«Дар освобождения», курс 29 «Большой побег», занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
Alright then, please get ready for meditation and we'll continue the first round of the one lion stance. And the first step is turn your phone on. Please don't move during the meditation, okay?

I don't care if it's uncomfortable, you can pee in your pants, it's okay. Really, they taught, I used to play baseball, they said if you gotta go, just go. In the middle of a game, you're not supposed to leave the field, okay?

So, don't move. And I don't care if you're, you know, director of the retreat or what, okay? Because it disturbs everybody.

Blow your nose now or forever hold your peace. It's really good to blow your nose, okay? The people online really like it.

So, take a position you can hold and it doesn't have to be an official position. Something you can hold for half an hour. So, we finished the lobby and we went up to the eighth floors.

And now it's time for your American breakfast, okay? Or kanji. I learned to make kanji, you know?

It got, I think I got a four and a half star from my guests. Here we go. What's the trick to good kanji?

You have to freeze the rice overnight. Okay, here we go. So, we teach, I don't know, Scott knows, I think we teach a hundred and eighty DCI programs a year or something, days.

Something like that? 150? So, we teach so many people that we experiment with different things to see how they work on people.

Sometimes people fall asleep. Sometimes they like it better. So, this meditation has also developed, evolved, okay?

So, I'm going to share with you what the American breakfast tastes like right now. There's surfing. Okay, here we go.

For this you can do ten breaths. Follow ten breaths. Long, long exhales.

Then I'd like you to choose one teacher in your life. Someone who changed your life. And could be your mom or your father.

These are very important teachers in your life. Could be another relative in your life. Could be a school teacher who changed your life.

Some people even had sports teachers who changed their life. Maybe it was the person who taught you your job, your career. Or it could be a spiritual teacher, a rabbi, a priest, a monk.

Could be your children. Choose one of the people who taught you in your life. Now ask them to please come and meditate with you.

They sit in front of you. Their eyes are open and they're looking at you with great happiness and love. And your eyes are closed but you can see them.

I like to say you are sitting knee-to-knee. And they are not a picture. They are a living person.

They are breathing. Their body is warm. You can feel them in front of you.

Make the picture clear and natural and alive. Now I'd like you to think of the first time you met them. And what brought that meeting about?

How did it happen? In my case, I think many of you know the story, my mother was having a dinner. And the person who became my teacher came to the dinner.

And I remember they came in a Volkswagen car. And I remember even what streets they took to get to my house. I remember what we ate for dinner.

How the meeting happened. We have a feeling in our heart that it was sort of a wonderful accident that we met this person. Maybe you met them on the street.

Or maybe you had a job interview with them. Maybe the school assigned you to this teacher. And with our parents, especially, it feels like we just happened to be born to this man and woman.

Then try to remember the pen and how the pen is coming from me. Because the dog sees something different. So it must be that in my case, the teacher came from me.

And maybe they did come in a car, Volkswagen car, but I also created the car. And I created my mom, who invited this person to dinner. And I created the front door of our house, came from me, through which they walked when I first met them.

The streets of the city were coming from me. Their house was coming from me. The hospital they were born in is coming from me.

And so I must have planted the seeds in my own mind that opened into this teacher. So a teacher who just showed up at my house in a Volkswagen car, or a holiday that just happened. These are not real.

There are no accidents. None of these things were coming from their side. And the feeling that I have that I met them on a certain day, and that was the first time we met, is wrong.

Very, very wrong and mistaken. It's very similar to the text message which my husband or my wife was sending to their boyfriend or their girlfriend, secret boyfriend or secret girlfriend. And I don't like to use this example, because it's so uncomfortable for all of us to imagine such a thing.

And you start to feel some sort of trouble, troubled heart, uncomfortable in your heart, to imagine such a problem in your life. But that means it's a good example, because the things you think are there, which aren't there, are why you're unhappy, or they're why bad things happen to you. It's always because of something that you don't understand.

And it's always because of something you think is there, which is not there. So meeting your teacher in this life, any of those teachers, by accident, such a teacher doesn't exist. Everything about this person that you love, every goodness you receive from them, was actually coming from you, from seeds that you planted.

So choose one or two beautiful things about this teacher that you like. For example, I enjoy that my teacher enjoys helping people with handicap, or elderly people. She really enjoys serving them.

So choose a quality like that, which is part of why they're your teacher. You want to learn to be like that. So cancelling the teacher that you met by accident, Dhakja teacher, is the stopping meditation.

That's actually an emptiness meditation. Cancel a teacher that you met by accident. That's emptiness meditation.

Now we're going to go to the Wheel of Light, which is what Maitreya says we should do next. Dependent Origination. How did I plant those seeds to see this beautiful quality of my teacher?

What did I do in my past life to meet this teacher, to create this teacher? Then most of us cannot see our past lives directly, but we can imagine what we must have done, because we know the laws of karma. We know the result is similar to the cause.

We know the cause was smaller. We know the cause came before. So we can imagine events in our past life.

So choose, I like to first choose a time of history, maybe a hundred years ago. I like, personally I like about 2,000 years ago. Then you can choose a country.

I like India. I like Mexico. I don't know why.

China. Choose a country where you were living. Choose a time in history.

Choose a sex. Were you male or female? Choose an age.

How old were you? Choose an occupation. What did you do in those days, in that birth?

What did you wear? What was your neighborhood like? Did you live in a village or a town or a city?

And now write a movie about what you did to create this teacher's beautiful qualities. In my case, I must have served the sick or served the elderly. So make a few stories.

Feel free and creative. Anything you can think of is also coming from seeds that you have earned. So make a beautiful, quiet story of who you were and what you did to plant these seeds.

We'll go for about five minutes. Don't stop. If you finish one story of taking care of an elderly person, then go to another one.

Now go to the center of your mind. For me it's kind of like a dark room with a single light, beautiful light, above. And the light is shining down on a small nest of seeds.

To me they look like robins' eggs, but they are silver. Five silver seeds, eggs, in my mind, in the center of my mind. And these are the seeds from those days that I planted in my mind.

And slowly one of them begins to crack like a chicken might come out. And instead this picture of a beautiful teacher who serves others comes out of the egg. It looks to me like a hologram.

I can sort of see through it. And it's made of light and it comes to the... I like to imagine that it comes to the back of my forehead on the inside.

And then it passes out. And it floats over to my teacher in front of me. And it settles on my teacher like a coat.

It coats them. And because of this magic coat, light, I see service. I see my Lama serving.

And if I did not have those seeds, my Lama wouldn't be so kind. So follow one seed opening and then when it's settled on your teacher, go back to the second seed and do five seeds this way. This is dependent origination.

This is the Wheel of Life. Now it's time to finish the meditation. And we can sit for a minute with our teacher and enjoy their goodness and reflect for just a few minutes more that this beauty came from me.

It came from how I served people in the past. And if I try to continue serving, there's no reason why I can't stay with my teacher indefinitely into the future. And remember tonight before you sleep, I know a lot of us, we don't do coffee meditation every night.

But we're on a retreat here. It's a beautiful retreat center. It's quiet.

We came here to a quiet place for a reason. And tonight you have time. You came here.

You're not at home. You don't have all those busy things. And you have time to appreciate all the goodness you have planted in your life and all the evidence around you of beautiful seeds you have planted.

So tonight before you sleep, appreciate yourself and the kindness you must have done to create all the good things in your life. Your life's not perfect, but there are many beautiful things. And they're all coming from you.

And you should spend a few moments tonight before, as you sleep, to think about the good seeds you must have planted, the goodness you must have shown to others. We always end this meditation with three long exhales. Each one is like golden light.

And it touches the people in this place, in this country, in this world, and gives them some happiness. Share the happiness you've planted. Three long exhales.

Take your time. Then you can slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch.

You guys did good, but we're not tired yet, right? It comes in about two days. Any questions about that part?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la. My question is, in your previous teaching, during this meditation, you asked us to see the seeds opening before the previous life story.

[Speaker 1]
But this time you changed the order. And why? You know, we were in some country.

I don't remember what country. When I go traveling like to Guangzhou, the first thing I say is, I'm very happy to be in... I can't remember sometimes which city.

Then the custom officer asked me, where are you from? And I'm like... So anyway, we tried different things.

I think it's more natural. I think you plant the seed, and then you see it open. You see?

You try to remember how you planted it, and then you see it open. And I was thinking how Maitreya taught this meditation. He said, you do the gopay nyom juk.

You do the emptiness meditation. By the way, the technical name of that meditation is cessation meditation. But I read a nice commentary on it recently.

And they said, don't worry about this big word, cessation. It just means emptiness. So, don't stress about it.

Cessation means stopping. Stopping what? Stopping the idea that I met my teacher by accident.

So, it's not like some high spiritual state, you know. It's just the husband's girlfriend. It's just, you know, no such teacher.

So, the name is very fancy. The name is very difficult in Buddhist language. But the meaning is very simple.

The husband was never doing anything wrong. It was all your mistake. You didn't see correctly.

So, same with your teacher. Same with meeting your teacher. Okay?

