finish the anniversary and then my other kid is having a birthday.

And I'm cooking all the time. Then the year is finished. Years go like that.

Years just go like that. There's a lot of ladies, when they have a big family and when they finish breakfast they have to start cooking lunch. When they finish lunch they have to start cooking dinner.

There's no break. Life is like that. Then suddenly the kids are gone and you're all, and you're alone.

It goes like that. CHEN MO'I SA SRED LA YANG LA DOR SRID TZAM SRID TZAM means like that. Life just goes like that.

The whole year goes like that. Suddenly it's New Year's again. 2017.

Geshe-la has to make another video. By the way, I enjoy making videos. It's fun.

Don't worry about it. GUNG MTHA' RIM PA BYAS This is a famous Lama who we are inputting nowadays. He's next on the list.

GUNG MTHA' RIM PA BYAS He's one of the Lamas we are typing in right now. NYAM LEN CHE RGYU MA BRTAN GNYIS ZHUGS BRTEL I love this verse. I don't know.

I never forgot it. Some of the things RIM PA BYAS said stuck in my mind. Some things are NYAM LEN CHE RGYU MA BRTAN GNYIS ZHUGS BRTEL PHYI LTA'I PHYIR DU SNGAGS LA GNYIS ZHUGS BRTEL MA CHUNG MA CHUNG ZER ZHING ZHUGS LHAG BRTEL MI TSE STONG PA SRAS PA'I RNAMS THAR YIN He says, you want to know the story of my life?

It's STONG PA. GONG ZHING It's empty. It's nothing.

You want to know the story of my life? GONG It's nothing. Why?

NYAM LEN CHE RGYU MA BRTAN GNYIS ZHUGS BRTEL I spent 20 years as a young stupid person. Everybody under 20 is stupid. You know that.

In America, they did this psychology thing. They found out people under 20 die of accidents more than anybody because they're so stupid. They go fast on motorcycles and they do bungee jumping.

They think they're never going to die. They think they're immortal. And the death rate by accident among people younger than 20 is very high.

In the United States, it's the highest death rate because they do stupid things. So up to 20, you're too stupid to think about dharma. You just think about boys and clothes.

Very few people under 20 get spiritual, except for DANG, who start at 15. But before 15, you didn't do anything either. So up to 20, everybody's stupid.

Anybody over 20 knows that. So I wasted my first 20 years doing dangerous, stupid things or combing my hair for my boyfriend. BYAS RDOG BYAS RDOG SNGANG LAS GNYIS ZHUGS BRTEL The next 20 years, I was getting ready to practice.

I was like, I got to practice. Someday I have to practice. The first 20 years I spent my life too stupid to realize I have to meditate.

The next 20 years, I was making excuses why I didn't meditate. I was making excuses of why I'm going to practice next week. That's how I spent my second 20 years.

This is called the empty life of Gungthang Rinpoche. This is the story of my life. MA BYUNG MA BYUNG SRER BZHIN GCU LHAG BRTEL I spent more than 10 years at the end regretting that I didn't do anything.

So 20 plus 20 plus 15 is 55. I spent 20 years too stupid to practice Dharma. The next 20 years, I delayed.

Then the last 15 years, I was thinking, oh, that's a pity I didn't do anything. I'm sorry I didn't do anything. So how many years?

55. I know somewhere in there he did five years of practice. That's a very famous quotation.

People spend their first 20 years too stupid to meditate. People spend the next 20 years too busy to meditate. People spend the last 20 years regretting that they didn't meditate.

Then it's done. That's the whole life. STONG PA KHONG Empty life.

That's how to spend 60 years. If you think it takes a long time, talk to some of us older people. I don't know.

When I was 20, they said, don't trust anybody over 30. There's a Beatles song. When I'm 64.

That's next year. No, anyway. GSOS PA DAG DANG PO'I PHYI PA'I TSE CHOS MI BRTAN GSOS PA DAG We got seven more minutes, so hang in there.

I'm just going. Let's just do it. PHYI PA'I TSE CHOS MI BRTAN PHYI PA means when you're a young person.

CHOS MI BRTAN You don't think about dharma. There's no reason to think about dharma. Somebody say, oh, you're going to die tomorrow.

You're like, come on, man. I'm 18. People don't die when they're 18.

DE'I RJES SU CHOS CES BSDOD CHUNG BA NANG Then the next 20 years you're thinking to do some dharma, but CHOS DGOS CHOS DGOS SNYAMS NAS BLAG LAS MA SKYE BA But you never have time because you're too busy with your life. Making money, starting a family, getting a house. You're too busy.

