«Дар освобождения», курс 30 «Как пройти великое путешествие», занятие 7

[Speaker 1]
Here we go. Let's meditate, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Before you get sleepy.

[Speaker 1]
So, the Lion's Dance has five parts. My goal this week is to do four with you. You know, in the television they always stop the program at the exciting part, and you have to look next week.

So, part five next time. Then you have to come back. So, today we're just going to do the first and second parts, okay?

Which means we go up the elevator nine floors. Zero to nine. Zero to eight.

Then at the ninth floor we'll take a trip to our past life.

[Speaker 2]
Then we're going to add some emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
Then we start the second part, which is going ... it's just easy, go down the elevator. Personally, I just time each step, you know, if I'm in a big rush, five breaths each.

On a normal day, ten breaths each. On the weekend, twenty breaths each. Of course the trip to your past life, I take ...

I Okay, ready? What did Buddha say is the first step of meditation? Yeah, Scott discovered this text.

Ancient text. 500 pesos?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. If your phone goes off, 500 pesos. For me, right?

Or for the team?

[Speaker 1]
For Americans, it's dollars.

[Speaker 2]
Dollars. $500.

[Speaker 1]
Nah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Depends on who it is. Okay, here we go. This meditation is easy because in the beginning, you just listen to all the people in the room who are moving.

[Speaker 2]
Ten. Okay, we'll stay here for a few breaths.

[Speaker 1]
Just relax. We're not doing the real meditation yet. You're just warming up your meditation mind like you warm up your legs before the World Cup.

And see if you can get this ... you know there's this old thing called fly paper for catching flies, and the fly lands on the paper and cannot ... first it buzzes around and then finally it lands on the paper then it cannot move.

So, first your mind will fly around a little bit thinking about, you know, what are you going to do today? And then bring it to one of the sounds. Maybe it's a bird sound.

We hired the hotel to make car sounds later. And let the fly land on ... let the fly of your thoughts land on one of the sounds.

And then glue it on that sound. Okay, let's go. Ten breaths here.

Okay, let's go to the first floor, European style. And just come to the heart beating in your chest. If you're alone in your home, maybe you can hear the heart beating, but in a group like this, probably you will feel it in your chest beating.

So, glue the fly of your mind to the heartbeat. Now we'll go to the second floor, European style. Come inside of your heart.

Bring your mind inside of your heart. But it's not dark and wet and kind of strange. It's a pretty nice city apartment with lots of light.

And the walls are beating with the sound of the heart. The walls are the walls of the heart. If there's a sound outside that pulls you out of the apartment, just gently come back to the apartment.

Now make the apartment bigger. It's like a penthouse apartment in Mexico City. I was in one of them.

[Speaker 2]
A lot of rooms.

[Speaker 1]
And then go to one of the rooms in the center. It's still very comfortable and there's a lot of light, but it feels like you're going deeper into the middle of the heart. And the sound of the walls beating is a little bit far away.

These teachings, these meditations, especially at the heart, there's a lot of prana coming to the heart. And there's a chance you will start to get tight in your chest or tight in your heart. Then there's an easy way to stop that.

When you exhale, when you breathe out, and when the exhale finishes, then push a little bit more exhale out. Because the prana is closely connected to the breath. So if the prana is building up at the heart, you can release the tension.

If you add a small exhale to the end of your normal exhale. The sign that you did it enough is that your lower abdomen will tighten and come in a little bit. Let's try it for 10 breaths.

At the end of the exhale, just in a smooth way, a little more exhale until the bottom of the abdomen tightens. Then prana won't build up and your tension in your chest will relax. Okay, let's go to the fourth floor.

Inside, you are sitting in the inner room in a pretty big penthouse apartment. And the sound of the heart beating, the walls of the heart beating, are pretty far away. And you pick up a small sugar pot filled with white sugar.

Put your finger in. If you put the third finger of your left hand, your ring finger, it's lucky. And you lift up your finger to your eyes and you can see a few little grains of white sugar on the finger.

Pick one of them and put your mind and yourself inside of it. It doesn't feel restricted. It feels very comfortable, very wide place.

But it's one more step, one more degree of silence. Even more silent than before. If a sound calls you to the outside, just come back.

Now we show our meditation power. And the mind becomes the Pacific Ocean inside one grain of sugar. Thousands of miles wide covering half of this world.

Deep and quiet. And now that quiet mind expands. We're on the sixth floor now, to all of the sky.

It's very vast and very super quiet. Ocean and sky. Still in the sky, there are birds of random thoughts, random feelings, random pictures moving through the mind.

And we want to make them stop. So when a random thought comes into the mind, or some feeling from the outside, or some mental picture, it's like a bird flying through the quiet sky of your mind. Just face it and stop it.

So you're hunting birds of thoughts, pictures in your mind. Don't forget the exhale trick. Level eight, eighth floor.

Your mind is this sea and the sky, ocean and the sky.

[Speaker 2]
When thoughts fly through the mind like a bird, like an ocean bird, just ignore them.

[Speaker 1]
Don't connect with them. Don't watch them. Don't fight them.

Warm up is finished. The mind is flexible now. We woke up the mind and it's flexible.

So let's start the real meditation. Invite one of the beautiful teachers in your life. We've all had many wonderful teachers.

Bring one of them to meditate in front of you. I like to say knee to knee. It's not a picture of your teacher, it's the real teacher.

You can watch their chest moving as they breathe. Their eyes are looking at you with great love. You can smell like a beautiful fragrance from their body like jasmine.

Just enjoy sitting with them. Now think of one quality that you really appreciate about this teacher. Maybe they're a very patient person.

Maybe they're very helpful to people. Maybe their behavior is very elegant and kind. Choose one quality.

And now let's take a trip to our past life. You have a choice of many centuries past lives. You can go to any country in the world.

You can go to other worlds. You can have any body you want. You can be man, woman, cat, insect.

Any occupation you've always wanted to be. But wherever you go, in your imagination, you have the quality that your teacher has now. So write a movie about those qualities.

Oh, I was in Egypt.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I was in a war.

[Speaker 1]
People were attacking me. And I was kind to each one of them. And because of that, I see my teacher now.

So make a nice movie. It's imagination. But imagination also comes from seeds that you earned yourself.

Then after this, we'll take a break. So just enjoy. Then please come back to your breath.

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

Now open your eyes slowly. Take a good stretch. We're going to take a 10-minute break.

Then we're going to do part number two. After some questions. Please drink something.

Okay, take a stretch. Thank you for teaching us.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you for teaching us.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, when are we going to Paraguay? Okay, okay, okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so he's saying that he's asking if Nirvana is that moment when the husband or wife that is not coming from you yells at you and you don't have emotion, feeling, you don't get angry, you don't respond. Is that Nirvana?

[Speaker 1]
Good question. So the wife comes home from a long, tiring day. And she's hoping for a hug from her husband.

And she walks in the house, and he says, you're stupid. In Chinese, I learned how to say stupid. You say, you're a rice bucket head.

So, if you want to insult someone from China, you know how. Then, you know, if she hasn't had training in emptiness, she will say, no, I'm not stupid, you are stupid. Then she'll plant ...

she will hear herself say, you, you are stupid. Like last night we did with the hundred dollar bill, right? And that makes an impression on her mind.

