Ник Лашо — Книга 2: Ратнамала, занятие 26

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the plan expired so everybody, hundreds of people are logging in so we can give them a moment. Okay. I'll give a little welcome while people are coming in.

In the bathroom I saw this tile. No, I know I was, I found it, this is my kitchen and I just thought it might be a nice Portuguese background because they love tile here. But it's, it's just my kitchen.

Anyway. I see that that is Xuanzang's tower behind you, Geshe Michael. Yeah, I was gonna sharpen my mental skills.

You look great. For how hard you work and how much. Well, I want to welcome.

Oh, it's not gonna work. Let's see, we just got a text that someone else can't join. We're gonna have to put it in a speaker, so we think like this one.

Okay, anyway. It feels like we're starting the translation program to me, but we're starting a translation program that now is going to last for the rest of our lives, and I'm really excited about it. So thank you, Geshe Michael, for, for giving us this opportunity to just continue to study with you regularly, weekly, wherever you are in the world.

I think it's the greatest blessing that this program ever could have had. So I'm really excited for what we're doing here today. For those of you who are new to the Diamond Cutter Classics translation program, or the Mixed Nuts, I want to welcome you to this program.

We're starting this in a new direction now where we're studying together every week, instead of what we used to do, which was like concentrated terms. And what we study here is like, we really take this opportunity to dive into the depths of incredible ancient Asian philosophy, and we go through all the different philosophical schools, and all the different practices that Geshe Michael was fortunate enough to get to study, you know, at the feet of some of the greatest masters in this world, in the lineage of some of the greatest masters in this world.

And we happen to be in it. And we happen to be learning from one of the greatest masters in this world. And we're lucky.

And this is where we really go deep into the heart of all of the philosophy in this tradition, in this lineage. So I'm just taking a moment to appreciate where and when we are in the world, that we have the technology to be able to do this from all over the world, with friends from all over the world, with minds on this single beautiful purpose, which is to learn and be able to share and be able to translate and make available all of this profound wisdom. So thank you all for joining.

And thank you, Geshe Michael, for making this all possible. And welcome to the new Mixed Nuts. Okay.

Thank you, Nick. And I know it's late for you. And thank you for being up with us.

And it's exciting for me also to start a new system of doing our classes. I think, you know, I grew up in a Christian church. And every Sunday, my mom would take us to church.

And I kept doing it for a long, long time. And it's a beautiful thing. Once a week, I call it going to the gas station and filling up your car once a week.

So I think this new format is going to be helpful for everybody. And I know you're not going to come twice a week for the rest of your life. But I'll be here twice a week for the rest of your life.

And when you need some gasoline for your car, for your mental and your heart car, then me and Uncle Nick probably will be here. Probably Amelie will be a translator by then. And I will be here for you.

And I think that's the idea of this new format. And I think it's nice. And here in Sedona, I think we never had like a weekly get together or something like that, except to eat waffles.

And I think it's a good thing for us to hear in Sedona. So we'll be doing this four o'clock on Mondays until 730, I think. And then we'll be doing it on Saturdays.

We'll be having a get together at Stanley and Allison's house in Vermont, starting at 8am translations up to 9pm. And then to 9am to 9.15pm, we'll have a group discussion. And I wanted to let you guys start thinking about the group discussion.

And we were thinking, Nick and I were thinking that it would be really good if we had like a 15 minute discussion about how to use what we just learned in your real life. And, you know, Nick and I and the other translators, we, we spent a lot of time making DCI programs and other programs like that out of, I was making a parenting program this afternoon, out of one of Nick's books. I don't, you don't know about it.

And I, it's just really nice. So right after the class, we'll be asking you to, to give us any ideas you have about how to use that class in your real life or real life situations. And I would like the translator to choose the people to, to talk about what ideas they had of some way to use that information in your real life.

So if you can chat during this hour and send in a chat and say, I have an idea how to use this for financial freedom or something, or bringing up children, for example, or dealing with grief or whatever, then please chat, chat in when you have an idea. Then I'm going to ask the translator to choose one of the, one of the ideas and we'll start the discussion from there. So that's one hour of translation class, 15 minutes of discussion about how to use it.

And then we'd like to do 15 minutes of news about anything that you think is useful for all the people online. Okay. So we're going to have the Peacetree World News boys are gonna come online for 15 minutes and give us some news.

They will continue to do their, their Peacetree World News show for, well, how long is it? One hour or more, one and a half hours? Once a month, okay, from the Peacetree Cafe.

They'll do longer shows with longer interviews and things like that. But every time we have a translation class, one of them will come online intelligently and quickly and give us what's the upcoming events, because this organization has got very large now. I think there's, you know, there's quite a few people around the world.

And if you're interested about what, what other events are happening in the Worldview Network, or if there's books, new books published or things like that. Okay. All right.

So that's the schedule. Nick, do you want to? Well, let me show off one thing.

Okay. We are made, we made, we printed Rosa Van Kreeken from the Diamond Cutter Press, printed a special edition of all the books that we have finished. And we're giving it to a special sponsor, Surprise, which is not much of a surprise, no.

And I want to show you the books, because I'm very, very proud of them. Here's the first one. That's called All the Kinds of Karma, Karma Vibhanga.

It was written two and a half thousand years ago. And it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful, beautiful analysis of all the main kinds of good deeds and bad deeds you could do, and what kind of result will ripen from those mental seeds. And we have inside the corresponding drawings from Buddha in Indonesia that were created to illustrate the book.

They were made about 1,500 years ago or something like that. And so that book is the first one we're going to offer to our sponsor that was completed by Yang Kang and other ones of our translators. This is called Stopping the Circle of Sadness.

This is a commentary on the Wheel of Life, translated by Sugeng Shi. And it's an amazing book about that. By the way, that other book is about 400 pages.

And this is another, I don't know, a zillion pages. It's got the illustrations in it of all the drawings from the Wheel of Life. And it has a very detailed commentary.

This is a new book. It's just coming out. We're just finishing the editing.

And congratulations, Sugeng. I can see it's about 400 pages. And really, really good stuff.

