Ник Лашо — Книга 2: Ратнамала, занятие 34

[Speaker 1]
One of my first Buddhist teachers used to say, if you don't, the only people who don't have questions are idiots and Buddhas. So are you guys already Buddhas? I've had a lot of tough teachers over the years.

The point was, if you're listening and you're thinking, probably you have some questions about what we're talking about. Maybe you don't have questions for me. That's understandable.

That's okay. Tim professes or claims to be a Buddha, I guess. Just kidding.

But does anybody have anything that's on their mind that they would like to discuss? And don't be shy, okay? Ma yin gak, did you mean to say?

[Speaker 2]
Ma yin gak.

[Speaker 1]
Ma yin gak is when, like, you refer to one thing not being something and that implies the existence of something else. The classic example is a fat monk who never eats during the day. So we say we're negating something, you know, he never eats during the day, but he's really fat.

So what does that imply? It implies that he eats a lot once the sun goes down. Ah, that's a ma yin gak, a negative that implies something positive.

So that has nothing to do with my text or anything that we've discussed today. But it is one of the two kinds of absences that we discuss in some discussions on how to see emptiness directly. So could you share with us the four divisions in the second path?

What are you talking about, Gibson? Maybe I could, and this might be a thing where I just tell you I have no idea because I don't have it memorized. But what second path?

Oh, jor lam, the path of preparation. Let's see. Four divisions of jor lam.

[Speaker 2]
I'm trying to remember what they are. There's chuh chok.

[Speaker 1]
There's, man, I don't remember right now. I would have to study that to remember. Yeah, mastery.

Jor lam. I don't remember. Yeah, mastery is one of them.

But I would love to, yeah, there we go. Warmer. Yeah, that's it.

Mastery. I don't know about cool. You know, that's the kind of thing we can just look up in the database.

So if we don't have any other questions, I'll look it up in a second. But this, because I forgot. I mean, because I don't mind doing that as long as there's no other questions, we can do that.

Then we can review how to use the database. Let's see. Question from Jane.

Geshe-la talked about armor of vows. Does that belong? Oh, that's interesting.

Does that belong to non-physical, non-mental? What is that? Ah, so this is a concept from Abhidharma, from Abhidharmakosha.

And it's also covered in, I believe, ACI course five. And so it's about this kind of like halo that forms around you when you take your vows. So I noticed that he talked about that in one of the previous Mixed Nuts classes.

And it's about like, they call it physical or sorry, non-physical communicating karma. And it's like, or physical. So it's like the idea is that there's like this halo that forms around you when you take a vow.

And it's just one of the different kinds of, there's various different divisions of karma that are made in the Abhidharma. And this is a division where they talk about communicating versus non-communicating. So it's a kind of form, which is physical.

And there's communicating form and non-communicating form. Sorry, was somebody chiming in? Okay.

Anybody remembers better than me, you're free to chime in. Okay. I will not be offended.

Somebody who has taken this course more recently than me. But the point is, because it was many, many years ago, I studied this. There's this kind of, according to Abhidharma, there's this aura that forms around you.

That's like a special kind of invisible physical matter that interacts, that serves to protect you. As long as you keep your vows, it helps you keep your vows. And it protects you, like it helps you to make good seeds stronger and to avoid planting bad seeds, basically.

So part of, according to the Abhidharma, part of the power of taking vows, whether they're monk's vows, or layperson vows, or bodhisattva vows, or diamond way vows, is that when you plant a seed, a good seed, and you have those vows, the good seed is much stronger. And when you refrain from a harmful action, and you have those vows, that's like a very special good seed from refraining from a bad action. So yeah, good.

It's close, Gibson. So that would be non-communicating form. Good.

So that's the, you can see the Tibetan in the chat there from Mr. Gibson. So that's the point. The point though, is like, regardless of which school you're talking about, if you take vows, you get some really special good seeds for keeping them.

And it protects you. And that's how it's like an armor. And that's the Abhidharma explanation.

