Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика» — Мастер Камалашила: медитации на «Сутру Алмазного огранщика», часть вторая (Аризона, 2016), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
So, I came about a year ago, and I'm sorry it took me so long to come back. We're just really busy. We have a lot of things going on in many countries, and if you remember, if you came last year, we talked about a book called the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and this is a teaching that was given by Lord Buddha two and a half thousand years ago.

During the millennium, there was some talk that the world might blow up, so I decided I would like to be where he taught the Diamond Cutter Sutra. So, I went to India, and on the stroke of midnight, I was sitting in Shravasti at this park of Jetavana, and I was waiting for the mushroom clown, and I thought it would be a good place to, you know, celebrate, and nothing happened, but I waited, and it was really nice to be there. The reason why we found that place is that there was a Chinese monk named Xuanzang who traveled.

He walked for 17 years through India, and he visited all the holy places, and he counted his steps going each direction, and he wrote a book called, which later became called Journey to the West, and he counted the steps to Shravasti, and then people dug there about, I think, 20-30 feet down. They found the city of Shravasti, and the garden in which the Buddha taught the Diamond Cutter, and it's been, I think, next to the Bible, one of the most printed works in history. It's the oldest printed book in the world.

It's the Diamond Cutter in Chinese language, and you know, the way I started learning it was, you know, in the monastery, you do a thing called Shabdan. Shabdan means every, I don't know, week or something, one of the families in the congregation will invite you to their home, and then there's a deal that goes on, like they will cook you a good meal if you recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra really nice. So, you know, I went with like six or seven monks, and the main monk took out the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

This is the first time I saw it, and he split the pages up between all of us, you know, and I was like, I thought we were going to read it together, and he said, no, no, you know, that would take too long. We get lunch afterwards. He said, we're all going to recite different pages at the same time, and I'm like, you sure?

And he said, look, they don't know what you're saying anyway, you know, and I'm like, okay. So, slowly I got to know the Diamond Cutter Sutra in sixths, and because I had to, I had to read it, and so most of the time I got different parts, and I started to really enjoy it, and later it became my, I think my favorite book, and about, I don't know, two years ago, we have a project to save the ancient books of Asia, and we've we've typed in, I think, we just passed our 30th year. We just finished all the books from India.

There are 5,000 surviving manuscripts from India, and we just finished them about a year ago, and now we're typing in the 200,000 Tibetan commentaries, and that will take another hundred years, and we started translating them, and that's on schedule for 150 more years, and the first 10,000 books, we have a plan, and I started to read an ancient commentary on the Diamond Cutter by someone named Kamalashila, and he lived about 1,300 years ago in India, and he wrote a beautiful commentary on the Diamond Cutter which was lost in India, and lost in China, and the only surviving copies are in Tibet, and so I was able to get a copy, and I started reading it, and I thought it was really extraordinary, so I, you know, I started teaching it, and I realized it would take me about four sessions to finish it, so we started doing it at Diamond Mountain Retreat Center, and we did, I don't know, ten days at a time, and we finished the first quarter last year, and I came to New York like just after that, so it's fresh in my mind, and I taught it here, and now tonight I'd like to share with you the second part of the Kamalashila's commentary, and then we'll do the third and fourth parts later if we're all still here, and you have a reading, I hope everyone got a reading, and Kamalashila designs his commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra in meditations, like five minute meditations, that you can continue to do after tonight if you like. This little book that you have is a guide to those meditations, and what I did was try to match each meditation to a photo, because personally I find it easier to remember what's the next meditation by just remembering the photo, so I can remember the photo, and then I try to remember what the photo was about, and I encourage you, you know, tonight and tomorrow, they're different subjects okay, we'll do half tonight, half tomorrow, and I encourage you to make it a meditation practice okay, so you can, we'll practice tonight the meditations, and then you can try them on your own at home, and I think if you do one every, you can change it like two times, you can do two a week, there's 26 meditations in here, that'll get you through a quarter of the year, and then you start over again okay, and I think you'll find that they're very beautiful meditations, and you know they're about 1,300 years old, and I find them very helpful, I do them often, I did them on the plane yesterday, and I think you'll find them very helpful okay, so we're picking up halfway through the Diamond Cutter Sutra, I'm gonna be telling you, you know, what Buddha is saying at any particular moment, and then we're gonna talk about what Kamalashila says about it, and then we'll be doing a meditation on it, each meditation is only like five minutes or something like that, so tonight, just so we have time, we'll stick to about five minutes per meditation, and you know, then if you enjoy them, I think they will make a big impact on your life, if you keep doing them just like five, ten minutes every morning before you go to work or something, I think you will, something amazing will happen to you, and I think the people who tried it last year found that big changes occurred in their life okay, so I encourage you to keep that little booklet, and I encourage you to to do these meditations this year okay, in the next few months start. Okay, first thing, we're gonna pick up in the middle of the Sutra.

Kamalashila lays out the Sutra in different sections okay, the very first section is where, you know, he sets the scene in Shravasti, North India, and people are talking, and one of the disciples of the Buddha called Subhuti, he comes to Lord Buddha and says, okay what are we supposed to do, how are we supposed to think, how are we supposed to practice, and then the whole Sutra is Lord Buddha's answer to Subhuti, so Kamalashila says really the first part of the whole book, the whole Sutra, you can say the subject is bodhicitta. Bodhicitta means the desire to help the whole world, you know, the desire to to bring the whole world happiness.

So the very first section of the Sutra, Lord Buddha says to Subhuti, and he makes up a word, which doesn't exist in Sanskrit or Tibetan, and he says, nirvanasize people, you should nirvanasize people, and Subhuti's like, what? He says, you know, like nirvanasize them, and then they discuss, you know, what does it mean to nirvanasize somebody, and the process of nirvanasizing people depends on understanding one great subject, which is emptiness, or kongxing in Chinese language, and I have a demonstration that I've developed. We do business seminars all over the world.

Last year 20,000 people came in 35 cities, 20-something countries, and I've just developed a little demonstration to help you understand emptiness. If you understand emptiness at the beginning, you can appreciate the Diamond Cutter Sutra more. That's the point of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

So I will demonstrate emptiness in a very ordinary situation, and then, you know, for the whole two nights you'll be ready to understand the Sutra better, okay? And it took me many years to develop this. So, the men of the world had a meeting, and a couple of years ago, and you know, in those days women weren't allowed to work much, and we decided that we should allow women to work, and we had a decision, because they already had to take—in those days—had to take care of the children, and they had to cook.

So, you know, and that was the division of duties in the old days. The woman cooks and takes care of the kids, and the man works, and makes the money for the cooking and the taking care of the kids. And then we had—the males had a meeting, you guys weren't there, and we decided to—women's rights were important—that they should be able to work also, and then that would give us time to watch Super Bowl and stuff, because they would be working and taking care of the kids, and paying for the groceries, buying the groceries, and cooking.

So, that's how it is now. That's the system now. A lot of men stay home, do stuff on the Internet, and then the women work, cook, and take care of the kids.

So, it's a little stressful for women, because it's difficult to do all those things in one day. And I'm thinking of a woman who's got that situation, and she's got an important meeting at work early in the morning, you know, and her boss tells her, I'd like you to come in at 7.30 instead of 9, because, you know, we have an international call going on. And then you— the woman tells her two kids—you're my two kids, okay?

Is that all right? Yeah, so I'm the wife, okay? And you're the two kids.

And the woman tells the kids, look, mommy's been called in early tomorrow at 7.30, I have to be at work, so I need you guys to be ready at 7 o'clock, you know, all your school clothes on, your homework finished, you know, don't forget to put your good shoes on, and mommy will be in at 7, and you just—we're going to just take off, and then I'll get to work on time, okay? You guys agree? The kids are—you agree?

