Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 61

[Speaker 1]
All right, Sugeng looks ready. He's got strategies going on in the background. You doing okay, Sugeng?

Yes, I'm doing great, thank you. Good, good to hear. Are you in the midst of a five-day virtual event?

Yeah, so let me kick away. Hi, Geshe-la. Hey, good to see you.

If you're getting enough sleep, you can come to Sugeng's homework. Okay, I'm in. I'll be one of those guys.

I'm pretty good. I haven't gotten enough sleep in a couple years, but... You can use your camera full-time.

Oh, you use both. Happy to be here at Shuangzong's Tower. Feeling very lucky to be here at Shuangzong's Tower.

Very happy and genuinely appreciative of the opportunity to sit and learn these deep teachings and these deep books together with this amazing group, and especially with Geshe Michael. So thank you for doing this. Please keep showing us how to understand these books and how to translate these books.

We totally understand how important it is. I feel like there's nothing better we could do with our time, and thank you so much. And let's dive in whenever you guys are ready.

It's 3.01, not a minute to waste. You keep paying me cinnamon rolls. I'll keep coming.

I will send a valise of cinnamon rolls to your house. No, from Portugal, it's croissants. Yes, they have fantastic croissants here.

Hey, Nick, me and Hagrid discovered a cafe in Phoenix that has incredible croissants, and they said they get a shipment every day by airplane from Europe. So, you know, we could make a deal. Let's talk.

That sounds like a good plan. Okay, here's Sugeng's homework. So don't forget, I don't have to answer the homework.

Sure. Let's hope we still remember what we covered last month. So what are the two causes of the consciousness according to the discussion in the dependence book by Master Master Sastrandu?

Previous moment of consciousness? The first? Okay.

And then it would be raw karma, right? Raw seeds? No, the second is correct, but not the first one.

What is the first one? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that?

[Speaker 3]
Number three?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, the three. What are the three?

[Speaker 2]
Croissant, cinnamon roll, and coffee.

[Speaker 1]
Coffee. Sounds good. You could give him 33 cents.

He got one out of this room. Is it the previous sentence? And what else?

Yeah. How do you create a consciousness of a cognitive? You need a?

We think. Consciousness.

[Speaker 2]
What else? Attention to that. I see four causes here, not two.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, plus the second one, right? That's a good point. All right.

What is the contradiction presented by Master Vasubandhu in the text regarding the third link of consciousness and the fourth link of name and form? Something I can't hear. Can I hear?

It's okay. Can you hear now? Can you hear okay?

No, it's correct. Yeah, it's correct. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Okay, so what is the contradiction here?

Anybody remember? I remember. But you need to rename consciousness in order for there to be something called consciousness.

So, yeah, it's pretty simple, actually. The third and the fourth link, how are they related? What is the contradiction according to the master?

But you can't have consciousness until you name something. Uh-huh. Yeah, pretty close.

But then the name comes after consciousness? Yes, that is one. And?

Same with form? I don't know. Yeah, basically, we are talking about whether the third triggered the fourth or the fourth triggered the third.

Yeah, yeah, good. Yeah, so there's a contradiction. And what did Lord Buddha say regarding the contradiction above?

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. According to most of us.

Yeah, I think we probably got it in the chat.

[Speaker 2]
One is for the next one.

[Speaker 1]
It's, oh, yes, the next one. That's right. That's right.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, correct. The consciousness as the third link of the will is created by the general condition of the first karma in the sense of rebirth.

Now, let's check. You didn't sleep? Yeah.

Maybe not. Yeah, you got a clue.

[Speaker 2]
We're drunk, dead drunk.

[Speaker 1]
Dead drunk, corpse drunk. Why do people remember that one? I don't know.

[Speaker 3]
If we remember that one, it means we were not drunk.

[Speaker 1]
Not dead drunk.

[Speaker 2]
Strong desire.

[Speaker 1]
For another mind. For a competing object. Yeah, for a good competing object.

That's a nice translation, actually. That's a nice translation. Thank you.

All right. So, now the attempted translation, my coffee is a competing object for the homework. That's true.

And I think your coffee's warm. So, maybe don't think about my coffee. You see me?

Okay. Translation, can you please read the sentence? Jampa deshinte deshinsekpe minyampa mepa chu tento.

Whoa. All gentle voice in that way. Jampa deshinte.

Deshinte. Deshinte. Kind of, that's how it is, right?

Deshinte. The one who has thought that there's an absence of not being equal. Good.

Yeah. Oh, Venerable Upala. Everyone's cheating by using somebody else.

But in the end, it's all the same. Okay. Please read the next one.

Yeah. Gentle voice. Whatever is absent of not being equal is not...

I think this shambha is a past tense and jamba. Destroy. Or jamba.

Destroy. I think so. Okay.

It's not destroyed. It's never destroyed. Okay.

It's never destroyed, right? Yep. By the way, what are you talking about?

Yeah. We are talking about when we are at very deep concentration, whether there is consciousness or not. We had two nyambas the other day.

What was that? Nyamba nyi and... We had two equals.

What was the last class we had? Seiji. Seiji's class.

Somebody was talking about nyamba nyi, which means total equality, which means... Emptiness. Emptiness.

And then just nyamba. Oh, that's in nyamba, nyam jin. Equalizing and exchanging others.

So others are equal to you, nyamba. We just had a meditation on it a long time ago. Okay.

I mean nyamba nyi. Yeah. So this nyamba has two different senses.

One is other people have an equal right to happiness, nyamba. And then nyamba nyi, which means nyamba-ness, which means emptiness. All things are equal.

Okay. Let's go one more. Yeah.

Good. That which cannot be destroyed. And that which is equal is never not equal.

[Speaker 2]
It's never what, Keshla?

[Speaker 1]
Never not equal.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And don't forget the whole conversation now is a debate about the place you go where you have no more awareness. It's a deep meditation where you go and you have no more awareness.

Okay? So then how can consciousness continue? How can you still have consciousness?

Why aren't you dead if you have no more awareness? Okay. And do you still have the links before that that would have created awareness or not?

You know, what happened? Did they misfire or something? You don't have any awareness.

How do you have... And how do you go into a deep meditation with no awareness, then go to the formless realm, and then get reborn in the desire realm? How's that possible?

Because they always do. They always go to the hell realm, actually. So they go to the bottom of the desire realm.

So how's that possible if their mind was erased to get to the highest formless realm? How do they get reborn out of there and go to the hell realms? How's that possible?

What's causing the consciousness in the hell realms after you have been in the state of meditation with no mind? Because that will give you a clue of what's causing the consciousness. Because there's a debate that there's two things that cause consciousness.

