Ник Лашо — Книга 2: Ратнамала, занятие 19

[Speaker 1]
Boom, there's one. Let me check that out. But yeah, feel free to speak, chime in, interrupt me, argue with me, whatever.

I'm just going to do my best. It's early. Women who give birth to children suffer to take up life and precious time in their lives.

Will this have a positive impact on the body level directly to become Buddha? Well, this is a great question. Or will there be a negative impact on their physical health?

Thank you for answering questions for all mothers. I think that's a really beautiful question. No pressure.

Yeah. First of all, who's... First of all, as a father, I want to say that many fathers also give up a lot of their time and energy to take care of the child.

But women obviously are utter superheroes, and it's completely unbelievable what you go through to give birth. Now, I've seen this a couple of times. The first thing I did the first time I saw someone give birth is I ran to call my mom and thank her and then ask her why she did that once and then did it again.

Like how that could be possible. But I think people have an amazing way to persevere. I like to think that taking care of a child can give you amazing seeds for having a longer life with more energy and more strength.

And I've thought a lot about this. And I think there's probably a lot of factors that depend on your motivation and your mentality. But I think that in terms...

There's the three parts of... So there's the four parts of a karmic path, shi, sampa, jharwa, tartuka. And then sampa is divided into three parts, like the motivation, the understanding of the situation, and your emotion present in your mind.

They call it nyomo, but it really just means the feeling you have, because it could be positive. And I think in terms of having a child, the seeds you plant, I guess, are really, really powerful, because you're... Partly because the emotion present in your heart while you're taking care of them or raising them is in some way or other really strong.

For me, I read a lot of stuff about bodhicitta. And I think that in my own life, I've had tastes and experiences related to... That I can relate with what I see in those books personally.

But I don't think I ever felt so distinctly clear that I would easily give my life up for someone else until I had a child, until I had my girl. And then it's like, I get that kind of spontaneous feeling. It was like, no, it wouldn't even be a question.

That's how I felt about it. So I think that level of care for another being is probably contributing to really powerful seeds. I can also say that I've seen in the moment that being pregnant does take a toll on a woman's body.

In the case of my wife, Erin, who you guys know, it did have some effects on her body, but it doesn't have to. I mean, this is all just according to the understanding of karma that we get from these books and from Geshe Michael. It may or may not have an impact on your body.

So I can see that it does. It can. But that can be reversed.

I mean, it's all just kind of trying to create the causes to have a long, healthy life. Pregnant or not, all of our bodies are falling apart. Some of us might have a few years longer.

So I think that for an answer to this kind of question, I like to focus on just what kind of seeds are we planting and what's the power of those. So yeah, I think it's probably a chance to plant really, really, really powerful, not positive seeds, if you can keep your motivation really high, especially. I was talking to one of the Sara monks recently, who I hadn't talked to in a couple of years, and Jamyang, for those of you who know him, and he's like in Gyumui now studying, which is really exciting.

Anyway, I told him I had a kid now and he was like, wow, he was like, yeah, amazing karma to take care of kids. And he doesn't just say stuff to Westerners like some people do. He just, he says what he really thinks.

Cool.

[Speaker 3]
Any more questions? Let's see. Oh, here we go.

This looks like a fun one.

[Speaker 1]
Does the left hand tradition mean that one needs to develop compassion on an existing basis of wisdom? This might be too complicated for me, but I'm going to try. Or that one develops wisdom on a basis of compassion.

I'm trying to understand if there is a link between the name of the tradition and the side channels from yoga. Cool. That's cool.

I'll share what I think, what I've heard. Usually, left hand tradition refers to Vajrayana practice, Tantric practice, if you will. Geshe Michael likes to explain, and he did hear the other day, explain how left hand, I think that that comes from the fact that, or like on one level, it comes from the fact that people, it's an unclean hand.

