«Дар освобождения», курс 27 «Четыре цветка», занятие 4

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we're going to try the whole lion's dance. Okay. Start on the ground floor, zero, with the air conditioner.

By the way, the two air conditioners are here, and if you sit in front of them, you should wear a sweater or a coat. We can't turn them off because the people in the back will get hot. So, you know, if you tend to get colds easily, you shouldn't sit in front of these two, okay?

You should sit in the back. And then, but if we turn them off, the people in the back fall asleep, okay? Then they snore and it causes problems.

So, if you sit in front of these two, put something warm on, okay? So, ground floor, zero, air conditioner. And then we'll go through the eight, four, four formless realm meditations.

Don't stop there, okay? It's just the elevator to the restaurant. Okay, then the restaurant's on what floor?

Ninth floor. Tenth floor if you're in Europe. Then, it's important to know.

Then we'll get out on that floor. What's the first thing at that floor? Yeah, pick some good quality of your teacher.

Why don't we start with their bad qualities? Yeah, I mean, it's not something you want to meditate about, okay? It's true, you see some bad things.

Every teacher, you see some bad things. Geshe Michael picks his nose in the car. And you don't, but it doesn't enlighten you to try to find the cause for that.

So, stick with the good quality. So, find a good quality of your teacher. Then second?

Yeah, watch it coming out of the seats, okay? And then third, we're going to spend more time on the third one. Why?

You have to write a story, like Titanic movie. Okay, so make it interesting story, okay? Don't say, oh, I must have been nice and stop.

Okay. All right, like work hard on the story. Write a screenplay for the movie, okay?

Don't be lazy, okay? Don't stop. Keep adding stuff.

Any thought that comes to your mind, you can use. Because that's also coming from your seats, okay? So, any thought you ever have is coming from your seats, right?

So, just follow it. And watch the image come, you know, old car, 1920 car. Oh, yeah, I was in a 1920 car.

And then gangsters came, and then, okay, follow the pictures, okay? Then what? Yeah, what did we call it yesterday?

BUBU LAMA Yeah, I'm sure that's going to be an important Buddhist word in the future. BUBU LAMA means, okay, then bring the impossible Lama in front of you, okay? Ask the other one politely, okay?

Respectfully say, could you sit over there? And then bring the fake one, which is not coming from you, okay? Bring the Lama which is not coming from you, okay, to your mind.

And then try really hard to feel how wrong that is, okay? Try to feel how wrong that is, okay? I don't know, just completely wrong.

It should feel wrong. And sit with it for a while and cancel it, okay? Then at that point, it's like mystical, okay?

That's your problem. I can't teach you, okay? Somehow you have to cancel that Lama and go into that space, okay?

So you have to cancel the Lama who's impossible. And you don't bring the other Lama back. You try to go into that space and try to make it direct staying in that space, okay?

It's almost like you were sitting, you got on the bus and there's a really fat guy on the or you got on the subway and there's a really fat guy and then he left, and then the seat is empty and you can sit there, okay? It's like that, okay? And that I can't teach you.

You just have to try, nothing happens, try a different way, see if something happens, and try to stay in that space, okay? And it only lasts for a few seconds. And then you start thinking about, well, what am I supposed to do now?

You know? And then come back to the space or come back to the bubu Lama or come back to the real Lama and then go to the bubu Lama and then go to the space. And try not to see the space, try to be in the space, okay?

Like that. It's like the difference between watching the heart and being in the heart, okay? All right?

And from there you're on your own, okay? But if you can stay in that space directly, then something happens to you and you will become a Buddha quickly. It's weird, okay?

The silver seeds don't do the same thing. That's dependent origination, okay? The space, the place where there's no bubu Lama, that has power.

And something will change in you. And I, you know, recently in my... I've been watching videos of my students teach and I've been watching videos of my grand students teach.

There's even some great grand students. And they're really good. Jigme gave a talk in Sedona.

It was awesome. And I was watching a lot of people teach and then I'm like, hey, this actually might work. Maybe they all become Buddha in my lifetime, you know?

I was like, wow, that's really good. Yesterday Kendra gave a talk. It was awesome.

And so I'm, I start to think maybe we can do it. So, before I thought it's impossible. You know, so, so try, okay?

Flirt with that space, try to go into it, sit next to it, sit on it, sit under it. Try to find emptiness, okay? From there you're on your own, but you have to be curious and happy and relaxed.

Don't get all like, oh, I can't understand it. Okay, like try six different ways. See what happens, okay?

And meditation in Sanskrit means, bhavana means gom, right? In Tibetan, gom. It means, you have to practice, you have to get used to it, okay?

If you play tennis, you're not a good tennis player on the first day, okay? It's not possible. So, keep trying, keep coming back to it and you will just do a little bit every day.

I would like to start an English WhatsApp group for doing the lion's dance every day. It goes well for 30 days. Then I try to extend it to 60 days.

It goes pretty good. Then people all drop out. I'm the only one in the group now.

But that's okay. But I think we should try it after this retreat, okay? We can, of course, because you're not going to use the internet during the next week, right?

Don't use the internet in your cabin. You can use it down here. Don't use it in your cabin.

You will get some weird vibrations in your cabin. It's not good for meditation, okay? It will hurt your meditation, okay?

All right, let's go. You ready? Clear your throat.

If you have to look in a bag, look in the bag now. Okay, if you, something you want to look for, do it now. Okay, good.

If you feel cold, it's good to put your hands like this when you meditate. If you feel hot, you can go like this and then air comes under here and you can pay attention better, okay? So this meditation is very easy because you don't have to try to focus your mind.

You just listen to the air conditioner. And glue your mind to the air conditioner. When I say glue your mind, I mean listen to it and then get into it.

