«Дар освобождения», курс 29 «Большой побег», занятие 6

[Speaker 1]
All right, good morning. Did you sleep well? In my class, right?

Jet lag is better? Oh yeah, in the meditation. Okay.

So, this morning we'll do four rounds, okay? And then you'll be able to do it for the three days, okay? So, I don't think we've ever done the four rounds.

So, here we go. Blow your nose. I think the fourth round is the hardest.

The fifth round is not so bad. Don't forget that when you're in a group, you have to really try not to move, okay? And I know you're going to very quietly pick up your handkerchief, but it doesn't work, okay?

If you move at all, we can all hear you, okay? Forget it. Just suffer.

Shoku, ichi shoku. Okay. Okay, here we go.

Mm-hmm. Get your posture right. Find a place, a way to sit that you don't have to move, okay?

Relax your eyelids. I'm going to sneeze later. Okay.

Okay. Little smile. As in yoga, don't be too serious, okay?

It's more fun to have fun. A little bit pulling your stomach. And start gluing your mind to the sound of the air conditioner or some other sounds in the room.

You have two choices. You can either just try to keep your mind on it, like pressing your finger on a cup, or you can press your mind on the object and try also to relax and enjoy the object or feel comfortable with the object. Now please come to the sound or the feeling of your heartbeat.

Then please go inside the chamber of the heart. Block out the outside world. The heart is beating around you.

Then the heart at a distance. Still in the center of the heart. Then imagine a tiny crystal of sugar, a single grain of sugar, or a diamond, white, at the very center of your heart.

And then you go inside that tiny grain. Very, very quiet here. And then expand your mind left and right by imagining a huge ocean, like the Pacific Ocean.

Very, very quiet. And spreading to the horizon and beyond. And there you can drop a pebble into the middle in the middle of your mind and inside the crystal still.

And watch the ripples going left and right. Follow the ripples. Spread your mind.

Now endless space. Start from the center of your mind. Turn on a light of awareness and let that awareness expand infinitely throughout space, beyond our sky, beyond our sun, beyond our planets.

And it keeps expanding through the universe. Maybe it overlaps other people's expanding awareness. Clear like water.

And now just turn off your mind. Block any random thoughts, random feelings, and let the mind just completely rest, stop. It's actually not possible to do that, but see how close you can get.

And now turn off the mind without blocking thoughts. Let the thoughts come and go. Don't listen to them, but let them come and go.

Now please choose a teacher in your life who has helped you a lot, someone you admire. Could be someone who's still alive. Could be someone who's already passed away.

Could be an historical teacher in history and ask them to come and sit with you, in front of you. Their eyes are open. They're looking at you.

They're very happy that you've asked them to come and that you're thinking about them. Your eyes are closed, but you can see their face. Now try to remember or imagine the first time you met them or the first time you heard about them.

How did they come to you? How did you come to them? What happened before the meeting that caused the meeting?

Maybe you drove someplace in a car. Maybe you went to a certain school. How did that meeting happen?

What were the things that happened before the meeting that caused the meeting? Now think about that teacher that you met almost by accident, because other things happened. Somebody drove someplace in a car.

Somebody came into a room. And understand that these things are not accidental and they are not coming from themselves. They are not coming from the outside.

But there's no teacher in your life or any other person in your life that you met by accident or who came to you through outside ways, through cars or through roads or through events. There's no teacher like that. You thought there was, but there's not.

And that's the emptiness of your teacher. There's no teacher who came to you by accident or by outside things happening. So how did this teacher come to me?

Choose something beautiful about the teacher that you like. Maybe they're very patient or they're very good at what they do or they're very compassionate. Pick some nice quality that you like about this teacher.

And now go to your past lives. Imagine a past life. We can't see it directly.

Try to think of a time in history or a country. Try to think of what kind of person you were, male or female. What was your work?

How did you live? What was your family? And then what things did you do in that past life to plant the seeds for this beautiful quality of the teacher who's sitting in front of you?

What's the real cause of this teacher? Why did you meet them, really? What happened in your past life to make a connection?

And what happened in your past life to plant the seeds that you have created them? Have fun. Don't be too serious.

Make the story very, very beautiful. Now come back to the center of your mind. See five or six silver seeds.

Shining in the middle of your mind. And choose one of them. And it cracks open.

And out comes a luminous shining made of light image. Small. Smaller than your thumbnail.

Comes out. And it floats through the air to your forehead. And it comes out of your forehead.

And it goes to your teacher, their body. And it covers them like a coat. And it settles on them.

And because of that image of light that came from the seed, you see this quality in your teacher. My teacher is kind because of the seeds that were planted when I was kind several lifetimes ago. Sit with that.

Watch a few more seeds open. And enjoy what you have created. It's real.

And they are alive. And they are a different person than you. But they come from you.

Now let's go back down through the eight levels. This is the second round of the five rounds of the lion's dance. So back to level eight.

Watching the mind. Very, very quiet. So quiet we don't care if thoughts are coming through the mind.

Back down to a little bit more, sorry, a little bit less quiet place. And you are making effort to stop thoughts and feelings and images in your mind. You are making some effort to block images and thoughts coming through the mind.

Next level down. The awareness, clear like water, is returning from the edges of all of space. A huge sphere, ball of awareness coming back to the center of your mind.

Now the ocean ripples coming back to the center of the ocean. Quiet surface of a huge ocean. Back down to the crystal in the center of your heart.

Tiny, tiny, tiny crystal. Back down to the heart beating at a distance in the center of your heart. The time you spend going down is half the time you spend going up.

Back to the chamber of the heart. The heart's beating around you. Back to the sensation of your heart beating in your chest.

You are now back in your body, whole body, where it's beating. Now round number three. Just to exercise your meditation muscle.

One more time up through the eight levels. Just to make your mind stronger. You're tired now.

Your body's more tired. Your mind's more tired. And now we push to increase our focus.

Increase our strength of meditation. Watch the heart. We don't go back to the air conditioner.

We start at the heart. Beating. And you're in your whole body.

Little bit longer than you took coming down. You're building up your strength. Now inside the heart.

