Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика», часть 5 — Честь быть подростком (2018, Даймонд-Маунтин, Аризона), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
We're gonna do the... by the way, if you have to sit in a chair, it's fine, there's no problem. There are extra chairs there, okay?

If your legs are sore this morning. When you meditate in a group, it's nice to not move at all, okay? So, try very hard to get comfortable first.

And after we start, please try not to move, even if it hurts, okay? Just be a tough guy. ,DE NAS ZEN GYIS RNAMS RGYUN PA'I, ,THAD GNYEN BRTZEN NA MYONG ZHUGS NAS, ,RTEN CING BRAL BYUNG LUG TU RNAMS, ,LUG MI THUN LA RTOG PAR BYED, We're gonna do Maitreya's Lion's Dance.

You ready? Okay. Don't move.

Don't open your box. By the way, if you want to record it on your phone, you can put your phone up here. And then you can follow it today during your meditation.

We'll do it again tomorrow. We'll go more each day. Nothing new since last week.

Much. Okay. Okay.

So, the Lion's Dance, as you know, it has five rounds, five different parts, traditionally. The first two are just called Lion's Dance. And then the last three are called, two Gelgatingans in, Vyatikranta Samapatti, Over-the-top Meditation.

So, let's see how far we get this morning. We'll go farther each day. We begin with the normal world, focus.

In Buddhist language, it's called desire realm. But it just means our normal, everyday world. And we'll focus on some sound in the room.

It could be birds. We're lucky we have an air conditioner here. Could be garbage trucks outside your house.

Could be your children in another room. In your meditation cottage, since Diamond Mountain is so quiet, I find I will oftentimes use the sound of the air molecules hitting my eardrum. It's a kind of a background noise.

So, choose a noise in this room right now. It could be air conditioner. We'll spend about 10 breaths on it.

If you have a lot of time, you can spend about 20 breaths on each level. But if you don't have a lot of time, 10 is a good number. It's distracting to count the breaths at each level, but if you count the first few, first few levels, then you'll get a sense of the time when you should move on.

So, 10 breaths here on the sound of the air conditioner. A lot of this meditation's goal is to learn to be the boss of your mind. Our mind usually is very, very unstable, and we don't even know it.

For our whole life, we have lived with a mind which is very, very flighty. It goes everywhere. As soon as somebody says something to us, a few bad words can throw us off for a whole day, or a whole life.

And just thinking about food can destroy your meditation for an hour. So, the goal of this meditation is, really you can say three goals. One is, learn to boss your mind, learn to control your mind, and tell it where to go, and don't let it just float around like a feather in the wind.

Normally, our mind is like a feather in the wind. Whatever's happening around us, good or bad, is like a wind, and our mind is like a feather, and we just follow events and sounds and people's emotions around us. So, the first goal of the lion's dance is to develop focus, which just means the ability to control your mind, and glue it to the object that you choose.

So, you have to choose an object, and then you have to put your mind on it, like you put your finger on a cup, and then you have to hold your finger on the cup. You have to press the finger into the cup, so your concentration is like your finger, and you want to press it against the object and keep the contact. Glue it to the object.

Try to be aware if you come off the object, if your finger leaves the cup. Try to be aware and try to put the finger back on the cup. So, first goal of the lion's dance, of three goals, is to become very flexible mentally, and think about what you want to think about.

So, here we go. Consciously, press your mind against the sound of the air conditioner, and keep it there, hold it there. Don't let the wind of the other concerns of your life push your mind around.

Tell them you'll be back later, for worries and hopes. This morning, my goal is to think about the air conditioner. Ten breaths here.

There's two ways to put your mind on the air conditioner. One is simple contact, and one is to sort of release, surrender, enjoy, sink into the sound. Relax, have fun.

Fun's very important for your spiritual life. Don't take yourself too seriously. If you start thinking about breakfast, have a few coffee thoughts and then come back.

And don't struggle. So, show your mind who's boss. Now we consciously moved our mind to a more quiet place, and the mind responds like a good dog.

We tell the mind, we're going to leave the air conditioner, we're going to take our mental finger off the air conditioner, and we're going to move it to something a little bit quieter, and that's your heartbeat. So, consciously, purposely, tell your good dog mind, let's move to the heartbeat, and let's get a little quieter. Ten breaths here.

So far we don't have any important content. We're just sharpening our ability to focus. Tell your heart, we're going to go to an even more quiet place.

And instead of feeling like we're in our body and we're focusing on our heart, we go inside the chamber of the heart. Much quieter place. And the outer world is no longer present, outside the heart, because we're inside the heart.

You can almost feel the heart beating around you like the walls of a room. And it's a much, much quieter place deep inside your chest than it was when you were watching your heart beat from the outside. Quieter place.

Make your mind do what you want, like a good dog. We're going inside the heart. Stay there in the center of the heart, more quiet.

I didn't think I would like to go to an even more quiet place. So stay in the center of the heart. For me it's kind of dark.

And imagine you can hear the heartbeat, but it's far away, and it's very small. So maybe it's 40, 50 feet away. 10, 15 meters away.

Much smaller. And I don't feel so emotionally connected to it. I'm a little bit distant.

I'm in a super quiet place inside my heart, and I'm just barely aware of the heartbeat far away. Third form realm level. Surrender to this meditation.

You came here to Diamond Mountain to meditate. So give it your attention. Give up thinking about the things you have to do, people you have to see.

You're at Diamond Mountain. It took you a lot of money and time to get here. This is the time to meditate.

Let the other parts of your life go. Be here. Focus.

Now we imagine tiny, single grain of sugar, white crystal or a diamond in the very, very center of your heart. I like to see it. It's suspended in the darkness.

Single, tiny crystal of sugar. Single grain of sugar. And you put your mind inside it, almost as if you were climbing into an airplane cockpit or something.

Small, tiny, transparent space. Shining. And put your mind inside.

The quality of the fourth form realm level is a feeling of single-pointedness, ekagra. Very laser-sharp focus of the mind on a tiny single point. Super quiet.

No content yet, no useful content yet. We're just cleaning the microscope. Show your control over your mind.

My mind is not a feather in the wind. My mind is an obedient, happy, good dog, and I tell it where to go. You stay there in that crystal until I tell you to come out.

Now the first formless realm, and we expand the mind. So inside the crystal, imagine vast ocean, like the Pacific Ocean. Very, very, very wide as the whole Earth.

And very, very silent. The surface of the ocean is very quiet, like a mirror. And below it is very deep space.

So inside the crystal, try to fit a vast ocean and let your mind expand. It feels really nice. Your mind is expanding towards the horizon.

If you want to, you can imagine dropping a small pebble in the center of the ocean and ripples spread to the horizon, and you can follow one of the ripples mile after mile after mile. Now the whole Earth is not enough to hold your mind, and the oceans of the Earth are not wide enough. So take your mind up to the sky, as big as the sky, and then stretch your mind further past the sky to the darkness of outer space.

And then push your awareness further. Huge envelope opening past the sun, past the other planets, to other stars that are so visible here at Diamond Mountain. Push the envelope of your awareness in a huge expanding ball.

And don't stop, keep pushing. I like to imagine, because the number of people in the universe is infinite, given infinite odds, it's surely the case that there are a group of people like us doing the lion's dance somewhere in the sky, in the stars. And I like to imagine my envelope meets their envelope, envelope of awareness.

And they overlap. And I kind of like to greet those other meditators. And then we both push our envelopes further.

Other thoughts will come up, other things you're thinking about in your life. Just relax, have fun, don't fight. Tell your mind, we worked so hard to come to Diamond Mountain, let's just relax while we're here.

I will take care of the other things I have to do in my life. I always do. But right now, let's just have some fun and meditate.

Still no content, we're just flexing our meditation muscles. Now kind of a fun exercise, try to turn off your mind completely. Imagine you've pulled the plug on your mind and it just stops.

If thoughts come up, if pictures come up or feelings, just very actively block them. We're going to a much more quiet place. It's as if you turned off a light.

The mind is dead, like a lamp that's turned off. No thoughts, no feelings. Super quiet.

Many meditators in the past have mistaken this for emptiness, and it's not. And it's not helpful as an object. It's just a way to sharpen your mind and get it more quiet.

We don't have an object yet. Now we go deeper to the fourth formless realm, and we're still turning off the mind. But turning off the mind takes some effort to block thoughts, block images, impressions coming through the mind.

So now, instead of struggling against those impressions passing through the mind, we surrender to them. We go to a more silent space and we just let thoughts and feelings pass through the mind, like clouds slowly passing through the sky, and we don't fight them. We notice them, and then we disassociate from them.

