Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 56

[Speaker 3]
Wonderful.

[Speaker 1]
Looks like everyone's in place. Good evening. Good morning.

Good afternoon. Good morrow. I don't know if it's yesterday for anybody, probably not.

Last Thursday. Looks like Sugeng is in place with the boss, looking good, squinting tightly at the screen, which means that clearly we're in the final throes of preparation for this evening's events. Thank you, everyone, for coming tonight.

It's thrilling to get to be together again, learning together again. Thank you so much to the live translators whose work is impossible, and yet you do it anyway, and we're extraordinarily grateful. So, without further ado, I would like to wait for two more minutes.

Let's have some further ado, shall we? About my last what? Your last vacation.

Lucky enough.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, my last vacation. What's a vacation?

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Nothing exciting. I'm just, I'm really glad that we get to do this, and this format's been exciting, not just to wait around to see you for weeks and weeks, but to get to see everybody each week.

[Speaker 1]
It's cool, right? We're slowly starting to build a little bit of a rhythm where we get to be more present in one another's lives, and it's exciting.

[Speaker 2]
I'm really glad that we get to do this. Nick, how are you? Do you have a voice?

[Speaker 1]
It's coming back little by little. Thanks for checking.

[Speaker 2]
You're just, you're right in the time to sing the blues mode.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
I think you should lay down a few jams.

[Speaker 3]
It's perfect. Gorgeous.

[Speaker 1]
We got Sue Gang ready to do his homework. Yeah. Thank you.

You guys are looking sharp. Thank you. I didn't think it would go that far.

Okay. Homework time. Let's review what we learned from the previous time.

What if we didn't learn anything? Man, that is interesting. Misunderstanding is also the condition for fresh karmas which are merit.

What is the common name for it?

[Speaker 3]
What is the common name for fresh karma's misunderstanding of merit?

[Speaker 1]
Sorry. Oscar, what did you say just now?

[Speaker 2]
Dirty good karma?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yes. That's right. Dirty good karma.

Okay. What does it really mean? What does it really mean?

Karma that's going to end. Karma that's not that good. Because it's on the sunset.

Collecting karma with misunderstanding of emptiness. The collection of merit. Well, I mean, collection of merit is different.

Temporary. But I want more than that. What does it really mean?

[Speaker 2]
It means that you can be kind towards someone, but if you don't understand where they are coming from, then it will hurt you in the future.

[Speaker 1]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Oscar. And he plays base. It's a sign of a high intelligence.

So let me do it this way. Yes. It happens to people who are doing good things without understanding how things are coming from them.

It's dirty because it will wear out. It just creates temporary happiness and then much more intense suffering after that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like a funeral. Unless we match it up with the gym.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I'm trying to talk him into using his garage. Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

Oh, you want to use my garage as well. Why do we say that being kind for the wrong reasons is another kind of unkindness? Wow.

That's poetical. I quoted from you, Geshe-la. So anybody remember what we discussed then?

Lindsay wants to say. Lindsay wants to say something. It just doesn't help anyone in the end.

It doesn't help anyone in the end. And what else? All suffering helps ultimately.

Intention. Yeah. It will bring pain.

Yeah. It will bring pain. Along that line.

Okay. Oops. What is that?

Cricket? Oh, yes. You further your ignorance.

So in simpler English, in simpler English, because misunderstanding kindness only means that you are deceiving yourself and causing the blindness veil to become thicker and thicker. I hope this is simple enough. Yeah.

All right. I'm going to move to the attempted translation. Oh, painful.

And yeah. So should I read first? Okay.

Can you make it bigger? Oh, yeah, I will. Somebody's going to complain to Grandpa.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. This is tough. Let's see.

Referring to more Buddhist teaching on the Vision of Consciousness 300. This is a little tricky. When Lord Buddha made different divisions of consciousness, different categories of consciousness, he did it according to...

By the way, you know this book by... What's his name? Kamalashila.

Which is called... The Steps of Meditation. And he wrote three versions.

And we have three versions. We have three different versions of the same book. $100 question.

You shut up. No, no. Audiences.

What audiences? All of them. Scholars.

You should pay me $100. No. He taught internationally.

He taught in India, Nepal, and West China. And he had a different version for each country. You see what I mean?

And we still have them. It's interesting. They're very interesting.

We put one in Utpala's book. But anyway, here, it's the same thing. $100 question.

$100. Location? Yeah, by location.

He gave different presentations on how many divisions of consciousness there are, depending on the audience, in different locations. Sometimes he said, how many? Six.

Sometimes he said eight. Like that. Who did he tell eight to?

The minority. The minority. And then who he told six to was the other guys.

That's very similar to Shantideva for $100. The ten perfections of the six perfections? Oh, you're painting me.

You have to paint me, right? Especially the director. I mean, it was a long time ago that we covered it in Seiji's book.

Some people said there were, how many chapters? Nine chapters or ten chapters. But what was the division by?

Yeah, north and south. It was divided by location. That's what he's saying here.

Location. We are dividing those consciousnesses by the students in a particular location. But, and now Sugeng can translate this part, ngo nyi ni ma yin It doesn't have any essence?

Here it doesn't mean emptiness, it just means it's not the nature of consciousness that it's either six or eight. It just depends on who you're teaching. You just say six or eight depending on who you're teaching.

It's not the nature of the consciousness itself. I see. Okay, it's a very interesting argument.

Cool. Wow. Okay.

All right. It's a whole thing about chang-er. It depends on the student.

It's not a division in itself. It's a division according to the student. Wow.

Okay. Wow. Okay.

di ta te kha chik tu ni kha chik tu ni nampar yewa yang mi tun no And that's proven by the fact that for kha chik, he mi tun number yewa. He doesn't understand? Tun.

Doesn't teach? He doesn't teach. Okay.

There's some students he didn't teach any divisions to kha chik. So you got six, you got eight, and you got zero. Oh.

Okay. The fact that it's not innate to consciousness is proven by the fact that some people, he never even mentioned more than one. Got it?

It's according to place. Okay. You want to keep going?

Yeah. Are you? Yeah.

Okay. All right. tok yi dre ni mik pala njuk pe yewa yewa yang tenpe yin te mik ki nampar shepa la sokpa re re yang nampar mangwar tenpe chiro This is tough.

Okay. We always say in words text, we say eight consciousness or we say nam she sok du. Okay.

Either we say the eight consciousnesses, or, why are we talking about consciousness anyway? Oh, we are talking about link number three. We're in the third link.

What's the longest link in his book? Consciousness. It should have been misunderstanding, but it's not.

Why? He's mind only. It's his coming out of the closet.

He says, boy, we got stuff to say about consciousness that you guys can't believe. If you think I'm an Abhidharma guy, you guys are mistaken. Okay, got it?

Okay. So he says, we keep saying in the mind-only school, nam she sok du, nam she sok du, in Abhidharma kosha school, now we got to say kosha. Why?