Heart's beating around me. The outside world is gone. Relax.

Have fun. Don't be too serious. Surrender to the meditation.

Now your heart beating at a distance in the middle of your heart. Very quiet. Much more quiet.

Now the crystal. Tiny, tiny crystal in the center of your heart and go inside. Inside it's very spacious like a large comfortable room.

Relax. Have fun. Don't get tight.

Massive ocean in the crystal. Ripples going to the edge of the world. Still inside a crystal as big as the Pacific Ocean.

Your awareness clear like water expanding to the whole universe, past the stars, past the planets. Maybe overlapping other people's awareness. Keep it going.

Don't let it stop. Make the mind as big as you can. Now turn off the mind.

Stop thoughts. Block feelings. Block images.

Very, very quiet. But a little bit of work to stop those thoughts and images. Again, it's not really possible, but get close as you can.

Now block the thoughts. But thoughts are just coming to the mind. Turn off the mind, but thoughts are coming to the mind.

Don't watch them. Invite the same teacher to come. Think of the outside events that brought them to you and brought you to them.

Cancel those events as past events that were outside. Understand they came from your mind, from seeds. Go to the same events in your past life that caused those seeds.

Same events as you thought about before. Seeds that caused the quality that you admire in your teacher. Come to the center of your mind.

See the seeds. Choose one. Watch it crack open.

Watch a tiny image the size of your thumbnail comes out, made of light. It looks like your teacher, but it's more like a ghost or insubstantial, passes through your forehead, coats your teacher like a coat. And because of that image you see that beautiful quality in your teacher.

You made it. Sit with that quality. Sit with the fact that you made it for just a minute.

Three deep breaths out, three deep exhales. Imagine you are sharing the good karma of working so hard on your meditation. And then slowly open your eyes.

Take a stretch. How long was that? Huh?

How much? Fifty. Then we'll...

We didn't do round number four yet. I thought you should take a break. Okay, so take a...

Let's do some questions, then we'll do round number four, okay? But... I think you can do an hour, okay?

In the next few days. Drink something, okay? I mean it's a...

sitting break. If you have a Pacific Ocean, go... Anybody have a question?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, thank you so much. Where are you?

[Speaker 1]
I'm here. Oh, hi. I have a question.

[Speaker 2]
Is it okay to go to another planets in my past lives?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, for sure. You know, I haven't done it, but I think it's a great idea. Yeah, that's wonderful.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, very possible. In general, it's good during meditation to focus on something tiny, like sugar crystal, and then sometimes just go to another galaxy, and the planet is square, and it's red, and everybody has two heads. You were a very nice person there.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, thank you for teaching. Thank you for everything.

[Speaker 1]
I have a question about what we do in round three of the form realm, the world of beauty.

[Speaker 2]
So, I'm having trouble wrapping my arms around what I need to do. Is it awareness? Is it distance?

Is it awareness of distance?

[Speaker 1]
You mean number three? Number three. Okay, good.

Yeah, it's like, if, you know, you're waiting on the phone for Apple Care to talk to you, and they are very concerned about their customers, and they really want to talk to you, and the waiting time will be 20 minutes. And, which means they didn't hire enough people because they don't care about you, but... So, you put the speaker on, right?

You've been listening like this. Then you put the speaker on, and you... I've seen Scott do this on tour, you know.

He does all my dirty calls to Apple Care. Then he'll put it down here, right? And he'll do his work.

And the speaker got smaller, and the sound got smaller. He can still hear the terrible music, crackly 1960s waiting music, but it's not as loud as it was here. You see what I mean?

And there's a feeling of distance from it. The main emotional feeling at level three is supposed to be neutral, equanimity. I'm not attached to how I feel, how good the meditation feels.

I'm not attached to the physical, boom, because I've been doing my yoga and eating well, okay? I'm not so attached to that. It's good.

What's the idim for that? Last night.

[Speaker 2]
Equanimity?

[Speaker 1]
Xinjiang. You're in the groove. Yeah, that...

I don't know if it's a yoga leg or ballet leg, okay? Mentally, physically, you feel like that. You're in the groove, you know?

You're like locked in, physically, okay? And then mentally, you're really locked in. At the second level, you have those feelings.

At the third level, you put the phone down and get some distance from it. So it's still beating, but the speaker's farther away. And me, I'm still in the center of the heart.

So one of the distinctions between the second form realm level and the third form realm level is supposed to be a kind of neutrality. Your neutral feelings, this neutral physics, you're not so attached to the object, okay? There's no emotional.

You're kind of detached from the object, okay? You still hear the heart beating, but it's like the muzak, tiny little muzak coming out of the phone rather than this big muzak. Okay, got it?

Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 2]
I have two questions.

[Speaker 1]
That's a double price.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. The first one is that the level four of the form realm to the first level of formless, you were guiding us to say that you imagine the vast ocean, but still within the diamond.

[Speaker 1]
I was fighting fiercely with the diamond. I'm sorry, what? I was fighting fiercely with the diamond.

Oh, there's not enough room for notion. Yeah. So it's like, finally I decided to jump off the diamond.

Then I can go ... I think at the beginning, you can do that. If you have to jump off the diamond in the beginning, it's okay.

But later, your mental muscle has to be strong enough to go, whoop! Ocean in inside the diamond. And that whole diamond is inside your heart.

Tiny piece of sugar. And there's a similar meditation where you imagine every drop of your blood is a Buddha. Full-size Buddha.

But you're still here. Okay? So you imagine every single drop of your blood is a Buddha.

And you can look at them one by one. So it's good to stretch your mind. You're making your mind stronger.

At the beginning, if you have to jump off, it's okay. Try to land in the water. Thank you.

Second question. Second question is the formalist. Wenti, Wenti or Arsha?

Ar. Wenti, Ar. Formalist 3 and formalist 4, it's quite confusing to me.

especially, I try to watch my mind to see the thoughts coming out. But for some time, there is no thoughts coming out. But I can feel the feeling.

So, I was thinking maybe I'm not familiar about the function of our mind. I was thinking maybe you can teach us the 52 functions of our mind, so it will be a good guide for us to understand what's really going on in the process. Stanley played this trick on me in the translator course.

