Сяопин Джоу / Элисон — Книга 2: Самоцвет истинного намерения (Панчен Лодро Лексанг о «Виная-сутре»), занятие 18

[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 18 (по плейлисту — Session 22), 08.11.2025
Ведёт: Геше Майкл Роуч, Элисон Сяопин Джоу (чтение и перевод текста)
Дата и место: 08.11.2025, Dragon's Head (Rimrock, Аризона)
Источник: YouTube, канал Diamond Cutter Classics, плейлист PL1KVm5jgTljRBpdDsc-GnPM-ab-9EEPLy; расшифровка TurboScribe
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[Speaker 1]
Please sit down, set your mobile phone and alarm clock to silent mode and place them at the reception desk. Our class will begin soon. Okay, alright.

I hope they take the right one.

[Speaker 2]
No, there you go. That's it.

[Speaker 1]
So, why don't we just ... I'm going to announce your book and we will change the subject about your homework. Thank you, I'm sorry.

Skillful means. I was thinking to stay up, to wake up, so I have to ... We start as a teacher.

I love these books. They're balanced, you know. Good balance.

Yeller and Yelly. It's mutual.

[Speaker 2]
Good morning. Ready?

[Speaker 1]
Are we on?

[Speaker 2]
You're on, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 1]
Are we online? Okay. Okay, hi you guys.

We're broadcasting from Dragon's Head. Dragon's Head? Dragon's Head.

And we are just finishing a long program here. And all the people are dreaming about their bed. And so, I think this is one of our last classes.

Yeah. So, we have twelve translators. They are working for nine years.

At the beginning, I gave each one a different subject. So, if you take all of ancient Buddhist philosophy, basically you can divide it into twelve or thirteen different parts. Each part has their own unique language.

And they are as different as Chinese and English. They're quite different dialects, different languages. So, my goal was to teach twelve different translators.

Hopefully each one can carry on their own language. And they can teach it to the next generation. And we're already having meetings with the next generation.

And so, Xiaoping's text, her language among the twelve is the oldest. And it was very popular 2,500 years ago. And that's the earliest commentaries of this tradition were Vinaya.

And this language concerns ethics. What's a good thing to do? What's a bad thing to do?

Hundred dollar question, including online, although I don't know how you're going to get it sometimes. Why start a tradition with Vinaya? Why not start with Madhyamaka, for example?

Which way? I think she said because people make mistakes in the beginning. Yeah, it's true, but why start with Vinaya?

[Speaker 2]
I think because morality is the base of everything, of good and bad.

[Speaker 1]
Good meditation of understanding of emptiness. I can't hear anything you're saying. That morality is the base of everything.

Yeah, good. Yeah, hundred dollars. You can start with emptiness.

But without karma, people won't understand emptiness. So we start with ethics. Collect good karma.

Good seeds. Then you can understand those deeper subjects. So the first books are How to Be a Good Person, and that gives you the power to study emptiness later.

You can say that all of the ancient 2,500 years tradition, you can say 50% is what we call the traditional way or the older way. We call it Theravada. And that's two special schools.

Vinaya, which is ethics. And then Abhidharma, which is kind of similar to science. Abhidharma is a big, big collection of ancient teachings.

It covers many ancient topics. Kind of like an encyclopedia. If you translated a book about Abhidharma, after nine years of work, you could call it everything in the universe.

Okay, and I think we should give a hand to Stanley. And his first translation just came out in the last month. We should give a hand to Rosa and Anatole and Lindsay who make that happen.

Thank you. If it's just Stanley, the book will never reach the real world. Those three people make it real and they make the books.

And now Stanley's working on a deeper Abhidharma. And Xiaoping finished her Vinaya book at the same time. Their karma seems to be linked together.

And this is called The Essence of the Ocean. And I mentioned it before, but it's very exciting. This book is very important.

This includes all the vows for men and all the vows for women. And the vows for women were missing for a thousand years. And we've re-found them.

John Brady's project found them. And Xiaoping translated them. So, this is the first chance that the women's vows have been recovered and printed in a thousand years.

And we're kind of packaging them together. And I call it the first half of Buddhism. These two books are 700 years of Buddhism.

There's the box. Stanley has the box. It looks like a lunch box to me.

So, it's a delicious lunch for you. Again, if you have trouble sleeping, these books are the solution. Just five minutes, late at night.

Kuh. And that's on purpose. Then those thoughts will stay in your mind.

Whole night. And I'm not kidding. It's a very good idea.

Just look at them for five minutes before you sleep. These two books are so thick, you don't need a pillow. Understand?

You can just put them under your head. Okay. Alright.

And I'm excited to say that there's a new project to translate them and print them into Chinese in a company in Singapore. And all of our books. Okay.

And we already got some funding for that. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Alright, we are ... we reached now each one of them, those two kids, they are ready to go deeper. So, Xiaoping's working on a deeper Vinaya text.

Stanley's working on a deeper Abhidharma text. Those will take another ... at least another ten years.