This is called Sunlight on the Path to Freedom. That was the first book that we finished. It's a commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

And it's amazing. We had a fun university professor here a few days ago. And he was really happy with this book.

It has the Sanskrit. It has the Chinese. It has the Tibetan of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

And it has the only long general commentary on the Diamond Cutter Sutra. And that was the first book. The translator there was Elie van der Post with Grandpa.

This book is called The Golden Key. I think it's the best book ever written in English about the mind-only school, which is a very beautiful and difficult school. In fact, we're going to have the second class tonight will be about the mind-only school.

And this is an extraordinary commentary that we found. And it was translated by Wordsmith. And it's amazing.

It's a very difficult topic. And this book makes it very clear. And I like it.

And we got another one here. Let's see. This is called A Door to Emptiness.

And this is translated by Adam Andrade. It was too fat to put in one book. So we've got two books.

And that's, Adam worked very, very hard on this commentary. If you heard about Chi Che Drak, or, you know, really the mental preparation you need to touch the diamond world or to see emptiness directly. This book specifically, when I learned it, I learned it about 40 years ago.

When I learned it, my teacher told me this is the door to emptiness. This book is the door to emptiness. And it's an amazing translation.

If you don't want to read them, just get them. You can exercise with them. They're very heavy, you can pick them up and turn them.

We got The Great Ideas of the East. And this is a survey of 101 enlightening belief systems from ancient Asia. This is Ben Kramer's book.

And it's amazing. It's 101 different ideas about how to live your life. And it's just extraordinary.

And we worked really, really hard on it. This is another 100 pages. This is again, 400 pages.

And very, very beautiful and beautiful translation. And I think they're mostly available on ebook already, really. This is the Two Sutras of the Medicine Buddha.

And we worked hard on that. There are only two sutras for Medicine Buddha. And we found both of them.

And we translated both of them. One of them was found in a stupa in Afghanistan, in a special script, written on tree bark. And we got a copy.

And they helped us translate the book. So this is very rare and very beautiful if you are practicing menla. And two more books.

Well, three more. This one's called Emptiness Meditation. It's not the same as the Door to Emptiness.

But this one was translated by Betz Greer. And it has books by Nagarjuna, Kamalashila and other teachers. And it's a very deep commentary on different kinds of emptiness meditations.

And there's a big section translated from the Sanskrit and the Tibetan on how to meditate by Kamalashila. One of the three Bhavana Kramas by Kamalashila is translated here, the best one. We chose the best one that has the Sanskrit.

And then from the Lamrim, there's a beautiful... So this book has emptiness meditations. And it has how to do the emptiness meditations.

So it's a complete manual that you can take in to retreat, or use it in your daily life. That's another 400 pages. Okay.

And there's two more. Let's see. One is...

This is called Sunlight on Suchness. And this is a commentary to the Heart Sutra that was translated by L.E. Vandepas and Grandpa. And it's one of the few very beautiful commentaries on the Heart Sutra.

So you can see that. There's another book which is in the printer right now. And that's Nick Lausha's new translation of the 60 Verses of Nagarjuna.

She's about 2,000 years old. And an extremely deep commentary on how to understand emptiness by Arya Nagarjuna. And that book is, I think, the largest one of all of this.

It's almost 700 pages. And it's unbelievable. And every single page was very, very hard work by the team, and many hours of hard work.

And so I think we can be happy that seven years have gone by. And we have put out these, I think it's 10 volumes here. And I look forward to Nick's next book, which Nick, do you want to describe to us your new book that you're working on?

And then we'll jump into it. Sure. Thank you, Geshe Michael.

And thanks for showing those beautiful books. Maybe everybody will get a copy eventually. So that first book is a book by Arya Nagarjuna with commentary by a great teacher named Gyaltsabje.

And the book that I'm currently working on is also a root text or a main text by Arya Nagarjuna. And it's called Ratnamala, or String of Jewels. And it was written as advice to a king.

It was a letter to a king. And it has a lot of information that is like, so far, what we've covered is about how to have better rebirths and how to get enlightened. And apparently, it's got all kinds of other advice on life and how to be a good king.

And we'll get there. And the commentary is by Gyaltsabje. And it's really great, actually.

It's been fun so far. And it's a lot more readable than the previous book that I worked on. So this is more, for those of us who don't want to struggle so hard and bust our heads on philosophy all the time, it's kind of a nice, more practical book about how to approach your life with these same deep ideas.

And so I think it's nice to have both. And I'm really excited to be translating it. Cool.

All right, let's get into it. I'm going to share my screen. I hope it works.

Let's see. Let me make sure I got something interesting up here to show you. Okay.

Oops. Here we go. Hang on a second, Nick.

We're just getting the bugs worked on here. Here we go. We got the tech guy here.

The masked tech guy. No, it has to do with this. I can also share again if it seems like it's...

I'm sure we're going to figure it out momentarily. Of course. You can put your fingerprint up there.

Nick, we'll be right back in about a second. I'll miss you. My face just got so big.

Hi, everybody. Hey, Nick.

[Speaker 3]
Hi, Uncle Nick.

[Speaker 1]
Hi, Nick. Nice to hear your voices. It's good, whoever asked that.

Thank you. Beautiful this time of year. We're still getting used to it.

Sorry about that little hiccup at the beginning there. I hope that everybody who wanted to get in got in. If you know of anybody who is struggling to get into the call, please write them and tell them it's working.

I just forgot.

[Speaker 2]
Did you set the limit for 500 or 1,000?

[Speaker 1]
I did, and I'm watching, and I'm realizing that we might step it up. That's a great thing to do. What a nice problem to have.

Yeah, yeah, finally. But yeah, I'm keeping an eye on that number. I was just going to remind everybody, as we're starting this class for the next 37 minutes, pay attention to ideas.

If you hear anything that you think is something that you'd like to discuss further as something that we could apply in our own lives, just drop a couple of lines in the chat. If I notice it, and it seems like something we could discuss after class, we'll have a few minutes. So throw your ideas in the chat.

Okay, Uncle Nick, can you see the book yet? Yes, perfect. All right, here we go.

This is our progress report. Let me give you a bigger cursor. No, it's not working.

Hang on. No. I'm not going to do it today.