We decide not to follow them, not to watch them, notice them, and then let them go their way. Super quiet space, quieter than everything before. Now for the first time, we bring a meditation object to mind.

And traditionally, it should be an object which is very virtuous, very good, has a lot of goodness. And one of the sweetest objects is to think of one of the teachers in your life. Could be mom, dad, your first grade teachers, who gave us so much.

And then school teachers, or teachers who taught you other things like sports or music. Could be historical teachers, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, some great saint, Tsongkhapa. Could be the person who taught you how to do your job.

Oftentimes, after our education is finished, we have to learn a specific career. And oftentimes, your success depends on a teacher, or someone to guide you at that moment. Maybe you haven't met yet your heart teacher.

Maybe it's someone coming in the future and you can feel them, you can imagine them, and you've been waiting, and you've been planting the seeds. You can also imagine a teacher, perfect teacher for you, whom you haven't met yet. Bring that teacher to this room.

Ask them to come. Ask them to sit in front of you, knee to knee. Your eyes are closed, but you can see their face.

Their eyes are open. They are looking at you. And traditionally, you imagine the great affection and love that they have for you, this teacher, who purposely grew your good qualities like a gardener.

Enjoy sitting with someone who loves you so much and who spent so much time to make you a better person. Now try to remember the first time you met this teacher, or you can reconstruct the first meeting if it was your parents, for example. Where were you when you met them?

Maybe you had dinner together the first time you met. Try to imagine those first minutes and try to think of all the outer causes that brought them to this meeting. Maybe they came to the dinner in a car and before that they got into the car at a house and before that they were doing something else.

Maybe they were at the grocery store. Before that, what is the chain of events, outer causes, that happened one after another to bring them to the first meeting? And then think about what brought you to the first meeting.

Oh, I was born in this world and then I grew up in a certain place and then we moved to a certain house. In that house I met this teacher who came for dinner. So imagine chains of events and causes, outer causes.

This is how I first met my teacher. Now try to move your mind like a good dog who listens to you. Let's think about the deeper causes, the real causes, of why I met my teacher.

Really it was seeds opening in my mind. The teacher is coming from seeds opening in my mind. Each of the causes that brought my teacher to the first meeting was also coming from seeds in my mind.

The car they traveled in came from my seeds. The house that they left to get in the car also came from my seeds. And their birth upon this planet was also coming from my seeds.

It wasn't outer causes and events that brought my teacher to me. There's no teacher like that in the world and that's the emptiness of my teacher. There's no teacher who came to me because of cars or houses, births.

Each step of the way was coming from seeds in my mind. And the beautiful qualities I see in my teacher, their kindness for example, their patience with me, those are all coming from something I did in the past. Move from emptiness, Maitreya says in this meditation, three important topics.

Number one, sharpen your mental powers. Make your mind a good dog who listens to you. Number two, spend some time on emptiness.

The absence of a teacher who came to our first meeting in a car. No such teacher. And then in the third part of the meditation, go to dependent origination, causes, seeds.

Where did your teacher really come from? These are the three topics of the lion's dance. Sharpen your mental powers.

Perceive emptiness of a teacher who could come to outer causes, to your first meeting. And then thirdly, explore the real causes, the inner seeds, where your teacher is coming from. And now, we move to the dependence, the causes, the seeds for the teacher.

And go to your past lives. Take a trip to your past lives. Have fun.

Try to imagine what did you do to make this beautiful teacher come out of seeds in your mind? What did you do to plant those seeds? Long ago, we cannot see our past life directly, many of us.

But we have the right to imagine how it might have happened. And that imagination must also be coming from actual seeds. So, anything I can imagine I did in my past life is already partly true.

So, we admit we are writing a story, we are making a movie of our past life. But have fun and make a nice movie. It's certain, beyond any doubt, that you planted your teacher, this beautiful teacher in your mind.

And you must have done something very kind to other people over a long period of time. So, go back. I like to choose a country, like Mexico.

Then I like to choose a time, like a thousand years ago. Then I like to choose a village, maybe in the Sonora Desert. Then I like to decide, was I a man or was I a woman?

Then I like to dress myself, maybe I was wearing, a man wearing simple cotton, white cotton clothing, handmade. And maybe I was a teacher in my village. And I taught small children like Kiri.

And in those days I was much more patient and much more attentive to others. And happily I served those children for years. And then bring up some specific moments of patience or kindness with a specific child.

Paint the face of this child. See their happiness. And reconstruct with the power of your logic what you must have done to plant the seeds that have created your teacher in this life.

We'll spend a few minutes here. Then we're going to take a break. So try to focus hard and really have fun.

Don't struggle. Make a nice story. Then please come back to your mind.

Come back to the center of your mind. And imagine five or six beautiful silver seeds in the center of your mind. I like to picture them like a robin egg, a bird egg.

Shining silver seeds in the center of my mind. Then watch one of these seeds crack open and an image comes out like a hologram of a kind and patient teacher. And I like to imagine that that image floats to the back of my forehead and it goes through my forehead and it goes to my teacher and it covers them like a nice coat.

It coats them. And it sort of sinks into them. And because of that image I see a teacher.

And because of that image the teacher is kind and patient. Then I go back to the rest of the eggs and I watch one more open. I watch another image come out.

I watch another image settle over my teacher. And I watch the patience and kindness shine stronger. And then I go back to another seed and let it open.

There will come a day in your meditation when you can see real seeds opening and pretending to see them open is a powerful cause of that day in the future when you actually see the kindness and patience of your teacher coming from your own seeds. There will come a day like that. If you work hard to pretend that you see the seeds open then it will bring that day faster.

And quickly after that, within a few hours after that you will see emptiness directly which is the most powerful way to serve others. Seeds opening one by one. Images floating.

Images coating. Now, three long exhales. Do not open your eyes yet.

Three long exhales. Imagine that you are sharing with other people in this world the understanding you have gained from this meditation and the good karma of working so hard at Diamond Mountain. When you're tired, you've traveled a long way, it's hard to sit like this and dedicate that hard work.

Many, many people here at Diamond Mountain have worked for months to give us this chance. Thank them with your breath. Then slowly open your eyes.

I like to take a stretch and a cappuccino. We'll take a pee pee break. Drink something.

When you come back we'll do a few questions if anyone has questions about the meditation. See you in ten minutes. We'll ring a bell.

Who's such a visualized person? They don't see pictures in their mind. They mostly use words and thoughts.

Maybe when they go back to Mexico they don't see a white clothing and they don't hear those things, but mostly they're dealing with thoughts. Does that have the same power to plant seeds? Yeah, that's fine.

Words, we're going to talk about it today, chi che dang, and words have a very great power to plant seeds. Almost the same thing. If you're more a person who's less visual in your mind, that's fine.

You still plant strong seeds. Whether the pictures are different from the words and what are the words? Are they sounds or are they concepts?

That's a debate, but it works the same. Any other questions?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, thank you for meditation. What is the reason for a seed to open? What is the cause for this?

Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
For that you should study DCI. You can ask Scott to read, but mainly time, the seed that is planted earlier will open first, unless there was some strong emotion when it was planted. Unless you are close to a major transition in your life, like meeting your husband for the first time or having your child.

Those are different things. Strong emotions, time, and the seriousness of the original deed. A killing seed will open faster than a lying seed, for example.

How heavy was the karma? How strong was your emotion at the time? Are you close to what we call transition karma?

Is there a big karma coming up that's a milestone in your life? And then that will take over. Those karmas will get stronger.

Or just plain time, which one was planted first normally will ripen first. Okay, so these are factors. How strong was your ignorance or your understanding at the time is probably the most important seed.

So that's why coffee meditation is so important, that during coffee meditation you think about good things you've done in the past two different ways. Number one, I'm very glad I was teaching kids in Mexico a thousand years ago. That was nice.

But number two, I'm so glad I understand where things are coming from. So the most powerful trigger for a seed in the Wheel of Life also, RGYAS PA SRED PA GUS PA LEN PA link number eight, link number nine, the most powerful trigger is do you understand the seed or not? It's kind of cool.

The more you understand the seed the faster it opens. Okay? So the more you consciously plant seeds and the act of understanding the seed makes it open faster.

It's kind of cool. In a negative way, which is the story of the Wheel of Life, link number eight, link number nine, RGYAS PA SRED PA GUS PA LEN PA desire and grasping, these mean misunderstanding the seeds and then bad seeds open faster the more you misunderstand them. The less aware you are of seeds the faster the bad seeds open.

The more aware you are of seeds the faster the good seeds open. It's kind of cool. Alright.

One more question. We got a lot to do here. Nope.

Okay. My teacher used to say, you were there right? Who was there with Rinpoche?