You keep saying you're going to do it, but you're too busy. From 20 to 40, you're too busy. You're always going to do it next week.

CHOS MI YONGS RGYAS ZIN NAS Then after 40 and you're already too old and you can't think straight after 40, right? I think so. RGYAS ZIN NAS BYIS MA SMON LAM BDAG BDAG PA LAS Then people start to get...

They get this kind of religious. OM MANI PADME HUM Because they can't meditate anymore. They can't study anymore.

They're too old. They just do prayer. OM MANI PADME HUM The older they get, the more they do the prayer.

Because so many people died around them. They're like, oh my god, I better do some prayers. You want to study Dharma?

No, no, I'm too old. I can't understand what Geshe Michael talked about. It's just a pen.

I don't understand what he's talking about. Try to teach old people. It's hopeless.

After 40, very difficult. Sorry. BYIS MA SMON LAM BDAG BDAG PA LAS Tantra also you have to practice while you're fairly young.

It's better. It works better. DGE BZIN NAS PHYI MA SMON LAM BDAG BDAG PA LAS BDAG CHUNG MA SONG LAS here is comparative.

All you can do is do simple prayers. Nothing more than that. LAS, T-H-A-N CHUNG MA SONG means, oh, I blew it.

CHUNG MA SONG means I blew it. I blew it. I should have done a three-year retreat when I was younger.

It's too late now. I should have done those retreats. I should have done one of those.

Now I'm too old. I got too many responsibilities. Like that.

MA SONG SHES CI BYAR MED PA CHUNG Then there's nothing you can do about it. It's too late. Okay, four more minutes.

Hang in there. DE LA BDAG DAG DGA' ZHIG NI, CHOS BYED DO BYED DO GNYENGS PA'I SNGAGS NAS YANG BA DANG DGA' ZHIG NI, CHOS MA CHUNG ZER NI, RGYUD PA BYED PA'I DUS LA LAS RTZA BA MANG PO YOD PA So basically, there's only two kinds of adults in the world. Half of them are making excuses why they can't do their practice.

And half of them are too old to practice. Half of them are saying, oh, I don't have time to practice. Half of them are saying, oh, god damn, I should have practiced when I was younger.

It's too late now. You can divide all the adults into two. Forget the kids.

Forget people under 20. They're hopeless. You can tie them up and teach them Dharma.

They won't hear anything. Somebody asked me, you want to meet young Rinpoche? In my heart I said, not till he's 20.

Of course I have to say, oh yes, I want to meet Rinpoche. But actually in my heart I'm like, when he's 20 I'll talk to him. I don't want to talk to him before he's 20.

He's just going to play. He's going to eat candy for 20 years. Okay, so I met him.

By the way, after I met him, I think we were all high for like two days. I don't know about you, but he is magical. He is magical.

You should meet him. He's just a little kid. How old is he?

Six? Eight? But if you meet him, you feel like...

Afterwards you feel happy like you met the Buddha. So if you get a chance, you should do it. Because probably you did meet the Buddha.

,CHE ROL NYAMS PA'I SNGAG NAS YANG BA DANG, ,'GA' ZHIG NAS, ,RANG REG DE DAG MTHONG BA NA, ,DE LA LA SKYEN BRTAG PAR DU LTAR ZHING, When you see these two kinds of adults in the world, half of them saying, I don't have time to practice Geshe-la. I'll come to the next retreat. All the people who didn't come to this retreat, they lied to me.

And I don't like it. I'm not stupid. I also used to lie to my...

I mean anyway. Then somebody like, I'm too busy. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Somebody told me I have to go to a wedding and I found out what they really went to. And then somebody else told me they have to do some business stuff and they went to Tucson to move furniture for somebody and stuff like that. And just tell me the truth.

Or don't tell me anything. So they're too busy. So when you see those people, it should inspire your practice.

It should make your practice stronger. Okay, here's somebody making stupid excuses why they cannot come to a priceless opportunity to become a Buddha. Then when you see them, in your mind you can't criticize them directly.

They might be a Buddha already. We don't know. But as an example you should say, I don't want to be like that.

I don't want to be like that. And then the other half of the people, what? Geshe-la, I'm too old.

There's two students who used to come to all the retreats. They helped build this place. And the wife had a stroke recently.

She had a stroke. And she can't think so clear anymore. And they called me, they said, we can't come this time.

She can't sit in the class. It's too... So when you see people like that, half of the people say, Geshe-la, I don't have time to come.

I have a really important thing to do. Like move furniture from my friend. And then the other half say, I can't come anymore.