It's called vikalpa and vittarka. tok dang chukpa tsing shib ni in the Abhidharma. Just notice it and then start to get into it.

Then please come to the sound of your heartbeat, or the feeling of your heartbeat, your pulse. Relax. Stay happy.

Don't fight. Light and free and enjoy. Don't fight with your mind.

If you were watching your heart, compared to watching your heart from outside the heart, it would be more quiet, more peaceful, to be inside the heart. Drop this rough awareness of the air conditioner and drop the more subtle awareness of the heartbeat from the outside, which is called vikalpa and vittarka. And then move into the heartbeat.

And I like to picture myself inside the heart, like I'm sitting in a small car or something and the whole heart is beating around me. Become the heartbeat. Compared to being in the heartbeat, it would be more quiet if I weren't there, if I were detached from the heartbeat and the heart was beating by itself and I've just removed myself.

Especially no feelings of about the heartbeat, just heart beating by itself. Remove the me from that. Let the heart beat by itself.

In a vacuum, there's no other things around, and it's just the heart beating. Third form realm level, third concentration level. Now we try to focus the mind more, and more a sense of single-pointed.

And it's a lot like a laser. So if you want to tighten your focus, it's useful to change the object to something very, very tiny, very small. So we're going to go from the third form realm level to the fourth.

And to do that, we tighten the focus especially. And at the same time, we drop the all sensation of the body. So drop your body almost like some doctor gave you a shot, like the kind that the dentist, the kind that the dentist gives you before you have surgery on your teeth.

So imagine someone shot medicine into your body and the whole body is numb. You can't feel any physical feeling. And the mind, you are left with the mind.

We're going to focus it by, like a laser, by putting the mind into a tiny space and think of a whole cup of white sugar, and then take a single grain of sugar out of that cup of sugar, and put that white grain of sugar in the middle of your mind. I like to see it in the middle of a darkness, so there's nothing else in the room. It's almost like a dark room inside my mind, and there's a single grain of sugar that's somehow lit up.

And for me, it's like there's a little trap door, like a cockpit in an airplane, a small airplane, and I open the side of the grain of sugar and I climb inside that grain of sugar and my whole mind fits inside. Then I close the grain of sugar and I'm inside the grain of sugar. So try to leave any sensation of your body and go into the, focus the mind in a sharp point inside the grain of sugar.

The heartbeat's gone. If you think of the air conditioner or outside sound, use it like a ladder, then climb back to the grain of sugar through the heartbeat. Now picture a broad lake.

I like to make the surface of the lake a little silvery, and it's very, very calm. And there's a feeling of expansion to the left and the right on a horizontal plane. The lake goes, I imagine it at the level of my forehead.

The lake is going infinitely to the left and right. There's no shore. And I'm in the middle of the lake and we're going to drop a small object, could be that grain of sugar, maybe a small pebble, into the lake.

And a small ripple is going to expand out to the left and the right. And I find it useful if I make it silent. The ripple is moving in complete silence.

And sometimes if I have trouble sending the ripple out infinitely, I will push it with my breath. So, I'm not supposed to be having a body at this point. We're in the first formless realm meditation, but it helps me to get the ripple moving sometimes.

If it's not moving, I will imagine my breath is pushing it a little bit. And don't stop. Don't let the ripple stop.

Don't follow it for a while and then get distracted. Stay with it. Go further and further.

The name of this level is endless space. Here we go. Drop the pebble.

Now come back to the center, which I imagine in the middle of my head somehow. And it's dark. And in the very center of your mind is a small light bulb, like the kind that's on a flashlight.

And we're going to turn on the light bulb, turn on the switch, and then from the center of the light bulb comes just awareness, like a clear light. So if you want, you can use a white light or a gold light to get used to it. And then later change it to a clear light, like crystal.

And it's alive. It's your awareness. So when we turn on the light, that clear light, like crystal, which is alive, living awareness, will expand suddenly from the light bulb.

And it expands infinitely. NAM SHES BTA YAS is the name of this level, second formless realm level. Infinite consciousness, infinite awareness.

And your awareness, your life expands. And I like to start with Bowie, Arizona, Diamond Mountain. Then I like to expand to the two oceans, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean.

Then I like to expand to the whole planet. Then I consciously push the awareness beyond this atmosphere out to outer space. And I change the perspective.

Then I'm looking at the planet from far away and I can see Geshe Michael's awareness expanding almost like a nuclear bomb or something, and it expands way beyond this earth and then it swallows the sun and it swallows the other planets and it keeps going out to the stars that we see at night. Here is so beautiful at Diamond Mountain. And that awareness is expanding quickly through the stars.

And I like to imagine it is passing through the spheres of awareness of other people in other worlds who must be doing this meditation right now. And I like to imagine that someday we will be aware of each other's. Expanding crystal life.

Life and awareness. be creative. Feel free.

We just live on a small grain of sugar in the universe and expand far and let your mind go. And feel this freedom and infinite awareness of this huge universe we live in. Okay, so turn on the light.

Crystal life expanding. Then compared to that it would be more quiet if I could turn off my mind like a light switch. Complete unconscious.

No thoughts. No feelings. No air conditioner.

No memories. No hopes. Just shut off the switch.

This third formless realm level is called chi yang me. It means nothing at all. Turn off your mind.

So this is a very, very quiet place where you're just staying in the darkness. No awareness at all. It's not emptiness.

It's not even related to emptiness. It's not useful by itself except to strengthen your mind for higher meditations. So we'll go to this one.

Turn off your mind. Stay in kind of darkness, unconsciousness. Very quiet place.

If thoughts come or feelings or any kind of awareness of an object outside, inside, then consciously turn it off. It would be more quiet to not have to fight the thoughts that come and the images that come through my mind. It would be more quiet place if I just kind of give up and decide not to try to block thoughts or images.

