Бен Крамер — Книга 2: Драгоценность истинной мысли (Геше Йеше Вангчук о Дхармакирти), занятие 57

[Speaker 1]
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Xuanzang's Tower. It looks like our friends maybe at the tower in Sedona.

Yeah, I see them. Yes, hi everybody. I see Gibson and Emily and Rob and there's Brooks.

What's up? Welcome to Xuanzang's Tower. Thanks to all the people who are in town for Bhagavad Gita.

Oh, I hear myself. That's what I sound like. All right, I'm gonna be quiet now.

Is Geshe Michael about ready? Whoa, hey, hey Geshe Michael. There we go.

Okay, Mr. Ben. Hi, jump straight to homework. Where are you?

Yes, please. Yeah, good. I'm in my office.

Nothing wild going on here. Oh, here we'll come back to these surprises you sent me. In the meantime, why does our author argue that Master Dharmakirti would not have written the words of his pledge to compose his book after he had become discouraged by his work's poor reception, as other people have suggested?

And then you can give me the Western Chinese term for a classical pledge to compose a book. That I can do. Great, you're hired for that, Martha.

Go ahead and put yourself down for a raise. And then there's this argument that people make sometimes, okay. Dharmakirti opens his book with this kvetching about how no one appreciates cool books.

And some people said that it was because he was so bummed after he had written the book that everyone dissed his book and tied it to many an animal's tail to be run out of town like a scape dog. But our author argues that can't be the order in which these events took place. Why not?

I can guess. He wrote in the pledge that he was writing the book for himself, not for other people. Well, why would you not write a pledge at the end of writing a book?

Because the pledge is to write the book, and one writes it before they write a book, and therefore the book wasn't tied to a tail until it was already completed. Yeah, what's the point in writing a pledge to compose? Yeah, okay.

Yeah, exactly. You write a pledge to compose a book to give you like the spiritual chutzpah, the power to complete the work. So why would you write at the end?

You don't need it then. As Nick said, pledge to compose is Tsampa Tantawa. Okay, now, give me the Western Chinese terms used for envy, and then eloquent words used in the pledge.

Not you, not the Geshe who speaks fluent Tibetan. Uh-oh, now you got it. That's where it comes.

These are easy for... so the hard nuts can give a, you know, a 10-second count before telling us eloquent words. Then they're waiting for you to offer money.

That's the thing. Oh, as much money as I have in this pocket, I offer to you twice as much. Unlimited multiples of this amount.

Roxanna says chak tok for jealousy. And because she's smart and correct. Chloe Ma says chak tok also.

Well done, Chloe. You can split the earnings between you. We just finished that meditation.

Multiples of zero dollars. Who is it that Master Dharmakirti says people are chak tok of, are jealous of? Him?

Somebody said Master Dignaga. Yeah, that's correct. Right, it's Master Dignaga, not him.

They're not jealous, again, of a book he didn't write yet. Maybe they were jealous of him, but he wouldn't say so. Like a pre-release of the book, there's a pre-jealousy also.

Yeah, that's right. And thus, then, what eloquent words are being referred to? Pramana samuccaya.

You're good at this, Geshe Michael. His teacher's book, his teacher's book on logic. Right, yeah, his teacher's book on logic.

Which, by the way, his book is the commentary too. So, cool, great, well done, everybody. One last question.

How long ago, Ben? How long ago? How long ago is the samuccaya?

Yeah, roughly. I think that's like 500s? Yeah, 500s.

600s, maybe? Yeah, 600s. Yeah, something like that, yeah.

Okay, cool. How does our author directly relate the science of reasoning to Buddhist philosophy and practice? Why does he say, not just why in general, but why does he say the science of reasoning is particularly useful to Buddhist logic?

Because that's what this book is, right? And there's some hot topic debate about, is this a Buddhist book or is this just a debate book? Anyone can write a debate book, but that doesn't make it Buddhist.

Why would you study logic, according to him? Practitioners who follow out of reasoning are much more powerful than practitioners who follow out of faith alone. That's true.

Go ahead, word. He says, what we call Buddhist logic is mainly a method to divorce negative thoughts from our minds. That's nice.

He says something very specific. By the way, what makes Buddhist practice Buddhist practice? Taking refuge in the three jewels.

And in order to take refuge in anything, you need to first determine whether or not the object to which or to whom you are going for protection can provide you that protection. So there is logic that must, reasoning that must occur. That's perfect.

Lovely. You need nepa. You need certainty.

You got to be sure that the three jewels can do anything for you. Or how are you going to go to shelter for them if you don't even know they can shelter you from the rain, much less to your suffering? In fact, they can't shelter you from the rain, generally.

Okay, cool. Now, Kishi Michael, I have a translation here, but you put some stuff in ahead of it. In the moments ahead.

So do you want to talk about this first? Because you put it in... You have this big note here that says read the following that takes place prior.

What's the translation start at? Well, the translation starts right under this. Sorry, everybody hold on tight.

It starts here. Yeah, let's do my part first and then we'll do your translation, okay? Makes sense.

Yes, let's do your part first. Do you want the screen or should I be a scroller? I'll take the screen, please.

I'm going to give it to you, thank you. Okay, and then we're going to go to Ben's homework. Don't cry.

These people were crying, not you. We really go to Ben's homework? I know.

Okay. So to understand the argument that's going to come next, which is what Ben translated, you have to understand a different topic. So to repeat, those of you who haven't been in this class, we are translating the classics of the major topics of the last 2,500 years, and they are basically 12 or 13 different dialects.

So you can understand emptiness dialect and not understand logic dialect. They are completely different dialects. So that's why we have 12 translators.

We just had a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the translation work, and those 12 translators have survived. Strangely. And no one has dropped out, no one has died.

We're waiting to see who's first. And they're doing a great job. As I mentioned, two books came out this week.

Two of the books, Seiji's 900-page epic about Lojong, the Crown of Knives, with a great commentary. And then, what's the other one? The Devil Debates an Angel?

Oh, what's the other one? A Light for a Friend just came out, which is by Tsongkapa's teacher. And so anyway, the project is long.

Each book takes about 10 years, and it's going well. Okay, we're having a good time. And we had a wonderful celebration last week, and thank you for everyone who helped organize it, and everyone who came.

Lindsay, mainly. Thank you for that. So there's a topic that we have to cover to understand Ben's homework, and that's called, say, rik.

Rik ne nga. Rik ne nga. Okay, there's two riks in West Chinese language.

One is RIG RIG, R-I-G, which means knowledge or understanding. And then there's RIG with an S on the end, RIG RIG, which means type or category. So the word for understanding, R-I-G.

The word for category, R-I-G-S. Pronounce the same, they are synonyms. And there's a famous subject called RIG NAS.

I say RIG NAS. NAS means place, so RIG NAS, if you spell it one way, it means a place of knowledge. And if you spell it the other way, it means a place of logic.

So it's commonly misspelled. It's misspelled a lot. And there are three different explanations of RIG NAS, and we're going to cover them before we can do the homework.

So there are five RIG NAS. Okay, there are five what? We can call sciences, or five traditional topics of study.

Just literally five topics of knowledge. RIG NAS. NA.

Okay, say RIG NAS, five classical topics of knowledge. Okay, and then you can go deeper on it. There's three sets of those.

