Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика», часть 5 — Честь быть подростком (2018, Даймонд-Маунтин, Аризона), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
Alright, let's meditate. Okay, turn off your phone. We'll do four rounds.

So if you don't have it recording, you might want to make a recording. Okay, get comfortable. This might be a while.

If you have to sit on a chair, sit on a chair. Don't be shy. Okay.

Do you need air conditioning? No. Air conditioning, yes.

Raise your hand. Air conditioning, no. Raise your hand.

Oh my gosh. I think the yeses have it. Can you turn it a little bit?

Just a little bit. We'll freeze the front row. Put on your coat.

Okay, here we go. So we'll start in the desire realm. Some noise in the room.

Or the sound of the air hitting your ears. And please go to your heartbeat. And inside the chamber of your heart.

Heart beating outside. Heart beating at a distance inside the crystal. As wide as the ocean.

As wide as space. Turn off the mind. Block thoughts.

Turn off the mind. See the thoughts, but don't follow them. Ask one of your teachers in your life to come and sit with you.

Think of one or two of their good qualities that you admire. Try to get in touch with the feeling that those qualities belong to them. They are part of their body, or they are part of their mind.

And you are watching them. And those qualities are showing themselves to you from the teacher. They have the qualities.

And you see them. The qualities are part of them. Now it's very difficult to block that idea or question it.

So question that idea. Maybe those qualities are coming from me somehow. And that would explain why other people don't see those qualities in the same person.

So try to question and eventually try to cancel the idea of some good qualities that belong to your teacher, that you are seeing in them, from them. This is emptiness, cessation meditation. The meditation is called cessation meditation in this lion's dance, Gobbenyomjuk.

But it only means that we are meditating on emptiness, the emptiness of a teacher who has qualities that belong to them. So if those qualities are coming from me, they must be coming from seeds in my mind. And I would like to try to imagine how I planted those seeds, how I might have planted those seeds.

So go back in your lifetimes. Have fun, enjoy, don't get too serious. Make a nice story and don't make it boring or dull.

Make it bright. Get some feeling into it, of how you planted these qualities that you see in your teacher. Long ago, in a different body, as a different person, what kindness did you pay to others?

Then come back to the center of your mind. See four or five silver seeds, like eggs. One of them cracks open.

An image comes out like a hologram. Floats towards your forehead. One comes out, covers your teacher.

And that hologram is of the quality that you admire in them, which you planted in the past. Watch another seed open, because for you to see the quality day after day, new seeds have to open. If the seeds ever ran out, you would see your teacher lose that quality somehow.

After the seeds have all opened, then sit with your teacher for a while. Admire the quality again, but this time, instead of feeling that it belongs to them, be aware that it's a coating that is coming from you constantly in a flow from the good deeds you did in the past. And have some happy feeling about that, because that means you can keep your teacher, and you can always see them as having good qualities.

If you keep planting the same seeds, it's up to you whether your teacher continues to be a teacher, and it's up to you whether they continue to be a good person. Now consciously move your mind back to the eighth level. Block the mind, stop the mind.

We're going to come back down, round number two, just to sharpen our focus. Only half the time, say five breaths, turn off the mind. Watch thoughts coming through the mind.

Don't spend too long on this second round. The mind's getting tired of focusing. If you spend a lot of time trying to meditate when the mind is already tired, you'll get sloppy habits.

Stop the mind, but block the thoughts. Actively, a little more noisy. Here, the gakja going down is the quieter place.

We are rejecting a quieter place, and we are embracing a slightly noisier place in our mind as we go down. Then the mind is returning from infinite space to the center. An emotion or a feeling of the whole universe coming back to the center inside of you.

Now the ocean ripple's coming back to the center. A little bit noisier. Here, not quite so wide anymore.

Come back to the crystal. Come back to the heart beating in the distance. Come back to the quieter place in the chamber of the heart, heart beating outside.

Come back to sitting in your body and watching the heartbeat. Don't go back to the desire realm. Stop at the first floor, at the heartbeat.

We're going to do round three. Round three is just going straight back up. Your mind is a little tired.

You're more likely to get distracted. And this is where you make progress. Like when your body's shaking in a yoga pose after you're tired already.

Heart's beating. You're in your body, aware of the beating of the heart. You're going to have to work harder to stay on the object in the chamber of the heart, quieter place.

We are rejecting the louder place, the heartbeat in the body. And we're going to a quieter place consciously. We are showing that we can direct our mind.

We can decide where the mind goes next. We are learning to direct our mind to where we want it to go. And we are rejecting the way we've lived before, where the mind is pushed around by outside events.

Now to the heartbeat at a distance. You're doing nice. Nobody's moving.

It's very quiet. Now to the crystal. Tiny, tiny, tiny crystal.

White. Now to the ocean inside the crystal. Wide, wide.

Wide as the planet. The air conditioning came back on. The desire realm is calling you.

Show you're strong enough to take the mind to the ocean and ignore the air conditioning. Expand the mind to all of space. Very silent.

Very vast, wide. Turn the mind off. Block thoughts actively.

Turn the mind off. Let thoughts flow through the mind. Don't listen to them.

Sit with your teacher, very aware that they are flowing from your seeds and very aware that how you see them, good or bad, all the good qualities, especially, are coming from you. Try to feel a determination to keep them in your life and to keep them pure by planting the necessary seeds. That's dependent origination, cause and effect.

Now, just for a moment, imagine a teacher the old way. Oh, they are coming from their side. Oh, their qualities are coming from them.

They decided to be good or bad. Try to feel the truth that this teacher coming from their side, who has qualities that belong to them, that they can lose, is all false. There's no such teacher.

There never was. Now we're going to round four. The mind is more tired now.

The attention is less bright. So it's going to take more effort to stay here. The knees are hurting maybe.

The back is maybe not comfortable. So here's where we have to be determined. We have to learn to stay in focus even when the body is tired or the mind is tired.

We have to make the mind stronger. So we're going to almost like drop down the elevator shaft. We're not coming down step by step.

We're not going to go 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We're going to go directly back to the heart. Directly back to form level number one.

So I'm in my body. I just left my teacher. Up on level nine.

My heart's beating. It's much harder to sit. It's much harder to focus.

But I'm going to try in a relaxed way to control my thoughts. Heartbeat, round four. Now think of something you'd like to achieve today or in the next few days, next week or so.

What's something, improvement in your life that you would like to see in the next few weeks? There are several candidates. There are several choices.

Try to choose one. One goal that you'd like to reach in the next few weeks. Maybe it's just stopping something that you don't like.

Or maybe it's achieving something that you do like. Now show your mental strength and purposely come back to the chamber of the heart, form realm level two. Immediately come back to clear focus on the quiet space in the middle of the heart.

Drop your plans. Drop your dreams. Show how fast you can jump from thinking about the next few weeks to sitting in the chamber of the heart.

Very, very quiet. Immediately jump back to those plans, what you would like to do in the next few weeks, what you would like to achieve. Start thinking about the seeds, that it's flowing from the seeds, just like your teacher.

If you achieve that goal in your life, it will be because you have the seeds. Jump back to the heart at a distance. Jump back to the goal you'd like to achieve.

Think of the old way you would have achieved it, doing certain things, taking certain actions, outside causes, talking to certain people. Jump back to the crystal. Switch your focus at will.

