«Дар освобождения», курс 30 «Как пройти великое путешествие», занятие 8

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. This is the special nap time, nap time class.

[Speaker 1]
If you are a very advanced meditator, you can sleep through this class and your mind will absorb everything. Alright, here we go. Nick, we're going to review the first part of the lam rim again, idim number two.

Yeah, so what our plan is, every retreat, we will review more ideas from the beginning of the book. So, this time I am reviewing from the very beginning of the book, and then next retreat, it will be part of the teacher training. And if you don't have enough money to go to America twice every year, to go to Thailand every year, to go to Guadalajara every year, because we have four of these retreats every year, talk to Tim, and probably we'll do something online, okay?

Because I know nobody has time or money to do all four every year. Okay, so don't stress out about it, okay? Do as much as you can, and we'll figure out how to make you a teacher, okay?

Alright, so Nick, I'm on 68, which is a nice piece of blue topaz. Yeah, good. I helped to invent this stone, and I'll tell you the story in a minute.

I'm going to read to you from the beginning of the Lam Rim. This was about six or seven years ago. Again, we started the Lam Rim eight years ago, but the first two retreats, we just covered the meditation part and the emptiness part.

So, now we're actually going back to the beginning. Okay, and I'm just going to quote the very cool parts, and these are things you should remember 20 years from now when you teach your students, okay?

[Speaker 2]
These are the parts I remember from my teacher, starting about 40 years ago, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, here we go. DIG ZER BA MI ZAD LTA RGYAL LTA BU RTOGS CHEN NI CI YANG MI NYAMS CHE YOD MOD KYANG. We tend to think, I never did any such big thing like murder somebody.

[Speaker 2]
I never did something like that.

[Speaker 1]
So, when I think about my future life, I'm guessing I should have a mildly pleasant future life. You know, I didn't murder anybody.

[Speaker 2]
I didn't steal the whole country's money like some people do.

[Speaker 1]
YOD MOD KYANG.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, I admit you didn't do that.

[Speaker 1]
LEGS PAR MA RTAG PA'I SKYEN YIN, but you haven't really understood what the situation is. SAM LO ZHIG TU DANG NA NGAN DOR DOR MI DO RANG If you really think about it, you are probably going to the hell realms. Why?

Karma increases. Okay, if you ... like every spring I plant five or six semillasandias?

Semillas de sandias?

[Speaker 2]
Every spring. And then I get ...

[Speaker 1]
I get usually about, I don't know, 12 watermelons. And inside each one is two or three hundred seeds. So, if you count, I get about 4,000 seeds from six.

[Speaker 2]
And mental seeds are more powerful. So, it doesn't help that the bad things we did were small.

[Speaker 1]
Many small bad deeds are worse than killing a person. So, we're in trouble. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
We're actually in trouble, we don't know.

[Speaker 1]
PER TSE NA DGE GRUB LA LTA BUR DAM ZHIG GCIG STONG NA'ANG ZHES DANG DRAG PO KUN NAS LONG For example, if you just ...

[Speaker 2]
if the teacher just called their students stupid, sometimes in the teaching the Lama will confess indirectly.

[Speaker 1]
For example, if you yell at your student, you know, in time that becomes a pretty big karma. Okay? Then, that's why we're talking about this ...

so, what does this idim mean? So, when I was in the diamond business, we actually did many different kinds of precious stones.

[Speaker 2]
We did hundreds of kinds of precious stones.

[Speaker 1]
Diamond was the main one, then we did all these other kinds of stones. And we were having a meeting one day, and we said, there's no beautiful, clear, blue stone available in the market.

[Speaker 2]
There's a sapphire, but these are dark blue.

[Speaker 1]
And at that time, the Japanese were very powerful, and we had a meeting with the Japanese ... actually, we were going to Japan, and we decided we should have ... what do you call ...

pastel colors.

[Speaker 2]
Light pink, light green, light orange.

[Speaker 1]
Then, we said, but there's no light blue stone. Then, I heard about a certain process in ... I have some gemology degrees, and you get a brown topaz from ...

[Speaker 2]
it has to be from Sri Lanka.

[Speaker 1]
Then, you put it under ... in a nuclear reactor, and it will turn a very beautiful blue. This is produced from a nuclear reactor.

So, you know, we did our first test. We did ... we bought the black ...

[Speaker 2]
the brown stones from Brazil, and this is called Swiss blue, because the reactor is in Switzerland.

[Speaker 1]
So, we sent the stones, they put them in the middle of the reactor, you know. Then, after like six weeks, we called them, you know. How's the color?

The color is fantastic.

[Speaker 2]
When can we have the stones? 900 years.

[Speaker 1]
Half-life, they call ... in radiation, they call half-life.

[Speaker 2]
900 years, the radiation will drop in half.

[Speaker 1]
It's not safe. So, we said, okay, forget it, you know, just keep them. Then, we found out if you buy them from another country, they don't get so radioactive.

And the government, American government, which is pretty strict about this thing, they said, we found a way to do it, and they said, okay, that's legal. Then, I had some doubt, you know, and I checked the stone myself. I have a ...

what do you call? Geiger counter? Radiation counter.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And it's safe, you know. And then, then one day they brought a whole bag of stones like this, you know. Then, I was thinking, maybe a big bag is dangerous, you know, all together, like 10,000 stones maybe.

So, I called the Atomic Energy Commission. These are the ... these guys worry about nuclear weapons.

I'm calling them, you know. I said, you know, I have these stones. They are measuring this on the Geiger counter.

Is it safe? The guy said, you want officially statement or unofficial statement, you know? I said, start ...

let's start with the non-official. Yeah, one stone is safe, no problem, you know. The number is very small.

