«Дар освобождения», курс 30 «Как пройти великое путешествие», занятие 4

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good morning. We're going to start a meditation. Let me talk about it first.

I think it was last year or two years ago, we had a yoga program, right? At some big wedding place. And I had to go early.

I don't remember why. So I was waiting in a waiting room, and I was reading an old book by one of Tsongkapa's students. Then he started talking about this special meditation called Lion's Dance.

And I was so ... it was so cool, and I was so excited about it because it ties to the Wheel of Life. And it was taught by Maitreya, who is the next Buddha.

And we have to memorize it in the monastery. DE NAS SANGS RGYAS RNAMS BSGYIN PAS STING NGE BRTZEN NA SNYOMS SBYUG NAS BSTEN CING BRAL BYUNG LUG MTHUN DANG LUG MI MTHUN LA RTOG PAR BYED, very famous. DE NAS SANGS RGYAS RNAMS BSGYIN PAS, you should dance like the lion.

STING NGE BRTZEN NA SNYOMS SBYUG NAS, you should do the lion's meditation. BSTEN CING BRAL BYUNG LUG MTHUN DANG, then you can figure out this cycle between your kids and your husband, which is the Wheel of Life. Okay?

Wheel of Life is the bad one, the one where you yell at your kids and your husband calls you stupid. LUG MI MTHUN LA RTOG PAR BYED means, learn how to shut it down. You can shut it down like a machine.

You can turn off the machine. So you do this meditation, lion's dance. At the end of the meditation, you do some ...

you study the seeds in your own mind. Was it last year? Yeah, so anyway, I translated it here, and we have traveled to many many countries since then.

And you should be happy that thousands of people are doing this meditation now, because we started so late at the yoga program. So it's all because of Anatole, Aisha, or somebody. And like, I just this morning, I got a lot of email.

We have ... what do you call it? Whatsapp groups.

You use Whatsapp here? In China, in Asia, it's called WeChat, right? There's 60 people in Singapore.

We were there ... when? Two, three weeks ago?

Yeah, and they are ... we call it a 21-day challenge. Like, I will teach you this week the lion's dance.

You did the first part already, but there's five parts. So, I wrote out the third and fourth part for you. It's in your notebook, I think, I hope.

So, if we do a good job, if we work hard, you can learn the first three or four parts, okay? And during these meditations every morning, maybe towards the end of the program, you can decide, do you want to join 21 days WeChat meditation group? And in the last two days, you can record the meditation on your phone.

And then you can use your phone for three or four days to learn the meditation. Somebody asked me, why you do 21 days? Why you don't do a thousand days or something?

Two reasons. Number one, I think in DCI we figured out if you do something for three weeks, you get a habit. Secondly, everybody including me quits after three weeks anyway.

Then it becomes one more thing on my list of guilty about Dharma list. I'm not doing all my mantras. I'm not doing my sadhanas.

My book is lousy. Now I have to add, I have lousy lion's dance also. My teacher had a student from Burma.

Burma. Finally he told my teacher, don't teach me anymore, you know. You make me more and more guilty every day.

I can't do everything you teach. So that's a good strategy. Learn some new practice.

Do it for three weeks hard. Then you can you can try something else for a while. You can't do everything.

You'll go crazy. All right, so don't, you know, just throw out the guilty list, okay? Pick something.

Do it for a couple weeks. Don't worry about the other things. Okay, like if you're taking a ACI course from Aldo or from Sophie, then just focus on that for a few weeks, okay?

And the other things you can, a little bit, relax, okay? I didn't say give up, right? Okay, that's it.

But don't do nothing. That's also not so cool. Choose one thing.

Now, this meditation has two parts. First we do nine nine kinds of meditation for a few minutes each. And that's like warming up for Olympics or for the World Cup.

You know, right? It's not the World Cup. It's just a warm-up, okay?

So Buddha taught, in this case, there are nine different kinds of meditation. And they are supposed to get you warmed up, okay? Now, if someone teaches you how to stretch your legs before the World Cup match, and when the World Cup match starts with your team, you are still stretching the whole time, and you miss the game.

That's, in Tibetan, we call kukpa. Kukpa. Kukpa means idiot.

Yeah, so Buddha taught these nine meditations, and then Maitreya taught them again to a sangha. I told you the story about the dog. But it's just for warm-up, okay?

Then at the end of the nine meditations, we go to the important things. Two important things. I don't know, I feel like I want to give away money this morning.

No, you should just tell me for free. Afternoon is good time for money, because everyone's sleepy. You don't need it in the morning.

What are the two most important principles from the kitchen? Emptiness of the ... which husband?

You tell me, you do it really good. Yeah, good. I didn't do anything!

He yelled at me. I just walked in the door. I didn't say anything.

He started yelling at me. Okay, I didn't do anything. That husband doesn't exist, okay?

That's the first big principle to get out of suffering, to be happy for the rest of your life. First big principle. Emptiness, okay?

Okay, so it's not some kind of mystical, you know, hippie thing. I'm a hippie, but it's not a hippie thing. Okay, it's not like, ah, it's not like that.

You just walk in the kitchen, your husband yells at you, and you say, you're vacuidad. A really good Buddhist wife can really piss off her husband with vacuidad. So, that's the first one, okay?

What's the second one? Yeah, if you want to confuse your students, you can say dependent origination. Or you can say ...

Yeah, seeds. Just seeds, okay? Just seeds.

So, these are the two great principles. Okay, $100. What is it called together?

These two together? He's the human dictionary. Talk to her afterwards.

Now, you got to dig down in the bag, because the top of the bag is finished. Expensive class. Yeah, you want to explain human dictionary?

Yeah, very hard. Yeah, very hard. You want to translate?

Spiritualist or unexpected, you say, right? Yeah, unexpected spiritual. Unexpected skillful means?

Okay. Anything, Nick? No, because I couldn't hear well, sorry.

Okay, so this Lion's Dance meditation has two big parts, okay? The first nine parts are just warm-up for the World Cup. It's not the World Cup.

Then after that, we do the World Cup. Croatia and France. Okay, Croatia is emptiness.

