«Дар освобождения», курс 40 «Магия пустотных медитаций и тонглен», занятие 4

[Говорящий 1]
All right, we're going to do question and answer, and if anybody has questions, Tim is going to choose, so the pressure is off of me. Thank you.

[Говорящий 2]
My question is, if we listen to the same teaching, and listen to our teacher over and over again, multiple lifetimes, how do we change our minds, and thoughts, and actions?

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, good. The question was, if we listen to our teacher over and over again, especially in multiple lifetimes, then how do we actually change our thoughts and actions? And there's a thing called PHRAD TO, which is one of my teacher's favorite expressions.

PHRAD TO means, his example was, if a kid acts up. He was a school teacher in the refugee camp, so he got stuck with elementary school, and he wrote the textbooks for the elementary schools. So he said, there's a kind of a bad kid, when you correct them, they don't improve, and then you correct them again, and then you correct them again, and then PHRAD TO means, they get used to correct.

Correction from my teacher was hitting you with a mala on the head, hitting you with a rosary on the head. And then he said, some kids, they just get to where they don't mind the rosary on the head anymore, and they just get used to it. And then he would say, that's a great danger, like your teacher's trying to correct you, and you get used to the correction, and then you learn to live with the correction, and not correct yourself.

So there is such a thing as PHRAD TO. I think for me, when I went, this was a famous conversation with my teacher, and I was fortunate to live with my teacher for 25 years. So that was a unique training school.

I was the only foreigner who survived in his residence, and many, many were sent away and other bad things. So I remember I went to him. I asked him this question.

I asked him almost all the questions you can think of. And he said, I said, what if you keep correcting me, and I get used to the correction, and I don't correct myself, and then you keep repeating the same correction, and then I don't change, and then I get immune to your corrections to where I don't hear them anymore. And he said, oh, that's not a problem.

And I'm like, what do you mean it's not a problem? He says, suffering, suffering. I'm like, what?

He said, the world will crush you. The world will bring you new problems. The world will give you, some terrible things will happen to you, and then you'll come and listen to me.

So I'm like, okay. He says, you don't have to do anything. Just be alive, and the world will bring you new problems, and then you'll come back to me, and then you'll listen.

So you don't have to do anything. Just live. Life itself will remind you that you have to listen to your teacher.

It's not facetious. I'm not just saying it as a joke or something. It's really true.

But the trick is to stay in contact, or contactable with your teacher. There's times when you spend time away from your teacher, but always have that option set up that you can get in touch with your teacher, or you can get back to them and ask them for their help like that. So don't burn the bridge.

Keep the option open to get help from them when you need. Life will remind you. If you're really smart, you can anticipate what life's going to do, but very few people can do that.

You can guess by observing other people getting old, or dying, or getting cancer. You can guess that it's going to happen to you. So if you're really intelligent, you can work ahead of the game and be in touch with your teacher.

But if you're just a normal person, you can wait until you get cancer, but be in touch with your teacher so when the time comes, you can get help. That's the main thing. So it's kind of like just be alive.

The connection will be remade when you need it. That's happened in my life. I have many, many students over the course of my life, and they come back, they have a challenge, and they get sick, or something happens, and they come back, and that's okay, and then we reconnect, and I wake up all the old teachings, and it's fine.

It works out. It's okay. Mr. Thiem. You got me. This is a question that came online, actually last week on our Facebook page. A friend of ours, her mother got really sick during COVID and wasn't able to fly to Mexico as she was passing away, even though her mom had asked her to be able to do so, and it turned out that her mother passed away before she was able to go and wasn't able to be there with her, and it's brought her a lot of deep grief, and she wanted to know how she could think about this, and what advices might you have, even though she wasn't able to be there, that maybe that could help her as her mother had transitioned? Yeah, cool. So this happens to many of us, and it happened to me, and I took care of my real mom as she was dying, and actually my teacher advised me to bring her to take teachings in the Himalayas, and she came.

She was already very, very ill with cancer in her brain, and she came for I think two months or three months and listened to teachings, but I couldn't be there when she died. So I know the question, and what I would say, there's a practice that my teacher taught me. People used to come to him and say, my mom passed away, or they would ask questions like this, and I remember, our relationship got to where I asked him so many questions that he got tired of being asked questions, and he decided he would take his meals in his room alone.

So then I would go up and serve the meal and try to sit down and ask the question, and then it got really bad, and the only time I could get a question was traveling with him. Like if we were in the car together, and then he'd pretend he was asleep. But we were on a flight to India, and so that's 12 hours either way, sometimes 20 hours in the plane, and he was next to me, he stuck, and he couldn't pretend to sleep for 12 hours.

I asked him if he had some advice for situations like this, and he gave me a long, he said, take a note. He would say, take a note, and he gave me a long teaching. It was like three, four hours about what to do in a situation like this, and it was very beautiful.

What he said was very beautiful, and he said, and by the way, Sugeng's book also, the new new book, it has a nice section on bardo, on the bardo. There's an appendix on the bardo, and during the bardo, during the time between death and rebirth, those beings have special powers, and they can, and in Sugeng's book, we translated that section, so it's not some kind of, there's a book called Book of the Dead or something like that, which is not accepted by the people who understand the bardo. That book is, what do you call it?

It's just somebody made up stuff in there, so I would not advise you to use that or read it. I had a friend who tried to use it and spent time in a mental hospital. So I don't think it's, my teacher said don't use that book.

But there are, in the Abhidharma, there are good, solid, 2,000 year old teachings on what happens to you after you die. And my teacher taught that. He taught it from the Abhidharma and they say that a bardo being has special powers and they can understand all languages.

