Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 55

[Speaker 1]
Hey, hey, everybody. Just about to get started. Don't worry, Marina, as far as I know, no big surprises today.

[Speaker 3]
I think we're just- What's your name?

[Speaker 1]
I hear somebody. Oh, it could be the translations bleeding through. I said, how could it be a surprise if you knew about it?

Surprise. Wasn't a surprise. Well, it's 3 p.m. Welcome to Schoenzang's Tower, the Saturday edition, live from Rimrock, Arizona and everywhere else. And I just want to see if everybody's ready. Venerable Upala. Hi, I'm just opening files, so if you want to chat for a minute.

Let's talk amongst yourselves, everybody. How are you guys doing, Michael? Good.

Here, this is doing pretty well. Yes, yes. Successful.

Yeah, everything's good. Is that Ukrainian or Russian bleeding through? Yeah.

Let's see if there's anything we can do about it. Usually it's just short.

[Speaker 3]
I'm here.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay. I think it's not coming through now, right?

All right.

[Speaker 2]
I think it's coming through. It's okay.

[Speaker 1]
I don't hear anything. It was Ukrainian. Okay, you didn't hear it.

Yeshela, did you get the new file I just sent you? I changed the file this morning. Did you?

Yeah, and I changed it after that. Okay, well, you go ahead and do your homework and I'll find your file, okay? Okay, cool.

Okay, bye. Bye. Just a moment.

Okay. Are you ready for us, Supala? I am looking for the share screen button.

Perfect. Well, a quick thank you to our interpreters. As usual, we will try to pace ourselves for you.

Welcome to the first quiz of the year on the last class of last year. It was a long time ago. So put on your K2J emptiness hats and remember that we've been speaking about the Mind Only School, in particular, its distinction from the Sutra School lately.

So what is non-duality from the Mind Only School point of view? In terms of the Kunshi Venerable? Is that, I forget the context.

We haven't been talking about Kunshi, but that, you know, I think you're on the right direction. Well, usually it's, I don't remember the exact part of your book, but usually it's that the seed that creates the perceiver and the perceived are one in the same in Mind Only. That's cool.

It's not exactly what we were talking about last time, but it's very close. I mean, it could be like, you could even say it's a consequence of that.

[Speaker 2]
Hmm.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know. Something about outer objects? Well, it's this, well, maybe it is exactly the same.

Yeah, I think that means like you were saying. Yeah. So we just talked over each other.

I apologize for that of translators. It's that the subject and the object are not separate substances. So for example, blue and the perception of blue are not separate because the mind, the perceiver, the subject is looking at mind, the perceived, the object.

So what understanding does KWJ say is a precursor to understanding non-duality from the Mind Only school perspective?

[Speaker 2]
Hmm.

[Speaker 1]
So there's something that those of the Sutra school hold as being true that KWJ says, if you just let go of that, then you're on your way to the third school. Is it about outer objects and how the Sutras view them? Not specifically outer.

Well, it's a very difficult word. I mean, sure. It's about outer objects.

I mean, they say there are outer objects. That's true. That they're autonomous or whatever?

So it's about how the name applies to that object. So does it apply to the object naturally or not? So if we could come to understand that thinking that a name does apply naturally would be an overestimation of reality.

He says, he says, then we'll be able to effortlessly deny that what's perceived in the mind that perceives it are separate substances. It's cool to see how much this book parallels the six flavors teaching from back way back in the day. Yeah.

There's a lot of gold in this book. Okay. So how can we take that leap?

How can we jump from the precursor to the mind only school? I'll just go through it since. Fearlessly.

And it's been a long time. Unless where do you wanna take a crack? I don't remember if Kendrick J specifically outlined it.

Yeah. No, I don't remember. Let's hear it.

Okay. We don't leap, we step. So first we use logic to deny that physical objects exist as we think of it.

When we think of them as being by definition, the basis or the location of the words we give for their essential nature and characteristics. So that's the first thing. By doing so, we're also denying that they exist the way they appear to exist to the sense consciousness when they appear like that.

And through that, we're establishing that the object that appears to the sense consciousness is mistaken. And then when we establish that, we deny that objects of a sense consciousness come from some external influence. And also we deny that the sense consciousness appearing as blue, for example, exists as a different substance.

Geshe-la is doing this kind of shaking of his head, which means forget all that. Okay. What is the Tibetan?

Oh, I was agreeing. This is in India. This means very good, very good.

It means agree. Very deep. Namparikpa?

A close. So this was a new word for those who follow the Mind Only School, remember? Nampar is in there, rikpa is in there, but there's also something else.

Namparikpa mawa or something? Ooh, I don't know. Not that one.

[Speaker 3]
Denpa.

[Speaker 1]
Denpa? Only, only. Oh, tam, yeah.

Namparikpa tam. Namparikpa tam, okay. Very good.

So wait, that would be conceptualist onlyists. Well. Yeah.

It's inherent in the word. Okay, okay. I don't know.

I suppose that zinthang has no English equivalent. The object that you hold? If you take it that way.

Yeah, right. The kind of focus you have on the object.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I suppose there's no Tibetan equivalent of effortless. Effortless. Mepa mepa.

Tsunme? What did you say, Nick? Mepa mepa.

No. You're saying Ms, right? Mbepa mepa, mbepa.

You don't have to do the mepa part. It's just.

[Speaker 2]
Peme. Peme. Peme.

[Speaker 1]
Which is short for mbepa mepa, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. All right, I'll fix that.

Thank you, Nick. No, no, no, I mean. No, there's two.

You could do it. They're not techniques. This is what I conceive of as being effortless in going from one place to another.

Hi, do you have any translation? I do. All right, that's cool.

And I don't know. I hope you haven't eaten lately because it might be disturbing. It's pre-Peach Tree, not post-Peach Tree.

Oh, okay, okay. Interact, okay, good. Whoa, okay.

Yep. But this was really hard, and so I just, you know, tried. I'm not confident about anything, not even commas or quotation marks.

Okay. Teacher Satchi Nyamshan Namke. Please, the meditation.

This doesn't say Satchuppe. It says Satchuy. So how would that change your translation?

I don't know. Ten levels. Yeah, the ten levels, yeah.

And it's plural. The nyamshak is nam, right? The meditation's on the ten levels, yeah?

By meditating on the ten levels, if you want to say it that way. True Nature Medicine, for instance, Gaston Muniz, ,LTA ZHIG LA SOGS PA'I PHYIR PO GANG, Yeah, that's okay. The next part is okay.