I'm going to open Gopher in case nobody has another question. But if you do have another question, go ahead and speak up, or there's a baby crying in my house. So you can also type in the chat.

That's not my kid. That's a, there's like a whole bunch of kids here right now. I don't know if you guys can hear that.

[Speaker 2]
Here we go. Gopher. Does anybody else have anything interesting to discuss?

[Speaker 1]
I see massive amounts of things written in Chinese. So if it's a non-physical communicating form, and this idea is from a lower school, the Abhidharma school, then isn't there a dak cha to go looking for? I'm not sure I understand the question.

Yes. I mean, the one thing I'm going to say that I'm not sure this is what you're saying, Dennis, but just because any school says that a thing exists, doesn't mean that that school is necessarily claiming that that thing that exists is the ultimate form of existence. Now, that said, that does, that idea, that kind of like philosophical exploration is the philosophical exploration which forms the basis of the various schools of Buddhism, of, you know, classical Buddhism.

So a lot of different schools, the philosophical schools formed to debate whether certain things are real or truly exist or not. And so we were just discussing in the previous class, in my class, and then during the discussion, whether physical parts or, you know, atoms are something which are real, substantial atoms. And it seems that the lower schools imply that they are, you know, ultimate or truly existing.

And that we know for sure that the middle way school says that they're not. And, you know, when you get down into the nitty gritty, into the details of philosophical literature, it's interesting to explore whether or not people are really claiming that these things, like, are they making claims that these things exist ultimately, or is it just that they're not denying the ultimate that these things exist ultimately. And so I think that one of the more profound and powerful things about the middle way school is that the middle way school is very clear to deny the existence of anything that could exist ultimately in and of itself.

And they basically would say that the problem with the other schools of Buddhism is not that they are making claims that things exist ultimately, but rather there's an implication within their philosophical systems that things exist ultimately because they're not denying them. But everybody says that stuff exists. I mean, the middle way school says that trees exist, you know, it doesn't mean, like, if you're a follower of the middle way, as you well know, Dennis, and everyone else, it doesn't mean we're saying that there's no tree.

It's just an illusion. So you can walk right through it. The tree exists, it's just not ultimate reality.

And I suppose the same could be said for some sort of mystical, non-physical communicating form, or non-communicating form. And the same could be said for the subtle body, right? When you get into the very deep mystical teachings, we talk about the subtle body and the inner channels, the Sushumna Nadi and the Ida and the Pingala.

And we talk about those, and they're very, very important for doing yogic practice. You know, you have these knots, and the knots are tied around your central channel. And the reason that you're not enlightened yet is because you have these knots strangling your central channel, and it's not allowing the prana to flow smoothly.

And so you're stuck in samsara. And so, you know, does that mean that because the subtle body is mystical, and because it's hidden from our normal view, does that mean that the subtle body is... that somehow we're implying that it's the ultimately real?

No, no. You know, that's not implied by saying that they're there. It's just that that is how, according to the yogic scriptures, that is how reality is manifesting, is that you have these channels, and that there's knots around them.

And if you practice different kinds of yoga, including kindness, it will loosen the knots, and the energy will flow more smoothly. And just like you have a physical body, and you can feed your physical body, you know, hamburger helper, or you can feed your physical body, like amazing green juice and organic vegetables, and that might make a difference for how, you know, your life goes. And it's not because one thing is ultimate or not, it's because reality functions in a coherent way, because we have the seeds for reality to function in a coherent way, if that makes sense.

This is something we should all be thinking about, right? Because we get tripped up. If somebody tells you to eat organic food, does that mean that organic food exists ultimately?

Does it mean it's definitely going to heal you? No, not necessarily. So those are questions I think it's important for us to ponder.

There's kids like screaming outside my door. Anybody have any thoughts or questions? Don't be shy, okay?

You can debate me. Oh, where does the four levels of stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arhat fit into the bodhisattva levels? I don't know.

That's an interesting question. I never thought about that. There may or may not be a correlation, because I think that those teachings are coming from different schools.

