Ник Лашо — Книга 2: Ратнамала, занятие 24

[Speaker 1]
Hi everybody. Sorry, give me a second. Amelie's got a cold.

I'm just trying to help her out. She's not feeling great. You know how it goes, honey?

Yes, Michael is doing something else right now. Yes, he'll be back later. They're asking me questions now, so I have to talk to the I have to talk to the people on the computer.

Okay. Say bye. She's not in the mood.

Understandable. So, hi, welcome to the question and answer. And I love doing this.

It's one of my favorite things because I don't have to prepare. And it's just really fun. I'm happy.

So, ask whatever you want. Say it however you want. Put it in the chat or just unmute your mic and talk to me so I don't feel so lonely.

Just kidding. I'm fine. Let's see.

Somebody is already asking. Since there's only one question, I can't judge whether it's a good question or not. I just have to answer it.

Oh, by the way, who's if it's Sharon. Okay, good. She's good.

If I'm talking too fast, just give me a hand signal to slow down, please. In the book translation class you're working on. Oh, yes, honey.

What? Because she can't see that well. She means sorry.

Okay, Emily, I have to work. Okay, baby. Okay, thank you.

In the book that I'm working on, there is a concept of a reflection in the mirror and the importance of understanding the five heaps. If I'm not mistaken, how do these ideas apply to life? You probably need to devote more than one lifetime to an in-depth study of the five heaps.

I like your question because it's very vague, and I can take it in any direction that I want. I mean, it's a great question. Partially, we're going to answer it today in class.

We're going to continue this discussion in the discussion of my text today. Also on the quiz, I ask a question that's related to your question. I'm not going to go too much into the details because we're still working on it, but I would say that you're probably right that it's hard to understand all of this in one lifetime because what are we talking about in my text?

We're talking about how we grasp to the person and how we grasp to the parts of the person. It's extremely deep. It's extremely deeply ingrained in our psyches.

If it's a habit that's been going on for countless lifetimes, then it's possible that this discussion will take more than one lifetime if you believe in it. It's also quite possible along the same lines that you've already had this discussion for a million billion lifetimes, and now is the one where you finally get it and see emptiness and get enlightened. Don't discount that possibility.

This could be the one. One thing that I like to remember is that somehow I have such good karma that I have a teacher like Geshe Michael who can explain things so clearly and so easily. That maybe there's a good chance that we're close.

More medicine? Not yet, honey. You got to wait a couple hours.

I'll get you some more soon, okay? Sorry. Being a dad.

Okay, any more questions? Oh, what date is the next Mixed Nuts term? I think it just changed, so I have to release that, because we've been making some changes to the schedule to make sure that we're taking good care of Geshe Michael's health.

Also, he had some things come up that he had to change some dates. I believe that the next Mixed Nuts term will begin on October 3rd. October 3rd, so it would be that plus 14 days.

I will release the dates before this term is over. I just want to make sure that I have it correct. Sorry, I'm doing a couple things while I talk to you.

That's fine, because nobody has any questions for me. I will take questions now, but if you don't have any, I can talk about something, or we can just take a break. Any advice on combining parenting and bodhisattvas vows, especially with preteens and teens?

Bad karma for my kids is terrifying. Yeah, that's a good one. If you have preteens and teens, you probably have better advice on it than I do, because my girl is only three and a half, but I've thought a lot about this.

For one, one thing that I think is really amazing about having a child is it gives you an opportunity, or at least me, to taste directly the feeling of what it would be like to be willing, truly willing, to give your life for someone else or to give up your body, because before I had a kid, in my case, I had these ideas about what it means to feel such a deep level of compassion that you would give up your own life for someone, but it was totally theoretical, because now that I have a kid, I understand that feeling, because I would, without any hesitation, without any question, I would give up my life for a little girl, but that's a really powerful feeling that's not the same if you think about it or you actually feel that towards somebody, and I believe that bodhicitta is something like that. I think it's related to having a feeling like where you would just spontaneously give people anything that they need to be, you know, safe and to progress toward enlightenment, and so for me, having a kid really relates to the idea of bodhicitta that way, and probably other ways, but that way is very noticeable difference between, you know, not having a kid and having a kid. Kat, you have two or three kids, right, so I see you nodding, you know.