Yeah, the kids agree. Then, you know, you know the story. The next morning, mom comes in, and, you know, opens the door, and the kids are jumping on the bed, and they're in their pajamas, you know, and you're like, what are you doing?

You know, mommy told you she has an important meeting, why are you jumping on the bed, you know? And then, dress as fast as you can, and these kids are really bad, and they're like jumping on the bed, and then they lose their shoes because they were jumping on the bed, and then finally mom gets to a certain point where she says, you know, you're the stupidest kids in New York, you know? I'm so unlucky to have kids like—not really, okay?

But she's like, you're the two stupidest kids in New York, okay? So, that's like on Wednesday. Then, you know, the weekend comes, and then Monday rolls around, and, and she's working all day, normal work day.

After work, she has to go do the groceries because the husband's too lazy, because there's some important game on. And, you know, so she's exhausted when she comes home, but the one thing she's looking for is a hug from her husband, which is like, the only thing she really asks from him is, give me, just please give me a hug when I get home, okay? You ready?

So, I need a husband. Is Ori—where's Ori? Can you—you mind to be a husband?

You're a good New York husband. I know you're here with your son. I know you're a good husband.

And we're gonna need two husbands, actually, Scott. Do we have some light on these guys? I mean, okay, so they're the—there's two of them.

Don't worry about it yet, okay? They're the same one, and I'm the wife, you know, and I come home. I'm really, really tired and exhausted, and I'm just thinking the only thing I would really like tonight, you know, I don't mind I have to make the money.

I don't mind I'm working all day. I don't mind to do the groceries. You know, I don't mind that I have to cook, and I'm dragging myself home, and I'm really tired, you know, and I'm just thinking about this hug I'm gonna get from my husband when I open the door, you know?

Why? Why? No dinner.

Where's dinner? Okay, then I'm tired, you know. I've been working all day.

I just want a hug, you know. I put out my arms, and they call me— You're stupid! Then, okay, then if you haven't studied the Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay?

If you don't know about emptiness, what will you do? Come on. Yeah, you say, no, you're stupid.

I've been working all day. I took care of the kids. I was gonna come home, make you dinner.

All I want is a hug from you. I'm not stupid. You're stupid, okay?

That's normal. If you haven't studied Diamond Cutter, if you don't know about emptiness, okay? If you do know about emptiness, what?

Huh? Pause, why? Man, I got, I taught in New York for 20 years, nothing happened.

What? No, she says, I don't know why he's yelling at me. All I did was open the door.

I've been working all day. I didn't say anything, okay? I didn't do anything.

I didn't do anything. I came home, and he yells at me. I didn't do anything, okay?

Is it true? I didn't do anything. Francis, you were better when you were a little kid.

Is it true I didn't do anything? Why? Yeah, I yelled at the kids last week, okay?

That's how karma is planted, okay? You have to understand the meaning of the word karma. Karma means anything you do or say or think, okay?

And the way it's planted is very interesting. Like, I didn't believe in karma until I heard how it was planted. When I yell at the kids and I say, what?

You're the stupidest kids in New York. When I say, you're the stupidest kids in New York, that sound enters my brain. It brushes my mind, and the more anger I have, the more it imprints on my mind.

It makes an imprint on my mind. Then after about two, three hours, a seed starts to form in the subconscious, and that's how karma is planted. If you know how it's planted, you can believe it more, you see?

So, I yelled at them. I heard myself. It made an imprint on my mind, and in about two, three hours, that imprint, which is called at that point a vasana, right?

Samskara becomes a vasana after a couple hours, and that's a karmic seed, okay? Then I open the door. A week later, that seed's been cooking under the subconscious like a watermelon seed under the dirt, and then when I open the door, what happens?

Suddenly the seed opens, okay? Suddenly the seed opens, and an image of myself being yelled at is projected out into the world and comes back, you see? And that's karma, okay?

Got it? So, what's going to happen if they say, you're stupid, and I understand karma, and I, will I tell them what they are? No.

Why? Because I'm nice or I'm moral? Why not?

Yeah, I don't want it to happen again. What is it called when it happens again? In Buddhism, samsara, okay?

That's samsara. So, samsara is not some theoretical, you know, Buddhist Indian thing. Samsara means cycle, cycle of pain.

If I yell at them and tell them that what they are, which is stupid, if I say that, who will hear it? Yeah, I will hear it, okay? And then that plants another seed, and then my kids act up next week.

That's why they acted up the last time, you see what I mean? So, it becomes a cycle. The seeds are opening in my mind, and the seeds are coming out of my mind.

So, if I understand, that's—by the way, what's that called in Buddhism? Do you know? There's a long stupid name.

That process is called dependent origination, okay? I plant seeds in my own mind, they open, they become the people around me, I respond to those people, then I plant more seeds, and it goes like that, okay? That's called the Wheel of Life.

Now, why did I put two husbands up here? It's because the next day when you meet your friends, you say, I met my husband, I just came home, I opened the door, and then there's a single word you say, you ready? And for no reason at all, okay?

For no reason at all, for no reason at all, he started yelling at me, I didn't do anything, you know? I didn't say anything, I didn't do anything, and for no reason at all, he starts screaming at me, you know? He called me stupid, for no reason at all.

Is it for no reason at all? No, it's because I planted a seed last week with the two—you're good kids now, okay? I planted a seed last week with the two kids, okay?

So, it's—in Buddhism, there's no such—in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, there's no such thing as for no reason at all. It doesn't exist. It's not possible.

There's no such thing, okay? Everything that happens to you is coming from a seed that you planted before, okay? Now, I put two husbands up here because there's two possibilities.

When you come in the room and they call you—you have two choices, okay? And there's two ways to look at this situation, okay? One is, okay, he's gonna be—for no reason at all, okay?

Like, I don't know why he yelled at me. I didn't do anything, okay? He's for no reason at all.

He's Mr. Husband for no reason at all. He's yelling at me for no reason at all, okay? Now, then I went to the Diamond Cutter talk at Florence Gold Hall last night, and I found out what was really going on, and now when I walk in, I realize that he's coming from my seeds.

And there is a reason, and it's my fault that he's yelling at me, okay? He's my fault. Got it?

So, let's practice with Ori. He calls me—he calls me stupid. Go ahead, practice.

It's good with your teacher. No, he calls me, you're stupid. And then because I think he didn't come from me, I say, no, you're stupid, okay?

And then I plant another seed for the kid to act up, and then it goes like a cycle, okay? Because I don't know where he's coming from. I don't understand where he's coming from, that he's coming from me, okay?

Got it? Now, this one—oh, so I can also be angry and upset at him because he's yelling at me for no reason at all, okay? Now, this one, you know, I went to the talk last night, I learned what's correct.

He's coming from my seeds, okay? Ready?

[Speaker 2]
You're stupid!

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, okay. Then you go to the toilet. Do you know why?

You just calmly go to the toilet, open the door, look in the mirror, you're stupid. Understand? No, I'm not kidding, okay?

So, that's the second reaction. Now, I have a question. Okay, mister—he's mister for no reason at all, okay?

He's coming from the seeds I planted with my— used to be bad kids, okay? Now, there's one you don't get angry at, and there's one that you do get angry at. Tell me which one is which.

Which one do you get upset at? Yeah, for no reason at all. I get upset at the husband who's not my fault.

You see what I mean? Got it? Everybody got it?

So, when I get upset, the husband I have in my mind, the husband I feel is hurting me, is the one who's not my fault. Got it? And this one, how do I feel?

I feel like sad, I feel like that's too bad I yelled at my kids last week, you know, I'll try to be better with my kids, you know, but you don't get angry at this one, because this one's your fault. You see what I mean? If you fall on some water in the bathtub and you hurt yourself, but you realize it's you who left the water there this morning, you don't get angry.