So there may not be a one-to-one correlation. Usually the 10 levels, like the bodhisattva bhumis, those ideas come from the Mahayana schools, and the ideas of the four levels of stream-enterers, the once-returner and the non-returner, that's coming from the lower schools. So I don't think that there's a one-to-one correlation.

Arhat would be level 7, I believe. But otherwise, and stream-enterer is obviously level 1 through whenever. Anything after level 1 is stream-enterer, including level 1.

So arhat is 7. Stream-enterer is 8. And stream-enterer is 1.

And once-returner and non-returner, these are ideas that are coming from the lower schools. So as far as I know, there is no particular point along the 10 where you would be definitely a once-returner or something like that. Because those things can vary, you know.

You can do the whole 10 in one lifetime. It can take up to 16 lifetimes. Not only that, but in our tradition we study 10 bodhisattva levels.

It means the different levels that a bodhisattva progresses along until they reach total Buddhahood. And there's a detailed description of those 10 levels in Je Tsongkhapa's Illumination of the Thought, which Geshe Michael is, I don't know, halfway through translating, maybe a little more. So we'll be able to learn that detailed description when he finishes that book.

But thank you for asking. But it's not a one-to-one correlation other than that, as far as I know. Okay.

So it looks like I have a nice long question from... Oh, Alex, quick question. Does the high school accept non-communicating karma?

No, no. I mean, these are really just Abhidharma ideas that are... It's just not taught in the middle way schools.

So I don't know. It's not really an idea that the middle way would discuss. It's not necessary.

They wouldn't need to add that extra kind of idea of a head. Of some kind of form. A question from Prajna.

I have been helping an artist friend introduce business resources and successful businesses without asking for any commission. So you're trying to help them get a successful business. She was very grateful to me for the introduction before and was very excited when I introduced her resources.

But I didn't have too much contact or interference. It was just a pure introduction. But later, I don't understand why she suddenly deleted me.

I don't understand why. My client found it strange and told her to thank me for introducing her to each other. Okay.

So you introduced her to somebody else and then she cut you out of the conversation. She didn't explain why she wanted to delete me. I feel inexplicable and weird.

Why is this so? Why are you so nice to the friends around you and there is no conflict of interest? But your friend suddenly becomes like this.

I don't quite understand how to understand it from the seed level. Or should I just let it go? Okay.

I don't fully understand your question. Probably because of the translation. But I think I understand it mostly.

So first, I'll do my best to answer this with what I see and then you can clarify. First of all, should I just let it go? Of course.

Absolutely. Just let it go. Okay.

Don't worry about it. Don't let it bother you. Okay.

That's definitely my advice. Don't be upset about it. That's of course easier said than done.

And I still would love to try to answer your question. But I hope that if you can forgive them and not feel angry, then of course it's just better for you mentally. You know, when we hold on to things, when we're sad about things, when we're angry at other people, when we stew in anger toward other people, we create more bad seeds.

We're planting more bad seeds by the minute. So the sooner we can let go of any feelings of anger toward people, I think the better. It doesn't mean to just forget.

It doesn't mean to forget what they did. I just mean, the sooner that we can move on from holding on to feelings of frustration or anger, it's going to go better for everyone. So if you're able to let it go, by all means.

If you're not able to let it go, probably a good idea to work on letting it go. Just basic life advice. Okay.

You didn't need a Buddhist guide to tell you that. Now, why does it happen that we do something that we believe is just kind of pure kindness for somebody and we don't feel any gratitude from them and rather from them we feel resentment or frustration or a desire that we would do more for them? I think is sometimes the case.

We feel the opposite of gratitude often from people that we help. And why? Why would that be?

I've been studying this stuff for a while and I struggle to put it into practice in my own life just because these feelings are hard to deal with. But the answer, I believe, is this is the way seeds ripen. This is a direct learning process of the fact that conventional cause and effect, it doesn't always make sense.

It doesn't always work out. You do somebody a favor, you'd think they would be grateful and they're just not and they're angry and it happens all the time. And it's because the cause and effect that's truly at play is on a different level.