So, what chapter is that in the Abhidharmakosha? Oh, I don't remember. Maybe sixth, but he can teach you.

Maybe in Thailand? You did? Oh, yeah.

Talk to him. He translated it. So, it's strong in his mind.

But I would say from my own experience, there's three things I'm watching for in the mind. One is thoughts. Geshe Michael talking inside of Geshe Michael's mind.

And I'm trying to, in the third formless realm level, I'm trying to block it. And then I have feelings come through my body or I feel something here. Or I have an image come up.

Like there's no sound, but a picture comes in my mind of, usually it's Yota or, you know, something I enjoy. Then I block it. I try to turn it off.

Again, the third formless realm level is dangerous because many people made a mistake in history that they thought this was emptiness. And it's not. And actually, you cannot turn off the mind.

The mind is a mirror. If there's something there, it will show it. You don't have choice.

And it's coming out of seeds. You cannot push a tree back into the ground. You cannot actually block a thought.

You have to take care of your noisy mind last week. Okay? Don't bother other people.

Don't upset other people. Every time you talk, be careful. You know, make them happy.

Okay? Like that. Then there will be a quiet mind.

But you have to try. Then in the fourth formless realm level, it's called du shi me du shi me min, which is a very strange name. It means thoughts but no thoughts.

The name of the fourth one is thoughts but no thoughts. chintya chintya ting. Okay?

Then, you know, you heard people teach meditation wrong and they said this is emptiness. You watch the thoughts come like a cloud. You watch the cloud disappear.

Then you watch another thought come. And they will say, don't be attached to the thought. The thought comes to your mind, I want to eat four yotels.

Then, okay. It goes away. Then a new thought comes.

And that's not a good karma to do that. But it's a good exercise. Okay?

So, we are just exercising. So, don't ever stop in the eight. Okay?

It's not a goal. It's bad luck to stop in the eight. If you're going to stop, stop with your lama.

Okay? If you can't finish the meditation, rush up the eight to meet your lama and say, and then then open your eyes, you know. It's bad luck to stop in the eight.

Okay? And I'm worried about teaching it. I'm a little afraid to teach seven and eight.

Because I'm afraid somebody will start a new religion called number seven. You know, and they'll say this is the goal of meditation. So, you know, be careful.

It happened in history many times. And in many yoga studios. Okay?

But not in our meditation studio. Okay. Yes?

Geshe-la, first of all, I want to share my experience in Lion Dance once.

[Speaker 2]
On the sixth floor, we expand our crystal light to everywhere beyond the universal. At that moment, I think, why not go to Buddha's paradise?

[Speaker 1]
And meet the Buddha and their meditation there.

[Speaker 2]
And meet my future Buddha there. And have some connection with them. So if the objects are so good for the sixth floor, is it good?

If the objects are so good, is it... If at that moment, I can do the thing like, oh, they are coming from me, like I'm going to ninth floor, is it good?

[Speaker 1]
That's fine. I also tend to have nice things happen at sixth. You know, I also tend to meet special people.

I think it's fine. Really, you're just going to ninth. Okay?

So, that's okay. That's okay. Generally, you know, you should have a meditation plan.

You know, but if a Buddha comes, it's okay. You can hang out with them. You can change your plan.

[Speaker 2]
And this morning, when I do this meditation, I feel tight on my forehead and I feel headache. What can I do with that?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Any kind of tightness, drop it to your navel. Drop the whole picture to your navel.

Not the navel hole, but the back. And immediately, you will get grounded. Okay?

This is a very famous solution from Tsongkhapa. Okay? When you study tantra, you will...

When you study the chakras, you will hear about it. So, drop it down. Get it out of the heart and get it out of the head.

It's very important to do it quickly because, especially if you're in retreat, you will get a headache that lasts for three or four days. Or you will feel tight for three or four days. Okay?

So, change it right away. Don't wait. Change it.

Drop it right away. Okay? Don't let it stay there because it will get worse.

And it's not easy to get rid of it. Okay? One more.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la. This is so nice, this meditation. I like it.

I have two questions. I can pay two.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Who's taking the money? Okay.

Okay, okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Geshe-la. What is Geshe? Teaching.

Geshe-la. Geshe-la. Thinking?

So, my two questions. The first one is about Floor 7 and Floor 8. I feel like when I try to turn off, like stop my thoughts and thinking in Floor 7, it feels more quiet than in Floor 8 when I just relax and let the thought come by.

It feels more noisy there in Level 8. What should I do if it happens? The second one is in the third round of Lion Dance, when I go back to my Lama again, you asked us to go to the same story about how I plant the seeds.

But then another story happened to me, like different than the previous one. What should I do? Okay, good.

First question. It's okay, it's normal. Seven sounds quieter than eight.

That's normal. Many people feel that. Later, when you get more experience, you will learn to divorce yourself from the thought, okay, and not go into it.

So, it's just like you're watching the thought but you're not listening to it. It's like how your daughter didn't listen to you when you were younger. It's okay?

Jong Wen? No? Oh, okay, it's automatic.

So, in the beginning, seven sounds quieter than eight. But later, you learn how to not listen to eight the way kids don't listen to their parents. Okay?

Then, what's the second question? When I go back to my teacher in the third round. Oh yeah, you can go to another story, that's okay.

I just wanted to make it easier for you. But you're welcome to go to another story. In my experience, you got to keep the meditation moving.

Okay? Because you'll get tired. You'll lose your focus.

It doesn't matter how long you've been meditating. The focus goes like... Suddenly you get tired meditating and then it just all falls apart.

So, while it's clear, you got to move. You got to keep pushing through the meditation while it's clear. Because you don't have much time.

Your mind's going to get tired, even after years of meditation. So, keep it moving. Keep it going.

I personally like to spend ten heartbeats, ten breaths on each level. If I'm in a big hurry, five. If I have a lot of time, twenty.

And then coming down, it'll be half. So, if I spent ten heartbeats or ten breaths on each level going up, then coming down I go faster. Okay?