So, I thought, you know, the traditional order is lobby, eight floors in the elevator, cessation meditation, and then dependent origination, which is the seeds opening. And then dedication. Give the karma, share the karma on your breath.

And that's the tradition. So, that's the first round. Trug tumble.

And we have to learn three more rounds. Okay? So, today I thought it's enough to get to the ninth floor and have a nice breakfast and go surfing.

Tomorrow we'll do the second round. Okay? Question?

[Speaker 2]
My question was very similar to Luka's. It was just how you did the bubu lama before the Wheel of Life. And the way you did it was just understanding, I'm just reassuring, understanding that it wasn't a mistake meeting your teacher.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, no accident. You can say it very simple.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
But we always feel that we met someone by accident. I like to, I enjoy asking people, where did you meet your partner? And the stories are very dear, you know?

Like, you meet people who've been married for 50 years, and you say, how did you meet each other? And there's a very beautiful story. Christine Walsh was answering the phone at an airline, and her husband called to make a reservation.

So, there's like 10,000 people answering the phone. And the man called her, and they talked and she made the reservation, but he liked her voice. And he called again and again until he got her.

And then he asked her on a date. So, it looks like an accident, but there's no accident, you see? So, it's a nice example of self, you can call it self-existence, or you can call it accident.

But there is no accident. The man or woman that you met by accident, or the teacher that you met by accident, is the same as the husband who has a girlfriend. Okay?

Doesn't exist. Didn't exist. You thought it existed, but you were very wrong.

And you got upset for nothing. That's the idea. That's a very personal thing that upsets anybody.

Okay. So, like that. All right.

Another one? No?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la. My question is, when we do light and dance meditation frequently, when we go back to the previous life, the imagination of previous life, should we change the imagination every time, or we focus on one imagination and go deeper or more detailed?

[Speaker 1]
Good question. Generally, in meditation practice, it's good to repeat something a few times, and then it's good to change it, because you'll get bored, or you'll get dry. So, you know, I go to India for a while, for a couple days, then I change to China, then I go to Mexico and France, and South America.

So, either one is okay. I would, personally, I like to spend two or three days on the same lifetime, and I make more stories, more old people I'm helping. You know, and I make a different story for each one, and then I change because it's fun.

It's more fun to change. But the important thing is, anything you can imagine is partly true. Because if you couldn't, if you can imagine it, you have done it.

Okay? If you can make a story, it's always partly true. Because you can't imagine a past life that you haven't ever lived.

Okay? You wouldn't think of it, unless you had seeds. So, it's kind of cool.

I can't see my past life directly, but I really enjoy, I know that it's true. It's mostly true. Okay?

Any other question? No? Okay.

One more and then we'll go to the long rim. Thank you for teaching, Eshila. My pleasure.

You emphasized that we should deny the idea of the accident lama. For me, it's always visualization. It's imploding, or I wipe him out, like on a board, and then I make the new one.

Is that okay? Yeah, great. It's a little bit inauspicious.

It's not lucky to cancel your lama. I know what you're feeling, but you can take comfort in the fact that they were never there. So, you're canceling someone who was never there.

By the way, there's two gakjas in this meditation. Who can tell me? Yeah, the lama who's not coming from you is one of the gakjas.

What's the other gakja? It's the noisier place. It's the last floor on the elevator.

Okay? When you're on the second floor, when you're inside the heart, it's the heart you were watching from the outside. It's called gakja.

So, in the study of emptiness, there are two kinds of gakja. Rigpa gakja and lamki gakja. Rigpa gakja means the gakja or the non-existent thing that you cancel with your reasoning, that you figure out a lama that you met by accident is impossible.

That's called rigpa gakja. Logical gakja. Okay?

And that one never exists. Cannot exist. Okay?

But there's a second kind of gakja that we don't talk about very often, which is called lamki gakja of the path. The gakja of the path. And in the lion's dance, the lamki gakja is the noisier place.

Each time you go deeper, you reject the last place. Okay? And that's called, in the study of meditation, that's called a gakja.

So, you might get confused if you read Tibetan. You'll see all these gakjas in the lion's dance before they get to emptiness. But it means you are rejecting the noisier place.

Okay? You are rejecting the air conditioner to go to your heart. And that's a famous meditation method called shiraki nambachen.

Say shiraki. Nambachen. Shiraki nambachen.

Rejecting the less subtle, and going to the more subtle. And it's not an emptiness meditation. It's a temporary meditation.

It's a swimming laps in the pool meditation. Shiraki nambachen. Very famous.

Why I mention it is that I believe most people in this world who meditate are doing shiraki nambachen. They are trying to get more quiet. And they don't understand the goal of meditation.

They are just trying to get more quiet. That's called shiraki nambachen. And it's not a goal.

It's an exercise. It's like swimming laps. But it's not surfing.

Okay? The purpose of meditation is to see emptiness directly. Okay?

The whole purpose of meditation is to cancel the teacher who was never there. Okay? Because those are the things that cause suffering.

People that weren't there, that you thought were there, are the only cause of suffering. The two husbands in the kitchen. Okay?

The two wives in the kitchen. And if you understood that, it's impossible to be unhappy. Okay?

Very interesting. Okay. Let's go, let's go to the lamrim.

This is kind of a super sexy subject for truths. Okay? Of an arya.

Arya means a person who has seen emptiness directly. Okay? And we're talking about the first time they see emptiness directly.

Okay? And it's the most important thing that will ever happen to you in your life. In your lifetimes.

It's twenty minutes after billions of years. And it changes everything. If you see emptiness directly, you will become a Buddha and nobody ...

It's impossible to stop it. It's like getting pregnant. You're going to have a baby.

You know? Something's going to come out. Okay?

After that you can't stop it. Okay? If you see emptiness directly, within a short amount of time, you will be my teacher.

Okay? And nobody can stop it. It's like some kind of weird thing.

It has an extreme power. Extraordinary power. And for the first day, for the ...

especially the first hour after you see emptiness directly, because of the power of emptiness, you do many things that are impossible for a normal person. Okay? And it happens to everybody who sees emptiness directly.

These experiences, called the Four Arya Truths, happen to everybody who sees emptiness directly. Okay? And there are ...

you can divide them into sixteen parts. Okay? So I'm going to give you some of the parts from a traditional scripture.

And they're not very ... they're not enough. Okay?

But I want you to hear how it's usually explained. And then I want you to hear what it really is. Okay?

So I'm going to take you through two scriptures. Let me see. I just chose two.

There are many. So this is from a book by Pabongkha Rinpoche. Who's that?

He wrote the book. You studied for ten years. Okay?

And he wrote a book called ... based on Sutra Alankara, which is one of Maitreya's five books, not studied very often, and ... Entering the Middle Way, by Chandrakirti, which is studied by everybody.

Okay? So he wrote a ... he gave some ...

he gave a lecture about that and he talked about these sixteen parts of the Four Arya Truths. Okay? Nice.

Who did that? Mr. Andrade. There's a really good singer, lady, called Andrade.

Do you know her? I would play the song for you now. But ...

tomorrow morning. I thought maybe you're related. She looks kind of like you, but ...

Okay. Anyway. DUNG NGEL ZHES GDUG PA'I YI WONG So, he's trying to explain the name of the first truth.

What's the first truth? You shouldn't say that. A debater, when asked a question, will clarify.

First, you're talking how we experience it, or you're talking how we figure it out. Okay? So sometimes the answer to a question is to ask a question back.

You ready? What's the first truth? Yeah.

Are you talking about how it happens, or are you talking about how we figure it out? I'm talking about how we figure it out. So then what's the first one?

Pain. Okay? Pain.

Suffering. So he takes the Tibetan word for suffering, DUNG NGEL, and he said ... by the way, I don't know if you guys know, GDUG PA'I, by itself, without the NGEL, means beautiful.

A synonym is YI WONG, attractive. The city of the gods of the 33 at the top of Mount Meru is called DANA GDUG. When you see it, you are stunned by its beauty.

So GDUG means beautiful. Okay? By the way, it's not the DUG in Sanskrit, DUG HA, which means suffering.

It's no relation. Okay? GDUG PA'I YI WONG.

GDUG PA'I means attractive. DE RGA PA, something which blocks that beauty, or cuts that beauty, or wears out that beauty, is called NGEL BA. Okay?

So DUNG NGEL means erased beauty, and that's the Tibetan word for suffering. That's the name of the first truth. Okay?

So that's his explanation. That's as much as he says about the first truth. Okay?

Then he says, RGYUD NI BYED RGYU. Then, the second truth is what? The source.

The source. Okay? And it has four names, right?

There are four parts of each of the four truths. The first one is RGYU, which means cause. So, the source of suffering is also called the cause.

There are four words traditionally used to explain the second truth. Okay? Four parts.

And here's how they're normally explained in a scripture. Okay? The RGYU, the second truth, which is called the source, it has four names.

One is RGYU. RGYU means cause. Okay?

Cause. Cause of cause and effect. Okay?

And the cause, he explains the word. He's explaining the sixteen aspects. Okay?