Let's go to the second sentence. ,DE LTA BDAG GNYIS RO ZHIG PA TZAM MA THUD DANG RNAM ZHIG LUGS MTHONG ZHIG LTAG PA TZAM STE, To see freedom from, ,DE LTA BDAG GNYIS RO ZHIG PA, ,LTA BDAG means all, kun, okay? It's just a synonym for kun, okay?

The word LTA BDAG. It just means all, okay? All of them are peace, ZHIG BA TZAM.

All of them are a state of peace, okay? All of the ten levels are a state of peace, okay? Again, would it be nothing but a state of peace for ZHIG BA TZAM?

Yeah, you could say a simple state of peace, yeah. And that state of peace is sometimes called ,THOD DREL, free of all elaboration, okay? And then, ,THOD DREL LAM, the path free of all elaboration.

,ZHIG LUGS we haven't had before. And it means, you could say the primordial state, maybe? Something like that.

[Speaker 3]
Is that the original state?

[Speaker 1]
You could say. You could say original state. But it means more...

It's supposed to feel more timeless, you know what I mean? Primordial feels more timeless than original, right? Yeah.

Okay, the primordial state. And then we say we see it. In the path free of all elaboration, we see the primordial state.

And then... By the way, who is he quoting here? It's a quotation, right?

Oh, I thought he was... I mean, it could be. Yeah, this whole thing is a quotation.

And Khenpoche was referring to another text. And he made a brief reference to it, and it was a very strange reference. So we went to get the original text from John Brady's database.

And... So this is part of that. That's from within this.

Yeah, we are in a quotation. We are in a... We went and got, out of John's database, we went and got a quotation which has another quotation inside of it.

Right. Okay, so we're at third level quotation now. And...

But the important part here is BTAGS PA TZAM, which means... That's what we're going to focus on today. And that's...

What does it mean BTAGS PA TZAM? Yeah, just imputed or just named something. You know, I don't know.

It's just called them. Okay, this spelling, B-A-U-T-A-G-S B-T-A-G-S means just called that. And it's very important to the topic we're on today, or the topic we've been on for about two years.

And by the way, we're reaching the end of that topic. God bless. And we're studying the three qualities of the mind-only school.

Who can tell me some of them? Wendell Shockley's BTAGS? BTAGS is famous, okay?

Just... Okay, kundak. Do we got our shen wangs?

Shen wang means what? At the mercy of others. Yeah, so that's a billion zillion things.

All the things in the universe that change are called shen wang. And literally it means they are at the mercy of somebody else. Shen wang.

Meaning they're at the mercy of their causes. They're all results and they're at the mercy of their causes. If the causes disappear, they disappear.

If the causes change, they change. So that means changing things. So, so far we got two.

Imaginary things and changing things. What's the third one? YONG DUG YONG DUG, which means totality, which means the emptiness of...

Now listen, this is really important. The fact that all the changing things don't have what we thought they had, kundak. Shen wang, kundak, okay?

The fact that all changing things don't have what we thought they had is emptiness. And in the Mind-Only School that's called totality. And I like to call it the equation.

Shen wangs minus kundaks is YONG DUG. All changing things minus wrong ideas about them is emptiness. And that's the Mind-Only formula.

Yep. Can I ask a very brief question about that? Yeah, go ahead.

That kundak, because kundak can mean a couple things. So, more specifically referring to the kundak, that's the gak ja of the Mind-Only School when you minus from the shen wang? Yeah, yeah.

And we're going to have a whole presentation of it if we can get to it today. Thank you. Seriously.

And there's a very major problem with all of Mind-Only literature, and even Tsongkapa, that this dak in kundak is spelled different ways, which changes the meaning completely. So this B-T-A-G-S is a past tense of ndo, which means to apply a name to something. But kundak can also be spelled b-o-r-t-a-k-a-s-a-t-a-k, which means B-R-T-A-G-S, which means imaginary, vikalpa, two completely different words.

And they're almost interchanged, and they get really confusing, and great authors get confused. So here we have an ancient scripture that uses btaks, which means just called something, just named something. I think this is Tsongkapa right here.

I don't remember. I mean, I can go check. Yeah, these first two lines, well, these third two.

Yeah, this is Tsongkapa's early commentary on the Prajnaparamita, on the Ornament of Realizations, right? The Jewel of Realizations. Tsongkapa's early commentary.

He wrote it in his 20s. It's his first major work. It's too long, and it's too complicated, and people rarely use it.

But it's thorough. It's good quality, it's thorough. It's a 25-year-old showing off.

And later he got more concise. But it's a huge book. Sometimes it's printed in two volumes.

Okay. What was his first book of all time? It was a love poem to Sarasvati.

So that tells you something. Anyway. Okay.

How do we put this together? DE THA LA YIN PA PHYIR BA TZAM LA PHYIR BDE LAM ZHIG LUGS MTHONG ZHES LTAG PA TZAM DE This is very important, because what he's saying is all of those ten level states of meditation are paths or states of mind which are free of thinking of things as self-existent, and we just call them seeing the true nature of reality. And that's the theme today.

The theme today is why did Tsongkhapa say, I don't want to talk about seeing the true nature of reality. I want to talk about why that's just made up, and why it's not real. Seeing the true nature of reality is a misnomer.

Okay? You don't see the true nature of reality. Obviously you don't see it with your eyes, but you don't even see it with your mind.

He objects to the word, and that objection comes from ancient sutra. So now he's going to an ancient sutra. He says, I object to the word seeing used for emptiness.

Okay? That's a whole beautiful theme that we're going to talk about today. And so what he's saying is, when you see the ZHIG LUGS, or the way things really are, that's KUNTAR.

That's just an imaginary word. You don't see any goddamn thing. He says, the perception of ultimate reality in the mind-only school is imaginary.

And he goes deep. He's going really deep. Okay, guys?

He says, you use the word see, you're in trouble. I don't like this word. And I can prove it.

Buddha objected to that word. Okay? All right?

Not seeing is... Okay, here we go. It gets really beautiful.

YON PEN RIN CHEN DUS PA NAS As it says in the Condensed Highest Accomplishments. Yeah, okay. Wait.

You got to catch the RIN CHEN here. Precious or something. The compilation of precious qualities or something.

GUNA. GUNA and then RATNA, right? Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, okay. And here we go. Here we go with objections to the word DONG, see.

Okay, who's objecting now?

[Speaker 2]
Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
In the short Perfection of Wisdom. Okay, Tsongkapa says, look, it's not me who has a problem with the word see. Buddha had a problem with the word see.

And I'll quote you. GZUGS RNAM MI DONG TSOR BA BDAG KHAN MI DONG ZHING We don't see... By the way, I'll ask you guys, but I'm not going to offer money, because it's too easy.

Tell me the list that Lord Buddha might be going through. I'll give you the first three items. GZUGS, TSOR BA, ZHING.