If you think it was somebody else, you get angry. So, as long as you understand it's you who caused it, you don't tend to get angry, okay? Now, come back.

I'll give you another one. One of them exists and one of them doesn't. One of them really exists and one of them doesn't really exist.

Tell me which is which. Yeah, we know that. Oh, no, you're right, Francis.

Okay, the one who's fnuray-zin-al, that, that husband, in Buddhism they say, merpa tanda merpa, ngema merpa, ma'ombala merpa. It means there's no, he never could exist, can't exist now, could never exist in the future, okay? The husband who's not your fault, any experience in your life which is not your fault, doesn't exist, okay?

Got it? Now, what do we call the absence of? If we, if we say, look, you don't exist, just go away, then what's left here?

But what do we call in Buddhism? Emptiness, okay? You can come back, it's okay.

Got it? So, emptiness is not more complicated than that, okay? Emptiness means someone that you thought wasn't your fault, isn't there.

There's no such person. There's nobody in your life from Mr. Trump down, who's not your fault, you see? Everyone you ever met was coming from you, and the world is a perfect mirror of your own mind, and your own behavior, okay?

Magnified by time, right? So, this one, exists or not? Who's not my fault?

Exists or not? Doesn't exist. And what do you call his absence?

Emptiness, okay? So, now you learned something about emptiness. Emptiness means the absence of something you thought was there, that couldn't have been there.

Got it? So, you're not losing anything when you say things are empty, because they were never there in the first place. You just realized they weren't there.

You thought they were there, right? Somebody who wasn't your fault, okay? Now, according to—I'll go one more step with you.

In Buddhism, according to Buddhism, it's impossible to overcome anger. It's not possible in the universe for a person to overcome anger permanently without understanding that, because you will always think they're doing it for some reason, you know, that they decided to yell at you, okay? So, according to Buddhism, there's no psychological method, there's no religious method to ever stop anger forever, unless you realize the person you're angry at was never there.

Got it? You want to go global, there's never been a war, there's never been a conflict in the history of mankind that was not based on people who were not there. Okay?

All conflict, globally, in history, 50,000 years of killing people, came from anger over nothing, over that there was nothing there. The person that your country was angry at, Muslims, the people you're angry at were not there, because you think they don't come from you. Got it?

Muslims who are dangerous to your country, who don't come from you, what? Don't exist. There's no such thing.

You can put a ban on them, but they're already banned. There's no such thing, okay? There's just, there's no such thing.

There's just no such thing. It doesn't make any sense, you see? A person who would hurt your country, who's not coming from your unfriendly behavior, doesn't exist, you see?

Got it? And in Buddhism, this is the only way to reach nirvana. The definition of nirvana, Nick?

The definition of nirvana is nindrimalupa, stopping your negative emotions forever, because you understood emptiness. That's the definition of nirvana, okay? So, the point of the Diamond Cutter Sutra I just taught you, the rest is dessert, okay?

That's emptiness, okay? And it's not some kind of, what is emptiness not? It's not a black hole, okay?

You focus, you close your eyes, and you think, I'm a black hole. It's not that you watch your thoughts, and they fade away, and then you're empty. My lama used to say, if that's emptiness, you don't have to study for 20 years, you can just get really drunk.

If that's what it is, you know? And then the final version is, oh, everything's an illusion, and there's no good, and there's no bad, and that's the worst version of emptiness, okay? Because then you'll hurt yourself and other people, okay?

So, those are not, black is not emptiness. Thoughts fading from your mind is not emptiness, you know? Nothing's good, nothing's bad, everything's an illusion.

You should sit in the corner and just be neutral. It's not emptiness, okay? What's emptiness is this, what we talked about, okay?

If you understand it, you can be wildly successful. I used it in a company in New York. We got the 250 million a year from zero, and then Warren Buffett bought the company.

How? Just understand this much, and you can do anything, okay? It's very powerful.

The diamond-cutter sutra is not some ancient philosophy text. It's something you can use in a positive way, you can become extremely successful. In a, you know, in a negative way, you can just stop your husband from being such a, anyway, okay?

All right, so don't, so please never forget, when you're in a heavy situation with someone, okay, like your spouse, seems to happen with spouses once in a while, there's two of them in the room. There's always two of them in the room. One is your fault.

One is coming from what you did last week to the kids on Wednesday, okay? And the other one is for noise and all. And the for noise reason and all doesn't exist, got it?

But that's the one you're always, when you're angry, it's this one that you're angry at. So anytime you have a tense moment with another person, it's the one who's not there that you're feeling tense about. And the emptiness of that person means there's no such person, okay?

And if you understand that, you can be a happy person for the rest of your life, okay? Got it? Just when something happens at home, I know it never happens, but just stop and say, which one am I mad at, you know?

Which husband am I upset at right now? And you'll find it's the one who's not there, got it? Now we can start the sutra.

Thank you two husbands, we appreciate it. Yeah, I know your father's a star. So at this point in the sutra, we're about a quarter of the way through the sutra, and Lord Buddha says to his student Subuddhi, it's a conversation between Buddha and his student, and he says, so is it possible for someone to become a Buddha?

And Subuddhi says, I guess. And then Buddha says, well, how do you know when you look at somebody that they're a Buddha? And there's special signs of a Buddha, okay?

Buddhas have 112 special signs. If you check their body, you'll find 112 subtle signs on their body, okay? There's 30 major ones, sorry, 32 major ones, 80 minor ones, okay?

And when I taught this at Diamond Mountain, we had 10 days to do it, and I taught all the signs. It took like three or four days. We don't have time to do that, okay?

But the Buddha says to his student, if I meet a guy who has all those signs that only Buddhas have, is he a Buddha? And Subuddhi says, guess. I mean, this is a weird sutra.

He says, of course not. And Buddha says, why? And Subuddhi says, because those signs are impossible.

So that's the first exchange we're doing tonight, okay? So Lord Buddha says to his disciple, if a person has 112 signs on their body that only Buddhas have, are they a Buddha? And Subuddhi says, no.

And he says, why not? And he says, those signs are impossible. Which husband is he talking about?

Yeah, he's talking about Four Knees and Renal. So it also applies to the parts of your body, okay? The parts of your body have all been created by your own state of mind, okay?

We believe in past life. Maybe it's random. Maybe something blew up from nothing called Big Bang, and then, you know, dust particles banged into each other and created your specific nose.

Or maybe there's more sense to it, you know? Maybe there's more logic to why your body is the way your body is. But the first meditation here, which is what?

What's in your book? Anybody doesn't have a book, raise your hand. And somebody's going to run and give you one.

If you don't keep it up, they won't give you one. Who's going to run around? Hannibal, since you don't have one, why don't you ...

what's the best way to get one? Okay. All right.

First picture is what? Tell me. Yeah, it's a smiling man, okay?

What does it mean? It says, what do the signs feel like inside? So, the first level of understanding the signs of a Buddha is that if you have certain emotions in your heart, they're going to be reflected on your face, okay?

And that's just obvious, you know? That's not like some philosophy thing. If your heart is clear, and your mind is clear, and you feel happy, then obviously you're going to smile, okay?

And that's just a basic thing. Buddhism goes further and says that the emotions that you had leading into this life created your particular face, okay? Every detail of your appearance was created by yourself, according to if you yelled at your kids last life or not, not last week, okay?

So, I thought the first meditation we'd do is this one, and what I'd like to do is have you take something about your appearance that you like, okay? Like a lot of us like to not like our appearance, and that's okay, okay? 99% you can dislike your appearance, but tonight, for the first meditation, I'm going to sit here.

I want you to choose one thing about your appearance. Is that okay if I sit here, Scott? I want you to pick something about your appearance that you like, okay?

Could be your smile, could be your ears, you know, okay? Could be your fingers, okay? You're going to choose something about your appearance that you like, okay?