Abhidharma kosha. Kosha. Now we're in a second Abhidharma text, Abhidharma samuccaya, which we're going to be dealing with after this class.

Much deeper. Mind-only Abhidharma. All right.

So anyway, he says, mingpa la jukpa yiwa yang tenpa yinpe, when you say nam she sok du, it's called the collection of six consciousnesses. And he asks an interesting question. He says, why do you say collection when you talk about the six?

And no one ever says collection when they talk about the eight. Why? Why?

And I always was curious. When we went to words text for eight years now, seven years, they kept saying nam she sok du, nam she sok du. This is a collection of six consciousnesses.

But they never said it with the eight. They never said the collection of eight. Why do they use the word collection?

And now Vasubandhu's answering the question. Why would you say collection? That term, jay, by that term, by the term.

Instrumental, right? By the term sok. What we mean is, we're indicating divisions according to what's the mikpa of that consciousness.

What's mikpa? Object? Yeah, the object.

So we can divide into six consciousnesses according to what they're looking at. Six different kinds of stuff to look at. Therefore, six kinds of consciousness.

And later in this class, he's going to say, well, why didn't you call it consciousness of colors and shapes, and consciousness of smells, and consciousness of sounds? Why do you call it consciousness of the eye if you say the six are divided by what they see and not by who's looking? You see what I mean?

Why do you call it eye consciousness if what distinguishes it from the other consciousness is what it looks at, which is visible form? Why don't you call it the consciousness of visible form? Why do you call it the consciousness of the eye?

The eye is the sense organ that it relies upon to see outside colors and shapes. If you're saying that the word collection of six consciousness is based on what it looks at, then why didn't they name them in the first place by their objects rather than their sense power? Why do they say consciousness of the eye?

Why don't they say consciousness of visible things? Why do they say consciousness of the ear? Why don't they say consciousness of hearable things?

Why do they say consciousness of the tongue rather than consciousness of taste? Okay, got it? Well, how do you name them?

How do you name those six? Okay, and he's trying to justify why they say six. There are six because there's six kinds of objects.

Yeah, but why don't you call them by their objects then? Okay, okay, yang tenpa yinpay. So how do we...

Yeah, yeah, mi gyurpa shepa la sumwa re re yang nampa mawang tenpay chiror. And it seems to me that if you're saying, if it were by the object, wouldn't you have to say consciousness of blue, consciousness of red, consciousness of white? Mangwar means it would get too many.

It would get too complicated. Why don't we say consciousness of eye rather than consciousness of colors? Because there's so many colors.

Then you'd have to say consciousness of blue, consciousness of white, consciousness of red. But they all depend on one eyeball. It's more convenient.

Okay, got it? Okay. Okay, nge nge nampa mawang chiror.

Good. I skipped a line. Okay, okay.

Final one. de ta ma yin na nampar shewa duk che te tsam shik sumwar gyuror. Yeah, de ta ma yin na nampar shewa duk che te tsam shik sumwar gyuror.

Then if you said the six kinds, if you're just naming the consciousnesses from the six objects of the consciousnesses, okay, sorry, from the six sense powers. Okay, got it? If you're just naming the consciousnesses from the six sense powers, why did you add the word collection?

So, nong she tsok dru. Okay, he says, if it was the case that you name each consciousness from the sense organ that it relies upon, then why do you say collection? It's a question from the other guy.

What's the point of collection? And I repeat that in the Mind Only School, when they talk about eight consciousnesses, they never use the word collection. So, this is Vasubandhu, he's like, why do we use the word collection?

Okay, why are you guys using the word collection? Okay, cool. Why didn't you just say the six?

Why did you say the collection of the six? Okay, sum, sum, last two. Sum, duk che te tsam means, why didn't you stick to just six?

Why did you say collection of six? Oh, okay. All right.

Oh, one more line. One more line. Sorry.

Go back one line, I think. Yeah, he's on. Oh no, I'm sorry, you're right.

Yeah. Miki Nampa Shepe Tsokme. Miki Nampa Shepe Tsokme Iki Nampa Shepe Tsokshe Nampa Shepa Chi Chirma Tsongshena Yeah, and this is interesting.

He says, why do you call it collection in the first place? And the answer, the guy who's answering says, every perception is a collection of stuff. Every perception is a collection of stuff.

The perception of a cup involves the perception of roundness, of whiteness, of handle-ness. Every perception is a collection. Therefore, we would like to call each, we refer to them as collections, not because it's a collection of six consciousnesses, but because each consciousness involves a collection of parts.

Wow. For example, all the stuff that it's looking at, wide, round, long, short, okay? Then he says, well, in that case, you shouldn't have said Nampa Shepe Tsokme, which means that collection of six consciousnesses.

You should have called it the collection of eye consciousness, the collection of ear consciousness, the collection of nose. You should have repeated collection six times. If collection refers to the parts of one consciousness and doesn't refer to the six together, then you should have repeated the word collection six times.

Okay, got it? Wow, that's just cool. If you say the collection refers to the parts of a single consciousness, then why didn't you call them the six collections of consciousness?

Okay, eye collection, nose collection, ear collection, okay? Got it? Yes.

Chi chen ma sum. Chi chen ma sum is why didn't you say the collection with each different sense consciousness? Why didn't you call each one a collection?

Okay? Okay. All right.

Okay, that's all, grandpa. And it's curious. I mean, you might have noticed it in words text.

You might've been curious why they keep saying collection with the six. You see what I mean? I think we're down some more, one more.

It's here, right? Yes, that's the one. Okay, so again, you want to pick on somebody?

You can see all the people in this room. You can see all the people on mine. Tatiana, no, just kidding.

No, not in English. Don't, but don't. Okay.

Let's take a seat. No, you can sit here. No, you can sit here, Geshe-la.

Yeah. She's visible. Okay.

Yeah, thank you. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Don't run first.

[Speaker 1]
What's sok mean? Collection. Yeah, and by the way, in the higher teachings, in the diamond way, sok has a special meaning.

It means the collection of the offerings. And it came to mean seichu. It came to mean the ceremony that we do twice a month.

And it's just called the collection. Okay. Very famous, sok.

Sok kyi chey dun, chey sempey ichir. I already told you why I'm using the word sok, collection. And there were two opinions.

One was that there's a collection of six different consciousnesses. And one is that each individual consciousness collects many parts. For example, object and sense power and consciousness.

Okay. I already went through that. number shepa lai shen, sok she jawa me pa tenpay ichir.

I'm not trying to use the word collection for anything other than the consciousness. I'm not trying to. I call it the six collections of consciousness.

He seems to be implying that he's not going for the parts. This is Master Vasubandhu, right? I think so.

Same, same, yes. mik gi nampar shepa yang kang she na. mik gi nampar shepa yang kang she na.

Yeah, which is, okay, so why do you want to call one of them, if you don't want to call each one a sok? If you don't want to call each consciousness a collection of parts, like object, sense power, consciousness, if you don't want to say that, and you want to name the six consciousnesses by the sense power that they depend upon, that they use to see the outside world. For example, if you're naming your consciousnesses by the sense organ, then what's that all about?

