Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 62

[Speaker 1]
All right, all right. It's getting exciting. It's about to happen.

Everybody ready? Put your thinking cap on. This is not an easy class.

Not too hard either. Kind of hard. Definitely need to pay attention.

Greetings. Thank you for joining Xuanzang's Tower. As usual, super excited to be here.

Looking forward to another deep dive into the classics with Geshe Michael. Just take a moment to remember that we are so lucky to have the chance to study this way with Geshe Michael. These kinds of classes previously were really reserved for just a select few people in this world who were willing to take certain kinds of vows and change their lives in very, you know, sometimes impossible ways for us.

So we're really lucky and I'm really grateful to Geshe Michael and to everybody on this team that helps to make the classes possible. So especially all of you guys who are coming, thank you for attending the Xuanzang's Tower classes. How are we at in Diamond Mountain?

Sugeng? Geshe Michael? I think we're okay, Mr. Nick. It's good to have you in the same time zone, by the way. I'm so glad to be back in this time zone. Thank you.

It's great to hear your voice and looking forward to class whenever you guys are ready. Okay, we've got Mr. Sugeng has his homework. Thank you.

Let's start the homework. Francisco, if you can kindly help me. Is that projected?

Oh, okay. We don't see you guys yet. Yeah, I don't see my text either.

Oh, we don't see your pieces either. Yeah. Okay.

I see it now. Okay. Good morning.

Good evening, to people in Asia. Good afternoon to people in Europe. No, it's midnight in Europe.

So let's start. Those of you who were here last month, or those of you who were in the translation session last month, let's review their homework. I kind of like this homework session, because it gave me the opportunity to review what we discussed.

It's a good and then after that, we can straight away jump into our discussion. So the first question, can you talk about your text first?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Just suppose there's some Okay. Okay. Yeah, my text, I'm, I'm honored to be given this text about the will of life.

And we completed the first book, three years ago, three years ago, it took us about four years, actually. And it was, I should call it my initiation into the text. And it was so beautiful.

It was a textbook, a monastic textbook. And it is analysis, deep analysis of the theory of the concept of will of life. And it was presented in the debate mode.

So I learned the will of life, I learned the debate as well. And of course, I learned the logic. So I was very fortunate.

And in the first book. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So it is going to be published as a book with a title, Stopping the Circle of Sadness, which is very beautiful. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, that's his first book. Wow, it looks big.

About 450 pages. So we learn about the will, and interestingly, just the 12 links, that's all nothing else. When you look at the picture, just at the entrance here, the will is big, a lot of components.

But in our context, we only talk about the 12 links, that's all and the 12 links alone are so deep and interesting, I would say. And Kedrop Tempadargye is the master who wrote the book, the interpretation to this theory. And he, we call it, he didn't leave any stones unturned, meaning that he actually went in pretty detailed.

He gave us a lot of different variations of understanding that we might not have thought of. And that actually gave me personally a very much better understanding of this world itself. And what is beautiful about this book that we finished is that Geshe Michael added introductions, and we also have appendixes.

Especially in the introduction, there is traditionally stories about the source of this will. We have one which is pretty common that we covered in 2017 in Borobudur, the story about the King Bibisaren Udrayana. And then there are two more sources that Geshe Michael managed to unearth and included into the book.

And one of the stories is the Lady of Pearls, which is pretty new to me and it's pretty fascinating. We spoke about the emancipation, the equal right between men and women. And I think that's very inspirational.

And then of course, the other source is about why this was covered in the Vinaya text, about why Lord Buddha actually introduced this story, theory, into the monastic rules. And of course, not to forget is the appendix. If you realize, especially books written by Geshe Michael, I always love to read the appendix and the footnotes.

I always tell people, never ignore the footnotes, because there are so many details in there. In this book itself, I know Geshe Michael spent a lot of time, but I also spent a lot of time to make sure that we have all the information included in the footnotes. And those are a source of a lot of good information.

So we completed that book. We continued to the second book, which was actually written by Master Vasubandhu. And we know him as Abhidhamma person, because he wrote the Abhidhamma Kosha.

And it was a very, I would say, very traditional, very textbook style, very deep, but sometimes can be pretty boring. I'm sorry to say that. But no, I found it to be interesting.

But if you are uninitiated, you might find that the content is a bit dry. But the moment we entered this book about the will of life by Master Vasubandhu, to borrow Geshe Michael's expression is that he was like coming out of the closet, started jumping around. I mean, this is my feeling.

He started to tell you, the title is called The First Principle and the Dependence. In the first principle, there are two things. Are they different or are they the same?

Oh, so that was already the opening. I was thinking, yeah, normally when we have two principles, we will think that one supports the other. But our Master here said that, no, they're actually the same thing.

Why? And then he started to dig very, very deep. And then we went into the will, the traveling.

And then he started to peel. I mean, I want you to imagine you are peeling, like maybe orange or onion. He started to peel layer by layer, deeper and deeper.

And it made you like, I don't know whether you have read those kind of novel, romance novel that you cannot stop putting down. That is the kind of feeling. What's next?

What's next? It's so exciting. And then, I don't know, maybe I'm the only one excited here.

You know, when we first got our book, I was like, okay, somebody's book looks cooler than mine, you know. But after a few years, yeah, this is my book. I'm so excited.

I think you will see that in all of us. And then traditionally, the Wheel of Life teaching will focus a lot of time on the first link. But guess what?

This book by Master Vasubandhu focus on the third link. I think we discussed about that a few sessions ago, right? Because he is the mind only guy.

And he put a lot of emphasis into the third language of the consciousness. I think you should read the book when it's done, right? Or you can watch back the recordings.

It was so interesting. He was telling people, we know about the six senses, but that was just the surface. If you want to go deeper, you not understand the eight.

Wow, okay. What is that? You know?

And then he went into a lot of, I should call it controversial arguments, but why consciousness is caused by the second language is raw karma, instead of the traditional way of thinking about the mind, the object, and attention. And we are in the midst of that topic. We sort of settled, but it is still not settled yet.

We are going to go further into this today. So with that, I hope you have a slightly better understanding and we can go into the homework today. Shall we look at the homework?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Here's the sad part, the homework. Homework is quite easy. So what did Lord Buddha say about how the consciousness of the mind occurs?

How does... You can just guess. If you weren't in that class, you could guess.

Yeah. Repeat again? Sense power, mind, and attention on the object.

Okay. Thank you, Venerable Ken. Two out of three.

Thank you. Two out of three. We don't say sense object.

We say the mind itself. The mind, the object, and the attention. Yeah.

If you have any opinion, you can write a letter to Master Vasubandhu. I'm merely quoting him. Okay.

Yes, please. Fernando. No, it's okay.

I can see. All right. The next question.

What occurs when those three come together? The what? The mind.

