Тим Ловенхопт — Книга 1: Совершенство мудрости, занятие 51

[Speaker 1]
Hey, good morning, good evening, good night.

[Speaker 2]
Good morning, good evening, good night. Welcome to the class.

[Speaker 1]
I see we're having class with Tim and I see him there. He's looking ready, looking sharp. How's it going?

It's going well. Nick, how are you? Pretty good.

Do you have a whole gang at your house? I believe they're at my house. I'm not currently at my house.

That's right. That's right. Well, you're looking ready.

So you look like maybe in a more prepared time zone. Perhaps. I have a very excellent croissant right here.

Oh, that looks amazing. Yeah, just eat a croissant and make me upset. I'm not hungry at all.

You're lucky. All right, cool. You got a homework ready for us?

I do. Would you like to start? I guess you might go with morning.

Hey, Nick, guess who's here this morning? I'll give you a hundred bucks if you can guess. Stanley.

Stanley. Okay, you could never guess. Alistair from Australia.

Oh, really? Really? Can we see his handsome face on the screen?

Not as handsome. It's been a while. Maybe he's aged like the rest of us.

Maybe not. Such a blessing. Oh, my God, Alistair.

What's up, Nick? Wow. How wonderful.

Wow. You were right. I could have never guessed.

Down under. He wants to answer some questions later. Yeah, maybe we can have him do some translating.

Hey, Mr. Tim. All right, here we go. All right.

Good morning, everybody. So I have, I've tried to make this an easier homework than previous ones. We'll see how it goes.

All right, so we're in the middle in our text. We're trying to define what a classical commentary is. And we're going through several debates of that definition right now.

And so the first one we did last class, about three or four weeks ago, we learned about two qualities of a classical commentary. And there was a claim that they must, that this is, the classical commentary must possess these two. So what are those two?

And then Master Vasubandhu Geshe-la found an explanation of those two more in depth. So what are those two? And what is their meaning, according to Master Vasubandhu?

Wow. Okay, so there were two qualities. It's something classical commentary does for the people that read it.

Marina says correcting and protecting in the chat. That is correct. Correcting and protecting.

Protecting, right? So correcting, what does it correct? Does it correct your Tibetan pronunciation?

Absolutely. Hopefully. Hopefully.

But what is it protecting? Your mind. Excuse me.

I'm sorry. What is it correcting? Your actions?

Kind of. Wrong worldviews? Worldview?

I'm sure it does. But according to Master Vasubandhu. It corrects something else.

You want to translate that into... I heard it. It was in Tibetan.

What is it in English? Oh, yeah. This is the tenchu.

This is how he defined the word tenchu, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I remember now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

So now you remember the thing that it is, but you're not remembering the thing that I'm asking for. It was in the chat. What's in the chat?

She says they correct your negative emotions, which are your enemies. Exactly. So they correct your negative emotions, right?

And then Upala also wrote in the chat. And what do they protect you from? Oh, Upala wrote.

From the world of the lower realm. Good. Nice.

All right. All right. Number two.

So then we have the second debate, and this is kind of long, where they said, okay, fine. There's actually nine qualities that a classical commentary possesses. And actually, it's nine, it's six qualities absent from it.

And there's three qualities that are present from it. Oh, yeah. Right?

And there were... What's that? It's a greasy question.

Yeah. And then I want to know, I want them presented in the fun way that they were presented in the text. Not in the six and three format, but how was it presented?

Let's see if we can... Two, two, one, two, two, one, two, two, one. Right.

It's a nice dance, right? Yeah. So two qualities that are absent, and then one quality that's present.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Right? So two absent, two present. All right.

So now what are they? Absent from being like crow's teeth. One, two, and eight.

Kind of. They're not meaningless. Not meaningless.

Right. Okay. That's the negative quality.

Meaningless is absent from it. What's the second one?

[Speaker 2]
That absent of incorrect meaning.

[Speaker 1]
Correct. And what's the third one, which is what it does have? Take a wild guess.

Possesses meanings. Good. All right.

Those are three. I didn't hide the answers correctly, so I'm going to get all nine out if I put it on the screen. All right.

So those are three. What are the next three? It's like pulling tooth out of a crow.

Tupac. Tupac. Yep.

It's not heard from a fool. Heard from a fool. Right.

In a way, I always thought of it kind of like also something that's gossip as well. Like it's just things you heard. Okay.

What's the second one in that list? Open to debate. Right.

It's debatable. And then what's the positive quality?

[Speaker 2]
Put successfully into practice. If you practice it, you'll get results.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly right. All right. The last three.

Seems like only one person studied. So Venerable Upala, what's the next three?

[Speaker 2]
Deceptive or a liar.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Modern science. Yeah.

Modern science, in other words. Or anything coming out of the White House. Excuse me.

No politics. Out of love. Yeah.

And what does that mean? Written for fame or money or some other mundane purpose. Cool.

And what's the third one? Last one?

[Speaker 2]
Eliminates your suffering.

[Speaker 1]
Eliminates your suffering. Good job. She got it.

She got it. All right. Last one.

Okay. So now we're in the middle of our next debate. And the Kachi comes along and says.

In the Sutra Alankara, which says that dependent things truly exist. That this. This text was written by an author who's still a suffering being.

So since we're in the middle of it, we don't know what the answer to this, what the problem is. So what seems correct about this? As it relates to classical commentaries.

And what seems to be a potential opposition to this. Based on what we know who quote wrote the Sutra Alankara. Yeah, good question.

So let's do the first one. If he makes a comment. It's totally what?

Quiet in here. When we meditate, it's not that quiet. Did Trinity make a lot of noise this morning?

Or was she quiet? She's totally well-mannered. Not like some people's cats.

All right. So the Sutra Alankara is one of the five great books of whom?

[Speaker 2]
Arya Sangha as listening to Lord Maitreya.

[Speaker 1]
Correct. So what seems correct about this statement? When we say the Sutra Alankara was written by an author who's still a suffering being.

[Speaker 2]
Well, if anyone thinks that Arya Sangha was a suffering being, then that's where they'd go.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I love how you bring doubt upon such claims. It was written down by a suffering being.

It's supposed to be that Maitreya's not a Buddha yet, which means they're still suffering. He's still suffering. Right?

It's the open text, right? Right. And so really what we're trying to figure out...

My problem. Hold on. Just one second.

I'm going to switch networks here. Seems like I'm having problems. All right.

Can you guys hear me now? Yeah. No problem.

Okay, cool. Okay, cool. So basically what this question...

We're trying to get in to understand who wrote the Sutra Alankara, right? And was it Master Sangha? And then the question is, did Maitreya write it because he said it?

And if Maitreya is a future Buddha, which means he's not yet a Buddha, is he still a suffering being? So could he be considered a co-author? Right?