Five heaps. Yeah, the five heaps. He's going through the five heaps.

Therefore, the first one has to be physical things. Okay, so the word GZUGS here means physical things, yeah. GZUGS is...

That word is, what do you call it, ambiguous? Because as the object of the eye power, it means visible things, colors and shapes. But as one of the five heaps, it means all physical matter, both inside a person and outside a person.

So, what's that?

[Speaker 3]
Is it RUPA?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they're both RUPA. That's the problem. And RUPA ultimately comes into the Indo-European KERBER, which comes into the word corpse.

So you see RUPA in the word corpse. It's interesting. It means body, core.

Like, also core, C-O-R-P-S. Like the military corps, body of soldiers. Okay, so the RP comes from RUPA.

Okay, so GZUGS NA MI MTHONG. You don't see physical stuff. SO BA BDAG KYANG MI MTHONG You also don't see feelings.

Word, any guess why he might use dualized feelings?

[Speaker 3]
Dualized feelings? It's a heap of feelings. Many different kinds.

[Speaker 1]
No, but dual means two.

[Speaker 3]
He used a Sanskrit plural, which is...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I would say feeling good, feeling bad. I think that's a very subtle translation thing. When someone refers to feelings as the pair of feelings, it means good and bad.

And if you're a sensitive translator, you have to translate that. Okay, you don't see the two kinds of feeling or something like that. Okay, good.

Then he goes to the next heap, or the next part of a human being. DU SHES We don't see DU SHES, discrimination. What should be next?

Yeah, the heap of other factors. Heap number four is the heap of other factors. And he doesn't give it.

Lord Buddha doesn't give it. Okay, he says SEMS PA, spelled with a D, which means bodhisattva. Okay, this DPA means warrior, sattva.

And the original... This is Tsongkapa's version of the sutra, but when you go to John Brady's database, the sutra is not spelled with a D, it's spelled with a P. Okay, you see what I mean?

When you put a D on SEMS PA, it changes it to bodhisattva. But when it doesn't have a D, what does it mean? And if you quote the first line of the fourth chapter of the Abhidharmakosha Word, I'll give you a hundred bucks.

[Speaker 3]
Um...

[Speaker 1]
Lele Jigden Samp... Lele Jigden... Lele Jigden, that's okay.

[Speaker 2]
Daini.

[Speaker 1]
Lele Jigden. Daini. SEMS PA.

Okay, you boys, you lost the money. There's a lady in the room here who just got out of retreat, and therefore she sees all things. Chloe got it right.

So yeah, SEMS PA means... Can you repeat it again? Yeah, SEMS PA means any movement of the mind.

Lele Jigden Daini SEMS PA. The definition of karma is a movement of the mind. That's very beautiful.

So Lord Buddha, when he got to the fourth of the five heaps, he did not say other factors. He started with SEMS PA, and he did not spell it with a D like Tsongkhapa did, which means he's talking about a mental function. And words are going to tell us why it might be in the fourth heap.

Because the fourth heap includes basically all the other mental functions except feeling and discrimination. Yeah, so if you wanted to refer to the fourth heap, you might just start naming mental functions that are not the other two. Okay, not bad.

But definitely not DPA, all right? PHUNG MED PA PHUNG MED PA But it has some meaning here. The Bodhisattva is not insane.

PHUNG MED PA means they don't see things. You don't see form. You don't see feelings.

You don't see discrimination. You don't see the movement of the mind, etc. Don't see.

Why did he change from MI STONG to STONG PA MED? Same thing. I don't know.

It's probably some Sanskrit. It's not a there isn't? No, it's not important.

It's not major here. Yeah, it's okay. It's something about the Sanskrit.

The Sanskrit flowed better with PHUNG MED PA. Okay, let's keep going. What do we expect next?

What do we expect next? Maybe the fifth heap, consciousness. Then he says...

Oh, by the way, there's a line missing from STONG KHA PA. That's in John Brady's database. If you go to the original sutra, which every mixed nut would do, I'm sure, even after Grandpa's gone to another world, you will check your references.

Even Je Tsongkapa might leave a line out. So here it is. What's number ZHES PA?

Consciousness. Yeah, heap number five, as we expected. And Tsongkapa left it out.

Or this addition of Tsongkapa, we don't know. SEM YI, and then he just repeats. SEM and YI.

Number ZHES PA, SEM and YI are three synonyms for heap number five. You can call it consciousness. You can call it mind.

You can call it the thought. But they're all the same thing. PHUNG MED PA, cannot see.

So what have we got so far from the original sutra? You cannot see Peter's body. You cannot see Peter's feelings.

You cannot see Peter's capacity of discriminating between things. You cannot see any of Peter's other factors. And you cannot see Peter's mind.

DI NI CHOS THUNG We see everything. PHUNG MED MI THUNG DI NI CHOS THUNG Therefore we see everything. Yeah, when you don't see those five things, you saw everything.

Okay, got it? All right? It's a beautiful quotation.

When you don't see your body, you don't see your mind, you don't see your thoughts, you don't see anything else about Rosa, then you see Rosa. Okay. What's the topic we're on right now?

Somehow it's an objection to the idea of THUNG. Somehow we're leading into an objection. Somebody's objecting to the word seeing used with emptiness, particularly in the mind-only three qualities.

Okay? Seeing the absence of KUN THAG in GZHAN DBANGS. Seeing the absence of KUN THAG in GZHAN DBANGS, which is emptiness according to the mind-only school.

Seeing that things are not there is to see. And the mind-only guy is like, I got scriptural proof for this. I mean, Lord Buddha said it in his short Perfection of Wisdom.

Don't blame me. This is Lord Buddha telling you how you see things. You don't see them.

Then you see. Okay, got it? When you don't see those things that are there, then you really see.

Okay? Lord Buddha. Okay.

Cool. Then Lord Buddha says, we see examples of this in the everyday world, because people say NAM KHAR THUNG. What?

I looked at the sky. I saw the sky. I saw the sky.

I went out today and saw the sky from the great mountain of Rimla at the palace at the top. I went out and saw the sky. He says, look, even normal people say, I went out and looked at the sky.

THUNG. I went out and looked at the sky, right? And this NAM KHAR word is touchy because it also means, you know the four spaces.

You can read it four different ways. Okay? Luckily, you guys were trained.

Okay? Which space is he talking about? Is he talking about the blue sky?

Is he talking about outer space? Is he talking about the space that a thing occupies? Or is he talking about space in the sense of cancelling kundraks to reach yong drups with shenwangs?

Okay? Which space is he talking about? Got it?

