Тим Ловенхопт — Книга 1: Совершенство мудрости, занятие 12

[Speaker 1]
Hi everyone. Hello. All right, so welcome to our, welcome to a Q&A.

And I just remembered I had a Q&A two minutes ago. All right, so it'd be really lovely if you turned on your camera so I could see your beautiful faces. It helps me see who I'm talking to.

All right, this is really good. And so what's coming up now is really just about you. You ask me questions and I'll do my best to answer.

And you can ask anything about the Mixed Nuts content, or you could even ask about your own practice as well. So we can jump into many different topics. And if someone types a question in the chat, maybe that's a question in Chinese.

Catherine, would you maybe be able to, or have someone translate it for me? Okay, it's up to you. You ask the questions, I try to answer.

I'll ask a question, Tim. Do you have any advice for getting better at translating when you're just starting out? Oh, well, sure.

You know, I started, so this is our scriptorium, okay, everyone? This is where we used to have our classes, right? We would all pack in here.

And then in the back there where you see some of that tech equipment, that's where I would set myself up. Right. So after the first translation term, or maybe the second, I can't remember what it was, I said to Nick, I said, look, Nick, do you need any help?

And I said, well, yeah. And he said, well, yeah, I do need some help. And I said, can I help you record this and make it available?

And he said, yeah. And really, what I was doing was, you know, part of it was really about planting the seeds, like actually planting the karma for it. Oh, Catherine, I think you fell out of the booth.

Sorry. It's okay. So really, for me, Tibetan was completely foreign.

I mean, it's a foreign language, right? You know, and I'm blessed, you know, like in my own configuration, that I'm pretty good at languages. You know, I did, I was in a doctorate program in Romance Languages.

And, you know, I was doing literature primarily in Spanish, but we also had to learn Portuguese, Portuguese and French, as well as part of that program. And then I also worked in translation, like I worked for professional translation companies. And I also, you know, I also then managed my own translation company for about, with a partner for about five or six years, a business partner.

So I sort of have this natural linguistic talent, I would say. I mean, I'm not trying to tell you guys I'm awesome. But for me, the Tibetan was totally impenetrable.

Like, you know, all those other languages, you know, after working with all those languages all the time, even though I was mostly a project manager, you know, I wasn't doing the translation myself. You know, you just start picking up language, you start picking up the structure, right? Even if I was just reviewing a Chinese translation, I started learning Chinese just because I kept seeing it all the time.

But Tibetan was so, it didn't make any sense to me. I was like, what the hell is this? Really?

You know, so I was like, well, look, you know, this is what we do here. We do karma, like karma is the thing, you know, things don't work by themselves, right? They don't work because you try.

You know, you can try really hard at something and not get the result, right? And when we can prove this by, you know, like a good example would be to take money and hard work, right? Is money the result of hard work, right?

Normally we think so, right? But can we think of an example of someone who works hard, who makes a lot of money? Yes, you know, we can do that.

But can we think of an example of someone who works hard and makes no money? Yes, I know a lot of people who work really hard, but don't make that much money. Can we think of an example of someone who doesn't work hard at all and makes a lot of money?

Those are the most annoying people, right? And then there's people who don't work at all and don't make any money. Okay, so it's kind of the same thing with translation, right?

You can work really hard at translation or language and be good at it. Like for me, I had seeds for Spanish and Romance languages, but, you know, so I didn't have to work really hard at some of them, right? I worked really hard at Spanish, but Portuguese and French and all that was easy for me, okay?

But then sometimes you work hard and don't get the result, right? So sometimes you work really hard at Tibetan and you can't understand the damn thing. You know, so I said, all right, well, okay, so there's something else going on, which is what Nagarjuna says, right?

If you can put those two things together and create four possible relationships, right, and doing it like hard work and money, right? There's four different relationships there. That means hard work cannot be the cause for money, okay?

Even though we might think so. So studying Tibetan is not the seed, necessarily the seed, for learning Tibetan, okay, right? So what would you need to do?

And so that's why I kind of started with my tech corner over there, okay, right? So I just was like, I'm going to help the translators and I'm just going to help them. There were 12 translators in this room and I'm going to help them record everything, stream everything so it's available.

We didn't really stream it before, right? We did a little bit and then make it higher quality so they could see the text and follow along with what Geshe-la was doing. And so I did that for many years, right?