He'd say, oh you understand perfectly. No questions. Very good.

Alright, here we go. Let's go down. Alright?

Let's do round number two. Today we'll do round number one and round number two. And then tomorrow we'll start on what we call over the top.

Over the top means round three, four, and five. Those three, round three, round four, and round five together are called over the top. THU RGYAL GYI RTEN GYIN ZIN RGYAL GYI RTEN GYIN ZIN RGYAL GYI RTEN GYIN ZIN Now, we're going to start round two where?

Where were we? We were watching the coach settle on the teacher, okay? So, when you start round two you're kind of starting with a nice bath in dependent origination.

You're like, ah, such a sweet teacher. Ah, come from me. Okay, like you're there.

That's where you are. Dependent origination, okay? So, we start round two up with our teacher, okay?

Enjoying teacher and enjoying their beautiful qualities and appreciating how they came, okay? Just sitting with them, appreciating them. Then we come down the eight, we call samsuk.

Say samsuk. Samsuk. That's the abbreviation for samten dang sukme, okay?

The four form realm levels are called samten shi, the four samten. And then the four formless realm levels are called the sukme shi. And there's a Buddhist abbreviation called samsuk.

And the books about them are called samsuk books, okay? So, the suk is not suk, it's sukme. Formless realm, okay?

So, after the teacher, we're going to go back down the ladder, okay? How far? To samten dangpo, to the first form realm.

We do not go back to the air conditioner, okay? Why? If you really get into the form realm, which takes a long time, we're just pretending, right?

It's very different from the desire realm. So, if you go back to the air conditioner, it's so different that it would disturb your meditation, okay? So, when we go back down in round number two, we only go to the first form realm, to the heartbeat, okay?

But I'll give you a preview. In round five, we throw the air conditioner all over the place, okay? Heartbeat, air conditioner.

Inside heart, air conditioner. You know, like, can you go between realms? That's really hard, okay?

We're going to do that in round five, but we're not going to do it today. Okay, so here we go, round two. Ready?

So, we'll start with the teacher, enjoying the teacher. Oh, I, this teacher is coming from me. That's not the important thing.

The important thing is, if you understand where they're coming from, you can keep them in your life forever. Just keep serving other people. Being patient to other people.

Sharing with other people. Helping them when they have trouble. Consciously planting the seeds to keep my teacher in my life.

You have power over reality. It doesn't have to go the way it went before. Teachers get old, lose teachers.

You get old, lose teacher. Lose your life. It doesn't have to go that way.

If I, if I'm responsible, if I'm planting this person, then I can keep this person with me forever if I just keep serving other people. Planting seeds. So, appreciate that and sit with your teacher for a few minutes.

Then you make a conscious decision to come out of the meditation. Drop from the teacher. Drop from awareness of the teacher to turning off your mind, watching thoughts float by, and just not listening to them.

As you go down, don't spend so long. You can spend half the time. The quality of attention in meditation drops quickly after half an hour or so.

So, don't expect to be as clear coming down. You are going to be tired focusing. It's very tiring to really focus well.

And the mind, attention degrades very quickly. So, we'll spend half the time at each level coming down. I suggest five breaths.

Turn off your mind. Thoughts just coming through. Don't listen.

Drop down another level. Seventh floor of the hotel. Mind is turned off and you're consciously blocking thoughts, protecting the space, the quiet.

Bring the mind back from endless space. Bring it back to earth. Bring it back to this room.

From the corners of the universe. Maybe you pass some other meditators, envelopes on the way. Say hi.

Back from the ends of the ocean. Ripples coming back to the center of your mind. Back to the crystal of sugar.

Tiny, tiny, tiny point inside your heart, but bright enough to keep your attention. Back to the heartbeat at a distance. Tiny, tiny heartbeat in the darkness at the center of your heart.

Far away. Distant heartbeat. Show how strong your mental powers are.

Keep your mind on the object. Keep your mental finger pressed against the object. Back to the heart beating around you in the silent chamber of the heart.

Back to your body in general and feeling the heartbeat in your chest. If you're alone in a diamond mountain beautiful cottage, you can probably follow the sound of the heartbeat in your ear. It's traditional not to just leave your teacher sitting there.

So, if you're just going to do two rounds, you can go back to being with your teacher. Ask them to bless you. Stay in your heart during the day.

Guide you. So, in your mind you ask them and they start to rise up from their meditation cushion into the air. As they rise slowly, they start to get smaller until they're about the size of your head, at the top of your head.

And they come down to sit on the top of your head. And you can feel the slight pressure of them, their body, on the tip of your head. And they turn to face the same direction.

You ask them to come to your heart. They get smaller until they're about the size of your thumbnail. And then slowly they sink down your central channel, past your throat and into your heart.

And they happily agree to stay there and influence you during the day, even when you're not thinking of them. Three long breaths. Imagine you're sharing the good karma of this spiritual work with people in the whole world.

And slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch. That's round two.

Tomorrow we do three and four. One, two, three, four. Alright, we have lots of work to do.

What are the two things we have to do now? Review the whole kamalashida, whole diamond cutter. And?

Yeah, do the last part, which we haven't finished yet, okay? Which is shorter than the other parts, okay? So, here we go.

Katie, we're going to part four. Oh, it's a thing, I'm afraid it's chi che dak. Or am I wrong?

I'm sorry. No, you're right. It's...

It is chi che dak, I think. Yeah. Meditation number five.

Kamalashida five. You guys want air conditioning? Raise your hand if you're a yes party.

Raise your hand if you're the no party. No party wins. I'm Trump, I can cancel everybody's vote.

But I'll go with the no party. Okay, chi che dak. Let me go back to the sutra.

We're at section... Those of you following, it's 125, section 125 in the sutra. By the way, Nick found a big mistake in my translation, thank you.

So, we have a new version coming out soon. As soon as Stanley and I have some time. Okay.

Buddha says, why? Subuddhi, teaching of the Dharma that you are thinking of when you say teaching the Dharma is a teaching of the Dharma that doesn't exist at all, okay? A teaching of the Dharma.

So, in the Heart Sutra, that's called chökyin namdang. At the beginning of the Heart Sutra, the Buddha goes into meditation. The meditation is called chökyin namdang and it means a manifestation of the Dharma.

Okay, so, I'm going to use this cup because I want to keep sipping my coffee. And this is a very, very famous teaching called chi che dak. It's the best teaching you can study if you want to see emptiness directly, okay?

So, just think about it, alright? And it's connected to subtle impermanence and someday I'll teach you more about that, okay? One version of subtle impermanence is that things are changing moment by moment, right?

But that's not the real subtle impermanence, okay? It's more subtle than that, okay? Anyway, this is a cup, okay?

So, if I hold this up and I say, what's this thing we'll need? Then he'll say, cup. This is a cup, Geshe-la.

And then if you ask him, how do you know it's a cup? Then, in this life, when he was, I don't know, two years old, one and a half years old, his mom said, Will, cup, cup. And then he's like, cup, cup.

And she's like, cup, cup. And he's like, cup, cup. Okay?

And then, so, your mental archetype, your mental picture of a cup in this life is often the one that your mom taught you. Okay? Car, car.

Your mom says, car. You go, car. And then, after that, every time you see that thing, you're like, mom, car.

Right? Kiri does that, right? He's at that point.

Then you say, oh, good boy Kiri, that's a car. Car. Then he's like, oh, car.

Okay? And then, later in your life, if you get married and you send your wife out to buy some cups and she comes back with one of these, you feel uncomfortable. That's not cup that my mom taught me.

That's why mother-in-laws have such problems with wives. Okay? Because mom taught cup.

Mom taught wheel, cup, looked like this. Wife's mom taught this, cup, square. Wife went out, bought cup, square.

Husband, little uncomfortable. Mother-in-law, very uncomfortable. Okay?

So, you have a mental picture of cup. Okay? And this gets into the other question.

Then you give that picture a sound. You connect the sound to the picture. KA'A PHOS is this picture in your mind.

Okay? And we confuse the sound and the picture. Chinese language is very, very interesting because the picture is the sound, in a way.

So, some people say Chinese people can think more clearly. I don't know. Probably.

Okay? Because in the old days, the, what do you call, turtle shell picture was very close to the one your mom taught you. Okay?

But in any case, even in Chinese, there will be a sound connected to the picture. Okay? Cup.

How do you say cup? Bay? Bay-su?

Bay-su. Bay-su. Okay.

Bay-su. Okay. So, you have a Bay-su picture from your mom.

Okay? Then, in this case, so, it's the difference between a cup and cup. Okay?

A cup. A cup. A cup.