Our hands. Contact perception. So this is where we come into the topic of Wheel of Life.

When these three come together, we are getting the contact. Geshe Michael is right. No, I just...

Contact. So here, yeah. Can we open up?

So here is where the Master leading us, telling us that those three will create, will trigger the contact. And then, and of course he repeats again, the mind, the object, and the consciousness of the mind. And then this will in turn trigger feeling as link number seven.

And then he mentioned about link number seven triggering discrimination. So we have not come to the conclusion, but Geshe Michael was saying, most probably this is link number eight and link number nine. And this is where it gets interesting, in the text later.

So the next question. So is there any hope for us to ever stop the discrimination and feeling? Like we know, right?

Those two, I was, I think I was, I think I was listening to Geshe Michael's teaching about the five hips, why the feeling and discrimination are singled out. The reason is because they are the main problems of why we are kept in this wheel. So now is there any hope?

And everybody say, yes. Why? Why?

Why is there a hope? Anybody still remember the arguments that we had?

[Speaker 2]
Because both of them are what, you know, they're two of the five that continue on in the mind forever. It's just, what, what are you discriminating?

[Speaker 3]
And what are you feeling? And what are you doing now? That's the problem.

[Speaker 1]
That's a problem. Yeah. Today I'm kind of happy because a lot of the mixed nuts are in the room.

Thank you, Venerable Pala and Tim. Say again?

[Speaker 3]
What about when you're perceiving emptiness directly?

[Speaker 1]
So are you saying it is possible?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And we have here impossible or no. So what is argument? Oh, when you see emptiness directly.

Okay. During that time. Hmm.

Oh yeah. That's very logical. And so yes, that is a very logical answer.

Do you have any rebuttal on that? Neutral feeling.

[Speaker 2]
Your attention on the lack of system. Yeah. I'm not saying that.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Let's oops. Can I?

Oh, okay. Can you hear me? Okay.

Okay. Oh, they say slow down. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I think we can continue this discussion later because we have a precious time. I want to get more from Geshe Michael.

No, go ahead. Yeah. I want to bring.

The translator is asking Sugen to slow down. Okay. I will.

Slow it down. So yeah, according to the Master, can we turn on the thing, Francisco? Bingo.

That's the one. So Master Vasubandhu said that not all links number seven, which is feeling, have to create links number eight. Because if you overcome your negative emotions, your feeling will not lead to attachments.

That means we can still have feeling, but we don't have to trigger the attachments. And moreover, not all contexts will lead to feelings. So overcome negative emotion is the code word for getting out of the wheel.

So thank you. All right. Now the STW, sexist family words.

Oh, sorry. Because he was the first one who coined this term. Chukikam.

Or in our context, in the context of the book Master Vasubandhu, what does he want to refer to? What does he refer to as in Chukikam in this book? Ultimate reality?

All objects of the sense consciousness. Thank you, Francisco. Yeah.

Okay. Dakpa. This is an old word.

Say again? Anger. Old word for anger.

Wow. Yeah. And Tuse Dang Tsorwa.

No principle translator. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, please. Mind and feeling. Yeah.

In the context of our text, it's referring to discrimination and feelings. Yeah. All right.

That's all. Yay. Did you have any translation?

No.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yeah. I have. Oh, yeah.

Sorry. Somewhere at the bottom. Next page.

Yeah, those are... Okay, please read. It's okay.

Dode. Yeah, if you want to learn Tibetan, he's got the best pronunciation of the translators. Yeah.

I don't know why. Some kind of past life thing. No, forever he's had good pronunciations.

So, Dode. The sutra. Yeah, Shen.

[Speaker 2]
Others.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, in other sutras. Chomden De. The Lord Buddha.

We can say the conqueror. The conqueror. In Sanskrit, what?

Bhagavan. Bhagavan. DE'I KHYAD MA RIGS PA'I Okay, so the whole discussion here is very sexy.

I spent 12 years on Abhidharmakosha. It's lower school. It's dry, super dry.

Vasubandhu wrote the Abhidharmakosha because his brother told him to write it after he insulted his brother. Then he regretted criticizing his brother Asanga. Then Vasubandhu offered to cut his tongue out.

His brother said, don't cut your tongue out, just write a commentary on Abhidharma. Because after you and me finish our job, Abhidharma will be extinct in the world. Nobody will want to study Abhidharma, because we're going to introduce the mind-only school.

So he said, Abhidharma will be a dinosaur. Abhidharma was prominent for 700 years after Lord Buddha, until Nagarjuna, and until the two brothers. So he said it's going to be passé.

Nobody will want to study it. Therefore, you should write a record of it while it's at the peak. It's a very useful encyclopedia of Buddhist ideas.

A lot of them are correct. Some of them are wrong. So he asked his brother, what do you call it, as a confession.

He said, write this very dry... write down all their ideas, and he did. It takes many years to study, and it's difficult, and it's dry, super dry.

Then we never get to see Vasubandhu writing his own book. You see what I mean? We never get to see him doing his own thing.

In this rare, very rare commentary to the Wheel of Life, Vasubandhu comes out of the closet as a mind-only, and he pretty much invented the mind-only school. So we get to see him coming out, and the feeling, as Sugeng said, is much more exciting and much more cool. And here's the debate that we're in.

We have the Wheel of Life. We have 12 links. Each link triggers the next link, and then it becomes a wheel.

When you get to link number 12, that triggers link number one again. It goes like a real wheel. Your life is like that.

According to that, according to the wheel idea, consciousness, the fact that you are aware, is the third link, and it's directly produced by the second link. What's the second link? Karma.

Fresh karma. Karma exists. So according to the wheel, the fact that you're alive, and the fact that you can perceive anything, is coming because you have karma, karmic seeds.

And that's coming because you collected those seeds by misunderstanding the pin. Link number one. So link number one, you misunderstand the pin.

Then you do things to hurt other people. That causes fresh karma in your mind, and that fresh karma produces the monkey in the third picture, which is your mind entering your mother's womb. That's a traditional Wheel of Life presentation, but there's another presentation that consciousness occurs when there's something to be conscious of.

You put an iPhone in front of a gang, and then his mind makes contact with the iPhone, and that produces awareness. You see what I mean? So there's a debate here.

Vasubandhu is having a debate. What produces your awareness? What produces human life?

Is it that you see something and that triggers a consciousness, or is it that your mental seeds are producing consciousness? Is consciousness produced when I show you a phone, or is consciousness produced by your karma? Which one?

Interesting question. Very interesting question, because how do you fix yourself? How do you fix things?

Art, is your life, and by the way, life and consciousness in Buddhism are very close to the same thing. Is your life produced by karma, your awareness of the world, or is your awareness of the world produced by the world? You run into the world, and then it creates your mind.