There's three different sets of them. You cannot understand Ben's argument today if you don't get some background in the five classical topics of knowledge. Sometimes people call them the five classical sciences.

And I want to show off, which I never do. I was sitting there preparing for this class a couple days ago, and I remember translating a Russian article about this topic. And I lost the article many, many years ago.

I don't know where it is. And I said, I wonder if it's online. And I found it.

And I translated this explanation of today's topic 49 years ago. Okay, so next year I'll be 50 years of translation. And I translated it from the Russian.

It was written by a scholar named Probayev. And I wanted to show it off. So here you go.

And spring 1977. Most of you were only a gleam in your father's eye at that time. Okay, and this is the discussion of the RIG NAS.

Buryatia is a part of Siberia, which is Mongolian-Tibetan Buddhism. They follow Mongolian-Tibetan Buddhism. They actually have some great text collections.

And we have... John's tried to crack that collection. We're still working on it, I assume.

So it's a part of Siberia. And in those days, the best Tibetan scholars in the world were in St. Petersburg. And they collected 141,000 manuscripts, which we took 12 years to catalog there.

So if you want to... I was trying to finish my degree at Princeton. I had done five years of Russian.

And I had to finish my degree. So I applied for independent studies. And I designed a project to study the Russian translations of Shantideva, of Bodhisattva Charyavatara.

And then, by the way, I was doing translations of Russian research on Tibetan topics. Okay, so that's the article, first part of the article. Right here, if you look closely, is the divisions of our translator project.

49 years ago. Okay, Abhidharma, that's Stanley. Pramana, which is Ben.

Madhyamika, which is Tim. Moral philosophy, which was Paramita. That's lower middle way, which is Tim.

Higher middle way is Nick. And monastic Vinaya is Xiaoping. So, you know, I think it was 49 years ago.

It was 49 years ago. And it set this thing in my mind that we needed to cover these five topics. Okay, so are those the five subjects that I was talking about earlier today?

No. All right, here's the riknes. Okay, you can divide rikne...

This is misspelled by Geshe-la. Rikne. You can...

The topics of knowledge, rikne, are divided into the five great ones and the five lesser ones. Okay, and so I went and got your commentary on it. And I'd like to read that with Ben today.

First we're going to cover the five great topics of knowledge. Then we're going to cover the five lesser topics of knowledge. And then the great topics of knowledge have also five divisions.

Okay, sorry here. And you cannot understand his book today if you don't know... if you don't have this background.

Okay, so here we go. We're going to a book by Sarah Judson Chuky Gyaltsen, which is often confused with Losang Chuky Gyaltsen. Losang Chuky Gyaltsen wrote The Devil Debates an Angel.

Chuky Gyaltsen, from Sarah J, was a great textbook writer about 100 years before that. And his student was Kedrup Dhammadhargyi, who wrote the textbooks for Sarah May, the best textbooks. Okay, that's a case, a rare case, where the student outdid his teacher.

It hasn't happened around here. Ah, just kidding. Okay, let me get a nice...

I'm just kidding, Ben. Not even close. Not even if I made it 50 years in.

Okay, so Ben, can you read... We're going to read this part in the big letters, okay? I can't, can you...

I'm sorry, I don't have to share my screen, I'm sorry. No, you were sharing your screen. You were just zoomed funny.

No, you were good. But we couldn't, we can't see the right side of your screen. I think you just have to...

There, great, perfect. Okay. Cool.

Is that okay? Great.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, de na... de na, do-wa dun-nyer gyi, rik-pa ne-nga, la-ke-par ja-gu-te Okay, de na means what, Ben? Well, that's true then, whatever was just true.

Yeah, what's a do-wa dun-nyer type of person? Someone who wants to get out of all the trouble in the universe. Yeah, they want to escape death and suffering.

Okay, do-wa dun-nyer gyi. By those guys, they should become kepa. They got a master.

The rik-pa ne-nga. Hey, those five places of knowledge or sciences. Yeah, the five sciences.

Whether he's talking about the great ones, the lesser ones, or the other ones, we don't know yet. Okay, but you have to know all 15 to understand his book today. All right, so here we go.

These are the five... five, you can say, majors so far. Okay, Ben, you want to read this one because we didn't get too far.

Sure, chi-gul tsarg chupa-la, ten-sik-rik-pa-dang, da-rik-pa she-gu Yeah, so he divides the five into basically three groups. Okay, the first group has two members. Two of the five sciences relate to the first goal of Buddhist knowledge, of knowledge.

And in the pursuit of knowledge, we need two skills to start with. We need ten-sik. Reasons, reasoning maybe.

Yeah, ten-sik means reasons, logical reasons. Ten-sik-rik-pa means the science, or the science of reasoning. We need magic.

Okay, the first thing someone who's... Who needs? First thing, who needs?

Those who desire freedom. If you're tired of suffering, the first thing you have to do is think logically. And there's an argument of why a Buddha should study magic.

You cannot get out of samsara if you don't. Okay, ten-sik. So ten-sik-rik-pa, first of all, that's a good way to tsarg chupa your chi-guls.

Oh, to whoop up on your debate opponents. Yeah, if people argue against your ideas like emptiness, then you better know logic in order to enlighten them. Okay, so he phrases it that way.

If you want to overcome objections to this idea of emptiness, you better be able to think logically. And then you better also know dra. Grammar?

I mean, the science of language? Yeah, it could mean the science of language. Here it mostly means the understanding of Sanskrit.

Okay, so in your relationship with other people, in exploring wisdom with other people, you better know the classics. And you better know the languages in which the classics are written. Which is, for us, it's Sanskrit and Tibetan and Chinese.

You should have some knowledge of these languages. All right, so that covers the first two. They are basically, let's say, logic and the classical languages.

Okay, you better have a knowledge of those two. Okay, do one more, Ben, because it's not very long. Nice.

There's two s's in Tibetan. There's two sh's in Tibetan, also in Sanskrit. In Tibetan, say, SO.

SO. So, whenever you see a Z or an S in Tibetan, you have to decide whether it's low tone or high tone. The Z represents low tone.

It does not represent Z. It represents a low S, SO. We use Z because we don't have a second S in English, okay?

But everyone misuses the Z. And online, I think everyone misuses the Z. I don't know anybody who doesn't misuse it, except AOL, on a good day.

So, okay. So, SORUKPA is the science of... Crafts?

Yeah, crafts is nice. Yeah, it's the fine arts. It's the fine arts.

It's statuary, painting, architecture, what we call the fine arts, or the constructive arts. It's called SORUKPA. Fabrication, making things.

Why would you need that in the context of understanding emptiness? I don't know. DUL BYA RJES SU BRDZIN PA Yeah, to attract students.

You can't have a YSI class if you don't know how to buy a building. Seriously. And in the modern world, you have to know how to acquire a property, how to finance it.

You have to know about taxes. You have to know about maintaining it, for example. You know, it's not a small topic.

If you want to help the world, you better know how to buy property and maintain it, okay? And how to decorate it, and how to make it pleasant for the students. It's a part of Buddhism.

All right. SORUK. It's helpful if you know SORUK.

Ayurveda. Yeah, the fixing. SOR means fixing, and it means medicine.