We'll put out book by book, so maybe five, six years, something. Five, six years?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
We'll take several books. But Xiaoping has switched to a deeper commentary. And we are in the middle of a special topic.

So, there's five kinds of causes in ancient teaching. Primary causes. There's four kinds of secondary causes.

Nine kinds of causes. And we are trying to figure out what kind of cause makes your vows. When you make a promise to behave well, that promise is born, and that promise attaches itself to you.

Then if we carefully study the cause which gives birth to those vows, we can keep them better. So, basically, we're going through the five kinds of causes, which happen to be presented in the second chapter of Stanley's book. And we're looking at those five kinds of causes one by one to see if they give birth to vows in your heart.

And if you can find the cause, you can keep it healthy. Keep your vows. And don't hurt other people.

And then as Ronit said, that's the best way to see emptiness. Okay? Which is Nick's book and Tim's book.

Again. Okay? Alright, here we go.

Xiaoping, please read the first sentence. PHYI PHYIR PHYI PHYIR NA ZAG PA MED PA RNAMS MA YIN CHEN The YIN, I want you to say English way.

[Speaker 2]
YIN.

[Speaker 1]
YIN. Yeah. YIN CHEN Oh, CHEN NA is the correct one.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
CHEN NA is the correct one. CHEN NA, yeah. ZAG PA MED PA RNAMS PA PHYIR RNAMS PA PHYIR RNAMS PA PHYIR DE MED PA RNAMS PA PHYIR ZAG PONG CHUNG PO ZHING ZHES GSUNGS PA'I PHYIR Nice.

Okay, good. Let me get a bigger arrow up here for you. I hope so.

How about here? Here? Is it?

Yeah, okay. Alright, there are a lot of mistakes in this carving. And we are fixing them as we go.

Okay, so it's PHYIR PHYIR ... it should say PHYIR PHYIR ZAG PA MED PA RNAMS. PHYIR PHYIR ZAG PA MED PA RNAMS Yeah. PHYIR PHYIR means what?

In debate especially. PHYIR PHYIR Why?

[Speaker 2]
Why? Exactly.

[Speaker 1]
Why? ZAG PA means ... Impurity.

Okay, impure. It literally means dripping, and I hate to ... I don't want to say something impolite, but menstrual blood is called ZAG PA.

So it means unclean or dirty or something like that. ZAG PA MED PA means ... Pure.

Completely pure. Okay? ZAG PA MED PA And then there's a mistake in the carving, another mistake.

And it says, why isn't it dirty things? What's it? Maybe your vows, right?

GZHAN NA If you say ... ZAD PA is the eighth link of the Wheel of Life. It means desire.

Desire. In general, desire. We were talking in Stanley's book about grasping to your body and mind as you die.

And this is the same word. ZAD PA And we had an important discovery in this class, I don't know, a year ago or something. What is the special power that makes bad seeds open faster?

Yeah, if you don't understand them. So here it says craving, which means also craving for the self-existence. ZAD PA here means desire or craving.

It also means craving for the existence of the self. Geshe Michael has ZAD PA for Pea Street Café cinnamon bun. It doesn't mean I think it's self-existent.

It just means I like the taste. If enjoying its sweet taste means I don't share it, then yes, I am seeing the cinnamon roll as self-existent. Then I have to go to Pea Street Café, eat as many as possible, and try to meditate on the emptiness.

Right? That's what I tell my wife. I think word has to tell us.

What is LEN PA? LEN PA Yeah, got wet. Little bit rare word, which is what word is good for.

So, that karmic seed didn't get LEN PA. It's still dry in the package. We bought a big package of seeds, my wife and I.

We were lazy. We didn't plant them. They got ...

they were on the porch outside. We had a big rain. The seeds got LEN PA inside the package.

Wet, and they tried to open. Then we lost all the money from the seeds. So here he says, because you don't think about those seeds in the wrong way, they don't get wet.

So, he's talking about dry seeds. SNGON PA MA LEN PA means perfectly dry seeds. Then he says DRUNG PO.

Say DRUNG PO. DRUNG PO means very potent. STRONG, yeah.

If they get wet, if they get soiled, they will grow good plants. So here it says the SABAN is DRUNG PO, but it's MA LEN. Yeah, it didn't get wet.

Okay, the seed is potent. The seed could grow into something big. But it was refused the conditions.

It doesn't have ... it's not wet. Now, we are discussing whether or not the vows of those five different kinds of vows, if they can grow from karma.

So, karmic vows, karmic cause is one of the five kinds of Abhidharma causes. Like you kill an animal, then later you will have cancer, something like that. Okay, then that's called a karmic cause.

The ancient word is cooking cause, NAM MIN, cooking. It cooks. So, he's discussing, is the cause that creates vows in your heart?

And don't forget in this school, when you take a vow, an aura grows on your body. It's like an invisible light. If it's a bodhisattva vow, you keep that aura even if you die.

