Сяопин Джоу / Элисон — Книга 2: Самоцвет истинного намерения (Панчен Лодро Лексанг о «Виная-сутре»), занятие 9

[ШАПКА ДЛЯ ЦИТИРОВАНИЯ]
Курс: Xiaoping Zhou / Alison — Book 2: The Gemstone of True Intent (Panchen Lodru Leksang on the Vinaya Sutra) — Diamond Cutter Classics
Урок: Занятие 9 (03.08.2024)
Ведёт: Геше Майкл Роуч, Элисон Сяопин Джоу (перевод на китайский)
Дата и место: 03.08.2024, Римрок, Аризона (Геше Майкл); участники также в Дуньхуане (Innovation Retreat)
Источник: YouTube, канал Diamond Cutter Classics, плейлист PL1KVm5jgTljRBpdDsc-GnPM-ab-9EEPLy; расшифровка TurboScribe
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[Speaker 1]
All right, everybody. Good morning. Good afternoon.

Good evening. I feel like zoom is so funny. I try to get the right angles.

My head doesn't look tiny compared to my shoulders. Maybe it's just being a pinhead. Anyway, we have a very exciting class for you this morning.

We have a class with Geshe Michael coming to us live from Rimrock, Arizona. And I think they're probably just finishing up their meditation now. And should be ready for class.

Do I have anybody over there in the studio in Rimrock? Do we have, can you hear me Nick? Yes, sir.

I hear you loud and clear. Okay, handsome. Here we go.

Capital of the world. We need. Okay, so I'll make an introduction and then we'll have Xiaoping come.

I'm here. So Xiaoping, are you translating today? How are we doing this?

Yes, so I'll try to translate myself, but if I also have a backup plan, have another translator to translate for me. Okay, try that guy. He's kind of cheap, but he's okay.

Yeah, he's waiting there. Okay, good. All right, so today we're having a special class, Translate Taiwan.

Today we're having a special class. We are having this weekend an innovation retreat program. Which we call IR.

It's supposed to sound like AI. And basically it's business retreats and retreats to learn creativity. And we look forward to working together with Diamond Mountain Retreat Center.

We spent 20 years of blood, sweat, and tears to create that retreat center. It's very similar to the Dunhuang Mogao Caves in the Gobi Desert. Which is one of the cultural treasures of China.

So we're very lucky to have some of our classes sitting in Dunhuang having the program this weekend. By the way, Stanley, I'm not clear in my mind how old are those caves. When were those caves made?

He said some of them are a hundred years old, some of them are over a thousand years old. Okay, cool. Some over a hundred, some over a thousand years.

So I thought today it would be exciting to study a book that came from Dunhuang. I believe it's about 50,000 manuscripts have been found in the secret cave libraries of Dunhuang. I went there with my wife.

I like to keep it on my phone. That's Veronica at the Dunhuang Library Cave. You can see it.

It's a building, a pagoda that was built on the front of the cave. I went with my wife, Veronica, to a library in the Dunhuang Mogao Cave. I like to keep this photo.

So in a rush, I called Ayesha Nguyen. And I asked her, can you find a book from Dunhuang that is something that we are studying? And she sent me...

she created, I think it's maybe the first list of a thousand books in West Chinese language that were found at Dunhuang. And unfortunately, those books were spread all over the world because they were purchased or stolen by explorers who went to Dunhuang in the last few hundred years. So it's very difficult to find a list of these books.

It's difficult to find the images of these books. And we are working hard with the ALL project to try to make a database that everybody can use for free. So it's very exciting, about midnight last night, Ayesha found a very rare copy of a book that was written probably about 15 centuries ago.

And this is a very beautiful copy, handwritten copy, of the commentary to the book that Xiaoping is translating. So first I'd like to share my screen. Is that okay, you guys?

Sorry Geshe-la, please continue. And I'll show you what this looks like. Here you go.

So there you go. It's a book from Dunhuang. I'll give $100.

Anybody online, not in this room, anybody in Dunhuang, any of those students in the IR can tell me why is there a hole in the paper? Because the sutra, it's had a trim go through the paper. Wait, are you in Dunhuang?

It looks like you're nodding to me. Yeah, Jin is correct. Geshe-la, we are doing the recording right now.

We are in Dunhuang, but they are not listening live. They will listen to the recorded version. Okay, so I think we have to send the money to Vietnam.

There was a Vietnamese student who got it right. He said to put the books together with a thread. That Vietnamese gentleman got it right.

The hole is to keep the book together with a thread. Because there's no binding. By the way, someone asked me is this a palm leaf, and it's not.

It looks to me like it's paper. It's a special ink used for great books. It's from a plant.

Aisha found this book. By the way, this book is sitting in Oxford University. Aisha found it last night, around midnight, I think.