[Speaker 2]
Oh yeah, I wanted to add something else too, may I?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, of course, then I'll also try to come back to the question that you're asking, but please do, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Well, it's pertaining to the question she's asking, especially when my kids were teenagers and when I was studying Buddhism, it was pointed out to me by a venerable Chuki that the kids also are a projection coming from me, and so where's that coming from, you know? The kids as teenagers were actively showing me my mind so that I would be able to focus on, oh, I need to purify these seeds. If I'm seeing bad behavior or dangerous behavior, those seeds are coming from me, they're ripening in my children, so my God, what great motivation to quickly purify those seeds in my mind so that I don't project my children hurting themselves.

So they're very fine gauges on knowing where to put my mind in purifying to protect them, and of course the Bodhisattva vows is the perfect set of directions.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, yeah, I was thinking about that too. I mean, I guess I have that same feeling a lot with Amalie. If I see her doing something that I wish she wasn't doing, I try to see how I'm doing it, both for the example reason and for the seed reason, you know, and I think that no matter what, being an example, whether it's with your kids or with, you know, your co-workers or other people in the world is really the best way that we can teach people.

Thanks, Kat, and I don't know. I think it's probably really tricky with teenagers, and Kat will probably attest this in anyone, but it's really, they don't really want to do what you say, and I think that they usually want to do the opposite of what you say, so it's really about doing, you know, walking the walk.

[Speaker 2]
And looking at them as a mere ripening of my own seeds, you know, more than, I don't know what I learned. It's just really crystallizing now, as I'm a grandparent now.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, congratulations.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, I've got two. Realizing that they are merely a ripening of my seeds, and more than being the example in a mundane way in the world, is going deeper and analyzing, oh my god, what seeds have I planted to see this in my world, in my children, in my grandchildren? So, it's a wonderful seed management tool.

[Speaker 1]
Nice, nice, nice. Thank you. Yeah, it makes sense to me.

They are close projections. All right, somebody else asked a question, I think. Is the sutra all in the form of a question?

Are sutras only for those who ask questions? Why is there no sutra for those who have been enlightened since the Buddha? No, the sutras are not always in the form of a question, just sometimes.

Sometimes the Buddha, you know, just sits down and gives a class, or a talk, you know, and sometimes he's in a talk and people are asking questions, and it brings about other, you know, ideas and topics. So, you know, questions are interspersed throughout the teachings of the Buddha, but it's not all that. And the second part of your question was, why is there no sutra for those who are already enlightened?

Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, the obvious answer to me is, if somebody is already enlightened, they don't really need a sutra. Because the purpose of the Buddha's speech is to help you change from a non-enlightened person to an enlightened person.

That's the purpose of the Buddha's speech. So, if somebody is already enlightened, they're not really needing the Buddha's speech, you know, the Buddha's got to help those people who are not yet enlightened. But that said, a number of the Buddha's disciples already had achieved nirvana on the lower track, like there are hathas, like Shariputra or Ananda.

So, in a sense, he is giving, you know, classes or teachings for people who are already enlightened, if you consider nirvana, you know, lower nirvana, enlightenment. And I guess you could say that that's kind of a tap on the shoulder, according to the Mahayana teachings. That's where the Buddha's saying, hey, hey, hey, you know, you did good, but you still got a little bit more to go, because you can achieve this kind of enlightenment where you know all things and you can help every living being.

So, don't forget to keep going. So, you could say that that is the teaching for people who've already reached enlightenment. But Buddha's don't need to teach other Buddha's, because they're already Buddha's.

So, I hope that helps answer your question. It looks like there's another one. Thank you very much.