If it's a monk's vow, that aura disappears when you die. Because monk and nun's vow, you only promise to keep for the rest of your life. GC MA RTZO BA'I BAR DU, until the day I die.

Bodhisattva vow, you keep it until your enlightenment. Even past that time, you keep it. Past that time of dying?

Even after ... no, after you get enlightenment. Oh, you keep it.

Okay. So, he's going through the five different causes one by one. Is this the cause that creates that vow light around your body?

Then he says, the kind of vow that makes some cancer happen to you after you kill animals. The kinds of vows. Well, sorry, the kind of karma ...

seed. The kind of seed that makes you get cancer when you've been killing animals your whole life. Does that kind of cause create vows?

In the Abhidharma system. You have to say, in the Abhidharma system. Now, very interesting.

In the Abhidharma system, when the cause is a karma, good karma or bad karma, the result is always never karma. Okay, that's interesting. In their school, that cancer, result of killing animals and eating animals your whole life, that cancer is a result, but it's not a new cause.

It's not a bad deed. You see what I mean? It's the result of a bad deed.

Bad deeds are bad karma. But the result they give you is kind of the end of the story. It's not like getting cancer is a mistake, or it's not like getting cancer is hurting somebody.

It's the result of hurting somebody. And in the Abhidharma system, all karmic results are neutral. They are not good karma.

They are not bad karma. The result of a bad karma is not a bad karma itself. Therefore, when we ...

you know, we are on a long one-year journey to find the cause of that beautiful vow aura. Listen, can that cause be good or bad karma? The answer is no.

They're like, what? Taking vows is not good karma? It's not a result of a good karma.

Okay, that vow that grows on you, it doesn't come from a good karma in the Abhidharma system. Why? SKYE BA YIN PA'I PHYIR Yeah, that aura itself is a good deed.

To have that aura itself is a good deed. To take a vow and keep a vow is a good deed. Therefore, it cannot be a karma result.

The results of good deeds are always neutral karma. The cancer you get from killing animals is not a bad deed itself. Okay, but the aura you get from taking vows is a good deed.

Therefore, what causes those vows cannot be ... Yeah, cannot be karma. Sorry, it is karma.

What causes the vows is karma. I'm sorry, cannot be karma. Because the result of karma is always neutral.

Okay, got it? So, we can ... out of the five causes in Stanley's book, we can say that good karma is not the cause of your vows.

Because if good karma was the cause of your vows, your vows could not be a good thing. They would have to be neutral result. Okay?

You okay? So, now we have to go to other causes. Still trying to find out ...

out of the five causes in Stanley's book, which one created the vows in Xiaoping's book? We have to go look for another cause. And he quotes Abhidharma, and Mixed Nuts, our rule is we always find the quote, and we just check it.

And in fact, there are some small differences. They're not fatal differences. They don't kill the meaning.

Okay, Xiaoping's going to choose a victim. This is the pleasure of a translator. You can get revenge on the people you don't like.

Go. Stanley. You want to bring a chair?

Or you want to read from there? Yeah, they can read from there. That's not the first word.

Say? Say. Good.

Good, nice, nice, nice reading. We reached a new topic, NYI PA. And we're going to explain the RGYUD.

What's RGYUD? We're going to explain RGYUD. The cause of DONG PA, vows of vinaya, sotar, pratimoksha vows.

PHRAD DAG DU means in detail. We talked about the kind of causes that don't make your vows. For example, karma.

The Abhidharma system does not make your vows. Because then those vows could not be a good karma. Because all good karmas...

all good karmas are... what do you call it? All results of good karma are neutral.

So he says, hey, you want to know which of the five causes is the cause of your vows? And he's going to have a whole section about it. Then he starts out by saying DAR CHOG.

Say DAR CHOG. CHOG is a short word for chogga, chogga. When you say chogga in combination with other words, you shorten it to chog.

Chogga means ritual. In this case, it's a ritual for taking your vinaya vows. DAR means spread, did already, spread in the past.

Past tense, spread. And this is a cute vinaya story. When the Buddha first came to this world, and he wants to make somebody a nun, for example, he'd just look at them and say, come here.

Then their hair fall out. Then their jacket become robe. That's the old system.

So, Buddha just say, come here. Then boop! And their clothes become robe.

Nowadays, the ritual is like three hours, four hours. Many people ask me, Geshe-la, Geshe-la, can you make me ordained? And I'm like, yeah, we can do sometime.

Because I don't have four hours. I don't have three hours. I don't have three minutes to make you nun or...

I don't have time. In many ways, I don't have time. So then people are always asking me, can I meet with you just ten minutes?

And I'm like, I don't have... my life doesn't have that time. I don't have that time.

If I'm younger, maybe I can do. But my time is spent, mostly spent already. Okay, so anyway, the new ceremony for monks and nuns, new for how many years?

Two and a half thousand. Okay, the new ceremony, which is called dar chok. Dar means spread in the world now.