Then I said, how about 10,000 together? He said, that I cannot tell you officially or unofficially, but you shouldn't keep them near your male parts. Your voice will change later.

Then I got them all out of the company. I said, no, no, no, we can't have these things, you know. So, anyway, why am I talking about that?

One ... one word to your student, you know. You could say to your student, you know, Jigme, where's my coffee, you know?

I ordered ... no, where's the sheets I ordered for the massages?

[Speaker 2]
It's like the third time I ask you.

[Speaker 1]
Then a ... it's just a small sentence, you know, but small sentences are like topaz, you know. All together, in a whole month, all those small sentences become like topaz.

[Speaker 2]
I will go to a special hell where I have to wash massage sheets all day, understand?

[Speaker 1]
So, we didn't reach the Lam Rim yet. The teacher's just ... he's just introducing the teaching.

This is in 1921, right? He's not telling the super depressing thing yet. He's just getting warm-up depression.

So, what he's saying is, even if you're a pretty good person, and you only do small bad things like yell at your assistant about the massage sheets, like radiation, it's accumulative, you see? And just the habit of saying small bad things to your kids, or your husband, or your workers, it's enough to go to the hell realms, okay? Got it?

So, it's not enough to be a nice person.

[Speaker 2]
You have to be a saintly person, and it's more fun. I heard.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, next item. Okay, this lady is helping the old lady at the grocery store. You know, I like to talk about my trip to the prisons.

[Speaker 2]
We're teaching meditation in the prison, you know?

[Speaker 1]
And yoga. We have some beautiful photos. I don't think we have them.

I don't have them there Nick, so don't stress about it. But, we go to the prisons where these guys are. They've been there, they're going to be there their whole life.

[Speaker 2]
They are very good students, they're very good meditators.

[Speaker 1]
There's no place to go. Their homeworks are always 20 pages long, you know?

[Speaker 2]
They have nothing else to do.

[Speaker 1]
And you guys, DCI guys know, you know, I like to show these photos. I like to talk about my trips to the prison. But, Nick knows the truth.

It was six years ago or something. I went like three times, but in my mind, I went a hundred times.

[Speaker 2]
And in my mind, I'm a very good person.

[Speaker 1]
So, we tend ... this is a human tendency, you know?

[Speaker 2]
Are you a good person?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I go to the prison, you know? Oh Geshe Michael, when was your last trip? Six years ago.

So, this picture, IDIM picture, she's helping the lady in the grocery store, right?

[Speaker 2]
But it was like three weeks ago, and she does it only once a month.

[Speaker 1]
When you do your calculation in your mind, am I a good person or a bad person?

[Speaker 2]
We tend to remember the small good things we did, and we forget all the times we yelled at Jigme about the different things.

[Speaker 1]
So, if you had a karma accountant who went around with you everywhere, and you asked them at the end of the day, how am I doing, you know? They'd say, oh the odds of you going to hell is like a hundred to one, okay? In Tibet there was a custom ...

Tibet is similar to our retreat center Diamond Mountain. Somebody asked me, you know, what's the coolest thing about your retreat center?

[Speaker 2]
I said, we have rocks. We have lots of rocks. Millions of rocks.

[Speaker 1]
People used to walk around Diamond Mountain retreat center and pick up rocks that look like hearts.

[Speaker 2]
They would bring them back to New Jersey, offer them to my teacher. You know, one day in the class, probably the Lam Rim class, he said, I have something to announce, you know?

[Speaker 1]
No more heart-shaped rocks, okay?

[Speaker 2]
No more heart-shaped rocks.

[Speaker 1]
Why am I talking about that?

[Speaker 2]
Tibet is the same, okay? Mostly rocks.

[Speaker 1]
So, it was a custom in Tibet to carry some white rocks and some black rocks.

[Speaker 2]
Tiny little ones.

[Speaker 1]
And if you do something nice for somebody, you put a white rock in your pocket. And if you say something mean to Jigme, you put a black rock in your pocket. Then at the end of the day, before you sleep, you take out all the rocks.

And to see ... it's like a karma accountant, you know? And you're shocked, you know?

Oh look, I got 43 black rocks and two white rocks. I thought I was a better person than that, but this is ... what do you call it?

[Speaker 2]
Objectively, I'm not.

[Speaker 1]
So, this idim's name is not as good as I think I am.

[Speaker 2]
Not enough, okay?

[Speaker 1]
It's not enough if you're a fairly nice person.

[Speaker 2]
You have to try harder, okay? You have to be better than that.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay. Nick, I mean Tim, you got your bowl ready, right?

We're supposed to ... I mean, let's finish this one and we'll do the bowl. Okay, next idim, Nick.

So, this is a fortune teller.

[Speaker 2]
My first Lama was named Geshe Ngawan Dargye in India.

[Speaker 1]
He had a room on the second floor, and I had a room on the first floor. And, we are in this Tibetan library.

[Speaker 2]
They are teaching special courses for foreigners.

[Speaker 1]
And, you know, we just have normal ... we go to classes like this, you know?

[Speaker 2]
About this many classes.

[Speaker 1]
Then the rest of the time we're causing trouble. And, sometimes you do something a little bit wrong, then you look up at his room, you know? And the curtains suddenly close like that.

It's really irritating to have your Lama watching you all the time, you know? Then one day I remember an Indian fortune teller came, and he was very mystical. He had long hair, and he has all this paint here, you know?

We were ... you know, we're like 20-year-old hippies. We're like, wow.

This guy's a real thing, you know? You know, he said, two dollars and I'll tell you your whole future, you know? Then he's like, ohhhh.

And we're all like, wow, you know?

[Speaker 2]
And people are throwing money at him, you know?

[Speaker 1]
And when I ... it came my turn, you know? I like give him $20, you know?