$25 for the Yoga Sutra line about that. Nevermind. Savaruta's Jnanam.

Savaruta's Jnanam. They can speak, they can understand all languages, all human languages they can understand. So they have a special karma.

And if you study the bardo beings' habits, their mental state, their different powers from the Abhidharma kosha, you can, it's real. They really can understand when you speak to them. And I had a dream like that.

My college roommate died and I was helping his wife and their two kids and he died suddenly. And I had a dream about him and he was in the bardo and he was behind a glass wall and he was at his house and he was watching his wife and their two kids eat breakfast and he was trying to talk to them and they couldn't hear him but he could hear them. And he was banging on the glass because he was upset because he didn't know he was dead and they were ignoring him.

And it's like that. So they can hear their family members and they can understand when you speak. So my teacher encouraged people to speak to their relatives who passed away.

And he made a whole practice about it and it's very beautiful. I have friends who've been doing it for 20 years, 30 years. I taught this 20 years ago.

So you can, when you're alone in a room, you can do it. I like to go to a park or something and sit on a park bench. Probably people think I'm an odd old man talking to himself.

But I'll go to a park and sit on a bench and talk to my mom or something like that. And they can hear you and they can understand you. So it's nice if you want to help them.

So what I mean is, it's probably more useful for your mom if you talk to them after they died than it is to be there when they die. As the person is dying, there's very little you can do for them. They cannot think straight.

They cannot. It's too frightening. And their sense organs are breaking down.

That's not the time to talk to somebody. They can understand more. They can hear more afterwards.

So I wouldn't be so worried that you weren't there at the moment that a person, that your mom passed away. And it's not that crucial. It's helpful, but it's not that crucial.

You can do a lot more good afterwards and keep talking to them, keep encouraging them. What's a nice practice? What my teacher asked me to do was keep a list of things my mom had done for me and nice things she had done for me and then thank her and talk to her.

He said, that's a really cool idea because it makes you more grateful and it reminds her of the best things she has done in her life. And then we call BAG CHAGS BSAD PA which is the eighth and ninth limbs of the twelve links of the Wheel of Life. SKYER PA SRED PA DGOS PA LEN PA Which means if your mom can, if you talk to your mom about nice things they did for you, then she will remember and that will wake up those seeds.

The seeds that she has in her mind from having helped you. When you remind her or talk to her about, I remember when you took me to the surf shop and bought me the impossibly expensive five foot eleven blue surfboard for $85. It was a lot of money for us at the time.

I remember when you did that. Then talk to them about things they did for you. That's a lot more powerful.

So I would say it's not a, and that you can do indefinitely. You can do it for 20 years. It doesn't matter.

And the list, if you keep a little journal about nice things they did for you, it gets longer and longer. My journal was 85 pages of stuff that she had done for me. So it's a great practice.

It's a wonderful practice and you can keep doing it. So I think it's a lot more important to do that than to be there at the moment that they pass. I think it's a lot more useful for her and for you if you do this practice of talking to her and reminding her about cool stuff she did.

And that list will just keep getting longer and longer. One more, Timothy? Very cool.

Thank you for that. So this question kind of plays off of Ana Lee's question, Ila's question from yesterday. So the question is, when we think about emptiness, or we're thinking more about the gacha, the thing that's not there, and we're doing this practice of canceling everything that's not there, and then the thing that arises is the thing that is there, the question really is, what is the seed?

The question is, what is the seed for the mental picture at this time specifically related to emptiness? So if you're having the direct perception of emptiness, you've canceled everything that's not emptiness, but if emptiness is something that's not there that you thought was there, what is that seed? What is the mental picture that arises in that moment?

Yeah, it's good. That's a good question. It's a deep question.

So the direct perception of emptiness is divided into two parts, NYAMS SHAG BSGYES ZHIG and BYAS THOB BSGYES ZHIG. NYAMS SHAG BSGYES ZHIG means samapatti in Sanskrit, balanced meditation. Balanced between what for $50?

Chloe? Dullness and agitation. Good.

Between dullness and agitation. Yeah, CING NGON DGOS PA. Did I say $5?

I don't remember. Yeah, I'll get $50, $50. So NYAMS SHAG BSGYES ZHIG means during the actual direct perception, you are focusing on the absence of an impossible thing.

So you are directly perceiving the fact that nothing is not coming from you. Double negative. So during that time, you cannot have any other perceptions.

Not possible. What's the most frustrating perception you cannot have at that moment? I did it.

You cannot say I did it because I is not emptiness. Did it is not emptiness. It is not.

So then, but if something happens in the direct perception of emptiness, the power of the absence of anything that doesn't come from you, that absence has a specific power. The fact that nothing's not coming from you. That fact, which is the highest thing in the universe.

That is the highest thing in the universe. If you want to have a God, that's God. By the way, someone reminded me, it's not only Easter, it's Passover and Ramadan.

So congratulations to everybody. It's also Easter break for Joe and the other college students. Just kidding.

So the extreme power of seeing highest reality does something in the following. The jay tok, jay tok means the aftermath. So like the afterglow.

You could talk about it in yoga terms, in prana terms, chi, that for the first time, all of your prana has entered the central channel. All the chi is in the jongmai. For the first time.

And when you come down out of the direct perception in the 20 minutes or so, the chi is still there in unprecedented quantity in the central channel. It's not going to leave the central channel the moment you come out of shamatha. So it stays there for about 24 hours.

And because of that, you have extraordinary normal perceptions, which are not emptiness. And those are called the 16 aspects for higher truth, for Arya truth. And they include, for example, seeing directly the day of your death.