Cup. Okay? Picture in your mind.

Then, in, do you remember the word in Buddhism? Specially Southrantika. A cup, sorry, cup, chi-tsen.

Oh, I'll kiss you, but you're worse. Then, the cup, rang-tsen. Okay?

So, there's a Buddhist word for it. The idea in your mind. Close your eyes.

Cup. A cup. Okay, cup, sorry, cup.

Okay? Then, a cup. Okay?

This is what we call the, the physical expression of the idea, cup. This is a physical expression of the idea, cup. Okay?

That your mom taught you. Right? Okay?

So, there's cup, chi-tsen. And there's, you can also call a chi, or a, yeah, don't get complicated on me. Or, a cup, you can also say in English, the cup.

Okay? A cup, the cup, those are outside cups. Okay?

Got it? And then there's cup, mom's cup, with your eyes closed. Okay?

So, one is called quality, cup. It's quality. And it's a difficult word, even for an English speaker.

Mom's cup, we call quality. The cup, a cup, we call characteristic of that quality. Typical of that quality.

So, don't understand the wrong characteristic. I don't mean this is characteristic, a characteristic. I'm not saying a characteristic.

I'm saying this, is typical of the type, cup. Okay? Cup, with your eyes closed, mom's cup, a cup.

Okay? Even, wife's cup. Okay?

Got it? Now, this is what, how does it relate here? What's the chi in this line of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and what's the cheddar?

Yeah, what's the caption on the picture? What's the sentence saying next to the picture? What's the difference between the Dharma and a kind of Dharma?

Okay? CHOS KYI RNAM DANG and CHOS. Okay?

CHOS KYI RNAM DANG and CHOS. What's the difference between Dharma, okay? Close your eyes, Dharma, and then a Dharma, like the Diamond Cutter Sutra, JIN GANG JIN.

Okay? That's a Dharma, a cup. Then there's Dharma, especially when your mom taught you.

Okay? Oh, this is Dharma. We call this Dharma.

PHO? PHA. PHO.

PHO. PHO. PHO.

PHO. Okay. Alright, got it?

Car, we use car in DCI, right? Scott drives the car around the hotel. Okay?

Car, in your mind, the one that Will's mom taught him. Car. Car.

Car. Car. And the first car you saw is the car that for you is always a car for the rest of your life.

Actually, it's older than that, but we can say that. Okay? Then there's a car that you buy later on when you...

first car... I bought my first car about five years ago. Then there's the car, a car that you buy.

Okay, got it? Why are we talking about this? You ready?

Here's the punchline. They're the same thing. This is a picture.

Aiyah! Demon. Sorry.

This is a picture coming out of your mind. Okay? This is the kwa.

This is cup that your mom taught you. There's no difference. Okay?

This is cup. A cup is always cup. Got it?

Okay? You're always watching a picture. Okay?

That's why we went to the lion's dance. You were watching a picture of your teacher. Okay?

You're always watching a picture. Got it? Sometimes we give the picture a name.

Cup. But the real word is the picture of the cup your mom showed you when she said, this is cup. Will...

Did she call you Willie? I don't know. William.

This is cup. A cup and cup are the same in Buddhism. Okay?

Got it? That's dependent origination. The absence of an outer A cup is emptiness.

Okay? There are no the cup. There is no a cup.

There's only cup coming out of your mind. Okay? Picture coming out of your mind.

Okay? Is that disturbing? Is that weird?

Did all the people you know come from you? Are you kissing yourself when you kiss your wife? These are deep questions.

Dharmakirti said, no, he wrote a whole book about it. It was called Proof of Other Mindstreams. I think he should have called it You're Not Kissing Yourself.

If it was me, I would have called it You're Not Kissing Yourself. He called it Proof of Other Mindstreams. But, yeah.

Your seeds are so good that when you make another person, you make them independent of you. Okay? They talk, they think, they have their own life.

Okay? Got it? Your seeds are so good.

Don't think that because people are coming from you, they're coming from you. They're separate from you. Okay?

Got it? Okay, so don't get weird. Don't refuse to kiss your wife because it's weird to kiss yourself.

Just keep kissing her. Alright, so this one's probably the deepest idam in the diamond cutter. I'll probably say that about six times.

Okay? You know that. You know me.

Okay. What time I have to stop? 10.30. Ah, we're good. Okay, next meditation. You still don't need air conditioner? Not for a while.

Some people are going to change parties. Meditation number six. This is one of my favorite meditations nowadays.

I don't know. I had some kind of breakthrough about it. It's starting to make its way into DCI.

I like to think of new ideas from the Diamond Cutter Sutra like snow on the mountain. Veronica lives in Flagstaff. There's a big mountain there.

Mount Humphreys? That peak in Flagstaff. And it snows there in the winter.

And then all spring, all summer water comes to the city from the mountain. Okay? I like to think all the translation work from the translation team who have named themselves the Mixed Nuts is like snow on the mountain and then it melts and it comes into DCI.

You see what I mean? So, you're going to see this one in DCI in a couple months probably. All right?

So, it's famous in English that you start a story with once upon a time. EVA MA YAG SHU GTAM Once I heard that. That's how all sutras begin also.

Okay? I heard this one time. Okay?

So, this is the most common sentence of an English story. Usually. Once upon a time.

Long ago. And we kind of covered it in the lion's dance, but I want you to just remember, okay? And let's go to the sutra here.

Well, it's the same part of the sutra. Okay? How did your teacher come to your first meeting?

How did you come to your first meeting? Oh, Geshe-la. I went to school that day.

I came home. My big brother said, you want to work on this race car together? We had a race car in the garage.

And it took two people to drive the race car. We used to practice down the residential street. We used to get up to like 100 miles an hour in the residential street.

It's a Camaro. And because the accelerator didn't work, the pedal didn't work. So, one guy had to pull that with his hands and the other guy had to drive.

So, you had to sit really close together and then one guy go like this and the other guy... So, we were under the car fixing it and that's how I got to dinner that night. I went to school.

I worked on the car. I went to dinner. Then teacher came from their house.

I guess their mom drove them. Then they came to my house. We met, okay?

So, if I ask you, what's the causes of our meeting? You can say, well, you went to school Geshe-la. Then you worked on the car.

And then you had dinner. And you met your teacher at the dinner. And then the teacher can say, well, I was at my mom's house and I got in the car and I came to the house and I met Michael.

Okay? These are the causes. I'd like you to start calling them outside causes.

Think about them as outside causes. So, they happened first, one by one, and then the meeting happened. And this is the lower interpretation of dependence.

Now, what's the higher one? Your seats opened and created a school. And your seats opened and created a teacher in the school.

And your seats opened and created a school bus. And then your seats opened and the teacher said something. And then your seats opened and the blessed final bell rang at school.

And then your seats opened and they put you back on the bus. And then your seats opened and the race car came in the garage. And then your seats opened and you had dinner and your teacher walked to the door.

Okay? One by one, seats opened. Are they consecutive?

Are they consecutive? Yeah. But did they cause each other?

What am I doing? I invented this in Russia, I think. And the Russians got really upset at me.

Geshe-la, you shouldn't do that. It's very modest and boring. It's unpleasant.

Don't do that. It's unpleasant. And I'm like, what?

Do what? Stop banging on the microphone. I said, oh, you're talking about this?

Yeah. I'm sorry I have to do this. Why?

Because every time I do this, the sun comes up the next day. I have to do this. Can you imagine how bad it's going to be for the farmers if the sun doesn't come up?

All those people trying to get a sun tan. If I don't make the sun come up, Geshe-la, banging on the microphone doesn't make the sun come up. Yes, it does.

You watch tomorrow. Okay. Yeah, but Geshe-la, there's no connection.

Everything's like that. Everything's like that. There's no connection.

Garden? There's no connection. The only connection is between the seat and the bus and the seat and the school and the seat and the teacher and they happen one after another.

But it doesn't prove a connection. Got it? It's very cool.

It's very cool. That's the real meaning of these lines. Buddha's explaining why nobody teaches the Dharma.

Okay. Did Geshe-la get up on this chair? Yes.

Did Tim fix the microphone? Yes. Did Geshe-la open his computer with chun dzong?

Yes. Did Geshe-la start reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra? Yes.

Did Geshe-la teach the Diamond Cutter Sutra? No. Okay.

Were those causes of Geshe-la teaching Diamond Cutter Sutra? No. What caused Geshe-la to come in the room?

You did. What caused Geshe-la to get up here? You did.

What caused Geshe-la... What caused the microphone? You did.

Diamond Cutter Sutra be written two and a half thousand years ago. You did? Okay, got it?