So it's, you know, and tantra has its roots in the Indian schools, pre-Buddhist times. And probably you guys know this, but Brahmins are like fastidious and there's a lot of like ritual purity and cleanliness and emphasis on all of this kind of cleaning before they engage with their spiritual practice. So this idea of the dirt, and in India, the left hand is completely taboo.

That's the important thing because of that dirtiness. Nobody touches with the left hand. When I was in India, I tried to hand a guy money with my left hand one time, just not being mindful.

And he was like, he didn't want to touch it. Also, when I was at the hotel, I asked them for toilet paper and the guys started laughing so hard at me. They were like, get a load of this guy.

[Speaker 3]
I was like, anyway.

[Speaker 1]
So anyway, what we're talking about, these kind of practices, the more esoteric, you know, Hindu and then into Buddhist practices. They're kind of like, you know, part of the practice is to take things that are impure and make it pure and to change the world, which is impure into a pure world and to envision things that way. So it's fitting that it would take up this practice of the impure and try to practice making it something pure.

How does that relate to the channels of the body? That's a great question. I've thought about this a little bit.

And I think that you could say that the left channel is the desire channel. And our desire is generally for impure things, in the sense that we are looking for happiness within food or within another person or within money or whatever. And none of these things have happiness inside of them.

And in that way, they're impure. You know, all of those things are a trap or a trick. So they're all going to run out, they're going to end.

So we think happiness is in there. So there's some impurity in there. And then in the practices, maybe there is some attempt to make those things something pure, because we are trying to find happiness.

So yeah, maybe the desire of the left hand channel does relate to the left hand practices. So is it named after that? I think that maybe it's related, but it's a few thousand years ago.

So I don't know. Let's see. Whoa, we got hit with some questions now.

Rob, do you know if it's named after that? Or Kat?

[Speaker 2]
I mean, I don't know. I mean, I always think of it. Can I comment?

Is that all right? Yeah, I'd love that. Yeah.

I mean, in an open way, I always think like, if it's true that we're sort of all the ways that we're sort of thinking and going about our normal life is wrong. Like there's something that we're doing incorrectly. I always think of like ways to create different sort of synapses in the brain.

And so like learning language or travel or taking on like a different job that you're not used to that they kind of like, because we're, at least for me, because I've been, if it's true that I'm doing things incorrectly, and if there's a way to like, remap my whole being, then like, maybe there's a path of ways that I could try to do that. And so in a way, when I think of like this left handed path in an open way, I try to use little tricks of the trade in order to trigger different ways about shifting my reality. And so I used to keep my book with my left hand, because I'm a righty.

So and I always played lacrosse, which is they're always like, use the opposite hand, you know, like develop your opposite side. And then so like, when I punch in, I have a security code at work, I always do it lefty now, or when I punch in my code at Starbucks or anything, I always use my left hand to kind of trigger that other way of kind of doing things in an open way, obviously, because there's a another version of this. So that's just like one of the little tricks of the trade that I kind of like have incorporated into my life that I tried to open doors with my left hand or punch in things.

I think it's a fun way to get up every day and try to think of a fun way to incorporate into your life different ways of doing things in order for me to understand words class, for example. Yeah, that's just Yeah, that's what I think. Nice.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, I agree. 100%. It's the trigger device.

The trick, the trick of the trade.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Cool. So we all got something practical we can take home. I'm going to work on that today so that I can understand too.

Or whatever class. Yeah. I used to I taught myself to write with my left hand too.

I was really excited when I was like, Oh, wow, I didn't even think this was possible. If the archetype is immutable, then at this point, I have created an immutable archetype of the car. One day when I see a new object, I may I still not know and ask what is this?

The salesman would say this is a car and amphibious vehicle. Nice. From that day on, I was able to realize that this was also a car.

So did my archetype change at this time? Yeah, it's a good question. It did.

And this is kind of just understanding that the archetype can become a new archetype without changing. Which, you know, it's a kind of deficiency with language. Like, of course, in some way, that seems like a change.

But it's more like the point is something that Geshe Michael teaches really well in DCI, right? Like, when he talks about something being changing. He talks like, I'll give you an example.