How do you justify that? Why do you want to call it eye consciousness? And he still bothers him that you don't want to call it seeable thing consciousness.

That would make more sense. Consciousness of visible things would make more sense than calling it consciousness of your eye. You're not conscious of your eye.

You're conscious of the outside visible forms. You should have called the consciousness by the forms. Okay, it's not a bad argument.

And we say, dun da da! mi la teng ching sok sok nampar rikpa ni mik gyi nampar shepa. Yeah.

But no, we prefer to call it visual consciousness, okay? Consciousness of the eye, E-Y-E, okay? We prefer to call it that because it depends on me.

It relies on the eye to see the outside objects, okay? We don't want to call it the consciousness of visible objects because to see the visible objects, it has to use the eye. Therefore, we would like to name it the consciousness of the eye, okay?

That's our answer, okay? One more would be nice for her. de shing du yi kyi nampar shepa bar bar du par du chi rikpa chokpar chau Nice.

Where did you learn to read? Where? That guy's killing me.

Okay, de shing du yi kyi nampar shepa bar du. And it's the same. bar du means up to the sixth consciousness, okay?

We're not going to repeat consciousness of what you hear, consciousness of what you smell, consciousness of what you taste, consciousness of what you feel. Come on, okay? chi rikpa chok means same logic.

We use the same logic. We call the consciousness by the sense power in each case, even if that sense power is your mind, rather than what it focuses on, okay? Cool?

Cool. Because it can't focus on those things without that sense power. Okay.

By the way, I mean, I was getting irritated by here. And here's my old book with my teacher. And this drawing was traced by Buchi, the Grateful Dead guy.

And that's when he was seven or something. That's how long I've known him. Here's consciousness right here.

See, it's a monkey here entering the house. What happened to this idea of the third link being the awareness entering your mother's womb? He hasn't mentioned.

I object to all these guys. I object to all these guys. You're supposed to be explaining the Wheel of Life.

You're supposed to be explaining consciousness in the context of entering your mother's womb. You haven't even mentioned it yet. Okay.

That's my thing. Oops. Uh-oh.

Okay, who's going to read this again? Let's start with Oscar. Woo-hoo, Oscar.

Nice reading, by the way. I hate to say it, but you did a good job. So I'm not paying you.

Sorry. You're not paying me? ,GAL TE GZUGS LA GZUGS LA SOGS PA SO SOGS NAM PAR, ,RIG PA NAM PAR ZHES PA YIN NA, ,CI PHYIR MI GYI NAM PAR ZHES PA ZHES DANG GI, ,GZUGS KYI NAM PAR ZHES PA MA YIN, ,DE BZHIN DU GZUGS KYI NAM PAR ZHES PA'I DBAR LTUNG MA YIN GZHAN, It happens to be Pardu.

When it has a possessive in front of it, it has to be a noun probably. Which means it couldn't be the second part of an adverb or something. Okay, so here's the guy's question.

,GAL TE GZUGS LA SOGS PA SOGS NAM PAR RIG PA, If something is consciousness, NAM PAR ZHES PA YIN, insofar as it distinguishes between things like visible forms, hearable forms, smellable forms, then why don't you call it visual consciousness? Why don't you call it consciousness of colors and shapes, for example? If you distinguish between the consciousnesses by what they see or what they perceive, why do you name them from the sense power?

He's going back to this question. Now he says it right out. Okay, and I'm talking, in my opinion, ,GYIS means rather, disjuncted, at the end of a line.

Whenever there's a comment after ,GYIS, it's disjuncted. ,GYIS, why didn't you name them consciousness of visible form up to consciousness of things in general? Meaning the sixth consciousness.

So he says, I would have named them from the objects that they are perceiving. I would not have named them from the sense power that they're relying upon. Why did you choose to use the objects?

He's repeating the question. More formally, he's repeating the question. Uh, who's...

Oscar, can you continue? Uh-oh, you got the cursor? Yeah, we're using the sense power to name the consciousness because they are the gyu, soul of the consciousness.

They're the principal trigger of the consciousness. They're the principal cause of the consciousness. You poke out a person's eyes, there's no conversation about what they're seeing.

Okay, that proves the main cause is the eye. Okay, got it? So, gyu, we're talking about the main cause, soul, soul gyu.

We want to name the consciousnesses from the sense power involved because the sense power involved is the main cause of the consciousness in both a tumung sense and a tumung mayimbe sense. In both a common sense and a uncommon sense. And he's going to talk about that later.

In both a common connotation and an uncommon connotation, it's the eyes which are the main cause of visual consciousness. Okay, got it? Okay.

And it's a lot easier because it's only chig for every human being, every living being. Only one? Mainly.

Mainly. You know, it's not like you have 12 eyes or something. Okay.

You have one set of eyes, you have one set of ears, you have one set of nostrils. Okay, so it's more... What's not singular?

With the visual consciousness, what's not singular? The objects, the things to see, blue, red, brown, green, the gang's face, sage's face. There's so many things, you know.

He says, look, it's easier to name them from a single thing, which is the eyes in the head. You know, you don't want to name it blue, white, red, you know, a separate consciousness. It's too much stuff.

But the visual, the eyeballs are just one. I'm surprised they didn't have a debate here about the eyeballs being two. Thank goodness.

Now, he said, in both a common sense and a unique sense, the eyes are the unique cause, main cause, gyudzo, for the consciousness. And he says, you may be wondering what I meant by common and unique, or common and uncommon. He mentioned the word common and uncommon.

He's like, you guys aren't curious what I meant? He says, here it is. Okay.

Who's going to read it? Can I invite Harold Lowenhaupt? Wait, let me get a better, a better...

Yeah. Okay. So, again, you got your screen.

Okay. Timothy. Hello.

Did you see him dressed up for his parents? Yeah, so handsome.

[Speaker 2]
Look, my hair's not even sticking up right now.

[Speaker 1]
He came in the cafe. I said, I don't recognize the guy. Then I figured out.

THU MONG GI RGYUD ZHES BYA BA NI, MI GNYIS BSGOM PA LA SOGS PA GZUGS KYI RNAM PAR ZHES PAR THAMS CAD KYI RGYUR YIN PA'I PHYIR RO Yeah. THU MONG GI RGYUD, the common cause, shared cause, okay. ZHES BYA BA NI, MI GNYIS BSGOM PA LA SOGS PA GZUGS KYI RNAM PAR ZHES PAR THAMS CAD KYI RGYU YIN PA'I PHYIR The I is the THU MONG GI RGYU, the common cause of perceptions of NGON PO, etc.

The shared cause, the common cause of perceptions of NGON PO, etc. Of the blue, etc. Yeah, blue, etc.

Okay. So when I say shared cause, I'm talking about perceptions of blue, perceptions of red, perceptions of white. They have a shared cause, which is the I-sense power, okay.

