«Дар освобождения», курс 42 «Сила мечты», занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
Welcome everybody. Thank you for coming. I know it's probably expensive for everybody, but I think it's a beautiful city.

It's one of my favorite cities in the world. I like to have a nice place to teach. I don't care about my house or my money or things like that, but I like a nice place to teach.

Thank you Tim and everyone for arranging it. The Three Jewels was a really, really difficult thing. We wanted to start a center in New York.

I remember the day we started looking for the place. It was a very bad winter day and it was blowing very cold. It was like December or January.

In those days, very difficult to find any place to rent in New York City. It was very, very crowded and very expensive. Me and Anupama, we walked through the city.

Lower east side? Lower west side. East side.

We walked and walked and walked. It was so cold and it was so depressing. We couldn't find anything.

Couldn't find any place to rent. Finally, we reached this place. It was a clothing store before.

Very small and it had three stories. There was a very bad fire and it was all burned out. We called the landlord.

We said, we'll take it. He's like, what? We said, we'll take it.

How much do you want? He said, you can't use it. It's worthless.

We said, we'll fix it. Then you give us rent free for a few months and we'll fix it. You remember Andy Graves?

Yeah. We had a carpenter who worked, who was a student. We fixed it.

It took us, I don't know, six months. We had to tear out all the burnt wood and all the bricks. Then I asked Lama Palma, will you be the director?

She took the apartment above the store. Below the store, there was a boiler room. We call it boiler room.

It's where the heater is. It's the old kind of heater. It's very, very dirty.

Like oil and coal and like that. In fact, the city came and closed it because they said it also has asbestos problem. You know, it's cancer.

We tore out all the asbestos and we made an office down there. If you know Pun Tso, who still works for Nancy Karen, he used to grade everybody's homework down next to the boiler. I used to sneak down there and sleep under his desk, on the floor, because I couldn't find any place where people let me rest.

That's still true. I hide under his desk and I sleep on the floor under his desk. It was nice.

That's how Three Jewels started and it was really hard to start it. Recently, I was in New York and I checked Yelp for a yoga center and it's number one in New York. In all of New York, it's number one.

It's the number one yoga center in New York. Then I always wanted to have a bookstore ever since I was a little kid. I bought Shakespeare.

I bought the classics, Dante. I put all these great books in there. I gave her...

Then I had to go back to the diamond business and I was really busy for like two months. I came back and all the books are gone. I'm like, Plummer, where's the books?

She said, people stole them. The homeless people stole them. I said, well, why the homeless people in here?

She said, I invited all of them to stay here in the Three Jewels. They all sleep on the couch and they sleep everywhere on the chairs. Then the New York people don't even want to come in.

Then there's a guy, a veteran? Like he had one leg or something. He got a TV and he put it in the Three Jewels and he watched war movies all day, really loud.

I walk in and it's all homeless people. There's a few outside on the sidewalk selling the last books. In front of the store, they are selling the last of the books.

I'm like, what are you doing? She said, you told me to build a community center. It's a community center.

It's just homeless community center. I thought later, much later, I thought it was a great thing. That's who she was.

She was so popular in the East Village. Every homeless person is like, hi, how are you doing? Very funny.

Next door you can buy all the drugs. Really dangerous people. There's people carrying guns.

I'm like, I didn't tell him about this. She's like, they're okay. It was really cool.

Alright, she's the only person who did two three-year retreats in our home group. The only one who could do it. Alright, we're going to go back to the text.

You guys ready? YID DE'I BA ZHIG. Is there a text?

Timothy? Yeah, good. The dark letter is the LO SBYONG.

LO SBYONG means thousand years ago, written a thousand years ago. We're in the middle of LO SBYONG. LO means mind and SBYONG means to practice.

But it also has a pan because it also means to purify your mind. So, SBYONG or SBYONG means to clean something or make it pure. And LO means your mind.

So, it means to make a habit of this way of thinking. So, today we're going to describe a way of thinking. And you hold it on the inside and you keep it on the inside.

So, this is our advice from a thousand years ago, how to hold a certain state of mind all day long. And he's going to talk a lot about losing that state of mind. How do you keep it when the day is long or you're tired or things are not working well?

How do you keep that? And if you can keep it, it's called LO SBYONG. YID DE'I BA ZHIG RGYUN DU BRTEN means, YID DE means keep happy thought, keep peaceful mind.

BA ZHIG means only that, no other kinds of thought. RGYUN means in a stream, keep it in a stream all day. See if you can keep your mind in a happy place all day.

And it's very, very difficult. ZHES PA NI, SBYOR PA SOGS BYUNG BA NA, SPAL BA DANG, GSUM NAM STONG MANG PO He says a lot of us, we think that if we can collect more money and if we can collect more real estate, more houses or things like that, if we can collect more things, money and things, SOGS BYUNG BA NA, SPAL BA, when you get money and when you get a place, SPAL BA DANG GSUM BA, then you start to have extra problems. SPAL BA means you have to try to increase your money.

Once you get pretty rich, most people just want to get more rich. So they're concentrating how to multiply their money. GSUM BA means then when you get pretty good money, a second problem starts, how to protect it, keep other people from the money, protect the money from other people.