Of course, I believe that these questions, I don't understand. Almira, it looks like you asked a question, but I'm afraid I don't understand it.

[Speaker 3]
It is just a continuation of my question about the idea of Miro and five heaps, how it works for me, how it could work for me now, or how it would, how can I apply this. So, I just, I just thank you, because it's really great to take these classes from Mixed Nuts and I believe that I can be free from all attachments, because I have too much attachments.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, I have this problem as well. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. I think that these classes are really cool, because it's like really going deep into the machinery or the mechanism by which we are stuck.

And I think for many people, probably for everybody, we need to use our intellect to try to unwind all of the things that are keeping us stuck. Like I used to do other spiritual practices before I got into Buddhism, and they're all cool, like really helpful stuff, breathing exercises, and different types of yoga and pranayama. And I think it's amazing.

But I think that for me personally, I felt like a little bit left behind. Like it was like, these teachers give you practices to do, but they don't explain how and why it works. And, you know, it's kind of like, there's almost an idea of like, well, you can't really understand this, you know, just do it.

And hopefully, it'll help you have a better life. And that's cool. And it's true.

But what's really cool about finding Geshe Michael, but about Buddhism in general, and then finding Geshe Michael is that we have somebody who's giving us the whole entire path from the beginning to the end, and how it works, and why it works, like all the information is there at your disposal, if you want to try to learn it and use it. And then I feel personally more confident that I am somebody who kind of can and has permission to try to achieve complete enlightenment and not just like, you know, have less stress. I want that too.

Like I want both. You know, I want to have less stress. I want to have a better life.

But I also want to, you know, have the chance to put this into practice to take me all the way to total enlightenment. So that's what I think that's really cool about our group. It's one of the things that attracted me to studying Tibetan Buddhism, and then felt very lucky to find Geshe Michael.

Bear with me, I'm buttering toast for my daughter. And I'll talk about somebody asked, Oh, Catherine's trying to clarify. The question was about why aren't there sutras from other Buddhas?

Well, I mean, you could say you could say that some of the texts from Maitreya, maybe are from another Buddha. And that, of course, depends on what perspective you're looking at it from. But I think that the reason the main reason is because as far as we know, Shakyamuni, you know, our Buddha is the only one who came to this world.

That's the only one we have we confirm is a Buddha that came to this world. So, you know, it was only a couple 1000 years ago, we have recorded lots of teachings from him. So, you know, that's what we have really, if we had a bunch of teachings from previous Buddhas, we would certainly study those too.

But I guess those were on other planets, or many 1000s of years ago, or whatever, that we don't have records of it. But if we did, we would certainly study them. But we have a lot from Buddha.

And then we have a lot of commentaries on Buddha from other super special and smart guys, and gals. So, you know, it's just kind of we're working with what we have. And what we can confirm is from an enlightened being.

So we kind of just got to do our best with that. But it's pretty good. Sometimes he references stories from other Buddhas.

But I think it's usually our our Buddha talking about it. Let's see what else. Oh, this is a hard question.

Cool. I like it. Does emptiness come from seeds?

What seed produces emptiness? We're here, there'll be a will there be a day when we can stop the dependent origination? Here, Amelie, here's some toast.

Sorry. I'm sorry, sweetheart. Oh, baby girl.

I'll be back in a minute, baby. I have to sit over here for this one. Emptiness come from seeds?

No, I mean, yes and no. This is a super hard question that I struggle with, that we all struggle with. That I have gotten different answers from Geshe Michael on.

I've gotten different answers from different teachers. So first of all, I'm going to preface what I'm saying by saying, I think the point is that we have to think about it. The point of this idea, the way that we present emptiness, the way that we present seeds, is to make you reconsider how the world works.

And just to help us really think about where things do come from and where things don't come from. So whether emptiness comes from a seed, I'll just give you my perspective, and then I'll tell you what I've heard from Geshe Michael. When we read the Buddhist scriptures, which are the ones, you know, middle way, which is the ones that really deal with emptiness, it talks about emptiness, the absence of self nature to things, as being unproduced, has no cause.