They all share a certain cause. That's what I mean when I say shared cause. Now we want to know what he means when he says uncommon, unique, unshared cause.

That's the next sentence. Who's going to do that one? Mr. Lowenhaupt, please. All right. Yeah, and this is interesting. The I-sense power is the shared reason why you can see, for example, many kinds of colors.

So it's shared by all those perceptions of color, different perceptions of color, but it's unique in the sense that it triggers the single visual awareness of the person who has it. That's unique. It's one thing.

Going inside, from outside to inside, the I-sense power triggers a single consciousness. Going outside, the I-sense power allows the perception of multiple colors. So going outside, it's shared cause of all the perceptions of all the different colors.

Going inside, it's the unique cause of a single thing, which is visual consciousness of that person. Okay, got it? Going out, it's the cause for multiple things.

Going in, it's the unique cause of a single event, which is visual consciousness. Okay, cool. Not bad.

Very subtle. Who's next? I would like to invite Venerable Chunzong.

Okay. Thank you. Stay shindu yi ki, wardu chirikpa jukpa jau.

Can you, yeah, you can apply, by the way, you're in a discussion of consciousness. You're going to get this language over and over again, which is what? Up to, up to?

Yeah, I mean, et cetera, up to the other senses. He's not going to discuss ear, nose, tongue, skin. He says, et cetera, up to the mind, up to your awareness of your thoughts.

Okay, it's a common cause. The thought is the common cause of a perception of multiple thoughts of a single person, but it's the uncommon cause of a single awareness of what you're thinking. Okay, going out to your thoughts, it's the cause of multiple events.

Going into the awareness, it's the cause of a single event, which is your awareness of your mind. Cool? Okay.

So, I'm not talking just about your eyes. I'm talking about your thoughts also. Okay.

Outward, there's a sensitivity to multiple thoughts. Inward, there's a trigger of a single awareness of your thoughts, which we call your mind. Okay?

Your awareness of what you're thinking. Okay, okay. Yeah.

Renderbo, please continue. Yeah. Consciousness occurs relative to two, meaning outgoing and ingoing.

Okay, I see. It's a common cause and it's an uncommon cause. Common cause of multiple awareness is outside, and the uncommon cause of a single awareness is inside.

Okay? Okay. And Sutra says, now, I didn't go look up all these quotations.

Okay. We may not find many of them, and we may find some of them. Why?

Because this is my old text. Very old text. You're talking the beginning of the commentarial period.

The only people older than Vasubandhu and Asanga are Nagarjuna. Okay? Nagarjuna and Ayyadeva.

So, you know, you only have two major writers before them. So, they're quoting sutras that may have been lost in the thousand years after that. And I didn't bother to go try to find them all, but I'm sure the translator will.

Okay, got it. And then in a mixed nuts standard, you have to say we found it or we didn't find it. Okay.

But I'm warning you, there's a lot that you won't find. Okay. Because a lot of sutras went missing after Vasubandhu and before somebody like Dharmarakshitam, who's at the end of the scale.

Okay. Just before Buddhism was wiped out in India. There's no Buddhism in India.

It's amazing. It's incredible. The whole empire was Buddhist.

And they were wiped out so well that there's no Buddhism in India. There's a few. There was a movement for untouchables to become Buddhist because they said, what the heck, what do we got to lose?

You know? Because to be a non-Hindu in India is very, it's to be a, racially, to be very prejudiced against. But they said, well, we're already the lowest caste, let's be Buddhist.

And Buddhists were considered the lowest of all castes. Wow. There are no castes.

Okay. So anyway, what are the two? Can I invite Gibson?

Gibson, I'm ready to do your text tomorrow morning. You got to get up early. Not me.

Or you could fly to Hawaii tonight. You want to read, Gibson? Maybe he's asleep.

No, he's here. Oh, no, you are. We can't hear you, Gibson.

We can see your mouth moving, but we can't hear you. That's an old trick for Buddhism. If you don't want to read, then go like this.

[Speaker 2]
Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yes, we can hear you now.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you guys can figure this out. When we say that there's a correlation between the sense power and its objects, we can say there's a correlation between mik and suk, the object and the form, eyes and forms. Why is suk a difficult word?

Why is rupa a difficult word? Sometimes it refers to the first of the five heaps, in which case it refers to all physical things, including sounds, smells, tastes, and touches. But when it's referring to the object of the eye power, it only means visible form.

So as a translator, you have to be careful. Here you have to say visible form. So I'm going to talk about pairings.

You've got eye and visible form, on up to the mind and thoughts, what we call dharma bhakti, which is all the stuff in the universe. All the stuff in the universe is the object of the sixth consciousness. Wait, I thought you said visible forms were unique to the eye consciousness.

They are, but in the second millisecond, the awareness of the thought is awareness of what the eye saw. Okay, got it? So everything is the object of the sixth consciousness.

He's just mentioning pairs, and he says eye, visible stuff, up to mind and thoughts. I like to translate yi in Abhidharma context as thought, and all things to be known, all things that can be known, including what you see. All right, give some, please, give some.

Give some, go to bed early tonight.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I will, I will.

[Speaker 1]
Now comes an argument, okay? So far we've been saying the eye consciousness is named by the sense power it relies upon, but it's paired up with visible stuff. All the way up to the sixth consciousness, which is paired up with its objects, which is all the things in the universe, okay?

Then he says, wait, slow down here. I thought you said that we were talking about the length of the wheel of life that was triggered by name and form. Okay, I thought we were talking about the trigger of name and form.

What is name and form in the wheel? Which link? Number four.

Yeah, link is, that's number four. And consciousness is... Number three.

Consciousness is supposed to be your consciousness entering your mother's womb. Name and form are supposed to be the boat with the two guys in it, which is your self in your mother's womb, your body and mind in your mother's womb. Okay, it was supposed to be like that, okay?

Then he says, this other guy says, shenway ming du su gi kying gi, but don't we also see... Isn't it also the case that name and form, which always refers to body and mind, okay? Name and form in the wheel of life doesn't mean name and form.

It means mind and body. Name and form in the wheel of life, the two guys in the boat, refers to your body and mind going into your mother's womb or passing through the mother's womb, okay? So in that case, name is mind.

Okay, so he says, didn't I see someplace that name and form could trigger awareness? Is that possible? Is it possible that your body and mind in your mother's womb could trigger an awareness?

Yeah, if your mother's aware of it. If your mother's aware of being pregnant, your body and your mind are triggering her awareness. Or we can say that your body and mind as you pass through your mother's womb trigger your consciousness as soon as you come out of the womb.

Your first thoughts are triggered by the body and mind with which you traveled through the nine months of pregnancy. Cool. It's interesting.

He says, well, if you think about it, body and mind trigger consciousness. Why? Because you going through your womb triggers the first thoughts you have when you come out of your womb, okay?