And after a few hours, this becomes a mental seed in the subconscious. Then the next week, the seed opens, and her three kids are bad. That's why these three ladies are bad all the time.

And then it becomes a cycle, right? So, Nirvana means to break the cycle. And where do you break the cycle?

It's always link number one of the twelve links. We're going to have the twelve links in the Heart Sutra. And if you really want to learn it seriously, come to Bali at the end of August.

We're going to spend a couple days on this question. In between surfing sessions. Then, he's like trying to volunteer for the program.

Anyway, so the moment that she breaks the wheel, he says, you're stupid, and she starts to answer, no, I'm not stupid, you're stupid. And halfway through the answer, I'm not stupid.

[Speaker 2]
Then she remembers this class.

[Speaker 1]
That's weird. He said exactly the same thing as in the example that Geshe Michael gave last week. Yeah, if you're lucky, your husband will call you rice bucket head.

Then suddenly you remember, and then you go like this, like suspicious.

[Speaker 2]
Hey, you're the husband who doesn't exist. And then you go like this, like suspicious, you know? You're the husband who didn't come from me.

[Speaker 1]
I remember your name. Señor, I didn't do anything! Okay, then at that moment you perceive emptiness.

Okay, there's no husband there who didn't come from you. That's real emptiness. Okay?

Forget this thing that you are in a cave in India, and there's a big bodhi tree, and you have your eyes like this, and something black comes. That's not emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
You're going to see emptiness in your kitchen.

[Speaker 1]
You don't exist, you know?

[Speaker 2]
I mean, don't tell your husband that, he will call you many things.

[Speaker 1]
But in your mind, ah, that's the one that Geshe Michael was talking about. You're not even there. So, I'm not going to say, I'm not stupid.

You're stupid, but you're not even there.

[Speaker 2]
You're stupid.

[Speaker 1]
Then I'm going to break the wheel. Now, there's a thing we call the time gap. Let's call it, let's change it.

Let's call it response time, response time, because we have a different time gap. How long does it take you to remember he's coming from you?

[Speaker 2]
Usually, about a week.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? You're stupid. I'm not stupid, you're stupid.

Then, one week later, ah, I made a new seed. Ah, so stupid. Then the response time, this is called Buddhist practice.

It's not like meditation all day. It's trying to reduce the response time. Oh, then it takes two days.

It only takes two days. Ah, I shouldn't have said anything, you know? And the goal is instantaneous response time.

[Speaker 2]
You're stupid.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, got it? Reduce the response time, but in the beginning it takes at least 24 hours. Okay, let's meditate, okay?

Otherwise, we'll never get to part four. Someone tried to buy part five for you today, but I said no. I'll blackmail you for next program.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, step number one, turn off your phone. Okay, we won't take very long because we still have to do some lam rim. Okay, here we go.

Ten breaths. Usually, before a meditation, you just watch your breath for ten breaths. In this meditation, we listen for outside sounds like the bird sounds or people moving around us or cameras going on.

Glue the fly of the thoughts and the mind to some sound. And Enrique, when the response time is zero, that's nirvana.

[Speaker 2]
Then we're going to go directly to the teacher on the ninth floor.

[Speaker 1]
You are sitting with one of the teachers in your life. Make them real. It's not a photograph.

It's not a video. It's a real person. Now try to isolate one beautiful quality about your teacher that you really appreciate.

Now go to your past lives. There are thousands to choose from. Any country.

Any world. Any body. And make a story.

About how you planted the seed for what you see in your teacher, similar to what you see in your husband in the kitchen. Now please come back to your teacher. I like to ask my teacher to move to the side.

You have to be very respectful, right? But please, please sit to the side a little bit. Then bring a copy of your teacher to sit in front of you.

But this one is completely different. They still have those good qualities. Maybe they are very patient.

Maybe they're very kind. But, these qualities are part of them, and they are not coming from me. It's like the anger of the husband, which is not coming from me.

You can call this the fake teacher. Jiyadalaksha. Fake teacher.

Everything about them is coming from them. In English we can say, these qualities are coming from inside of them. These qualities are inside of them.

They are not coming from me. So sit with this fake teacher for a few minutes. Try to feel the difference between the two teachers.

The teacher who's sitting to the side is a product of all the kindness I showed to other people in my life, in my past lives. And the teacher sitting in front of me, the fake teacher, their qualities are coming from inside of them. One teacher is real.

One teacher is unreal. And that's emptiness. Personally, I like to kick out the fake one.

[Speaker 2]
He or she.

[Speaker 1]
He or she can just disappear. I like to bring the real teacher back. Welcome back.

As long as I am kind to other people, you will stay with me. Because you come from their kindness.

[Speaker 2]
Now, just to keep the mind flexible, in the lion's dance, it's traditional to come out of the meditation.

[Speaker 1]
In a special way, we go back down the eight floors. First, as a blessing, we ask that teacher to come and stay inside of our heart.

[Speaker 2]
We ask our teacher to come and stay inside of our heart.

[Speaker 1]
Will you come and stay in my heart all day? And Lama's like, yeah, sure, I love you. Then they start to rise up.

Traditionally, this is how we bring them to the heart. They start to rise up off their seat. As they rise, they get smaller and smaller.

When they reach the level of the top of your head, they are only about as large as you. As large as your hand. And they turn around the opposite way.

And gently, they come and sit on the top of your head, very lightly, very warm. And they shrink more on the top of your head to the size of your thumb. And then very slowly, they start to come down your central channel like an elevator shaft.

It's like somebody's pouring warm honey into the top of your head. And you can feel them coming down. And finally, they reach the middle of your heart, which is like a very sunlight-filled, comfortable apartment.

Then you kind of like, thanks. Now we come down to the lobby of the hotel. Come back to the ocean and the sky of your mind.

Your mind is the Pacific Ocean and all the blue sky above it. Sea birds of random thoughts and impressions are moving through the mind. Just leave them alone.

Don't confront them. Don't try to change them. Just let them go.

Now we start to come out less quiet.

[Speaker 2]
Seventh floor.

[Speaker 1]
Try to catch those birds. Your mind is still the Pacific Ocean and all the blue sky above it.

[Speaker 2]
But when a thought comes about lunch or my knees, then I catch it and I say, get out.

[Speaker 1]
Then just come back to the sky and the ocean. Cancel the sky.

[Speaker 2]
Your mind is the Pacific Ocean.

[Speaker 1]
Suddenly that ocean is contained within a single grain of sugar. Then the ocean and the grain of sugar dissolve. And I'm sitting in a very wide, sunlight-filled penthouse apartment in the middle of the penthouse.

Far away I can hear the walls of the penthouse.

[Speaker 2]
I can hear the penthouse like a heartbeat.

[Speaker 1]
And then suddenly the apartment is smaller. Like my real apartment. Lots of sunlight.

And the walls of the apartment are the walls of my heart and are strongly beating. And then suddenly I'm in my body in this tent. And I'm feeling that apartment and its heartbeat down in my chest.