Still nothing worked. I was like, I still was sitting in class. I'm like, what the hell is going on, right?

So they got to keep working harder. So many of you know already that I also manage two hotels here at Sedona, right? And the profits from those hotels, which do the generosity of an amazing sponsor who purchased those hotels for us, the profits from that hotels pays the translators their salaries, okay?

So when I'm not here in the corner, I'm over there, you know, you guys can see how beautiful Sedona is right now, right? I'm all the way up there and I'm making money for the translators so they can live their lives, so they can be translators, right? And then doing that, so I'm constantly planting seeds for other translators to make their world easier.

And I also happen to be the person in charge of making them money too, right? I mean, yeah, I have a team of 25, no, 30 some employees who run those hotels, right? But I'm in the, you know, I'm overseeing everything that they do, right?

So then we get to the question of the four steps, right? Like how to plant a really powerful karmic seed, which is what you're asking, which is not what you thought you were asking, you know? And I would say, you know, it's not only just about doing things for others similar to what you want, but it's also then rejoicing in it afterwards, like thinking, well, yeah, I sat there for five years with headphones on, you know, with all this equipment, organizing tech people and everything.

I spend most of my days working in a hotel for the translators, right? And then what happened, right? All of a sudden, weird seeds started ripening, you know?

And then I was able, I found that class that I sent to you, right? At the Rangjun Yeshe Institute. And I sat in that class and it just was like, within like two months, I was like, oh, the grammar makes sense.

All of this makes sense. Oh, this is not so bad, you know? I got to the third semester of it and I was like, I don't need the class anymore, right?

So people are in the class, like on their third semester, and I'm like, I don't need these classes anymore. I got my translation classes, right? You know, and I'm not that great yet and it's a big struggle for me, but I saw the door open tremendously.

So if you can find ways to plant the seed and then try to learn it, right? Then do all the things that learn it. Take the classes, look at the materials, read the books, right?

You know, ask the questions, right? Then you'll have the seeds in place, the karma in place to be able to open through the vehicle of your study. Because the vehicle of the study is not, it's just, it carries the karma.

It doesn't create the result. I don't know. I hope that was helpful.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, good advice. Thanks.

[Speaker 1]
So if you would like to help with the translation program, we need help. That was a nice little segue. We need help.

We need people to, you know, we have an army of people.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, hello.

[Speaker 1]
You know, we also need people to work with our catalogs. I mean, there's so much background work that you don't really need Tibetan to learn how to do, to actually make this whole project go. You know, if you know someone who would want to support this project who might have a lot of money, fundraising is always a fun thing to do and a very powerful thing to do for something that you're interested in doing.

I think that Ben said he would help me get set up with hypertexting after the term. That's a really, if you have the seeds for it to work, sure. You know, I'm just half playing, but I mean, but hypertexting is a great way to learn.

I have some ideas too about, I mean, I have to get to know everyone more, but some tools that might actually make it easier to train new translators and maybe make translation more convenient for experienced translators. Love it. Okay.

Good question. That was a great way to jump in. So there's a question here by someone from PureGold.

Her name is Jasmine. Hi Jasmine, wave. Jasmine asked a question and I think she's asking a question about Allison's class, Xiao Ping's class this morning about leather, right?

You know, and the idea of can I still wear my leather clothing? Okay. So, and then the question, like, can I wear my clothing that comes from the feathers of birds?

Can I wear silk, which comes from dead worms? Right. I think it comes from worms.

Right. So the question is like, now that we kind of know some of this stuff, oh, it's a question from, okay. Now that we know some of these things, right.

You know, do we have to throw out everything we have? Right. You know, I got a new car about two years ago and I didn't think about it, but it has leather seats.

Right. You know, and I'm driving, I'm literally, I'm driving home. I'm so excited and I got myself a new car.

Right. Actually someone bought me a new car, which is really nice. Okay.

I'm just going to say that, right. That was very kind. I'm driving home and I'm like, yeah, I got a new car.

And then I'm like, shit, I got leather seats. Right. Can't return the car.

Right. And I think the, the way to think about it, you know, this is how I apply it for me. Okay.

I'm talking about for me right now. You know, I'm not talking about how other people choose to live their own vows and live their own morality. Okay.