It's karma cause and effect, it's seeds, it's not what you're doing in the moment. So if you did something kind to create a connection for somebody, if you did something to help somebody, to help them grow their business or to put two people together, that's amazing. What you did is good.

You definitely planted a good seed and you don't have to worry about it. And if the result that you get in the moment doesn't match, it's because of the time gap between the seed that you planted and the result. So if you planted a good seed, that seed goes into your mind, then it sits in there for a while and it just cooks.

And it could be years, it could be lifetimes, but it just sits in there. And then if you get the experience of a person being ungrateful to you, that's a totally different seed that was already sitting in your mind. And it has nothing to do with the seed that you planted by helping to connect two people or by supporting them with their business.

So they're just not related. And it's confusing. And it's why our world is so messed up.

If we had a world where when you step on a bug, then somebody steps on your house or steps on your head, then nobody would ever harm anyone else ever. But part of the cruel irony and pain of samsara is that there's a time gap between cause and effect. So you plant a seed by helping this person, there I'm grateful to you.

This lack of gratitude is a seed, a different seed, not related to the seed of you helping them. The lack of gratitude is from some time in the past when you were ungrateful. So the answer is be as grateful as we can, as frequently as we can.

The more gratitude that we can have in our life toward everyone, the better. It's like one of the tools that we have in our toolbox is gratitude, to be grateful. And there's really cool ideas in DCI level 12 to help us to feel gratitude, to help us combat our own anger so that we're not planting bad seeds.

But that's the answer. Time gap, seed, result. So when you planted a seed of helping someone's business, it planted a seed in your mind.

And when that seed ripens, it will be somebody helping you. It will be your own business flourishing. But there's a time gap.

So those were two different seeds. Hello, Amelie. What are you doing?

Naked. Oh, you're naked, baby. I'm on the call right now, okay?

Okay. I love you. Time gap, very important concept to try to remember.

Now, let's see. Whoa, there's more questions now. Great.

When I learn the seeds of wisdom, sometimes I fall into deep fear. I always worried that I didn't have the seeds to create the reality that I wanted. How to crack it?

These are awesome questions. Okay, cool. I'm excited.

I'm going to close the door. Excuse me for one moment. Okay.

My sweet little daughter busted in on me. Okay, now I feel like we're getting warmed up. Deep fear that you don't have the seeds to create the reality that you want.

You might not. It's okay. Don't be scared.

I don't know. For me, you know, the fear, the fear is just a psychological problem that we all have, you know. In all likelihood, as human beings, we will bring that fear to anything we do, to seed planting, to work, to child raising.

We have this fear. That's our own anxiety from being a human. But the seeds to create the reality you want, I think that the most, I feel that for me the most liberating thing about like studying these ideas is now we know how to do it.

And that's the most precious thing that we could ever get. You know, the most precious idea that we could ever, the most precious jewel that we could ever achieve in this world is for someone to teach us how we can create the reality, the reality that we want. So you might not have the seeds yet.

And I might not have the seeds yet. And that's okay. You know, we're all human beings in this world together, like trying to plant the seeds to create the reality that we want.

And we have these precious ideas, these precious teachings that we can use to help us plant the seeds more quickly and more powerfully. And that's really the best. That's amazing.

You know, that's the greatest gift that we could possibly have. And if we don't have the seeds yet, it's okay. You know, just keep planting them and keep trying to commit to not plant bad, to stop planting bad seeds.

And we all struggle. And it's just part of this world. And you're not different from anyone else.

So don't worry. Just don't worry. You know, you have the tools you need.

Do your best. And I'll try also. Deal?

It's hard not to have fear and worry. I mean, don't get me wrong. So here we go.

So I'm sorry that you fell into fear. But hopefully, if we understand the teaching correctly, it should give us a sense of freedom. Like when I feel that I really understood these ideas, I was like, okay, it's a lot of work.

But now I know what to do. Now I know how to move forward. So here's a question.

I'm going to read it. Buddha saw the luminous images coming out from our seeds, 65 images per second, 65 seeds per second. While in another occasion, we said the seed is just a metaphor, not the truth.

