«Дар освобождения», курс 27 «Четыре цветка», занятие 5

[Speaker 1]
Okay, there are actually five parts to the lion's dance and I've never taught the second one, and this morning we're going to do the second one. Okay, so you are the first ones, so congratulations. And the Romania team and the Germany team and the Jalapa team will be listening, maybe.

I forgot to tell them to tell this morning, so maybe they'll be asleep, I don't know. It's like, it's like five o'clock in Germany, four o'clock, something like that. Five.

Okay, well, you might want to text somebody, I don't know. What's up then this morning? Okay, then two corrections on that.

I told you it came from the 8,000 verses and the 100,000 verses of the Perfection of Wisdom, but I was looking at it this morning. It comes from three versions of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. There's an 18,000 verses and there's a 20,000 verses.

I think the 20,000 verses is 25, but they call it 20 anyway. And then there's a 100,000 verses, and then there's an 8,000 verses. What's the shortest one?

Almost, yeah. The shortest one is the Heart Sutra, Shinjing. Okay, so anyway, the Lion's Dance, I found it in five sutras.

Three are the 18,000 verses, the 20,000 verses, and the 100,000 verses. So you will not find it in the 8,000 verses, which is the most popular one. Then I misquoted Maitreya.

It's a RTEN CING BRAL BYUNG LUGS MTHUN DANG, LUGS MI MTHUN PA RTOGS PAR BYED. I said it a little bit differently the other day, but I want to say it correctly. That's how Maitreya taught it.

DE NAS SREN GYI'I RNAMS RGYI'INGS PA'I, RGYI'INGS ZIN NA MYONGS ZHUGS NAS, RTEN CING BRAL BYUNG LUGS MTHUN DANG, LUGS MI MTHUN PA RTOGS PAR BYED. I want to make it correct. You have it in your mind.

That means before you study the Wheel of Life, you should do the Lion's Dance. That's why we started doing the Lion's Dance, because Jenny asked me to go to Buddha Buddha and teach the Wheel of Life. Okay, that's how it started.

Now that I got you all excited about part two of the Lion's Dance, it's pretty easy actually. Part three, four, and five are more difficult. They have a special name which is called THOD RGYAL.

THOD RGYAL means, THOD PA means the kapala, your skull. RGYAL means alternating, like this. It means to, in English we say over the top, right?

Like this wave in Oahu is over the top. Waimea, Sunset Beach, over the, like, not normal. It's like way impossible, okay?

So that's called over the top. So THOD RGYAL kind of means like over the top, okay? So those are the third, fourth, and fifth part of the Lion's Dance.

Those are a little sexier. Part two, second part of Lion's Dance, you just come down through the eight, okay? So after you finish seeing emptiness, trying to sit in emptiness, you put it in your Lama's heart, then you say see you later, and you go to the number eight.

No, I choose not to choose. Then you go to seven. Turn off the mind.

Then you go to six. You see, you come back down. And it's traditionally, we don't go back to the air conditioner.

We stop in the heart, okay? We stop at the first form. So we'll do it together, okay?

The whole thing is going to take you like 45 minutes, maybe an hour. So if you're serious about seeing emptiness directly, it's good to do the whole thing. Since you have three whole days with no internet, you have time, okay?

Those of you who weren't alive before the internet, when the internet came, how did they advertise it to us? They said, this is going to save you time. Now it takes all your time.

Okay, so again, I really encourage you during the three days, see how it feels to not be on the internet. It's kind of nice. I'm not against the internet.

I use the internet for meditation and things like that. I enjoy it and I learn a lot of things. I think you can use it as a tool.

It can be very helpful. It allows our group to be international. But sometimes it's good to not use it for a few days.

You can also enjoy that. You can enjoy other people. You can enjoy nature here.

You can go for walks. It's very beautiful. Try it for three days.

It's a little uncomfortable. You wake up and you hold it. Just try it for three days.

Don't be a fanatic. Don't use the binoculars. Oh, Earl is using his phone.

It's never good to be fanatic. But say, okay, I love you. You take a rest for three days.

Happily tell him he can rest for three days. I really encourage you not to use the internet for three days. Text everybody.

Tell them. I think in the future people will learn to turn it off for three, four days. They will be more happy.

It's not a bad thing. It's a great thing. But it's also good to take a rest.

I suggest we do the whole lion's dance. First part and second part. If I feel you're getting tired, we'll take a break in the middle.

We'll take a break in the middle. You can do that. Today I will suggest a schedule for the three days.

Possibly in the morning you can do the whole thing, first part and second part together. But maybe you'll find that it's better to take a break in the middle. We'll try that.

We'll see how it goes. In my experience, personal experience, I have in my mind how long it takes to breathe ten times and how long it takes to breathe twenty times. Is it eight breaths per minute or is that too many?

Anyway, it depends on if you see your girlfriend, it's faster. But it's about, if you take about ten breaths per step, it will take you about half an hour, forty minutes. If you do twenty breaths, the whole thing might take you an hour or something.

Okay, so it's up to you. Okay guys, ready? Cough.

Blow your nose. I'll blow my nose just for the recording. Cough.

Drink something. Drink water. In the desert, if you drink a lot of water, your meditation will be much, much better.