NAM STONG is a very nice Tibetan word. If you spell it with an S, R T O G S, it means realization. And if you take the S off, it means stupid worries all day.

It's very interesting. And a lot of people mistranslate it. So that's something for you guys, Rebecca.

NAM STONG without the S means stupid worries all day. How can I get more money? How can I make more money?

How can I get more things? And lots of people offer me houses, a lot. And they offer me big amounts of money.

I'm like, no, I'm okay. I have the smallest legal house in my town. And it's on a mountain.

We don't even, the road is a dirt road. And everybody's like, you don't want to make a real road? I'm like, it is a real road.

It's okay. And I don't have to protect the house. Nobody wants it.

So I don't have to worry about it. It's just there. NAM STONG MA MO YID MI DE BA MI BYED He says, don't spend your whole day worrying about your extra house, or your extra money, or your extra stock account, etc.

If you don't have those things, you don't have to worry about it. Then you can think about Dharma, or taking care of homeless people, stuff like that. MI DE BA MI BYED ME RNAM TSUL BA'I SEMS BSNGAL MED PAR And you also, if you lose your money, if you didn't care about it in the first place, you feel relaxed when you lose it.

And you're like, okay, so I lost some money. It's okay. By the way, if you can learn to live on no money, that's better than having money.

If you can learn to live without much money, then it doesn't matter you have money or not. It's a very useful skill. My wife and I both come from poor families, so we're like, we're just relaxed all the time.

We don't think about it. We don't worry about it. NGEL MED PA YOD PA DAG GIS SKYEN SANGS RANG SKYEN SANGS NGES GANG CHUNG YANG LAM DUG KHYER This is a very, very important phrase in the LAM DUG KHYER.

Okay, LAM DUG KHYER. Next line. Next one, LAM GYI KHYER.

This is a very important phrase in the Diamond Way. People asking me, oh, please teach Diamond Way, teach us Vajrayana. You want some Vajrayana?

It's here. Secret teaching should be put in the open book. And this is very famous, say LAM KHYER.

LAM KHYER. LAM means what, you guys know? Yeah, path.

The Singapore people say path. And KHYER means to carry something. KHYER means to carry something.

LAM DU KHYER means make it into a path. Make it into a path. And it means, if you're really good at LOD SBYONG, then good things happen to you.

Like you get a lot of money, you can use it as a path. You know how to use it as a path. You can use it successfully and help many people.

And then if you don't make any money, you can also use that as a path. Like a LOD SBYONG person is very flexible. If they have something, they can use it as a path.

And if they don't have it, they can use that as a path. And this is very important. In the secret teachings, this refers to death.

How to use death as a path to go higher. And it's very beautiful. You learn each stage of death process.

You learn what's going to go in your mind. And you learn to take this terrible experience and use it as a path. Right, Sugeng?

Path, use it as a path to higher goals. So this expression, it's very beautiful. And by the way, Lam Rim, what we're going to know, it includes secret teachings.

The end of the Lam Rim is Vajrayana. So it's allowed, if you study this book, at the end of the book, you can study secret teachings. I think he's going, he's kind of starting to go there.

Lam Duk Khyer. Here it says, if you lose your money or you lose your job or something like that, then LOD SBYONG means automatically think, hmm, how can I use this? How can I use this to do something good?

That's Lam Duk Khyer. How can I use this? That attitude is Lam Duk Khyer.

And for a real Buddhist, it's a beautiful, beautiful ability. And you have to try to develop it. If anything happens to you, good thing, you don't go crazy.

And then any terrible thing happen to you, you don't go crazy. You say, oh, hmm, how can I use this? How can I use this to develop myself?

And in the secret teachings, if you want to practice some secret Buddhism, you have to think the Buddha sent this to you. The Buddha sent you a good stock. The stock market went up in your stock.

And suddenly you got rich. And then you say, oh, Buddha sent me money today. How can I use that?

What am I supposed to do? Why did Buddha send me money today? What am I supposed to use this money for?

That's called good side, right? Then bad side, if your stock disaster and you lose all your money. My grandmother left me blue chip stock.

My family is a Chevrolet family. My family, family, family, family helped found Chevrolet company. When she died, she left us, we call blue chip stock.

It's the best of the best of the best. It's a GMC. I think the next year it went bankrupt.

But for the first time in 100 years or something, it just suddenly, you know, I took the paper to the stock broker and he said, you can use it for toilet paper or something. You know, otherwise it's just thrown away. It's no, you can't use it for anything.

So in this tradition, lojong, you think Buddha sent you a present. Buddha made stock market disaster today or Buddha made the stock market spike, go up suddenly. And then you try to figure out what's the message.

What's the message? Buddha is sending me a message. Hmm, maybe I'm supposed to help ACI.

You know, maybe I'm supposed to save Tim's salary problem with all his stuff. You know, or like that, you have to, or you lose all your money. And then you have to think, why did Buddha, why did Buddha make me lose all my money?

And then everything is like that. A real, real lojong person is paranoid. They're like, everywhere there's Buddha.

You know, trying to tell you something. And I meet people like that. And my friends say, oh, this lady is cuckoo, you know?

