Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика», часть 4 — Девять посланий: неожиданный финал Камалашилы к «Сутре Алмазного огранщика» (2017, Даймонд-Маунтин, Аризона), занятие 5

[Speaker 1]
I was in Sri Lanka once, and there's a beautiful Arboretum, it's a whole mountain covered with beautiful trees, and some of them are hundreds of feet high, and there's a small monk's cottage in the middle, they let me stay there, and there's a photo of the people 150 years ago planting the trees, and they knew they wouldn't see the trees when they were grown, but they built ... they put them in for the next generation, right? And I think that's cool, so let's do that, okay.

Alright, we're gonna meditate. So, Buddha said, what? Turn off your cell phone, and do your coughing and blow your nose.

And I'm not going to explain the meditation, you've been doing it for ... most of you for two, three weeks now, and we'll just ... I'll just give you a reminder the next step, okay?

So, these are the first two parts of the Lion's Dance, Singha Vijambita, and then when you come back in the spring we'll do the third part, okay? It's like those TV shows where you have to see the second half tomorrow. The advertisers like it.

Okay, alright, here we go. It'll be about half an hour. So, in this meditation we are using noises in the to start the meditation.

Instead of waiting for the noises to stop, use the sound of the air conditioner, or crickets, or traffic, or children, and glue your mind to this sound. And please come to the sound of your heart, or the feeling of your heart beating in your chest. Then compared to that it would be quieter if we could actually imagine ourselves inside of our heart, and the heart is beating around us.

And it would be more quiet than if we could step away from the heart, and let it beat by itself, without any interference from us. So it's almost as if the heart is beating far away in the dark, and we're not really there. And then we try to focus the thoughts in a quieter place, by imagining that our mind is moving into a single grain of sugar, suspended in dark, and there's a white beautiful grain of sugar, and we slip our mind inside.

Now imagine the mind is a vast lake, surface of a lake, with no shores. And we'll drop a pebble in the middle of the lake, and follow ripples away, endlessly. So don't let the ripple stop, don't get distracted.

Follow on a horizontal plane, the ripples left and right, from the center of your mind. Okay, drop the pebble, then come back to the middle of your mind, and imagine turning on a small light, in the middle of the mind. And a clear light flies away from the center, in a sphere, and it stretches on and on and on.

It passes through this earth, passes this sun, these planets, and expands far into the outer space, the universe, continually expanding clear light of consciousness, from the center of your mind. Okay, turn on the light. It would be more quiet to just turn off the mind.

No feelings, no thoughts, no memories. So when I say go, then try to imagine your mind has just shut down completely. No, nothing moving through the mind.

Total silence. If something comes out, then try to quiet it, push it away, stop it. Compared to that quiet, it would be totally quiet if I could turn my mind off, and not try to stop thoughts from coming, and images coming through my mind.

Just let them come, let them go, not attached to them. It would be more silent if I didn't have to make the effort to try to block them. So turn off the mind, and then happily relax, surrender to thoughts moving through the mind, and don't attach to them.

So all of that was a preparation. It's not real meditation. It's just like stretching your muscles before you run a race.

Those meditations don't uplift you. They don't, they don't stop the forces that, for example, are making us grow older, or that cause conflict in the world. They're peaceful, but they're not some kind of solution to the problems of the world.

So traditional, we go to a ninth level, and in this level, first we have to imagine someone sitting in front of us. And it's traditional to take a teacher of some kind. So it could be your mother or father, someone who taught you a lot.

Could be a schoolteacher. Could be even a sports teacher that you were close to, or someone who taught you your occupation. It could be a spiritual figure in your life.

It could be an historical, spiritual figure, like Jesus, or Muhammad, Moses, Buddha. But bring to mind one of the teachers who has influenced you. Could be your heart lama, the one who helped you the most in this life.

If you haven't met them, it could be some ideal heart lama that you would like to meet in the future. And just bring them to mind in a relaxed way. They are sitting in front of you.

They are also relaxed. They are looking at you with love and tenderness. With your eyes closed, you are also looking at them.

And make sure they're alive. Their heart is beating. Their chest is moving with their breath.

You can feel the warmth and fragrance of a human being. And it's traditional to, at this point in the meditation, you pick some quality about them that you admire. Could be something they taught you, or something you'd like to learn from them.

So take a few minutes and try to focus on one good quality that they impressed you and that you admire. And now go to the center of your mind. For me it's like a center of a room at night.

And it's dark. And in the very center of the mind, imagine a small nest, bird's nest, of eggs, silver eggs. Very beautiful color.

And one of them cracks open. And out of the egg comes like an image made of light, like a hologram. And it's that quality that you see in your teacher.

And that quality drifts towards the front of your mind, like a spirit or something made of light. And it leaves your head, forehead. And then it settles on top of your teacher.