So we're kind of in this... We're trying to figure this out. Copyright law.

Copyright law, yes. Who gets the royalties at the end of the day? Who gets the royalties?

Okay. All right, cool. Three vocabulary words.

Choppa. Wait, we didn't... Okay.

What's that? We didn't see your answer to the last question. It was a little fast.

I just said the answer. So the first part... Oh, okay, now we see it.

Okay. So the first part is that, you know, is that a classical commentary is not spoken by a Buddha. Right?

That's why we call it... There's a difference between a sutra and a shastra. So a shastra seems to be written as a commentary sutra, which would be written by a person who is still a suffering being.

That's what... And so then we're trying to figure out who that is. And is Maitreya one of them?

If you think about it, alankara traditionally means jewelry, which means something extra that's put on a beautiful lady who's already beautiful. So the sutra is the beautiful lady, and then alankara is the commentary to the sutra. You see what I mean?

So sutra alankara should be by a human being and not a Buddha, because it's meant to beautify a sutra. It's not a sutra on top of a sutra. Right?

That's a beautiful way to answer that question. I think there's a reason why he chose sutra alankara among all the shastras that he could have chosen. You see what I mean?

And maybe it's... And even if we're debating about the five books of Maitreya, then this is the one that kind of helps. That's a cool idea.

I like that. Yeah, yeah. All right.

We're down to some vocabulary. Chupa. Supposedly a Sangha took dictation.

To fix. Yeah, or make a fix. They were probably in some French cafe having some croissants and...

Yeah, just make us jealous. I'm still thinking about that croissant. I think we should trash his house just for revenge.

Good idea. All right. Vocabulary.

Chupa. Chupa means... In this context, it means correct, but it usually means make up, or make, or do, abrogate, or create.

And what would it mean if it didn't have the first letter? Everything. Dharma.

Teaching. Teaching. Teaching, right?

Teachering. Teachering. All right.

Kopche. Protector.

[Speaker 2]
Protector. I think with the part, Tim, just to go back to chupa, makes it a verb. So, would it be a noun?

[Speaker 1]
You're correct. To correction. Chupa.

Chupa your chupa. Correction. Hey, Word.

Word, do you think there's any linguistic connection between chuh and chupa? I've thought about it some. I don't know.

Chuh means dharma, and chupa means to correct. Yeah, but it also means to facsimilate, to make up. I think it's to make up, or to teach, to create a teaching, a thing, a made-up thing or something.

Or about just to make stuff. Yeah, without the aspiration, it means artificial chupa. Exactly.

Like artificial milk is called chupa. Yeah. So, I think so.

Fix it up. Mm-hmm. Protect.

Whoops, well, I messed it up here, so. Oh, man. And that comes from words for roofs.

Roofs. Chup. Yeah.

Chupa. Chupa. Chupa.

And then semchen, in the usage we have in this reading. Sufferer. Sufferer, right.

Suffering. Suffering being. How do we normally translate it?

Living being, or the old translation is sentient being. Oh, sentient being is nice. Okay, cool.

All right. Thank you, everybody. Cool.

All right. Good job, Timothy. You're already starting to look French to me.

I don't know. It's true. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Weird. Oui, oui, oui. Was that Bengali or Tim, all of a sudden?

I've been practicing how French sounds to me. Sounds like everybody has a stuffed up nose. I do have a student at Trenton, if you would like to try.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Hang on.

Let me get out of here. Okay. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. I mean, I'll be fine to skip it because I'm not sure how well I did, but let's find out. No, it's fine.

Okay. Can you read, please? Yes.

Wait. Sarcastic. Go down.

Okay. Good. Let's see.

If you agree that the author of this comment, Kind of have to go back to figure out if that's what that first part of that sentence is. Okay. So, it's a belief of the mind-only system that shenwangs are dendrites.

What's a shenwang? It's a dependent thing? Something that's at the mercy of something else.

Something that's at the mercy of something else. Which means all results in the universe are at the mercy of their causes. So shenwang, at the mercy of somebody else, is a mind-only school term for a result, because it's dependent on its cause.

If the cause refuses to do its thing, the result can't exist. So it's called shenwang, under the power of somebody else. So that's the mind-only school's word for changing things, functional things.

And in the mind-only school system, if something works, it exists truly. We would say, does a pen exist really? In the way it seems.

And you'd say, no. In the higher school, in the middle way school. But in the mind-only school, if it works, if it writes on paper, it must exist really.

It must have a real existence. So they say all causes and effects exist really because they do something. You can't say they don't.

They say shenwang dendrup, which according to the higher school is wrong. The pen's not what writes on the paper. Your mental seeds write on the paper.

The pen happens to be there, but the writing isn't coming out of the pen. The writing is coming out of your seeds in your mind. Cool?

All things are coming out of seeds in your mind. It's not that the pen is writing on the paper. It looks like that, but it's not true.

Mind-only school, it's true. The pen is working, so the pen is real. Got it?

Now, would a Buddha say that? Would a Buddha say that a pen is real? Would a Buddha say that a pen is not coming from you?

Stanley said for some audiences, that's a tricky answer. In the Dode Gyan Sutra Alankara, which is the beautifier of the sutra, written by Lord Maitreya, who is the coming Buddha, that's why he's got one foot down already in a statue. Coming Buddha.

I always say closer than you think. If Lord Maitreya said pens work and pens are real, is that his dupta? Is that his siddhanta?

Is that his school of thought? He said in the mind-only school teachings, pens are real. Is that his siddhanta?

Is that his school of thought? Yes or no? But he expressed it.

He's the one who taught it. He taught the mind-only school. He's the source of the mind-only school.

Maitreya taught the mind-only school. Two of his five great books are mind-only. That's where the mind-only school comes from.

So is he mind-only school? He taught it. He taught it.

He taught mind-only school. So is he mind-only school? He was the one who first taught the mind-only school.

Therefore, the question is, is he mind-only school? Not necessarily. I think you can guess the answer.

So anyway, this is an opponent asking us, oh, so I guess the mind-only school is Maitreya's own system, because he invented it. I did it slightly backwards. And we say mar kya.

It's not necessarily the case. You can invent a school for the benefit of your students and not hold it to be your own school. Right?

You can make cinnamon rolls, but not eat them. Okay. Next paragraph.

Supa. Next. Oh, so yeah, you've got to work on this translation a little bit.

It means... What's nangtsen du gyurpa word? Amongst that group, part of that group.

Yeah, it means which you find quoted, which you find expressed inside of the book. nangtsen du gyurpa means which you find expressed inside of a book. So in one of the five great books of Maitreya, Sutralankara, in there you can find the belief that a pen is real, and that a pen writes.

You can find that belief. If you can find something in a book by Maitreya, is it Maitreya's own belief? Yes or no?