I propose we take a pee-pee break and then let's do round number four. Let's practice round number four. After round number four, we'll do some Lam Rim.

Okay? So, only on this round you skip back to the heartbeat. Okay?

So, you don't go down to the heartbeat. Okay? You don't go eight, seven, six, five, four.

Okay? At the end of the third round, we are with the teacher, right? Enjoying how the seeds...

how I made them beautiful. Right? Then you don't go back eight, seven, six, five, four.

On the fourth round, you drop back to the heartbeat which is form realm number one. Okay? So, you don't...

you don't go down eight, seven, six. You skip back to one and you start back up again. Okay?

So, the third round is sort of a warm-up for the fourth round. You see what I mean? Because they both go up.

They both go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Okay? So, that's different.

And now we do Pel Gom. Okay? So, Pel Gom is an ancient idea that you intersperse something between each of the eight.

Okay? And what you intersperse is emptiness meditation. And this takes a lot of meditation muscle.

Okay? So, you're going in and out of emptiness meditation. Okay?

So, you're going to do heartbeat, then you're going to do emptiness meditation. Then you're going to do... inside the heart, then an emptiness meditation.

Okay? Like that. It's going to go up through the eight.

Floor 8A, floor 8B, floor... Sorry, 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B. Each B is an emptiness meditation.

Okay? It's called Pel Gom. It's a special...

Obviously, now it's a real exercise because you are not just met... It's not just your focus muscle, which is what round three is. But round four is your emptiness muscle.

Can I think about the normal world and then go to emptiness, and then come back to the normal world, and then go to emptiness. Okay? So, you're going to switch back and forth.

Now... RTEN NAS TZEN GYIS RNAMS KYIS PA'I RTEN GNYEN TZEN NA MYO SHES NAS RTEN CHEN BRAL BYUNG LU THUN DANG LU THUN MI THUN LA RTOG PA BYED That's Maitreya. Okay?

How are we going to do this? So, the emptiness meditation is going to switch the subject. Okay?

In the first three rounds, it was your teacher and the good quality of them and how you met them didn't come from outside forces. Okay? Now, in round four, you're going to think about something you would like to happen in your life.

Okay? Something you would like to happen in your life. I would like to make some more money.

I would like it if this person who doesn't like me so much, if they could start to like me. Okay? Like that.

I would like it if the gophers left my garden permanently without me having to pee-pee in the hole. And things like that. Okay?

So, they don't have to be the same, but things in your life that you would like to happen. Okay? The emptiness of things in your life that you would like to happen.

Emptiness means think of the wrong way and then cancel it. Right? Oh, I met my teacher by accident.

Cancel it. Oh, my husband has a girlfriend. Cancel it.

Amazon. Okay? So, it's always the same.

Think of something not possible, then cancel it and think about the... Then you go to Wheel of Life. Then you go to dependent origination.

You see? I want more money. Okay, what's the normal things you would do to make more money?

I will move my car dealership to a new land. I will build a bigger building there. You know, I will also sell part of the land to the other guy who wants part of it.

You see what I mean? These are normal ways to make more money. Okay?

And they are wrong. Okay? Partly wrong.

Okay? Yeah, if you load them with karma, they will work. Then you can go ahead, build your new building, move your car dealership.

Okay? Still the actions are the same, but now they are loaded with karma. It's loaded with seeds.

Okay? So, three steps each time we pel go. Okay?

Number one, what's the normal way to make more money? Oh, you know, go on more tours. Increase the price of our programs.

Stop going to countries that never pay after they sign the contract. Okay? Like, okay?

So that's normal, okay, idea. Then, second part, cancel it. It's wrong.

Okay? By itself, it might work and it might not work. By itself, those...

Okay? I want this person to like me. Okay, invite them for coffee, you know, listen to them, talk about what they enjoy.

Will it work? Maybe. Okay?

So, cancel the idea that it's going to work by itself. Okay? Cancel the idea.

So, think of the normal things you would do to make more money or to make more friends. Then, cancel that idea. That's an emptiness meditation.

Okay? A friend who could come from inviting them for coffee doesn't exist. A car dealership which makes more money because I moved my car dealership doesn't exist.

Cancel it. Emptiness. Okay?

That's number two, emptiness. Okay, got it? Then, don't forget before you go to the next form realm level, right?

Back to meditation muscle. Don't forget to think what seed should I plant to make the car dealership move successful or to make the coffee with my friend successful. What do I have to do?

Oh, I should help another person with their business or I should help another person to make more friends. Okay? That's dependent origination.

RTEN CING BDEL BYUNG LUG TUN LA LUG MI BTUN LA RTOG PAR BYED He says think about it the old way LUG TUN DANG LUG MI BTUN LA RTOG PAR BYED and then think about it the new way. Okay? Cool?

Old way and new way. It's like a DCI, what do you call those things? Old way, new way talk.

Seed system, working... Okay? I'll say it again.

I'll lead you through it, okay? But I just don't want you to get confused. So, round number four is maybe the most important round.

Okay? Because you're not doing one emptiness meditation, you're going to do nine, eight. Okay?

One after each level. Okay? Alright?

What happens level five? Just to give you a preview, because we're not going to do it this session, this retreat, but you... Then you do another PHAL GOMS on the way down.

Eight, seven, six, five, four. Okay? Round number five is another PHAL GOMS, but you...

you PHAL something else. And I'm not going to tell you what it is. Okay?

You ready? Let's do round four. Round four is the most complicated and it will take the most time.

Okay? So you might... when you do it at home, already you've been in meditation for 45 minutes.

Level... Round four is going to take another 15, 20 minutes. You might want to take a pee-pee break at home before you start round number...

four. Okay. Here we go.

CHUG ZHIG PA. CHUG ZHIG PA. Okay.

Round four. Here we go. CHUG ZHIG PA.

So get... blow your nose. Okay?

Oh! Somehow that's more important than viral chanas. Isn't it?

I kind of think so. I don't know. Okay.

Here we go. Where do we start? Fourth round.

Heart. We start at the heart. The end of the third round is enjoying the teacher that you meet.

Now, starting the fourth round, we go back to the heart. We jump down. Take...

jump down the elevator shaft. Go to the first floor. Okay?