And I know a lot of people like to not like their appearance, but tonight you have to think of something you enjoy about your appearance, okay? And we're going to meditate on it, and I want you to try to guess what might have caused it. What kind of emotion inside of you might have caused it?

If I say something that you enjoy about your own appearance was caused by a good thing inside of you, I'd like you to take a guess of what it was, okay? And it might have been from last life, okay? Like maybe you don't have it anymore, I don't know.

Probably you do have some of it, okay? When you get your nose, you get some of the old emotions you used to have too, okay? So we're going to sit up straight.

Ready? And you know, you might as well get used to meditating in a chair, it's useful. Why do Buddhists sit on the ground and cross their legs in lotus?

There were no chairs in India at those times, okay? I'm not kidding. The point of meditation is to park your body so you don't have to think about it.

If you park it in a way that hurts, you'll start thinking about it. So, get as comfortable as you can, sit up straight. I'll say sit on the edge of your chair if you can, and don't put your back on it.

It's good to turn your cell phone off. Lord Buddha said that was the first preliminary. You don't believe me Francis?

He did. Okay, that's so we don't disturb the other people in the audience tonight, okay? And it's the first preliminary you should always do to a meditation.

Sit up straight, relax your forehead, try to relax your forehead. If you have to cough, cough now. Now, cough and sniff is good first.

Relax your eyelids, relax the corners of your mouth, make them soft. Try not to fidget because it'll disturb other people here. Pull in your lower abdomen slightly, which helps you to straighten your spine.

Push your shoulders back just a bit, bring your shoulder blades closer together in the back. Don't press your lips together, make them very loose. Relax your fingers.

You can put them in some meditation posture if you like. Touch your first finger in your thumb, chin mudra. And then slowly come to your breath and start watching your breath.

Long, relaxed exhales, and the inhale will take care of itself. And just watch your long exhales. And then please think of something about your appearance that you enjoy, it brings you happiness.

It could be your smile, it could be your eyes, could be the way you stand, could be your complexion. One thing about your physical appearance that you enjoy brings you happiness. I think a smile is very typical.

And then please try to relate it to some feeling, some good feelings that you have. Perhaps it's joy in the case of a smile or kindness. Patience.

See what comes up in your mind automatically. Like, if it's true that some emotion inside of me causes this part of my appearance that I enjoy, then what emotion would it be? And go through some different sweet emotions and see if you can try to guess what might have caused your smile or your complexion or your body type or your eyes or whatever it is you enjoy about your body.

And we'll be quiet for a minute or two. Then please come back to your breath. Watch three long exhales.

Please don't move until we finish three long exhales. And then you can take a stretch. Okay, good.

So it's not hard to imagine that maybe your smile came from, I don't know, being happy inside, or maybe even your eyes, if they're clear, might have come from some kind of mental clarity or kindness. There's a deeper level in Buddhism. When we talk about what a Buddhist body looks like, and when you hear the word Buddhist body, personally I don't encourage you to think about paintings you've seen from Tibet where he has a huge bump on his head and his ears are too long or he's got a big belly or something like that.

I more think of times I went to Paris on the bridges and they had these golden angels up on the pillars, or in Mexico City, the approach to the Congress, and there's a mile of angel statues on the top of pillars or something like that. The point of a Buddhist body is that when you reach it, it will be the most delicious, beautiful thing you can imagine, okay? I used to encourage my students to read Vogue magazine and pick out which one they want to be, you know, but the point about a Buddhist body, physical body, which is where we're at, right, is that it's the most exquisite thing you can imagine.

So you have to try to think of, you know, for me it's wings and a certain beautiful face and just perfect, physically exquisite, okay? And that's what you should have in mind when you're talking about a Buddhist body. This point in the sutra is talking about the physical appearance of an enlightened being.

And if you have sweet emotions going on inside of you for lifetimes, it affects how you look and affects how you feel. So right now, Sabuddhi is talking about the physical appearance of a person who's a Buddha, okay? Now I'd like you to go deeper and if I tell you it was some action of— some habitual action that you do towards other people has created the qualities of your appearance, okay?

Then I—we're going to do a second meditation. Again, I'd like you to choose something about your appearance that you enjoy. And I know every—all of us think we weigh too much and, you know, we all have a list of things we don't like about our physical appearance.

But tonight I'd like you to do the opposite. I'd like you to—you know, the people who really love you, who are maybe sitting next to you or in front of you, they—they see certain beautiful things about your appearance, you know. I have close people to me and they're always telling me, oh, that's so nice.

And I don't think so, but they think so. You see what I mean? So try to think of a person who loves you.

A lot. And then something about you that they often say, you know, I like the way you quirk your smile, or I like the way you blink, or, you know, try to think of someone who really loves you. And then when they really love you, they see you in a different way than even than you do.

And they will say, oh, you have the nicest eyes, or I like your eyebrows, or, you know, your little fingers are so nice, or something like that, okay? And it's not the image we have of ourselves, right? But it's perhaps the image that someone who really loves you has of you, okay?

And you know that there are people like that, at least your mom, okay? So, try to think of something about your appearance that you like. But in this meditation, we're going to go deeper.

And we're going to assume that there was some kind of habitual actions that you used to do towards other people. That created this kind of beauty in you, okay? The beauty that you have.

So, it was something, and that's the way it is, okay? There's no accidents. The world isn't the result of an accidental explosion from nothing, which is anyway impossible, you know?

There's reasons for the way you look. There's reasons for where you were born, what family you were born into. Everything has a reason.

And it all goes down to, how did you treat other people in the past, okay? So, I want you to, we're going to sit and meditate again. And I want you to again focus on the one part.

For me, I have a, I know I like, I like my smile. I don't like much else about me. I like this, you know, I see the smile and I say, at least I smile, you know?

Even when I'm not, even when I'm grumpy. So, pick something you like about yourself. I'm going to move the chair over here, I guess.

Scott, is that good? Um, and pick the same thing about yourself. And this time, I want you to try to guess.

We call correlation, right? Those of you who are Buddhists, it's called correlation. It means, what action, what habitual action did you do in your past life?

By the way, if it was that habitual to create your nose or your lips, it was, you're probably still doing it, okay? So, what action of kindness towards other people might have created your, the thing about you, your appearance which is most beautiful, okay? Got it?

What kind of action, what habitual action that you, did you do very often in your past life? Probably you're still doing something similar that might have caused that. You ready?

Okay, same drill. Sit up straight. Make sure your cell phone's off.

In Guadalajara, we charge people $50 if it rings in the talk, and suddenly it never rang anymore. Feet flat on the floor. Do your throat clearing now.

Sniffle now. Sniffle. Then relax your lips.

Make them very relaxed. Find your center of gravity, you know. Move up a bit.

Move back a bit. Left, right. Find the center.

Push your shoulders back a little bit. Pull in your stomach slightly. Relax your eyelids.

A little smile. Mona Lisa meditation smile. And come to your breath.

Start watching your breath. Just focus on the exhales. Don't worry about the inhales.

Now please bring your mind to something about your appearance that you enjoy. And I know a lot of us may not think that we're handsome or beautiful, but what's one nice thing? Everybody has a few nice things.

Their eyes, or their eyelids, or their eyebrows, or their chin, or something beautiful. And then please try to, like, free, associate, think kind of out of the box. What kind of habitual action might have caused the color of your eyes, or the shape of your lips, or your chin, or your arms, something you enjoy?

I'll give you clues, like, nice arms come from reaching out and helping other people when they need it, nice lips come from encouraging other people, you know, bright eyes come from helping other people to understand things. What's something I might have done to cause the part of me that I most enjoy? What kindness did I do towards others that created this part of me?

Then please come back to your breath. Watch your breath. Three long breaths.

Then slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch. How many people heard me do the pen before?