We can say not necessarily. He could be reporting another belief. No, but he invented that school.

Well, maybe he's just inventing it, as Stanley said, for someone else's benefit. Right? Okay.

That's the question. All right. All right, I think we've got that one.

Yes, so then when it says dupa dey chir, what is he actually agreeing... The kachik is saying that's what... But you already agreed to that, right?

That's what's already been asserted. Yes, and that's the sentence before this one, and we didn't look at it today. It's the line above there.

And the sentence before, one beforehand, is that the speech from a teacher that... Basically, it's the person who spoke that system is an author who is still a suffering being. So I'm guessing...

Are we relating that back to him being a sem chen, or are we relating it back to him being the progenitor of the mind-only school? It says, the last section then said, it's author... rang tsam bu...

It was an opinion expressed by an author who was a suffering being. It was an opinion expressed by an author who was a suffering being. And we say that's correct.

Why? Because it was not a sutra, it was a shastra. By definition, it's not spoken by an enlightened being.

If you're not enlightened, you're suffering. So somewhere in between there, before today's class, he said, I agree that my transcribed books are shastras, they are commentaries, by a human being. That person did not arrive yet as a Buddha, so they are a human being.

And therefore they are suffering. So he said, I agree. I agree Maitreya is suffering.

Right, and then the kachik says, well, if you agree to that, then you also have to agree to what we just discussed. If you agree that he's a suffering being, then the opinions expressed in his book are open to question, perhaps. Something like that.

By the way, that was my pre-geshe exam topic. It's called jamshun. It's called jamshun.

It's a classic pre-geshe topic. Something like 12 guys were given pre-geshe topics, then four were selected for the geshe exams. See what I mean?

So that was my pre-geshe topic, actually. Pretty hard debate. Because I messed that one up pretty well, the rest...

Yeah, we're just going to move on. I'm going to stop and then we're going to go to you, because the rest is going to be messed up anyway. Because now that I messed up the first one, the rest is messed up.

[Speaker 2]
Which I was hoping.

[Speaker 1]
I was hoping that I was at least going to get it right. Yeah, well, it's probably those croissants. Wait, what's going on?

It's the second line here. Okay, if you agree that the mind-only school is what? If you agree to what about the mind-only school?

Maitreya's system. Yeah, if you agree that because he taught the mind-only school in one of his books, he belongs to the mind-only school, then... Who's going to read, Tim?

You don't have to read, you could choose somebody. Let's have a look here. How about Kading?

Okay, Kading. DON NA DE BYED TSUN BYAMS GON RANG LUG GIS GRUB THA GNYEN PAR THAL Go down because it's sarcastic. THAL GNOD PA DE PHYIR GZER NA MA KYA Yeah, was the mind-only belief that the pen is making the writing, was it a school expressed by Maitreya or not?

It was, yes. It was. Is it therefore a school expressed by Maitreya which he follows?

MA RGYAL Then we say MA RGYAL. Yeah, we say MA RGYAL. Not necessarily so.

Was it a school expressed by Maitreya that all functional things are real? Yes. Was it a school expressed by Maitreya that a pen causes the writing on a paper?

Yes. Was it a belief that he held himself? No.

Okay, got it? Did he invent the mind-only school? Yes.

Does he follow it? No. All right?

Which says a lot about BYANG NAS. Which says a lot about BYANG NAS. A person could spend their life expressing a school that they don't believe.

They just want to help their students. Who's going to read next, Timothy? My question here, because they finished previously with the GZER NA and we say MA KYA, now this is us coming back and saying to the opponent, or to the kachi, that this point, we're making this next point?

Or is this the kachi? Here's the trick. We agreed that the mind-only school was a drupta, siddhanta, a school of philosophy expressed by Maitreya.

But we did not agree that it was his own school of philosophy. Did he express it? Yes.

Did he introduce it to this planet? Yes. Was it his own?

No. Then the guy says, you know what? I think it was his own system.

RANG LUG GI GDUG DA. Not just RANG GI GDUG DA. RANG GI GDUG DA means a school of philosophy which he expressed.

RANG LUG GI GDUG DA, when you add the word LUG, it means that's his own personal belief system. And we say MA GYEL. MA GYEL.

Just because he expressed it, didn't mean he followed it personally. Then he says, no, no, I think if he expressed it, he followed it personally. Then now we have to beat that idea.

Got it? By the way, RANG LUG is always expressed in nerdy tones. No.

It was his own system because he was the one who expressed it. Now here's our reply to that. Who's going to read this?

Yeah. Can't RANG LUG be ambiguous in the other language? Isn't it?

Is it purposely said that way? Well, in this case, because the other guy's always wrong, if he agrees to it, it has to be something wrong. I mean, you work backwards that way.

So did Maitreya express a GDUG DA, a Siddhanta, a school of thought? Yes. Was it his RANG LUG?

Was it his own personal belief system? No. Then the other guy says, no, no, it was because he expressed it.

The Mixed Nuts, we put out every famous school of Buddhist thought in the last two and a half thousand years. We have spread the twelve translators across the twelve great schools of thought. Eleven of them are wrong.

Okay? Just because we add them to the translator team doesn't mean we think they're correct. They're useful, but they're not correct.

Okay? All right, Tim, who's going to read? DUM MI NUS TE How about Oscar?

Oscar, yay! DUM MI NUS TE DE YOD TSUNG GI SEM TSAM PA'I RIG CHEN GYI SU GSUNG BA'I PHYIR DU GSUNG PA YIN PA'I PHYIR TANG DUM PA SANG GYI RANG LUG LA DO DE GANG DU YANG DNGUL PO LDAN PAR YOD PA MA GSUNG PA'I PHYIR Can you make a mistake next time? Yeah, just try to make some mistakes.

Hey, Tim, bass players don't make mistakes. DUM MI NUS TE Tim, what's DUM MI NUS TE? I can't agree to that.

Yeah, you can't agree to that. Now, what's Je Tsun mean? Maitreya.

Reverend? Yeah, literally it means high and holy. JE TSUN, high and holy.

And it's an idiomatic name for Maitreya. Sometimes we just call him Mr. High and Holy. And everybody knows, oh, you're talking about Maitreya.

So in this context, sometimes JE TSUN refers to the great textbook writer Sarah J. Sarah Je Tsun Chukyi Gyeltsen. JE TSUN, but here it means Maitreya.

He wanted to JE GSUNG GSUNG BA certain types of people. What's that mean? GSUNG BA means Zimba.

Bring along with him. Nurture them? Yeah, he wanted to lead.

He wanted to lead. JE GSUNG GSUNG BA He wanted to lead certain types of people. They had a certain kind of tendency.

