Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 70

[Speaker 3]
Hi, everybody.

[Speaker 1]
Welcome to Xuan Sonics Tower. Thank you for coming. Looks like we're getting kind of a slow start this morning, which is nice.

Doesn't matter when you show up, just show up, listen to our amazing classes, and enjoy and learn. Thank you so much, Marina, for being available to help us make these prerecorded classes from Kyoto happen. And thank you to the whole team in Kyoto, if you guys hear this, especially Francisco, who's doing a lot of work always to make these classes happen.

And of course, our amazing interpreters broadcasting these classes into many languages. Today, we have a class with Sugeng Shi, Geshe Michael, who's teaching him in Kyoto time during one of their scheduled class times. And we'll watch the video.

Anything to add, Ben?

[Speaker 3]
I'm excited. Thanks for being here, everybody.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Whenever you're ready, Marina, let it fly. And we'll do a 15-minute discussion at the end.

See what we got. Marina, I don't know if you have audio. I don't.

Do you, Ben?

[Speaker 2]
I'm getting the maybe it's happening signal from the menu. Or maybe it's going to happen.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I'll work on my caffeinated beverage. OK. Yay.

Something good.

[Speaker 2]
Good job.

[Speaker 1]
Mm-hmm. Is it worth scanning ahead a minute to see if something changes? Mm-hmm.

Oh, cool. Is that Oman? Stump?

No, sound online. Oh. Hello, hello.

You're OK? You see? We're OK.

Brian says we're OK. Brian says we're OK.

[Speaker 2]
It's good.

[Speaker 1]
I guess we're OK. Huh? No, I don't want to.

No, it's OK. It doesn't need to. I was about to offer that.

OK. There's a place in Italy called Pompeii. OK?

And as maybe you know, this is a pretty wealthy Roman town from 2,000 years ago. It's next to a volcano. And suddenly, the volcano exploded to no crying babies in my class, unless they cry in Sanskrit.

No. No. No.

So I never cried. OK. And it was buried in an explosion of a volcano.

Here, this is a particular rich guy's house who was a philosopher. And he had a very good library. Next picture.

These guys didn't run fast enough. So the whole town was buried very suddenly. And still, we have these.

These are people who actually died under the lava. And they were caught where they were sleeping and things like that. Very terrible picture.

Next. This guy was a book collector. And he had rolled up books.

They are called papyri scrolls. And these are Greek and Roman classics, very similar to Sugeng's book. And they were all burned in the volcano.

And they tried to open one or two of them. And they just fall apart. They just powder.

They fall into powder. So they gave up to open them. And then they had a fun competition this year.

And they said, if you can figure out what's inside the scroll, we'll give you $700,000. So all of these 20-year-old guys, who's the only ones who understand AI, they tried to use AI to read the ink through the ashes. It's very interesting, because the ink burned slower than the paper.

And there's a difference in the paper, where the ink didn't burn as fast. And then they learned to do X-rays with AI. And they could figure out a lot of the book.

And they understand this book, for example, is about how to enjoy your life. That's the guy under the volcano. And it's a beautiful book.

It's really a good book. And so the reason I showed this, I saw this recently in the news. And I was thinking of Sugeng's book.

So there's a similar book by Vasubandhu in the ancient collection that John Brady saved. And it's very, very strange. It's a very, very ancient.

It's very corrupted, destroyed. The letters are difficult to read. The ideas are difficult to read.

The spelling's all wrong. But it's by one of the two or three greatest Buddhists of all time, Vasubandhu, Master Vasubandhu. So we decided to try to figure it out.

And it's extremely difficult, more difficult than the other translators. So I just want to prepare you for a frustrating class. Sugeng's homework.

But we're doing a very unusual job, trying to save this book, trying to understand this book. But it's very difficult. I decided not to do homework, but instead do a review of the book.

Oh, you like homework? I have homework. They want a review.

Let's do a review. I have homework, even the book. Yeah, this is the, like Geshe Michael mentioned, this book is by Master Vasubandhu, which was written 1,800 years ago, or 1,700.

So it is pretty old. And it is about the will of life. So I was interested on this because I think this is something pretty ancient.

And it's interesting to see how the idea was originally introduced before the modern days. And knowing that we all know Master Vasubandhu as the author of the Abhidharmakosha. And then he was pretty rigid and serious in that book.

But moving on to this book, I'm borrowing Geshe Michael's term is that he came out of the closet and started jumping around. If you were to follow from the beginning, you could feel really the jump, really the excitement of debating people. So the way he told the questions were very interesting.

Do you know why the title is The First Principle and the Consequences and the Links? So do you know why there are two parts? How are they related?

And then we went into the first principle. The first principle, there are two parts. So he started to question you.

Are there really two parts or are they together? Which one would you choose? If they are together, how do you explain the relationship?

So he went in further and further and further. It's like the other term that I like to use is like a bottomless pit, as in the pit is getting deeper and deeper. That's the feeling that I have when I jump into the discussion.

And then he moved on to the first link. He moved on, continued the second link and so on. Traditionally, typically, when we talk about the Wheel of Life, the first link is the most serious link and most authors will focus on the first link because that is the key, the misunderstanding.

But Master Vasubandhu is also a main proponent of the mind-only school. So guess what? He put a lot of emphasis on the third link.

And we could really see he actually went very, very detailed into the third link. Should I speak slower? I hope so.

So in the third link, so he started with argument. The third link is consciousness. So what actually triggers consciousness?

And according to the 12 links, we know that the second link should be the trigger, which is the raw karma, raw seeds. But he then presented another idea that, hey, consciousness might have come from something else. And then he started to talk about the touch, about the contact.

And that actually brought us to think about, hey, yeah, that sounds very correct. So, but does it mean that Buddha actually made a mistake by putting the link in the wrong order? So he actually brought us into this tour of the philosophical debate, which is pretty, very interesting.

And finally he came to, he brought us to a conclusion that, hey, the order is correct because we are talking about the third link as a new life, as a new life. We are not talking about one life. So here we have a very strong understanding that the whole wheel is not talking about one life.

This is talking about another life. And then from the third link, we move on to fourth link. Here he has also another interesting idea.

Third link is consciousness. Fourth link is what? Body and mind, right?

So he was asking, so we know that second link triggers the third link, the karma, the raw karma triggers the consciousness and then consciousness will trigger the body and mind. Now, when we talk about body and mind, what kind of consciousness does it go through? Being a mind-only guy, he talk about six consciousness.

He spoke about eight consciousness. So he was asking, are we talking about all the six and all the eight crossing over together? And then from the fourth link, we will then trigger link number five, which is the six doors of senses.

And he was bringing us through the alleys. When I go through this, I remember the Beijing alleys, the small alleys. I love alleys.

And finally, to cut the story short, he just said that, hey, whatever the strong components of the raw karma will go, but not everything. Otherwise, if you have all the six consciousness together, then there is nobody who will be blind or people with deaf, people who are deaf. So that is a very good conclusion and I kind of like it.

So, and then now we are at the point of this discussion about the body and mind and the six sense organs. So I would like to invite all of you to join me in this journey to explore all the deeper nuances of the will of life that we don't normally get to hear from the modern authors. And all these things to Geshe Michael, the only person who can help us understand what is all this about in this very difficult text.

Thank you, Geshe-la. Do you have translation? Oh, I have.

Oh, yeah. I was so excited with the content. I like it.

I like it. Yeah, nice introduction. By the way, after this class, we usually have a 15-minute discussion.

How can you use this in your real life? Okay, we'll do that at one o'clock. And then after 15 minutes of discussion, we have 15 minutes of Peachtree World News.

Okay? Okay. And I will sneak out after the class, but you cannot, because I have many, many other things I have to prepare today.

All right. So, yeah. Can we have the thing projected?

Okay. Okay, good. Oh, okay.

So, let me read. ,DE MED PA'I DUS MED TE, ,DE MED PA'I MED PAR YANG LEGS KYIS BYAS DAG GIS, ,NAM PAR BSHAD PA BYAS DAG THUN GYUR, ,DE LAS MING DANG ZHUGS BYAS DAG THUN GYUR, ,DE LAS KHYAD CHE DUG KYIS BYAS DAG GO, ,ZHES NAM PAR RIGS PA'I PHYIR RO, Hmm. So.