I'm not inside anymore. I'm just watching my heartbeat in my chest. And then I come back to the outside world and I listen to the sound of the birds.

They all got quiet. I don't know what they're doing. Three long exhales.

[Speaker 2]
Three long exhales.

[Speaker 1]
Don't move yet. Don't open your eyes yet. Slowly open your eyes.

Take a good stretch. Drink something. What is it?

Sandeep?

[Speaker 2]
It's very good.

[Speaker 1]
Any questions about the meditation? Tim has the microphone.

[Speaker 2]
During these meditations, as we ascend to the floors, and as I go a little deeper, I start to feel fear. And... And suddenly I start to draw attention to the meditation again.

It's hard for me to work and I don't know what comes up. Because this is not new. It has come up to me since the last time.

And suddenly I don't feel my body anymore. And I start to draw attention again. And if not, an image appears.

I want to continue. I mean, my intention is to continue. Even if I'm afraid, I don't care.

But something, an image appears. For example, right now a blood appears, like this. And I keep trying, as you were saying, but I'm afraid to meditate.

[Speaker 1]
You okay Alejandro? Yeah. Okay.

When you ask a question, take a ... do it in pieces, then he can ...

[Speaker 2]
then his brain won't explode.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
So, she's saying, as she goes further and deeper into the meditation, and higher, she uses the word higher, ascending, to, in the levels of meditation, as she advances, she starts to feel fear. And then, that brings her out of that deepness. But she wants to keep going, even though she's afraid.

But then suddenly an image comes up in the meditation, and she's still afraid, and right now she just saw blood in the meditation, and she's afraid, and what should she do?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good question. Also, you know, we talk about guilty list. We have guilty list.

I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this.

So, you can add that to your guilty list. I'm a bad person. I have blood in my meditation.

We live for millions of lifetimes.

[Speaker 2]
We have millions of seeds in our mind.

[Speaker 1]
Something can come up from past life, okay? You know, like it comes to your mind, I'd like to murder my husband tomorrow. Then you're like, oh my god, get out, you know?

But it's past life thing, okay? So, how to stop it? We had it from Sophie's question yesterday.

[Speaker 2]
Sophie.

[Speaker 1]
You can't stop it during the meditation. It's too late. You just have to deal with it.

My teacher said you cannot push a tree back into the ground.

[Speaker 2]
So, when that thought comes up during meditation, it's a result of what you did last week, or ten thousand years ago, and it's too late. It's like when your husband starts yelling, you know?

[Speaker 1]
Then in the moment, it's too late to stop it.

[Speaker 2]
The tree grew.

[Speaker 1]
So, at that point, you just have to kind of relax. Oh, I should plant some better seeds today, today, this week, I should plant some better seeds, so this doesn't come next week. Okay, so in the moment, do the best you can.

If you have to stop the meditation, you know, stop, play a good song on your stereo, have a cappuccino, you know, and then just during that day, try to plant some better seeds for next week's meditation. Yeah, and usually it's the opposite of what the vision was in the meditation.

[Speaker 2]
You see, so if I saw blood, to stop those visions, I should serve a sick person this week.

[Speaker 1]
And dedicate it to next week's meditation.

[Speaker 2]
So, seeing blood in your meditation, and having your husband yell at you as soon as you open the door, same thing, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Alright, other question? Hello? Ah, there it goes.

During this meditation, you were talking that we need to find our teacher, and you described it as a person. I think that my current teacher is not a person, it's not human. Do I need to, well, it is okay first, do I need to find a human teacher, or should I continue with this teacher that I think I'm following right now?

[Speaker 2]
You are translating.

[Speaker 1]
The question is that, while we were doing the meditation, you were emphasizing that we need to find our teacher, who is a person. And I think that my current teacher is not a person. Cool.

I'm going to go to the Heart Sutra, because this question comes up in the Heart Sutra. There's a joke in Buddhism that there's always a Buddha in disguise, or a Buddha in disguise, who will ask a question during the class. Suspicious.

So anyway, this question comes up in the Heart Sutra. Definition of a sutra includes that it should be spoken by a Buddha. There's another meaning of the word sutra, which means in Tibetan ...

Dang, I was going to say $50, but you answered too fast. It just means short book. Like when you say sutra in Yoga Sutra or Kama Sutra, it doesn't mean Buddha spoke it.

[Speaker 2]
It just means a short book. But inside of Buddhism, sutra means spoken by the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Now, the story of the Heart Sutra is two of the Buddha's students are sitting in the room. And at the beginning of the sutra, the Buddha goes into meditation.

[Speaker 2]
And he's manipulating the two students with the power of his meditation.

[Speaker 1]
And the whole sutra is one student asking the other student questions. And the Buddha doesn't say anything during the whole sutra. One student asked the other student question.

The other student answered the questions. But they are like puppets in the Buddha's hand. Oh, what does emptiness mean?

Oh, emptiness is your body, your mind. He's controlling both of the students. Then at the end of the sutra, the Buddha wakes up out of his meditation.

And to the student who gave the answers, Good job! Good job! You're so cool!

[Speaker 2]
Good job! Good job! Siddha!

[Speaker 1]
Siddha! Siddha! Siddha!

Lexo! Lexo! In Sanskrit, cool, cool, very good!

Actually, everything he said, Buddha controlled. Then the commentary by the famous Lama, Choney Lama, He says, Is this a sutra or not? What do you think?

Spoken by the Buddha? Yeah, good answer. Yeah, we can say spoken by the Buddha.

Then the Choney Lama, the commentator says, the Buddha speaks many ways. Buddha doesn't have to speak from his lips. In many questions, the Buddha answered with his hands.

So he said, is my husband real?

[Speaker 2]
He's like ...

[Speaker 1]
He didn't say anything. Then Choney Lama said, this is also sutra. Okay, then Buddha has power also to talk from his fingers.

Is my husband real? Maybe, maybe not.

[Speaker 2]
His fingers are talking.

[Speaker 1]
Then Choney Lama starts to go crazy. He says, I'll prove it to you.

[Speaker 2]
He takes from Buddha's sutra that Buddha spoke from his lips.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, this is Buddha talking now. Sometimes I talk from my throat directly. Sometimes I talk from my hand directly.

Sometimes I talk from my anus directly. I have this power. It's very funny.

Choney Lama's like, I'll prove to you. Buddha said, I can talk from my anus also. Then Buddha says, and sometimes I talk by using the wind through the trees, and sometimes I talk by the sound of the waves of the ocean when you sit on the sand.

So those are also sutras. So, perfect. Long answer.

We're supposed to do it like two days from now, but okay. I like the anus part. I thought it was really funny.

I was kind of surprised. I was translating it, and I'm like ... I thought there was a carving error.

You know. Okay, any more meditation question? One more.

Thank you. I practiced this when you came to New York, and I recorded it. And so I've been practicing it, and there's just a few differences now, like the anesthesia, feeling like you were anesthetized, feeling like when you dropped the pebble and saw the ripples come out, and then the light in your mind expanding out.

So have you decided that this is a better way? I mean, I feel like this is a little bit easier.