Got it? Even inside the womb it will also trigger the body and mind. And I'll tell you something else.

If the doctor holds a stethoscope up to your mom's tummy in past the third month or something, they'll hear a heartbeat. That body and mind in the womb are triggering your consciousness in the doctor's ears. It's interesting.

Somebody says, seems to me your body and mind could trigger consciousness, right? The body and mind in the womb can trigger other people's consciousness, your own consciousness, your mom's consciousness. Why is he making a big deal about that?

Because in the wheel, the consciousness comes before the body and mind. In the wheel, the consciousness triggers body and mind. And this guy's being like Gibson.

He's like, yeah, but I think body and mind number four could trigger number three. Okay? And he's right.

They're just like Gibson. It's irritating. Okay.

Yeah. And then somebody says, look, all the heaps that involve awareness depend on body and mind as a unit. Okay?

All awareness depends on having a body and a mind. What about the formless realm? Yeah, this is technically the formless realm has form.

Oh, and it's subtle product. Okay. The beings in the formless realm do have form, but it's subtle.

Okay, so they're not actually formless. Okay. So their body and mind can still trigger awareness.

Okay. He's getting nasty. I think Tara, here we go.

Who's up next? I like Gibson and I like him to read too. Gibson, we can't hear you again.

Okay. Yeah, now someone's coming along and saying, oh look, there's another quotation from ancient scriptures about how consciousness arises, and I want to know what's your take on it. Who's you?

Vasubandhu. He's asking Vasubandhu. We got this other quotation from Lord Buddha about how consciousness is triggered, and I want to know how it fits in with what you've said so far.

Okay. What is the other one? GZHAN LAS means from other sources.

BHAG PA'I SHAR I BU. Arya Shariputra. Yeah, Arya Shariputra says, okay, or something, SREG RNAMS BSTAN PO.

Oh, Junior Monk. He's addressing Junior Monk. GANG GI PHYIR.

For the reason that MIG RNAMS KYI SKYE MCHED YONGS SU MA NYAM, if the inner sense power has not been damaged, this NYAM means damaged. Okay. What's that mean?

You never got your eye poked out. Okay. You still have a functioning eyeball, eye power.

Okay. Let's say that the inner sense power has not been damaged. Okay.

MA NYAM. And let's say that an outer form, SUG CI, outer form, like blue, appears to that eyeball. Let's say your eyeball's functioning normally, and let's say a blue spot appears to that eyeball.

Okay. DE SKYES PA YID LA BYAS PA NYAL BA'I GNAS NA. Then scripture says, if there is, in addition, an associated act of attention.

Okay. If there is an associated act of attention, then you will have an awareness of the outer form. An awareness will be triggered.

A sense consciousness will be triggered. So here's a quotation from some ancient sutra that you're going to look for. Okay.

And I warn you, it might not be there anymore. Okay. He says, if you have an undamaged eyeball and a blue spot appears to it, you will have a sense consciousness.

But if there's attention. If there is sufficient attention. And our student here says, what's this attention thing all about?

What do you guys think? What's the NANG LA MA NGES PA? Very famous.

NANG LA MA NGES PA. Say NANG LA MA NGES PA. The sound presented itself, but the awareness wasn't triggered.

And it's very common when a high school girl is thinking about a high school boy, and their mother says, dinner's ready. And they actually do not hear the mother's words. The mother thinks they're being disrespectful, but they're not.

They literally cannot hear the mother because full attention is on this boyfriend's face in their memory or something. Okay. So, did the object appear?

Did the object of the mother's words appear to this sense organ? Did it appear or not? Yes.

It did appear to the sense organ. Was the sense organ intact? Yes.

Undamaged. Yes. Was there a perception of the mother's words?

No, because there was no attention. Okay. And then so now we got a new player in the game, which is attention.

YI LA BYAS PA. YI LA BYAS PA means, was there attention? Okay.

And someone's coming up to Vasubandhu and saying, well, what's the role of attention? Because I hear sometimes that all the causes are there for a sense perception, but it doesn't occur because there's insufficient attention. What's that all about?

Somebody's asking Vasubandhu. Okay. We got the object.

We got the consciousness. How come there's no active awareness? And then this guy was talking to Shariputra.

They mentioned attention. What's attention got to do with it? Okay.

He's asking. Keep going. Okay.

Let me see. Oh, I see Alison Chow. Hi, Geshe-la.

It looks fresh. It's beautiful. Yeah, this is still the guy.

He's still talking. That guy who asked the question is still talking. He says, the girl also can't think about her homework.

Okay. Not only is there not an act of hearing, but there's an act of thinking about her homework because she's still thinking about her homework. She's still thinking about this point.

Okay, got it? There's no attention. Not only with the sense perception, but with the inner thought.

There's a lack of thought about homework, especially mathematics homework. Okay. All right.

Let's talk about that. Who's up next? Xiaoping, please.

Okay. ,RTOG DE'I MDIS LAS NI MDU BYED KYIS, ,KHYEN GYIS RNAMS PA ZHES PA ZHES, ,GSUNGS NA NGANG PHYIS, ,NGAGS PA GCIG LTA, ,MDGE BA GCIG LTA MI'I MDGYU ZHES NA, Yeah, and then he says, look, that other sutra is talking about attention, right? And then now this sutra, what's this sutra?

Dependence. Yeah, the Dependent Origination about the First Principle and Details, right? Sugeng's Sutra.

,RTOG DE'I MDIS LAS, ,MDU BYED KYIS KHYEN GYIS, Your sutra says the trigger of... ,MDU BYED, What number of the twelve? Number two.

Fresh karma. Fresh karma. Your sutra says the second link is the trigger for number ZHES PA.

The consciousness. The third link, number ZHES PA. Aren't those two contradictory?

Isn't it rather the case that attention triggers consciousness? Because when the girl's not paying attention to her mother, there's no consciousness. Why do you say the trigger is her past karma?

Because Lord Buddha said to Shariputra, the trigger is paying attention. Now you say the trigger is your past karma. You say it's link number two.

Who's right? Who's correct? By the way, we don't have the Sanskrit of this manuscript.

People have looked for it for many years. Two people have found pieces. One was an Italian scholar who in the 1930s, I think, went to Tibet on a donkey and collected Sanskrit books.

His name was Tucci, Giuseppe Tucci. My teacher's roommate was his teacher. He found some manuscript pages.

Then Aisha Skoufoulas, Mrs. Nguyen, Green Stretch Pen Bosses, she's our Sanskrit searcher. She searches the whole world for Sanskrit. I have some exciting news, which I'd like to share with you guys.

This just came in today. She just got it today. This input was done by our Input Center in Nepal, which a lot of our staff visited recently.

Guess what they came up with. Here it is. Tucci edition on the left, found in Lhasa in the 1920s on a donkey.

Then on the right, recently Aisha and her team found a manuscript on palm leaf of Sugeng's book. They had found them both, and they input them. Then Aisha went through and blocked out the differences, which is a lot of work.