So in the final of the eight levels, we just relax and decide not to fight. If a thought comes through the mind, if an image comes through the mind, just ignore it. Don't struggle.

Stay quiet. Stay motionless. If the mind can stay turned off, that's great.

And that would be nice. But if other thoughts invade my space, if they push into my mind, I will just let them go with no resistance. And that's the quietest place of all.

So we'll stay here for a few minutes. Eighth level, fourth formless realm, called du she may du she may min. No thinking, no not thinking.

Now please follow three long exhales, then slowly open your eyes. I would like to take a break before we do the second part. When you do it yourself, you can speed it up a little bit.

Maybe it's too cold, I think. Tim, where are you? Can you do the necessary?

Take a little break, then we'll go straight back. Drink something. And we're going to do the ninth part.

Pay close attention, because you have to do it by yourself, starting on Monday night? Tuesday. Tuesday morning.

Before you go into your own retreat, I'll give you a schedule. It's nice if we're all doing the same meditation at the same time. There's a power to it.

Okay, here we go. Oh, sorry. You were recording my bottom.

Okay, get ready. Clear your throat now. Do your sneezing now.

What I find is, if I do meditation over 20 or 30 minutes, my posture starts to get sloppy. In my case, my shoulders start to move forward. My head comes down a little bit, and I have to correct my body I think gravity, after 20-30 minutes, starts to pull.

So, when you get to the formless realm, you might check your posture, push your shoulders back a little bit, put your head back a little bit, find that weightless place where your spine is completely straight. In my case, I just have to move my head back a little bit, and then the meditation goes better. So, please bring your teacher to mind.

If you have a heart teacher, that's nice. If you want to have a heart teacher, but you haven't met them yet, you can just imagine them, what they might be like. Your parents are great teachers.

Many of us have a few school teachers that were special in our life. Some people even a sports teacher, or could be a historical teacher like Buddha, or Jesus, or Muhammad. And you're free to change the teacher during this week.

You can think of different teachers. And then, sorry, by the way, you will have a sense of gratitude towards these different teachers. So, bring one teacher to mind.

Ask them to sit with you. There's a sort of a line. You can picture the teacher like a movie, or like a photograph, or like a painting, or a sculpture.

Or, you can make them alive, and they are real, and they are breathing, and their body's warm. You can almost smell some nice fragrance from their body. So, try to break over that line.

Try to break through that line. Don't make them artificial. They're not a photograph.

They are real. And on some level, every teacher you can think of has the power. If you ask them, they have the power to actually come to this room and sit with you.

So, ask them to come and make them real, sitting in front of you. And then think of something you really love about them, some quality that they have. It doesn't have to be the same quality every time you do the meditation.

If you think about it, you will find many qualities about your teacher that you are attracted to. And it's kind of fun to... I like to choose a different quality every day.

Now I like to go to the middle of my mind. And for me, it's like a room at night, a dark room. And in the very center of that space, there are these beautiful silver seeds, like eggs, sitting in a little cluster.

And then one of them splits open and an image made of light, like a hologram, comes out. And it's the quality that I'm thinking of. Today I'm thinking of how my teacher is independent.

They take care of their needs. They don't impose on other people. And that sense of responsibility is coming out like a spirit from the egg seed.

And I imagine it's coming towards the front of my head, forehead. And the image passes out of my head towards my teacher. And then it settles on them like a coat.

And then they wear that quality, they have that quality of taking responsibility. And I see them having this quality. And I sit with that for a minute and I watch them and I appreciate this quality.

Then I go back into the dark place in my mind, center of my mind, and I choose another silver seed, little shaped like an egg, and then I watch it split open and I watch another image come out. Same image of a responsible person. And it comes out of my mind, out of my head, and it settles on my teacher.

Actually those seeds are opening 65 per second, but I like to do it in slow motion. I like to take my time. I like to enjoy the seeds, looking at them.

I like to leisurely, slowly, relaxed, I watch these images. One comes out, settles on my teacher, and I just enjoy it for a moment. And then I go back inside my head and I watch another one open.

And the flow of them continues. So let's stay there for a few minutes. Try to get a sense that, strong sense that the good quality you see in them is coming from you.

Try to be very aware of this new idea that what you see in your teacher, what you admire, is actually part of you and it's coming from you. Like all things, those seeds had to come from somewhere. Everything has a cause.

So let's go on a little journey. Try to find the causes, past life causes. In my case, I have to try to imagine Michael in his past life.

Any past life. It could be a hundred years ago. It could be a thousand years ago.

It doesn't have to be the last one. And it doesn't have to be even in this country or even on this world. It could be anywhere.

Be open to wherever you land. So let your mind go. Maybe it goes to ancient China.

Maybe it goes to ancient India. Maybe it's at the beginning of America or Mexico or Argentina or Russia. Let it go to any country.

You can be any race of people. You can be male or female. Whatever images rush through your mind quickly, grab one of them.

It's like reaching outside of a car that's moving and grab an image passing to your mind. Every one of them is coming from your seeds. So don't be surprised and don't limit yourself.

Whatever image comes, grab it and become that person in your past life. And make a story about your family and your work and your country. And in my case, I was responsible in some way for others, and I took responsibility.

And in those days, I planted these silver seeds in this mind. And they opened hundreds of years later in America. Okay, so go ahead, make your movie.

Let your imagination go free. Please don't limit yourself. Any image that comes up, use it.

And don't stop. Keep writing the story until we finish this part. Okay, here we go.

Feel free. Freedom. Be creative.

Oh, by the way, it's possible you are not even human. It's possible you are an animal or some other being, a form realm being. Okay, here we go.