Okay. We're on that. NAM KHAR JI LTAR THUNG YIN DON DU'I LTA BAR GYIS Here's a different...

Before we go on, can you talk about what this means then? Yeah, it just means even people in the normal world talk about looking at the sky. ZING RAB TU BRJOD means they always talk about, I went out and looked at the sky.

It just means they use that kind of language. They use that kind of language. Normal people in the world use that kind of language.

I went out and looked at the sky. And then... And then Lord Buddha says NAM KHAR JI LTAR THUNG How could you see the sky?

JI LTAR BAR GYIS And Lord Buddha used BRT, not BT. You have to examine it more closely. Yeah.

This spelling means examine. It doesn't mean to give something, imputate a name or something, to apply a label. It doesn't mean that.

BRT, which many authors confuse. Tsongkapa has confused. The BRT means name.

Name something. So... I'm sorry.

BRT means examine. BT means name. So what does Lord Buddha say here?

Name. Yeah. No, we have to...

We have to examine the DON. That object. Meaning, what the hell do people mean when they say, I went out and looked at the sky?

We got to think about that. We got to think about that. How do you see the sky?

We got to think about that. Who said that? Lord Buddha.

Lord Buddha. Okay. All right.

Good. Yeah. DONG BA DANG GZHAN GYIS NI NUS PA NUS MA YIN NUS PA means what?

[Speaker 3]
Impossible.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. NUS PA means can. And NUS MA YIN means you cannot.

And he says, DONG BA NUS MA YIN Lord Buddha says, with regard to space or the sky, DONG BA NUS MA YIN You can't see the space. You can't see the sky. What are you talking about?

You can't see the sky. And GZHAN GYIS NI NI means to locate or to find. And GZHAN GYIS means through any other means.

You can't see the sky and you can't find it any other way either. Okay? You cannot see the sky and you can't find it in any other way.

You can't touch the sky or smell the sky. Okay? You cannot.

Who's saying that? Yeah. Don't tell me you saw the sky.

Lord Buddha's objecting to the word see. Yeah. Cool.

All right. So what's that next sentence mean, Venerable Utpala? That's the only way we're going to see anything.

Yeah, good. That's the only way you can see things is to understand that you can't see things. When you finally understand that you can't see the sky, then you really saw something.

Cool? Very beautiful. Now, I think we're back to Tsongkhapa.

Well, no, we have this one. Oh, yeah, right. This is...

Yeah, I think we're... Oh, no. This was indented, I think.

I know I indented it, but... Cool. Anyway, we'll read it.

It's all the same. Whether Buddha said it or Tsongkhapa, it's all the same. This is very true.

Yeah, RI LA SOGS PA'I DRIB YONG You translated that well. When you don't see... When you don't see a mountain, you call it seeing the sky.

Okay? When you don't see a mountain, when it's empty, when the view, when the vista is empty of obstructing forms like mountains, then you can say, I saw the sky. So, not seeing...

DRIB YONG means things that could obstruct your vision. Okay? YONG literally means to spread a cloth over a telescope or something.

YONG And then DRIB YONG means it's blocking your vision. But like up here, there's nothing blocking your vision. There's no mountains blocking your vision.

When there's nothing blocking your sight, you can say, I saw the sky. When people say, I saw the sky, what they mean is, there was no mountain there, so I saw the sky. Got it?

So now we come to an important concept that Tsongkhapa is going to use, and Khenrupje is going to use it for the Mind-Only School, that when you say you saw the sky, what you mean is that something wasn't blocking you. Got it? Okay?

And that's important. And that comes from Lord Buddha. Lord Buddha says, you want to say you saw the sky?

Okay. But what you really mean is, I didn't see something else. Therefore, I saw the sky.

I didn't see mountains, so I saw the sky. Got it? Okay?

He defines seeing as not seeing something else, not being blocked by something else. And by the way, the blocker here is going to be kuntaks, things you thought were there that weren't there. And in the absence of kuntaks, you can see the sky, which is yongdru, which is emptiness.

Got it? But you don't see it. You just don't see what you thought was there.

You don't see the sky. You don't see what you thought was there. And we call that seeing the sky.

But you don't see the sky. You just don't see what was there that would have prevented you from seeing the sky. Seeing the sky means you don't see what might have blocked you from seeing the sky.

That's what seeing the sky means. It doesn't mean you see the sky. You can't see the sky.

It's clear. It's totally clear. It's invisible.

Nobody can see the sky. Oh, and I saw the sky. No, you saw there was no mountain.

Okay. Got it? Geshe-la.

Yeah. Isn't that an argument then for translating nam-kha as space and not sky? It's very delicate here because they're talking about mountains.

It's very delicate.

[Speaker 3]
Do we define sky in a negative way?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Well, space is defined in a negative way. The opening lines of the Abhidharmakosha translated by some great man, they say, you know, they say some fools say it's blue.

Fools say it's blue. Okay? Some...

Yeah, yeah. There's a debate in the opening lines of the Abhidharmakosha. It's not the canopy of blue, he says.

Okay? That's not sky. That's not sky in the classical akasha sense.

All right? All right, nice. By the way, I mean, we're headed into a very deep idea, and then when he finishes it, he's going to say, and that deep idea was presented in three different periods of Lord Buddha's life, and he segues, KDPJ segues to the three wheels, three turnings of the wheel, and we're out of the goddamn three qualities, which we've been in for two years.

And it was such a relief. And then what's going to happen is a big downer, because we're going to go to the middle way school, which you know you can translate it in your sleep, and then the whole book is not going to be so tasty. Okay?

But Venerable Utpala will have less headaches. Okay. Here we go.

Yeah. I'm going to put this guy up here. Okay.

I'm so glad you gave me the word for nyet, because I could not find it in any dictionary. Which one? Nyet.

The B-S-N-E-D. Or yeah, B-S-N-Y-E-D. Oh yeah.

To report, or to relate a story or something like that. It can mean to find. Without the E, when you change the E to A, it means to give a report.

And when it has an E, it means to locate. So it's... By the way, I went and got the original quotation here.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. From John Brady's database. You can see it.

It's pretty... pretty good. They spelled Bertaak correctly.

Thank you. And... tongwa per shing gi nyepar nyu mayin.

This nyepar means to give a report. Cannot be described in any other way. If it were N-Y-A-D, it would mean cannot be described in any other way.

The seeing cannot be described in any other metaphor than by saying that the mountain is missing, or something like that.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So the original quotation by Lord Buddha says report. I think the version quoted by Tsongkhapa... Had the E.

And it just had the pair. Yeah. So anyway, I would...

For your translation, I would go to the original sutra. Okay. And again, in Tsongkhapa's time, they hadn't formalized the translations of the Kangyur yet, and the Tengyur.