Say SORUK. Fixing knowledge, meaning medicine. It's the name for medicine.

So now we have four great topics of knowledge so far. They are logic, then we have classical languages, and then we have practical stuff. Practical, creating things.

Making buildings, paintings, music for your Buddhism. Four? Yeah, medicine.

And like in Mongolia, I lived in a Mongolian community for 25 years. Most of the monks were Ayurvedic practitioners. It was common in Mongolia that the monks were also doctors.

And so this is a way to get people to come to church. If they have a toothache, you say, come on Sunday, I'll meet you in the church. You know, it's kind of an old way to get people to come.

They were doctors. Okay, the doctors were the... That's a Mongolian for doctor.

And it means monk doctor. Okay, SORUK. So now he's going to talk further about those first four.

We haven't got to the fifth one yet. We didn't cover the fifth one yet. So Dan, can you read that one?

DANG NYID RIG PA NAS LA SKAD PAR BYED PA LA DE ZHIG KA ZHES DGOS Yeah, for you yourself to become SKAD PA in those RIG PA NAS, you're going to need ZHIG KA. ZHIG KA? All four.

All four? Yeah. All of those first four are not only necessary for attracting others, and serving others, and debating with others.

If you want to master them, you'd better learn the first four also. It's not enough to master the fifth one, which you may have guessed by now is NANG RIG PA. The Buddhist philosophy.

Yeah, Buddhism as a topic. Buddhism is one of the five great topics of study. Okay, so Buddhism is number four.

It's cute here. Dan's going to explain why it's cute that NANG RIG PA has been miscarbed as GNAS RIG PA. I mean, GNAS is like illness.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's like the science of disease or something. The carver changed the inner science, which is Buddhism, to the science of disease. Epidemiology.

Okay. NAD means disease. NANG means inner or Buddhist.

So it's kind of cute. And these are the things you have to struggle with as you learn these languages. The manuscripts are often miscarred.

The people who were the Xerox machines of those days could not read. So they were just hired to carve all day. And they carved backwards in reverse image.

They couldn't read what you printed from the block. They couldn't read it. They couldn't even read what they carved on the block.

They made a lot of mistakes. All right, so now we reached big science number five. If you want to do a THOB PA, you better know NANG RIG PA.

To achieve liberation, you're going to need to know the inner sciences, meaning Buddhist philosophy. Yeah, the fifth science is Buddhism. And you're going to need to know that if you want to escape from suffering.

Okay. Then he says, he just proved it with RIG PA. He just demonstrated RIG PA with RIG PA.

RIG PA with RIGS PA. Okay. And now he's going to use LUNG.

Yeah, now he's going to back it up with scriptural reference from whose text? Tim's text. One of...

Same person. Now I think, Ben, you want someone to read it? Yeah, Raksana sure earned her chance.

She's going to be in the homework battles. Yay! How about two lines?

First two lines, Raksana.

[Speaker 3]
Nice, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Ben, translate. RIGS PA'I GNAS NGA'A Yeah, the five sciences. Yeah, the five topics of knowledge.

If you don't tsampa about them. If you don't work hard on them? Yeah, if you don't work hard on this fire, which is interesting.

This is Shantideva saying you better know how to fix a car if you're going to be a bodhisattva. He's saying you can't ignore anything that people need to know. Okay, tsampa ma chen na.

Even the choker of the park bus. Wow, the supreme Arya. Yeah, the super Aryas could never have attained tam chik khyabpa.

They could never achieve omniscience. They could never know all things. No bodhisattva ever got to be a Buddha without knowing these five.

Including property management, etc. Financial management, stuff like that. Taxes, oh my god.

Only Buddhas can do taxes. The Secretary of State of the United States, in a past administration, submitted his taxes with a note that said, I can't understand the tax law, but I did my best. So I'm like, how do we understand it?

Anyway, okay, the third and fourth line, Ben, who's going to read that one? Oh, Raksana can't be done yet. Okay, she's dying to read that.

Yeah, he's backing up his statement that you need the five sciences with a quotation that doesn't mention them by number. And we have to dig. We have to dig logically, okay?

He says, that quotation says, you better know how to argue with others. You better know how to disprove the wrong ideas of other people if you're going to become a Buddha, if you're going to reach liberation, okay? Sarcha means, Ben?

Sarcha, to defeat, refute? Yeah, literally put an end to, literally cut off. But what it means is, and even Buddha was a great debater, and in fact, one of the great six holidays of the year is called the day of debate.

And so, he was a great debater. So anyway, the tradition of debating started with him. So Shendad Sarcha, you better know how to present your arguments to other people, which covers two of the five great sciences.

Oh, Sanskrit and logic? Yeah, logic and Sanskrit, okay? Meaning you have to refer to the classics.

Logic is not enough, you need scripture. That's implying that you need scripture. If you don't know these classical languages, you don't know scripture.

Okay? So, who's talking? Maitreya.

Okay, future Buddha. And he's like there, he's got this one foot down. Okay, about to come down.

And he's like, look, you guys gotta have this logic, and you gotta have, you have to be able to read the ancient books. First. Secondly, three and four.

Yeah, Jein Zin, Je Tsong Zinpa means to attract students. You're going to need three and four. What are they?

Fine arts and medicine. You're going to have to know how to do the business side of the school. And then you're going to have to know something about it.

In the old days you had to be someone who could treat illnesses. Most, and a ney lama, a personal mentor, was often described as someone who could take care of their student when they got sick. Okay, nowadays it's just drive them to the, try to find a doctor who is open.

And then try to, right? Jing may find an insurance policy that will cover it. That's how she spends her time.

For me. Okay, Je Tsong Zinpa. Yeah, so, two sciences needed to prevent other people's wrong ideas, and two sciences needed to support others and draw them in.

And then finally you're going to need the fifth one. Who's going to read that? Oh, Dagny Kunshay Jarchir Ben.

If you want a kunshay. If you want to unknow all things. Yeah, if you want to become a Buddha yourself.

You're going to need number five. You're going to have to work hard on number five. What's number five?

Nangripa. Inner science. Buddhism.

Yeah, Buddhism. Okay, Buddhism. Buddhism is the fifth of the classical sciences.

Okay. She Sungpay Che Just as, we didn't get to your homework yet, Ben. I'm sorry, we're getting there.

It's okay. Don't worry. I thought you guys would like to know the rikne chungwa.

Ben, what's that? The lesser set? Or the secondary?

Yeah, the five lesser sciences. The five lesser sciences. We finished the five great sciences.

Now we're finishing, now we're going to do the five lesser sciences. These are harder. Okay.

Who's going to read, Ben? Can I put someone in the room up there? Lindsay, perhaps?

Miss Lindsay. Does it work? Okay.

Starting here. Rikne chungwa Ben, you got the plane, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Rikne chungwa Nga Ngan Ngan Ngan Nga Ngan Ngan Ngan Ngan Good.

[Speaker 1]
Wait, this is pronounced M.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, okay. Yeah. Nga Ngan Ngan Ngan Ngan Ngan Okay, these are harder.

[Speaker 1]
RIG MED CHUNG BA means the lesser sciences, the five lesser sciences. First one is NYAN NGAGS BAN. Pretty words?