So nobody really believes they're going to die except an Arya, because an Arya has seen it directly. They have seen, for an Arya, they don't say die, they say on the day that gravity wins the contest. You are a weird animal that walks upright.

I was thinking about it yesterday. I went for a long walk and all the animal paths here are frustrating because they go under trees and under bushes. Animals are only this high.

So you can't really follow the animal paths here because they go under everything. You see what I mean? Human beings are one of the few creatures that compete with gravity their whole life.

They struggle to learn to walk at two, to stand up unnaturally vertically. And then sooner or later that contest is won by gravity and an Arya has seen that. They have seen directly the day of their death.

By the way, they've also seen where they are going afterwards. So they're kind of like, okay, they know what's coming next. And then of course they have this perception of bodhichitta.

They have actual bodhichitta, real bodhichitta. And they meet every living being. They've gone through the dak chen nyam je.

They've been through that practice. Number, which of the five list? Exchanging myself and others?

Number four. Step number four. So they've been through that.

They know how to do it. They meet every living being directly. So the aftermath, when the prana is still in the central channel, is a lot of not direct perceptions of emptiness.

They are normal perceptions. They are abnormal, but super normal. But they are not the direct perception of emptiness.

And the things they see are positive things and not an absence of something. So it's different. So that's the main thing.

That's the relationship between an unchanging negative object, emptiness, and then all of those 16 aspects of the four truths. For example, seeing your death, seeing where you're headed after that, meeting every living being. Those are fallout.

You can say fallout from the experience. And those are normal perceptions of changing objects, positive objects. Does that help?

So the direct perception of something that's not there leads to many subsequent, BYAS THOB means subsequent perceptions of high changing truths. Cool? Does that cover that question?

I guess so. That's how I want to cover it. Okay.

We're going to go back to the text. I'm really making an attempt to finish this book before 2080 or something. All right.

ZHIG PA BDAG GZHAN BYAS BA'I SEMS POR DNGOS NI DNGOS means now I'm going to give you the real thing. Okay, so finally, Pabongka Rinpoche also is getting down through it. And he says, here's part four.

Here's how to exchange yourself and others. SNGAR KHYON YON LA BSAM PA KHYON YON LA BSAM PA means look, we finish thinking about the KHYONS and we finish thinking about the YONS. He's making alliteration?

Yeah. So anyway, KHYON means problems of trying to... Yeah, the useless attempt to take care of yourself first.

And again, you can keep doing it as long as you want. It's hopeless. It doesn't work.

But if you want to have a miserable life, keep doing it. Keep trying to take care of yourself first. Then YIN DANG, GUN NA, good qualities.

Just let go and focus on other people's needs. Your needs will get covered automatically. Don't worry about it.

Just get in the habit of seeing what the people around you need and accommodate it. I don't buy this sacrifice thing that you have to sacrifice your happiness and work on other people's happiness. It's unnatural.

Nobody will do it. It just happens to be, luckily, that when you focus on what other people need, that's the happiest thing you can do. So that's lucky it works out that way.

You don't have to make a choice between what you want and what other people want. You just have to get really good at synthesizing the two so that you can get everything you want and they get everything they want. And that's a happy ending for everybody.

All right, so SANGS PA DE LTA BU RTAG NI Now that we've discussed how hopeless it is to try to take care of yourself first all the time, RANG NYID BYAN ZIN GYIS BYONG NAS DI RANG NYID BYAS PA RDZIN PA'I BYONG NAS DI He says, you should think about those four verses. And then he gives the first line of 16 lines. And he says, everybody knows the rest.

The line he quotes is RANG NYID BYAS PA RDZIN PA'I BYONG NAS BYONG NAS means a... What do you call that? A cough that won't go away for years.

Chronic cough or something like that. Did you ever have one for like two years or something? I don't know.

There's chronic things that happen to you. If you're lucky, they go away after a year or two. But you just cough for a year or you cough for two years.

You go to the doctor and they say, yeah, you have a cough. And you're like, I know I have a cough. Well, that'll be a hundred dollars.

You're like, what? So it's this thing that won't go away. What's a thing that won't go away?

RANG NYID BYAN ZIN Chronic habit of thinking about what you want. He doesn't call it bad habit or something like that. He calls it a chronic disease.

He says the chronic disease of taking care of yourself first. So you being great students, I figure you want the whole four verses. Don't listen to Tim.

Sugeng, you got a picture for me I think. Here you go. It's the cover of the Three Treasures Prayer Book.

Guys, did you find it? No? Yes?

Anyway, it's there. Okay, don't worry about it. Let's do the four lines.

Let's do the four verses. What he's quoting is the Lama Chupa, which you did the first night here. It's called the Offering to Lama.

That's the first prayer I ever sat in. I arrived in the Himalayas on a bus. I went to this Tibetan library.

It just opened for foreigners. There was like 20 monks there doing Lama Chupa. I walked into Lama Chupa.

It's the first thing I ever heard. Here's the first verse. RANG NYID BYED PAR BRDZIN PA'I SBYONG NAS DI MIN GDOD SDUG BSNGAL BSKYED PA'I RGYUR THONG NAS LE LEN DE LA KHON DU GSUNGS BYED TE DAG BZHIN DON BZHIN SBYONG PAR CING GIS LOB RANG NYID BYED PAR BRDZIN PA'I SBYONG NAS DI This chronic disease of taking care of myself first.

MIN GDOD SDUG BSNGAL BSKYED PA'I RGYUR THONG NAS If you suddenly wake up and see it's giving you all the problems you ever had, LE LEN DE means, LE LEN DE is a very rare Tibetan word that means you figure out who's really causing you trouble. What do you call that? You put the blame on the right person.