It creates your awareness of the world. It's a very interesting question. What's creating consciousness?

So here, we're going to go to the text. You ready? Oh, we're still in your translation.

I don't think we're seeing it. Okay, yeah. No, go back.

Go back up. Yeah, RDOD DE GZHAN LAS. When you get to link number six, that's a contact with the outside world.

We call RIGS PA. What's the picture? Two.

Yeah, it's a man and a woman touching each other. The picture in the Wheel of Life. How do you make contact with the outside world?

How do you make contact with the outside world? And then the word in Buddhism is MA RIGS PA'I RDOD DE REG PA. Say MA RIGS PA'I.

MA RIGS PA'I RDOD DE REG PA. They don't call it contact with the outside world. They call it contact infected by misunderstanding.

Interesting idea. They don't say when Geshe-la holds up a phone, your mind makes contact with the picture of the phone. We don't say that.

Buddha said that kind of contact of your mind with my phone is infected by ignorance, infected by misunderstanding. He always says it that way. Only with link number six, only with contact, he says infected by misunderstanding.

REG LAS SKYES PA'I. And then from that infected contact, infected contact comes SOR BA. Your feelings.

Feel good, feel bad, feel bored, feel sleepy, feel confused. Then DE LA BRTEN NAS. Due to that, SEPA.

Initial desire. Yeah, you start to have a desire for this thing. It's not desire that you want to steal Geshe-la's phone.

It's desire to believe that that phone is coming from its own side. It's a more subtle desire. And by the way, that desire that believes that the phone is coming from its own side, it takes the fresh karma at link number two, and it triggers it like a nuclear bomb.

Thinking the wrong way about the object of your perception, thinking about it the wrong way, triggers mature desire. That's what link number ten. And that triggers rebirth.

Got it? Do you have contact with the phone? Yes.

How do you feel about the phone? You feel it's coming from its own side. RDZUGS PA REG PA.

Number six, contact. SDUG PA SOR BA. You feel something about it.

RGYAS PA DGOS PA SREG PA LEN PA. You feel like the phone is coming from its own side. And that takes all your karmic seeds and makes them up.

That's what moves a karmic seed into reality, is thinking about things the wrong way. It's very interesting. So there's two karmas in the Wheel of Life, number two and number ten.

Two is fresh karma. You just planted a seed. That's karma opening to create your world.

Why does the fresh seed turn into a seed that's ready to open? You misunderstand it. When you misunderstand things, it makes fresh seeds turn into ready seeds to open.

Got it? You could go around with seeds in your mind your whole life, it doesn't bother anything. Who cares?

They don't take any space by the way. They are a potential. They are not physical.

They are not even mental. They are a potential. You could go around for the rest of your life with bad seeds in your mind.

They won't do anything. But if you misunderstand your world, link number eight and nine, that will trigger the seed. That will wake the seed up.

And then it will create a car accident, or cancer, or something like that. Got it? It's very important.

The question is very important. What wakes up your seeds? And then Lord Buddha says, MARIGS PA'I DU DE REG PA, the contact is infected.

The contact with the outside world is infected somehow. And he only says it about contact. He doesn't say it about feeling.

He doesn't say it about the five sense doors. He only says it about contact. That's what they're talking about here.

SOR BAR BSTAN NAS BSAD PA'I BYUNG BA'O BYED DAG TU BYED means he specified, the only link in the twelve links that he specified as nasty is number six, which is just contact with objects. You're just looking at a phone. Why did he BYED DAG TU BYED means why did he take that one out and say this is the troublemaker?

The contact is the troublemaker. And don't forget the original debate we're having. Listen, is your mind created by objects?

Are your thoughts, are your perceptions triggered by objects, or are they triggered by your karma? Where's your visual sense, audible sense, smellable sense, tasteable? Where are they?

What triggers them? Is it that I put an object, is it that I touch you and then you get a perception? Or is it all being run by some guy in the back called karma?

Which one? That's the debate here. Are they mutually exclusive?

Okay, let's go back to the book. By the way, you can't fix things unless you figure it out. You can't fix sansara unless you figure it out.

It's not some stupid debate. It's very important. Next sentence, please read, Mr. Perfect Pronunciation. So when we move from the five sense objects to contact, Lord Buddha specifies contact infected by misunderstanding. But when he moves past contact into feeling, he does not. PHRAD DAG TU PHYIR PA MED means he doesn't talk about infected by ignorance, infected by misunderstanding.

When he gets past contact into feeling, first you make contact with a phone, and then you have a feeling about it. He says the contact is infected, but he didn't say that about the feeling. Why?

So Vasubandhu, you're really seeing Vasubandhu. This is real Vasubandhu. Next one.

Can you read the next one also? PHRAD DAG TU PHYIR PA MED PA'I PHRAD DAG BDUN DUN DRA BA MA YIN NO Nice, okay. DRA BCOM PA?

The enemy destroyer? Arhat? ARI means enemy.

PHRAD means to kill. Arhat means enemy destroyer. SRED PA, link number eight, which is your initial misunderstanding of the object.

You start feeling the wrong idea about the object. SRED PA NI SA BA NAS SPYOD This is the SPYOD in Dharmajupa. Cutter.

SA BA NAS, from the root. Arhat cuts link number eight, SPYOD PA SRED PA, from the root. They don't have, they see a phone, but they don't think it's coming from their own side.

They see a pen, but they never think the pen is coming from its own side. They have cut that tendency. They understand all the time, that every time they see something, they believe it's coming from them.

Therefore, they are incapable of what for a hundred dollars? Turning the feeling into discrimination. Who said that?

Did you say? Mental affliction? Yeah, a hundred bucks.

But tell us why. So, you meet a person who's an asshole, and then you're an arhat, and you have a perfect understanding that they are coming from your feet, and then why you don't get upset?

[Speaker 2]
Because you do not believe they are coming from their own side?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, how can you get upset at somebody if they're coming from you? You can go in the bathroom and yell in the mirror, but you can't yell at other people ever again for the rest of your whole life. They are goddamn coming from you.

Then don't blame other people. You meet stupid people, guess what? Everything's a mirror.

Then you can hit yourself or something, but you can't get upset at other people. Arhats have a perfect understanding that every irritating person and thing in the universe is coming from them. They just don't get upset because they know whose fault it is.

Got it? Okay, let's go back to the text. Where did that text go?

Come back, Francisco! Yeah, SA BA NAS SPYOD means they cut from the root, the source of negative emotions. How can you get upset at somebody if you realize that they're just a mirror of yourself?

So you should calm down, especially when Geshe-la's driving, he's like, okay, SNYING GYIS SGOGS PA'I MYONG BAR ZHUGS. Now there's another kind of person here. There's arhats who don't have negativities.