Poetry? Yeah, poetry. NGON SBYUR.

NGON SBYUR here means, I believe, it's a knowledge of the classical synonyms and things like that, okay? Like the... what's this classical...

what's the classical word for the sun? Like... In just chariot or something like that?

Metaphors. Yeah, the chariot that's pulled across the sky by the nine horses. And you have to know how to refer to the sun that way.

So you could say aphorisms or something. You have to know the fancy... and once you get into Sanskrit poetry, kavya, you better know those or you won't understand anything, okay?

So you got to know the poeticisms, how's that? But in the sense of... what do you call those?

You can say metaphors. Adages? Different poeticisms for...

like the chariot that crosses the sky for the sun, okay? You can say... Yeah, it can be like epithets sometimes.

You can say poeticisms. And so NYAN NGAGS means you better know poetry. NGON SBYUR means you better know those phrases.

BDEB SBYOR means... Composition? Yeah, how to tie them all together in a book.

How to make books. How to write books, okay? In classical times BDEB SBYOR means composition, meaning books.

So you need poetry, you need vocabulary, and you need book writing, okay? Then you're gonna have to do DER GAR RAGS ZAN NA.

[Speaker 3]
Dance?

[Speaker 1]
Classical dance, okay? Religious dance, spiritual dance. And so that was considered a great...

one of the important things to study and to know in classical times. And it's a beautiful thing. I studied it a little bit in Mongolia with the last master.

He was in a wheelchair, which made things interesting. And we went through some of the books together and stuff. RAGS ZAN NA is also translating some of those.

GAR CI. Astrology? Astrology, but not the kind of astrology in the newspaper.

What's a newspaper? It's astrology as a reflection of your inner body, okay? You can make...

you can understand things about your inner body by observing how the planets are moving, because that's created by the same karma that creates your inner body. Whether you're talking about the movement of stars and planets through the heavens, or you're talking about the movement of hamburgers through your stomach, they are both driven by the same powers. So if you are aware of real astronomy, where you can really understand your inner body by the stars that are created by your inner body, then that's classical astrology.

And in the Tibetan tradition, in the monastic tradition, you don't study astrology until you finish a high geshe, and then you're allowed to study astrology. And it's very difficult. I tried some of it, and it's extremely difficult.

Anyway, you need to know those five. So now you know you divide the rikmesh into jewa and chumar, the greater and lesser ones. So we went through those ten.

Then you could go through the five topics of classical Buddhism, which is a third set of five. These are divisions of nangrikpa. The fifth of the great sciences is Buddhism.

And it itself has five or six divisions. Ready? Basically the four great schools plus one.

Well, you could say to express your Buddhism and share it with others, you would have to know how to write a book, how to translate it, how to do a good sentence, you know, how to judge from the stars whether it's the right date to publish a book, something like that. Okay, something like that. Now, easy, easy schmizzy.

Then we're going to do the homework, and then we can start the class. What are the five topics of Buddhism? I mean, basically the schools.

Abhidharma. Vinaya. Pramana.

We say Mind-Only. We would go to Mind-Only and then Middle Way. Basically, those five.

And then you can throw in secret Buddhism at the end, but that's so secret we don't even count it. Okay, got it? And those are 15 things you should know if you want to be a good Buddhist.

And my teacher summarized it by saying you should know how to fix a car for someone in the middle of the night on the highway. And it happened to me. I was on the Arizona bridge, very dangerous bridge, and a car broke down.

My car broke down. And I got out and I fixed the engine because he taught, he made me learn how to take the engine apart. And so he said that's a very necessary thing to serve people in America, right?

You can help them when their car breaks down. Anything that would help you help people, you have to learn it, okay? All right, including poker and other things.

All right, now Ben's going to... Ben, I'm going to give up the share, and now you guys know enough to do Ben's homework. Well, we did the homework, but now we know enough to see we didn't do my translation attempt.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to read it first?

Sure. This is kind of a difficult sentence. Let's see how the translator did.

Just because something covers the science of accurate perception. Okay, good. Doesn't mean it is not Buddhism.

Okay, just because it's logic doesn't mean it's not Buddhism. Okay, all right. But he phrases it in terms of the classical sciences.

So if you don't know about the classical sciences, you can't translate this book. Is the fifth of the great sciences the second of the great sciences? No.

No. The first four sciences are non-Buddhist. They are shared by other religions.

Only the fifth science, which is ne rigpa, right? Don't nod, Anatole. That was the joke where the guy mis-carved it.

The science of disease. Okay, good. So if you take the five classical sciences, only the fifth one is Buddhism.

Therefore, the first four should not be Buddhism. Am I right? No.

The fifth one is Buddhism, god dang it. So the first four are not Buddhism. Well, then there's only four, because the second one is part of the fifth one.

Okay, anyway, that's the debate here. Somebody says, is the topic of your book even Buddhism? Because logic seems too boring for us yogis who want to study the inner body.

We're not particularly interested in logic. And then he's trying to say, no, logic is part of Buddhism. And then the guy comes back and says, yeah, but all those books about logic are not the fifth science.

They are the second science. And the second science is logic. The fifth science is Buddhism.

Got it? So then our guy says, just because it's logic, doesn't mean... double negative coming up, doesn't mean it's not Buddhism.

That's our guy. He's defending logic. Just because it sounds the same as the second classical science, doesn't mean it's not part of the fifth classical science.

Got it? Just because it seems to be the study of logic, doesn't mean it's separate from the fifth classical science, which is Buddhism. Okay?

Got it? Well, now that's another subject. But I'll answer you.

In Buddhist logic terms, Aristotelian logic is illogical, because it does not address itself directly to the question of suffering. Okay? To be honest.

That's the answer to that question. Okay. Okay.

Now he's creating a... So then he's got Semarikpa, Nangrikpa, and Tenzigrikpa, and Gyudzenrikpa. He's got four sciences here.

What are they? Tell me. Semarikpa.

The science of accurate perception. Yeah, the science of accurate perception. Then he's got Tenzigrikpa.

The science of reasoning. The science of logical reasoning. Then he's got Gyudzenrikpa.

I said that those refer to the science of, like, formulating arguments. Or, you know, investigating the causes of things. Investigating the real causes of things.

So he says you've got the study of correct perception. You've got Nangrikpa, the inner science. You've got Tenzigrikpa, the science of logical statements.

And then you've got Gyudzenrikpa, the science of understanding why things happen. Four different sciences here.

[Speaker 3]
Geshe Michael, does that mean the Rigpa is spelled incorrectly?

[Speaker 1]
Which one? Yes, it is. Ah, well, now you've got to be careful.

You've got to be really careful here. Okay. That's a good question.

I would say it is misspelled here. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I would say it is misspelled. Geshe-la.

Okay. Yeah. It's after the shepa.

Right. I think he's saying understand these are all contained in understanding reasoning or something. Oh, I don't understand what you're saying.

That when we refer to Tsemarikpa, or when we refer to Tenzigrikpa, we're just talking about Gyudzenrikpa with a saw, meaning we're just talking about those as sciences of... Maybe with a saw, but then it would be with a saw. Yeah, reasoning or something.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think you have to read it that way.