And then appreciate how that quality has come out of those seeds. And left your head and settled on your teacher. And then there should, at this stage, there should be a feeling, a strong feeling that, oh, what I see, the goodness I see in my teacher is actually coming from these deep seeds inside my own mind.

And reflect on that for a little moment and then come back to the bird's nest and watch a second silver seed open. And a similar image of light comes out, passes through the front of your head, settles on this teacher. And appreciate how it's coming from you and then go back to the eggs and see a stream of images coming out and creating this quality that you see in your teacher.

These seeds are opening at the rate of 65 per second in real life. And it's so fast we can't see it. But in this meditation we are imagining that we can see it.

And then practicing that helps us one day during meditation to actually see those seeds opening. Could even be standing in the kitchen one day. You suddenly observe that you are creating a pot of water on the stove or it's coming out of seeds in your own mind.

So watch the seeds open in a relaxed way. One by one. Very beautiful images coming out.

Very sweet feeling. And this kind of surprise that what you see is coming from you. Now a fun part.

We go on a little adventure to try to imagine how we might have planted those seeds in a past life. So most of us, including me, I can't, I can't anytime I want to just look at my past life. I don't have that strength of meditation.

But I can, we can all imagine an imaginary past life. We can all fantasize about what we might have done, who we might have been, where we might have lived in some time hundred years ago or a thousand years ago. And we can make up a story about how we planted those seeds that are opening here in 2017 into our teacher.

So go ahead, use your imagination. Use the images and impressions of your own life, whatever comes up in your mind. Incorporate it into this painting of your imaginary past life in which you showed kindness to others and planted these beautiful seeds to see what you see today.

Don't let the story stall. Keep it going. Make it more and more interesting.

And don't feel restrained. Let your imagination run wild. Anything you can imagine is also coming from your past seeds.

You've earned them. You deserve those images. So use them.

Now come back to this teacher in front of you and respectfully ask them to move to the side and replace them with another teacher who looks exactly the same, but this one is like a shell of a real person. This is only an imaginary teacher, because this one doesn't come from you. This one doesn't come from your seeds.

And this is how we see everything around us. We don't remember that it's coming from us, from how we treated other people. And we have this automatic feeling that this person is coming from their own side and what they say, what they do to me is coming from their side, from what they decide to do.

And it's not really my fault. And the implication of that is that all the people we've met in our life, it was, as science says, an accident. There was a huge explosion billions of years ago in the dark and then, with no cause, and then little pieces of matter started moving out from the center.

Some of them joined together and created elements. And then after almost uncountable years, they became stars, planets. And then on some very lucky planets, water formed and life began and evolved until humans came.

And then many years later, I was born into this world by accident. And my teacher was born in the same place. And then by accident, by the same forces that created the earth and planets, the same random forces, we met each other by accident, happy accident by accident.

And there's not any history between us other than that. There are no past lives. We didn't know each other before.

And after I die or they die, we'll be separated. And there's no destiny that ties us together. Life is a huge accident that started with an explosion.

And although I love them and I care for them, it's not as though I created them or they created me. And it's not as though we have any ultimate purpose together. We will be separated by the same forces that brought us together by accident.

So imagine this. We call a false image of a teacher, random teacher, accidental meeting. And put this teacher in front of you.

The real teacher is off to the side. They come from how you treated other people. And now this fake teacher is sitting in front of you.

And try to feel some kind of outrage or objection deep in your heart that, I don't really believe in accidents. I don't believe that I don't have any destiny with this person. I don't believe we came from a random explosion.

I don't believe we will be separated with no purpose in our meeting. So at this point in the meditation, which is the most important part, we banish that image, we cancel that image of an accidental meeting. And that leaves some kind of space or some kind of absence where they used to be.

But we canceled them. We said, oh you don't exist. And now there's an available space in front of us.

And we're supposed to try to link up with this space in some way. Become that space. Let your mind be filled with this space, which is left over when an accidental world is canceled or pushed away.

And this is really the available space that all things can exist in, which are coming from us. It's like a blank movie screen. So sit for a minute with the blank movie screen.

The absence of an accidental life, teacher. For me, when I get to this stage, there's the absence in the middle. I like to think of a peach fruit.

And I took out the pit, the seed in the middle. And there's a little cavity, cave, where the seed was. And that's the emptiness of any accidental things.

But surrounding that space is this very sweet fruit of all the people and things I've created by being kind to others. The whole support system of my life, the whole physical world of blue sky, earth, beautiful creatures and people, are like the peach fruit. And those are real.

And they are coming from my past kindness. In the center, there's an empty space where there's no accidents. Then bring the real teacher back into that space, the one that's coming from your past kindnesses.

Appreciate that they can only exist in a world which is not accidental. And then let's come down through the eight preparation levels. First imagine the mind is turned off and there's no resistance to thoughts coming through.