Cause there's different ways to do it. But for me, I found that the, the, the, the vows or the morality or the, or if you want to, I like to call them guidelines, how to plant better seeds, to become a better person. Okay.

You know, a vow sounds so like forever or like until death do our, do us part, play, play fun music. And you know, the, the wedding is over. Right.

But now you've got to live the person, you know, but for me, vows are more like guidelines on how to plant better seeds. So I can be more successful now and then set myself up to be successful in the future, five years from now, 10 years from now, you know, and if we talk about future lives, if you believe in that, set myself up for good future lives as well. Right.

So, but we're not perfect yet. I mean, I'm not perfect. I don't know.

Maybe you are right. Maybe you're just pretending not to be perfect. I don't know.

But for me, there's a gentleness that I have towards myself when I make a mistake, like, damn, I did it again. Oops. I did it again.

Oh, I said that mean thing, or I had that nasty thought, or I accidentally bought a brand new car made of leather that was skinned from a dead cow. Right. You know, and yeah, you can do the, you can do the four powers, right?

You can do the, okay, well, I know this is going to create a negative seed. This has created a negative seed. It has to have a result.

So now I'm going to try my best not to do it again, or I won't do it again for the next six months, or something like that. Right. You can do the four powers.

The part of it is then say, okay, well, you know, you can shift your perspective. Not that I say that we should still continue to kill cows to make leather seats and cars, but you could think about how that cow gave their life. So you could have a comfortable seat, right?

You know, but I wouldn't argue that way. I would really just say, just keep in mind who you want to become, and we're going to make mistakes along the way. And so these guidelines are saying, well, just try to do better next time.

Right. So if you already have leather shoes, or leather in your car, or you have a really nice down pillow, which is comfortable, or a blanket, or something made of silk, right, it's already over. You can't put it back on the cow.

Right. So I would just avoid doing it again in the future. Right.

And try to make different choices. Like, check out what your clothing is made of. You know, I just bought, you know, I didn't even think about it.

I bought, it's an Ayurveda thing. These gloves that you put on to rub on your skin, so the dry skin comes off. Right.

It's called dry brushing in English. And I bought, when I bought them, I, you know, my old ones are dirty. And so I bought new ones.

Then I found out they're made of silk, raw silk. Right. I was like, damn, you know, okay.

So next time when I buy them, I'm going to try to buy ones not made of silk. Right. So you just, you know, and you slowly start changing your life.

Don't get so heavy about it. Right. Oh, shit.

I made that mistake again. Oh, I, okay, fine. I'm gonna do better tomorrow.

Right. And that act of saying to yourself, I'm going to do better tomorrow. I'm going to do better in five minutes.

That plants a very powerful seed for you to do better in five minutes. You know, and eventually your seeds will get so good that you will never, you won't see leather anywhere. You won't see silk anywhere.

You won't see down pillows anywhere and things like that. Because it just won't appear in your world anymore. Right.

Everything that comes to you will be made of some beautiful, renewable resource. So yeah, so don't take it like strict. Like, yes, it's strict because you're planting good seeds, but we make mistakes and we have to be gentle with ourselves.

You know, and I think our biggest problem in life is that we're not gentle enough. That's just a different thing. Okay.

Let's see here. All right. More questions.

Oh, Roxanna, good morning. Okay. Roxanna's in her pajamas in Romania and she's asking a question.

She's asking, do you, I guess me, do you find it helpful or preferable for someone to have a Lama, a teacher that seems to have the same mental afflictions as them? Okay. That's a good question.

I'm going to answer this not directly because I never do anything direct anyway. First of all, okay. So when you're thinking about, there's 10 qualities in the teacher.

And you can learn that in ACI courses. I think the ACI 1 probably or ACI 2. You know, things that you look for, qualities that you look for in a teacher, like what, because if you're going to open up your spiritual real estate, I call it, you know, opening the doors of your spiritual real estate.

Like, I love real estate, by the way. I love shopping for buildings and stuff. And I always have these ideas about things that I can do with these buildings, right.

Businesses, you know, so if you're opening your own real estate, your own heart. Hi, Bertha. Now, if you're opening your own heart to someone, because it is some, at some point, you know, you're saying to your teacher, I need help.