Okay. Stop thinking of causes the old way, okay? Yeah, Geshe-la came in the room before the Diamond Cutter Sutra was taught, but that didn't cause the teaching, okay?

Got it? That's awesome. Now somebody explain this picture to me.

The pen never touched the paper. You're so hot. Sheesh.

The pen never touched the paper, okay? Got it? The pen can't touch the paper, I mean, okay?

That's why physicists are going crazy trying to figure it out. The pen never touched the paper, okay? Words came out, where'd they come from?

From you, okay? Every movie you saw, you wrote, okay? If you don't like the ending, that's your problem.

Okay? Oh, Geshe-la, I don't like the ending. Okay, we'll fix your karma, huh?

Okay, got it? Alright. I think that one's one of the coolest ones, okay?

Pens never touch the paper and the Buddha never teaches, okay? Who said that? Buddha, okay.

Are we supposed to believe it if he taught it? If Buddha taught that Buddha never teaches. I don't know, we'll worry about that later.

Okay, let's go to next one. Yeah, I like this one because it should come next. What's happening here?

Guess. This is supposed to be the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, okay? In Bodhgaya.

This is Buddha getting enlightened under the Bodhi tree. What just happened one minute ago? Hmm?

What happened the minute before Buddha got enlightened? Don't get all philosophical on me. I mean, what's the story?

What was happening one minute before that? What was he seeing? Yeah, demons.

Mara's throwing spears at him. Ladies are taking off their clothes. Really, they're throwing spears at him, okay?

What happened? They become flowers before they hit him, okay? Got it?

That's an emptiness teaching itself. Halfway through the air the spear turns into flowers. He's all, that's so nice, people throwing flowers at me.

Thank you. Okay? This is what you have to do with your husband when he's not nice.

Change your seeds. Then, even if he wants to hurt you, everything he says will make you happy. Okay?

Got it? Very weird. Alright.

Did you make the Buddha enlightened? Yeah. Okay.

Did you create history? Yes. Why it says deceptive and true?

Hmm. There is a deceptive part. You know, if you go to Bodhgaya you can see this tree and it looks old and it looks like somebody planted it and it looks like somebody sat down in front of it.

That's true. It looks like that, okay? Is it like that?

No, it came from you, okay? But it looks like that, alright? So, we can say deceptive reality is real.

It does look like that. It looks like Buddha who gave his body to five tigers sat under the tree and taught somebody later. It looks like that.

But what's really happening? Pictures coming out of your mind. You created not just Diamond Mountain in 2018, okay?

You don't like your shower? That's your fault. No, actually they're all wonderful.

But you created history. You created the Buddha's enlightenment, okay? Buddha came from you.

And there's many people in this world who never heard of Buddha, who never heard of Jesus, they never heard anything. They didn't plant the seeds to have any guidance from anybody. And they're just like animals, okay?

Got it? You are lucky. You had seeds that created Ching Kang Jing and a Buddha who taught it.

Okay, got it? Good job. Alright.

Next one. Oh, cool. Now you get to figure out what this is.

This is a cool part of Kamalashila. Maybe this is the sweetest part, especially if you went through all the Kamalashilas, right? Or you came to some of them.

So, normally there's two kinds of people in the universe. Those who have seen emptiness directly and those who have not seen emptiness directly. Either you're an Arya or you're not an Arya.

There's only two kinds of people. Either you saw directly or you didn't see directly. If you saw directly, you are very close to become Buddha.

You're just like, the next minute you're gonna be a Buddha. I like to call it the bullet touching the paper of the target. You're that close if you see emptiness directly.

So, in the whole universe there's only two kinds of people. Either you saw it directly or you didn't see it. And there are many words to describe both of them.

People who saw it are called Arya. Arya means higher, higher being. And there's people who didn't see it.

They're called SOGS RGYAS BA. PHUR LTAGS BRJAN NA What's it mean? Normal people.

Normal people. Literally PHUR LTAGS in Sanskrit, SOGS SOGS RGYAS BA SOGS SOGS RGYAS BA You okay? What's that?

Yeah. Literally it means individual, separate people. Okay?

We translate it as normal people, meaning people who didn't see emptiness yet directly. Okay? But the word in Sanskrit is PHUR LTAGS.

Individual people. Normal. Separate people.

And Kamalashila says they are separate from emptiness. That's why they're called SOGS SOGS RGYAS BA PHUR LTAGS BRJAN NA They are separated from ultimate reality. They didn't touch it yet.

Okay? So there's only two kinds of people in the universe. PHUR LTAGS BRJAN NA Normal people.

They never heard about emptiness. They're not interested in it. Okay?

At all. Then there's the very, very, very, very rare people who got interested in emptiness, heard about the pen, came to Diamond Mountain, did their retreats, and in cottage number 35, or I don't know, is there a 35? No.

Okay, not yet. They saw emptiness directly. Okay?

We should have like a museum of people who see emptiness. We'll have a wax museum. We'll put air conditioning there.

Okay? And people who saw emptiness. Okay, there's two kinds of people.

But Kamalashila says, you know what? Oh, by the way, there's a synonym for SOGS SOGS RGYAS BA. SPYI BA SPYI BA Say SPYI BA.

SPYI BA BALA BALA means baby. Baby. Little baby.

In English we have an idiom. We say two-year-old. How old is Kiri?

Two-year-old. You can... Kiri is a good example, his son.

Good example, okay? Two-year-old in English is a bad expression. You're acting like a two-year-old.

Like Veronica says it to me sometimes. You're acting like a two-year-old. It means you're acting foolish, or you know, you're acting like a little kid, or something, you know?

It's a little bit insult, not too fun insult, okay? You're acting like two-year-old. So Buddha said people who didn't see emptiness directly, they're kind of like two-year-olds.

But, then he said, you know what? This is Kamalashila, okay? General people who didn't see emptiness directly, we can call them normal people.

And then two-year-olds can be people who heard a little bit about the pen. So he distinguishes a little bit between normal people and two-year-olds, right? Because people who heard the pen at a DCI talk for five minutes, right?

They're different from normal people, okay? They know a little bit more. than normal people, okay?

So Kamalashila says, let's divide those two, okay? There's normal people who didn't see emptiness directly, but the little kids, the two-year-olds, they heard the pen, or Hinayana scripture about the pen, okay? We can call them two-year-olds, infant, okay?

Then Kamalashila makes a leap. He says, therefore, anyone who has studied the Diamond Cutter Sutra is a teenager, okay? He created a new category for us.

Okay, you guys are, you have the honor of being a teenager. Got it? It's very cool in Kamalashila.

He says, he created a new category. He said, if Buddha called the lower thinkers of emptiness two-year-olds, then the higher thinkers of emptiness who studied the Diamond Cutter but haven't seen it directly yet, he's implying they must be teenagers. Okay, of course.

If he called the ones who just heard the pen little kids, then the ones who spent many days at Diamond Mountain struggling with Diamond Cutter Sutra for the last two and a half years, they should have the honor of being teenagers. Okay, got it? So, I hereby declare you are teenagers.

Okay, good for you. Alright, that's cool. I like that so much.

Okay, you got the distinction. You understand the distinction. If you saw the pen, if you heard the pen briefly and you don't have any big bodhisattva motivation, we're going to call you an infant.

If you just never heard anything about emptiness and you don't care about it, you're a two-year-old. Sorry, normal person. And if you struggled through many Diamond Cutter classes and you're about to see emptiness directly but you didn't, you're a teenager.

Okay, good. What happens to teenagers if they come to Diamond Mountain? They become?

Arya, Arya. Okay, cool. Alright, one more.

Let's see, what's that? Let's stop there. Okay?

The next one's too long. Tomorrow we'll start with the next one, okay? It's ...

How much time I have? I have a whole hour. Yikes!

We'll take one more break, okay? PP, in honor of Mr. PP. CHEN TZAM Just because you have a strong bladder doesn't mean everybody else has a strong bladder.

Okay. Alright. Katie, you ready?

We're going to continue what? Review of the whole Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay? Those of you who didn't come in the past, you're getting it cheap.

You get the main points. You don't get all of them, right? So, as I remember, we're on idim number sixteen, which is a?

An elephant. Thank you, Katie. Nice job.

Okay. We spent two days in Guangzhou recently talking about physics. And, you know, I forget what we're talking about, anyway.

Oh. Oh, yeah. Stephen Hawking wrote a book called Brief History of Time.

It's the best-selling book in modern history. It's the least finished book in modern history. So, I'm writing a book called A Better History of Time.

Anyway, we talked a lot about atoms and we had a physicist there and he kind of thought it was cool, okay? So, there's a human need. It doesn't matter what country you came from.