Then move to a little bit louder place where you are turned off your mind but you are fighting images that come up, random thoughts that come up. You're trying to keep the mind turned off and that's a little noisier. Bring back that clear light from the edges of space in a sphere contracting towards you, towards the center of your mind.

The light is your own awareness now coming towards the center. Bring the ripples back across the lake, endless lake, towards the center. Slip back into the grain of sugar.

See your heart beating from a distance. Come back inside the heart and beat with the heart. And then come back into your body, meditating in this room.

And watch your chest beating, heart beating. The last step is always to protect this karma that we just created by putting it in the bank of other people. So we will give away the good karma of this meditation by taking three deep exhales.

Imagine the breath is a golden light. Be super relaxed and as the breath flows out imagine that it's a beautiful light which is touching people in this room and this country and this world and bringing them some happiness and comfort. Then gently open your eyes.

Take a stretch. Drink something. Pachi, make sure our guests have water.

Okay. I'll take about ten minutes of questions then we'll take a break. Okay?

And we'll stretch. So, if there are any questions. You guys did very well.

I'm really ... it felt very very good in here and I think you did a serious retreat, more serious than I did. So, thank you for that.

It feels really good in the room and I'm really grateful to Rob and all the other Diamond Mountain people for making it possible for us to be here. Okay, question.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la, for teaching. Thank you for bringing us all together. This has been amazing.

Also, thank you for the peach metaphor.

[Speaker 1]
It helps me. It relates to a question I've had for the past month, which is in the ninth level, when we drop the booboo llama, the llama that's not coming from our seeds, sometimes I run into this fear of going into the void, like I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, and I was wondering if you had other tips for how to slide the mind into emptiness? Yeah, good.

So, that's the most crucial part of this song right there. You're ... that moment, it took a while to get there right?

Maybe later, when you do it yourself, you can speed up the first eight levels. But, the point in the meditation which is most important, is when you drop the fake llama, who's not coming from you. And, we have different emotions at that moment right?

We feel a little uncomfortable, or ... we can understand a kind of absence, but how am I supposed to relate to that you know? Supposedly, I'm supposed to commune with that, I'm supposed to join, that's when subject and object are supposed to join together.

But, so, how do I do that you know? And, I think a safety net is important. So, around you, around that emptiness, what I call the peach, the meat of the peach, is this beautiful world that you're creating, and all the good things in your life.

So, imagine around that space a kind of safety, which is all the beautiful things of your life, your family, your country, your job, your ... the things ... your body okay?

All the things which are coming from you. And then, get used to moving into the empty center, and ... and then, I always like to tell people, it's your problem at that point.

You know, you're supposed to meld into that emptiness, and lose yourself in a good way okay? And, you have to play with it. I think it's something you have to experience by yourself.

It's someone ... David Swensen calls it, trying to explain the taste of an apple to somebody. So, you have to play with it, you have to have a few failures, you know, and then one day something will click okay?

So, that's ... that's a part of the meditation that I can't describe very well. You have to get into it.

You have to dissolve into that emptiness okay? And you have to stay there for as long as you can. And according to Buddhism, that's the antidote to the pain of the world.

That moment in the meditation is the only thing that can stop the pain of this world. Not even understanding that the people around you come from seeds is enough to stop the pain of the world. Somehow, you have to commune with that emptiness.

So, so ... so get there as fast as you can, reasonably can, and then stay there the longest okay? And you have to experiment, you have to try.

It ... it feels like a rising okay? It ...

it feels like moving up in a elevator. It feels like melding into a higher reality that doesn't have any colors or shapes or tangibility. And then you lose yourself, and you lose time, and you lose awareness of your own mind.

And ... and typically, the first few times you do it directly, it might take 15-20 minutes, but you're not aware of the time okay? Then you just come out.

Why do you come out? Huh? Yeah, it takes years to collect the karma to have that 20 minutes.

And the debit card starts getting deducted the moment you join with the emptiness. It's expensive karma. And then you run out.

It's why ink runs out of pens. It's why your body gets old. Your debit card is deducted every moment you're in the meditation.

So, then you have to go back and collect more good karma. What did the first Panchen Lama say was the best way to collect that karma? Yeah, like, contribute to the spreading of the wisdom okay?

Put buckets of cement around street signs at retreat centers. You know, do something to help other people okay? Contribute to helping other people.

Okay, one more question, we'll take a break.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you Geshe-la. I have a question about something you said maybe three days ago, a few days ago. Maybe I misunderstood, but you were saying how in the teachings, impermanence leads to suffering, and then suffering leads to emptiness.

That last part I didn't really understand.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. I thought that. And I had the same problem.