Okay, here we go. First time lion's dance, both parts. So unfortunately this morning we don't have air conditioning noise, so you will have to use the small noises in the room.

I'm sure some other people will give you some small noises.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, ten or fifteen breaths on small noises in the room.

[Speaker 1]
Then we go to the first form realm level and bring your mind to a quieter place. Reject the outside sounds. Leave them, drop them, and go to the inside sound of your heart.

Now, the heart is a sensitive place to meditate. It's possible that you could start to get lung, or you start to feel anxiety or nervous. Some people, maybe two out of ten people, will start to feel nervous or uncomfortable if they meditate at their heart.

So if you feel tighter in your chest, or nervous, anxiety, short of breath, when you meditate at your heart then there's a very simple solution Tsongkapa gives. Drop this meditation to your navel chakra. Navel chakra is at the level of your navel, so it's different for each person.

Some people's navel is higher, some people's navel is lower, but find your own navel. And the navel chakra is at that level, just in front of the spine. So don't meditate on the navel, which is in front, but find your navel and go back towards your spine.

And just in front of your spine, at the level of your navel, is a very stable place to meditate. You will never feel nervous, or you will never have jerking of your body, you will never have shortness of breath. So if you feel some kind of tightness in your chest, or the meditation makes you nervous, or your body is jerking, then move the heartbeat and move all of the activity down to the navel chakra, behind the navel, just in front of the spine, like maybe three or four millimeters in front of the spine, half an inch, something, quarter inch.

If you go too low, if you focus all of this meditation lower than that, you will get constipation. You won't be able to poo-poo. So don't go too low, keep it up at the level of your navel.

That's only if you feel nervous when you meditate at your heart. And you can listen to the heartbeat at the level of your navel. The rest of you, rest of us, you can go now to the first form room.

Your heartbeat at your heart. It would be more quiet if we weren't outside of the heart, looking at the heart. For me, I have the impression of looking down at the heart from my eyes.

So drill down, go deeper, second form room, and put yourself inside of the chamber of the heart. Sometimes I even feel like I'm beating. So the heart is beating, like a little room, little chamber, and I'm inside that chamber.

Maybe my skin is even beating with the heart. So be inside the heart, and drop the effort of observing the heart from the outside. It's more quiet to be inside the heart.

It would be even more quiet, more silent, if I could detach myself from the heartbeat. If I just let the heartbeat on its own, divorced from me. And myself, I like to imagine the heart beating.

The heart is beating in dark, empty space, and I'm not really there anymore. I separate myself emotionally from the heart. I feel detached from the heartbeat.

It's just beating by itself in the space where my heart is, and I'm not very aware of my body anymore. Some awareness, but not much. So let's go there.

The heart is beating, and not so much awareness of yourself. Fourth form room level. Let's sharpen our focus.

Take it to a finer point, like a laser. And at this stage, traditionally, most of the awareness of the body drops out, as if the body were numb, physically numb. And just go to a single point.

It helps to imagine a tiny object, like a single crystal of sugar, and it's floating in a black space at the center of your mind. A white crystal of sugar, single piece, and let's put our mind inside of that, and consciously drop the rest of the body. First formless realm level, an infinite space, nongka thay, and picture a lake.

I like to picture it halfway up my head, and it's a very huge lake with no shore, and the surface of the water is perfectly calm. And we're going to drop a pebble in the middle. I feel it in the middle of my head, and then ripples will go out on a horizontal plane, left and right, infinitely.

So keep it going, don't let it stall. Keep pushing the ripple out further and further. If you're feeling ambitious, you can try to do all of this infinite space inside the sugar crystal.

Okay, drop the pebble, and the ripple goes left and right, infinitely. Come back to the middle of the mind. For me it's a dark space and I'm coming back to the center.

And we're going to turn on a small light, and a clear light will come out in a sphere, and it will quickly expand to the whole universe, past this galaxy, past this solar system, past this earth. And that clear light is my awareness. It's not the space that we had with the lake.

That's a physical space. Now it's just awareness, a huge sphere of awareness expanding out, perhaps overlapping and communing with other spheres of awareness of other people in other worlds. So let's turn on the light.

Don't let the expanding ball of awareness stop. Keep it going. Then compared to that, it would be more quiet if I could just turn off my mind.

So I like to imagine a light switch, and I turn the light switch off, and my mind turns off. No objects, no memories, no thoughts, no plans, just dark, no awareness at all. So turn off your mind.

Go into the third formless realm. If thoughts come up, then consciously turn them off. Face them and turn them off.

You would be even more quiet if I just let those thoughts pass through the mind without confronting them, without fighting them, without trying to turn them off. And equally it would be nice if they were turned off, and the mind was turned off. So to avoid the internal noise of the effort to turn off those thoughts, at level eight, formless realm number four, I will turn off my mind.

But if thoughts come, I would just let them float through the turned-off mind. They will come in, they will pass away, and I'll return to the mind which is turned off, and I won't even make the noise that's required to turn off those thoughts. I'll just let them come and go in the mind which is turned off.

du shes me, du shes me min, not thinking and not not thinking. Then follow three long exhales to get ready to come out. Don't open your eyes yet.