One is you have sense power in an object. And one is you have the karma of the second link.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So is it that the third link is created by the second link, which is the way the links are supposed to work? Or is the third link created by stuff that you don't even need until later on in the whole realm? How's that work?

What's really making you aware of something? And the approach here is let's take a look at how you come out of a state with no consciousness and go back into a state with consciousness. What caused that?

And then that'll give you the real reason how you get consciousness. All right. Please read again.

Nice. There's no dependence. There's no entering.

Okay. There's no rebirth. There's no going.

Yeah, okay. You can say rebirth, maybe. Rebirth is completely extinguished.

And there's nothing. There isn't anything to be understood. Yeah.

There is nothing. There's nothing to be understood. Okay.

Well, I would say pursuit. It's like changing. Okay.

You got more here? Yes. All the way.

No, I mean, there are two quotes there. Okay. You have someone else start reading?

Sure.

[Speaker 3]
Okay. First, are you available?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, don't we start with? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay. Oh, is that so? No, we didn't.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, then you're missing part. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, missing what?

[Speaker 2]
You're missing part of the text.

[Speaker 1]
Is that what? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
No, it's not in the line above it. The shape of it.

[Speaker 3]
No, we finished this.

[Speaker 2]
Huh? Did I miss anything?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
See what I put in? Oh, no. We split it in a different place.

Sorry. Sorry.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Who's going to read? Okay.

Persistence are replying me. So let me find somebody else. Hassel?

I'm just kidding. Come. Hassel, you want to read?

[Speaker 2]
To go there?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, sure. Oh, come on. You better get a bigger translator.

You should.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, you're right here.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Translate slowly. me. Okay.

So yeah, if someone says that this isn't to be perceived, if someone says that there is nothing to be perceived, no, I would say, I would say, Who is it that doesn't perceive it? Oh, who? Yes.

Who is it that doesn't perceive it? Come back to me, by whom is the Shipajala is perceiving not done? Because Buddha said no one perceives it.

So who doesn't? Who doesn't do perceiving if no one perceives? Who does the perceiving?

[Speaker 2]
Who doesn't?

[Speaker 1]
Who isn't doing the perceiving? Who isn't doing the perceiving? Nothing to be perceived.

Also, can you change places with Geshe Michael, please? We can't hear him very well. Turn left.

Yeah. Okay, no, we're good. We're good.

You can sit here. Yes. Right here.

Thank you. All right, thank you. Okay, I'll lean in.

Okay, here we go. Yeah. Who is it that doesn't know anything?

Who is it that doesn't do the knowing? Who is it that does the not knowing? Okay, got it.

Who is it that does the not perceiving? He just said nobody perceives. And we said who doesn't perceive?

By the way, the key GIS means the question is not who is who is not seen? That's not the question. Because of the instrumental here, GIS, it's by whom is the perceiving not done?

By whom is the perceiving not done? He just said nothing is perceived. And then we will say, well, who did you expect to be perceiving?

And then he says, it was his heart sutra. So, no, no, no, I don't hear not nobody. No, no mind.

Yeah, those are the ones who are not perceived, who are not knowing because of that ky is in the second one. Yeah. Okay.

They are the guys who are not perceiving. Okay, by them is perceiving not done. Oh, you and I wouldn't say it that way in the translation.

You get the point.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. If you're hoping that he's gonna say there's no I there's no no, there's no ear, there's no mouth, there's no skin, like the heart sutra, but he doesn't say that he says, nothing is known by the eyes, nothing is known by his ears. Because after all, the discussion is about wonderful consciousness.

Yeah, it's the third link, right? Does the third link come from the second link? Or does the third link come from something else?

And if so, why the hell do you put the second? That's a big question. Okay.

All right. We'll change. Let me know.

Should we tell him? I know. Do you get a good time?

Okay. If you want to know who doesn't know, if you want to know who doesn't perceive anything, it's all DJs. What's DJ?

DJ is basically the third of the fourth heap, fourth heap, fourth of the five heaps, the other factors, other factors, which includes, if you're in the system of 51 mental functions, like like word is, if you're in Stanley's book, it's 46. Two of them are not being mentioned here, which ones? Well, the two heaps that were separated out before, okay, feelings and discrimination.

So we'll take the whole 51 mental functions, subtract those two. And then all the rest are called DJ. It means all your mental functions.

Who is it that doesn't see your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, your skin, and all the other parts of your life? Those are the guys who are not perceivers. Cool.

Oh, okay. The whole question that we're in the middle of is why do people perceive things? Is it because of their past karma?

Or is it is the reason is the reason you don't see something? Because their karma to see something has worn out? Or is the reason you don't see something?

Because the required three things are not there. Sense power, awareness and an object. So if you say I don't see something, is it because the three things we need are not there?

Or is it because the link before is missing? Because we're in the middle of life after all. And the link before is karma.

Link number two is karma. And this is a deep question. And you guys got to think about it.

And it's not a useless discussion. When you see something like the sky, is that happening because of your past karma? Or is that happening because of chemicals and awareness and, and, and the fact that they came together this morning?

Which which of the two choices is creating a perception of the sky? Is it your past karma? Or is it there's a there's a sky and an eyeball together?

Which is triggering consciousness? Which do you think it's not both? Okay, so anyway, he's making a list here of things that don't and he ends up with everything.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Next paragraph. I think Mr. Gordon. Danny looky do this is a mistake.

It should have been knock knock NGAG. And I figured it out yesterday. Oh, sorry.

[Speaker 2]
Mm hmm.

[Speaker 1]
Danny, looking to chat on knacky to chat on yuki do check. Kakao. Yeah, so here and now DJ means factor or actor.

Okay, so who are the three actors? You know, which is the three doors of expression? Are you know, the physical, the verbal speech?

Yeah. Okay. So you can either act through your body, you can act through your speech, or you can add to your thoughts.

These are the three actors. Now he's changing DJ to act. DJ is a is a tricky word because it means actor, or agent.

But it also means collector. Why is that important here? If you collect three things together, you have a percentage.

All right. Wow, that's a long one. I think Yes.

You criticize his Okay, okay. She t e t u. got t ngung Chungwala dead.

T kakpa kakpa sik kam sik kam sik kam on t depani sik pe sik pe kak sam Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Gat Ges Ges Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Do Do Do We don't want to wear them out, we've got them in our mouths currently. What causes stopping? What makes something that happened earlier stopping?

She means later. Is it that something which happened earlier causes something later to stop or stops later? Or is it that the past has disappeared and then something has stopped?

What has to stop for another thing to stop? Because we were living in Mishepa before... Not perceiving?