I thought of a simple way to explain it, which is that, this is just a simple way to explain it. So, once you're aware of the impermanence of your body, which in Buddhism means, moment by moment it is dissolving right? Two hours spent in a yoga class are two hours closer to dying.

And it doesn't mean you shouldn't do yoga okay? Me and Scott are gonna use it as a reason not to do yoga, but still you should do your exercise. So, that's impermanence.

And then it's suffering you know, most ... the loss of people you love, the loss of relationships, the loss of your own body is suffering. And then emptiness is an understanding that you can do something about it, you see?

That's Buddhism. So, you can recharge your debit card if you continue to serve others. You make more credit than you use, and in theory you could become immortal, and in theory you could have the ability to serve many millions of people okay, as time goes on.

So, so that's how it goes. So, the step between suffering and emptiness is that suffering reminds you ... suffering pushes you to ...

to figure out why it's all happening, and what you can do about it. So, let's ... let's say it that way.

My Lama ... I used to say to my Lama you know, I don't ... today my motivation doesn't feel so strong, and you know, I kind of lost my way a little bit, and he said, oh don't worry, suffering will remind you.

You know, something will go wrong this week and you'll be back on track. So, that's how we can tie it together I think. I have the suffering that the clock ran out, but let's take a break okay, and then we'll finish the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Okay, we're gonna finish up the final verse of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. We've been working on it for two and a half years I think, and we're on the last word, which is abhram, which means what? Cloud.

Okay, then they said all the things in your world are similar to a cloud, and we were supposed to have six different ... sorry, let me go to the cloud ... yeah, seven different meanings okay.

We finished the first one, which was kind of subtle, and it was that ... in the future, if you do even tiny karmas, it's possible you will have clouds in your mind, even at a very high level okay, like arhat okay, called traces, trace karmas okay. Now we're on the second image.

Master Kamalashila says about the cloud, he says remember ... he says in my opinion, the cloud is talking about the two kinds of emptiness okay. We had one in the lion's dance, and that's that our teacher, a human being, a living being, is empty of not coming from us okay.

In a positive way, to say it in a positive way, they do come from us. In a negative way, they don't not come from us okay, and we always give the example ... usually emptiness is most useful when you're having trouble with somebody okay, like you come home and your husband yells at you, and it looks like you just opened the door and he's yelling at you ...

for no reason at all, I didn't do anything, I just opened the door okay, and then that's when emptiness is useful for a human being, you have to think, oh did I yell at my kids last week? I did, and that planted a karma. How does it plant a karma?

You listen, you hear yourself yelling at the kids, you're always a witness to everything you ever do, everything you say, everything you do, everything you think, is recorded by you okay, and then that becomes a seed, and then next week you come home, you open the door, and the seed opens, and a luminous image comes out, and it lands on your husband in a second, millisecond, and then you see him yelling at you, but you're really watching one of your own seeds open okay. So, Master Kamalashila when he gets to the cloud, he says, oh this cloud is obviously talking about the emptiness of things, and the emptiness of people in the future when you become a Buddha okay, in the future when you become a Buddha, and at that time the clouds in your mind will go away okay, the clouds come and they go away, and then you come to your pure mind okay, pure mind means Buddha mind okay. What's Buddha mind okay? Like, what's a Buddha seed in you?

What's your Buddha seed okay? Like, Buddhism says there's a part of you which has always been a Buddha, there's a part of you which has not been a Buddha okay, the part that yells at your husband is not a Buddha okay. Which part of you is a Buddha now?

Yeah, your emptiness, meaning your, your availability or your, the chance for you to become an angel is always there, because you are empty, you are like the Bubu Lama okay, you are always available, your mind is like a blank screen okay, plant the right seeds, and you don't have to see a human arm anymore, you can see a Buddha's arm okay. So, you always have that capacity, you always have that availability, whether you use it or not is your problem okay. So, so the second meaning of the clouds is that they will go away okay, and the sky, the real sky will appear.

For Kamalashila, the real sky is your Buddha nature okay, your Buddha nature will assert itself okay, and you will become a Buddha okay. So, for him the sky is a good thing. Dandajarambha, he's the pessimist right?

Third meaning of the cloud, he says clouds are another example, like lightning, of things that seem to come into our life just randomly, by accident. Things you know, you're on your way to Tustan and the car breaks down, and it never broke down before, and it just, you don't understand what happened you know, and things come into your life and then they leave your life, and there's no real trace of them anymore, there's a memory, but the things are gone okay. So, he says for him the cloud is similar to the lightning.

We can't say really where a cloud came from. You can watch the sky all day, and then suddenly there's a cloud and you don't know where it came from, and then suddenly it dissolves, and it seems like things come into your life and leave your life, almost at random, with no trace okay. That's, that's his first understanding of it.

We're on number three right? Now let's do number four. He says an empty sky cannot drop the rain, but when clouds come the rain can drop, and when the rain drops, the crops grow on the earth okay.