All right. We're trying to guess how much we can finish this translation of Nick's. This particular Letter to a King is going to be in two books.

The first volume will end the classes in 2024. There's going to be five different chapters. Nick, let's read the names of the chapters just to give people an idea of what your book is going to cover.

Let's have you read the names of the five chapters. First, the first chapter. NGON PAR MTHO BA DANG NGES PAR LEGS PAR RGYUN DRES SO SOR BSTAN PA A DEMONSTRATION OF EACH, THE WAY TO ACHIEVE HIGHER REBIRTHS AND THE WAY TO ACHIEVE DEFINITE GOODNESS, THE CAUSES FOR DEFINITE GOODNESS.

Yeah, causes and effects. Good. Chapter two.

NGON PAR MTHO BA DANG NGES PAR LEGS PAR RGYUN DRES SO SOR BSTAN PA A DEMONSTRATION OF EACH, THE WAY TO ACHIEVE HIGHER REBIRTHS AND THE WAY TO ACHIEVE DEFINITE GOODNESS. All right. Chapter three.

By the way, that first book is going to be those two chapters. The first volume. BYANG CHUB KYI TSUL KHRUB PA The collection, a brief, right?

The brief collection. How to put together the Tsul for BYANG CHUB. How to put together.

Okay, yeah, yeah. That makes much more sense. Okay, how to put together the collection for enlightenment.

Yeah, and chapter four is going to be good for all the ladies out there. KYAL PO'I TSUL DEM PA Teaching for how to be a king or queen. How to run a kingdom.

My wife's probably going to like that chapter. And then chapter five. MTHO BA DANG RAB TU BYUNG BA KUN GYI LAPA DEM PA A DEMONSTRATION THAT THESE ARE ADVICES FOR EVERYONE, BOTH HOUSEHOLDERS AND PEOPLE WHO HAVE LEFT THE HOME LIFE.

Nice, nice. And by the way, as Nick mentioned, this commentary that he's working on was written by Gyaltsen Jay, who lived 600 years ago. And we don't know a lot about his life.

Nick's last book was also written by Gyaltsen Jay. And so he and I worked really, really hard, and we searched millions of pages of John Brady's database. And we came up, we created a beautiful biography of Gyaltsen Jay.

It's quite long. And if you're interested in his life, you can check it in his new book, The 60 Verses on How to Prove Emptiness. And in there, we put a long biography of Nagarjuna, which is also very hard to find.

And that was written by my teacher. And we got permission to put it in the book. And it's very beautiful and translated.

It's in the book. Okay. Okay, Nick, you want to read just a little just for fun?

Sure. Yeah. All right.

So this is NYON MONG LE LE DANG THE LE DUNG NYEL KHYI SHING THE LE KYANG THE RING DRA THANG NYEL MONG SOG KHYE WA'I PHYIR BAR GYI TSUR KHYE CHE PAS MKHOR WA'I KHYUNG KHOR MGAL MED KHOR LO THA BUG PEN TSUN GYI RGYU CHEN DIN NI KHOR BAR NGYUR RO Good. Nick, what's the bold text here? Why is it darker?

The text that is in bold is what is in the root text. That is the root text, what he's commenting upon. Yeah.

Who wrote the root text? Arya Nagarjuna. Yeah, about 1,800 or 1,900 years ago.

Okay. So from NYON MONG, you get LE. And from that, you get DUNG NYEL.

What's that mean, Nick? From negative emotions, you get karma. And then suffering comes from karma.

Good. And from that, you get moreover, RING DRA. Similar.

Yeah, keep similarly. Yeah. It seems to me to mean it means it's going to create more of the same.

Yeah, more of the same. Exactly, more of the same. And then NYON MONG SOG KHYE BA'I PHYIR.

Because the negative emotions come back? Yeah, because at the end of that chain reaction, you get more of what started the chain reaction, which is negative emotions. You just get more suffering, okay?

Therefore, these elements, negative emotions, karmic seeds, and suffering, they tend to BAR SKYES TSUL KHYE. They come about outwardly and inwardly? This BAR and TSUL means like BAR DO THU CHEN PA and TSUL KHONG.

Yeah, they come from you and at you? Yeah, this one produces that one, and that one produces this one. This one leads to that one, and that one leads again to this one.

So they kind of, what do you call it? Back and forth? They support each other.

They mutually... Perpetuate each other? They perpetuate each other.

Therefore, this life of suffering is like a KING HONG. It's like a wheel. It's like a wheel.

What's the Sanskrit of KING HONG? MANDALA. Yeah, MANDALA.

So here you see the meaning of MANDALA, not as an enlightened world and not as a world of pain, but as being a cycle or something circular. So the old meaning of MANDALA is a disk. So he says that's why life is like a cycle or a circle.

And then, Nick, do you remember the old name, Khorlo? A firewheel. Yeah.

Yeah, and this is where if you take a torch and you spin it in a circle, then from a distance it looks like a circle of light. It looks like an unbroken circle of light. Khorlo DABU PHEN GYI CHEN Isn't that mean kind of the same thing?

Like these causes and results keep supporting each other or causing each other? Yeah. Suffering supports negativity.

Negativity supports karma. Karma supports suffering. Suffering supports negativity.

Like that. They support each other. Therefore, we Khorlo.

Spin. Yeah, we spin around. We spin around.

By the way, what we're asking is, everyone on the call, please, if you have an idea of how we could use this verse in a DCI program, or we have a parenting program coming up. I'm trying to get ready for it. I start filming on Thursday.

And I'm out. I'm sniffing through ancient books to find some wisdom. And that's the whole point.

So we're going to add that to every class now. There'll be a 15-minute discussion. Maybe, I mean, maybe we could apply it to parenting.

I don't know. But something like that. Those of us who are experts, having never done it.

Okay. Nick, why don't you read the next two paragraphs of me one by one? Okay.

Yeah, so the first part here is we should Lapa. Yeah, we should train ourselves in recognizing the root of the cycle. That would be the root of all virtue.

Like stopping that would be the method for stopping that is the root of all virtue. Yeah, stopping that pain is the ultimate good karma. Okay.

All right. Good. Keep going.