Then he's like, like this, you know? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Your father going to live to 85, you know? Your brother will be 83, you know? Your mother will be 92, you know?

[Speaker 1]
They all died the next year, okay? Anyway, then ... then the curtain was like ...

[Speaker 2]
we look at the curtain, you know?

[Speaker 1]
Then next day we went to class, you know? Geshe Dargé, he taught us Shantideva. 43 years ago, okay?

And then he's ... he finished the class early, then he like didn't say anything for like five minutes, you know?

[Speaker 2]
He's just looking at all these 20-year-old hippies, you know?

[Speaker 1]
Then he said, don't waste your money. We're like, what? He said, don't waste your money.

We're like, what do you mean, you know? He said, don't pay those fake fortune tellers lots of money to find out fake future, okay?

[Speaker 2]
He was like spying on us, you know? You want to ... I'll tell your future.

It's coming clear. If you hurt people, you will be unhappy. If you help people, you will be happy, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Free! Free! You don't have to pay me.

Tell our future, you know? That's this idim, okay?

[Speaker 2]
You don't need a fortune teller to know what's going to happen to you next year.

[Speaker 1]
If you are doing super nice things for people, 2019 is going to be a very good year, okay?

[Speaker 2]
If you're hurting people, 2019 is going to be a hard year, okay? If you're a normal, kind of nice person, you're ... 2019 will be a mixture of good things and bad things.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, that's all. You don't need ... you don't need more fortune-telling than that, okay?

And don't complain if you don't have an amazing year.

[Speaker 2]
You'll get exactly what you deserve. Okay, cool.

[Speaker 1]
Next idim. What is this? You guys know?

Yeah, World Trade Center, real picture.

[Speaker 2]
The guy's office filled up with fire and smoke. He climbed up on ... he climbed outside the window, then he fell off, you know?

200 people jumped out because the room was full of fire, and they all died, right?

[Speaker 1]
And there are terrible pictures of them falling. Why did I put it here? It's a little bit disturbing, right?

[Speaker 2]
We are in the same situation, okay? We don't feel like that, but our situation is the same.

[Speaker 1]
If you're a normal person, in a normal job, in a normal family, in normal Guadalajara, you are like this guy.

[Speaker 2]
The future is dangerous for all of us, you see?

[Speaker 1]
When you die, things change radically.

[Speaker 2]
It's like you jump off the World Trade Center, okay?

[Speaker 1]
What comes after that is unbelievable, like a terrible movie or something. So anyway, the name of this idim is, who can help me?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, and if you just trust the sources of help that you know about so far, if you just trust them, you're in trouble. Okay, you're going to have a problem. Why?

If there is some person or force in the universe that could take away your trouble, just by asking them, they would have done it already, okay?

[Speaker 1]
You would never go to the dentist. Somebody asked me, what's the proof that karma is the most powerful thing? Can Buddha take away your pain, you know, boo boo boo boo boo, take away your pain?

Can Buddha do it?

[Speaker 2]
Buddha is the most powerful being in the universe, and Buddha cannot change one small thing about your karma, okay? Karma is more powerful than Buddha. If you hurt people, bad things will come to you, and Buddha cannot help you.

If you're good to people, good things will come to you. So, if it's possible that someone could take away your trouble, or take away your pain, or take away your death, and if they have compassion, you wouldn't have a dentist, you understand?

[Speaker 1]
Dentist is a proof of ... dentist is the proof, you see? That no one can take away your pain just by asking.

[Speaker 2]
There's no one.

[Speaker 1]
Why? They would take it away already, you see?

[Speaker 2]
Or else they are a cruel person.

[Speaker 1]
Let me let this person suffer through a few more root canals, until they ask me politely, you know? Then I will help them, you know? Let me wait until they are holding on to the World Trade Center, then I will help them, you know?

No, it's not like that, okay?

[Speaker 2]
If there was some force or some person in the world who could help you with these big problems like death, they would have done it already.

[Speaker 1]
It doesn't mean they can't do it, but they see ... it seems like they need some help from you.

[Speaker 2]
It seems like you have to do some effort, and then they can help, you see?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, and if you ever doubt karma, just think of this picture, okay?

[Speaker 2]
If someone could take away his trouble in this moment, why not take it away? Why make a person suffer like this?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, understand? So, we have to do something. Okay, here we go.

Next. That's depressing.

[Speaker 2]
Let's do more depressing.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, this is the most depressing one. This is Kuwait 1991. Six-lane highway.

These are all Iraqi soldiers. They attacked Kuwait. Easily.

Kuwait has no army, okay?

[Speaker 2]
They opened up all the banks, they got all the gold, they raped all the pretty women, they stole all the Mercedes-Benzes, and they are feeling good, okay?

[Speaker 1]
They got gold, women, and Mercedes-Benz, and they are driving their Mercedes-Benz back to Iraq, you know? Then I don't know, you know, six armies, French, English, American, they all joined together, and they have orders to bomb, to bomb these guys. It took like 20 minutes I think.

[Speaker 2]
First they bombed the last Mercedes-Benz, then they bombed the first Mercedes-Benz. So, nobody can go forward, nobody can go back, and then slowly they bomb all the others, and they killed everybody.

[Speaker 1]
I think 2,000 people in about 20 minutes.

[Speaker 2]
Why I have this picture?

[Speaker 1]
These guys are happy, okay? They just had sex, the car is full of gold, and they have a new Mercedes-Benz.

[Speaker 2]
Two minutes later, they are wrapped in fire. True story. Why I put this picture there?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, how long does it take to go to hell? You see? You know, if I trip on this last step on the white thing, you know, and I crack my head open, how long does it take to go to hell?

[Speaker 2]
You see?

[Speaker 1]
I mean, minimum about 10 seconds, 15 seconds, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Maximum 49 days.