In every country you can take monk or nun's vow. So we call it the spread ceremony, which spread throughout the world. So, this author, he says, if you want to know the cause of your vows, first, are you talking the old ceremony or the new ceremony?

The old ceremony is 2,500 years and two months. The old ceremony is 2,500 years and two months. That new ceremony is very young.

Only 2,500 years. Okay, so he says, look, we're talking new ceremony, and you donpa len, you took the vow, you took a monk's vow or nun's vow. You took the vow.

You should have kun lung. What's kun lung? Motivation.

And in Abhidharma, motivation is divided into two kinds. Say gyu yi kun lung. Gyu yi kun lung.

Ah, I woke up. Or de du kyi kun lung. Gyu yi kun lung.

De du kyi kun lung. So, I don't know, personally, I'm focusing on eating breakfast. That's gyu yi kun lung.

Sometime before noon, I would like to have breakfast. That motivation is going to cause me to eat breakfast. I hope so.

So, I hold that motivation until I start breakfast. Then the second kind of motivation starts. And that's the motivation which keeps me eating breakfast until I finish breakfast.

It's called motivation for the duration. Duration means during that time. So, every action in the world has two kinds of motivation.

One is, I want to do it while you are planning that action. One is, I will keep doing this until I finish my breakfast, which is at the time of the breakfast. So, here our author says, I'm talking the first kind.

First kind. What's your motivation to take vows before the ceremony starts? It must be donpa len du.

I want to take vows. Before you take vows, before the ceremony starts, you must have that motivation. And in a way, that motivation ...

we've been looking for the cause of the vows. Can we say that that motivation is one of the causes of the vows? Yeah, that's the main cause.

And by the way, it has to be a pure motivation. We're going to talk about it. It shouldn't be, oh, Gyel Tse got nuns' vows, why can't I have nuns' vows?

It shouldn't be because you want to copy somebody else. It should be you want them to reach nirvana and enlightenment yourself. Okay, who's going to read the next one, Shantideva?

Rob?

[Speaker 2]
Are we at the top?

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
DE MED PAR GUS KU RE? KU RE.

[Speaker 1]
Say KU RE.

[Speaker 2]
KU RE.

[Speaker 1]
Not KU RE. KU RE. KU RE.

KU RE. Yeah, okay, good. It's a nice word.

I want you to learn it. KU RE.

[Speaker 2]
KU RE. DANG ZHES RGAN GYIS ...

[Speaker 1]
It's misspelled. ZHES RGYAS.

[Speaker 2]
ZHES RGYAS. CHER?

[Speaker 1]
Yep.

[Speaker 2]
SDU SDOM PA LANGS KYANG MI SKYES?

[Speaker 1]
MI SKYES.

[Speaker 2]
MI SKYES. What's the next one?

[Speaker 1]
BA'I.

[Speaker 2]
BA'I. CHER.

[Speaker 1]
Good.

[Speaker 2]
Good.

[Speaker 1]
Again, it's misspelled. ZHES RGYAS KYIS? ZHES RGYAS KYIS.

It's badly misspelled. Oh, okay. ZHES RGYAS KYIS.

[Speaker 2]
NUS PO NI GANG RGYUR YANG MI RGYUR RO ZHES GSUNGS PA'I PHYIR Nice!

[Speaker 1]
Yay! Did I find a word that a word doesn't know? Kure?

He should pay me, right? Okay, okay. An ancient, ancient word for joke.

Joke or fun or something like that. And ZHES RGYAS is very similar. ZHES RGYAS.

So, as a joke or just for fun, SDONG PA LEN, SDONG PA LANG, same. What's it mean? Take vows.

So, you know, somebody say, I don't know, hey, you want to take vows? And you're like, yeah, okay, it's kind of fun. Or you take the worst kid in the whole class and you say, let's give him vows just for fun.

As a joke, let's give this kid monks vows. He's the worst kid in the class. Most naughty.

Not you. Then it'll be so fun if the most naughty kid has vows. Let's give him.

Like that. What's the appropriate idiom? Now we see some fireworks.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Give the vows to the most naughty boy. He'll probably break all of them in a few weeks.

Okay, so just as a joke, to see how terrible he does. SDONG PA LANG Go to the ceremony, you know, give him new robes. Give him a monk's name.

Okay, even if you do all the ceremony, and you give the robes, and you give the new name, here it says SDONG PA MI SKYE. The vow will not grow. Why?

Motivation. The motivation is not there. The robes are there.

The vow giver guys, five guys are all there. The robes are there.

[Speaker 2]
Ceremony is there.

[Speaker 1]
But even if he repeats the vows, they will not grow. This gives us a clue what is the cause of vows. Yeah, what is it?

Motivation. Motivation. Which is not karma in the Abhidharma system.

in the higher system you can say everything is karma. Even if he wants to take the vows as a joke, that's his karma, right? But through this example our author is teaching us, what's the true and necessary single cause to take vows?

Motivation. Must have. You do it for kure?

You do it for shege? MI SKYE It will not grow. Okay, good.