Okay. And so for those who would like a more extensive explanation on those points, Jay Rinpoche, meaning his teacher, Jason Kappa, composed that in his great explanation of umlaut jukpa, of entering the middle way, which we should know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Shepard John means you can check in that book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got it. Okay, good. By the way, there's two explanations, really.

One was called The Ocean of Reasoning or something. And we are translating. We are studying a commentary to that by Choney Kapashidu.

We are studying that commentary at Diamond Mountain Programs. So in two weeks, we'll be covering some of that commentary at Diamond Mountain. And there's also another similar commentary called Gomadamsa.

And I'm working on that. Okay. Okay, next, Nick, is Nipa, part two.

And here's the topic in the big letters. What's that? This korwa len dokpe rimpa, meaning the steps of stopping or turning back the cycle.

Good. And what did he just cover? He just finished korwa len dokpe rimpa.

How we get into trouble. Yeah, so he just finished in his book explaining how we get into trouble. And now he's going to explain how the steps for how to get out of trouble.

Okay. And we're lucky that we have found, I think, the entire Sanskrit text, the original Sanskrit from 2,000 years ago. And we're including it in the translation.

And it helps a lot. And I'd like to thank Aisha Skulfulus Nguyen, who's been working really, really hard to find these books. And also David and Nancy Regal, who are great scholars of Sanskrit in the United States.

And they've helped us find these good English, these good editions of the Sanskrit. Nick, I'm going to skip, because we're on a tighter time schedule than before, I'm going to skip the text. And let's have, if you'd like to have someone read, and you can correct them if you want.

Okay. Okay, that's cool. Thank you.

Let us have someone read. I'm taking a look here. Who's...

How about honorarily, Oscar? Yay! Hola.

Hola, Oscar. Okay, nice, nice. Um...

It's so hard, Nick. I don't know. It seems like, oh, myself and others, both and all three times, none of us come through, none of us started through any nature of our own.

Yeah, and I think maybe this will make some interesting applications. I don't start through anything except my seeds. The people around me don't start from anything except their seeds.

Both of us together don't start from anything except our seeds. And even time itself, past, present, and future. And in the three times, meaning those to come, those people to come, those people of the past, we don't come from our own side.

Therefore, chir, we are rang shing gi mek. We are all absent of self-nature. Yeah, and if we can kong tu chod pa dun...

Yeah, if we can get this point, this meaning, deep in our hearts, and habituate our mind to it... Yeah, we'll be able to sepa our ngan dzin. We can eliminate our tendency to hold to a self, which is included in the view of destruction.

Yeah, what's view of destruction, roughly, Nick? Holding to me and holding to... So, holding to a self and then holding to the parts of the self, like the body and the mind, as if they existed through some nature of their own.

How would this help Geshe Michael when he gets irritated at the driver who almost smashed into him on the way here? Which is yard town. I'm sorry if that happened.

Because Geshe Michael would be less likely to get irritated at the driver, at least, if he understands that that comes from something that he did in the past, rather than it just being some random guy. Yeah, good. And if we can stop that tendency to believe that Michael came from himself, then we can stop lay and kyewa.

Then we can stop creating karma and being reborn. Yeah, in a suffering place. In a bad place.

Okay, do you want to, Nick, do you want to have someone else read? Another person? I should have...

What do we got here? I don't know who's in the studio there with you. I'm willing to bet Rob Haggerty's there.

He was. I just left to play it safe, to come home. Oh, good, good.

Well, I hear your voice there. So, do you want to read? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Nice. Hmm. Is that a cha or a no?

Yeah, yeah. Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Therefore, if we come to kyewa korwe yinde, Nick, if we can understand the cause and effect, the cause and the result of the circle of suffering. Yeah, and if we also see how to sepa deskin de. Eliminate the cause and its result.

Then really we understand dekona nyi. Thusness. Yeah, and then mi sem.

We mi sem that things could... Or me pa. And then we don't believe that things...

I didn't... I'm trying to look for the me pa. Oh, oh.

Oh, we don't believe even a tiny bit that things are established or that things exist through some nature of their own. Or we don't believe... This, the smallest part, or even me pa, the smallest part.

Oh, that things do... You pa or me pa, that things exist or that they don't exist. Yeah, we don't believe that they either exist or don't exist.

If I'm in the car and someone does something dangerous to me, what would it mean to say you pa or me pa in that case? Wrongly, wrongly. That guy, you pa me sem.

It would mean that you either think that they come from their own side and that they're just a bad person, or it would mean that if you took it too far, you would think that they don't even exist at all, and then you might not even try to drive carefully. Good. And if you understand those points, then you...

Next sentence, Nick, who's going to read? How about, sorry, pick somebody here. How about Lindsay?

You're next. I think she's... Oh, there she is.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, hi.

[Speaker 1]
She just got out of bed from COVID, Nick, so... Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That was a quick recovery.

I saw you the other day and you were fine. Yeah. Therefore, we don't think either of the two extremes about tendo, Nick.

Therefore, we do not think... Sorry, we don't think that dependence either exists or doesn't exist. Yeah.

By the way, these are two implications. If the guy who drove badly near me was coming from himself, he would either be dakpa or chepa. Right, he would either be permanent or unchanging, or cut off, or non-existent.

Right, never existed at all. If he exists the way I felt he existed when I was upset at him, he would either exist all the time the same way, or he would never have existed at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice. Okay. By the way, real quick, everybody, just so you can stop texting me, I did buy the upgrade, so we have more than 500 people in here now.

Great. We'll get rid of them, don't worry. Not because of this.

Seiji, where's Seiji? No, no. All right.

So, Nick, let's just try the big letters. Yeah. So this is, now we're going to talk about the benefits of realizing emptiness.

Yeah, if you guys work hard to see emptiness, directly or even indirectly, some cool things are going to happen to you. And who said that? Well, in this case, Gyaltsabje, but he's going to show where...

Okay, we're going to skip the real text. We have more time, Nick. Do you have anybody that you'd like to...

Alex, go ahead. I would like Rivas to read next, please. By the way, thank you, Alex Rivas, for your great yoga classes during the Yoga Sutra program.