It doesn't matter if you if you come from an ancient culture of Asia or the ancient culture of the Middle East, which is where we're from. Okay, it doesn't matter where you're from. We're human on this planet.

It's more comfortable for you to believe that things are made of little pieces, okay? It's just natural, okay? Anika made me an awesome cherry pie, which I'm not sharing because I just want one more in my life.

I just want that one. And it's got pieces in it, you know? It's got cherries in it.

Okay, maybe I'll share it with some people. But, you know, you can imagine as you're eating it, oh, there's little cherries in the pie, right? And it's a human need.

It's a human natural part of human development of the human mind and the human spirit that we believe things have little things in them. You know, plastic is made of little pieces of plastic called molecules. We believe it.

It's a natural desire of a human being. Every human being goes through it. The atom stage, okay?

And it's it's the lowest of all the Buddhist schools, okay? Science is the lowest of all the Buddhist schools, okay? We believe that this is made of little things.

Aspirin works because there's little balls of chemicals in it. And the little balls of chemicals touch little balls of chemicals in my body. And the coke, what's it?

Come on Connie. COX-2 inhibitor, okay? My COX-2s are inhibited by the aspirin and then my headache goes away, okay?

Little balls touch little balls, okay? That's science. And you know, scientists will say, look, it's not really little balls Geshe-la.

It's a proton and neutron surrounded by an electron field and the fields kind of touch each other, but okay, I don't care. You're still thinking of little balls. Okay, call them what you want.

No, Geshe-la, the proton has quarks in it and they have beauty and spin and there's a up, down, top, bottom, beauty and charm. Six qualities inside the proton. I don't care.

You're still looking at little balls. You're still thinking of little balls, okay? It's a human need to believe that there's little balls in.

Cop, cop mom. Cop, what's inside, Willie? Balls, mom.

I learned it in school. Little balls called atoms, okay? People need to believe that, okay?

But they're impossible and you know, science admits that, okay? Does light move in a wave or does it move as particles? It acts both ways.

It's impossible. Forget the balls. They don't work, okay?

What's that? Heidegger's uncertainty principle. And in fact, if you put an observer close, the balls change.

They act differently. Duh! And they're like, why is it?

How can it be? Okay, alright. It's not balls, okay?

It's pictures from your mind, okay? Got it? It's illogical that you could see a thing if it was made of balls that you couldn't see, okay?

If an elephant is made of little balls and you can't see any of the little balls, then you can't see all the balls together. Because if you can't see them, if you can't measure them, if there's no width to the little balls, which is how small they have to be, then the left side of the little ball is touching the right side of the little ball. Okay?

If there's no width, angstrom units, to an atom, if you cannot split an atom, if it's a-tam, which means unsplittable, okay, in Sanskrit, then the left side of the atom must touch the right side of the atom, okay? It's like your left shoulder is your right shoulder, then where's you? Okay, got it?

It doesn't make sense, okay? There cannot be a smallest thing, okay? Even if there was, if you had two atoms whose left shoulder was their right shoulder, okay, got it?

And you put two of them together, the left shoulder of the one is still the right shoulder of the other one, okay, got it? Then you can't make stuff out of them, okay? They won't have any width, okay?

It's a stupid idea. Is it helpful? Yes.

Abhidharma. How many, what is it? Eight atoms in everything, okay?

In every molecule. Is it eight? I don't remember.

Five? Anyway, seven? Ask the Abhidharma expert, okay?

It's all just wrong, okay? It's okay. Is it helpful?

Yes. So Geshe-la, if I put, what's that kind of aspirin that takes away pain? Brown one.

Ibuprofen. Geshe-la, you know, if you have a bunch of non-ibuprofen atoms and you make a pill and you put some ibuprofen atoms in it, it takes away your headache, right? Sometimes, okay.

If you have the seeds. And sometimes it doesn't, okay? It's not the balls that are taking away the balls of your headache, okay?

It's karma, okay? It's always karma. You cannot see an elephant if they're made of atoms, okay?

That's part of the Diamond Cut of Sutra, okay? We covered it already. Now, next question.

IDIM 17. And I'll give you a break in 15 minutes, I promise. Just hold it.

If helping the sick makes medicine work for me, do I still have to take the medicine? Yes or no? Who said it depends?

Yeah, Luka, you're so smart. Okay. What's the answer, Luka?

Good. Yeah, good. There's three possibilities, okay?

Number one, your seeds are so good, you never get a headache anyway. Headache stops before it starts. Okay?

Headache stops before it starts. That's first class on the airplane seats. Okay?

What's business class seats? Yeah, you have enough seats for the aspirin to work. Okay?

You have enough—you get a headache, then you take the aspirin and it works because there's seats in the aspirin. What's economy class seats? You don't have enough seats for it to work, okay?

Most of us are in business class or economy class. Just like real life. Okay?

Economy plus. Most of us, you know, maybe the aspirin's going to work, maybe the aspirin's not going to work. Okay?

But if your karma's really good, there's economy plus—business plus, halfway to first class. Right? You don't even have to take the pill anymore.

It just goes away after two seconds or so. Okay? So really there's four classes.

Let's say it again. I didn't quite say it very clearly. First class.

Yeah, the headache stopped before it started. Business first class. You don't need the medicine.

You don't need the medicine. You get a headache, but it just goes away like in two minutes or something by itself. Okay?

Those are people who walk on water. These are people who walk on water. Okay?

Third one, business class. You have to take the pill. You have to buy aspirin.

Okay? You're still better than economy class because economy class people, they don't know if the aspirin's going to work or not. Okay?

Got it? They don't know about the seeds. Alright?

Okay. So, by the way, as a teacher, DCI teacher, ACI teacher, you're going to get this question a lot. It's not uncommon question.

People say, if everything's coming from my seeds, Geshe-la, why I still have to take aspirin? Why? Should I go to the...

I have a lump on my breast. Should I go to the doctor or not? And my Lama always used to say, and do what they say.

And I'd say to my Lama, but if they made seeds, it would just stop. He said, most people can't make that powerful seeds. You know?

They're still going to have to go to the doctor. Okay? If they plant good seeds, the doctor will cure them.

Okay? So, most of us are at this level. Still have to go to the doctor.

Plant the best seeds you can. Okay? If we were super meditators, yeah, we could stop the seeds and the tumor would go away.

Okay? But most of us are not there. So, as a teacher, it's probably responsible to tell people, go to your doctor, go to...pick a good doctor, do what they say, but plant seeds heavily. Okay? All right? Chen Zong just had an operation, hip operation.

It was very successful. The... all those fire offerings.

Created a good doctor and a good procedure and it's four weeks and she's running around doing fire offerings. Okay? That's okay.

Okay? All right. Then, we're at this guy.

You ready? Katie? He's not as handsome as Adam, but he's not bad.

Okay. The Buddha asked Subuddhi, if somebody has the signs on their body that only a Buddha has, are they a Buddha? And Subuddhi says, no.

Okay? If a person... how many major signs?

32. How many minor signs? 80.

I stopped during this teaching, I gave you a huge translation of the 112 signs and their unique causes. So, you are 112 sign experts if you came to Kamalashila. If you didn't come, ask Jigme and she'll get you my translation.

I think it's about 30 or 40 pages. Okay? From a sangha.

Who... What are the signs? Eighth chapter of the Abhisa Malankara.

What are the signs and what do you have to do to get each one? Okay? Now, if a person has signs, then logically you can deduce that they created the causes of those signs.

Okay? If they have a big bump here. Rinpoche had huge ears and a big bump here.

I mean... Okay? So, you can kind of guess what's going on with people by looking at their smile.

You see what I mean? On the inside. It tells you something about their inside.

It's not 100% sure, right? There are Buddhas who pretend to be grumpy. Okay?

So, don't judge other people. But, in general, especially on your own body, almost everything happening with your body is a reflection of your mind. Okay?

Your own mental state. Okay? So, you can tell a lot about your...

Me and John, for example, are extremely intelligent. Christopher. Because this hair has burned off the top.

Right, JB? So, from the outside appearance you can see the massive intellect inside. Okay?

And it's the same with everybody. So, how do the signs outside reflect the inside? And we know the cause of beauty, right?

Is what? Patience. The karmic cause of beauty is patience.

Just don't get upset. It's so much cheaper than going to Sephora. I have a shopping class, DCI level 13.

I have a boys going shopping class. Every time we go on tour, I take the boys and teach them how to shop for their partner. It's a very popular class.

And, really. Okay? And, you know, we go out and go shopping.

It's fun, right? Why am I talking about that? Oh, Sephora.

Yeah. Don't go to Sephora. The first thing I teach them is never walk into Sephora.