I can't do this by myself. Right. And so when you finally meet that person, whomever it is, you know, whether they're, they appear in the golden robes of saffron, right, or whether they appear as more of a lay person to you, or they appear as a partner, or maybe a child, right, your own child, or maybe someone else's, you know, once you open up to that, you know, you're basically saying, I want help, I can't change by myself, I need guidance. Right. And so in my case, I had originally, I kind of had two teachers, I would say, like, I had my heart mama, my root mama, right, who has a certain kind of personality.

Right. And then I had another teacher, who I lived, actually moved up to live near them, right down the street from them. And they were like my best friend.

You know, I would go over to their house all the time, we'd have meals, I would talk about my normal problems, and they would give me advices and things like that. You know, and then one thing my teacher did, that teacher did for me taught me not only about that taught me about the deep kindness that teachers have for their students. Okay.

And he, one day I was, I had a problem, you know, I was complaining about some, you know, stupid thing, I don't know what it was, whatever it was. And he said to me, he was like, he's like, yeah, you know, I have that same problem myself. I was like, Oh, really?

He's like, yeah, and he started talking about it and explaining all of it. Right. One day, my heart teacher, you know, I was the other person I was, I guess, about 10 years ago, eight, I don't know, a while back, I had this severe vertigo, like vertigo, translators dizziness.

And I wasn't, you know, I couldn't sleep. I, you know, there was only a couple places that I could like lay that were like, without the world spinning. And then as it kind of got a little bit better, like, it was just this background thing where I couldn't look off into the distance at anything.

Everything just seemed to move. You know, I told my heart teacher about it, you know, and he was like, okay, okay. And then one day, it was during a program, he walked up to me.

And he stood next to me. And he started swaying, like as though he was going to fall down. Okay, right next to me.

And no, and I was like, Oh, shit, right. And so I was kind of like, supporting him, right? Like, Oh, gosh, he's gonna fall over, right?

You know, and kind of stabilized him. And you know, he was like, Oh, thank you. And then just walked away.

And I was like, that was weird. And after the teaching, everybody left. Oh, by the way, if you are ever at a teaching, don't leave until everything is cleaned up because somebody has to clean up.

Okay. So everybody left, followed the teacher out the door, went and got snacks. And here I am in this rented room, right?

And no one's there cleaning it up. And they left it a total disaster mess. Okay.

Dharma students are the worst sometimes. So, you know, I'm not feeling well, I'm dizzy, blah, all this stuff's happening. So I'm cleaning this room.

And I had a brew and I'm just like sweeping back and forth, right? And I'm mad, right? You know, and then the sweeping kind of soften the anger.

And then, and all of a sudden, I realized what my teacher had done for me. He gave me an opportunity to plant seeds. He was having a hard time standing up.

He was unstable. He was dizzy. He was not, you know, he needed extra help, right?

And so he gave me this opportunity to support him, to stabilize him. The other teacher who was telling me that he had the same problem as me, right? And then he's like, well, we said, well, what do you think I should do?

Right? All of a sudden, he's giving me this reflection, this opportunity to plant the seeds to help him, right? You know, and I, you know, I'm just, I'm thank, thank the makers, thank the gods.

But I was in that room by myself when I felt this. Because I basically just fell over crying on the floor. No one saw it, right?

But I, it was a, it was a joy. It was a happiness. It was a, wow, someone cares about me this much, right?

So that's the first part of my answer. Your teachers, Roxanna, might have, might appear to have the same mental afflictions as you. So they're giving you an opportunity to help them, which is really the opportunity to help yourself by planting the seeds to help them.

Because if you see them as a teacher, the seeds you plant for them, or with them, or to them, or in them, I don't know, whatever, whatever your preposition is, you know, it's a very powerful seed, right? So maybe your Lama is appearing to you in just the perfect way for you. And you have the amazing seeds to see someone in that way, right?

I'm going to flip it around for a hot second. In the seat of the teacher, you know, I find it amazing that my students tend to have the same mental afflictions that I have. So they're giving me the opportunity to purify, right?

They're giving, like, if I'm seeing it is somehow coming for me, and damn it, I still need to work on that. So how am I going to do that? Well, if they see me as a teacher, and they're asking me for advices, really, all I'm doing is purifying my own seeds by helping them.

You see, so who's serving who in that relationship? Who's serving whom? Do you think that Geshe Michael doesn't have a teacher?