Don't talk to her. I'm like, no, maybe that's the best one. They say, Buddha sent me a message.

I say, yeah, what's the message? And it's good, it's a healthy, healthy crazy. Okay, we call it lojong.

Everything has a purpose. Everything, after you sit in this class today, you have to be good crazy. Good crazy?

Good crazy means everything is a message from Buddha. Everything, okay? I don't know.

You go to an inexpensive hotel, the toilet paper is very, very thin. You know what I mean? And you're like, what's the message?

Then you know you're a real lojong person. You don't complain to the hotel. Must be some message, you know?

And that kind of thinking is very healthy. That's tantric thinking, if you want Vajrayana. And you meet people who seem irritating.

They're like, Geshe-la has a message. I'm like, stop with the message. I'm tired of all these messages.

But actually, they're right. Actually, it's a good state of mind. That's what lam-tu-kyur means, yi de chok she.

Yi de means whatever happens, it's a message and be relaxed. And think, well, that's okay. That's a good message.

I wonder what I'm supposed to do with that. So take everything as a personal message from Buddha. Everything.

Everything that happens. And just relax. Oh, Buddha, I don't know.

Buddha broke the washing machine. I can't wash my underwear today. Okay, it's a message.

And relax and enjoy the messages. Okay? That's real lojong.

DE BZHIN DU LTOS MED SOGS CHOS RGYAS BSGOM YONGS PA BYAS This is called JIG RTEN CHOS RGYAS. Say, JIG RTEN CHOS RGYAS. JIG RTEN CHOS RGYAS.

JIG RTEN means world in a derogatory sense. The world, you know, the normal world. Everyday world.

Meaning normal people. Eat poop and die. Eat poop and die.

Eat poopoo and die. It's called JIG RTEN. In Sanskrit, it's LOKA.

The world. And JIG RTEN, CHOS means dharma, right? CHOS means dharma.

But here, it doesn't mean dharma. It means quality. RGYAS means eight, number eight.

So these are very, very famous list of eight bad attitudes. And they come from, you can find them in the early Lojong Sigyema, the eight verse Lojong. But they come from earlier, from Nagarjuna.

And you can find them, I put them here from Nagarjuna. Actually, I just added it today. Sorry.

I'm going to read it to you from Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna's version. It's found in the letter to a key.

And Nagarjuna wrote a letter to a key. Two letters to a key. Okay.

This is from one of those letters. JIG RTEN KHYEN PA NYE DANG MA NYE DANG DE DAG MI DE NYEN DANG MI NYEN DANG LTOS MED CHOS KYIS JIG RTEN ZHIG RGYUD PO Here are the eight worldly attitudes. And by the way, it starts out with JIG RTEN KHYEN PA, which means master of the world.

And he's referring to the king. Like, it's kind of an insult. Get it?

Master of the world. It means you don't know anything about Dharma. Or you're a master of the world.

You know politics. You know economy. JIG RTEN KHYEN PA NYE DANG MA NYE NYE means you get some money.

MA NYE means you lose money. If you worry too much, if you get too excited when you get a lot of money, that's NYE. And if you get too sad when you lose your money, that's MA NYE.

NYE and MA NYE. Those are two that appear. They go together.

And normally it's the same brain. The kind of brain that's too happy about money will also get too sad about losing money. So they go together.

That kind of thinking goes together. Oh, I'm so rich. I got so much money.

Then, oh, I'm so sad. I'm going to kill myself. I lost all my money.

They're the same state of mind. There's the worldly state of mind and there's the deeper state of mind. Worldly state of mind, happy, so happy when you get some money and so sad when you lose money, but they're the same state of mind.

It's the same thing. And we try to not do that. We try GONG YOM.

He said GONG YOM at the beginning. GONG YOM means flatten it out. Make it level.

It means don't get too excited when you get some money and don't get so depressed when you lose some money. Just like, hey, you got a lot of money. Yeah, okay.

I'll donate to Tim. Hey, you lost all your money. That's okay.

I'll ask Tim for a loan. You know? It's like, okay.

You know, it's okay. He'll give you, by the way. That's why he doesn't have money.

DE DA MI DE means if you feel, things are very nice, you know, and you're in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Shenzhen, 75th floor. Oh my God. They put me there last week.

It's like heaven, you know? I was thinking to sell my house and move to the Mandarin Oriental. So, you're in this luxury room, DE.

I think it's the best hotel in the world. And I spent many years in hotels, you know? DE DA MI DE, and by the way, thank you for doing that.

We had beautiful classes in the most beautiful hotel, which is appropriate, which is a good thing. So, DE DA MI DE. MI DE means, I don't know, everything goes wrong.

You have to sleep at the airport on the floor. It happens to everybody, right? Doesn't matter your business class.

If they cancel the flight, you end up sleeping. Did you ever do it, Mr. Bing? Sleep on the floor in the airport?

That's why you get soft luggage, because sometimes you have to sleep on it. Some airport, it's dangerous not to sleep on your luggage. So, I'm just telling you guys suggestions.