This is Pabongka. This is your author. This is that we just spent ten years with him.

Nine years. Okay? BYED RGYU.

RGYU means BYED RGYU. Cause means the cause that makes it. That's the pain.

The cause that makes the pain. Cause means cause that makes the pain. Okay?

BYED RGYU. Alright? RAB DGE, which is another name, it's the second aspect of the second truth.

Okay? It's called super producer. RAB DU SKYE BA.

Okay? He says that means PHRAG DU SKYE PA. It comes fiercely.

Okay? Super producing as the second aspect of the second truth means coming fiercely. Okay?

PHRAG DU. PHRAG... For example.

Okay? KHYEN is the third name of the second truth. And it means condition.

Secondary condition. Okay? Then he says, DANG NYAL GCIG NAS GCIG TU RGYU PA.

The point of calling it a condition is that it tends to perpetuate itself. Pain tends to cause pain. You get pain, your husband says something, then you tend to say something back.

And then he'll say something again. And that's how he explains the third aspect of the second truth. Last one.

SPANG BYA. SPANG BYA means... Okay, this is an important thing in the four truths.

Okay? If you're going to study four truths, we could do it for about a week. We're not going to because we don't have time.

But there are supposed to be four relationships that we have with the four truths. You see? We're supposed to have a relationship with each of the four truths.

Okay? With the first truth, which is what? Bad answer.

Yeah, which order? Okay. The first most common one, which is pain.

Okay? Our relationship with the first truth is supposed to be SHES PA BYA. SHES PA BYA.

You got to figure out that it's happening. You got to figure it out. So, every truth, each one of the four truths has four parts and it also has a relationship.

Okay? How am I supposed to relate to the first truth? And the answer is, God dang, figure it out.

You know? It's happening to you right now. It's happening to everybody you know.

You got to realize. It means you have to realize. SHES PA BYA means you got to wake up.

This is how... Didn't you say your song was called Wake Up? Yeah, there you go.

Her song was called SHES PA BYA. So, wake up. Okay?

Realize what's happening. Even the most beautiful movie actor is getting older, is dying. Even the richest person is losing everything every moment.

They will lose everything. Don't be mad at Trump. He's going to lose everything.

And it will hurt. So, be sad for him. Okay.

So, our relationship to the first truth is what? Figure it out. Wake up.

See what's going on. Okay. What's our relationship to the second truth?

And he says here, PANG CHA. Yeah, give it up man. There's a joke in Buddhism.

The guy's wife was frying eggs on the stove. The stove was going. The wife had to go somewhere.

The stove was still going. The frying pan is red hot. The guy picks it up and he's going ARGH!

ARGH! ARGH! Then, maybe you want to let it go.

He's, oh, thanks. Let it go. Stop doing that.

Stop making the cost. Okay? That's our relationship to the second truth.

It's very famous, when you teach the four truths, that there should be four relationships. Okay? Alright.

Alright. SDUG BSNGAL ZHI BA ZHI BA DE BA RGYA RNAMS NGAN BYUNG THAR PA LAM NI KHRUL DANG PO Okay. PANG CHA GOG PA Okay, here's GOG PA.

The third one, which is what? In the order we were talking about. The end of suffering.

Yeah, the end of suffering. It's also called peace. ZHI BA It's also called DE BA.

Happiness. It's also called RGYA RNAMS. Beautiful. And it's also called NGAN BYUNG, which means you came out.

You left. You left. Okay?

And THAR PA. It's also called THAR PA. LAM LAM NI DROD DANG PO So now he's giving synonyms for the fourth truth, which is what?

PATH So DROD DANG PO means the straight road. It's also called RIG PA, which means logical. A synonym for the PATH is logical.

One of the four aspects of the PATH is logical. And he says that means correct. DROD PA means something you should try to practice and achieve.

And it's the opposite of GOG PA, which is the third one. Okay? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Does that relate to the verse that we were practicing, CHEN GYI TZAM GYI LHA RANG?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it is somewhat related. Yeah, yeah. TZAM PAR BYA ZHIG YING BAR BYA, SANGS RGYAS BSTAN LA SGRUB PA BYA, DANG PO'I KHYIM NA LANG CHEN CHING, CI DAG DE NI ZHONG PAR BYA It's partly related to that, yeah.

CHEN CHOG NAS THAR PA DROD, LANG RDOG PA MED PA'I NGAN CING And it's also called definitely coming out because you're not going to go back. Okay? These are his explanations of the 16 aspects.

And that's all you get. Okay? You just get kind of synonyms for the 16 words.

He explains the words and not the meaning. That's what I'm trying to say. And that's all you get.

Okay? Now, let's go on to Khen Rinpoche. Okay?

And he wrote a book called DONG DUN CHEN MO, which is like an interlude on emptiness, like a trip to emptiness. It's called A Brief Trip to Emptiness. It's almost a thousand pages.

Okay? It's called A Little Trip to Emptiness and it's a thousand pages. And it's one of the best dang books about emptiness ever written.

And the lion's den's best explanation comes from that. So we should translate it. So if any single person or group of people in this room wants to do something smart like Norbert started this custom, you should talk to Nick and say, I want the Khen Rinpoche book.

I want to sponsor that. That's my book. Okay?

If you're smart. If you don't do it, I'm doing it tomorrow. Okay?

I'm threatening you. Okay? It's not cheap to feed a translator for five years.

Okay? But it's one of the best things you can do. Because that book will be translated into seven, eight languages.

And people will use it for hundreds of years. And your name will be on the front. Okay?

All right. Anyway, I'm not going to go through it. It doesn't help.

It doesn't help. He names the sixteen aspects. Lam rikpa drupa ngen jing.

For example, for path, he says, lam rikpa drupa ngen jing. He'd say, lam rikpa drupa ngen jing. Those are the four aspects of the path.

Path, logical, practice, and exit. And that's all. There's no more explanation.

Okay? And he's one of the most explanationer lamas that ever lived. Okay?

Okay. So, I want to give you the real one. Okay, you ready?

You can't get this anywhere except at Diamond Mountain. So, Adam, you got to go back up to the— just above there, there's a list of sixteen. Okay?

Yeah, good. Right there. Right there.

A. Okay? Truth of pain.

Then, this is a presentation. Okay? You should write it down.

You can't get it anywhere. You should remember. It's part of what you're going to meditate on when you're in retreat.

Okay? So, A means truth number one, which is the truth of pain. Okay?

Shepa ja means your relationship to it should be to figure out it's going on now while you're sitting in this class. Okay? You got to realize what's happening to you.

Your body doesn't fall apart when you get to my age or Phil's age or John Brady's age. Your body's falling apart now. Okay?

Got it? You got to understand what's going on. Okay?

Then, the first of the four aspects of the truth of pain is mitapa. Okay? Mitapa means you are impermanent.

Okay? And if you see emptiness directly, one of the sixteen amazing things that happens to you is you see your own death in this life. Okay?

And no more question about it. You know? Mitapa means you see directly.

See? Arya, right? You don't just see emptiness directly, you see these sixteen truths directly.

Number one, gravity will win. Okay? When you're a kid, gravity's in charge.

Then your parents work, work, work and then you totter around like a drunk. Age two? I don't know how...

I haven't been through this except on the other side. Yeah. So, your parents are trying to get you to stand up straight, which is unnatural for any animal to walk on two legs and fight gravity your whole life.

And then gravity wins. Okay? There's a very famous politician in Washington recently.

She fell down and killed herself. She fell down and she died. Very famous congresswoman, you know?

And gravity won and it will win for each of us. Okay? So that's the first one.

Okay? Mitapa. You are impermanent.

Your days are numbered. Okay? You will fall down.

You will go down and not get up. Okay? Unless you practice well.

Unless you see emptiness directly. Okay? It will happen to you.

Gravity will win and you won't get back up. Okay? Alright, number two.

Dunyam means suffering and it's an understanding of what's going on in the whole world and that you have not yet reached nirvana. Okay? Even seeing emptiness directly, right after that, 21 minutes later, you start seeing things wrong again.

Okay? So you're not finished yet. Okay?

You have the ammunition. You have the knowledge, but you're not finished yet. Alright, that's called suffering.

Okay? The second aspect of the first truth is called pain. What's the first truth called?

Yeah, the name of the second aspect of the first truth and the name of the first truth are the same. Okay? It's called pain.

Okay? Third one, and here's an answer to Earl. Okay?

This is tradition. Dongpa. So, strangely, the Buddha named the third and fourth aspects of the truth of suffering, he named them emptiness and no self-nature.

Okay? It doesn't seem to be a kind of pain. You see?

But the Buddha named them emptiness and no self-nature. And Ben taught, talked about the Abhidharma school today. And there's a popular debate in the monastery.

Does the Abhidharma school teach emptiness? They don't. They teach dakme.

They teach anatman. They teach no self, no self-nature. The pen is not itself.

But they never ever teach emptiness. They don't call it emptiness. In their school, they don't call it emptiness.

Abhidharma does not use the word emptiness. It uses the word no self-nature. Except when they teach the four truths.

