Гибсон Чан — Книга 2: Восхваление зависимости, занятие 14

[Speaker 1]
One minute. One minute. One minute everybody.

Try to dial in. He's on. Don't lose anything I heard Gail say she lost her brain.

Oh, Gibson. Miss he looks ready his hair is all styled. Yeah.

Recording in progress. Oh, say hi. Oh, sorry.

My audio. All right, everybody. Welcome to Schwann songs tower.

Coming to you today live from Del Mar California home of righteous waves and shredding the NAR. Ah, happy to see you all we've got the boss right here. Ready to hopefully finish up Gibson's text today right well don't count your text before they hatch.

We'll see how it goes. But we may be embarking on a new text today. So Gibson you look ready.

Yes. Oh, do you have anything to say. I'm going to turn on my audio.

I Gibson, you go ahead with your homework and I'm excited. By the way, if you jump in the water you could right here. I just went swimming and if I swim a little farther I could get to you guys.

Okay. They might be in Arizona. Oh, sorry.

[Speaker 2]
There's the ocean.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. The edge of the earth. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So you go ahead Gibson.

[Speaker 2]
All right. So let me share.

[Speaker 1]
Well, we're the only people on the beach with suits on.

[Speaker 2]
All right. The releases a new computer so I need to restart again to share the text. Can you wait a minute.

[Speaker 1]
I'll sing a song while you're done.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Let me see. I have seen. Standing by the oceans.

Do you know. Oh, yeah. Okay.

All right. So, the way the teacher doesn't have answer homework questions.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. The homework is mainly about the biography that we last time, our student translator translation. So here's a little bit about Mucho Dama Badra's life question.

So the first one. When did the author Mucho Dama Badra by the commentary and why did he call himself a lazy bum when he wrote the colorful.

[Speaker 1]
Because he wasn't. No. Like later in his life, and he was he was doing Kemper Q.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, why is Kemper Q but remember what I say, the Newton ever say that he's standing on the other person's shoulder. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, when you read the commentary he also have the reference for on the choke.

Oh sir and young change it back into and he read the commentary at 23. So yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. So after Moody's I'm about to learn the alphabet from his uncle, how do he continue to learn the alphabet in his own time. Yeah, I hear sheep.

[Speaker 1]
While herding sheep you would write it on rocks. Oh, yes. Yeah, you know, class.

Okay, good. Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
So whenever he met someone who can really continue to learn the alphabet from land. And he, when he attending the ship he was brought on the school store. And even he had a blister on his finger, many times he didn't pay a lot of attention.

Yeah. So after a short time he persisting in practice and able to write it which and then will make good.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
So, on the West Pakistan, the moochie dumb about her because, oh, Dan and what's what's he so old and then you don't know, you guys will know I don't think we did cover it. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So he was too dumb. He was too good about.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
And because he's too good at the reading and writing. So somebody find out in. And a group of monks from Jesse gobble, because of his parent that he must become a mom.

Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So what's the case you can master letters.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, or need to represent person who know how to read.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Don't let smooth rock. Yes, that's known for writing letters on when you're sheep herding.

Relatives.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. Your sister and brother.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Right. Okay, thank you.

Good. So how far did you go last time? I'm not sure.

[Speaker 2]
Let me see. Maybe I can.

[Speaker 1]
Here, I'll put it up here. All right. So you got into his biography.

Did you finish his biography?

[Speaker 2]
No, not yet. We are just out to the beginning.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let me do a few notes that I have, just to make sure we cover them, okay? Okay. So, yeah, just to review, he calls the book, Sabden Tawa'i Denje.

What's a denje, Gibson?

[Speaker 2]
Open the eyes to lead. A guide.

[Speaker 1]
It means a leader. Yeah, a guider. Let me get this accessibility thing.

Hang on. Okay, good. Okay.

What's jorwa?

[Speaker 2]
To liberate the meaning.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it means to, yeah, it means to make a commentary. What's the noun?

[Speaker 2]
What's a noun? Jorwa? Jorwa.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, commentary, jorwa. Yeah. Okay, good.

Yeah, he followed these two people, their commentaries. He calls himself nyom le ken. What's that mean?

[Speaker 2]
Lazy master. Lazy guy.

[Speaker 1]
Master of laziness. Sounds good. Here's something interesting.

He calls himself his Sanskrit name, which became his habit later in his life. That's why we call him Dharmabhadra, right? And that was not his real name.

He took out a Tibetan name. But he went by the Sanskrit translation of his Tibetan name. One of the very few Tibetans who did that.

Here it's dharmeshvara, which is a combination of dharma and...

[Speaker 2]
Ishvara.

[Speaker 1]
Ishvara. Ishvara. So this would mean Lord of the Dharma.

Dharmeshvara. Dharmeshvara. And that happens...

He got his... when he got his getul name, it was Wangchuk Chosung. What's the Sanskrit?

Dharmeshvara. Dharmabhadra. Dharmabhadra.

It means he wrote this commentary quite young. According to his biography, he took full monk at 20, but he was 23 when he wrote this commentary. He was still using his novice monk's name.

And he's showing off that he knows Sanskrit, so he translated his name into Sanskrit. And he signs this book, Dharmeshvara. And what's near Sumba?

[Speaker 2]
23.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and then he says, in the year of kunga, which means the year of bliss. But each year in Tibetan has its own nickname. And kunga is the nickname for shing tak lo.

What's it mean? Yeah, tiger. Wood tiger.

Tiger woods.

[Speaker 2]
Tiger woods.

[Speaker 1]
And if you use the Great Dictionary, you can look up these years, and it was 1794. Are there names in the Great Dictionary? Yeah, the names...

I got this from the Great Dictionary. So if you look up shing tak in the Great Dictionary, it'll give you the... If you look up kunga, which means ananda, you will see that it's a nickname for the...

It's actually mun means... you could say like ancient Sanskrit or something. Nickname for the wood tiger year.

So it's nailing down what year he wrote it. He did write it at quite young. What's en ne?

Some people would say en ne. What's en ne? Wen ne.

[Speaker 2]
Hermitage retreat.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's out in the middle of nowhere. It's like Diamond Mountain. Empty place.

Wen ne. Like Bowie, Arizona. And then it was a retreat.

What's a retreat? Hermitage. Yeah, and that hermitage was named Quicksilver.

As we're going to read in his biography, which I'd like to read today the whole thing if we have time, he spent a lot of his life there, so he became named ngu chu, which means Quicksilver. So the Quicksilver is... when we say Quicksilver Lama or Lama Quicksilver, meaning Mercury, that's a name of a hermitage in the mountains.

What's suk chi?

[Speaker 2]
Handwriting.

[Speaker 1]
It means a handwritten manuscript. He said, look, we didn't carve it, but the paper copy was ready by the time I was 23. And then later they carved it.