What? SEM TSANG Mind only? Yeah, they were people who would be attracted to the mind-only school.

So just to attract them, just to attract them, he GSUNG BA. He spoke. He taught the mind-only school only for the purpose of attracting people who would be attracted to the mind-only school, because it would lead them further than they were before, and they could catch up to the middle-way school eventually, as a stop-gap measure.

So that's the first statement. He says, was it his own system? No.

Did he teach it? Yes. Why?

He's trying to attract certain kinds of disciples who would not be attracted to middle-way. And now here's a second rationale. Here's a second rationale.

BYUNG PA SANGS RGYAS RANG LU The position of the Buddha, you said? Yeah. If you're talking about the personal belief system of an enlightened being, SANGS RGYAS KYI RANG LU DO DE In any of the sutras that those enlightened beings ever taught, Kangdi Yang is like, Kangdi Yang!

Like, never ever Okay? Did he say, DNGOS PO BSTAN PA That things exist truly. A pen is real.

He never said that. In 990 surviving sutras, 100,000 pages, he never said, pens are real. Never.

Once. The Buddha never said that. Okay, got it?

MA GSUM MA GSUM means he never ever said that. Lord Buddha never said that in any sutra at all. Got it?

Good. He never said that pens make the writing that you see on paper. They did not come from pens.

They came from seeds opening in your mind. Everything has an ethical basis. There's nothing in the universe that is not based on ethics.

You can say it that way. Pen writing doesn't... ink doesn't come out of a pen.

Ink comes out of your ethics. Okay? It's very beautiful.

Then, he has shown rigpa. He's shown logic. He said, look, the mind-only school cannot be the opinion of a Buddha because in all the writings that the Buddha ever wrote, there's not a single sentence that says pens are real.

Okay? So that's logical proof. That's kind of a logic.

An enlightened being never wrote that. That's logic. Now you can say, let's go to scriptural proof.

Even though the last proof was based on scripture, it was still logical. Now he's going to say, and I'll give you scriptural proof, lung en... rik.

Lung rik. Okay. Who's going to read this one, Timothy?

Laura. Laura. Laura Orrera.

[Speaker 2]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Good job. Yes, and I said, hey Nick, who's the movie star? Did all the movie stars come from...

I think the movie stars left L.A. and went to San Diego.

[Speaker 2]
Hi Geshe Michael.

[Speaker 1]
Hi, nice to see you. Okay. jukpa le means from the jukpa.

There's a couple jukpa. There's umla jukpa. There's chun jukpa.

There's entering the middle way, and there's also entering the way of life of a bodhisattva. This one, avatar, right? This one refers to Majjhima Garu.

garyang means nowhere at all. With the apostrophe, it means nowhere at all. Did he ever teach lupo yu?

There do exist things. Things do exist. Nowhere at all did he ever teach that.

Who said that? Buddha.

[Speaker 2]
No one.

[Speaker 1]
Chandrakirti said, you cannot find a sutra in all of the sutras where Buddha said things really exist. Okay? He never said that.

Okay, got it? Now, here's the punchline, Timothy. ser na.

So they say? It's claimed? I don't...

Nope, I don't get it.

[Speaker 2]
Sorry.

[Speaker 1]
That ser na is nasty, nasty difficult. That ser na means all of the last few sentences are the other guy talking. It would be more comfortable if it was us talking.

If we said, look, Maitreya didn't mean it. Why? Because Lord Buddha never said anything like that.

But he says, now suddenly this is the other guy's position, which is always wrong. He said, it's impossible for Maitreya to have said that a pen is real, because Buddhists never say that. Now it's his position.

That's much more difficult. That's much more difficult. There are many quotations by good people, and logically it makes sense that Buddha never said that there's any real thing.

That's the other guy talking. He says, Buddha never said a pen was real. And here you got Maitreya saying a pen is real.

It must mean he's not a Buddha. That's his argument. Okay, got it?

Because the mind-only school says a pen is real. And Maitreya invented the mind-only school. Got it?

Therefore he cannot be a Buddha. Now he's twisting everything around against us, which is very skillful. Before we go on, quick question.

If you go up two lines, or two sections... Yeah. So at the end of...

[Speaker 2]
The section.

[Speaker 1]
Right there, the previous line, where it says ser-na-ma-kyep. Okay, yeah, good. So is that the end of what he's claiming?

The next line is us, and then the last one we just did would be back to the kachig? We say the ma-kyep. When it says ser-na-ma-kyep, we said ma-kyep.

And then suddenly what sounds like us talking is him talking. Du-mi-nu-te is him talking. You can't agree...

Yeah. You can't agree that it's not Maitreya's... You can't say that it's Maitreya's system that pens really exist.

You can say he expressed that system, but you can't say it's his own system, because no Buddha would ever say that. Okay, got it? Okay, I see.

So basically that ma-kyep and ser-na is just in there to say, all right, well, we're now saying it's not necessarily the case, and he goes, but wait a second, I have more to say. And then he comes back and finishes the next two lines. Yeah, okay, it's very difficult.

The ma-kyep and ser-na-ma-kyep means just because he expressed a position doesn't mean it's his position. That's the ma-kyep in that case. But unfortunately what happens next, which is normally we say something, now it's a new debater saying something.

It's a different debater saying something. And the different debater says no Buddha would ever say that things existed from their own side, because there are many quotations and many logical reasons why no Buddha in any sutra has ever said that things exist from their own side. He says that.

And he quotes Chandrakirti. The other guy, a new other guy, quotes Chandrakirti, who said that no Buddha would ever say that something existed from its own side. Therefore, says the new debater, Maitreya cannot be a Buddha, because he supports the mind only school.

Got it? Very difficult. That's very difficult, Tim.

Those two lines that start with du-mi nu-te. Very difficult, because that's a second objector, and it's not the first one. And it's very rare to find objection overruled second objector supporting the first objector.

Got it? Yes. That's nasty.

Okay, then I went and got you the quotation from Chandrakirti. It is true that Chandrakirti said, in entering the Middle Way, gar yang ngopo yu che ma ten dok, no Buddha ever taught that things existed from their own side. Okay?

Which means no Buddha ever taught the mind only school. All right? All right, let's...

You ready? Yeah, good luck, Tim. By the way, in 15 minutes, Tim will lead a discussion.

Grandpa will disappear, and Tim will lead a discussion of how you can use this in your real life. And I think there's a lot of usages in your real life. And then, Juan, 15 minutes later, Juan's going to give us the world news, wherever he is.

What's the famed question, Tim? Where's Juan? Let's see, Utta, read.

Yay, Utta! Nice to hear from you.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. Thank you. yin ta wa yinpey je kor sum Yeah, good.

[Speaker 1]
Now, the delicate thing here, Tim, is the difference between saying tawa in the third line, and saying rang lug gi tawa in the second line. Okay? And that's the key.