So, you can win a debate. Okay? If you want to win a debate, I'm just giving you ammunition.

You know? Bring up the first truth. First ask the opponent, does Abhidharma accept emptiness?

And they'll say no, which is correct. Then say, so the Abhidharma doesn't accept the four truths, right? Okay?

Because it is a little tiny part of the first truth. Okay? So, tongpa means the experience of the dharma.

Okay? Direct perception of emptiness is the third aspect of the first truth. Okay?

The experience of of that direct perception. Okay? Diamond.

Similar to a diamond. What's the joke? What's the big joke about the diamond?

It's the closest thing to emptiness and it's not close at all. Okay? In this world, in the world that most people live in for their whole life, the diamond is the closest thing to emptiness.

If you could be around diamonds every day, it would help you to see emptiness. Okay? And I'm happy to announce, me and Scott, we were walking to the New Delhi airport two years ago?

A year and a half ago. Yeah. And I found this jewelry store.

I was late for the plane. We were running to the plane and I saw a jewelry store. You know those counters in the airport?

They force you to, they say gate five is this way and it's a lie. Gate five is over there. They just get you to go through the alcohol and the perfumes.

And there was a jewelry counter. And I glanced in and there was a nice piece, jewelry piece with a raw diamond, which is very rare. But they, they shaped the raw diamond in a very beautiful way, in a way which I can, I believe it's closer to emptiness.

A raw diamond is closer to emptiness, especially if you clean it up a little bit. And it was very, very beautiful and very, very close to emptiness. So I was like, I'll take it.

And they're like $2,000. And I'm like, I'll give you $1,000. And then they're like, no.

Then Scott's like, we got to go. And I'm like, no, I'm not paying $2,000. This is the old diamond dealer instinct, you know.

Then I said, I'll give you $1,200. He's like, no, $2,000. He knows I'm late for the plane.

It was a lady actually. Anyway, I got up to $1,999. She's like, okay.

Then she's wrapping it, like she's wrapping it, and she looks at me and she goes, it was a necklace, or sorry, bracelet. She's wrapping it. She says, and there's matching earrings also.

I'm like, I got to go. She's like, you're going to give this to your wife without the earrings? You know.

So anyway. So anyway, I designed a meditation ring where you can touch the diamond as you meditate. And the first model is coming out.

I don't know. The first model's finished. We have to cast it, but the design is finished.

So we're going to work on that for her meditation club student. But it'll be a ring where you can put your finger on a raw diamond and meditate. Something like that.

I think it's a... I actually believe it will help you. And I have this idea to put an ID number in it.

Each ring has a different number inside. And you pay double for the ring. You pay double the cost of the ring.

And the half goes to John Brady for saving ancient books. And then the number in the ring is put into a computer and you can see which book was input from your ring. And you can follow it from the library to the translator in Sedona to the English translation to the German translation.

You can follow your book number that's always going to be on your ring. Okay? Something like that.

So anyway, diamond is very important. That's the third one. Fourth one is no self-nature.

And it has two meanings. Something strange happens when you see emptiness directly. A very clear...

I mean your mind is talking to you. And your mind says to you, when you become Buddha they won't call you Michael. It won't be your name.

It won't be Michael. And that's all. It's an important message.

It has a lot of meaning. And it happens to everybody who sees emptiness directly. They hear a voice that says, you will not be called Vivian when you become Buddha.

What it means, we have to talk about it. Okay? Also it means just before you see emptiness directly, about an hour before you see emptiness directly, you, for the first time in billions of lifetimes, you see the silver egg open in your mind.

Directly. You are not seeing emptiness. You are seeing dependent origination.

For the first time, directly, you see seeds in your mind. You see them open. You see a common object in your life, like a pot on the stove.

You see it coming from your mind. For the first time. You can hear Geshe Michael say it.

You can hear the pen 500 times. It's not direct. On that day, you see the seed open.

You see the picture come out. Then you are like, damn, Geshe Michael was right. God bless him.

He is teaching for 30 years the same stupid thing. It was right. It's amazing.

Everything is coming from me. And you don't believe me 100% yet. When you reach that, you will say, okay, oh yeah, I picked the right religion.

You know, it's kind of a cool day in your life. You are like, damn, you know, we are the ones who are right. That's so cool, you know.

Okay? It's really like that. I know it sounds a little prejudice, but it's not.

Okay. All right. Truth of the source of pain.

Okay? What's our relationship to it? Bhangwaja.

You got to drop it like a hot frying pan. Drop it. Let go.

Okay? Let go of the things that are causing you pain. Okay?

Anger at your husband who yelled at you for no reason at all. And? That's the karma half.

What's the other half? Sorry. That's the mental affliction half.

And the other half is karma. What's that? In the two husbands example, what's that?

Yeah, yelling back. I'm not phantom. You're phantom.

Okay? You're stupid. I'm not stupid.

Okay. Those are the two sources. Okay?

What's your relationship to yelling at your husband back? Drop it. Let go.

Okay? It's going to hurt you. Okay?

All right? Here. Five.

Gyu. Gyu means the first of the four aspects of the second truth, which is called kun jung, the source. The first aspect is called gyu.

Cause. Cause. Okay?

What's a cause? The ultimate cause of everything is desire, is attachment. But it doesn't mean I like yo chow.

It doesn't mean I like donuts. Okay? What's it mean?

I think donuts come from their own side. I get donuts by paying money. Okay?

They are made in the kitchen. My lama... I met my lama by accident.

Okay? These are all the same. Okay?

Gyu. That's gyu. You misunderstood the pen.

You think the pen is coming from the pen. You think the pen comes from pen factory. You think it's made from oil.

You think you got it with money. These are all mistakes. Okay?

Gyu. Cause of your pain. Okay?

You misunderstand things. Where things come from. Okay, second one.

By the way, we're up to six aspects. Okay? Right?

Four, four, four, four. Okay? Second aspect of the second truth has the same name as the...

truth. Okay? The truth is called source.

The second aspect of the second truth is called source. Okay? Unfortunately, that holds for...

all of them? Yeah. It's not always the second one.

So far, it's been the second one. All right. Kun chung means...

the... the belief you were born with that things are coming from their own side. And every living creature has it.

Ants have it. Birds have it. Worms have it.

Whales have it. Okay? What do you call...

in your bloodstream? Hmm... Yeah.

Little critters in your blood. They misunderstand. They try to avoid pain by swimming away.

Okay? They don't understand. Okay?

They really don't understand. Everybody has that. And even people who just saw emptiness directly still have it.

Okay? When they come out, they still see things coming this way, but they... they know they're crazy.

They... Michael can tell Michael, Michael, you're wrong, when Michael thinks that things are coming from their own side after Michael saw emptiness directly. Michael can talk to Michael.

You know, Michael, you're stupid. You're crazy. Things are not coming from their own side.

Yeah, I know. I just saw that. Well, why are you looking at it that way?

Because I still have seeds to see things that way. Okay? I didn't reach nirvana yet.

When you reach nirvana, it stops. So your whole life, even after you see emptiness directly, you believe things are coming from their... It looks like things are coming from their own side.

After you see emptiness directly, you don't believe it, but you still see it. It's like a... Then that's the meaning of Maya in Buddhism.

That's illusion in Buddhism. Okay? There's a contradiction between the way it looks and the way you notice.

Okay? All right. Third, what?

Aspect of second truth. It's called ken, condition. Okay?

And... When you see emptiness directly, the power of emptiness, for about eight hours, you can read other people's minds directly. You can listen to their thoughts.

Okay? For the first time. And it goes away.

By the time you wake up, you can't do it anymore. Okay? But it's a very weird day in your life, because every person you meet, you can read their thoughts.

You know? So, for example, if you were going to sell the sports car that your professor gave you to buy a small diamond, you could read the car dealer's mind when he says, I'm going to cheat this young man. You can read it directly.

Every word they say to themselves, you can read it, you can hear it. Okay? Okay?

So you have that power for about a couple hours. And... one of the disturbing things is you realize how few people in your life have any hope in this life, because you can read in their mind.

They have no... probably no chance to see emptiness. They're not interested in it.

They don't believe in it. It doesn't matter if you lock them up and talk to them every day for all day. There's no hope for them.

And you read it in their mind. It's very disturbing. I think maybe we are protected from reading minds by some divine law, because they're more person-crazy.

To really hear what your friends think about your haircut, you wouldn't have any friends anymore. Okay. Number eight.

What is it called? Condition? Yeah, you see, they don't have any condition in their mind for that.

Or they have the conditions for continued pain. How's that? Rabke.

And there's many misspellings of number eight. This is the correct spelling. And it's this pouring out of pain, of the source.

It's the pouring out of the source, pours out quickly, like a pipe that's broken, like a water pipe that's broken, and the water's bursting out. That's called rabke. Super production.

And it means all the actions you undertake in your life are infected by selfishness. You cannot do a good thing until you see emptiness directly. You can't do it.

You can give money to people, but some part of you wants recognition. You can make offerings to the altar, but some part of you wants other people to see. It's impossible to do a purely good act until you see emptiness directly.