Dzogpar chepa means I finished writing the paper version. And then this is badly misspelled and it should be jayantu. Jayantu.

Here's the definition of jayantu from the Great Dictionary. What's gyelwa gyur chik? May everybody be victorious.

It means a gyewa gyelwa gyur chik. Gyewa. Super happy victory?

Gyewa, not dewa. Oh, oh, oh, gyewa. Yeah, may good deeds conquer the world, something like that.

So jayantu is a common way too. And here's the evidence that the Sanskrit j used to be jayant. Tibetans have a j, they did not use the j.

They used the dza. Like raja means king. When you see a j nowadays in Sanskrit, it used to be dza.

So jayantu means jayantu. What do they say nowadays? Like you get a Hindu politician up there, what's his name?

Modi. Modi, yeah. And people say, jay Modi, jay Modi.

It means victory to Modi or something like that. Okay, that's all my notes. Yeah.

Okay, we covered that. So just an interesting thing. Sudharma could be translated as chosang.

You see what I mean? And you could translate it as Dharmabhadra. You could translate the su as bhadra, which means good.

So it's all ties together. Okay, let's see if we got anything else here. Oh, he says something about Thakar here somewhere.

Right there, third line from the Buddha. So he says, I wrote this in the month of Thakar. And the months of the year have nicknames also in Tibetan.

So Thakar, thakar means here, means star. The star of Ta. And I looked it up for you.

So the Asians and the Greeks and the Persians, they all see the constellations differently. So what we think is a big dipper, they might see a horse and a bear or something. So Thakar is a constellation, which is a woman on horseback.

And the month of Thakar is... Das says October, but it's the ninth Mongolian month, horned dog gupa. And in the Vinaya system, it's the eighth month from the 16th, which is the full moon, the day after the full moon, up to the 15th of the next month.

So it doesn't really... You could say the ninth month. You could translate it as ninth month, but it doesn't exactly mean September.

I calculate it would be November, December. So if I was going to translate it, I would say the ninth month. I have a note here that I would...

Whenever I translate a commentary... By the way, we have a train near here, I'm sorry. Maybe you can hear it.

Yeah, Ben, the cheaper rooms are towards the train.

[Speaker 2]
I'm sure Ezra loves that train.

[Speaker 1]
I always, when I translate a text that's split up by commentary, I like to recombine the whole text at the end, just in case someone wants to recite it. For example, Tsongkhapa's Praise of Dependent Origination. In your finished book, I would add the whole verses here, put together.

So I propose that we do that. Now, I got two biographies of Quicksilver, and they're both short. I like the first one better.

I think it's a better biography. But I put them both here in case you want. By the way, this first note, which is from a pretty good catalogue of Buddhist books, it says, Muthu Dharmabhadra is defined as...

The Tibetan says he's the same guy as Muthu Lama Choson. So his name is Sudharma, or Dharmabhadra. And su means good.

What's the Indo-European? Esu. Esu.

And in Greek, the S drops out. So you and euphoria. You get euphemism, or euphoria, or eurythmics.

And it means good. In the Sanskrit, at the Indo-European Esu, the E drops out and it becomes su, like Sudharma, or his name is Sudharma. It means good Dharma.

So it says here his other name is Choson, Sudharma. Okay, good. So how far did you get in his biography?

Did you read his biography?

[Speaker 2]
Just a little bit.

[Speaker 1]
If you want to, we can read the whole thing together now.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I think we read the whole...

[Speaker 1]
Okay, and then you can write... What I do is I read a good biography, and then I put the sexy parts in the introduction to the book. But this is a good, short biography.

And we have in our database, we have some very long biographies, which would be several hundred pages in English. And I don't think it's worth your time. It's more important for us to get on to Changi.

But this is just two pages or something. I think we can... Possibly we can knock it out today.

I'm not sure. So please, I'd like Gibson to read the first sentence up to the comma. And by the way, I did not clean up the Tibetan.

It's all messy. I didn't remove all the random carriage returns and stuff. So can you please read, Gibson, and then you can start choosing other people.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Keep going. Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Slow down, slow down. You're too fast. By the way, it was nice to see you in Mexico City.

I guess you got kidnapped or something. I'll see you in a while. rabjung chuk sumpa...

What's a rabjung?

[Speaker 2]
rabjung chuk sumpa renun... go to... live the whole life.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but in calendar terms, it means 60-year cycle. Oh, that's wrong. So it has a different meaning in calendars.

So it means a 60-year cycle. And this is the 13th 60-year cycle. So they started counting 60-year cycles 60 times, 13 times, like 800 years ago.

So we're now in the 14th 60-year cycle. 60-year cycle comes from 12 animals and 5 elements. And then you make combinations.

So he was born in the water... droop.

[Speaker 2]
Thunder.

[Speaker 1]
Long. Dragon.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, dragon.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, he was born in the water dragon year. And then the first water... the waters...

the elements repeat every year. So you get two water years, and then you get two earth years. So the first water year is called male, and the second water year is called female.

So he was born in the male water year of the dragon, which nails it down to 1772. Which is a nice year for the Americans because we got our independence in 1776. Probably we were fighting around Princeton in 1772.

Can I ask you a quick question? So loop and droop are distinguished from each other. So it's more like the flying dragon as opposed to nagas, like loop.

Yeah, exactly. Nagas... a loop, which is K-L-U, refers to naga.

Which is, I would translate as a water dragon. And then this is a normal dragon, like a sky dragon. Okay.

Then he was born in the Tawa Gupa. September. In the ninth month.

Yeah, which is really September. You should translate it as ninth month because the Western years are messed up from the Christians and the Romans and the Greeks. And he was born on Segu.

[Speaker 2]
The ninth day.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and then there's a place name. Like rung means valley. Ye means the right side of the valley.

Duh means the upper valley. Kyuk mo means crooked. And don't even try to translate these place names.

It's like trying to translate Rimrock or something. The place where he was born is called yeru charung du kyok. Duh kyuk mo.

You don't need to translate it. Okay. Yul means country, but it also means locality.

Like the area called sangyeru charung du kyok. Okay. And his yap's name was?

[Speaker 2]
His father's name was Jashi Belchow.

[Speaker 1]
Good. And his yulm's name was?

[Speaker 2]
His mother's name was Kangro Belke.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Kangro means dakini, right? Which is kind of cool.

And I wouldn't try to translate their names. You could, but it's kind of messy. He was born as their se.

[Speaker 2]
As their son.

[Speaker 1]
Good. Okay, who's going to read from Yul Der, Gibson?

[Speaker 2]
Rosena.

[Speaker 1]
Ooh, she did a good job in Mexico City.

[Speaker 3]
Keep going. jungway wu wu tsuk Nice, stop there.

[Speaker 1]
Nice pronunciation. In that, okay, Gibson, in that yul, yi kyi she kun was gombo.