Yeah, because we were living in ignorance. Then we started to do Nikkei-Wenrei. Non-virtuous karma.

Yeah, we started to do non-virtuous karma. If you understand that, you won't do that kind of action in the future. So he's talking about how stopping doing something stops something the next moment also.

And we were looking through sutras because Vasubandhu keeps quoting sutras that we never heard of. And we have a database, which is amazing. So, you know, if Vasubandhu is quoting a sutra that existed 2,000 years ago, we have a chance to look it up by looking at every single syllable.

[Speaker 2]
I'm sorry, Geshe Michael, we've lost sound. Yeah, that's fine.

[Speaker 3]
Something has gone wrong.

[Speaker 1]
I'm the one who doesn't hear. By my ear. How's that?

This is much better. You're back.

[Speaker 3]
You're back.

[Speaker 2]
That's it.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, we don't want to wake anybody up. That's why we used the other side of the microphone. Okay.

Anyway, we went fishing in the million syllables of the Kangyur for anything that was similar to the sutra that Vasubandhu had quoted. And this is one of the options we got. And it's basically about how something stopping can create something else to stop.

And I'm going to skip the next quotation. And then we're going to go to... Just go through.

We should come out of it pretty soon. Oh, that's all. Oh, okay.

All right. Can you go to your... I'm going to switch with Vasubandhu.

Okay. And we're going to go to the real club. Yes.

Oh, yeah. All right. Here we go.

Thank you. Thank you, Geshe-la. If we ever needed another translator...

If I ever needed... If I ever needed someone, I'll call you. Okay.

Let me get this done the right way so you don't see all of my secret stuff. Now, these are all Kyoto classes I'm doing. Let's see here.

Okay. Not that one. Not that one.

Okay. Let's go to this one. Oops.

Aiya. Okay. Where is Sugeng?

Here we go. Okay, cool. Now, let's go here.

[Speaker 2]
1924.

[Speaker 1]
It's grumpy today. Stop that. Yeah.

Okay. Here, let's try again. Did it.

1924. Yeah. There, right?

Yes. Okay. Oh, the quotation is at the top.

We don't... We finished it. Do you want to do it?

No, I'm okay. I'm good. Yeah, I'm not going to do it because I'll tell you truly, I don't think it's the right one.

It's a possibility, but I don't think it's the right one. Okay. Okay.

So, Sugeng? Share screen. Share screen.

Aiya. Okay, hang on. Zoom.

Share screen. Share this screen. Go away, this guy.

Take this guy out. Here. Okay, good?

Yeah. All right. Who's going to read, Sugeng?

Let me see. Oh, I see somebody. Venerable Cat.

Ooh. Ooh, good morning.

[Speaker 2]
Good afternoon.

[Speaker 1]
Start with de wey na, and Sugeng's going to correct you. Thank you for that very much. Please correct very well.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
De wey na lak ma may pay. Ya, ya, ya. You're reading it with an Apache accent.

Ya ngen le. Ya ngen le. Ma de kyi par du nam par shey pa gyun chey pa ma yin no.

Nice. Nice. Nice reading.

De wey na means therefore. Lak ma may pay is a certain kind of nirvana. Oh, nirvana with nothing left over.

Yeah, nirvana with nothing left over. And different schools have different ideas about what that is. Don't forget we're in a weird school right now.

Why? Switch it. We're in the most basic lowest school, interpreted by a mind-only inventor.

It's going to be a weird book. We've got a weird book going on here. And he came out of the closet.

He pretended he was an Abhidharma scholar for a long time, and then he wrote the 20 verses, the 30 verses. It's like, this is the mind-only school's grandfather. Okay, so anyway.

Lak ma may pay nyang ngen. Nirvana where you have nothing left over, which is especially important in the lowest school. Why?

[Speaker 3]
That's the highest that they are.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's the ultimate goal for them. What stops? Lu sem gyun chey pa.

Lu and sem. Body and mind discontinue. Then what's the famous objection by the higher schools?

Who are these arhats? Yeah, who are these arhats? If there's no body and no mind, they're running around with no legs and no head.

I mean, come on. Who achieved nirvana? All right.

Okay. Nyang ngen lay na. Ma de kyi par du means, by the way, until you achieve nirvana, right?

Until you achieve nirvana with no remainder. In Tibetan, you have to say, until you don't achieve nirvana with no remainder. Okay?

You have to use the negative word until. Oh, okay. Until I don't get finished with class, I won't get a cinnamon roll.

You see what I mean? So you have to put it in the negative. Here it says, until you deypa, until you nyang ngen lay deypa.

[Speaker 3]
Until you arrive.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, until you reach nirvana with no remainder. Then the nam pa shepa. Your consciousness.

Will never yin shepa. Never be discontinued. Yeah, the flow.

Yin will never be cut off. Shepa. That's the shepa in Dorje Chupa.

In Ganjing. Yeah, to cut. Okay?

Until you reach nirvana with nothing left over, the flow of you will not be cut. Your flow will continue. Why is that important for us?

[Speaker 2]
We don't want to get rid of it.

[Speaker 1]
We've been discussing, we're hung up in this whole section on people who go into such deep meditation that their mind stops. Okay? And is that even possible?

And this person says, no, it's not possible. But it happens. We call it du shi me pen yong juk.

We call it meditation where you have no more perceptions. But you can't really get there until you reach nirvana with no remainder. And the whole mind is cut off.

So, okay. This is us, right?

[Speaker 3]
As in most of us, but...

[Speaker 1]
Well, who's us in this discussion is tricky. Okay. I'm not even going to answer that.

Okay. Who's going to read the next lines again? Yeah, Venerable Cat, you can continue, please.

Oh, okay. Oh, I'm not off the hook, huh? DE'I TSE DE'I TSE YOD PAR GNOD PAS NAM PAR BSHAD PA GANG ZHES NA Yeah, and that's a big, big question.

DE'I TSE means when you... Born? No, what did we just talk about?

It was a long time ago. When you reach nirvana with no remainder. DE'I TSE NA What NAM PAR BSHAD PA do you have?

What kind of consciousness do you have? Which is YOD PAR. Which is still there.

You see what I'm saying? After you reach final nirvana with no remainder, is there any kind of awareness that you say we still possess? Okay, that's the question.

And that's a conversation you always wanted to have with these guys. You know, is there any kind of mental flow left over? That's the great question.

Okay, here we finally get their answer. I think it's going to take cat to make that answer happen. KHA CIG NA RE YID GYI NAM PAR BSHAD PA'O Yeah.

KHA CIG means some people say... KHA CIG means one mouth. Some people say, ah.

Sounds like the dentist, right? Open wide. Some people say you still have YID GYI NAM PAR BSHAD PA.