Okay, do you have a translation? Yeah. Okay.

Just read it.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay. It's meaningless to talk about that, even without saying about it, according to details of the specific karma. There are corresponding details of consciousness and that from those come details of the name and form.

And it's only right that from that should come details of six doors of sense. I don't know. Okay.

English seems so difficult. Okay. What was the...

Yeah. ,NAM PAR BSHAD PA MING DANG ZHUGS SANGS RGYIS KHYEN YIN LA, ,KHYAD CHE DUG KYIS BYAS DAG YANG LA, ,LAM BAR MED PA PA, Yeah. ,NAM PAR BSHAD PA.

Good. So the problem is, the third link is NAM PAR BSHAD PA, which means consciousness. And then the fourth link is...

The name and form. Name and form. So if it's your consciousness from the past life, which enters into your mother's womb, and then you take a body and mind, your new body and mind, which is called name and form, which is two guys in a...

Boat. Boat. Okay.

Then when you get to the six doors of sense, that wouldn't seem correct, because if the causes were the same, then there wouldn't be anybody who was ever blind or deaf. So if you are... If it's...

Do you see things... Do you see this glass because I put this glass in front of you? Or do you see this glass because of your karma as projecting a glass, which one?

Karma. Yeah, if it was coming from the glass, if the pen was coming from the pen, if you saw the pen because the pen is coming from the pen, then everybody would see the pen. Even blind people, even deaf people.

If it's coming from the object, then even blind people, deaf people would see things, hear things, okay? If it's coming from you, then that sort of supports that some people wouldn't have enough seeds to see things or to hear things. So it better explains that people could be deaf or blind than the idea, which is Abhidharma, which is that if I put a red color in front of you, you will see it, okay?

Which is why Master Vasubandhu sort of likes the mind-only idea. He kind of likes that idea. If the seeds are there, you will see a color and it will feel like it's outside.

If the seeds are not there, you will not see a color. So in a way, you are seeing something open in your own mind. You are watching your own storehouse consciousness and colors are opening in your own mind and you are watching those things.

It's not that if I put a glass in front of you, that's going to trigger perception in your mind, okay? He wants to go that way. He likes that way.

DUD MED DE, DE MED PAR YANG MED KYIS, PHYIR NA SKYES RNAM PAR BSHAD PA'I PHYAG RABS KYI RGYUR So it is only through... The reason Lord Buddha didn't say link number two is objects and link number three is consciousness and then the objects trigger the consciousness. The reason he didn't say that was that's not what triggers your consciousness, even of color.

It's your karma, okay? The second link is therefore karma. And then that's responsible for what you see, link then PHYIR NA SKYES.

So any variations, PHYIR NA SKYES means variation. Any details of the karma are going to create corresponding details of the awareness in link number three, right? Karma, the mix of karmic seeds in your mind is going to determine how you see colors.

RGYUR, DE LAS MING DANG GZUGS CHE DAG TU RGYUR And then that will affect your body and mind. What... Do you have a mind...

Are you colorblind, for example? Is your body color... Seiji is funny.

You can take him to Thakur Shamaya, you can show him a yellow shirt and a blue shirt and he says they look the same because he's colorblind and he has some colorblindness. So MING DANG GZUGS CHE DAG TU RGYUR, okay? From the details of the karma, even the physical body and the mental part of the person are changed.

DE LAS KHYAD CES GZUGS CHE DAG And then you get details in the six... In the KHYAD CES, in the... How can I say?

Six senses. Six senses. Senses.

And their objects, okay? Who's going to read the next one? Kelte?

Kelte? And by the way, the book is very ancient. It was burned.

It's very confused. No one ever studied this book. No one ever translated it.

Nobody ever wrote a commentary in 2000 years. And we're just trying to figure out the volcano stuff. Okay?

It's kind of fun. Okay, Kelte. Venerable Cat, please.

Mm. You want to... Do we have a chair?

You want to bring a chair? Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Or I could read it from down here.

[Speaker 1]
That's okay. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
GELTE DE CHE CHAK KYI DE CHE CHAK THU MI GYUR NA MI GYI THAR YANG NGA MA NI PHYI MA'I KHYEN DU DGOS PAR MI RGYUR RO Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. If chedaks in link number two, for example, if details in your karma did not affect the details of link number three, which is? Consciousness.

Your consciousness, then you couldn't say that link number two caused link number three. Okay? If the person happens to be blind or deaf, then there must be some changes.

There must be something not complete in the karma that caused their ears and caused their eyes. Okay? Got it?

Okay. That's the Wheel of Life. Can I have Venerable Chunzong, please?

Uh-oh. YANG CHUNG RIN DE'I KYIS KUN RGA'O GAL TE NAM PA SHES PA MA'I RGYAL DU MA ZHUGS NA SHES GSUNGS PA DE PHRAD PA BYA'O TE Okay, cool. Is it coming into your mother's womb that gives you a mind?

Or do you bring a mind into your mother's womb? Do you grow after you enter your mom's womb? Or are you all grown and then you enter your mom's womb and you have a state of mind?

Okay. Which one is it? All right.

KYAL TE And he says, he quotes Lord Buddha. CHUNG RIN DE'I means, oh, Bhagavan, Conqueror. KUN RGA'O, CHUNG RIN DE'I sent to KUN RGA'O.

Ananda. Ananda. Okay, Ananda.

If you say Ananda, a lot of Americans say Ananda, which means Mr. Unhappy. And Ananda means Mr. Super Happy. So which one is it?

Ananda. Okay, yeah. He said to Ananda, do you think your consciousness enters your mother's womb?

Or does it grow inside your mother's womb? And it kind of supports that if your consciousness grows inside your mother's womb, then it's less likely that you would be deaf or blind. If there's a problem with your consciousness as you enter your mother's womb, then you will be deaf and blind after your body comes out of your mother's womb.

Because the seeds for being blind or deaf were created at link number two. So if link number two creates link number three, then link number three should create link number four. And it's not like some kind of chemicals in your mother's womb that makes you blind or deaf.

And it's not some chromosomes or things like that. It's your karma that you carried from link number two. All right.

By the way, I tried to find this quotation. This, Vasubandhu is writing 2,000 years ago. Many, many sutras were lost after him.

So we don't have this particular sutra. I couldn't find it. We have a database.

It has three million pages. We can search it in less than two seconds. Nobody in history had this capacity.

And this is because of John Brady's project. We should give him a hand. So a lot of sutras were lost.

There are 990 surviving sutras and tantras. And then we are missing many thousands. And some of them existed in Vasubandhu's time.

We don't have them now. Okay. I found something close, but we'll have to work on it.

Rishik, who's going to read? Can I invite Venerable Rinchen Pao, please? Rinchen Pao.

Yeah, the quotation says, if you don't enter the womb. And then there's a debate about what does it mean if you don't enter the womb. Okay.

Is there somebody there before you enter the womb? Does a person who's already there enter the womb? Or does something enter the womb and then the person grows?

Okay. Which one is it? Like that.

That's the question. All right. You want to keep going?

Okay. MAN RGYAL DU RGYAL RGYAL DU BCUG PA RIG PA MA YIN GYIS Yeah, yeah. Is your mind created like a mirror?

When you put an object in front of your mind, does that create a thought? Does that create awareness? And that's what people in the West would say.

Your mind responds to stimulus. You see a color blue, and then your mind takes on some kind of blue aspect, and you can see blue. And in Buddhism, the question is, is it your karma?

Is it because of your seeds that you see the pen? Or is it because the pen has been put in front of your eyes that you see the pen? Which one?

Yeah, so if it's that your karma creates the pen, then the details of your mind should be carried from before you entered your mother's womb. The development in the womb, problems with the development in the womb, are not starting in the womb. They start before the mind enters the womb.

They are karmic problems in the mind. So you can't say in Buddhism that the mind is created by an object. You can't say, I opened my eyes, I saw the color blue, and then my mind responded to the color blue, and I saw blue.