Raise your hand. Did anybody not hear me do the pen before? Yeah, okay, just for you.

To understand your body and a Buddhist body, you have to understand the pen. So I know you heard it a thousand times. My teacher said you had to hear it three thousand times, so you still have 290 and something to go, okay?

And I'll do it quick, okay? Just so you don't suffer through it. But I haven't found a better way to explain seeds, okay?

So here we go. I'll ask you questions, give me answers, don't be shy, okay? What is this thing?

Yeah, if a small dog comes up here, you know, on the stage and I go like, and it's a puppy dog, what will they do with it? Yeah, they will chew it, okay? So does the dog see this as a pen?

How do they see it? Francis, they see something to chew on, right? Now, Francis, you got to answer me serious, okay?

Not like Uncle Mike. Who's right? The dog or the human?

The dog thinks it's something to chew, the human thinks it's a pen. Who's right? Dad?

Yeah, both, the dog can chew, it's okay. And the human can write with it, okay? Now, we go to emptiness, okay?

Ready? I put the thing here, black thing. All the dogs leave the room.

You're going to have refreshments, by the way, okay? I don't know who's paying for it, but we're still working that out. All the humans leave the room to get refreshments.

All the dogs leave the room. The room is empty, nobody's here. Francis, come on, you got to help me out.

All the dogs left the room, all the people left the room. Francis was the last one out, he closed the door. At that time, is this a pen or something to chew on?

Which one? Go like that. Francis, go like that.

You have to say, I don't know, okay? That's shunyata, okay? That's emptiness, kongshin, okay?

It really is, honestly. There's no more complicated than that. We can put all the Buddhist philosophers out of business, if people just learn the pen, okay?

There's nothing, and it's not incorrect, and there's nothing left out that Chandrakirti explained later, okay? It's just that, okay? When the people leave and the dogs leave, it's neither a pen nor a chew toy, it's just a black stick, it's waiting to be something, okay?

Now, I'm the first person to come back in the room. I'm like looking at Nancy over there, who's just walked in, and I glance down at this thing. At that moment, what does it become?

Pen. If it just became a pen when I looked at it, then is that pen coming from me, or coming from the pen? It must be from me, because if the dog walked in, it would become a chew toy.

That proves that it's coming from my mind. There's something coming from my mind, okay? We can confirm it.

I can stand here, I can wish that it was a big diamond, and there we go. Let's try. It's called positive thinking.

What do you call it? No, what do you call it? The secret.

What do you call it? Law of attraction. Okay.

Get serious now. I'll split the money with you. Still a pen, okay?

Is it coming from my mind? Yes, we proved that. Is it coming from what I want?

No, you can't just want. If you could just want and it would come from your mind, then nobody would be poor, and no one's husband would be, anyway. Okay, so that doesn't, that's not how it works.

So, how does it really work? There's a seed in your mind, and when the seed opens, this is cool, and if you meditate a lot, you can watch it happen. A small image comes into your mind from a seed in your mind.

The seed is called what? Or you can call it karma. Okay, and I hate to use the word karma because it's so confusing.

But there's a small seed in your mind, it opens, and then a small image comes up in your mind, and your mind watches the image, and your mind projects it out onto this black thing, and the human has a seed for a pen, and the dog has a seed for a chew toy, and that's why they see different things, okay? And that's why you see everything in your life, okay, including your nose, and your eyes, and your lips, okay? So, we're going to go deeper.

That's the third meditation, okay? You've heard it said that Buddhists think that, you know, your arm is not Michael, and all of Michael's parts are not Michael, and Michael's not not his arm, and Michael's not not his parts, okay? This is supposed to be profound.

It's just confusing, okay? Like, okay, I understand I'm not my arm, because I got two arms, I can't be two people. I understand I'm not unconnected to my arm, because if I am, I'm not me anymore, and I understand I'm not something, I'm not the camera, but when you say in Buddhism that I'm not all the parts of me together, that doesn't make sense to me, you see what I mean?

But Buddhism says that, you are not all the parts of you together, okay? What that means is, there's always one more part that has to be thrown into the mix before you become you. Can you guess what it is?

It's that picture that comes out in your mind, you see? These two parts are not a pen, until I walk up, and a seed opens in my mind, and a small pen picture comes out, and it goes on the thing, and then it becomes a pen. Is it real or not?

Yeah, it's real. Anybody doesn't think so, come up here and get a mustache, unless you already have one. Okay, I mean it's real, okay?

And then there's a joke in the monastery, they say, you're not allowed to say, if you say it's real even though it's coming from my mind, they hit you. You thought rosaries were for prayers, right? I had a friend, he was actually director of the Oriental Division of New York Public.

He said, can I go to your monastery? I said, yeah, but you know, don't get upset if you see some weird stuff. He said, oh, I can go, and he came to the monastery.

The first day he saw a monk get disciplined with a rosary, then you get these dots across your forehead, and he left, he left the next day. He couldn't take it, okay? So anyway, if you want to get those dots across your forehead in a monastery, you can say, even though the pen's coming from my mind, it's still real, then you get hit.

What are you supposed to say? Yeah, because it's coming from my mind, it's real. Okay, got it?

So, why do I see a pen? Because I have a pen seed. I must have done something in the past, I must have shared what I have with other people, okay?

And that puts a seed. How is the seed planted, kids? How's the seed planted?

I reach out and give you a pen, I put a pen seed in my mind, how does it happen? I see my hand open. I see my hand open.

It's like when I yell at the kids, you are the worst kids in New York, and I hear it, then that puts an impression on my mind. And if I see myself let go, that puts a pen seed in my mind. Then you know like two years later, somebody gives me a pen, understand?

Everything is created by seeds in my mind, including your nose. And your lips, got it? Were you born with them?

No. What did Buddha just ask Subuddhi? If someone has those signs, are they a Buddha?

What did Subuddhi say? I'm going to lose half of you, I don't care. What did Subuddhi say?

No. Why? He said they're impossible, okay?

It means, you weren't born with them, seeds are coming out of your mind. How many per second? Sixty-five.

Sixty-five per finger snap. Seeds are opening in your mind and maintaining fingers, and nose, and eyes, you see? You weren't born with them.

They're being produced every millisecond by your own mind. They're being sustained like a fountain by the karmic seeds in your mind, okay? The day you stop taking in poor people, refugees, immigrants, you can cut the fountain off and the prosperity of your country will die, you see?

The day you stop helping other countries, the day you say, you are bad and I'm good, then, then you cut off your, all your prosperity, all your happiness. It's, it's, it's unbelievable, see what I mean? So, you have to keep helping other people.

You don't have a choice. You want to keep the nose? You like the eyes?

Then you have to keep doing what you did to, otherwise you will die, you see? Is it possible to be immortal? If this is true, is it possible to be immortal?

How? Keep helping other people. That's all.

It's very interesting. What's sustaining your arms, and your fingers, and your legs, and your face, and your nose, and your eyes, is kindnesses you did in the past to people. And when you stop doing them, you will lose them.

And it's called DER, or illness, okay? It's very interesting. So, in this system, what you call it?

It's a pyramid system. You have to keep giving back. So, the next meditation is, and then maybe we take a break.

The next meditation is about, how do you say? You see, you can have all the parts of a Buddha, you can have the arms of a Buddha, you can have the wings of an angel, you can have this angelic face, you can have a heavenly form, made of light. You see?

That's a Buddha. But unless you have the seeds in your mind, you can't tie it together. The seeds in your mind glue stuff together.

You see what I mean? Are all your parts, are all of floss's parts floss? No.

Not until the image comes out and glues them all together. So, all the coherence, that's a difficult idea. Anything that makes sense in your life that's not crazy, insane, war, killing, unkindness, it's all coming from a certain kind of karmic seed in you.