[Speaker 1]
That's your window. Why? You don't have to go anywhere, okay?

When I walk out the door, it's not that I walk towards the door, I see Penny, I say hi Penny, and then I walk out, hi Carmen, and then I walk out the door.

[Speaker 2]
That's not how reality works, and it's very, I mean it's amazing, but it's true. My mind makes a picture of a medium-sized door. Then I walk two steps.

Then my mind makes a picture of a slightly bigger door. Then I walk two more steps.

[Speaker 1]
The steps are also coming from my mind, but I don't want to talk about it.

[Speaker 2]
Then my mind makes a big hole. The world is coming from your mind at 65 frames per second.

[Speaker 1]
The teaching from the Nagarjuna that I didn't teach this time, ONG BA MED PA, DROD MED PA, first line, okay? First line.

[Speaker 2]
Nobody goes anywhere. Nobody comes from anywhere. Your mind makes bigger door pictures.

Then your mind makes smaller door pictures, and you call it walking through the door. Okay? 65 projections per second.

So, how long does it take to go to hell?

[Speaker 1]
Faster than a Kuwaiti Mercedes.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? To go from happy life, to wrapped in fire. Okay?

It's faster than that.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? Don't think I'm just making a story, okay?

[Speaker 2]
It's a hundred percent true.

[Speaker 1]
If we really understood the situation, we would all be like, you know, Lady of Guadalupe or something. We would all be very, very careful, you know? Anyway, if I tell you a hundred times, maybe I will understand also.

Here's a famous line that I remember from my teacher. NGON BYAS RANG RES DON DROG GYIS PHAG TU SKYES DE MI TZANG BA SA LUS GSOD PA RNAMS CHOG CI THUGS MA KHOR PAR ZHAG NA RI'I RGYAL PO RIG RAB LAS LHAG PA RGYUR In our past life, we have been a pig many times. In America, we don't have many ...

we don't have any pigs walking around the city. So, you can't really appreciate what a wild ... a feral pig in a city looks like.

But when you go to India, it's unbelievable. There's trash everywhere. Every few feet there's trash, poo-poo, people poo-poo, pee-pee.

[Speaker 2]
Sixty percent of Indians still poo-poo and pee-pee on the street.

[Speaker 1]
Walking down the street is like playing a game, you know? You're jumping. Then the pigs are walking up and down the street, eating all of it.

And it's chaos, and the smell is unbelievable.

[Speaker 2]
And the Lama said here, your past lives as those pigs, if you take all the poo-poo they ate, that pile will be higher than Mount Everest. The poo-poo you have personally eaten, the pee-pee you have drunk as a pig in your past lives, is bigger than Lake Chalapa.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, don't forget. Okay, idim 73. The idim says, a human life, a real chance now.

[Speaker 2]
You have a real chance now.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? You can become angel with a diamond body.

[Speaker 2]
You can save countless people on countless planets at the same time. You don't have to die again, and you can teach other people not to die.

[Speaker 1]
Official, not life coach, non-die, non-die coach. Then what do I have to do? Do I have to find a cave on the mountain and go there and shut up and never talk again, and you know, meditate all day?

And do I have to be like Anatole and do yoga every five minutes, you know?

[Speaker 2]
This is how you should practice.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so I want you to get that feeling, okay?

[Speaker 2]
It's not like you have to be a grumpy nun or something.

[Speaker 1]
Not that nuns are all grumpy, but you know.

[Speaker 2]
You know this stereotype of grumpy Catholic nun in the school hitting the kids with the ruler, you know. What I mean is, you don't have to change your life.

[Speaker 1]
Keep with your ...

[Speaker 2]
whatever job you have now, keep it.

[Speaker 1]
Unless your job is not having a job, don't keep that. And keep your family, especially if you have baby coming or something. It's not spiritual.

Spiritual doesn't mean give up your family, give up car, you know never eat churros again. This is not spiritual, okay?

[Speaker 2]
It's not like you have to drink green drinks the rest of your life. You can live a normal life, and just practice, okay? Don't hurt people.

You know, I used to call it morality, but people fall asleep when you talk about morality. Then I decided to call it ethics.

[Speaker 1]
People also fall asleep when you talk about ethics. Then I started to say don't hurt other people.

[Speaker 2]
People also fall asleep.

[Speaker 1]
Then I say be nice to people.

[Speaker 2]
People still fall asleep.

[Speaker 1]
Then lately somebody hurt somebody else, you know? Hurt? They hurt another person.

Then it just came out of my mouth, you know? That's not cool. Then I decided this is a good definition of Buddhist morality.

Don't do things that aren't cool, man. Don't do not cool things. That's all!

Live your normal life. Be a normal person. You know, go out, go to a nightclub, eat nice dinner.

[Speaker 2]
Do your work. Take care of your children, but be ... I don't want to say be nice, right?

Be cool.

[Speaker 1]
Just be cool. Chilos? I like it.

Yeah, I like it. How do you say be chilos? Bien chilo.

Bien chilo. I keep looking for a name for my rock and roll band.

[Speaker 2]
The last name we were considering is called hot and greasy.

[Speaker 1]
But I think I'd change it to bien chilos.

[Speaker 2]
Bien chilos, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So anyway, just be cool, okay? Be cool to people. That's enough to become a Buddha, okay?

You don't have ... don't go crazy. People who go crazy, they always quit.

[Speaker 2]
You have a human ...

[Speaker 1]
you have a chance to become an angel, a real angel in this lifetime.

[Speaker 2]
The method, just bien chilos, okay?

[Speaker 1]
And it's enough, it's enough, okay? You don't have to ... you know, you don't have to shave your head and wear some strange clothes.

[Speaker 2]
It's not necessary.