France is seeds. Got it? Okay, the first nine parts are the warm-up.

Okay, now, sometimes I like to compare ... Scott Norvig, I went to the checkup at the doctor. The nurse is from Ukraine, and I was showing off.

I said, oh yeah, yeah, I go to Kiev all the time. I hope I got the hotel. Presidential Palace Hotel?

Oh, yeah, she looked at me like, Presidential Palace? Premier Palace. This is a famous hotel in Ukraine.

It's too small for our programs now. Our programs there got very big. Why do we keep going there?

It's the best American breakfast in Ukraine. On the ninth floor, you know a special restaurant. They teach there a lot.

Okay, ninth floor. But counting European way. Yeah, you go to the lobby ...

if you're American, you go to the lobby at the Premier Palace Hotel, and they tell you, here's your key, you're on the first floor. Then you walk around the whole first floor, there's no rooms there. Then you go back, it's the wrong key, it's not on the first floor.

Then they say this typical European thing, you know, sorry Germany. Oh, the first floor is on the second floor. Yeah, so the lobby is a zero, zero floor.

You got it? The lion's dance is the same. Okay, so zero floor, we're going to do a certain kind of meditation.

Then eight floors is a classic, classic warm-up meditation. The ninth floor, counting European way, is the American breakfast. That's the goal.

It's not the first eight floors. Don't get off the elevator on the first eight floors. Okay, that's not the goal.

That's like stretching your legs during the World Cup, you know, missing the game. So, the first eight are ... in fact, I will even say they are not meditation.

They are warm-up for meditation. The ninth floor is the real World Cup. Who's eating in the restaurant?

Yeah, some French guys and some Croatian guys. Who's that? Emptiness and seeds.

Emptiness and seeds, okay? And it's very cool. On the ninth floor, we go to our past life and we study our past life.

And I've been doing it for a year. Was it just a year? Oh, and I'm having really good, amazing results.

Okay, because I have to teach it. I'm too lazy to do it, but I have to teach it, so I have to do it. That's why you should become a teacher.

We are all too lazy to do. But if you have to teach it, you have to do it, right? Alright?

So, let's go. We're going to go up in the elevator. Okay.

This morning, we might make it to the ninth floor. We might not make it to the ninth floor. You can have two breakfasts tomorrow.

So, get ready for meditation. Scott was studying some ancient books. He found out the real meditation preliminary from the Buddha.

Anybody can tell me for free? Turn off your cell phone. I told the whole world, I told them you guys charge 50 pesos for when the phone goes off.

500, it went up? Yeah. I told the whole world, they love this system.

I said, oh, Guadalajara team, they have a system. We make some money around the world. Okay, so please turn off your cell phone.

Now, you can sit on the floor if you want to sit on the floor, but you don't have to sit on the floor. If you meditate in a chair, you are still a good person. Then people say, no, but Buddha always meditated on the floor.

In India, in Buddha's time, there's no chair. Okay, that's why Buddha sit on the floor. Duh!

Okay, so don't think you have to look like this. Most people sit like this, they are meditating on what? The pain in their knee.

Forget the ninth floor. Croatia, France, they're just thinking about the pain in their knee. So, if you want to sit on a chair, sit on a chair.

Yeah, and don't feel guilty, okay? Don't put it on your guilty list. You and me, we're the same.

We grew up in the church, right? We like to find new things to be guilty about. Yeah, me too.

I have the same background. By the way, I still go to the church, okay? Very, very often.

So, it's cool. You know, many people told me after I studied Buddhism, I became a good Christian. So, that's cool.

Yeah, you study the husband in the kitchen, then read the New Testament, and you're like, oh my god, Jesus was a DCI teacher. Okay, really? Okay, all right, you can enjoy ...

have fun with both, why not? Okay, don't be guilty about that one also. All right, here we go.

Blow your nose. Good to have this one. Cough.

When you meditate in a group, try not to make noise, okay? It's more powerful in a group. See, if ...

see ... see ... if people are quiet, it's more powerful to meditate in a group, okay?

If one person's making noise, suddenly it becomes less powerful to meditate in a group. Okay, so, you know ... when you meditate at home, you never cough during your meditation.

Then when you come to the program, suddenly you want to cough during the meditation.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know why.

[Speaker 1]
So, I give you a suggestion. When you feel the tickle here, focus on it. Go into it.

Sometimes the cough will stop. Sometimes it will come out ten times worse. But see how it goes.

All right, ready? Okay. The main thing is to be comfortable.

Park your body like a car and get out of it. Now, in the lion's dance, in the lobby of the hotel, which is not the first floor, floor zero, instead of preparing for meditation by watching your breath, you just listen to some noise in your room. Usually, there's a refrigerator noise or air conditioning noise.

If you're lucky, like Ayrton or Anatole, you have a kid to make noise for you. In this meditation, it's helpful. So, ten slow breaths.

I will count, quietly, you know, silently, and listen for the noises in this place. Maybe bird noises. Maybe someone's moving next to you.

Ten breaths. Warming up for the World Cup. Start to bring the mind quieter by focusing on one sound in the outside world.

We hired the hotel to drive some cars. Now, let's get in the elevator and we will go up to the first floor. On the first floor, inside the elevator, you focus on your heartbeat.

Leave behind the outside noises and move to the feeling of your heart beating in your chest. If the noises in the lobby are pretty loud, suddenly, it will pull your mind back to the outside. Then, gently come back into the elevator to your heartbeat.

Don't feel guilty that you listened to the bird. Just gently come back to the heartbeat. Okay, heartbeat.

If the sound of the car pulls your mind, then pull it back. It would be more quiet if we go to the second floor. In the second floor, we go inside the heart, like it's a small apartment inside the heart.

It's not dark. It's like a very beautiful apartment with sunlight. It feels very spacious and very happy.

But the walls of the apartment are beating. I am inside the heart. And it's even more quiet.

Sometimes, the car noise or the bird noise will pull you back to the lobby. Then, don't get guilty. Oh, I went to the lobby.