She's been working very, very hard for several years, and very well, to find these ancient books for us all over the world. So it's very exciting to have a handwritten manuscript from Dunhuang. I'll just point out a few things, and then we'll start reading Xiaoping's text.

Let me get you a big cursive, if I can... Okay, this is good. Can you guys see the arrow?

I'll read the first few letters for you. It says, LOP PON YIN RTEN DGOS KYIS Please repeat Xiaoping. LOP PON YIN RTEN LOP PON YIN RTEN DGOS KYIS DUN BA'I DGOS ZHES SBYAR BA Okay, LOP PON means Acharya, Great Master.

And this is an ancient spelling, so we can tell something about the age of the manuscript from the spelling. The spelling is not the current spelling. Anybody can tell me what's YON DEN?

Good quality in Sanskrit? In Sanskrit? GUNA YON DEN DE YI ZI ZHUGS SHES MEI DE Okay, and then there's the word UE, which means what?

Worthy. Light. Like me and Venerable Phil have uh on my head.

Me and John. I'll give you the clue. The Greek is for, the Sanskrit is bah, the root is pa.

If it's a good light, it's pra bah, pra bah, pra bah. So what's yun ten uh? Guna pra bah.

He's the author of the Vinaya Sutra, okay, which is which is the mother book that Xiaoping is translating. Then it says dulwa, okay, say dulwa.

[Speaker 2]
What's dulwa?

[Speaker 1]
Dulwa means Vinaya, it means to tame a wild horse. And it's very interesting, if you look carefully, this YI vowel, which curves over here, is reversed for in some cases here. And I believe there's some logic to that and I haven't worked on it yet.

And then there's the word M-D-O, ndo, what does that mean, ndo? Sutra. ndo means short, not long.

So here we have the title of this, this book is a commentary to Guna Prabhupada's dulwa ndo. Now, we know it's a commentary to the Vinaya Sutra now. And I thought you might like to have some fun with me to identify which commentary is it.

And because of John Brady's database, we can do that in less than 30 seconds. So I'm going to take this piece here, dzuklak tsepe means made a commentary. And I did this search this morning.

Here's the result of the search. Let me see. Okay, anyway, here's the search program.

I'll show you... Excuse me Geshe Michael, we can't see that part of your screen. Okay, anyway, we found it in about less than 10 seconds, and it's a commentary by a great Indian writer named Prajñākara.

And that's an important source for Xiaoping's book. Okay, I'm going to go back to... how do I do this?

Stop share. And now we're going to go start our work. Okay, enough fun.

Let's start our work together. Okay. Geshe-la, should I share the homework?

Yes, please. Go ahead. I will unshare.

Thank you. Can everybody see my screen? We cannot.

You cannot? No. I already shared.

Xiaoping, if you email me the homework, I could show it, but then you can't move it here. Let me check. Sorry, one minute, please.

Okay, you're on Zoom. I'm in the wrong Zoom? Yeah.

Sorry. Really? No.

Okay, sorry, sorry. Here. We still cannot see.

Okay, one minute. Okay, okay. Get that tech guy to do something.

Recording in progress. Recording in progress. Yay, homework!

Yay, okay. Okay, can you hear? Now you can see, right?

Yeah, it says take a break and go have a cinnamon roll. Yeah, I like that. Okay.

Okay, so first question, please list the two kinds of non-Buddhist morality. So there's a rule that the teacher doesn't have to do the homework. You bodyguard your morality because you want money or fame in this life.

Yeah, it's the first time, right? Yeah. Yes, thank you.

So one type of morality that you follow because you want something nice to happen to you, like also without fame, but also good rebirth. Okay. How about the second kind?

I'm not sure the fame or money thing works. The second one is because you're a jick, because you're afraid of punishment or about losing money or possessions. Yeah, thank you, Venerable Pala.

So the other kind of morality is that you follow it because you are afraid of punishment, for example, punishment from the government. So the second kind of non-Buddhist morality is that you follow it because you are afraid of punishment. For example, you follow it because you are afraid of punishment from the government.

So these two are not Buddhist morality. Then the question comes, what is Buddhist morality according to our last class? Vows with promise.

Sorry, can you... I couldn't hear you clearly. Vows with promise.

Oh, vows with promise. Yeah. Vows based in renunciation.

Oh, yes, yes. Yes, because you follow the morality because you are tired of suffering of the world, you want to get out. Cool.

So the second kind of non-Buddhist morality is that you follow it because you are tired of suffering of the world, you want to get out. This is Buddhist morality. Okay, the second question.

Pratyekabuddha vows can be divided into two types. What are the two types? Natural and prescribed.

Yeah, who is that? Great. Who is that?