[Speaker 2]
In that area, the person who knows how to read is very rare.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Okay, good. And kin gi tsor gawa.

[Speaker 2]
Their family livelihood is very difficult.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Therefore, at the age of chu chik, At the age of 11. Yeah, and gung lo, gung means winter, and lo means year.

So gung lo is honorific for the year, meaning he was 11 years old. But we would say in English even, you say he had seen 11 winters, or something like that. So at the age of 11, tok da su ku sheng genpo habu shepa chi yinpa de So he had an uncle, ku shang.

da su means at that point in his life he had an uncle named habu, just the uncle's personal name, chi kyupa de dun ne, at his feet, he started practicing kakha. Yeah, we say ABCs, they say AB. Kakha, okay.

jangway, u means here what? Head. Yeah, what's utsuk?

Utsuk means to start, to stick your head in. So he started practicing ABCs from a miscellaneous uncle. All right, who's going to read the next part, Gibson?

And Gibson, you please correct their pronunciation. I mean, Roxanne is perfect, maybe the next person is not.

[Speaker 2]
Bertha, Bertha.

[Speaker 1]
Who?

[Speaker 2]
Bertha.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you. Oh, right, I'm sorry. Keep going.

shik nye nyong, sok la tsuk mo yi ge drine Nice, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. By the way, I met Bertha and we had a nice dinner together in Mexico City, and she told me, Gibson, that she loves translating these classes into Spanish and she'll do it forever. And her father is going to be 100 years old this year.

She's taking care of her father, and she promised to live much longer. Okay, mutu means... Do you know mutu, anybody?

Mutu means continually, doing continually. Like he didn't stop with his random uncle, he found other people. Okay, so mutu means he went on doing it.

Any yi kye she khen that he took...

[Speaker 2]
Any person who knows how to read, he met.

[Speaker 1]
Any time he met someone who could read and write, he would jong from that person, chung se.

[Speaker 2]
He learned from that person, even just a little bit.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's actually one of the ways I learned Tibetan. I used to take the Tibetan newspaper into restaurants and read out loud, and people sitting next to me would wince and correct me. It's a nice way to learn.

Then as you guys figured out already, he became a dziwo of ras and luks. He became a goat and a sheep herder. By the way, shor means shor la, which means what?

By the way, this should say wow. It means by the way, incidentally. While doing sheep herding, he would find, as you mentioned, do lep, like slate.

It's a flat stone. Nu means on the surface of that. Jam, I guess on the softer stones.

Smooth? It could be, but I don't think so. Even on the...

why does it say nu here?

[Speaker 2]
Face.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the face. Whenever he saw a piece of earth, bare earth that was kind of flat, he would take the chance to practice his letters with his fingers. As you mentioned in your homework, many times his fingers mang dul...

dul means opened up, open sore, broke out on his fingers. What's ji mi nyampa mean? Even though...

nyampa means he didn't think anything about it. He's like, oh, my finger is bleeding. Okay, let's keep going.

And gyun kyong means he continued to do that. Kyong means to continue to do something. And before very yun, before very lang, as you mentioned in your homework, he was able to write both the script and the block print of Tibetan.

The handwriting. We saw the handwriting in Xiaoping's text from Dunhuang. We were discussing in Gibson's team class how would we translate chung yin nge in English.

I would say block print and script, or something like that. By the way, there's many scripts, there's many ways to write it. To make it simple for my reader, I would say script and block print.

Who's going to read next, Gibson? Gibson? Kim Na.

Lindsey. Lindsey.

[Speaker 3]
Can you help me with the first word?

[Speaker 1]
Kim. Kim. Kim Na.

[Speaker 3]
Okay. Kim Na. Jojo.

Pa. Grin.

[Speaker 2]
Wangyel.

[Speaker 3]
Wangyel minpa de minpun na.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, Lindsey, we're going to skip past this note that I made and start here. Lona.

[Speaker 3]
Lona. Ha wei kong ni yab yum gi ri su tang ra.

[Speaker 2]
Si shu. Si shu.

[Speaker 3]
What is it?

[Speaker 2]
Si shu.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, si shu tang ra luk so wa. So go chupa zik gi yod may pe.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay. One more line. Yun.

[Speaker 3]
Yun rig por kim du ne gu jung hong kyang gi ge dri klog la tokpa medpar gyur.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Whoa. It must be all that work you're doing to save the mixed nuts with the Good Night Book Club, and we are very grateful.

Okay. Yeah. Kim.

What's Kim, you guys? Gibson.

[Speaker 2]
Family.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and I didn't know the word jojo when I looked it up. It means older brother. Okay.

So in his family, there was an older brother whose name was Dajin Wanggyo.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, that's a high-end bar, which is a Tantric deity, Diamond Way deity. And when jojo wasn't around, mimpa, okay, and when there weren't... sometimes his older brother was out of town, and the other siblings who were not jojo, okay...

lon na is an ancient word for age. And trawa is an ancient word that means thin or dribbly. And lon na trawa means too young.

So when his older brother was away, and all his other brothers were too young, he wanted to si shu his yab yu.

[Speaker 2]
Honor his parents.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, si shu means to pay respect. He wanted to honor his parents. So he agreed to ra luk tso.

[Speaker 2]
To maintain the livelihood, like herding the sheep.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, he agreed to watch the family flocks. And go chupa... go chupa we have, I bet Word knows it.

To begin? It means to stand in for something. Right?

Like if you don't have a pen, you can use a piece of charcoal or something. Go chupa. Substitute for it.

So he would stand in for his older brother, and the other brothers were too young. And there was nobody else to do that, so there's a mistake in the text, it should say mepe. Because there was nobody else to watch the herds, he agreed to do it in order to honor his parents.

Therefore, it happened that for a long time, ne gu chung in the kim. He had to stay in the house. Yeah, Nick says he had to stay at home.

He couldn't go to the monastery or anything like that. But nonetheless, his ability to yi kye chi and yi kye lok was a sangha. Yeah, unstoppable.

Yeah, totally unstoppable. He became very good at reading and writing, even though he got stuck with all this work at home. Okay, Gibson, who's going to read next?

[Speaker 2]
Melbo Gyalse.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, it's a little bit going to take you one or two classes to read this little biography, but I think it's good experience for you to read something which is not spiritual. This is biographical, and the language is different, the vocabulary is different. Okay, Gyalse.

[Speaker 3]
gong gong lu chu sum shepa na jwa shi gye pel gyi What's that one? Ja. With the wasser?

[Speaker 1]
Ja. Yeah, the wasser is silent.

[Speaker 3]
ra sun mangpo yab yum lap gong rapa jay gu parku Pardon?

[Speaker 2]
Drapa.

[Speaker 3]
Drapa jay gu parku war ten gong lu chu shepa shing mo ju gyi loy dawa tang bor How far do I go? One more line. yab dang man chik tu dra shi gye pel lap pep Stop.