Let me go back to my apartment in my heart. More quiet. Okay, ten breaths here.

The heart is beating around you, but it's not dark. Let's go to the third floor. Now, the apartment of your heart got much bigger, like a rich person's hacienda or something.

And, we go to the middle of the middle. And, the heart is still beating around me, but it feels very far away. The walls are very far away, because I went to the more silent place in the middle of the heart.

You can still hear the heartbeat, but very slight. If a bird or a car pulls you back to the lobby, just peacefully get back in the elevator and come back to the apartment of your heart, the middle of the apartment of your heart. How good is your meditation warm-up?

When there's a noisy car, can you still stay inside the middle of your heart? Now, in the tiny room in the center of your heart, you can imagine that there's a sugar ball on the table. And you lift up the top of the sugar ball.

Inside, there's white sugar. Put your finger in the sugar ball. Take it out, and there's a few tiny pieces of sugar on the tip of your finger.

Now, decide you want to go to a super, super quiet place. So, you imagine one grain of sugar on your finger. It's like a whole separate apartment.

Inside, lots of sunlight. Very quiet and peaceful. And the one piece of sugar has a little door on the outside.

Take your mind through the door. Go deeper, quiet, inside of a single grain of sugar. But it's still pretty spacious, pretty big place.

And lots of sunlight. Meditate for ten breaths in this super, super quiet place. If a car noise kidnaps your mind to the lobby, bring it back to the fourth floor.

Now, I'm going to show off how powerful my meditation warm-up is. Inside this single grain of sugar, I'm going to put the Pacific Ocean. And my mind is going to mix with the Pacific Ocean.

So suddenly, fifth floor, inside a single grain of sugar, my mind becomes the Pacific Ocean. Touching California. Touching Baja.

Touching Japan. Touching Australia. Thousands of people like Alejandro are surfing on the edges of my mind.

It's still all within the sugar crystal. Half the size of the whole world. This is how powerful my meditation warm-up is.

Now, I expand my mind into the sky. The whole sky that covers the ocean. My mind is this wide, and it keeps expanding even to the stars.

Inside a single grain of sugar. It would be more quiet. If I could stop the thoughts moving around in my mind.

So, seventh floor. Watch the thoughts come up in your mind. They are subtle, and they are moving through the mind constantly.

Tiny feelings. Tiny memories. Pieces of memories.

Tiny thoughts that come and go in a few seconds. The mind is like the sky with thousands of birds moving through it. One by one, face those thoughts and stop them.

Try to make the mind like empty space. Every time a feeling comes up, tiny thought, my foot hurts a little bit. Just face it, stand in front of it, and stop it.

And it almost feels like you turned off your mind. Last floor, eighth floor. Then we'll take a break.

It's a little bit too much moving around when I try to block my thoughts. Maybe I just let them fly through the mind, and I don't connect to them. I just leave them alone, but I don't listen to them.

I'm super quiet in the middle of my mind, and the thoughts are flying around slowly like birds, and I just leave them alone. I'm super quiet. Then the thoughts are a little bit far away.

Then please take three long exhales. And don't move yet, and don't open your eyes yet. Follow the breath for three long exhales.

Then you can slowly open your eyes. I like to take a good stretch. It's nice to drink something, okay?

Keep ... during these kind of classes, you will get less tired if you keep drinking things, because you have to go to the bathroom, so you don't get sleepy. Okay, anybody have any questions about the elevator?

You, Enrique? Oh, do you guys have a microphone for questions? Enrique Senor Paraguay.

Gracias. Buenos dias, Geshe-la. Buenos dias, de nada, de nada.

Detalle. A small detail.

[Speaker 2]
Gracias por compartir toda la sabiduría.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you for sharing all your wisdom. You're my personal assistant. When we do the meditation of Lion's Dance ...

Wait, when are we going to Paraguay? Si la noche se espera todo el dia, espere tu tambien. We know.

[Speaker 2]
We do the meditation in the second step, in the heart, and then we have to send the signals and hear the heartbeat.

[Speaker 1]
And then the granite of sugar. I get lost and I never know where to put the granite of sugar. Is it far away or do I have to bring it back here?

grain, I lose myself because I don't know where to put the small sugar grain if it's outside, or where do I put it?" Okay, good. So, you're in the apartment of the heart, and the walls are beating.

And that means you cannot hear the car so much. Then you go to the ... then you expand ...

it's important to keep expanding the heart. The heart is not like claustrophobic. Yeah, so expand the heart.

Then maybe it's like in Morocco, what's this place called? Riyadh. Riyadh?

It's like an old hacienda, and the middle is like a quiet garden or something. So, you go to the middle of the hacienda. Then the walls are still beating, but it's kind of far away and you can't hear it so clearly.

Your imagination is your meditation power.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
How big can you imagine? Can you do sugar crystal and Pacific Ocean in the same five minutes? So, I'm in the garden in the middle of the hacienda.

The heart is beating pretty far away. Then suddenly I'm like, boom! There's a sugar bowl.

Then there's a few crystals. Then I put a little door in one of them, and I go inside, but inside is bigger than the hacienda. So, don't be like in a closet you know, oh this sugar crystal is so small.

There's a kadampa practice where you do ... you do this sixteen times, and you visualize your teacher, and you go inside his or her heart, and there's another teacher in there, and you go inside their heart. I learned that from the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya.

It's called the Sixteen Kadampas. So anyway, yeah, then that ... when you first pick up the sugar crystal, it's tiny, but when you go inside, suddenly it's like the apartment you always wanted but you couldn't afford.

Sunlight's important, okay? Okay? Oh, you decide.

You have to do mom, this is respect. Yes, yes, no, mom. I saw Sophie first, but yeah, mom also.

When you say you turn ... But she's also mom.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, just kidding.

[Speaker 1]
Well, when you say you turn on your mind, and you say you stop all feelings, thoughts, and ideas, and today you said that's the emptiness of your mind, where do I place ... no? Where do I place my mind?

The number one most famous mistake of meditation, in two and a half thousand years, in two and a half thousand years, the most famous mistake, is to think that stopping the thoughts is emptiness. Level seven, level eight. We are just showing off how powerful my mind is.