He was still holding out and trying to use some better translations. And then ultimately he lost out. Ultimately they were carved...

Some were carved in different ways than what he wanted. And the ones he liked were lost because they were just written on paper. Somebody wrote them on paper and they were lost.

One translation rose to the top, mostly correct, but with some problems. Not the way he would have chosen it. So reading Tsongkhapa and Khenrupje and Gyeltsabje carefully is historically very interesting because you see alternate translations of the Kangyur and Tengyur, some of them better.

And then they died. No one kept those papers. Okay.

Who's going to read... Utpala, your reading is perfect, so why don't you help someone else to read? Yeah, sure.

I would like Venerable Chinzom to read, please.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, here we go. ... Yeah, good.

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to make myself a note that I just figured out. So, Venerable Utpala, nam kha? Well, space or sky.

Yeah, space or sky. DIN DAG BA'I THAN YID That particular THAN YID. That word.

Yeah, that particular term, meaning sea. Okay. Can you refer to sky with that particular term?

Okay. Can sky be the ne to which you apply that particular term? What's ne?

It can be the location. Yeah, or the lokas. Can sky ever be referred to with the word sea?

And he doesn't repeat the word sea, unfortunately. He says, can sky ever be referred to with that word? And he doesn't tell us which one.

So I made a note for myself later. Okay, Pong. Nesu, could the sky be referred to with the word sky?

RANG GI GNAS SOGS KYI DBANG GIS means naturally. Could the sky suggest to you to use the word sea with sky? Can the sky say, can you please use the word sea with me?

Okay, I think it'd be nice. Can sky, RANG GI GNAS SOGS KYI DBANG GIS, can it automatically suggest the word sea in your mind? And then if you think so, you are a SOGS SOGS KYI DBANG.

You haven't seen emptiness yet. Yeah, you are a non-emptiness person. You didn't see emptiness yet.

If you think the word sea is appropriate to use for sky naturally, then you didn't see emptiness. Got it? There are certain words that are used for certain things that are inappropriate.

And if you think they are appropriate, you didn't get it. Okay, got it? GNAS SOGS KYI DBANG GIS means, if you think the word sea can be used naturally for the word sky, then you are a SOGS KYI.

SOGS KYI LA YANG GZHAN GYIS KYI TSUL Not only that, that desire to call it sea in your heart is GZHAN GYIS, and not GZHAN GYIS. It's important. GZHAN GYIS.

Yeah, you have it for beginningless time. You have an automatic error in your brain. You were born with a defect in your brain.

GZHAN GYIS means you've always had it. Kind of the definition of a person who hasn't seen emptiness is a person who, since they were born, would like to use the word sea with sky. Okay.

It's cool. It's a cool section. The whole section could be a whole book, or a meditation course in Europe.

GZHAN GYIS KYI TSUL PA'I YUN CHEN And in this LOOK, DIPA'I LOOK... In this system, in the mind-only school. Yeah, now I challenge you Venerable Pala to tell us the difference between DIPA'I LOOK and DIPA'I LOOK.

DIPA'I LOOK means this system. By these practitioners? Yeah, DIPA'I LOOK means the system of these guys.

DBAM changes this to these guys. These guys' system. Whose guys' system?

We've been talking mind-only school for two years. Probably it's mind-only school. DIPA'I LOOK LA In this system, to think that the word sea could be used naturally with the sky is GZHAN GYIS DANG DZIN That's the self-existence of things.

Yeah, that is the holding to the self-existence of things. That's the ignorance in this school. Thinking that the word sea could be used with sky naturally, for these dudes, is to hold things as self-existent, rather than people, things.

All right, cool. Now, he says, SNAM GANG PHYI ROL GYI PHEN PO What's PHEN PO? It's a hard word.

Particle? Yeah, it's an alternate word for physical form, physicality, but it implies particulate matter. Matter as opposed to form.

Form is a general word for the physical stuff, and then when you say matter in English, it more implies made of particles. So PHEN PO is an ancient word for physical form, which emphasizes its physicality. Like iron is really PHEN PO.

Made of stuff, hard stuff. PHEN PO PHEN PO So now, K.W.J. says, let's consider LO, a state of mind, which ZIN, which holds, that SNAM GANG is a PHYI ROL GYI PHEN PO. That space is an external thing.

Yeah, let's consider the state of mind that considers the absence of physicality as gross physicality. Let's consider the state of mind which holds the absence of physicality as the grossest, most obvious physicality. Okay?

Missing! That's impossible. Yeah, who's going to think that?

Who's going to think that? Who's going to look at the sky and say, Oh, it's got little pieces of this and that in it. To look at the sky and hold it to be physical in the way that the mountain that blocks the sky is physical is foolish.

Okay? It's crazy. Nobody would think that.

Okay? Got it? And then nobody would think that...

Plancké, right? Is the impossibility related to Plancké? Yeah, it would encompass...

No one would automatically think that, okay? No one would say, I see the sky because there's no mountains between me and it right now, and think that the sky was somehow like the mountains and made of rocks and, you know, the same physicality as the mountains. Okay?

When you say, I saw the sky because there was no mountain in the way, you are not saying you think that the sky is made of rocks and stones. You're just saying, I can't see. It's not blocking the sky.

But when you say, I see the sky because there's no mountain there, you're not implying that the sky is somehow made of stuff in the way that mountains are made of stuff. And that's important in this discussion, in this extended metaphor of emptiness. It's very important, okay?

The absence of an external blue, which is not part of my mind, is quite different from blue. I mean, you're defining it as the absence of a blue, which is not part of my mind. But nobody ever said that that emptiness was somehow physical, like blue.

Got it? It's very interesting. It's extremely interesting.

Again, I'll say it again. The big mind-only school thing is, when you see this blue microphone, you're seeing part of your own mind. Therefore, they say emptiness is the absence of the blue, which could not be part of my mind.

But then Tsongkhapa and everybody else, Buddha says, but don't think that because we define emptiness as the absence of a blue, which is made of stuff, that emptiness is made of stuff. That's not what we're saying. Got it?

I see the sky. Why? There's no rocks and stones in the way.

Oh, you must think that sky is made of rocks and stones, or something similar. And we're like, no, it's completely different. Emptiness is not at all similar to the blue.

Either blue. What do I mean either blue? A blue coming from you, or a blue coming from you?

Not coming from you. The emptiness of that blue is in no way similar to the stuff that blue is made of, whether it's made of mind or outside particles. Got it?

Either way you want to take the blue, made of your mental seeds, or made of outside stuff, the absence of it is totally different stuff. Got it? Okay?