Then there's a SGOGS PA'I MYONG BAR ZHUGS. Say SGOGS PA'I? SGOGS PA'I MYONG BAR ZHUGS.

These are people at very high levels of concentration who have kind of gone into a cessation. They have gone into the end of consciousness. They no longer have normal thought processes.

They are so deep in their meditation, they're almost like a stone. They don't have normal feelings of... they don't have feelings, they don't have discrimination.

Those two of the five skandhas, those two of the five parts of a person, they don't have them in any active sense. They still have them maybe, but not in an active sense. They are so deep in their meditation that they no longer discriminate between things, and therefore they no longer have feelings about things.

They are just dead out in deep meditation, very similar to a person who has anesthesia in a hospital. If you've ever had... I had an operation, they cut my gallbladder out.

I didn't know anything, I felt wonderful. The nurse asked me, she used to ask me every day, what kind of drugs you want to do? I said, I'll take the one I had yesterday.

I felt like I was floating on a warm pond. She said, okay, we'll do that one. So these states of meditation are so deep that you're just spaced out.

So they don't have normal discrimination, and they don't have normal feelings, what do you call it, in a manifest way, but they have them underground. They have them ready to come back. As soon as the anesthesia wears off, they will start saying, this person's nice, I don't like this person, I feel good, I don't feel good.

So we're distinguishing between two different people who have overcome normal feeling and normal discrimination. Who are the two people? Arhat, who's overcome normal feeling and discrimination, and then a person who's just very good at meditating.

It's not to do with their understanding, they're just spaced out. It's like they took cocaine or something. They don't have normal feeling, they don't have normal discrimination.

Which one would you rather be? Arhat. Yeah, because the other guy comes, sooner or later they come back.

Sooner or later they got to come back. I had to leave the hospital, they didn't offer to give me drugs for the rest of my life. All right, next, let's go back to the text.

Yeah, SO BA NYID LA SOGS PA'I DU BZHED DANG SO BA NYID NI MA YIN PAS SPAD DANG DON DU BRAL BA MA YIN. BRAL BA MA YIN. These two guys, BRAL BA MA YIN, they are temporary?

They are not permanent? No, BRAL BA means similar. Same but not the same, yeah.

Yeah, they are not the same. They are not the same. SPAD DANG DON, say SPAD DANG DON.

SPAD means an example that you pull out to describe something. SPAD means an example that you pull out to describe something. DON means the meaning of the metaphor.

SPAD means metaphor. DON means the meaning of the metaphor. Or you can say the example that you took and the meaning of the example.

These two examples here are Arhat and... Meditator. And a person in deep meditation.

He says BRAL BA MA YIN. It's not the same thing. These are not the same case.

One guy finished his normal feelings and discrimination because he understood about the pen, and he will never go back. The other guy is just lucky, he's just having some lucky meditation. As soon as he gets hungry, he's out of there.

Seriously. Okay, good. Let's keep going.

Oh, that's all. Okay, now Grandpa's going to go back to... Francisco, can I share my screen?

We okay? Let's try. Okay, here we go.

Okay, so Sugeng's going to... By the way, the way this class goes, at nine o'clock, am I right? At nine o'clock, we will stop the class class.

Grandpa will sit down. Sugeng will lead a conversation for 15 minutes about how can you possibly use any of this stuff in your real life. So start thinking about what you'd like to say, and everyone's welcome to say something.

And then at 9.15 Arizona time, we will have a news show. It's called Peachtree World News, and we cover... there are 41 organizations in the Worldview Network, and we will cover some of the news from the organizations.

If you have any news from your country, from your group, you're very welcome to add your news to the news show. It's for you. It's for you guys.

If the Vietnamese are doing something cool and new, let us know. If Vimala and John Brady have a concert, a major philharmonic concert in Taiwan at Arizona time, then tell Juan Caso, and he's the maestro of the news show, or Daniel Garcia. Okay, okay, please pick your victim.

Can I invite Inna to read, please? It's covered in $100. Yeah, nice.

Good. Let me get to a bigger person. GZHAN NARAS.

GZHAN NARAS means what? Others? What does somebody say?

Yeah, somebody says. Somebody has a new idea. Somebody comes with a new idea.

GNUS PA TSOGS PA NI. GNUS PA means potential. If the potential comes together, GDUS PA, if the potential comes together, GSUM DE NI, those three will create, yeah, those three will create a DUS SHES, discrimination, and feelings.

Which three? The mind, the object, and the consciousness. Yeah, object, mind, and consciousness.

But how can they create an emotion? How can they create a sensation in a person who's in deep meditation? GDUS PA MA YIN NO.

GNUS PA GDUS PA MA YIN NO. When the person's in deep, deep meditation, they cannot have a perception, and they can't have feelings, and they can't have discrimination. Okay, here we go.

Who's going to read? Okay, I'm going to have Limsi. By the way, this should be .

. . Yeah, we already .

. . GSUM RGYIN means, we already proved that was wrong.

GSUM RGYIN means destroy. So we already, we don't, we're not going to debate with you on that, because we already covered that. There cannot be, there cannot be coming together of mind and object, and then a contact between those, and some kind of perception, because the person is in a deep meditation.

They can't have it. We already covered that. Keep going.

[Speaker 2]
DE BA'I NA, GDIS NI RIGS PA MA YIN NO ZHUGS.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, what we say is there wouldn't be contact there. There wouldn't be contact. If the person's in a deep meditation, they're not going to have a contact with the outside objects, okay?

Keep going. Yes, again. Yeah, please.

GUS SO. GUS SO, nice. So you have the example of a person in very deep meditation.

They happen to be in the formless realm, okay? Their mind is in the formless realm. Why is their mind in the formless realm?

Yeah, good. They're having no contact with outside objects, therefore they are formless, okay? Their mind is, it's like these geniuses who are sitting in their house and their wife wants to know why they never wash the dishes.

Their mind is just gone, okay? RIGS KYI RNAM PAR BSHAD PA Now, suppose there is a state of perfect concentration, and by the way, your body can be in the desire realm, and your mind can be in the form realm or the formless realm. When you see emptiness directly, your body is in the desire realm, but your mind is in the form realm, okay?

Your mind is in a deep meditation. So he says, here, okay, I understand. There's this guy, he's sitting in the desire realm, his body is sitting in a chair at his desk in the desire realm, and then his mind is gone deep, deep, deep, deep, and he's having no normal perceptions, no normal feelings, no normal discrimination.

Now I have a question for you. Is that state of mind good karma or bad karma? That's the question.

That's the guy's question. Suppose I can reach this deep, deep, deep meditation, my body is sitting there in the desire realm at my desk, no dishes are being washed, okay? That somehow reminds me of my home.

And the mind is off deep in some formless realm, okay? Now I have a question for you. Is that a good karma or is that a bad karma?