So, the real nature of the mind is, for him he calls it clear light okay. You had two clear lights in the lion dance, what are they? What's the first one?

It's your own consciousness okay, and that's not the meaning of clear light in Buddhism okay, it just describes your awareness okay. Like I'm aware of Jenny, my clear light is touching her, I can see her with my mind. It's like a kind of light okay, but that's not the real meaning of clear light in Buddhism.

What's the real meaning? Yeah, emptiness. So, emptiness is a, is a word for clear light okay.

Clear light is a word for emptiness okay. So, for him, interpretation number four of the clouds, the mind is really clear light, and then three things can happen in the mind. Clouds can come in the mind.

Number one, karma. Seeds. Came from yelling at my kids last week okay.

Seeds planted by yelling at my kids last week okay. Then there's the negative emotions that caused me to yell at my kids, anger okay, upset okay. So, we say the world comes from karma and kleshas right?

Comes from karma and, and my negative emotions okay. The world comes from that. He adds another one, neng ngen len.

Yeah, go for it, what? Neng ngen len. Dushdurya.

Yeah, subtle traces of karma okay. Obvious karmas, negative emotions, and then those subtle, subtle traces of karma okay. Because of those three things, clouds can form in the mind okay, or rain can come okay.

What's the rain? It's your life. What's the cloud?

Your karma, your emotions, and your traces. What's the sky? The true nature of your mind okay.

So, the real nature of your mind is clean, pure, and then clouds can come. Anger at your kids or your husband. Actions, you say things to them.

And then small subtle little feelings that you have that create subtle karmas later. By the way, do you remember what the subtle karmas do? What's the bad thing that they do, those traces?

They block, come on, link it to the lion's dance. You can't stay in that space okay. That's what pushes you out of that space okay.

Subtle traces. He gave a physical example, he gave a verbal example, and then he gave a mental example. What was the physical example?

A monk jumping, skipping? Okay, sorry, playing rock and roll is the worst one. What's the second one?

Yeah, call someone else like a small bad name, like dork, or geek, or okay, like that. Not very strong. Mental?

No, but cause, huh? What was the cause though? You can say losing your attention during the cessation meditation.

Small, subtle things okay, small subtle things okay. Then that karma pushes you out okay. So, for khor chok tenpa dru me, number four, meaning number four, the sky is your natural mind, empty mind.

The clouds are karmas, subtle karmas, emotions okay. Then they cause rain, which comes down, and they are the rain sorry, they are the clouds and the rain, and then they grow the problems of your life okay, they grow the problems of your life. Khor chok tenpa dru me wants to go deeper okay, you ready?

So, there's a school in India called Sankhya okay, Sankhya in Tibetan? Trangchenpa, Trangchenpa. The name means numerators okay, and they were strong in India for a long time.

They took the Yoga Sutra and messed it up okay. You can read some really confusing books about Sankhya okay, and they have an interesting idea. They say when a rice grows from a seed, rice seed, that means that the rice was in the seed before, but we couldn't see it okay.

When a seed grows into a tree, the tree was always in the seed okay, from the beginning, and then at some point the tree becomes obvious okay, but they say all results are contained in their seeds before they come out. It's kind of a cute idea okay. Okay, so all the possible results of a seed are waiting inside the seed okay, and then when the seed opens they come out okay, that's their idea.

They have this idea that the result already exists at the time of the seed okay, but it's obscured, you can't see it okay, it's inside the seed and you can't see it. When it becomes clear, we say the seed grew into a sprout okay, that's their idea, and he says what the Buddha's trying to say is, the results don't exist in the causes, the way people feel they do okay. So, whenever there's an ancient school which is wrong, the ancient school is usually my mind okay.

The reason we teach ancient schools is because it's an idea that we could have anytime okay. Somehow we feel like the luminous image of my teacher's quality was waiting inside the egg, and then it broke open and the image came out. We feel like that, it feels okay to us.

Somehow the image was waiting, then the mama chicken sat on the egg and it got warm, and then that crack, and then the image which was there came out okay. That's one way that human beings tend to think of the way things start okay. We think it was waiting, and then the seed opened, and the thing came out, but it was in the seed okay, we feel like that.

That's one kind of understanding of where things come from okay. So, for Koinjod tenpa drum me, he says the cloud represents wrong ideas about where things come from okay. We feel like the crops are somehow already in the seed, and then when the rain comes they come out, but they were always in the seed okay, they were already in the seed.

Then the rain came, and the crop that was already existing in the seed came out okay, and we feel like that, that feels okay to us okay. He says that's a cloud. Now he gets to the main point okay, number...

you should be on six I think okay. Do I...should I go through them all? No.