You can't say that. In Buddhism, you can't say that. You have to say, I carried seeds for blue from 20 minutes ago, and then I opened my eyes and those seeds opened, and the blue came in my mind.

So that's kind of a mind-only school idea. And he likes that idea. He says that supports the Wheel of Life presentation by Lord Buddha.

Why? Buddha didn't say link number two is put the blue in front of Stanley's face. Link number three is because we put the blue in front of Stanley's face, he sees the blue.

And then number four is he enters his mom's womb, or something like that. We don't say that in Buddhism. We say seeds came first.

And then we say Stanley saw the blue in his mind. And then that mind which had the capacity to see the blue entered the womb. Or maybe it didn't have those seeds, and it entered the womb and it was blind.

Got it? Like that? So the big question is, do you see things because somebody puts them in front of your face?

Or do you see things because you have the seeds to see them? And if it's the seeds, then the Wheel of Life painting is pretty quick. I see it.

Sipa. Parma. Parma.

Parma. RGYUN GYI GNYEL DU BCUG PA RGYUN PA'I RIGS TE Okay, good. What's RGYUN GYI GNYEL DU BCUG PA RGYUN PA'I RIGS TE?

What's RGYUN GYI GNYEL DU BCUG PA RGYUN PA'I RIGS TE? Raw karma. Raw karma, link number two.

Unripe karma. It's like when you first put a seed under the ground. Much later in the wheel, link number ten, that seed is ready to crack open and open into a new life.

RGYUN GYI GNYEL DU BCUG PA RGYUN PA'I RIGS TE That raw karma, fresh karma, RGYUN GYI GNYEL DU BCUG PA RGYUN PA'I RIGS TE What's RGYUN GYI GNYEL DU BCUG PA RGYUN PA'I RIGS TE? For a hundred dollars, except words. Wait.

Gibson's getting fast for words. You know when you have a lot of kids, you start to slow down. Okay.

Yeah, it means what? Smeared, yeah. By the way, the classic example is when you have a cloth bag and you keep incense sticks in it, and then later you take the incense out and the bag will still smell like incense.

In the mind-only school especially, the bag that you put the incense in is represented by your mind. And then the seeds are smeared. What behavior, if you lie a lot or you hurt other people a lot, that's like some kind of stinky incense.

And then you put it in this bag and then it gets smeared into the mind. That's mind-only school. So he says here, it kind of makes better sense if you say that the consciousness arrives in the vicinity of the mother's womb.

That consciousness has a smell that was put into it by the actions of the past life. And then you enter your mother's womb with the objects ready to open in your mind. Which is like the smell has come out.

Sipa-parma. What's a sipa-parma? A bardo being?

Yeah, so parma means somebody in the bardo. A bardo being. Someone who is between death and rebirth.

So their mind travels from the deathbed to the mother's womb. And it has a smell in it, or scent, of all the things you did in your past life. Put different smells on your mind.

And then when you get to your mother's womb, they start to open. Sipa-parma. NGAL DU BYUR PAR YIN PAR RIGS TE That's rigs.

Yeah, that makes sense. That's a better explanation. He's kind of saying that you don't see a pen because somebody put a pen in front of your face.

He's kind of saying that. I'll say it again. You don't see a pen because somebody put the pen, or you don't see this phone because I held it up.

You see this phone because your seeds opened. You're not seeing this phone because I, you know, I go, one, two, three, you know, then I put it up in front of you. We think that, but it's not true.

You see this phone because you have scent. Scent, smell, smeared in your mind from past life. And then it opens.

The karma opens and you see a camera. Therefore, the second link of the wheel of life is fresh karma. The third link is consciousness.

Awareness of an object, awareness of a phone, is not triggered by holding up the phone. It's not that the phone triggers an awareness in your mind. It's that your mind is sending out a phone.

And that fits the wheel of life. Wheel of life says link number two is karma. Link number three is your mind entering your mom's womb.

The karma created your mind to enter your mom's womb. So the mind is not a reaction to objects. The mind is a flower growing out of seeds from your past.

Understand the difference? One is like a mirror. You put something in front of a mirror, then it will jump into the mirror, right?

And then in the wheel of life, you see this object because your seeds got ready and they opened and you saw the object. And then Geshe-la held it up because he had to. Because your seeds forced me to do it.

Understand? It's a very beautiful argument. Who's next?

Venerable Kelsi, please.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
And then you can keep following this thinking. You can go further with this thinking. DEL BA'I PHYIR, it's connected.

PHYAG means blood and it means your mother's menstrual blood. And KU'A means semen of the father. The semen and the blood, RGYUD PAR comes together.

When they come together, you get name and form. And that's a code word for body and mind entering the womb or in the womb. So, is it that semen and blood come together and then there's a body and mind in the mother's womb?

Is that what makes a child in the mother's womb? SNANG BAR MIM PA Is that how a child ripens in the mother's womb? KUN DU RGYAL BA YIN TE It could be, but it would have to be RGYAL BA, meaning...

Yeah, it would have to be senseless. Like if you drink too much and you fall down and you're like, you know. If the child comes from the blood and the semen, then it should be senseless because they are physical.

They are not mental. If the child grows from two physical things, then what enters the womb and what grows in the womb should only be physical. And then it would be senseless.

It would be like a stone. It couldn't perceive anything. If you come from blood and semen, then you would not have a mind.

GANG LAS MYUR NUR PO MYUR NUR PO means... I like to call it milk scum. So if you're from Singapore, for example, and they are drinking a tea, like the Britishers, and then you put the milk in the tea, and then the tea gets cool.

And then on top of the tea, there's a thin layer of milk. We call it scum. And you put your finger in and it sticks on your finger like that.

Your body after the second week is like that. Each few weeks of development in the womb, in ancient Sanskrit, has a different name. And this one is called MYUR NUR PO.

MYUR NUR PO means sticky little bubble gum, or something like that. So if you are just a product of blood and semen, then later on inside the womb, you should be just a little sticky piece of gum without a mind, with no brain. With no mind.

Because there was no mind in the blood, and there was no mind in the semen. That's good. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
YIN PAS DE, KHYEN GYIS DE, KHYE BAR NI RIGS SO Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
My means inside of your mom. Ma means mom. My first Tibetan language class, I was...

It was Shantideva, and I was trying to get into the class, and I had like three days of preparation in my life. I didn't know any Tibetan, but one of the teachers was my close friend. So he said, I said, I want to come to the class, Shantideva class.

Then he said, but you have to speak Tibetan. And I said, well, I don't know any Tibetan. And he said, come to the exam.

There's an oral exam by the main teacher, and if you pass the oral exam, you can come to the class. And I said, well, how can I pass the oral exam? I don't know a single word.

He said, just come. I'll take care of everything. So I came to the examination.

There's three teachers, three lamas there. Very great lamas. Two of them are very, very high Vajrayogini reincarnations.

So who became my close teacher, Tenzin Chinle, he said, okay, here's your exam for entering the class. Then I said, okay. And he said, how do you say mama in Tibetan?

And I said, mama? And he said, good. How do you say papa in Tibetan?

I said, papa? And he said, you passed. And that's why you can study Shantideva.

That was 1973, okay? Before the blood and the semen even thinking to come together for you. All right.

NYAL DU MI KHYER BA NO YIN NO DE TSE MING DANG GZUGS So he says, then the guy says, well, if you don't need your mother's womb, then how come people don't just pop out? Anytime the blood touched the semen, then if you don't need a womb, then the person should just pop out, right? He's giving argument back.

Then what's the point of the womb? Why you have to go in the womb? TSE MING DANG GZUGS KHYAD PA KHO NA MING and GZUGS means the two guys in the boat, your body and your mind, in your side, your mom.

YIN PAS KHYEN TE KHYER BA MI RIGS SO Therefore, I think it's wrong that you just need karma to enter your mom's womb. Because there is a womb. We do go through the womb.