Because you can't get out for less than $300. Okay? Much cheaper to teach your partner to be patient.

Okay? It's free. Alright?

And she will be more and more beautiful. Okay? So, if you don't have that much money and your partner wants to know why you didn't buy her, what's that?

Lancome anti-aging cream, which is like $300 for a small bottle. I bought it for my old lady, okay? Because she likes it.

But, if she's younger, you can teach her about patience. Okay? Alright.

IDIM 19 Okay? And this is where Buddha encourages people to go on that trip to your past life. Okay?

Go on that trip to your past life. You know, why was I born with this body? The good things that you like about yourself and the bad things that you don't like about yourself, you can do a meditation and you can go backwards and pretend that you know what happened.

Okay? You can pretend that you know what happened. Okay?

I had gout for many years. I still have it once in a while. And my Lama told me I kicked somebody in my past life.

Okay? He looked at it and he said, oh, it hurts here, it hurts here. I said, yeah, yeah.

He said, yeah, you kicked your brother in your past life. Okay? Alright?

So, the teaching of the signs of a Buddha is a teaching about what you do in your past life creates your body now. Okay? And it's changeable.

Okay? Somebody asked me in a DCI one day, my husband has big ears, can I change him? I said, yeah, why not?

Okay? They're coming from you. Just change your big ear seeds.

What's the big ear seed, Geshe-la? I don't know. You got to work on that.

Probably listening. Alright. Next idam.

This is a nice guanyin that my Chinese students got from me. I gave it to the college. It's very beautiful.

It's very delicate and very skillful artist. And so there's a glue for all the parts of your body. Okay?

You have karma to see a hand. You have karma to see a nose. You have karma to see feet.

Okay? But you have another karma that glues them together. Okay?

This principle, okay? This principle is the answer to the question, do you guys know? It's a famous argument by Nagarjuna.

It's a famous conundrum, koan by Nagarjuna. You are not your hand and you are not all your parts together and you are not no parts. Okay?

You are not the parts individually. You are not not the parts. But you are also, the confusing one is that Nagarjuna said you are not all your parts together.

Okay? You can have the sides of a Buddha. You can have arms and legs and head, but you need one more karma.

Okay? When you say all your parts, you got to add the part that glues them all together. That's the missing link.

Okay? That's the missing part. You have a karma that glues pieces together.

Okay? When you lose that karma, you get Alzheimer's. You can't recognize common things.

What do you call that? Autistic sounds. You know?

T sounds like A, S sounds like B. You know? There's nothing to tie them together.

Okay? There's a unifying karma that puts objects together. Okay?

What is that karma? It's acting in a reasonable way. Following logic.

Moment to moment. Day by day. Okay?

Acting reasonable. Okay? Can we go see this movie?

I don't want to. Yeah, but I want to. Okay.

That's okay. Let's make you happy. You see what I mean?

Acting in a reasonable way is the karma to glue things together. And your world will be more logical. Politicians will do logical things.

Well thought out things. Really, the more logical you are, the more logical your world will be. Coherent.

Karma for coherent. Okay? Got it?

All right. Twenty-one. One more and I'll give you a short break and then we'll do a little bit more.

Okay? This is a teaching about the two extremes. YOD DANG MED DANG There's another word for it.

PHYIR PHYIR DANG BDAG DANG BDAG DANG PHYIR DANG Okay? There's two sets of words for this idea. YOD DANG MED DANG YOD DANG means extreme...

DANG means edge like this. Okay? If you go over the edge you fall off.

Okay? That's called DANG DANG Edge. Okay?

So, YOD DANG means you crash into the ditch on the left side. You believe that things are the way they seem to be. Okay?

You believe that things are the way they seem to be. It seems like pens make writing. Okay?

Seems like that. Okay? That's called YOD DANG.

It seems like gasoline makes a car go. It seems like that. That's called YOD DANG.

Okay? What's MED DANG? Yeah, there's no gas, there's no car, there's no driver.

Nothing exists. Okay? What's the population percentage?

How many people have believed that everything's the way it seems? And how many people have the belief that nothing exists at all? Yeah, 99.9999999% believe that things are the way they seem. The people who think nothing's there, there's no gas, there's no car. Okay? There's no pen, there's no paper.

Okay? Those are only people who got a bad Buddhist teaching. Okay?

So, there's not so many, or maybe there's too many. I don't know. Okay?

They got a stupid teaching about emptiness. And then they believe nothing exists. I don't have to be good to people.

Okay? There's no good, there's no bad. Everything's illusion.

I can eat donuts one after the other and nothing will happen. Okay? YOD DANG MED DANG Now, they have other names.

BDAG DANG BYAS DANG BDAG DANG BYAS DANG BDAG DANG means something will last forever and never change. BYAS DANG means they can just blink out. Okay?

Just for those of you who want to go deeper, the first set of extremes are the logical cause of the second set of extremes. If things are the way they seem, they should never change. If things are not coming from you, they should always be the same.

Okay? And, if emptiness means that nothing exists, then everything should just blink out. Okay?

Got it? There's two famous sets of views here. Two ditches on the road.

Two mistakes you can make. In meditation, what are the two ditches? Yeah, dullness and busy mind.

Sleepy mind and busy mind. Dullness and agitation. Okay?

Dullness, the quality of the attention degrades and everything becomes less bright. And then agitation, you're thinking about other stuff. Okay?

Mostly breakfast. Okay. Short pee-pee break.

Five minutes. Okay? Just to stretch your legs.

Then please come back quick. I like the photo. Looks like Katie.

Yeah. Okay? And, we're still on the lines where the Buddha asked the Bodhi, if someone has the signs of a Buddha on their body, are they a Buddha?

Okay? SEL ZHING RDZOGS PA In the SEL ZHING RDZOGS PA NAS LA YOD PA In the Abhidharma, they are clear. The signs are not fuzzy like the wheel on the palm of the hand.

It's clear. RDZOGS PA means complete, there's not pieces missing. And, NAS LA YOD PA they are in the proper location exactly.

Those are the qualities. But suppose somebody has those signs, 112 signs, are they a Buddha? Buddha asked the Bodhi, and Bodhi said, no.

Meaning, they're not a Buddha who's not coming from me. They're not a Buddha who's not coming from me. If the Buddha had asked the Bodhi, if a person has all the signs on their body exactly, and they come from you, are they a Buddha?

Then Subuddhi would have said yes, and the Diamond Cutter Sutra would not have been so confusing. Okay? Alright?

Now, Kamalashila points out that the existence of the signs is a reflection of the love of the Buddha. Okay? Because the Buddha took the trouble to take a physical body.

Love creates the physical body of a Buddha. Okay? They can't help people without a physical body.

So, they purposely collect the karma for a physical body while they're collecting the karma for a Buddhahood. Okay? Give me a short verse that expresses that.

But I'm not ending the class. I'll give you a clue. Yeah, yeah, no.

DGE BA DI RGYAS BO GANG GZUN NAM GYI ZHIG TSOGS GZUN NAM GYI TSOGS Okay? Which of the six perfections causes the physical body? Peter's almost got the answer.

First three and a half. First three and a half. Okay.

What are the first three and a half? Yeah, sharing what you have. Secondly, being nice to other people.

Third, not getting upset. Half, hard work. Okay.

Willing to work hard. Okay. So, it's kind of a joke.

This picture and the caption, which is, I would love to show up, means I have enough love that I will come to the party with my new dress. Got it? What's the dress?

The physical body of a Buddha. Okay. Alright.

Two physical bodies. Okay? So, okay.

You got that one. I really like that picture. IDIM 23 Buddha starts to get into the three jewels.

SEMS PA'O And, for example, he talks about the Dharma Jewel. Okay. And about protection.

Okay. About protection. So, normal Dharma Jewel, okay, is what?

Books, videos, audios, online stuff. Okay. Jinkanjing, Diamond Cutter Sutra, Kamalashila's commentary, Geshe-la's comments on it.

These are all physical Dharma. But they're not the real Dharma and they're not what protect you. What's the real Dharma?

Understanding of emptiness. Seeing emptiness directly. Okay.

We call them both Dharma Jewel, but it's seeing emptiness directly is the real Dharma Jewel. Okay. You guys know this.

It comes in Kamalashila. Okay. And the real protection is that.

Why did I choose this picture for Dharma Jewel? Hopefully two things are going on. Yeah, good.

He's reading the book and understanding. I tried to find someone whose face looked like they were paying attention to the book and they were learning something from the book. Okay.

What he's understanding from the book is the real Dharma, right? And the book is what we call physical Dharma. Okay.

What's a very common place where this is discussed, this difference? I'll give you a clue. It's sad.