The mind is like a good dog. It does what you say. Stay in the silence of the tiny crystal.

Jump back to the future goal. Try to imagine this goal happening because you took certain outside actions. You talked to somebody or you did something on the outside.

Think about the old idea of causes. Think about the result of those causes. And try very hard to see that it can't be that way.

If it was that way, we'd all be successful all the time. Come back to the ocean immediately. Drop the goals that were impossible by taking outside actions in a normal sense.

Jump back to the seeds. Choose a person to help to reach your goal. Jump back, formless realm, ocean, space.

The mind is getting wider and wider. Very quiet. Very expansive.

Jump back to where and when will you help this person in the next few days to achieve their goal. Turn off the mind. Jump back to the goal.

You have achieved the goal. Picture yourself successful, relaxed. You actually made it happen by helping someone else.

Picture the day of success clearly. Realize it's flowing from your mind. Jump back to turning the mind off.

Show your shin chun, your mental flexibility. Come back to the teacher who's flowing from you. Enjoy their good quality.

Ask them to bless you. They agree. They start to rise up off the cushion in front of you.

And they're getting smaller and smaller. Almost the size of your hand, they come down upon the top of your head. You can feel the warmth.

And they turn to face the same way as you. Sitting warmly on your head, lightly. You ask them to bless your heart.

They start to shrink to the size of a thumbnail. Smiling, happy, warm. Slowly sliding down your central channel.

Past your throat now. Into the chamber of your heart. Beautiful bubble inside this happy teacher.

And they promise to guide you through this day. Even when you're not thinking about them. Three long exhales.

Don't open your eyes yet. Each exhale, sharing this wisdom and this good karma of this meditation with people in the world who are billions of people struggling to make things happen in their life. Billions of people doing it the wrong way.

Fighting with outside causes. Not understanding how easy it could be to plant seeds by serving other people. By giving them what they want.

Three long exhales. Reach out to them. Then slowly open your eyes.

Take a stretch. That's round four. Drink something.

Two or three questions, then we'll take a pee-pee break. Or no questions. Thank you, Geshe-la.

So, I'm wondering about our meditation homeworks and when they are in the order of an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and a half.

[Speaker 2]
And it's very hard to sit still for that long. And I wonder if you could recommend to us, please, how we manage those.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
I think that's why Buddha made it in five rounds. And Buddha taught... I think I found this in three sutras.

And then Maitreya taught it. And then the Tibetan lamas clarified it. Personally, I might do half a round if I'm having a bad day or I'm busy.

So try to do something every day. Maybe Saturday morning, Sunday morning. You can go for the whole thing.

I thought today is a good day. Tomorrow you guys are not focusing because you're thinking about going home. So I thought, you know, choose your days that you try for two rounds and then try for three rounds.

The better the meditation is, the less you will think about your body. The karmic way, without using outer causes, right? To improve your meditation is to plant seeds for focus.

Plant seeds for meditation. So meditation is also coming out of your seeds. You actually can't control much about your meditation today.

You have to plant the seeds a week ahead for a good meditation a week later. And I don't know, like I was going to go to my mom's 90th birthday stepmom in San Diego. My brother said we had to go surfing.

And I'm like, oh. Then we were on a tour in China, right? And me and some of the guys, John and Scott and who else?

Stanley. So I just went swimming every day, which I've never done in hotel pools. And it's because I wanted to surf two weeks later.

You see what I mean? So I didn't enjoy it particularly, but I did it. And I surfed okay, all right?

I didn't die. And my brother, anyway, he broke some ribs, but that's a different story. So it's similar with your meditation.

You have to plan about a week ahead or two weeks ahead, and you have to plant the seeds. And the way you plant the seeds for good focus is to not disturb other people's minds. So we call it, in DCI we call it what?

Crystal lake. Like your mind is like a crystal lake. If you have a fight with your husband in the morning, your crystal lake gets like an Atlantic Ocean typhoon.

It's like this, your mind's like this, and it's contagious. So the next person you meet, even if you try to control yourself, you're going to be somehow nervous, or you're going to say something, and their crystal lake is going to start to shake. And then that's contagious, and the next person they meet, so you have to stop.

The buck stops here? You have to stop the disturbance in your own mind out of respect for others. You see, my Lama was in a refugee camp, and they had never met Westerners, and so this Canadian woman came to teach them how to behave when they came to other countries.

And so she was teaching them how to use fork, how to use spoon, how to use knife, you know, pick up this one, use this one, and put it back here. And then they learned it pretty well. And then one of the Lamas went, and then she said, no, no, when you get to Canada or wherever you're going, you can't do that, you know.

You can't burp when you're eating, you know, it's not polite. And then she asked my Lama, what do you do if you do burp? What should you do?

What are you supposed to do? Then you say, what? And he said, I know.

You say, excuse me. She said, good. Then he said, but if you fart, you're supposed to pretend you don't know who did it.

And that's polite. So, like, then, why did I mention that? Try to make other people, try to respect other people's feelings.

And that's the karmic seed for meditation. And if you do it more and more, you'll be able to sit for longer and longer periods of time, okay? So, it's not a question of doing yoga for your knees or changing your cushion or meditating at a different time of day.

Those are outside causes, okay? You can charge them. You can make them work if you work on the cause of the cause, which is respecting other people's feelings and peace of mind, okay?

Alright. So, meditation is also a result, and don't try to make it happen with outside causes. You can change your cushion, but at the same time, change how you treat somebody in your family.

Yes. We'll do one more question. I can sense pee-pee break knee in here.

Then we'll do more afterwards. Thank you, Khenpo. You're welcome.

[Speaker 2]
Khenpo, when we do the dependent origination part of the meditation, you ask us to come back to the past life to imagine what is happening. I'm always wondering how much percentage of these things happen real. Is it real?

So, 10% of this is real, or the 100%? But according to the logic, other things happening have the cause, so that must be real.

[Speaker 1]
Good question. Yeah. It's a very good question.

So, it takes a lot of meditation practice to see your past life directly. It takes a lot. When you pretend to see your past life, and by the way, we're also pretending to reach the form realm levels, and we're pretending to reach the formless realm levels.

They're actually much deeper. They take much more practice. But it's true, it's very, very true that when you close your eyes, and I say pretend you can see your past life, and you say, you say, okay, choose a country.

And then some country comes in your mind, right? A sound. For me it's a sound.

Somebody say, China. I say, well, I don't feel like China today. Okay, Mexico.

I don't know. You know, sometimes I'll talk to my mind, like, let's do Europe. Nah.

I ended up in America. Not very often. But anyway.

Then I choose a person than I was. Like, I was going to be a teacher. I said, I'll be a teacher.

No. Be a doctor. I said, but I'm not really the kind of person to be a doctor.

Well, no, be a doctor. Okay. So, listen to your mind.

Your mind will make suggestions. And what she's saying is that what suggestions your mind make is coming out of your seeds. So there must be some amount of truth to the thing you imagine.

What percent is true? I don't know. I guess my feeling is that it's about 30%.

Okay. And different people have different percent, I think. just for me, it feels like about 30% really happens.

But I'm waiting for the day that I can see it directly. Okay. All right.

I would like to take a break.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe-la. My question is, why the good deeds I have done in the past life happened on my lama, on the teacher, and the result multiplied so well so I can see such good quality on my teacher. And is there any karmic relationship between me and the person I created as my lama?