Huh? Five was a cloud that could cause a seed to open, that the tree was already in the seed. Five was a cloud that could give rain, that could cause a seed to open, and something that was already in the seed becomes manifest okay.

That was that idea. Who has that idea? Sanghya and me okay.

Ancient school always means it's the idea you could have okay. Alright, now... Six is the main one, and six is difficult, and six is the whole reason we're having a class today okay.

We have half an hour. I'll give you a seven, and let's get it out of the way, because seven's easy, six is not. Let's get rid of number seven okay.

Number seven means clouds come and go, so therefore this represents impermanence okay. That's an easy one, that's almost free. You don't need a Buddhist commentary to understand that one okay.

Buddha mentioned clouds because they come and go, like our life okay. It's a problem with our life, your body comes and goes okay. You don't think so when you're Edmund's age, but when you get to my age, you're like, hey wait a minute, let's say I heard a joke in China, before 40 eat what you want, after 40 pay the doctor.

So, at my age it's all like, who's your heart doctor, who's your liver doctor, who's your kidney doctor, who's your urinary doctor, who's your ear doctor, you got an eye doctor? You don't exchange phone numbers of girls, you exchange phone numbers of doctors okay. Okay, number six, here's number six.

Six is subtle. When you write something with a pen right? Anybody have a pen I can borrow?

Okay, you're faster. Okay, so this, let's say this paper is blank okay, and then I write something, I say hi John, okay. I write hi John on it, hi John, okay.

All right, and now, here's KUANG PHYI'O BSTAN PA'I BRJUN MED okay, I'm gonna say something to you, it'll take you about a year to figure it out okay, you ready? In a nominal world okay, it's not necessary that causes and effects have any contact. In a nominal world, it's not necessary that causes and effects have any contact okay, the seed never meets the tree, the water never touches the seed, in a nominal world.

Nominal means which is coming from my mind okay, in Buddhism nominal means coming from my seeds. You can call a seed world, seed world. If the world is coming from seeds then the causes never have to touch the results, the pen never touches the paper, and the hi John didn't come from the pen okay, in a world which is coming from seeds.

The pen never made contact with the paper, and the words hi John were not caused by the pen, there's no contact between the pen and the paper, and there's no contact between the pen and the hi John. Come on Geshe-la, I mean Buddha's whole teaching, Buddha's whole life, he was very much like a scientist, he said everything has a cause, everything has a cause, dependent origination okay, nothing happens without a cause okay, don't think your Lama is patient because your Lama's patient, your Lama's patient because you were patient in the past okay, everything has a cause okay, everything has a cause. The Buddha spent half his life saying everything has a cause okay, then he said the cause never touches the result, the cause doesn't cause the result, the gas doesn't make the car go, the gas does nothing, because it can't okay, for a thousand reasons okay, it can't. What you think is happening is impossible okay, the whole atomic theory of the elements is a huge silly thing, it doesn't work, it has no reality okay, it's amazing okay, everything has a cause, Buddha spent half his life saying that okay, then half his life he said what?

The cause never touches the result okay, the gas cannot make the car go okay, but Geshe-la, the gas starts burning just before the car goes. Yeah, this is an old DCI joke okay, we did it in Russia the first time I remember, I was giving a talk and I started going like this you know, then all these Russians are like ... I said why did ...

they asked me why you're doing that? I said what? They said you're banging on the microphone with a pen, stop doing that you know, I said I'm sorry I have to you know, and they said can you just give the talk without banging on the microphone?

And I said no no, it's ... it's almost 12 o'clock I have to do this you know, and they said why? I said I'm making the Sun come up tomorrow.

They said what? I said this makes the Sun come up tomorrow, why you think that? Every day I do it, then next day the Sun comes up.

I'm afraid if I don't do it, there will be a problem you know. Then they're like Geshe-la, just because you bang the microphone today, it doesn't make the Sun come up. Just try one day, don't bang on the microphone, you know, let's see if the Sun comes up tomorrow okay.

Don't tell me the car is running because you put gas in it just before it started running, okay? Got it? You want to drop down to the aspirin?

You want to go back to the aspirin? Okay. Connie, what makes an aspirin work?

She's a nurse, what's the active ingredient? What's the active ingredient? Cox-2 inhibitor okay, it's a chemical that stops the nerve, the message from going down the nerve okay, so the pain message can't get to your mind, and that's the active ingredient.

Is it the active ingredient in an aspirin? Does it say that on the label? Yes.

Does it work? Sometimes. Will you get in an airplane if you understand...okay, I tell this story, you know the story. You hear there's a new airline called Song Airline, you buy a ticket, because they play rock and roll the whole way, and I thought that'd be really cool. So, I buy a ticket and then I go down the ramp to get on the airplane, and there's a, you know, a flight attendant there with a pile of papers and she says, oh you're Mr. Roach, yeah, she said can you just sign this paper before you get on the plane? And I said, you know, I was in the diamond business, we don't sign papers, everything in the diamond business is without contracts, we have a verbal code of ethics, and no diamonds are ever bought and sold with contracts, we promise and that's enough.