[Speaker 2]
I've been practicing this since you came to New York, and there are some slight variations in meditation, like putting the anesthesia, and also the idea of the expansive waves of a pebble that fall in expansive waves in the 13 worlds. And the infinite expansive light in your mind. That was the meditation you taught in New York, which is what you've been teaching, and then what's the question?

[Speaker 1]
Have you developed it more? Yeah, the answer is, one of the most important things you're going to learn in the ACI teacher training, 54 people. That's very cool.

Don't be attached to your plan, your teaching plan. Never come to the class without a teaching plan. Practice it in front of the mirror like ten times.

[Speaker 2]
Then come to the class.

[Speaker 1]
Then there's a teaching skill that you have to develop from many years of teaching. Like you say, Buddha also teach from his anus.

[Speaker 2]
Then you watch the reaction. If people are like, then you just change the subject. If they laugh, you mention it two more times.

[Speaker 1]
So there's a teaching, you have to flow with your audience, and you have to feel your audience.

[Speaker 2]
A baby teacher, they will follow their teaching plan.

[Speaker 1]
After half an hour, everyone's asleep. They are still following their teaching, what's next? So, if one day I was teaching in Shanghai, at that time, still in China, it's a law that you cannot turn on an air conditioner before March 1st.

And it was an unusual day, it was like 43 centigrade. And in Shanghai you can walk on the air pollution. And the whole front row was asleep before I start to talk, I swear it was before I start to talk.

Not like this, you know. They're like this. Each one, I thought, I will pull out the first one, they will all fall down.

Then you have to change your plan. You have to tell jokes for five minutes, and you have to be loud, you have to tell the guy, turn up the mic.

[Speaker 2]
So, you have to feel your audience.

[Speaker 1]
And the New York energy is definitely different from Guadalajara energy. And each one is beautiful. Each one is unique and very beautiful.

[Speaker 2]
But you have to change to your audience.

[Speaker 1]
Then someday you will realize the audience is pulling the thing out of you. If the audience is not friendly, not happy, what they pull out of you is boring. And if the audience is warm and happy, then things come out that you don't even plan.

Okay, let's go to a good question. By the way, that's how there came to be four great schools of India. Buddha taught emptiness, same subject, but he changed it according to the audience.

Okay, let's go to the lam rim. I'll answer more questions tomorrow, don't worry. Okay, there are six classic sufferings of being born as a human being.

And we're on the last one, which is called suffering of meeting things you didn't want to. And the last one is called Pabongka Rinpoche, the author said, if you choose not to follow the practice that your teacher gave you, if you choose not to study, especially emptiness, if you choose not to meditate every day, not to do yoga or some similar exercise every day, not to serve people like the ... what's the Huichol place called?

[Speaker 2]
I forgot.

[Speaker 1]
Casa Huichol, yeah. If you choose not to meditate every day, if it's your decision not to really seriously follow the teachings, then you can't complain when stupid things happen to you, okay? Next idim, Nick.

[Speaker 2]
It's number nine, it's ...

[Speaker 1]
I think it's a lady with a guy in a coffee shop or something like that.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know why all my idims are in coffee shops.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, what's happening here? I saw a nice joke, I saw a cartoon in a New Yorker magazine.

[Speaker 2]
Two people are at a cocktail party, and there's some kind of nerdy guy trying to talk to a very beautiful woman. They both have cocktail in their hand, and she's telling him, no, actually I don't want to know your secret mantra.

[Speaker 1]
He's like, wow, I mean, you want to know my secret mantra? Do you want to know my secret mantra? She's like, no.

It means that people come up to you in your life that you'd rather not meet them. This guy's driving the ... he's talking, the woman doesn't get to say anything, my partner tells me I do that.

The idim's name is the ones we never wanted to meet. The second half of the idim is ... whenever I am with others, do I think of what they need and what they want?

So, when I examine you about these pictures, I'm going to ask you, what problem is in the picture? Oh Geshe-la, this is the classical problem number six of being born as a human. Meeting things you don't want.

And then you're going to tell me the solution which is connected to the picture. Oh, when I'm sitting with other people, am I sensitive to what they want?

[Speaker 2]
Maybe they want to talk.

[Speaker 1]
Maybe they want to play a different song, Geshe-la. Things like that, okay? Maybe they want to eat something good.

Maybe they don't like waffles. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
So, try to think of what the other people want.

[Speaker 1]
I called the monastery recently to talk to one of my teachers. There's a chance he's coming to Arizona in September, I think.

[Speaker 2]
Aaron's working on it.

[Speaker 1]
He's like my favorite lama who's still alive, right? And so, we used to land in, you know, I think Mysore Airport. Then you take an eight-hour car ride to the monastery.

That's the closest airport. They call that road ... the road from Mysore to the monastery is called the Highway of Death.

India has the highest accident rate of all countries in the world. Because there's cows and pigs and chickens and people are like ... people are always getting killed.

Then these monks came to pick us up. I was with my teacher. He's the biggest man in the monastery.

He's the abbot.

[Speaker 2]
He's the abbot.

[Speaker 1]
We drove to the monastery. After about five hours, we stopped. We sat in a meadow like this.

And some monks drove three hours from the monastery with a big picnic lunch. We are all really hungry, and we start eating. Then there was one monk.

He's amazing. He's the hero in the Katrin book. Everybody in my books is based on a real person, right?

It's the ... It's the book that comes before How Yoga Works, but I didn't publish it yet.

[Speaker 2]
It's the hero of one of my books. I haven't published a book that I wrote before How Yoga Works. In all my books, I put a real life hero.

[Speaker 1]
There's an old monk.

[Speaker 2]
We are ...

[Speaker 1]
every person is stuffing themselves. And these monkeys came. They were stealing the food, and we were all like ...

Then this old monk, he cut a tree branch after saying a prayer. This is required. And he put himself between us and the monkeys.

And he's like ... he's like ... he's got a big smile, and he's, you know, pushing the monkeys away gently.

[Speaker 2]
And he didn't eat anything.

[Speaker 1]
And, you know, we all ate as much as we could, and we got back in the car, and we went to the monastery.

[Speaker 2]
He's like the military guy in the retreat who was like, who covers the back, you know, he's like ...

[Speaker 1]
I always think of him when I think ... he only thought about the other people.

[Speaker 2]
He forgot to eat.

[Speaker 1]
And he just passed away a few weeks ago. He's a hundred years old. I think there's a connection.

Okay. PHUNG PO'I LTA BU'I RGYAL MA SOGS PA DANG, GAL CING MO GROD PA TSUN, KHUR RANG GI LAS DBANG GI LA RANG CHAS SU YOD PA'I YIN GYIS, MI SRID PA ZHIG CHUNG BA MIN, In Tibet, animals are mistreated. Burros and cavallos have to carry heavy things.

[Speaker 2]
Donkeys and horses have to carry heavy things.

[Speaker 1]
And they get open wounds on their backs, right? And it's part of their life. And the people you meet who bore you in coffee shops by telling you about their secret mantras ...

[Speaker 2]
must be ...

[Speaker 1]
SRID PA RANG CHAS SU YOD PA'I YIN GYIS, MI SRID PA ZHIG CHUNG BA MIN, it's not like something impossible happened. It's not like something impossible happened when you meet these irritating people.

