Бен Крамер — Книга 2: Драгоценность истинной мысли (Геше Йеше Вангчук о Дхармакирти), занятие 54

[Speaker 1]
Hi Kramer. Hi. Long time no see.

Yeah, always a pleasure. So glad you could make it. You got homework for us?

I do. I'm so impressed that you're on time after running around taking care of everybody. I am on time.

That's weird. I know, it's impressive. I know you're a busy, busy beaver this morning.

Yeah. We're lucky. All right, here we go.

Good luck, everybody. Geshe Yeshe Wangchu gives three steps to bring an appropriate opponent, an appropriate opponent for debate who believes that sound is unchanging to understand that sound is in fact changing. I want you to give me these steps, but first I want you to give me the West Chinese term for an appropriate debate opponent.

Spouse. Yes, great. That's good.

Teaching complete. I'm having a hard time bringing the chat up, so I know there were 37 varieties of the right answer. Oh, it's just Oscar who always knows.

Yeah, except it's Chigo, isn't it? Well, that's half of it. You could have a Ngago, you could have a Chigo, but what's the correct part or appropriate part?

[Speaker 3]
Rungwa?

[Speaker 1]
Yangda? Yeah, it is Yangda. The Geshe knows the answer to the question.

That's good. That's good. You're good at this.

You should stick to this. You should see if this stands out. That's the only thing I know how to do.

Lucky for us. Okay, so what does he suggest we do with such a naughty but appropriate debate opponent? There are a few steps.

You could give me a first step. You don't have to give me all three at once. Yeah, cool, Oscar.

Go figure. Oh, nice. Yeah, first he gets him to doubt his own position.

How does he do that? Tengir. Yeah, Tengir.

Geshe Michael gave you a clue. Okay, I shut up. No, no, it's good.

It's a good clue that they needed to give an example of such a Tengir. Consider sound. It is...

What? Give me a Tengir. It is...

Unchanging. Oh, sound is unchanging. Chichir.

Why is sound unchanging, Nick, you who are trying to be sarcastic? Because it is blue. Yeah, so what he says...

You want to keep trying sound? No, no, go for it. He says, oh, I guess it's not made, right?

I guess... And the very powerful example that Geshe Michael gave us was in Kyoto, he said, oh, I guess your bottom didn't make the fart then. I would never say anything like that.

Uh, uh, uh... I bet Ezra liked that one. Yeah, he was very pleased.

Kairi is also enjoying that one. Yeah, he said very matter-of-factly after class, you know what, I like Geshe Michael. Took me a long time to get in his good graces.

It worked, that was the trick. Yeah, and then this should bother the opponent. They start to feel uncomfortable.

They have some doubt about the topic. And so then you give them some... some reasoning on the more general principle, what we could call the necessity, and connect that principle to sound.

So he suggests, you say, made things have to be changing. Like coffee cups, for example. And what else is an example of such a thing, will he say?

That's easy. This one the Geshe shouldn't answer. I'm not...

no, it's not my turn. Coffee tables? No, more important to the subject.

What else like coffee tables? Yeah, sound, right, like sound, for example. And by the way, sound is also changing.

Okay, and then... Finally, you construct a proof using this general principle. To prove that sound is changing.

So then, where you wanted to get to all along, sound is changing because it's made. And then finally they let go of that pesky problem with the uncaused om at the beginning of the universe. Yeah, okay, cool.

What motivations does Master Dharmakirti claim not to have in writing the commentary? And what then does he claim is in fact his motivation? And do we believe him?

[Speaker 3]
No.

[Speaker 1]
So what does he say is not his motivation first? Yeah, good, Anjali, you're cheating. You jumped right to the second one correctly.

Oh, Roksana covered all bases. Yeah, Geshe Michael also is repeating correct answers from the room. Not that he would know.

I believe that. YONG RGYUD DE LA DI LA ZHING LA PHEN PA SANG BA RANG MED Yeah, it's not going to help anybody, he says. So why is he doing it?

To fix his own mind. Yeah, to make it... GOM PA LA LIG CHE, right?

To get it used to beautiful words, to get it used to eloquent speech. Do we believe him? No.

Nah. We don't. Why?

Why not? Somebody said because it's helping us, which is a clear answer. It is a cool answer.

That was Utpala. It's very helpful. Yes, because Utpala is helping us.

Yeah, I think that's great. I think that we can ponder this question deeply, and the boss even said that they debate this robustly. So I think that you can talk about it a lot.

But in theory, every one of these books of the Buddhist tradition of philosophy is written for the benefit of the reader. So he may have deeper reasons for saying that, but we trust he is trying to help us. And our discussion today, I think, is going to go deeper into that, which is cool.

You could go to the CHOS and TEN CHOS. Fix. Yeah, repair.

The name of the book is That Which Repairs Other People. That's helping them. By definition.

Yeah, right. So if you're going to Tim's class and you know what a TEN CHOS is, then you can debate whether this is one. And if it is one, then it must be fixing me.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. How were Master Dharmakirti's books received in his own time?

You brought a dog just to demonstrate. Yeah, exactly. There's a dog in the house?

They weren't understood, and they were treated badly. Taylor, did you have a dog? I heard a dog.

Jeru doesn't have a tail. Oh, Jeru. They were tied to the nubbin of a dog.

Yeah. What's the West Chinese term for being tied to the tail of a dog? It happens to be the very same verb for attributing existence.

Yeah, duck to what? Kiki nama duck? You've got the key, and you've got the duck.

And then what do we call his tail here in this context? Oh, probably juke. Yeah, Oscar beat you, or at least his internet is faster.

Jukma. Yeah. But what's Yiddish for roach?

I only know by you that it's juke. Same. By the way, he says most people didn't understand.

What about the ones who didn't understand his work? Were they excited about it?

[Speaker 3]
They were angry.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, right. Yeah. Talk to word.

Indeed. Yeah. He says most people just didn't get it.

And the few who did were jealous. And so, yes, they. Kijukmarta.

Good. Cool. Okay, let's.

I didn't get. I think I was so. I was all a flutter.

I was so excited to be in Kyoto with you for the last class that I forgot to ask you for an assignment. So I just sort of grabbed what was next. Oh, I like it.

Will you read the first sentence? I will. Yeah.

Sorry, I've got too many beautiful faces in the way. Here we go. Some dumb job way, maybe way.

Yeah, it should be way. Good. Yeah, let's check the translation.

The purpose of this pledge to compose the book is that it should help the author to be able to complete the composition of the book. Yeah, good. After all, once the work has been completed, there would be no need for such a pledge.

Perfect translation. Which you do not hear from me very often. In fact, never.

[Speaker 3]
That's wonderful.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Who's going to read this one, Ben? Lindsay, would you?

Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Yeah, she's right here.

Cool. Okay. Make this long.

Yeah, good. Okay. Once a holy being.

I don't understand the Dele Gomba Miche Piche. Let me see. Yeah, this is what I tried.