The fact that it's night. Okay. It's night right now.

Let's just pretend it's night. Is it ever more or less night? I mean, sorry, let's put it this way.

Is that fact that it's night ever more or less true? No, it's either night or it's either day, right? I can't really say.

It's a little bit less true right now. It's kind of either true or it's not. It's either nighttime or daytime.

I know this isn't a perfect example, because night gradually shifts to day. But at a certain point, you start saying it's the morning. And then at a certain point, you're saying it's tonight or it's the nighttime.

And you can always say one or the other. It's kind of binary. And so in the same way, that's what an archetype is like.

It just is the way it is until it isn't that way anymore, in which case it is something else. So it's like a PPT slide. It's like an instant change into something else.

So you have an archetype for a car. It's like a straight line. And then one day, cars change, then you get a new archetype for a car.

So this one stops, and then a new one starts. Or you can have both. But neither archetype is changing.

Neither one is getting less car or more car. It doesn't peter out gradually. That's the point.

Like a phone, that's a better example. Because for people my age, a phone used to be something completely different than this. It used to be this thing with round parts or whatever, an early cord.

And that's what phone meant. And if you said phone, it would give me this picture in my mind. And it definitely would not give me this picture.

And then the phone, now if you say the word phone, this is exactly what I see. I see a thing with a camera and the contents of the world's knowledge. And good music and all this stuff.

And the archetype didn't gradually go from one thing to the other. There was just a series of different archetypes. So it's very binary.

I hope that makes sense. It stops being one thing, and then you get a new one, rather than it changing over time. And the best way to kind of understand is the difference between like a sloping graph or a curve on a graph, and just like a line, and then another line.

So for me, that's clear because I studied calculus in college. Maybe that's a little less clear for everybody. Anyway, if anybody has a follow-up question on that, feel free to ask.

That's the best I can explain it right now. Dear teacher, it's in the DCI level seven manual. So you can look it up in there, under Geshe Michael's explanation of subtle and gross impermanence.

What we see are all pictures opening, such as in the park. There are a lot of people, things, things. My question is, is each object a seed open image projection, or one seed opening makes the whole picture?

That's cool. It seems like this should be like one of the 14 unanswerable questions or something. I can only answer some kind of zen koan about that.

I don't know. It is your vision. I think you can probably look at it either way.

I think when you try to pick it apart on that level, the seed metaphor will break down. But I think the whole, when you're, while you're, this is my best attempt, and anybody can share what they think. While you're perceiving the whole picture of the park, that's one seed.

And my Dhoni school would say that seed also includes you and your perception. So the one seed is splitting into the perceiver and the objects that it's perceiving. So it's all of it.

One seed is everything. But you could also say that the rock came from one particular karma, and the kids playing came from other karmas. But at the end of the day, you find, sorry, which I think is true.

If you're having a somewhat pleasant experience, but part of it is bad, because there's a bird pooping on you or whatever. Like you could say that all came from different karmas that you've planted over the years. But at some point, I think the karma breaks down, right?

I mean, the, this kind of metaphor, because, or this way of understanding it. Because if I think that, okay, so if one person's coming from me, that's one seed. I mean, one person's coming from one seed, and then the grass is coming from another seed.

Okay, well, then is the person's left hand coming from one seed and the person's right hand is coming from a different seed? Is the person's finger coming from one seed and this finger is coming from a different seed? So how far do you want to try to take it into like splitting things up into different seeds?

So I mean, I don't know, for me, I try to think like each moment of experience is coming from a different seed. So whenever you're really experiencing in that moment, it's coming from a new seed 59 times per finger snap or something. 52, 65, 65.

That sounds right. Any other thoughts?

[Speaker 2]
I love when you said, just with the previous question about how the mental image is like an unchanging thing that comes in and out of existence. And so, to me, it married perfectly to the question, because it's just like a bunch of those coming in and out at apparently a fast rate, which are creating the experience. I love thinking about it.