[Speaker 2]
It's part of the package called samsara.

[Speaker 1]
If you choose not to practice, if you choose not to meditate, if you choose not to serve other people, if you choose not to be a bad person, if you choose not to study Heart Sutra or other emptiness teachings, then don't complain when you meet these people who want to tell you about their secret mantra.

[Speaker 2]
You created them.

[Speaker 1]
RGYAS SHES PO RTOG BA'I GSUNGS NAS, RIGS GRUB GANG DU SKYES, PHAN CHAD NA TZA DANG PHYIR BA LA SOGS PA'I, SDUG BSNGAL BYUNG BA NI, NA RGYUR GCIG NAG PA YIN, GCIG RGYUR GCIG PHYI BA YIN GYIS, DE LA MI MYOS PA ZHIG LO BO DU CHUNG BA MIN, There was a Geshe a thousand years ago named Potowa. And he said everything about your life. Well, he said it this way, okay?

Those who plant irritating people will meet irritating people.

[Speaker 2]
Those who plant sickness will get sick.

[Speaker 1]
Those who plant death will die. Nothing happens to you that you didn't deserve. Nothing happens to you ever that you didn't plant.

KHOR BA'I TSE NI DANG RANG BZHIN YIN, That's what samsara means. KHOR BA NI RIGS LA DE LAS MAN TE, RANG CHAD DE LA YIN BYUNG NA, SKYE BA PONG DGOS, So if you don't like it, do something about it. Okay?

All those irritating... I know, the depressing thing about emptiness is that all the irritating people you ever met in your life were coming from you. You can't meet an asshole if you don't have an asshole seed.

The world is a mirror. Bad news, okay? Every stupid person you've met, you're looking at yourself in the mirror.

Okay? I'm thinking to change my hair, you know? Never mind.

If you don't like it, stop collecting the causes.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
RANG CHAD KHOR BA'I SDUG BSNGAL MYONG BA MIN SDUG NA KHOR LAS THA THAB BYED DGOS GSUNGS, If you don't like it, change it.

[Speaker 2]
Plant different seeds.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I'm sorry, there's a seventh suffering of human beings here. This one's very long, and it's called the suffering of not getting the stuff you want.

The last one was called the suffering of getting things you don't want. This one is called the suffering of not getting things you do want.

[Speaker 2]
The last one is called the suffering of not getting the things you want. The last one is called the suffering of not getting the things you don't want. Not getting the situations you don't want.

[Speaker 1]
You're trying to get a nice partner. You're trying to get money, and you can't. Not like ...

you're even trying to get good meditation, and you can't.

[Speaker 2]
You can't.

[Speaker 1]
,'DI NI BRTAD KOM DANG SO THAB LA BSTAN PA'I TSA DANG NGAL GCIG SOGS KHYAD DU SRED NAS SDUG BSNGAL BA STE, ,DE YANG SPER NA, ,'DI LA BRTAD KOM DANG SO THAB LA BSTAN PA'I TSA DANG NGAL GCIG SOGS KHYAD DU SRED NAS SDUG BSNGAL BA STE, Hang on, I'm going to read this some more. ,DE YANG SPER NA, SPONG PO LA BSTAN CHEN PO ZHIG ZHU BA NANG, Okay, then you meet a big person at the American consulate when you're trying to get your visa. Okay.

It came here. Okay. ,SPON PO LA, anyway, big bureaucrat.

You meet them and you're asking for something. ,THAMS POR SBYUNG GI RE BA SEMS NGAL, Then you have sort of a suffering before you even start, which is called hope, expectations. Then ,GAL LAS CHE RGYANG, then you do everything you're supposed to do, and that's also suffering.

I think there must be a special hell where you have to fill out immigration forms for a thousand years or something.

[Speaker 2]
What's your ...

[Speaker 1]
what's your name? What's your passport number? On the Mexican entry form, you have to put your passport number like six times.

The worst thing is you give it to the lady and she looks at it and she goes, she just throws it away. Or worse, she gave me mine back, she's like, take it.

[Speaker 2]
Then she doesn't even want to throw it away.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, I worked on that thing. I had to put my passport number six times. Yeah, okay.

Have a good day.

[Speaker 2]
Have a nice day.

[Speaker 1]
,'JES NAS DON DE MA BYUNG BA'I, Then finally we have the suffering of not getting what we asked for. I call it the pain of expectation. Nick, you got an idim for me?

Yeah, this is a good idim. I remember this one. Okay, she's waiting for the call from the guy she met at the nightclub last night.

It was dark. Maybe I wrote the number kind of not so clear. Maybe he's calling every thousand people who's changing number each time trying to reach me.

Okay, this is called the pain of expectations. Okay, each idim should have the problem and the solution, right? By the way, I keep threatening you that I'm going to examine you about the idims, and I'm really going to do it this afternoon, okay?

Really, okay? Tim, I need the bowl ready, okay? I'll give you $200 to put everybody's name in there, even if they paid you to take it out.

[Speaker 2]
This is real corruption. Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, the two parts of this idim. Number one, the pain of expectation. Number two, which is how you fix it, do I keep my little promises to people?

Oh, Imelda, I'll send you that picture of Veronica holding Nicholas a couple days after he was born. I told her yesterday in the car. Then of course I forgot about it.

Then this morning I'm like, uh-oh, I have to teach this subject. So I sent it this morning. You got it, right?

[Speaker 2]
Check it, check it for me.

[Speaker 1]
Check it for me. It's there. I think it's there.

Om Mani Padme Hum. Okay, let's see. Yeah?

Let's see. Email. RGA' ZHIG GIS LONGS SPYOD CHUNG BA'I ...

Yeah, it's here. Give me five. So that means I won't have this problem.

For a few days. RGA' ZHIG GIS LONGS SPYOD CHUNG BA'I RGYUR ZHING SA YOD MKHAN SOGS KYIS NYAMS NA Then he goes off on a long beautiful thing, okay? Then people think, oh, my life's too complicated.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Those people who live in the countryside, simple farmer, they're happy. Their life's not complicated.

[Speaker 1]
My Guadalajara life is very complicated. Maybe I should move to the country. YOD MKHAN SOGS KYIS NYAMS NA DE'ANG SDUG BSNGAL BA LA MIN DE STE Listen, the people in the countryside are also having a terrible life.

ZHING LAS PHYIR ZHOGS PA SNGA BAR THO They have to get up extremely early, farmers. LANG STE LAS CHAD NYID MOR NYID MED TSARGS BZHIN DU Then they go out in the sun to get cooked all day. BZHAG LUNG GI SDONG ZHING It rains on them.

The wind blows on them. MTHAL BA'I RGYAL DU BDE They're in dirt all day. They're all covered with dirt all day.

ZHING KHAR BSAGS PA'I GTABS ZIN NAS DRUG DU DE Even if the crops grow, then they have to go out and work all day to cut them. And even if they grow pretty well, they are worried about plant diseases coming. Not enough rain.

We have gophers, right? We buy $200 of plants, we plant them, then the gophers eat them.

[Speaker 2]
What is a gopher?