You can forget the rest of the wording here. If something is a tawa, If something is a viewpoint expressed by a person, is it necessarily their rang lupi tawa? Got it.

Yeah, it's not necessarily the case. Yeah, if something is a viewpoint expressed by a philosopher, it's not necessarily their viewpoint. Got it?

Okay, that's all. That's all. And we figured that out already.

A word, there's a new word here for you, which is an extremely rare word to take a position. Okay, you can make some money off it in a few months, probably. Okay.

GZHAN DBANG LDAN DU means things that depend on causes must be real, like a pen. All right. DE'I GZHOR GSUM means, look, you contradicted yourself.

He thinks, but it's not true. GZHOR SDIG GZHOR GSUM in Geshe debate. GZHOR SDIG GZHOR GSUM You say, offer.

And then we say, oh, well, let's take bananas. And the guy says, right. And we say, is it a fruit?

And he says, right. And we say, well, then it's orange. And he says, no.

And then we say, GZHOR SDIG GZHOR GSUM, you just contradicted yourself. And in Tibetan it's called the triple circle. You just turned back.

You just proved yourself wrong. I didn't do anything. I just talked about bananas.

Then the rest you took care of. You took care of defeating yourself. It's called GZHOR SDIG GZHOR GSUM.

You contradicted yourself. I didn't have to say anything. Just bananas we're talking.

All right. Who's next, Timothy? Dr. Bernie. Dr. Bernie? Oh, that Bernie. Who's about to teach the Bhagavad Gita next week.

I'm looking for him. We'll be mutually confused. GAL TE MA GRUB NA DE DER TAL DAG ME DRAG SUM KA THOG PA'I THAWA DE TOM PA SANG YAS KYI THAWA YIN PA'I PHYIR Nice reading.

Nice reading. You really improved a lot this last year. If you don't agree to the point I just made, GAL TE MA GRUB NA DE DER TAL We go up because we're saying it is true.

It is so. DER TAL. DER TAL.

DAG ME DRAG SUM. Tim? DAG ME DRAG SUM.

The three subtle and obvious forms of selflessness? Yeah, it means the three degrees of selflessness.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I see.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Each one is more subtle than the last one. In the Mind-Only school, and in the Lower Middle Way school, there's a concept of three degrees of selflessness, and only the highest one is emptiness.

For example, they would say self-made Buddhas and listeners, they do see selflessness, but they don't see 100% emptiness. They see 80% emptiness, 70% emptiness. They say charak, they say there are degrees of emptiness, and that's not accepted by the Higher Middle Way.

No Buddha ever agreed that there were three degrees of emptiness. But it's a belief of the third school and the lower part of the fourth school. And it's very confusing, and I struggled with it a lot, and it takes a long time to figure it out.

But listener arhats, self-made Buddha arhats, they don't see emptiness in that school, according to the Lower Middle Way. They see a kind of lack of self-nature, but they don't see true emptiness. And true emptiness is the lack of self-existence to all objects.

A lesser emptiness is a lack of self-existence to a person in several degrees. Something like that. And it's a useful idea.

It was taught by Lord Buddha. But it's not true. So you've got to know, you have to be on the inside here.

He says it's just like the three degrees of emptiness. And then if you understand all the school systems, you say, aha, he's talking about another impossibility. He's talking about another pen that writes from its own side.

He's just saying pen that writes from its own side in a different wording, the three degrees of emptiness, because they don't exist. Two of them don't exist. No Buddha ever taught three degrees of emptiness as their own system.

That's the distinction we're being taught here. Did they teach it? Yeah, as their own system.

No, or they might have claimed it was their own system, but it wasn't. Okay. So he says, well, the viewpoint that there's three degrees of emptiness is a viewpoint of Lord Buddha.

We say correct. But is it Lord Buddha's own viewpoint? No.

Okay, that's all. Same horse. We're beating the same dead horse.

And that's us talking again, right? Yeah, that's us talking. We're kind of anticipating him.

He came up with stuff that Lord Buddha said that wasn't true. And we're like, next you're probably going to mention the three degrees of emptiness or something. You're probably going to go there.

And we're cutting him off before he goes there. By the way, don't try to impress me with the three degrees of emptiness, because that's the same as a pen that writes from its own side. We're cutting him off proactively.

Don't try to mention this other thing that Lord Buddha taught just for the benefit of students. Because I know about that one, and it's not true either. Okay, one more.

One more, Timothy. Marina. Excuse me, Marina.

Marina.

[Speaker 2]
Good. Good. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Good job, Marina. Again, we have a very bad copy of Tim's massive text, eight volumes or something.

It's going to take him 50 years. We have a bad copy that was kind of handmade in a refugee camp. And there's a good copy that exists in a library that we located like 20 years ago, and we're still trying to liberate it.

But this one, as you can see, this line has several serious problems with it, and you have to fix them as you go. So anyway, I'm sure John's working on that. Shenyang Morvers, Tsen Tsangpa.

What's that, Tim? A mind-only-er. Yeah, they say shenlongs tendru.

That shenlongs exist truly. Now, Word. Hey, Word, you want to make a hundred bucks?

Yes. I never heard you say no. Why can it not be dung?

What does dung mean? Mm, dung. Mm, dung.

It's rather rare, and it does occur in the sutra. It's pretty common. It does?

Dung... I'll give you the whole word. It's called me dung.

Okay, yay! He couldn't get it. Dung means a fire pit, and it was a popular way of trying to assassinate Lord Buddha.

Oh, is it spelled like that, though, Ken? Okay. Isn't it spelled differently than that?

It's spelled differently, but I'm still trying to mess you up.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, it can't be fire pit in the middle of an argument about Maitreya, okay? So you have to correct it. Jukta de dungpay che.

It means, was the mind-only belief system about the pen existing from its own side, writing, the pen writing, was that belief of the mind-only school? Was it dungpay che, Tim? Was it taught?

Yeah, was it created by Lord Buddha? Okay. Was it made by THE Teacher, capital T?

Was it created by THE Teacher? Yes, it was dungpay che, but not as Rang Rung. But not as his own system.

jukta yinpa ta de dungpa sanggye kyi dukta yinpay che So this is a greasy thing in Tibetan. Is the idea that the pen comes from its own side a school of thought that was taught by Lord Buddha? Yes.

Was it created by him? Yes. Did he believe it?

No. That's thought. You've got to get used to it.

This anticipates chang nge. This anticipates the idea that a teacher could teach something they don't totally believe in if it brings the student further. Okay?

All right. gyalpa kye means, you're the one who said that if it's created by the person, they'd believe it. And we don't believe that.

Okay. Okay. Last one, Timothy.