[Speaker 2]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Nice, very good. Your reading is getting dangerous.

[Speaker 2]
I wish I knew what it meant.

[Speaker 1]
That's another thing. When he got to lu chu sum, Gibson?

[Speaker 2]
When he got to the age of 13.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. There was a nearby monastery called dra shi gye pel, and if you are Mongolian, you will pronounce this as ra shi genpo. This is where the name of that New Jersey temple comes from.

It's a small monastery out near lu chu. The monks from dra shi gye pel, which is ra shi genpo, many of them went to the yab yum.

[Speaker 2]
He's been to his parents.

[Speaker 1]
And they said, ko drapa jay gu. He needs to be a monk. Yeah, he should be a monk.

He should become a monk. What's kuluwa mean?

[Speaker 2]
He asked. Urge.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. This ten means due to that. Due to them talking to the parents at the age of chu shi.

[Speaker 2]
The age of 14.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, when you see the po or mo, block it in your mind. Just say shing dru. Wooden snake.

Wooden snake. And then it happened to be the female, which nails it down to the second wood year in a row. But the snake nails it down anyway, so it's kind of weird.

Anyway, in the wood, I would say in the female wood snake year, which happens to be 1785. By the way, there's a list of these years linked to their Tibetan names in the Great Dictionary, and I use it all the time. I use it many times in a biography like this.

And then it happened to be which month?

[Speaker 2]
The first month.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, he went to dra shi gyepel, yab dang tsang chik with his father. Yeah, good. And they went to the monastery.

Who's going to read next, Gibson?

[Speaker 2]
Oscar.

[Speaker 1]
Keep going. Keep going. kun ngur mik gi kyel, tsen lek par shen ne kung sok su pep Yeah, keep going.

kun gyi kye geng ku yon mi che yang Keep going. sul trim tsangwa dang Keep going. du gyur drang la pen sem denpa shik yin Stop.

Okay, good. Nice. Nice to see you in Mexico City, Oscar.

[Speaker 2]
Nice to see you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 1]
This is an interesting word. I think you can get it. What's a dra put?

He's here. Yeah, but what's put? Stuck out.

No, it's stuck out.

[Speaker 2]
It's like a shoe.

[Speaker 1]
What's put? Put means the offering of the first part. Like if you publish a new book, you give the put to your teacher.

You give the first book to your teacher. So it means the... What do you call it?

It means the first book to come off the press.

[Speaker 2]
Well, the whole edition is called First Edition. This is the first book.

[Speaker 1]
The very first book to come off the press, you grab it and you offer it to your teacher. That's called put. It means the first part.

There's a new word in English. Anyway. So he offered the first part of his hair.

They shaved his hair, and he took the first piece to fall down and he offered it to his teacher, meaning he took ordination. He took ordination. And his lopun, meaning his vow master.

Here it doesn't mean what? He shaved his head. Lopun here doesn't mean scholar, and it doesn't mean bookmaster.

It means vow master. So his vow master, which is very important, it's always recorded for great lamas, is Lo Tsang Gyel Tsen. It's not the one you might think, because he lived earlier.

So he offered his first hair, and he drapa che.

[Speaker 2]
He became a monk.

[Speaker 1]
And that's the colloquial nowadays, drapa che. You say drapa che. It emphasizes not that he's a gelong or a getsul.

It emphasizes that he took up residence in a... tra-tsang In a sense. And dak here is a good use of the word ndok, which we use a lot in Madhyamika for that things exist in name only.

But here's a colloquial use of it. They dak the Lo Tsang Tsering on him. They gave him the name.

Yeah, they put the name Lo Tsang Tsering on him, which means pure mind, long life, or something like that. On that day, che means he accepted, or he undertook, the great gyel tsen.

[Speaker 2]
Victory banner.

[Speaker 1]
Victory banner. The flapping victory cloth banner of Murmik. Yellow duck?

Saffron. They're comparing the robes of a Buddhist monk to the flag that a great army wears at the front of the army. That's so beautiful.

He marched forth with the victory flag of the golden, and it means he put on his robes. It's very beautiful. It's a very beautiful idiom.

Che means he agreed to. Then he entered his first assembly in his robes, because lay people are not allowed in the monastic assemblies. By the way, those assemblies are 1,000 monks, 2,000 monks.

It's pretty awesome the first time you walk in there with your robes on, because you feel like you're part of a whole city or something. He walked into his first sot with his robes on. It happened to be the noontime sot, which is good, because he'll get some breakfast.

Now there's an interesting comment about his gyel gen, which means his day-to-day teacher. Gyel gen, what you call gen. Kong means his, and it's kind of colloquial.

His gyel gen did not have great yun ten. He wasn't a great geshe or anything. It's interesting that they would make this comment, but his sutra was sang.

[Speaker 2]
He was super clean.

[Speaker 1]
What's tu gyur chang, you guys? The stream of his mind. Chang bol.

Very straight. What's that mean? He was a very honest person.

He was a straight dude. That's a big compliment. He was an honorable person.

He wasn't a great scholar, but he was honorable and he kept his vows. Sometimes it's the opposite. Chang la.

He really had pen sam towards his student. He had a mind toward helping. He was really intent on helping his student, which is another great quality.

Who's going to read from Dane Gibson?

[Speaker 2]
How about Nick?

[Speaker 1]
Nick's right here, by the way. Here we go. He's down the beach from me.

A little bit. Keep going because it's so short. Good.

Keep going because it's tight in there. Nice. Stop there.

Yay! Then his neighboring monk, the monk in the next room or something? Se means a neighbor.

Was an unze. The chant master. Yeah, he was a chanting master.

Sometimes those guys lose their last name. They just say Rob, the chanting master. Then his last name is lost to history.

So chanting master Shirom, he listened, Sen, very well, about chogga. The rituals. Yeah, he was a ritual master.

You see these kind of monks in the monastery, a lot of times the chanting master is not a Geshe. He's just good at memorizing the chants. He may not even understand what they mean, but his voice is beautiful and his memory is very good.

They will become a chanting master, even if they're not a Geshe. In fact, usually a person who becomes a chanting master or a chanting master in training doesn't have time to go to debate classes and stuff. The implication is he was not studying scripture with this person.

He was studying the rituals and how to chant them. When he was Gung Nol Chuk Sung Gibson.

[Speaker 2]
Thirteen years old?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, in the fourth dawa. Fourth one. In the Sejongla?

[Speaker 2]
Sejongla, 18th day.

[Speaker 1]
On the 15th, which is the full moon. Lucky day to become a monk. In the evening, chidro, which is kind of bad luck because then he can't have lunch, dinner.

He met the great master Ngawang Dorje. Chungdu. What's Chungdu mean?

At his feet, right in front of him. Good. He took gengyin and he took getso, one after the other, in the same ceremony.