[Speaker 1]
A gopher is a small animal that lives underground and kills your plants. They like to eat the roots. About this big.

Looks like a mouse.

[Speaker 2]
They have like a marmot, a gopher. They have some plants, but there are some gophers and marmots that eat their plants. Is it a worm?

No, it's a gopher.

[Speaker 1]
A gopher. ZHING KHAR LA DGRA BCUNG DU RTOGS They have to worry all the time. SON NAMS CHE KHYANG BLO RTOGS MI SBYUNG RTOGS PA'I SDUG BSNGAL RGYUN BYAS MED In short, in brief, to be one of those nature persons out in nature is just as much suffering as a business person in Guadalajara.

Now, let's go back to the farmer. He's sitting out in the farm saying, those people in Guadalajara, those big business people, now they're happy. Yeah, well try to think of what a business person's life is like.

SONG PA YANG RANG GI PHA MA SANG DAG BU GRUB THAMS CAD ZHAG NAS So, in Tibet, especially a business person has to leave their wife, leave their husband, leave their kids, leave their house. They have to travel to make their money.

[Speaker 2]
In Tibet, a business person has to leave their house and travel to leave their family, their kids, because they have to travel to other places to make money.

[Speaker 1]
SOGS RBAN DU RDZUGS One thousand dollars. He's got serious now. His eyes went like this.

[Speaker 2]
I think I'm pretty safe.

[Speaker 1]
I think I'm pretty safe. This is a really weird ... okay, cancel.

Yeah, that's the easy part. Okay, let's cancel that. RBAN in Tibetan means target.

SOGS RBAN DU RDZUGS means they set up their bodies as targets. It means once you become a real business person, even in many countries, you are setting yourself up for kidnapping, violence, many things.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And at night, you know, they can't sleep. I used to be in the international diamond business. You know, you're like locking your hotel room.

You're like hiding diamonds all over the room, under the bed, behind the curtains, in the toilet. When we opened our office in India, for about two months we worked out of the bathroom in the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai. Because it's dangerous.

So, those farmers think the business people are happy, and the business people think the farmers are happy. IDIM. Next IDIM, Nick.

Oh, it's two IDIMs I think. Right? What's the first one?

Here's the first one. This guy is a nature guy. He's a hippie living out in nature.

The business people think he's happy. But his butt is getting chewed by ants right now. You know that.

I rented a country house in France, South France. This is supposed to be happy. And I got, what do you call that?

What's it called? Yeah, I got scabies. These are small fleas that live in your body.

Yeah, under the skin. And you cannot sleep. It's impossible.

[Speaker 2]
The nickname is seven year itch.

[Speaker 1]
And I had it for three years. Okay, because I went to the countryside to be peaceful. So that's what's happening to this guy.

[Speaker 2]
He's getting ...

[Speaker 1]
Okay, next one. Then the guy in the country, he's watching those movies, you know, and those rich business guys, they have beautiful women, beautiful handsome men. They are in the casino.

They are having a really good time. Then, I've never been in a casino, but recently I asked Jigme, my secretary for 25 years, we should give her a hand. I said, Jigme, when I was in China, I found out about swimming pools, indoor swimming pool, then it saved me from putting yoga on my guilt list.

I can get the same exercise in half an hour, and it's kind of more fun. So I said, find me an indoor swimming pool, because I can't ... if I go outdoors, I will get more freckles.

Then, she called me, she said, I found one. We live in the middle of nowhere, okay?

[Speaker 2]
To find a swimming pool is a big thing. Guess what, I found a swimming pool.

[Speaker 1]
Where is it? In the casino, in the new casino. You know, then I thought, well, okay, I have to swim, I'll go.

I made a deal with the casino, that I can use the swimming pool. Then I thought, this is going to be interesting, because I saw casino in James Bond movie, Casino Royale, and everyone is so elegant and beautiful, and they are so rich, and money is going everywhere. Then in Arizona, the casinos have a ...

there's a legal exception to smoking. I walk into the casino, and I thought, this is just like hell.

[Speaker 2]
Now I believe in hell.

[Speaker 1]
All these people like this, they're like this. You know, whole place is filled with smoke. Everyone looks dead already.

And they are giving all their money to the casino, and it's legal to drink also. So they are like smoking with one hand and drinking with the other, and the energy feels just like, I don't know, just like a doctor's waiting office or something.

[Speaker 2]
You know, everybody's like this.

[Speaker 1]
I walk through, now when I go swimming, I walk very fast to the swimming pool. So the farmers think the business people are happy, and the business people think the farmers don't have complicated life.

[Speaker 2]
The good news is samsara is a democracy, and everyone's equally unhappy.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, what's the ... so the idim's name, the name of this idim, which you have to memorize, is everybody thinks someone else is happy. And the solution, the second line, the solution, is do I help the people that no one likes to help?

You know, I have my teachers, they seem to be attracted to people that no one else wants to help.

[Speaker 2]
You know, and you and me, especially me, I will help someone for a while, but when it becomes really inconvenient for me, you know, I will find an excuse not to help them.

[Speaker 1]
And there are people like that, and they irritate everybody, so no one wants to help them. So if you want to solve this problem in your life of meeting people you didn't want to meet, the solution is to help people no one wants to help. Okay.

So, DE BZHIN DU RGYUD NOR LONGS SPYOD MED NA'ANG MED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL YOD TE UL POS DGE RING DE SOS NAS SANGS RGYUN GCIG SA'ANG SNYAM DU DE LA BLO MI DE BA ZAD DU ZAD DE TSUL DU GROL ZHING RTZAL KYANG MI NYED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL So some people just can't get money. They can't get enough money. In English, we say hand-to-mouth.

They make $100, they already have $90 of debt, and their life is like this, you know.

[Speaker 2]
There's people who don't know how they're going to pay for food tomorrow, and they have this suffering.

[Speaker 1]
We call it MED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL. Say MED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL. MED PA'I SDUG BSNGAL means the suffering of not having enough money.

[Speaker 2]
YOD NA, but if you do have money, then you get the YOD PA'I SDUG BSNGAL, which is called the suffering of having money.

[Speaker 1]
CHUG NOR RDZAS PA DE LA GRANGS PA'I LONG NAS KHYER People are always coming up to you and trying to borrow money. BUM PO'I PHROGS TE KHYER The government puts new taxes on your business. I pay 40% tax.

Veronica says, you talk like a Republican Geshe Michael. I said, about this, I'm a Republican. I finally make some money.

If I make $10, the government takes $4. It's the suffering of having money. THA NA CI LA DANG PHYIR BA TSUN BYAS KYI BRTAG BYAS TE And then everyone becomes your enemy.

[Speaker 2]
Even cats and mice.

[Speaker 1]
You know, this mice is like eating my food. These cats are like pooping everywhere in my house. When you get money, everyone becomes your enemy because you are trying to protect your money and everybody wants it.

[Speaker 2]
So that's called the suffering of having money. So you have two choices. Be poor and suffer.

[Speaker 1]
Or? Be rich and suffer. Okay, this is samsara.

IDIM NI IDIM Picture. Yeah, I was very happy to find this one. On the left, yeah, the suffering of not having money.