If yes, what is that? And you mentioned, if we want to keep the lama in our life, we must do good and being good by planting seeds.

[Speaker 1]
I can understand if we, by doing a good karma and dedicated to the lama, and the seeds will be more powerful. But in this life, before I met you, I know nothing about dedication.

[Speaker 2]
And what I did in the past life to dedicate all the good quality, good deeds to my lama. And is that to say, all of us in the past life, we all know dedication.

[Speaker 1]
And just in this life, there's someone shows up to remind us how to do the dedication. Yeah. Okay.

About the question of, you know, do you have a karmic connection with your teacher? I think when you say, do I have a karmic connection with my teacher? I think you are thinking of a teacher who comes from their own side.

Because your connection with your teacher is more than two people with a rubber band between them. You're creating me. So, of course we have a connection.

I cannot be here without you. So, it's, you know, a little bit when you say, oh, I feel connection with that teacher, but I don't feel connection with that teacher. Right?

That just means you're creating the second teacher is not as strong as you're creating the first teacher. You see what I mean? So, there's no teacher without you on a deeper way.

This is diamond cutter answer, okay? Buddha always dig deeper like a dog. Second question about teaching meditation, right?

Or how you create your meditation teacher. All kinds of teachers and all kinds of teaching come from sharing what you know in a nice way. Not in a missionary way.

Not in a way that bothers other people, right? But all nice teachers that you meet and everything you learn from them comes from sharing in your past lives. So, you must have taught some meditation in your past life.

So, go back and see where it was and how you did it, okay? That's how you created a meditation teacher. Other question?

You look like you have more. Wait a second.

[Speaker 2]
The first one is why all the good karma that I know, the good seeds happen on this person?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's a good question. I think I'll go back to the definition of good karma and bad karma. What's the definition of good karma and bad karma?

Yeah, if you... If the karma come back to you something that you like that makes you feel happy, that's good karma. And something come back to you make you feel unhappy, that's a bad karma.

So, what you like... Some people like to have a lot of friends. Some people like to have one friend.

You see what I mean? So, if they made good karma, then the person who wants to have one friend will have one friend. And if they make good karma, the person who wants to have many friends will have many friends.

You see what I mean? So, depends on you. If you planted a good karma, okay, in the past, and if you would prefer to have one teacher your whole life, then you will have one.

If you planted a good karma in your past, and you would prefer... I had twelve teachers in the monastery, and I'm happy with it. It was nice.

Each one's specialty different. You see, then I had twelve teachers in the monastery, so that for me, it was a good karma, because each one taught me a different subject. You see what I mean?

So, it depends on what you want. It could be one, it could be twelve. It depends on what you want and what makes you happy.

You see? For learning many subjects, I prefer to have twelve. For having protection my whole life, I prefer to have one heart teacher.

So, I have twelve book teachers, I have one heart teacher. Last question, then we have examination time.

[Speaker 2]
I'll make it a long one.

[Speaker 1]
She's going to do a two-hour question and protect you.

[Speaker 2]
I have a few questions. When you're going ...

[Speaker 1]
So, Katie, you have to be ready with some random ... Excuse me.

[Speaker 2]
When we're going ... Is it level five, where we are coming up and we are creating something that we want? Is that level five?

[Speaker 1]
You know ...

[Speaker 2]
Toggling?

[Speaker 1]
You can play it whenever way feels comfortable to you. There's no fixed thing on the jumping. You see?

You can spend eight levels on your goal. You see what I mean? In the jumping, on the way up, in the fourth round, you should cover emptiness, which means you should cover defining your goal.

You should cover old ways of getting it, outer causes. You should cover the impossibility of that, which is emptiness. Then you should think about inner causes, seeds.

Then you should think about who. Then you should think about when and where. You can think about how it's going to feel.

That's seven. You only have room for seven. One after one, one after two, one after three.

After eight, what happens? Go to Lama. Back to Lama.

So how you play those seven, it's kind of up to you. Try to get an emptiness in there.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. And then when we, before we went down and we were just working on our path seeds to create a holy teacher. So we didn't do that this last time.

We just went up, right?

[Speaker 1]
It depends on how much time you have.

[Speaker 2]
So we can do it either way, whatever we feel like.

[Speaker 1]
I think you're going to be too tired in round four to go to your past lives again. Because it's going to, round four is about 50 minutes into the meditation. So probably you should wrap it up.

Okay. All right.

[Speaker 2]
Here we go.

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to choose some names out of a hat. All those people who didn't pay Tim enough money. To forget their name in the hat.

And I'm going to call your name. Sorry, let's do the picture first. Katie's going to pick a picture.

Okay. That's too easy. And I'm picking a name.

And please give us like a one or two minute explanation about it. Okay. Don't get nervous.

You ready with the microphone Mr. Neek? Katie Fetch. Really?

I guess you won. I did this on purpose. So sometimes diamonds, when they grow, sometimes two will grow together.

And this represents the Vajra, which is something we use in our daily practice. And the tip of this Vajra is small because that represents the first thing that happens that gets you on the path, which is usually, unfortunately, a tragedy. And then you start to learn more as you're looking at the Vajra until you come to the middle.

And right at the middle is boom, when you see emptiness directly.

[Speaker 2]
And then the second half of the Vajra represents the path of habituation, which can take a long time. And then the final tip represents when you become a Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. And that's Kamalashila's, one of his explanations of the title. Okay, Diamond Cutter Sutra.

You got another picture? Yeah. Jacqueline Albee.

Autry. This one I think is in response to Subodhi's question, how should we practice, live and think? No.

Anyway, keep going. And Buddha asked, are you going to listen? And Kamalashila thinks that this is him asking, how well are you going to listen?

Are you going to be an upside-down cup and have your own ideas and not listen? Or are you going to mix the teachings with something else, like coffee and tea? And I think the third one is the leaky cup?

Yeah, good.

[Speaker 2]
Are you going to forget?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, actually it's a good answer. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Subodhi asked his question and then Buddha says, I'll answer if you listen well. And then Kamalashila says, not being the three cups is to listen well. So you're right.

I'm sorry I made a face at you at the beginning. Okay. Katie, are you ready?

Ooh, that's a hard one. Must be a special person. Yelena Aronof from Moscow.

Basically, the butterfly never born as a butterfly by itself. And when it's inside of cocoon, it's kind of the time when seeds has to be ready and to be open. And the question is, who's made this cocoon?

And the main answer, it's coming from your seeds. Okay, good. Anybody give me ...

You see, the way this answer came about, Kamalashila's answer, yeah, there were three issues. And those issues came out of Buddha saying nobody's real. There's no person because nobody reaches nirvana.

Nobody reaches nirvana. Then people got upset and they asked three difficult questions about three kinds of people. One, yeah, if there's no person who reaches nirvana, then there's nobody connecting a person who ...

What's the image? Jail. Jail.

First one's in the jail, yeah. If there's no one, if there's no one that reaches nirvana, then there's nobody that was in jail and got out of jail later. Okay?

How do you connect earlier things to later things? Okay, that was the first example. What was the second one?

Postman, who wrote a letter to himself, right? So, if there's no person that reaches nirvana, then how can there be someone who makes a good karma or bad karma and much later gets a result? Okay, what connects them?

Third question? Oh yeah, mom. Meaning ...