Wow. What do you call it? Lifetime lay vows.

Yeah. He took lifetime lay vows and then five minutes later he took his novice monk vows. I took my novice vows and my full monk vows in the same day.

Oh wow. My teacher said, you've been waiting eight years. But you have to be a novice to take the full monk vows.

They did them both in the same day. So it does happen. Remchen means in the same day, one after the other, he took them.

And there's a comment on how well he kept them. Sushin. Perfectly?

Yeah, he kept them properly. In the case of a biography of a great monk, they will say ordained on the 12th of September and forever after kept his vows. All right, who's going to read next?

Gibson. We're doing okay. We got about eight minutes.

And then you're leading a conversation on how we can use this in our real life.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Ben Kramer.

[Speaker 1]
Uh-oh. Kramer. Nice to see you, Kramer.

[Speaker 2]
Thanks for asking, too.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. This is a funny... I like this biography because a lot of times the biographies are very flowery and they don't tell you anything about the person.

This one is... Good stuff. When he was Chudu, Gibson.

[Speaker 2]
When he was 16.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, in the fire sheep. By the way, here they did not tell you male or female. And by the way, you might notice sometimes the years are off by one, and that's because Tibetans count the time in the womb.

So conception is the day of conception nine months before what we say is your birthday. They will start counting years. So sometimes you get messed up.

In the dungka, in the autumn of that year, this is really cute. His gergen... His teacher.

Yeah, his private house teacher, like his babysitter teacher. hong la means to him, meaning to Muthu Dharmapadra. He gave him some cha.

A bag of tea? cha bak means brick of tea, and in Tibet tea is carried in bricks. He gave him only che.

[Speaker 2]
A half.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, he broke a tea brick in half and said, here, here's half a brick of tea, which is going to last you a couple of weeks. Then he gave him mar nyak do. Mar nyak is about a pound of butter, which is not much.

He gave him a quarter of half a pound. And butter is a very important day-to-day necessity in Tibet to make your tea. Because they live off the tea.

He gave him a little piece of butter. Then he gave him 15 handfuls of samba. Of flour.

Yeah, barley flour. That's enough. The butter and the barley flour is enough.

And the tea is enough to make samba for a couple weeks. Gave him a couple weeks' supply. Gave him a little bit, chenbu means a little bit of sabu, meaning salt powder.

Natural salt powder from salt lakes in Tibet. That's how they got salt. They didn't have salt mines.

And they didn't have an ocean, so they got it from the salt beds. Then he gave him one cup, one little frying pan, three little eating utensils, pots and pans, and a little den.

[Speaker 2]
A small stool.

[Speaker 1]
A little woollen rag to sit on. Nang ne. Nang ne.

And then he said, you can du ger.

[Speaker 2]
You can stay here.

[Speaker 1]
Ger means on your own. Ger can mean privately. Like the great teacher's private residence is called ku ger yik tsang, like that.

So chuk means he forced him. He said, good luck, honey. See you later.

Go find a place to stay. Here's some little food. And good luck in being a monk for the rest of your life.

His teacher basically said, you're on your own now. I've never seen that described so eloquently. You're on your own now.

And then kap der means at that point in his life, ku che, everything for his dress, his robes, and his personal possessions. shin du shen, shen means poor. Yeah, shortage.

Permanent shortage. Everything, his food, his house, his clothes. Super bad.

Super bad. Okay, he's going to read Gibson.

[Speaker 2]
Tsongpa. World peace. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
What should I read to again? I will keep going. I'll stop you when you reach a good place.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
One more. One more line. Okay.

rang kim du yab yum la sem suy che du peppe ngo mun sok dun Nice. Nice reading, of course. So gyep means to split.

But in the monastery it means your share of the money that the sponsor of a prayer offers. You're split. You're cut?

Yeah, he's cut. Whenever he got a little gay in the tsok... He got his cut in the monastic group gathering?

Yeah, then the sponsor will say, here's $100 and I'll sponsor breakfast, and then they'll split up the leftover money. chung means he got his little tiny share. Every time he got his little share, he would use it to luwa peja.

This is a polite word we do not say buy a scripture because it's illegal morally to sell scriptures. So luwa means to ransom. And it's a polite word for buying a book in the monastery.

They'll say ransom the book. You're not allowed to say buy. But it is.

So every time he got a little money, he wouldn't buy food or get better robes. He would run off and buy a book with it. There's guys like that in the monastery.

They're very beautiful. They got lots of books and their robes are falling off. Yeah, so insane, eh?

ngen ngen means lousy. And if you want to learn a nice word when you're speaking Tibetan, you can say ngen ngen means really crappy. It means crappy, Ben.

It's a perfect word, crappy. His tsowa, what's that mean with an apostrophe? His livelihood.

He took care of himself. His daily finances were crappy. And this n with the s means that's all he had to rely on.

And on top of that, when he was chob kye, 18 years old. Yeah, his chenpo, his older brother. Yes, so chenpo means older brother.

Same as jojo, his older brother, tadrin wangyel, at the age of nyu shu, 20, who's sheikh?

[Speaker 2]
Passed away.

[Speaker 1]
He's passed away. Yeah, he died. His older brother died at 20.

You often, often see that with high lamas, great lamas. Oftentimes they have a death in their family when they are at a very impressionable age, and then they become great spiritual leaders. Oftentimes you see parents or mom or older brother dying in their teenage years, and then they become great...

they get renunciation and they become great teachers. Last sentence here, where ramkyendu... His own household.

Yeah, he went home, to his home, of course, to sowa the sem of his yab and his yun.

[Speaker 2]
To comfort his parents.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, to comfort his parents. And they used a high honorific word for mother and father, meaning... This is a biography of a high lama, so we don't say his mom and dad.

We say his holy father and his holy mother. chedru to... In order to?

Yeah, in order to comfort them. pep to the kim. He went home.

Back to the home. He left the monastery for a short time and went home. In order to dun the munlams.

To share, to split. To chant the prayers. Yeah, he went home to do the death prayers for his brother.

Lungmun means to dedicate all the good deeds his brother had ever done up to that time. See what I mean? Lungmun.

That means he did his death prayers in order to comfort his parents. Okay, we're going to stop there. Go, Gibson.

We'll pick up there. We definitely know we're going to reach your new book next class, so don't go swimming or anything. Can you send us the text?

Which text? The one we're about to see. Oh yeah, I will.

In the next few days I'll prepare it. It takes a lot of preparation, so it might take me a week or two to send you the new book you're about to start. We are going to read the Changyi Lekshmi Nyongpo Jetsongkapa's extraordinary introduction to the idea of how do you know when to believe what the Buddha said, and how do you know when to not believe what the Buddha said?

Or your teacher. Very delicate subject. Okay, I'm going to go to my throne room, and Gibson's going to lead a discussion for 15 minutes, and then we'll have Mr. Panhaso. Okay, go. I'll leave you.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Take it away, Gibson. All right. No, I don't mind.