Anyway, what it says so far is Tsemarikpa YIN PA TZAM GYIS, just because something is involved with the study of correct perception does not mean it has to be a Buddhist science. Other faiths can investigate what's correct perception. That's what the first line says.

Now, sometimes the science of correct perception and the science of logic are kind of synonyms, okay, as they are in the second school of Buddhism. The second school of Buddhism is called... The logic school or something?

Yeah, basically it's Tsemarikpa, correct perception school, but it's often called the logic school. Then he says you could... almost they overlap.

The study of correct perception and the study of being logical are almost the same thing. And then TSEMA has different meanings there, as I made a note. And it's true that both the study of accurate perception and the study of logic are both referred to as the study of reasons.

And in English we say reasoning. Okay, got it? So you can call the study of reasons reasoning, and then it becomes the study of logic, which is the study of what's a correct perception.

So in Buddhism, they're all mixed together. Okay, you can say I'm in the logic school, or you can say I'm in the correct perception school, and it's the same thing. Okay, all right.

RIGS PA SEMS YIN ZHING RGYAL BA'I Now there's an interesting question, and we have time to cover it. By the way, in seven minutes Ben will lead a discussion of why would today's class be relevant to your normal life. We always have a 15-minute discussion at the end of class about why are we doing this class?

How can you use this class in your real life? Then grandpa disappears, and Ben and the audience have a discussion, unless the audience is so far asleep that they don't say anything, and then it becomes a monologue. So please don't do that.

And after that 15 minutes of discussing how could you use today's stuff in your real life, we do the Peachtree World News. We have I think 41 different organizations in our umbrella, which is a rough umbrella, and it's nice to know what other organizations are doing. Like you may not be aware, but not everyone knows what YSI is up to.

Like people in ACI or people in DCC, we found out there's 14,000 combinations of three letters. So we still have a couple of organizations. Yeah, Joel's getting a headache already.

Yeah, but we don't sometimes know what the other organizations are doing. So we have a Peachtree World News, okay, led by Juan Hassel. All right, here we go.

Before you go to the share tune. Gyalway Yim. Yeah, I want to go to Gyalway Yim.

You have to... do we have to... can we not...

I don't feel like we covered this last bit though, right? So TSE MA RIG PA and THAD ZIG RIG PA, those ZHES PA... Well, the first line is easy, right?

You can translate that. Right, we did. Just because something is the study of accurate perception, doesn't mean it's not the study of the inner science, Buddhism.

Okay, just because something is the study of logic does not mean it's Buddhism. Does not mean it's not Buddhism. Then he says the expressions, the science of accurate perception, and the science of good reasoning are all different versions.

We can refer to both of those as the science of reasoning. Both the study of accurate perception and the study of logical reasons can both be referred to as reasoning. That's all.

[Speaker 2]
That's what this...

[Speaker 1]
In which case, maybe it's not spelled wrong? Right, I don't think it's... Well, I still want to spell it RIG for now, but I'm open.

You could put a question mark after the G. I will. Okay.

And that's how I cover that when I'm in a rush. Okay, but I want to go to the second half of the sentence before I lose you. So, translate fast.

RGYAL BA'I YUM The mother of all the victors, of all the Buddhas. Yeah, which is a synonym for BOD ROL BO LA MIN DO in Chinese. Perfection of Wisdom.

Yeah, which is... So, the sutra is dedicated to the perfection of wisdom. These are...

these also treat the topics of sun jimpa. Yeah, how to refute or defeat bad positions. Yeah, how to argue with a bad position and beat it.

It's called sun jimpa. And, BSTAN GCIG DUS MED DGOS NAS BSAM MO BSTAN LA DPA' How to use many BSTAN GCIGs... Lots of reasons.

...to establish the meaning of BSAM MO. To show the profound, to demonstrate what's profound. Yeah, so, listen.

If you prove something is the science of reasoning, that doesn't... and is therefore the second of the five sciences, that doesn't disqualify it from being in the fifth science, which is Buddhism. And I can give you as an example, these logical presentations in the...

Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra. I can give you those logical presentations.

Are they non-Buddhist? They are not. They're the study of logic.

They involve the study of logic. Buddha gives reasons. He reasoned me.

Got it? So, he's giving that as his example. Just because somebody uses reasons, doesn't mean they are not inner science.

Because reasoning is the second science, and it's shared with the non-Buddhists. The use of logic is shared with the... There's even non-Buddhist schools called logicians.

And so, just because we use logic, doesn't mean you get pushed out of the Buddhist logic category, Buddhist science category. Got it? And his ultimate example is, come on, Heart Sutra is not Buddhism?

Why? Because these dudes use logic on each other. Got it?

Okay, Ben, I'm out of here. Right on time. Have a good time.

Thank you. Thank you for being in this class. But it was really pleasant to be with you guys at the 10th anniversary.

And I thought you and Ben... you and Nick were quite eloquent that night. I thank you for that.

Okay, see you guys. Thank you, Geshe Michael, for everything. Thank you, Geshe Michael.

Thanks, friends. So you are going to help me consider how us everyday folk can use an understanding of the importance of these five or ten ideas, how we can apply them in our lives, why it might be important for us to use them as ordinary folk in the world, or to appear as ordinary folk in the world when we need to. And maybe on top of that, how they might also be a part of our study of deeper philosophy or thought.

And who is first most champing at the bit to help me to consider this topic? Any of you in the audience? Cricket.

Cricket. Cricket. Somebody's coming up.

He's just muted. Oh, good. Rob, you got to unmute.

Unmute. Can somebody unmute Geshe Michael's computer? Hello?

Okay. There, I can hear you quite well. Yeah, it's good to see you when you guys were here.

Wasn't that nice? Yeah, I love you guys so much. I love you.

Thank you. Yeah. So, you know, back in the day, Geshe Michael used to interview people to be in his classes.

So we had like a lunch together. And he was like, how much... No, he's learning about me.

He said, how much school you have left? I said, I have about a little over a year, year and a half, something. He's like, maybe you can go back for something useful, like being a mechanic.

And I was like, Geshe-la, I studied poetry in college. I mean, I'm not much of a... Well, I was a fixer at the time.

And this is more of like a witness. And what I witnessed about him is that he will learn anything, not only just learn, he'll take a deep dive into any subject, anything that would help somebody. And he doesn't just say it when we were just in class, just I watched him.

We were driving and there's this AI on Spotify called DJX. Hey, man, how you doing? And he's like, what is this?

I said, it's this new AI thing. And he opened his laptop and took a deep dive into AI. And he learned everything about it within like a two hour car drive.

And so anything that would make you relatable, helpful to any... I mean, it's just so cool to watch the... Having the whole spectrum of...

And what he's teaching me and all of us is that we should have this ability to help anyone at any moment. And whatever it takes, toilets, AI, classical Buddhism. And so when I open up Spotify now, there's always this thing in the back of my mind, which I guess would be the sixth subject is, why did he have me?

Why is he so into this thing? So if I turn it on, I can't figure out, how is this impacting my life somehow? How am I supposed to relate to helping somebody else?

That's sort of what I took away from those sciences personally. So, yeah. I'd love to read your poetry.

I'd love for you to keep working on that. That was listed, right? So you could still use that to help people and be really into it.

I won a poetry slam at the New York in New York City, actually. Really? And I think I was a painter as well.