Yeah, if I, you know, haven't seen my mom for twenty years and I come home and there's three ladies there, then I recognize them. You know, of course I will run up to one and hug them because I recognize them, but how is that person connected with the person who left home twenty years ago? You see what I mean?

What connects them? And then the answer is cocoon. And when you say, where's the cocoon came from?

It's seeds, okay? Which is the ... Can you lose the cocoon?

Yeah, like Alzheimer's people, they forget what happened early in their life, they can't recognize their children, things like that, okay? Alright, that was a long answer. Two more, Katie.

Let's make them suffer. Come on. No, I'm okay, it's okay.

It's a good one. Aaron. Dressed for the party.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, I'll do my best. I think this one is about planting the seeds for your nirmanakaya, so you can emanate when you're a Buddha. And we were talking about the six perfections and which have to do with which body of the Buddha.

But all I remember is that this has to do with planting the seeds for your nirmanakaya.

[Speaker 1]
I'm looking for one word. Love. Yeah, love.

And that the physical body of a Buddha, what Kamalashila says here, he says all that also. But the word he really emphasizes, ai, ai? Ai.

Is love, you know, that...

[Speaker 2]
Would you say bodhichitta?

[Speaker 1]
The fact that there's a physical Buddha is evidence of their love for us. So they choose to put on the party dress and come to this world. There was something else there.

Why did that subject come up? Good. Yeah, because Buddha asked this controversial question.

If a person has the marks on their body that only a Buddha has on their body, are they a Buddha? And somebody says no. Okay?

If they're signs that came from me, how would that relate to the lion's dance we did this morning? Huh? The qualities I see in my teacher, you see, are like the signs on their body.

They're like something coming from me. They're not coming from Buddha. If you think they're coming from Buddha, then the person you see is not the Buddha.

Okay, got it? All right. One last one, Gedi.

Let's really make someone embarrassed completely. I'm doing this again tomorrow, by the way, but there's more idims by tomorrow. Anatole and family.

Does that mean Kiri has to answer? But he's not here. Is he a teenager or an infant?

He taught the pen, by the way. I saw the video. Kiri, the baby, is teaching the pen.

Two years old. So, two years old is not a two-year-old. Oh, this is a long story.

Do you know this one? Second husband in the kitchen. I don't remember this one.

I mean, I remember the picture, but I don't remember the words. Second husband. Two husbands in the kitchen.

You cut that one up like 50 times. He cuts videos up for a living. So, when you see someone that you're angry at, or, sorry, who yells at you, then there's always two of those people.

And one of them exists and one of them doesn't exist. Never existed and never could exist. And that one is the one that comes from, not my fault.

I didn't do anything. So, and the one that does exist comes from what you did in the past. Maybe last week you yelled at the kids because they wouldn't put their shoes on.

And you said, you're the stupidest kids in New York City. And then that put a seed in your mind and then the seed came out when you opened the door to your kitchen when you came home from work and you were tired and you were hoping that you would get a hug from your husband. And instead they yell at you because you yelled at the kids last week.

Okay, good. You pass. Wait, I forgot the context.

Nobody reaches nirvana? Okay. Alright, thanks.

Let's go... By the way, I wanted to mention something today because I was... You got three documents, or four.

You got a lion's dance document. You got an idam review for the whole Kamalashila. You got Kamalashila 5.

Yeah, five... Kamalashila 5 was the fourth part, right? Of Kamalashila.

And then you got Kamalashila 4 which I didn't talk about yet. Okay, so we covered Kamalashila 4 last time here at Diamond Mountain. We finished it already.

It's an explanation of the last verse of the sutra, the famous last verse of the sutra. So, at the time that I taught it here at Diamond Mountain for five days, I didn't expect to go for more than a day. So, I didn't prepare any reading for you about it.

And then it took the whole five days on just the last verse. And we talked about it from six different writers. And so I didn't...

At that time I didn't give you a separate reading for it. And if you're going to teach it, you should have a separate reading for it. And if you're going to teach it, you should understand the reading.

So, you can either go back and listen to five days of teachings about it, 15 hours on the one verse, or I could explain it to you today. But I don't know if I'll have time, okay? So, I just want to remind Geshe Michael to think about teaching it, reviewing it, okay?

Some of those come in the big review, but some of them don't. So, we'll do the big review, and if there's some more left over, if we have some time left over, we'll work on that, okay? All right, Katie, back to part five.

I have a feeling we're on number nine. Finish the teenager. Nick asked me what's the word for teenager.

He just said advanced chibas, okay? Advanced two-year-olds. I decided teenagers, okay?

All right. All right, so we're on Kamalashila part five, and we're on meditation number nine. What's the image?

It's a guy relaxing in a chair and thinking. It's hard to find a picture of a guy thinking. Women thinking.

Guys... Difficult. Drinking.

Who said that? Let's see here. I know you're in here.

Oh, there we go. Okay. I want to give you the...

Okay, I just want to give you the part of the diamond cutter that this comes from, okay? And this is a place in the sutra where the Buddha gives a poem. Okay, so the last part is not the only poem in the sutra.

There's two more places, two more verses where Buddha gives a poem. And the poem is ,GANG DAG SNGA LA GZUGS SU MTHONG, ,GANG DAG SNGA LA BRAL ZHES PA, ,BLO PAR SPONG BA'I ZHUS PA STE, ,SKYE BA DE DAG SNGA MI MTHONG, ,GANG DAG SNGA LA GZUGS SU MTHONG, Anybody who sees my physical body of a Buddha, okay? The dress?

And thinks that's me. Okay? Anybody who thinks they can see the Buddha.

,GANG DAG SNGA LA BRAL ZHES PA, Anyone who thinks they can hear me, the Buddha, ,BLO PAR SPONG BA'I ZHUS PA STE, they are very mistaken. And in fact, they have rejected me. He says it very strongly, okay?

,SKYE BA DE DAG SNGA MI MTHONG, People like that don't see me. Okay? If you think I'm physical, you don't understand me.

And in fact, you are rejecting me. Okay? Then there's another verse.

,SANGS RGYAS RNAMS DU SPYOD NYID DAG, You should realize that when you look at a Buddha, when you really see a Buddha, you are seeing the emptiness of a Buddha. Okay? ,SPYOD NYID DAR MA BDAG, The true nature of a Buddha.

Okay? What's the first time you meet a Buddha directly? Yeah, during the direct perception of emptiness.

Okay? Not afterwards. Okay?

So, don't think like that. It's not that you see them afterwards. Okay?

You do see them afterwards. You see the physical body afterwards, mostly with relation to sculptures and paintings. But the first time you meet a Buddha directly is when you see the Buddha nature, the emptiness of the Buddha.

Okay? Got it? ,SANGS RGYAS RNAMS DU SPYOD NYID DAG, ,RDANG PA RNAMS NI CHU GYI KHU, The ones who guide you are the Dharmakayas, the mind and the emptiness of the Buddha.

,SPYOD NYID SHES PAR BYA MIN PAS, ,DE NI RNAM PAR SHES MI NUS, If you can't see emptiness, then you will never know me. Okay? You will never be able to know me.

Okay? I went looking for that just for fun because there's one line that's a little difficult. It's the line that says, ,LOG PAR PONG BA'I ZHUGS PA STE, Okay?