Especially when you said it, I connected it to exactly what you said before was these kind of fast, unchanging images coming in and out of existence. I guess seeds, if you want to call them. So that's the way I thought about it when you answered the two questions.

[Speaker 1]
I love the movie projector analogy. Yeah, it's something that really helped me understand karma right when I started hearing about this in the first place. I was like, okay, so if your mind is like projecting out like a movie projector, and then you're also painting the film, you're like putting images on the film as it comes back through.

And then, yeah, each frame is like something new. That's a nice way to think about it. Thanks.

Let's see. We've encountered a translation for Chi Chedrak, both general and specific and quality and characteristic, but with more emphasis on the latter. How might quality help us understand Chi better?

Oh boy.

[Speaker 2]
You don't get easy questions.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I know. How am I? Okay.

Luckily, I was working on this lately, but we'll see if I can help you with what you're asking. So yeah, depending on the context, Chi Chedrak is a pretty hard concept to really wrap your mind around. But it also seems like it should be more complicated than it is.

I think we want to make it even more complicated than what it already is. So general and specific is one more easy way to understand it. And depending on the context, the type of Chis or qualities that we're talking about, you would talk about Chi Chedrak as general and specific or quality and characteristic or set and subset.

And they're just kind of increasingly subtle ways to understand it. So set and subset is like cars and Toyota, right? That's the typical example that Keshe and Michael Gibbs, like a Toyota is a type of car, but a car is not a type of Toyota.

So it's a one-way relationship. Like you have a more, and this is where you can get into calling it general and specific. You can think of things in terms of a more general category and then a series of more specific categories that fit within that general category.

So set and subset are general and specific and cars and Toyota. So car is a general and everything has to do with how they relate to each other. It's not like car, it just is a general category.

It's always a relationship between the two items. So car is a subset of stuff made of metal, but car is a general when you talk about cars and then different types of cars. So your mind organizes things into categories like that.

This is just logically how the human mind constructs the world. And that's partially why this is so helpful to study and to learn. And then you're asking about quality and characteristic.

That gets more, using that language can allow you to get more subtle with this discussion. So now you can still apply the translation quality and characteristic to the example of car and Toyota. And you could say that Toyota is a characteristic of the quality car or something like that.

Like Toyota is one specific feature or one specific subset of a car, but quality and characteristic becomes useful when you start talking about a very specific kind of set and subset, which is like you have this general idea car in your mind. It's like an archetype. That means that that mental construct or archetype can be applied to specific examples of a car.

So you have this very kind of flexible archetype in your mind. It's just a label waiting to be placed on something. And then a car drives by and that's a characteristic because it's like one example of this more general quality that you have in your mind.

So you have this vast idea of car. And you can apply it to that. You can apply it to that, this kind of car, that kind of car, a little kid's car.

It can include a lot of different things. So that's where you start getting into the discussion of a car and a car or the car. So this is the discussion that Keqing Michael has.

And it's probably the simplest and clearest way you can have this discussion, which is one of the great things about Keqing Michael is how he makes everything understandable. So yeah, when you're talking about quality and characteristic, you're talking, you start using the word quality specifically. And here I'll wrap this question up because the function of Qiqedrak and helping us see emptiness is to understand that the quality car is coming from a seed in your mind and it's not coming from anywhere else.

This quality is something that exists. It's a story that you're putting on to the stuff that you're perceiving. So it's to understand that the car-ness is a hundred percent the quality.

So that's kind of what we're going for here to understand the difference between car and car-ness or a car and car-ness. So if we can understand it in terms of quality and characteristic, the word quality implies a ness. For those of you who don't speak English as your native language, I'm sorry.

I don't know how to. But it's like that quality of being a car is something that exists in the archetype. And that's more of a bigger set that applies to specific instances.

Is that helpful to whoever asked the question and the rest of you?

[Speaker 3]
I'm open to feedback.