Anything that makes sense, anything that's comforting, anything that's predictable, any system that's working, anything in your life that's working, it's flowing out of seeds in your mind. You see? And when you stop being kind to others, then that flow will stop.

And then the world becomes chaotic. Is it really? Wait.

Is it really chaotic? It is. It's coming from you.

Okay? It is chaotic. Give me, here, come get a mustache.

Yeah, it's chaotic. Okay? Well, who made it chaotic?

You did. Okay? If you see chaos in the world, it's you.

What makes things coherent, what glues things together, is the responsibility of being kind to others. That's all. That creates all, all the things in your life that are not crazy come from that.

Okay? Got it? So, we're going to do one more meditation.

The goal of this meditation is to stop thinking you were born with a nice nose, or you were born with the right color eyes, you know, or your ears are okay. Okay? The goal of this meditation is to stop thinking that you were born with those things, because you weren't.

Okay? You have seeds in your mind. They are opening at a rate of 65 per second.

They are creating your impression of your nose. And your eyes. And whatever else you like about yourself, it's being sustained by nice things you did to other people.

Okay? So, notice where we went in the meditation. What was the first one?

I have a nice smile because I'm happy inside. Halfway true. Okay?

What was the second one? I have a nice smile because... Yeah, because I made other people happy.

Okay. What's the third one? Oh, sorry.

I should have said in the second one, I was born with a nice smile because I made other people happy. What's the third one? My mom said I have a...

No, it's sustained by my current kindnesses, you see? And if I stop, it will die. I will lose it.

It's called death. Okay? If I stop being kind, if I stop...

If I turn the water off on the fountain, the fountain is called your life and your appearance. And it's impermanent. And there's a limited number of seeds.

But if you stop making seeds, if you tell these people, you can't come to my country, you know? You're dying in the room next door, I don't care. I'm going to lock the door, you know?

I don't care. Then that's the best way to die. Okay?

You will use up your seeds. You don't create new ones. And it stops.

Okay? If this theory is correct, the dumbest thing you can do is to hurt other people or to refuse to help them. Okay?

Got it? Okay, so we're going to do a meditation. This is called coherent meditation, okay?

And it means, okay, you have a... you have a nose that's created by a certain kind of actions, and you have ears, and you have lips. But what glues them together?

You know? And by the way, you can lose this and then they call you Alzheimer's or... They lose coherence.

They can't glue things together anymore. Words, the phonemes and the synonyms, you know, they don't make sense anymore to people. The sounds aren't the same.

But something inside of them that glues the sounds into speech, they lose. Or something that glues their child's face into someone they recognize is lost. And that's coherence, you see?

That's kindness. Kindness is the coherence. Kindness is the karma that glues all the parts of your life together.

And when you stop being kind, it breaks down. Got it? So, we're going to do a meditation.

This is the third one. The picture is Guan Yin. Somebody in China gave me this beautiful statue.

And what is it that's gluing all your parts together? Why are you not senile? What do you call?

What's Alzheimer's? There's another one. Yeah.

Why don't you have dementia right now, you know? It's because you still have old seeds of kindness, okay? And when you lose them, you will get dementia, you see?

And then things fall apart. There's nothing to glue things together. The reason you can put together your right arm and your left arm into called you, the reason you can glue together a top of a pen and the bottom of a pen, is only that you've been nice to other people.

Got it? That's coherent. Got it?

Cool. And by the way, if you purposely, if you believe this and you purposely, you go out tomorrow and you say, I'm going to be more kind to other people because I want to have a coherent life, things will change around you drastically. Things will happen in your life.

Weird stuff. You know, weird impossible things will start to happen. And it's very exciting because you get some kind of confirmation, you know?

Like weird impossible things. Someone hands you three million dollars. We built this cafeteria.

He worked on it. Yeah, somebody just said, here, here's the money. Tell me what you need.

I said three million dollars. Here, okay. Build it, you know?

It's very beautiful. We redid the whole, you know? Anyway, if you are it's real.

If you practice it, real things happen to you, okay? Got it? And if you don't, you lose what you have.

Okay, here we go. Sit up straight. Last meditation before the break.

And refreshments, wherever they're coming from. Actually, you made the refreshments. If you don't like them, it's your fault.

If you don't like this talk, it's your fault. If you do like this talk, it's my fault. Okay, let's go.

Sit up straight. Relax your limbs. Bring to mind the part of you that you enjoy.

And it could be your, something about your physical appearance. By the way, it's not my fault. That's where they started in the sutra.

We'll go to your mind later. And try to think what pattern of thinking is it that I've been doing most of my life that allows my mind to glue together the images which appear in front of it? What is it that I've done towards others my whole life that has allowed me to see my left arm connected to my right arm and my eyes and my nose on my face?

What is it that allows me to perceive that? And it's kindness. It's a pattern of maybe it's imperfect kindness, but your whole life you've been attracted to helping other people.

And that's why you can see your face in a mirror. That's why you can walk or drive or learn is only because of those seeds. Those seeds make your life coherent.

They tie your life together. If you didn't have those seeds you would be what we call senile or insane. So here we go.

Appreciate the proof of your kindness. You have a face. You have a body.

And it was created. It was glued together by kindness towards others. So try to think about it.

Think about kindness as you do. And try to understand that it keeps your world from being chaos. Please come back to your breath.

Three long breaths. Three long exhales. Don't move yet.

And then relax. Take a stretch. One last thing before your refreshments.

My Spanish, my Mexican friends call me Señor Ultima Causa. One more thing. Mr. One more thing. There's a famous concept in Buddhism called Majjhimika which is middle way. Okay? And at this point in the sutra Lord Buddha explains the word middle way.

So I thought it'd be a nice thing to leave you with in case you run away during the break. It somehow happens sometimes. So what does middle way mean in Buddhism?

And it's very famous. You know, the highest school of Buddhism is called middle way. Madhyam.

Right? And what does it mean? And it comes from the next question in the sutra.

And the Buddha says, yes Subuddhi, you're right. People who have those signs that only Buddhists have are not Buddhists. It doesn't make them Buddhists.

Okay? Now you know the punchline. You know, what makes them Buddhists is their coherent karma, being kind to others.

You see? So it doesn't help you if you have the signs that only Buddhists have on their body because you can't see yourself as a Buddha unless you've treated other people like a Buddha. You see what I mean?

It's very interesting. You could have all the signs on your body and not see yourself as a Buddha if you haven't treated other people as a Buddha. Because you wouldn't be able to glue the signs together in your mind.

Okay? Got it? Just nod or you don't get refreshments.

Then Buddha says, you're right Subuddhi, you know, you gave a good answer and you should be aware therefore that the signs on the body of a Buddha are deceptive. So, according to Buddhism, the whole world is tricking you. There's something about the world that's tricking you.

And I'm going to tie it back to the two husbands. Okay? So, there's something about the appearance of the husband when he yells at you especially, when you feel anger or when you feel upset.

There's something tricking you about the husband. What is it? But what does it appear to be?

What appears to be going on? He appears to be wanting to criticize you. You see?

He appears to have decided that he will call you stupid. So, just before you, Lele Jiten Nozokirini Semban Dandece, very famous, just before he yelled at you stupid, he must have had the thought, my wife is stupid. Okay?

Then you feel like that's why he's calling you stupid and that's deceptive. That's tricking you. Okay?

Appearances are tricking you. You want maya, you want illusion in Buddhism, it's your husband when he says you're stupid. You know?

Because it looks like he decided to call you stupid. But what's really going on? Yeah, you called your kids stupid last week.

Okay? You planted a seed by hearing yourself and the seed opened for no reason at all. When you opened the door, when you got home, the seeds opened.

Okay? Now, illusion in Buddhism means it looks like your husband decided to call you stupid and it looks like that's why he called you stupid. But what's really happening is a seed is opening in your own mind.