He serves his teacher all the time. He is in both roles, right? And so maybe both roles aren't separate.

Maybe there isn't a separateness. Yeah, you know, and that's a beautiful question to say, Roxanne, and I think for anybody, because we've learned about it in Gibson's text, right? We learned about it in the Lam Rim.

We learned about it, you know, to practice not seeing any faults that you may potentially see in your teacher, and instead only seeing, how's it go? Only seeing all the virtue that they have within them, or something like that, right? Okay, so what do you do when you see your teacher have a fault?

What do you do? Can you mute your microphone? The host, can you mute the mic?

Thank you. You know, what happens when you see faults in a teacher? No, don't worry about it.

What happens when you see those things? That's your place to work. That's where you work as a student, because it's coming from you anyway, and maybe they're giving you the opportunity to do something different, right?

Now, that doesn't mean if your Lama is misbehaving, or breaking the rules, or breaking the morality, or hurting other people, or breaking the law, or doing something wrong, etc., etc., etc., that that means the Lama's always right, and you should just accept it, because that's not how you, it's no, no, no. If someone's doing something wrong, you know, you have to evaluate it yourself, right? You have to evaluate it yourself, and if they're doing something wrong, you can, you can say respectfully, you're my teacher, and I don't, I think that you might be doing something special for me to see it this way, but I don't agree with it.

I can't agree with what you're doing, right? I had a, I had someone ask me about this, about their teacher many years ago, you know, I'm having a hard time, because I'm seeing them doing things. I'm like, okay, you know, then you have a choice, like you can still love them, and choose not to learn from them anymore, right?

Maybe that teacher's pushing you out of the nest, you know, there's a whole, there's a whole thing, oh, who knows what's going on, okay, but you have to be the judge of your own character, and the character of others, and if it's not right, it's not right, okay, all right, that was a cool question, Roxanna, thanks for getting up in your pajamas, and asking a good question, all right, another question from, who, what's that person's name?

I think it's a Wong, I know, I know that character in Chinese, anyway, there's a question here, well, Wang Shiyi, okay, thank you, thank you, Shiyi, see, I learned some things, how to imagine, wait, okay, so it seems like the question from Shiyi is, when they're meditating, and they're asking, they're trying to picture a Buddha in their meditation, they're seeming to have a hard time to see or visualize the eyes and the smile, right, you know, how, like, what do you do, you know, and a lot of our practice, you know, a lot of our practice is really based on visualization, right, our meditation practice has a lot of, like, working with the ways that you can see things in your mind, and I think the, it's a challenging thing for some people, I happen to be someone who doesn't have a challenge with visualization, so it's hard for me, as someone who's, I've always, it's, again, it's one of the things that I've never really had to struggle with, so it's hard, it's hard to teach something you've never struggled with, it really is, you know, if you ask me how to, you know, learn Spanish, and you want me to teach you the Spanish grammar, I could probably beat every native speaker in Spanish, except for, like, the total nerds in Spanish grammar, okay, because I had, I spent hours and days and years learning the intricacies of Spanish grammar, thinking that grammar was the cause to be able to speak Spanish, okay, and I learned that it wasn't the cause, okay, but I struggled, I really struggled with it, right, but so, you know, and I've always thought about this, like, like, you know, how would you teach someone to visualize and visualize better, right, this is how I would attempt on a, with 30 seconds of thinking, how I would answer this question, okay, oh God, I'd love how these questions actually open up every other door to our understanding, okay, so, okay, let's just do it, here we go, okay, what are you guys looking at right now? Back of a phone.

Okay, Cameron answered the back of a phone, of course, I can see all my text messages, you know what the best thing about retreat was? I had no messages, you know what the best thing about coming back from retreat is, I turned off all my notifications, no one can get me, it's only when I choose to read them, it's a good practice, turn off all of your notifications, every single one of them, it's glorious, then you have control of when you communicate, just make sure you communicate, don't forget about people, anyway, back of the phone, okay, Cameron, how do you know it's the back of the phone? Using my eyes and I guess a little bit of cognition. Okay, that's a good good thing, okay, so the camera is seeing some indicators on this phone, on this object in my hand, right, you can see the little apple, you can see the cameras, right, you can see some of the things, you can see the shape, right, see some colors, right, does Cameron see the phone with his eyeballs?