Later we'll use those exhales to dedicate the karma. Then slowly, gently open your eyes. Take a stretch.

Any questions about that part? One question here. I think Vivian has a question.

Thank you, Geshe-la, for your teaching. You're welcome. When I was practicing this meditation, there was something that really confused me.

Like in each level of this eight, usually I can stay focused in the first half of each level, and then in the second half of each level, my mind starts to wander around in different directions. Because you mentioned that if our mind stops in any of these eight, it's very terrible karma. And then when my mind wanders around during the second part of each level, sometimes it goes to beautiful thoughts, sometimes it goes to evil thoughts.

Angel and devil are both there. So how can I really practice well this meditation? Okay, good.

First of all, I'd like to thank Vivian and Jasmine and their group, because they are really actively raising funds every day to help Diamond Mountain and all of our projects to save the ancient books. I'd just like to thank her to start with. Their city is the largest metropolitan area in the world.

I think it's 30 million people, Guangzhou. So I always think of my mind is like a dog, like I own a dog. We used to have a small dog right here, and sometimes the dog will pee-pee in the house, you know, and your mind is like a pet dog.

So you're talking to the dog, like, please be good, please stay on this level, please don't wander. And then in the first part of each level, the mind is cooperating, and then it starts to float away. The dog starts to leave, and then you have to take the leash and pull it back.

Every time you're aware it's going away, you have to catch it and bring it back. Then it will stay for a while, and then it will, slowly it will start to think of other things, and then again you have to catch it, you know, come back, come back, come back. Then real progress in meditation doesn't happen when the mind is cooperating.

Progress happens when you are fighting with the mind. So when the mind goes off, starts to go off, and you grab it, and you pull it back, there's a little resistance, then this muscle will get stronger. This is meditation muscle.

If you don't have problems in your life, you cannot improve. When everything is smooth, you don't learn anything. A Buddhist person is happy to have some serious problems, because, oh, now I can think about seeds.

Otherwise you won't think about seeds. So mind goes off, then you catch it. What's it called in Tibetan?

Yeah, sheshin is the smoke alarm. Oh, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. The mind went off.

Beep, beep, beep, beep. That's called sheshin. Then jenpa means pull it back.

So those are two meditation tools that are located here. First one, the alarm goes, smoke alarm? It goes beep, beep, beep.

The dog went away. Bring the dog back. Then jenpa brings it back.

So it's uncomfortable, and it's kind of not fun when the mind is not cooperating, and when your life is not smooth. But you learn more, and your meditation gets better. So during those times, try to catch it sooner, and try to be more brave to pull it back.

When I was taking a Reeds yoga class, and I learned something from Dharmamitra, one yoga teacher, when it starts to hurt, and when the body is shaking, that's when you make progress. So just stay another second, or just stay another two seconds. Then collapse.

Then say, okay, you think about lunch, I don't care. But during the most difficult part of her classes, two things can happen. Number one, you give up.

You say, I can't do that. And you just lay down, and you wait for her to do the next thing. Sometimes I do that, especially if I'm in the back.

Then sometimes I will say, okay Geshe-la, you should collapse right now, but let's stay another, let's stay another breath. Let's stay here one more breath, you know. Let's see if you can do it.

Always you can do it. So, fight. And don't think that fighting is a bad meditation.

Relaxing when there's a problem is bad meditation. The dog went away and you're like, okay, bye-bye. So it doesn't feel comfortable.

It's like staying in her pose is one more breath. It's not comfortable, but this is when you make progress. Okay?

Yeah. Okay. Any other questions?

Yeah. Up to Tim. Geshe-la, thank you for your teaching.

Pukulche, she's also Singapore boss, and they are also helping a lot of projects. I'd like to thank them.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, you tell us from one to eight, actually it's not very good. You do only one to eight, but if we had a normal life, every day we need to go to work. So we might don't have enough time to finish one to nine.

So if we just, can we do one day one to eight, and next day do nine, and is it good for us? Can you suggest to us?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good question. It's not good to stop at one to eight, right? It should go to nine, and this question many people ask me.

I have a job. I have things to do. I have kids.

Kids are starting to wake up. Should I just do one to eight on Monday, and then on Tuesday I do number nine? My suggestion is go quickly through one and eight.

Try to get to nine every day. We are spending a lot of time on one to eight because I want you to learn it, but after you learn it, I also have days when I'm too busy. Then I will just sit on the couch and I'll do one to eight in ten minutes.

I'll just push myself through one to eight, and then I'll sit with number nine for five minutes. So it's 15 minutes. Then I jump up and go to SCIM College to work with Scott Marie.

Something like that, okay? So my suggestion, rather than doing one to eight on Monday and then number nine on Tuesday, it's better to rush one through eight and go directly to number nine and spend some more time on nine, okay? Thank you very much.

One more question I think.

[Speaker 2]
My question between Vivian and Jenny. Every time when I do the nine dancing meditation, and always my mind told me, oh don't do that one to eight level and just do the nine part. So, you know, during the one or eight level, I always couldn't concentrate on, but during the nine level, I really enjoyed that part.

I can bring the object, concentrate on that object. So that's my question. I want to know, that's the Andrew talking or the other talking?

[Speaker 1]
Try to do one to eight. You can do it quickly. You can go through it quickly, but try to do it.