Yoga Studies History.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, thank you, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Benjung, yeah. Nice, nice reading. So, Nick, this emptiness has the penu, and I'm reading backwards on the first line.

This emptiness has the penu. That's the benefit. That it will...

That it's going to eliminate all suffering. If you just talk it. If you realize it, if you see it directly.

Yeah, good. So, this chö, this chö means emptiness, actually, okay? And he defines this chö, or this one thing, okay?

He defines it as that thing which is tenjung, which is... Chöpa, yeah. Yeah, the dependence that is free from all elaborations or figments of imagination.

So, I'll ask you that, Nick. He's defining dharma here. He's defining the word dharma.

And he says dharma is tenjung, looked at from the point of view of chödra. Yeah. And that's a very big nagarjuna thing.

Big, big nagarjuna thing. He says that dharma is tenjung, but from the aspect of chödra. So cool.

Dharma is dependence. It is dependence from the perspective of things being free from your mind elaborating those dependent things. Yeah, good.

Ultimate reality is dependent origination. That's not correct. He says ultimate reality is dependent origination from the viewpoint of it not being...

I'm sorry, from the viewpoint of it being empty. When you combine dependence with emptiness, that is the dharma, okay? That's his definition, okay?

If you can chöd, if you can see it, if you can listen, if someone teaches it, then certain people... Last word of the paragraph, Nick. Chöd.

Certain people get chöd. They'll be scared. Yeah, certain people get scared.

Who are those people? They are the limbos. The fools.

Yeah, the idiots or the foolish people. The foolish people get scared when you start talking about emptiness in terms of dependent origination, okay? And...

You can read this two ways, Nick. In the absence of perceiving the meaning, from not having perceived the meaning correctly? Yeah.

So you could read it as wise people. Who have neither fine nor gross distinctions about this emptiness, meaning they don't perceive themselves existently, okay? That emptiness is a menjikpe ne for the kepas.

That emptiness is a place where the wise do not feel fear, or it's like that's a point where they're not... on which they're not afraid. Right.

Either because they don't have tok chod meypa, or because it is tok chod meypa. And you can read it other... The chöd wasn't in the root text of tok chod, okay?

So, there you go. Interesting. And then, a nice correction by your teacher here.

Thank you. Those darwās, they don't... Darwā we never had before.

It's an ancient, ancient word, and it means cowards, okay? And the Sanskrit I didn't know, and I looked it up. It's katara, katana, which means cowards.

They're scaredy cats. What are they afraid of? Emptiness.

Teach them karma from the viewpoint of emptiness. They don't like it. They're fine if you say...

If you say the guy who was driving badly behind you, Geshe-la, came from you, they're okay with that. But if you say he came from you, therefore he wasn't there, they get uncomfortable, okay? Then they...

Okay? Very deep. Yeah.

And that's a big theme of Nagarjuna. He loves to talk. Supposedly, Nick, having gone through your 700-page book in the last seven years, is going to help us understand Nagarjuna this time.

And Gyeltsen did. Okay, who's reading next? So far, so good.

Let's see, who's reading next? How about Brian? Brian Mendoza.

Good. Good. Good.

And then Gyeltsen Jey says we could have an alternate reading of the root text here. Kind of what we... When you say they don't have any dopa, could be saying...

Perception, in this case? Yeah, you don't have any perception. You could be referring to people who are real kepas about the lam of dekho na nyi.

Sorry, no lam here, misspelling. Who are real kepas about dekho na nyi. People who are wise, hip to suchness.

Yeah, meaning they don't entertain wrong ideas. Dop meppa. They don't entertain wrong ideas.

Which means we cannot read the one, three lines ago as people who don't have dopa. You see what I mean? Yeah.

Here it's going to have to mean something else. Because he said alternately you could say they don't have wrong ideas about emptiness. Which means the original was something like...

It could mean, by the way, Nick, when you go beyond dopa and chodpa, you are into deification. As we learned from the yoga sutra... What are those two in yoga sutra?

Bittaka and vichara. And by the time you get to the higher meditation states, you don't have bittaka and vichara. So it could mean a positive thing and it could mean a negative thing.

Who's next, Uncle Nick? This is a longer one. How about...

Is it not translating? Are you translating? Yeah.

Okay. How about... So many translators.

I think there's five or two people. Yeah, yeah. How about Svetlana Dunaeva, would you like to try?

[Speaker 3]
Whoa.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. I'm guessing that's thanks to words class. Probably Uncle Words class.

His one-year-old daughter was at the cafe speaking Tibetan already. So... Part four, Nick, go down in the big letters and tell me what it is.

tarway rangshin chepao An explanation of the nature of liberation. Good. Then he says something interesting.

pungpo hlakme kyi nekap na When you reach the point where your body and mind have disappeared, okay, when you reach the point where your body and mind have disappeared, okay, jeepo me, right? It's not correct to say that they were destroyed. No, this is...

No, no, no, it would be incorrect to be afraid. Don't be afraid, okay? If something is destroyed, you shouldn't be afraid of reaching a place where you don't have these thoughts, okay?

Don't be afraid. And you will be able to sepa. If you can sepa all your densins...

Yeah, sorry. Oh, if you can eliminate all of the grasping to things as if they were real. That's tarpa.

That is the meaning. That's liberation. That's freedom.

So when we talk about disappearing during nirvana, you don't have to be scared. Because what disappears? Densin.

Yeah, you're grasping to things as if they were real. Yeah, when they say nirvana with nothing left, they're talking about no more tendency to think that the guy driving behind you is not coming from you. Okay, got it?

Yeah, so you don't have to worry that if you achieve nirvana, you're going to disappear. I mean, it might be good because then your mortgage would disappear. Uh, okay.

And he's going to explain the difference between lobta and yangdak petawa. Okay, so lobta is wrong view. And yangdak petawa is correct view.

Which with the driver behind me is? Lobta would be to think that the driver either comes from himself, most likely, or to think he doesn't exist at all. And correct view would be to understand that he doesn't have any self nature, and he exists as ripening from your own mind.

Nice, nice. Okay, and then he's going to finally, and I think we have to, we have to stop there. LHAG CHAD KYI DUS NA.