Dodo. Oh, nice. Yes, it's two types, prescribed and natural.

So prescribed meaning it's prohibited by Buddha. For example, drinking alcohol. Natural, the example is, for example, killing, taking life.

So here, the non-Buddhist morality is divided into two types. What are the two types? The first type is prescribed, meaning it's prohibited by Buddha.

For example, not drinking alcohol. The second type is natural, meaning it's prohibited by Buddha. For example, killing.

It means it's prohibited by Buddha, so this behavior itself is bad. The third question. The third question is very easy, but the reason I listen here is just to help us review, particularly as some IR students listening, they will be listening.

The question is, what are the three kinds of Buddhist morality, and do you lose those vows when you die? Hey, what's the... how much money are you offering for this answer?

Me? Just kidding. Vows of individual freedom?

Yes.

[Speaker 2]
And, yes, you lose them when you die.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yes, great. What are the other two kinds?

Bodhisattva vows. Yes. Which you...

Chloe says bodhisattva vows, and Chloe says... what's the third? They survive.

Diamond way. Third diamond way, Chloe says. Yeah.

Yes. So here are the three types. Pratimoksha vow, bodhisattva vow, and diamond way vow.

So for the Pratimoksha vow, you will lose it when you die or take rebirth. And bodhisattva vow and diamond way vow, they will stay forever. Yeah, great.

Three words. Oh, nice. First one, nye ku.

Nye ku? Is it a quest or something? Money or fame?

Yeah, fame or money. Yeah, it's very... Money or fame.

Money or fame. Yeah, money or fame. Second word?

Of a higher rebirth. Yeah. Like rebirth of teachings, something like that?

Lineage? Lineage of teachings or oral tradition? Yeah.

Literary means flow of speech, means oral transmission. Cool. Okay, so the translation dropped with the help of Gibson.

Xiaoping, can you read the original language out loud? Oh, okay. Maybe...

who can check your word? Is the word there? Yes, Dan.

Okay, please start again and word's going to correct you. Okay. Okay, let's check the translation.

Vows can be divided. By the way, we have finished... Xiaoping's been working about eight years on Vinaya.

She finished a wonderful summary of Vinaya and a commentary on it. And that will be published, I would guess, in about a year. And it has to be...

And then she started a second commentary by somebody named Lodro Lexang, which is... in English, Xiaoping, we call it a sleeper. Sleeper means unknown genius.

And he's like an unknown genius. And I found his books, and I think he's the greatest Vinaya writer ever. And John Brady's team recovered them, and they are amazing.

So the first part... Sorry, Geshe-la, I have to translate into Chinese. Oh, sorry.

Okay, okay. No problem. Yeah, please continue Geshe-la.

Yeah, so especially in the last twenty years when I studied Vinaya, there are many, many ancient questions. This is the oldest language that we are translating. And John Brady's team has input several...

I would say about ten thousand pages, ten thousand pages of Vinaya books. They cover two thousand years of scholarship on Vinaya. And every time I have a question about something very difficult or unusual, the search program always finds it in this author's book, Lodro Lexang.

So this is one of those cases in ancient scholarship, where we will get to know an unknown author just by his writing. And as we finish this translation, we will try to find more information about him, but there's not much available now. I guess this translation will take at least ten years, maybe fifteen years.

Okay, let's check the Luhang translation. Wang Di's translation can be divided eight times. The translation is perfect.

Okay, I'm sorry. Let's go to the next part. Should I read?

Yes, please. And let's have... I can't see all you guys, but maybe a word, could you do again the checking?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, these eight vows are known as individual freedom. This is a quotation. Because of the C-E-S-P-A, chepa, it's a quotation.

So if you want to have some fun, let's use John Brady's database. If you want to have some fun, let's go to John Brady's database and check this out. I'm sorry, I cannot display it, but I'm going to go look for myself.

SO SO LTAR BYED CHAGS I believe it's the Vinaya Sutra. Okay, let's look. Yeah, it's actually Abhidharmakosha.

Okay, Xiaoping? If you want more information about that book, talk to Stanley Chen. Yeah.

Who translated a big part of it. By the way, that book is also in Dunhuang. So it's exciting that both of these books are in Dunhuang.

Okay. Phil, you want to check her reading? You want to sit here and check...

she's going to read two sentences, and you complain about every third word. It doesn't matter. Okay, come on.

Okay, I have a great Tibetan scholar named Phil here. Thank you. He's going to check your reading, so please go slow.

Hi. Thank you. She's going to start here.

Please read slow, okay? Okay, sure. If she says, try to say a mistake every third or fourth word, and then Phil will correct you.

In loud, talk loud. Wow, that's loud! He said, wow, he didn't say wrong.

Okay. Wow. He says, okay.