Can you show me the sentence above again? Yeah. LUNG MTSAMS PA DAM BYA'I DGOS PA I knew it when I was checking it yesterday, and now I can't.

LUNG MTSAMS PA DAM BYA'I DGOS PA THAMS CAD RDZOGS PA LTAR BYANG CHEN PO'I THAMS CAD RDZOGS PA TZAM GZIN NAS DGOS PA MED PA'I PHYIR DAM PA RNAMS KYIS BYA'O GANG GI RJUG PA THUG MA BRTZAD DE LA DELE GOMBA MICHE PICHE DE LAS DGOS PA I... I don't know. The second part I don't understand.

The purpose cannot be other than that. They wouldn't do it for any reason other than that? Something like that?

You could read the last piece here as they don't do it for that reason. For any reason other than that? Because it's Dele?

Like other than? Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, I'd say...

I would say Dele is in other situations like when you're halfway through with the book or when you're done with the book. I think the point is that you only have to promise to compose the book when you start the book. And it's not relevant to other points in time.

Something like that. Oh, they wouldn't make this pledge any other... Like they make it at the beginning?

Yeah, you wouldn't promise... Halfway through the book you wouldn't promise to write the book. Yeah, right.

So like other than that you wouldn't have such an intention. Yeah, at points other than that. Okay.

There'd be no reason to intend to complete the book at other points in the book. Okay. To compose.

Anyway, that's what I think. Okay, okay. Who's going to read the next...

You want Lindsay to do another sentence, right? Yeah, that's a good idea. Please.

Okay. Okay. Sampao.

Sampao. That's the words people ordinarily... I'm so sorry.

I said something I'm looking for. Yeah, you can say that. That's okay.

Is there... What's the Peltier mean though? Oh, uh...

Well, like most people...

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, most people.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I would say most people. Okay.

Yeah, and I think he's trying to say something like there are exceptions to the rule. You see, most people...

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
...care about Peltier-Pellachok. Care about Peltier-Pellachok. Most people only care about common things.

Sherab Tselme Pena Lekshayinom. They don't care about wisdom. Did I say ordinary people are obsessed with the ordinary?

He says Pell twice. I was trying to be cute, you know. Oh, Peltier-Pellachok.

It is a joke. Yeah, it is a pun. Common people are attracted to the common things.

People are commonly attracted to the common. Something like that, yeah. That's good.

Maybe. It's... Okay.

That's worth a try. Okay. Who's going to read the next part?

Okay. Lindsey's escaping. Lindsey's escaping.

How about Juan Hasso? Is he... Oh, is he online?

No. Okay, I'm sorry. He's furiously writing chyrons.

That's okay. Oscar?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. All right. PHRAD DUG BYED PA'ANG LUS BU'I GCOG LANG LA PHRAD DUG GYIS DRIN MED DANG BA DANG LIG SHES KYANG TSE MA KUN DE'I DUR LA GOG DGU TSE MA KUN DE'I...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. PHRAD DUG... Understand then that where the text says envy refers to the way that...

that rank envy led people to hate nothing. Okay, good. PHRAD DUG GYIS...

Yeah, good. Elegant rank is good for stinky. And elegant words...

Yeah, good. What's significant about the second sentence, Dan? As far as Khenpa Khyun.

There's a good question. Because in the opening... In the opening lines of this book, Master Dharmakirti says, most common people are attracted to the common, and a lot of people are jealous of good writing.

Yes. But he's not talking about... His own.

His own good writing. Yeah. Our author...

Our commentator says, listen, he didn't say that about his own writing. He said it about TSE MA KUN DU. His teacher's writing.

You see what I mean? If you just read the first line of this book, it would sound like he's complaining about people who are jealous of him. But our commentator, Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk says, no, he was complaining about people who are jealous of his teacher, which is more proper at the beginning of a book.

You're supposed to be humble. Yeah. It's not elegant for a Buddhist author at the beginning of their own book to say, everyone's jealous of me.

Okay? Really. So our author...

Our author is being very cool to say, no, no, he was talking about jealous about his teacher's writing, even though we know that this writing was put on the tail of the dog. That's not the one they were jealous of, apparently. Okay?

That's cool. It's more... less show-off.

He's not showing off. Yeah? Okay.

All right. Wow, this is sentence. Who's up, Ben?

Maybe... Since we have Oscar here, let's have him do one more because it's big. And he's a robust individual.

By the way, he's kicking ass on cataloging the entire tengyur from Nantang. He's finished a thousand books already. Of course he is.

I don't even know where he is right now. Okay. Ben, you've got the plane, okay?

Oh, that means I'm supposed to remind you it's Pemba instead of Pamba.

[Speaker 2]
Sorry.

[Speaker 1]
... Wow, nice. Okay, let's check the translation here.

SIN GZUGS KYI KHAMS PA'I NI YIM KUN LAS THUB YIN NA YOD PAR BZHIN LA PHAN PA'I RGYAS BZHIN PA TZAM MA BYIN TE TZAM Be careful with the NI here for TZAM. Okay. Oh.

It means Master Dharmakirti's teacher work had not been beneficial that much. Okay? You see what I mean?

Okay. Yes. TZAM means, it was benefit, but not that much benefit.

Okay? Okay. Which, yeah, he doesn't want to say my teacher's book didn't help anybody.

He wants to say, well, it was not that beneficial for people. Okay. Just as my English teacher, how do I say not that much great benefit?

Uh... In normal English you would say it hadn't been the greatest benefit. Had not been the greatest benefit.

Yeah, had not been the greatest benefit. Okay? Yeah, great.

Benefit for anyone else. Therefore, Master Kunti himself... Yeah.

Why does he say dak in the second line? Yeah, I just, I took it to mean he himself wrote that. Um...

This dak is written from the point of view of the person writing the lines. You know? You see what I mean?

The guy who's writing this introduction to the book, I'm the one who is writing a commentary now. Okay? It's from the point of view of him being the speaker of this verse.

Of these verses. PHRAG DOG GYIS NI PHYIR BA'I KHA'O YOD YONG YOD DE NA BDAG LA SDIG NI GZHAN LA PHAN PA'I YIN ZHIG BSAM PA'ANG MED And he wants to say, I didn't think it was, you know... I...

That's why I wrote this commentary. The I is important. See what I mean?

That's why I wrote... I, Mr. Dharmakirti, wrote this commentary. Because he's speaking right now.

He's the speaker right now. In the book.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay. No, he's...

We're covering the opening lines. Right. We're covering the promise to compose the book.

He's saying, I wrote this commentary so the compendium would be of great benefit. I got it. That's cool.

Yeah, because he wanted to advertise his teacher's book more. And make it more popular. Yeah.

Because people didn't get it the first time around. It's a very noble... Our author, Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk, has made the promise to compose the work more noble than it sounds.

You see. I'm writing this so people can appreciate my teacher finally. Got it?

Yes. BYA'O ZAS PA'I... KUN LAS THUB PA'I MA RGYAS CHEN PO'I RGYUR PA And if I succeed...