Now please come back to the lama, teacher. And now sort of an uncomfortable exercise. You know, respectfully ask that teacher to move to the side.

And in their place, put a teacher who looks the same. They look exactly the same. In DCI language, it's the second husband in the kitchen.

But this one is not coming from seeds. This one is accidental. You just met them by accident.

There's no past life cause. There's no deeper reason why you met them. It's just accident.

And if you follow that way of thinking back, it means everything else in your life was just an accident. And it means life itself on this world is an accident. And it means this world itself is an accident.

And the sun and the earth and the moon are just random pieces from some big explosion many, many, many billions of years ago. And by some amazing coincidence, all those atoms, all those little molecules got glued together and made the sun and made the earth and the moon and gave this earth atmosphere and oceans and forests and created animals. And those animals got, just by accident, they got more and more intelligent.

And then just by accident, people were created. And just by good luck you met this one very intelligent responsible person. And in no way is this teacher connected to how you treat other people.

There's no connection. And all the beauty you see in them is just an accident, lucky accident. And you can't change them because they're not coming from you.

You can't keep them. You can't learn from them. You can't know if you're going to be with them next year.

Everything's out of your control. Imagine an impossible Lama like that. We like to call Bubu Lama, just accident.

And try to feel some outrage or some kind of uncomfortable feeling, wrong feeling. There's no karmic connection with them. There's no fate between you.

You are not working towards some ultimate goal. Everything's just an accident. And try to feel how wrong that is and reject that Lama.

Refuse that image and drop it. Don't bring the other Lama back yet. That dependent origination Lama coming from seeds.

Don't bring them back yet. Just think about the empty space where that accidental Lama was sitting a few minutes ago. And now that space is empty.

We canceled them. And now you're on your own. Try to go into that space and try to become one with that space.

So we'll stay here for a few minutes. The other Lama didn't come back yet. Now something very deep.

Bring the real Lama back. The one who's coming from you. Because they are coming from your seeds, enlightenment is possible with them.

They can stay with you. You can make them stay with you. This story can have a happy ending.

You can become enlightened together. The world can change. Put the empty space inside the Lama's heart so the essence of the real Lama is that they are not the accidental Lama.

So that's their Buddha nature. So you can imagine that empty space where there's no accidental Lama. You can imagine putting it inside the heart of the real Lama who's coming from you.

So bring back the real Lama, the one you love, the one you can keep, the one you can go to Buddhahood with, because they are coming from you. You have power. You have ability to make a happy ending for this world.

And between you and your Lama, because the very essence of them inside their heart is this space where there's no accidental Lama. So put that emptiness into the chest of your real Lama and be happy and know that enlightenment is possible and a perfect world is possible and this holy relationship with them is going to have a beautiful ending forever. Three long breaths.

Each breath, imagine golden light coming out, touching other people, sharing this understanding with them, sharing this meditation with them. Then you can slowly open your eyes. Take a nice drink.

Drink something. And if anyone has a question, we can do a question, okay? Hey, Joel.

Hi, Joel. How are you? I have a question from the live stream.

John is from a country in Southeast Asia, and he says he's in a long-term homosexual partnership, and we've been very happy together for many years. We're the only partner to each other. We don't disturb other people's relationships.

He wants to know if this is considered sexual misconduct in Buddhism. Okay, good question. No, it's fine in Buddhism.

There's no problem with it, and I think even logically you can see it doesn't hurt anybody, and people have freedom to have this relationship. I'm not aware that the Buddha ever said there was anything wrong with it, and it's not in the list of sexual misconduct, and I don't see logically why there'd be any problem with it either. Having studied my whole life, and I'm crazy, I read scripture most of the day, and it seems wonderful and fine.

My Lama thought it was great. My Lama won a contest between 20,000 high lamas in Tibet, and he thought it was wonderful. I'm not aware.

There are some lower schools that developed after the Buddha died, and they go up to about the time of Nagarjuna, second century, third century. Kind of similar to Paul in the Christian tradition, and they got kind of legalistic and they made a lot of rules that I don't think Buddha would have supported, and it's considered a dark era in Buddhism. It's about 400 BC to 100 AD when a lot of teachings got lost, and a lot of a viewpoint became strong that we should be very restrictive, kind of, what do you call it?

Uptight. And that's when the whole tradition of monks living away from society, not contributing to society, and living by very rigid rules, that got more and more legalistic. And then after Nagarjuna, and after a song of Vasubandhu Maitreya, then it kind of got restored.

The original teachings of the Buddha got restored. as far as I'm... I can say it's fine.

It's wonderful. It's a beautiful thing. Why it's happening is that we have a male energy and a female energy.

All of us have both. The male energy is traveling in the right channel, pingala. The female energy is traveling in the left channel, iddha.

And we all have both. In a Buddha, in a Buddha, they are equal. A Buddha is equal, male and female.

Balanced. Perfectly balanced. They emanate as a female or a male.

Tara emanates as a female. Manjushri emanates as a male. But actually inside they are equal, male and female.

So every human being and every animal has a male energy and a female energy. Sometimes it's 50-50, like with Leonardo da Vinci. Sometimes it's 80-20.

Sometimes it's 70-30. Nobody is completely male or completely female, even now. So naturally, people who have a different male or female appearance will be attracted to each other depending on what's their percentages.

So it's quite natural and it's quite normal. And in the end, the reason to have relationships is to balance those two energies. And if I'm 70-30 and you're 30-70, we will be attracted to each other.

And we will make each other complete. And in the end, we'll both be 50-50. Okay, so it's fine.

No problem. Other question? Thank you for teaching, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 2]
I have two questions. In the last part, when we say, I choose not to choose, the I makes me uncomfortable because I go back to my physical body.

[Speaker 1]
May I say this mind chooses not to choose instead of I? Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.

