Тим Ловенхопт — Книга 1: Совершенство мудрости, занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
All right, let's get started. Where are we? Uh, Gina, I'm not sure who's going to...

All right.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
I don't have anyone yet, but if someone decides to join, we can. All right. Okay, questions.

And Nick, Nick lied to you. I did not say give me the hardest questions. But you can give me hard questions.

I might just not be able to answer them. So let's go. You can just open your microphones or type them in.

All right. Okay, you can turn on your cameras too. It's actually helpful for me to see your beautiful faces.

All right, I'm going to read Olga's question first and then decide if I'm going to answer it. That's a good... I like Olga's question.

Let's do that. Okay. Olga asked, how can we...

The idea is that, you know, we can plant seeds to create anything. And so the question is, can you create someone or something to take away all of our bad seeds? Right.

So the idea is like, you know, I think where this question is coming from is, you know, if a Buddha had the power, an enlightened being has the power to take away... Okay, let me ask a different question. If a Buddha were omnipotent, if there were a being who was infinitely compassionate, and then a being who was infinitely powerful that could do anything, what proves to us that they're not infinitely powerful?

If they have infinite compassion.

[Speaker 2]
They would have taken everyone out of samsara immediately if they were able to.

[Speaker 1]
That's correct. Right. So Christina said, if they had infinite compassion, and they had the power to take away our suffering, what's the proof that they're not infinitely powerful?

Well, we're still suffering. Oh, Anna, your child. So cute.

So the proof is that because we're still suffering, if they were able to do it, they would do it. But somehow they haven't. So Olga's question is interesting.

Why can't we just plant the seeds to create someone or something outside of us who can take away our suffering? Or how do we do that? I'll let you know, Olga, when I figure it out.

But what I can say is when your practice gets really good, when you start keeping your morality and your ethics really well, and you have the intention to help other people, really cool stuff starts happening. Like if you're about to do something wrong, right, if your practice is really good, you might start. Like, for example, I used to do this thing where I would lie just a little bit.

We call them white lies. Like I wouldn't really like, Olga, how are you? Like these little white lies would come out of my mouth.

Like I would, it wouldn't really hurt anyone. But they were just little tiny lies. And then I started discovering that before I would tell a little lie, I would start to feel a little bit of like prana collecting in my throat, right about right here.

And so I started getting this awareness that anytime I was about to sort of lie, I would feel it first. And so it became this practice where at first I would feel it, and then I would not be able to stop it. Like the train wreck was already happening, right?

But then I got to the practice, got to the point where I would notice it, and I would be like, oh, I shouldn't say that. But then the train wreck would happen. Anyway, and now it's mostly to the point where I feel it and I go, ooh, why do I feel compelled to not tell the truth?

And then I just keep my mouth shut. Even if it's, usually it's about protecting myself. So people don't think I'm an idiot or I didn't fulfill the promise I made or something like that.

But then something cool has started happening for me, is that if I'm about to do something that I shouldn't do, that's going to create a bad karma. People around me stop me from doing it. Like someone will interrupt me.

And then I'll have this observation that, oh, that person, my karma ripened to stop me from doing something bad, right? I remember a time that, this was years ago, I was, this is when I was still working corporate jobs, and I was taking a lot of time off to go to Diamond Mountain. And I kind of didn't tell my boss I was going.

And I had just planned to work from home, work remotely. Okay. And I realized that it was too busy.

And so I was like, dang, I have to make an excuse. So I was actually with Geshe Michael, and I picked up my phone to text and say, hey guys, I'm not feeling that well today. I don't think, you know, I was just making up some reason why I couldn't work.

And as I started typing it, Geshe Michael from the other side of the room said, hey, Tim, can you get me some Cheerios? I was like, okay, you know. So I put my phone down, I got up and got some Cheerios.

Cheerios is a cereal, like it's a breakfast cereal. So I made Geshe some, you know, breakfast. I brought him the breakfast and I'm like, oh, look, I get to make Geshe Michael breakfast.

I'm awesome, right? And I sat back down and I realized that he had interrupted me having an affliction, right? He stopped me from lying to my boss, okay?