Okay, thank you. Very nice. Phil says, no mistakes, and he'll send you $100.

Nah, I'm kidding, kidding, kidding. Okay, Wern, do you want to take her through these words, and Rangdell, for example? Sure.

Outer commentary? Talk loud, Wern. Yeah, to Rangdell.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Outer commentary?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, the outer commentary says, mm-hmm, good. What's gelongi dompa?

[Speaker 1]
Fully ordained monk? Uh-huh, the dompas of the fully ordained monk. What's a dompa here?

Oh, fully? Dompa, S-D-O-M-P-A. What's that one?

Dompa means vow, okay? Yeah, the vow. Okay, keep going, Xiaoping.

And what if it's a gelongma? What's that? Fully ordained nun?

Yeah, they're dompas. Vow of fully ordained nun? Yeah, good.

And a gelongma? Intermediate nun? Yeah, exactly.

They're dompas, they're vows. And a getsul dompa? Male novice?

Nice. Exactly, male novice, they're vows. And then a getsulma?

They're dompas. Female novice vow? Good, perfect.

Now we go to geinyans and geinyanmas. Who are they? Male layperson vow and female layperson vow?

Exactly. And then the nianye, what's that? One day vow?

One day? Yeah, there's no nianye ma? No.

You're asking a tricky question. Correct, you're right. Oh, I forgot to translate.

Go ahead, translate. Perfect. Perfect.

Perfect.

[Speaker 2]
And then, dompa nampa di?

[Speaker 1]
These dompas? These eight different vows? Yeah, yeah, yeah, good.

These eight different types of vows or something. Ni, what does the ni mean?

[Speaker 2]
Ni.

[Speaker 1]
Where? Ni.

[Speaker 2]
Second to last line after ge.

[Speaker 1]
Of. That one kind of means these are, what we just talked about is, or something like that. It's good, yeah.

The sosor tarpe dompa. Vows of individual freedom? Yeah, perfect.

Sheja. So-called? Yeah.

Yeah, these are what we call the vows of individual freedom.

[Speaker 2]
Sheja.

[Speaker 1]
I guess. That's what the Abhidharmakosha says, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what Vasubandhu's Abhikamit. Yeah, good.

Yay, good job, everybody. Okay, go back. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thanks so much.

Phil's going to send you a bill for his teaching. Okay. Nice job, Xiaoping.

Thank you. Let's go to your text with this grandpa. All right.

So you finished these parts. There's the original quotations found in John's database. There's the auto commentary found in John's database.

We always go and check the quotation to make sure it's quoted correctly because sometimes it's not. Okay. And then he's going to quote a famous book about Vinaya called The Essence of the Ocean of Vinaya.

Who wrote it? Yeah, and you've already translated it, so it should be easy. Do you want someone to read, Xiaoping?

Yeah, okay. This next part is quoted from the Green Sea New Medicine by Tsongkapa. Okay.

Oscar, would you like to read? Yeah, by the way, Oscar did a great job in Mexico City this last week, and thank you, Oscar. Thank you, Oscar.

Congratulations.

[Speaker 2]
It was amazing. Great.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Great. Thank you.

That's... Okay, good. And actually, it's just a repeat of the same information.

It's all the different kinds of Vinaya vows. It's the eight different types of vows. So this author just wants to...

Yeah. And Xiaoping already translated that. I think we'll go on, because it's the same list.

Okay, Xiaoping, who's going to read this one line here? Anathasiddhya, would you like to read? No.

Okay. Xiaoping, I have some readers here if you want. Oh, good, good.

From Rimlock. Yeah, they are most intelligent. Oh.

Okay. Do you want me to choose? Yes, yes, please.

I don't know who are they. Okay, Linzi, come on over here. She's a good reader.

Okay. And by the way, she's helping a lot to fundraise through the Good Night Book Club. She's spending many, many hours helping this translation team, and we are very grateful.

Okay, here you go. Thank you. Welcome.

Welcome. Let's do this part, too. Okay.

Okay. Nice, very nice. Okay.

Thank you. Okay, Xiaoping, stay for a little bit. Okay, here we go.

And I corrected this first one. Say, wona. Wona.

Wona. It means, well then, well then. Okay, it means he's going to start some, he's going to get hot.

Okay. Wona. Wona.

De na means those guys, those eight kinds of vows. So-so means... Each?

Yeah, each individual one. Ngo-wo means what, you guys? Essence.

It's the essence. In this sentence, it means what's the kind of the definition. What's the essential definition of this?

I'm going to let you translate, Xiaoping. By the way, in ten minutes we will stop the translation part of the class. And we always have a fifteen-minute discussion after that, about how can you use this book in your real life.

And Xiaoping will lead that discussion. And Grandpa Mike will disappear. Xiaoping, I'm driving directly to San Diego at that moment, okay?