How can we use it to serve people? How can we use your poetry? I don't know yet.

He's so handsome. Yeah. He's nice.

Every time I see him, I'm like, God, I wish I looked like him. He's also very kind. It doesn't matter what he says.

I'm always like, uh-huh. Yeah. I hate yoga.

I'm not kidding. He's like, I'm pitching in. I'll do it.

He's so kind. Nice seats. Wow.

Thanks. I wanted to second Rob on what he was saying. How it applied to our lives, right?

It's about that toolbox that we have to help others and how we can increase that toolbox. And Rob was making the emphasis on how we can learn new stuff to serve others. So I would like to make the emphasis on the fact that we already have a lot of skills that we learned through our lives.

And what really touched me in today's class was that we could use those skills to amplify and share our Buddhism. So we might have real estate skills, financing skills, editing skills. We all have all these kinds of skills that we have in putting a toolbox throughout our lives.

And now we don't even need to learn new stuff. I mean, it's cool to learn new stuff. Yeah.

We can still put things in a toolbox, but we already have so many tools in our toolbox that we can share to amplify our Buddhism and impact others with the tools we have. So that was really a game changer. Like, OK, we have all these skills and how can we bring those skills and color them with our Buddhism, which means like basically our love and our wisdom and share them with others.

So that was what really stuck. And nice seeing you, Ben. Again, nice to see you.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Yeah. You know, my wife is she's at a ballet class right now. And she's been a big inspiration for me to appreciate art.

And I think that I at one point in my studies, you know, studying very seriously in the desert, I think I treated it as frivolous, as like something small or not important. And she really helped me to see the power of art. And now, you know, I like I write songs sometimes and I play with friends here and and there's something very powerful about being able to present things beautifully to people.

These books are hard to read. These books are hard to engage with. And it can be painful sometimes to just read the naked classics.

And so when Geshe Michael, for example, writes a book like How Yoga Works or Kachin, where you get this beautiful narrative, right, this story to engage with, that that becomes a pleasure to read. It's a delight to read. And then a master of that art science can bring you through this journey, can bring you to these same places in a way that that's just a delight to engage with.

I think it's a very powerful skill, not just to present what is clear and what is correct, but to learn to make it lovely, I think is a very powerful skill for helping people. What else, friends? Hey, please.

Hi, good. Hey, man. Hi, hi, hi.

It was great to see you also. Yeah, it's good to see you too. Yeah, I have an application for this.

Good. It started with a story two days ago when a truck came to Dragon's Head with 50, I think more, I don't know how many chairs and benches that we bought in China. And it just got shipped hundreds, okay, to Dragon's Head.

And then the delivery company sent me a pretty complex message about you need some people, you need some tool. I didn't pay too much attention to it. And I just sent it to one of our friends, someone and said, can you help us?

I thought it's just like an Amazon thing where you just receive the package. And then it turned out to be a huge truck that can't even pass the gate of Dragon's Head. And the box is like huge.

It's like, I don't know, three, how tall is it? Two, the size of a car. Okay, the box inside the truck is like the size of a SUV, basically.

And there are two of them, okay. And then we don't know, there's no tool in Dragon's Head. There's no people there.

And then we can't even take it down from the truck. And eventually we have to break all the boxes in the truck to take the goods out of the boxes and unload it. The application is we need a property manager at Dragon besides me.

Yeah, it's a real job advertisement. Really, I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

It's real. I believe you. Xiaoping, I realized we need some help, really.

And my Mexican friend told me that the deal that US made with Mexico and Canada, it's called NAFTA, right? NAFTA. NAFTA, NAFTA, might end soon.

So we still have some chance to sponsor some visas. So particularly if you are from Mexico or US or Canada, yeah, yeah. Please reach out to us.

We need some help. That's my job application. Wonderful.

Okay, okay. Is it good? That's nice.

That's great. Okay, a minor science of using the time wisely. Yes.

I was also thinking, why is it just you in the room? You know, these special people who are studying together. Part of it is because you have food and you have shelter and you have your needs fulfilled and helping people to get what they need to be able to study.

And there's so many different things people need to be able to study. Teresa, do you have something for us? Hi, friend.

[Speaker 2]
Sure, I do.

[Speaker 1]
You're famous. Oh, I get all these YSI newsletters and Instagrams.

[Speaker 2]
I thought of a way of selling one of our course through your class. Let's see if it works.

[Speaker 1]
Cool.

[Speaker 2]
So if I understood correctly, the first thing that said is that somebody is really, really suffering, suffering so much that he's trying to look a way out of suffering, right?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, right.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And the first thing he gets is it's through logic. So I was thinking, like, that is a little bit contradictory, because you're so much with a mental affliction or so much jealous or so much angry.

And as Konila always tells us, it's very difficult to cure the mind through the mind at the beginning. So I was thinking that maybe that is why in YSI we teach Lady Nygma too, which is we teach you how to compensate, how to transform the five most negative emotions and through outer methods, as yogis, we do through asanas and through different methods so that you can get some peace of mind and then attack through logic your mental affliction to get to a wisdom. So I hope that everybody comes and get our course.

[Speaker 1]
Good. Wow. Look at that.

Very efficient uses of this time. I'm impressed. Good.

We have two minutes left. Does anyone else have something to sell, promote or a job to offer? I think it's a good use of your time.

Oh, here we go. That's it. Katrin.

[Speaker 3]
Yes, we do have something to advertise.

[Speaker 1]
I believe it.

[Speaker 3]
The reason, think how we can reach our logic. And Geshe-la said that people yesterday, that people are mostly not logical. So you cannot reach people with logic if they are kind of not logical.

So I love what Reza meant, that you can find another way how to reach their logic. And then you can use Buddhism, number five. So to reach first number, second logic, we can go through other ways to go through the mind, which is blocking our opening heart or something, love, compassion.

And you have some mental afflictions and you have some just bad seeds. And we all have bad seeds. And we advertise our event.

It's Purification Retreat, which Venerable Gyaltsen will be teaching in May. And this is the way how you can get rid of your obstacles. Then you can reach logic.

So it's May 1st, May 11th in Armenia. And for those who are in Europe or maybe other place.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. So very welcome to reach your logic and apply this wisdom.

Thank you. Perfect. Thank you so much.

You know, what I'm hoping is that Juan Jasso can extend to us some more of the practical things we can do to prepare ourselves. Very practical today. Extra practical.

Ben. Hi. We're in trouble.

Oh, no. What's happened? What can I do?

[Speaker 3]
I think the monopoly is in danger.

[Speaker 1]
I know. I noticed that too. I was thinking they're moving in on your turf.

Yeah. Yesterday I was talking with the YSI team. And, you know, I generally think that they are very fun and ethic people.

Generally. And they said like, no, don't worry. We don't need time.

We're OK. We are preparing something for Monday. Now I see what they were really trying to do.

Makes my job easier. No, look. Oh, yeah.

I don't know. Look what Gina made for us. It's beautiful.

So every day, getting there.

[Speaker 3]
You guys don't have it, eh? Even if you advertise, you don't have the thing.

[Speaker 1]
Anyways. One day, don't worry. All right.

So let me give you quick context. I have Lindsay here with me. Maybe come more here.

Can we start sharing the screen, please? All right. So we have very little time.