So in a way I would say that, yeah, it's possible to create someone who can help take away your suffering, but it's not like they can pull it out of you, right? It's not like they can just rip those bad seeds out, right? My karma ripened so that I could see people in my life protecting me, right?

And that comes from protecting others, taking care of other people, right? Making sure that they're doing the right things, you know, helping them in gentle ways. Don't go around and start being a jerk.

You're not keeping your vows, Gina. You're breaking your Vajrayana vows, right? Like, no, don't do that to people.

You know, don't tell people, don't karma blame other people, right? But help other people, you know, be better people. Help them be kinder people.

Help them do nicer things. One of my co-managers had some problem with their house and they discovered that they could get insurance money if they had stayed at a hotel while they were having, you know, problems with their house. And they said, oh, can I just print out a reservation and send it to them to get the money?

And I said, well, you could do that. I said, I'll even tell you how to do it. They said, but I wouldn't do it.

That's insurance fraud. You didn't stay in the hotel, right? I said, but you can do what you want, you know?

So help other people, Olga, be kinder. You know, help them do the right thing, but don't be a jerk about it, right? Don't be mean to other people when you think they're doing the wrong thing.

Don't be tight. Don't think you're right. You know, just gently help them.

And then weird stuff happens. Geshe Michael will ask you to get Cheerios when you're about to have an affliction. The punchline to that story is I still lied to my boss, okay?

And I feel bad about it. This was years ago, but at least he tried, right? And at least, you know, I could celebrate that.

All right, next question. Oh, Roxanna, that's a great question. So Roxanna is asking, why is bodhicitta necessary to reach omniscience?

So there's, you know, we talk about, you know, practitioners on the lower paths, practitioners who don't have bodhicitta, right? They have a deep understanding of emptiness. You can be, right?

You can get pretty far along, right? You can become an arhat, right? You can remove your, you can never, you can get to a place where you never get upset again.

Translators, am I okay, speed-wise? You can get to that place, but you then still have obstacles to omniscience, right? So then, you know, so we always say, you know, don't waste your time becoming a lower, you know, just getting to nirvana without bodhicitta.

Don't waste your time because you have to do it anyway to get to the highest goals. You know, but why do you need bodhicitta? I'm going to say it in a indirect way, and then you can think about it.

One of the things that we say in Buddhism is that we, you shouldn't speak badly of other systems. You shouldn't criticize other religions or other systems of thinking or belief systems. It's actually quite a serious offense.

It's a quite serious vow you have later on not to criticize other systems. Why? Gina knew I was looking at her.

That's really weird, Gina. You could sense that of all the boxes on the screen, Gina knew I was looking at her. What happens?

Let's think about it this way. I have someone in front. I have someone sitting here, and they have a belief system that's different than mine.

Okay, they believe in, and I'm just going to use a really off-the-wall example just for shits and giggles. You know, I have someone sitting here who believes in all of the Greek gods, okay? They believe there's a bunch of gods living up on a mountain who are controlling everything that happens, right?

Zeus is up there, Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, right? All these characters, right? All these gods, okay?

They're on some mountain over there, Mount Olympus, right? Can't get there, but it's over there. And I'm sitting here, I'm kind of like, in my mind, I'm like, yeah, whatever, right?

I'm kind of rolling my eyes. I'm like, yeah, you're just believing that there's a bunch of gods up there doing their thing. You know, what am I doing when I do that?

Basically, what I'm doing is I'm, this is how that person sees the world. Their seeds are opening, arising as them. Think about the mind-only school.

The subject and object come from the same seed. The person and the outside comes from the same seed, right? Their seed is opening.

Their thoughts, the books they've read, the family they grew up in, the choices they've made, one seed after another, opening, right? They see themselves, they see their world. They see their world in that way.

They see their world in a way that there are Zeus and Apollo up in the sky on Mount Olympus, okay? And I'm just like, yeah, whatever, crazy talk. What am I doing?

I'm denying their experience. I'm denying the perspective that they have on the world. And then what am I subtly doing?

I'm creating a seed to block knowledge. And what I mean is I'm cutting off a certain viewpoint, a certain possibility of existence. What does omniscience mean?

Omni, let's break it up, let's break it up. Omni, O-M-N-I, right? Sorry, you won't be able to do this in your other languages if you don't have, but omni, okay.