It makes the mind flexible. There's Shavasana, right? I prefer Shavasana, but I understand I have to do the other things before that.

So, yeah, just go quickly through them. It's like accounting, okay? I hate accounting.

I hate contracts. I hate taking care of the money, but it's good to, my Lama forced me to do it. I did accounting for him for 15 years.

I hate every minute, but later I got good at it. So, the things you're not good at, it's good to try them and learn them and become master. Left brain, right brain, then you have a whole brain.

So, I prefer to read books. I prefer to meditate. I don't like business.

I don't like accounting. I don't like finances, but therefore I should do them and get good at them. So, it's like that.

Level one through eight, get good at them and don't ignore them. Buddha taught them. There must be some reason.

Develop the other part of your brain. You see, do the finances and you'll be a more complete person. So, don't leave it.

Buddha taught it at least five times in his life. So, there must be, and Maitreya taught it. So, there must be some, it must be important to learn those skills.

Warm up. But it's much more fun to play soccer. Number nine.

But learn to stretch. Okay, you ready to do the second part? Okay, let's go.

Do you need air conditioning yet? Let's take a vote. Air conditioners, raise your hand.

Okay, you win. Who's going to, can you turn on Gyelse? Those of you sitting in front of it, put on your coat or move, move, move.

Okay. Someday let's put a central air conditioner in this temple and make it twice as big. Okay, check your phone.

It's lonely, but it's okay. You can be with him or her later. So, do all your coughing now.

Do all your coughing now. Do all your sniveling now. Okay, let's start with ten breaths.

Follow ten breaths. Long exhales. No force, just relax.

Follow ten exhales and bring to mind one of your teachers in your life. And think of something that you admire about them. If they're your teacher, they are teaching you something that you don't know or you don't have.

And think about something you love about them. Now go to the middle of your mind. For me it's a dark space and I find a center point and there's a little nest of seeds there, silver, beautiful seeds, like eggs in a nest.

And then imagine them, one of them, splitting open. And this quality of your teacher, in my case today, it's some kind of taking responsibility, floats out of the crack in the egg. For me it's like a hologram and this image floats towards the front of my mind and comes out of my mind and covers my teacher and that's why I see this sense of responsibility.

It's very important during this part that you feel strongly how this quality that you see is actually coming from your seeds. It doesn't belong to your teacher. It's not inside of them.

It's coming from your side and it's coming out of your seeds. Now we have some fun. Go back to your past life.

You have complete freedom. There's no one stopping you. Make it really exciting, adventure, fun.

Make a movie about your past life. In my case today, I must have been a responsible person. I must have taken responsibility to take care of other people.

And any image that floats through your mind is correct. You can use it. It's not impossible.

And any funny detail you see, use it. Or anything that happened to you in the last few days, you read in a book, you saw in a movie, you heard a song, those are your seeds. You earned them.

You deserve them. You can use them in your movie. So we'll take a little bit longer on this part.

And with freedom, and no hesitation, write the story of your past life when you planted those seeds that are opening in this life to see the beauty in one of your teachers. Then come back to the image of your teacher, who is alive in front of you. Respectfully ask them to move to the side, and then bring a false teacher, a teacher which doesn't exist, in front of you.

It's an image, but it's not real. And this teacher was not made from your seeds. This teacher has that quality when you met them.

It didn't come from you. And that quality has been inside of them for maybe several years before you met them. And when you met them, you saw the quality which was already there, and you admired them.

So this is a false teacher, Gokja teacher. If you follow that logic that they are an accident, meeting them is just good luck, it's not coming from something you did, then they themselves are not coming from you. Which means other people are not coming from you either.

Which also means the world is not coming from you. It's all just an accident. And in the beginning, there was an explosion, little pieces of dirt, dust, energy collided, they bumped into each other, and then through incredible, random, good luck, they created this earth, and the seas, and the sky, and the oxygen, and then by random good luck, small creatures began, then bigger creatures, and finally your own teacher came.

And before, when we were looking at our lama, the emotion, the feeling was that, oh, this beautiful lama is coming from me. Something I did. And now try to feel the opposite feeling.

Oh, this lama, just accident. I met them by accident, and there's no reason why they came in my life. And that also means there's no goal between us.

There's no enlightenment. There's no perfection of myself and this world. It's all just a big mistake.

And inside your heart, then you should object to this idea, and it should feel wrong. It should feel right that what I see is coming from something I did, and it should feel wrong that this is all just a big accident. In a way, those two thoughts are like angel and devil.

They cannot stay in the same mind at the same time. Either my lama is a mistake, and there's no purpose in life, or they are coming from me, from my goodness, and the goal of my life is to make that goodness complete. So look at the false lama and try to connect with how wrong it feels.

No purpose, no beginning, no goodness. Then cancel that bubu lama, this mistaken lama, random lama. Ask him to leave, ask her to leave, and there will be an empty space.

The real lama didn't come back yet, and for a few minutes, try to clearly imagine that emptiness, that wrong lama, accidental lama, lama with no purpose in life, a lama with no ultimate dream for me or my world. Cancel them, and then play with that space, and maybe try to be inside that space, and bring back the real lama, which is coming from your seeds. You can even imagine that the emptiness of the false lama is almost like the core of the real lama.