We have a lot of things to talk about. I guess it's a good sign. I don't think we'll have time for everything.

But let's roll. Yeah. The screen, please.

First picture. We are in the middle of YSI program. As you may know, we still have one more day to go.

If you're watching online. How many people online right now? Oops, sorry.

Oh, this is safe. All right. So this program tomorrow is the next picture.

We're still going. You can still join. I hope that's the QR code if you miss it as your friends.

But one more day to go. I'm pressured because of time. And we have so much to do.

Okay. As Gisela was saying, every Monday and every Saturday, we have these programs. It's a translation course.

It's called Chuang San's Tower. And there are the schedule online for Mondays. And then we go all the way to 745 on Saturdays.

Morning, today, Saturday, like today. All right. And what happens there?

We translate the text. We get the knowledge. We get this download.

And we have fun. And then Lindsay, which is here with me, has been running something called the Good Night Book Club, which Gisela has been talking about as well. Yeah.

For that, one of the purpose of that is that you get access to these books. They send you the books if you sign up. But then it's a whole practice behind it.

Gisela keeps saying and keeps saying it's super important, super helpful. I have been trying in and out, but not really, because I try. And it's difficult to keep it.

But when I'm on it, it's really great. I see benefits, so many benefits. Stanley was talking about it too, that he's actually reading one of the books lately, The Letter for a Friend.

Tim was talking about it. And I don't know, guys, but those are two of the most successful people that I see around. I mean, don't get big head, because Rimburg has like five people.

But I see them around. Let's keep going. And then you can also get the daily mailing list.

Yeah. And speaking of that, Rosa has a big new release on the e-book. Gisela was telling us about Segi's e-book, How to Develop a Good Heart.

Yeah, it's now available. And what did I say? Okay.

Yes. How to fix this? I'll buy you coffee later.

All right. Let's open. Let's next picture, please.

That's also another great Geshe Michael release. And this is Light for a Friend.

[Speaker 2]
This is the book that we were talking about. Is the house a new excitement on the BookNet reading? No, this one you just buy.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, Among Friends. Yeah, this you buy, but you use it for your practice. Don't tell Lindsay about it.

All right. Now, we were celebrating. The reason I have Lindsay here with us is because we have a big celebration of New Year happening on Monday.

For those of you who may not been here, we prepare a summary, a video. Summarize or summary?

[Speaker 2]
Summary.

[Speaker 1]
Summary. To summarize. Yes.

Right. Okay. So if Marina, you will be so kind and show the video, please.

Welcome to the 10th anniversary celebration of Diamond Cutter Classics. Thank you, Geshe-la, for having us all here together. Thank you for this big family and this beautiful place.

For all years of work, the love, the wisdom. First of all, thank you. And thank you to Lindsay for organizing this amazing event.

10 years of mixed nuts. When we started this program and we had an exit meeting with the boss, being his student has meant the world to me. And yeah, like so much of who I am and what I'm proud of has been gifted to me by you.

[Speaker 2]
Happy New Year one more time. So we are going to learn a little bit of the horse. So Longma Jingshen here means dragon horse spirit.

Happy New Year, dragon horse spirit. Like you have a strong, healthy New Year with spirit of vitality and you're ready to make a change. And you also have this determination to work harder and move forward.

[Speaker 1]
So over the 10 years, we have done 17 major classics. They cover 12 different languages. And there is a 13th language, which is the language of Diamond Way, which is the advanced books of Buddhism.

We have named our project, our daily classes, we call Shenzong's Tower. The emperor gave him a tower, a beautiful tower. I think it's 12 stories, I'm not sure.

This year, we're going to go there. DCI is going to go to Shenzong's Tower.

[Speaker 3]
This time is to get to play a little game with the translator, random game, random questions.

[Speaker 2]
And you have 30 seconds to answer. Because this book has within it the wisdom of understanding emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
First, we're going to go over a few rules for the race. The only way to get into this race is to gallop. The gallop goes the following way.

Each one of you must gallop that way. You will be judged on style. Wow.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you to my trusty Steve.

[Speaker 1]
I'm just going to close your eyes and open the book at random. And by tradition, I'll read it for you and interpret it for you. And that's how we tell how the year is going to be.

She has chosen a quotation from Tsongkhapa's letter to his student. The student would believe in Tsongkhapa so much. And he wanted to study with him so badly that he agreed.

And Tsongkhapa wrote a letter back and said, Gratitude is the mother of all meditation. That's a prediction for your year. Be a good person.

Be nice to other people. Keep your mind open. And your meditation will be perfect.

Okay? So thank you, Yeshella, for making this possible. And Lindsay, because she was the producer of this event.

Great, great job. Thank you, Lindsay, so much. If you, if any of you want to watch the full recording, you can follow the QR code.

It's now on YouTube, so you can watch the whole thing. If you want to see more details of the horse race or something, you can do it. You can do it there for sure.

And then there was also another video. Next picture, please. Because Lindsay took a few of the translators to horse ride.

And that was very fun as well. And that's another video you can watch. Check it out.

A lot of wisdom shared by our horse masters, Seji, Stanley, and Xiaoping. Very, very cool. And Kitty was there as well, just if you're interested.

Okay, so now, well, next two pictures. It's just because we upload all the videos there. And I need to advertise for this program as well.

You can follow the WhatsApp and the Telegram chat groups where you find all the videos and all the links. And you can also follow on Instagram and YouTube for more news of the World View Network.

[Speaker 3]
Yay, thanks so much. All right, Lindsay, tell us what's new.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yeah, so thank you, everybody, for celebrating 10 years of Diamond Cutter Classics with us. It was really fun to have all the silly horse, year of the horse activities. I wanted to show everybody one thing that we made.

[Speaker 2]
So because it's a 10th anniversary celebration and we actually have 12 translators, we made this really fun planner. And so each translator has a month in the planner. It's in English and Chinese.

And it's really short excerpts, like kind of the Good Night Book Club practice to read just like a paragraph before, but it doesn't have to be super long. And so we have these available if you want to support the translation project and help us to celebrate 10 years. These are available for $108 donation or above.

So those are available for everybody.

[Speaker 1]
And supposedly you use them to plan your day. I've seen Rolf, he's an expert on that, but maybe like, I can't even imagine how to use it.

[Speaker 2]
This is modeled after Geshe Michael has a planner like this that he uses. Let's invite Rolf over. Oh, yeah, this is...

[Speaker 1]
Come, Rolf, come. He's a planner master. And not only that, but also the referee in disguise.

Yeah, this is based on Geshe Michael's personal calendar. And we, as a gift, we wrote his whole year in here. So now this is his personal calendar that he's using to track.

Does it make your life easier? No, not at all. Geshe needs 500 days to do 365 days before I went to San Diego.

And then when I came back from San Diego, a team added more days that he's graciously agreed to do. So, yeah. Yeah, so now we're gonna invite Venerable Cat up here for a special presentation.

Sit in the middle, sit in the middle. Yeah, sit in the middle. Sit down, yeah.

At the 10 year anniversary, we had the world championship horse racing. And I just want to let you guys know that when we decide who wins the horse races, I'm in no way influenced in any way by any decision making. It's all based on a competition completely.