What does that root mean? All, it means all. Thank you, thank you, Christina.

I'm happy, thank you. It means all, right? Omni, all, omniscience, omniscience, right?

Here's the other part of it, right? All knowledge. If I disparage the way that someone's seeds are opening, to see the world, and I reject it, I didn't say that I accept it as true, as I didn't say that.

But if I reject the way that they see the world, I'm then rejecting a part of knowledge, a part of experience, okay? So then therefore, I'm blocking my ability to have omniscience. Because what is omniscience?

It's the ability to see all things, past, present, future, all perspectives of all people, all times, all beings. So if all perspectives are possible, and I'm blocking that, I'm doing something to, it gets in the way of having that knowledge. Now, I'm not saying whether it's true or not.

That's not relevant, right? Is it helpful for somebody? Does it help them?

Does that way of seeing the world inspire them, make them a better person? Could it be a lam rim? Could it be a path towards understanding emptiness?

Maybe, maybe. And that's the connection of bodhicitta to omniscience, if I think about it. Next question.

Let's see here. Got a question from Luca. Let's see here.

All right, that's a cool question. All right, let me rephrase Luca's question. And I think Christina asked the same question as well.

Okay. Luca's having an experience where she's feeling very connected with others, and that she's feeling like she's growing her capacity to do exchanging self with others practice. However, another seed is ripening for Luca.

And she's saying, she's also feels like this is all just in her head. It's just crazy. It's in my head, right?

It's nowhere else. Christina's kind of feeling that. Like, Christina's asking a similar question.

Like, is there anything out there? You know, and how is, and like, how do we think about this? Right?

This is a good question. And the answer is going to depend on what school we're in. I'm going to answer this completely unexpectedly.

Okay. And it's something I'm still working out. So I don't know how, you know, I'm going to go through how I've thought about this question.

And maybe it'll be helpful. Okay. In the mind only school, we've been spending a lot of time in words, text.

Okay. It's difficult. And during the last, I can't remember which, it was recent, maybe the last term.

I had this feeling because mind only school says, you're not looking at outer objects. Okay. The mind only school is saying you're looking at the ripening of the seeds in your mind.

Okay. I'm not going to go into all the minor details of it. Okay.

But imagine, imagine this. Okay. So the mind only school, we have our, we've been talking a lot about the refrigerator.

Like the whole text, words, text this time has been, are the seeds, the refrigerator, the storage, the kunchi, right? The place, you know, they say it's right here in the heart chakra, very small, right? In there are all the seeds, right?

The kunchi stores the seeds. Foundation consciousness. So like there's this thing where the seeds ripen in the kunchi.

And then you're looking at the seeds ripening in the kunchi. You're, you're seeing your mind sees that. Okay.

And you perceive it as an outer object. But all you're looking at is in your mind, in the kunchi, right? So we have this whole discussion about are the seeds, the kunchi or are the seeds, not the kunchi, are the seeds, the refrigerator, or are they not the refrigerator?

Okay. And then the whole debate goes, goes like that in this class. And I think it's very, very deep and it can help you get very close to seeing how seeds actually ripen.

There's no actually, but anyway, we'll talk about that. So just imagine, imagine you're in a movie theater. Okay.

You're in a movie theater and the movie theater. Oh, Ella, your cat is so cute. I just want to pet it.

Imagine you're in a movie theater. Okay. You're in your, like, so you're in that box, right?

You're in that room. Right. And so the seeds are ripening, right?

Like you are in the room. Like it just, just go with the metaphor for a little bit. And you're looking at the screen, right?

And all you're looking at is the screen and this, you know, the, the projector is just throwing the seeds out onto that screen. Okay. 24 frames a second in, in a movie theater, right?

65 in, in Buddhist philosophy. Right. And so you're just looking at the refrigerator.

You're looking at the walls of the refrigerator. Okay. Well, just, just for the metaphor.

Okay. You're looking at the walls of the movie theater, right? And that's all you're ever looking at.

So says the mind-only school. Now, there's this big, big question that arises for most people, and it happens in ACI 6. Okay.

Ooh, I shouldn't talk about ACI right now. It happens in the Diamond Cutter Sutra courses. Okay.