Look, okay, on the count of three, I'm going to turn off my mind. One, two, three. Okay, turn back on.

Okay? No, you're just showing how flexible you are in your mind. Okay?

And I'll tell you something, okay? So you don't get frustrated. It's not possible to turn off your mind.

While you are turning off your mind, you are thinking. So, but you try to get almost turn off. Turn off or turn on?

On seventh floor. You turn on your mind.

[Speaker 2]
Seventh floor.

[Speaker 1]
Seventh floor, after the ocean. Oh sorry, after the sky. Okay.

Then you just try to turn off your mind.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Now, seven and eight are different. At seven, it's confrontational. You know?

Here comes a thought. Here comes a feeling. You know?

Here comes lunch. Okay, like that, okay? Okay, like that.

That's number seven. Now, number eight. Here comes lunch.

Here comes a thought about my knees. Go, see you later. You know, you don't fight.

There's no fighting. You just don't connect to it. You don't relate to it.

Somebody told me a joke yesterday. This is perfect. My wife told me two things yesterday.

Number one, she said I never listen to her. Number two, I don't remember. Okay, level eight is number two.

It just goes, okay? And you don't fight, you know? It's like airplanes are flying very high, okay?

It's good, right? You know everything we say about them? They say it about us, but they say it together and they don't tell us.

My husband, he never listens to me. When I try to talk, he talks. Okay, anyway.

If you really want to shut them up, just say, who's it coming from? Buddhist argument between wife and husband. Who's it coming from?

Who's it coming from? Yeah, but where's that come from? Yeah, but where did that come from?

Kind of boring Buddhist argument. Okay, one more question.

[Speaker 2]
In these last years, there's been meditations in which I've been able to see the very, very clear images, like even the tones of the Pacific Ocean, but there's been other times when the images don't come. And in both of them, I've been concentrated. I don't feel that's the obstacle.

It's not that I'm sleepy or that I'm overexcited. Just the images don't come. So I want to ask you, what's, because it's very helpful when the images come clearly and very easily.

So my question is, what's the seed to picture good images in this meditation all the way up? Good question, okay.

[Speaker 1]
$50. See, I got everyone's attention. What's the main difference between DCI's teaching of meditation and every other teaching of meditation in the world?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, mom got $50.

[Speaker 1]
Mom got $50. That's so easy. Okay, she said karma.

Seeds and karma. Seeds and karma. Yeah.

So, what's it mean? It means when you sit down to meditate, on some days it's like chaos in your mind, and you focus, and your fingers are right. Your back is straight.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
You are sitting on the side of Lake Chalapa and everything is quiet. And inside the mind is a disaster. You can't stop thinking about what your husband said yesterday.

Or what your ex-boyfriend said 25 years ago. Okay? Then other days.

You know, you're at home in Guadalajara. Lots of traffic noises. The kids are being really bad today.

Your husband is not vegetarian. He's cooking bacon in the kitchen. And your meditation is fantastic.

Perfect. So, it doesn't ... it's not coming from the outside.

It's coming from karma. If the seeds come out quiet, you have a perfect meditation. But if the outside is perfect, and your posture is perfect, and your chair is ...

your seat is perfect, but the seeds are bad. It doesn't matter what you do. You cannot meditate.

So, in this system, the meditation warm-up starts, $50. You should pay me $50 if you get it wrong. When?

Last week.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
The first preliminary ... $50, okay? The first preliminary for meditation is one week ago, you planted the right seeds.

Now, that's not Sophie's question. I can smell it when someone's like, he's not answering my question. Her question is, what's the seed you plant one week ago?

What's that seed? Especially to get the correct visualizations. That's taking an interest in other people's meditation.

So, when you meet your friends, you have two choices. Number one, you can do what the whole world does. Talk about how stupid is Trump.

You can talk for many hours. There's many, many interesting subjects. Number two, how's your meditation going?

Did you have any breakthroughs? You know, did you learn anything that I can ... that I can use?

How's your Pacific Ocean? Do you have a problem with your Pacific Ocean that blue whales are moving through? So, when we get together with our Dharma friends, we have a choice.

You can talk about stupid people, but that's a ... it's a stupid way to spend your life. Or you can purposely shut up about Trump and, you know, it's truly stupid, but it doesn't help to talk about him.

So then, try to move the conversation to, how's your meditation going nowadays? Here's a typical Dharma friends conversation. You know what the most ...

you know the most stupid thing Trump said yesterday? Come on man, let's talk about something that's meaningful. Well, how was your meditation yesterday?

What's that? I didn't meditate yesterday. That guilty look?

Yeah, okay, so anyway, try to move the conversation to the meditation and specifically the images. It's a struggle to keep a conversation meaningful. Atisha, who brought the lam rim to Tibet, he said every time you add one more person to a conversation it gets more dangerous.

It's more difficult to keep the subject clean. So, that's all. That's it, see?

Okay. Alex wants to meditate some more. What do you guys want to do?

We can meditate, or we can do lam rim? Okay? Okay, vote.

Let's vote. Who wants to do ten minutes more meditation? Okay, you guys won.

After I said ten minutes, everybody's like ... Okay, here we go. Get ready.

Okay, just ten minutes. We'll start at the ground floor. In Europe, the zero floor.

In Mexico, what is it? In Mexico, it's European. Okay, ten breaths on some noise in the room.

We asked the hotel not to drive things during this hour, and they drove more things. So, they are cooperating. We're going to go straight to the ninth floor.

The ultimate goal, American breakfast. On the ninth floor, which comes after you have stopped your mind and let the birds fly if they want to, you bring a teacher to your meditation room to sit with you. Your eyes are closed.

Their eyes are open. We made a list of teachers during this retreat, but we'll just make the list again. And you can change the teacher from day to day, or from week to week.

Maybe it's your greatest first teacher, which is your mother and your father, or your school teachers. I like sports teachers sometimes. Someone taught you your job that you do to make your living, and that teacher is very important.