We have a clue there. Okay, then he says, SDIN GNYIS LAS SDIN GNYIS means that one most important book. He's going to back up his statement that to take vows as a joke is not enough to create them.

So, he's going to quote a book. He doesn't say the name of the book. He says, IT SAYS In this system, what is IT most important book?

Yeah, you can say Vinaya Sutra. Yeah, in the Geshe course. For Vinaya.

We study Vinaya Sutra. Who wrote it? Its sutra must be spoken by Buddha, right?

Yeah, Gunaprabha. Sometimes sutra doesn't mean teaching a Buddha, it means short book. What's a very common example for that?

Yoga Sutra. Short book about yoga. When we translated it, we translated it as short book about yoga.

You shouldn't publish a book called Yoga Sutra. Yeah, it's confusing. It means, oh, Buddha spoke this book, you know?

The sutra in Yoga Sutra just means short book. Now, sometimes the short book is long. And the Vinaya Sutra is pretty long.

It was taught about a thousand years after Buddha. Okay, and so the mother book of Vinaya, it says, ,GZHAD RGYAS KYI DNGOS PO NI, if the thing is for a joke, ,GANG RGYAS YANG MI RGYUR, it won't grow into anything. It will not grow into vows.

Okay? That's the mother book. So now we proved it through lung or rikpa.

Lung. We called it the sutra. You can prove something from quotation, or you can prove something from logic.

He already proved it from logic. When he said, it cannot be a karmic result because itself is a good karma. That's logic.

Now he used quotation. And this author is very careful to do both each time. And this is the greatest commentary on Vinaya I ever saw.

And it's long and it's hard. And Xiaoping will be an old lady before she finishes. She will have to come to the nursing home to get the class.

Okay, this next one's really long. I'm going to split it. Okay, who's going to read Xiaoping?

You start here. Sadhu. You correct.

Good day. Good day. Thank you.

Okay, I'll just make a note for myself. It looks wrong, but it's correct. Domba means what?

Val? Sadhu. Yeah, fresh.

Khyewa means be born. Will a new val be born? Yeah, but it needs a du kyi kun rung.

It means a motivation at the time. That motivation is a difficult word here. The word is a difficult phrase here.

It must be kye rung. It must be ... the situation must be appropriate.

That the new monk or new nun should have top shay. Top shay. Say top shay.

Top shay is a Vinaya expression. The end of ceremony, the master, the vow master, will give the vow. Then they'll say tab yin no.

Have you received the vow? Then the new monk, new nun, they will say tab la. Then the vow giver go bap.

That means, okay, the vow started now. All you vow takers, Diamond Way vow takers, which is happening soon for our Diamond Way group, Clear Diamond group, when the teacher go boop, I can't make it very loud right now. Then you say, then you say, I got it.

That's called top shay. Okay, so here it says if in order to get the vow, in order to get the vow to start, the starting line is when the student says top. What?

Tab yin no. Tab yin no. Did you get it?

Top shaw. Then I go bang. Then the vow start.

Okay, got it? And then when I snap my finger, you get top shay. I got it.

Now I can break it. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That's called top shay.

Okay, so if it can trigger top shay, then you got the vow. Okay, if it can trigger the knowledge that you have the vow, then you got the vow. Then he's going to give some examples where the top shay doesn't grow.

The vow does not grow. Okay, the student cannot say, I got it. Who's going to read that?

Word, would you like to read? Oh, trouble. Oh, two minutes.

The countdown including the other time, so it's two minutes. Oh, it's discussion time? Yeah.

Okay, read? Yeah, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, good. Say lenpa.

Lenpa means super stupid. Good word to use for your friends. Okay.

So, who cannot get this emotion, I got the vows? You know, top law. They cannot get this state of mind.

I get that, I got the state of vows. Lenpa, say len. Timug.

In normal language, it means just too stupid. And it means like mentally retarded. Okay, person has ...

maybe they fell down when they're a kid or something. Then they really can't think straight. In this case, they cannot jopa, which means to state, to speak.

Jopa, mi jopa. The Ming of their Kempo. The name of their vow giver.

Do you wish to take vows today? Yes. Do you wish to take them from that guy with the air-conditioned head?

Yes. Do you wish to take them from Michael Roach? Yes.

Yes. So, repeat after me. I want to take vows from the vow master.

Name? If you're that stupid and you cannot remember, you think the vow will grow or not? It will not grow.

They can't even remember the vow master's name during the ceremony. Not only that, da nyi kyi min, what's your name? Are you here at the ceremony?

Yes. Do you wish to become a monk or nun? Yes.

What's your name? Okay, if you wish to become a monk or nun, if your mind is that dull, it says here, donpa mi kye, the vow will not start. And there's a lot of things in Vinaya that the person who takes the vows must be intelligent.

And their mind has to be clear. And their motivation has to be clear. And actually, their personality has to be strong.

Or the vow will not start. Okay, got it? Okay, grandpa's going to start to sit down there.