So, DE MI DE means don't get all excited if you're in some beautiful place. And don't get all depressed if you're in some wealthy place. Somebody's going to put you in Mandarin Oriental tomorrow.

Don't worry about it, okay? Just relax, relax. Whatever happens, just relax.

And that's wealthy. Understand, that's rich. The person who can relax, whatever going on around them, they are wealthy, super wealthy.

They have money, they don't have money. They have a nice bed, they don't have a nice bed. But the mind is, we call GON YONG.

GON YONG means the flow of the mind is undisturbed. That's a real rich person. That's a super rich person.

And nobody can take it away from you. You have it for the rest of your life. DE MED means, well, NYAN DANG MI NYAN.

NYAN DANG MI NYAN means you are famous or nobody heard of you. You are very famous or no one heard of you. And don't get all excited.

Your last Instagram post made 10 million people. And then the next day all the trolls are saying bad things about you. Online, right?

Like some days you wake up, you're famous for a half hour. And then some days you wake up and you're a demon for a half hour. Or two hours.

And I just think, okay, that's all right. Don't worry about it. As Andy Warhol said, everybody will be famous for 10 minutes in your life.

So don't get excited. And as soon as you get famous, you get unfamous. Trust me.

It takes about 10 minutes. So don't get all excited. Oh, everyone says I'm a great teacher.

Then next day everyone say you're stupid. Then a real great teacher is like, oh, I'm a great teacher, okay. Or you're stupid.

Yeah, okay, I'm stupid. And you just feel happy all the time. That's GONG YONG.

GONG YONG means people are excited about you or people are criticizing you. We had a, we were in the car with Seiji two days ago from the airport in Osaka. And he's like, Geshe-la, we just lost a big, big sponsor.

Big, big sponsor. I'm like, okay. And then we went another half an hour and he said, looks like the sponsor coming back.

And I'm like, okay. Then when we reached the hotel he said, no, they quit, definitely. Then I'm like, okay.

Then I didn't, my mind didn't go like this. My mind's like, okay, it's all right. We'll survive.

We'll survive. It's okay. Something else will happen.

So that's NYAN DANG MI NYAN. That's the third set of two. If you get famous or you don't get famous, it's like, ah, that's okay.

By the way, it doesn't mean that if you're doing something naughty, you shouldn't feel bad. If you're doing something naughty, you should feel bad, okay? But if you're not, and everyone says you are, then you can just relax.

All right. Then LTOS MED. LTOS MED means people praise you.

Oh, you're so smart. Or people tell you you're stupid or something like that. And you're just like, okay, that's all right.

I know I'm a genius. You just didn't figure it out yet. Okay, no.

It's so, trust me, I have been famous many times and I had many people criticize me. And it doesn't, in the end, it doesn't matter. You are who you are.

And be a good person inside. And don't worry what other people say. Just be famous to yourself.

And that's enough. And then don't think so much about what, life is extremely short. If you don't think about what people say and you don't think about money and you don't worry about it, you save so much time.

Then your mind is available to read the great books or something like that. Then you have time to read John Brady's whole database. If you're not worrying about other people, what they say about you, just let it go.

You don't have room in your mind. You don't have room. To get very happy that people are, you're getting famous?

And think about it all the time? Or someone criticize you and you think about it all the time? That time you cannot use to learn more wisdom.

That time you cannot learn more wisdom. Your mind is booked. Your thought time is booked.

And I've worked very hard my whole life to take that time back. People say, oh, you're so wonderful. I'm like, yeah, okay.

Let's read something. And then people say, you're really stupid. I'm like, yeah, okay.

And I just, don't worry about it. And focus on wisdom. Focus on improving yourself.

And then your whole life is fun. My whole day is fun. The whole day is fun.

I mean, 99% of my life is really fun. Yeah, I'm just having fun all the time. I don't care if things are going well or things aren't going well.

I'm just having fun, okay? And that's mojo. That's mojo.

All right. I was supposed to give you a chance to get rich so you'll be happy, right? So Tim, Ivan, I'm going to call him Ivan.

Ivan, you're supposed to look at pictures. Rob, who's got the money, honey? You got the money?

I'm paying this one. I think I have enough. Yeah.

Okay. Anytime I get some money, I have to get rid of it quickly. We were going to have idim contest today, right?

You're supposed to guess. Tim, you want to come? Tim, you want to sit up here and help me?

Giving away money is fun. Yeah. There's one, two people I can't stand.

One is in Taiwan, Max Wu. And one is in Arizona called Word Smith. They take all my money.

Always answer the correct answer. Word has a new baby. And he also inherited two girls, so he has three girls.

Plus he has his wife, who's a four-girl. I don't know. I feel like I'm paying for college scholarships.

You know? You ready? You got pictures for me?

Who's going to show the pictures? Oh, I'll give you pictures. Hang on.

I'll give you. Yeah. Raise your hand.

Tim's going to... Oh, wait, $100 a picture, okay? Do you know, Annie, the custom...

Yeah. If he gives the wrong answer, you have to pay us $100. Just kidding.

[Говорящий 2]
Ready for the death.

[Говорящий 1]
Let me see if that's what it is. Do you remember? Yeah, but I'm just...