And it's a depressing insight into the source of pain. Everything we do is infected by self-interest. Okay?

Until you see emptiness directly. All right, third truth. And our relationship to the third truth is mundu jar.

Anybody want to take a shot? Translators? Abhi.

This mundu means manifest. Make it happen. Make it happen.

Mundu jar, the jar means imperative tense, right? And make it happen. So, so far we have for God's sake, see what's going on.

Then let go of the cause. And then make it happen. What?

The end. Okay, make it happen. Freedom.

Escape. Make it happen. What's our relationship to the third Arya Truth?

For good, you got to make it happen. You got to make it happen. Okay?

You got to reach it. You got to do it. Okay, that's our relationship to the third truth.

Four parts. Gopa. So in this case, the name of the truth is the first of the aspects.

Okay? Gopa means ending, stopping. And a cool experience for a person who's just seen emptiness directly is that they perceive their Buddhahood directly.

They know the day of their enlightenment and they see it directly. They see themselves enlightened directly. Not guessing or not thinking.

They see it directly. They see themselves as a Buddha and they know how long it's going to take. And seven lifetimes is very typical.

If you practice Tantra, it will be faster. But if you don't practice Tantra and you just see emptiness directly, you must become a Buddha within seven lifetimes. You cannot stop it.

You can go out and kill as many people as you want. You will still become a Buddha in seven lifetimes. Of course you wouldn't do it, but I'm just saying you can't stop it.

It's very cool, very beautiful. And it sounds like a long time, right? Seven times seven is 490 years.

But compared to billions and billions and billions and billions and billions, I like to say the bullet that you shot at the paper target touched the paper. The bullet is moving at the speed of a bullet and that's how close you are, you know? You know, the bullet touched the paper.

Slow down the bullet. The bullet's moving, you know, like, I don't know, 10,000 feet a second or something and it touched the paper and you're there, okay? Then it's nothing.

Seven lifetimes is nothing. Ask Phil. A lifetime goes like that.

You're like, wait a minute, I used to have hair. I used to surf. What's going on?

You know, seven lifetimes is cool. You know, you should be happy, okay? And it's funny because I've had this experience and then I read about it later in the scripture and it made me so confident.

It's called Sipa Lendumbawa. It's in the Abhidharma, okay? Say Sipa.

Sipa. Lend. Lend.

Dumbawa. Dumbawa. Seven lifetimer.

Okay, Sipa Lendumbawa, okay? It's always seven. Don't ask me why.

All right. Number ten, shiwa, peace, okay? Comfort is the second aspect of the third truth, okay?

Third truth is cessation, right? Stopping the pain. And the second aspect is called peace, okay?

And it means you have some ability on that day to see your future lives during the seven. What will happen during the seven. And the most comforting thing you see is that as a child you will be born into a place where you already have a teacher who can teach you Buddhism, okay?

Like Dalai Lama or something. You are born into a place where within a few years you already have a teacher who's fully qualified and they will take care of you until Bhaktsaksepa. What's Bhaktsaksepa?

The old seed wakes up. So about the age of 16, 17 you will remember what happened. But during the first 16, 17 years you don't.

But you have these extraordinary teachers around you all day teaching you, training you, okay? Then at 16 or 17 years old you suddenly remember what you saw. It's called Bhaktsaksepa.

Okay. Number 11. Third aspect of the ...

Third truth, okay? Third aspect. What's the third truth?

In the order we're talking about. Yeah, end of pain. It's called Gyan Lomba.

Gyan Lomba is a beautiful word in Tibetan that means beautiful. It means elegant, luxurious, sexy, hermosa, just super beautiful. Let me see.

Stunning. Okay. Super pretty.

Okay. It's a nice word to call somebody. You are really Gyan Lomba.

Okay. And that's that you will see that you will get assigned a whole planet in the future. Okay.

If you're practicing Tantra it will be with your partner. So you'll get a joint ownership of a planet. And you have to take care of everybody on the planet.

And you're like standing over the planet and you're like, okay, I got seven billion people here and a bunch of bugs and stuff. And I got to take care of all these guys. Okay.

Like that. They will give you, you will have your own world. Chakyamuni, our Buddha, made a prayer before he became Buddha.

He said, give me the lousiest planet. I'll take the worst one in the whole universe. He made a promise.

I will take the worst one. If you make me a Buddha, I agree to take the crappiest planet. There it is.

And he got us.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Number twelve. It's true, okay. I'm sorry.

Nganjung means, by the way, Nganjung is also the word for the first of the three principle paths, which is renunciation. But the literal meaning of the word is came out definitely. Jung means came out.

Nge means definitely. So Nganjung means inescapable conclusion. Which means it's something cool, okay.

When you see emptiness directly, you see a Buddha directly. Okay. When?

During the direct perception of emptiness or afterwards? During. Okay, during.

Okay. Because the emptiness you see is part of a Buddha. It's like seeing the Buddha's arm.

Okay. The emptiness you see is part of a Buddha. Which Buddha?

That's a long story. Okay, anyway. So, I always think of Christian.

You know, I grew up Christian. And I love it. I very value it.

I go to church sometimes. I think it's beautiful. But, but if you're honest, it's like, there was a guy, I was chosen to go to the White House.

You know this story? I met Richard Nixon. I actually gave him back my award two minutes after I got it.

And it was a big scandal. Anyway, I said, use it for bombs, you know. It was a big scandal.

My dad got it back. Anyway, why did I mention that? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. So, anyway, I was a, I believe, why did I mention that? Huh?

Yeah, I don't remember what's the connection. Anyway. Oh, yeah.

I met, we met Neil Armstrong. He's the first man to walk on the moon. He shook our hand.

We met him. We spent the day with him. And, one of the young people with me said, you never walked on the moon.

It was all on a TV show. It was all in a TV studio. They put dirt on the floor and you walked across and they took a camera.

Okay? And, you know, we were all like, that's weird to think like that. Why am I talking about that?

You don't know if Christ existed or not. And you don't know if Buddha existed or not. You just read some books and you saw some statues and you saw some pictures and your parents told you something and your monks told you something.

But maybe they were just walking across a TV studio. You see what I mean? Maybe it was all like not real, you know.

We don't know. Okay? Are you Christian?

Yes. Did Christ exist? I don't know.

Are you Buddhist? Yes. Did Buddha exist?

I guess. I mean, everybody says so. But everybody says a lot of stuff, don't they?

So, on that day you confirm that there is a Buddha. You need to become a real Buddhist. Okay?

Is there Buddha? Yes. Why?

I met him. I met her. You know.

I met the Buddha. I have seen the Buddha. So, that's ngenjung.

That's an inescapable place. You can't get out of it. You saw a Buddha.

Okay? And it's exciting because then you're like, wow! I've been doing the right thing all these years.

You know. I'm so... I told you about my boss in the diamond business?

He's Israeli. And twice a year he would give part of my salary. He would keep half my salary.

And twice a year I would get a check from my monastery. Tax free. Donation to my monastery.

You know. So, it's a lot of money. every time he gave me the check twice a year I would say, you're going to give me some little extra?

And sometimes he would give me a hundred thousand extra or something. He would say, okay, a hundred thousand. You know.

Take a hundred thousand extra. And then one day I asked him, I said, why you do that? You know, you're Israeli.

You're Jewish. You're giving a hundred thousand dollars to a Buddhist monastery. You know.

Why you... I just... I mean, I'm happy you do it.

But why do you do it? And he looks at me and says, you never know who might be correct. I want to cover all my possibilities.

You know. Okay. And on that day, he was joking.

He was just generous. Not. But anyway.

Kind of. So anyway. On that day, you can say, I know which is the...

I got lucky. I was born as a Buddhist or I became a Buddhist. And there is a Buddha.

And I met them. Okay. And you know you're not crazy.

That's a side... There's a side realization that you know you're not crazy. Sometimes you see something after you drink a couple bottles of wine and the next day you're like, I don't know if I saw that.

It's not like that. It's impossible. You know you're correct.

Okay. All right. Truth of the path.

We're okay on time? Tim, I'm doing okay? I still got half an hour or something.

Okay. It's cool that we just hit this the first day. Okay.

Fourth truth. Truth of the path. Four aspects.

Lam, rigpa, drupa, ngen jin. Say lam. Lam.

Rigpa. Rigpa. Drupa.

Drupa. Ngen jin. Ngen jin.

First one is lam. Okay. It's the same name as the truth.

The first aspect is the same name as the general truth. Pa. A big part of the path for a person who's seeing emptiness directly for the first time is the platform.

It's the meditation you have to be in to see emptiness directly. Which of the eight floors on the elevator is it, by the way? Sam den, dang bu, ngen do, mi chok me.

Say sam den. Sam den. Dang bu.

Dang bu. Ngen do. Ngen do.

Mi chok me. Mi chok me. It's a specific part of the heartbeat level.

Okay. So, to really get to the heartbeat level is extremely difficult. We are pretending that we are on the first form realm level.

We're not. If you were, you already have shamatha. Okay.