All right, next. DE LAS KYANG RNAM MA SHI BAR DU MA SHI BAR DU RNAM PAR BSHAD PA NI MING TANG GZUGS KYI KHYEN GYI NUS POR BRTEN PA'I DE JI LTAR NYING TZAM BYOR BA'I RNAM PAR BSHAD PAR RUNG Okay. DE LAS KYANG RNAM MA SHI BAR DU Until the time that you die, RNAM PAR BSHAD PAR NI your consciousness, MING DANG GZUGS KYI KHYEN GYI because you have a body and mind inside your mother's womb, NUS POR BRTEN PA'I because it can take on that form, JI LTAR NYING TZAM BYOR BA NYING TZAM BYOR BA means a special verb that we don't have in the West and it means to make the crossing between death and rebirth. So we don't have this verb in English, for example.

We call it make the crossing between death and birth. Who makes the crossing if there's no mind and body until you get to the womb? Then who makes the crossing?

What makes the crossing? That's the question here. RNAM PAR BSHAD PAR RUNG Geshe-la, we were sort of confused with this RNAM.

Is that correct here? Which one? RNAM Yeah, that RNAM is correct and it's a very rare word that means when.

In that position, at the beginning of the sentence, it means when. It could be the first part of NAM GANG and it could be the last part of a question ending in N or the third choice. In a very rare ancient language, it means when.

In the beginning of the sentence. All right, next. Can I invite Jamie Blante, please?

Who? Jamie. Oh.

Kabumar Khan. TKB boss. Okay.

That's okay. This is, let's see. Which one?

RDO BDE'I RDI LAS RDO BDE'I RDI LAS RNAM PAR BSHAD PAR I can't see from the TKB work. RNAM PAR BSHAD BSHAD PA'I KHYEN GYIS Good. PHUNG PO Good.

NA PA'I MING DANG ZHUGS TEN ZHUGS TEN PA'I ZHUGS TEN NING TZAM NING TZAM GYOR WAY GYOR WAY RNAM PAR BSHAD PAR RNAM PAR BSHAD PAR RDE'I GYI RDE'I GYI THAR THAR DE DANG DE DANG LENG CHIG LENG CHIG YUN PA'I YUN PA'I JUNG WAY JUNG WAY MING DANG MING DANG ZHUGS KYI ZHUGS KYI KHYEN DU KHYEN DU RUNG RUNG So in the Wheel of Life, there's two people in the boat, which is your mind and your body as they go in your mother's womb. So if the third link is your mind as it enters the womb, then the cause would exist at the same time as the result. There's your mind entering the womb, and there's your mind which it causes, which is your mind in the womb.

So if your mind is already, if your mind is entering the womb, there shouldn't be a mind there yet, right? And that mind doesn't have a cause. That mind starts in the womb.

If the scientist is correct, and the chemicals in your mother's body create mind and body, which is what science says, then there shouldn't be any state of mind that enters your mother's womb. There should be no one NYING SEMS SBYOR BA. NYING SEMS SBYOR BA?

There shouldn't be anyone to make the crossing. If your mind starts inside your mom, there shouldn't be a state of mind that crosses from your old death to your new life. And in that case, you're free to do whatever you want morally.

Right? Because there's no consequence after you die. There's no connection.

Got it? If there's no mind to enter the womb, if the mind starts in the womb, then one of the main arguments in Buddhism for being a good person is cancelled. All right.

DU CI MA'I CAN YIN NO ZHES NA YANG Suppose you say the mind that enters the womb is the factor that creates the mind in the boat, inside the womb. Yes, there is a mind inside the womb. There is a state of mind inside the womb that grows.

But that doesn't mean there's no mind before you enter the womb. It's a flow. The mind flows from past life into the bardo, and then that mind flows into the womb.

So we can accept both. You had a mind that crossed over from your past life to your new life, and then that mind enters your mother's womb. And so the earlier mind is the CAN, is the trigger for the later state of mind.

Okay, cool. All right. ONA DE'I RGYUD KYIS MI DANG ZHUGS KYIS CAN GANG YIN Generally speaking, mind has to create mental events and physical stuff has to create physical events.

Mind can flow into mind, but to create a brick or a stone, you need physical elements. So now he's switching around. He says, look, we don't see how the baby, we don't see how the blood and the semen of the parents can create something which is not physical, which is the mind of the baby.

And then he says, oh, the mind of the baby is flowing in from the past life, and that's creating it. And then we switch it on him and we say, well then, who's making the body of the baby? Did the body come from the past life?

Because the body's shape, the body's capacity, the body's attractiveness or ugliness is created by something. It's not created by the chemicals in the body. There's a reason why everyone comes out of their mother different.

Physically. Okay. All right.

Ming Tsangkhayan. Who's going to read the next one? Can I invite Valeria Fefilova?

Ooh. Okay. Oh, cool.

Hi. Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
NAM PA BYAS BYAS BYAS PA YANG LA BDAG PAR YANG BYA Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Good. The trigger here, and sometimes we're saying trigger for RKYEN, right?

The trigger here is RDU BYED. Fresh karma. Fresh karma, link number two.

The trigger for body and mind in the womb is link number two. Somebody says, I think the trigger for body and mind is the fresh karma from link number two. And then we say, does it cause the body or the mind?

And they say, GNYIS KA. It's both. That fresh karma is a trigger for both the body and the mind in the mother's womb.

YIN PA'I PHYIR Then we say, PHYIN RNAM PAR BSHAD PA'I YANG LA BDAG PAR BYA Then why did you call it a factor for consciousness? Why do you refer to it as creating consciousness? What's he mean?

Anybody? Yeah. You say four was created by two.

Then why do you say two is also the cause of three? Because three is mind only. Three is only the mind.

Three is only consciousness. Link number three is only consciousness. He says, your fresh karma at link number two creates the body and mind, the two guys in the boat, who enter the mother's womb at number four.

And we say, okay, that's fine. He says, fresh karma has the capacity to create both body and mind. That explains everything.

Then we say, then why did Buddha put a link between them, which is only mind? Got it? It's very quiet.

If you're teaching meditation and people won't shut up, ask them one of these questions. All right. Okay, next one.

[Speaker 2]
No, please. Okay, cool.

[Speaker 1]
In general, when they go in a flow, the first instant creation is the first instant of the mind. the second instant, the second instant creates the third instant, the third instant creates the fourth instant. So Ming and Suk, the two guys in the boat, body and mind, is link number four.

And we say, it's only, by the way, the word here is, the word, the book is so ancient that kona is placed in a different place. You see, it's not after the noun, it's before. It's not that the only cause for physical, inside your mind you have a body and a mind, I agree.

But it's not that the only cause for that body and mind is fresh karma. He says, de dang kye chik ma chi ma dang kye par yang, chi she yu, because they're not the same thing. Fresh karma, is it physical or mental?

It's neither, okay? I'll say it again. Link number four is body and mind, physical and mental stuff.

Karma is mental or physical? It's neither one. It's a potential, okay?

It's, I like it, it's a maybe will happen. Okay, karmic seed is a maybe will happen. So it's not physical, it's not mental.

It's a maybe will happen. It's like, you know, it's Geshe-la, I'm gonna get a million dollars in 10 minutes. It's a maybe will happen.

It's not money, it's not mind. It's not physical, it's not mental. But it's a maybe will happen.

Potential, okay? Which means it cannot be physical yet, and it cannot be mental yet. Your karma, your karmic seeds are not even physical.

And they stay in your mind, but they are not mental, okay? They are just possibility. They are just a possibility.

Possibilities are neither physical, you cannot touch possibilities. Neither are they mental, because they don't think. Possibilities don't think, and possibilities have no physical characteristics.

Therefore, they are just maybe will happens, okay? It's a nice word, I like it, maybe will happen. Yeah, there's a word maybe will happen.

They are maybe will happens, okay? I don't know. Somebody says you're gonna pay me back that money you owe me, you can say that's a maybe will happen.

Maybe will not happen. Therefore, I don't see that there's much similarity between the result and the cause. The cause is a maybe will happen.

The result is the body and mind inside your mother's womb. These are three completely different things, okay? Maybe will happen has no physicality, and it cannot think.

Therefore, it's something between, okay? But somehow it's going to create a body and a mind, okay? And it's crazy, it doesn't make sense.

How can how can a thing which is a maybe will happen create your body and mind, okay? Those are physical and mental. Mental things should be created by mental things.