Yeah, the compendium will become a work of great benefit. My teacher's book will become more famous. PHAN MA RGYAS CHEN PO'I RGYUR PA DANG NYID CHEN PO'I LA MID PA'I PHRAG TUGS KYI MA Because it's related towards that great being.

Nice. Who's the great being? Dignaga.

Good. Yeah. People were jealous of my teacher, so that's why I wrote this book.

Okay. It's very sweet, Timothy. And...

Then I'm hoping that... Yeah. This shiwa is a verb, and you translated it correctly.

What's shiwa normally mean? Peace. Here it means set to rest.

Here's a verb. I wanted to peace-ify all those people. Shiwa dong.

And I was hoping that... You could say, Ben, that I was hoping that these criticizers could become shre-lab denpa. Yeah, I was hoping that they would get smarter.

The criticizers of my teacher. I was hoping they would develop prajna. Wisdom.

Okay? If they understood my commentary. They would appreciate my teacher.

Their wisdom would increase. Okay? The critiquers.

The dovetail tires. Okay? Sharing some of them.

GNYIS SHES DOR NAS You gotta... Sorry, I dropped away. I'm better.

Okay. GNYIS SHES Anyone want to take a shot at that? GNYIS SHES DOR NAS Successive explanation?

It's not far from what I... I think it's... But at the same time, I didn't want to be repetitive.

GNYIS SHES means double explanation. I am writing this book so that people will appreciate my teacher more. But don't think I'm just repeating his words.

I'm not being... What do you call that? Redundant.

Redundant, yeah. Redundant is perfect. GNYIS SHES means redundant.

Don't think I'm being redundant. I don't mean to just parrot what he said. I'm taking you deeper also.

Cool? Oh, okay. those of you who don't want redundance and who are really dundunyirwa...

Sorry. Those of you who strive for eloquence, good. DOR NAS NYID RWA Those of you who aspire to more.

BLO GSUR NAS Yeah, exactly. Cast aside their favoritism. GSUR means...

It comes from the GSUR like Khyentse Rinpoche. Means former abbot. But it means abbot in the corner.

And so the verb GSUR NAS means to... in an argument to maintain... What do you call that?

Lack of bias. Objectivity. That's called staying in the corner.

To remain objective. Is GSUR NAS. So I wrote this for GSUR NAS people.

Not sewer people. Okay. Alright?

Yeah. And those kind of people are Khyentse Rinpoche. Yeah, those of great virtue.

And by the way, I love how you mixed the word order to catch a normal English word order. That you were brave enough to recast the sentence. That's a sign of advancement in translation skill.

You recast the order into a normal English order. Rather than blindly following Tibetan word order. That's nice.

That was well done. Okay, good. Yeah.

What's GAL DEN mean, you guys? Yeah, you have the good C's. You have the good C's too.

It's a beautiful word. And it's a common, common Tibetan personal name. GAL DEN.

Mr. Good C. Okay? Alright.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Anatole has a question. Anatole has a question for you. Why...

Eloquence. Why do we use the word eloquence? Well spoken.

It's literally well spoken. And so I took it from lekshe nyingpo, essence of eloquence, is how we translated, Geshe Michael translated it in Course 15, is a nice word for it. And it's in the Buddha.

But I have to say, in Anatole's defense, that lekshe can have two connotations. One is eloquence, meaning the wording was sweet. But lekshe can also mean a logically coherent explanation.

Well spoken in the sense of coherent. Say again? Yeah, lucid you could say.

If it were that, they'd probably throw in a cell somewhere though. So, lekshe can mean fine explanation, as well as well spoken, which is different. Now, normally I would say in English connotations, eloquence implies wording is good, not necessarily the meaning.

You can be eloquent and be illogical. Or you can be illogical and uneloquent, which we can see on TV. Okay.

I'm not getting political. Okay. Excellent.

Thanks Ben. Good job. Say again?

Okay, Ben. Oh, I go to my own book, right? Okay, hang on.

I got so many things up. Let me see. By the way, as you notice, I don't need glasses anymore.

That's amazing. It is amazing. It's pretty cool.

But it's not perfect, okay? I'm just saying. Where did you go?

Oh, here it is. I got it. By the way, I would, I would recommend that procedure for anyone whose eyes are going.

Cool. If you find a good doctor. I think I found a good doctor.

And it, you know, it only took a few hours. I mean the whole, all the messy stuff only took a few hours. Okay.

The question is, is this the right text? I can't see this thing, hang on. Yes.

It is? It is. But it looks like Sanskrit to me.

You sure? I don't see the Sanskrit. Uh-oh.

There's a few books up here. Yeah, this is it. I'm sorry, dang.

Hang on. This one. Okay.

With this one, right, Ben? De Tabu? Uh, yes.

I believe so. I'm sorry, I just lost my place here. Let me see.

Yeah, it is. Okay, who would you like to read? Okay, let's see.

Who's in, I guess the last person in the room to read was Lindsay. So, Lindsay, would you pick someone in the room? Oh.

We got a, we got an old hippie here. I'll take my best shot at this. Came to Rimrock.

Right on. Where am I starting? We're going to start right here.

Go slow and enjoy. Ben, you got the plane. Okay.

De Tabu? Good. De Tabu.

Yes. This is called the pulling teeth out reading. Dubya?

Lacha, parpya, pani?

[Speaker 3]
You want orange or sweet?

[Speaker 1]
Oranges, please. Yes. Samayi?

[Speaker 3]
Samey?

[Speaker 1]
Samey? Yes. San?

[Speaker 3]
Tan.

[Speaker 1]
Tenchu? Tenchu Ki. Nangne?

Good. Sama? What's that?

Sema. Good. Yeah.

It's been a while. Nam? Gyal?

No.

[Speaker 3]
Namdrel.

[Speaker 1]
Namdrel. Namdrel.

[Speaker 3]
Yin?

[Speaker 1]
Yin. Good. Sema?

De Dun? De Dun. Do?

Dang? Kapa? Dang?

Oh, Chepa. Oh, I know Chepa. Say it again.

Nangdikpa? Good. Gyupa?

Gyupa. Gyupa. Gyupa, sorry.

Oh, it is gyupa. Okay. Samayi?

Samey. Tan? Good.

Yeah, ten. Ku? Tenchu.

Tenchu. Oh, okay. Pa and ka.

Okay. Nangdikpa? Good.

Mayin? Bardo? Nice.

Yeah. Pamirikte?

[Speaker 3]
Yay! Oh, great. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Your stuffing is over. Thank you. Den tabun duja, Ben?

Den tabun duja, just that much. Students like that. Yeah, who are seeking good explanation.

Who are suwar ne? Who are in the corner? Who are unbiased?

Okay. Chepa chawani? What are you going to explain to them?

What is it you're going to explain to them? Oh, it's the semitenchu. Yeah, the classical commentaries of accurate perception.