Last chance. duwa duwa duwa duwa ma duk na. de chuk chen dunpa sanggye kyi dukta yinpa ta de chen kyi dukta yinpay che Yeah, the belief that the pen is writing on the paper, it is to a system of Lord Buddha.

it is to a system of Lord Buddha. Okay? Created by Lord Buddha.

Did he follow it, personally? No. Okay.

Now, what's a good argument to prove that it was created by Lord Buddha? What's a good argument to prove that it's a siddhanta or a school of thought that was created by Lord Buddha? Well, it's a Thechen Buddha.

It's a Thechen. It's the Mahayana. It's the highest.

It's greater way. It's greater way. Schools three and four, mind only and middle way, are greater way.

Schools one and two, Abhidharma and sutra school or logic schools, those are lower way. Hinayana. Of the four classical schools of India, not to be confused with the four traditions of Tibet, two are lower Hinayana and two are Mahayana.

Listen, if it's Mahayana, maybe the Buddha taught it. I mean, he even taught in Hinayana, but this debater is saying, look, if something is Mahayana and you're going to say it wasn't taught by Lord Buddha, are you kidding? Are you cuckoo?

Mind only school is Mahayana. But it's not true. Greater way and not any way at all.

So where we are right now, is this the other guy coming back now or is this us? I think it sounds like us. Of course it's a school of Lord Buddha.

It's a school of the Mahayana. We're not saying Lord Buddha believed it. We're just trying to prove it was a school of Lord Buddha.

And the next one says... It can be a school of Lord Buddha and not be a school that Lord Buddha believes. That's okay.

Last sentence here, and then we'll stop. You translate that last sentence, Timothy. It's pretty much the same thing, saying that, yes, Lord Buddha did teach it because he taught the system of the mind only as well.

Yeah, good. It was taught by Lord Buddha because it's mind only school. Tim, can you translate the next four sections here?

Sure. By the way, I'll give you a clue on the fourth one. He's going to start quoting books that describe what's a shastra as in terms of protecting.

They're going to describe what's a shastra in terms of protecting. And again, remember there's a basic contradiction or a basic incompatibility between shastra and sutra. You cannot be a sutra spoken by a divine being and at the same time be a shastra spoken by a human being.

They are forever separate. That's the problem with Maitreya. Then what he spoke should be a shastra because he hasn't come yet.

Got it? Now they're going to start referring to references in shastras, famous shastras, references to sutras as shastras, as great shastras. Got it?

There's references in credible shastras which refer to the sutras as great shastras. Now we're going to get a new headache. That's what's coming up next.

The person who called them great shastras is none other than Haribhadra, the pure lion, who's the greatest commentator to a sangha, the jewel of realizations. He's the greatest commentator. Two great commentaries.

That's what Tim's book is based upon, Haribhadra. Tim's book, which is about the lower middle way, is not about Maitreya's teachings, and it's not about a sangha's teachings. It's about Haribhadra's take on a sangha and Maitreya.

All right? Cool? All right.

When it says ser-na here at the end of that last line... Yeah, that means it's the other guy. By the way, I would like you to go to ser-na at least, but if you're brave, you can do the next two lines, kyun-me-te and der-ta.

Okay. If you're brave. If you're brave, foolish.

Okay, I'm going to disappear. You guys talk about how you could possibly use this in your real life. Bye!

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Michael.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Geshe-la. That was great.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
All right. So I had some ideas while we were working through this, but I wanted to get a sense of... Does anyone have anything they want to start with?

Anyone in the room? Looks kind of dull over there. All right.

Well, while everyone's formulating their thoughts... They're probably raiding your fridge, Tim. What's that?

Raiding your fridge. So the thing that I was thinking about is this idea that if somebody tells you something, should you believe it, right? And I think that's very relevant in our world right now.

I mean, it's every bit of information we get on the Internet or every bit of information we get in the news and however we're consuming the news, do they mean what they say, right? Or if someone says something you disagree with, did that person mean to... What is their real intention behind what they're saying, right?

You know, it's a big question. You know, when we talk about the idea of what are facts and what is fake news and what is, you know, something that may look like fact but is fake news, who knows? Like it's...

How do we even look at that question? That's what I was thinking about while I was trying to figure this out in class. But does anyone else have any ideas here they'd like to share?

It looks like someone has their hand raised. Would you like to speak? I'm sorry.

I don't read Chinese, so I don't know how to pronounce your name. Thank you, sir. My question is...

[Speaker 2]
Yes, I can hear you in English.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's a good question. Oh, hmm. Hey, Ben, do you want to start tackling this with me?

[Speaker 2]
You got to help me. I didn't totally follow it.

[Speaker 1]
So I think what I understood was if I'm a teacher and I'm giving a teaching which is not correct, fully correct, but the benefit and the motivation is to help the student, what kind of seeds am I planting for myself as a teacher? By saying something that's not totally correct, what would be the karmic result of saying something that's for the benefit of somebody but still is perhaps a lie?

[Speaker 2]
We have this definition of what is a lie that we learned, you know, when we start learning foundational morality, kindness in this system, that it's when you're not trying to put the image that's in your mind in someone else's mind, then that's a lie. And so we have little white lies where we suggest something and we don't mind that they get the wrong idea in their head, even if we technically said the right thing and we say, oh, I wasn't lying. But if you knew they were going to get the wrong idea, then it would be lying.

So if a teacher says to someone that things don't exist that aren't coming from your heart, if they can see that that person is going to think that it means that things don't exist at all, then it's a lie, you see? So it's not lying at all if your goal is to take correct understanding and move it into someone else's head. And in fact, if you have some understanding that speaking the words that might seem true to you, that might be the way you would phrase it to yourself, would create a misunderstanding.

If you see that, then to speak those words is a lie.

[Speaker 1]
I thought that was pretty well said. That was cool. I want to mention, Tim, real quick that in the 60 verses, there's a section where it talks about this very thing that both of you are talking about, where he says the Buddha spoke that these things existed through some nature of their own, simply as a path to bring people to the point where they'd be able to accept the deeper ideas of emptiness.

And so he wasn't leaving anybody astray, but he was actually bringing them to the highest idea. He just understood the steps that these particular students needed to progress along. I would say we could also get out of the question by saying, I mean, I think everything was said well, but we could also get out of it by saying, well, the Buddha is already a Buddha.

And a Buddha is already a, what is it? Sama, right? The person who turned correct.

So they're not planting bad seeds to not become a Buddha by saying something like that because they already are. Right? We don't have to worry about them, you mean?

We don't have to worry about them. We just have to worry about ourselves. Could I share my idea?

Hello? Is Geshe Michael saying something too, or is he? No, Geshe Michael.

I was going to say something. I just wanted to say it seems to me that the seeds planted would be planting the seeds to teach everybody at their own level.