And of course, your spiritual teachers. In my case, for example, I had some very good priests in my church when I was young. And then later, of course, I had some great Buddhist teachers.

Oftentimes, your spiritual teacher is your wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend. Your children can be important teachers. And your parents, grandparents.

So, choose one, and ask them to come and meditate with you. We'll do ten breaths here. You can choose and get them meditating with you.

We are starting the World Cup. We are not warming up anymore. Now, choose one thing about this teacher that you really enjoy.

Oh, this teacher is really nice to other people. Or, this teacher really understands emptiness. Or, this teacher always works hard.

Choose just one thing. This teacher never gets upset. Now, we're going to take a trip to our past lives.

Then, remember you have thousands and thousands of past lives. Probably, you have been in this world 100 years ago. 500 years ago.

2,000 years ago. You lived in many different countries. You were many kinds of people, many races of people.

You were male. You were female. Probably, you have been many kinds of animals.

So, we're going to do a little bit of detective work, investigation. Like the husband in the kitchen, who called me stupid. And, this came from how I treated my kids last week.

Then, this beautiful thing I see in my Lama, is also coming from me. It's not true about my husband, and it's not true about my Lama, that I didn't do anything. So, let's take a fun trip.

Imaginary trip, because we don't have the power to see our past life. 50% imagination. 50% hard, cold logic.

And, in Buddhism, we call this your third eye. 50% imagination. 50% scientific logic.

My teacher rarely gets angry. That must have a cause in my past life, which I cannot see directly. But logically, I must have had at least one life where I was super unangry person.

No one could upset me. Then, make a movie about this past life. Oh, I was a woman.

I was elegant. And, I was well educated. And, I was in the Middle East 1,000 years ago.

And, I was a doctor. And, I was super patient with all my patients. And, with my husband, and with my children.

So, we're going to be quiet for two, three minutes. Not much. Make a story about your past life.

One important thing to remember. We are not directly seeing our past life. We don't have this power yet.

But, what ideas come in our imagination are also coming from seeds. I cannot imagine this elegant female physician in Persia 1,000 years ago if I don't have some seeds. Okay?

So, let your seeds talk to you. Listen to your seeds. Nothing you can imagine is crazy.

It all has a seed. And, you deserve that seed. You earned that seed.

So, don't be afraid to be an amazing past life. Okay, here we go. Relax.

Have fun. Have an amazing past life, which created your teacher's good qualities this life. You will choose a person, and a body, and a country.

And, you will start your movie. And then, thoughts about your lunch will interrupt you. And then, just gently go back to your movie.

If you're really cool, you can put the lunch in the movie. Okay, here we go. Then, slowly come back to your teacher.

Three deep exhales. Don't open your eyes. Don't move.

And then, slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch. Take a drink.

I like to say we are like a rich man with a big house with many rooms. And, we are choosing to live in a closet, which is called this life. Okay, your lives is a very rich thing.

You have done many, many things. Many beautiful things, which is why you're here now. You're one person out of a hundred million who is listening to these things today.

So, there's no doubt you are special. And, you've had very special past lives. But, you're not enjoying them.

You are stuck in the closet in the big house. So, go look at the rest of the house. Enjoy your past lives.

When you enjoy a past life, you make new seeds for this life. Like, if I imagine I was very patient in my past life, it makes me more patient in this life. And, it's free.

You don't have to do anything. Okay? Your eyes are closed.

You're sitting in your house. Your karma debit card is getting loaded with millions of dollars. And, you're just sitting in your house.

Okay? So, do it. Any questions?

Good. Let's do lam rim. Okay, here we go.

Nick, you guys ready? Am I ready? Alex, you got to drink the green drink.

Yeah. I'm sorry. This is suffering for good future result.

I have to take care of my rental car, right? You call. The more expensive gas.

Okay, Nick, easy place to look is the YAB YAB. Y-A-B, Y-A-B. I'm finished.

You're finished. Yeah, that's it. Okay, here we go.

Back to Tibetan that you don't understand, and I don't care. I'm planting future seeds. We're in the middle of that poem about the old man talking to the young man.

He's trying to tell the young man what's going to happen later, and no matter how much an old person tells a young person, they don't listen anyway. LHAG PA YAB YAMS DAR BA DI NOR LA HAB ZHAG BYAS PA MIN When my hands are like this, okay, it's not that I'm excited about I got a big payment. It's called old age.

LHAG PA'I DBANG TSE GCIG BYA DU BZHIN BYAS CHOG GI RTOGS PA YIN I'm afraid. I'm shaking because I'm afraid. That everything I worked my whole life to make—house, family, nice job—I'm afraid the Lord of Death is going to steal it tomorrow.

Okay? And it's true. The day will come.

ZAG LTUNG MYONG SHAS SPYOD PA'I DE'I ZAS LA ZER NA SPYOD PA MIN When I eat just a little bit of food, and I drink just a little bit of drink, I'm not trying to save money. That's all my stomach can digest. RTOG BA'I MED DROD NYAMS PA'I MI RGAN RGYAL GYI RTOGS PA YIN In Tibetan it's called the fire of my digestion.

It's almost finished. Okay. I can only eat soft foods.

Definitely no rice here. My life is finished. Okay.

Then, KHUR CHUNG BSAM DE GYON PA DE YANG CHE CHE NA DRAB GYI MIN When I wear very light clothing, it's not that I'm trying to be fashionable. It's uncomfortable. Other clothes feel heavy because I'm so old.

NANG GI LUS DOG GSHOR BA YI DGE RKYANG KHO DU SONG BA YIN Because the power of my body is so low, even a heavy coat feels heavy, feels like a load on me. Then, to understand the next verse, you have to understand something about black magic in Tibet. So, there are negative mantras.

I don't know, like you ... like Brigitte is having a nice coffee. Then I do a special mantra.

Then I go ... like that, and then you blow the mantra towards a person. It's called mantra whip.

Okay, I'm not doing it, I'm just saying. Then here the verse says, when I go like this, I'm not blowing mantra whips, okay? I'm just old.