LOG PAR means wrongly. PONG BA means reject. Then I found the verse in a couple other scriptures.

He quotes himself in a scripture called The Prediction of the Enlightenment of Ashoka Datta. Okay? And that line is different.

Only that line is different. So, it made me happy. And there it's LOG PAR PONG BA'I ZHUGS PA STE, which means they have rejected me because they're thinking of me the wrong way.

Because they're thinking of me the wrong way. Okay? So, it's more clear in the other scripture.

Then in another scripture, which is the sutra requested by Vimaladatta. Okay? It's the same lines except the third line is different.

Completely. The questionable line is different. ,GANG DAG SNGA LA GZUGS SU STONG, Anybody who thinks they can see me.

,GANG DAG SNGA LA BDAG SHES PA, Anyone thinks they can hear me. ,DUS PA DUS CHAGS BSTAN PA STE, They have attachment. ,SKYE BA DE DAG SNGA MI STONG, And those people don't see me.

Okay? So, we're going to talk about that meaning of attachment in a later idam. Okay?

Yeah, there's two kinds of attachment. One is attachment to cappuccino. And one is attachment to the idea that it's coming from its own side.

Therefore, I shouldn't share it if I like it. Okay? Got it?

That's the higher attachment. Deeper attachment comes from its own side. If I want to have more, I shouldn't give real meat any.

Okay? Alright? Okay.

So, this picture is called who the Buddha is not. Who is the Buddha not? Yeah, what you see or what you hear.

Okay? And who the Buddha is? The emptiness of the Buddha.

And you can also say their mind. Okay? But then Kamalashila is careful to say that the mind and the emptiness are also not the Buddha if...

Yeah, good. If you think they're coming from you, they're also not the Buddha. Okay?

So, there's a little koan attached to the picture. Who's the Buddha not? Physical Buddha.

Who's the Buddha is? The emptiness mainly and the mind. And who the Buddha couldn't be is a mind or emptiness that didn't come from you.

Okay? Got it? Comfortable?

All right. And that relates to the poem that the Buddha broke into spontaneously in the middle of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Okay.

By the way, in the other places where it's quoted, the Buddha says, didn't I tell you? And then he quotes himself. Okay?

So, apparently the Diamond Cutter verse is the original or is the first one. All right. Next picture.

Kirti. IDIM. Yeah.

This is just a list of names. Okay? And at this point in his commentary, Kamalashila starts to talk about the different names for emptiness.

Okay? And that's why I put this lady, I guess she's choosing names of whether her baby's going to be a boy or a girl. Okay?

So, I just put a question, how many names of emptiness do you know? Okay? And he's been struggling with the word Dhammata, Chunyi, and Rangshin.

He explains suchness, for example, as the nature of things. Okay? The true nature of things.

Then there's a nice place in the Sarah May textbooks that I was thinking about where they give all the names for emptiness. And I started to write all the ones I could think of down. Okay?

I just, off the top of my head, I came up with 35. Okay? And someday we should go through them.

It would be a fun class to go through the 35 names of emptiness. Those are just the ones I can think of. I mean, probably I could find a few more.

I'll give them to you real fast just for good luck. I should teach them some other day. Okay?

We don't have time. But, DONGS PA NYID, which is KONG SHING, SHUN YOD DA, Okay? In Sanskrit.

Just generally emptiness. LDAN DAM LDAN PA, Ultimate Reality. PADMA RTAG SATYA, In Sanskrit, Ultimate Reality.

Sometimes just LDAN PA, Satya, The Truth. The Truth. Okay?

Is emptiness. Sometimes. LDAN PA NYID, The One and Only Truth.

Satya DA, Satya DA, Okay? DE KHO NA NYID, Suchness. Okay?

Suchness. TAT PA, In Sanskrit. DE NYID, Just That.

Okay? Also TAT PA, In Sanskrit. DE BZHIN NYID, Tathagata, Tathagata, Like Tathagata.

Like That. Okay? What's the reality?

Like That. Okay? Sometimes emptiness is called Like That.

Okay? DE BZHIN NYID, Tathagata, Tathagata, Tathagata. Okay.

LDAN MED, Or LDAN PA MED PA, Same. Non-reality. So that's confusing because LDAN PA, sometimes it's called The Reality, capital T.

Sometimes it's called Non-reality. Both mean emptiness. Okay?

Alright? Now you start to see why translators lose hair. A satya, A satya, Non-truth.

Okay? This is a cool one. CHUG GI YIN, CHUG GI YIN, The Realm of Is.

Okay? The place of Is. It's like a sexy name for emptiness.

Dharmadhatu. Dharmadhatu. There was one lama in America many years ago who named his center Dharmadhatu.

BDAG MED, Yeah. NAYER ATMYA, NAYER ATMYA, No self nature. Okay?

NAYER means not. ATMYA means self nature. No, it's not that one.

It could be. You could say that. Anatman.

YANG DAG DA, This is a tough one. No, it's DA, not DA. Yeah, the final end.

So, sometimes emptiness is called the final end. Okay, PADI YANTA. YANG DAG PAR GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA, Empty of any real existence.

RDZAS SU GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA, Empty of being substantial. RDZAS YOD KYI MTHONG BA, Empty of possessing any substance. You don't have to write these down.

You'll get a headache. RANG GI NGONG BAR GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA, Empty of having any, of existing to its own nature. RANG DBANG GIS GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA, Good.

Empty of any independent existence. BRTZOS MED DU GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA, BRTZOS MED. This BRTZOS means to depend.

Like the definition of dependent origination in scripture is BRTZOS GRUB. We talked about it with Sugeng's text. So, empty of not existing through dependence is a synonym for emptiness.

RIGS PA'I RGAGS BYA MTHONG BA, Yeah, anyway, emptiness, emptiness of two-headed purple elephant. RGAGS BYA, okay. NGOR NYID MED PAR, Yeah, empty of any unique nature.

NGOR NYID KYI GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA, Empty of existing through any unique nature. GNAS LUGS, LUGS. It means the way things are.

GNAS LUGS, the way things are. That's a synonym for emptiness. And kind of you can say RANG BZHIN NI RIGS.

What's that? RANG BZHIN NI RIGS. Tathagata Garbha.

Yeah, Buddha nature, which is emptiness. Okay? All right?

Now, that's 22. There's like 13 more I can think of which belong to certain schools. They belong to certain schools.

Some schools say it's emptiness, some schools say not. I'll just give them to you. It's a blessing.

I'll explain them to you someday. If you really understand them all, you understand all the schools of Buddhism and the difference of them. BDAG GCIG RANG BZHIN NI RIGS BDAG GIS MTHONG BA, BDAG GCIG RANG BZHIN NI RIGS BDAG GIS MTHONG BA, And singular.

Okay. RANG RGYAS THUB PA'I RTZAD YUL GYI MTHONG BA, Empty of self-standing. Okay?

Standing on its own. Self-standing. GZUGS DANG GSUNGS RDZUN GYI MTSAN MA RDZAS GZHAN GYI MTHONG BA, Yeah.

Emptiness of separate seed for the seer and the seen. Mind-only emptiness. Okay?

Yeah. Things are empty of being called what they are by nature. That's a kind of emptiness.