When you reach LHAG CHAD NYANG DE. At the time of reaching the nirvana with something left over. What you lose is densin.

You lose your grasping to truth. Yeah, when you reach nirvana, where you haven't disappeared, what you really achieve is you will never again think that that guy in the car is not coming for you. Okay, and that in itself is tarpa.

That is the meaning of liberation. Yeah, to drive down the street in Sedona, and never think that the guy doesn't come from you is nirvana. That's nirvana, okay?

No reason to be scared of that, okay? Cool. All right, Nick, I would like you, I'll interrupt you liberally, which is unusual, but I'd like you to lead a discussion, the people help him online.

How could you use this in your real life? Let's do 15 minutes of that. You Peachtree World News guys have to be ready with your news about what's happening in the worldview organization for the next few weeks, and that's going to happen in 15 minutes.

Okay, Nick, grandpa's going to relax. All right, that means you get 30 minutes to rest, Keshe Michael, and we'll have you back for a mind-only class in a half hour. Yeah, a mindless mind-only class.

And by the way, it's a tough class. Monday night's going to be the toughest class, and it is so beautiful. It's so deep.

Okay, go ahead, Nick. How do we use this? And what do you think?

Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for the class, Keshe Michael. Thank you again, and it was fun, and I love doing this. So I'm just really grateful.

And thank you to everybody who's here on the call. I'm really grateful to have all you people participating with us. Please keep coming.

This is amazing stuff, and we're crazy to miss it. This is the best you're going to get. It's just so amazing.

So how do we use it in regular life? Well, I like the example that you were giving with the car. I think this is kind of a common occurrence for some of us.

I was going to say, how do they drive in Portugal? In Portugal, people tend to drive. I was warned that it was going to be terrible, but so far, people are really, really nice.

Actually, they're so much more likely to let you go ahead. In California, nobody wants to let you in. Yeah.

But in Portugal, everybody slows down and lets you pull ahead. There's a lot more respect for space. One thing that's scary in Europe, though, is if somebody wants to pass you and you're on the highway, instead of flashing you with their lights, they pull up right behind you so that they're one inch away from you.

That's very scary. These Arizona people must be switching over to Europe style. Probably.

I don't know. It's a weird, aggressive way of driving that it's just normal here. Probably all you Europeans already know this.

You're like, yeah, of course that's what you do. But for me, it's terrifying. Because there's nobody there, and then all of a sudden, there's a car right behind you.

So anyway, that was a distraction. I'll talk about this in a sec. I just want to say that I thought it was really interesting that what we covered in this book, how we were talking about that dharma is, or the teaching, the meaning of the teaching is the dependence which is free of elaboration.

And I think from that phrase, we can probably extract the meaning that you're asking for. Because to me, when an author stops and makes a statement like that and just says something so heavy, like the dharma is, because dharma is a very heavy word in this, what we're studying. They're saying that the meaning, this is how I interpret it.

The meaning of all that we're looking at, like the truth, the real truth of everything that we're talking about here, at the heart of it all, is that things are, is dependence, like is the dependent nature of everything that is free of elaboration. And I think about that because for me, it's harder to apply just the idea of emptiness to real life because it's, and you guys tell me what you think, but for me, the idea of emptiness is a little bit abstract. And I think it's applicable.

And the way that you teach it, Keshe Michael, has made it very applicable to my life, like to know that somebody's not there. But sometimes in the moment, it's harder because it's a more, a slightly more abstract philosophical concept. And whereas dependence, to think about the fact that there's nothing that exists by itself, but everything is dependent on other factors.

And that I've learned from you, Keshe Michael, that everything is dependent on the seeds or the actions that I have done in the past. Like that is like the most profound awareness that I can have in a moment, especially if I'm having an argument with somebody, and my emotions are flared up or a terrible driver is another good example. Like in a moment of fear or anger, I'm more likely to be able to remember, okay, this is depending, everything's depending on me and my future is depending on my reaction right now.

And I think that's a big deal too. And if I think about dependence, I'm like, oh, what I'm gonna experience soon is gonna depend on how I respond. So that can be another useful idea.

What do you guys think? Would anybody like to share? Don't be shy.

[Speaker 2]
Talk a little bit more. Actually, can you hear me with these on?

[Speaker 1]
I hear somebody. Is that Lindsay?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Oh, did you wanna say something, Lindsay? Maybe her mic was on by accident.

Well, I certainly can talk a little bit more. I'm pretty good at that. So for me, and then it talks about dependence.

That particular phrase talks about dependence being that Dharma is dependence, which is free of elaboration, free of figments of our imagination. So what does that mean? And I think it's a deep and complicated subject.

And sometimes we wanna sum it up very simply, but I think it's also fun to go through the exercise of trying to really unpack what it means. I think the dependence, which is free of elaboration means, in my case, like in the example that I'm using of being in an argument with another person, my mind is gonna have so many layers of stories about why I'm experiencing this unpleasantness, because I'm underslept, which I am, because they're underslept, because I just moved to a new country. Because I have to go to seven stores to find the same thing I used to be able to order on Amazon.

I'm tired. Because, because, because, because, because I have a million reasons, because, and it seems that to me, that I'm looking at dependence. It appears to me as a rational human being.

My mind believes that I am looking at the dependence of things. But if we're going deeper and we're using yang dak pe tawa, what we were just talking about in the book, then all the things that my mind is creating, putting the story of why, why, why, that's also wrong. So I would say, you could say that those stories in my mind, those elaborations, when those are gone, then we can get to the truth, the dharma.

But while I'm still stuck on those stories, you know, all the reasoning that I think is true, like that I think of it as being the real truth, the deepest truth. When I can get past that, then maybe I can penetrate deeper into the nature of reality. Then maybe I stand a chance at untying my mind from this habitual way of thinking and try to change it for next time.

And that's where it's really helpful to have a great teacher who can explain the meaning of these words. Because then I can have... So the difference between, like if the car is bothering you, right?

If the other driver is bothering you, what's the difference between just being aware of dependent origination or being aware of dependent origination and emptiness together? What's the difference? Yeah, I think that if you're just aware of dependent origination, you're aware that the guy who's driving the car, we're assuming it's a guy, okay?