[Speaker 1]
We want to understand that the quality of being something is coming from, it is not in the thing. It's a bigger category that you have in your mind.

[Speaker 3]
All right. What is kunshi?

[Speaker 1]
I have no idea. That's like, I mean, I'll try to answer it real quick because we just sat through so many hours of talking about it. I think kunshi is another consciousness in addition to your six senses and another one that the mind only school puts forth in order for various technical reasons.

But it's basically like a soul or like a mind stream. It's like where it's like some kind of essential part of you that continues from life to life. And it's where the karma lives.

And also, interestingly, where the karma ripens. And then they say that this particular consciousness emanates and makes your world. And it is the thing that you perceive.

Like, so the seeds are in the kunshi, the seeds are ripened in the kunshi. Then the kunshi is the world that you experience, basically. So it's all, I mean, that's probably why they're called mind only, or it is why, because they're saying everything is consciousness.

It is this consciousness ripening around you. We think it's real, but it's really mind only. And so we're wrong.

That's a very simple, simplistic way of putting it. That's in a nutshell what kunshi is. It's really trippy when you really sit and think about it.

It's really like a psychedelic idea. Because everything's just constantly, it's like your whole world is just this layer of consciousness around you constantly in flux, and you can't see it. Yeah.

Right. It really, it dawned on me recently, like just how, in the last couple years anyway, just how trippy the mind only school is. And I was like, holy crap, that's amazing.

The whole path is that way.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, it really is. It's a good point. We just walked in, we just knocked out of the park.

We just happened to walk into the coolest situation.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. It's not like prasangika is not insane and trippy. Amazing.

But mind only always seemed so heady to me. And then I just was thinking about it like, nah, these guys were on to something.

[Speaker 3]
It is heady too.

[Speaker 1]
I'll keep going. I didn't understand Geshe Michael's comment related to the naming of the tradition. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Oh, you're talking about the left hand thing. Yeah, yeah.

You answered. Thank you. Okay.

Enlightened beings are known as conquerors, according to Jason Kappa, because they are possessed of the might of the eight good qualities. Seventh quality is a mighty ability of creation to display countless worlds and beings to inhabit them. Does it mean that enlightened beings have an ability to create the same world as ours?

Well, I don't know. I just think it's important. I'll just answer this to the best of my understanding of what you're asking.

I think it's important for all of us not to think of like Buddhas or enlightened beings as people that create the world or create us or something like that, because that's definitely not the meaning of the Buddhist practice or the teachings. It's not that we were created by Buddha or we're all going back to Buddha. I mean, it is that we're going back to them too.

Maybe not back. I don't really know what this... I think what the seventh quality is referring to is probably the nirmanakaya, which is like an ability to emanate infinite things and bodies to help people.

Geshe Michael likes to make the point that it doesn't have to be another person or animal. They can emanate as a breeze or the sound of an ocean wave or something. So I have a feeling that it's talking about their ability to emanate, but I don't know that for sure.

And we could sit here and do research, but I think it's better I get back to you on that, because I can't read Tibetan fast enough to make it worth our time to sit here and look through the database to figure out the meaning of that. So that's just my guess. This is talking about their ability to emanate.

Anybody know the answer to the definition of the seventh quality of the conquerors or the eight good qualities, the seventh good quality, create the same world as ours? I think that they can come to our world. They can see because they're omniscient, they can see that we are in the state that we're in.

And so they can see what we see. And then therefore they want to come help us out if we have good enough karma. So this is hard to have good enough karma to interact with a Buddha, maybe.

Seems like it would be hard to interact with a Buddha and know it or have a suspicion that's a really good karma.

[Speaker 3]
Sí, es interesante. A mighty ability of creation. That's cool.

I'll look it up later. Let's see if we have any questions.

[Speaker 1]
Could you say that an archetype is an understanding that can be developed? That's interesting. If you get into the archetypes of thoughts, I don't really, I haven't thought much about this.

I don't know. I feel like Adam's text has been really touching on that lately.