Aside from, that's a 2026 BMW X5 competition with 600 horsepower with the shadow. Yeah, so I'm in no way am I influenced by anything. Her name is Gina.

She's at the Carlsbad San Diego, if anybody wanted to know. I'm kidding, all right. So anyway, this year we crowned Cat the world horse champion of 2026, Dragon's Head, Arizona.

So I take it away.

[Speaker 2]
I have one minute to speak of a topic that's passionate to my heart. So I promised I would do this one minute presentation from a script and reenact the traditional Tibetan horse race verbally. So in accepting this trophy, I have just a minute to speak.

Here we go. I don't know how many of you have spent time around race tracks and the horses that race them, but thoroughbreds are electric.

[Speaker 1]
Hold this horse up for me, please. They're flighty, they're unpredictable. They're creatures born to run.

And before Diamond Mountain had roads, I brought my favorite red race horse to Diamond Mountain from the San Diego race track to help build the place.

[Speaker 2]
And in the open space there, he was pure joy and pure exhilaration. But I've got to share with you, as we saw at the Chinese New Year's race, inside a starting gate, everything tightens up for a horse, a thoroughbred.

[Speaker 1]
You know, the muscles coil, the nostrils flare, the bell rings, the gates burst open and the horses explode forward, trained for that instant of release. And it was during that crucial moment on the Chinese New Year race that two stallions down the line lunged sideways.

[Speaker 2]
My mirror went down and the track vanished beneath me. Now, riders know that falling well matters as much as riding well.

[Speaker 1]
And as a skydiver in my 20s, instinct took over in that moment. And I executed a parachute landing fall and absorbed the impact. So I accept this trophy, not for winning the race, but for the trained fall.

Because I think sometimes the real victory in life is rising elegantly and with grace after hitting the ground. Congratulations, Cat. See everyone next year.

Well, Peachtree News is going to continue, but yeah, we decided we're going to have the horse year every year. So how do you feel about that, Rob? Again, not if that picture is here.

If you want any influence for next year, just look at the following picture. I'm in no way. No, I'm kidding.

Belma, the jeweled horse. That's really why we put it up. So next we have five houses to hear from us.

Five houses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there are many, many projects going on and we are so happy and glad to be on YSI sessions and the team over there.

Thank you so much. Benji, Karina, I see you. Teresa, Megan, Nicole, Earl.

I don't know where is he. He always hides. Oh yeah, here.

And Sara, welcome. But what I was going to say is that I'm trying or we are trying. I don't know, but this is a great project and I want you to consider it.

It's coming up next week.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, so hi, I'm Sara from Five Houses. And hi, I just wanted to quickly invite you to join us online for the upcoming program where we're hopeful will lead to getting the more advanced teachings in this year. We hope, we ask, but you will need this retreat in order to be able to do that.

And so sign up, be a part of it.

[Speaker 1]
And we've got a really special program for you online. We've got a retreat that is specific to being able to do a personal reflection at home and special classes for you. It'll be really, really beautiful.

And I want to invite up quickly Jasmine, who will be doing a hybrid program. Welcome, Jasmine. Yeah, hi, Jasmine.

I want to just quickly say welcome, Jasmine. Thank you so much for coming all the way. I know there were obstacles, but you made it.

And if you could give us a little context because many people may be new, just a context of what are these five series for?

[Speaker 3]
Five series.

[Speaker 1]
These five classes preparation for what's coming up next.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, firstly, I want to say Happy Horse New Year, Chinese New Year.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And the pronunciation as horse in China, we say good things, good things happen. Yeah, horse is like good things.

Okay, I'm going to introduce for the Chinese speaking area. And I would like to invite them to come on March. We have like Asia branch at the Kuala Lumpur.

We're going to have broadcast Geshe Michael's teaching at Diamond Mountain.

[Speaker 1]
And beside that, we will have like ACI level five. You will be teach by Ben and Kendra.

[Speaker 2]
So Chinese speaking students, I will warmly invite you to come to Kuala Lumpur to have this. And also because as you mentioned that we are going to have like a five series for the preparing Diamond Way courses teaching by Geshe Michael.

[Speaker 1]
And after that, we're going really going to the past of Diamond Way.

[Speaker 2]
And it will start at the end of this year. So anybody who are interested about going deeper into the wisdom, so please come to on March and also on July. And then we'll go deeper.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, these are really serious. Amazing. Many of us, I talk with my friends have been waiting for this for years and years.

I'm bothering Geshe-la. Please, Geshe-la, take me to the other teachings and everything. And now this is an amazing opportunity.

So if you are interested in becoming a kind of being who can be jumping planets and helping everybody totally happy and successful, you may be interested in this as well.

[Speaker 2]
One Chinese sentence.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. So I think this is it for today. Yeah, on Monday, YSI, you may present something, right?

We'll see. But we are excited to hear about your upcoming programs. And we have Stanley Chen because today he's going to take us to Dragon's Head.

It's a new piece of land where many of these teachings Xiaoping was telling us may happen in the future. Wait, am I supposed to be talking or watching this? Both.

Both, okay. So Stanley is here to explain to us the logistics on how today is going to work for Visiting Day. And maybe if you want to share what's the vision for Dragon's Head and get people excited to come.

He told me it's going to be good for me if I feel sad, I shall go. So that's his speech for me. But for them, what should they do if they are already happy?

I'll just clarify things for you guys. If you want to come. Yesterday, we said it was a Sunday morning.

But actually, YSI has arranged a beautiful senior living visit at the same time. So we coordinate. And then we decided it's this afternoon.

It's at around 2.30 p.m. So you're very welcome after this class to go to P3 and make some huge donation there. And after that, you can, including the bathroom, Geshe-la said. And two bathrooms.

Okay. You have to eat a lot to go to two. Anyway, so basically, Siobhan will help arrange the transportation if you need some help.

We will gather first stop to cheer up. We will gather at the gate of Dragon's Head. And then we have a beautiful spot for overlooking the whole valley.

And after that, we will take all the off-road cars. And we will drive down to the valley, passing two creeks. And we will reach to the main building.

Oh, yeah. This is the first stop, by the way. You oversee the whole.

And can people swim in the river? If you make huge donation in P3 cafe, you still cannot. Second picture, please.

Yeah. There's another one. Then second stop.

Yeah. We'll visit this main building in the valley. And then we will walk to the creek.

Beautiful creek. It's very precious to have water in the desert area. So you will feel it.

It's beautiful there. And the last stop is we'll take you to a 1,000-year-old cave where ancient people called Senagra stay there. And then we will see that beautiful cave.

That's major three stops. And it will finish at around, well, within 90 minutes. So you have time to rest after that.

Yeah. And then come back to the class. OK.

Yeah. That's the basic logistics. Yeah.

And when you come out of the dragon set, also someone will help you get out of the valley because you have to cross the creeks twice. Or you can walk the bridge, suspension bridge. Yeah.

And how much is this trip? Yeah. Usually in Chinese tradition, we don't tell you the price.

We serve you first and then we charge you later. Interesting. Yeah.

You're all welcome to come. OK.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you very much, Stanley.

[Speaker 1]
See you at Peachtree Cafe. Congratulations. Thank you, everyone.

See you Monday for more Johnson's Tower. Have a great weekend.