So go straight to the heart from the teacher who you're enjoying that you meet at the end of round... three. Good.

Okay. Ready? Here we go.

Heartbeat. Beginning of round four. CHUG ZHIG PA.

If you're interested, round three and round four and round five together have a separate name called Over the Top. TU RGYAL GYI TING YIN TSE. Just a heartbeat in your whole body.

Now, with your very great meditation skill, you change the subject completely and you jump to thinking about something you would like to have happen in your life this week, this month. Oh, I would like to make some extra money. Or I would like it if my friend or my husband would be more nice to me.

Or any other dream you have. Okay? I would like to have more energy this month.

What things should I do? What's my strategy in the old way to get that thing? If I want my husband to be more nice to me, I will talk to him and explain to him what I need.

I will find some new ways to make money, extra money. I will add some extra work in my life or sell something extra to make a little more money. Cancel that idea.

It's wrong. That's not how... That alone is not how you make more money.

That alone is not how you get your husband to be more nice. There's no husband who will be nicer to you just because you talk to them. There's no money that will come to you if you add some more work to your life.

Alone. This is an emptiness meditation. No such money.

No such husband. Now we go to a little dependent origination meditation. What are the seeds I can plant to make my husband be more nice to me and listen to me when I talk to him?

And what are the seeds I can plant that this new way of making money will work? Oh, I'll have to help another couple who's having a little trouble. And I'll have to help someone else who's trying to make more money.

Dependent origination. Now show off how strong your meditation muscle is by jumping into the middle of the heart like a chamber and the heart is beating around you and you are back to form level two and you dropped all those thoughts. You are totally focused on the heart beating around you.

There's no thoughts about money. There's no thoughts about husband. I am showing off the control I have over my mind.

Jump again. You can go back to the same wish that you have. I would like to make my husband be more nice to me or I would like to make more money.

What's another thing you would normally do? Would you choose a place and a good time to talk to your husband? Choose a place and a good time to talk to your husband.

Find someone who makes money. Ask them for some help to do some new work. Second method of reaching the goal you wanted.

The old way. Where am I going to talk to my husband? What time today?

Some place quiet where he will listen. Cancel a husband who's going to listen to you because you chose a good place. There is no husband like that.

Sometimes husband agrees in a noisy place. Sometimes husband disagrees in a quiet place. There is no husband who listens to you more because it's quiet.

Emptiness meditation. Dependent origination. So what seeds do I have to plant that when we go to the quiet place my husband will listen to me?

What seeds do I have to plant that when I talk to my friend about some extra income opportunities they will give me some good answer? Oh, I should find another couple who needs help. I should find another person who needs some extra income.

Jump back into the heart. Show off how strong is your focus. How strong is your...

Drop the money. Drop the husband. You are listening to the heart beating at a distance inside the middle of the heart like music on a cell phone which is on the table.

Little bit far away. Tiny heartbeat. Still inside the heart.

I am not thinking about my husband. I am not thinking about income. Because my focus is so strong I can jump between two completely different subjects.

And not because I'm distracted but because I planned it. Jump back to your husband problem or your income problem and your dream to have a husband who listens to you, your needs, and some extra income coming in very smoothly. What's another thing you might do normally to make that happen?

There's a lot of partners, my partner, they will cook the husband a nice breakfast. So he will be in a good mood to listen to their needs. Or, I will check investment opportunities to make more money.

I will look online. I will contact my friend who does investing and see if they can help me make some more money. The money which comes from those investments and the husband who listens to you because you made him a good breakfast doesn't exist.

Emptiness. Emptiness meditation. Goktei nyom chok.

Cessation meditation. No such husband. Many husbands are in a bad mood after they eat breakfast.

Many investor friends lose all of your money. Emptiness meditation. Show off how strong your meditation is.

Jump to the sugar crystal. Totally silent. Inside a single piece of sugar in your heart.

Inside the crystal is a nice big room. Very comfortable. And the meditation seat there is very comfortable.

But you are inside a tiny grain of sugar and you are able to move your focus without thinking about your husband, without thinking about money, and you are focused on the sugar crystal and how quiet is it here. This is not emptiness meditation. This is not dependent origination.

Just quiet. Silent. Peaceful.

I'm going to skip to level nine for time. Now bring your teacher to mind and just appreciate that that good quality you started with in round one is coming from you. In my case, I was thinking how my lama is so compassionate.

So we skip to level nine. We are enjoying how this compassion came from me. How I was compassionate in my past life.

Three long exhales. Share the karma on your breath. Slowly open your eyes.

Take a stretch. So mentally you are going to be tired by the time you get to the fourth round. Okay?

Your attention span is going to be very shaky. So, I really do suggest this week you take a break between round three and round four. Okay?

Have some water. You know, look outside at the beautiful Diamond Mountain. Look at the beautiful stars.

Okay? Get refreshed and then come back. Okay, we did half of round four, right?

Any questions? Oh, just to remind you, between the rounds now, okay? Three steps, right?

What do I want in my life right now? Like more income. Or I want my husband to be more nice to me.

Okay? And what normal things will I do to get it? Oh, I will talk to him.

Tell him what I need. Or I will look for some extra way to make money. Okay?

Then second one, cancel that husband who will listen to you because you asked them to. Because you know they don't exist. Okay?

Cancel the money you made because you found some extra kinds of work. Okay? Doesn't exist.

Sometimes you get extra job, you get more tired, you lose money. Okay? Then, go to dependent origination.

What's that? You can still talk to your husband, that's okay. You can still look for some extra work to do to make more money, that's okay.

But plant a seed for it. Okay? Help somebody else with their husband problem.

Help somebody else with their looking for work. Okay? Like that.

Okay, got it? It doesn't mean you don't... It doesn't mean you don't talk to your husband.

If your karma is super powerful, you don't have to talk to your husband, but we're not that good. Okay? If your karma is super powerful, you will start getting checks in the mail from some uncle you didn't know about.

That's how Orit and Scott bought their house, by the way. Okay? So, if your practice is strong, you can skip the mailman who brings your letter back to you.