It's always a guy in a big truck. I agree. So if we're looking at the dependence of the situation, then the guy who's there is coming.

He's there because of causes. He's not just there from his own side. He's dependent upon me having planted it in the past.

But if we're... And that's helpful. But if we're thinking about the emptiness of the situation, then the person that we are mad at, we're mad at somebody.

There's an object of our anger. But if we're thinking about emptiness, then it kind of shows you the absurdity of your anger because the person that you're angry at isn't even there. There's literally no one there to be angry at.

So it's like a ghost or something. So what Nagarjuna is saying is, step one, dharma practice, oh, that's coming from me. I should try to drive more safely.

But step two is, I'm angry at something that's not even there. Like I'm the ultimate stupid person because I'm upset at somebody who's not even there. And then that's dependent origination plus emptiness.

It certainly makes sure... I mean, it makes sure...

[Speaker 2]
I know it seems silly, but your drive immediately, your commute becomes quite potentially pleasant. And then I think if you could start to play with that a little bit, because we're talking about applying it to your life. If you were to play with those ideas a little bit, I think you could start to play around how it could change a little bit more quickly or drastically because the application happens immediate.

You know what I mean? And so if you're driving and suddenly that driver who's been bothering you sort of falls away, and then you can apply the same idea to yourself, then that sort of idea of like freedom, I mean, it's sort of immediate. It's the ultimate laboratory, which is so cool.

And I think if you do that with your commute, then easily you can do this at your job, with your kids, with your friends, with your house. It's just endless. You know what I mean?

The possibilities are just sort of like super cool, basically. I mean, I'm just repeating what you just said, but it just seems, yeah, cool.

[Speaker 3]
I think that when you ask, what is it? This is Stevie from Virginia, Stephanie from Virginia.

[Speaker 2]
I think that when you ask what's the difference between dependence origination and dependence origination and emptiness together, the word that came to my mind is permission. That, oh, that's how my mind works.

[Speaker 1]
Now let's go deeper. Don't waste time with the stories that, like you said earlier, Nick, thank you.

[Speaker 2]
I think it would be a good idea to create some kind of metaphor or something to teach kids. I mean, going back to the parenting program thing on how to see bullies in school or whatever, right? Because bullies are present in every child, in every stage of childhood.

So I think this would be a great way to try to develop a tool with a metaphor to teach kids, hey, this is how you deal with bullies. And then if the little kid learns properly this metaphor, then they can apply it in the different stages, like, I don't know, high school, et cetera.

[Speaker 1]
I got another question for Nick. So the guy's been following me too close. Then I understand the dependent origination that he's coming from me.

And then I add emptiness, which means there's nobody there to be angry at. And Nagarjuna throws in the idea of nirvana and nirvana with nothing left over. So where is that in the car?

In the car example, Nick, by the way, I'll give you a clue. In Nagarjuna's form, nirvana with nothing left over comes before nirvana with something left over. Sure, yeah, I remember.

Although I didn't know that's where you're going with it. Because that's where he went. In this case, I believe where you're going with that is that when we're talking about nirvana and in the context of emptiness.

And in the context of the car. And in the context of the car. Nirvana with nothing left over.

Oh, in this exact context, nirvana is nothing left over is seeing the emptiness of the situation. And in his system, really, it's the direct perception of emptiness. So like when you're fully perceiving emptiness, when you're truly perceiving it.

And in this case, maybe it's what you're referring to is seeing that there's no driver. And then nirvana with something left over, you're still super happy. Because you're seeing how the driver has come from you.

And how you can create only good drivers from now on. In the Garjuna system, first you achieve nirvana is you stop getting angry at the guy behind you because you realize he's not there. And that's the first level nirvana, which is with nothing left over.

And then after that, you've been driving for a while, you don't think about it anymore. Then you have nirvana with something left over because your normal habit came back. But it's not active yet.

Something like that.

[Speaker 2]
Like the Jeytobhyeke section part.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's very interesting. So in the Garjuna system, the direct perception of the emptiness of the guy behind you comes first. And that's nirvana without anything there.

And then slowly you slide back into nirvana with something there. And then it's time for another asshole to come behind you. That's the beauty of the morning commute.

Which in the highest system means another angel was sent to remind me. I was going to say, it was nice, Rob, what you added because it reminded me how I've brought this practice with me through... I came from New York City and I used to do this on the subway all the time.

I was trying to practice these things just with the people on the subway. And then when I moved to Arizona, I wanted to keep it. So I just always focused on the other drivers on the road.

And it reminded me to... It's helpful at that time of day, like you said, Rob, because then you're more likely able to bring it to wherever you're going to work or home or whatever.

[Speaker 2]
And then you're never separated. People were saying this week during the hobby group for Dipika, like some of the questions are, you know, there are people going back to New York. How can I be by my teacher?

How can I be around these things? But it gives you the opportunity to be around it all the time. You're literally, you can't go anywhere without it, really.

[Speaker 1]
Nick, how do we switch to the news, the local news? Like what's happening in Worldview Organization? Have you got a newsman over there with you?

Or are we going, oh, let's highlight Hasso. We've got a request from one of the participants that we please speak more slowly so that they can either understood or translated. Thank you.

Okay. Sorry, we're not able to hear you. We talked too fast today.

Nick, can we go to Hasso? So Hasso can tell us. Absolutely.

Let us, Francisco, would you mind to please give the spotlight to the Peachtree World News? Oh, should I do that? Hello, everyone.

He is spot on.

[Speaker 2]
Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, sir. We hear you just loud and clear.

[Speaker 2]
Hey, okay. I'm glad. Yeah, so we had to, you know, get ready to set up for these amazing sessions.

So I'm very grateful, first of all, because of this opportunity. Thank you for inviting me. I'm learning a lot and I'm very grateful to all the people who are making this possible.

Like they are helping me a lot. I will be already drawn without of them. Thank you very much.

So here we are. And how are you doing? People are exciting about these new translation programs.

Like in a while, I haven't seen that much excitement. And I think it's very cool. So I don't know.

How do you want to do this, Nick? Do you want to just have me tell you a little bit about what's happening in the World Wide Network? And then we talk a little bit about some events that you are particularly interested.