[Speaker 1]
Relax. Be cool. You know, do your meditation in a cool way.

Don't be fanatic, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Fanatics always end up enjoying your life. Enjoy your meditation. Be cool.

It's enough, okay? You have a chance. You have a human life.

[Speaker 1]
There's no reason you shouldn't become an angel.

[Speaker 2]
There's no reason you have to die, okay? Be steady. Don't be fanatic.

[Speaker 1]
Enjoy studying these things. Enjoy some meditation every day, you know?

[Speaker 2]
Be cool. Be cool to other people. It's enough, okay?

[Speaker 1]
And ... and when it starts to come, you will be very happy that you were cool.

[Speaker 2]
Beautiful things will start to happen in your life, like dream relationships, dream income, dream mental power, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Your whole mental and physical life is much ... what do you say?

[Speaker 2]
More than you ever could dream.

[Speaker 1]
Just relax and do ...

[Speaker 2]
study lam rim a little bit, okay?

[Speaker 1]
And just do it. You know, do it at a cool level.

[Speaker 2]
Suave.

[Speaker 1]
Bien chilo suave. Okay? Really, okay?

I lived a long life.

[Speaker 2]
I lived with my teacher for 30 years, in the same house. We are like an old married couple. When we eat breakfast, you know?

[Speaker 1]
You know, you don't talk. Why?

[Speaker 2]
They heard all of your jokes 100 times. They heard all your stories 100 times.

[Speaker 1]
So, all that's left is them.

[Speaker 2]
Why am I talking about that?

[Speaker 1]
I watched hundreds of students go through the factory of my Lama's house, you know?

[Speaker 2]
And I checked who succeeded, who didn't succeed, you know?

[Speaker 1]
The ones ...

[Speaker 2]
the rare one who succeeds is the suave bien chilos. They were pretty cool.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they just practiced cool, you know? And they have a normal life.

[Speaker 2]
They play rock and roll, you know?

[Speaker 1]
They eat stuff you're not supposed to eat sometimes. Sorry, Anatole. Like, sometimes you get a churro attack.

[Speaker 2]
You have to have three or four churros.

[Speaker 1]
That's okay.

[Speaker 2]
It's not going to send you to the hell, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Understand? So, relax. Relax and practice chill.

[Speaker 2]
Chill, okay? But don't stop. Don't stop.

And keep going deeper in emptiness, okay? That's enough, okay? Strange, cool things will happen to you.

[Speaker 1]
He's practicing. Okay, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm idim 74. Okay, why I put this guy here?

[Speaker 2]
I was looking for a picture of a bodhisattva. You'd think he has to have, you know, light coming out of his head and a big bump here, and silk clothes, and ...

[Speaker 1]
Bodhisattva look like that, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Just a happy person.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, what's the definition of a bodhisattva? Nick! No, human dictionary!

SEMS RGYAS GZHAN DU SPYIR YANG DAG TSOGS PA'I BYANG CHUB DU SEMS RGYAS PA NI GZHAN DU SPYIR YANG DAG TSOGS PA'I BYANG CHUB DU Definition of a bodhisattva. Okay, what is it? I want to become Buddha to help other people.

I want to become an angel made of diamond light who can go to billions of planets and help every single being.

[Speaker 2]
So, how do you change the whole world? Bodhisattva's ... occupation?

It's supposed to save the world.

[Speaker 1]
Then when I first heard that, I thought about all these guys ...

[Speaker 2]
there's a special church in America.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know why, they're always a skinny 25 year old guy, very white skin, and they wear a black tie. And they come to your house and they bang on the door, you know? And they say, did you hear the truth about Jesus Christ?

If you're smart, you look out the window and you don't open the door. And sometimes they do really cool stuff. I mean, we had a nun who was very sick with cancer, and those guys saved her and took her to the hospital.

But, when I heard bodhisattva, oh, I'm supposed to save everybody, you know?

[Speaker 2]
When I heard it the first time, I thought, dang, those guys with the black tie, they're correct, you know? I have to go to every single house in the universe and knock on the door.

[Speaker 1]
I can save you, you know? You know, I thought, oh my god, this bodhisattva thing, oh man. But, that's not how it is, okay?

The bodhisattva way of life, right? It's very simple. You make yourself happy, other people will come and ask you, what the hell are you doing?

Okay, if you have a ...

[Speaker 2]
if you are a super happy person, successful person, financially everything, if you have beautiful relationships, if you have a lot of energy, you're super healthy, then automatically people will come to you, and you don't have to wear a black tie, and you don't have to go door-to-door. People will come to you.

[Speaker 1]
You know, what are you doing? You know, last year you didn't have a girlfriend.

[Speaker 2]
You're always broke, you're got this great job, you know? Your girlfriend is super guapa. What are you doing?

Karma.

[Speaker 1]
You know, emptiness. Then, you know, then your friend is going to say, oh, can you teach me about what is what is vacuidad?

[Speaker 2]
That's a bodhisattva. Human advertisement, okay?

[Speaker 1]
That's this guy, okay? He's not like special person, you know?

[Speaker 2]
He's not flying in the sky, you know? He's just having a good life, and other people are attracted. How do you do that?

[Speaker 1]
Can you help me? You know, it's called automatic teacher. The idim is, okay, this is on your examination, bodhisattva, karma, karma, living example.

Okay, that's all. Okay, now, what's the opposite of that? Anyone want to try?

One of my students, many years ago, okay, they're gone, don't worry about it. She was teaching meditation, and I decided to sneak in the back and watch, you know? And she's like ...

and then she'd pick up this coffee cup, and she's like this, blah blah blah. Meditation make you calm. Then my ...

[Speaker 2]
there were two ladies sitting in front of me, and one of them turned to the other one, you know? And pretty loud, she said, you know, I don't know what kind of meditation she's teaching, but I don't want to learn it.