Oh, hi Juan. I'll throw you into the Spanish channel. Okay.

Juan would like to translate Spanish. There we go. There you go.

Okay. There's this big question that comes up in one of the courses about the Diamond Cutter Sutra. So question, mind-only school.

The seeds are stored in the kunchi, right inside your heart. That is really easy to handle. Okay.

It's a really nice thing. Like, where are my seeds? They're in my heart chakra.

They're in my kunchi. Okay. Got it.

Okay. Small place. I really can't find it.

Kazillion, billion, zillion seeds, you know, hanging out there. Right. I can do the infinite, infinitesimal, infinitesimal.

Very, very small. Right. They're all there.

Okay, fine. Now, what happens when you study the Diamond Cutter Sutra? And everyone gets to this question.

I get, it's like this, it's, again, it's a lam rim, right? And it's like, there's a, you know, everyone goes, at the very end of that course, there's a question that says, according to the upper middle way, where are the seeds stored? Does anyone remember this answer?

It's one of those questions that everyone, their mind goes, it blows up. It's like the frog in the well that goes and sees the ocean. Katrin and Roxanne are close.

Octavia, yeah, you're, you've all thought about it. Good, you've thought about it. But it's not quite the answer.

[Speaker 2]
Well, they're not stored, though, Tim. They are created every instant as we go through.

[Speaker 1]
But the path to understand is, in that question, in the course on the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the seeds, the seeds are stored in your projections, in the projections themselves. Okay, upper middle way says the seeds that have that, like, where do they get stored? They get stored in, okay, you guys have to, this is where it gets really confusing, in, right, in the projections themselves.

The names and labels and things that you toss out of your seeds all the time. You can't control. In, okay, got to understand there's no in, like, there's no place, right?

It's not like in your, in your kunchi, right? In, okay. But we use the words in to understand something, because we use language, right?

So we have here, like, Katrin said, where are they stored? In me. Roxanna said, in I.

Octavian said, in the concept of me. Okay, all right. Here's my answer to your question.

Okay, this is how I think about it. Imagine that movie theater is not only in your mind. The movie theater of the mind-only school, seeds ripening on the walls of the kunchi, right?

Imagine, now, just to see if you can take your mind, make it bigger and visualize that the world that is, you're perceiving right now, like, you know, if you're, if you're, if you have eyes and they, and you're not blind, I really, really would love to meet a deep Buddhist practitioner who doesn't see very well or can't see, because we always talk about our eyes, right? We talk about mental images. I would love to, like, discuss this.

And, but if you have eyes and you're looking around, imagine everything that you're looking at is the movie theater. It's outside. Yes, it is outside.

Yes, it's there. But imagine the outside is the movie theater, always, okay? So, go from the mind-only school, which is in the kunchi, and go outwards.

So, everything you're experiencing is like the walls of the kunchi, okay? Does anyone, has anyone ever watched Star Trek? This is the best way I can think about it.

In Star Trek, the next generation and onwards, okay? Not the first, not the original series, right? They have a thing called the holodeck, okay?

The door opens, you walk in, right? And the walls are just gray with some color on it, right? Just like lines.

And they say, computer, start program. And it goes, what program would you like, Tim? I would like, I don't know, Sedona College of International Management Office, right?

And so, I'm in this room, and it just becomes this wall, right? It becomes this office, right? You can see the stuff behind me.

I got my papers, right? Okay, right? So, I'm in a holodeck, and kind of, okay, you know?

So, in the mind-only school, you're inside, you're only seeing inside, you're inside. It's in the mind, right? You're just looking at the seeds of right thing, right?

In the upper middle way, it's like, it's kind of like that, except it's not just in your head, not only in your mind. But it's helpful to think that way, okay? You're just looking at, you're just listening.

You're just feeling, whatever senses. Look, we focus on the visual sense so much in what we're talking about. Go spend a day blindfolded.

You can do all the same analyses. Like, if you're a feeling type person, and I know some people who are. I know one of my good, really dear people in my life, the way that they describe their inner landscape, inner, is through feeling.

They can't do, they don't visualize things. They don't see, they don't see pictures in their mind. They feel pictures, something like that, okay?