The whole, all eight meditations are a little contradictory. It's not possible to not think about anything. And naturally, you're gonna come to I also.

So I, at level eight, is one more thought coming to your mind. So just ignore it. Just cancel it, you see?

So the feeling that I'm in my body or the feeling that I'm meditating is the same as thinking about lunch. And just ignore it in the eighth level. It will come.

You can't stop it actually. It's interesting, those thoughts are also coming out of seeds in your mind. By the time you hear them, they already came out.

It's like the, I like to call it like the light from the star. When we see the star at Diamond Mountain, that light left the star like a hundred years ago. And actually, it's possible that star is already gone.

But the light is just reaching us. And with thoughts in your own mind, by the time you think Teresa is meditating and it disturbs your level eight, that seed already opened. You can't stop it.

You can't stop the light from the star that left the star a hundred years ago when the light reaches your eye. It's too late. It's already in the past.

It already doesn't exist anymore. So actually, you can't meditate. Okay.

You have to plant seeds this week to have a good star next week.

[Speaker 2]
And the other one was, what kind of seeds do we use when we imagine things backwards or future?

[Speaker 1]
And which seeds are we planting while we imagine things? Okay, yeah. There's a Beatles song.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can do that can't be done. You know, there's no thought you can imagine that is not something you can imagine.

Okay, so there's no random thoughts in your mind. Everything you can imagine. If I say right now, think of the strangest thing you can think of.

I don't know. The moon is an olive in a martini. You know.

Then it means you have a seed to be able to think like that. So there are no random thoughts and there is no imagination. Everything is coming from a seed.

And as I said in the higher middle way school, dreams and real life are equal. They're both coming equally from seeds. And fantasies about your past life.

I was an American Indian in Kentucky or something. That's okay. It's also coming from seeds.

In this case, if you are imagining how you planted the seeds for a nice quality of your Lama, that thinking about it, plants more seeds for it. You see what I mean? So thinking about how I planted it.

I was a midwife American Indian guy. Okay. I was helping babies come out.

And so thinking about this fantasy, also plants more seeds to be like that. Okay, cool. One more question.

This is a question for the live stream too. Okay. His name is Nahul Sargam and he's from New York.

Cool. And he'd like to know, can you change the painful results of a karmic seed that's ripening while it's still happening? Or do you have to go through it first?

And then to what degree can the four powers work in the moment? Yeah, cool question. Someday we'll go back to the lam rim teaching.

And we're in the middle of the four steps. We're at jorwa. We finished the shi sampa.

We're going to do jorwa tartu. We're starting with jorwa this morning. And the question is, how fast can you do a four steps?

So if you become a four step expert, if you're doing four steps all the time for everything, you go to the bathroom, you use the four steps to get a good result, then if you think like that all the time, you can actually plant something in the morning and get it in the afternoon. Okay? I've seen it.

It's possible. If you really use it all the time. And the same with the four powers.

So I like to tell a story. I was doing the four powers during a meditation because I was doing my specialty, which is jealousy of other teachers. So I was doing this, I was doing my specialty, and I was confessing, and I was admitting, and I was opening my heart, and I was doing the four steps about jealousy.

Then I was thinking about jealousy, and then I got jealous because I was thinking about jealousy. During the four steps, during the four powers meditation, I did it again. You see what I mean?

During the confession, I did the same thing which I was confessing. Okay, so is it possible to stop it before the end of the confession? You see what I mean?

And it is. If you're good at it, if you do it a lot, then yeah, it's possible to remove a seed in your mind during a 15 minute four powers meditation. But it takes a lot of practice.

It takes a lot of practice. So it is possible. It's not easy.

It's like playing tennis or learning Chinese language. It takes time. Not everybody's like Jasmine can learn English in two years or something.

Okay, all right. One more question, then I'd like to take a mini break. Okay, because I drank watermelon juice before the class.

Laura, Monica needs a microphone.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, I know. So, what I'm going to ask is that I chose a quality of my Lama, which is commitment. I can see my Lama with compromise with his In Spanish, compromiso.

[Speaker 1]
In English, commitment. But we can't say compromise because it means something else.

[Speaker 2]
And what I want to ask is why, if I planted those seeds, I can see my Lama as a compromised person?

[Speaker 1]
Commitment. Commitment. Oh, sorry.

With commitment, but I can't see commitment in my couple or partner. Okay, good. Good.

Okay, yeah. If you keep doing this meditation, if you keep doing this meditation about appreciating commitment in the Lama, because that commitment's coming from you. Those seeds coming from you.

Right now you have mixed seeds. They are half commitment seed and half no commitment seed. Okay, right now in your mind you have some commitment silver eggs and you have some no commitment silver eggs in your mind.

You have both right now. So we need to make more. We have to multiply the commitment eggs.

And you can do that just by doing this meditation, okay? By appreciating how you planted the commitment seeds. And especially, it's not easy, appreciate that you are creating the commitment you see in your Lama.

It's not coming from Lama. It's coming from you. So you have those seeds.

Then you just have to make babies as much as possible. And just by doing this meditation, they will become, they will take over the house of your mind like roaches. Okay?

And there will be commitment seeds, many, many commitment seeds, every day, more and more. And then you will see your business partner have more commitment. Okay?

Or your personal partner have more commitment. Okay? Okay, so just doing this meditation will do it.

I want to take a little break, okay? Five minute break, and then we'll come back and do lam rim. Okay, we were going through the four steps, which is the basis of all DCI.

I was talking with Earl yesterday and we kind of decided DCI switches one and two. Okay? DCI switches one and two.

So in DCI, when you choose the person, that's step number two. And when you decide what you want in your life, that's step number one. In the lam rim, first you choose the person, and then you decide what you want.