Physical things should be created by physical things. Maybe will happens should create maybe will happens. You see what I mean?

They're all different kinds of stuff, all right? So we are refuting the other side, right? It's confusing, don't ask me that.

Yeah, right now we're just pointing out a problem. Okay, okay. We can use it to support ourselves or not support ourselves, depends.

Okay. Can I invite Captain Bill McMichael? Yay, Captain Bill!

Captain Bill is an airline and military and many other planes pilot and trains people to fly planes. So he's going to fly the plane. Yeah, I think I can.

Oh, I got some glasses, I don't know if they work. Try. No, I think I'm okay.

By the way, Captain Bill is one of the original three-year retreatants. He helped build Diamond Mountain. We should give him a hand.

And he just got back from the Overseas Study Program, which you are supporting by buying the last paintings left. So they don't have to carry them back to wherever they came from. Okay, shendang nare.

Shendang nare means what, Sugeng? Somebody else. Yeah, somebody else comes and says, duje kyi kyen kyi, the trigger called fresh karma, ming dung suk she je na, when it, if you refer to it as name and form, okay, what about when you ningsam jorwa?

What's that mean? What about when you cross over into the suk me kom? Yeah, then what's going on?

Okay, so if you say, if you say that fresh karma skips link number three and creates body and mind in a person, in the mom's womb, then why can't people in the formless realm have a physical body? Because they're also created by fresh karma. Got it?

If fresh karma has the capacity to create a body and a mind inside your mother's womb, then why should anyone be born in a formless realm? And formless realm, there's supposedly places where you mostly just have a mental body. You have no physical body.

You are born in a place and you are a mental creature. You're a mental being. You are like a spirit.

You have no gross physical body. You do have what? Prana.

We say you do have prana, chi. You have chi and that is physical, but it's almost not physical. Okay, so he says if link number two, fresh karma, can transform into body and mind by the fourth link, then why is anyone ever born without a body?

Because everyone has fresh karma. Okay, got it? And DRONG BA'I RTEN PAR RGYUR TE, DE NA SUG MED PA'I PHYIR RO, because in that formless realm there is SUG MED.

No form. People don't have physical body. Okay, all right.

Let's go. By the way, word, I was chewing on this next three syllables. I think it's UN TE.

Okay, I think it's supposed to be O-N-T-E. Okay, it's one of those Pompei scroll things. Okay, UN TE.

Then he comes back with something cute, okay, and he says, okay, well, since link number two which is fresh karma, sometimes does not produce a body and mind, sometimes it produces just a mind when you're born into the formless realm, then I guess we should cancel link number two also. Why? Because the function of link number two is to trigger link number three.

Link number three is body and mind. Okay, sorry, yeah, by link number four, link number three has created a body and mind, right? By link number four, link number three has created a body and mind.

You want to cancel link number two because sometimes it doesn't create a full body and mind. In that case you should cancel link number three also in your presentation, in your version. Why?

Because consciousness isn't physical. How can something which is only mental create something physical and mental? If you're going to ask me to cancel link number two because it doesn't successfully create a body and mind, then I think you should cancel link number two because it did create a body and mind and it wasn't physical.

Rikpa Gotsung, got it? You okay? You all right?

If you're complaining that a body and mind cannot be produced by something purely mental, and therefore link number two cannot be the cause of link number four, then okay, then cancel link number three also. Because it's something that's only mental and it creates something physical and mental. Don't complain that link number two is lousy because when it causes a person to be born into the formless realm, they don't have a form.

Because your link number three is also lousy. Why? Because you have the opposite problem.

You have a body and a mind coming from something which is only mental. Same problem. One creating two.

Or two not being created by one. Same thing. Same problem.

Stop complaining. Stick with the three links. Stick with the wheel of life painting.

Okay, got it? Okay. Okay, I think now, since we have perfect silence in the room, it's a good...

I usually leave and let the teacher... Right? Is it time?

Okay, right. So we're going to mark here. So I'm going to ask Sugeng to translate for next time.

Okay. Lente. Got it.

Jitadrik. Right? Duche.

Chingyi. Jagat. I like the jagat.

Okay. Jagat. I'll give you a clue.

Jagat says if your position is correct, a dead duck should still be quacking. A dead duck should still go quack, quack if your position is correct. I'll give you the end.

Now you have to figure out the beginning. Oh, one more thing. I'm supposed to, before this class finish, the university...

So for many, many years I taught university level courses like the one you just suffered through. That's a PhD course. And that you cannot get anywhere in the world, I think.

And then people ask me, why you don't start a university? And I said, because it takes millions of dollars to start a university. And you know, that's the law.

But many, many people came to me and said they want to study this thing and get a credit, like university credit. Okay. So I had a foolish lady from China called Zhou Xiaobing, and she offered to build the university in Sedona and a branch in Kyoto if I will design the courses.

And so I said, I'll design the courses. And I did. And they're good stuff.

Understand? It's a good university course. There's a picture.

Did you get my picture Francisco? I sent you one on email. Yeah, this is our trip to Princeton.

We had the classes. Should I tell you the truth? We had classes across the street from Princeton.

But you can say we had classes at Princeton. And this is where I studied at Princeton. This is one of the houses that I was a member of.

Okay. And so we're trying to build a university like that. Western universities basically are just Greek and Roman knowledge.

That's all. Okay. And they say unit, university, but they're not.

They're just two languages. They're based on Socrates and Plato. That's all.

And they ignore 300,000 classics of Asia. Okay. They say nothing about them.

At Princeton you cannot take a class in the classics of Asia. I tried. I was there for a long time.

And so anyway, we thought to have a real uni-verse, right? One world university, you should have the knowledge of ancient knowledge, the ancient wisdom of the Greeks and Romans, but you should also have the ancient wisdom of China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, okay, Malaysia. You should have the Asian knowledge also.

So we designed a very unique university and you can get a a degree. It will be not, we're working on the accreditation, which means you will be able to get eventually a degree which is recognized in the United States, for example. Okay.

But it's a five-year process. It's a lot of work. Okay.

Anyway, you're quite welcome to come. We are, a new group is entering in March and that will be happening in Kyoto. So that's like a one-hour flight from Shanghai, right?

So you're welcome to talk to the crazy president, Zhou Xiaoping. Okay. And I think it's going to be awesome to have a university degree, like a, right now it's an MBA degree, to have an MBA degree that is really uni-verse, you know.

It's got the wisdom of the West, Greek and Roman, but it also has the wisdom of Asia. And it's unique. It's the first time in the world.

And I think it's cool. Okay. What?

What's the one more? Oh yeah. So poor Rob.

I asked him to arrange my calendar for next year. Okay. And every single hour, if you heard me, raise your hand.

Every single hour. Raise your hand if you heard that. Raise your hand if you heard me say every single hour.

Raise. Okay. So I won't get an email or a text from anybody asking for an hour for 2025.

Every single hour is booked. And it took, it took about three or four months to do the calendar and it was extremely painful and difficult. And so anyway, he finished.

God bless him. And I think we should give him a hand. I'm worried that he will never want to do it again.

But anyway, if you're curious what's going on next year, you can, you can see a lot of the schedule from that. Okay. All right.

So I'm going to leave. I think still we should have a discussion for 15 minutes. Okay.

Hey, we can keep it playing because Su Geng, unfortunately, cannot make it this morning, but he did do a 15-minute discussion followed by the Peachtree World News. So if we do have footage of that, which I think we do, we can keep it going. Marina, do we have footage of that?

Or anybody from the Worldview production team who was playing the video? Give it one second. Absolutely, sweetheart.

I had to say good morning to my daughter. Okay. I guess if we don't hear back, we can have our own discussion.

Marina, please do let, or somebody on the Worldview team, let us know if there is any footage or if there is a Peachtree World News footage. Thank you. So anybody have any thoughts, practical aspects of this particular book?

I'd love to hear your thoughts personally. I have a hard time seeing the practical aspects of this book in particular. But I do love to hear what people come up with.

And don't be shy. Okay. Well, we'll start a discussion.