I have to meet two people, a surfboard and a doctor. I have to meet two people. One is a doctor, and the other is a surfboard.

Okay. dang she na means what... So the question here, we call it a rhetorical question.

The author is asking a question himself. Hey, do you guys have a definition of those eight kinds of vows? junaya vows And then he answers himself.

Do you have a definition of those eight kinds of vows? Yes, I do. He asks, do you know the definition of those eight kinds of vows?

And then he turns to the stage and says, yes, I do. And now, word. It always makes me happy to find a new word for word.

This one's a little difficult, me rim ne. Did you figure it out? No, I was looking at it.

I thought the me was like low, or like later on. I always feel very happy when I can teach something new to word, because he's so smart. And he's teaching like 20, 30 classes every week.

He's doing a great job. His students are amazing. And I'm very grateful.

So me rim ne means starting from the bottom. Yeah, he's going to start from the bottom. What's that mean?

Probably from the strangest eight vows. The shortest one, the one-day vow or something? Yeah, he's going to start from the one-day vows.

And then he's going to work up to the full ordained person's vows. Oscar, what do you think is gyurpa ja? Gyurpa ja...

[Speaker 2]
Like, self, it is expressed through...

[Speaker 1]
You should explain it this way. Or I will explain it. I will explain the definition of the eight sets of vows, starting from the bottom.

Here's the first one. ta means edge. ta means edge.

Edge, right? Like edge of the table. ta chen means the edge of this vow, or how long does it stay?

ta chen means what's the edge where it stops? And he says it lasts for du, means how long it lasts? shak, shak.

shak means 24 hours. Yeah, nyen shak. Yeah.

So nyen means a day. It comes from the word for sun, which is nima. And it means, as it means in English, day can mean the daylight hours, or it can mean 24 hours.

So in West Chinese language, when you want to specify 24-hour day and not daylight, you add the word shak. So the first part of the definition is, it lasts 24 hours. 24 hours.

bardu means for that long. It's similar to the word bardo, which means how long you stay in between death and new birth. pang ja means the thing you should not do during that period.

Okay, 50 bucks for ngok kya. By the way, I stopped betting 100 Oscar in Mexico City because it was too expensive. I'm going to 50 now.

Okay, next one.

[Speaker 2]
Corresponding?

[Speaker 1]
Who said? Yeah, I said corresponding. ngok kya means, it's a very difficult word, and it means personal.

It means personal. So what it means in the definition of a vow is those things that you have to give up which are particular to the one-day vow. ngok kya So if you're translating it, you will say the one-day vow has eight particular things in that vow that you have to give up.

gye means ba. pongwa means you have to give up. nupa is a very ancient word for word.

I'll give you an example. Is it 50 bucks for your three kids, or is it four yet? He's getting scared.

Now he's getting scared. I don't know nupa. It's a very rare word.

It means to promise. This word is very difficult. It means to swear.

nupa means to swear. To swear to give up the eight particular things in this set of vows. rab tu chewa means that's what distinguishes this vow from other vows.

ten here means support, but it means the body and mind complex. The body and mind combination is called the support of life. So the body and mind which can support these kinds of vows is khimpa.

So the body and mind which can support this vow is khimpa. Khimpa? Anybody?

Householder? Yeah, lay person, not ordained person. Now there's a difficult expression, rik su nupa.

Say rik su nupa. Rik su nupa. It means of that general type.

And debaters use this word to protect themselves from weird exceptions. Because there is a weird exception of this vow that, for example, may not apply to householders. And I put the exception here because I think it's a good example.

I put the exception here for you. Say theg chen sok jung. What's that?

It's the one day Mahayana vow, where you get up early and you don't eat in the afternoon. It's a very pain in the butt vow. Okay.

So he has to say that generally this type is for householders. But there is a sub-category of this vow, which is the Mahayana one day vow, which can be taken by ordained people. So here it talks about a general sub-category.

This is because there may be exceptions. An exception here, for example, is the one day Mahayana vow. This kind of vow can be taken by ordained people as well, not just householders.

sotakyi donpa mikpa, here it means one kind of Pratimoksha vow. And that's the tsennyi of the nyen ne kyi donpa. That's the definition of the one day vow.

This is a debater's definition. It is waterproof. You cannot attack it.

It's a completely safe and complete definition. If the author gives a definition like this, it indicates that he or she was a debater. If the author gives a definition like this, it indicates that he or she was a debater.

Okay, Xiaoping, grandpa's... Do I have to keep my computer here? Ken, I have one question.

You skipped one word. Uh-oh, I skipped one word. That'll cost you $50.

Why? What word did I skip? Why does he say tso'o?