But until then, you're still going to have to talk to your husband. Or find some extra work. But if you plant the seed, he will listen.

And if you plant the seed, the extra work will come. Okay? Any questions?

Whoa. Okay. Tim.

[Speaker 2]
I can only say one thing. World class. I'm absolutely thrilled.

I've always tried to do the lion dance, but I couldn't do it. And now with the fourth part, I'm speechless.

[Speaker 1]
And now I have another question.

[Speaker 2]
For example, if you wish to get even healthier, get healthier, yes? So, yes, exactly.

[Speaker 1]
Can you do it, for example, that you say, okay, you help your lama, for example, with a donation, that he makes his projects even more successful? Or doesn't it fit together? Okay.

Thank you so much for the lion dance. It's world class. And with the part four, the last puzzle is there, and now it makes totally sense to me.

Thank you so much for your teaching. You're welcome. The question is about getting healthier.

We learn a lot from the lion dance. We learned with the first law of karma, same makes same. So, can I make donations to get healthier, especially to my lama for his projects?

I'll teach you something about teaching. It's probably never a good idea to tell the student to donate to you. Okay?

It's very powerful to help your teacher, but when you're teaching, it's probably a good idea not to ask the student to donate to you. Okay? And so, usually it's better to tell the student, well, then you donate to some hospital who's treating the same kind of medical problem.

Like if I have gout, I have a foot problem since I was born, and so I try to help. My brother has the same thing, or other people I know who have the same thing. Recently I found a new medicine.

I called them all. I send them the medicine, you know, sample, illegally. And, you know, I said, try this out, you know.

So, yeah, because of the first law of karma, and Norbert said it very nice, because of the first law of karma, which means the seed must resemble the fruit. Then, yeah, it's very cool to make a donation to some health needs of other people. Try to make it personal.

You see what I mean? We can donate to the Red Cross, and they have a huge building in New York, and they have hundreds of people, and a little bit of the money will go to health people who need help. But it's better if you find a friend who has a health problem, and you take some personal interest.

You take them out for coffee. You talk about it. You help, you buy them some medicine or something.

You follow up a week later and see how they're doing. You offer to bring them groceries yourself. So personal involvement is better than writing a check for a big charity.

Okay, other questions?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Shane. Thank you so much, Geshe-la. That was amazing.

I was kind of... What Christina and Luca were talking about was the third form realm, when we're actually... From what I remember, you were teaching us to see it out there, see the heartbeat out there.

And then this time, you're telling us to go inside our heart center and then see the distance of the heartbeat. And then when we're going into the formless realm, now we're seeing it inside of our heart center.

[Speaker 1]
And so what I'm wondering is, is this where we're going? We're supposed to see everything at the heart center, our visualizations, what we're doing right now in these meditations. Is everything not supposed to be out there, but are we supposed to be getting the feeling of it being inside of our heart center?

Yeah, good. In this meditation, we're working at the heart center only because we started with the heartbeat. Okay?

So it's not significant that we're using the heart center. The heart center happens to be where your karmic seeds are stored. It's not here.

They happen to be stored here. But it just happens to be that the heartbeat is a good place to go from the air conditioner. It's a simple way to start focusing your mind.

So it's not significant that we're using the heart center here. We could have used it in any other place. Okay?

In fact, it's a little sensitive spot. It's easy to get tension and anxiety if you work at the heart. So, you know, if you start to feel anxious or something like drop it to the navel.

Okay? There was another part of your question. What was that?

Oh, but there is a tantric principle of drawing things to the center in a meditation. There is a strong tantric tradition of dissolving the world to the center. And that's supposed to be very powerful for creating your Buddha body.

So, that's why we're doing that. We're trying to get a little bit out of India here secretly. Okay?

Okay. I'd like... Well, anybody have one more question?

No? Okay. By the way, green drink is really good for meditation.

I mean, everybody responds to it differently. Some people probably throw up. I don't know.

I almost throw up. But I found that not eating breakfast, having green drink, maybe something else, makes my meditation very good in about an hour. Okay?

So, I really recommend it. Okay. Thank you, Geshe-la.

That was amazing.

[Speaker 2]
I have a problem with creating a movie of past live experiences that created my Lama. And I always come back to the cause of creating my Lama being in this lifetime.

[Speaker 1]
And when I try to go back to other lifetimes, it just doesn't seem to work. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine.

Yoga Sutra says what? Dursta. Dursta.

A dursta. Janma. Vedania.

Dursta, dursta, janma, vedania. So the Yoga Sutra says dursta, a dursta. Karma ripening can happen in this life or the next life.

You see what I mean? So that's fine. You're doing dursta.

We're doing a dursta. Okay? We're focusing on karmas that ripened later, in a later life.

But if it's more comfortable for you to start with dursta, that's totally 100% cool. And if you do that, if you do it that way, you're going to have to spend a lot of time on the second law of karma. Le phel chewa.

Things multiply. Karmas multiply. So small things you did to share what you understand with other people, it's very possible they make you, they create your lama later in your life.

Okay? Which is called dursta, which means you see the result in this life. So that's fine.

You can go back. If you're going to do it that way, look for karmic seeds which are smaller. You see?

Because they had to multiply pretty crazy to get a result in this life. Okay? So small, intense sharings that you did with other people in this life.

Maybe it was at a yoga studio and you had a conversation standing with someone in line waiting for the bathroom or something, but it was intense and it helped to create your teacher a year later. Okay? So that's fine.

That's fine.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I wanted to... Oh.

I'm going to send you guys something new. Where is that? Kitty, right?

Adam. Okay. To project.

Okay, new thing to project coming to you. Okay. Me and Jasmine were talking and I just wanted to put the seed in your mind before you start your retreat so you can think about it.

So far I was... we were thinking about three kinds of ACI teachers. Sorry.

Yeah. Oops. Did you get it?

Can you change the second three to four and change the four to five and change the five to six and change the six to seven? See what I mean? I've got two number threes there.

Okay. Before you put it up. I was in a rush.

Let me fix it. We were talking about three kinds of ACI training and the reason is that there's kind of three kinds of people in this room. Some of them would be very good lamrim teachers.