Still have your mind consciousness? Yeah, which by implication means you don't have... Others.

Your sense consciousness. Sense consciousness. Yeah, you can still sit there in your little nirvana and be aware of your mind, but nothing else.

You can't see, hear, smell, taste, or feel. Okay, got it? Somebody says that.

Okay, what was the question? What is left? When you get to the final nirvana in your school, what's left over?

Somebody said, well I say you can't smell, taste, or anything, but you can still think. Okay, alright. Then we say, we come back with, oh really?

Okay, then who's going to read? Okay, Nguy, you want to read? Nguy.

Okay. MIG PA PHYI YIN NAM PAR PHYI YIN ZHES NA Yeah, and this is an interesting question. If there's still some kind of state of mind when you reach final nirvana, what is it MIG PA towards?

What's that mean? What's it looking at? NAM PAR here, when you oppose, this is something you guys have to learn.

When you oppose MIG PA with NAM PAR, it always means what's the object and how are you thinking about it? Two different questions. What's the object and how do you feel about it?

What are you thinking about it? In the study of perception in Buddhism, it's called MIG PA. Say MIG PA.

MIG PA NAM PAR NAM PAR When they come together, only in the study of perception it means what are you looking at? MIG PA. And NAM PAR means what are you thinking about it?

What's your state of mind? Okay, got it? Oh, really?

So you're sitting there, you lost all your sense of objects, you're in nirvana somewhere, Seattle probably, and you can... What are you looking at and what are you feeling about it? Okay, that's the question.

Who's up next? Please continue, Ingri.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
MIG PA THANGS NAM PAR YONGS SU MA BYAS PA'O ZHES NA And he answers, you have not BYAS PA, you have not cut off all MIG PAs and you have not cut off all NAM PARs. You still have things you're looking at or you still have objects of your mind and you're still having feelings about those objects. There's still objects of the mind and there's still opinions about those objects.

That's his answer. That's not very helpful, but thanks. Here's our reply.

Let's see who's... By the way, the more notes you see in a line, the more weird the line was. And I started these notes seven years ago or something.

In Shanghai. No, no, she can sit here again. Okay, yeah.

You got to lean in. Where is she? Can we see her?

[Speaker 2]
There?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, good. Okay. There she is.

All right, please read. Sugen, you're correcting me.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, no. Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Who's Chonbende, you guys?

[Speaker 2]
I will never forget.

[Speaker 1]
When we were riding, Lama Palmo was in the backseat. We were driving for like six hours and after three hours she goes, Chonbende! We're like, what?

I don't know, I just thought of it. Okay. Yeah.

The Buddha, Chonbende Gyi, YI DANG CHOS LA BSTAN NAS YI GYI RNAM PAR ZHES PA'I KHYER BA The consciousness of Yi... The consciousness of the mind? Yeah, occurs when you have Yi...

[Speaker 3]
The mind?

[Speaker 1]
And CHOS. And this means CHOS KYI KHAM. This CHOS doesn't mean Dharma teaching.

This CHOS means CHOS KYI KHAM. Out of something? Everything.

Yeah, all the stuff you could ever perceive, which is the object of the sixth consciousness. When you say, eye consciousness, colors and shapes, ear consciousness, sounds, nose consciousness, smells, then when you get to mind consciousness in the Abhidharma you say, CHOS. All stuff.

Well, what even smells sounds? Yes, in the next millisecond. Okay?

First you smell, you're aware of the smell, and then you're aware that you're aware of the smell. Okay? Got it?

So the sixth consciousness' playground, the arena of the sixth consciousness, is called CHOS KYI KHAM, Dharmadhatu. It's such a famous bunch of stuff that there was a famous teacher who called his Dharma centers Dharmadhatu. Okay?

Okay. Object of the sixth sense. So now we have YI, which is the...

The mind? The mind that's composed of all the perceptions of the moment before. Okay.

And so really you have YI KYI RNAM PAR BSHAD PA, awareness of your thought, then you have the thought, and then you have all the stuff in the universe. That's the description of the sixth consciousness. This...

We've been saying all along, there's two ways that consciousness can occur. One is... Three things come together.

Object, sense power, and consciousness. Or attention. Okay?

Or... Karma. Just karma forces the consciousness into being.

And we're trying to decide which one it is. And this says... Well, the Buddha said, when you have a perception, a mental perception, it's the three.

It's the three. What's the equivalent of the sense power in a mental perception? It's YI.

It's your mind. It's called the thought. I like to translate it as the thought.

Then there's the awareness of the thought, and then there's the object of the thought. And the thought, by the way, is a millisecond before. Okay?

In the same way that the smell awareness is there... Sorry. The smell detection is there the millisecond before the awareness of the smell.

The nose detects the smell, then the mind detects the detection. Okay, got it? So this seems to support which school of thought about how things...

how you perceive things. Is awareness triggered by three different things coming together? Or is the wheel of life correct, and awareness is created by karma?

Which one? This quotation... This guy claims to be quoting Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

[Speaker 3]
The Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, hey, Buddha said it was three things. Buddha said it. He said sum dupa.

What's that mean now? A tree. Yeah, he said the three came together.

Object, sense power, and awareness. Even with the mental sense power. Sum dupa.

And then... and then something weird happens with this quotation. And then, of course, you get rekpa.

What's that? Contact. What's the picture in the wheel of life?

Two persons. Two people touching each other. A man and a woman touching each other.

That's called contact. In the wheel of life, contact means object, sense power, and awareness have made contact. You made contact with the outside world through your senses.

That's rekpa. And then rekpa triggers sorwa. The feeling.

Good. And then sorwa triggers dushe. Which is...

Discrimination. Discrimination in a way. So what he's done here, he's mixed a theory that perception is created by the combination of three things.

He's mixed it with the wheel of life. And then he's mixed that with the five heaps. All right.

Okay. All right. Let's see where we're going with that.

He said ma sung sam means hey, didn't Lord Buddha say that? Ma sung means not said. Didn't Lord Buddha say that you perceive things through the combination of the three and that triggers the later links in the wheel, which is all part of your five heaps.

Okay. He's really messing up. All right, here we go.

Please continue. Who's... Let's see.

[Speaker 2]
de tse sung du pa med par yid kyi nang par shepa ji tar yor Yeah, and note my late note here in bold.

[Speaker 1]
The next four parts are part of a long question by the other guy. And if you don't know that, it's really confusing. So this is a long question with four parts.

First part. If those three don't du pa...

[Speaker 3]
Don't come together.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the object of thinking, thinking, and the perception of thinking. If those three don't come together, nang par shepa ji tar yor It doesn't occur. How the hell could you have consciousness?