Yeah, meaning all the genre. All commentaries on accurate perception. Meaning logic and perceptual theory.

Out of all the books on perceptual theory, semitenchu, here it means out of the genre, the whole genre of this kind of book, we are treating semanamdu. Yeah, the commentary on accurate perception. Yeah, which means specifically Master Dharmakirti's book.

So there's many, many, many books written about pramana and we're going to treat the pramana vartika. Okay. But in general there are semanamdu.

Seven great books on accurate perceptions. By? Master Dharmakirti.

By Master Dharmakirti. And then he says, along with the mother book. Yeah, the compendium by Master Dighanga.

Yeah, his teacher's book. So we have eight great classics on clear thinking. I like to call it clear thinking nowadays, semanamdu.

So there's seven books by Dharmakirti, very famous. And on top of that, his teacher's book, which we call the mother book, or dal, sutra. Here it means mother book.

The original, Tanchepa. Now the question comes, okay? Are these nangrikpa?

There are five great sciences in ancient India. Rig na, rigpa na. Say rigpa na.

Rigpa na. Five great sciences. Only one of them is nangrik.

Buddhist? Buddhist. There's medicine, there's astrology, there's stuff like this.

Composition. But nangrikpa, Buddhist, is only one of the five. So he says, out of the...

Can you... Can you prove... Are all semitenjus nangrik?

Are all books which treat formal logic Buddhist? Very famously, they're not. There's whole schools in ancient India called logicians, who have nothing to do with Buddhism.

So the opponent has said, is that necessarily nangrikpa? Is that necessarily belong to Buddhism? And we say, if you say nangrikpa mayin, and now we're referring to those eight books.

If you say the seven books of Dharmakirti plus the book by his teacher are not Buddhist science, the science of Buddhism, that's incorrect. They are. Okay?

Nangrikpa mayin bar dupa mirik. It would be wrong to say they were not Buddhist. Okay?

And... But it's famous that logic doesn't have to be Buddhist in Indian tradition. There's probably more non-Buddhist logic books than Buddhist logic books.

And some of the... And some of the non-Buddhist ones are correct formal logic, but because their content is mistaken, we call them incorrect. Which is not how Western logic works.

Okay? Which means if you're logical about hurting someone, helping somebody, you see, in the West the argument is logical, but in Buddhism it's not. It's not logical to hurt somebody, even if it's logical.

Okay? It's very interesting. But that's another subject.

Okay, who's going to read, Ben? Let's see. Dr. Ward, can you help me select one of your...

one of your friends in particular? Sure, one second. Like so, like so.

The coffee's really good. Yeah. Elmira, do you want to read?

[Speaker 3]
Hello, dear teachers. Hello, Geshe-la. Sure.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I... I'm going to cut this one, Ben, just to make it less onerous. Okay, sure.

Druwa Dunye. Elmira, are you reading?

[Speaker 2]
Druwa Dunye Kikiye Dunam Kyi Nangpa Jukpa Goni Khyab Ne Konchok Sumla Ni Ne Khyab Drodro Wey Khyab Drodro Yinshi Yay!

[Speaker 1]
Nice job, wow. Ben, Druwa Dunye. Yeah, like desiring freedom.

Yeah, those who aspire to freedom. Khyabu, those Khyabus. Those people.

If those people want to enter Nangpa... They want to hang with the Buddhist hippies. Yeah, if they would like to become Buddhists, okay, then what they have to do is Khyab.

Go for refuge. Yeah, they have to take refuge. Then they can qualify as a Buddhist.

Which he's trying to say, I understand that not all Indian logic is Buddhist, but if a person wanted to become Buddhist, they would have to go through the... they'd have to have faith in the triple gem. Khyab Ne Konchok Sum The places of shelter.

The three jewels. And that Khyab, that act of Khyab would have to be Nying Ne. Like heartfelt.

Heartfelt, yeah. Not just like going around and saying, I'm a Buddhist. You have to have true faith in the three jewels.

Which by the way, in the end, which I taught the day I met Gyelse at Vajrapani, it has to be refuge in emptiness. In the end, it's talking about refuge in emptiness, okay? Big deal.

Khyab Sudro E Khyam Dor That's going for refuge. That's taking shelter. When you take it in.

If a person has taken shelter and then they study logic, that becomes... Buddhist logic. Nangpa.

Inner science. The inner science. Which means Buddhism.

In the study of the five sciences. There's five major sciences and five minor sciences. All right.

Denjun Di. Who's reading, man? Oh, Elmira, you got robbed because he cut it in half.

And you're such a good reader. Would you keep going?

[Speaker 3]
Yes, yes. Displeasure. Denjun Di Khyap Tang Khyap Ming Rikpa Yang Dak Gyi Lam Ne Trang Te Ne Pa Ting Suk Pe Te Go Ne Khyap Sudro Two, four, ten.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Your pronunciation is quite good. Denjun Di.

That S on the D makes denjun what, Ben? The subject of the sentence. Yeah, good, yeah.

This commentary acts too, okay? Yeah. It...

It... Tongue, it interprets or it resolves the question of which is a khyap and which is not a khyap. What is a place of refuge or what is not?

What's going to protect you and what's not going to protect you. And you know, I've been... We're giving an empowerment for the CSP people in the next few months.

And we're looking at images to use. And my mind's been on these images. And...

And then I... It's very common to think that the image is the refuge. And it's not.

And that's a very important principle in Buddhism. You are not going to refuge to a statue. You are going to refuge to the ideas that the person that the statue was made of long ago is teaching.

That's refuge, not the statue. Okay? Even though it's very beautiful.

So dividing... To make the division between what can really protect you and what cannot protect you like a statue, you got to use rikpa. Reasoning, logic.

Yeah, you are not a Buddhist logician until you take refuge, but you can't take refuge until you use correct logic to decide which one is real. Yeah. Got it?

Yes. And you better use the path of good reasoning. Solid reasoning.

Which is... Just means logic which is logical. Okay?

Which is rare. And then there's this weird expression ben ngepa ting tsuk. What's ting tsuk?

That's a hard word. You don't guys... I don't think you've learned it yet.

But we did have the gyatso thing. Ting. Go to the depths?

You have to go to the depths. Ting is a word that refers to the bottom of the ocean. So here it means your ngepa should be...

Ting tsuk means solid all the way down to the bottom. Your ngepa means certainty about the refuge. This can protect me.

This cannot protect me. Understanding emptiness can protect me. A statue of an enlightened being cannot protect me.

Then you have to have ting tsuk. You have to have a deep, deep-seated certainty of who's the real refuge. Then you can take refuge.

Okay? Got it? A lot of...

Most Buddhists in the world are taking refuge in pictures, or statues, or temples, or things like that. That... You have to take refuge in the principle that lives in the temple.

Ting tsuk pa'i go ne. Khyam drong. Refuge.

Yeah, that's how you have to go for refuge. Okay. Who's going to read next?

Ben... By the way, in 12 minutes Ben will lead a discussion about how can you use today's content in your real life. And start thinking now.