The absence of a lama that's not coming from you is almost like the real nature of the lama that is coming from you. You can put that space, you can imagine it in their heart. Three long breaths, three long exhales.

Don't open your eyes yet, and then open your eyes. Take a stretch. Drink something.

Any questions about that part? Kiss the microphone. Paola will be okay with it.

My question is, what I try to do when I'm thinking about these ripening seeds, what I try to do is figure out if I'm quicker than the ripening, or if they are slower and then I catch them. I want to ask if this is useful. Yeah.

My suggestion at the beginning is, I have trouble with more than six or seven. Ten eggs in a nest is too many for me. So, six or seven pretty good-sized eggs.

Then I don't open them all at once. I just let one open, and this hologram comes out. I like to think of it like a mariposa, like a butterfly or something, and it comes out and then it settles on my Lama, like a coat.

It's not really like that, but it's similar to that. Then I enjoy thinking about the coat, and I'm like, wow, if I see my Lama has this good quality, I start to think, maybe it's from me. Maybe I do have the, at least I have the potential for this quality.

It's very comforting to me that, oh, I'm not so bad. If I get to see a Lama like this, I must have some good thing in me. Then I relax, think about it.

Then I go to the next seed. I come back inside my mind. I go to the next seed, and I let it open, and it floats out.

Then I go through the same thing three or four times. Then usually the time is finished, I have to go to the past life. But actually, in real life, those seeds are going like, and if you want to, speed it up and see if you can follow them.

Then so fast that it seems like that quality is coming from the Lama. You see what I mean? Because that's what's really happening.

So many are going that we can't notice that they are coming from us. So if you want to speed it up sometimes, see if you can handle five. It's like juggling.

See if you can handle six or seven, and then do ten. I think that's cool. Then if you get tired, you can slow it down.

I like it. It should be so fast that it looks natural, like a movie. It's really like a movie.

When your meditation gets good, the goal of pretending you can see the seeds open, is that one day you see them open. You see what I mean? So we are just pretending.

It's like past life. We cannot see it directly, but we are pretending we can see it, and then later that plants a seed to see it. Pretending you can see the seed open, plants the seed to see them open.

One day you will really see it open and you will be like blown away. You are like, wow! Because you don't really believe it right now.

You kind of believe it. It sounds cool, but you don't really believe it. Then one day you will see the seed really open and you will be like, oh, that's real.

Really coming from me. Oh my God. You are planting the seed to be able to see it happen.

I think Ranga had a desperate question, I can tell. Thank you for the teachings. So the quality in my lama yesterday that I was appreciating was depth of knowledge and ability to easily convey difficult concepts, and then today it was the ability to meditate deeply and well.

And then I did the movie from my past life, and yeah, it was amazing in my past life. Then why don't I have the habit in this life to be able to do it well?

[Speaker 2]
I see it in my teacher, but then shouldn't I also be better at it? Shouldn't I have this habit? Why am I not as good if I was so good in my past life?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good question. What I can think of an answer is that you have already seeds inside of you for everything. You see, you can see your lama as a serial killer also.

You have those seeds. Because your past lives are countless, you have done everything. You have done all the good things that are possible, and you have done all the bad things that are possible, and all those seeds are there.

I like to tell people, you have been president of the United States countless times, and you have been Miss America countless times, even Du Bois. Okay? Seriously.

There's a priority system, which seeds will open first? And we'll study it. It will come.

So normally, the earlier seeds open first. If, for example, you were good at explaining things to people in your past life, but just before that, you were really busy with the internet, then the internet seed will open first. Normally.

And then the explanation seed will open later. So while the internet seed's opening, there's no time for the explanation seed to open. You see?

So your mind is full of seeds, normally first in, first out, like a counting. First seed in, first seed out. Normally.

And what we're trying to do is mess with the order of the ripening. We're trying to manipulate which seeds ripen first. So you do have seeds to have that quality, but other seeds were ripening before.

So the idea is to cancel some flights and try to move up that seed. By thinking about that seed, by thinking about your past life, you are actually pushing that seed up faster, and you will be more aware that you have that quality. The pretending has powerful results.

You also might think about, there's a lot of qualities that you see in your lama that you do know you have if you recognize them. There must be some kind of seed that we have that keeps us in low self-esteem somehow. There must be some special seed.

We have to check it out. I don't know what's a seed, but we're like, oh, I can't be like that. But you are.

Or you wouldn't see it. The fact that you can see a person have a good quality proves that you have it. So maybe that's a healthy thing to think about.

Maybe that's going to be a result of this meditation, I think. The books always say, of course, without pride. What's pride?

Pride is, there's a hundred people here meditating today, and really I have the best silver eggs of anybody. Okay, that's a Geshe Michael thought. Okay, Jigme, you had a, let's do one more.

Then we have to do the second, we have to go back down.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I was wondering, I was wondering about, yesterday, I was disturbed and I was upset with someone and then I thought, so that was on my mind in the meditation. So instead of my Lama, I was looking at that quality in that person that I was seeing, projecting there, and what I had done in the past to create that. Is that also valuable?