[Speaker 3]
Archetype is an understanding that can be developed.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I mean, they can be, I think archetypes can be expanded, like you can have a new archetype once you get a, once you have like some kind of new understanding that could give you a new archetype for something, especially when you're getting into the complexity of ideas. I think your archetypes for what is Buddhism, for example, probably becomes, can be developed into a new archetype pretty frequently if you're studying a lot. Like my archetype for the mind only school changed recently was what I was talking about, but it doesn't change in the sense of gradually shifting.

I just have an understanding and then I have a whole different picture of what that means. But I don't really know how to think about archetypes of mental constructs, like an archetype of an archetype or something.

[Speaker 3]
I don't know. Maybe Kramer would know that better. You guys can chime in if you have like anything you want to ask or add or comment upon.

I'm looking for more questions. It's funny.

[Speaker 2]
They're all like archetype mental image questions.

[Speaker 1]
I know.

[Speaker 2]
Every single one.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And like, I've been struggling through these texts this term. It's hard to get up this early for me.

I can't like rest in life. Here we go. Uh, why does only images that can be verified by clear thinking come true?

What is the way in which archetype luminous images, clear thinking and real images operate? Whoa. Okay.

Hey, you guys aren't playing. Oh, Amalie's up. So I'm just going to open the door and let her come in here and hang out with me.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, you guys can say hi. Hi, boo boo. Spider-man.

Sorry.

[Speaker 1]
Bear with me for just a moment. Hey, Amalie, you don't have to say hi, but I'm just going to work for another like 15 minutes. Okay, sweetheart.

[Speaker 3]
She's the best.

[Speaker 1]
If you want to say hi, you can. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Hi, Amalie.

[Speaker 1]
Uh, she's really she's, she's not, she's not going to say hi yet. She hasn't had her kid coffee. Um, okay.

So first of all, it's not the case that only images that can be verified by clear thinking can come true. That's not the point. Sorry.

I have to do one more thing. So the dog doesn't wake Aaron.

[Speaker 3]
Sorry. Oh, sorry, boo boo.

[Speaker 1]
The responsibilities brought this big cactus from Arizona. All right. I can't, I can't stall anymore.

Images. It's not true that only images that can be verified by clear thinking come true. Um, you may have gotten that idea from DCI advanced level two, but the point is of that level is that if we use clear thinking, if we use, you know, logic to get to a clearer picture of our dream, of the, of the image that we want to bring into reality, then we have a better chance of making it come true soon and more powerful.

So that's all. And sometimes it's necessary to use clear thinking, to, you know, to use logic, to get to, to, to figure out what your goal is. When I put my, my contribution into that manual.

So advanced level two is using logic to, um, make your dreams come true basically. Uh, and it has to do with creating a clear image in your mind of, of your goal. So like from my contribution to that manual, I said, I told a story about having, you know, being a little bit foggy headed about what Aaron and I were going to do because we were living in a two story apartment and she had like really severe knee issues and we were locked into a lease.

So I just, in my mind, I just wasn't dealing with the problem because it just didn't seem like solvable. So, I mean, it was subconscious. I just wasn't dealing with it.

And then we had to like use logic to come to some conclusions that, okay, we need to leave this apartment and break the lease, you know, cause it's hurting your knee. Uh, but I couldn't even begin to get a goal in mind, which would be to find a one story place. I couldn't get the goal in mind without using some logic, like, okay, you know, if we stay here any longer, you know, it's going to damage her knee more.

Therefore we need to leave. If we leave, we have a chance of helping her legs last longer, something like that. Um, it's, it's more clear in the manual cause I had time to write it down, but, uh, that's the point of applying clear thinking to your dreams.

Uh, let me see the rest. And then when you get the more clear you can get on it, the more clear you can be in your mind as far as what seeds to plant, how to plant them. And, uh, and according to what Geshe Michael explained in the manual, uh, just having gone through this exercise of, of using logic to make the seeds, to make the dream more clear is going to make it, uh, the seeds more powerful when you plant them.