That's tricky. Let me see. Why did he say tso'o?

Panjye tso'o, that you mainly give up, meaning that there's other things you give up as well? I would say if I was pressed on that during a debate, that this vow implies... I would say, generally, it's eight commitments.

Generally, it's eight commitments. But generally, what you're asking me is why I say generally. Some of those commitments can be broken down into multiple commitments.

Like jewelry and perfume or something. You see what I mean? And we're going to cover that.

We're going to come to that soon. So he's trying to protect himself in the debate. He says eight components mainly.

Which means, actually, there's like twelve. But some of them are grouped together. For example, if you give up eight things, you can have different calculations.

For example, if you give up jewelry and perfume. If you want to break up jewelry and perfume, it might be divided into a dozen or so. Xiaoping, I hired some coyotes from Rimrock to sing a song for you guys.

Okay, here we go. One, two, three. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Rosa. Happy birthday to you.

By the way, we wouldn't have any Mixed Nuts books without Rosa. She works all day, every day, self-motivated to print our books. And we're very grateful for your hard work.

Truth that grants your every wish. That's good. Okay.

She chose a page of this book which says Chintamani. And it means a jewel that gives you anything you want. It's very similar to Aladdin's lamp.

You make a wish. So we hope you make a wish today. We wish you to live countless years and print all the countless books we're going to translate.

Okay, Xiaoping, you guys start your conversation and Grandpa will take off the noose. Thank you so much for the class. Thank you for the teaching.

Okay, good luck. See you. See you tomorrow and have a good trip to San Diego.

Okay, good. Sorry, I should speak English also. So now let's start.

Anyone want to share how to apply this class to your life? Any idea or any inspiration? Please just open your mic or raise your hand.

Or anybody in Room Rock, you can just go to the sofa and share. Nobody?

[Speaker 2]
I think something that stood out for me was that there's like eight different types. We're talking about, you know, different types of vowels and each one of them has different vowels that go with it.

[Speaker 1]
And there's all sorts of different people in the world. So, like, at the very simplest analysis for me, it's like, different things are for different people. And, you know, two people can be following different sets of vowels.

And, like, not everything is for everyone, if that makes sense. Cool. Great.

Thank you. Just that we have different teachings on emptiness to fit, serve different people. Thank you.

Anyone else? Kadri, please, you are muted. I will share one.

[Speaker 2]
I think one of the most important thing to learn the vowel is that if you don't want to break your vowel, it's to understand what is the vowel's definition or what the vowel looks like. And this is what I learned from the past few years. Because at the first time when teacher taught us to keep the six type books, we feel like we are like Sun Wukong.

We are being restricted by the master. But Geshe-la said that the vowel will make you freedom. And it's very logic to spend time, to put yourself in the Myanmar class, to learn this vowel and to find those people who can help you to keep your vowel.

So don't feel that this class is very boring to make a lot of list to see what kind of vowel, what we can do, what we cannot do. And this is very well worth of your time. I think so.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Gibson. Yeah, he mentioned the story of the Monkey King, pained by his master. I think, like Geshe always used the example that actually the Vinaya, the vowels, the variety, is not the cage to restrict us.

Actually, it's just like fly, the wings. If we really master it, it can give us freedom, we can fly. Yes, just like Geshe-la said, it will protect us.

Wang Shichang raises his hand, right? Wang Shichang, do you want to share? Thank you, Ms. Xiaoping. Thank you, everyone. Ms. Xiaoping, I have a question. I want to know where I can learn Geshe-la's Five Hundred Vowels.

Where can I learn it in our system? Okay. I will help you to translate and then answer, okay?

Wang Shichang is asking a question about he wants to learn the over 500 vowels that Geshe-la has and where he can learn it, he can study it. I will answer to him in Chinese and I will translate myself. Yes.

If you have time, you can listen to it. You will understand a large part of Geshe-la's content. Yes.

So what I answer him is that for some of quite large part of the vowels that Geshe-la is keeping is that actually he can study them by studying the translation classes of my previous book offered by Ms. Nat or Xuanzang Tao's classes. But after my last book is published, then you can just read them. It will be easier.

But maybe we have to wait for one more year. Thank you. Okay.

He's asking where to access those videos. So please stay in the chat. There's some links you can access to the previous recordings.

Okay. Thank you, Shiqiang. Time is up.

Thank you everyone for sharing and thank you for having this class together. I will leave the time to Nick or Ben or... Hey, everybody.

Well, Mr. Juan Hasta is going to take over and thank you so much, Xiaoping. Thank you. Are you there, Juan, to bring us the latest in the world news?

[Speaker 2]
I am here. Thank you very much, Xiaoping, for your class and best wishes overseas. Also, thank you, Geshe-la and Rob.