It's exhausting.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so everyone, do you have any idea about today's biography? It looks like, yeah, Rob Haggerty.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, hi.

[Speaker 2]
Also by the ocean.

[Speaker 1]
It's funny, I always, when I look at these stories, and the framework of them, I always insert myself, I try to see how does that reflect on me, or I always kind of insert me into the story, and how that reflects on my own life.

[Speaker 2]
And so, with Master Noltre Dharmavadra taking care of the sheep, right, who's a herder?

[Speaker 1]
Sheep herder, yeah. For his parents. I think of the seed of that, you know, of doing that.

[Speaker 3]
And then, as many of us know, we rely on Master Noltre Dharmavadra in our Diamond Way teachings pretty heavily.

[Speaker 1]
And so, it seems like as a result of like this, kind of seeing his parents in a special way, and I think serving them, we see, obviously I'm cheating forward, but how it's impacted his life, and how the monks come and beg him to come to the monastery.

[Speaker 2]
And then, even right now, as his brother dies, doing the same thing, and how the seed, like he obviously thought that was equally important, right, to serve really the people around you at the end of the day, like our family, our brothers and sisters.

[Speaker 1]
And I've come to a place in my life where I realized the karma of just helping literally all the time.

[Speaker 2]
And I think I'm getting old enough where I'm starting to see my life kind of flip over more, and it's sort of just becoming more extraordinary. So it's fun.

[Speaker 3]
We have like this movie playing that we get to pretend is us, and, you know, kind of is us in a way. So that's what I, that was my two cents, I guess.

[Speaker 2]
Cool. It's always very interesting to see how Muthu Dharmavadra to set his priority, because we all struggle in our priority level. Should we focus on our own life, or should we focus on our spiritual life?

But since he could balance it very well, and he didn't struggle a lot when the thing comes, like his father passed away, or he needs to take care of his family, but he always can find the time to do so. And not always thinking about, oh, I should wait for when I have time to learn Tibetan, or when I have time to do what. But yeah, I think this is a very good example for us to follow.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, there's like a clue into his parents. For those of us who've like, you know, studied further that how important our parents come, and sort of like the Diamond Way teachings. And so in a way we see he's already setting that precedent early on, you know.

[Speaker 2]
I don't think there's a, it's the same, I don't think there's like, should I do this or should I do that? They're like linked completely together. Seems like, I don't know.

He can see the result of the seed printing. So he can do it effortlessly, yeah. Yeah.

Thanks. Okay. Does anyone want to share your idea?

And I also find that when he described his own private teacher, he said, although he didn't have a good quality in his knowledge, but he's very, how to say, honest, and he always wants to help another. And I think this is also a way of praising his lama, his teacher, and to see their, how to say, their good side. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Anyone? You coming? I had similar reflections of Rob.

Can you guys hear me? Sorry. I had the same kind of reflection as Rob that, you know, as I've kind of embraced being a family person, I've had to make such a huge amount of my own practice, just helping others all the time in a different way that almost feels like somehow I almost feel guilty about it sometimes.

Like it's not my spiritual practice. But it's actually, you know, if I reflect on it and I have a tiny bit of wisdom, maybe I realize it's a higher or a very high practice, but I forget, you know. And so I'm always happy when I hear stories like this where, you know, it reminds you like the certain things that you think you want to do.

And then often, whatever, you know, form the teacher is manifesting to you and will take away your ability to do the exact thing you want to do. And then you do something else that maybe is what you need to help you progress as an individual. And it's maybe a little bit harder, but, you know, in my case, I've always kind of been lucky enough to find the things that keep me sane enough to do it.

And certainly make good...

[Speaker 2]
It makes me think of Rob Haggerty's story. Can Rob share with your story? I remember that you are in the system for a long time and you went back to Seattle and take care of your mom, I guess.

And what is your thought at that time? Because maybe you are in a similar situation that Donna Batra have, that when you are in Thailand, taking the value to your parents. And can you share about the situation?

I think the most interesting thing that's happened from taking care of my mom is... To be honest, I think from literally just surrendering to serving my mom, you know... How long does it take to see that?

[Speaker 1]
That was a year. I came into this life, I think, with a lot of really good karma. And I met Geshe-la pretty quick and then was with them pretty quickly also.

And then just serving my mom for about eight years. I would fly up and down whenever I had a chance. But it...

God, it's so... It's literally everything. Her and my nephew, I think, have become like the biggest...

The most important thing I... One of the most important things I've done in my whole life, outside of meeting Geshe-la. And it just sort of forced my life to...

It was completely unexpected. I didn't think I would get a call one day to go work for Geshe-la. It just wasn't on my...

I just figured I would be in Seattle and that's it. I'll just...

[Speaker 3]
So a complete unexpected thing happened that I did not expect at all. And so... And what's cool, I think, is that...

You just sort of have this upward spiral effect. If you just every day keep doing that over and over... Rebecca was like...

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to out her. But she called me and she's like, How did you get the job? Did you email him?

Did you send your resume? Were you bugging him? And I said, none of the above.

I said, You're not going to like my answer. I was like, I get up. I meditate.

I do yoga. I do my book. I work.

I serve my mom.

[Speaker 3]
And then whenever a class is on... And honestly, Mixed Nuts became a super important part of my life. Because I just enjoyed it so much.

I just donated one day. And then I got a link.

[Speaker 1]
And it said to join. I was like, Huh? So I joined.

And I was like, Ooh, this is... Honestly, I think it's one of the most... And for me, most important things going on is the Mixed Nuts class.

[Speaker 3]
So all of that altogether.

[Speaker 1]
You know, kind of changed my life. So sort of become... Yeah.

Sometimes I don't want to talk about it because it's almost too good to be true. I think as long as you keep working hard and replanting the seed. Obama said, Learn how to get things done.

And just do that for anybody.

[Speaker 2]
And I think you'll be good to go.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. That's my sales pitch for helping people.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Helping moms. Wow. And dads.

[Speaker 2]
I did take care of my dad when he died as well. So, yeah. So you don't have any struggle in that time?

I had a colostomy today.

[Speaker 1]
It's not a struggle.

[Speaker 3]
No, total.

[Speaker 1]
You're out cold.

[Speaker 3]
Total struggle. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God.

Yeah. But I think it's this... I have this weird thing that somehow I just keep going.

[Speaker 1]
You know, like there's this seed of like not giving up no matter how... I grew up an athlete.

[Speaker 3]
So, I just have this seed of not giving up, I think. And I've gotten close many times. But I'm just like a tiger.

[Speaker 1]
I just can't... I'm very stubborn. And I like winning.

[Speaker 2]
I mean, I kind of like the... Keshla talked about it. I'll talk to anybody.