Very sad. Hmm? Yeah, last lines of the Abhidharmakosha.

And Vasubandhu says the Dharma will die in this world. The Dharma will die. It's depressing.

Okay. Last lines of the Abhidharmakosha. Which Dharma will die first?

Ideas. The ideas will die first. And the ACIP database will still be there.

But nobody will understand it. Okay. The bytes of data will still be online.

But nobody will be meditating on them. Okay. So he predicts that.

How long will it take? Five sets of... 500 years.

Five sets of 500 years. We're going to talk about the last set. Let's go to the next one.

Look at this handsome guy. Was that a TV show? In Russia?

Ukraine. Wow. Okay, cool.

This is two very smart teachers explaining the pen. And this gets into Subuddhi's famous question. Now, I'll give you a clue.

I don't think I've ever seen a sutra where the Buddha got irritated by a question. I can't remember ever. All the books I've read, I cannot remember ever that the Buddha seemed impatient or irritated even by a nudnik question.

Okay. But in the Diamond Cutter Sutra he gets irritated at one question. What is it?

In the last 500. Okay? In the last 500 years of your teaching, which started 18 years ago.

Okay? In the last 500 year period of your teaching, which is supposed to be the worst one. This is the one where the Dharma disappears and everyone starts watching stuff on the internet.

Okay? We're in that time now. I still get emails every day from people.

Geshe-la, look at this cat on YouTube. You know? And I'm like, I don't have time to look at cats on YouTube.

If you do, can I give you a job? I wrote them back. I said, can I give you a job?

I need help. I don't have time to look at cats on YouTube. Okay?

So, the question that Subuddhi asked was, yeah, will anybody in the last 500 years understand this stuff? And the Buddha gets irritated and says, yes, there will be. Special people will come, better than the 2,000 years before.

And they will go deep into the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Okay? At this weird place in the desert.

Okay? Understand? You were predicted by the Buddha.

Oh, Geshe-la, that's kind of, what do you call it? Presumptuous to think that Nick is the guy the Buddha is talking about 2,500 years ago. And I say to you, you're wrong.

Okay? Later, in the fourth part, Buddha is going to confess that he can read the thoughts of every living being, past, present, and future. So, what's the problem with the Buddha 2,500 years ago, you know, brushing his teeth after he went for breakfast, then meditating and sending a message to Nick in 2018?

What's the problem? Why do you have a problem with that? You think Buddha can't do that?

Okay? You think Buddha wasn't thinking about you? Buddha sees all people in the universe except you?

Of course. He taught the Diamond Cutter Sutra 2,500 years ago, each word for you. Okay?

Designed for you. Okay? Got it?

So, you can, if you need to brighten up your meditation, if you get dullness in meditation, what are you supposed to do? SENTOS PA Think about how amazing your life is. Wow!

Buddha sent me a message called Diamond Cutter Sutra. Okay? Just for me.

Maybe I'm special. Maybe. Louis C.K., right? Maybe. Maybe you're special. Okay.

So, Buddha sent Peter and Masha to teach it in Ukraine. Thank you. Okay.

Okay. IDIM 25 Yeah, that's just an old Kamalashila picture. And, you are the people of the last 500.

It's time and you're here. And don't doubt it, okay? When you're in your meditation cabin and the demon of sleepiness is crunching your mind, you know, remember who you are.

Remember. You're the people that Buddha and Sabuddhi were talking about. Don't doubt it.

If you think someone else is meditating on the lion's stance this week, you're mistaken. Okay? I mean, except for our groups.

There's nobody. Okay? It's you.

Okay? You must be special. Okay?

You're here. Okay? Alright.

IDIM 26 It says Sangha Jewel, Robes and Emptiness. What's that mean? Robes and Emptiness.

Yeah. Apparent Sangha and Real Sangha. We call Apparent Sangha.

KUN RDZOGS GCOD KYI KUN RDZOGS KUN THAG, we call it actually. And then, MNGON NAS PA, the real one. So generally, we say that anyone who's ordained, who's wearing robes, is a Sangha Jewel.

Jewel of the community. Okay? But the deeper Sangha is teenagers and grown-ups.

Teenagers and grown-ups. Okay? Okay?

One of the most exciting things about seeing emptiness directly is you become two of the three jewels. The Dharma Jewel is in your mind and the Sangha Jewel, you join the Sangha Jewel. Okay?

Which, it's kind of cool because millions of Buddhists in history have been praying to YOD. And that was a big thing when I first studied Buddhism. I remember, I remember where I was and a monk was explaining to me why I could become Buddha.

And I'm like, no no, I pray to Buddha. I take refuge in Buddha. You know?

I read Buddha books. I don't, I'm not Buddha. And he said, no no, that's, in Buddhism, the goal is to become the leader of the religion.

You become Buddha. Okay? Or you become God.

Okay? And I was so like, wow, that's cool. Alright?

Okay? You become two of the three jewels when you see emptiness directly. I think if you're a good teenager in this room, I'd say you're already Dharma Jewel.

Sangha Jewel. Sorry. And teenager Dharma Jewel.

Okay? Got it? Alright.

And those are the friends you should hang out with. Hang out with people who understand seeds. Okay?

Hang out with people who understand seeds. Alright? It doesn't mean other people are bad.

And it doesn't mean they are going to hell, although they are. But it means if you have choice, be close to people who know you're not supposed to do bad stuff. Then when you do the bad stuff, they will correct you.

Okay? Got it? It's to protect you.

Okay? So hang out with people who understand about karma. Because you'll be embarrassed to do bad karma around your friends if they understand what's a bad karma.

Okay? And if you hang out with other people who don't care, you will start acting that way. IDIM 27 This is a pretty simple section in the Diamond Cutter Sutra where Kamala Shila says the best way to get out of sansara is to show gratitude to other people.

The easiest way to get out of sansara is to keep expressing your appreciation and your gratitude to other people. Okay? Especially your teachers.

Thank your mom, thank your father, thank your school teachers, thank the people who taught you. I still dream about the guy who taught me business pretty regularly and I still ride him a couple times a year, I take him out to dinner, thank him. That was 37 years ago.

But keep showing gratitude. Okay? It doesn't hurt.

Oh Geshe-la, this person also hurt me. That's okay. Let that go and thank them for the good stuff.

Okay? Maybe your ex-wife taught you yoga or something. Then just say thank you in your mind.

Say thanks for keeping me alive. You know. Okay?

Be grateful for the good things and don't worry too much about the bad things. Okay? Alright.

Number 28. In the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Buddha, and I'm going to show you where, just for fun. It's section 28 of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Section 28 of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Buddha says, if a person has a single feeling of faith for one word of this sutra, the Buddha is watching them and the Buddha sees them. Okay?

Just if they enjoy Diamond Cutter Sutra for one minute, Buddhists are like, what's that smell? It's like, last night I went home, V made me a manicotti. Opened the door, this manicotti smell.

I'm like, okay. So, if one person is reading Diamond Cutter Sutra, jing kang jing, and they're like, wow, that's beautiful. Then Buddhists are all like, something smells good in the universe.

You know? And they like pay special attention to you. Okay?

Got it? All such people, O sabuddhi, have produced and gathered safely into themselves a mountain of merit beyond any calculation. You cannot count the good seeds that come from saying in your mind, this is cool.

This sutra is cool. If you say it for one second, you can't count the good karma from that. And appreciating your own interest, coffee meditation, on your own meditations.

Right? Which you're going to do tonight. Right?

Just before you go to bed. I'm so glad I'm cooking at Diamond Mountain in this cottage. I'm so glad I'm working.

Okay? Then Buddha said, inside the Diamond Cutter Sutra, you are putting those good seeds in the bank. They are safe.

Okay? He says planted and safe. Okay?

Tonight, before you go to bed, I'm so glad I'm struggling through Lion's Dance meditation. I'm so glad I'm struggling through the last part of the Diamond Cutter Sutra commentary by Kamalashila. I'm so glad I'm actually one of the few people in the world who's going to get a review of the whole Kamalashila commentary because I'm only doing it once.

Okay? So, no, you should do, protect the seeds. You see?

Put them in the bank. That's coffee meditation. Okay?

Put them in the bank. Okay? Who said that?

Buddha said that. Alright? Alright, we're going to stop there.

And remember we're in silence. Okay? I know a lot of the staff, including me, we tend to talk during these programs and I think it kind of waters the thing down.

So, I encourage the staff to try to keep silence as far as you can. Okay? Or don't talk around other people.

If you have to talk, go, go in your outhouse and talk. It'll be short. Okay?

Alright. Aaron, you ready? Okay.

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