How to understand the contradiction? Okay. 65 images from 65 seeds.

So when Geshe Michael teaches this idea of seeds, he is teaching that it is 65 seeds opening per second. And each seed has one image. So 65 images are coming from 65 seeds every second.

That's the explanation. And then I said that the seeds are like a metaphor. I don't want to confuse you.

What I'm saying is the seeds are also coming from seeds. I don't think it's so important to get so hung up on the details of how many seeds. The point is, if when we become Buddhas, we see exactly how many seeds and how exactly reality is functioning on an invisible level, that's amazing.

For now, we can't confirm with our direct perception exactly how reality is coming into existence. So we rely on what the masters of the past are saying. One interesting thing about Master Nagarjuna is that he shows us that these seeds, the seeds that are coming, the images and the seeds and all of this that we're talking about, that's also coming from seeds.

Normally I'm in the meeting. That's why my eyes look tired. Okay.

Sorry. So the idea is that the seeds are also dependent upon our labels. And it's not this real, concrete, final way of existence either.

It's just as much an illusion as this physical body, as this green juice, as this iPhone. The seeds are also like that. They're also coming from seeds.

Maybe it's 65. That's what Geshe Michael is teaching. If I taught you about how Nagarjuna proves that cause and effect are also labels, it's so that we don't hold too tightly to the idea of cause and effect being ultimate reality.

Because ultimate reality, at the final end of our philosophical exploration, when we find ultimate reality, we find that there's only emptiness. There's only a lack of things existing from their own side. That's why I may have said the word metaphor about seeds.

Because a lot of the students in our lineage, in our schools, really want to hold on to the idea of seeds as being ultimate reality. You see what I mean? So I was just trying to help us move away from that.

But one of the very valuable things about studying seeds is it's a more practical way to think about reality than conventional cause and effect. If we can think about the world in terms of the seeds we plant and their actions, that's closer to the way reality functions. So therefore, it's going to help us have a better life and reach enlightenment.

I hope that makes sense and is not more confusing. This is interesting. Somebody asks, how do family seeds work?

How do the good or bad seeds planted by our ancestors affect our descendants? In this school, we say that each individual can only plant seeds for their own mind. I can't plant seeds for my daughter.

She has her own unique seeds that she plants. There is a connection between us. You could say we're karmically intertwined.

We share a lot of the same seeds. We share seeds to be in the same family. We both have a lot of the same seeds.

We both have a lot of seeds in common. I also personally believe that some people had seeds that connect them to each other because of many lifetimes of interacting. Like how the story of the Buddha, he gave his life to the tiger cubs before he became Buddha.

In a previous life, he gave his body to these tiger cubs so that they could eat. Then in his next life, when he became Buddha, they became his first students. They were connected somehow through their actions.

Each person has their own seeds. That's how we teach it in this. We do not say in this school that there is shared seeds between any people.

We all, each individual, you can only affect your own mind. Now that said, can I plant the seeds to see my daughter happier? Yes, because of the third law of seeds.

Sorry, the third flower, meaning the environmental results of a seed. If I plant more seeds for success, I would likely see the people around me as more successful. That's really cool.

But how they see themselves, that still depends on their own seeds. But we can't plant seeds for our kids, unfortunately. Alex, the word seed implies a physical thing.

It is a metaphor for something mental. Yeah, maybe that's the metaphor the question addresses. Yeah, totally.

That's great. When we talk about seeds, it's a metaphor in the sense that a seed is something physical. Very good observation.

Thank you, Alex. Seeds are not physical nor mental. Right, exactly.

We talk about seeds as if they're something physical. I think what I was trying to address is a lot of us get stuck with these ideas in our mind of the seeds being something kind of like sitting in there, like something physical, like these little physical seeds or even mental little... Geshe Michael describes them that way.

That's beautiful and amazing and helpful. But if we hold on to them as being the ultimate reality, then we're selling ourselves short. Ultimately, we're trying to get to enlightenment.