If the object, the sense power, and the awareness don't come together, conflagrate. If they don't come together, how could you ever have awareness? How could you have awareness?

That's his first question. He's got four questions, right? Lindsay's going to give us all four.

Here's the second one.

[Speaker 2]
du pa yod na yang re pa med par ji tar rung If the three things come together, tell me what they are again.

[Speaker 1]
Object, sense power, and awareness. Okay. If the three do come together, then how the hell could you not have...

Contact. Contact. Because in the Wheel of Life, contact does not mean touching someone.

Contact means contact between your mind and the outside world. In the Wheel of Life, when we say contact, it only refers... It doesn't mean touching someone.

That's metaphorical. The two people touching means your mind has touched the outside world. You have seen a cop.

You have made contact with the cop. That's what contact means in the Wheel of Life. du pa re pa.

Link number six means you make contact with the outside world. Cool? Cool.

Then he says, if the three don't come together, how can you say there was contact? If the object and the sense power, the eyeball, and the awareness of what you're seeing don't come together, how can you say there's a link? How could there be another link in the Wheel of Life if they don't come together?

Okay, got it? This is the second of... Four.

Four questions he has. Third question.

[Speaker 2]
re pa yod na yod na yang sor wa thang du shen me par ji tar rung Yeah, if you do have contact with the outside world, then how the hell could you not have sorok?

[Speaker 1]
Feeling. You feel good, bad, or medium, indifferent about it, which is the next link in the Wheel of Life. dimpa tsorwa And then how could you have du shen?

Discrimination. Discrimination. Now, I believe, because we're so deep into the Wheel of Life discussion, and because we're really focusing on link five, six, seven, you have awareness, you make contact with the object, you feel something about it, then what happens next in the normal Wheel of Life, eight and nine?

What happens next in the Wheel of Life? You make contact with the outside object, you feel something about it, and that triggers... Desire.

Yeah, two degrees of desire. Eight is initial desire, nine is advanced desire. So, you make contact, you have a feeling, and then you want.

And the wanting comes in two flavors. You start wanting, and it gets stronger. So, I believe Lord Buddha here has thrown eight and nine together, and he's calling it discrimination.

I believe that he's still talking about the links of the Wheel of Life. I believe he wanted to lump eight and nine together, so he called it discrimination. So, if you can have link six, contact, then how the heck could you not have link seven, which is feeling, and then, quote, discrimination, which to me is link eight and link nine.

If you don't have link six, sorry, if you do have link six, how could you ever not have link seven, eight, and nine? That's his third question. Here comes his fourth question.

Who's up? Where is she? Yeah, and in that case, for what reason, kang gi chir du, for that reason, how could you ever stop discrimination and feeling?

How could you ever stop? And now he's sidestepping to the five heaps. Yeah.

He's sidestepping to the five heaps, because these are the two great mental functions that are taken out of the 51 or 46 Vajrayana schools. They are taken out, and each is given the status of a separate heap. Only two of the 50-ish mental functions are honored by calling them separate heaps.

Why? Because they are the culprits. Yeah, they are the cause of all samsara.

I like this, I don't like this. He's good, he's bad. Discrimination and feeling, they are the ones that create samsara.

Out of all your mental functions, according to Abhidharma, two of them are the troublemakers. They deserve to be separate heaps. Then he says, if that's how you perceive things, and if perception involves contact of the three, and if contact causes feeling, and if feeling causes eight and nine, discrimination, then how the hell are you going to stop those two?

Why would you want to stop those two? That's how you reach nirvana. Wait, won't I become mindless?

No, you still have awareness. Heap number five. Nirvana in these lower schools is kind of stopping heap number two and three.

Feeling and discrimination. If you could stop feeling and discrimination, you could go on with number five. Just your awareness.

That's his position all along. That's what he's been saying all along. When you reach nirvana, you still have, in heaps terms, in standard terms, you still have number five.

Then we say, so what happened to two and three? Well, you got to get rid of those. Those are the two troublemakers.

Oh, so now you've got awareness flowing on with no discrimination, no feeling, right? That's where he's at. That's what the other guy thought.

By the way, he's sophisticated in the Abhidharma presentation. Why? He wrote the goddamn thing.

He wrote it. Who? This author wrote that book.

Of course he's sophisticated. Five heaps is the main subject of the first chapter of the Abhidharma. Okay, got it?

All right, who's up next? Marina. Marina?

Marina. We got a Marina here.

[Speaker 2]
Marina? Yeah, sure. Okay.

Reshik Sorwai Ken Ease Redpa Sepa She Chondende Kijitarson Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Stay here because you're not done. That was too short.

How did the Chondende... Who's Chondende? Bhagavan.

How did Lord Buddha ever say that link number seven triggers link number eight? Initial desire. So you have a mind and you don't have feeling and discrimination.

Yeah, right. Okay, so what does link number seven do in the wheel? Trigger link number eight.

No, it can't trigger number eight. It's not there anymore. And number eight's not there anymore.

So how do you have a wheel? I guess the wheel broke. Something like that, okay?

We're saying, how does that work? And here goes Arina again.

[Speaker 2]
Sorwai Sorwai Tam Sepa Sepa gen ma yin te Ragpa Ragpa Sepa nam la sepa ni gyeway gyeway gyewo Good.

[Speaker 1]
Now here's his answer. It's not the case that all sorwas are acting as gen for sepa.

[Speaker 3]
Not all feeling is the cause of the initial desire? Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Not all feelings have to lead to desire. Not all feelings have to lead to desire. For example...

By the way, I have never seen the word chakpa used as anger. If Ben Kramer remembers, one of your biographies was describing a guy who was riding with chalk on the wall. Yeah, chak means cave.

And also in the word chidamala. But anyway, apparently it's an ancient, ancient, ancient word for anger. I've never seen it, but I looked it up, and it says it's an ancient, ancient, ancient word for anger.

[Speaker 3]
So, if you have managed to sepa your chakpa, if you managed to have the initial desire...

[Speaker 1]
Stop your sepa. This sepa means stopped. Oh, stopped.

With anger? Yeah, if you've managed to stop your anger, then sepa will not grow. After tsorwa.

[Speaker 3]
After feeling.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Desire will not arise. You can have link number seven without a link number eight.

Why? Why? If you're the kind of person, for example, who's gotten over negativity of anger, you will not go from feelings automatically to desire.

So it's not the case that you have to... It's not the case that all feelings have to lead to desire. It's not the case that all links number seven have to go to a link number eight.

Because if you're a very good person, it won't. Wow. And that makes sense.

You broke the wheel, kind of. Yeah. The wheel kind of breaks down.