Then it says, NAM KHAR YAL MDOD NGAR BSTAN YIN, and this is very sad. My last breath is getting ready to meet the sky. Okay?

It's a poetry in Tibetan. It's very beautiful. BYA CHOS THAMS CAD RGYUR BANG DI CHOS CHUNG GANG DRAN BYAS PA MIN, I've changed all my daily life.

I don't go to work anymore. I don't invite my grandkids over. It's not that I decided to change my lifestyle.

I just don't have any energy anymore, and it's getting less every day. DGES PA'I SDUG BSNGAL ZIN PA YI RANG DU DBANG NI MED PA YIN, It's not something I decided. It's the devil of death, the devil of old age, has decided I'm going to cut down on my activities.

Then rich people, big powerful people, they don't answer their emails. Partly they want to show people how important they are. Look Scott, I have twenty ...

look Scott, I have 71,061 unanswered emails. Look how important I am. Everybody's writing me, but I'm too important to write to them.

The next verse says, the fact that I didn't answer your email is because I forgot, because I can't remember anything. It's not that I'm an important person. I just can't remember who I'm supposed to write, because I got old.

So please don't get upset at me. Your email was important, but I forgot about it in about five minutes. DEN GYI DBANG PO NYAMS PA'I YI DRAN RIGS BSHAD PA BDE PA YIN, my mind is going down every day.

Now he finished the poem. Here's Pabongka Rinpoche's commentary. BSHAD GSUNGS PA BZHIN DRAG BAR DANG, NYES MA CHUNG BA SOGS LAS, LAS KYI GZHIN BYAS GZOD RGYAS PA LTAR YIN, your hair turning gray, the wrinkles on your face.

I don't know, I think about this, you know, you know, like a Nazi concentration camp, and they take red paint, you know. Actually, they do it now with cows. In my three-year retreat, we did it on a cattle ranch.

So, sometimes the cows will come to my retreat cabin. I will give them all the food that Jigme gave me that I don't want to eat, but I don't want her to know I didn't eat it. She made 1,000 meals for me in retreat.

A few went to the cows. Then they they punched the ear and they put a little tag here, plastic tag. Yeah, and it's their cow identification number.

Who was the nice one Jigme? 23 was the nice one. 23 was unbelievable.

Then, sometimes they come to eat the extra food, and the number has a red mark, and it means kill them this week. One ranch guy makes the mark, you know. Then the other ones come and they drive a truck and they kill it and they put it on the truck.

The wrinkles on your face, the hairs that turn gray, these are the mark of the Lord of Death. This one's next. Okay?

This one's next. Okay? Got it?

So, getting pretty close. Okay. You have an idim.

It's a guy, it's a businessman's wrinkled face. Yeah. This is a ...

he got marked by the Lord of Death. Then the first line of the idim, which is number five, is the lines on my face I am marked by the Lord of Death. The next line says, am I protecting all kinds of life?

So, I like to put the problem, but I like to put the solution next to the problem. If you don't want to be marked, then respect all kinds of life. Definitely don't eat other living things.

Okay? In America, people spend two billion dollars per year on their cats and dogs. And then when you talk to them, they look you in the eye, and they say, animals don't have feelings, so I can eat beef.

Then it's like insane, you know? Wait, you spend two billion dollars on your dog and cat? Are they animals?

Yes. Why you spend two billion dollars? Geshe-la, I want to make them happy.

Oh, you want to make them feel happy? Yes. Why you kill two billion chickens per year with Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Oh, Geshe-la, chickens don't have feelings? Come on! I mean, what kind of logic is that?

Cat has feelings, chicken doesn't. Okay, understand? If you don't want to be marked this way, respect all life, equally.

They want to be happy. My friend Jivamukti people, they say animals are another country, you know? You don't hurt people because they come from El Salvador, or they come from Croatia, you don't hurt them, because they come from other countries.

Then there's a country called animals. It has population. They don't look exactly like people, but people in Japan don't look like us either.

Just because they look different is not a reason to hurt them. Okay, he has two extra legs, what are you? Are you prejudiced against two extra legs?

If the eyes are a little bit different, are you going to kill people? Okay, it's just another kind of people. So, respect them.

Don't eat them. My brother said, I don't care, I'm going to eat cow, beef, you know? And fish, fish definitely don't feel anything, you know?

Then he came to my house, he's expecting me to cook meat, you know? I brought a sheep in the room, in the kitchen, I said, you kill it, I cook it. I gave him a big knife, I said, you kill it, I'll cook it right now.

He's like, I'm not going to kill a sheep in the kitchen. I said, but you do it every day, what are you talking about? Anyway, he's still fishing.

Why the fish goes like this when you put a hook in them? Why they jump out of the water? They cannot breathe out of the water.

They are in incredible pain. Somebody told me, oh you're vegetarian, so you want some fish? I'm like, anything that was alive, I refuse to eat.

Okay, that's how to stop this one. It's up to you. Some people's tongue is more important to them than death.

It's up to you, but one is the cause of the other. Okay, GZHAN YANG PHYI BA'I JIG PAS YID MI DE BA SOGS And just thinking about death is very stressful. Okay, we finished that very depressing part about getting old.

Now we have half an hour left. We're going to go on to the second depressing part. SNGA BA'I SDUG BSNGAL.

SNGA BA'I SDUG BSNGAL means, okay we finished the suffering of old age, but Buddha also taught the suffering of sickness. How many years ago? When Alice Curran was in her mother's arms.

She's our accountant now. She's the accountant for ACIP. For 10 years?

15 years? How old is she? She's 40 now.

She's 40. I remember when she was in her mother's arms, and the Dalai Lama's doctor came to New York. You know, and I translated for him, and I learned a lot.

Then, and it was at her mother's apartment. She had a big studio apartment, which used to exist in New York. So, about 50 people were there.

Then the doctor said, if anyone ... and it's a normal group like this, okay? And everyone looks normal.

Then he ... the doctor said, tomorrow is a day off, and if anybody has a serious medical condition, you can come tomorrow, and I will help you. Out of 50 people, guess how many people came the next day?