You see? Some of them are attracted to lamrim and it's a very deep spiritual way to teach people, okay? Lamrim meditation teacher.

And secondly, some people like the ACI courses. I guess they were university professors in their past life, like Peter Mertl. And they like this German-Austrian, you know, question one, answer one, question two.

They like... Jigme is attracted to that. They like the order, orderly presentation of the ACI courses.

It makes them comfortable. They find that's the most effective kind of teacher they can be, okay? The first kind, meditated lamrim, they're a little mystical, you know, and they like that.

And then the second type of person is more analytical, which is two kinds of Dharma personality types in the scriptures, okay? And they should teach different way. They should teach what's natural to them, okay?

So, you have those two options. You can focus on the 500 idims and become a lamrim meditation guide, or you can focus on the 36 courses, which is a lot of work. It takes about, I don't know, seven years to teach the courses, okay?

It takes a big commitment, okay? You don't have to memorize them, but you have to learn to teach them, okay? The third choice is meditation studio master, and we're going to write the content for that.

Jasmine and I and other people, we're going to work on the content. And those are modern meditations mainly for professional people. So, I can imagine, I had a conversation with Chunzong this morning.

So, she and Paul have done work to teach creativity in companies, you see? So, I can see developing a meditation course for creativity, the meditation part. DCI has a professional course for creativity, but this would be more meditations, meditations for creativity.

And, you know, people like Google, as we saw, they have people who come in and teach meditation to the people about creativity. So, I could see that being part of meditation studio master. Jasmine's looking for content creators.

So, I know Peter and Maria have offered, Chunzong and Paul have offered. I suppose most of you have some ideas about what people want. If I'm a professional person who's stressed out and I can come to a quiet place.

There was a newspaper article about the Three Jewels when it first opened. And the title was A Quiet Oasis in the Noise of New York. And I felt like I was so proud of being perceived like that.

You want quiet, you want peace, come to Three Jewels, okay? So, the meditation studio would be similar. But people are also going to want specialty meditations, modern specialty meditations.

It's not Lam Rim, okay? And it's not ACI, what are Tsongkapa's dates? Okay?

It's, you know, my boss wants me to create a new product in this month. Can you help me? Can you give me a meditation that can help me create a new product this month?

A new financial product or something like that, okay? So, if you have ideas about those products, meditation products, you know, then talk to Jasmine. And you can write them down and share them with Jasmine.

And I think if you're good at it, you can be part of the team that tries to create these meditation studio meditations. I think the first one is going to be calm. I want to be calm, you know?

I'm too nervous. My job makes me nervous. My family makes me nervous, you know?

I want to learn to jump from husband problem to the middle of my heart in one second and stay there without thinking about my husband for ten minutes. You see what I mean? Okay?

So, if you have ideas about content, talk to Jasmine, talk to Tim, talk to Jingmei, okay? And we'd appreciate it. We'd appreciate that.

I added two more kinds of teachers. ACI teachers, okay? Here's number four.

Don't show monk or nun yet because they'll get distracted. Silent retreat master. I could, you know, if I'm a professional, you know, I don't have to be an owner of a company.

I don't have to be the boss of the division. But if I'm a, you know, thirty-five-year-old guy who's working, like I'm number three in the company or number ten in the company, something like that, I could, when I was doing the corporate thing, I did the corporate thing for nineteen years, okay? Heavy corporate life.

Eight hundred people in the building. I understand it. I used to so love to come to retreat.

I used to, it was so wonderful. We can call it circle day, one day. We could call it weekend retreat, two days.

And towards the end of my career, I did a lot of one-month retreats. I think I did about thirty or forty one-month retreats, okay? So I would like to add that to this teacher training, okay?

And if you are attracted to Diamond Mountain, if you keep coming here from foreign countries at such expense and so far and so much jet lag and so many strange things crawling around the ground, you must be pretty serious retreat person, okay? So I encourage you to think about becoming a meditation, from the meditation studio, I imagine a corporate person, a professional person might come to Diamond Mountain once a year for a week or once every two years for a week, okay? And learn how to do deeper retreat, okay?

And my friends who were corporate and who did one-week retreat every year, after they retired, they went into permanent retreat because they knew how to. Some of my close friends, David and Sharon are doing that right now, okay? They're like sannyasi.

They're like kind of moved to Woodstock and they're mostly doing retreat now. So you can kind of prepare your long life plan to do more and more retreat. And so we need people to train the people doing retreat.

And I think that's a huge resource that Diamond Mountain has. You know, we have lots of cuckoo people who did three-year retreat. Me, Earl, John, you know, all you guys.

We have more hours suffering on the cushion here than anybody, okay? So I think if you'd like to go that way in your training, I'd like to offer it to you. And I had Susan came to me, sarah me, wrote me a note, said, I would like to be a lamrim meditation guide.

Yeah, cool. I'll pass it on to Jasmine and Tim and Jigme and... Yeah, cool.

You know, make your plans. Choose one of these teachers, okay? Or go the DCI way.

I imagine there will be superman teachers and superwoman teachers who can teach DCI and ACI. Okay, and those will be strange people. Strong in professional business side and strong in the meditation side, okay?

I imagine there will be some teachers like that, okay? In the meantime, choose one of these four, okay? If you want to teach, what's the job train individuals or groups in silent retreat?

And I want to focus on Diamond Mountain for now. Later we can build other retreat centers. But right now I think the expertise is here and I would like to see the first generation trained here because it will also help me with the fundraising for Diamond Mountain.

Which is a big headache for me. All the hair on this side. Okay.

Alright, and then you're going to need certification. Obviously, you know, you have to train and we have to create a training for retreat teachers, okay? Last thing, number five.

Some people are asking me they'd like to become a monk or a nun. And I thought a lot about it because it's an extraordinary responsibility. It's...

I've watched many monks and nuns in my life. You know, I've been a monk for... hmm...

almost 35, 40 years, okay? And I have watched many people become monks and nuns. I've watched many fail.