Oh, Chen, I'll give it to you. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, $100.

Thank you. Either take refuge in the Three Jewels as you die, or... What did she do?

Try to remember your Dharma as you die. By the way, it's the worst moment in your life. I guarantee you, it's the worst moment in your life.

And it's very hard to remember your training. And we have to practice. My teacher said, practice when you fall asleep.

Every night, practice dying a little death every night. Can you make a prayer for all people while you fall asleep? Then when you fall to the big sleep, it comes automatically.

That's the real meaning of picture, $100. Yay, okay, next one. Oh.

[Говорящий 2]
Your karma will push you into the Buddha's path. Sentient, isn't it?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, that sounds right.

[Говорящий 2]
Your karma will push you into the Buddha's path.

[Говорящий 1]
Mr. Bin, translate?

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, it's good. Play the music. Your karma will bring you to the Buddha's paradise.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, instead of what?

[Говорящий 2]
Instead of bringing you down a step.

[Говорящий 1]
Instead of bringing you to the lower realms. Yay, $100. It means, if you pray to go to the lower realms to help people after you die, if you pray to go to the lower realms to help people, it will take you up.

That prayer will take you up. you will end up on a beach with the most beautiful being in the universe. Do you understand?

Okay, next. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Geshe-la.

She took notes. It's a very good idea, very financial good idea.

[Говорящий 2]
Geshe-la will translate. So, Rico says there's someone who is jumping into the river trying to rescue the other person and the action of doing that, like there is a rainbow strike on her or him directly that sends her to the heaven directly.

[Говорящий 1]
Nice, okay, good. Actually, the boat was too heavy and the boat is sinking and they jump off to save the other people, to help the other people. Okay, good.

Next one. This is a little bit naughty.

[Говорящий 2]
Don't just think about the fart, fart sound because that's just natural and when you do yoga, you will burp, you will fart and that's all natural.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, not bad. I'm not saying I'd give a hundred dollars for every fart. I'm not saying that.

But what was the context?

[Говорящий 2]
The context is when we die, some people think we could just by saying fart, fart and one kind of secret or weird sound and then we could go to the heaven.

[Говорящий 1]
It means when you die, your body will make some strange noises. And don't, it's not special. It's just prana, just prana going here and there.

It's like you ate beans or something. It's not a big thing. The real thing is in your mind.

Do you die with love or not? It's not some magic thing or magic or fate or something like that. It's love.

The goal is love. Next picture. Okay, this is a lock.

This means to shut the door towards the lower realms or lower rebirths. The cure is to have the understanding of the pen story when you're dying or most importantly, more importantly than the tantric practices of Mahamudra and stuff like that is to have bodhicitta at the moment of the death. Okay, Dodo, I have to tell you something.

Yes. Your name has two parts, Dodo. Yes.

Sometimes person give a $200 answer to the $100 question. Really? Oh, yes.

Thank you. Getting rich. Thank you.

Don't get too happy. Next picture.

[Говорящий 2]
Chinese. Chinese? It's about all the rivers will run into the same motion and all the person at the end will go into the Buddha paradise, going to the same direction.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, and the dividing line between normal death and special death is you think about other people as you die. Can I help other people? So I think it's $100.

Thank you. I'll give you $100 for taking good notes. Thank you.

Thank you teacher. Can we? Not today.

All right, we got one more.

[Говорящий 2]
If you are real Buddhist, then you're always in a good mood and always smiling.

[Говорящий 1]
$100. Thank you. Yeah, and they said, at the same time, they said there's miracles.

You can do miracles. You can walk underwater. You can walk through the stone.

You can fly in the sky. But even rats do that. Even birds do that.

Even fish do that. It's to have the love for other people. That's the real miracle.

All right, I want to go to the peaches. Let's go to the peaches. What's it mean?

I don't remember myself.

[Говорящий 2]
It means that you want to look good to yourself. You want to impress yourself. So you keep the main one of the two judges.

So you're not contradictory.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, you judge yourself. You don't depend on other people. And then what about the, what's that thing about mangoes?

What's the thing about mangoes?

[Говорящий 2]
Good, good, bad, bad. Good, bad, bad, good. And it's hard to tell, so you have to approach the same.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, yeah, good. $100. Last one's too easy.

I canceled that. All right, all right, thank you. Next time we'll do online.

We have to set it up, okay? How to get the money online. Okay, Sophie Chow, you remember I was in Okoro Hotel, and one gentleman came up to me.

He said, hey, you owe me $500. I'm like, what? He said, you came to Tokyo three years ago, and you made a bet with me, and I won the money, and you never paid me.

I'm like, hey, you have to collect the money yourself. Okay, okay. It's very funny, though.

I gave him the money, okay. All right, GONG YONGS PA BYED. So we had the eight worldly attitudes, and then we're at YANG.

First word is YANG, you guys. You text people. Y-E-N-G, okay?

YANG KYANG THUB NA SBYONG BA YIN YANG means you got distracted, okay? SBYONG means what? SBYONG, lojong.

Clean or you got used to it, okay? And THUB NA means if you can do it. It means if you can keep this practice even when you're distracted by something else, then you will have real lojong, okay?