He actually answered the question, he said there was a little bit of things happening with his eyeballs, he was seeing some indicators and then he said, well, there was some kind of cognition happening that helped him deduce or figure out that there is a phone in Tim's hand, okay, all right, now, all right, here it is, you see a phone, do your eyeballs see the phone? No, no, right, okay, that's a perfect answer, Cameron's eyeballs do not see the phone, all right, where does the phone exist? Mind, okay, well, we have to be careful what school we're going to be into, but I'm just going to be general right now, okay, the other side of the phone, the top, the buttons, the screen, right, Cameron doesn't see that right now, there is nothing in my hand that Cameron sees that is a phone, okay, there's something happening in Cameron's mind, all of your minds, that's creating a phone, right, now, is the phone outside of Cameron, is the phone outside of you? The sort of direct perception, the object that I, my eyeballs are witnessing or sensing very well could be, but the concept of a phone and anything associated with imputing the phone onto that perception is within the mind, okay, okay, there is an outer object, right, there's something out here that we use as a phone, I pick it up, I look at my messages, you know, I take some pictures, right, but the phoneness, the phone, right, the chi, we'll call it the chi, right, the general, the general phone, the perfect phone is not in my hand, okay, it never was, never will be, never is, never will be, it never was, right, never, ever, ever will be in my hand, right, is there an object in my hand that functions as a phone? Yes, okay, it's an example of a phone, right, but phone itself, the phone, I'm sorry, phone, the idea phone, the perfect telephone is in my mind, it opens up from a karmic state, there's a little bit more, I'm skipping over a few steps because I want to get somewhere else and we only have another 15 minutes, okay, but just stay, stay with me, when you look at the indicators of this object, you know, you have this, you have this, colors, little apple, right, your mind glues all those things together, chi is a mental image, and then all of a sudden, a mental image opens up in your mind as phone, okay, opens up as phone, the perfect phone, in your mind, you see the front, the back, the top, the bottom, the buttons, the plugs, speakers, the text messages, all that shit, excuse me, okay, you see all of it in your mind, all you saw was this, but each and every one of you saw a phone, okay, so a mental image opened up in your mind and wrapped phone around that object, and it became a phone, it became the phone, right, it became, it went from a mental image of chi, and it became a chaidrak, right, it became an example, an instance of a phone, okay, okay, what the hell does this have to do with the question, okay, first of all, if you can really, if you can grasp and see that process happening, if you can see this, catch yourself in the moment of looking at all the indicators on this phone, on this object, right, right, your eyeball has not made it a phone yet, okay, your eyeball, it looks around all the little pieces really fast, and then a mental, like in your mind opens a mental image, a chi of phone, and it wraps itself, it's almost like an invisible wrapping blanket, a luminous image that goes around this object and becomes a phone instantaneously for you, so fast that you can't actually see it happening, okay, the little pieces, phone, right, it's not even little pieces, it just, you go phone, oh, it's a phone, Tim, duh, sorry, translators, too fast, so if you can understand that is what is happening all the time, right, like I'm looking at like 10 people on the screen, 11 people on the screen, 10 plus me, okay, I'm just seeing pixels, I'm just seeing a flat, like where the hell are you guys, right, not even fucking there, excuse me, don't translate, don't translate, okay, you're not even here, and you were never here to begin with, and even if you were sitting in the room, you were never here, in the way that I thought you were here, okay, I didn't say you weren't sitting as a person in front of me, I didn't say you weren't a person or a real person or a person I could interact with, okay, just trying to keep us from going into nihilism here, okay, the extremes, right, you get a bad teaching on emptiness, okay, what does this have to do with anything, first of all, if you can catch that process happening, that's your ticket in this understanding and directly perceiving, directly perceiving emptiness, which is an absence of all mental images, it's a dissolution of all images, you're perceiving the lack of anything that's not coming from a mental image, so is there a relationship between mental images and imagination, okay, visualizing in your mind your teacher, a Buddha or a person or whomever you're visualizing in front of you, yes, there is a deep relationship between the two, they're not the same thing, okay, but if you can piece those things together, that you're in your imagination, you're seeing a picture of your teacher, but your mental image is opening up as a imaginary imagination, a visualization of them, okay, and what I'm suggesting is that if you really think about Chittadrak, what we just talked about, Chi, mental images, Chittadrak, the example or the thing that the mental image becomes, name is a good way of putting it, phone and the phone, phone as mental image, perfect image in your mind, that comes out of a mental, that comes out of a seed, and then the phone, the phone that you're interacting with, right, I think that would be a very powerful seed for your visualizations to work, to be able to start seeing more clearly a Buddha in your mind, okay, to be able to start seeing your teacher in your mind, okay, and if images don't work for you, maybe you're a feeling type of person, like what would it feel like if you were sitting in the same room with a Buddha, your teacher, right, imagine, you know, if you don't have a partner or don't have this kind of relationship or looking to have this kind of relationship, you know, what would it feel like, or if you can invoke it from a previous relationship, to feel that love of just being in someone's presence, you know, what about a hug, like what about a beautiful hug you receive from somebody else, you know, most people when they hug, they immediately close their eyes, right, their eyeballs turn off, and another sense turns on, right, or maybe you have a great sense of smell, like for me, smells are like, can be intoxicating, right, so what would it be like to smell this sweet jasmine honey of your teacher, okay, or whatever they, whatever beautiful smell you think they smell like, right, so in your visualization, visualization, maybe it's a smell-ualization, maybe it's a feeling-ualization, good luck translators, okay, like can you sit in meditation and feel the presence of your teacher, but like, what would it feel like just to be in the presence of the Buddha, okay, you don't need to look at their eyeballs, you could feel what it feels like, and that feeling that you're experiencing is also a Chiyoda Chedrak, the feeling that you're having is also a mental image opening from a seed, the feeling is a mental feeling, like a feeling is coming from a seed too, okay, the words are impossible to describe it, okay, so get your smell-ualization on, or your feeling-ualization on, and your visualization, right, or maybe it's a touch, maybe it's a sound, right, what would it sound like to be with your teacher, right, maybe that'll help, you need to enjoy it, I would say differently, enjoy it, just enjoy it, it doesn't have to be perfect, there is no perfect in the way you think it's perfect, right, we have time for one more question, and Jane, if you want to learn more, or if any of you want to learn more about Chiyoda Chedrak, just come to Adam's class, or watch Adam's class on YouTube for the last five years, any other questions, come on, there are 58 people here, there has to be a question, there we go,