Okay, let's read this last sentence, Nick. I'm sorry, no. I just want to let Nick know we're just doing this.

One more minute. De Shindu.

[Speaker 2]
De Shindu. Svekpa Samche.

[Speaker 3]
Samche.

[Speaker 2]
Tsorwa la. Sokpay.

[Speaker 3]
Sokpay.

[Speaker 2]
Svekpa. Genma. Yin.

No.

[Speaker 1]
Shell. Not all links number seven have to create a link number eight, because if you have overcome your negative emotions to that extent, your feelings will not lead to attachment. And, moreover, not all contacts lead to feeling.

Wow. Okay? There's people, like in deep meditation, who can have contact with objects and not have any feeling at all.

Okay, he says, look, link seven doesn't have to lead to link number eight, because even link six doesn't have to lead to link number seven. Oh, wow. Okay.

Alright, cool? Yes. If you find out the rest, come back to the amazing next class by Master Sugeng.

Thank you. And he's going to lead a discussion, and Grandpa's going to go drink coffee in the corner. Don't they say there is always feeling?

Yeah, they do say that. Okay, good. Yes.

Okay, conversation time.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm going to go sit on the couch. Well, I'll sit here.

Okay, sure. I'll sit here. You lead the conversation.

Okay, sure. So, yeah, we had an interesting discussion just now. Although, to be frank, I'm not really sure how we should actually have some applications.

So, anybody has any idea? Go ahead. That last part that we covered was pretty relevant to our lives, right?

Like not allowing a feeling to give rise to desire and what it kind of takes. What are the other factors that we could be putting into play as humans in the real world that would allow us to control making that leap from having a feeling about something to having desire? And I don't know, we could think of a life tool to come out of that, right?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, so we can try to sort of condition ourselves so that the feeling doesn't lead to desire and also the contact doesn't lead to the feeling, right? Condition ourselves or try to, yeah, build up some armor. Yeah, suddenly I think of something, you know.

My wife always complains that I don't have feelings. So, is it good or is it bad? Having feelings?

My wife likes to say, oh, you just don't have feelings. So, reading this text, I think that can be good, right?

[Speaker 2]
All the feelings.

[Speaker 1]
You guys can take me. I don't want to hug the spotlight.

[Speaker 2]
Hi. So, this discussion reminds me a little bit of my chair, Six Steps to Freedom.

[Speaker 1]
Do you remember those? Yeah, I remember the six, but I don't remember the details. I'm sorry.

[Speaker 3]
Like they're like, you know, we come in with black chucks.

[Speaker 1]
Then we start to grasp to me and myself and others. Then we start to, I think, like things. Then we start to grasp to them.

[Speaker 2]
And then we, you know, we get attached and we enter, we make karma. And so, this seems to be a discussion about how we could stop that.

[Speaker 1]
Maybe by being bodhisattvas.

[Speaker 3]
Anyway, do you have them there?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, it is here.

[Speaker 3]
So, yeah. So, the six, what do you call that? The six are causal steps to creating karma by blood mantra.

So, first, we start with black chuck from previous life. We come in. And then second, two kinds of ignorance in our mind, which is tendency to grasp to a person's self-existence nature and also self-nature of all things.

Yeah, so ignorance of the existence of the world and all suffering. And then number three, we start to look at pleasant, unpleasant objects.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, we start to perceive things, which is what we've just been talking about.

[Speaker 3]
Then we start to like them. Attachment. Like and dislike.

But that's okay. That's like you with no feelings, right? Then we start to grasp to them.

[Speaker 1]
Attachment, right? Right. And that seems to be the danger.

Number four is already the attachment, right? And then number five, we start to create karma. The first karma, I think.

Can we say that? Due to the grasping, due to the attachment.

[Speaker 3]
Due to the attachment, we start to make karma. Because we don't really want to be making karma. We want to stop making karma, ideally.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And then when we make karma, we get stuck in the cycle of samsara.

[Speaker 3]
We go around the wheel all the time. So it just gives me some insight into maybe where we could start to break this pattern.

[Speaker 1]
Grasping. Grasping, right? So we can feel, perceive, like and dislike, but not grasp.

So that grasping is basically number eight, right?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
The initial desire.

[Speaker 3]
That's what it seems like to me. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So it's good to be a person without feeling. Can I say that? Congratulations.

I'm back to that popular game. You're so good. You're fun.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
You're like my Bodhisattva. Anyway, that's what I was just thinking. This is an interesting way to look at what we've just been talking about.

Thank you. Thank you. Ah, good one.

Yeah. You want to come over here, Jacqueline? Let's have a discussion.

So Jacqueline was just saying that if we are saying that we... No, we never say that we shouldn't have feeling, but we said that the feeling shouldn't lead to the grasping. So that means Bodhisattva still have feeling, but somebody who can cause the feeling not to trigger the next one, the next link, right?

The grasping, the initial desire. Yeah. I think we need to put a qualifier here, right?

Desire. It has to be desire for something negative, because desire for something positive is good. Desire to become a Bodhisattva, for example, right?

Yeah. I can read your mind, kind of. Yeah, Venerable Gyatso just agreed with me.

Yeah. So feeling is the cause of samsara. Well, Venerable Utpala was saying that, and I would like to say that feeling that leads to grasping is the cause of samsara.

So that means if we can have feeling and stop it right then and there, that means we can begin out of samsara. We can break the will.

[Speaker 3]
Stop grasping.

[Speaker 1]
Stop grasping.

[Speaker 3]
Yes, correct.

[Speaker 1]
Not stop the feeling. We can still have feeling, but we stop the feeling from triggering the negative desire. And you know, this feeling of love, this feeling of love, this is an interesting question and something to explore.

[Speaker 3]
How is that not a feeling that leads to grasping? And how is that the feeling to feel equally for all beings?

[Speaker 1]
This is where the grasping, the feeling triggering the desire with the misunderstanding, which is negative, right? I think we need to pull in link number one here.

[Speaker 2]
Positive to negative. Also, I think you have to distinguish between love and bodhicitta, because a lot of times our feelings of love are really imbued with grasping and desire, whereas bodhicitta doesn't have any of that.

[Speaker 1]
That's true. That's true. So, yeah, that's why link number one, misunderstanding, should come into the picture too, right?

[Speaker 3]
Because grasping with misunderstanding is wrong, but grasping as in desire for something positive with correct understanding is something good.

[Speaker 1]
And I think in the higher schools, the link number one is the only place where we can get out of the cycle.

[Speaker 3]
So you're right, I think, on that, Sugeng.