You guys are learning that thing. Very good. LHO NUS MED LA SNGA BA'I DBANG GIS ZHAGS BSAM MA YIN PA, YUL RANG GI THUB MO MED YIN PA'I DUG GSUNGS RDZUN GYI MTHONG BA, LOW NUS MED LA NANG BA'I DBANG GIS ZHAG TZAM MA YIN PA YUL RANG GI THUB MONGS PA YIN PA'I DUS NUS ZIN GNAS PA'I MTHONG BA Lower middle way, okay?

Things are empty of coming from their own side a hundred percent. It's 50-50. The pieces appear to me and I organize them into a thing, okay?

That's a pretty subtle one. All right, RANG NGON NAS GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA RANG NGON NAS RANG GI NGON NAS Empty of coming from its own side. We often use this one in DCI.

That's the one we often use in DCI. This thing and that thing, with the pen. RANG NGON NAS GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA TSUL RUL DU GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA TSUL RUL As opposed to PHA RUL.

Yeah, this is incoming instead of outgoing. It's similar to this thing with your hand. RANG GI MTSAN NYID KYI GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA No, RANG GI MTSAN NYID Yeah, existing by definition.

That's good. RANG BZHIN MED PA Good. RANG BZHIN KYI GRUB PA'I MTHONG BA That's okay.

Here's a harder one. MING DE ZHAG RTZA MA YIN PA'I MTHONG BA Yeah. Empty of not existing only in name and thought.

Okay. GANG ZHAG GIS BDAG MED CHOS KYI BDAG MED Those are easy. Kid in the car.

Kid in the car. Okay. So, if you really understand all those, you understand the schools of Buddhism, which means you understand the human mind.

You see? We study the schools of Buddhism not because we want to study the schools of Buddhism. When you study the schools of Buddhism, you're really studying the classical mistakes that all human minds make as they start to think about emptiness.

It's similar to the... It's similar to the five classical problems of meditation and the eight fixes. Everyone, whoever tries to meditate will have those five problems.

And anyone whoever tries to think about emptiness will go through all of these at some time or another. So, it's not the point that we're just doing boring comparisons of Buddhist schools. That's not the thing.

They were created by human minds and all human minds make the same mistakes as they begin to think about emptiness. So, if you master the schools, you... What do you call it?

It's proactively dealing with all the mistakes you can expect yourself to make about emptiness. You can head them off in advance. Oh yeah, that's the stupid idea from the minority school.

I almost thought of that. That's the purpose of studying the schools. It's not some boring thing.

It is boring but, just kidding. And the classical books on emptiness, Chandrakirti for example, they will even go back to ideas from other religions about soul or self or god because those are lower, lower, lower views about emptiness. Okay?

Alright. Alright. Okay, next.

Oh, 11, right? Okay, we got to get to 15. Alright.

This is Buddha said, you ready? It's section 141 in the sutra. O subuddhi, suppose you were to think to yourself that those who have entered well into the way of the bodhisattvas deny that anything could exist or that they imagine that nothing exists.

Subuddhi, never think like that. If you are a real bodhisattva, I don't ever want to see you deny the existence of things and I don't want you to imagine, I don't want you to make the mistake that emptiness means that nothing exists or nothing matters. Okay?

He's already three quarters of the way through the sutra and he's reminding subuddhi one more time. That's not emptiness. Okay?

To think that nothing exists is not emptiness. Don't make that mistake. Okay?

He thought it was so important that almost at the end of the sutra he reminds subuddhi again. Okay? That relates to the eight levels of the lion's dance.

You tell me how. You wrote the text, come on. It's in your text.

Nagarjuna's sixty verses. It's in your commentary. Huh?

Huh? Huh? Yeah, good, good.

Yeah. Many people have mistaken level seven for the perception of emptiness. Many, many, many people in history.

Many good people. Many serious Buddhist teachers have made the mistake of thinking that turning off your mind is the perception of emptiness. So please, I'm not worried about you because you've been here for a while, but when you get to level seven and eight your students will be very attracted to it.

They might stop there and spend the rest of their life in an elevator without an American breakfast. Okay? Got it?

So, when you teach seven and when you teach eight, be very careful. Turn your mind off. That's not emptiness.

And turn your mind off not thinking about it. That's not emptiness. Don't get out of the elevator.

There, there's nothing there. Just laundry room. Stuff like that.

Okay? So you have to be very, what do you call, watchful that your own students, it's very attractive. When you turn off your mind, if you do a pretty good job, it's kind of attractive.

Okay? But it's not the direct, it's not emptiness. Okay?

Alright. Next picture. Oh, so, why did we choose this picture?

To say, subuddhi, I'm just reminding you, never say nothing exists. She's got marks on her hands. That's a clue.

Yeah, because what Buddha said didn't exist in the sutra, he repeated just before this, the signs don't exist. Okay? A person who has all the signs on their body, like a Dharma wheel here, that doesn't make them a Buddha.

Why? Because the signs don't exist. Why?

Because of what Anatole said. Okay? Signs that don't come from you, husbands that don't come from you, don't exist.

Okay? Buddha just got finished saying, people who have signs are not Buddhas, because if those signs are signs that exist from their own side. Okay?

But I never said there were no signs. Okay? And I never said nothing exists.

And that's what this picture is supposed to remind you. She's got signs on her hands. If you don't think so, let me put them on your hand, and you go home and see your mom, and she'll freak out.

Right? What'd you do? Is that a tattoo?

Okay? Got it? By the way, there's some commentators on the Diamond Cutter Sutra who tried to go to world emperors at this point, which is where the Abhidharma goes at this point.

Okay? The signs of a Buddha are the real signs, and special people have little signs. Okay?

Like, if you're going to be king of the world, you have a bumpy head, but it's a little bit off. And you have a wheel on your hand, but there's only seven spokes, and one of them is missing. Okay?

Like that. Okay? So, some two-year-old commentators tried to say what the Buddha's talking about is king of the world signs on their hands and their feet.

Those are not real signs. That's not the point. Of course that's not the point.

The Diamond Cutter Sutra always goes to emptiness. Okay? In other scriptures it's called Buddha indulging in what he really wants to talk about.

Okay? It's very interesting. The Diamond Cutter Sutra is unusual because the Buddha just talked about what he really enjoys talking about.

He didn't have to give DCI presentation. He just goes straight to emptiness. Got it?

Although the DCI presentation of emptiness is awesome. Okay. But he didn't have to talk about, oh, you can become rich, or you know, he just went straight to what he wanted to talk about.

Okay? Which is called emptiness. Alright?

And in some scriptures that's the difference between chung and nge dun. But what the Buddha really meant is always talking about emptiness. Talking about the signs of other kings of the world that are not quite Buddha signs and saying they don't have the signs, that's normal talk.

Buddha wouldn't do it in the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Because in the Diamond Cutter Sutra he gets to talk about what he wants to talk about. Because who's there in the audience?

All bodhisattvas. Not just bodhisattvas. Mahasattvas.

Mahasattvas. People who saw emptiness. Now I can talk about what I want to talk about.

Okay? Got it? Alright.

Alright, next picture, Geti. I like this picture. On the left side is sansara, on the right side is nirvana.

Buddha said, don't stay in either one. In the Diamond Cutter Sutra Buddha says, don't stay in sansara and don't stay in nirvana. What's he mean?

In a sansara that you imagine is not flowing from your seeds, and in a nirvana which you imagine is not flowing from your seeds. Non-existent sansara. Second husband in the kitchen sansara, and second husband in the kitchen nirvana.