[Speaker 1]
That's called wrong teacher training. You know all the steps to meditation theory, but you're not meditating, and you're nervous, and you're an unhappy person.

[Speaker 2]
Then don't try to teach if you're an unhappy person, okay? First become a happy person, and that's the teaching.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, got it? Alright? That's human example, living example.

[Speaker 2]
That's Bodhisattva, okay?

[Speaker 1]
People come to me, I don't know why do you get a teacher training? Why did you give me a teacher training? I'm like ...

Alright, next one. What's the next idim? We'll do one more.

Oh yeah, okay. Tsongkapa, he has a famous quotation. He says, if you delay your enlightenment you're hurting everybody.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
If you don't work at your maximum capacity, you're hurting everybody. Okay? If you become an angel ...

[Speaker 1]
by the way, if you become an angel you don't have to leave your house, your address is still the same, don't worry about it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
You don't have to leave your family or something like that. You can be on a thousand planets at the same time. One body you can leave at home, you don't even have to pack.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Then, we have a responsibility to practice. Okay?

[Speaker 1]
In a happy, relaxed way.

[Speaker 2]
Why?

[Speaker 1]
Why?

[Speaker 2]
Because you lived millions of past lives.

[Speaker 1]
Every combination has been done countless times.

[Speaker 2]
You have been my mother countless times.

[Speaker 1]
You have been ... all the boys here have been Miss America countless times. All the women here have kicked the final successful goal in the World Cup.

[Speaker 2]
Countless times. You have kissed me countless times, you have murdered me countless times.

[Speaker 1]
Every combination has been done.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Why am I talking about that?

[Speaker 2]
We're supposed to focus on the fact that everyone has been our mother.

[Speaker 1]
Only an American would ask the next question.

[Speaker 2]
My Lama said, everybody's been your mother. You can't disappoint them. You have to help them.

Then some ...

[Speaker 1]
you know, I don't know why Americans will always ask this stupid question.

[Speaker 2]
I'm American, so I'm just telling you. Yeah, but everybody also killed me countless times.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay, I agree, but don't worry about it. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Try to focus on the good side.

[Speaker 1]
Every person you ever meet has been your mother. She carried you around for nine months, right Sophie?

[Speaker 2]
Or ... yeah Sophie? She didn't know if she will live or die to give you life.

She decided to try, even at her own life's risk.

[Speaker 1]
Some American will raise their hand, you know. Yeah, but my mother doesn't like me. Yeah, okay, maybe not.

[Speaker 2]
Now I understand why.

[Speaker 1]
But, if your mother loved you, didn't love you, hurt you, didn't hurt you, she risked her life to give you your ... you are a life that proves your mother was cool. Okay?

So, you have a responsibility.

[Speaker 2]
You have to work as hard as you can. Working hard doesn't mean fanatic, okay? Fanatics work hard for six weeks and they say bad things to everybody.

[Speaker 1]
Just relax. Review the lam rim ... you know that ...

[Speaker 2]
you know, review them at breakfast before you go to work. Do your best to be a good person. Most important, learn the two husbands in the kitchen.

[Speaker 1]
Everything's there. John Brady and me, our goal is to save 200,000 books.

[Speaker 2]
Where are you John Brady and I?

[Speaker 1]
There's a question nowadays, will the 200 books get saved first, or will me and John Brady go to Nirvana first? But, one thing I can tell you so far, you know, we saved, I don't know, 30,000 books. 30,000?

[Speaker 2]
There's nothing in those books which is not in the husband in the kitchen.

[Speaker 1]
Cool?

[Speaker 2]
So, just remember the husband in the kitchen. What's this idim?

[Speaker 1]
Come on, don't you want to help your mother? Okay, help your mother. All the idims up to now in this review, the meaning of them was, how are you supposed to have a motivation when you walk in this place?

Why do you sign up for these retreats?

[Speaker 2]
Why do you suffer through these retreats? Somewhere in your mind, there has to be this idea, oh, I believe I can stop death. I believe I can help other people.

If there's a chance, I will sit through these retreats.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, that's the motivation, okay? Okay, next, let's just keep going on this Nick, we only have 20 minutes I think.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la talks so much.

[Speaker 1]
Say again? No? Oh, gotcha.

Okay, idim 76, yeah okay, the idim's name is planet saver, saver of planets.

[Speaker 2]
What I need to be and what I can be.

[Speaker 1]
If you sit through this lam rim enough, if you absorb a decent percentage of it, and practice it, you will become an angel of diamond. Living diamond? So, I just want to tell you what happens on the first day.

[Speaker 2]
I didn't reach it, but I have some information.

[Speaker 1]
They call you to the main office. Congratulations, you got your living diamond body.

[Speaker 2]
Here's a planet to babysit.

[Speaker 1]
This is your planet.

[Speaker 2]
They give you a planet, okay?

[Speaker 1]
It's kind of fun, okay? Probably you can negotiate, yeah? I don't want a planet like that, I want this other planet.

And they give you like, you know, seven billion people. Oh Earl, can you handle seven billion on a pretty nice blue planet, okay? It's a decent assignment.

And I'm not kidding, okay? I'm not just making fun.

[Speaker 2]
It's real, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then you start taking care of everybody, okay? On the planet. We learned from the question this morning, you know, somebody's depressed.

Okay, so I will be the breeze that comes off of Lake Chalapa through the tent and blows on their forehead and makes them feel a little better, okay? You have this power.

[Speaker 2]
You can be anything, you know?

[Speaker 1]
I think I'll be a cushion on the chair. Weird stuff like that. This is what Buddhists do, okay?

[Speaker 2]
I think I'll be a cushion today. I think I'll be a breeze off of Lake Chalapa today.