They feel it, right? Same thing, right? But when you're looking at, when you're interacting with the world, like, it's the walls of the holodeck, okay?

But it's out, and it's outside. So, where are the seeds? Where are your seeds?

That world that you see are your seeds. The you in that world is the seeds. What makes you a dog?

It's not that you're a dog first, and then you see a chew toy, okay? You are a dog because it is a chew toy for you, okay? You are Gina because of the world that you see around you.

I'm going to move on to the next question. Okay, next question. There's a couple people who have asked questions already.

But I want, I'm sure, they don't have to be super deep questions either. They could be questions about your practice or seed planting in general. Come on, I know you're, there's 63 of you sitting here.

I know that you're not here just to, I mean, I'll answer Olga's questions. But, you know, they're good questions. But I, you know, there could be more, you all can participate.

All right, okay, I'll clarify a point. And then you guys think of your hard questions. She's asking, you know, we talked earlier about not rejecting other worldviews.

Like what's the difference between accepting and rejecting? Because I said to be, do not block yourself from omniscience. You have to entertain.

I didn't use that word. Entertain that other people see things differently than you. Like there's 63 people on this Zoom call.

There's 63 realities happening right now, right? But there's actually more realities than that because there's Tim's reality, who's interpreting the 62 other people's realities. Okay, and then there's Roxanna.

And then Roxanna's interpretation of the other 62 people. Okay, so literally, I don't know. Does anyone want to do the math?

No, 63 factorial, go. Okay, 63 times 62 times 61. Someone do it.

So there has to be a math geek on this call. Okay, there's not 63 perspectives on this call. There are, come on, come on, someone do the answer.

There's something like 55,000, something like that. Okay, that might be under. Okay, there are 55,000 potential realities.

It's actually higher than that. It's like 550,000. Okay, it doesn't matter.

It does matter because I'm the math geek. Okay, oh, it's much higher than that. Oh my God.

Okay, we're way higher than that. Okay, the point is that to understand where things are coming from. To understand, right now I'm looking at Isabel.

Okay, and Isabel has a bunch, she looks like an outside person. She's doing her own thing. You know, she's living her own life.

She has her own set of experiences, right? I don't know anything about Isabel's childhood. I don't know anything about her, you know, grew up.

I met her maybe six years ago. You know, I see her from time to time. You know, she's a, I know she's a translator.

You know, I know some things about her life. We've shared some programs together, but, right? So she's a bunch of seeds.

She's a bunch of experience, right? That's gone from beginning to now. I don't know when the beginning was, right?

And all of those seeds, you know, if I really, if I understand that she's an outside person and she's coming from me, she has a full life. It's not like Isabel goes away and she just disappears from my life and her life isn't happening, right? This is where it gets confusing.

Like, you know, people are like, oh, well, if I'm not perceiving it, it didn't happen. If the tree didn't, if I'm not there to see the tree, to perceive the tree falling in the forest, did it make a sound? Well, the answer is yes, because somebody can perceive it, right?

So if all, I was talking about this with one of my friends the other day. You know, like there's certain kinds of seeds that don't really ripen. Like in my normal, in my day-to-day life, I don't experience certain things anymore.

Very infrequently. But I see them in other people. Like I see certain afflictions.

Like my main affliction really isn't, isn't really anger, okay? I get, you know, I do get, I have these little bumps of anger during the day, but it's not the thing that like, it's not the thing that really hurts me as much as other afflictions. Like hard to admit your, it's hard to admit your worst one, okay?

Your worst affliction. And I'm not going to right now. But, you know, but when I see certain things in other people that are their worst affliction, it's wrong worldview for me to think that I don't have, that's not me, right?

If I'm like, oh, I'm better than that anger. I don't get angry like that, right? Wrong, no, that means it's still there.

You still have it. You're still, if you're capable of perceiving it in your world, it means it's coming from you, okay? Do I accept if somebody is angry?

Do I accept their anger? Do I reject their anger? You know, if I see someone treating someone poorly because they get angry at them all the time or that they're always constantly looking for some reason to be angry, right?

I know people like this. They're never happy. They're always finding something wrong.

It doesn't matter what you do. They're always finding something wrong, okay? So do I accept their anger?