[Speaker 2]
can't read it though, should I translate that, yeah, please, let me see, um, someone said, um, there's a picture of the whole form in our mind, but still it is just a part, so it's like just opening, um, like a part, just a gradually opening, like this part is wrapping and opening up, and then this part is opening up, so, and then it just combined as a form, so she actually, maybe she just wants to make sure when the mental picture is coming out, is it just the opening as a whole form, or just opening as part and parts, and then it integrates into the whole cell phone, so that's mainly the question, the person is asking, does the mental

[Speaker 1]
image have parts, yes, okay, is there a beginning, is there a middle, is there an end, is there a left side to the mental picture, is there a right side to the mental picture, I think if you ask that question and really meditate on it, you'll come to some really cool conclusions, I think if you think about the nature, the nature of what happens when a seed opens, when you look at the parts of things, and then the seed opens to create the whole, or is it that the seed is, that is the mental image that comes out of the seed just a part of the whole and not the whole itself, and I think if you meditate on that and try to suss it out, work it out, and do your 18 courses, and really get into Nagarjuna, we're doing Nagarjuna in the summer, you should come to a Nagarjuna class on this, all right, I have one thing to add to that, meditate on that, and then infuse bodhicitta into it, just inject it, go right into the middle of that question, and by asking that question, and then meditating on it, and thinking about how that answer to that question will help other people, serve other people, and potentially change the world, that's it, that's what I suggest to do with that question, thank you again, thank you for asking that question, that was a really good question, and Flavia, the answer to your question is no, they are not the same thing, oh maybe, we'll talk about it later, let's talk about that later, Flavia wants to know visualizing and imagining are the same thing, let's talk about that later, it's a good question, thank you for your wonderful questions today, that was a lot of fun, a lot, a lot of fun, so well, we're going to start our class in six minutes, so no, in two minutes, or something like that, hurry up, go to the bathroom, or we'll come back, okay, thanks, thank you, thanks for the beautiful questions, thank you, you got me thinking, that's like, see, you guys did it to me, so thank you.