On the right, the suffering of having money. Okay, so don't forget. What's the solution to this problem?

The second part of the IDIM. Do I share the small things I have? Okay, we're not talking about grand acts of charity.

You give $10,000 to charity.

[Speaker 2]
That's not going to fix this problem.

[Speaker 1]
This problem is ... to fix this problem, do you share your cappuccino with Alejandro? You know, when you get in the car, do you take the middle seat or do you take the window seat?

[Speaker 2]
You see?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, small things, okay? You want to solve this problem of two kinds of suffering.

[Speaker 2]
Share small things.

[Speaker 1]
Share the window seat in the car. You know, share your cappuccino.

[Speaker 2]
Small things, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then your life will change. If you have money, you will be happy.

[Speaker 2]
And if you don't have money, you'll be happy.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, cool. SHING SHOGS SEMS SO LTA BU LAG BSHAD GYIS MTSO BA YANG RTOGS DGOS LA SOGS DRAG MI GRIG PA DANG Then somebody came up to Pabongka Rinpoche and said, yeah, but the people who have a ... what do you call it?

The people who have practical skills, they're happy. What do you call it? They have a trade.

They know a trade. People who know a trade, they're happy. He mentions carpenters and dentists.

Those people, they're not too rich, so they're not unhappy rich, but they're also not poor. They have a skill, they can make money anytime they want to make money. I have a friend, Rebecca's husband, what's his name?

Gunner.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, he's like, I'm going to be an electrician.

[Speaker 1]
Then I don't have all the uncertainty of doing business. But I'm also not broke all the time.

[Speaker 2]
I mean, a good hourly salary is enough for me.

[Speaker 1]
RTOGS DGOS LA SOGS DRAG MI GRIG PA DANG Yeah, but they have problems with their tools, they have to find a dentist's office, they have to find a dental chair, they have to find people to work in the dentist's office. MI MA'I SGOD PA'I GROG PA They have to worry about customer satisfaction. The customer says, I don't like the tooth you fixed yesterday.

The door in my new house is crooked. NA RGYAL PHRAG RTOG Human dictionary, no money involved. Pride and jealousy.

Oh, I make better houses than the other person makes. You know, and then that guy makes better houses than me. I hate him.

Trades people have special ... like artists and musicians, they have this special ... Actors, they have this special problem of jealousy.

Translators have this problem. Who's better translator? Okay, so they have their own special suffering.

SHING DUN TZAM DANG, SEMS PA'I RTZAL BU'I TSON CHAD DGOS Then carpenters have to worry that someone's going to steal their materials. Tailors have to worry little pieces of cloth will disappear. RANG CHAGS RAB CHUNG YIN YANG Then somebody said their Pabongka ...

by the way, this is when you get tired. We have 15 minutes, keep going, okay? I make the early classes very very long, because you are falling asleep in the early classes, but in the afternoon classes you already fell asleep.

And it's hard to sit like this for many hours, you're not used to it. Then just tell your body, shut up, you know. Oh, you know, just forget it.

Just listen, okay? Enjoy. As much as your knees will allow you, and your ...

and your bowels.

[Speaker 2]
Bladder? Bladder.

[Speaker 1]
RANG CHAGS RAB CHUNG. Somebody said to Pabongka Rinpoche, yeah, but monks and nuns are happy. So the people who aren't monks and nuns, they think that monks and nuns must be happy in those monasteries.

I sent my friend to Serra Monastery. He was the head of the Oriental Division of New York Public Library. Big man.

Then he's supposed to stay there for three months, you know. He left after ten days. He came back to New York, you know.

Yeah, I saw him. I said, well, you're supposed to be in the monastery, you know. Took me a long time to arrange all the visas.

[Speaker 2]
There's a special permit to stay in the monastery.

[Speaker 1]
Then he laughed, he looked at me, he said, Geshe-la, I couldn't meditate in the monastery. I said, what are you talking about? It's the most noisy, chaotic place I ever saw.

[Speaker 2]
I don't see how anyone can meditate there.

[Speaker 1]
And it's true, okay? It's true.

[Speaker 2]
It's very difficult to meditate in the monastery.

[Speaker 1]
Then all the people who didn't live in the monastery, they think the monks and nuns must be happy in the monastery, but they're just the same as other people. There's a joke in Tibetan monasteries. Somebody came to the monastery, you know, and they spent like two weeks, you know.

Then they said, you know, everyone here is just like the people outside.

[Speaker 2]
Jealousy, pride, desire, anger, competitive. Then my Lama, the abbot, he said, look at this guy. He says, I don't understand what you're saying.

Guy says, everybody in the monastery is just the same as the people outside the monastery.

[Speaker 1]
Then my Lama's like, well, that's why we come to the monastery.

[Speaker 2]
Because we are the same. We're trying to fix ourselves. Understand?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, understand? Defective people come to the monastery because they are defective. It's not like when you put on the red suit, suddenly you're not defective.

It takes a long time, okay? And I have to say, you know, the Tibetan monasteries, monasteries in general, Christian and Buddhist, there are many defective people there. In the priesthood, among monks, yeah, there are many defective people.

[Speaker 2]
But they are really trying to improve themselves, okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, don't think because there's one bad monk or one bad priest that those monasteries are bad or the Catholic Church is bad. Don't think like that. They are the most beautiful places in this world, and they have problems.

[Speaker 2]
But without them, without the Catholic Church, without the Buddhist Church, this world would be chaos.

[Speaker 1]
Would be much worse, okay? Somebody ... there's a joke, you know, somebody said to this guy, how long are you meditating?

[Speaker 2]
Twenty years.

[Speaker 1]
Are you better than when you started? Nope. But think how bad I will be if I didn't meditate.

Okay, the church is like that, okay?

[Speaker 2]
The church is like that.

[Speaker 1]
The world would be much worse without these things, okay? And if you really live in a monastery, you will understand this is the most precious place in this world, with all the problems it has. Okay.

Okay, PHUN PO'I RTEN NA BANG SOG GI NYAM YOD PAR KYANG Five minutes? Oh, eleven minutes. Then in Tibet, there was a class system.

Very similar to medieval Europe. Okay, so there were extremely rich people.

[Speaker 2]
The church was rich, and the common people were extremely poor.

[Speaker 1]
So this was the system. Tibet was the same as Europe was a thousand years ago. People outside of Tibet look at Tibet and say, oh, everyone in Tibet is meditating, everyone in Tibet is happy, you know?

And no, it was a very medieval system. And the poor people there really suffered. No rights, no law, no rule of law.

The Potala Palace has one of the largest prisons in the world under it. So people thought, oh, you know, those rich people, those, what do you call them? Nobility?

They must be happy. And the rich people think, oh, the poor people have a simple life, you know? They must be happy.

BANG SOG YANG SDUG BSNGAL LAS MA DE STE, no, the poor people are suffering all day. RTOG BSKYA, their food is terrible, tastes terrible. I worked in the fields in India with some of the laborers just to see what it's like, you know?

They have one tortilla. It's a lunch, you know? One tortilla, nothing, just a tortilla.