If you ever break your promise, you cannot get a diamond from anybody okay. So, so I said you know, I don't just sign things, let me see it, and we have this fight, tug of war, you know. I'm like, let me see it, she said you don't have to see it, it's okay, just sign it.

I'm like, let me see it, you know, and then I'm like, what is this? And she says it's an insurance waiver. I said, why do you need an insurance, why do I have to sign an insurance waiver?

And she says, well, we're a new airline. I said, I know you're a new airline, that's why I bought the ticket, because I want to hear rock and roll music the whole flight. And she says, yeah, and we almost understand how to fly these planes, like we almost got it, you know.

I said, what do you mean almost? She says, well most of the time, we land at the other airport safely. I said, what do you mean most of the time?

She says, you know, sometimes something, you know, fall down. I said, what do you mean sometimes fall down? Well, we, you know, it's a new airplane, and just sign, you know, just sign.

I said, I'm not gonna sign this paper, are you crazy? You know, fall down sometime airplane. Yeah, okay.

But we do that all the time, right? We take aspirin, we pay for it, and we got used to believing that aspirin shouldn't work every time. We got used to it, we accept it.

Nobody takes half a bottle of aspirin back to the drugstore and say, give me back half my money, only half of these work, you know. To me, it's amazing people don't do that, you know. That aspirin costs five dollars, go back, say, I want two and a half dollars back.

They say, why? You say, only half of them worked. Okay, they say, yeah, but only half of them worked.

Okay, so, it's okay, charge me $2.50. Don't sell it for five dollars, if you know half of them aren't gonna work, okay? It means we don't understand how aspirin works, we don't really understand, okay? Is the active ingredient active?

No. It's like the song airline, okay? It doesn't work.

It works, if something works sometimes, it means scientists don't understand why it works, okay? What's another sign that aspirin doesn't work? The advertising on TV, every year, every year, this one really works.

This one really works. It means last year's doesn't work. When they say really, then you have to say, oh, you know, I don't need it, you keep it, you know, I don't need it, okay?

Why are we talking about that? Well, if your car is full of gasoline, will it get you to Tucson or not? We don't know, we don't know.

There's a, what was her name from Australia, New Zealand? Ness Chu. She got in the car, full of car gasoline, at Texas Canyon, it's where those big rocks are.

I think she was looking at the big rocks and she, she fell off the ... oh, she fell asleep, probably class was too long, and she fell off the road. She fell way down, her car fell way down, went over, and she survived.

Two Mexican, what do you call it, illegal immigrants were the only people who would stop, and went down and got her, and she survived, okay? Did she have a full tank of gas? Does it get you to Tucson?

Sometimes. So, Geshe-la, what are you saying? What are you saying?

What I'm saying is that, sometimes things happen before other things, but that doesn't mean they cause them, okay? Geshe-la, come on, you wrote something on the paper, you asked Janice for a pen, why'd you ask her for a pen if it's not gonna cause Hai John, okay? The pen came just before Hai John, am I right?

Did it cause Hai John? We say no, Buddhism says no, okay? A seed opens at 12.45 and 10 seconds for pen. At 12.45 and 30 seconds, another seed opens that says Hai John, okay? But the pen didn't make the Hai John, and the banging on the microphone didn't make the sun come up. It looks like that, it looks like that, okay?

If you are weird enough, you will believe that you are making the sun come up, okay? Like, you have to be really weird, one out of a billion people, you know? But this one, one out of one people, they believe, they really believe that this coming from the pen, this coming from the pen, okay?

And the tree come from the seed, they believe that, they really believe that, and the Lama come from the image. Maybe the seed opening is like banging on the microphone, and maybe the Lama just comes after that. Does ...

now, that's a long story. Can the image actually touch that Lama? Where?

Okay, like the image come out of your mind, right? Like a mariposa, you know, like a butterfly, ching gi la mo, what do you call it in Chinese? Wudian.

It comes out and lands on the Lama, and then you see this quality, right? How can it touch the Lama? Where does it touch the Lama first?

Is that why Geshe-la got bald? It always land here first. You know, where do they touch?

Where does the image touch the Lama, okay? Is there a first piece that touches? Or not?

Or it touches everything at once? Is there a first place where it touches? Okay, just a little bit, okay?

Where there's no space between the two, right? Right? The image go ...

go to the Lama, then go ... touch the Lama, bud budom, right? Just ...

how ... how ... how small is that space just before they touch?

Is it the smallest space that can be? Just before they touch, is there the smallest place that can be? Or not?

Yes or no? There must be a smallest place that can be, because the next moment they touch. It has to be.