There's a saying in English. Yeah, you could say that. Something like that.

I mean, you just wake up and you say, oh, all these years, that's what's been messing me up. You put the blame in the right place. LE LEN DE means, LEN means the blame.

LE LEN DE LA KHON DU GSUNGS And then he says, I want you to feel KHON. KHON means, KHON ZIN means, what is it when someone hurts you over and over again and you start getting... Resentful?

Resentful? Resent, yeah. Yeah, that's KHON.

KHON means, it's funny because here's the Buddhist teacher saying, please feel resentful. Please feel resentment. For what?

He says the DON CHEN means the great demon. Take care of myself first. He said, I want you to feel, I want you to develop resentment.

You have been ruining my life, my whole life. And I'm so sick of you. And now I finally figured out, there's this sense of discovery in this verse.

Ha, aha, Sherlock. That's what's been messing me up my whole life. And you're like, aha, I figured it out.

And then you're like, God, you're such an asshole to give me this trouble my whole life. Then you... He's like cursing here.

Like, it's not me, okay? He's like, you should say, you asshole, I figured it out. You're the one who's been causing me all this trouble.

It's supposed to be a verse of discovery and resentment. BDAG RDZIN DON CHEN BYONG PAR BYING GI LOG Please best bless me to murder this guy. Who?

My habit of taking care of myself first. That's the first verse. MA RNAMS CHE GSUNGS DE LA DGOS PA'I LO THA'I YONDAN BYUNG BA'I DGOR THUNG NAS DRO BA'I DE DAG GI DRA LANG KYANG SOGS LA BYED PAR BYING GI LOG MA RNAMS CHE GSUNGS DE LA DGOS PA'I LO This is BYED PAR ZIN PA, past tense.

Taking care of my mom's. Taking care of my mom's. Now I figured it out.

It's the sweetest thing I can do with my life. It's the most fun, sweet thing to do in my life is just look at what other people need, what other people want, help them get what they want, help them get what they need. That's the sweetest way to live a human life.

It's so satisfying, and it's so sexy, and it's so fun. He's like, this is also a verse of discovery. Whoa, I just figured out what's really fun is taking care of other people, what they want, and doing that first.

And I'll take care of myself, I'll get there. By the way, it's not giving up anything. He's just saying, take care of everybody.

And you're one of everybody, so don't worry about it. We'll cover you. You cover everybody, you got yourself covered.

THA'I YIN DANG, GRO BA DE DAG DAG GI DRA LA BSKYANGS Then he says something hard. If everybody in the world decided they hate your guts, you have the karma to be trolled by everybody online. SOGS LAS BYAS PA'I SEMS PAR CING GI LOB May you bless me, my Lama, to love them even more.

More than my own life. SOGS LAS means my own life. Even if I get trolled by the whole world at once, please bless me that I will cherish those trollers even more than my own life.

That's, boy, not easy. Third verse, DOR NA PHYI BA RANG BDUN KHO NA DANG THUB DBANG GZHAN BDUN PAR ZHIG BRDZAD PA YID KHYON DANG YIN TEN YED BA'I RTOG PA'I LUS DAG GZHAN GNYEL BYAS NUS PAR CING GI LOB DOR NA PHYI BA RANG BDUN KHO NA DANG What's a PHYI BA? Bala in Sanskrit.

Yeah, a kid, two year old. We have this derogatory connotation in English. He's acting like a two year old.

I've never spent time around little kids because I never had them, but I've been around Maitri, and when he hit two, it was a little difficult. That's when I kicked him out of the studio at DCI. So PHYI BA RANG BDUN KHO NA means, PHYI BA in Buddhism, two year old is an insult for people who are selfish, who take care of themselves first.

It's also a synonym for someone who has not seen emptiness directly. Probably the two are very connected, can we say? Seriously, if you don't see emptiness, you're more likely to take care of yourself first.

There's a connection there. We got to talk more about it. THU BONG GZHAN DONG BA ZHIG ZAD PA'I But Buddhas, they just focus on everything that other people need.

KHYON DANG YON DANG YOD PA'I RTOGS PA'I RLOG May I come to the realization of the difference. YOD PA means, bless me to realize the difference between a two year old and a being who sees all objects in the universe. Duh!

It's like, bless me to see the difference between a selfish little two year old and a Buddha who sees all objects in the universe. Please bless, I don't know why you need a blessing to see that, but please bless me to get the difference. RTOGS PA'I RLOG And with that understanding, bless me to BDAG GZHAN MNYAM BYAS Bless me to do the practice of, when you say BDAG GZHAN MNYAM BYAS, it's two different things.

Never call it exchanging only. Call it equal rights. They want to say equalizer.

It sounds like a battery to me. I don't know. May I come to the understanding that everybody has an equal right to happiness?

And then may I exchange myself and others, which doesn't mean what you think it does. And I just decided at this very moment, it's been cooking in my mind, Tim, he doesn't go to Shantideva. He doesn't do the classic MNYAM BYAS.

So we better, slight detour to get the correct details. All right, but that's another story for later in the week. BDAG GZHAN MNYAM BYAS So please bless me.

Once I figured out the difference between a two-year-old and a being who sees every object in the universe, therefore I should do BDAG GZHAN MNYAM BYAS. That's weird, right? Got it?

Because I understand the difference between a two-year-old who just focuses on what they want, and two-year-olds do, by the way, except Maitri who always feeds people. Bless me to see the difference between these two people, therefore let me exchange myself and others. What's the logic there?

Why does one follow from the other? That's something you have to think about. Okay, last verse.