I mean, a wife would say it's a bad karma. Okay, so here's the question. DGE BA'AM.

Is it a good karma? A good one. Or is it NYON MONGS CAN?

Negative, an emotion, negative. Or is it LUNG DU MA DE? Neutral.

Yeah, or is it karmically neutral? Is it karmically positive or karmically negative or karmically neutral? Say again?

It's a neutral. Oh, well, we're not answering yet. PHYIN DA'O ZHIG means which one?

DGE PA BYA DGOS SO means you better answer this question. Somebody's asking him, you better answer this question. By the way, it's not an unconnected argument.

Somehow he's going to use it to fight with us. Whatever answer we give, he's going to use it to fight with us. He's not asking this question out of the blue.

He's going to bring it back to the original debate. This is Vasubandhu. Okay, who's next?

Can I invite Aldo Arzapalo, please? PHYIN NYE RGA LTAS BYAS BA YIN NA RGYAS PA'I RTZA BA MED PAR BYIS LTAR BYAS BA YIN Thank you very much. Nice, okay.

PHYI NYE means, what's the problem if I say virtue? What's the problem here? I'm talking to the other guy.

I said, well, if I tell you it's good karma to be spaced out in the formless realm, your mind, not your body. Your body is sitting in your chair at your desk in the desire realm, but your mind is on a higher, deeper level. He said, PHYI NYE.

PHYI NYE means, do you have a problem if I say it's DGE BA? If I say it's a good karma, is there a problem with that? And the guy says, of course there's a problem.

And we say, why? And he says, DGE BA'I RTZA BA MED. There's no mind.

There's no normal thought process. How can he have intention? Virtue means, good karma means intention.

I want to help somebody. I want to serve somebody. I don't want to hurt people.

He can't think any of that stuff. His mind is shut down. So how can it be virtue?

He doesn't have the very basis of virtue. He doesn't have normal thought process. To think a good karma thought, you have to have normal thought process.

You can't be in the middle of a deep meditation. You can't be thinking, I want to help this person. Or, oh look, I need to have compassion.

Your mind is just in outer space. It's like on deep, deep drugs or something. How can you have good karma if you don't have normal thought process?

Like, I want to help this person. I want to do something for this person. By the way, a hundred bucks.

You ready? Everybody's like... Those rabbits, I saw a rabbit on the way down, they're like...

There's a famous, typical rebirth for people who reach the top of the formless room. The hells? No, where are they normally reborn and why?

All their good karma runs out, so they're born in hell. No, no, right where they are because they are formless. Wait, who is that?

Nick. Nick, forget Nick. You guys got half of it.

Come on, keep going, keep going. They're at the highest mental state. They're spaced out.

So, why did they go to the hell room? Because they ran out of all their good karma. That's half the answer, you guys.

Oh, oh, oh. These doctors say they ran out of their good karma, and then when I say no, they say they ran out of their good karma, and then when I say give me more, they say they ran out of their good karma. They weren't making new good seeds because they were just sitting by themselves meditating.

How so? Are you not talking about... Too long.

I just want to turn the answer. No new good seeds? Yeah, good.

She got it. Okay, a hundred bucks. I'll say it again, I'll say it again.

It's well known that you shouldn't try to strive for just deep, deep meditation in the formless realm because you will use up all your good karma, and you always go to the hell realm after that because you use it up everything. You empty out your refrigerator completely. Then there's no place to go but the hell realm.

That implies what? They are not creating new good karma. You see?

They are not. They cannot. That's the argument here.

That's the argument here. They don't have a mind that they cannot think, I want to help somebody, or oh, this person is suffering, or there's a war in this country, let me help. They can't think like that.

They are on drugs. They are high on meditation. Then they burn their good karma, which is how they stay in meditation.

Then there's nothing left, and there's no good karma. There's no new good karma. That's what this line says.

DGE BA'I RTZA BA MED They run out. JI LTAR DGE BA YIN How could it be karma? How could it be good karma?

So, four. We eliminated three of the possibilities. Sorry, we eliminated one of the possibilities.

They are not making good karma. Now we got two possibilities left. They are neutral, or they are making bad karma.

Here we go. Who's next? Maria Nesteros By the way, these are not silly arguments.

You meet many, many, many people. Many, many, many. 99.99% of all human beings don't think it's important to meditate at all. Of the .001 who want to meditate, most of them are wasting their time trying to feel good. They are like on a drug. And then .0001 of those guys are trying to understand emptiness with their meditation. Only those people are not wasting their time. Only those people are not. All these people on this insight meditation...

I want to say crap, but I'm not saying it. They are just going to waste their life. They are just going to die, go to some realm, wander around for a million years.

There's no information that's going to help you get out. You see what I mean? So what he's criticizing here is mindless meditation.

You just want to feel good. Try to overcome your stress. Meditate to overcome your stress while you're dying.

Thanks. I mean it's crazy. It's just crazy.

You should be stressed. Okay? All right.

Who's next? Master of?

[Speaker 2]
My name is Jitthar. I want to learn how to overcome my stress. I want to learn how to overcome my stress.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, thank you. Okay, cool. Second chapter of the Abhidharma discusses the powers of the mind, 21 powers of the mind in 22.

Right? And they discuss potential or possibilities. And the question is, after a virtuous state of mind, there's three possibilities.

If at 9 o'clock you're having a virtuous state of mind, I would like to help someone who's in pain. Then 9.01, there's three possibilities. What are they?

You can keep thinking virtuous thought. How am I going to help these people? Or you could go neutral.

Wow, this meditation is pretty nice. Or you could start getting upset. Why is that fly landed on my nose during such a sweet meditation?

So there's three possible paths of the mind after a virtuous thought. And that's a big topic in the second chapter of the Abhidharma course. What are the possible pathways of the mind as far as good karma or bad karma?

After an event, after a good mental karma event, there are three possibilities. What are they? You keep thinking virtuous.

You change to neutral. Or the fly lands on your nose and you're like, god damn. You get angry.

So there's three possibilities. DE DAG KYANG MED PA REG PA MED PA JI LTAR YIN TE Something has to cause you to change. Fly has to make contact.

See what I mean? There has to be something to change the course of your feeling or your intentions. Something has to happen.

It's not going to just change on its own. Something intervenes to make you change. But if there's no REG PA, if this person at a high, high meditation has no contact with the outside world at all, or no contact with even the inside world, then how can the course of their mind be changed?

DER MA THAG RGYEN DER MA THAG RGYEN is very important. DER MA THAG RGYEN is a kind of cause, special kind of cause, which redirects the mind in the next millisecond. DER MA THAG means next millisecond.

It's a special Abhidharma term. Then there are constant influences on your mind that change its direction. A good meditator and a good practitioner has to learn to ignore them.