So there's not this deafening silence when Ben starts. Okay. Who's going to read, Ben?

How about... Anatole? Yay!

You want to come up? Come on, Dad. By the way, he's burning up the editing.

Okay, just so you guys know. He's burning it up, burning it up. You got the cursor.

dakpa ché chung ni khe lang dor ne kyi chuk mdok ten shi mi tak sok se me lam ne jung te ge bar tenla bap su There's a little prenasal in it... But a lit prenasal. Mbep.

MBEBS SU ZHES PA'I YANG NANG RIG PA MIN NA DE LAS GZHAN PA'I NANG RIG PA'I DEN PHYIR GA LA KA, KA, KA LA NI Yeah, GA, there is no English sound. It's not GA. It's not GA GA.

Maybe GA GA. GA GA. GA GA.

Let's see if Anatole can translate some of this, Ben. THEG PA CHEN PO and THEG PA CHUNG Greater Vehicle? Yeah.

And CHUNG. CHUNG THEG PA CHUNG Opposite of CHE. The Greater Vehicle and the CHUNG CHUNG Vehicle.

The lesser vehicle. Okay. You can say Mahayana and Hinayana.

Okay. LANG DOR is one of those words that are made from an opposites. Yeah.

LEN means to take, like DONG LEN, you take things. LANG is the tense of LEN. DOR means to throw out something, reject something.

So LANG DOR means making proper choices between what you accept and what you reject. Yeah. So it's one of those Tibetan words which is called accept-reject.

Yeah. And it means to make the right choice between what you accept and what you reject. Okay?

How they say that in Tibetan is accept-reject. You got to be careful with your accept-reject. Okay.

Meaning get rid of the right things and accept the right things. Here's another case of that. BYUNG PO Yeah.

What to do and what to avoid. Yeah, what to engage in and what to stop engaging in. So, accepting and not accepting depends on entering and not entering.

Okay? Meaning making the right choices about what philosophy you get into. BYUNG PO For us, the correct one would be the DEN GZHI.

The four... impermanent truths, such as MI LTAR. Impermanence?

Yeah, and I object to that. Tell me why. I object to that.

Changing. Oh, because some things are... impermanent but they are unchanging.

No, I object to DEN GZHI. I object to MI LTAR PA being listed as one of the four. It's one of the four of the first one.

MI LTAR... It's one of the sixteen. It's not one of the four.

Got it? You can't say... You cannot say impermanence and the rest of the four.

That's not correct. MI LTAR is one quarter of the first truth of suffering. Okay?

I wouldn't write it down. So... SEMS LAS LAM NAS BYANG STE If you...

This BYANG means like BYANG NAS, pull out. We had it in the meditation this morning. Because SHES BZHIN was to pull the alarm.

And then BYAMS PA, which is a tense of BYAMS PA. We're supposed to pull the mind back. So that pull means interpret also in Tibetan.

Okay? So BYANG STE. RGYAS PAR BSTAN LA BAL PA How you set it out in detail.

SHES PA YANG That is... If you get a good explanation of what you should take up and what you should leave off in the context of the two YANAS. Okay?

If you get a good explanation of what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing on the compassion path or on the normal path. Are you saying that's not NANG RIG? Buddhist science.

Yeah, the Buddhist science out of the five sciences. The fifth of the five sciences. If that's not Buddhism, GZHAN PA'I NANG RIG GA LA NYID Yeah, where else are you going to find something you could call it?

Where else are you going to find a Buddhist commentary? If it's not the one that teaches you the right way to go for refuge in the two YANAS, Mahayana and Hinayana, and teaches you the sixteen aspects of the Four Truths, then honey, where else are you going to find a Buddhist book? Okay?

Where else are you going to find a Buddhist book? GA LA NYID means how on earth are you going to find a Buddhist book? Okay, alright.

You want Anatole to choose somebody? I do. Okay, go for it Anatole.

Okay, Mike Hoffman. Yay, Mike Hoffman. Go ahead.

Just finished a billion mantras in his retreat. That's a lot. Yeah.

That was 28,000 actually. I got the number. Okay.

Nangripa. Nangripa shepa shegyud nyongmong pa dang, kadrawe tap sabur tenpa shikla je gu shing, tseme shung nam ki nyongmong bakchak dang, jepa pongwe tap dampa dak me, NI THOG PA'I SHES RAB TEN BYED TSUL BUR BYED NAS BRTEN PA'I PHYIR Nice. Okay, I don't know who put that comment in there.

Uh... NANG RIN PA means? The Inner Science.

[Speaker 3]
Buddhism. Yeah, Buddhism.

[Speaker 1]
NANG RIN PA Uh... The purpose of... The purpose of Buddhist logic.

Okay. And that's nice to have this discussion because it is not Aristotelian logic. The format is perfectly Aristotelian.

But Aristotelian logic is not Buddhist. Because it doesn't help you get out of suffering. It's not meant to get you out of suffering.

NANG RIN PA SHES RGYU SHES RGYU means your stream, mind stream. Okay. There's the RGYU that means tantra.

But here it means stream of the mind. KHA BYA BA is a word you guys maybe don't know, Ben. It means to divorce.

Divorce. Or separate two entities. KHA means like a one-mouthed trowel.

Separate. Divorce what? Your SHES RGYU from NYON MONGS.

Your mind from your negative emotions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The goal of the inner science is to divorce your mind from its mental afflictions.

That's sweet. You know. To attain a divorce.

Okay. In fact, it's the TAP ZOR. That's the main topic there.

It teaches the main methods. It teaches the main methodology for divorcing your mind from mental afflictions. ZHIG LA BYAS DGOS When you talk about NANG RIGS PA you got to talk about it that way, he says.

BYAS DGOS means you got to talk about it that way. And these SEMS MED ZHUNG Books on Accurate Perception. Books on Clear Thinking.

Yeah, the books on clear thinking. They are top... Methods.

Methods for DBANG BA. Getting rid of. NYON MONGS along with their BAG CHAGS.

The negative emotions and the seeds for them. And that's where I thought to add this comment. You see, Buddhist logic...

Buddhist logic is not for proving things. The goal of Buddhist logic is to divorce your mind from your mental afflictions. And if it does that, it's Buddhist logic.

Okay, got it? Cool? DBANG BA That in fact is the highest way.

Clear thinking is the highest way to remove negative thoughts from your mind. And that's the goal of Buddhist logic. And it's very beautiful to hear it said by somebody.

And the fact that Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk wants to make a point of it is very beautiful. At the start of a logic book he says, look, what do you think logic is for? It's for cleaning your mind.

It's not for proving that all animals are fish. You know? It's very beautiful that our author would bother to talk about this at the beginning.

Okay? In fact, what is the highest form of Buddhist logic? BDAG MED NYID RTOGS PA'I SHES RAB The wisdom which realizes the two types of a lack of self nature.

Yeah, yeah. The highest form of logic is the perception of emptiness. Hmm.