RANG NYID CHEN ZIN GOS PA KUN GYI MGOD This is a very, very famous summary from the Lama Chodpa of these ideas. Here's the most famous verse summarizing these ideas. RANG NYID CHEN ZIN GOS PA KUN GYI MGOD Taking care of myself first was the door to every problem I ever had in my whole life.

Every problem I've ever had in my whole life, sooner or later, it can be traced back to trying to take care of myself first. What's the next verse going to say? Yeah, the opposite.

MA RNAMS CHEN ZIN YON DANG KUN GYI ZHI Taking care of others is the foundation of all good qualities. By the way, he's making a pun, Buddhist pun here. He's writing in the 1600s, I think.

First Tantric Lama. And he says YON DANG KUN GYI ZHI A YA, source of all my good. He says the source of all my good is thinking of my mother's birth.

And he's making a pun because that's that famous poem by Je Tsongkapa. We're working on a new version of that book, by the way. That was called Preparing for Tantra.

I think we're going to change it to Door to the Diamond Way or something like that. DE PHYIR BDAG GZHAN BYAS BA'I MNYAMS SBYOR LA MNYAMS LA SNYING POR BYAS PAR CING GIS BLOG Therefore, let me study yoga. MNYAMS SBYOR here is yoga.

It's the Tibetan word for yoga. SBYOR is obvious because that means to join, like YUJ, the Sanskrit root YUJ, which means to join oxens on a yoke or yoga practice. But here he says, SNAL SBYOR is the Tibetan translation of yoga, the Sanskrit word yoga.

SBYOR is easy. It means to connect. But SNAL means accurately.

So the word for yoga in Tibetan is accurate practice. Accurate application of myself to my practice. How's that?

That's the Tibetan word for yoga. What's the yoga here? BDAG GZHAN BYAS Exchanging myself and others.

So what did he leave out there? MNYAMS We finished with the equal thing. Let's go to the BDAG GZHAN MNYAMS PA.

Sorry, BYAS BA. By the way, you can say BDAG GZHAN MNYAMS BYAS is BDAG GZHAN MNYAMS PA and BDAG GZHAN BYAS BA. It's two different practices.

BDAG GZHAN MNYAMS BYAS is two different practices. BDAG GZHAN MNYAMS PA and BDAG GZHAN BYAS BA. Recognize equal right to happiness and then exchange what I want with others, what others want.

Two different practices. You can't do the BYAS BA without the MNYAMS PA. You can't exchange yourself and others without recognizing that they have rights also.

MNYAMS LA SNYING PO'I BYAS PA CING GI LO Please bless me to make this. MNYAMS LA SNYING PO Please bless me to be smart enough to make this my main practice. It's a very beautiful line.

The last line is very beautiful. Please bless me to be smart enough spiritually to make it my main practice to take care of what other people want. By the way, just as a way of life, it's very, very satisfying.

It's very, very enjoyable. When you get good at it, just watching what other people want, what other people need, it's a very sweet life. It's a very, very cool, nice way to live.

You feel good all day long. It's a great, it's no sacrifice. It's a pleasure.

All right. Next picture, you guys got pictures for me? Yeah, I was trying to find a picture of exchanging and that's the best I could come up with.

I don't know. You could read something into this square. I don't know.

Okay. This is a Tibetan word called, GO SAB PO BA Say GO SAB. GO SAB PO BA GO SAB GO SAB PO BA GO SAB means the position that you occupy.

So in an election, GO SAB means a position, like a political position, like a presidency or to be a senator or something. It's a GO SAB. That's the classic meaning of GO SAB.

But GO SAB PO BA, PO BA means, you know PO BA, like CI PO BA, die and move on. PO BA, move on to your next life. Here it means switch you and the other person.

Switch positions. How's that? Exchange positions.

And the exchange is very important in this section of the Lam Rim. Learn to exchange positions. He's going to say in the next paragraph, it's like for the first time, if you go up to the dome here, it's a beautiful walk by the way.

Go from the Lama house up to the dome and see if you can catch Tim in his underwear or something. But no, I mean, I never look in the window. I just go up to the dome and there's a sweet balcony there.

You can oversee the whole valley. And you can see across, about the same elevation, is the little tiny cabin up on the end here, up way high. I don't know if you've ever been in there.

It's got a compost toilet that's very similar to a Volkswagen. Like to get on top of it, you got to do yoga. I lived there.

I mean, they built it for me and I stayed there one night and I've never been back. But they're on the same elevation. And it's one thing to go up on the dome and look at that little cabin straight across and then the retreat valley is like that.

But then if you climb down from the dome and walk down and then climb up to the little cabin and forget these numbers. I hate these numbers. Like they say, where are you staying?

Cabin 13. I'm like, last week that was cabin 8 and in my time it was cabin 4. And I'm like, I get, anyway, climb up there and look at the dome.

You see what I mean? And that's what he says, if you want to know what BDAG GZHAN YAMS CAD feels like, go up to the dome, stand there, enjoy the view and then go down, walk across the valley, walk up to this other mountain at the same height and look back at the dome and that's what BDAG GZHAN YAMS CAD feels like. That's what exchanging yourself with others feels like.

He says, if you want the feeling of it, do it a couple of times. Pick two mountains, not too high, and go walk to the other one and look back at the first one and you get the feeling that that's how it's supposed to feel when you do BDAG GZHAN YAMS CAD. So you're looking back at yourself.

And we'll talk more about it. It's a little bit weird. SKYEN YONG DANG BA'I SGO NAS RANG BYAS PA RTZAD MI LO NANG ZHES NYONG DOR LO NI, GOS SA PO BA BDAG GZHAN YAMS CAD Exchanging self and others doesn't refer to you pretend to be Geshe Michael or something like that.