And he gives example. SHES PA NI LTAR TZEL CHER MED PA LTAR If you're not too good at riding a horse, SEMS MA YANG NA DE MI GYUR If you're focused on the horse and the horse bucks, you won't fall off. But SEMS MA YANG NA GYUR If you look at something else and suddenly the horse bucks, you will fall off.

If you're not a very experienced rider, what's the point? Yeah, if your lojong is good, if you do it all the time. Every time someone gives you money, you're like, yeah, okay.

And every time you lose money, you're like, yeah, okay. Then maybe we should say, yeah, okay, and not lojong. It's like, yeah, okay.

Yeah, okay. So, how do you know that you're good at lojong? It means when you're tired or you're busy, still you can keep it.

Yeah, okay. When you're tired or many things going on, very busy, and you lose some money, you're like, yeah, okay. Or you get some money, yeah, okay.

You don't fall off your lojong horse. It's natural, totally natural. There's some people like that.

I come from Arizona. I grew up in Arizona. Supposed to be, we are all cowboys.

I have cowboy shirt. And when I went to Princeton, a very good looking girl said, you from Arizona, yeah, you can ride horse. Oh, yeah.

You want to go horse riding with me? I'm like, yeah. Actually, I never, I rode a horse once or something.

And it was like an old, tired horse. So she got these two very strong horses and we went for a ride. And my horse start to run, and he's running.

And I'm like, stop, stop. And then he's like, okay, stop. Then I went, I fall down.

And she said, you sure you know how to ride a horse? I'm like, actually, I never ride a horse. Then she didn't want to go on a date with me.

Anyway. But some people are so natural on a horse. The horse does everything and it's just natural.

Their lojong horse is natural. Their connection to their lojong is natural. They never get kicked off.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. LO SBYANGS KYANG MA SBYONGS PA NI LO SBYANGS KYANG MA SBYONGS PA NI LTA TSAL MED PA'I LTA BZHIN MA BZHIN If a person who tried to study lojong, but they didn't lojong, then that's a person who doesn't know how to ride a horse.

SEMS YIN PA'I SKABS GZHAN ZHIG GI SEMS YIN MED PA What's the wild horse in this example is that somebody says something bad to you. You're stupid, or you look terrible. Didn't your mom teach you to brush your teeth?

Or something, and then you're like, what? And that means the horse jumped. And then do you fall off or not?

Or do you like, you start to fall off and you're like, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm lojong person. I'm lojong person.

When it becomes natural, they say your flights cancel. I had a fun plane ride with Seiji recently. You know, they're like, I got used to business class because I can sleep and I can work.

And I pay the extra, we pay the extra money. I go business class. I translated many books in business class.

The guy always told, the guy told me on this plane, he said, you're amazing. You know, you work the whole time and then you sleep anytime. That's amazing.

Then we got on the plane and they said, you have to sit in the tourist class. I'm like, what? And they're like, you know, we don't have business class seat today.

You got canceled. Your business class canceled. I'm like, okay.

And I got a, did you remember this guy? He sat between us. He's kind of fat.

It's like, I'm trying to type like this and I get the computer ready and I put it on my knees and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I'm like this. I hadn't experienced for 19 years in New York, so I can do.

And I'm like this. And I'm like, okay, all right. Then the stewardess came back.

This is a couple of weeks ago in Peru, when we came back from Peru. Then the stewardess, are you Mr. Rhodes? Yes.

Oh, you're a global service. Global service is a secret business class in United Airlines. And you cannot apply.

The board of directors votes secretly and they write you a letter and they say you're a global service. And then they treat you just like a llama. And that's the only place I get treated like a llama.

It's there like, oh, Mr. Rhodes, it's so good to see you. Do you need anything? I'm like, I want a coffee.

Okay. She said, we got a business class for you. And then you're just like, yeah, okay.

Okay, I lost a business class at three o'clock. Okay, then 3.10, I got the business class. I'm like, okay.

Actually, I was a little more. Okay. Okay, so just to stay even.

LO SBYONG PA'I NI Oh, hang on. BDAG GSAL MED PA'I BDAG ZHIG MED SEMS YIN PAS SKABS GZHAN ZHIG GI SRID NGAN MED NO DANG PO LTAR GYAS SHING PHYIN NAS BRJEN PA So the sign of a person whose LO SBYONG is not perfect yet is when the person insults them. They go, I'm not stupid.

You, LO SBYONG, LO SBYONG, LO SBYONG, LO SBYONG. Then you're like, okay, it's all right. But you don't remember right away.

That means you don't have LO SBYONG yet. Okay, got it? So it's like, you're stupid.

LO SBYONG, LO SBYONG, LO SBYONG. Okay. Yeah, I'm stupid.

Okay, all right. That means you almost fell off the horse. Got it?

Yeah, and you're not an expert yet. So the LO SBYONG, real LO SBYONG person, you're stupid. Yeah, okay.

No delay. No time delay. You're stupid.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. You're so handsome.

Yeah, okay. All right. Translating now.