Don't compare the emptiness either to atoms or to thoughts, because it's neither. It's not made of things. Okay?

It's fundamentally different stuff than either atoms or thoughts. It's the absence of stuff. Got it?

You can say I see the sky because the mountain's not there, but don't think that that implies that the sky is somehow similar to the composition of a mountain. Don't confuse the two. Got it?

Cool? It's very beautiful. It's very deep.

And he's talking about, again, if you meditate on this, take it to the three qualities of the mind on this. The truth is there. What he's trying to say is there.

Okay? Cool? Very deep.

Very beautiful. Okay. Two minutes.

Two minutes? That's just, yeah. Keshava.

Hmm. Isn't it slightly erroneous for him to put flanke as far as sosoke was, because flanke, because an aria doesn't get rid of a flanke until much later? I'm not sure he mentioned an aria here.

Well, he said sosoke, so as opposed to... Okay, okay, okay. It's okay.

I understand what you're saying. I think some forms of the aria's perception do relate to flanke. Maybe it's starting to destroy flanke.

How's that? Okay. Thank you.

Let's start Venerable Utpala, the next sentence. We'll stop on time, which is one minute, and then you'll finish the rest of this sentence. O joy, O bliss.

Please. What'd she say? O joy, O bliss.

Just start the... Read the first half of the next line, and then we'll go to page three. I'm sorry, no, we'll go to our discussion.

DE BZHIN DU NI DI ZHES NA YON GYI MDO LAS Yeah. DE BZHIN DU means what? It's like that.

Yeah, similarly, DU ZHES NA, if you shade D. If you understand this. You can understand this other quotation from Yon Gyi Mdo.

Oh, from the Mother Sutra. Yeah, I'm going to give you another sutra, longer sutra, and I'm going to throw another quotation at you. If you understood the first one about the mountains and the sky, you'll have no problem with this one.

Okay, let's read it. BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I YANG DAG PAR BYAS SU MA STONG Yeah, you don't see. We cannot see bodhisattvas.

Bodhisattvas. You cannot see a bodhisattva. BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I MING YANG MA STONG You can't even see the word bodhisattva.

Yeah, yeah. Now you've got to chew on what does that mean, and the rest of the paragraph is going to explain that. So you go from, I can see the sky because I don't see mountains, to I cannot see a bodhisattva, and I can't even see the name bodhisattva.

Okay. Then you've got to figure that one out. All right, cool.

Then that has repercussions on the possible misreading in Tsongkhapa's quotation where he said SEMS PA with a D, where he changed movement of the mind to bodhisattva. Okay, all right. We'll stop there.

Now, at this point in the class, we have a 15-minute open discussion with Venerable Utpala. Grandpa takes a grand break. Then we go to Kwan Haso, and we find out the news of the World View Organizations.

Okay, bye. Thank you so much, Krishnabai. Thank you, Utpala.

Thank you, everybody. Wait, she's doing 15 minutes now. Oh, yeah, that thank you is not meaning she's done.

One quick announcement. Remember, if you want to stick around after the Peachtree World News, Word will be giving a class on Tibetan basics, and all of his students are reading better than us already. So, well, getting there.

Yeah, kind of irritating. So stick around if you want to learn how to read Tibetan really well and all that. Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Utpala. Take it away. Wow, so this was, I don't know about you, but for me, this was like so, there were moments where I went, aha, and it's like I have to sit with it on the cushion for a while.

But is there anyone who can speak about this now? Does anyone have the words for how they can use what I have found to be quite profound in their daily life? I don't see the salient one.

I don't see anyone who can answer that question. Probably can't hear them either. That's the emptiness of opinions.

[Speaker 3]
I'll start.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, Stanley's coming up to sit here. Hey, Stanley. Let me see.

I'm going to pin him. I'd love to pin him, actually. Okay, good.

There we go. Hi, Stanley.

[Speaker 3]
Hi. Through your class, I realized the sky is not blue.

[Speaker 1]
That's it. How are you going to use that in your daily life? If there's no blue sky, there are many other things that I don't, I must be seeing wrong, so I have to figure it out.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. That's a starting point for me.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I actually remember what Geshe-la told us many times, that a Geshe like Ken Rinpoche can prove to you that the sky is not blue, and it could be green also. So that's, it seems like that's a small idea, but to me it feels like a big idea. Because in the whole life of mine, we say blue sky.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's it.

Yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Bye.

[Speaker 1]
Well, just remember that the word sky here means space also, and then you get into the four spaces. Hector has something. He's coming up.

I'll get to you, Venerable Kadren, in just a minute, okay? Hi, Hector. Hi, Venerable Upala, how are you?

Good, how are you? Good. Welcome to Arizona.

Thank you. Yeah, it's cold up here. I'm sure New York is warm.

But can you see that it's cold? This class blew my mind. It's stunning, you know, because we study and we practice these things all the time, and so I'm like regurgitating all the things I've learned, and incorporating into my every day.

But the reminder that I am constantly obstructed by my own mountain, by my own view, means I cannot see the infinity that lies when you remove your own obstructions. And the practice of what we've been studying, the way I've thought I incorporate it into my every day, is the obstruction. Like it's the obstruction of I think I know what I'm doing.

And then suddenly you're like, get rid of that mountain, and you access that feeling of infinity that lies in all of us. And then you can see the infinity in the annoying people and the loving people and all the people that are my mountains, my construct of them are my mountains. So for me, it's like I'm going back to New York and Three Jewels and this incredible group of people who have taken up this study, and I'm trying to deconstruct the mountains to the infinite sky in the Rachels and the Stevens and the Santis and the students that come there.

Yeah, very cool. And that the annoying people or the beautiful people or the wonderful people or the smart people or the dumb people, those are all obstructions. They're mountains, yeah.

Yeah, and they're not made of stuff or thought. In their ultimate sense. Yeah, nice.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you. We got, I know you have one more victim out there, but I got another one here maybe after that.

Okay. Venerable Katrin. Yeah, you had Venerable Katrin, I think.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Venerable Utpala. Thank you, Geshe-la, for this wonderful class. It was very exciting for me, and I'm not far away from a great idea of Stanley because I just think that to have blue sky as a thing which I cannot see, it's a great idea because when I go out and every time I can see sky, it reminds me that, wow, I cannot see sky.

It's just, so it's a good reminder. It's a kind of hook for me to remember that I don't see sky. I don't see mountain.

I don't see like buildings. It's wrong. So it's just a reminder for keeping this idea and letting it settle in my mind.

So for me, it's a kind of hook. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's always there. It's like it comes right after the breath, right? I mean, the breath is, we always have that, but blue sky, at least in Arizona, it's always there.

The best reminder. We got Andele here, Utpala. Okay.