I think I enjoy helping people and talking to people and serving people. Dharma friends. I mean, I can go...

This could be a long talk. So, I don't want to take up all your time. Yeah.

We can talk about it another time for sure. Happy to. Anytime you want to do a talk.

Maybe we do a class. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Thank you, Rob. Yeah. I can unpin, right?

Okay. All right. If anyone don't have any problem.

Shichang. Okay. Thank you for giving me the chance.

[Speaker 3]
So, just now, I have some insights from the sharing that you all shared now. So, surrender to taking care of our parents. I think it's really important.

So, my question is, if a Buddha can emanate into so many different forms in our life. For example, the screen in front of us is also an animation of the Buddha. So, if everything is an animation of the Buddha, then...

Except for me, everyone else is the animation of the Buddha. Then, am I also the animation of the Buddha? Can I see myself as also an animation of the Buddha?

[Speaker 2]
So, you can see everyone as an emanation of the Buddha.

[Speaker 3]
So, maybe in the later level, CIG level 10, there will be a live tour called Anger Helpers. So, you can see everybody as someone who is coming to help you as an emanation of the Buddha to come to help you. So, you can practice and reach your goal.

But if you still see yourself will be getting sick, or you can see yourself sick. So, it can remind you that everyone around you and all these circumstances are actually helping you to move forward until you become a Buddha. So, I have found that you are quite interested in this topic.

So, if you can see everything that you encounter in your life, including your own mind, your own thoughts, and if you can see them as like a secret angel who is coming to help you, then this kind of way of thinking can help you become a Buddha. But if you see yourself being sick, then it means that we haven't reached that state of mind yet as a Buddha. Because for Buddha, he is so willing to animate and then to pass present and future and to help so many different beings.

So, if we haven't reached this state, means we still have some work to work on. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Geshe-lan. Thank you, Rob.

[Speaker 1]
It's time for Mr. Juan Hasso. Thanks for the answer, Gibson. That was good.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks, Gibson. Nice class, Gibson. Are you there, Hasso?

Yeah. We're ready for you, wherever you are. I even have my...

Yeah, cool. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot.

And I'm so happy to see you are in San Diego. It really looks like a fun place to be. There's the ocean right there.

Yeah, I'm thinking if I can to go to San Pancho soon, I may be joining you in spirit. So, yeah, thank you so much for this talk. I really enjoyed it and it moved me a lot.

I think there is a lot to learn from this story of Mulchun Dharmavadra. How not having much time, he managed to go through and learn to write and read so much. It's really inspiring.

Also, the fact that the teacher sent him by himself, I think it's something to think about. At some point, we need to take full responsibility, but Geshe-la, please stay. Because of that, I want to do two things.

Number one, just to celebrate a birthday of one dear friend that happened just last Saturday. We had Daniel Garcia's birthday just last Saturday. And I think it's a good time just to send you best best wishes, Daniel.

Thank you so much for all your help and sending best everything for this upcoming year. So, just to remind his birthday that passed this Saturday, but today we are celebrating that. And sending best regards as well.

And we had great luck that Rob Haggerty agreed to find us a spot with Geshe Michael now that you are in San Diego. So, they are going to be sharing a little bit of how it's going over there. So, if tech table can help us pinning or spotlighting Rob and Geshe-la over there, it will be a great honor to have you here with us today.

Rob. Can you hear me, us? Very well.

Geshe-la said Rob and Nick. Okay. Let's do it then.

So, how's it going? Can you tell us a little bit of how's the surfing scene there? How are the doctors?

It's terrible.

[Speaker 2]
It's such a terrible place to be.

[Speaker 1]
Don't come here and definitely don't try to surf here. Not again. I'm going next year for sure now.

Yeah, all right.

[Speaker 2]
Hold on.

[Speaker 1]
We're going to give you a little...

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la wants us to show you the ocean.

[Speaker 1]
Whoa. This hotel is... It's pretty special if you like coming out and surfing.

It's been amazing. I mean, well, we're here for two things. One is we all had a couple of doctor's appointments actually.

So, Geshe-la has been really making sure to take care of his health. And surprisingly, I was here last time to assist. And he was getting like a colonoscopy.

And then Varaga is getting one. Then I'm getting one. And now Tim's getting one.

I'm still just 44, so my insurance won't cover it for another few months. It's a colonoscopy party over there. It is.

[Speaker 2]
And I think the most important part is... We're really starting to look out for each other's health. Hold on.

It's going to get... Ready?

[Speaker 3]
That's the view. Wonderful. I know, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
It's a little washed out and windy, so you don't see any surfers out there right now. It's so beautiful. Yeah.

I was planning to go last time, but I got sick. I couldn't make it.

[Speaker 2]
We can just do the rest from here, I guess.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, why not?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Not drop the computer. Yeah, so what do you want to know?

[Speaker 1]
I want to know... What are we celebrating today? Ricardze1000.

Yeah. Well, today is a huge day because Geshe... First of all, many of you don't know this, but Geshe Michael has been working on this book, Illumination of the True Thought, for over 10 years.

And many teachers have tried to translate this, and nobody has yet been successful. And I've spoken to other monks and lamas from Seram J, and nobody's been able to get through it. And Geshe Michael's potentially the only person in the world who can do it justice.

And reaching page 1,000 of the English, that's a huge milestone. It means it's going to happen. And we're going to have this whole incredible commentary in our hands soon.

And that's just amazing. Because he's the only one who can do it, and he's making it happen. Among many other things that he's the only one.

[Speaker 2]
Everyone is empowered to go celebrate, in some small way, wherever they are, that milestone today. Oh, there we go.

[Speaker 1]
Boom. There we go. So after the next class, tacos or something.

Wonderful. So thank you so much for giving us some time to catch up what's happening in San Diego. I bet you're having a great time.

And it's also nice to know that you are all taking care of your health. We hope you're still with us many, many, many, many, many years more. Infinite.

And we can keep having fun learning and doing good things. Keep increasing our wisdom, our love. So thank you so much for being around.

And thank you so much for taking care of Geshe as well. Thank you Juan for being awesome. I'm trying.

Whoo. Okay, so we're going to go to our next segment. Next and final segment.

Because we do want to preserve this ancient wisdom. As you know, we had an event in Mexico City, which is the just last event Geshe-la was talking about. Yay.

Okay, yes. We were in Mexico City. And I'm going to let you know what happened.

What happened is, first day, we had the translation class with Tim Lowenhaupt. And there, Geshe-la came to the stage. And in the stage, we have a picture of the stage.

He was talking about the Good Night Book Club. He was talking to this Hispanic audience about it. And it has a great, great response in the audience.

Many people signed up for it. And just like a few days ago, we were talking. Actually, yesterday.

Yesterday, yeah. I was talking with Lindsay and Sunam as well. And we were talking about this Good Night Book Club and how it's going.