Okay, cool. Wow. Sexy stuff.

Okay, we're going to stop there. You're going to have a discussion. I'm going to spill coffee on the couch, which is what I like to do at this part of the class.

What's the date? One night? Okay, Ben.

Nice job. Can I ask you a slightly technical question? It seems like if I have this right, that the tsolo in the end of the sentence and the tsolo in the beginning of the sentence are sort of like mirroring each other.

Like the top, the method for separating your mind from your nyomongs. It's mainly a method for that. But that is the wisdom that realizes emptiness, right?

Exactly. But now I'll return you with a question. Why does it say tso war as an adverb?

Mainly. Okay. I guess you could use it to convince people that all fish are animals.

Yeah, exactly. He says, look, Buddhist logic... It's not the case that logical thinking is not a topic of Buddhist logic.

But it's not the main point. Yeah, okay. He uses mainly in a debate, mainly as a weapon in all debating to say there are exceptions.

It's not the case that all logic is emptiness stuff. There's also formal logic which you are going to painfully learn in the next year. Okay.

Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, here we are, everybody.

The boss kindly prepared you to be prepared to help me now at this point to talk about how we can apply this to our lives. I think it's easy. I think there are a lot of good options.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, good for you.

[Speaker 1]
Flip a coin, good for me.

[Speaker 3]
Have a good weekend.

[Speaker 1]
You have to use good logic and then you will have a good weekend. I'm good. Having a really nice morning.

How about... Who else? That was helpful.

But also, who else has more thoughts on the topic of how we can use this idea of using clear thinking as a method to separate ourselves from being pissed off? I think there's so much here. This is easy.

You just have to be bold if you're like, oh, I don't know if I want to talk, but maybe I should talk. You should talk. Okay, I'm going to talk since I'm so resistant to this whole idea.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, no.

[Speaker 1]
But something actually very pertinent happened to me. Good. I want to share that relates to this class.

Cool. I just have been touching people up on the Door to the Diamond Way classes for the Phoenix sessions. Geshe-la is sobbing, begging us to please, please, 15 minutes, or now he's down to half a page for the resistant ones, read a half a page of one of these books that we're translating.

Finally, I resist. I've been donating to the club, I've been buying the books, but I haven't been doing the 15 minutes or half a page part of the program. So I started, and I pulled off the shelf this book, the golden book, Bird's Book, and oh my gosh, knowing that these are messages from holy beings when we just randomly opened the page, amazing, I opened up to page 146, which is Appendix B, Personal Presentation of the Groups of Mental Functions.

Yes.

[Speaker 2]
I opened up to the second part of that chart, which is the, it's the 20 Secondary Mental Afflictions.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Talks about anger.

[Speaker 1]
So what your class this morning connected for me was the purpose for understanding logic is to deal with what I opened up to in the book last night, which are mental afflictions. Right. Yeah, that's right.

You're filing for divorce. This book is your lawyer in the divorce from those 20, at least those 20 mental afflictions. Incredible.

So I'm so very excited. Clarifying why in the heck do I have to sit through these excruciating classes? Oh no.

Pages 145 and 146 in Word's book. Yeah. You know, in the art of bad debate in the world, as we were just saying, there's a lot of illogical debate in the world.

There are people trying to convince us of a lot of baloney. And we have to think about it. And we have to decide.

There's so many different, you can find anybody trying to convince you of any, it's crazy. It's crazy. Don't look at the internet.

Do yourself a favor. Don't look at the internet. Don't look at the news.

But if you accidentally do, it's a bunch of people saying crazy things with no basis. And if you have no way of thinking about it, who knows what crazy things you would believe. But we're learning a way to think clearly so we don't do stupid things.

Lindsay, can you keep helping us? Yeah. One thing that stood out to me is how you can't have misunderstanding and a negative emotion at the same time.

It's literally impossible. And what helps me to think about that is in the angel-devil book, they're personified like the angel is wisdom and the devil is misunderstanding. And the devil says, I've never seen you, the angel, here.

If there's a negative emotion, you're never there. So if you're having a negative emotion, that means you're misunderstanding something by definition. And so you can always know that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting.

It's exciting. So you can be excited about the next time you get pissed off if you're trying to wrap your mind around what you're doing wrong. Whoever you think you are in that moment is the wrong you.

Of course you exist. And I'm so glad you exist. And it's always nice spending time with you, Lindsay.

I'm glad that we all exist. But the version that doesn't exist, the one that's not coming from the way that you have been kind to other people in the past, if you're struggling to find them, if I'm struggling to find that guy, I just have to wait till the next time I get pissed off. And then he's right there.

That's the guy who I think you shouldn't talk to like that. Or you just don't understand. Or you need to realize that I deserve for you to think of me as the way that I should be greeted is that's the guy.

So good news. Get excited about the next time you're a jerk. And then you can find the real jerk, the version of you that was never there anyway and can stop feeding pizza to.

Because it's expensive. Yeah, it proves I was in Kyoto. What else?

That's wonderful. That's really good. Two great pieces.

Don't be shy. It's okay. We don't bite.

Even if you say something stupid, we're gonna say you were really smart and steer it some way that tries to help everybody. Don't feel bad. Just speak up.

Just share. It's fun. It's nice.

Or I feel lonely. Oh, good. Help us.

Katrin.

[Speaker 2]
Hi. I was listening to that and what I got few important for me, important things about that if I am like logical. I think I'm logical.

But if I don't take refuge, it's not kind of real logic. It's not Buddhist logic. So if it hurts somebody, if it could hurt somebody, my logic is not right.

And to become a Buddhist, I have to use logic to understand what can really help me and what cannot. And it's kind of new realization for me.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's really good.

Yeah. I think one of his other favorite topics in this book, Master Dharmakirti, is this idea about the way we draw lines around things to see things and the lines that we draw between you and me, Katrin. The idea that I draw a line between you and me and then I think it's real.

And if you knew that that line was made up, you couldn't hurt people. It'd be crazy. It would be crazy.

You couldn't imagine hurting people. It would just seem insane to you. If you understood that, if you had the logic to understand that, that the line between you and me is fake.

[Speaker 2]
That's why we have to understand logic. That's why now I want to use logic to learn logic even more. Thank you, Ben.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Geshe-la. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's beautiful.

That's really nice. That's our main job together. Also, having fun and participating in the live discussion is a way to prevent yourself from hurting other people in the future because then you just have fun with other people like Elmira, who has something to share, for example.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you very much. I want to continue the idea that Katrin just mentioned about why do I seek refuge?

[Speaker 2]
Why do I seek refuge? Logic helps me to clarify if I seek refuge for prestige or maybe for something superficiality. But if I understand that things are changing and if I understand the suffering by logic, then I can find really refuge in three precious things.

Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. What protects us from trouble if the trouble is coming from me? The goal is to protect me not from monsters but this book is to protect me from me.