Something like that. Do you like it?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that sounds good, man.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. So Francisco is going to help me showing some pictures as well. While I let you know what's happening around the world.

Okay. First of all, we're going to talk about something very cool that Rob Haggerty is doing. What are you up to, Rob?

[Speaker 1]
Wait, is that a question for me?

[Speaker 2]
It's both. I mean, we are waiting for the image to show. But in the meantime, I don't know if you know what we are talking about.

There you go. You had that very well. Keep it secret, eh?

Yeah, totally. That's awesome. So you're going to be talking a little bit.

You're going to be teaching a little bit about the Lion's Dance Meditation, which is one of the, I think, most powerful meditations that I know. It's supposed to really help us to gain access to touching the diamond world. So it's very appropriate to have you there in the series of traveling to the diamond world.

So for all of you who are interested in touching the diamond world, which I hope all of us are, unless you did it already and you don't need to do it again. But anyways, you will be doing it all the time. Come to this session with Rob.

I think it's going to be very cool, very insightful. There is a QR code there you can register. So next, speaking of the series of this wonderful Ancient Wisdom, we have a very cool event happening on December.

From the 5th of December to the 11th of December, something very special, something very interesting is going to be happening in Kyoto, Japan. Francisco is helping us with the pictures so you can see there this amazing event being planned there. I have heard great things about Kyoto, about Japan.

I haven't been there. I want to be there eventually, but let's see what happens. But if you have the chance, I would really encourage you to go.

The little I have here about it, everybody really likes it. Geshe Michael Hsieh says it's a very, very beautiful city, beautiful place. And the teachings that are happening there seems to be very, very cool.

So check it out. I checked today and actually it's kind of affordable. So check online.

It wasn't as expensive as I thought it was going to be, so maybe there is a chance. Check it out. Okay, next event.

Next event, it's happening a little after Kyoto and it's going to be happening at Diamond Mountain Retreat Center. It's some collaboration with YSI and it is about learning how to put into practice some of the teachings that we just studied last week with YSI, Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Early is going to be leading this event together with Lisa Shrem.

So if you're interested, it's a very cool way to spend your new year. There is going to be like some retreat where you're going to be, you're going to have the chance to go in depth in some of these practices. I hear they're going to try some of the kriyas.

That sounds interesting. Let's see how it goes. We want to see pictures, videos maybe, but let's see.

There is another poster as well, next one, but I think it's the same event. Let's see if you could show the next picture.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, but it's the same event, right? Yes, it is. It's just different forms of art.

Very pretty. Okay, yes. So next picture.

Yes. Now we're going to talk about something very cool that actually already started, but it's about to continue. Tomorrow, two of our friends from Mexico are going to be traveling to Latin America, to Colombia actually, because this tour in Latin America of the ancient wisdom system is happening.

We had the great fortune to be able to go first to Mexico City. Now some people are going to Colombia, Costa Rica, and Argentina. And we want to share with you a little video of what just happened in Mexico City.

Before that, yeah, you can see this is the upcoming event, but there is a video we want to show you. And can you make sure the sound is also available? Yes, those are the Tim Lowenhaupt, Sofia Arellano.

But let's see if you can see the video, no? No, the video is not yet being projected, but soon, almost there. Let's see.

Yeah, it was actually very cool. And one of the things that I really enjoy about it is to travel with your friends. It's amazing.

I feel really, really glad to have this such a beautiful community. And I think it's one of the things that has helped me the most in general to have, of course, wonderful teachers and also wonderful friends along this path. So I'm so grateful for this opportunity.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible. So, yeah, they are going to go tomorrow. Two of them fly to Colombia.

And next week, the rest are going to be flying to Costa Rica and Argentina. Let's see how it goes. We will get to know more about it once they're done.

And let's continue with more events. We have, next picture, please. We have the SCIM event.

Happening soon. I actually, when I received the flyer, I was like, hey, but why there is not a QR code? And they say, well, it's because it's already full.

It's so successful that registrations are closed. But it's cool for us to know that it's happening and it's really, really being successful. So it's about to happen from November 1st to the 16th at the Sedona College.

It's going to be very cool. The advanced levels, the little I have been able to access of the information are very, very amazing. So stay tuned and maybe you can get something out of it.

Next session. Tomorrow, we're going to have a special edition that we are doing once a month. It's a long program, one hour program, one hour, 15 minutes sometimes, where we share more in depth all the news that are happening around the world.

But also we have special interviews and we have content. Because of some unexpected health situations, we're going to be having the program online. We're going to be, everyone, the panelists are going to be joining by Zoom.

But usually we do live from the Peachtree Cafe. And me that I'm these days in Mexico, I joined from a different studio. But tomorrow is going to be Zoom.

Still is going to be very interesting. Geshe Michael is going to be sharing with us about some of the most interesting ideas that he has encountered in his latest translations. Also Tim Lowenhaupt is going to be talking about the wisdom of Nagarjuna and some of the practices for good health.

We're going to have some news from DSEU. They are having an anniversary. So we want to hear about that.

And also we're going to be talking with Nur Ibrahim about Rumi event and the wisdom for parenting. Check it out tomorrow. It starts at 6 a.m. Arizona time. You can register. There's a QR code. So speaking of that, we want to talk a little bit about this event.

It's the Rumi series. Oh no, sorry, sorry. First we have something else.

We have news from GreenStretchPen. That's actually very cool to know. Not the GreenStretchPen.

It's number seven, numero siete, no? Está en el Google Drive. Okay, well just show me whatever image you have and I'll talk about it.

[Speaker 1]
Come on, we're just about ready to start words class after this one.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so the most important one. We just had a happy birthday. And it was Amelie's birthday and also Niklas's birthday just a few days ago.

So we are very happy to have you both around. And thank you very much. Long life, eternal life if possible to both of you.

And yeah, thank you for all that you're doing. Hopefully sometime we can all meet together. It'll be cool to eventually have a live summit meeting maybe in Arizona or somewhere where we can all have fun and get along together.

But thank you very much. Those are some of the news because there are actually more news to share. But tomorrow, 6 a.m., come if you can. You will get to know more. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we're back on, right?