Okay? That's easy. Jenny just, yeah, okay.

She, you did, I think you, yeah, you got it. That's all. And, if you have time someday, there's a beautiful, beautiful long description of this in Kamalashila.

What does it mean to be in the air between sansara and nirvana? Okay? But, we don't have time today.

You have to get back to wherever you were. Okay. Thirteen.

Very important. This is extremely important, okay? This idim is one of the most important ones.

Nagarjuna's favorite subject. How do empty things still work? Okay?

How do empty things still work? And Nagarjuna was very upset when people said, empty things don't work. If it's empty, it's not real.

We say, because it's empty, it's real. And we're not going to say, even though it's empty, it's real. That's a half-assed Buddhist statement.

Oh, even though it's empty, it's still real. Okay? That's for like...

What's between a teenager and a two-year-old? Five-year-old. Okay?

We say, it's real because it's coming from me. Okay? If things didn't come from you, you could never change them.

And they couldn't work. Okay? Alright.

The famous example I can think of, I was teaching in Galway, right, Mr. Dunn, in the greatest country in the world. And small group at Kevin Thornton's elementary school. And not kids, but adults on a weekend.

And there was a reporter from a famous newspaper in Dublin standing in the back and interrupting me every two sentences. And then finally he jumped up and he said, Well, look, according to what you're saying, Mr. Roach, then the gas, the petrol in my car is not what got me from Dublin to Galway. I said, you're the only one in the room who got it.

You know? And I don't know, a week later he walked through a glass door and died by accident. It was very weird.

But he said, If what you're saying is correct, then what got my car from Dublin to Galway wasn't petrol. And actually he's the only person in the room who really understood it. And it freaked him out.

He was like, Are you proposing that giving people rides is how you get from Dublin to Galway? Are you proposing that's why gasoline explodes in your engine? Yeah.

We are. Are you proposing that if you didn't give people rides and you got in your car to go from Dublin to Galway, your car would break down? Yeah.

Exactly. Okay? Got it?

Okay. Things, cars still work, but why they work isn't what you thought. Okay?

It's not the gas, it's not the petrol, it's not the gasoline. It's did you give people rides in the past, from Diamond Mountain to Tucson Airport? Christina Kathika's cars are going to work for the next zillion years.

Okay? No breakdowns. Got it?

Do you still need gas? Yeah. Depends how good your karma is.

I mean, some people fly, right? Okay? Alright, good, good answer.

Depends how good your karma is. If your karma is not that great, if you're a business class, you still need the gas. Okay?

If you're first class, you fly without an airplane. Okay? Alright then.

By the way, if you care, this comes from a long discussion in the sutra, of whether things start or stop. Can a car start? Does a car ever stop?

And that's related to the question of the petrol, the petrol question. Okay? Got it?

Alright then, two more and you guys are almost home. I just meant to say, you know, cell phones were invented in your lifetime. In fact, the internet was invented during most of us lifetime, or it became common during your lifetime.

You must have been a great communicator in your past life. Or you must have been helping other people to communicate. For the first time in human history, anyone on the planet, basically, can communicate with anyone else on the planet in a few minutes.

And that's a miracle. And because it's happening, we don't notice it. But it's a tremendously powerful karma.

You know, you must have helped every husband and wife who couldn't talk to each other in your past lives. You must have got them to talk to each other. You see what I mean?

And you created all these seeds for global communication of individuals. It's a miracle. It hasn't happened in, I don't know, half a million years of life.

It's special. You're cool. You must be cool.

All right. What's next? This is a place in the sutra where Buddha says, I say to you again, subhuti, bodhisattvas never gather into themselves great mountains of good karma.

They don't. Bodhisattvas don't gather into themselves piles of good karma. Meaning, Arya Bodhisattvas understand karma.

Okay? So they, yeah, they don't pile it up and lose it. They recycle it.

Okay? They are master karma recyclers. If they make money they share half of it with somebody else.

Okay? If they go to the nursing home and visit an old lady and get a beautiful partner, then they go with the beautiful partner to visit the nursing home so that they don't get a divorce later. Okay?

They understand seeds and the need to recycle. Okay? And it says, I need to stop pleasant parts of life with painful endings.

If you don't understand the principle of karmic recycling then the good things you get will wear out. All marriages end in divorce. All bodies end in the hospital.

Okay? If you do understand recycling then you can, in theory, you can keep a body, you can have an immortal body. Okay?

Alright. Learn not to be good without understanding. Okay?

Don't be good because it's a habit. Don't be good because it's what your mom told you to do. Don't be good because it's a law in your country.

Okay? Be good because you understand seeds. Okay?

And, last thing here it says, always be a start of a virus. Be successful. Be happy.

Be healthy. Get... Have tremendous love and then automatically you start a virus.

You don't have to save all living beings. Save yourself. Living beings will copy you.

Okay? And that's how you save all living beings. Okay?

You don't go to each one individually and talk them into being good. Okay? You prove it.

And then, of course, they're not stupid. A dog can smell water. Right?

If they smell that you're special, they will, they will copy you. And that's how you save people. Okay?

But trying to save people when you haven't saved yourself, it gets weird. Teaching meditation when you don't meditate yourself gets weird. They always figure it out.

People are smart. People are smarter than they think. We were talking about it in my jewelry company.

We were discussing, okay, so I have a confession. The diamond on the cover of the reading, one of the readings, they're cutting one of the largest diamonds in the world. It's a D flawless, perfect stone.

It's real. It's the real picture. They're cutting one of the largest diamonds in the world and it's perfect.

Okay? In my company, we dealt with 100 stones per carat. A little bit bigger than the salt crystal in your heart.

Okay? Got it? Why was I confessing that?

I don't remember. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah.

So, one of the reasons our company was successful, that even those tiny diamonds, we would check them very carefully. So, we would pay people, we would pay a lot of money, right Jigme? To have people sit there for hour after hour and check each tiny stone.

Okay? Then we put 100 stones in one ring. Okay?

Sometimes, we did an experiment. We would put slightly cheaper tiny stones. Okay?

They have a tiny spot in them, which you can only see with a very powerful microscope. Okay? We would put those in a ring and see, we would make 100 rings of the slightly better diamond and 100 rings of the slightly worse diamond, and you have to be a diamond master to tell the difference.

Okay? And guess what? When you put them in the store, the 100 better ones will sell first.

Human beings have a ability to see differences that they don't know they can see. Okay? Why did I talk about that?

If you don't meditate and you teach meditation, people can smell it. And they don't even know why. You see what I mean?

They don't know why, but they don't feel quite comfortable in the class. Something feels off. And they'll choose the teacher who is meditating, but they don't know why.

Okay? It's a subconscious ability of goofness. Alright, one more.

What was the picture? Oh, she's like, I forget. Oh, she's successful.

She's a virus. She looks like someone you would want to learn business from. She's happy.

And her life is successful. So, people are attracted to her to ask her advice. Okay?

If you're grumpy and you can't make money and you're always unhappy, then people are not going to come and say, what's your secret? Okay? Alright.

So, she's supposed to be a good example. Cheerful. She's going like this.

Successful. Okay. Alright, next picture.

I like this one. Looks like Ben Kramer to me. This is, by the way, those of you who are following the numbers, this is verse 144.