These people came to class since 1990. They are coming to class for how many years? 26 years.

And then this year they couldn't come because she had a stroke. So you look at those two groups of people. One of them, I don't have time.

The other of them, it's too late. And then when you see those people you say, okay, god damn, I'm going to do it. I'm going to really do it.

I'm not going to be like them. I don't mean judge the people, but judge the activity. Maybe they're Buddha.

We don't know. Maybe they're moving furniture for the Buddha. I don't know.

,LTA BZHIN GNYIS MA REN PAS NAS, ,CHOS BYED BLO MED PA'I BRTOD MED PA'I, ,BYA BA GAL CAN REN, ,GZUN NAS MI BRDOD PAR, Don't make useless jobs for yourself. Don't make up new reasons to be too busy to practice. So at least don't start new stupid projects that don't do anything.

I was going to learn to play classical guitar because that guy who came last time here, I heard him in a restaurant. I said, can you teach me to play like that? He says, yeah.

I pay $75 an hour and he teaches me. I quit after like three days. I said, either I can learn this guitar or I can meditate.

But I don't have time to do both. So don't make new stupid projects for yourself. Before you start a project, decide whether you want to do it or not.

I don't mean playing guitar is stupid. If you play guitar with the right attitude, it's an offering to Buddhas. That's great.

But before you start a new project or you say, I want to learn French or something. You know how many times I quit learning French? I think five or six.

Bengame, I drove him crazy. We started like five times. Then suddenly I'm like, why the hell are you learning French, Geshe-la?

You can use Google Translate. Why are you wasting your time? So don't make new reasons not to practice.

Don't make new projects that don't mean anything. Then you have a project to feed. Candy's doing a project.

Where is that? Candy's doing a cool project. It's to feed the kids at...

Do you have a hard drive, a disc drive thing? Anyway, when we went to India, I didn't have time to go to the monastery. Actually, I don't have anything to do there really.

You guys are learning better than they are, I think. So I'd rather spend my time with you. But I did see my teacher, Geshe-la Thar.

He took a six-hour drive to see us in a place called Bangalore. We had a nice day together. We were sitting in the room and Geshe-la gave us a teaching and I translated.

Then they said, do you have any questions? Hasom and Orit started asking questions. There were two Geshes there.

Two guys. They just finished their Geshe exam and they are doing the six-year course for the super Geshe exam. They are halfway through the super Geshe exam.

Those two tall monks. They are like super Geshes and Orit and Hasom beat them into pain. It was so cool.

They were asking the questions and the Geshes were like, I was really happy. You guys are learning better than some of those guys, to be honest. You are learning better than them.

If you could speak Tibetan, you could give them a real good debate. It was a cool debate. I was having fun.

It lasted like two hours and Hasom was giving them a real hassle. We should change his name to Hasom. The Geshes were nervous.

I like it. Anyway, they are helping with the kids in the monastery, the small kids. They come to the monastery when they are five years old or seven years old and we built a school for them.

I built a school for them with my diamond money many years ago, like 25 years ago. They have a nice school but they don't have food. They don't have enough food for the kids.

In my time, I made a promise. Every kid, every morning, will get a glass of milk, an egg, a piece of bread, and an apple. I made a promise.

As long as I have my diamond job, every kid, every morning, will get a glass of milk, egg, an apple, and some bread. The two Geshes told me, we were there. We were kids in the school when you built the school.

That's why we are so tall. Thank you. They thanked me.

They said, that's why we are Geshes. They are taller than me. They said, thank you.

The other monk, Jampa, he was before that and he didn't get the food. That's why he is so short. He is like, you know.

Anyway, I asked Candy, I asked Candy, I don't know, last year, I said, can you get enough money for apple, egg, milk, every morning for the kids? She is doing this project, both of them. They are getting food for the kids.

But it's so cool to meet a guy who says, I'm six foot, I'm like two meters tall because of you. Thank you. Thanks for the egg, thanks for the milk.

It's so cool. Their mind is stronger because they had good food. They are really good Geshes.

I mean, they are not as good as you, but they are okay. If they get some food, they can think clearly, they can become Geshe, they can teach people in the future. They will go somewhere like Australia or Germany and they will teach people.

If you like, talk to Candy, two of them, and help them. Just help them. They are just quietly buying eggs and milk.

All right? The school is there. The school is built.

But they need food. They need food for the kids. And it's a shame to have a kid who doesn't get enough food and then they can't develop, their mind cannot develop strong.

So it's good. It's not a lot of money. Egg in India is very cheap.