So in a sense, you'd even say it's not a thing. It's not a thing in the way we think of a thing. It's an absence.

It's a lack. It's like something's not there. So if we need to think of that as a thing, we might be wrong.

Because our mind wants to think of like some kind of mystical realm of emptiness, or that that is like a power or a force or God or something. Our mind wants to kind of hold on to it as being something, something out there. But oh, hold on.

[Speaker 2]
Think about what I was saying.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, don't worry, you're not going to miss it. Sorry, guys. I'm sorry.

It's a I'll explain later. But anyway, so, so emptiness is an absence. It's like you go looking for something and it's not there, or it's an absence of things existing the way you thought it did.

So that does an absence come from a seed, you have to think about that. Like, if something is not there, or if something is not something else, does that come from a seed? In a sense, it maybe you can say it does because like, no, Amelie, no, we're not going to miss it.

I promise. Amelie, we're not going to miss it.

[Speaker 2]
Sorry. Very sorry. Come here.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay. We're going to tell you about emptiness together. So yeah.

The point is that, is that you can't, it's hard to say whether a lack comes from a seed. But as soon as you think of an absence, as soon as you think of a lack, then you're talking about something. And does that understanding come from a seed?

I would say, yeah, that has to because that's a positive thing. Or the direct perception of emptiness, this experience that you have that changes you forever, where you're seeing directly that things are not themselves or don't come from themselves. Does that come from a seed?

Probably. I mean, you'd have to say yes, a very, very good seed. So but whether emptiness itself comes from a seed, something unchanging has a cause.

I don't know. Lately, for the last few years, when people ask Keshe Michael this question, he says, an unchanging thing like emptiness. It's like a fountain, like seeds are opening, and something is being produced from those seeds.

But it doesn't change like it, like the seeds open, and it gives the appearance of being something that doesn't change. Yeah. So that's kind of his answer lately.

I know, boo boo. And look, there's another kid here. I don't know, you have to think about it.

I have a problem with that. Like I have a problem of understanding how an absence comes from causes. Like I'm like, oh, it's just an absence.

Like it's not a thing in the way we think of a thing. But I understand the way that Keshe Michael is trying to teach it as well. Yeah.

Okay, let's see if there's any new questions. Oh, boy. Somebody says if emptiness is no seeds, then you can have a direct perception of emptiness.

Yeah. Okay. It looks like you guys are answering this question.

This is good. I'll check this question. I was born in a family that favors boys over girls.

And I was almost given away several times. I often don't receive love and care from my parents and family, which has led to feelings of unworthiness and insecurity. This has also resulted in a vicious cycle in my relationships.

What seeds have caused this series of events? If I really want to break this cycle, what seeds should I plant? Wow.

Thank you for asking this question. I think that's a tough. So I'm sorry that you're having that experience.

That's really hard. Sounds really hard. And I know that the world is like this in many places.

Without getting too much into it, because that's a long thing, obviously. Probably, to answer your question, the seeds seem like there's something about equanimity. It seems like there's something about treating people equally that you have to focus on, and making sure that in your own world, you're giving equal amounts of love to everyone.

Try to find small ways that you maybe have or haven't been able to give love to people. Sorry, now I'm by myself. Erin is up.

My wife needs to sleep a lot because she's got some health issues. That's why I have Amelie in the morning. So I think that that's the answer.

I mean, that's a really simplistic answer. But if you want to receive, if you want to see a world in which boys and girls receive equal love, I think trying to focus on making sure you practice equanimity, maybe even in small ways. Because that's not fair, right?

It's crazy to be in a world where people would favor one gender over another. But maybe in your own life, you have to start to look at, in our own lives, we have to start to look at what things are... Even if something is inconvenient for us, we should still give it equal love.