You can already... You already have enough focus to see emptiness directly. Okay.

If you reach the real first form realm level. Okay. So, we're pretending that we're reaching these levels, but they're actually quite difficult.

It takes many years to reach the heartbeat correctly. Okay. So anyway, it's not even the...

Every level of meditation has two parts. It's called the main stage and entry stage. So, which one do you see emptiness from?

It's the entry stage. You don't even reach the main stage of the heartbeat. You enter.

You get the entry stage. Okay. That's called ngen do.

Okay. I'm not talking... I'm not teaching that today.

Okay. I'm just saying, to get the ability to see emptiness, your mind has to be in deep, deep, deep meditation. You have to be able to meditate for an hour without stopping deeply.

Okay. And if you cannot, you will never see emptiness. Okay.

So, if you're squirming because your knees hurt after ten minutes, you can just shoot yourself now and hope something good happens. Okay. Now, I mean, I'll tell you something about deep meditation.

Okay. And I'm just telling my Lam Rim friends who have the courage to come to Lam Rim at Diamond Mountain from China or stuff like that. Okay.

Or Israel or whatever. You got to learn to ignore the pain. Okay.

You got to learn to ignore the pain. Okay. You got to sit for an hour without moving.

I don't care how much it hurts. Okay. If it falls asleep, that's even better.

As it falls asleep, it hurts like hell. Just after it falls asleep, it feels great. Don't stand up fast.

I had a friend who broke his ankle this way. Okay. So, between us, between friends, I don't say it at DCI, right?

I don't tell a thousand people. But between us, you know, you got to get over the pain and you got to be able to sit for an hour. So, you might as well just do it tomorrow.

Okay. You have to do it someday. Just do it tomorrow.

Okay. Just give up. Say, I don't care how much it hurts.

I'd rather see emptiness. Okay. So, it's up to you.

Of course your back is going to hurt. Of course your bottom hurts. Of course your legs fall asleep.

Of course it's harder as you get older. But you don't have a choice. Okay.

You can die again or you can see emptiness. Okay, I'll take the emptiness. Okay.

Well, it's going to hurt. Okay. I'm sorry.

But you need an hour. You need to be able to sit for an hour. Okay.

So, just start. What is it? Tuesday?

Monday? Don't do it. Don't start at nine.

It's too depressing. Hurt yourself in the morning. Okay.

Okay. And just do it. Sit the whole time without moving.

Okay. It'll hurt. You'll get used to it.

Okay. It's like being married to a schmuck. Okay.

Okay, just kidding. Ritpa. Which means appropriate, logical, makes sense.

It means makes sense. And one of the deepest realizations you have is that every Buddhist book is 100% correct. Okay.

JB's team cataloged the 141,000 books in St. Petersburg. It took 14 years to write the names down. Okay.

It took 14 years. There's 141,000 books wrapped up sitting there in St. Petersburg. Okay.

Buddhist books. They are all, every page is correct. Okay.

And it's like the formula for curing AIDS. Every single page is like the formula for curing AIDS. It's that valuable.

If I gave you a piece of paper, Oh, Jenny Wong, this is the only copy in the world of the How to Make the Medicine to Cure AIDS. I'm giving it to you. Each page of those books is more important than that.

You see, every single page is more important than the only page with the cure for AIDS. Every single page is correct and it's real and it can make you a Buddha. So your relationship to the books becomes different.

You're like fanatical. You're like crazy. We got to save these books.

Okay. We got to keep them in this world. If those books disappear, the world is finished.

Then it's just pain for everybody, forever. For the rest of their time. We must save those books.

Okay. Like, you become crazy about it. Okay.

Number 15? Yeah. Dhupa, which means practice.

Okay. It's the third aspect of the fourth truth, which is the path. Okay.

And your relationship to images changes. Okay. Okay.

An Arya does their first prostration in the hours after the direct perception emptiness. They make their first prostration. And they get down on their face.

It's not like delicate knees and hands. They're like, throw themselves on the floor, you know, because they're in front of a Buddha picture. And they have this deep, deep instinct to get down on the floor and put their face in the floor.

And, you know, like this, to the picture of the Buddha. Okay. Because it's real.

Okay. Somebody saw a Buddha. You see what I mean?

I saw a Buddha ten minutes ago or one hour ago. You know, I stand up and I just throw myself down. And then people, what are you doing?

I'm like, that thing is real. You know, that picture is real. No, no.

It was painted two years ago in a factory. No, no, you don't understand. It was painted by someone who saw a painting, who saw the Buddha.

You see what I mean? Okay. Then that thing is real.

It's a photograph, you know, of a real person who can save the whole world. Wow! Get down, you know.

Get down on your stomach and do this. You know. So the people who invented prostration was Aryans.

Okay. Because they did a natural prostration. Because they didn't have a choice.

Okay. Got it? So your relationship to paintings, sculptures, it changes.

Okay. They are not paintings. They are photographs of a real person.

Okay. No matter how bad they are. Okay.

They are real. It's a photograph. It's not a painting.

And your relationship to them changes. Okay. Last one.

Ngen jin, which means what makes you come out. What makes you come out. We already had in the last truth, you came out.

Ngen jung. Now we have the present tense. Ngen jin.

What takes you out. Okay. And...

This is a very, very, very, very sweet experience. I've told it to you before. I'll tell it to you again.

It's very, very cool. It's the coolest thing that ever happened to you after seeing emptiness. And...

During... After you come out of emptiness, while your eyes are still closed, you start... There's a point in the experience when you start to see people.

So a picture of your mom or a picture of your dad, but it's real. It's their real face. And it comes in your mind.

And then you have this emotion about it. And you say, I will take care of you. I will save you.

Okay. Don't look over there. That's a demon's influence.

Really. Okay. Not that you're a demon.

Your notebook is a demon. I saw... I see my mother.

Comes up. And then there's this emotion pours out. I will take care of you.

I will make you a Buddha. I promise. Then you're like, ha, well that's finished.

Then your dad comes up. You're like, okay. I'll also make you a Buddha.

And I love you dad. Then you're like... Then your brother.

Then your mother. Then your sister. Then your friend.

Then the people you met on the subway yesterday. People just start coming up. And then time changes.

Okay. Emptiness of time. So, during about a ten minute period, you see the face of every being on this planet.

Not just humans. You know, ant comes up. I'll take care of you.

Ant number two comes up. I'll take care of you. You know, grasshopper number three.

I'll take care of you. And they just... Like this.

It's like supernatural. Because your mind is... What's interesting is on that day you discover that your mind has the capacity to see every living being.

You already... Already your mind has that capacity. Okay.

Why? Because of emptiness. Okay.

Time can change. Space can change. And one by one you see every living being on this planet.

Then you start other planets. You know, like... People are always trying to find other planets.

Arya's already did. Are there other planets? Yes.

How many? Countless. How do you know?

I saw each one. Wait. How can you see each one of countless?

I thought, when you see emptiness, something changes in your mind. Okay. For the day.

Then you go to bed, you wake up, you're mostly normal. Except someone who saw every living being in the universe is changed forever. And they're working on a 500-year plan.

They're not working on a 2-year plan or 2-day plan. They're always thinking 500 years ahead. So how they act looks weird to people who don't work on a 500-year plan.

They look strange. Okay. They act strange.

A little bit. Okay. All right.

But that experience... you can't really be sad after that ever again. Like you can have a bad day.

Bad things can happen to you. Those are old karma. And Arya cannot make new bad karma that will create a new life.

Not possible. Cannot. Do they suffer?

Yes. What is it? Old bad karma.

Can they have a bad day? Yes. Can something bad happen to them?

Yes. But they can't really be unhappy again because they just saw that they're going to take care of everybody. Like mom.

They're the mom of a zillion beings. Then you can't really make a mom unhappy if they're in charge of a zillion kids. Okay.

They can have a bad day. If they don't get their morning coffee, they can act strange. But they can't really have a bad day.

Okay. Not possible. Okay.

So those are the six... That's the real sixteen aspects. Okay.

They're not just some words that you explain the word and that's the end of it. It's not that. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Is the relationship to the four... to the path still exit? Get out?

You don't see anyone to get you out?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's... That which gets you out connect to the getting out in the last one? Not directly.

They happen to be two tenses of the same verb. Yeah. Okay.

Any questions? So, I was going to explain why we did the Four Truths. The last part we did in the...

in the... in the Lam Rim. Where were we last?

Thailand. Yeah. The last thing we talked about was the first teaching at Varanasi.

Okay. The first turning of the wheel was the last sentence we talked about in Thailand. And they talked about how the Buddha repeated the Four Arya Truths to the five monks three times.

And by the time he finished the last explanation, they had all seen emptiness directly. So, those were the good days. Okay.

And then the last verse we did in Thailand was, This is the Buddha's first teaching. That's the first turning of the wheel. The first part of the first turning of the wheel.

First thing he said to other people was, except that I need a bowl of rice, which he actually did say before that. The first truth is suffering. The second truth is source.

The third truth is cessation. The fourth truth is path. That was the first teaching.