[Speaker 1]
And I kind of like that we also pull in eight and nine. And like discussion today, six and seven shouldn't lead to eight and nine. I think that is, well, yes, I mean, misunderstanding, which is link number one, is beautiful on its own.

But now adding in this not causing, not triggering eight from six and seven, I think it makes the whole thing more beautiful.

[Speaker 3]
It really tells us how to get out.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, yes.

[Speaker 3]
The key.

[Speaker 1]
The key gives us, yeah, yeah. Christina is saying that this is the key, this is the way out of the wheel here. And yeah, Ina is also saying love is a desire to make another person happy.

It is not grasping, yeah. Make another person happy with the correct understanding.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. Cool. Cool.

Yeah, we still have some more time. Anybody else has other insights? Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Uta says it reminds me of trying to overcome addictions by understanding that the desired quality is not in the substance or behavior. So then the content with the substance or behavior does not lead to grasping.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, so Venerable Gyalse was just reading what Uta wrote in the chat box. Uta.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, Uta Sharf wrote in the chat box, and that is beautiful.

[Speaker 1]
That means I can have my pizza or my coffee without necessarily getting into addiction. Yeah, beautiful.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. Thank you, Uta.

[Speaker 1]
And yeah, somebody said that, sorry, I can't read the Cyrillic alphabets. But if we don't grasp because we are just a good person without understanding emptiness, will it break the vicious cycle? If we don't grasp because we are just a good person without understanding emptiness.

Well, I know the theory. The theory says no. But how do we explain that?

Right? If we are just a good person. Oh, yeah.

And yeah, I suddenly remember what we say about the stained good karma, dirty good karma. We always say, right? If we are just a good person doing all the good karma without the correct understanding, those are stained.

Those will cause us to stay in the cycle. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
There is no good karma.

[Speaker 1]
There is no good karma. It's all stained.

[Speaker 2]
Not yet. Then it's no longer karma. Exactly.

[Speaker 3]
There is no?

[Speaker 2]
Once it changes, it's no longer karma. So all karma is stained.

[Speaker 3]
All karma is stained and...

[Speaker 2]
Then we have to, you know, virtue and wisdom.

[Speaker 3]
Virtue and wisdom.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Instead of calling it karma, right? We don't make karma anymore because we are out of karma.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. In the room, somehow people are requesting Christina Kasica to come back. Okay, we have one more minute.

[Speaker 3]
All right. Yeah. So, yeah.

Thank you. Yes. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So it is not in the definition, or even though I agree with this, with correct understanding. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
It's not in the definition. I think Master Vasubandhu still keeps a lot of things hidden for us to uncover for the next many more months to come. And with that, we have 30 more seconds.

I would like to invite Juan Hasso to sit down here and get ready, or maybe we can have some discussion. I have a question. Oh, yes, please.

We were talking about how contact... Sit down first. Okay.

Thank you, Sugeng. Yes, thank you, Juan. So we were talking about how contact means, in this case, the three aspects come together.

And basically, they say, we make contact with the outer world. But then I was thinking, what's the approach of the mind-only school? Because they somehow say that there is no outer world.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
In a way, I mean, in a way. So if we have this situation, like the same seed is creating the object and the subject in mind-only school, what will be the approach of making contact? Or making contact is just like an experience that comes always with this seed that is ripening?

Yeah, interesting. But I don't know. Yeah, probably they had a contact inside of mind.

Something like that. Yeah. All right.

I think, yeah, I believe, I mean, we are less than halfway, right? Yeah, we're slightly less than halfway. So, yeah, stay tuned.

We'll find out. And with that, I will pass the floor over to Juan Aso for the P3 World News. Okay, thank you very much.

Well, I just want to say a quick thank you to Sugeng for that wonderful talk and to Geshe Michael for a great class. Thank you to our amazing tech team, Worldview Productions, our awesome interpreters for translating us into your language. All the Mixed Notes translators and especially Lindsay, all the regional coordinators and everybody who is subscribing to the Good Night Club.

Thank you guys so much. Take it away, P3 World News, Juan Aso, thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Stay tuned for Juan's class if you want to learn. Sorry. No, that's good.

It's good. Thank you very much, Nick. So today we had, how to say, last minute, super interesting news of someone who moved to Greenbrook lately.

And now it's living in a very special place with very special people. And we want to introduce this new beautiful person to you. Beautiful?

Well, you know, in the scriptures, person is everyone who has a mind. Her name is Kitty. Her name is Kitty.

And do you want to say something about it, Geshe-la? How's the experience living with her? Is she enhancing the atmosphere in the house?

She's increasing my compassion. She's increasing the compassion. That's wonderful.

Makes her suspicious then, I guess. We have somebody older than me. Okay.

Geshe-la says it's good to have somebody older than him in the house. Okay. So, yeah.

And not only that, but then now it seems that it's getting popular for the Pitch Tree World New members to have cats with them. And we want to show another two cats that live with Daniel. They are the helpers.

They are. Maybe they are the reason why Pitch Tree World News is growing. And Lindsay has the pictures.

She's helping us today. Also, she's helping with the Good Night Reading Club. No.

Yes. Good Night Reading Club. And also, she's helping with the pictures today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think they are dad and son. Yeah, that's Moksha.

And then we also have Sampa. Maybe one day the three of them can meet. I don't know.

Maybe. Who knows? We can have a cat party for fundraising for the Good Night Reading Club or something.

Yeah. And now we want to present some just general news. And we're then going to have a very special interview with a friend that I'm going to keep as a surprise to excite you later.

Just as a reminder that March 17 is the deadline to sign up for a very cool class and course that the Sedona College is having. This is the Impossible Anger SCAM level teacher training, level 10. Nurhib Rahim is organizing with CGL these programs.

And she was telling us about it last show in March. About it. So you still have one day to register.

You can still make it. Maybe check it out if you're interested. I think this is a very relevant topic because, I mean, I think it's very common.

We all time to time deal with anger or we get upset. We don't know how to communicate well or how to process what just happened to us. But this course can be the answer to your prayers.

So check it out. Use the QR code. And we also want to remind you, Nurhib Rahim also is helping with this new project that Geshe Michael and Veronica are releasing.

It's Michael and Veronica's Rose Foundation. If you want to get to know what they are doing, sign up for the newsletter. Yes.

If you have a project that needs money. If you have a project that needs money, contact them. Use the QR code that's going to lead you to the contact you need.

And if you need a project who needs money, you know what to do now. That's amazing. Maybe I'll contact them.

Nah, I'm just kidding. Not yet. Not yet.

Okay. So next one, please. Just as a reminder that YSI has like a special branch which is called Fast for Hunger.