Okay? So it's the same thing, it just switches one and two. Okay?

Now we're on number three, jorwa. And we're talking about protecting life. Okay?

We're talking about four steps in a good deed. Why do you want to do the four steps? What's the result called?

A karma with the full four steps is called a karmic path. Karmic path. Karma marga.

Yeah. Okay. DE ZHUGS, are you okay Nick?

ZHUGS BYAS Okay. PHYIR DU, C-H-E space R-U And Adam, where are you? Foolishly wants to do more dictionary entries.

Okay, we'll get there. DE ZHUGS PHYIR DU SONG STE LUS GSOS PA LA NYES PA MTHONG NAS GSOS PA YANG DAG PA SDONG PA LA MTSON PA'I DUS BYAS NI LUS GSOS PA SPONG BA'I DKAR PO LAS KYI SBYOR BA DANG Okay. So in the case of a good karma, you make a decision to undertake the necessary actions to protect life.

And that's the third step. First you decide what you want. Then you decide who it's going to be with, like animals that you eat.

And then in this case, you just stop eating meat. You start eating vegetables. Okay?

That's the third step. Do you make karma by deciding to give up meat before you stop eating meat? Like, okay, you decide on November 1st you're going to give up eating meat.

Do you get the karma now? Huh? Yeah, it's not a karmic path, but it's a karma.

You get some karma. Okay, so if you don't actually haven't done it yet, you get some karma by deciding not to eat meat. But until you stop eating meat, you don't get the full karma.

Okay? All right. THAR THUG.

Now he's about THAR THUG. GSOS PA SPONG BA'I THAR BYED PA NA LAS LAM RDZOGS PAS This is very important. When you make some kind of mental commitment to do the good thing, final mental commitment, which is like a coffee meditation, not to kill animals, not to eat them.

Then LAS LAM RDZOGS Anybody? Nick, Adam? LAS LAM RDZOGS Yeah, you have a complete path of karma.

LAS LAM RDZOGS LUS GSOS PA'I GNAS MI GZUGS MTHONG NAS GSOS PA'I YANG BDAG PA DANG PAS SEMS PA'I YONGS SU RDZOGS PAS LUS KYI LAS NI LUS GSOS PA'I SPONG BA'I SKABS PA'I LAS DNGOS BSAM THAR THUG YIN Then he almost says, as I made a note, he almost says the fourth step is the karmic path. He almost says, he comes close to saying coffee meditation is the complete karma. So that's why the seed will open faster if you do the fourth step.

He almost says it's the fourth step that makes it complete. It's the coffee meditation that makes it a karmic path. MA RJIN LEN GUS GROG LTA BU SKOBS Now let's move on to the second good deed.

First one is respecting life. Second one, respecting other people's things. Respecting other people's property.

MA RJIN LEN GUS GROG LTA BU SKOBS SDUG BSNGAL DANG PHUNG DRUG GYI GZHI NOR MDZAD KYI BSTOD NDU NGAN DU RGYU BYA BA NGAN PAR BSTAN DAG BYAS MI RUNG NYAMS PAR KUN LONG The KUN LONG, the motivation, which is the Sampa, right? The thought, is that respecting other's property is the way to have security in my life. And not respecting other people's property.

It's PHUNG MTHUL. So Adam, you ready? PHUNG MTHUL.

PHUNG K-R-O-L DKA' DRA LTA LTAR NAR DU MTHUL LA MTHUL Obviously MTHUL is related to MTHUL, which means to freedom, to liberation. But this is an idiom that should be in our dictionary. PHUNG MTHUL means ruin you.

It ruins your life. PHUNG MTHUL means leave you in a heap. And it means it ruins your life.

Why? Not respecting other people's property. LAS DE'I SPONG BA LA BRTZON PA SBYOR BA The second step is to start, sorry, GZHI SANGS PA SBYOR BA, third step, is to start actually helping other people to protect their things.

SPONG BA'I THAR BYED PA NA LAM TZAM BA'O Again, he says LAM TZAM BA. LAM TZAM BA here means complete karmic path. If you do the coffee meditation, then it becomes a complete karmic path.

Which is some kind of... In Tibetan it's called BDAG GYUR BYAS PA. Say BDAG GYUR.

BYAS PA The fourth step coffee meditation in Tibetan, the technical word is BDAG GYUR BYAS PA So BDAG means me. BDAG GIS means mine. BDAG GYUR means as mine.

BYAS PA means make it. It means take ownership. Take ownership.

In English we say take ownership. I own this action. In a bad karma, it's no regret.

Yeah, I killed somebody and I'm happy I did it. I stole something. I cheated on my taxes.

The government's bad and I'm happy. That's a bad coffee meditation. But technically what's happening during coffee meditation is you are owning the thing.

You say I own that karma. That's my karma. And I'm happy.

I'm glad I did it. In a good karma, I'm glad I didn't steal the glass out of Gyelse's house that I used in the car for watermelon juice yesterday. I'm glad I'm taking it back today to the house.

Then that's BDAG GYUR BYAS PA I own the action. I make it mine. In Tibetan it's I make it mine.

Same word. Maybe that's good for dictionary. BDAG GYUR BYAS PA BA'O BDAG GA BDAG KHA RGYUD KYIS YOD RA GYUR BA YAT THA BYA DE MO BYAS DANG BYAS PA BDAG GYUR BYAS PA DE BZHIN DU LOGS YAMS SOGS RIGS BDE Here's another nice dictionary entry.

These last two syllables here. RIGS BDE RIGS BDE means follow that pattern. Follow that pattern for the other eight good deeds.

Respecting other people's relationships. Telling the truth. Bringing people together.

Speaking sweetly. Speaking meaningfully. Being happy when other people get stuff.