GONG DROG ZHIG DROG YIN If you, SEMPAD NA GONG DROG ZHIG DROG YIN DANG PO CHOG BA'I SKYE ZHING PHYIN NAS CAN PAS SEMPAD NA GONG DROG ZHIG DROG YIN ZHIG You can delay your anger. LO SBYONG PA'I NI SEM YANG PA NA'ANG A person who's good at LO SBYONG, even if they get distracted by something else, like there's something going on. I don't know.

The plane is like this, right? But your LO SBYONG is very strong, and then it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect you.

DROG MA ZHENG GI DEG TSOG Even other people can hit you, or they can even hit you. And you're like, yeah, okay. Boom.

Yeah, okay. What did Jesus say? He said some cool stuff.

Someone hit you on this side, say, hey, you want to use the other side? That's real LO SBYONG, right? Somebody hit you and you're like, If they steal your sweater, if they steal your coat, remember to ask them if they need your sweater also.

That's so LO SBYONG. Really good LO SBYONG. Okay, GONG DROG MI KHYER BA NI LO SBYONG PA'I TSAD Hundred dollars.

TSAD That's the LO SBYONG TSAD. Hundred dollars. Close.

Is that Gibson? TSE MA TSAD TSAD Yeah, good. Hundred dollars.

Handsome. Handsome guy from Taichung. Taichung FEI ZHANG SPANG Taichung the FEI ZHANG SPANG the man.

Okay. All right. Okay.

Do I have to do Q&A now, Tim? Huh? Is it time?

But what was the plan? Okay, let's do, I'm going to make a mark where we finished at the horse. Okay, and the TSAD, the TSAD was you have LO SBYONG if someone hit you and you're like, yeah, okay.

Okay, hitting is harder than calling you stupid, right? I mean, most people, if a lot of people can stay patient if someone call you stupid, but when they're physical, something physical, almost everybody gets angry, okay? Even on the subway or something.

Okay. All right, questions. No question.

Whoa.

[Говорящий 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Говорящий 1]
Thank you for coming. It's good to see you after so many years.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah, yeah, very exciting and very touched. My question is that, I remember you said that 100 meditation items is very important, are very important. It's lucky that I went through all these Lamrim courses one by one and taught by you and then I put it all into the words.

We call that the three principle path. And then the lower capacity, middle capacity and the higher capacity. Okay, and now my question is that because you taught us to once we need to complete all these 100 items meditation before we can get the secret teaching.

So my question is that, what's the standard? What's the standard to, for example, the lower capacity and the lower capacity items and what's the standard to pass one item, the meditation? What's the standard?

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.

in the very beginning of this book, they discuss different ways to teach it. And one is called the, there's many kinds of chi. Chi means style to teach it.

And one is called nyam chi. Nyam chi means, there's a way to teach lojong. There's a way to teach this book that you learn it in a retreat.

You learn in retreat. And each time they come to a new idea, you stop the class and everyone goes to their retreat cabin and they meditate. Until they reach the inner, until they, for example, until they reach lojong, they don't come back to the class.

I think, I suspect, that the lama, when the student come back to class, they say, then if the student go, then they say, oh, you don't have lojong. You go back. Go back.

Go back again. Try some more. You know, so there's a way to teach this book called nyam chi.

If it took us 13 years to reach this without nyam chi, I think it will take us 130 years to teach it with nyam chi. So, I didn't do it that way. But I would say that in the lojong, in the lamrim, generally in lamrim, if your motivation is to stay out of the lower realms, animal hell, preta, then that's beginner motivation.

And then second level motivation, medium motivation is, I don't want to come back to this life at all. I don't want to come back to suffering life, any kind of suffering life. I don't want to come back to the wheel of life.

That's called medium motivation. And then I would like to help all people to escape this life, suffering life. That's called bodhichitta or highest motivation.

So in general, those are the classical three levels in the lamrim. But in the lojong, it's a little bit different. It's how natural is your reaction?

How good are you on the horse? Is the lojong reaction automatic or not? Then that determines whether you're, what's your level.

How much, how natural, how automatic is your reaction to someone hurting you? How long does it take you to remember you're a Buddhist? Sometimes it takes two weeks, you know.

You're like, god damn, god damn. And then you're like, wait, I'm a Buddhist. I'm not supposed to think like that.

That's in the lojong, that's time, judged by time. How long does it take you to remember you're a Buddhist? That's good.

What Tony is referring to is, I said if you finish, can study, the hundred of those pictures, then I will teach Diamond Way. So we'll see. I'm still checking.

But you're close. In the meantime, there are many great Diamond Way teachers, John Brady, Venerable Ali. They're doing a good job, Connie.

They're doing beautiful Diamond Way teaching. Gyal Tse Sona taught some. There's lots of people teaching, okay?

Connect with somebody who fits you. You know the famous story of my wife. We went to buy jeans for her.

Anyone tell her I told this story, I will kill you. Okay? Okay.

I won't be lojong person at that time. So we went to the store to buy pants and those ladies store are very cruelty. Why?

There's no place for the guy to sit down. You have to stand up. In Sephora, there's no chairs.

You have to stand up while the lady tries on 20 kinds of lipstick. So anyway, she tried 41 or 42 pairs of pants. Guess how many she bought?