If something seems inconvenient, or if somebody seems like a person that we don't want to help, we should still try to make extra efforts to be equally loving toward them. And then I think the other part of the issue that you're experiencing, which is a lack of love that results in self-esteem issues and relationship problems, probably you also need to look at other seeds, right? Not just the seed of equanimity, but also just giving love and support and helping people who have these types of issues, like helping people to have higher self-esteem, helping people to feel loved and cared for.

So there's probably opportunities, you know, volunteering, working... I don't know, in the U.S. there's like non-profit organizations that support women who were in abusive relationships, you know, where they were being hit or something like that. So just this kind of thing, I think there might be opportunities where you can support people who have severe difficulties in this respect, and that would probably help you plant powerful seeds, you know, find people who don't get the love that humans deserve.

I did volunteer work in a prison for several years, and I think for me that was really powerful. It was an opportunity to share with people who the rest of the world told them they didn't deserve it, so something like that. All right, here's another one.

How to understand the emptiness of yourself, how to apply it in life, and how can Geshe Michael's example with the diamond help in this, that each piece of the diamond is 100 percent diamond? That's cool. Let me try to answer this.

How to understand the emptiness of yourself. For me, I think it's kind of simple. Have you ever been unhappy?

Like have you ever felt sad? Probably. Have you ever felt more sad?

Like have there been degrees of sadness which you have felt? Have you ever felt like really, really sad? And have you ever felt kind of sad?

Yeah. Have you ever felt happy? Have you ever felt more happy?

Have you ever felt awesome? Have you ever felt like you are awesome? You know, like I am amazing.

I have, you know, a couple times. And have you ever felt like I am crap? Probably.

Most people have this problem, you know. They feel bad. They feel like they are bad.

So what determines? I'm giving you a very simple answer, but I think it's also very true. What ultimately determines who you are and what you are?

I mean, if you've ever noticed, every moment you have an opportunity, awesome Amelie, every moment you have an opportunity to define who you are, and the rest of the world will interact with you, you know, through how you kind of bring yourself to each moment. And it goes deeper than that, okay. But I would say that I've had situations in my life where like I remember this and I can shift my reality in the moment by just realizing that, you know, I'm creating me.

So there is no, there is no me that I, in the way that I think there is. Usually I think that there's a me and that me, that me is something bad, you know, that me is something negative. And so I'm not worthy or something like that.

But I can change it. So I think when you think about trying to find the emptiness of yourself, recognizing the fact that you have been very happy, you have been very sad and various degrees in between. And then also realizing that, also realizing that how sad or how happy you could be in either direction is infinite.

It's totally infinite. Like you could be however happy you've ever been. You could be more happy.

Why not? Because what's, you can use logic to ask yourself like, what's the limit of how happy you could ever be? What's the, what's the extreme?

Is there a, is there a line where like, okay, that's it. That's, I can only reach this kind of happiness and that's the limit. Or can it go further?

So when you think about the emptiness of yourself, you can think about like where these limits are. And when you realize using logic that there is no limit, in a way that's the emptiness of yourself. There's an infinite potential to how happy or how anything you could be, how talented, how smart.

So I think that that's something that has been helpful to me in trying to understand the emptiness of myself. Does that clear? Is that pretty clear answer?

Okay. I feel, I'm sorry that I'm getting distracted because I don't want to ignore Amelie. Okay.

My home is beautiful. Somebody said, Erin is an interior designer now. So for all your design needs, send me a, send us a message.

Give you a special deal. She's quite talented. Interior design, I think is a beautiful art.

And I encourage everybody to get into something creative in life. I think it helps with your spiritual growth as well. Creative living is so important.

How to keep better notes for mixed nuts classes? I have no idea. I don't take good notes.

So ask Utpala or Oscar, and they will give you advice. I think Tim takes good notes too. There's lots of cool software out there that you can use to take notes.

I don't know. Anatole uses something called WorkFlowy, where you can make outlines. I've used that a little bit.