You are watching a husband coming from your own mind. Okay? And that's, that's deception.

So, Buddha says to subhuti, don't forget middle way. Don't forget to stay in the middle way. And what that means is don't swing this way and don't swing this way.

This way means my husband has decided to call me stupid. That's deception. It looks like he decided to say something bad to you or someone hurt you.

Right? They decided to hurt you. That's this extreme.

What's the other extreme? The other extreme is something like, by the way, everything is your fault. There's nothing that's not your fault.

How's that? But the other extreme is this, is a rare extreme, relatively rare. This extreme everyone falls into.

My husband decided to yell at me. My friend decided to hurt me. You know, that country decided to hurt my country.

That's this extreme. Okay? Then this extreme is if it's not that way, it doesn't exist.

Okay? And that's a very rare extreme and it's very rare. It's people who got a bad explanation of emptiness from somebody.

Somebody blah blahed for an hour and everybody went home and said, nothing matters, I can yell at my husband now. The lama said he's empty. You know?

You know? No, that's very common, unfortunately. That's the other extreme.

Middle way is what? And if you give me middle way, I'll almost give you a break. What's the middle way?

Yeah, it's real and it's coming because I yelled at my kids last week. That's all. You know?

It's coming because it's something I did last week. Okay? That's all.

That avoids this extreme of thinking your husband decided to do something to you. It avoids this extreme of thinking if your husband's coming from you, he must somehow be unreal. He's not unreal, he's real.

Why? Because he is coming from you. Okay?

Do you live in your head? I better tell you that before the break because you might go home. No, the answer is no.

You are projecting a world, and in that outer world the husband exists. Okay? Some person in Beijing was very concerned.

She disrupted a program for like 10 minutes because she said, that means when I kiss my husband I'm kissing myself, right? I said, no, no, no. Middle way, middle way.

You know? He's coming from you, but he's real. He's out there.

He's coming from you out there. Okay? So, he's real.

Okay? So, we've basically, you didn't notice, but we finished four meditations. The first one is where some part of your appearance reflects how you feel inside, like your smile reflects your happiness.

And that's sort of a shallow level of karma. And then we went deeper and we said that something you did for other people has created your body and your face. Okay?

And then we went deeper and we said that you know, seeds coming out of your mind glue yourself together. And without them you might lose your sense of self and that happens to people. It wears out.

And then I snuck one in on you. You didn't really notice, but it was middle way. That was meditation number four.

And that came from a statement by Lord Buddha to Subuddhi when he said, are you ready for this? He said, everything is deceptive about your body. When you become a Buddha everything's deceptive about your body and things which, insofar as things don't exist, they're not deceptive.

Okay? Which means that you can treat the nice parts of your body like you treated the second husband. Okay?

So, to misunderstand your nose or misunderstand your eyes means to think they didn't come from being kind to other people. And the eyes that you possess that didn't come from being kind to others and the, I don't know, anything about you that didn't come from some, from being kind to someone else doesn't exist. Like the second husband.

Okay, that's why I did the husband first. Tomorrow I don't know what I'm going to do. But every part of you is just like those two husbands.

You can look at yourself and think that you came from what you eat or came from where you went to school or from your parents. You can think that. But if you think that everything about you came from how you treat other people then you'll have a deeper understanding of yourself.

Okay? So, Lord Buddha in the fourth meditation is saying that stick to a middle path. Don't think that anything in your life is not coming from being kind to other people.

Okay? Just nod. Okay.

The next meditation, fifth meditation. Do you have those up there? Are you showing those?

Number five, which would be the lady in the party dress. Okay? At this point in his commentary, by the way, all Buddhas are split into two parts.

Okay? Do you know this thing? Physical body and and what we call Dharma body.

Okay? So, physical body means how a Buddha looks like an angel. Okay?

Physical side of a Buddha. And then there's a mental side of a Buddha which means how a Buddha thinks. Okay?

And if you want to know how a Buddha thinks it's very much connected to the two husbands. Okay? And that's how Buddhas think.

Buddha walks into a room, they're already thinking about the second husband. Like, that's how Buddhas think. And the idea is very beautiful.

How Buddhas think create their body. Okay? So, there's two parts to a Buddha.

One called Dharma body and one called form body. And the physical appearance of a Buddha is direct result of how they think. And the fact that they have a body at all is like a girl getting ready for a party.

Which is that love drives them to take a physical form. Okay? So, the idea is that Buddhas don't need a physical form.

They don't need to have a physical body. But to help us they take a physical body. So, I thought the picture of a young lady who dressed up for a party.

Okay? And the meditation here which I'm not going to do because we're running short on time. But you can think of the last time you dressed up.

Okay? And how... What was the motivation you had in mind?

And hopefully, I mean you were going someplace special like your sister's wedding or your friend's wedding. You know, and you put on a tie or you put on a nice dress. And that motivation to dress up to make other people happy is why a Buddha has a physical body.

Okay? And that's the only reason. You see?

It's a very cool idea. They don't have to have a physical form. They choose to put on a dress to show themselves to people because of love.

So, the idea is that when you do that meditation you're going to think about the reason a Buddha appears in the world is only out of love. They choose to take a physical form out of love. Want to go deeper?

You're supposed to say, yeah! In China... I tell people in China, people in China will go crazy and jump up and down when you want to go deeper.

I say, yeah! In America they go, yeah man, that's okay. So, the physical body of a Buddha is divided into two parts.

Okay? One is called Co-classic Buddha. And that's standard, exquisite, beautiful, angelic form.

And that's what they hang out with in their living room, in their underwear. They're in their Buddha body and it's, you know, exquisite and they have... it'd be like wings and totally exquisite body of light, which is immortal.

And then they have another version of themselves that they send out when people can use it. Like, if a lady would be kinder to her neighbor if her neighbor had a dog, the Buddha will emanate as the dog. You see?

Or if a person's at the seaside beach and they just broke up with their boyfriend or something, then Buddha will emanate as a wave, as the sound of a wave, and try to comfort the person with the sound of a wave. So, Buddha's not limited to a body a normal body. They can look like your boss, your sister, your wife, your kids.

And they they very typically will emanate as someone quite close to you, Ken, or Velma, because then they can help you. So, the closer the relationship between two people, the more likely that one of them is a Buddha, you see? And they will emanate.

And then they might be nice to you for 20 years and then suddenly irritate you really bad. And they've been waiting 20 years, which is nothing for a Buddha, to do something irritating to improve you. I'm just telling you what's been going on.

So, I'm just kidding. I know she's never irritating. But, so they have two bodies.

One is called their home body, which is the one they live in, you know, among Buddhas. And then there's their other body, which is the one they show in the world when people need it. And the cool thing about that body is it's called sung gyu drub pa.

Sung gyu drub pa means, do you know sung drub? What? Huh?

It's spontaneous, meaning they don't have any pre- meditation. It just shows up. If a lady in Los Angeles would treat her neighbor better if the neighbor had a dog, the Buddha shows up there as a dog without planning to show up there.

It's spontaneous from many millions of years of trying to be nice to other people. So when you become a Buddha, your body will just show up wherever it's useful for someone, you see? So that's kind of really, that's a kind of a really cool quality, okay?

And the next meditation, after the girl in the party dress, is, it says, Buddha jewel faces versus reflections, and it's a guy looking in the mirror, okay? And, you want to go deeper? I got to take a picture for the Chinese.

This is hard. Okay, you asked for it. And it's late, and I'm sorry to do it to you late, but okay, somebody might enjoy it.

so, so there's a way to divide the the bodies of a Buddha into four, okay? And one is, what I just told you, the body they hang out in, in their own living room, in Buddha paradise, and that's like some angelic form, right? Made of light, never gets old, always beautiful.