[Speaker 1]
I think when you start to feel upset at someone, if you do the lion's dance every day, and we're going to do a 30-day challenge, okay? This groom, and you're going to post it on WhatsApp. We'll do a 30-day challenge, okay?

Try to do it for 30 days, even 10 minutes, okay? Even an emergency lion's dance at 12 o'clock at night, just before the tomorrow, okay? That's okay.

And if you keep doing it, then naturally, as you go through your day, you will think about it. And when you see something beautiful, like even just a flower or something, you will start to get in the habit of saying, when did I plant that? You know?

I don't remember planting that, but okay, my garden has, nowadays, a lot of volunteers. Volunteer means it's seeded itself. I didn't plant the seed.

The seed came from a bird or bird poop. So, you will have volunteers in your life. Seeds will open that you didn't know about.

And you will get in the habit when you see something beautiful, you will say, oh, I planted that, which means it's a little bit, I have that. I didn't know, but I have that quality, okay? Then, Jigme's question is, when somebody irritates me, is it okay to think about when did I plant this seed?

It is, okay? Of course. That's how you become an arhat.

That's the only way to become an arhat, is to take responsibility. Okay? What's the opposite of that?

I didn't do anything. He yelled at me. I didn't do anything.

You always did something, okay? So, yeah, it's useful, but during this meditation time, focus on something beautiful, okay? Never in this meditation focus on something negative, okay?

We are only interested in what beautiful thing did I do in the past to create this beauty, you see? So during this meditation time, this is reserved for beauty, okay? And don't pollute it with some kind of, why do I have this asshole in my life?

Just tell him to come back later. I'll think about you in the afternoon. Okay, but normally morning is your pure time.

It's your good time for most people. Reserve this beautiful morning time for meditating on the beauty that you created, okay? And I think it's healthier to focus on that in general.

There's a barometer. There's a sign, you know, that you have bad seeds ripening. When you meet somebody who upsets you or irritates you, save those for the afternoon, okay?

Afternoon is a lousy time to meditate, usually. It's a good time to do yoga because your body's already warm and you're too sleepy to do anything else. Of course you have to work, but for this lion's dance, save it for beauty.

Save it for the time of beauty, okay? That's the tradition. Of course you have to figure out, sometime during the day you have to figure out, what did I do to create all these troubled people in my life?

But don't focus on them, okay? In my backyard I have clover? It's a special kind of grass.

The bees like it. And it's hard to grow in Arizona. And other grasses will grow taller and they will block the sunlight.

So naturally the clover doesn't, when there's a war between two grasses, clover always loses because it's lower and the higher plants will block the sunlight. So let your good seeds be like that, focus on your good seeds, okay? And if you do get very upset at someone, then take responsibility.

But I wouldn't waste the time to go back in your last life to see, when was I an asshole? You know? Just say, I must have been, I admit it.

Okay, it's my fault. Then focus on the beauty, okay? All right, let's go, let's do the second part, okay?

Ready? Then we'll be done. Somebody has to give me a piece of paper with the hour on it.

What time we finish? Say again? I mean, what time we supposed to stop?

10.15? Okay, got it. Okay, let's go back down.

Check your phone. See if it turned itself on while you were meditating. You need air conditioner?

No. Okay, air conditioner party lost that vote. Ten breaths.

So please bring the lama to mind, one of the teachers in your life. And in their core, they are the opposite of a mistake. They are coming from your seeds.

Personally, I like to say goodbye to my lama, so I'm going to come out of this meditation. It's a tradition, if you like, to imagine them inside your heart and that they will stay there all day, and they will bless you during the day to be strong and good.

[Speaker 2]
Then come back to formless realm number four.

[Speaker 1]
The mind is turned off, but if by accident some images come through the mind, or some thoughts come through the mind, then just let them go. Don't fight. Very silent.

Now decide, I'm going to come out of this meditation. In stages, I will come back close to the air conditioner, at least to my heart. So let's go to the third formless realm.

Dropping everything, turning off the mind, but making the extra effort to block any random thoughts or feelings. Now back to the expanding consciousness. Back to the lake, infinite space.

Ripple across the lake. Back to the single point of the sugar crystal. A little bit noisier each level, coming out of meditation.

A little bit noisier, the heart beating in a vacuum by itself. I'm not there yet, but I'm more aware of my physical body now. A little bit noisier, I am inside the heart.

The heart is beating. I'm in the chamber of the heart. The mind is getting more rough, closer to the air conditioner.

And then all the way out to the... I am above the heart and I'm watching the heartbeat. I'm aware of my whole body and I'm outside the heart and I'm just watching the heartbeat, feeling it, hearing it if you're in a quiet place.

[Speaker 2]
First form realm level.

[Speaker 1]
Lastly, three long exhales. But this time, what comes out of your nose is not breath. It's a golden light.

And you are sending all of the good karma and all of that wisdom. You are sharing it with the whole world. So imagine golden light coming out of your nose.

Make the breaths long and happy and relaxed and offer all those good karmas to other people in this world. May they have a chance in their lifetime to do the lion's dance and may I help and share these instructions with as many people as I can in my lifetime. Three long, golden exhales.

Then slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch. I'd like to take a five, ten minute break, okay?