It's kind of good. I don't know. What seeds can we sow to meet our llama?

And how can we recognize that this is our llama? That's a great question. I think that the seeds that you plant to meet your llama are many because it's such a precious and special human experience and luck or fortune to find a teacher, a spiritual teacher.

So I think the seeds are probably wanting to take care of others, wanting to help people with their growth of any sort, but particularly happiness and spiritual growth, wanting others to be happy. I think when you fully cultivate this feeling, this desire, a spiritual teacher will naturally come into your life. Because I think that the teacher is always wanting to be in your life.

They're always trying to help you. So I think we have to think of it like that. The teacher always wants to help you.

And then it's just a matter of you purifying yourself enough to be able to see them there. They're always helping you. They're always there.

And it's a matter of calming your mind enough or something, making your mind sweet enough that you can realize it and be open to it. And often that is preceded by some terrible thing happening to you. But not always.

In my case, somebody hit me with a bottle and I had severe injuries. And then I was able to be open to learning spiritual things. I wasn't open to it before that.

That's not the answer to your question. Don't plant the seed of getting hit by a car or something. Don't do that.

Take care of your body and your mind. But so I think the seeds are to just keep being kinder and kinder, like to just keep making yourself more and more sweet and open-minded and just having patience and being open, being sweet and being open and wanting to help people in a general way. Everything that you do along those lines plants the seed for the teacher.

And if you have the chance to do something like take vows, take bodhisattva vows, I think that also helps. You don't have to have found your personal teacher before you take those vows. You can do it and that will help to purify you enough, trying to keep those commitments.

[Speaker 2]
Can I share? I figured out the seeds that I planted to find my teacher. I never knew how it happened until recently.

Can I share this real quick?

[Speaker 1]
Do it.

[Speaker 2]
I was not looking for a teacher. I did not know what Buddhism was and Geshe Michael moved to my 60-mile dirt road in the middle of nowhere and I met my teacher. He came to my neighborhood in the middle of nowhere.

I did not know how that happened. Recently after teaching a class, I realized I raised my two sons as my teacher, not knowing this was from a past life. I raised my children in a very unique way.

They were my teacher. I took life-changing advices from a two-year-old. I did not discipline them.

They were never wrong. My job was to feed and clean them and make sure everybody was happy all the time, just to make sure happy, happy, happy. These were the seeds that I planted for my teacher to come to me.

For 15 years, I treated two beings like my teacher. They taught me how to serve a teacher and bam, the teacher came.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I need a child, somebody said. The seeds for a child are easier to figure out. That's cool.

Thank you for sharing. That's awesome. Yeah.

If you don't have a child, just taking care of anybody. For me, I think it was like I started having this feeling of wanting to take care of people. After I had that experience of getting injured, my mind became a lot more open and my heart became a lot more open.

I had this feeling of wanting to bring everybody to happiness. I had this feeling that the only thing worth doing in life is to work toward a world where everybody's happy. I think for me, just wanting to share that with people was the seeds for a teacher coming and us feeling that connection.

Then the other part of your question was how to recognize the teacher. Different people have different experiences. I think that depends so much on your mindset.

For some people, it's just obvious. All of a sudden, they're just like, oh, my God, this is so obviously my teacher. For me, it's more like years of like, okay, step by step.

I'm like, okay, this makes sense. I'm going to keep listening to this person. Then it's like, okay, I think that I'm personally really learning from this.

I'm going to keep trying and keep feeling like if this is working for me. At the same time, when I first met Geshe Michael, I have a photo of the moment. Somehow, somebody snapped a picture, which is pretty cool.

It's like we both have these huge smiles. Maybe there's something from past lives going on that I don't even know about. I'm seeing if I can find it real quick.

It's on my Facebook, I think. Oh, man, I can't find it right now. I should just have it available.