And what challenges there has been. And because of that, we want to welcome Lindsay and Sunam. Because we're going to talk about it with you.

So, can you help me to spot Lindsay and Sunam, please? The tech table. How are you?

Good. How are you? Gladly good.

Good. Thanks for having us. So, yeah.

So, it's actually been nine months since we launched the book club.

[Speaker 3]
And first off, thank you to everybody who's been a part of it, has signed up. And has been doing this practice. We have over 250 people who are signed up monthly.

[Speaker 1]
And many more people who have contributed once or twice or three times. Something like that. And at this point, we're covering about 30% of Diamond Cutter Classics' annual budget through this.

[Speaker 3]
And so, it's really huge from that perspective. And we really appreciate everybody's support.

[Speaker 1]
So, yesterday we were talking about a little bit of how it has been for us. Our experience on, I guess in a way, our personal practice. Together with the effects that this wonderful practice can have in us.

And to me, it was like a big eye-opening that this is actually a practice. It's not only a project. But it's actually a practice.

Like some people practice meditation. Some people practice asana. Some people have the practice of following their book.

But this is another practice. And Sunam, you were telling us how it has been for you. Which was so inspiring for me to hear that you've been doing it.

And you've been seeing results. Can you share a little bit about that with us?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
So, I talked to Lynn and said that for me, it's not a good night book club. For me, it's a good morning book club. Because, you know, I get up first thing in the morning.

Phone up. And then reading. I don't know.

Hundreds of emails. Chats. And it really sucks me completely in.

And I don't do my morning practice.

[Speaker 1]
So, I thought I use this beautiful bag. It's very luxurious, by the way.

[Speaker 2]
To make me not reading my phone in the morning. So, when I go to bed, I put it away. And then I really enter the more or less one and a half or two more hours after I get up in the morning.

[Speaker 3]
So, that I cannot get sucked in into this phone and feeds and responding.

[Speaker 2]
And then I sit with my cup of coffee. And to be honest, I'm so bored that I get on the cushion and meditate. So, for me, it's a good morning practice.

[Speaker 3]
And I hope also that my coworkers enjoy not getting emails from me at 530 in the morning. So, it's really incredible how it helps me to practice in the morning, not getting distracted. Having the time and the luxury to practice without anything and bing and oh, I need to read 150 emails.

So, for me, it's a good morning practice. I don't know what we talked about. You have a little bit of different experience.

Maybe you want to share your version of it.

[Speaker 1]
It's true. And I was so surprised to meet with you yesterday. Because just before I met with you, I was thinking and realizing this.

Without knowing, no plan, really. It just happened in the sense of I wake up, I go immediately to my cell phone. I got so keen, exactly as you described.

And then luckily, I managed to put it aside and go to meditate. Thank God, finally. You know, like big achievement.

I go to my cushion. And then I realized how my mind was already too stimulated. It was already too much craziness.

Because I already spent like 30 minutes on social media, emails, messages, text. And in my meditation, I try to think why my mind is like this. And honestly, the very first thing to blame was the social media.

Then it was so wonderful to talk to you exactly about that. It's almost like you were like angels in disguise coming to rescue me. Exactly for that.

So, for me, the challenge is that. It's also in the morning. Because I go directly to my phone.

And then it's not necessarily that I don't meditate. But even if I meditate, it's already too late. Because my mind is so agitated by now.

So, it really inspired me to get a little more serious. And really give it a try. For real.

Like it's a practice. And you helped me think about it. It's a practice.

And I want to start practicing it.

[Speaker 3]
What's your personal experience? Yeah, I echo everything you guys are saying. That this really is about going to sleep in a certain way.

Like reading ancient wisdom. Getting a full night's sleep. So that you can wake up and have just a very effective day.

[Speaker 1]
And a huge, huge, huge, huge part of that is starting your day meditating.

[Speaker 3]
And actually, Rob was talking about it before. And I'm very fortunate in that Rob is my teacher. And I study directly with him.

And one of the first things that really inspired me when I first met him. Was his morning routine. Like he was saying, he wakes up every day.

Showers. Meditates. Does yoga.

Goes to a cafe.

[Speaker 1]
Is very nice to everybody at the cafe. Does this six times a week. And then takes out his phone and then goes to work.

And he's done that for 30 years.

[Speaker 3]
And when I learned that he did that, I was like, I want to do that every day for the rest of my life. And it's been three years for me so far that I have done that.

[Speaker 1]
I've done this morning practice. And it's completely changed my life.

[Speaker 3]
And the evening part has been new for me. Of making sure I read something before bed and get that full eight hours. And that's only been like amplifying it.

And so this really is this full night and morning practice. And I really, really encourage you guys to try it. And we also want to hear more stories of people who have been trying it.

And to see how it's impacted your life. So, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And speaking of that, we have a very cool video of one of the best practitioners on this practice. It was very difficult to get this video because we had to really, how to say, get into the headquarters. But we have a special video we want to share with you.

If tech table could help us sharing. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 2]
Here's the proof. He's got proof now.

[Speaker 1]
What do you have in your hand? I have a phone, a computer, a charger, and a remote. And a hotel room TV remote.

This is real, guys. If you know tech well, you can get the TV to work without the remote. Ancient wisdom.

Tips. Survival. See you at six.

Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 2]
Happy birthday.

[Speaker 1]
Goodbye, phone. Can you show what time is it? Just to show that.

[Speaker 2]
Well, normally we do it at 10.

[Speaker 1]
But we did a celebration for Geshe-la's special anniversary of his direct perception of emptiness. So, we gave him one extra hour to dinner. But the computer is ours.

So, there you go. It's real. Rob Haggerty, Jr., every night goes there, takes the electronics away, and he delivers them next morning. I think we should really give it a try. Geshe-la says it's like a secret weapon to have against this suffering life. I better start trying.

And, yes, as you were saying, Lindsay, we want to encourage people to try. And also share with you, with us, and with everyone, how it's going for you. For those who are actually practicing, we want to show a QR code.

So, you send us like a one, two-minute video telling us if you have seen any improvement, really, in this practice. We have, yes, a picture. Not, yes, not that one, is it?

So, if you're actually practicing, if you're doing this practice of putting away your electronics at some point at night, giving yourself time to rest, even better if you give yourself time to get some good wisdom before you go to sleep, please, please share with us. We will be so glad to have you and to share these inspiring testimonials with other people. I think they're going to inspire us as well to keep trying and see how benefits you've been checking.

In my hand, that will be... Do you want to add anything, Lindsay?

[Speaker 3]
No, no, just people are asking for the link to this QR code, and I'll put it in the chat right now. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
What about you, Sudham? Do you want to add anything?

[Speaker 3]
You could say good morning club as good night club, or maybe for you it's good lunch club. Lunch is also a good time not to look at your phone and maybe do your book.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, thank you so much, and see you next time.