That was the kind of purpose of, of that idea about using clear thinking to make your dreams come true. But everything, everything that you do is going to have a result. So even if you didn't go through a complex process of logical reasoning to come up with your goals, if you want a boyfriend and you go to the nursing home, you're still planting the seeds.

[Speaker 2]
Do you think the extreme situation forced you to get more clear about what you wanted? And then if that's true, like what were the seeds that you guys planted as a result?

[Speaker 1]
Hmm. Wow. That's a good question.

Uh, yes. I think the extreme situation forced me to get more clear and it's just kind of like personal too. Like for me, like maybe not even everybody has a hard time getting clear on that type of thing, but for me, like it takes a lot, like if I have an obstacle to wanting to take action about something, it's easy for me to just put blinders on.

Uh, so sometimes it takes it being like an emergency situation. Same. Yeah.

Uh-huh. And then, so it helped me to help. It forced me.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's somebody who's like health isn't, is at stake.

And even still, it's hard for me to kind of like force my mind to jumpstart. Uh, and then what seeds did we plant? I'm trying, it all happened so fast and it's such a blurry year.

I'm trying to, we, we did spend some time helping other people to find places. I think it was that.

[Speaker 2]
And I mean, you had that yoga school. I mean, I went and looked at it cause I stayed at the hotel next to it. Oh, nice.

And I was like, Oh, it was just like how you started this sort of like thing to help people. And actually I feel, I think someone's still in there.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. We, uh, we sold the business.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. And so it's like this little seed that you had sort of like, yeah. Yeah.

I kept going, which is kind of cool.

[Speaker 1]
Super cool. And it's helpful just to hear you say that right now. Cause I don't think about it that often.

Cause it was, it's sad, you know, it's a hard, it was hard to leave behind.

[Speaker 3]
Um, well I'll say too, it's super cool. I just drove by it again the other day myself. So super cool.

[Speaker 1]
So Aaron and I built a yoga studio in Sedona called village yoga. So if you're ever over there, you can go take a class there. Uh, we don't run it anymore, but, uh, but all those floorboards I put in myself and all the rest of them, I wonder if that contributed in a way,

[Speaker 2]
you know, like that out cause you had this, like the system, which was like an outreach system, which is sort of like this, um, little treadmill of like under karma, which is sort of like, I call it passive, passive, like giving or passive karma, which is like, you've built a system where it's just automatically taking care of people and still does.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Everything you actually, everything you do does that. The, this class, the diamond cutter classics, you're like on this constant treadmill of that's, uh, you set yourself up.

[Speaker 1]
Well, that's, that's the, I mean, that's what, if you just hang around and get you, Michael, he'll make you a force you into those situations. But I, I, uh, it's funny that you brought that up though, Rob, I'm just going to say one thing, cause it's something we did together, uh, you know, 12 years ago or whatever, but I feel like everything good that's happened to me since then is just from like building a couple of cabins. I just like, I feel like I'm still riding on that.

Right. I always have a place to stay. Nice.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Somehow we do too. And it's like, and it doesn't seem possible. That's Rob who's talking.

Good morning. Uh, let's see. I think we have time for one more.

Oh, here we go. These are really amazing questions, you guys. So I'm appreciating every one of these questions.

This is great. Uh, how could we master the contemplation of our actions to create more virtue? How plan a day and set the coffee meditation in the evening that could create the most virtuous results.

If you figure this out, um, I suggest you write a small book and send it to me. Uh, you know, this is, everybody I think has their own discipline and you really, uh, you really have to develop what works for you. Uh, you know, I know, I know that Rob does, and I did for, for many years, uh, keep a good six times book.

Uh, and that really helps you because it just gets your mind in the habit of being mindful much of the time. I won't say all the time, but it gets your mind in the habit of being aware of what it's doing because you're just tracking for some people. It can be hard to be so meticulous, but it never really felt that way to me or feels that way when I still do it when I can remember to, uh, that's hard.