[Speaker 2]
So it would be the practice of an enlightened being that you're emulating.

[Speaker 1]
Still for me, yeah. Cool. Can I say something, Tim?

Yeah, Vlad. Yeah. Hi, everybody.

So thank you for a nice class. When I listened to this whole sutra, I had an idea that it looked like we are talking to our children about Santa Claus. Like he's existing, so they could believe in something good.

But we know that he doesn't exist. But it helps our child to believe in something good to start their path. So for me, it's something like this.

So it's like telling your kids Santa Claus exists so that they can learn about generosity. I think that's kind of a cool comparison.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, something like this.

[Speaker 1]
And I like what Gelsay said as well, where she was saying, if I understood you correctly, Gelsay, it's your motivation, and you're trying to bring someone along the path. And then it's a skillful way to bring someone further along. I think that's what I heard you say.

More or less, she said. So Dr. Peng, do you have something you want to add? Yeah, I was just thinking about that particular bodhisattva vow where you are not supposed to teach emptiness or suchness to the person who's not ready.

But that doesn't mean we don't teach them things that help them understand emptiness, right? So the application of that is we use this kind of method to bring them to the real emptiness. Or if we don't do that, on the opposite, if we, from the very beginning, to anyone, we just said everything is 100% not coming from themselves, it might freak them out.

And it might even break their vow or cut off their opportunity to understand real emptiness. So that's one thing. The other thing is, through Ben's book, we're also trying to establish Buddha is a person who never lies, who cannot lie, who only speaks the truth.

So I find it interesting to hold these two seemingly contradictory, but maybe not ideas in the same brain. It's something that I'm just thinking about. How do we interpret that Buddha is a person who cannot lie, and he's teaching not real emptiness, not real truth.

And it's something that I'm thinking about. It's interesting. Thank you, Stanley.

I'm eating the things from your fridge. Go for it. It looks like we're ready to start the Peachtree World News.

Where's Juan?

[Speaker 2]
Thanks, Tim.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Thank you all very much. Okay, team.

How are you doing? Doing great, Juan. How are you?

Good. Yesterday was a very challenging night, but I survived. Oh.

Until like 1.30 in the morning. Oh, you're now officially a resident. I am, I guess now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, let me do a quick review of what's happening. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay, we had a great celebration. What's going on?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
We celebrated the Asian New Year the other day, and it was very cool. It was awesome, really. We have a picture I would like to share with you about that team that supported the event.

It was very nice. Yeah, just be a little patient because we have a small bandwidth here, so pictures will come up maybe little by little. But, yeah, everybody came.

It was very, very fun. I also enjoyed so much particularly the special wisdom segment that Geshe Michael gave us. It was the 16 Extra Topping Dessert Advices.

Yeah, it was very, very cool. If you guys haven't watched it, you should watch it because it was amazing. And, of course, many other segments.

Stanley and Chopin had games with us, and then Chloe shared a very cool presentation on the snake, meaning traditionally in the Chinese zodiac, let's say. And, yeah, so I'm so glad that all of you came. I want to thank very especially to Siobhan, to Chloe, to also Gina and Francisco that helped me a lot with the live.

Of course, to all of you who have been supporting over the years and online as well. Marina, thank you so much for always organizing the translators. So, thank you and Happy New Year.

So, what's coming up next? Oh, there is another thing. Last Saturday, we were talking about a very interesting project that the Russian-speaking community created.

It's a Telegram group, and it was all because this beautiful dog, his name is Brooklyn. He was in great need of surgery or like a medical treatment. And then Natasha, who is there with him, started looking out for help.

And then they came up with this idea of creating a whole community-based Telegram chat when they support each other. And they talked about it last Saturday. We just didn't have the chance to...

Something, long story short, we didn't have the proper translation in the boot. That's why we are doing a quick review. But in the next picture, you will see a general bullet point of what they do.

And it's very cool because they support each other. Whatever is your problem, you just put it in the group and they then subdivide like what's the category you are looking for support for. It could be like financial, whatever.

I want to buy my grandma a bucket of flowers or I want to do, you know, also like dreams. Like I want to go to this retreat center somewhere in the world or I want to build, I don't know, whatever it is, your dream. And then people with similar dreams start connecting with each other and support each other.

They also share wisdom because, you know, only... Well, these teachings say that only through the right way of getting things is that we actually can get them. So it's equally important to get the conditions.

But to get the causes for those conditions to be able to happen or manifest is equally or even maybe we could say more important. And so this group does all kinds of support, mental support, emotional support, financial support, friendship support, wisdom support. And if you want to join it, in this case, of course, you need to be a...

Well, you can join, but ideally you have to be a Russian speaking person. Otherwise, it's going to be challenging. Check it out.

Can we share one more time the QR, please? Yeah, they were talking about it because it has been a great success and many people find support through this chat group. We're thinking to open it into some other languages.

I guess English, really. But we could do Spanish. You could do Spanish, Rosa.

Maybe. Okay. And then today.

Yeah, Cristina. Cristina is here with us. And as you may know, she has been doing the Sanskrit courses.

The Sanskrit courses that Geshe Michael encouraged you to do, right? Let me make sure that you are on screen here with us. And what's going on?

Wait. No, I want the... No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not really here. Yeah. So in Sanskrit we say I have avidya siddhi.

What does that mean? The power of invisibility. It may be useful sometimes when you didn't study for your homework.

Yeah, right. I was there. No, no, no.

It has the power of invisibility. Sometimes, yeah, I guess. So tell me a little bit about how, I mean, you started this project maybe almost a year ago, no?

Almost really a year ago. How did it go? And now I think you're doing a reloaded, like more...

Yes. We've reprised. Yeah.

Now you're very serious about it.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Round two. Yes. We're going to add to it also.

So last year... How did it go and what's new? Yeah.

It went really well. We had, I think at the beginning, like a hundred students and that dwindled down, but we stayed with 25. Okay.

So I think that was great. So who's your best student? Yeah, you have to say.

The secret. Okay. And can you see the progress in their learning?

[Speaker 2]
Absolutely.

[Speaker 1]
I had one student who told me even after just 10 classes, he was able to read and understand what Geshe-la presents in the texts. Okay. In the Sanskrit version.

That's very cool. So that was very exciting. Okay.

And I can see now that on the 26th and the... So you have two series. Can you talk about that?

Yes. This is the expansion. Okay.

So last year we had series one, which was, I wanted to call it Sanskrit kindergarten, and Geshe-la said, no, make it bigger.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So it's organic Sanskrit one. Okay. But it just taught people how to pronounce and a little bit of history of Sanskrit.

And that's series one? So we're going to teach that again. Okay.

That will start on February 26th at four o'clock. On Wednesday. And we hope that will be more accessible to people who live in Asia.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

And you have series two as well. Yes.