They may be on their way to San Diego and all of you who organized and also those who come to this program. We have a great time. I'm this day seeing Guadalajara.

The plan in general is to be here until something about mid-September or something like that. Great things are happening and we just have a great event in Mexico City. Wonderful, wonderful event.

A lot of people is getting interested in these classes and there is a lot of cool ideas on how to keep growing Mixed Notes and the translation courses, Diamond Cutter Classics events. So, for people who may be new to this program or classes, every Saturday and every Monday, if you live in the West, every Tuesday morning, if you live in the East, we get together and have classes like this with more than 10 topics on many different areas of this wonderful ancient wisdom. Geshe Michael takes us through this content and during these classes.

And then, next picture is, we have a little segment where we try to share with you many wonderful things that are happening all over the Worldview Organizations. And if you ever happen to have something you want to share with us, you can contact us. Just text or write an email and we can start organizing to share something.

Okay, so now we are in August. Time is passing fast. Just a few, feels like just a few days ago it was the beginning of the year, but now we're almost a little beyond half of it.

So, in a month from now, Sky Harvest is going to have their second reforestation effort. That's the next picture, should be somewhere there. Yes, that one.

And what they are doing is making Diamond Mountain Retreat Center, retreat center in Arizona, United States. They are making a big project to bring life back to the environment by planting trees, keeping water, creating a place for animals to live, and of course, for people to enjoy. So, from September 2nd to the 7th, they are organizing this big gathering where people are going to be able to not only learn about how to restore an environment, like a natural environment like this, but also to actually do it.

So, I want to show you briefly the options they are offering to people. And it's the next three pictures. So, yeah, there you can see September 2nd to 7th, and then they have two options, at least the two that I understand.

One of them, you volunteer four hours a day by, you know, planting trees, moving the soil, air, various activities that have to do with fighting, repairing the erosion, or planting trees, making the environment ready for that. They can pick you up from the airport. They're going to be having presentations and education programs from experts.

They're going to give you food, I think. And yoga and meditation, optional. That's option one.

Option two. Next one, please. The option two, you don't have to work.

Really, you can just enjoy and learn. And that has a cost over there. You can check it out.

It's more like, well, it's called Eco-Retreat. So, you can be there. You can enjoy the activities and also have some personal time to do your practices.

So, that's the deal. Next picture, please. And then, in October, they are organizing a pre-retreat, getting ready for Geshe Michael getting there on the 12th of October.

So, now you know the plans in Diamond Mountain. It's basically Sky Harvest on September, and in October, Geshe Michael teaching there, along with the pre-retreat one week in advance. That's going to be taught by our friend Gielse.

And you can start making plans for that ahead of time. So, as I was mentioning, yeah, that's the pre-retreat. And as I was mentioning, we just finished our great event in Mexico City.

It's really, really cool event. For those of you who may not have had the chance yet to watch the classes, they were really, really wonderful. Geshe Michael taught amazingly.

I mean, as usual, but every time it's even better and better. I really recommend you, if you can, try to find these classes. They are really, really priceless.

He opened up very deep and also personal parts of his ancient wisdom career. So, if you can, talk to your friends and try to figure it out, but really watch them, are wonderful. And now, of course, people from all over the world came.

And one of the persons who came is a dear friend of us. He has been involved in many, many activities lately in different organizations. But he is from Mexico City.

And then he moved to Asia recently, but he came back to spend some time with us and also to produce some projects that he's going to talk with us very, very soon. Can you share the next picture, please? No, no, one before.

Just to remind you that also the Latin America tour is going to start. I mean, already started, but the upcoming event is going to Argentina on September 11th. Just mentioning that, I'm going to go back to what I was telling you about our dear friend, Brian Mendoza.

He came to Mexico City. He started to, because, you know, he's coming from Asia to visit Mexico City. Now he lives in Asia.

And he's about to start these classes. I think it's Monday, actually. On Monday, he and Fernanda Jimenez are going to be teaching this.

It's in Spanish, but I can tell you this one talks mostly about how to fight seeds of jealousy and envy in our life. It's going to be a very cool, interesting talk. And I would like to welcome Brian because he was here in Mexico and in Guadalajara to cover different events, very cool things that we want to share with you that are happening in Mexico.

And thanks to many of our friends who live in Asia, sponsors in Asia, this is possible. So let me first welcome Brian with us. We're going to have a talk with him.

And then we will show you a video that we prepared to show you what's happening. Hey, Juan. Thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure. Thank you, Brian. Thank you for coming.

So where are you today? Today I'm in my parents' house in Mexico. And I'm just excited to share with you guys.

That's cool. I bet you were missing the street food in Mexico. Of course.