And logic is to help me to do that. It's the same thing. If I thought the left part of my body was a different guy than the right part of my body and I was always pinching the right part of my body with the left hand and it hurt and I didn't know what to do about it.

If I understood that you and I aren't separate in that way, I wouldn't pinch you because it does hurt me. Of course it hurts me. Of course it hurts me if I pinch you like if I pinch my right hand with my left hand.

There's a little time delay problem but not much. Not much. Everyone hurting in this world is hurting because they think they can take things from people without hurting themselves.

And it's really dumb. It's just dumb. But we get carried away by it.

He's helping us. And that protects us. That's refuge.

Julia, help me. Please.

[Speaker 3]
Yes. Hello everybody. Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1]
Well, yes. Share with us, please.

[Speaker 3]
So you asked what from this class we could take in real life and for me my mind caught a piece of translation or a piece of interpretation which said make the right choice between what you accept and what you reject. And I believe it can help a lot in real life if we keep this idea in mind whatever it is. Maybe it's in some upsetting situation if the other person upsets me I can reject the idea that this person is bad or just criticizing me because I'm bad and I can accept the idea that it's from my seeds.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, right.

[Speaker 3]
And so on. And I believe we can discuss it a lot. And if I'm right, I got it in Tibetan as Lang Do or something.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, right. Yeah, what to take up and what to give up. Yeah, exactly.

And if you had the clear thinking to understand that everyone that hurt you hurt you because of the seeds that you got from hurting other people in the past if you saw that, if you knew that then when they hurt you, would you hurt them? You just couldn't imagine anything dumber. It would just be like it would be like punching yourself harder because it hurt when you punched yourself.

It would be the craziest thing. You couldn't. It's very nice.

Thank you, Julia. I really appreciate it. I'm excited because I know that somewhere in this world Juan Hasso is standing by ready to tell us about all of the exciting things going on in our global network of friends.

Is that true, Juan Hasso? That is true. And true again.

What about a third time? Well, the part that is true is that I'm somewhere in the world. Exciting things we'll see.

You're not in the world. You're standing just above it, I see. I was wrong.

No, actually this is just don't get your mind mischief you. This is just wonder technology that we can use in 2026. I am in the world and in a very beautiful part in the world called Guadalajara after an amazing time in San Pancho.

I wish everyone the happiness that San Pancho can offer. It's amazing. Now I don't know who's going to win if Hawaii or San Pancho but we'll see next year.

What can I say? I think 2026 is already bringing a lot of amazing things. Some of them I don't even know how to describe but I can feel just listening to you guys talking in this discussion the kind of things you were commenting upon.

There is some form of energy that I feel is just about to blossom and I'm super happy and super excited to be here with all of you sharing this beginning of 2026. Geshe-la came back victorious home after his trip to San Diego. That's amazing.

Thank you, Geshe-la for being here with us. Please stay and keep teaching us. We are celebrating birthdays just the beginning of the year but I want to share with you who had a birthday.

Teresa Pirosanto, Anatole Nguyen, and Berta. Teresa and Anatole had their birthday just yesterday so we want to send them super happy birthday. Hope you are enjoying and doing amazing things.

Anatole is in Rimrock. He was there probably in the classroom. I mean I know I saw him reading but Teresa, who knows, may be in Spain and soon probably he'll be celebrating with the Vagaband Gita in Arizona.

Now Berta Velasco, happy birthday. She's in Mexico City. She's one of the part of the team of the translators who are bringing all this wisdom into the Spanish language.

Thank you, Berta, for everything you're doing. She also helps translating these classes. Okay, now what I want to do before I share the news is this.

Ola gave me a good idea which is I'm going to be posting these posters, the ones that I'm about to present, in the Telegram chat group. Is the next picture please? Pichiquino is still on vacation.

One more day or something like that. Yeah, so if you let's say want to review or get access to all these posters, what I can do is after these sessions, I just upload them all. If you're interested in one, you access it and go deeper onto it.

But then here you can gain access to the chats where they are going to be shared. And if you're curious, you want to watch content or the New Year's program, for example, next picture, you can watch on YouTube and Instagram. It's mostly about stories of lifetime action, but we'll see.

We are evolving and growing. Let's see what surprises await. Okay, one of the biggest news, next picture please, the new schedule.

Very important to know. We have a Spanish Mixed Nuts chat where the Spanish audience connects with these classes. And today I saw people were like, what's going on?

There's no class. And I think it's important for all of us to get used to this. It's a new schedule.

Saturdays 11 to 1230 Arizona time. And Mondays the timing is the same, but time to time when Geshe-la is there, he's going to be adding an extra hour teaching us how to catalog. So the party gets longer and that's fun.

Last time we were there, we had Thai food. So you can have dinner if you happen to be in Rimrock. That's another excuse to come and visit.

Okay, and for those who the timing may not work very well, next picture please, there's going to be rebroadcast on Saturdays at 6pm Arizona time because this timing adjusts very well with other time zones in the world. And these are the languages who will be, which will be offered at that time. The Zoom link is the same, so I just copy-paste the QR code.

If I made a mistake, please tech table team let me know, but I think it should be good. Let's keep moving. Upcoming events very very soon.

We have Bhagavad Gita 3 coming up and the YSI team just had a catch up session two days ago on Thursday. If you're interested, you can watch the replay. Sophia Arellano kindly just shared this poster with me this morning.

So it's how do we call it? Hot bread? Fresh bread?

And you can watch, it just happened. If you want to actually subscribe for the actual event, next picture, you can find the QR codes here. And this is going to be on February 19th to the 22nd I think it is.

And depending on your language, you choose your QR code. Alright, but that still is like a month from now. What's happening now?

We want to know, Cristina. What's happening now? Just in a few more days and next Wednesday, she's going to start the Series 1 of Organic Sanskrit Series.

And along with that, she's going to be teaching once a week for the more advanced students. The Series 3. If Cristina is there, I think she can give us a quick, how do you say?

Explanation, recap of what to expect on each one of those two. And I think she's there because I talked to her. Yes, Cristina.

Hi, Juan. Good to see you.

[Speaker 2]
Happy New Year.

[Speaker 1]
Happy New Year. It's great to see you. And I'm very excited.

I know I only have two minutes. Everybody come to Sanskrit. Wednesday this week at 4 o'clock.

Thursday at 9 o'clock. Wednesday is for beginners. Thursday is for people who have had a little bit of Sanskrit.

You're welcome to both or either class and come and let us spread the holy words of the Buddha around the world in Sanskrit. Thank you. Thank you, Cristina.

Best wishes. So there you go. Series 1 starting on Wednesday.

Series 3, more advanced on Thursdays. The timing is slightly different. On Wednesday, it's going to be 4 p.m. Arizona time, of course. Central time. And Thursdays is morning time. Okay.

We'll see what happens next, Cristina. I hope you keep reporting the progress on it. Yes, at the end of this month, teachers John Brady, Teacher Connie, Sophie Chow, they are organizing a program in Japan.