And then if you feel like chiming in, feel free. Okay. I think, I mean, mostly what we were covering today was some of the principles of consciousness, and whether or not it can, it occurs in conjunction with the presence of objects, or whether or not it throws forth the objects themselves, or whether or not objects are thrown forth and then consciousness arises simultaneously, which is kind of, either one can be fit neatly into, I think, the modern psychological perspective. And it's complicated.

I'll just share something with you guys. The very first time I heard Geshe Michael present the idea of the pen, which is this very famous concept that, you know, gets many people hooked into the ideas that he teaches and, you know, these ancient ideas that we study. And when I heard it, I was like, okay, like, big deal.

Like, everybody knows that. It's not that, you know, you have to label it a pen. It seemed to me like basic psychology.

And I think maybe because I didn't, I wasn't able to exactly receive the profound implications of the idea right off the bat. And so I think that somebody had to sit me down and be like, no, no, no, you don't understand. You know, what's happening is that they're saying that the world is completely subjective, and that everything that appears to you is being manifested by your mind.

Not just that your mind is like giving it a name, but it's already there, but actually being manifested by you. And that kind of like blew my mind to kind of understand that difference between just giving a name to a thing that's already out there, or somehow, in some way, there's some source code that I'm with my mind, and that's making reality happen the way that it does at all. And it just kind of blew my mind, and seemed impossible in a way, because I've been raised with this Western scientific point of view.

So the practicality is the basis for everything that we talk about here, which is that if that's true, and it's not just that I'm interacting with objects that already exist, but rather, on some level, creating the world that exists around me, and there's some kind of reason that things appear the way they do, then if I could learn and hack that source code, that's pretty practical. I could create the world I want. So, I don't know, it just took me a while to really relate with the depth of what was being presented with the pen.

And I thought that this, I think when we study the wheel, it gives you, especially with somebody like Geshe Michael explaining it, it gives you some access to the profound implications of the explanations on the wheel of life. Peter, do you want to say something? You can speak, if you have such the opportunity.

Hey, I'm not... You don't have to be dressed up. Okay, I'm a little nervous.

No, I didn't hear the whole class, unfortunately, but at the end, what I heard, I thought was interesting for me from a result point of view. I mean, if the potentials that we are working on to create the reality that we want, obviously not create the physical, and I'm claiming also mental now, because if it doesn't always create the same physicality that we expect, then it, I guess, also not necessarily will create the same mental continuum, then enlightenment is possible. Because one of the big challenges, I think, in my understanding still that if this has been going on in different ways without beginning, changing it to something substantially different is a pretty big hill to climb.

And so anything that says, hey, it could be something completely different, is kind of hopeful to that. I don't know. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense to me. I mean, I think that that's what kind of keeps me working hard at this practice is the understanding that things could be... I don't know, for me, it was always like this.

I think even Ben and I were talking about this a little bit the other day. But like, if you can be a little bit happier, where's the line? Like, how much happier could you be?

Could you be a lot happier? Could you be happy all the time? And if you could be a little bit healthier, where's the line?

Can we find this border of... Because I feel like if you asked my dad or something, he'd go, well, you can be happy this much and no more, because you have to be unhappy this much time. But forget Buddhism, forget emptiness.

Just logically speaking, if there's potential, there actually is no border of how frequently you can be happy or how happy you can be. I think that's another benefit, listening to potential on one level sounds very not tangible and therefore a little bit frustrating to some degree. But if you think about it, it's a bird with big potential.

Potentiality, because it leaves no, as you said, there are no boxes. And that's cool. Anyway, thank you guys.

This isn't meant to apply. Anyone wants to say no more? Yeah, I'd love to have that debate where somebody shows me the line of how...

But there is a line of how much breakfast you can eat, because I've tried to eat nonstop. There's not infinite potential.

[Speaker 3]
It's really common that you hear people say somehow that you have to have unhappiness to have happiness, or that somehow you only know what cold is because of what is hot.

[Speaker 2]
And no one ever proves it. There's just this strange article of faith that people have that somehow happiness is defined by unhappiness.

[Speaker 1]
And I see no reason why that should be true. And in fact, there's a cute debate you can make, right?

[Speaker 2]
Where if you say that everything has to have its opposite to exist, then everything having its opposite would have to have an opposite.

[Speaker 1]
So it's just nonsense. It's not true. It can't be true, because that's silly.

[Speaker 2]
And there's... I'm in. I think that it's...

I see no reason why it shouldn't be possible that we could have happiness and not have to somehow preserve unhappiness to have our happiness. It's just a silly thing people say.

[Speaker 1]
I think it's a very good... It's a very sad discussion, actually, because for me it indicates even in my mind that the moments of happiness are so short, and they're usually sandwiched with some kind of unhappiness, that we're making this weird connection. Because of the time...

One comes before the other and so on. But it's not true. I just ate a little bit of ice cream, and the moment I take the ice cream in my mouth, I don't even expect that it's good to me.

And... Yeah. Yeah.

That the fact that it doesn't last doesn't mean that you have to have unhappiness.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. It'd be nice to make it last.

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
I'm in.

[Speaker 3]
If that's available, I choose that, please.

[Speaker 1]
But democracy would be so good if we could do it like that.

[Speaker 3]
Democratized reality.

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 3]
What about the gentleman there with no shirt?

[Speaker 2]
He looks like he would be a good participant.

[Speaker 3]
That guy there, I wonder if he'd have any.

[Speaker 1]
He's just trying to figure out the seeds to be healthy from eating candy. He's taking notes. Somewhere there.

I think that we are getting the Petrie World News segment queued up. Are you guys ready for that? They are ready.

Unless anybody has any other ideas that they would like to discuss or share regarding today's text? I have a question to you, too. Uh-oh.

And it's a sincere one. Why are we going into these details so much? On a happiness level, who the hell cares?

It's obvious in a way that we think that this is good leads to good. Then why care about the third step or the second or the fourth? That's my question.

I think about this a lot. And I think that there's a few answers that I've come up with. I think about this with respect to why we study such details.

And also, if you've ever spent time at Sarah, you wonder sometimes why they spend so much time doing some of the things that they do. And I think that the answer is not actually super simple. I think it's straightforward, but not simple.

I think that our minds as humans are confused in many, many different ways. And I think that our world is super tangled up. So I think the more approaches that we can take to try to use intellect or ideas that evoke certain kinds of feelings or thought processes to kind of attack the hold that we have on reality existing a certain way, probably the better.

Maybe not always, but I think more often than not, it's going to be helpful to just... I also think just the practice of being in this pondering, like being in this kind of philosophical examination rather than just doing anything else in life is probably more powerful to help untangle your mind. So it could honestly just be, at times, busy work to keep your mind doing something a little bit more virtuous.

And I think that even for pujas and things like... Sure. Because our tendency, and maybe it's just me, probably it's just me, but is to let the mind indulge in less useful habits.

So I'll translate that for me, Nick, because I like it and I think I need to hear it. You're basically saying, dude, you don't have enough renunciation to understand in how much problems your mind really is. Not exactly what I'm saying, but that may be the case.

But what I'm saying is just the mind's tendencies, even if you have a lot of renunciation, it's just hard to untangle the grasp that we have on reality as existing a certain way. So I think what I'm saying maybe is more of the wisdom component than the renunciation component. And also, more than anything, the habitual tendency of the human mind, just habits.

[Speaker 3]
I have this idea about samadhi or concentration or single-pointed concentration that, especially while we are not very good at it, while we struggle to keep our mind on one object, these grand discussions are all on one object. Our mind wants to jump around to a bunch of different objects, but there's something really important about the practice of keeping our minds focused on reality, the nature of reality, and love, and the way those two intertwine.

[Speaker 1]
And if you could just keep your mind on the nature of reality is love, and the nature of love is a lack of true nature. If you could just keep your mind there all day, every day, cool, then maybe you don't need all this exercise. Right, but it's hard for me to keep my mind in that one place, sort of, but I have tricks that help me, like spending an hour where we talk about all sorts of objects around the edges of that topic.

[Speaker 2]
We are talking about that topic. That is all we talked about for an hour. That is the whole conversation that the three of us have just been having together.