If someone yells at you or you get a pain in your back or something, a great meditator has to learn to ignore them. Otherwise, it's going to redirect your mind to something else. DER MA THAG RGYEN PHUNG PA'I PHYIR PHUNG means there's nothing there in the formless realm to redirect your mind.

GAL TE DGE BA YIN NA MI RUNG STE Therefore, they couldn't have a good karma after that moment of consciousness. After a moment of consciousness of good karma, they could not keep going in good karma because, DGE BA LA SOGS PA'I SEMS KYI BCUG RTOGS SU SEMS KYI RNAMS PA SEMS BSKYED PHYIR RO Because uncontrollably, their karma would cause their mind to go any one of three different ways. It's not an outside object that's going to influence them to start getting upset or to keep being virtuous or something like that, because they have no awareness of outside objects because they're in such deep meditation.

They have no more RGYUGS PA RGYUGS PA The contact? Yeah, there's no more contact. They are so deep in meditation, nothing can influence them.

If somebody slams a door, there's going to be no contact with that object. Therefore, their mind cannot be redirected. Therefore, they can't be in good karma at that time because they would be in good karma forever.

There's nothing to shake them out of that flow. You got it? There's no REG PA.

There's no contact with outside objects. They're so deep in meditation that there's no contact with outside objects. Therefore, their mind cannot be good karma because that would be good karma forever.

They would never come out. Nothing would ever cause them to come out. Cool?

Understand? Yeah. Okay, cool.

We're going to stop there. Don't forget the debate. The debate is what's the karmic content of a deep state of meditation?

Is it good karma, bad karma, or neutral? Okay? We kind of argued against good karma.

Now we got to talk about neutral and negative karma. Okay? I'll continue that next time.

Okay. Yeah. What's the date today?

20. 20? Yeah, 20.

21. Oh, okay. Thank you.

Yeah. The bottom line is don't... Shh!

Later. The bottom line is it won't help you to just go deep in meditation. Okay?

Those people who are trying to go deeper and deeper in meditation without any bodhichitta, no intention to help other people. They just want to feel good, or they don't want to feel stressed or something like that. It's a useless, hopeless...

It's a hopeless activity. They can only die. There's a bad ending to it.

Okay? Just to sit and meditate and try to feel good, it's a hopeless... It's obviously hopeless.

The body that you're meditating in will die. And then the meditation will finish. And then something terrible will happen.

So, don't think that the purpose of meditation is to get into some kind of pleasant feeling. Because logically, it's impossible that you can keep it. It's not possible you can keep it.

Got it? It's not a goal. It's not what we're here for.

And that means if you have a day at Diamond Mountain and your meditation is not going so well, stick with it. The purpose to be here is not to feel good. The purpose is to use the meditation for something more.

So if you... Oh, I don't feel good. My meditation is not so sweet.

Well, that's good. No, I mean sweet meditation is not the goal. You need a sweet meditation to see deeper things.

But to stay in a sweet meditation is a foolish goal. And it has to end someday. Okay.

All right, here we go back to this again. Rabbi. Okay.

Thank you, Geshe-la. Let's have a short discussion about the topic that we just discussed. And please feel free to to say out.

Oh, wow. Wow. Thank you.

Those people online, please open your mic and talk. Don't type because I don't have access to the chat box. So you can type.

No matter how long you want, I can't see you. But I will start with the people in the room. Peter Mortel, please.

Thank you, Geshe-la and Sugeng for repeating that there's even a bodhisattva around that, right? I'm not being happy about your good meditation. But I never really, I don't know.

I had a little breakthrough. So this is the reason why retreats are so difficult, right? You are in retreat.

In the best case scenario, things go well. The meditation is good. And then suddenly you it gets harder and harder to keep that going.

And people cannot finish the retreats or lay rungs because it becomes very hard for whatever reason. So my question is... This is a discussion.

I want your contribution. But anyway, please. My contribution is that realization that retreats are not easy because you mistake good feelings as the goal.

Subconsciously, all the time. When you feel good, you think you're doing well. And when you're not feeling good, you think you're doing not well.

And that's not necessarily the case, I realized. So my question is, can you dedicate... Does it change?

Does a good state of mind, like the ones you described, when in deep meditation and you, let's assume, do not have contact with objects, can you change that karma to becoming a very powerful good karma through dedication? Good question. Anybody has a good answer to that?

Anybody wants to say something? Oh, repeat the question. Summarize.

Okay. I'm going to summarize from German English to Singapore English, okay? What Peter was saying is that we discussed in the text just now, and Geshe Michael was saying that even when we have bad days during meditation, it should not stop us from continuing to do it for the fact that having feeling good is not the main, is not the result that we want to get.

So Peter was saying that if we were to dedicate whatever good result or good feeling that we had before, are we going to be able to have, to recreate, to have this good feeling into the future? Is that what I'm, no? Okay, please.

Sorry, apparently seeing your point. I'm not interested to have more good feelings in samsara. Okay.

I'm not interested in that. I do not want to have more good meditations that don't help me to stop my condition.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So what I'm asking though, you get to good places in meditation where you are not compassionate at that point in time, because you cannot think like that. Not compassionate? Well, you're not creating good karma according to the definition of what you just told us.

But, this is my question, when you come out of that state and you realize, oh my god, this was a pretty good meditation, will the karma change if I dedicate it? If I say... Which karma?

The karma of the good meditation that you just used up. And then? And then you dedicate to?

Thank you for the sugar coating, but I don't want more sugar. I want to see emptiness directly to help everyone. I dedicate that to the next meditation so that you go...

Make sense? Yeah. Afterwards, afterwards, yeah.

I don't know, Mike? Oh yeah. You want to say something?

If after a mindless meditation, you dedicate the efforts that you made, then that mindless meditation becomes good karma. I think that's... I'd say it sounds pretty good.

Sounds pretty good.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Rob, please.

[Speaker 3]
I hadn't put this together until we were not correctly finishing what we were saying about that in that minute, there's no active state of mind there, I guess, right? There's no mind at that moment in that state of meditation, and so therefore, they can't create any good seeds. They can't create any karma.

They can't really do anything because there's no state of mind there to do it. I guess I hadn't just put that together before, and so therefore, I thought, even if our meditation is bad, it's still kind of good. We still have this opportunity because personally, for me, I think when bad things have happened in my life, I tend to have this thing where I just want to shut down or put myself away or be alone, like a dog.

They say when a dog's about to die, they go separate. And I've watched Geshe-la time and time again, no matter what's happening, he'll just keep... The teaching's going on.

You just have to keep going, and so I thought, oh, this is a great opportunity now. Even if it's terrible, I still have this opportunity to sort of... Even in a terrible, negative state of mind, I can still move forward and still do the work, I guess.

And I hadn't put that together until he kind of clarified that.

[Speaker 1]
So you're saying that even though our meditation is terrible, but...