Being unhappy when other people don't get stuff. And understanding the pan. You can figure out yourself the four steps for the other eight.

RIGS BDE means you figure out the pattern. Follow the same pattern. RIGS BDE Now he gets into the results of good karmas.

What result, karmic result will you get from doing the ten good karmas? NYID PA DE DAG GIS BRAL BUR RTEN PA LA GSUM LAS DANG PO RNAMS YIN GYI BRAL BU NI And now we're getting into, again, we're getting into the four flowers. But now we're using the four flowers for good karma.

Good deeds. RNAMS YIN GYI BRAL BU means the result that ripens in the future life. The result that ripens in the future life.

So he's going to do that one first. In DCI, it's the which flower? Fourth flower.

BRAL BU NI, RGYAL BA LA'I CHE SDIG BCU NGUS RIM BZHIN KHAMS BSGOM GYI LHAG NA BSDOD LHAG NA MI SOGS LA SKYES LA So if the karma is a big good karma, then you'll be born as one of those super wonder woman in the four realm. If you do a medium good karma, very rich person in this realm. If you do a little good karma, born as a human.

That's a little bit misleading. Why? Good, yeah.

Actually, it's a better good karma to be born in this realm which has a good mixture of pain and pleasure. Okay? If you're born in a form realm, nothing goes wrong until the last week.

In Buddhism, it's considered a trap, a dangerous realm. Because it seems like everything's cool. To put it in human terms, it's better not to be born in a rich family, very rich family.

People who are born into a rich family never learn to work, for example. Rarely. And they also, they don't have any good suffering to keep them mindful of what's this realm.

So in Buddhism, a nice mix of disaster and happiness is perfect. For Buddhism, to be a Buddha. Yeah, that's okay.

Actually, what I'm trying to say is I would consider it a better karma to be born as a middle class person who has seen some trouble in their life. Because then you can practice Buddhism. To have a happy life for 30, 40 years and then have trouble.

To me, it's not a good karma. All right. GNYIS PA RGYU MTHUN GYI BRAL BU LA NYID LAS The karma called matching result.

It's called matching result. There's two kinds. First one is NYON BAR RGYU MTHUN means to experience the same result.

You're experiencing the same result in this life. PROTECTING LIFE. And I made a list there.

I filled in the English for you. PROTECTING LIFE. TSE RING BA What's it?

TSE RING. Long life. TSE RING.

That was Anipalma's dog, right? He had a long life. TSE RING.

Protect life, you'll have a long life. Respect other people's property. LONG CHOS CHE BA means you will be financially secure.

You will have a financially secure life. Respecting relationships. CHU MA DANG THUN PA You will get along with your wife or husband.

You won't fight much. By the way, that means if you really want to have a smooth marriage, don't even look at other people's wife or husband. Much less do something with them.

Don't even check them out. Start to check them out, then go, I want to have a good marriage. That's a little karma that will grow.

Even if you just check out somebody else's wife or husband, then you should think in your mind, I don't want to have a fight with my wife next month. Let's leave it. Not having a fight with my wife next month is more pleasant than checking out this girl.

Okay? Got it? If you tell the truth, then people will believe what you say and they will respect what you say.

Let's go to the Italian restaurant tonight. Good idea Geshe Michael. Let's do it.

If you've been lying, let's go to the Italian restaurant tonight. No, I want to go to Japanese, but I hate Japanese. I don't care, I like Japanese.

Like that. By bringing people together, then you will always have good relationships with your friends. Your friendships will go smoothly.

And then unfortunately he says SOGS, etc. This is lazy Tibetan writing. He didn't tell us the rest of them, but you can figure it out.

RIGS BDE, what's RIGS BDE? Okay. Yeah, follow the pattern, you'll figure it out.

Okay. Now he's going to talk about DCI's flower two. I don't know what's worse, a green drink or yoga.

Green drink doesn't last this long. Second one? Habit, right?

Okay, habit. All right. BYAS PA RGYU MTHIL NI DAM PAS SKYE DRUL SOGS RGA SHI SKYE TZAM LAS NGAN CUNG SNYING RJE RNAMS RANG ZHUGS KYI BYUNG BA LTAR DANG Then we see some SKYE DRUL here means tulku.

What's tulku? In the monastery... Okay, tulku means emanation body of a Buddha, but in the monastery it means those lamas who are considered rebirth of a former lama.

Okay? They're called tulku. Then some of them it's easy to believe they are tulku because even as little kids they are amazing.

They're just really cool. Like T.J. Rinpoche's tulku. I used to stay at his house during the debate competitions.

So in my monastery debate with Ganden Monastery I used to stay at his house. I told you this story. He has a stupa there, his previous life.

By the way, he's the person who wrote this book, down. I used to stay at his house during the winter debates. He was, I think, eight years old, nine years old, like Sambao.

He's riding his bicycle around his stupa. I'm trying to walk around his stupa. Then he's going the wrong way and he hit me.

I was like, ah, these stupid little tulku. Because you have to say, oh Rinpoche, I'm so sorry I was walking around your stupa. Thank you for running over me with a bike.

You're supposed to respect them. I got a little bit pissed off. I'm like, tulku.

That afternoon he called me to his room. First time ever I went into his room. He's just sitting there with all his toys.

Tulkus get more toys than other kids. Then he's looking at me. He says, sit down.

He says, you know it's really bad to get upset at people, even inside your own mind. I'm like, oh. He says, you have to study Lam Rim a little bit more.

He's like seven, eight years old. I'm like, okay. That's chepa gyu tun.

That's a habit from a past life. You can see in some of the tulkus, you can see it. Really cool.

They have ngenjung. They're already not attached to material things. They share their candy with the other kids.

nying je, they have compassion already, as a small kid. rang shuk gi means nobody taught it to them. They haven't.