Okay. And that's where we stopped last time. And now, we are ready to start the class.

Okay. Now, since you are all going to become Lamrim Meditation Masters and teach many people Lamrim Meditation and the best ones are going to teach it at Jasmine's Meditation Center's studio, we have to start reviewing the Lamrim Meditations. Okay.

So, we are going to do 60 every retreat for the next two years. Okay. And I think you have them.

I think you have a printout. Okay. The first picture is Pabongka Rinpoche.

Okay. So, I am going there. I have 20 minutes to teach you six pictures.

Okay. Here we go. Again, the goal of this exercise is...

I am going to give you a three-minute talk about each picture. Okay. And you have to be able to give it back to me when the day comes that you get your Lamrim Meditation Teacher Examination.

It will be with pictures. Okay. And I think it's cool.

Okay. Ready? Okay.

Somebody got to watch the time for me. Okay. I got like three minutes on each one.

Okay. Ready? And what I mean is I can talk to you.

You know I can talk to you for an hour or two about each picture. But I don't want you to know that much. I want you to know three minutes of talk about each picture.

First picture. Okay. By the way, I don't want to call you ACI teacher.

I want to call you a meditation teacher. Okay. You go around telling people I'm an ACI teacher, they'll say, huh?

Okay. I want you to be the best meditation teachers in the world. The best meditation teachers in the world would know these 500 pictures.

Okay. First one. This tradition of meditation goes back 2,000 years.

That's an approximation. It's really 2,497. I didn't want to put a big number.

It sounds more sexy to say Okay. The person, the businessman walks into your meditation center, you say, I'm going to teach you 2,000 year tradition. Okay.

We have a... At our center, we have a 2,000 year tradition. Okay.

I would say there's one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Six lamas you should know.

Okay. Six teachers you should know. Okay.

In this lineage. Okay. The Lam Rim lineage.

You should know six teachers. Okay. When you explain this photograph, I want to hear six teachers' names.

Okay. Number one, Buddha. Okay.

Who wrote the first Lam Rim? It's called Buddha. Okay.

Some people say it was the Tibetans or something. It's not correct. Even so, the first Lam Rim was written by Buddha.

Okay. First, this tradition of meditation that you're going to learn at our meditation studio started 2,000 years ago with a person named Gautama. Buddha.

Okay. First, first person. Second person Tsongkhapa.

Okay. 2,000 years later. Tsongkhapa.

Extraordinary meditation teacher. The best one that ever lived. Period.

I don't care. Call me prejudiced, but I know I've done it. Okay.

Second one. Okay. Tsongkhapa.

Third one, Rinpoche. Was it born in 1869? Can you look in the catalogue?

Passed away in 1941? Something like that. 1878 to 1941.

Okay. It's nice to know the years. What monastery?

The best one. Seramay. What house in the best monastery?

The best one. Gyalrong. Gyalrong.

Which house are you in? You are Gyalrong. You own Pabongka Rinpoche.

Okay. I'm just telling you. Your karma is not just weird.

It's really weird. Okay. You are from the same house as Pabongka Rinpoche.

Okay. And then he taught extraordinary scholar. Okay.

Geshe. Pastor Geshe. And extraordinary.

Same level as me. Ling Tse Geshe. Okay.

Which is like friendly Geshe. Not too hot. Okay.

And great, great teacher. I think what I would say about him is he had an ability, famous, to teach normal people. If DCI existed in his time, he would be the, he would be Oredin Scott.

Okay. He would be teaching normal, and he was criticized for teaching normal people. He didn't just teach monks.

And he was a great writer. He wrote great, great books on, he wrote very difficult books on deep philosophy subjects that Ben was talking about today. Okay.

And when my teacher was about 18 or something, my teacher was assigned to work in the kitchen. Actually, he bought the groceries for one of Pabongka Rinpoche's retreats. Like 2,000 people.

So, my teacher was supposed to go buy the groceries. And then, for some weird reason, Pabongka Rinpoche walked into his room and grabbed him by the head. My teacher was a naughty boy until then.

And he was not going to be a Geshe at all. And that's why he was doing grocery service. And Pabongka Rinpoche conked his head and said, this one's going to be good.

And after that, something happened to him. And my teacher won the debate against every monk in Tibet when he took his Geshe. He was the best of 15,000 monks.

Okay. Because he got this bunk on his head. You need a bunk.

So, anyway. So, the next person in lineage is Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, Ken Rinpoche. There's photos here.

And he's your grandfather. Okay. All right.

Grand Lama. Sorry. I'm sorry.

Chögyam Rinpoche. I take it back. The next one is Chögyam Rinpoche.

Okay. Born 1901, I believe. Passed away in 1981.

And he's one of the two teachers of the current Dalai Lama. And he's the greatest writer who ever lived in Tibet, I think. His writing is extraordinary.

And he wrote the book that you are studying. He wrote the Lamrim from his teacher's teaching. So, he took he took notes very well.

There's no recording, right? No microphone. 2,000 people.

And he took the notes and he wrote this book. Okay. And I think it's the greatest Buddhist book on this planet.

And there's a lot of competition. There's 200,000 other books. I think it's the greatest.

That's why I'm teaching it. Okay. And that's why you're going to teach it.

Okay. So, it's the most helpful book you can teach somebody in this world. All right.

So, then he taught it and Pabongka taught it to my teacher, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Losantarjan. He was born in 1921 and he passed away in 2004. And extraordinary teacher.

Walked out of He became highest Geshe in his time and then he became the debate master of the Tantra College. Gyu Med Tantra College. There are two Tantra Colleges in Tibet.

The person who becomes the debate master becomes the abbot. Who becomes the abbot becomes the holder of Tsongkhapa's throne. So, he was number three as a young man before they lost Tibet.

Okay. So, he's an amazing teacher. Came to America in 1972 and started teaching.

so, some of us were lucky enough to study with him. He taught me all day and for many years. And he wouldn't take any money from me for his whole life.

So, extraordinary teacher. Okay, then Geshe Michael taught you, okay? You know him.

All right. Number two. What's the goal of the Long Rim?

We want to change this world and I'm very proud of DCI. I'm proud of Scott and Reed especially. We're close and it's weird when you're inside of it and you don't think Scott's saving the world.

You think he's just like this guy. But they are saving the world. They're very close to that kind of level.

3,000 people come to a teaching and hear the pan. You know, that's kind of weird in this world of televisions and internet. It's weird.

So, it's really happening. And when you do a mandala, it's a DCI world. Honestly.

It's a world where everyone is studying the pan. Okay? And they're Muslim and they're Christian and it doesn't matter.

They feel comfortable with the diamond cutter. Okay? So, that's the goal of the Long Rim.

Okay? What is the purpose to be a Long Rim meditation teacher? I want to make a world where everyone is happy and cannot die.

Everyone sees emptiness directly. This is what I'm... What do you do?

People have to... I'm on the plane. People turn to me and they say, what do you do?

I'm like... In my mind, I'm like, well, me and Scott, we're trying to save the world, you know, and we want everybody to see emptiness directly. But I know they'll just look at me and start watching their movie.

So, it's hard to give an answer, right? What's your business? What's your occupation?

I'm a world saver, you know. I teach pen to as many people as I can. Yeah, I'm in the pen business.

So, I think, and again, this is different from what you talk... You don't tell people directly in DCI what we're doing. But in Lam Rim, you do.

Like, the reason you're here is to learn how not to die and help other people do that. Okay? And you can not die because you are like the pen.

Okay? Alright, I got ten more minutes. Steps of the path.

Okay, the strategy to save the world is called Lam Rim. So, if you're going to be a Lam Rim meditation teacher, you better know what Lam, your name means. Okay?

Lam means path. Rim means step. Lam Rim is a series of meditations that if you learn them one after another, you must become a Buddha.

You can't stop it. Okay? Lam Rim means a...

steps of path, but it means a series of meditations and a series of understandings. And if you have them, if you're trained in them, you must become a Buddha. You can't stop it.

Okay? So, the strategy is is Lam Rim. Okay?

The structure of the way you are learning the pictures is special. Okay? What?

There are three kinds of Lam Rim. They call little people Lam Rim, medium people Lam Rim, and big people Lam Rim. It doesn't refer to your weight, or else I would already be enlightened.

Okay? So, first Lam Rim, little people Lam Rim, means people who don't want to go to a bad place after they die. That's all they care.

Okay? So really, the best DCI people are not the least Lam Rim people yet. Okay?

Understand? The best DCI people are trying to make good finances and have a nice partner and be healthy, but they're... in Lam Rim, they're not even in the beginning.

They didn't reach the beginning of the Lam Rim. Okay? Beginning is, I don't want to go someplace bad after I die.

Okay? Medium level, what? Yeah, I don't want to hold...

I don't even want to come back as a human. Okay? Because it's too much pain.

Okay? I don't even want to come back to this kind of world at all. Okay?

It doesn't mean you won't have two arms and two legs, you will. Luckily, Buddhas look like humans. They happen to have the same...

They don't have three arms or four legs. They could, right? But they don't.