To be honest, I have wildly. So it's very cool. I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if it's only because I am from here, but I think Mexico is an amazing, wonderful place. It's like so... It's like a great mix of craziness, adventure, beauty, nature.

It's just wonderful. Very diverse. So should we...

Let me start telling people a little bit of the story of what happened in the last few days. We, as we mentioned, we were in Mexico City. The event was great.

It finishes. And then Brian tells me like, hey, guys, do you need a ride to the airport? And I'm like, well, yeah, sure.

But then things changed. And at the end, they were like, you know, Brian, we already got a different ride. Thank you so much.

I leave to the airport with my friend Gina as well. We go to Guadalajara and next day Brian is in Guadalajara. It's like, I don't know how he made it there, but then I figured out that you were in a special mission.

You were in a special mission to record and get content and material for two of very cool projects happening in Mexico. One of them is this project called FM4, which is like a big house shelter center that helps immigrants going from South America to North America. And then next day you were about to go to Casa Huichol, which is a center that helps the native indigenous people of the area of Guadalajara.

For that, we have prepared a video that we want to share with you. And also there we have another project that I find out it's happening. It's growing a lot in Guadalajara and it's a center that helps people in their last weeks or months of life.

It's like people who are about to pass and they, people from our community, people who study these ancient courses are helping them with their foundation. So can we share the video, please, Gina? Thank you.

Thank you. Those were the projects that I was so impressed. I just come back to Guadalajara and I see how many things are happening and how much they are thriving.

I would like to talk to you, Brian. What was your impression and what was the goal for you? Later, I suppose, you're going to come up with the full story of each of these projects.

Basically, thank you, Juan. Basically, I was sent, as you mentioned, in a special mission from Asia to check on where are all the fundings going from Asia in a project called the Happy Can. The mission was to take some footage to create some kind of documentary or something like that to show the donors the amazing things that they are doing through this project.

This project has been existing for 10 years and I just want to say, I just helped with the shooting but the real heroes are like Angel, for example, or some other people. But that's basically it. That's what I did in Guadalajara.

Eventually, you're going to be sharing the full story, I hope. Actually, what's happening, what they have been doing. What I have here is people here in Guadalajara are very, very grateful from this support they've been getting.

One of my friends, Aldo, was saying it's so amazing that people that are 13 kilometers away care so much and bring their love and their support in the form of financial aid or other forms. It just shows how much collaboration and connection, because of this wish to help, can create in the world. Yeah, and one other thing, Juan, that I think it's important to mention is that these funds for the Happy Camp project also help the Spanish translators to get the ancient text available for Spanish-speaking audiences.

Thank you. Thank you, Brian, so much for being here. Just lastly, before we leave because time went so fast, I would like you to share with us what you mentioned to me before, this idea of the Skills to Serve project that you're doing as well.

What is it about and how can people be part of it? Yeah, this is very exciting, Juan. This is a project that came to my mind thanks to Francisco and the WorldBee Productions team.

They asked me to create kind of like a Zoom host management tutorial for people that want to help manage Zoom for the WorldBee organizations as volunteers, and that brought me to think of some other skills that I may have for them to learn and have a very strong network of volunteers that want to serve the WorldBee organizations and now they will have the skills to do it, and this is completely free. You can scan the code or I will share the link here in the chat. It's all about tech skills, which is very, very cool.

Important to mention, these are live courses, let's say, which means that we will be including more and more videos, and it's not that I'm an expert or anything, but I think that my skills could help and some other people can join to create tutorials if they know how to do something better. So let's say, Brian, just to have it clear, let's say the first course is there, it's like a deep course on how to operate and manage Zoom accounts? Yeah.

Correct, and actually if I can share my screen, I can show you what we have now. Sure. Cool.

Thank you. So you can see here that we have video editing skills, we have website skills, Zoom skills, and some other playlists that we will be adding. We have another one, which is to translate from English to Spanish, but for now, the only available will be those for tech.

I think that's very cool, Brian, and I do think you are an expert in many, many ways. You have helped us many times as well. You have held this project, Diamond Cutter Classics, many times as well.

You helped us to create the Spotify channel, you gave me some advice with the YouTube channel, with the Zoom account, and other things like the Patreon news. So thank you very much, and I think it's very cool because your knowledge, you are specifically applying it to these organizations, so it becomes very relevant. If you as an audience person want to help to any of the organizations, and you follow this QR code, you're going to find very precise and relevant content specifically designed for the WorldView organizations.

So it may be very cool. I may check it out. That's cool.

Let's bring it on. This is all for WorldView organizations, so let's work together to make it work. Sure, and hopefully we'll be talking to you again soon to talk more about this Skills to Serve project.

Awesome.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Juan, so much.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you very much. Hope you all have a great weekend, and see you on Monday if everything goes well. Bye-bye.

See you.