[Speaker 3]
It's actually good.

[Speaker 1]
The fact that we are doing meditation with a proper goal, that is actually good, and we should proceed, right?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, totally.

[Speaker 1]
I like that. Wow, all right. And I like...

Let's hear from Ben Alec. Did I call your name correctly? Yes, Ben.

Okay. Thanks, Geshe Michael. My question or comment is similar to Peter's in the sense that as we come out of a mindless state of meditation, we had talked about being, rather than proselytizing our spiritual path, just being an example as we go through our life.

And having experienced that state, just who we are as we go into our life would probably be an interesting... Wow, what happened to Ben? You know, you seem more peaceful, or you seem that you've transcended some of the troubles of the intellect as you just go through your life.

And it seems to me that that would be a good karma. Thank you. Thank you, and we always say that it is important also to conduct yourself well even in, we call it in-between meditations, meaning outside the meditations.

And yeah, that is good. But a very special type of karma if you're able to achieve a mindless state, transcend the intellect, that would be that would be an attraction to me. If I saw that in somebody.

Wow. How'd you do that? Thank you.

Before I move on to others, I just want to say that, I mean, we just came fresh from the DCI Level 8 Automatic Leadership, and I'd like to mention that the goal itself is very important. Having the right goal is very important. And by combining what we discussed today, if we have the goal correct, we say there might be challenges along the way, there might be forces pushing us away from the main road, but as long as we know the goal, the direction, the destination, and if we put in the effort to come back towards the goal, I think all challenges will become much sweeter.

You know, so I mean, that is my feeling. So thank you, Ben. I like it.

Okay. Wow, wow. Okay, let's hear from...

Okay, I want to hear, I mean, but our Guatemala lady has been raising her hand. Simone, please. She's American, by the way.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you, Sugeng. Thank you, everyone. You're led into what I have to say just perfectly, and I just want to emphasize that when Peter said how we come out could make a difference in how those seeds go, but also how we go in makes a difference in how those seeds go, and if we're doing our preliminaries, we're generating bodhichitta.

And then the whole thing that we do is imbued with that.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Walk the talk, right? Walk the talk.

Thank you. Okay, let's hear from... Oh, Timus.

Oh, okay. Last one, last one. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
That's what... I don't know why, but I didn't think about that. Thank you very much, Geshe Michael, for pointing out this thing.

I just didn't think that it could be... All this effort to meditate could be just useless. It didn't come to my mind before.

I don't know why. So, that's amazing to know, just to know that what we are doing, how teachers lead us through meditation, they always tell us first preliminaries, first motivation, first just think about why you're doing it. In DCI, in ACI, it doesn't matter.

But they lead us to these preliminaries, and as Sivon said, set up your motivation and think about bodhicitta. Why? I don't know why.

We need to do that. Teachers said that. But now I realize why.

And teachers always say, just dedicate. Let's do three long breath out. Okay, let's do.

Why? Why? Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Thank you, Venerable. You wrap up the session so well.

And with that, I would like to invite our next... We are going into our next session, the Peachtree World News. And let's invite our handsome Husso, Juan Husso.

Thank you, Sugeng, for a beautiful class. And thank you very much, Keshe and Michael, as always, for a great class. Testing the microphone.

Okay, thank you very much. Welcome back to another exciting segment on the Peachtree World News. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. And I hope you're all having a wonderful time here at Diamond Mountain. We have the beautiful opportunity to be here together.

I remember those years when we had to be only doing it online. It's wonderful to be live again, to get to spend time with each other. We get these beautiful teachings, but also the chance to get to know each other.

And that's very valuable too, this community feeling, family. You get to say hi, to have fun, and relax. So, it's wonderful.

And, if you're having a good time, you could have, again, great time, because we want to invite you to start signing up for the next retreat, which is happening in October. Yeah, thank you very much. Actually, these retreats sold out super, super quickly.

I think people were very excited to be here again. So, maybe it's a good time to start doing it. Me, personally, I didn't do it fast enough, so I couldn't get a cottage.

But now I'm thinking, maybe I should hurry up next time. So, here it is. Yeah, consider, please, start preparing for them.

It's good to prepare in advance. It's something I'm learning, but let's go for it. And today, for those of you who are online, we also want to keep inviting you to special class.

20th anniversary of Diamond Mountain. And one of the reasons I sometimes speak too fast, it's because the time is very short, and there are so many people who want us to talk about what's happening, and they're very cool projects. So, if I slow too much, my apologies, but then it's many people who is not going to have the time, maybe.

Let's see what can we do. Okay, next thing, please. Yes, a few people here.

Well, these two wonderful teachers were here yesterday. David and Serani, they are organizing a very cool event with the Heart Sutra. And Joanna and Rashna are organizing the event, so you can talk to them.

Can you raise your hand, please? It's going to be in Barcelona, as far as I understand. Yes.

I think I have here beautiful things about Barcelona. If you happen to be around, I think it's a great chance. You can follow the QR code, get to know more.

It's in October, so we will keep talking about it little by little, but it's good for you to know it's happening. And also, another thing connected with the Heart Sutra, John Brady is teaching in Japan the Heart Sutra also in June. It's going to be very cool.

Sophia, is she here? Oh, yeah, you can talk to her if you are interested, please. Wonderful event.

Japan is amazing. It's nearby Kyoto. Kyoto is wonderful, super beautiful, beautiful.

I recommend if you have the chance, at least go once. You're going to want to come back again. Next one, please.

Okay, this is something very cool happening very soon. Kat, is she around? Yes.

So she and Benji, they are doing this collaboration together with YSI. They're going to be talking about deep insights on how to do retreat, what you can expect from retreat, their own personal experiences with retreat. In one hand, we have Kat, that she has a lot of experience taking care of people doing retreat, but also doing retreat herself.

And Benji, he has the experience of doing retreat as well, more with the approach of everything that's happening in your inner subtle body, connected exactly yoga, connected with Yoga Studies Institute. So these two combination is going to be wonderful if you want to learn more about how to do retreat, what to expect out of retreat. Check the QR code.

It's happening soon. They are using New York time, which is unusual. We shall even use Arizona time.

But you know, we welcome everyone. So it's actually at 5, 5 Arizona time. All right.

And we have a very special interview today. We want to share something very cool that some friends from here, where are they? You know who I'm talking about?

Can you raise your hand? The people with the interview today? Ina?

Yes. And Bill by Michael. Oh, well, well, sorry, first you can start coming up, but we have a special invite from Chloe was saying like, please, we have to let people know.

So it's a special video, Hector sent for Geshe-la, and we want to show it very quickly. Can you help us with the light, please, Alex?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la, for this. This is for you tonight, and for JV, and for you incredible teachers.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you for this. It'll be a blessing for over a thousand people in New York tonight.