It doesn't mean that. He makes a point about it. He says, it doesn't mean you try to pretend to be Geshe Michael.

It doesn't mean that. But what you have to exchange is the feeling of who you're supposed to take care of. You're not exchanging yourself and others.

You're exchanging the feeling of who you're supposed to take care of with the old feeling of who you're supposed to take care of. Got it? You're not supposed to switch out your hair for my hair because you don't want to do that.

What you want to do is switch out your feeling about who you should be taking care of. That's all. It doesn't mean you try to pretend to look like Geshe Michael or something like that.

It means you switch out your feeling of who you should take, who's priority, who gets priority when you're deciding who to take care of. You switch the priorities. You don't switch the people.

All right, DGOS SA PO'I DAG GZHAN, DE YANG GZHAN DAG DANG DAG GZHAN DU BSAM PA MEN means I'm not saying you should pretend to be Rob and Rob pretends to be you. I'm not saying that. SNGA RANG CHOS PAR GSUM PA'I GSUNG NAS GZHAN YANG BAR DO BA YIN PA LA In the old days, you used to try to focus on what you wanted and then you kind of paid attention to what other people wanted, but it was secondary.

So it's not like you ignored people completely, but it was secondary. It was a good thing to do after you took care of yourself. He says, now you have to switch that attitude out.

BDAG DE NYID DGOS SANG SDOGS means flip it. DGOS SANGS SDOGS means flip it. RANG CHOS PAR GSUM PA'I GZHAN LA PO BA What you want to exchange is who you're taking care of first.

That's exchanging self and others. It's exchanging attitudes and not exchanging identities. Cool?

You're not supposed to look like Geshe Michael. You don't want to look like Geshe Michael. All right.

SNGON BYAS GZHAN YANG BAR DO BA THOR BAR LTAR DAG CHEN BYAS RANG YANG BAR DO BA Now he says something difficult, and I want you to think about it today, in your retreat, while you're doing retreat. While you're in your cabin, off your phone. Give your phone a rest.

You don't need a rest from the internet. Your phone needs a rest from the internet. So respect your phone.

Before you respect yourself, take care of your phone. He's tired. He's exchanging electrons relentlessly.

Average 7.5 hours a day. Give him a, let him take a rest. BAR DO, SNGON BYAS RANG CHOS PAR GSUM PA'I GZHAN YANG BAR DO BA Try, this is a hard instruction.

Okay, listen and tell me what you think. And I'm open to, I'm not sure about this line. I'm not sure if I accept it.

Tell me what you think. Or tell me how you think we should read it. You ready?

Jack. He says, in days gone by, I would take care of myself first. And if others had to slide, I let it happen.

Like I took care of myself for sure, first. And then second, I would take care of other people. But if I didn't really have time to take care of them as well as I took care of myself, it was okay.

If, what do you call that? If their needs kind of slided, if I didn't quite get done what they needed done, I was okay. As long as I got done what I needed done, then it's not like I ignored them completely.

Like I was worried about other people's welfare. But if it wasn't done with quite the enthusiasm that my own welfare was done with, then it's always okay. Okay, got it?

That's called YANG BAR GNOD BA. He says, now I want you to do that to yourself. So by the time you sleep, at the end of the day, I want you to make sure that what other people needed got done and what you needed maybe didn't get done.

Tim says I should slow down for the translators. You know if the translators just could learn to read my mind and translate it before I said it, maybe you could work towards that. Okay, no, I'm kidding.

So I'm not sure I buy this. I'll say it again. And then I want to hear your opinion.

Okay, ready? He says, in the past, by the end of the day, you took care of the most important stuff for you. And then oftentimes that didn't leave enough time to take care of what other people needed as well as what you needed.

Or to finish them as completely as you did what you needed. Now he says, now he has a proposal. Let your own stuff slide.

And by the end of the day, make sure you have taken care of what other people need. And I'm not sure I buy it. What do you think?

Anjali? Talk loud. Don't do this, let other people slide.

You have to talk. Go ahead. Talk loud.

[Говорящий 2]
You've taught us in the past that, way back, that if you're going to be a good mother to children, you have to take care of mom. Mom has to take care of mom a little bit in order to be able to take care of the kids. So I don't know.

I like that feeling about that. It's important. Otherwise, if mother slides, then they can't take care of everyone, or the kids, I guess.

[Говорящий 1]
That's kind of what I feel. But anybody else? Cherie, did you have something?

I think Cherie had something. Go ahead, don't do this yourself another thing. I was going to say, it might be that by taking care of everyone else throughout the day, when you come to the end of the day, you may find that your own needs have already been taken care of.

Say the last part again.

[Говорящий 2]
By the time you get to the end of the day, after taking care of everyone, you may find that what you need is already taken care of in the process.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, I'll buy that one. Tim had one. You need a box.

Because you said yesterday, you talked about the 50-50, where we don't necessarily, we do want to pay attention to our own needs as well, while we're paying attention to others. But I think here, he's saying, because we've had such a terrible habit of taking care of ourselves, maybe swinging to the other side first would be a good practice to then be able to come back to the middle. Yeah, I also, I was thinking that yesterday.

We have to overcompensate because we've been biased towards ourselves for so long that what feels like overcompensation is probably halfway. Yeah, I like that one too. Anybody else?

I just wanted to comment on that.

[Говорящий 2]
I've seen students who seem to swing drastically to caring for others, and then what happens is they have a breakdown, and they can no longer care for others. So there's got to be this, I think the 50-50 balance, there's got to be a balance in there.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, yeah, I like that, yeah. Rebecca had one.