Do I reject their anger? Well, first of all, it's coming from me, okay? So, all right, dude, I'm talking to myself.

Dude, all right, dude, this is coming from me. In subtle ways, I have done this or I still do this. Okay, let's work on changing that behavior.

Stop it, just stop, Tim, stop. Thank you, person X, for showing me that I still have those seeds, okay? Now, does that mean that I let that person stay angry and continue to hurt people?

No, it doesn't mean that. Like, I try to calm them down. I give them cookies.

I give them love. I give them respect. If that doesn't work, I ignore them.

If that doesn't work, I, you know, create boundaries and say, look, you can't do this anymore. You can't participate in my world anymore. You know, that's not kind.

I will not let you be mean to other people, right? That's a hard thing about being a director, right? For example, like director of organizations, right?

You have to create policies, you know? Sometimes you have to say no to people. You can still love them, right?

So that's the same answer to the, do I accept or reject someone who believes in Zeus? Okay, wrong question. Okay, right, wrong question.

Meaning, how do you treat them? Like, understand that if you see someone who thinks there's a God on a mountain over there controlling the tornadoes, you know, okay. Does it help them?

Does it hurt them? Does it hurt others? Does it help others, right?

You know, you have to live in the world. You can't just ignore the world, you know? Like, see, you know, it becomes really hard when you have, you know, you see things in your world that, you know, like, it's a broken realm.

It's a broken realm, right? If you think things are self-existent, if you think they're coming from their own side, it's going to be broken and it's going to continue to be broken. So, you know, it can be uncomfortable to navigate because if I really lived up to my ethical standards, I wouldn't ever get in a car.

I'm stealing oil from the earth. I'm hitting bugs the whole way, right? Like, killing animals all the time.

Like, if I did that, I wouldn't live. I wouldn't be able to live, okay? So, accepting and rejecting is not the, it's helpful, but, you know, why would you, how do you help that person?

How do you, they're outside of you. Yes, stop being angry yourself. But if you're angry, how do you want to be treated?

Most times, people who are angry are angry, not that the thing that looks like they're angry at. They need something else. They need support.

They need, maybe they were abused when they were younger. Maybe they weren't taken care of. Maybe they didn't get the love that they needed or wanted.

You know, for me, a lot of my reactions are because of certain things that happened to me. They have nothing to do with the person in front of me. In fact, it has nothing to do with it anyway, karmically speaking, right?

But we have patterns and habits in our life. So, how do you, how do you, how can we just soften our minds and our hearts to other people's perspectives? Even if you think it's wrong, then you have to evaluate in your mind, why do I think it's wrong?

Why do I think, like, if this person over here is upset and angry at everything, right? It doesn't matter what happens. They'll find something to be angry at.

Maybe they want community. Maybe they want to be included. Yeah, the anger is annoying, but how can you help them, right?

You know, and that's the, and that's where the bodhicitta comes in, right? How do you soften to everyone? How do you soften in the face of everyone else's shit?

And I'll say that strongly, because it's yours. It's yours anyway. If you truly understood that everything is coming from you, how would you treat your mental afflictions?

If someone's doing something outside of you that hurts other people, and you truly understood that they're, that that's your affliction, how would you treat that? We're so much kinder to ourselves than to other people. We give others, like, we give ourselves so many passes.

Like, oh, it's okay, Tim. You can lie today. You can lie.

It's okay, it's okay. It's all right. You can be an asshole today.

It's okay, because, you know, you didn't sleep well. You didn't eat well. You know, you're overworked and underpaid.

I'm just making shit up, right? But when somebody else is overworked and underpaid and tired and hungry, angry, you don't put up with their bullshit, do you? Nope.

Judge them, right? But if you truly understood where things come from, if you really, really understood that how would you treat your projections? How would you treat that movie in your holodeck?

So it's helpful if it's in your, if you understand it's all in your kun-chi and that's all that you're seeing. That brings about a tremendous amount of personal responsibility, doesn't it? The Mind Only School actually creates an incredible sense of personal responsibility.

And then you take it to the kitchen, like literally take it to the upper middle way, right? Take that personal responsibility out of that mind with you from the Mind Only School into upper middle way. All right, we'll do this last question.