And you're going to lead a conversation. Yes, yes. Thank you Geshe-la for your teaching.

So, anyway, I would like to share briefly, just share one main point that you take away from this class that you can apply in your life or your work. Yeah. You can raise your hand.

Ronit?

[Speaker 2]
Mostly I think that the motivation is everything. And it makes me think about the motivation behind everything I do. Including wanting to take more vows.

So, thank you for the reminder.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you so much. It's beautiful. Okay.

My biggest takeaway is that vows is the basic foundation for everything and give me the motivation I want to take vows. And it give me instructions for my life. How I do things in my life.

And to help me climb more kamma, so I can go deeper in the study of the wisdom. Thank you. Shu Yu, Zhang Shu Yu, YLP student.

YLP student, Shu Yu. Actually, it doesn't mean that you think you are confident. But when you don't share the meat roll, but want to eat a meat roll, it means that you think you are confident.

It doesn't come from you. It tells me that if you have an idea of doing something, it doesn't mean that we want to do something, it means that we have a wish, it means that we forget the emptiness. But when we don't understand, it comes from what we create and give.

That's when we forget the emptiness. Thank you. His biggest takeaway is what Geshe said, that when you want to enjoy the cinnamon roll, it doesn't mean that you believe cinnamon roll is self-existent.

It's only when you want to eat the cinnamon roll, but you don't want to share, then in that case, you believe that cinnamon roll is self-existent. That made me think that if we want to do one thing, if we have a wish, that doesn't mean that we forget about emptiness. Only when we don't understand this thing or this wish is coming from ourselves, then we are really forgetting about emptiness.

Thank you. Sun Gang.

[Speaker 2]
My takeaway is that first of all, you have to become a kind person. In that case, your aspiration and your effort will have power.

[Speaker 1]
What? Will have power. My personal experience is that I have a son.

[Speaker 2]
I used to think that he was too kind. When he was in school, we were worried that he would be bullied. But now after listening to this class, I think this is a very good foundation for him.

[Speaker 1]
I also think that he will have infinite potential. Thank you. OK.

What I learned most from this class is to be a kind, good person. And that in that way, the vows we take or our aspiration will be powerful. And personally, my practice will be that I used to think that my son is too kind.

We are worried that he will be bullied at school. But now after learning this class, I understand that he has laid a good foundation for his life. I believe he has infinite potential.

One last thing. OK. Lindsay.

Yeah, I liked that we emphasized how Vinaya is like the foundation. Morality is the foundation. Because sometimes when you know someone won't understand emptiness yet, it's hard to share what you know or talk to them or help them.

But if you can help people plant the seeds to understand emptiness later, you can really help them. OK. OK.

I think we still have time. One more. I have to share with you.

After the sharing. Yeah. Liu Lu.

For this whole Dragon's class. Yeah. OK.

OK. Can you say that again? That is, if I seek liberation from a very pure level of consciousness, all my later spiritual practice will be based on such a pure, very pure, and unsatisfied, very pure level of consciousness to accumulate my liberation or to do this thing, to live, to act.

In the end, I want to seek liberation. Maybe I can help others. But if I say from a teacher, for example, I'm kidding.

Or for example, I want to be special. Or I want to have a point that I want. In fact, is she seeking liberation At the level of karma.

OK. She is saying that if we have a pure state of mind to attain nirvana or freedom, then our behavior will be pure, will be will be pure. And then you will have a pure state of mind.

And we will have the vows, the light of the vows. And we are going to do things based on that pure state of mind and to live. If we are just out of making a joke or to think that I want to be special.

If you have this kind of motivation to take the vows, then you are taking the vows and you are acting from the perspective of you are acting from the perspective of karma. That's what she said. She is trying to clarify the understanding from your class.

Thank you. OK. Anyone?

OK. Thank you so much for this class. And thank you students online and in person.

Thank you online students and offline students. That's all for the discussion today. And for the...

That's all for today's discussion. And we can cut off the online part.

[Speaker 2]
Hey everyone. Thank you very much for this. Here we are in Dragon's Head, this super beautiful land.

We're outside. And it's getting prettier and prettier. It's very interesting.

And now, I'm struggling a little bit with the internet connection, but I'll try my best.

[Speaker 1]
Pachi, very kindly, he just went inside.

[Speaker 2]
He's going to try to get Tim Lowenhaupt to come because we have very exciting news about Kyoto. But in the meantime, and speaking about Kyoto, before I'll share with you some of the events coming up, just letting you know that Ben and Kendra are planning to do a debate course during Kyoto. And just yesterday, because Pachi came to visit Arizona, he stayed at home with me and Tatiana, and he was showing me a very cool video that Ben and Kendra made about this event.

So, the video is not ready yet for us to have it with subtitles and everything, but luckily we have no other than Ben and Kendra, or Ben, I don't know, here with us today to talk a little bit about it, about what is he doing, how is he preparing for it.