The idea of this project is you skip one of your meals and whatever resources you were supposed to use for it, you donate it to someone else who may need, you know, to eat or like the money to, yeah, basically sustain themselves. So it's a very beautiful practice because in a way, sometimes, you know, in these days we overeat sometimes. So it's like sometimes we realize we don't need to eat that much.

So it's like good yoga traditional benefits sometimes come by reducing or being more control on what we eat. And at the same time, you are giving the opportunity to someone who needs it to give it. And the reason we are mentioning is because very soon on the 27th of this month, they are having a special program with this.

But on the 25th, we're going to have a special interview with Errol and with Laura Joanna, which is a very cool organizer who is doing a lot for this project, Fast for Hunger. So just for you to know, we're going to have a very cool interview with her and Errol. And also on the 27th, a special meditation about this, Fast for Hunger.

And in other topics, just to remind you, like our friend Tim Lowenhaupt is already arriving to Japan. He's going to be teaching this amazing course from the 19th to the 23rd, starting just in a few days. I don't know if you can still make it.

But if you're interested, you can try. There are going to be recordings. Can you show the next picture?

If you are closer, maybe you can make it. And if you cannot make it this time, get ready, because in June, he's going to be teaching course number two. That's the next one.

Yes. In June 4th to the 8th. So you can make your plans.

He's arriving there. I'm going to be flying tonight. I will be there in a few more hours.

So we hope it's going to be very exciting. And we will be reporting to you how it's going over there. And lastly, we want to remind you that Diamond Mountain is having their 20th anniversary.

Very soon, on the April 20th, they are preparing a special celebration, special party. I hear maybe special teachings as well. So it seems to be wonderful.

I just decided to teach. Perfect. Geshe-la said he just decided to teach.

8 verse Lojong. 8 verse Lojong. Amazing.

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

[Speaker 1]
So you see, now you can hear the fireworks and celebration. And yeah, I mean, this is happening during the program of the Steps of the Path. That's the next picture, please.

Where you can register either online or you can come. Let's see what happens. So yeah, you can register here for the whole program.

And in the previous picture, it says specifically or exclusively for the special party. So can you go back to the other one, please? Yes.

Well, if it's too complicated, no problem. Yes. That's specifically for the special class, for the special party.

The other QR code is for the whole Steps of the Path program. And now we go to have a very cool interview and talk with a very dear friend who helps many, many of the ongoings in the world, Pew Networks. And he's an expert in marketing.

It's an expert in technology-wise. With us, we have no other one but Master Brian Mendoza. Are you around, Brian?

I'm right here. How are you, Juan? Very well.

Thank you. It's great to see you. Where are you?

You too. I'm in between things in Mexico. Amazing.

You look very Asian. What happened to you? What can I say?

Moving to Taiwan very soon. You know this. I know.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So, for those of you who may not know Brian yet, he's one of the main guys on producing and editing content on the tech side for the Sedona College of International Management and also for DCI.

But he also has support from many other organizations. He has supported Big Street World News a lot. He helped us creating the website.

He helped us getting our first Zoom account deal. And he helped me personally to help creating a Diamond Cutter Classic Spotify account for the Mixer Reading Club and many other things. But I would like, Brian, if you can tell us a little bit your own personal story and how you ended up being involved in the WorldView Network so people get to know a little bit of your story.

All right. Thank you so much, Juan. It's an honor, first of all, to be here and to help all these amazing organizations.

My story begins with a very sad story. My old girlfriend left me and she started dating my best friend in the middle of a process in which I was very depressed. So that particular experience kind of pushed me over the edge.

And then I tried to kill myself. And a friend of mine recommended me this weird book called Karma of Love. I got to tell you, and I'm sorry, Geshe Michael, if you're here, please cover your ears.

But when I saw the cover of the book, I was like, oh, man, I don't think this is for me. Then I started reading the book. I started to apply in very small details the teachings in the book.

And my life changed basically right away. I became like a super, I wouldn't say fanatic, but like a person that really found value in the books. And I tried constantly to challenge the different teachings that I found in the books.

Then in 2015, I met Geshe Michael in person for the first time in Mexico City. He came to give a very little program and I decided I want to work with him. I don't know how, but I want to work with him.

By the time I was a student of pharmaceutical engineering. And I didn't know how Geshe Michael would use pharmaceutical engineering in his companies. But I started to plant the seeds.

For over three years, I helped as a volunteer in many of his organizations. Until all of a sudden, I became part of the DCI team. And not long after that, I became the IT director for DCI and SCIM.

And that's pretty much my trajectory with DCI. So basically, now you're rich. No, I'm just kidding.

No, no, the job description sounds so cool. That was like, you know, just a joke. Yeah, okay.

And tell us, Brian, I want to know what happened after you read the Karma of Love. What do you think was the final result of it? Because yeah, now professionally, we can tell you are helping a lot and doing a lot.

But then I hear something very cool happened lately. Can you tell us what happened? Yeah, I will.

I gotta say that I found my other half on the other side of the world. In the middle of the COVID pandemic and online. And actually, she's another director of DCI and SCIM.

She's the translation director. We never met. Oh, there she is.

We even have a video. I don't know if we can play it, Juan. What?

Oh, the video. Yes, yes, yes. We have a special video.

Yes. Cool. It's very beautiful.

I really liked it when you showed it to me. Yeah, that particular video, it's basically a short version. It's coming, it's coming.

Yeah, it's okay. Don't worry. Her name is Sharon Fan.

She's from Taiwan, Taichung. And I'm moving with her this year. Actually, this Wednesday, I'm moving there.

Wow.

[Speaker 2]
We want to show you. Yes. You can move that thing.

Okay. It's closed. We belong to you and me.

[Speaker 1]
So that's a little piece of her story, Juan. So now we know the karma of love is for real. Now I thought I should have prepared and show you the QR code to get the karma of love.

But, you know, Monday we'll show you the karma of love. You can be the ambassador for the book, Brian. That's wonderful.

That's a great idea. Yeah, that's awesome. So thank you very much, Brian.

I think we are a little short in time because I bet we could keep talking many more. I know you have many stories. We can have the chance to spend some time together when you travel to the U.S. And we have meeting some Mexico retreats as well. So I know you have you do have many, many stories. He has a very interesting life. For example, I remember I like this story when you tested the four-step system and you were able to buy a car for your parents.

That's another wonderful story of success that it will be great to share sometime. So we will invite you soon again. Maybe one that you already moved.

We can talk and you can show us a little bit of what's going on over there. Cool. Thank you so much, Juan.

It was an honor to be here. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your help, for all the help you're giving us with your knowledge. And DCI. And DCI.

Thank you. And we go with wordsmith for Tibetan language program.