[Speaker 1]
He's getting stronger, see? Okay, so you have the power.

[Speaker 2]
It's your ... you have the capacity, okay? Don't think you don't have the capacity.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, I'm going to stop there for the review. I changed my mind Nick on this. That's unusual.

And we're going to go back ... you're too high. You got too much good news today.

Let's go back to the Lam Rim, okay? Just 15 minutes, okay? I'll take it as a challenge.

Can I depress you in 15 minutes, okay? Okay, here we go. This ...

depression and bladder pressure together.

[Speaker 2]
Bladder pressure. Pee pee.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, here we go. Nick, we're at RANG RES, right? RANG RES.

R-A-N-G-R-E-S. Yeah, you up there? I can't see it from here.

Okay, RANG RES KYANG THA NA GUNG ZHIG GCIG LAS MA SON NANG LAS GANG MANG PO ZHIG GI DMYAL BA BYED DGOS Then he's been talking about how much trouble it is to do every occupation in the world.

[Speaker 2]
The farmers think the business guys are happy, the business guys think the farmers are happy, they all think the politicians are happy, and in the democracy of samsara everyone's unhappy and suffering.

[Speaker 1]
Then somebody said, well what about monks and In Tibet you don't have to make money. Then he's ... I like this, this is the kind of complaint that I can relate to, he says that.

Yeah, but you know how much time I have to waste to make my one meal every day?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, monks usually eat just one meal a day, and he's whining about it.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, it takes like two hours to cook, you know, wash the dishes, you know.

[Speaker 2]
The food's free, but you have to cook it.

[Speaker 1]
It's like, even being a monk is a hassle. Okay, there's a new idim here. This is for you by the way.

This is yours. Okay, and that's chai if you prefer, and that's water. Okay, she's washing the dishes.

I can relate to it. I was the dishwasher in the monastery for eight years, okay?

[Speaker 2]
I created Andreana.

[Speaker 1]
You're in trouble, okay? Alright, and the idim is called the suffering of a single meal. Depending on whether you're male or female, it takes about five minutes to eat dinner.

Ten minutes?

[Speaker 2]
I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
And depending on you're male or female, or you're single or married, it takes about from, I don't know, 45 minutes to two and a half hours to cook.

[Speaker 2]
So, the idim is called the suffering of a single meal. If you have more than one child, Anatole Aisha, this becomes a special exercise.

[Speaker 1]
By the time you're finished cooking breakfast, it's time to start lunch. Barbara's like, yeah, yeah, I know about this one. Then, how do you stop it?

You know, how do you ... this is kind of suffering where you have to work all day just to eat. Even if you have money to buy groceries, just to cook, you're wasting so much time.

My friend, you guys don't know him, Jigme knows him, Dieter Gavistler, Lali Gavistler, these were my students of my Lama. His ... her mother got stomach cancer.

She was one of the first people to get radiation treatment, and they did too much, and they destroyed ... they literally destroyed her stomach. So, they just connected her esophagus to her intestines.

[Speaker 2]
No stomach.

[Speaker 1]
So, she could drink water, but she can't eat anything, and she lived 20 more years. All night she's on a drip, you know. She goes to bed, she puts the drip in, and then when she wakes up she'd take the drip out.

Then when I met her, I was like, God dang, this is cool!

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
You think I can get one of those, you know? Then I don't have to cook, I don't have to clean, you know?

[Speaker 2]
It's so cool, you know?

[Speaker 1]
Doctor told me ... anyway. Okay, so if you don't want this kind of day-to-day, small, small suffering, doing stupid things all day, washing dishes all day, then you can do ...

[Speaker 2]
you can do bodhisattva work.

[Speaker 1]
How can you tell a bodhisattva, okay? Somebody asked me, how do you know who's a bodhisattva? The person who always washes the dishes is the bodhisattva.

[Speaker 2]
The people who are too important or too busy to wash dishes are not bodhisattva.

[Speaker 1]
It's very simple.

[Speaker 2]
I forget which sutra it comes from.

[Speaker 1]
Daniel and Alina, they are rebuilding this sick person's house nowadays, for free. 105 degrees outside, 40-something degrees outside.

[Speaker 2]
That's how you tell a bodhisattva, okay?

[Speaker 1]
They do the dirty work, okay?

[Speaker 2]
The karma of doing the dirty work is that Andriana comes.

[Speaker 1]
Understand? Okay, next. It's okay.

[Speaker 2]
Do the small dirty jobs, and your life will be easy, okay? People will do things for you.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, dor na nort tat sam yun na dung nga'i yang tat sam serwa tar. There's a saying in Tibet, if all you own is one horse, you get one horse's worth of suffering.

[Speaker 2]
Every time you get a new possession, you get some more problems.

[Speaker 1]
Some Chinese guy came to me, he said, Geshe-la, I'm going to buy you a new house. I have the smallest legal house. I'm like ...

he said, I'll buy you a big house. I'm like, no. He said, really, you know who it is Earl.

Then he said, it has a nice view, you know, it's the back of Sedona. I also have a nice view.

[Speaker 2]
He said, no no, but your house is so small, you know.

[Speaker 1]
Then I look at him, he says, this house has like ten rooms in it, you know. Then I'm like, I'm not stupid, okay? Every time you add one more room, you have to clean one more room.

I have one bedroom, it's good. One room to clean. Already it's a hassle.

Okay, Serwat Thambor, take up, mi sun dra yin yang, kye chak nyen dok kha wa re shuk kyang, phar tsam drin na drang ma dripa shak da duk kye tse tser tser chepa re le me. Then he kind of switches the conversation. We meet people.

Five minutes, hang in there. We meet new people. They look interesting.

They look cool. You know, we start to talk. Doesn't have to be boy or girl, could be, you know, anybody.