50! Actually, it was about 53 I think. Some people brought their friend.

She has cancer. You know, all kinds of terrible diseases. I remember this really rich lady.

She came, you know, and when I was translating for him, there were some words I didn't understand. One was like, gu ha, gu ha. I'm like, what's gu ha?

It's like, difficult to explain. It's a certain way that the urine looks when a person has cancer. And you pee-pee, and then the doctor takes chopsticks, and they go like ...

If you have, if you have cancer, a certain bubble comes up?

[Speaker 2]
Gugha.

[Speaker 1]
Gugha. You can also tell if a person is pregnant. And this doctor was so famous in India that many big Indian politicians came to him.

And some generals in the Indian army. So there was one rich general. I don't know why a general gets rich, but...

And he, he has to pee-pee in the morning and then take it to the doctor, you know. So he pee-pee in the cup. Then he told his servant, take it to doctor, his name is Yershi Dundon, take it to Yershi Dundon.

You know what happened? She spilled it by accident. You know what she did?

She peed in the cup. Then I was there, and Dr. Dundon is like, tell the general he's pregnant. First one, first man.

Then, anyway, we were doing this rich lady in New York, you know. And she's very shy to pee-pee, you know. She went to her golden toilet, you know.

He went in after her, with his chopsticks, you know. He's leaning over the toilet with his chopsticks. Then he called me, Mike!

Come quick! She's like, no, don't look at my pee-pee. He's like, no, he has to look at the pee-pee.

Why? We got Guha here. We got Guha.

This is Guha. But it also means she has cancer. And 50 people had some serious thing.

So, in a normal room, you know, the really sick people didn't come this morning. The people who are sick, but they don't know they're sick, they came. We should do a Guha check right now.

How many of us have cancer already? We don't know. Okay.

So, RGYA CHAL ROL PA, the Cosmic Play Sutra, Lalita, Lalita Vistara. Lalita Vistara. BAR NA DGOS MED LUNG DANG, DKA' BA BYAS ZA ZHING BSKYAL PA SNAG MED DANG KYANG CHOG, DE LTAR GNAS KYI RDOR BA'I DANG CHOG CHING DBONG PO GZUGS DANG STOB NI NYAMS PAR BYED In the winter, at the end of winter, in a normal country, not like Guadalajara, where it's all the same temperature like a garden all year, like the Garden of Eden.

In most places on this planet where people don't have your karma, there's a thing called winter. Now, the trees die, snow comes, all the, even the bushes die for the winter. And this beautiful green feeling of the world is destroyed every winter.

Me and Veronica, she's coming today, we have a, we spend a lot of time in our garden. And winter is a very depressing time. You can only grow Swiss chard, green drink vegetables.

You can only grow chard. Yeah, and the whole garden becomes gray and dead. GNAS DE RDOR BA'I DANG CHOG CHING And sickness always comes to steal the beautiful color of life from people.

And you have friends who are just full of energy, and their face is shining, and then sickness comes, and makes them gray. Okay. Meditation is a very beautiful thing.

Exhibition number six. By the way, tomorrow I'm going to ... this afternoon, I'm going to start examining you about the past pictures in your book.

It's a random ... I will choose names at random from a bowl, and you have to tell me what is the name of it. What is the meaning of the picture?

So, you have a choice. During lunch you can study the pictures, or you can pay Tim ten dollars to take your name out of the bowl. Or you can pay Tim ten dollars, ten dollars so he doesn't put you in the bowl, so you don't take your name out of the bowl.

We have a ... we also have an agreement, right Tim? My brother ...

we used to ... my parents used to give us a chocolate candy bar. Share it equally.

And he's ... he's ... then older brother gets to break it.

He's like ... One is like this, one is like this. Then I say, hey, not equal.

He's like, okay, equal. Okay Tim, we can do like that. So, it means ...

something is waiting inside your body. For example, my doctor told me 80% of men in their life will have prostate ... prostate cancer?

But some of them never know. So, they carry it for 5, 10, 20 years. Then a car hits them, they die.

But inside our body already, most of us have something, okay? And if you don't get hit by a car, it will kill you. Okay, so how to fix that?

Take an interest in sick people, and help them. Mark Solustro, these last three months, he's building ... he's rebuilding a sick person's house for free.

They are in the hospital getting chemo. He did bodhisattva thief work. Thief.

Robber. What's bodhisattva thief? You leave your house, you go to the market, they come to your house, they break the lock, they sneak into your bedroom, and they put money in your drawer, and then they sneak out.

He's doing this kind of thing. You are super cool. Alina is helping him, and Daniel.

Okay, cool. Very cool. Anyway, bodhisattva thief.

We changed your name, okay? Bodhisattva thief. Okay, anyway, this idim, when I show it to you later, who's the sick person?

Both. Okay, hers is showing, his is not showing. Got it?

Okay, that's how you should answer when I ask you. What is this picture? Then you're going to say two sick people.

One of them knows, one of them doesn't know. Okay, but they're both sick. With that ...

when I was translating for the Dalai Lama's doctor, somebody asked him, what are the causes of cancer? And he said, of course, the obvious things like cigarette, alcohol. Then he said, there's two things that you people in America don't understand give you cancer.

Number one, you know, there are millions of cars in your country, and you buy new tires for the cars every three, four years, right? Then he looked at me, he says, where do you think the rubber goes from the cars? When the tire wears out.

Or your shoes, when your shoes wear out. He says, where do you think the rubber goes? Then everybody's like, I don't know, I didn't think about it.

He says, all that rubber which is carcinogenic is in the air. And you Americans, you people in New York, you are breathing this all day. Then all of the chemicals you put in your food to preserve the food are carcinogens.

He, the Dalai Lama's second doctor I translated for at Sloan Kettering, this is the main cancer hospital in America. Sloan. So anyway, then he finished talking about it.

Then somebody, you know, raised their hand, you know. Then they said, what did they say? You're telling us that everything around us is going to kill us from cancer.

You're basically saying everything in modern life is causing cancer. So, what are we supposed to do? You know, don't drive car.