And I've met monks or nuns, of course not here, who are grumpy people, uptight people, not friendly people, but they're wearing this red suit so everyone has to, you know, in their mind they're like, you're grumpy. In their body they're like, you know. That's a huge responsibility, okay?

To become monk or nun is more serious than all of the other teachers, okay? For me, it's more serious. And I think the people I...

My Lama made about... in America, he made about ten monks and nuns. I think eight of them have failed, okay?

And I don't want to be... I don't want to do that. So, I feel that it's the most serious kind of commitment and I'm not going to give it to people easily, you know.

I respect if you want to become monk or nun. I'm happy to help you become monk or nun, but it's going to be a long, tough process, okay? My Lama made me wait eight years.

He made me live as a monk for eight years and he watched me. And then he said, okay, now it's okay, okay? So, I'm going to be similar.

And for me, the main thing a monk or nun needs that we didn't give them in the past, okay? We should have done it, we didn't do it, is the Four Legs of the Table. That's next on this document.

And it's for everybody, all teachers, meditation studio teachers, Lam Rim meditation teachers, retreat teachers, ACI course teachers, they should master the Four Legs of the Table which DCI developed, thank you. And to me, a monk or a nun needs it even more than other people, okay? Because people trust you just because of how you look.

So, number one, content, okay? You should know the Dharma. Many, many subjects.

You should finish your ACI courses. You should finish your Lam Rim idims. You should be good at retreat, okay?

You should be a good teacher of modern meditation to professional people. You know, you got to be like a super teacher if you're going to be a monk or nun, okay? That's content, and that takes a long time, okay?

I had a guy, he became a monk. I told him I want him to finish the ACI courses. He finished all 18 courses, foundation courses, in three days.

It's 180 homeworks, okay? He copied the homeworks. Word for word.

I said, you just copied the homeworks. He said, you want me to finish, I finish. Okay, that's not okay, all right?

Don't type the answers and then say you finished the course, okay? Illegal. Okay, and he failed as a monk.

He failed spectacularly. He failed spectacularly. Okay.

Presentation, okay? If you're going to be a monk or nun in this world, you can't escape, people are going to ask you for advice, okay? So you have to be a good teacher.

It's not enough to be a good monk or nun. It's not enough to keep your vows. If you wear this suit, people are going to ask you spiritual questions and you have to be good at teaching, okay?

So you have to learn that, okay? And DCI has developed a very excellent program for teaching people how to teach, okay? That's the second leg.

Third leg, production, okay? Monks and nuns are the ones who get stuck with running the student center, making food for everybody, getting people up and down from the retreat cabins, buying the fire offering materials, trying to get people to help. Okay?

These are all production skills that a monk or nun, in my opinion, a modern monk or nun, Buddhist monk or nun, they should have production skills. You're going to have to learn to fundraise, okay? You can't do anything without money, okay?

So a monk or nun in the modern world, they also have to be a business person who can make things happen, okay? They are patient, they are skilled, they can run the cafeteria, or they can run the food, the transportation here, or they can run the fire offering. It's complicated, it's difficult, okay?

I don't want to have monks or nuns who are like, ah, I can't do that, okay? Last thing and most important thing for a monk or nun is a lot of training on how to be professional behavior. No messing around with women or men, no messing around with taxes, no bad accounts, you don't know where the money went, no bad treatment of volunteers, staff, fellow teachers, okay?

These are all professional behavior and I think in the monastery they don't have these four. And many monks fail, many, many fail. I think the ones who come to the West, it's about 90% failure, okay?

So, I'm not going to make you a monk or a nun unless you're strong in these four, okay? Especially... Okay, got it?

And these are also for all the teachers, okay? These four are for all the teachers. You can know how, you can know the Dharma, but if you can't teach, then what's it mean?

Or you can know the Dharma, but if you're an unhappy person, who wants to study with you? Okay, got it? Alright.

DCI language study for everybody, we talked about it already, right? Continuing education units, you will have to keep coming back for more education every year, okay? If you're going to be a teacher in the ACI, okay?

I'll probably add number nine, which will be something like, how do we announce you as a teacher on the website, you know? I had a person in Europe. They used to come to my classes 18 years ago.

No, 14 years ago. They came to my classes for a few years. Now they are teaching.

They didn't come to my class for eight years. So, I said, I'm inventing a new system. I'll give you a rating, I'll give you a number of how many of my classes for the last eight years you came to.

And I wrote all the courses I taught for the last eight years. It's like 400 or something, okay? And I said, they wanted me to advertise them as my student.

So I said, okay, here's a list of the last 400 courses I gave. Please check which ones you came to. Then I'll give you a percent, you know?

If you came to four, you have a 1% rating. If you came to eight, you have a 2% rating. I never got an answer.

Because I know what it was. It was zero. So don't ask me to recommend you if you didn't come for eight years, but you came before that for some years.

Things change, right? Stanley can tell you. Just before we get on the stage, he says, Geshe-la, which level five you're going to teach tonight?

And I said, it's one you never heard of. He's like, could you tell me a little bit? Because I have to translate.

Things change. It gets better and better and better, okay? You have to keep checking in.

I still recommend you. I don't mind to say, he was my student from 2000 to 2005 and he was a good student. I don't mind.

I'm happy to do that. But I'm going to put WAS, okay? Or HAS BEEN or...

Okay? Something like that. But that's part number nine.

Okay. That's part of my advertisement for teachers, okay? And I want you to be a teacher, okay?

All of you should be teachers. You can. And I want you to be, but I want you to be successful because I saw many people fail, okay?

And this is all just because I want you to be successful. And we need you. We really need you.

The people in this room are the best candidates for teaching, okay? All right then. Who do we have here?

Christina Kasica. Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji Cool. How you get this training, where you get this training, we'll talk about later, okay?

Probably a lot of it will happen in Sedona. Probably a lot of it will happen here, okay? All right then.

Have a good... What's next? Yoga.

Satsang with Mooji Oh, the teachers are really good. So, whatever face that was about, I'm not sure.

[Speaker 2]
This room, Earl, will be teaching the not gentle yoga. I guess it's what we call it these days. And then in the other room, Past Medina from Argentina is going to be...