And it's purple. I said, why is it purple? This is made from the skin of the wheat which is thrown away by the rich people.

And that's all they eat for the whole day. They work in the field all day, and they eat one tortilla, you know? DGOS ZHU BA, they have one pair of clothes, that's all.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
People ask me a funny thing. They said, Geshe-la, those Indian women, they are so beautiful. These beautiful gold earrings, and in their nose they have beautiful gold earrings.

This is so, it's so elegant, you know? I said, no, you don't understand. This is the bank.

They cannot, there's no place to put their money. A bank in India, maybe take your money and it disappears. Oh Geshe-la, just tell him to keep it in the house and lock the door.

No, they live in a hut. They live in a palm leaf hut. You can break it with your arm.

So, where do you keep your money? The bank steals your money, and it's impossible to close your house. Buy gold, wear it on your body.

Stay with friends, always. Always walk in a group.

[Speaker 2]
This is the poor people's bank.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, got it? Are they happy? People always think like that.

Then, DUNG LTAG SOGS KYI RTEN DU ZAD, I was sitting with the Prime Minister of Tibet in 1975. After Tibet was lost, we were watching TV, the news, you know, and there was a 50,000 people went to demonstrate against Nixon in the White House, in the, what do you call? Washington Memorial.

[Speaker 2]
You know, and I'm sitting with this ex-powerful man, right?

[Speaker 1]
He like turned to my in-law and he says, DE CHAG ZHUG RGYU YOD MAR BAS DE CHAG ZHUG RGYU YOD MAR BAS, you know, don't they, don't they have DE CHAG here? Then, I don't know this word. I said, what's a DE CHAG?

Horse whip! Horse whip! Get some horse whips!

Send the police! Whip these guys! You know, what's going on?

I'm like, you know, we don't really do that here. Okay, but this is, this is, this is the world, right? So, here is DE LTAG.

LTAG means DE CHAG ZHUG, to whip people, okay? RGA ZHIG RTOG TSA LONG TZAM YANG MED PA'O PHUN DAG PAR GSUM DU DE SBRO BA People wander around all day in Guadalajara, and people wander around all day in every other city trying to make some money. DOR NA NYIN TSEN KUNG DU SEMS PHRAD People are worried night and day.

They won't be able to feed their family. They won't be able to pay their medical bills. They won't be able to pay for a place to live.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so, RGA ZHIG RTOG TSA LONG TZAM YANG MED PA'O PHUN DAG PAR GSUM DU DE SBRO BA People wander around all day in Guadalajara, and people wander around all day in every other city trying to make some money.

[Speaker 1]
MI TSE SNGAL SDUG GIS BSKYAL DGOS PA YOD Their whole life is a story of trying to find some money to eat, you know. DBANG GIS PHUN PO TSOR GYIS NYAMS PAR BYED KYANG LDAN DRAG MED DE Then the poor people think the rich people, the nobility, are happy. ZHIG RGYAL PA LAS Okay, fifty cent question.

ZHIG RGYAL PA Yeah, I knew it was dangerous. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Nagarjuna's student wrote a poem.

[Speaker 1]
CHOG LA YI GYI SDUG BSNGAL TE THA MA'I RNAMS KYI LUS SKYES SO Rich people have mental suffering. Poor people have physical suffering. SDUG BSNGAL YI GYI JI BSTAN GYI GNYIS LAS GNYIS LAS SBYONGS PAR BYED These two sufferings make the whole world ...

they destroy the whole world every day, over again.

[Speaker 2]
Two more minutes.

[Speaker 1]
YUL GYI RGYAL PO CHEN PO ZHIG YIN YANG Even if you're the king of the country, SNGON PA DE DRA MA GRIG PA You have to worry about things are not going so well in my country. SKAD BYA MI NYAMS PA PHAL CHER DE TSAR KHYER You want to take your while. All the problems end up on his desk.

Okay, TSAR KHYER. The bug stops here. YUL DE SDUG BSNGAL GYI GUR LEN The whole weight of the country is on this person.

We had a meeting with ... Mauricio Macri. He was the mayor of Buenos Aires.

We gave a program for him and his staff. Then after the program, he took me to his office. I was a little bit nervous.

[Speaker 2]
He said, Come with me.

[Speaker 1]
I thought maybe he's going to send me to the jail for talking about Buddhism.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
Then he took me to the window. He said, you see that building over there? It's called Casa Rosa.

Pink House. This is the same as the White House, but in our country it's the Pink House. The president lives there.

Can I use emptiness to move over there? Suddenly my impression of politicians changed in that moment.

[Speaker 2]
I thought, God, this guy is smart.

[Speaker 1]
He's so brave to ask me this question. Can I use emptiness to move from this office to that office? So I did the PAN real quick.

I did the four steps real quick. I didn't give him a hundred dollars.

[Speaker 2]
And he tried it.

[Speaker 1]
He was elected president of Argentina like 18 months ago, two years ago? Yeah, and now he has to fix ... Now, I think he's a little surprised how heavy the country is.

What's her name, V? We heard her on the radio. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Cristina Lagarde.

[Speaker 2]
She just loaned him fifty billion dollars.

[Speaker 1]
That's a little heavy to carry. He put his word to her that the country will pay back fifty billion dollars. So don't think those powerful people are happy.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Even a bad president has the weight of a country on them. And it's incredible suffering. There's a military officer who follows the American president around.

I think he's not supposed to be more than six meters away from him.

[Speaker 2]
Six meters? Six meters.

[Speaker 1]
And even when he's asleep, and he has a box, and this is 1,000 nuclear missiles, and the president has 15 minutes to decide whether to shoot them or not. You know, he has 15 minutes. It takes 15 minutes for a missile from a submarine to reach the United States.

I saw Obama and ... what's the other guy? Trump.

They went into a room. Obama has to hand the box to Trump. You know?

I saw the picture when they came out. Then Obama's like ... Trump is like ...

So, good president or bad president, it doesn't matter. It's a lot of problems, okay? Don't think they are happy.

Don't think they are not suffering, the same as the poor people.

[Speaker 2]
Democracy of ... Samsara. Everyone is equally unhappy, and equally suffering.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but what about ...

[Speaker 2]
What's his name?

[Speaker 1]
The handsome guy that was married to Angela Jolene.

[Speaker 2]
Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt. Yeah, but Brad Pitt must be happy.

[Speaker 1]
He was just sued for throwing his cell phone at his wife, okay? Okay, he's also not happy, okay? And she had terrible cancer.

Don't think they are happy, okay? Mr. Funny. Mr. Humorous. Robin ... Robin ... Robin Williams.

[Speaker 2]
Best comedian in America.

[Speaker 1]
Hang himself with his belt in his wife's bedroom. Don't think those famous people are happy, okay? He has enough money to buy a doctor ...

to buy a hundred doctors and take some pills and die, you know? But he hangs himself in his own room, you know?

[Speaker 2]
With his belt.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, all right, now that I super super depressed you, let's do some yoga. For me, it's even more depressing.

[Speaker 2]
For me, it's even more depressing.

[Speaker 1]
Let me see, who's up? Birgitta, did you do? You ready?

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, thanks.