We want to remember. I think it's important for us as practitioners to remember that at the end, at the furthest end of our philosophical analysis, we want to find what's truly ultimate. And according to this school, what's truly ultimate is the lack of any inherent existence of anything.

It's cool. It's hard.

[Speaker 2]
Let's see.

[Speaker 1]
Anybody else have any more interesting questions? Oh, here we go. Can you explain how in the higher school of the Middle Way, the parts of the pen, such as color and shape, open before the image of the pen?

That's interesting. According to my understanding, it's like it all happens super, super fast. But if I look, I don't have a pen.

I do have a pen. If I look at this pen, so first a seed opens in my mind for blue, round, long, and then let's just say it's blue. Then a seed opens in my mind for this thing that pens always have, the little clip and the button.

And then a seed opens in my mind for pen. So it's like first a seed opens for the parts, and then the seed opens to call it a pen. So it's like a very fast process where you are labeling the parts, and then you're labeling the whole upon the parts.

The point of that discussion that we were having earlier about this too, the point is just that the parts are also coming from seeds. So it's like, no matter how far you break this thing down, you're never going to find a thing that exists from its own side. There's no parts that exist from their own side.

They're always dependent upon your label, a label coming out of the seeds in your mind. So you could just imagine that the parts are ripening milliseconds, milliseconds before the label pen. So you can think of it as the mental process.

Your brain is blue, long, pointy, ink. Oh, it's a pen, pen. So it's like all the little labels are just happening really fast as your mind identifies something.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Fun question. Thank you so much. Another question.

Do physical things such as stones have seeds? If not, how can these physical things be nirvana? How can I help them?

That's awesome. No. In this school, we say that inanimate objects, non-living things don't have their own seeds.

We would say that they don't have... In order to have seeds, there has to be a mind, a mind stream. And according to this tradition, a pen or a rock or something doesn't have a mind.

I'm not saying it's true. I don't know. I'm just saying, according to this tradition, things that are not alive do not have a mind.

And then we don't have to help them because they don't have a mind. They can't experience pleasure or pain. So nirvana is the experience of pleasure and no more pain.

Okay. Nirvana is the absence of any more pain. So by definition, there needs to be someone there to experience it.

There needs to be a subject state of mind to experience nirvana, to experience the absence of pain. Or the same with sansara, the same with pain. There has to be a subject state of mind to experience pain.

So according to what I understand about this system, a pen or a rock can't experience pain, so we don't have to help them. They don't need help, basically. But if we do figure out a way to help rocks, I want to help them.

But I think they're okay. That's the best of my understanding so far. And, you know, you get into the realm of, if we start talking about, you know, that rocks do have feelings and they are aware, then it's so far from anything that I could imagine how to visualize what they feel.

But just try to feel gratitude and kindness toward everything. And I think that would be the best you can do. You know, the best that we can all do in general is to get ourselves free of pain.

You know, that's the best that we can do to help anybody. So whether you want to help a rock or another person or celery, the best thing that you could possibly do is practice meditation, study these ideas, untie the knots of the channels of your body and reach enlightenment so that you are truly the kind of being that can help people. And I think we get there through our practice and through feeling love and gratitude and kindness toward all other beings.

And if it helps you to feel gratitude toward mountains and things, then absolutely do it. You know, and I do too, actually. I feel gratitude toward inanimate objects all the time, especially waves, like the ocean and things like that.

So somebody said, I applied for a body donation a few years ago to donate my body parts to the needy after my death, my brain death. However, in some tradition, people should not touch the body when they die because the consciousness has not completely left, which will affect the state of good life. But I also think that donating the body is a very good thing.

May I ask for any, the teacher for suggestions? Yeah. Okay.

Suggestions around this topic. Personally, I am signed up to donate my organs and I think it's a very good seed. Uh, I think that we live in a world where we have incredible medical technology to be able to help another sick person or, or injured person with our own body after we die.

Amazing. Uh, I believe that it's probably an incredibly good seed to donate our body parts after our own death. Um, whether or not the consciousness has completely left different traditions, say different things.