Then for the first day everything's going nice.

[Speaker 2]
Then your seeds wear out, and they say one stupid thing in the whole day. And you're like, I thought this person was cool, but I don't know. Then the second day, two stupid things.

[Speaker 1]
Third day, three stupid things.

[Speaker 2]
This is also the story of a marriage, usually.

[Speaker 1]
Two years later somebody asks you, who do you hate the most in the world? 90% of people say my ex-wife, or my ex-husband. So why is it that we really like somebody, we're really attracted to somebody, we really get along with somebody, when we first meet them?

Five minutes spent with a new friend who you really like is very dangerous. You destroy 150,000 good seeds. When a tree grows from a seed, it destroys the seed.

When you spend five minutes with a new friend, and it's very pleasant, you just destroyed about a hundred and fifty thousand good deeds.

[Speaker 2]
It's like a debit card, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Ten minutes spent with a really nice person. So, I prefer to spend time with not nice people, it's cheaper.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, understand?

[Speaker 1]
So, it's the nature of things. If you don't know how to reinvest your good seeds, you will always get tired of your new friends, or your new relationship.

[Speaker 2]
It will always be like that.

[Speaker 1]
The solution is very easy, like Pachi and Pau. Take some terrible job to run the retreat. Make more good seeds than you are using up.

While you're using up your debit card with your friends, charge the debit card by serving. Okay, one more minute, but it's a long minute okay? LTO MED RGYA BRTZON PO MO SON DRAG LA BSTAD KYANG PHYA LUGS NAM GYUR PHOR DOG CHE CHUNG TZAM MA DOG GYI MI TSE RGYAL BA SNYAM SNYAM DU SDUG PAS RGYAL SNYAM DROG BYED NAM GYI NANG SOGS DI RGYAL BA.

Who said that? Oh, Seventh Dalai Lama. We go through life, we meet people, like I'm often flying on the airplane, and you meet people who seem to be, I don't know, like Brad Pitt type of people.

[Speaker 2]
This person must be having a good life. They've got money, they're flying first class, somehow they control their mouth, they look also healthy, fit.

[Speaker 1]
They're speaking in a very gentle, civilized way to everybody.

[Speaker 2]
You know, this person must be happy. Then, when you get to know them, you know, you find out they are suicidal or something, okay?

[Speaker 1]
RGYAL SNYAM DROG BYED, we're all ... Kelsang Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama said, listen, we're all in the same boat. In English we say we're all in the same boat.

I think it was Voltaire, French Voltaire, I'm not sure. He said, we are fellow sufferers for a day. We are all in the same boat.

I'm going to show you the boat, okay?

[Speaker 2]
This is the same ... this is the same boat that we're all in.

[Speaker 1]
Come on Nick, it was supposed to be dramatic. I know it's there somewhere. He turned off his computer.

There you go. We're all in the same boat, okay?

[Speaker 2]
It's called what?

[Speaker 1]
Titanic. We're all in the Titanic. Everything looks normal, you know?

We are dancing on the ship. That's what they were doing when they hit the iceberg, everybody was dancing in a very expensive dinner. Yeah, so this is how ...

this is where we are, okay? We are all suffering equally. Doesn't matter if a person looks like they are rich or powerful or something, we're all in the same boat.

Okay, última cosa. The name of this idim is fellow sufferers for a day. For a day means very short time.

We are ... life goes like that. We are suffering through it together.

[Speaker 2]
The second line of the idim is called arguing on the Titanic, before they hit the iceberg.

[Speaker 1]
I don't like the champagne.

[Speaker 2]
This champagne is not that good, you know?

[Speaker 1]
Is there any way I can get it chilled a little bit more? Then an hour later they're in the Atlantic Ocean dying, you know? We are the same, we are exactly the same.

Don't think you're different.

[Speaker 2]
We are arguing about the champagne on the Titanic, 30 seconds before it hits the iceberg.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, the last ...

[Speaker 2]
what's the karmic solution to this problem of, you know, kind of bitching at each other inside of samsara? How fast do you let things go? Yesterday we talked about letting things go.

[Speaker 1]
You know, someone calls you stupid, you know? Somebody spills your coffee. I had a guy ...

[Speaker 2]
I was on the beginning of a 12-hour flight to China.

[Speaker 1]
I had a full Starbucks cup of coffee on my little table, you know? He went past me and his big butt knocked the whole Starbucks cup on my lap at the beginning of a 12-hour flight. So, how fast do you let it go?

Is it going to be six hours to the flight or eight hours to the flight?

[Speaker 2]
If you don't want to have trouble with the people around you, the karma you need to collect is how fast you let things go.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay, cool, you know? It's alright. I'll tell you a cute story about that coffee cup, like five minutes into the 12-hour flight.

The guy gets up, you know, and I'm like, okay, get up, I don't care, the coffee's already spilled. He went back to economy class. Some sponsors giving me business class, okay?

Then he went to the toilet or something. I still hadn't let it go.

[Speaker 2]
It took about six more hours, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then this new guy comes up and he's limping, you know? He's like, that's my seat, you know? I said, no, it's not yours, it's the guy with the big butt, he's in the bathroom.

[Speaker 2]
He's like, yeah, I know the guy with the big butt, he gave me this seat, because I have a bad leg. He's going to sit in economy class for 12 hours.

[Speaker 1]
Then I'm like ... These Buddhas, you know, they do sneaky stuff. Helping me let go of things.

Earl, you ready? Sangye Shingdu Mikde Rokun Namda Shinla Jöpa Shok Idam Guno Radnamandala Kamme Yatayami Dike Mokum Sanam Yeshe Tso Tso Shim Sanam Yeshe Nechungwe Dhamma Konitobhasho Okay, cool.