And then Pei Ling after Andele. Thank you, Venerable Kadrian. Thank you, Kadrian.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Following the train here. Talk loud. What?

Talk loud. Yeah, just following the train here, working from the positive side of thinking everything's coming from me. And then even when I'm doing that with just daily things like, oh, this problem that I have is something that I'm projecting from seeds that I've planted in the past.

And then I try to drop that and say, there's an absence of anything that isn't that way. I'm still thinking that I'm seeing, I still have this idea that I'm seeing something and that not correct. So I think what ended up happening for me and how I would use this in daily life is, like what Hector was saying, it's just like deconstructing the obstruction and it just feels like you just keep kind of backing it out, backing it out.

And that absence is not, there's that seeing, I think I'm, sorry, the thing that I think I'm seeing, I'm still seeing it incorrectly. Like, or the thing that I think that I'm not seeing, I'm still seeing it incorrectly. So the whole thing is just one big, not seeing anything correctly because I've never had a correct perception.

So therefore, where that drops me in to a place of humility, because a place of humility within myself, kind of like breaks down any level of arrogance that I think I know something after studying this for 20 years, I'm still a baby. And I haven't seen anything directly myself. So then that actually draws me into a greater feeling of bodhicitta, compassion for others.

But maybe those others are not like me. Maybe everyone else is seeing things that I'm not seeing. And then it also, it just brings it back to humility.

That's all, just like being humbled by the fact that this was an amazing system and I haven't seen it, anything yet. That means you did see it.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, good. Who else? Okay, good.

Thanks, Mama.

[Speaker 2]
We got Rosa.

[Speaker 1]
We got, oh, you got somebody else and then we'll do Rosa. Rosa, come. Pei-Ling.

Yes. Hi. Hi.

Thank you for today, class. What I learned from the class is if we forget about what we want, we can able to see what others need. Thank you.

If we let go of what we want, we can see what others need? Is that what you said? If we forget about what we want, so we can see what others need.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Hi, Rosa. Hi. Hi, Venable.

[Speaker 1]
Advertise your books now that you're here. No, no, no. I'm talking about...

I thought about last week and I can't remember the specifics, but we were talking about imaging instead of using imagining, or mental image. And I was thinking today, I can make that connection with now we're saying that we're actually not seeing or using that word doesn't explain the experience of emptiness directly. And now I'm thinking maybe it's more correct.

As we're trying to evolve in this path or how to sort of uncover how we experience things, using the word imaging might be more correct. Although it's not obviously still positive, but I like to play with that idea now with imaging versus seeing. Yeah.

Yeah, cool. Thank you. We got Chloe.

We have Chloe if you'd like. Oh, I would love to hear from Chloe just coming out of retreat. And then I would like to hear from Venable Sunam if we have time.

She's also much more rich now.

[Speaker 2]
So, what you think you don't want has a different material cause to what you think. Like enlightenment is caused by enlightenment seeds. It's not caused by any normal activity seeds or intentions.

So it's like the sky has the material cause of the sky. The emptiness has a completely different material cause to the emptiness. So I think that for enlightenment it's a completely different cause than what I think I don't want.

So that's what I'm thinking. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Thank you. Who else you got Venable Upala?

I have one coming from the wilds of Diamond Mountain. Those big yogis from the south.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you Chloe for your deep insight from deep retreat. I took it to a very practical level. As you see, I was really looking at the dark blue sky all the time during the class in the mountains.

And then I had this instant reaction. Do I really want to deconstruct these mountains because I perceive them as beautiful. And then I had the thought and I think it's the same with my mental afflictions that I love my mental afflictions.

Not all of them, but a few of them. And I think I really realized that I also need to deconstruct these mental afflictions I'm clinging to and which I have really not aversion to. There are mental afflictions which are obvious I want to get rid of.

But my conclusion today was really check which mental afflictions, which mountains I need to deconstruct which I'm clinging to.

[Speaker 1]
Beautiful. Thank you for bringing us back down to earth. I think we have reached the end of our 15 minutes and it's very clear that we could be talking about this for quite some time.

So do think about this, talk about this with your friends meditate on this and our next class is going to be out of this world. Thank you so much Keshe. Thank you.

Okay. I'd like to do this one hustle from the Peachtree World News and grandpa's going to go sit with his wife. Okay.

Bye.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Venerable Utpala and everyone for your contributions for your, how do you call it? Insights. So today I wanted to be a surprise but I guess now you, everybody knows we have a very special guest with us visiting from the Northern lands of New York.

And he's here with us. We have Hector. We want to have some talk with him and to know what's his planning, what he's doing.

Hector, please.

[Speaker 3]
Welcome.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you for coming. Thank you for what you're doing. I mean, thank you.

It's amazing that you are like managing this like supermodel agency that you don't know what it's called. Or what is it? That it is, no?

It's the sexiest thing in New York City. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I hear like, I know that these days you are the number one. When people look for like, I want to go to do yoga. I want to learn meditation.

They are in New York, they type on internet and this is the place that they, like how much did you have to pay to? Actually, that's the awesome thing. We decided some time ago not to try to be number one, but to try and live the philosophy we're teaching.

We got really humbled by so many yoga studios and so many meditation studios opening up before the pandemic. And then it was too much for us to try and pay for advertising. We decided zero advertising dollars.

We will shine the experience that we're practicing. And I think that took longer than our competitors, other brands that open meditation studios, look sexy and paid for advertising and paid for PR. We paid zero.

And then within about five years, we hit number one on Yelp as the go-to meditation studio in New York City. That's awesome. Certainly in New York City.

Yeah, I know, it's amazing. It's really amazing. So what do you think is the role of having fun?

Because I think there is some kind of connection. Whenever I see the people from the New York community, I see that they are very, very united. They are friends between each other.

And I think that that's a key on every success for the communities to be friends with each other, to like spending time with each other, to have fun with each other. So what do you think is that? Or how do you, as the manager of this project, how do you encourage these fun activities and this sense of, how to say, family?

Yeah, yeah. It's brother and sisterhood. There's a couple of things.

Number one is New York is a hard place. You do one good thing and 20 people will tell you why it's bad. And 19 of them are in your group.

And so you're the number 20. But what it is, is you cannot hide from the terrible reality that is sansara, that is the suffering world. New York will hit you in the face when you're having the best time, constantly.

There's so much life from everywhere in the world condensed in a small place. And then you have to share it with the rats and the cockroaches and the whole thing, right? So you cannot hide from afflictions in New York, even if you tried.

And with this philosophy, I mean, it's thanks to the Shantideva idea of joyful effort that you can make fun at the terrible thing in front of you. It becomes so ridiculous. You're trying to do nice things.