[Говорящий 2]
Well, I was just thinking about what you said yesterday about having the ability to bend time and space. So ultimately, you have to be able to do both, I think.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, okay. Joe, please. I'd say do it for a couple of months and see how it turns out.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Other people need to plant seeds, and we need to be there so that someone can plant their caring seeds in us. So this way, we help other people, and if we do it all ourselves, if we plan our life ourselves, take care of ourselves, we don't leave space for others to take care of us, so we don't help them.

Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, that's good.

[Говорящий 2]
Because until now, I have not seen the direct perception of the emptiness. This means that I still have the fact of bodhisattva, and I think I must thank myself until I see the emptiness directly, because that is the time I got the true bodhisattva, and that is the time I can jump into all the worlds and love them ultimately. And that is why I must take care of myself until I become a Buddha, because when I was a Buddha, all my worlds can enjoy the projection of a Buddha paradise.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Yeah. I was in a position last night to make the choice of take care of somebody else or take care of my needs to finish the day.

And I realized, oh my God, what a wonderful opportunity to learn how to manage these choices a little differently so that I can help both them and myself. I was moving furniture, it was late. My friend needed tax advice on the phone.

So I said, while you are looking for the tax line, you have the question on, I'm gonna push this heavy thing. That's on that pencil. And then I'll push the cabinet while you're looking for the tax line.

Tell me when you find it. I'll stop pushing the chest and answer the question. So it was a wonderful opportunity to figure out different management approaches to taking care of both of us at the end of the day.

Okay. Aniili laughed. Good.

You're kind of doing both, right?

[Говорящий 2]
On the point that Venerable Gyalse said about balance, when you want to do something for yourself, first do something for somebody else, 50-50. Before you do something, you do something for another person.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, cool. That's cool. One last thing.

So my proposal, okay, and just something, I was teaching in Japan at our new university. There's an MBA program, so we were having some of the first classes. And they asked me to teach in a, there's a course called Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

And so I was supposed to teach one of those classes along with a Western professor. And it's a sweet university because I have to teach classes with Western professors. And it's actually working out really cool because they come with their big, thick book about innovation and some of them have never been in business.

You know what I mean? So anyway, but it forced me to think about innovation. And then I chose some of the innovations I made in the diamond business.

And one of the reasons we succeeded among, I think there's 10,000 diamond companies. The reason we were number one, I think was that we had all these innovations. We had very weird innovations, some of which are still secret, of how to process diamonds and how to make jewelry.

And I was thinking about those innovations and they were all done during retreat. All of them. And ACLL started in one of those retreats.

So the innovations in my life, which made the company the largest in the world for diamond jewelry. And Warren Buffett bought it in 2009. What made those innovations was certain kinds of retreats done here and other places at Diamond Mountain.

So we were talking, Tim and I were talking about, in Sanam La, about doing an innovation retreat here maybe. Of training people to be innovative through retreat. How to use retreat time to be innovative even just in your business life.

But you could also use it for your family challenges. So I think this idea of when you have a problem or when you have a challenge, to solve it by going into retreat. It's kind of cool.

And I've been watching this Christian TV show, The Chosen, right? That seems to be what Jesus did whenever he had a big challenge. He'd tell all his disciples, he'd say, go away.

I love it. They'd say, where are you going? He says, you don't need to know.

And he says, I'll be back. And they say, where? And he says, you don't need to know.

They're saying like, what city are you going to come back to? He says, you don't need to know. You'll find out.

So his reaction to a problem is to go into a retreat. And then to think of some innovative solution in retreat. And I think to have like a course where you teach people how to be innovative by doing retreat, how to do an innovation retreat, I think it'd be something that we're going to try out here.

So we'll let you know more. Why am I saying that? Why am I saying that?

You tell me. Why am I saying that? Yeah, be innovative in pleasing both yourself and others.

Find super innovative solutions to get everything you want done and take care of everyone else what they need done at the same time. And to me, that's one of the greatest skills you can learn in a human life. And I'm saying it from age 70, right?

It's a wonderful skill to have, to find solutions to other people's needs and your needs, to find these grand solutions that give the other people exactly what they need and they give you exactly what you need at the same time. And in my opinion, if you can learn that skill, your whole life is really fun, extremely fun to learn that skill, that kind of innovation where you'd make a decision that getting other people what they need is now priority. Getting other people what they need is now priority in my life.

But it's also important for me to get some stuff that I want. And it's a lot more fun to come up with solutions that make both happen at the same time. And I think you can learn to do that.

I think you can be trained to do that. And I think it'd be fun to have a retreat based, just to have a special retreat of, I would call it an innovation retreat or something, or a creativity retreat. And I think it would be a beautiful skill to teach people.

So we're talking with Diamond Mountain and ACI to do it here, some kind of innovation retreat. Like how to be innovative about how you satisfy what you want and what everyone else wants at the same time. In some kind of grand solution that gives both parties more than they wanted.

They asked me to teach a different course there, which is negotiation. And it's a similar skill. A real successful business negotiator comes up with solutions that favor both parties.

And they create advantages for both parties. And that's real negotiation. Somebody wrote a book in United States called The Art of the Deal or something like that.

The whole premise was that you should get what you want and they shouldn't get what they want. And to me, that's the most idiotic thing I ever heard of. Real negotiation should be mutual.

What do you call it? Both parties get more than what they expected when they got into the deal. Both parties should get much more than they wanted when they started negotiating.

That's a negotiation. So I was thinking we could do business retreats here and it'd be fun. Because it's all, we're writing new books on these subjects for the university.

I'm writing new books for the university for these topics. I think it'd be fun for ACI and Diamond Mountain to have retreats just with that theme. Like negotiation or how to get both parties more than what they wanted.