They look quite a lot like humans. Okay? So, I don't want to come back as a human who can die.

I want to come back as a human who's a Buddha. You see? As a person who's a Buddha.

I don't want to come back to this kind of life. Okay? We're going to learn the famous six sufferings of this life.

That's the topic this week. But I don't want to... I don't want to do that.

You know? Third level? Yeah, I want to do it for everybody.

I want to help everybody. Okay? I want to not die and I want to teach everybody else not to die.

Okay? In that sense, DCI is very similar. Okay?

I want to help the whole world. Okay? I don't want to just help myself.

Okay? I want to do it for everybody. I want everyone to come with me.

I don't want to eat Mabo Tofu in the Chengdu Mabo Tofu restaurant by myself. Okay? I want everyone in the city to come in and have Mabo Tofu.

Okay? That's the third picture. That's our strategy.

Now, there are six classical parts to big people's practice. There are six classical parts to big people's practice. What are they?

The six perfections. Okay? Six perfections.

Okay? The last two are meditation and understanding emptiness, understanding the pen. Okay?

Now, our strategy of our Lam Rim meditation teacher program. Okay? Is that we're going to skip to the end of the book and teach you perfection number five first.

Completely out of order. Okay? It's like teaching somebody geometry before they do addition.

Why? Yeah, duh. We want you to meditate on the Lam Rim.

So, we have to teach you meditation first. We have to go to the end, teach you meditation first, and then we'll come back. And we'll meditate on each part of the path.

You know? Okay? So, how did this nine years of teaching begin?

Nine years ago, we started with the chapter. We went to the end of this book and we studied meditation. Okay?

So, you're going to do the same thing when you teach people. Okay? It makes sense, right?

If you want to meditate on the Lam Rim, you got to learn to meditate first. Okay? So, the whole first hundred pictures is meditation pictures.

Okay? Or, I don't know. I don't know yet how many.

Okay? Ready? Okay, I got four minutes to do a couple more.

IDAM 4. What's IDAM mean? Idea Image.

Okay? It means a picture which is going to trigger a series of ideas in your mind. Okay?

And your examination is going to be what? You know, you'll be sitting in a room with Jasmine. She's going to pull up a picture on her phone.

It's going to be Nagarjuna. She's going to say, tell me what's the connection. Tell me what's the meaning.

And you're going to say the whole purpose of meditation is to see emptiness directly. Why did we choose Nagarjuna? He's called the Arya.

He's the most famous Arya around. Okay? And he explained emptiness exquisitely.

Okay? So, duh. So, when I show you a picture of Nagarjuna or Jasmine and she says, okay, here's your examination.

What's this? You're going to say, that's Nagarjuna. How do you know?

He's got Nagas hanging over his head. Come on. Okay?

Maitreya doesn't have these snakes on his head. It's got to be Nagarjuna. King of the Nagas.

Boss of the Nagas. Okay? Then, what does it represent?

It represents the purpose of meditation. The highest purpose of meditation is to see emptiness directly as a... bodhisattva.

Okay? As someone who wants to save the world. Can you see emptiness directly without that motivation?

Yes. It's possible to be selfish, just want to take care of yourself and it's possible to see emptiness directly. But we're not on that track.

We're not interested. We're going for the big time. Okay?

We want to see the whole world, picture one by one, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay? And that is the true moment when you become a bodhisattva.

Okay? When you have that experience. Okay?

All right. So, don't forget to add the word bodhisattva when you say the purpose of meditation is to see emptiness directly. You have to say, a bodhisattva's direct perception of emptiness.

That's why I'm teaching you lamrim. That's why I'm a lamrim meditation teacher. Okay?

Okay. Next one. We got to do two more.

I'm not sending you home to do two more. Really? Come on.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Number five.

When you meditate, the goal is to join these two things. Classically, in the lamrim, when they explain the purpose of meditation, they often use a butter lamp. Okay?

Classically, when they teach meditation, they often use a picture of a butter lamp. And it's not any butter lamp. It has to be a butter lamp in a room where there's absolutely no wind.

And that's the picture here. Okay? It has to be a butter lamp in a room which has no wind.

Okay? Because, if there's no wind, and there's a, if there's a beautiful Buddha Thangka, or Je Tsongkapa Thangka, behind the butter lamp, if the butter lamp is totally still, you can see the picture. If the wind is blowing and the light's going like this, you can't see all the details.

Okay? What's the comparison? It's right here.

Vipasyana and shamatha. Okay? Insight and stillness.

Okay? What's the stillness? In the image.

In the picture. Yeah, there's no wind. That's stillness.

Okay? Your mind has to be still before you can see emptiness. Okay?

Your mind must be windless or you cannot see emptiness. Okay? And that's called, that stillness is called in Sanskrit, shamatha.

Stillness. Okay? Shamatha.

High meditation. High level of meditation. Easy to sit for an hour a day.

Or at least determined to sit for an hour a day. Okay? Even if it's not easy.

Okay? Shamatha. I reach shamatha.

My mind is still enough to see the tantra. What's the tantra? Emptiness.

Okay? Your mind has to be still to see emptiness. Okay?

Got it? Vipasyana means seeing emptiness. Shamatha means that state of meditation which allows you to see emptiness.

Shamatha is a tool. Vipasyana is a goal. Shamatha by itself is like having a microscope without anything to look at.

Or a telescope. Shamatha by itself is not a goal. It's the eight levels of the elevator.

Okay? Your mind becomes still. But you got to aim it at something.

Okay? You got to put it on something. That's Vipasyana.

I'm going to use it to see emptiness. Okay? Don't go through the eight levels of the elevator for your whole life so you can watch your breath.

It won't get you anywhere. Okay? Duh!

Okay? Alright? You want to aim it at emptiness.

Okay? Okay? Alright.

And by the way, Vipasyana doesn't even refer to the meditation. It refers to the emptiness. So that's double wrong word.

Okay? The meaning is wrong and the word is wrong, but everything else is okay. Alright.

Just kidding. Completely wrong. Okay.

Number six, and then we're done for tonight. We're going to start going through the first thing that's taught in the Lam Rim, which is, what's the conditions you need to meditate correctly? Okay?

The first condition is a good place. The place itself has five qualities. So, I made an executive decision.

I could have put one photo with five qualities, but I decided it's more powerful if we make separate photos. Okay? So there's going to be separate photos for all the conditions.

And the first condition is the place, so there'd be separate photos for the different qualities of place. The place should have, I think, five qualities. Yeah.

And we're going to do five qualities of the place where you should meditate, which is all together, the five qualities of the place is the first condition of meditation. Okay? Okay?

And there'll be five more. Okay. So first thing, and then we're done for tonight.

Okay? Why is the guy carrying groceries? Now, a lot of you were there when we did the first Lam Rim teaching twenty-nine retreats ago.

Tell me why the guy's carrying groceries. What's it have to do with your meditation location? You should do meditation in a place where you have the resources to do it.

Okay? You've got to have Michael Dunn there to drive the car. You've got to have Russinger to fix the water system.

Okay? Don't do retreat by yourself out in the desert. Okay?

Get a support team. The first characteristic of the place is that you need support. You need someone to deliver groceries.

You need someone to fix the water. You need someone to drive you around. It's hard.

We spend a million and a half dollars to keep the people in retreat. Just the food. The Singapore people remember.

I remember fundraising you on the border control point between Singapore and Malaysia. I was hitting you up for the... I remember.

It was midnight. We were in the car. I'm like, we need money.

She's very good at that. So, anyway, safe and cared for. The place should be safe and you should have people taking care of you.

Okay? You can't do heavy duty meditation without resources. You need money.

You need groceries. You need a house with a door. Okay?

You need the time that you don't have to work. You see? You need help.

You need resources. That's the first requirement of heavy meditation. You need resources.

Okay? You need a J-O-B. Some people are like, what?

What's that? You need an income. Okay?

To be a meditator. Okay? You need an income to be a meditator.

And I do not support people not working because they want to meditate. It doesn't work. You need to work.

You need an income. You don't need a big income, but you need an income. I don't respect people who are just living off of other people.

It's not fair. Okay? Every meditator should arrange for enough money that they earn by themselves to meditate.

Okay? It doesn't have to be a hundred thousand dollars a year. We live in a world where you can make enough money in six months to meditate for three months.

You see what I mean? You can make enough money to get here if you want to, if you really want to. And I don't think it's good to wait for someone else to pay for it.

Okay? You should support yourself. You should take responsibility.

If you can't take responsibility for yourself, I don't think you can take responsibility for other people. Okay? I don't think it's going to happen.

So, you should have an income. You don't need a big income. You know, I have an old car.

I have a tiny house. I'm happy. And I can come here.

Okay? And... Okay.

Okay. We finished the first six. We got to finish sixty this week.

Okay? We have ten classes. We'll work it out.

What's happening? You are the smiling lady and you've got Michael Dunn bringing you groceries. Okay?

That's the picture. Don't forget. Okay?

Alright. How do you get someone to bring you groceries? Yeah.

You help other retreatants to get their groceries. That's called karma.