You're trying to be good. It becomes so ridiculous that all you can do is laugh and move forward, yeah? And then you find friends along the path who are also laughing at your terrible things.

And you're like surrendering, like, oh, you laugh at my terrible thing too. I see my terrible thing. Oh, I like you.

And that bonds you so deeply because you're bonded. It's like fused with the most material in the mountain, the material thing that is human suffering. Most of our minds are focused on problems.

And with joyful effort, you can transform that problem into, we're the same, right? Your mind is garbage. My mind is garbage.

Let's do nice things together. And I think that's what's bonded the Three Jewels community over the years is we've had to face really hard things together, and we laugh at it. We just laugh at the ridicule.

Like, Sansara is now coming in to this beautiful thing because we're going to make fun of you. That's very beautiful. That's very beautiful.

And I really do see that sense of family, friendship in that community. So I think it's a great success and a great example for all of us to do that. I would like now to talk a little bit about what you've been doing, let's say, in the last year and what are you planning to do next.

And maybe we can show people, whenever you want, we can show the website. Yeah, sure, sure. Look, I just finished typing up a rejoicing document for what Three Jewels has done in 2023.

Thank you. Because it was incredible to see. This is the second year.

2023 was the second year that we tried to bring the joy of Three Jewels and this practice to the other depressed wellness communities in New York. So through COVID, many, if not 99% of the yoga studios, 100% of the meditation studios shut down, and it's thanks to the practice of the Three Jewels teachers who volunteered to do it for free through COVID. And then we gave away for free all our wellness stuff through COVID.

We stayed open physically for the period that we could. And thanks to that, we decided to gather all the communities around New York who are doing meditation, wellness, and the rest, to come and celebrate with us the power of what we're doing to other people's minds. If you want to learn meditation, if you want to understand how yoga works, if you want to go deeper into the philosophy of the East to transform your mind, come and celebrate with us.

You're not our competitors for one night a year. And this is our med gala. Our med gala is we invite everyone to dress up as if you've already got the result of all your practices.

Your mind is pure. Everyone looks pure. And so our competitors like Jeeva Mukti and Mindfulness and, you know, FPMT, we're all invited to bring their communities and just be friends for one night a year.

So the med gala this year had 1,100 gods and goddesses dressed up so beautifully. They loved each other. They had masks.

They didn't care whether they are trying to beat the marketing dollars that we don't have, you know. And that's the biggest thing. But the other thing we did at Three Jewels this year is we taught three ACI courses.

We brought two groups of people into the higher teachings, the Dharma Way teachings. We taught five of those courses as well as did two retreats, meaning teaching people how to learn how to go into deep, silent retreat with four sits a day and the whole structure. And we counted 49,500 visits to Three Jewels.

So nearly 50,000 visits to Three Jewels to get their minds rolling. It's stunning. It's stunning.

And how do you see the next year coming? Like what's your vision? Exhaustion.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I bet.

[Speaker 1]
Right? But you say you have, is that something that you want to show in the website? Is there already?

Or first you would like just to mention what's in your mind. The main thing that's in my mind, when you look at the Three Jewels website, which is for the public, right? So people that don't know anything about anything, they're interested to tame their minds because something's going on in their minds and they want to learn to meditate or they want to learn to move their bodies.

And mostly they come to Three Jewels because they understand connection. Community happens there. The main thing I want to mention is nearly 200 volunteers who have found something precious in taking care of each other.

And they do it so lovingly. Like I don't see myself as the guy, the boss of Three Jewels. I'm holding a space for people to just love each other.

And when they do, they're on fire and they just want to take care of more people. So the main thing about Three Jewels, it doesn't matter that we're teaching a class, a course, a meditation thing. If you come in there, you will be electrified with love for strangers and it's powerful.

And then hopefully we train enough people to do that so they can go to their places and do that again in their own way. That's the main thing that you will find if you come to Three Jewels. I'm sorry.

It's really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you for that, that you're doing. I think you're holding a very cool space.

I think my opinion is that actually the Three Jewels in New York makes. Money. Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That too. But. I mean, just in a, in a small scale, it makes the city better.

And that's very tangible.

[Speaker 3]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
And then if you, if you think bigger, it also makes the country better, the world better. So it's, it's a great project, but you can see, like, it's like, I like to see the big impact that a project like this can have in a community, not only in a, in a little community, but I'm talking about the whole city. Yeah.

Like having this place is making the city a much bigger, a much better place.

[Speaker 2]
We get stopped.

[Speaker 1]
Very beautiful. Like if we're wearing Three Jewels merch, like the T-shirt or the hat or something, we get stopped in Harlem, in Queens, at the airport. You're from Three Jewels.

And it blows my mind. Like, you know, Three Jewels, like for me, it's still that place I found 27 years ago where Rob and I met. Very, very cool.

And it just did something to my mind and it's massive now. It's actually big. Yeah.

Amazing. No, thank you. Thank you.

I mean, there are only ones. I really liked it. Maybe I'll go sometime soon.

Yeah. Okay. So because we have two minutes left, we want to, and we want to ask you to help us with this activity.

Sure. Last session, we had a, a game, a lottery. No, not a lottery game.

We encourage people to sign up for the good night reading club. And we propose that everyone who were signing up that day is going to participate in a special lottery where they are, how to say, getting available. To, to, to win a special price.

And we're going to do that for that. We're going to invite Lindsay and Hector is going to use. No, no, no.

You stay. You're going to, we're going to use your, your magic hand. First shake it, shake it to make it more exciting.

Here we go. My magic hand goes in there. Yes.

And I don't look. And this one got stuck to my hand. Yes.

Yeah. And I will read it. Yeah.

And it says Hector. No, it doesn't. It says, can't you.

From Singapore. Good.

[Speaker 2]
Hi. So.

[Speaker 1]
From Singapore. She is. Now.

The. Owner of the prize with cheese. Why are you.

What are we preparing?

[Speaker 2]
We're going to mail you a signed picture. Of. Michael.

That has something to do with the translation. Efforts. So thank you so much.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
With a special signature. Right. Okay.

Thank you very much. So. We'll see.

Each other again. On Monday. For more fun, more adventures.

And more wisdom. Thank you very much. And I think that's it for today.

Thank you. Yeah, we go. There is more happening.

Words class. If you want to learn. The.

Ancient. Mysteries. And wisdom.

Of. Tibetan language. See you soon.

Thanks for. Hi, Hector. Hi.

How are you? Nice to see you. Likewise.

Thank you. I'm working on your document.

[Speaker 2]
Little by little. Little by little.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks. I'm losing connection. I'm losing.

Okay. So we're going to start. By.

you