Um, but I personally, and what I've heard from my own teachers, I also believe if we are donating our organs to help another being, um, that's a better seed than, you know, that that's such a good seed that it's going to outweigh any problem that that would cause us. I think that just doing that is you're planting such a powerfully good seed in your mind that I don't, I think that it would make, it would, the force of those good seeds, I think would outweigh any potential, uh, confusion during the death process. That's, that's what I believe.

And I've heard Gresham Michael say this as well. So, you know, preparing for death is like a whole nother, like amazing, huge subject that I think, uh, we can study together and maybe we'll get to study together and mix knots. But, but mostly, uh, you know, from my years of experience studying this stuff and my own intuition, uh, the most important things, the most powerful things that are going to affect us at the moment of death are what we have habituated our mind to over the course of our life.

So it's all about habits, making the habit of being kind, making the habit of being generous, making the habit of being compassionate and making your mind always falling back to these more kind and compassionate states. I think that that's going to be, that's the most powerful thing that you can do to prepare for the moment of death. And so making the decision to help someone else with your body, I believe is another, uh, step toward habituating the mind toward compassion.

So I wouldn't worry too much about the mind being stuck in the body parts or something like that. I would be more concerned with starting now and working on all of the different habits and creating a mind that tends to fall back on feelings and thoughts of love, kindness, and compassion. Uh, let's see somebody else, uh, is it possible to understand it like this?

65 seeds are opened in a sequential order. For example, images of the parts are open first, then images of things of a whole or some images are prioritized. Yes.

It's possible to understand it like that. Definitely. Yeah.

For first the parts, then the whole, and which ones are prioritized probably just depends on your, your mind in any given moment. Maybe sometimes first you see pen and then you see blue, you know, it's oops, but there, okay. Maybe sometimes first you see pen and then you see the colors.

I don't, you know, this is a, a very complex subject of perception that we are studying when we study Adam and Ben's texts. But I would say that typically, uh, your answer is right. That's a good way to understand it.

They're, they're happening in a fast sequence and we can't perceive it because it's happening so fast. My sister-in-law is getting on the kidney donor list. Wow.

I overheard her saying she hopes other family will test for compatibility. I wonder about this for a practitioner. Would I be endangering myself to donate a kidney?

I don't know the answer to that question. That's something really scary to answer. Every person is different.

Um, you have to, you really need to talk to a doctor to know if you are endangering yourself to donate a kidney. Um, I think at a certain point, it's a very, a very, very good seed to donate part of your body to help another person. Amazing seed.

Uh, but you know, you have to check in truly with your own spiritual capacity or I don't know how to say this. Like, um, if there's some chance you might regret it or that it might hurt you and then you would be upset about it, which would be understandable. Um, yeah, it might not be the best thing.

I'm not sure if I'd be capable of doing that. I'm really, I'm not sure. Uh, depends.

It depends how healthy you are. Also, thankfully, uh, I think they can often find them because medical technology is really good. So, I mean, the best would be to plant the seeds to see your sister find a compatible kidney that's already available.

That would be the best to try to plant seeds to see that so that, so that we're not even in a situation where you would have to, where somebody has to sacrifice some part of themselves. So, try hard now to use like four steps to plant seeds for, um, for a donation to show up, for a kidney to show up where nobody has to give one away. Because I think people do live better with both kidneys, but I'm not sure about that.

And I also do think that donating one could be a very good seed. Um, but I, I think that it's, that's tricky. And you would probably need to talk to, uh, your doctor to even see if you're healthy enough to do that and whether it would shorten your lifespan.

And then you have to do some deep consideration of whether or not you would regret it. Uh, that's hard. So, thank you for the question.

That's really deep and really, uh, real. But yeah, I would say let's start by all, me too, let's all try to plant the seeds that she finds a kidney that's available. And I'll keep her in my prayers as well.

[Speaker 2]
What else you guys got? Hmm. Let me see.

[Speaker 1]
Can I open Gopher? Jor-Lob. I'm going to look up the four parts of Jor-Lob.