It's going to go from the 30th to the 3rd of February. Just so you know, if you're in Asia, if you're in Japan, you can go. Follow the QR codes.

And there is something else happening at the end of January. But before I tell you what it is, I want you to watch this video. Marina, please.

Thank you, by the way. Marina also finished her the same mantra retreat that Mike did with Teacher Sarani and David. So thank you, Marina.

And congratulations. Congratulations. Let's go for the first video, which is...

Yes. Now the other one. We were talking about Diamond Mountain, an upcoming event.

If you can, try to come. Geshe Michael is getting us ready for the new Diamond Way series. This event is going to happen in Diamond Mountain, produced together with the five house...

Yes, please. Sorry about that. You will watch that video, but first we need to watch the other first video.

Yay.

[Speaker 2]
Hi, everybody. Inna and Bill are here.

[Speaker 1]
Hello. Happy New Year.

[Speaker 2]
Happy New Year.

[Speaker 1]
Just wanted to let you know we are grateful for every one of you, and it's always a pleasure, a real joy to talk about meaningful things with you. And we hope that your New Year will be filled with many more meaningful conversations.

[Speaker 2]
This year was very fruitful for us. We have published two Geshe Michael books in Ukrainian, How Yoga Works and The Karma of Love. We have launched a Worldview Financial Freedom Club, and 300 people participated in this club.

Many of them heard the pen story for the first time. Bill has created and we taught together his Levels of Meditation course in Montenegro. And also we have taught four foundational courses.

I have launched with another worldview student, Olya Makushenko, The Master of Transformation course for coaches who are willing to consult people based on correct worldview. And also the last but not the least, this year we have launched a self-value course for people who have difficulties applying principles of correct worldview because they do not believe in themselves. We are so grateful for everything that happened this year and for everything we accomplished.

Wish everybody the very best and may all your dreams come true.

[Speaker 1]
There you go. Thank you Ina and Bill for your Happy New Year's good wishes and for sharing with us the progress, the work that you've been doing. Thank you so much for helping this world to be a better place.

And by the way they are having that's what I brought them up. They're having an event on the meditation stages, which is the next poster. But this time is going to be in Chicago.

So if you want to attend, here's the information you can follow. Bill did a three-year retreat where he explored the meditation system that we learned and now he's teaching about it as well, about the system and his own experience dealing with the ups and downs that this practice sometimes can bring. But it's good to have guides along the path.

So congratulations Bill and Ina as well. Thank you so much. There's the QR code.

Now we are entering February right on our timeline of events. As Geshe-la mentioned, next picture please, Lindsay is the main producer of this amazing celebration. The Chinese New Year coming up, along with the 10th anniversary of Diamond Cutter Classics.

I hear we are planning a big party. We were talking something about the translators dancing. Just kidding, I don't know about that, but they'll be around and they'll be sharing something with all of us.

That's going to be on February 16th at 5pm Arizona time. I think, well we'll talk about it later. If people are visiting town, if they can come, where is it going to be?

Maybe soon we have Lindsay with us telling us all about that. And I want to share another video that recaps one of the big organizations, part of this Worldview Umbrella. And it's a very cool presentation we had during the New Year's program a few weeks ago.

Sorry, a few days ago. I don't know where I am now, but now let's watch. We were talking about Diamond Mountain, an upcoming event.

If you can try to come, Geshe Michael is getting us ready for the new Diamond Way series. This event is going to happen in Diamond Mountain, produced together with the Five Houses team. And for that, we have today, no other than Tim Lowenhaupt in person, in green, sharing with us.

Hi Tim, good to see you. Hi Tim.

[Speaker 2]
How are you? I'm so happy to see all three of you. I really miss all three of you.

[Speaker 1]
I just got back a couple days ago from a nice holiday vacation with my family, and now I'm rested up and ready to go for the new year. You look good. You look like a rich person, dressing in green.

I don't know. Gives me that vibe. Everything's green, looks awesome.

[Speaker 2]
I wanted to do just a really quick review of, we saw a tremendous growth of students practicing with us. We increased the number of students by over 4,000. In the last two years, we've recorded over 32,000 hours of classes, and that's Five Houses classes and Worldview Productions classes, like YSI and Diamond Cutter Classics.

[Speaker 1]
What you can see is that there's a tremendous number of people and number of hours just being put in, spreading the ideas, spreading the teachings.

[Speaker 2]
I want to celebrate all the people and all the volunteers, and as you can see, almost 62,000 hours of volunteer service. Without that, we wouldn't have an organization. And you can see how much we've just spent on production, how many translation hours, how it's continually increased over the last year or so.

And then one thing I want to point out, this year alone, we had over 14,000 individual donations made to Five Houses. We thank everyone who does make those donations. That's also allowed us to give over $400,000 in scholarships this year.

You can see that the momentum is growing.

[Speaker 1]
In 2026, the launch of the Five Houses will be official. We need more help, not just logistics, but we also need content help. That's what we're trying to grow.

No, totally. And then, if people are interested, how can they help?

[Speaker 2]
They could reach out pretty much to anyone on the team and say, hey, I'd like to help. We have volunteer opportunities. We're creating new committees and curriculum committees this year.

So as those announcements come out, just apply to them, because we need the help. We need more people. We need more ideas, and we need to understand what people need.

What do people need in Mexico? What do they need in Colombia? What do they need in Malaysia?

The ideas are universal, but the application of them is unique to each culture and each country, and we need to know what those differences are to be able to serve people and meet them where they are and what their today's needs are.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Thank you, team Logo and Hub, and thank you all the Five Houses team for this amazing, great, great year, and best wishes for what is coming up next. So, as Tim was saying, they are trying to collect more people, more energy to participate and help with the future of Five Houses.

So, if you're interested, just reach out to them, or you can try to go to next picture, please. The event in Diamond Mountain, where you're going to find them, and you can talk with them in person. You can talk about ideas and ways to be involved and participate there, and of course, have the amazing experience of learning the content that Geshe-la is preparing for us over there.

So, I don't know. I'm starting to hear rumors that the live places are finished, maybe still camping. I don't know, but if I were you, I would hurry up, and I should be you, because I have to hurry up.

I mean, in that sense. I don't know if that makes sense. It's a joke, but yeah, there is a QR code, and just for you, the ones who are planning to go live, Diamond Mountain is also planning a month retreat after these wonderful teachings.

It's the last poster of today, and soon Sunam is going to be talking with us about it, about this March 20 to April 20 event, the month retreat, and many of you who have done retreats there, short or longer, we have the fortune to know that Diamond Mountain is a wonderful, wonderful place to actually do these retreats. It's really, really good. It's equipped and designed for that, so it's like the right, I'll say, everything is suitable, it's conducive.

So, yeah, Sunam will be with us very soon to talk more about it, but then you can have the idea and make your plans. This is everything for today. Hope your best, best, best wishes, and 2026 bring a lot of amazing, beautiful, wonderful things.

Thank you so much. See you Monday, if everything goes well.