And I need to look at the schedule for your retreat, okay? So I won't be able to answer questions for this ten minutes and then when you come back from your break, we'll talk about your daily schedule for the three days, okay? When you come back, please you need two papers.

You need your schedule and you need your meditations. Okay? Schedule and meditations.

Okay. Let's start with the schedule, okay? Khatsun.

What's khatsun? Shut up. People always remember the bad words first, like gyakpa so.

Things you shouldn't say to Tibetan people. Okay. Schedule.

Monday, October 16th, which is today. Okay. Be careful, Connie.

Okay. At five o'clock we will do a ceremony in the Je Tsongkapa Center to close the retreat borders. After that, you shouldn't leave Diamond Mountain, okay?

Unless you have emergency, okay? If you have emergency, it's fine. But, so five to six, we'll do a ceremony in the and we'll close the border.

It's in Tibetan, but the main thing is we invite a special angel named Khandro-lohi. She's like a tough guy mafia angel, and she will protect the border, spiritually, she will protect our border for the three days. Okay, her name is Khandro-lohi.

And we'll offer her torma as a bribe to protect the borders. That's her salary. And then you go home to your own cottage.

I think you take your dinner from here, am I right? Dinner and breakfast, you take from here. Okay?

And when you get to your cottage, it will still be a little bit daylight, okay? Not much. So, you will put up your boundary markers on your cottage.

Okay? And it's traditional, if you have front door, the first one you put up is to the left. Okay?

So you have to go out your front door, go left, one quarter around your cabin, and put one there. And then go to the back and put one there. Then go to the right side.

You're going counterclockwise. And put one there. And then the last one will be on your door, or near your door, on your door frame.

Okay? They're called samto. Samto means it's a spiritual announcement that I am in retreat.

Okay? And when the spirits see this, OM MA HUNG, they say, oh, somebody's in retreat here. I should avoid this house.

Okay? The bad ones, the good ones are like, I should help this person. Okay?

So it's kind of like a neon sign, spiritual neon sign, you know, in retreat, in retreat, in retreat. I suggest you do it before you eat, because you will still have some sunlight. Snakes like to come out at that time, because the mice like to come out at that time.

So be careful where you step. Okay? Don't step.

Snake here will not hurt you, unless you step on them. Then they will hurt you. Okay?

If you get bit by a snake, immediately use your internet. Okay? Because we have to take you to the hospital.

They will give you some special antidote. Okay? I don't think we ever had, in my three-year retreat, we had one woman, one of our six retreatants got half a bite on her little finger, and she went to the hospital.

She's fine. Okay? They give you some special medicine.

Okay? They're used to it around here. But so far we didn't have a problem here.

Okay. They will give you a sign, right? They will go, it means don't step on me.

Okay? They will give you a warning. Okay?

If you don't step on them quickly. If you get near, they will go, then you have to stop and go back, and don't look at them. Okay?

All right. All right. Seven o'clock tonight, I suggest you do a light lion's dance, seven to eight o'clock.

So I'm changing this schedule, because now you are a lion's dance expert. Seven to eight o'clock, a light lion's dance, not very heavy. If you have extra time, do mantra.

Light means don't, I mean, you're going to be full of dinner, you're going to be tired, you're going to be confused. Then don't try to go too deep. Just review it, do it lightly.

Don't take it too seriously. Pao asked me a good question. She said, Geshe-la, can I put the silver seeds in my heart instead of my head?

Actually, that's more correct, because the seeds are in your heart chakra. If you want to do that, it's fine, but if you start to feel nervous, move it to your head or your navel. Then the meditation sessions get shorter as we go through the day, because you will get tired.

It's harder to meditate for most people in the evening. A few people do better in the evening, so if you are an evening meditator person, you can switch it. But generally, we try to make the evening session pretty short.

Don't take it too seriously. It's not going to be very successful. Just have fun.

Personally, 8.30 to 9.15, I will just sit on a chair, easy chair, and I will have a hot chocolate. I will think about my Lama or something like that. You can almost do a coffee meditation about your life.

You can't do form realm, formless realm. It's not going to happen for most people. Take it easy.

Don't expect too much. Go to bed not frustrated. Do some nice coffee meditation, something.

For me, I just relax. Maybe I do some mantras. Mostly I focus on the hot chocolate.

Next morning, Tuesday morning, 7.00 to 7.30, GYOR CHOS, this is meditation song. It's in your Three Treasures Prayer Book. It's a little bit long.

My suggestion, give it half an hour. Stop where you want. Enjoy some part.

Don't expect to finish the whole thing. You probably cannot finish the whole thing. So don't worry.

Don't try to recite mantra faster. It doesn't work. OM MANI PAD ME'O, OM MANI PAD ME'O, OM MANI PAD ME'O I have to finish, I have to finish.

OM MANI PAD ME'O, OM MANI PAD ME'O The main thing is have fun, relax. If you can't finish, it's okay. Buddha said, I will not be angry.

Do half a good prayer is better than a whole nervous prayer. Enjoy yourself. 7.30 to 8.15, that's your golden time. That's a real lion's meditation. If you want to start it at 7.15, that's okay. If you want to make the jorcha shorter, that's okay.

But that's your golden time of the day. Then do a good lion's dance. If you need to take a break, take a break in the middle of the lion's dance.