That's a good second flower. From their past life, they have a habit of compassion or kindness. sunpa dang re ni sa tung dang men gyi nyupa chewa sok kyi gong gi migyewa chuy dang re nang gyi gong do pa yin go la wa sung Easy to understand environmental result for good karmas.

In the case of killing or respecting life, then medicines in your country work. Medical procedures in your country work. Crops grow well in your country.

Foods have nutritional power in your country. They keep you healthy. They make you strong.

Who put the vitamins in green drinks? I did, but it's a mixed karma. Okay, tastes terrible.

All right. sungpa shar la top ten gyi le kye go du te tenpa la shi le He's going to repeat four ways that karmas can be more heavy. He's going to repeat.

We do this in DCI. We talk about people who helped you or people who are helping many other people. Things like that.

Here's four different ways to juice up your karmas. First one is pick somebody who's karmically heavy, object, another person. In this kind of group, people who come out in the middle of the desert and pay money to suffer here, they are special people.

I don't have to spend a lot of time convincing you to eat vegetarian or something like that. You're the kind of people who are already doing it. You see what I mean?

But you have another problem. You have a new problem. You only have so many years in your life.

Then it's like a kid in a candy store. There are so many good karmas to do. Which one's better?

You see what I mean? You guys are not going to kill people, steal things, commit adultery. Your problem is do you do a smaller good karma or do you do a bigger good karma?

Your problem is choosing because you don't have time to do everything. So how do you choose the better good karma? One way is to choose who you do it towards.

Who you do it towards. Then here's his list. I'll give you a list.

First, Phelba Rangawa. You got to go down a bit. Adam, if you want, Rangawa is pretty good.

Rangawa. Rangawa means just normal people. Phelba means regular guys.

Do the karma towards anybody. Just anybody. Anybody you meet, help them out.

That's a good karma, but it's the lowest of karmic objects. If you don't have time, you should go up the list. If you don't have much time, you should go up the list.

People ask me to do projects and I'm like, I like it, I think it's nice if you do it, but I'm working on some heavier projects. Then people ask me, do you want to donate to this? I say, no.

I'm donating towards a heavier project. I don't have endless money. I have to prioritize where I put my money.

Then some people decide where I should spend my money. That irritates me. Geshe-la, we talked to your sponsors and they're now sending money to the Protect Cactus Fund.

I'm like, that's good, but let me decide what I do with my sponsors. Because I have a priority in my mind. Second, papa mama.

There's a funny story I tell people. When I was trying to get into the Buddhism class in India, when I first went there, I didn't know any Tibetan, but there's one tuku who likes me. Turns out later, he's a high Vajrayogini tuku in the lineage.

Sharpa tuku. He's in the lineage. Then we like each other immediately.

I said, Rinpoche, I want to get in the Tibetan class. He said, not going to happen. Why?

You have to take an examination. You have to know some Tibetan to get in a Tibetan class. I said, I really want to get in the class.

He says, look, I'm not the boss, I'm just one of the board? Committee? That decides.

You have to come in the committee and you have to ask the committee. Then I said, well, I really want to. He said, okay, come to the committee meeting.

Then there was these geshes, high geshes, and there's Rinpoche, tuku. Then I came in the room. There's a long line.

I came in the room. He said, I will question this one. I said, okay.

I'm like really nervous. I don't know any Tibetan. He's like, I'm going to ask you a Tibetan word.

You tell me what's the meaning. I said, okay. He said, papa, mama.

Then I said, mom and dad. He said, you're in the class. So here it is.

Papa, mama. That class was bodhicharavatara. Shantideva.

If I didn't get in the class, you wouldn't have DCI 10, 11, and 12. ACI. Okay.

DGE SBYONG means monks or nuns. Practically, it means anyone who made a commitment to this way of life, like a DCI teacher. They are not wearing a red suit, but they made a serious commitment of their life.

Organizer in Shenzhen. Something like that. Help them.

Better. Better karma. Next one.

BYANG SEMS KHYIM PA DANG RAB BYUNG BOD DI SA FA Whether they are a monk or not, they can be a family person also. So that's interesting. It's more good karma to help someone who's trying to help the world who's not a monk than it is to help a monk.

You see? The monk is lower on the list. The person who's organizing DCI talks or something, trying to help the world, you get more karma by helping them.

Someone who's trying to help their country or their city learn these high ideas, it's more karma to help them than to help a monk or a nun. It's understood here someone who saw emptiness directly. They are between, they are somewhere around number four here.

BOD DI SA FA It's actually more difficult to see emptiness directly. I would put them at four and a half. He didn't mention them, but he should.

When he says BOD DI SA FA, we understand. SANGS RGYAS Buddha is next. If you can meet a Buddha, better karma.

Now, something very interesting. He put someone above a Buddha. He put someone above a Buddha.

Your own teacher, your own spiritual teacher. If you have a Lama, then if you help them, it's more karma than helping a Buddha. Why?

There's many Buddhas in the world, many Buddhas in history, but the Lama is the doorway to talk to the Buddhas. Without Lama, you don't have access to Buddha. So for us, more important to serve Lama than even a Buddha.

It's true. If you have an opportunity to serve a teacher, I did my whole life. I lived with my teacher most of my life.

People used to tell me, oh, those Lamas, those gurus, they take advantage of you. They take your money. You work like a slave.

And I said, you don't understand anything. It's the most beautiful thing in life to serve a Lama. Most beautiful.

So this whole bad attitude about gurus and Lamas, it's very stupid. Make your whole life happy. I did it 25 years.

Stay with Lama. I worked so hard. I think I washed 10 million dishes.

Dig the toilet sewer. And give all my money to the monastery. It's a beautiful life.

Happy life.