Like that. I think it'd be cool. Innovation.

To be innovative, truly innovative. And in my business life, why that company, we went from three people to 10,000 people. We doubled every 18 months for 19 years.

We hired equals, if we have 500 staff, we hire 500 staff within six months. It's incredible. And I think it was the retreats.

It was the retreats that did it. So I think, I don't know, DAG GZHAN YIM BRAS retreat, something like that. Mutual benefit negotiation training retreat.

All right. DER DAG BSGOM NA JI NUS PA'I DBANG STE If you get used to it, he says, you can learn to do the exchange, right? If you get used to it.

DER NA, PHAR RIGS LA BSDOD PA NA TSUL RIGS RDOG PA'I BLO BYUNG BA LTA BU YIN GSUNG For example, if you go stand on one mountain and then run over to the other mountain and look back at the mountain you are standing on. I'm going too fast, too, I'm sorry. That's where he says, he gives the mountain suggestion.

All right. We got five minutes. My teacher taught me never to waste five minutes.

SNGA PA, what's SNGA PA? What is five? SDONG LEN, he says, let's go to SDONG LEN.

We have five minutes. I'm going to start Shantideva's version of Daksin Yamje, okay? And it's not in the Lam Rim, and I don't care.

But here it is. Maybe I can finish it. And then I want you to try it today in your meditations.

And this is how it... No, it's too much to tell you. I'll tell you the first part today and I'll tell you the rest tomorrow.

So if it's me, I would start with someone on your own level, like at work. So someone who's a colleague. Not your boss and not your employee.

Someone who's on the same level as you. So it's a co-worker or a colleague in your... Whatever your job is, it's your colleague.

They are not your superior and they don't report to you. They are your colleague. They're equal to you.

And then being colleagues in an organization implies the possibility for jealousy or competitiveness. It's human nature. When you're at the same level as another person, there's a tendency towards competitiveness.

Which then implies, and here's the nasty part, when you start with competitiveness, where you go to is the wish that the other person should fail. And jealousy or competitiveness involves the desire that the other person should fail. If you're competing with your colleague at work to see who can make the most sales for the month and they suddenly break their leg and can't sell anything for a couple of weeks, there's this kind of sick pleasure.

There's this kind of sick feeling that, oh gee, I'm so sorry you broke your leg. Okay, so competitiveness between equals. That's the natural state of people.

Now here's what's the real exchange of self and others. Here's the real one. Ready?

Yes, you put yourself in their shoes. That part's correct. That you do.

The first part of this practice, the first half of this practice is what you think it is when you hear exchange self and others. Yes, you do put yourself in their shoes. Okay, so that part, what you always thought was exchanging self and others, that part is correct.

The first half is correct. You do put yourself, in English, in American English, we say put yourself in the other person's shoes. It means think of how they feel.

Okay, and that's only the first half of exchanging self and others. Okay, got it? Can anybody guess what the second half is?

And that's what we haven't, that's what he doesn't talk about in the Lam Rim. Yeah.

[Говорящий 2]
Look at yourself then.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, good. Yeah, exactly. And that's what he doesn't make clear in the Lam Rim.

Shantideva says it's not enough to try to think how they're feeling. It's not enough. He says, put yourself in their shoes and look back at yourself and see how it feels when someone else is praying that you will break your leg and not make the sales this month.

See how bad that feels. And it's a very depressing meditation. If you don't get depressed from exchanging self and others, you're not doing it right.

It's to look back at you. That's the important part. Shantideva says it's not enough to just try to imagine how Kat's feeling right now.

Probably her bottom's sore. Maybe you should end on time Geshe-la. That's not enough.

You have to sit in Kat's body, look through Kat's eyes at Geshe-michael bombasting on past the end time when everyone's butt is sore. Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he see how we feel?

What's wrong with him? And that's where you're supposed to go with DAKSHA NYAMS RGYAS. That's traditional.

And now I'm going to give you homework. Shantideva takes it one more step. A, exchange yourself and others.

Yes, okay. Try to understand Kat's bottom might be sore right now. Step two, look back at yourself through Kat's eyes and see how she feels about you when you're abusing the time.

And then here's the one I want you to work on and I'd like to hear your results tomorrow. Okay, got it? Here's your assignment.

Do it for three levels. Do it for three levels. Exchange with someone who's higher than you in authority.

Like Sunim. Like the boss of Diamond Mountain. Like, exchange yourself with the boss and then exchange yourself with someone who's at your own level and then exchange yourself with, yeah, someone who's working for you on the food chain.

They report to you. If you don't have anybody reporting to you, there's lots of, what do you call them? Foxes, javelinas.

How does it feel to work for you? Okay, that's a great one. If you're a boss of anybody, how does it feel to work for you?

And how does it feel to look at Geshe Michael when you look for Geshe, when you work for Geshe Michael? What do they think when they look at you? And that's the real Shantidevian thing, okay?

Exchange yourself and others at three levels and see how it feels. And I want to know tomorrow what you come up with, okay? What you come up with.

What are the main emotional themes of working for you? Okay? What are the main emotional themes of being your colleague?

And what are the main emotional themes of being your boss? Okay? How does it feel?

Okay, cool? Tomorrow, that's your homework. That's your meditation homework.

I suggest you do it on different meditations. Don't try to do all three in one sitting. Do three sittings, okay?

So for three sittings, I don't care how long, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, okay? Three sittings before tomorrow. Somebody who's your boss, somebody who's your colleague, and someone who works for you.

Okay, got it? Cool. All right, Timothy.

Anything, any announcements? Don't forget your free eBooks. And if you get excited about the free ones, maybe you want to buy some of the better ones.

Just kidding.