[Speaker 2]
That's it.

[Speaker 1]
And So you can sign up. They're having the Met Gala. It's a big event in New York.

Wonderful, big celebration. If you're interested to attend, it's going to happen in May, very soon, May 2nd, I think. You can follow this QR code.

That says 2023, but they are very smart. They use the same QR code, so the QR code is still good. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Check it out. Great party.

Talk to Chloe. She can help you to, I don't know, check details. She lived in New York for a long time.

She can even recommend you where to stay. So, yeah. Now, our special guest.

So, true love, huh? No, it's actually wonderful to see you here. I met you.

Each one, actually, I met them separately before they connected. I had the chance to be roommates with you in Taiwan, remember? It was very fun.

And then I met you later with the mixed nuts. And then one day I see you together. It's like, wonderful.

What happened?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, we have different stories, okay? Because my story is short. Like, I was going to a nursing home for half a year, doing four steps to get my partner.

His story is long. He was planting me for 14 years.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. He just had to go to the nursing home.

[Speaker 2]
Her karma was better than mine. Because he was not coffee meditating. I mean, Geshe Michael taught me to plant a partner, to plant seeds for a partner.

I was coming to every single event, and I would see this Norwegian movie, go to the nursing home, do four steps, plant your partner. And in four or five years, I decided to go. It was not very fast to make a decision.

But actually, when I met Bill, I realized that all decisions are actually working for me. And the first thing he suggested to do when we realized that we are partners is that we should do a relationship course.

[Speaker 3]
So, we decided to do something really simple. And only five 30 minutes classes.

[Speaker 2]
We did it in Russian last year, 31 classes. And this year, in English, only five to get people interested in the teachings, you know, people who lost hopes that they will get a partner. Just an ordinary audience, anybody can come.

So, if you know people who want their partner, it's like $29 or something. Because we want to make it really accessible and you know, we don't make really money on this, but it's a start. Maybe we will.

[Speaker 1]
So, I would like to ask a few questions. Number one, maybe if you share a little bit of what's your story, what's your perspective on what happened in your, you know, she say already of her. Yes, Ina has a gift, frankly, for applying, you know, applying the teachings to people to get results.

I've seen her work with Russian-speaking groups. She started four years ago working with Russian-speaking people and has had some really, really extraordinary results. Like you.

And so, we wanted to share it with people. And so, it's now time to move on to an English-speaking audience to help them with relationships and to help people apply the knowledge. You know, we'll teach you ACI for free, but people need help beyond that for applying it personally and you know, how to do it.

And we've seen really a lot of excellent results.

[Speaker 3]
She has a rare insight into how to help people.

[Speaker 2]
This is not the first course I'm doing. The first one was like 700 people, 50 or something. And people were getting great results.

So, if you know somebody who is desperate to get their partners, let them know. They can sign up. We recorded pre-recorded classes and they can do it.

[Speaker 1]
And this one, this is for a general audience. People don't have to know anything about Buddhism. She's always telling me, don't say karma, you know, don't say Buddhism.

And so anybody can go.

[Speaker 3]
We go over things like the pen and mental seeds, how to apply it and then the more advanced courses will talk more specifically about specific problems and how to deal with them.

[Speaker 2]
And of course, our personal stories because we are good in talking and so we talk a lot.

[Speaker 1]
And people, they say it's fun. Well, so thank you very much. When is it going to happen?

It's pre-recorded, so it is available online any moment. Okay, so people sign up with the QR code, the classes are already recorded, they follow the...

[Speaker 2]
And the idea that we will, we have recorded already a couple more modules to it, like this is basics and then we will do like divorce here, like, I don't know, addictions there and stuff like that.

[Speaker 1]
So, and if someone has like a very particular problem or question, is there a chance that they talk directly to you at some point?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, we are running every month's Q&A session. The next one is 30th of April.

[Speaker 1]
Wonderful. Okay, so there you go. If you're looking for your partner or you have one but it's not working very much, maybe they can help.

Yeah, and if I can have a partner of my dreams, you can have yours also. I promise. Thank you very much.

So how long have you been together now? About four and a half years. Four and a half years, that's wonderful.

Congratulations, it's really wonderful to see you together. So yeah, I think you can inspire a lot of people. And yeah, from those 700 people, how many of them do you think they have created a partner?

[Speaker 2]
We were not running statistics unfortunately at that time, but now we are very specific about capturing people's results and from what I can tell, if you practice, you will get your partner.

[Speaker 1]
That's what they say. We hope so. So yeah, no, it's funny because Geshe Michael said usually we use money or financial situation because it's very how to say, you can yeah, what's the word?

Measurable. Yes, countable, measurable. And now it's funny that here could be measurable as well.

We have 700 people, how many can get their partners? Maybe. Okay, so thank you very much.

Thank you, Juan. Thank you very much. And for those of you who feel interested and connected to this kind of classes, we want to keep reminding you to sign up for the Shuang San translation classes.

Geshe-la travels all over the world these days and he says a very special time to do this kind of classes. He really defends this time. People want him to do other things.

No, this is really, really important. You don't understand how meaningful this is. So you can follow the tour around the Shuang San translation tower.

Just follow the QR code. Diamond Cutter Classes website. They're going to give you all you need to keep following these classes.

And in these classes we also have, of course, the P3 World News where you can share with the world what's happening. And you can find us on Instagram. You can write to us in the email, website, et cetera.

Please just contact me. We are facing a new challenge because there are so many things happening. We cannot always feed everyone, but we really will find a way or organize to do it.

And we have a next event coming up. It's on May 17. This time we like to give a theme to the events.

This time, yes, May 14. This time is about celebrating how lucky we are to have teachers and teachings because in May is Teachers Month. The Teachers Day is happening in May in the United States.

So it's important to celebrate and be grateful that we have them to keep having them. Okay. Thank you so much.

And, yeah, what's next? Thank you so much, Juan. I just have a quick announcement to make for you guys.

Can anybody hear me? No. Well, for those of you who want to join Word's class, he's going to teach from now until the beginning of the next re-recording of Stanley's class.

So I think that that's really cool that he's going to do that on the regular link. So you guys who go to Word's classes, you know where to go. Ask around if you're interested.

He teaches very, very good classes in learning this ancient language. And we've seen incredible people learning incredible skills very fast. So thank you so much, Word, and you're free to join that class right now.

Then, for those of you who want to stick around from 10.30 to 11.30, you're welcome to watch as we re-record Stanley's class. It's going to be aired at a later date, so you can catch it at the regular Schwenzong Tower time, or you can stick around now from 10.30 to 11.30 on this link, we will have another live class where we cover Stanley Chen's Abhidharma Samuccaya. Well, the book that he's translating, anyway.

So thank you all, and you are all free to go about your break.