[Speaker 1]
Before we move into that, I'm just getting heads up for Ben to be ready. Let me just share quickly some of the news that are going to be around this week.

[Speaker 2]
First is about the Blue Sky Friends. Last week, Gielse had a great class. Well, really, I am assuming, it's the first picture, please, that it was great, because I was not there.

But I want to show you. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what she did. Exactly, yeah.

Friday is about how to help people go through this process, preparing this process to getting ready for that. But now, Anjali, Nicole, Anjali Bikna, she's going to start participating again with sessions. It's the next picture.

[Speaker 1]
So, what's going to be like is that first Fridays and third Fridays of the month, Gail and Ellie are going to be teaching how to get ready for this process.

[Speaker 2]
And on the second Fridays of the month, Anjali is going to be sharing tools, healthy tools, on how to grief or how to overcome this process when you go through loss in life.

[Speaker 1]
And for those of you who may want to get some context out of it, I've shared with you the YouTube channel. You can watch the recordings there. It's the next picture.

[Speaker 2]
Yay. So, that way, even if you cannot come live, you could catch up and get to know what's going on. Let me then share what's going on here for those of you who may be wondering online.

Those were the first pictures before. This is the end of the DSEU term that happened here in Arizona.

[Speaker 1]
A dragon's head. Yes, thank you so much. Yeah, I made a mistake presenting first and last until the first or something.

[Speaker 2]
This is the end today. And we finished with Shrunk Sense Tower that happened every Saturday and every Monday. And Shrunk Sense Tower, the idea is that no matter what programs are running, Geshe-la saves time for these translation classes.

So, you can get the QR codes and the timing in the next pictures. And if you want to also sign up to start getting books, the final work of this series, you can find them on either Diamond Cutter Press or joining the Good Night Book Club that I'm sharing next here with you. Yay, thank you.

And along, remember, the daily mailing list is an option as well for those interested in getting updates from Geshe-la and his translation progress, along with international news. Cool. So, now it's time for us to talk about Kyroto.

And if Ben is somewhere there and he could raise his hand and be spotlight, look who's here with me. Pachi is here also. Hi, dental folk.

Hello.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. Can I pin myself or something? I think I can even do it myself.

Is it true?

[Speaker 2]
Hopefully.

[Speaker 1]
I can pin. Am I pinned?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Marina handled it. No. Perfect.

Hi. Hi, Juan. Hi, Pachi.

[Speaker 2]
Hello. Good to see you. Super beautiful place.

I really recommend you sometime, when you have the chance, come. It's amazing.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. We'll bring the little boy. Yeah.

It's beautiful.

[Speaker 2]
It is. And the river, amazing. Really amazing.

Pachi's also super stoned, you say? I don't know. Okay.

Surprise. Not stoned, but stoned. Yeah.

Stoned. Stoned.

[Speaker 1]
Like a surfer on a great wave in the middle of the desert.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I guess so, in the middle of the desert. So, tell us a little bit, like, Pachi was showing me the video you made as a presentation, and it's really interesting.

[Speaker 2]
The approach you have to it, and the benefits you were telling about it, you were sharing about it. My main interest right now is to hear what are you planning, how are you planning to present it, what topics, and how to get people involved and excited about it.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I'm going to take your question and go in the direction that I want to go instead, if you'll forgive me.

[Speaker 2]
Like a good debater.

[Speaker 1]
I have some reputation for being an annoying debater, but I want you to know, while I believe that debate is a powerful secret weapon for developing your mind, I have a secret trick of my own, which is my debate partner, who I've brought with me today, and is coming with me to Kyoto, my lifelong debate partner that lives in the house with me. If you can keep a debate partner with you all day, every day, for your whole life, it'll keep you on your toes. So I thought, you hear me talk enough, it'd be fun to hear my wife, Kendra, who some of you know, and some of you know well.

What do you think? How has debate impacted your life in a way that maybe people could get a taste of?

[Speaker 2]
It will help. It's so much fun. It's like having a new game where you can go deeper in the things that you're studying and have greater conviction about the things that you're learning.

It's a great listening game. This guy here, he's like one of the best listeners, and it's so frustrating sometimes because he's like, no, that's not what I said. No, that's not what I said.

No, that's not what you said. And I'm like, oh, you're right. And so in that way, it's a great listening tool because everybody wants to be heard.

And so learning to listen is a great tool, but it'll also help you have a better ability to communicate the things that you're studying and be able to help your family have greater understanding about the things you're studying, help the people in your life understand the things that you're studying because it'll help you be able to communicate a little bit better about them. I'm being translated live. I've got to go slow.

Oh, go slow. We're being translated. Yes.

Yeah. And now the question is, how are you going to get people into it? What is your plan to, I don't know, talking about the benefits, are you going to make them get a five-minute partner to debate?

[Speaker 1]
We'll teach a few basics and then we'll just get people started. And it's addictive. Once you get started, you can't stop.