We're still just talking about that one thing, and talking about it in a lot of different ways allows even my mind to stay there.

[Speaker 1]
I think that should be a sales pitch for the mix. No, your code mix is not selling.

[Speaker 2]
Everything's a sales pitch with you. It's good. I shouldn't be thinking that way more.

It's very precious we have you to think that way.

[Speaker 1]
That's a cool thing. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Peter.

I think we could do the Peachtree World News now, because I know people are here on schedule, and I'm on the schedule. Some people only came for the Peachtree World News, and they're tired of the rest of this, and so they're ready. I'm going to say thank yous and goodbyes now.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Very, very happy to see you here, and very lucky to have such a wonderful community of supportive and friendly faces every week. And I'm just so glad we all get to study these amazing ideas together.

We'll give it to the tech team to play Juan's Peachtree World News, and we'll see you guys on Monday, so when you guys are ready. All right. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Okay, so wonderful, wonderful experience during this event. Steps on the Path, December, Kyoto 2024.

Thank you so much to all the participants that are here live. I don't know the exact number. Maybe Tim knows, but what is it about?

How many people in the room? 200, kind of? 275?

That's wonderful. So I would like to share with the people in the live audience, but also online, this poster, the first image, please, because we are broadcasting from this wonderful, wonderful event. So thank you, Tim, for having organized all this.

It has been just wonderful. To me, it just went so quickly, so fast. And also to let people know online, as you know, these events, these translation classes are broadcast online, where we are at.

And now for all of you who are here live, I would like to share next picture, please. Okay, yes. These classes where Geshe Michael and all the Mixed Notes translators go through this ancient wisdom text happen every week.

They happen, usually we say Monday and Saturdays. But if you are in Asia, it's Tuesday mornings is next. Yes, Tuesday mornings and Saturday nights.

If you're in Asia, if you are in the western part of the world, it happens Monday afternoons kind of thing and Saturday mornings. So you can follow them. No charges.

Join, enjoy, learn if you can. Honestly, what I do and I really recommend people to do, I cannot pay attention very well during classes. I'm running around and doing other things.

So then I rewatch the classes. I prepare and study. I'm confessing.

That's the only reason why I sometimes know the answers of the questions. I really, but I encourage you, you can do it. Some people come to me and they say, what do you do?

I tell them and I tell them and you can do it too. Just go. We upload them to YouTube and there are other ways you can get the recordings.

And it's wonderful. The content you will learn. It's unbelievable.

Okay, so moving forward. Events that are coming up. Our dear friend Gil says she should be somewhere here.

Yes, she's organizing an event, a retreat in Diamond Mountain for this upcoming New Year time season. As we presented last time, it's just a really, really sweet and wonderful place to be. If you're looking for a place where you can go quiet and get some practice put into, apply it into your daily life.

This is really, really a great retreat center where she was the director for many, many years. So she's a great person to tour you around this wonderful land of Diamond Mountain. And in February, we're going to have the Bhagavad Gita course with YSI.

Errol and Sara are somewhere there behind in the audience. You can talk to them. They just produced a Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4 event.

It's one of the most amazing events I have been. So thank you so much. Keep going.

Keep doing it. And you can join. It's going to be most likely in Sedona during February 6th to the 10th.

We are also organizing an event for those of you who may want to join. It's going to be online and most likely also live. If you happen to be in Sedona, you're welcome.

But we are planning this event on for the 31st of December, where we are going to be celebrating all the great, great work that the WorldBee organizations have done during this year and also the upcoming exciting things that may be coming up for next year. Soon we will be reaching out. Everyone should be invited or welcome.

Everyone should be welcome to participate if you want. I don't know yet exactly how it's going to be possible because it's only going to be a one-hour show, but we'll try to figure it out. And if you want to reach out, if you want to share something with the international audience, here we are sharing our information.

You can follow up in our social media, but you can also email us if you want to talk about something, if you want to present a project, just reach out and we'll find out how to accommodate you into the schedule. But please, that's the idea. You should feel welcome to reach out and we'll figure it out from there.

Okay. And last thing, as you may have heard from Lindsay, I don't know if she's around. Oh, yes.

There you are. She's running this wonderful project. It's a good night book club where, you know the story, you get signed up, you get the books, you get to read, you get to sleep better.

It's a whole strategy to how to improve and enhance your personal life and practice. But what we want to do is to collect testimonials from people who are actually trying this practice. I like to see it as a practice.

It's not only a project. It's like a practice you do. Some people go deep into the practice of meditation.

Some people go deep into the practice of study. I think we should do them all. But this is one of the practices, Geshe Michael, this year has been emphasizing a lot.

So please, if you give yourself the chance to try and you get to see good results, share with us. Share with us because your example could inspire other people to try as well. And you can upload your testimonial there if you feel, I'll say, called to do it.

Those are the journalists for now. Next time we'll be presenting next Monday. You can tune up.

As I say, follow the social media or just come to classes even better. And for the special interviews of today, I want to welcome to the stage dear Stanley Chen. Please welcome him.

I move aside. He's going to be talking with us today about... Is that microphone on?

Yes. Very, very cool projects. I haven't seen you much during this retreat, really.

But in a way, it's my fault. I've been very isolated. I was healing from a throat thing, but I'm fine.

Don't worry. I stay a little bit away. But tell us what you've been cooking all these days in your headquarters.

Let me text you first. Text me? Yeah.

What does sushi say to the bee? What? Sushi?

Yeah. Say to the bee? Yeah.

Oh, it's a joke. What? He's not here.

Oh, it's not working. Okay. You got to watch the videos.

Okay. I hear something about that, but I didn't understand it. Anyway.

Okay. Yeah. Can I bring the next slide, please?

So wait. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Not this.

The other one. Yes.

[Speaker 3]
No, no, no, no.

[Speaker 1]
The other one. Next. Yes.

Yeah. So just to follow what Geshe-la introduced about DSEU, there are three new programs coming up in next March, Kyoto, Sakura time. I'm going to just give you a short introduction, and then my colleagues can give you much more details later if you're interested.

Starting from this side, it's called YLP, Young Leaders Program. This is for the students who are from age 18 to 23. Yeah.

When the program starts. So if you are 7.999, it's okay right now. When it starts, if you reach 18, it's fine.

And this is the first time we start basically a younger leaders group where they can learn the best from the West and the East, like Geshe-la just mentioned. And then the second one will be the second MBA group. Oh, no.

Yeah. Same slide. Yeah.

Same, same. Yeah. If you are someone like Juan who just started their business.

I just reached over 18, so now I'm the second. No, no, no. I think you'd be MBA better.

So if you just started your business, you are fresh, and then you want to get some more management skills. Thank you for the compliments. Combining both.

And I think you're doing great in the news program. Then MBA, it's great for you. And this will be the second group because we are graduating the first group this December, I think.

Yeah. And then the last one, it's a new thing. It's called SLP.

It's a strange word.

[Speaker 3]
That's like for Rob Huggart, you know?

[Speaker 1]
No, no. It's called Stratosphere Leadership Program. Not stressful, stratosphere.

So basically, this program is for someone who already have their own life achievement, like you've been here in your life. And then you realize what gets you here cannot get you higher. And that's when you join the SLP.

And basically, this is the most advanced group of these three. And our DSU boss just came back, Xiaoping. And then all our colleagues, can you wave your hands?

Emma and Sonia and Dinara. And there's a beautiful place outside if you want to know more information. And if you want to sign up, this is the time now.

Before the sakura opens is the good time to sign up for this. OK, that's it. Wonderful.

And what I can say from my side is, when I have had the great luck of going to some of the DSU events or classes, wonderful, amazing. And it's not only the classes, but also all the extracurriculum activities that bring wisdom. And also what I do appreciate a lot is the deep connections that I can see form around the group.

That has been wonderful. So if you ever had a chance to attend one of the classes, or even better, if you can and want to sign up, extremely great. Thank you so much.

And thank you, Xiaoping, for what you're doing here. Check it out. And you have another thing, no?

Yeah, one more little thing. The last slide. Yes.