And it's Ella's question. And this is a really great one right now. Okay, I'm gonna answer two questions.

First question, this has happened to me. This question is about someone asking, I have this deep passion for studying and learning all of this stuff about seeds and emptiness. They call it a diamond wisdom.

But it kind of takes away from my passion to serve my family, the people closest to me. And I wouldn't judge yourself. I think it's a part of, it's normal part of the path.

Like if you become very passionate about one thing and lose passion for others, but don't forget that the path will lead you back to other people eventually anyway, okay? Sometimes we have to go take care of ourselves. Sometimes we have to go into deep retreat.

You know, now make sure you're not hurting people. You've already made a commitment to your family, okay? You know, don't break that commitment, okay?

But maybe you can plant seeds where it gives you the time to study more, okay? If anyone wants to do a seed planting project on how to keep getting new projects and do all of them and study and do retreat, that just reach out to me. I have a problem, okay?

I don't know how the hell I'm gonna be a mixed nut now, okay? I have no idea how I'm gonna do this, okay? So let's plant some seeds for time.

But the answer to the question really is, how does this, the path always leads back to other people. Sometimes we have to take a break and, you know, and, but, you know, it always goes back to other people, okay? All right, so Ella asked a question, and this is a really, really important question.

And it's something for us to really suss out. Like, how is emptiness an unchanging thing? You've probably heard, okay, you've probably heard this question of like, all right, it's unchanging, right?

Unchanging does not mean forever. This is really a hard thing. Like, you know, because it, some translations of takpa and mitakpa, okay?

Takpa and mitakpa, hold on. I think it is in chat for you. Takpa and mitakpa, okay?

Some of the translations of that are, takpa comes out as permanent. Mitakpa is not permanent, okay? Takpa is, and it's a bad translation in most cases, in most cases.

And we say the words changing, or excuse me, takpa is unchanging. Mitakpa is changing, okay? And it's really interesting in Tibetan.

If you look at it, takpa is unchanging. What does that mi mean? Like mitakpa, does anyone know?

Am I?

[Speaker 3]
I think it kind of just means that it doesn't have a beginning or end.

[Speaker 1]
Christina got it. It's not unchanging, okay? It's a negative, okay?

Right? So I'm gonna draw you guys a picture on the screen here. That didn't work.

Let's try that again. There we go, okay. Let's get a larger picture.

Let's get a bigger thing, okay. Here is mitakpa, okay? What does this mean?

All right, can you guys see the cursor? Okay, cursors, okay.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
So this is when something starts, okay? Now it's living, like imagine you're born here. You grow up, you grow up, you grow up.

Now you're, you know, I don't know, 50s, 60s, 70s, depending on where you are. And then, right? And then eventually your body wears out and you're done, okay?

That's a changing thing. It starts and it ends, right? Because it was born, it has to die, okay?

Got it? Cool, that one's easy. Now watch this, okay?

This is a straight line, okay? As straight as I can make it, all right? Every object has, that straight line represents emptiness, okay?

It never changes, all right? The emptiness of your body, okay, is always the same. There's never more or less emptiness, right?

However, let's look at this little guy right here. Let's make this a nice little, let's do that. I'm a terrible drop, oops.

Where's the undo? There it is, okay. Uh-oh, sorry, again, I'm terrible at this.

Okay, there we go, okay. The moment down here, guys, the moment that your body ends, your body stops, right? The emptiness stops too.

Your body dies, the emptiness stops as well. But we don't say stop, it just goes away, okay? Emptiness is consistent.

I'll save this for you and then I'll, you guys can get this later, okay? Emptiness doesn't change. There's never more or less emptiness.

Emptiness doesn't start, emptiness doesn't end, okay? Where the body doesn't start, it doesn't end either, but that's a different story, okay? So this is, you have to think, like this is, it requires meditation.

You just have to think about it, okay? This cup has emptiness, right? The emptiness never changes.

It's always 100% empty. Empty of what? Empty of coming from its own side.

Empty of coming from, empty of not coming from you providing cups to other people. I'm just, this is a bad example, I couldn't think of another example, right? This pen is empty of me providing good communication to other people, okay?

Because this is a communication tool, okay, right? Speaking clearly to other people maybe, okay? This is empty of me being clear with other people in my communication, all right?