We are very close to the end of the sutra. Now, after all that sutra that we've been through together, and that was a trip, okay? Here's Subuddhi's comment almost at the end of the sutra.

Are you ready? O conqueror, do you mean to say that bodhisattvas should never try to gather into themselves great mountains of merit? O Buddha, do you mean good karma doesn't exist?

And Kamalashila says, Subuddhi is not a fool. He would never ask this question. Okay?

He would never ask. Come on. The sutra is almost done.

Buddha just repeated fifty times. Yeah, there's signs that don't exist, but I mean signs that don't come from you. Good karma doesn't exist, but good karma doesn't come from you.

He just got through saying it like fifty times. Then Subuddhi's like, do you mean there's no good karma? So, there's a custom in the monastery.

It's very beautiful. The younger geshes who are thirty-five, forty years old, they like to show how cool they are. They're like surfers who can do this.

They're like, argh. They can destroy anybody on the debate ground, and they do. Okay?

Then the older geshes are kind of more cool, and they don't dance around. They come up, they go, they just go like this. Yeah, so, I guess things, I was thinking in my room tonight, and I was thinking things probably come halfway from their own side and halfway from me.

They don't even go like that. They're just like, half from their side. I was just thinking about it.

What do you think? And then the student is like, no, a hundred percent from our side. Oh, I don't think so.

You know, where's the two halves of the pen come from? There's got to be something out there. And then I put the label.

My hologram has to go on the teacher. I think, I really think it's like fifty-fifty. You go, and that will go on for like two hours.

And then finally the student will prove the raw data is also empty and that the older Geshe will say, you're right. Thanks a lot. Got it?

That's what subuddhi is doing. Okay? You mean karma don't exist, Buddha?

And come on, he's Manjushri. He's not going to ask us, he's asking a stupid question for us. Okay?

And that Geshe is trying to teach everybody in the debate ground. It's very beautiful to watch. I don't know.

Some people never figure it out. You go, God, that Geshe asks the weirdest questions. It's like he didn't come to Madhyamika class or something.

But they never tell anybody. They just go home and have a nice tea. They never say to anybody, oh, I just helped 400 guys understand emptiness.

They just have a tea. Okay. Anyway, it's called upaya.

Skillful means. My teacher used to do it all the time. All the time.

I remember we were driving in the car. He says, Mike, turn left. I was his driver.

Okay. Turn left. And we're going to Safeway.

We're going to the grocery store. He's been there like 500 times. There was somebody in the back of the car.

Rinpoche says, turn left. I never question Rinpoche. He said, there's a joke about Swiss bankers.

If you're up on the 60th floor of a building with a Swiss banker and they jump out the window, just jump. Don't ask questions. They know everything.

They're controlling the whole world. Okay. There must be something going on.

Just jump. Don't ask. You know.

So I'm like, just turn. Then the guy in the back is freaking out. No.

Safeway is the right turn. Rinpoche says, always go left. You know.

The guy's, no, no. I know. I've been there.

You know. And I'm like, you know. Just turn left.

Or maybe there's a fatal car accident in three minutes on the right. You know. You just do what the Lama says.

At a certain point, when you really understand a Lama, what's a Lama, you just turn left. Okay? Okay.

So anyway, it's a nice teaching tool when you're teaching DCI. When you're teaching a student, sometimes it's useful to say, you know, I can't quite figure this out. You know.

And I teach it a lot. But it's just something I can't quite get straight. You know.

And then you let them correct you or let them enlighten you. And then you're like, oh, thanks. I got it.

Okay? It's a nice teaching tool. Also when you really don't know, it still looks like you do know.

Okay. Okay? But anyway, upaya means let the student work it out.

Don't solve everything for the student. My Lama would say, cook it, cook it. He wouldn't give us the answer.

He'd say, cook it, class is finished. We're all like, cook it. Okay.

Do you need, what is the time? Okay, we're going to take a five minute mini break. So at this part in the sutra, the Buddha is talking about teaching the pen.

Anybody want to tell me why? Why does this picture connect with teaching the pen? Say again?

I'm sorry. It's still fake. Okay.

The point is, when you get up in a DCI talk and you teach the pen, okay? Thank you. When you teach the pen in a DCI talk and you say to people, it's coming from you, right?

You say, does it come from you or does it come from the pen? You tell people, show me with your hand and everybody goes like this, okay? While they are doing that, they are thinking that the pen comes from its own side.

Okay? While you're trying to think about the emptiness of something, while you're trying to visualize in the lion's dance that your Lama's coming out of your seats, while you're doing the hologram, the Lama you're thinking of, you think it's coming from him or her. Okay?

It's human nature of a person who's even a teenager. Okay? Until you see emptiness directly, even when I explain that it's coming from you, at that time, you are seeing it comes from yourself.

And there's a famous story which Nick and his friends translated from Bhava Viveka about, do you remember? Talk loud. Wait, you got to set the story up.

You're walking across the desert. That's Bui. ...that it's just the roots of a tree. But what it actually is, later you find out. So when they told you it was the roots of a tree, the fear still went away. You still became less afraid.

But that was also a mistake. So they used a mistake to help you, but it was still a mistake. Okay, let me tell it the right way.

You're walking down the road. I walked down the road, the access road, wow, yesterday with Veronica. They do have a fence and they have a gate.

So we walked to there. And let's say Veronica's been growing watermelons lightly. So her mind's on watermelon vines, okay?

And then we come to, it's dusk, because she gave a long massage to somebody over time. And we're walking down in the dust, so it's not very clear. And last time we walked down there, we ran into a Gila monster.

So, which is a really big lizard that bites people. But they're very slow, so don't worry. So anyway, then let's say there's a cassava melon.

No, that's not good. She knows all the plants. Let me think of a plant she doesn't know.

Desert willow, okay? There's a coiled desert willow root, okay? But she's just been gardening in her garden watermelon vines, okay?

Then she sees a snake. She thinks she sees a snake and her heart's beating like, okay? And I can't stand to see her be in pain for the time it takes to explain it's just a desert willow.

But she's just been working with watermelon vines all week. So, just to make her heart slow down immediately, I lie and I say it's just a watermelon vine, don't freak out. Got it?

Is it a watermelon vine? No, what is it? It's a desert willow root, okay?

Is it a snake? No. If I lie to her and say it's a watermelon vine, will she immediately calm down?

Explain the pen to somebody. Okay? While you're explaining the pen, they don't understand it.

Okay? They understand the words, they understand the concept, but they don't understand the pen. Got it?

You can still teach. Now, explain why I have this picture. Come on, everybody cried in this movie.

Okay? He got paid to kiss her. She got paid to run around in the water and try to get him out.

Okay? They both got paid to be in the water and he goes under. But you still cry, right?

You still cry. Okay? Got it?

It's fake, but it can do something. It can make you feel something. Okay?

Got it? So, is it valid to tell Veronica it's a watermelon vine? Is it a valid method?

Yeah. It has the correct result to slow down her heart. Okay?

Like that. Okay? Got it?

So, it doesn't mean you should stop teaching the pen just because people are misunderstanding the pen while you're trying to get them to understand the pen. Okay? They can misunderstand the pen while you're explaining the pen.

They can, in their heart, believe it's coming from itself, but still it helps them. Okay? Got it?

Deceptive means can convey ultimate reality. How's that? Okay.

All right.