[Speaker 2]
We're going to add series two. And Geshe-la said it should have... People want homework.

They want quizzes.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
They want certificates.

[Speaker 1]
For the serious people.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So we have quizzes for people who really want to go a little deeper into Sanskrit. Okay. Wonderful.

And we'll teach them about nouns and verbs, and maybe even Sunday. Okay. Yeah.

And just before you finish, can you share just super quickly why you... What's the story why you got interested in to study Sanskrit? Because as far as I know, you did that in school, in college?

No. It's not that? I did it with my Lama.

Okay. Lama David White, who taught me Sanskrit in Rockport, Massachusetts. Okay.

But how was it that just one day you were like, I want to learn Sanskrit? No, I never wanted to learn Sanskrit. Yeah.

No. They said, oh, we need one more person or he won't teach a class. Okay.

Will you join? And I'm like, no, no, no. Then they kept asking.

I said, okay, I'll go to Sanskrit class. Oh, that's so interesting. And now here you are.

And you fall in love.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. All right.

[Speaker 1]
If you take Sanskrit, you might fall in love with it. Awesome.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Be cautious.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Christina. Thank you. We'll have you again soon to see how it's going.

Thank you. Thank you also for what you're doing. And congratulations.

Remember, it starts on the 26th, Series 1 on Wednesdays, and the 27th, Series 2 on Thursdays at 9 a.m. Okay. Thank you so much. Also, what we have coming up very, very soon is the Bhagavad Gita event.

It's coming up pretty much, I would say, next week. I was surprised because I was talking with Gina yesterday. No, with Rebecca.

She's not here. But she told me some friends are already coming to town. And then for some great opportunity that I'm having, I'm helping a little bit on the live production.

And Francisco and Gina are here. It just feels like it already started to me. People are already flying in.

We are running errands. We are doing things for the production. So pretty much it's here.

And for those of you, because I was asking in the chat, what students like me should do if I haven't ever heard the full story on the Bhagavad Gita, right? I haven't read the book. I haven't watched any.

You know, there are now very cool movies, Indian movies about the Bhagavad Gita. You could watch. But also, there is like these videos that YSI team produced.

There are two videos right now that we want to just encourage you to watch if you want to get some more context about what's coming up with the Bhagavad Gita. One of them was a class with Michael Johnson. You can follow the QR code, and it's going to send you to the, in this one, the Google Drive.

But you can watch the recording. This one I haven't watched. It's like about an hour.

But I have here Michael Johnson. He's a great, great teacher in general. I only have seen him teach Sanskrit, and he does it very, very in a fun way and very musical.

And yeah, I think just by what I can see, I think he's a really good person and a very good teacher. But I haven't met him in person. And the next video is the video that Teresa and Benji did a class on, also an introduction on the Bhagavad Gita, but with the connection on Lady Nygma yoga practices.

For that, we have the QR code. Also, that one I watched is also very, very good. I mean, also the other one I didn't watch, but I bet it is.

And you can follow the QR code. It's going to take you to the YouTube video. So thank you, Sofia, for sharing that.

And here we are sharing with you in case you need some context. And lastly, in order to... Oh, Saturday.

So, OK. Anyways, we have Lucero because Lucero Papa Nicolos, she has been working a lot in Colombia these days, along with Paulina and other friends. And hello, Lucero.

How are you? Hi, Juan. Hi, everyone.

Yeah. Thank you for coming again. Last time, well, it was last Saturday.

You and Paulina were presenting us a very cool project that is based in this video here we are sharing. A few years ago, there was this initiative in Norway where young people somehow, as far as I understand, got partnered with a governmental project. And the government start kind of encouraging people to take all persons to the movie theaters and they will get like free tickets.

So this project got very, very famous. It was inspired on the seed system, of course, on how you can actually plant and create, find your partner by giving company to somebody else. So, yeah, this video is just so they can, people can get the context what we are talking about.

But now I want to, if you allow Lucero to show the audience what you have been doing in Colombia and then move on and talk a little bit with you about it. So let's go and watch the video you have done for us. Thank you.

I wanted to do this before and decided to do it a little bit to show you, to feel accompanied and share with you.

[Speaker 2]
It was a very enriching experience, we didn't give them time, but they gave us smiles for the heart.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, Lucero, so could you give us a little context, story of how this project started in Colombia? Yeah, Juan, it gives me tears again just by watching the videos. So we were inspired, I was inspired by back in Guadalajara in 2019 when I saw the video of Norway and then I thought it would be nice to do it in Colombia and we have been doing practicing here in Colombia.

We meet every week for meditation and dharma talking and one time we were speaking about how to plant a partner and about the four steps and then I brought this up and I said what if we do it here, wouldn't it be amazing? And one person of the group said I am the manager of this big shopping mall and there happens to be a movie theater. So we started and another participant said I would like to coordinate this and it's been nearly a year so we go every month and it's like going on a date.

We spread this in different groups and volunteers join each time so one elder and one volunteer. We go to the nursing home and we pick them up as you would do in a date as you can see these elders are most of them on a wheelchair but anyway we take them and we do this every month, nearly every month and because of that program Movie Friends, Amigos de Pelicula, new seats have been growing as well so we were able to fund and to get donations to create in, I think that will happen this year, a swimming pool for this nursing home because there are nearly 100 people on this nursing home and 80 percent of them were homeless and they don't have a family and that's one project apart from Movie Friends and as well we have another one with virtual reality goggles so we are creating trips for the elders so they can go to Italy, they can go to Tibet, they can go everywhere just by sitting on a chair and we are creating new things and new volunteers are joining. Some of them are very aware of the system and not all of them but we are spreading you know the Dharma virus and we were so inspired so thank you to dear teacher Geshe-la for you know setting this fire in our hearts of compassion because people want to do things but sometimes they don't know how, they don't know how to help and how to serve others and that's what we've come to realize, we're building a bridge and we're just a tool, people wanting to help and the elders who feel lonely getting the company and the fun and the conversations so thank you guys for showing this video and I hope from the bottom of my heart that this will inspire some of you as it did inspire me back in 2019. Thank you so much honestly and next Tuesday we have the first date, the Movie Friends date of this year so we keep going. Okay thank you so much keep us posted maybe make some videos and send them time to time it's wonderful absolutely yeah and then share with us when the participants start getting their partners make videos of them rejoicing.

Yeah actually one of our partners the participant that is coordinating she's like I think I have a boyfriend now so okay I will share those stories as well. Awesome okay we send our best wishes thank you so much and we'll be in tune soon next time thank you for coming really and thank you for all you're doing there in Colombia sending best regards and wishes over there and yeah to all of the participants online thank you so much for tuning in we see again on Monday if everything goes well see you