That's what emptiness means, okay? And I think the problem with the word, because words, the word emptiness has emptiness, got it? Okay, the word, the word emptiness, the sound emptiness, the syllables coming out of Tim's mouth, okay, are not emptiness, I see, okay?

Okay, so I think that chart, the can be very, very helpful, okay? Think of if when we do Adam's text, when we do Chi Chedrak, Chi, the mental image, Chedrak, the like car, Chi and the car, right? Okay, the Toyota, right?

Chi and then car, the car, you know, you really think about it, think about Chi as the straight line, the Toyota as the car, okay? Chi, Toyota. Someone's going to argue with me, it's okay, we're in the logic schools.

Is it completely accurate? Maybe, maybe not. We've been debating this for ages.

Is the mental image unchanging? Chi, okay? This is why the logic schools are fun.

But if you can take that into your meditations, what would it mean if the Chi is unchanging and the Chedrak is changing? What would it mean? Is Tim correct from its own side?

I like where you guys are going in the chat. Maybe, but what does it mean? You have to, that's for another Q&A.

It's, we're a little bit over time, okay? What would it mean not to die? What does that mean?

You have to break those words down. You have to break down which part of what you're saying is self-existent, okay? Cool.

Well, thank you all for joining. Our hour is, I don't want to keep you all forever. Forever is changing, I guess, I don't know.

All right, thanks for your time. Really, this is what we're doing in the Mixed Nuts. And I've been doing this for four or five years now.

This is like being dunked in water, right? Someone, like you're just forcing yourself to like, to be thrown into the ocean of misunderstanding, okay? And literally every Mixed Nuts class is like, you gotta be kidding me, really?

I don't understand anything. You know, and I really questioned, you know, this idea of, why do we do five texts in every day? Like you, as soon as you feel like you understand something, it's like, oh, let's go over to Abhidharma now.

Oh, let's go over to mine only. And you're like, oh God, you know, it just drives me nuts. But it really, really helps your mind to be able to jump between different schools like that.

Right? How does it help you? But how does it help you when you're helping other people?

You know, really, like, if you can understand when someone is talking to you about their problems, what's going to help them? Is the Haladek in the Kunshi gonna help them? Is the Abhidharma gonna help them?

Is the lower middle way gonna help them? You know, but you need to understand the differences. Because really, the differences are just your mind projecting them anyway.

The people that are presenting their problems to you are just your seeds anyway, stuck in the Abhidharma. Got it? Okay.

It's just your mind, and it's just your seeds projecting a person who's stuck in an Abhidharmic worldview. So whose fault is it anyway? So might as well learn it.

Might as well learn it. Become friends with it. Become friends with the Vinaya.

Become friends with logic. Become friends with the Haladek in your Kunshi. The Kunshi as the Haladek.

Okay? Right? Become friends with the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Right? And then you become an amazing teacher. Then you become someone who can, and I don't mean that like, oh, I'm gonna sit on Zoom and teach people.

That's when you go off, you know, and make friends with everyone in your world. You just become the mayor of your town, you know. And I don't mean political mayor.

Like you just, everywhere you go, you're just helping people. And people feel it. People sense it.

You're asking the question, what can I do for you? All right. Bye.

I'm gonna go take a nap. Thanks for your great questions today. That was awesome.

That was really cool. And if anyone wants to work in a four-step karmic program to create more time in their world, like, let me know. Have a lovely day.

Thank you. See you tonight.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Roxana, do you have a question? Or you just have your, just give me a high five.

[Speaker 3]
I just gave you a high five and let you know that I'm interested in those four steps, okay? Of planting more time.

[Speaker 2]
I can be your karmic partner as well.

[Speaker 1]
Perfect. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Wonderful. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
The thing, actually, I don't think it's about, I don't think it's about planting seeds for time. I think it's about something else.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, we'll let you know.

[Speaker 1]
We can talk about it. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Take care. Thank you, Tim.

[Speaker 1]
Bye.

[Speaker 3]
Bye-bye.

[Speaker 1]
Bye, Gina. Bye, Katrin. Bye, Olga.

Thank you. Thank you, Isabel. Thank you, Lucas.

So good to see you.