It's a huge amount of work. What we have is... You see, those were the days before block print.

Those were the days when you had someone copy the text by hand. Listen, as I said before, the people who copied by hand could not read. They just were human Xerox machines.

They were not taught to read. They didn't know what... They could be copying a grocery list.

They could be copying the sutra. They have no idea what it says. They made an incredible amount of mistakes.

These old Sanskrit texts, which is why I don't use them personally, but we like to have them to refer to. Look at all the work she did. She's got all these palm leaf manuscripts.

They input them at our entry centers in Varanasi and Kathmandu, and she went through and checked every single single one. We'll be using that, and we have to give her a hand. That's what a cool ALL we have.

I mean, the Mixed Nuts is cooler, Nick, but ALL is okay too. One more minute. How about you read this one for good luck?

Okay. By the way, I just remind everybody that Sugeng, in one minute, is going to lead a discussion about why the hell is this relevant to my life. Why does this discussion matter to me personally?

How can I use this information in my real life? Sugeng's going to lead the discussion, but he's going to finish this last sentence. Yeah, how would it be the case, says the opponent.

This opponent was a previous life of a word, and he keeps bringing weird objections. So how would it not be contradictory? Nga chi means what he said before and what he said later.

Who's he? Lord Buddha? How would this not be contradictory?

First he said that karma triggers consciousness, and then basically he said that consciousness triggers karma. So isn't there a contradiction there? Don't we have a contradiction?

Doesn't link number two trigger three, and three triggers two? How can you make karma if you're not aware? So shouldn't awareness come before karma?

It's a good question. It's a hot question. And you're not going to find out today.

Sugeng's going to translate the answer the next time. What's the date today? Okay, Grandpa's taking an invert break, and I got my Ukrainian ginger drink, and Sugeng's going to lead this conversation.

Then we'll have a Mixed Nuts update. Sorry, Peachtree News update. Okay, we covered quite a lot today, and those are pretty exciting.

I think can I just stop sharing? Yeah, maybe that's better. And I think I'm kind of excited with the content, especially on the topic of the object, sense organ, and then attention.

And I just remember this conversation that I had during the SCIM, during the on-stage workshop. Maybe a lot of you don't know about SCIM and on-stage workshop, but I would like to invite all of you to maybe register and come in and try yourself. It's exciting.

And then in my group particularly, I implement a self-reflection. Yes, we have it in the PMC document, the document that we do to prepare for our class. And then at the end of the document, we add this self-reflection.

And even in the verbal presentation, when we are supposed to do evaluation after each speech, so I implement this self-reflection. I ask the speaker to reflect on their own. And I actually personally give quite a fair bit of time to that.

So instead of me giving them a lot of feedback, you should do this, you should do that, this is incorrect, that is better. Instead of me telling them a lot of, spending a lot of time telling them what to do, I give more time for them to tell me their reflection, whether what they have done well, what they intend to improve. The reason I think I got the answer here, I can tell them 101 things that they can improve, but if they have a choice, yeah, they are there, they are hearing, I'm telling them, they are hearing me, but they can choose to block whatever I say.

So if I were to spend 10 minutes and if they choose to block me, it is useless. But if I spend, if I give them five minutes there to tell me what they think went well and what they think they should do, those are five minutes, quality idea that they have, that they will, I hopefully that they will implement the next round. So I told, some people are asking me, why do you ask me to do self-reflection?

I mean, some people write one, two liners in the self-reflection and then my wife Cynthia will like to tell them, can you tell more? Because to me, I will just write, can you spend more time to do your self-reflection? Because this is the real learning, you know, it's better for them to think, to pay attention, to focus on what they want to improve rather than I telling them 1001 things and they choose not to listen and accept at all.

So I think this is the answer to what I did. So I'm kind of excited looking at the text. So that is from me.

From the rest of you, do you have any other comments? Other thoughts about how we can apply this in our life? Anybody, you can raise, oh yeah, Olga Afsan, someone who refused to tell me her real surname.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I see. Yeah. So it's visible there.

Okay. Yeah, please. Hi everyone.

We call Ming Ming Dorje. It means Mr. No Name. Ming Ming Dorje.

It's anonymous in Tibetan. Oh, okay. Please.

So this discussion, the discussion of today brought me to the question of, to the topic of qi and jadrak, and also of one and many. Because when we say that we need to perceive with the eye, what we perceive, we perceive many colors, we perceive many shapes. But with the nose, for example, we perceive only smells.

With the ear, we perceive only sounds. So be it that we would group this thing that we perceive with our eyes differently.

[Speaker 2]
If it were that we would have a separate name for everything that is perceived by our eye, be it colors, or be it shapes, or be it whatever.

[Speaker 1]
Then this whole discussion, why there are many, and we didn't call it by many, and that is one, the sense power is only one, then it would be wasteful. The whole, like kind of the whole discussion, why is it so that we had in the beginning. And so it always is important that we, how we divide things, how we categorize things.

So what is the group that we bring these objects into?

[Speaker 2]
And then it depends how we think about it and how we form our conversations and how we view the world.

[Speaker 1]
So it's really the, like what ice cream, what cover we put on this on certain amount of things that we perceive and how we name it, that then matters a lot. And another thing that I thought of another life tool would be when we talked about the mind perceives all possible objects. It's not like in this sense, it's different from any sense power that we have.

So this means that we need to pay special attention to our mind and to its clarity, to, I mean, to its being pure. The best thing is to purify our mind. Then everything that we perceive will become also pure.

And it's like having, if the earth is covered with the sharp objects and prickles and we try to walk on it, then to avoid hurting ourselves, it's easier and better to just put something on our feet rather than cover the whole earth with something to protect us. Same thing is it's easier to purify our mind to not get hurt by the, but whatever we perceive, then to change the outside world that keeps hurting us all the time. Okay.

Thank you. So if I can summarize, the first idea is to have a correct way to categorize things, to categorize things correctly, to put things in the correct bins. Yes.

I remember Anne Chong in my team is a super organizer. So when we have a lot of boxes, she always make it a point that we put the right thing into the right box. So I think this, I think this is what Olga was saying, right?

We need to be able to categorize things correctly and then put them correctly into the box. And also, sorry. It's not so much about correctly because it's a pen, whether you name something this or you name something this, or you put something in this category or that category, that's a pen.

Some person can put the, I don't know, some person can put, for example, maybe in some language, there exists a word for everything that we perceive with an eye.

[Speaker 2]
So we could.

[Speaker 1]
So you're saying that we need to have the right way to categorize them so that we can understand them correctly. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying that how we understand the world really depends on how we categorize things.

And then there is no such thing as correct or incorrect, because for some people, the correct thing is to put these objects into this category, because their language has the word for it. For example, for other people, it's correct not to do so. It's correct to the sensitivity that we discussed in Advanced Level 3, being sensitive to different life systems.