Uh, Gibson, are you still here?

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Did you look this up already? The four parts of Jor-Lob?

[Speaker 3]
No, I can't.

[Speaker 1]
Uh-huh. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Jor-Lob, uh, let's see.

[Speaker 3]
Let's see. Nick, you got another question too.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, thank you. Okay. Good, good, good.

[Speaker 3]
About, um, about do your teacher's problems come from you?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Yeah. Everything comes from my seed.

My teacher's problems also come from me. Yeah. Anyone can become a perfect teacher as long as I change my seed.

That's also amazingly true. So how to understand the genes theory taught by Geshe-la? How do I walk the middle way?

If I see a problem with my teacher, under what circumstances should I change a pair of genes? Under what circumstances should I continue to change my seed so that I can see the teacher in front of me is the perfect teacher? Wow.

Okay. This is a great question to finish on. And then I'll look up the four parts of Jor-Lob before the next class.

I just didn't want to be searching through the database while we were together. It's funny. It reminded me though, how I haven't studied certain things in a long time.

Okay. Uh, so, uh, amazing question. And this goes for a lot of things.

You know, you can extrapolate this question to more than just teacher, but like partner or dangerous situations. So like, um, when it comes to teachers, you know, it depends what level of teacher we're talking about. If you have teachers and you see them doing harmful things or dangerous things, please don't climb up there.

If you see them doing harmful things or dangerous things or anything like that, I think it's absolutely important to bring it to their attention and, and, you know, and, or get yourself, if you're ever in a situation with a person that's harmful or dangerous, I think it's very important good seed to get yourself out of that situation, whatever it is. Okay. I had a martial arts teacher who I first, I thought he was great.

And then I realized he was a dangerous and bad dude. And I got myself out away from him and out of the situation. Um, that was a long time ago.

And, uh, I'm coming back up for a minute, honey. Then, uh, if we're talking about, um, you know, you're still checking somebody out to see if they're going to be, uh, two more minutes. If you're checking somebody out to see if they're going to be your teacher, then, uh, yeah, I think it's cool.

Like you can kind of play with this. You know, if you, if you see something that doesn't feel quite right to you by all means, like see if there are other teachers who feel like a better fit for you. Um, but of course we all, if we understand like seeds, then we understand that whatever those qualities are, they are indeed coming from your seeds.

So it's really important to keep in mind that whatever qualities you see is coming from your seeds. So whoever, you know, they're going to follow you, but it's also possible that those seeds could ripen the, you know, the seeds you have for your teacher could ripen as a different person and not the same person who you originally thought. So, and you don't, so it's important, I think, to stay open to that possibility.

Um, so I think under any circumstance, if you're seeing something that you don't like in a teacher, then you got to continue to work on your seeds, of course. Otherwise the negative seed will follow you. And if you see something that you don't like in somebody and it's not changing, then yeah, by all means, it would be good to look elsewhere also, because it could be that the seed ripened for you, that that person is just not for you and that's okay.

You know, they say that, you know, that's why they say also to take your time before you really commit yourself to somebody, because take your time to make sure that you feel that they're the right fit for you. Okay. So just take your time.

I think the best answer is you'll know when it's the right teacher for you. You'll know, and you just got to keep working on your seeds. If you don't just know, then you just got to keep working on your seeds either way.

But don't commit yourself to somebody unless you know. That's my best advice. Unless you know in your heart, like you really know in your heart.

So that's it for this class. It looks like Professor Word is getting geared up to teach you guys to continue to read and translate the Tibetan language. So thank you so much.

Word, I saw your text. I'm sorry it was Sunday, but let's talk tomorrow and we could talk about what you were suggesting. That's awesome.

So we'll figure something out for sure.

[Speaker 2]
Cool. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Nick.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for your time and your lovely questions.

And I really enjoyed having the chance to do that. Sorry for my tired eyes and voice. I've just been through a lot in the last few weeks, but I'm all safe and sound.

All right, guys. Take it easy. See you soon.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you so much, Nick. Okay, here we are.