Don't eat food. You know, what do you want us to do? He said, of course, just be a bodhisattva.

You know, he didn't talk about religion for like five days. Then he looked at this person like they're crazy, you know. He said, well, just be a bodhisattva.

Of course, be a bodhisattva. Take care of other people. Then this stuff, you don't have to worry about all this stuff.

The rubber from the tires won't work on you. You are protected by serving others, okay, by being bodhisattva. Okay, BYAS PA LTAR LUG GI RANG BZHING.

We got 11 more minutes. I'm going to use it, okay? I know you're getting hot and tired, and I ...

just be a tough guy. The Atisha who brought this lam rim to Tibet, there was one idea he wanted to learn about bodhisattvas. He heard there was a guy in Indonesia who knew it.

So, he jumped on a boat for a 26-month round trip to find out one page of scripture. Then something went wrong, and it took 12 years. And he came back with one small part of the lam rim.

Okay, you just get on American Airlines, and it's like two and a half hours from Phoenix, okay? So, use the time. LUG GI RANG BZHIN GYUR BA.

Your whole body starts to change. SDUG BSNGAL DANG YID MI BDE BA PHAL, It starts to hurt more physically and also mentally. YUL GYI RANG BZHIN GYUR DU DBANG BA MIN DUG PA Even if someone offers you some delicious food, you can't even look at it.

YID DU MI'ONG BA LA MIN DU BZHIN DU BYED DGOS PA, they say, you need chemo. You need chemo. You need to poison your body to get healthy.

Chemo is just a lot of natural poisons mixed together. And instead of having churros, you get chemo. And you take it happily.

Thank you for giving me chemo. Thank you for giving me a mixture of all the best natural poisons in the world. Thank you for making my hair fall out, and my teeth fall out, and ...

So the things you want to eat, you cannot eat. And the poisons, you are happy to eat. SOGS DANG PHRA BAR GYUR BA YID MI BDE BA SOGS KYI SDUG BSNGAL TE, and you you start to realize you won't be here so long.

LUS KYI MTHOB GZHOR GANG NA GANG ZHING MDZAD, then your body starts to change as you get closer to dying. Your lips change, and they get tighter. You can see death coming in a person from their lips.

ZHES SOGS LTAR BSKYED PA LTAR MA ZHING YIN YANG MNAL SA NA SONG, and then even young, healthy, beautiful bodies end up on the bed. LUS KYI MTHOB GZHOR GZHING DANG DANG NYAMS PA, and they start to turn gray. DGE PAR NA GNAS PAR RE RE BZHIN GYIS GNAR LUGS TZAM STE, if you want to do this meditation really well, you can take a disease and meditate on it.

You know, breast cancer. My mom died from breast cancer. So, first they disfigure you, they cut off your breast, then already you feel ...

you feel like half a person. Then they ... next they go for ...

what do you call this? Your orin? They go for your lymph nodes after dying.

Okay, if you don't die after the breast operation, if you last for five, six years, then it's time to cut out the lymph nodes, so you have a big hole here, you know. Okay. If you survive that, it comes to the lungs, okay?

My father, they broke all his ribs in the back, so they can cut out the cancer, you know. Then they open, you know, they break each rib, you know. You know, open like a piece of meat, you know.

Then they're like, okay, let's cut out the cancer. Then they're like, oops, it's everywhere. It was like a ten minute operation.

Okay, sew him back up, send him home. Because there was no hope, you know. Okay, so you can meditate on each different disease.

Diabetes, which is the product of American junk food. Taiwan, you are so amazing that you allow this junk food, American junk food invasion. If I'm a government of Taiwan, or I live in Taiwan, I will demand that these companies leave Taiwan.

Dunkin Donuts, McDonald's, there's 10,000 McDonald's in China now. They are poisoning Chinese people. Chinese people are very ...

they have very beautiful bodies, they eat vegetables, they look great. And now these American greedy corporations, they're just poisoning all the American population. So, watch somebody with diabetes.

Coca-Cola, big in Mexico, right? Pure poison. You give it to your kids when they are good ...

you right? Oh here, have a Coke, you were a good boy today. You're a nice boy today, I will take you to Dunkin Donuts.

It's just a time bomb. You know, you are giving your kids diabetes. Dunkin Donuts, glass of Coca-Cola, direct cause for your kids to get their toes cut off first, then they cut off the foot.

Then they cut off the knee. Okay, this is Coca-Cola. Take a break, have a fresh today.

They hire these young beautiful people. It is the direct cause of diabetes. If you love your children, don't reward them with poison.

Okay, so you can meditate about ... I watched my ... the person who helped me build my company got diabetes from American food.

And I watched this thing over five years. First, they cut off her toes. Then they cut off her foot.

Then they cut off her leg. A few weeks later, she died. And I met her husband.

I said, what happened? You know, she wasn't so bad. She still was pretty healthy.

Then he just looked at me, because he got her second leg cut off. I always remember, he looked at me, he just goes ... And I think he killed her for ...

she asked him. Okay, so you know, don't reward your kids with this stuff. I'll take you to McDonald's for French fries, you're a good kid.

Take them to Andreana's for a green drink. Okay, last thing, then we finish. If you're depressed, I taught a good class.

RGYAL BU GZHON DU SDUG BSGRUB KYI RKYANG NA DGE PHYI BA SOGS ZIG NAS BSGOMS TE THAR PAR There was a famous prince. Okay, this one's seven dollars.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, ten.

[Speaker 1]
And you cannot answer, Nick cannot answer, you cannot answer. Okay? A prince, there was a prince who did this meditation about the different kinds of illness.

And it freed him from samsara. He got an angel's body by doing this meditation. Okay, fifty bucks for his name.

What? Later. No, not that one.

Good. No, you're a nun, forget it. His name is, in Tibetan, is SDUG BSGRUB.

Which in Sanskrit is Siddhartha. Okay? Prince Siddhartha.

The Buddha. Okay, this was his specialty. His Lam Rim specialty was the meditation on the different kinds of diseases.

And it made him a Buddha. Cool? I think it's cool because I saved fifty dollars.