I'll take a look and see if I can find it in the next nine minutes. I think that you don't have to know that it's the teacher. I think it's good to give it a try if you don't just know if there's somebody who's saying something that appears to you to be true and helpful.

It could potentially be life changing. I think it's a really cool idea to see where it goes, open-minded. You don't have to immediately give your life to somebody, but if you feel inspired to, just make sure they're a good person.

Make sure you trust them. There's a lot to say on this subject. It's a tricky thing.

It's tricky. And I would say don't take it lightly. Don't decide someone is your teacher lightly to be your personal teacher.

Take your time and make sure that you trust them and that they seem safe and all that stuff. Because there's a lot of psychological factors wrapped up in this too. For us Westerners, we have all kinds of weird hang-ups with psychological issues and things that we project onto our guru and it could make for a very strange relationship.

And that's okay. I just mean sometimes we can prematurely accept someone as a spiritual teacher just because we want a spiritual teacher so bad. But I think it's really important, if your motivation is to truly use that relationship to progress spiritually, take your time and be very careful about it.

Somebody asked me, how did I learn Tibetan? Did you memorize a lot and what kind of seeds do I think helped? I didn't learn it yet, but I'm trying.

So I'm trying to learn Tibetan. Coming to Mixed Nuts classes is helping. I memorize a lot.

I don't lately because I don't have time, but definitely memorizing sutras and stuff helps. I think the main thing is just keep exposing your mind to it and don't worry too much about it. Over and over again you'll start to get it.

There's some really helpful, there's some particularly helpful books out there that in my case helps me understand grammar. One of them is called Translating Buddhism from Tibetan. It's a big fat red book and working through this book is very helpful because you'll learn the grammar cases.

Let's see, doing the ACI courses, if you just pay attention to the Tibetan when you're doing the ACI courses, you can learn a lot. Yeah, coming to Mixed Nuts classes is just exposing over and again and seeds is just supporting other people who are learning languages, trying to help people in that way, I think is really important. Hold on guys, I'm looking for this picture.

[Speaker 2]
Nope, man, try one more place.

[Speaker 1]
Sorry, I'll show you another time. Tibetan Language Channel on YouTube, that's right. Subscribe to the Tibetan Language Channel on YouTube.

We're going to have more classes online through the Diamond Cutter Classics website. We just signed up for an education platform and I put a video of Ben Kramer. It's about 15 videos of Ben taking you through the alphabet.

It's a really good class. That's really clear. He gives some homework.

He tells you how to make flashcards. I will share a link to that class before the end of the term. You can take the video classes whenever you want.

That's cool. I have to find that link and I'll share it with you. Thank you for reminding me.

Let me see if I got a reply about the dates for the term. No, I'll announce the dates for the term probably this evening. Okay, in classes.

Okay, I have time for one more question. Could I invite several teachers for granting diamond vows? I think you mean can you take initiation from several teachers?

Yeah, I mean, if you feel a connection with the teacher and you feel that they're a good person to take initiation from, then I encourage you to do so. I just think the important thing is to try to learn the vows somehow. You take the vows and then you have them but if you don't know what they are and you don't know, they might be the most important part of using that path to get enlightened.

So, if you take initiation from a great teacher, wonderful. Try to find a way to learn the vows too. Try to find somebody to teach you the individual, each of the vows.

That's my advice. Because it's important. Any other questions?

Okay, we can wrap it up. It was my pleasure to do this. I apologize for the jerky nature when I am.

Amelie's got a cold, so she just needs me a little bit more right now. But I feel like we had fun. We did some stuff.

All right, cool. Well, I'm gonna go try to get some rest. I'll see you guys.

See you guys this afternoon. Ciao. Oh, go to yoga if you can.

Hold on, let me tell you who's leaving. Is it Uta? No, maybe.

Today is Friday. We will have yoga with Adriana, a fantastic teacher from Ben's studio in New Mexico. Adriana.

And then Hasa will lead a class in the afternoon. So enjoy. See you guys soon.

Thank you very much.