Second one is what? Yeah, it's kind of just shows up like, if you walk in front of a mirror, something, you don't think, I want to reflect in this mirror. You walk in front of a mirror, there's somebody there, right?

If, as soon as a Buddha exists, they're everywhere, somebody could use them. Like you walking in front of a mirror, they don't think, you don't get up and, you know, stand in front of the mirror and wait for your reflection to show up, and you don't think, I wish my face would show up so I could shave it or something, you know? Like, it just happens, you see?

So, Buddha's second body is automatic. When someone needs them, they're there, okay? The body just appears.

That's the second body of a Buddha. Third body is their mind, okay? How they think.

And they're very much into this idea of the second husband, okay? They don't even see anymore the husband who's not there. They're out of the habit of blaming anyone else for their life, okay?

They automatically, anything that happens to them, they automatically start thinking, oh, I must have yelled at my kids last week, okay? They don't even think anything else. They don't see anything else.

They never see the second husband who's not there, okay? Now, the fourth body of a Buddha is kind of complicated. Ready?

I'll ask you, is there anything about the first three bodies that's not coming from their own seeds? Meaning, you can say, for you, is there anything about your body or is there anything about your mind which is not coming from how you treated other people in the past? There's nothing.

That fact is their fourth body. The fact that nothing about them doesn't come from how they treat other people is their fourth body, and it's called truth. And in Sanskrit that's Dharma, okay?

So, that's reality. That the reality of their three bodies is their fourth body, okay? The fact that there's nothing about their physical form or how they think that's not coming from how they treated other people.

Okay? Got it? I gave a talk at Princeton to the physics department, and we were talking about apparent contradictions in both, you know, atomic theory, small particles, and also macro theories of where the universe came from.

And I was proposing that a lot of the apparent paradoxes in physics could be solved by believing in this system, that things are coming from your seeds. And one guy, there's one guy in the back, you know, and he was looking kind of, what do you call it? Skeptical?

Through the whole thing, and then suddenly his face like, like brightened up, you know, and I, and he said, can I ask you a question? I said yeah, and he said, well according to what you just said, you know, we kind of assume Newtonianly and Aristotelianly that the basic building block of reality is atoms, you know. And then he said, according to you, according to what you're saying, then the underlying reality under that is kindness.

And it's not particles that make the world, it's kindness. It's how you behave towards other people. And I was so blown away that he got it, you know, that we live in a world where we believe that the foundational, the foundation of all reality is atoms, is, what do you call?

Elements, copper, oxygen, iron. And then they're saying, he got it right away, he's like, wow, then you're saying that the atoms come from kindness. And I said, yeah.

And he said, that solves a lot of questions, you know, and it was really cool. So anyway, that's another book we have to write someday. I went to a guy in New York, a recent trip here, and he said, he asked if he could publish a book, you know, and I said, well, he said, what's the next book you're doing?

I'd like to publish it. And I sat in his office in New York, and he said, I said, well, I want to write this book called A Better History of Time, because The Brief History of Time is the best-selling English book in history, you know, and I would say, I want to write A Better History of Time. I want to correct, what's his name?

I want to correct Stephen Hawking. And he said, turn around. And it was all Stephen Hawking's books.

He said, I'm his publisher. I said, well, I'm still going to write the book, you know, and he was okay. Anyway, so, that guy looking at himself in the mirror and the state of mind which produces the physical bodies, right?

The lady who wants to dress up for the party, right? Her intention to dress up, we call the Dharma body. That's the mind of a Buddha, okay?

That's the third body of a Buddha. And those of you who have been there, that's the first of the three jewels, okay? So, your center in New York for the last 20 years has been called three jewels.

The first of the three jewels is the Dharma jewel, okay, Buddha jewel. And the Buddha jewel consists of those four bodies, okay? The motivation to be kind to people, the physical bodies that the girl puts on when she wants to go out in the world, okay?

And the fact that they're not coming from nowhere, okay? Got it? Just nod.

Okay. Then the subject of the book changes, okay? And I think we have a...

I'm going to go till 9.45, okay? Four more minutes. Hang in there.

Somebody in China challenged me, they said, will you go all night? I said, yep. And we did.

Anyway, I'm not going to do it to you because they'll kick us out. She's nervous. But we can continue tomorrow.

But the subject of the sutra changes at this point. They've been talking about the physical body of a Buddha and where it comes from. And then the answer is it comes from a Buddha's state of mind and the way a Buddha understands how things happen.

So then Lord Buddha says, you know, to Subhuti, let's switch over to the cause of a Buddha's mind, okay? Let's talk about where the Dharma body comes from, okay? Let's talk about where the mind and the emptiness of a Buddha come from.

Let's go deeper into the Dharma body, which is the second jewel, okay? So, first jewel is Buddha jewel. Second jewel is Dharma jewel.

So, there's two ways to understand Dharma jewel. What does jewel mean by the way? Why do we say, what's the difference between Buddha and Buddha jewel?

You can say that. Buddha is like general Buddha guy. And Buddha jewel means what can, yeah, refuge, what can protect you?

What is it about the Buddha that can protect you, okay? Can emptiness protect you? Give me an example.

Yeah, when you are about to say, no, you're stupid and you hesitate, not because you're nice and not because you're moral and not because you're compassionate, but because you understand you'll plant a seed for him again to be a, I'm not going to say, okay? Because you control yourself, not because it's a nice thing to do, but because it's a harmful thing to do to yourself. You see?

You refuse to call him stupid, not because he's not stupid. He is stupid, we know that. But you refuse to put it into words.

Why? He will be stupid again the next day, you see? And that's refuge.

That's the idea of three jewels, okay? So, the three jewels is tied up with the two husbands, okay? You protect yourself if you stop hurting other people, got it?

And it's, you can't hurt another person. It's not possible. If they have seeds, you can hurt them.

But they made the seeds, not you, okay? It's very interesting. So, anyway, at this point the sutra changes.

There are four great subjects so far. First one, Subuddhi asked Lord Buddha, what do you want me to do with my life? Buddha says, help other people get enlightened.

Okay? Second one. Second one is interesting.

He says, how do I do that? And Buddha said, six perfections, six ways of acting towards other people. What's the first one?

Giving. So then the Buddha, before, we did it last year, the Buddha goes off on how to give things. What's the main thing?

Stop thinking they're coming from their own side. Understand that the person you're going to give something to, and understand the person who's giving it, which is you, and understand the thing you're giving them are all flowing out of your own mind. Okay?

Then you can really give things to people. We finished that last year. Okay?

Then the questions about the physical body of a Buddha, we finished. You are graduates of physical body of the Buddha. Now we go on next to the mental body of a Buddha.

Who created the Dharma body of a Buddha? What does it consist of? Okay?

What's the Dharma jewel? What can protect you? Huh?

Yeah, just understanding the two husbands. That's Dharma jewel. Okay?

That's Dharma. That understanding is what we call Dharma. Is it the books?

Is this Dharma jewel? Can it protect you? Yeah, we say pretty good.

Okay? Diamond Cutter Sutra is pretty good. Like you can call it, we call it, what do you call it?

Gundag... Okay, it's called, it's called Not Bad Dharma Jewel. It's the sutras.

Okay? But the real Dharma jewel is to understand your husband. That, to understand who he's not is the ultimate Dharma jewel.

Okay? Why? Because it protects you.

That's the, that's what the, that's what the three jewels do. Okay? So, tomorrow we have to get into the Dharma body and Kamalashila has some very far out ideas about it.

Okay? What is the, what is the body of a, what is the, how does a Buddha think? You know?

So, physically it's okay. You know, I'm going to be angelic like the statues in Paris, you know? But mentally, what am I going to be?

We're going to get into that tomorrow, which is the Dharma jewel. Okay? Don't look so confused.

You make me feel guilty. Okay. See you tomorrow.

Okay. Thank you. Okay.