Some of this stuff just changes as your life circumstances change. But I personally think that I would benefit a lot from making a schedule of my day every day and sticking to it. And I don't very often, but it's a great thing.

Uh, I know that Seiji uses this program Asana to like plan out at least his work life minute by minute. And it's amazing. And I want to learn from him how to be so organized.

Uh, but yeah, I think planning your day, I did this really cool thing. Uh, Stanley has a friend who has a company on time management. He's an old Chinese guy and he's pretty famous in China.

And, uh, he has a company based on his practices of time management. And I translate it. I didn't translate it.

I, I was given a translation of the Chinese of the class and recorded it, recorded the audio of it in English. And I learned so much about how to schedule your life from listening to this guy. He has a really incredible system, but it takes a lot of work and discipline to follow.

So start by setting a time for your meditation and just do it each day. Start by setting an intention to do some physical practice every day and, you know, put it on the schedule for every day or as often as you can. And try keeping a book that will help you to stay mindful of the actions at the end of the day.

Sorry, boo. At the end of the day, I think it all just comes down to really, uh, specific little habits, nuts and bolts. You can't see cause your hair's in your face.

It just, it just comes down to little things, right? I mean, I think that all people who've been practicing. Hold on.

Give me one more minute. You still can't see cause your eyes are closed. Uh, you guys think any, what do you think Rob?

[Speaker 2]
I mean, first, I mean the book, which is right. Yeah. I mean, I've been doing it for 20, almost 26 years.

Like, um, yeah, you know, it just, I don't know. It was an easy sell to me. Geshe-la taught the pen and then he taught, like when he was teaching the pen, you know, about how it's coming from seeds.

He just kind of related that he threw his arm up and he's like, your own body is the same way. And then, and then if you want a body of Manjushri, then you should do this. So it was like a pretty, that's all.

That's it. So it was a long class, but it was an amazing sell to me. I was like, I will do this for the rest of my life until I work this out.

So for me, it's like, it works really well. I just make, I, I made it part of my efforts, like brushing my teeth, meditation, yoga, do your book, come to glasses, having friends is huge. Dharma friends, you know, I don't do so well, the coffee meditation, but I, but, because, but as a cheat, I, um, I post it's everywhere.

And so I post those on my wall of things that I'm kind of like working on. So I'm, I'm forcing myself to look at them all the time. So little things like that kind of help.

I think what the question about the left-handed way was really good, you know, yeah. And my only advice is like, put it into practice right away when Geshe-la teaches it. Otherwise you just won't do it.

Like you have to try like that day, just had to start doing it. Otherwise, you know, it won't work.

[Speaker 1]
Something I remember that you said to me, uh, you know, many years ago when we were building cabins is like, and you probably don't remember this, but, uh, you just said when times are good, you got to practice really well, because right now you can, when times are tough, you're not going to want to do anything, you know, and it's hard to get motivation. So I think when you're happy, I agree, like ride that, you know, the wave, yeah, ride that wave. Cause then you're going to really create the habit, which I think habit is so important in all this.

And, uh, like Master Shantideva mentions it again and again in the Bodhisattva's guide to, it's just like, how do we overcome anger? You know, how do we get joyful effort? It's just make it a habit.

And just little by little, your mind will change. So I think it's pretty good advice for everything. It's like, stop looking for some magic cure and just the magic cure is right in your hands.

It's just putting things into place bit by bit and being patient with yourself.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Whenever you say magic, I was saying a venerable cat.

[Speaker 1]
Where is she? There she is. Hey, um, I think it's time.

So I want to give you guys a break to get ready for yoga. And I got to hang out with this, this little one. Emily, do you want to say bye-bye?

Oh my God.

[Speaker 3]
You're so beautiful. It's nice to see you.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks for being patient with us. All right. Well, thank you all.

Thank you so much for the questions and the chance to do this with you guys. I look forward to seeing you later. Thank you.

Have a great day. Okay.