Venerable Jigme has offered to take this morning's lion's dance, the three parts, she will cut it up into one audio and she'll post it in a few hours from now. So you can download it before you go into retreat. Before we do the closing ceremony, hopefully you will have the whole recording.

Going up, doing the seeds, and then coming out. Did you notice it's cool to come out, right? It helps you.

It's kind of nice. She'll have the whole recording up today, this afternoon. Foreign languages?

You're going to ask me that. No, what do you want to ask? Yeah, it does.

Yeah, I like it. Try it. Try it.

You tell me. I haven't taught it before. It also feels better for me.

Bring the consciousness back to the center. I think that's cool. The text doesn't say that, but it doesn't say the other either.

All right, my suggestion, and again, if you want to change your schedule, that's up to you. One pair of jeans doesn't fit everybody. One day I didn't have any yoga clothes.

Scott loaned me his pants. It didn't fit very well. Everybody's different.

Everybody has a different personality, yes? Yeah, in general, that's nice, to do it at the same time, but if your body clock is different, you can change it. You have power to change it.

Please don't make noise and things like that. It's nice if we're all meditating at the same time, but I would rather the jeans fit you. Everybody's body is different.

Everybody's mind is different. You do what fits you. All right, my suggestion at 11 o'clock on Tuesday is spend some serious time on the eight levels and do a short nine.

Don't come back down. Just go up to the eight. Spend a lot of time on that.

Do a short nine and then stop. Okay, 12.30 on Tuesday, it says mantras. Yeah, do mantras.

In the three-year retreat, the main practice is mantras. What's the meaning of mantra? Mantra means, help me mommy, help me mommy.

It's exactly the meaning of that mantra. Help me. If you have a powerful person helping you during meditation, the meditation will go much better.

Between the meditations, we do mantras. Mantra means, Oh Tsongkapa, please help me during my lion's dance. You're calling.

Mantra means calling for help. SOS You can use any mantra you want. You can use OM MANI PAD MI HUNG If you know Tsongkapa's mantra, that's really powerful.

If you know your Lama's mantra, you can use your Lama's mantra. Three o'clock on Tuesday, tomorrow, you will do your first Four Flowers meditation. That comes from this book, and I will review it with you today.

So don't worry about it. We will do some meditations from here. At three o'clock.

Four fifteen, you're doing mantras. It's nice to walk. By the way, one thirty, you're walking outside if you can.

Be careful of snakes. Take water. Nobody ever walks in the desert without water.

Take a hat. Take some sunglasses. We are higher than the ocean.

We are close to the sun. So it's easy to get these spots and to get skin problems. Wear a hat.

Wear sunscreen. Wear sunglasses. If you wear sunglasses, it helps to protect the retina of the eye.

The sun is very bright. All right. Six fifteen.

Another lion. Another full lion stance. It says here Four Flowers, forget that.

Lion stance. Six fifteen, on Tuesday. Eight fifteen, you have a forty-five minute useless meditation.

You're tired. That's the hot chocolate meditation. Coffee meditation.

I suggest strongly coffee meditation on the fact that you created the karma to meet your personal teachers in your life. Your mom and dad. Your school teachers.

Spiritual teachers. I suggest coffee meditation on that. You must have done something right if you're here.

There are 6,999,999,000 people who are not here. You are here. If this teaching is correct, you are one out of a hundred million people.

You are special. You really are special. You are very, very unusual in a good way.

If you have the seeds to be here, you must be very close to Buddhahood. That's a good coffee meditation. Wednesday, same as Tuesday.

Wednesday, same as Tuesday. Easy. Thursday morning, because we're going to come out on Thursday at 10.45, do a good strong lion's dance in the morning. Around 7, 7.15. Do the Georgia meditation song. Then do a nice good, do a kick-ass lion's dance. Because that's the last really good one you're going to have.

Then you're going to come out. The internet's going to attack you. You won't be able to focus as well.

Those are the sweet time. You traveled here. You spent a lot of money.

Your family's all mad at you because you're here. Your job is upset with you. This is your sweet time.

These three days are your sweet time. This is what you paid for. This is why you got your family upset, and your job, and you made the offering to the airline company.

Those three days, don't waste them. If you want to waste that time, and all that trouble and money, then use your phone. Use your cell phone.

Then it's all wasted. Really, those few hours of lion's dance are expensive. That's probably like a thousand dollars an hour or something.

You paid for it already. So use the time. This is the essence of the essence.

This is what you paid for. These three-year retreatants can tell you, the real, real good meditation time in a day is about one hour. Even if you try to meditate all day.

The sweet time, the good time, is about an hour. They had to build their cabins, and they said goodbye to their families for three years. Some of them lost their parents during the three years.

So use that sweet time. Don't break the retreat. We should put an omahu on your cell phone cover.

Samto. It's up to you. We are not going to police you.

You have to police yourself. I believe if you took the time and the money to come here, you will police yourself. You're not going to waste your time.

Okay. All right. If there's any other questions about it, I'll do it later.

Okay, I think we have to stop. Am I right? Yeah.

Okay. I'll do it. Do I have a class this afternoon?

I'll do it during class this afternoon. Okay. Okay.

All right.