Exactly. And it brings us back to emptiness. By the way, some of you, if you want to know more about life system, you can register to Advanced Level 3, which is happening in December and January for some people.

It's the best design I've ever created. I have another idea. I'll throw it out there.

At the end, he was talking about, it seems to me that link number two could trigger link number three, but link number three could also trigger link number two. That's what he basically said. And he finds it to be a contradiction.

Is it necessarily a contradiction? Why not? Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
It's like the chicken and the egg.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's the chicken and the egg. And that's the whole point of the wheel. The wheel is self-perpetuating.

The wheel makes itself spin. Of course three causes two and two causes three. And that's why we're stuck here.

It's not weird that two causes three and three causes two. It's why it's a wheel. That's how wheels work.

And maybe there's a lot of other things in our life that are like that. Yeah. Our reactions to things cause more of the things, cause more of the reactions to things, cause more of the...

It's the idea of a self. Every time we respond negatively to someone else, we create another negative person to show up. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you, Geshe-la. We have four more minutes.

Anybody else has anything to say? How would you use this in your life? What we have just discussed.

Oh, yes. Sophia, we have a special guest in the studio today. Sophia Chang from North Carolina.

North Carolina. North Carolina. This is less of a comment and more of a...

Oh, this is less of a comment and more of a question slash request. But at the beginning of the session, there was a section about kindness and about how if it's misunderstood, it can lead to more suffering than good. And I wanted to dive deeper into that and maybe hear from you both.

She's talking about your homework. Yes. I found that really intriguing.

Because recently I had dinner with a friend and she was using this metaphor about like a bright light and a bright light will attract a lot of moths. But if you don't protect or shield that light, it's not good for the moths who can burn or the light that can flicker out. So that section about kindness reminded me of that metaphor.

And I don't think I've fully comprehended its meaning yet, but just would love a deeper dive of, yeah, its essence. So thank you. Thank you.

Good question. Yeah. That's the reason why you need to come to Mixed Nut Sessions every time.

Yeah. We discussed this quite thoroughly in the past, but I think we will come again. That topic will come again.

So stay tuned. All right. Even if you are back to NC, North Carolina, you can still join us in Zoom.

Thank you. Thank you, Sofia. Any other ideas from the Zoom?

Anybody? Otherwise, yeah, online. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Anatole Nguyen said that a circle of fire, it looks like a circle of, I mean, a circle of fire. In the end, it's only apparently a circle.

Anatole, you want to say something about this? We have one more minute, by the way. Just to keep going on, Geshe Michael's indication that the wheel can go either way.

[Speaker 2]
Three can trigger four or four can trigger three. And it seems like Nagarjuna was saying that in the end, it's like a circle of fire.

[Speaker 1]
It's like an illusion where we see the triggering in a certain way because of our seeds. But if we had different seeds, we could see four triggering three and it's all a big mess. Okay.

He wants to call your book Big Mess. The wheel itself is a big mess. I think it's a good wake-up call.

It's a good wake-up call. Yeah. Even to me.

I can see Aisha there with Anatole. We want to thank you one more time. Thank you.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you, Lama.

[Speaker 1]
It works for like six months. She found it in a very obscure library in Nepal.

[Speaker 3]
It wouldn't have been possible without our Nepali friends from Kathmandu Center. So thanks to them, we could access it. If not, I wouldn't have been able to access it, just the catalog.

So thank you, Pushpa and Meeraj and everybody in Nepal.

[Speaker 1]
Venerable Sonam in Diamond Mountain helped us get a book out of the German library this month. A very rare book. It's nice to have friends who can get into libraries.

I'm still waiting for another book from a certain library, from a certain Maria Kondratieva. Russia. We talked about it today.

All right. It's not easy. It's not an easy one.

That's mixed nuts definition. Okay. I think we're switching over.

Yeah, we are switching over to page three, World News. I think that is Juan or Daniel. I don't know.

Nick, do you know who that is? I believe Juan should be standing by.

[Speaker 2]
Hello.

[Speaker 1]
We're going to unpag ourselves so you can.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. It's good to see you. It's good to see that you're all having fun at the college in Sedona.

Today we have three special news. First of all, we're going to start with something that's going to happen. As you all know, December seems to be a very fun month to come because Kyoto is on its way.

We're going to have a very special event about a program over there, Opening Your Mind to Dreams. Not only that, there is also going to be a Sedona College Summit there. Now there is another event happening in Kyoto this year that we want to share with you.

I'm going to share my screen so you can see what I am talking about. Just one sec. Here we have it.

Okay. So YSI just opened a new distributor in Japan. These are great news because they are the first distributors of YSI.

Lisa Lee and her partner Mae are running this new project. From December 12th to December 18th, many of the YSI team members like Connie, Errol, Bob, Alfonso, Benji, they are going to be there and they are going to be sharing this Lady Niguma Foundation Level 1 Special Edition. Also they are going to have a special program called Journey to the Inner Potential.

So if you happen to be in Kyoto, this is a great chance to deepen on your studies of YSI. I think it's going to be a really, really cool program. You can get more information using the QR codes there, either WeChat or Telegram, I think.

Check it out. So yeah, that's also going to happen in Japan. So you could plan a whole holiday trips in Japan if you can make it.

Okay. So for our next section, we have Arina with us. As you may know, she is one of the social media people who has been having great success running Geshe Michael's social media.

So if Arina is there, could you spotlight? Because we're going to have a short talk. We're going to have a short talk with her.

Hello, Arina. How are you?

[Speaker 3]
Good. How are you? Thank you for having me.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. Very welcome. So Arina, can you tell us a little bit?

You have three things that you want to talk about. And I would like to start asking you first about Geshe Michael's social media. Like how are you doing with that?

What are the next steps? And what was your secret to make it so successful?

[Speaker 1]
Well, I'm doing great with that. We're growing. We're reaching a million of people, which is pretty amazing.

What's that?

[Speaker 2]
One million people?

[Speaker 1]
Close to that. Yes.

[Speaker 2]
That's awesome. In what platform?

[Speaker 1]
So it's in all platforms pretty much. It's Instagram mainly, which is getting the main success. And then TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, all that.

And I just basically wanted to invite you guys to subscribe and follow the little videos. And it's just a nice reminder during the day. I usually post a few times a week, so it's a nice little snippet from Geshe Michael's teachings.

And it's just a very sweet little thing to have. Like you're scrolling on Instagram anyway. You might as well be watching Geshe-la.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
That's awesome. So you're reaching about one million people with that. And again, what do you think is your secret to make it so big and so successful?

I think that's important.

[Speaker 1]
I'm not sure. I have a feeling it might have to do with karma.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. That's amazing. Maybe at some point you could give us a longer detail on what have you been doing.

Because I remember I talked to you and you gave us a detailed explanation on how you plant those seeds. So that's a very cool topic, maybe for another time. But now you're also running not only the social media for Geshe Michael, but also for John Brady.