It'll be time to go eat food or go to another class and you'll be worked up and say, no, wait, I have to keep convincing this person of something. So once we get you started, it'll begin to happen naturally. And our hope is to build something for the whole community together that we can all start to do more regularly together.

And I'm kind of looking for volunteers to reach out to me if you have an interest. I want to start local groups to debate in your own language with your local communities. And I will help.

I will meet you online. We can all, I'll do my best to support you and visit as much as possible, but it's going to be coolest in your own language. So our hope is that this is a kickoff to start moving in that direction, to have a, like a worldview debate federation or something like a party going all over where people can be debating individually.

You can write, if you want to write to Diamond Cutter Classics at Gmail, you can send me a note there and then we'll start, I'm looking for people in their home languages to start the party at home also. And we'll sort of kick things off in Kyoto. Awesome.

Batu wants to say something. Do you have the first one? Great.

Good. Okay. All right.

I'm excited to hear that. Wonderful.

[Speaker 2]
So, and I hope, my hope, and maybe Pachi will know, but my hope is that these sessions are going to be internationally broadcasted so everybody can watch online. If you for whatever reason cannot come live, try to watch online.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah. I believe that's true.

The basics, the classes will be online. There will be some live participation. But again, come plant the seeds and I will help you to start a local community or a local language community.

That's my goal is to get us all debating. And I won't be there for every session in your community, but I'll come and visit and try to help you along as much as I can. And by come, I mean show up online.

I'm not going anywhere except Kyoto. Beautiful. So now you can see the QR code for the event there in Kyoto.

[Speaker 2]
There is also, that's for mostly Chinese audience and this is for international audience, Chinese and international. You can get more information about details about the hotel, the venue, the dates, everything there. And also you can reach out to your, how do you say, trustworthy Pipe Houses producer, whoever that may be.

Pachi is one of them and it's great to have him.

[Speaker 1]
Pachi is our producer, right? Is that true? I'm your producer, yes.

Thank you, Pachi.

[Speaker 2]
So great. Now, for those of you who may not know, today's a very cool day because it is the Pipe Houses director birthday. And although he's somewhere around the land, we want to share a video to celebrate him a little bit and to say, enjoy your weekend and hopefully see you in Kyoto with this video somehow.

So, all right, Marina, thank you. We can just say, see you Monday. And I leave you with this video to celebrate Tim's birthday today.

No, maybe the video was not. One, two minutes because he's just coming.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, it's coming.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, you can send whatever donations and red envelopes you are planning to give to Tim, you can send to the Pitch Three World News account and we'll make sure they are used in a wise way. I'm just totally kidding, eh? You can reach out to him directly if you want.

If you have trouble, Marina, let me know and I can try sharing from here. It seems that she got it.

[Speaker 1]
Happy birthday to you.

[Speaker 2]
A few years ago, Tim let me use his car when I first moved to Arizona for about two years, and he's basically not charging me at all. He's been helping me with the car, he's been helping me set up the utilities and doctors and things like that. He's always there if I need somebody to talk to or if I need his help.

Happy birthday, Tim. So happy you're in the world with us. Happy birthday, Tim.

Happy birthday, Tim. Yay. Happy birthday, Tim.

Tim. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Tim.

Yay. Happy birthday, Tim. I love you so much.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you for all your teaching around the world. Thank you for all your support, and happy birthday. Teacher Tim was the first one I've translated simultaneously four years ago, and since then, every day, I feel happier and happier.

[Speaker 2]
Tim, happy birthday. Thank you for coming to Taiwan and be the light of wisdom for us. See you soon.

Love you. Hello, Tim. The first day I met you was in Shenzhen.

On that day, actually, you told me one thing very important. You told me that I have to keep using Fourstep. This is such a very important advice to me, and I still remember that.

Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Happy birthday, Tim.

Happy birthday. I love my family. I love my family.

[Speaker 1]
You kind of showed me around the world. It's very special. It's very special.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you for your support and your service. Enjoy. Happy birthday team, we love you, thanks for everything you do.

In 2018, in one of the Mixed Nuts terms, I subbed team early to make smoothies for all translators. Happy birthday. Thank you for everything you are doing for the students and for the students.

Please continue to be such an amazing being. Happy birthday. I was going to fix my hair but it's team's birthday so no one should fix their hair today.

Last time I was in Rimrock, Arizona, team gave me some money so I could change my flight and stay for Rowan's head opening. Thank you team. Thank you for believing in me and giving me an opportunity to celebrate such a pleasure to work with you.

Hello there. Happy birthday to you I wish and all the force be with you. I appreciate you.

I want to thank you for your patience and all the projects you trust us. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Timmy.

Happy birthday to you.

[Speaker 1]
And many more.

[Speaker 2]
Felicidades.

[Speaker 1]
Happy birthday Tim.

[Speaker 2]
Happy birthday Tim. We love you. Thank you so much.

We wish you a very happy team's birthday. We wish you a great weekend and hopefully see you Monday. Bye.

Visit Rowan's head one day if you can. Beautiful. Thank you.