So I just want to give you the dates first. Geshe Michael in next year, in April, from the 8th to 13th, will go to Dunhuang himself with us. We are going to organize the first innovation retreat in Dunhuang with him together.

So he hasn't been back since 2015 or 16. And he has been always talking about Dunhuang. And finally, this year, if you know, his schedule is already crazy.

But he worked really hard. And all of us work hard to create this extra chance for him to go to Dunhuang. So it's a really, really unbelievable chance.

Dunhuang is the place 1,000 years ago in China. It's in the Gobi Desert, by the way. It's where the four ancient civilizations, the ancient China, the ancient India, the ancient Greek, and the ancient Persian met together.

It's like a hub for the ancient Silk Road, where all the great ideas travel, where all the great business activities happen, and where all the great innovation happened in the last 1,000 years. So it's a great, great, the best place in Asia to do this kind of program, innovation retreat. If you want to develop a skill, a tool for your creativity, for your innovation, this is a great program to go for.

I don't know what we are doing exactly yet, because we just got the dates. But I got inspired by ACI. I feel like it might be great for a lot of, of course, Chinese friends, you're very welcome to go.

But if you are not from China, and you want to meet your ancient ancestor, Dunhuang, it's a good place to go. Because maybe if you're from the West, you're somehow connected to Greek or Persian. Then it's a good place to go.

Maybe we can do something similar. And I'm talking to the director of ACI team. Maybe IR can cooperate with the mountain house of the five houses.

And then we can create a truly international event in Dunhuang. And you're very welcome to visit my beloved family. That's it.

That's wonderful. And we hope like somehow P3 World News can have eyes there.

[Speaker 3]
Okay. That's wonderful. So thank you so much, Stanley.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. And really, really thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you as well.

Okay. So before we come up with our next guest, I would like to share a quick video with you because it's relevant for what he's going to be talking about with us. Is there one in the shower?

Just kidding. No, no, just kidding. That's the one.

That's the one. Come team, come. In the hallway.

And what's your opinion about it? Whining is for people who don't understand. We're super excited that the Marie Kondo event is finally getting a lot of traction.

I just got 100 signups for the online event. And all that in just three minutes, right? Yeah.

Someone must have advertised. Exactly. And we're going to find out.

We're going to find who is doing this. They're going to get what they deserve. All right.

I like whining. See you guys later. All right.

So we are actually, we'd like to hear from the audience. If you can raise your hand if you were the person selling 100 tickets yesterday. It's time for confessing.

We don't know who, but apparently someone was helping big time or not. Now we are not sure. But here we are with Tim Lowenhaupt.

So first of all, please give him a big clap because he just produced an amazing, amazing retreat. Geshe Michael was so happy with this venue. And thank you so much, really.

Not for only this, but for all the years of producing events and for friendship. Very important. Thank you so much.

And the patience. Anything else? Well, not live right now.

All right. There's no whining. I like that.

I learned how to pronounce Juan. It's not Juan. It's Juan.

Just like a little, like you have to get a little in your throat. Like if you say who? Who?

Who? Who? Juan.

Juan. Yeah. Oh, I just learned how to do it.

So since we're on the topic of Marie Kondo, let's just go to.

[Speaker 3]
Are you going to go?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, go there because we started there. Okay, great. So what's so giggly?

What are you guys doing over there? She's crying. Oh, no, laughing.

[Speaker 2]
Laughing.

[Speaker 1]
So we're going to start with this event that's happening tonight at 7 p.m. Japan time. There are many of you here who have yet to sign up for this event. And it would be a shame if you came all the way to Japan.

And didn't get to see the premier Japanese organizer who's world famous in Geshe Michael talk tonight, the differences between outer organization and inner organization. And as I said, if you cannot afford that $70, let us know and we have some scholarship money for you. All right.

And those of you online, please join as well. If you're in a weird time zone where 7 p.m. is, I don't know, one in the morning, you can also get access to it on a rebroadcast that we'll be doing very shortly. So please join.

All right. So what's coming up here? We've talked and no, don't show all of them yet.

Oh, okay. Oh, this is us. Okay.

So we're talking about the five houses, right? Sort of in this new organization. And we have this cool thing.

People are like Juan. Which house are you? I don't know.

I like a few. And then Geshe Michael was saying also considering the one that I do the least. Which one is your least favorite?

I think my weakness, honestly, is the meditation. I think it's the weak side. But now it's attractive because of that.

Right. But I mean, I'm not saying. I'm just saying, you know, I'm not making a decision yet.

Okay. So the question is, what house are you? Like, which house do you feel most connected to?

You know, you and as Juan said, I'm practicing, right? He said, you know, maybe the best house for you is the one that's the most uncomfortable. You know, maybe if you spend some time with meditation and Samadhi practice, it actually would be the best thing for you, which is what I think he's saying.

Maybe, you know, so start thinking about it. Which one is you, right? And you're going to be allowed to move around.

And, you know, like 95% of you were like, I want to be part of the diamond house. And I'm like, great. Now you got to do the work in one of the other houses anyway, to be able to be in the diamond house.

Get it, right? You're going to have to do that work anyway. So which one are you and which one are you really attracted to?

And we need help. This is going to be a massive, massive project. So why are we, what are we starting with next year?

The first program we have is in April. Where is it? Which is?

I don't know. This one. This one.

Okay. Right? Yes.

No, not that one. So we're calling it a new beginning, right? We'll be at Diamond Mountain.

And it's going to be, actually, we're going to include all five houses in the program. You'll see how it fits together. And this is going to be at Diamond Mountain.

Retreat cottages are now available. All right. If you want, hey guys, can we shut the door, please?

Oh, well, there's been things happening. Yes. Yes.

A few minutes. Yes. Yes.

Okay. We need to hurry up. Tell them, team.

Tell them what you really want to say. What I really want to say is sign up now. Because we only have 30 retreat cottages.

So if you want to come, there's going to be five days of classes. And then four days of deep retreat with a possibility of extending more time. So that will be at Diamond Mountain.

And then in October or in July, we're going to be at Mexico City for the Wisdom in the Times of Chaos, specifically focused on the Devil Debates the Angel. This is a beautiful, beautiful program. All of these programs will be online.

So don't worry if you're not able to make it. And we have some cool things happening with local programs being run by local organizers in Asia. Jasmine Yao has offered to start those programs.

We have a couple other people. So maybe you can't come to Diamond Mountain. You can go to other places as well.

Wonderful. And of course, I will say, try to come to Mexico City. It's wonderful.

I am, you know, Mexican. So what other thing, but that can say. That's all we can say, basically.

The truth. So I have one. Sure.

So what should we do? I'm done now. Done?

Yeah, I'm done with what we have to say here. OK, so thank you very much. And just finally, remember one last thing, tech table, please.

One last chance for people. If you want to come up sometime here at the stage, you can reach out there, not to team. But anyways, it's OK.

Just talk to me. All right. Yes, or you can watch our videos and stuff later.

Thank you so much. And see you. Hopefully, really see you all or as much as you can tonight at the Marie Kondo event is going to be wonderful.

Thank you. And it's time for. I need two more minutes.

All right. Two minutes here. Is Jasmine here?

Yeah, please come on up. So Jasmine really helped us out this year to start building a lot of excitement around this program. And she brought 20 people.

Jasmine brought 30 extra people here that we needed to get here. And we have a special gift for all of them. And I wanted to present you with the first one.

And then you'll get the back and you can give them to everybody. But I want to thank all of all of that group of 30 people. It's very, very special to us that you came and you supported ACI because without your help, this event may have been financially difficult.

So thank you all very much.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
And is Yuki and Mei-Chan here? Is Yuki here? Yes, come here too.

Is your mom here too? Okay, well, this is for Yuki and her mom. This is the second person who saved our butts.

And she brought many, many people here. So we have a gift for you and your mom as well. So thank you for your service to ACI.

Thank you. And I just want to thank the tech team, all the volunteers, and everyone who helped out. We have one more class left with JB and Connie, if you would like to stay one more hour.

And then we'll move over to the other venue starting at seven o'clock. So thank you all very much. And we'll give you about a 10-minute break.

What's that? We're not to the very end. Cool.

Thank you, guys.