Yeah, zero. Yeah, so your Diamond Way teacher should fit you like a good pair of pants. Okay, and then you should take your time.

Try 42 teachers. See which one fit you. And Geshe Michael doesn't fit everybody.

You know, some people say, oh, he's crazy or he's too funny or he's not funny enough or not enough hair or something. Then find the one who fit you. You don't have to take me, you know, it can be find the person who fits you.

And that's the best. That's best for everybody. It's really uncomfortable to wear the pant which is too small.

Right? Okay. All right.

Nick Lascia, he's coming tomorrow. I'm so excited. Yeah.

He went to Portugal or something. He said, Geshe-la, there's a special demon in Portugal, you know. I'm like, what?

Demon? He said, yeah, the special demon. I'm like, whoa, what's a demon?

He said, at night when you sleep they go into your closet and they sew your pants smaller. Then next day you try the pants and especially after COVID, they got smaller and smaller. He said, that demon is following me.

Yeah, I think he came to my house. Okay, other questions? Three minutes, maybe one more.

[Говорящий 2]
Thank you. I would call you Sensei. Can I call you?

[Говорящий 1]
You can call me anything except, well... So in Japan, I live in Japan, so we say Sensei for a teacher. Cool.

Thank you very much for teaching me. I have a question. How would you comfort someone whose relative died as an act of terror or war?

Because recently the world is... For me, I feel like the world is getting a place where war is going to be more and more common thing. And maybe in Japan people still don't feel related to what is going on in other parts of the world, but because I was born in Ukraine and then I moved to Israel and now I feel it very, very close to me and I want to go back to Israel and Ukraine and I want to help people to kind of live in the place where people were cruelly murdered.

And I'm curious how to even talk with people who went through so much. Yeah, good. Good question.

We used to have all of our programs in Irkut, outside of Kyiv. And it's a beautiful small city, like, very similar to Flagstaff. And that was attacked badly and many, many families, children, women were killed there.

And there's video, you can watch it and it's very, very terrible. So how can you, what should you do? And we had the good luck to Victoria and Vitaly, where are you?

They helped us a lot. My wife and I wanted to, and John Brady and Connie, we wanted to invite some Ukrainians to come and come and live in our place and we take care of them. So the Taranguls helped us a lot.

And it's interesting to me, they did not choose themselves. They choose other people. So we invited some people, we invited two families to come.

So far only the wife can come, because the husband and the son had to fight. you know, they came and we have two beautiful ladies from Ukraine, Tatiana and Irina. We are, you know, me and my wife and all my friends, all the Rimrock, special Rimrock people, we talk about it, you know, like how can we take care of them?

And obviously we have to buy things for them, you know, we got them a real, I looked, well, Rob helped me, we looked at many apartments in Rimrock and we chose the best one. And then we found out it's Scott's old apartment. He bought it and he we're like, wait, this is Scott's apartment.

Scott's best apartment. So we rented it and it's very beautiful. And we put them there and then we have a friend who bought a new car for them.

It's a new Toyota Wrapsaw, it's a beautiful, beautiful car. And they can't drive. I mean, they don't have a license.

Irina can drive. Tatiana didn't have much experience. But they got their license.

Finally. Irina got hers, Tatiana's still working on it. So they have a beautiful new car and they have a beautiful garage and we got them some work and they make juices for the cafe and they make good money.

They make pretty good money. We overpaid them and then my wife and I were always talking about them, like how can we help them? And because we noticed they're still traumatized.

They have a beautiful car. They have all the American dream. Beautiful apartment, beautiful car, everything.

Rob and Rosa made them a beautiful apartment but they're still traumatized and they still get depression and they still have a lot of emotional problems. I asked my wife, you know, what kind of dharma should I teach them? And she's like, maybe we should just hug them.

And I'm like, what? And they said, Irina's birthday was yesterday. Sorry, Tatiana, Tanya.

And it was her birthday yesterday. And my wife is like the most important thing. Geshe-la, she calls me Mike but sometimes when she wants to be sarcastic, she says Geshe-la.

She said, maybe they don't need philosophy right now. Maybe they need a lot of hugs and a birthday cake and treat them with sweet, sweet. We made dinner for them.

She and I made dinner for them. They came with two Russian friends, Olga and who's the other one? Anyway, two Russians, two Ukrainians.

They came and we made the Christmas tree together. It took like three hours. And it was really fun.

And I think, so what my teacher said, sometimes it's not philosophy what people need. Sometimes they need a hug. Sometimes they need a birthday cake.

Sometimes they need a Christmas tree. And I think as a Buddhist, you have to be sensitive to that. I think for the trauma of people in Ukraine and Israel or Palestine, that these people need hugs and they need a lot of attention and they need personal attention and make a lot of touch and encouragement.

And I think that's better dharma when a person is traumatized. I don't think talking to people about philosophy is it's not the right time. In my life, long life, I think it's not the right time.

I think this is the time that people need a hug and they need us to spend time with them. And they need to be quiet with us and have some fun together and things like that. For her birthday yesterday, she went to a flamenco performance in New York.

She was really happy. So I think my deep philosophy answer is hugs. For the first year or 18 months.

Thank you.