Think of ... just think about it, forget Buddhism. Image comes to the Lama, here's my image, here's my Lama, you know?

Come closer, closer, closer, and then the closest two things can be, and then in the next moment they touch. Am I right? Is ...

is there a closest that two things can be? Is it possible? Is there such a thing?

Is there super close and then touch? You feel like that though, you believe that. My car got super close to the other car, then they got as close as possible without touching, and then the rental car hit the other car, now I got to pay $500, you know?

The smallest space possible became touching, okay? So, Buddhism says, this is hard okay, this is really hard, but you have a long plane ride, you can think about it. Or you can sleep, or you can watch a movie.

When things get really close okay, and you say, okay that's as close as they can be before they touch, okay? Right? That space, can you divide it?

Wait, half people say yes, half people say no. Can you divide it or not? Then it's not the closest.

She's like, Luka's like, wait let's do that again. Is there a closest space between the image and the Lama? But there must be just before they touch, because then they touch.

What do you mean they never touch? So, the Lama's not—doesn't have good quality? I knew it!

They have to touch, the image has to go on the Lama right? They have to touch, they have to touch. If they don't touch, the Lama doesn't have quality, come on!

Huh? Anyway, it feels like that right? They get closer, closer, closer, closer, closer, and then there's the smallest space possible, and you can't split it okay?

Even with a razor blade you can't split it okay? It's as small as possible, and then they touch. But there is no such space, because you can divide any space okay?

In the next millimillimillisecond, there's still some space right? So, this is not just some philosophy game, this is not some stupid philosophy okay? The goal of Buddhism is to make you successful, and to make you happy right?

The goal of Buddhism is to become successful financially, why not? And along with everybody, and then what? Beautiful relationships, and then what?

Healthy body, and then what? Peaceful mind, and then what? Whole world no war okay?

Like, we have goals right? We want things to happen. So, we're not saying everything doesn't exist, that's not true okay?

If you sit like this, I'm meditating on emptiness man, you know? Are you gonna go to work? No, I think I'll just meditate.

Okay? It's not the point. Okay so, I don't want to go to work, why?

My finger can't touch the money. I mean they get closer and closer, but you know, they never really touch. So, why should I go to work?

Okay, what happens when you get ...somebody gave me a red envelope. What happens when you get a red envelope? First you don't have a red envelope okay?

Then you do have a red envelope. Who put the envelope in my hand? My seeds okay?

My seeds okay? It's not possible that the distance got shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, then very, very short, then very, very short, then touch! Ding!

You got the money. Okay? It's not possible.

Okay? So, think about it, it's not some stupid philosophy, it's not that. It's not that.

You had a karma to see me pick up a pen, and then you had a karma to see Hi John, and they are not connected. Oh Geshe-la, one happened before the other. Yeah I know, I know, but it's just an accident okay?

Got it? There is no cause-and-effect in the system of philosophy of the cause-and-effect guy. Called Buddha okay?

There's no cause-and-effect. If you don't like the movie, on the plane, on the way home to Hong Kong, whose fault is it Penny? It's your fault okay?

Don't complain to United Airlines okay? Alright? If you don't like the ending to the movie, whose fault is it?

Is the ending of the movie connected to the beginning of the movie? No! Okay?

Your mind make the beginning, then your mind make the middle, then your mind make the ending of the movie okay? Why is the art movie so bad nowadays? Your mind is bad.

Okay? Nothing touches anything else. That's the sixth meaning of the cloud.

That's the sixth meaning of the cloud. When the rain comes out of the cloud and touches the seed, and the seed opens, and the tree comes out, the water never touch the seed okay? And the sprout, the seed never touch the tree okay?

They never make contact, there was no contact. Your mind created a cloud, and then your mind created water, and then your mind created water touch the seed, and then your mind created the tree come out of the seed. They are not connected, they are not cause-and-effect okay?

The foundation of reality is not chemicals, iron, oxygen, hydrogen, it's not okay? It's not ... the world is not made of little balls of things that can't touch each other okay?

The world is not made of little balls of things that cannot touch each other, and the world is not random, and the world didn't come from a big bank, and your Lama isn't a big mistake of too many atoms came here and not enough atoms here okay? It's not like that okay? Coming from how you treat other people okay?

The world is only coming from how you treat other people okay? And nothing else. So, morality or good behavior, kindness is the real atoms in this world okay?

What creates this world is kindness, and not atoms, and not ink, and not paper okay? It's how you treat other people creates ... the foundation of this reality is not physical, it's not atoms, because they cannot exist, and they cannot work the way people think.

The foundation of reality is compassion. Cool? That's a good place to stop okay?

Cloud okay? Cloud make rain, rain make crops, nothing touches, the water never touches the sea. That's number six okay?

What makes the world go round is taking care of each other okay?