So can you tell us a little bit of that project, of the Patreon project with John Brady?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So Patreon is actually a separate platform. And some of you probably have seen JB on social as well, and all of our social media, Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and YouTube.

[Speaker 3]
But this is something very special that I'm so happy that John was able to find time to help me create.

[Speaker 1]
So this is a closed platform where you can find meditations, short teachings from John Brady. This is specifically from him. And every video, which is actually being uploaded weekly, so every week you get something new, and you also get an access to the whole database.

We've started a few months ago, so we have a bunch of videos. So every week you get a little snippet of wisdom, everything up to 15 minutes long.

[Speaker 3]
So if you're driving or if you're scrolling, again, and you have 10 to 15 minutes to practice, or you have a certain problem which you want to solve and you're looking for a tool, you can just go on there and scroll and look for a topic that you're interested in, and likely you'll find a solution there.

[Speaker 1]
So also we tried making it very accessible for everyone. It's like $8 a month for the lowest tier, and it'll receive support ALL. So it's extremely important.

How we get these teachings, these books, this text, it's all thanks to ALL. So I think it's a very sweet thing to support them.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you very much, Arina. Yeah, just today I was watching one of his short videos, and I really, really like it about how to observe our mind when we try to meditate and the obstacles that we can encounter with it. And I really like everything, the edition, the content.

So great, great job. And lastly, you were saying you're also helping Diamond Cutter Press lately to make some marketing on it. What are you doing with that?

[Speaker 3]
Just a little bit. I just started.

[Speaker 1]
I just spoke to Rosa, and they're actually having an amazing sale, and all these holidays are coming up. So if you guys are looking for a meaningful gift, this is a good bundle that you can give to yourself or to anybody that you like a little bit. Maybe to somebody you don't like, I don't know.

But this is something you could get. It's on sale. I'm not sure how long it's going to stay on sale for, but I would highly recommend to grab it now.

Both are amazing books. I've only read one. I'm starting Catrin, but I'm very excited to get it.

I just bought it recently. So highly recommend.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, great. Maybe those are good, like, you know, in West, we celebrate these holidays, Christmas, and other things. It's a great present for that maybe.

[Speaker 1]
Absolutely.

[Speaker 2]
So cool. Thank you, Arina, very much for being here today. And we will have you soon sometime so you can give us more detailed explanations on how to plan those seats for marketing success.

[Speaker 3]
Will do. Thanks, Juan. Thanks a lot.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you as well. See you. And now going to our section on getting to know the Mixed Notes translators, we have a very, very special guest as well, a person whose fame is growing and growing, but his heart is following as well.

We have a very admirable doctor with us sharing about his personal background. Dr. Ben Kramer, welcome. Thank you.

I'm not a doctor. Don't send any requests for medical advice. I can't help.

No, I know. It's the title of excellence that you all deserve.

[Speaker 1]
That's kind. Thank you, Juan.

[Speaker 2]
So how are you doing these days? First of all, let's see, what is like, how are you feeling? What are the projects and programs you are being involved?

Because I know you are one of the, of course, translators, but also you are one of the managers of the whole Diamond Cutter, like, machinery, I will say. So if you could tell us a little bit of what are the projects that you are involved these days, and if you can add there, which ones do you enjoy the most and which ones did you say, like, I have to do them, but you do them anyways. Oh, no.

Yeah, that's a good way to put me on the spot. Nobody wants to have to do administrative work, but we are working hard to keep this organization flowing smoothly. I work closely with Dr. Nick Leshaw as well, who's also not a doctor, but it's nice to call ourselves that. And if this is a wonderful opportunity, I love being able to spend this time together. We, we study, we translate, we do a lot of work for ALL as well, working in the database, putting new books in the library. And keeping the library organized.

I, I love getting to be close to these teachings. I love getting to spend my life immersed in them. Hopefully we can create a system that allows this process of discovering books, putting books into libraries, translating books, teaching books, spreading them around the world.

Hopefully we can keep this going indefinitely into the future. And that's a lot of what we're working on now behind the scenes, is trying to create a plan for this all to, to continue. And you're all doing your part.

Just being here and participating is wonderful. Creating community, creating excitement, just come and learn and we'll do the rest. And we're coming up with more plans to find more ways for you to help.

And I promise we'll give you more information as it comes. But being here and now, daring together, getting wise together, getting loving together, it's, it's perfect.

[Speaker 1]
It's beautiful. And I'm very honored to get to play a little role in it.

[Speaker 2]
So in order to get to know a little bit more about you as a person, what other things do you do other than Diamond Cutter Classics? What are your, I don't know, hobbies, different businesses? Some of you may know that he has a beautiful family.

And what kind of things do you like to do together?

[Speaker 1]
I do. I have a beautiful family.

[Speaker 2]
It's true. And my wife, Kendra, and I studied together for many years. I don't know if there's time.

Do you want to share the one minute video, Juan? It's just cute for fun. We have a yoga studio here.

I just thought you'd get a kick out of it. One of the things that this program supports is a yoga studio here in Albuquerque. How does it support this yoga studio?

Because yoga studios don't make money. Maybe somebody makes money from their yoga studio. But here it's just like a community center and a way of us trying to share with our community.

And I couldn't do that if it weren't for this program that allows me the time and space. It's just fun.

[Speaker 1]
If you don't mind, Juan, it's kind of cute. I'm Ben Kramer, and this is Nirguna Yoga.

[Speaker 3]
My name is Kendra Rickard, and I am one of the co-owners of Nirguna Yoga. Yoga has long been a method of mastering the mind by practice.

[Speaker 2]
That because mind and body are closely connected with one another, to adjust one is to adjust the other.

[Speaker 3]
I feel like the main benefit that I get from doing a yoga practice is just learning to listen. That listening translates out into the world. Keeping that mindfulness to focus in on something and give it our full attention and our full presence.

[Speaker 1]
This place is a place for affecting the body and mind in a single instant, in a single moment. At the same place and the same time here as we practice together.

[Speaker 3]
And so we come in, we do our yoga practice. Maybe we don't even necessarily know the philosophy behind any of it. It doesn't really matter because the practice of yoga works to help us be able to focus on the things that we want to focus on in our lives with a little bit less distraction.

[Speaker 2]
Very cool video. I just thought you would think it's neat. I should get out of the way and let things move on.

But I thought maybe you would get a kick out of the way that this program indirectly, by supporting me, by allowing the translators to live and support their families, it allows us to be involved in beautiful projects around the world now.

[Speaker 1]
And again, it's an honor to be a part of this program.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Juan, for taking the time and for informing us week after week. It's very cool. It was a very short time.

We will invite you again soon because we just barely started the conversation. I was about to ask you if you're already taking Ezra to the yoga classes. What's going on?

But we will leave it for some other time then. Next time. Okay, so we go back to the Sedona College, and this time we're going to have class with Geshe Michael and Suge...

No, sorry, Suge, I already went with Stanley Chen.

[Speaker 1]
Deji, Stanley will have to do his homework.