Нью-Йорк, 2016, занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Hi. So yeah, we travel a lot around the world every year. 35 cities last year.

And we're especially active in South America, Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe. Our Moscow team is here. Welcome to you, Anton and Elisabetta.

Can you give them a hand, please? And part of the German team is here from Berlin. Nice to see you.

And some of our sponsors from Asia are here. And thank you for coming. So when I teach in Asia, the DCI, we are teaching things like, it's 12 levels.

Some of the levels are about how to have a successful business, how to start a business, how to manage a business. And we also do, at one business conference, a lady asked me if you could apply the Diamond Cutter principles to her husband, fixing her husband's bad habits. And so that created a whole branch of DCI, doing relationships.

So we help people all over the world with that. Recently, I just came back from China. We were at the largest mental health facility in China, where they treat almost 4,000 heroin addicts a year.

And we're applying the principles there. We're doing a clinical study there on the effects of meditation and using karma to treat drug addiction. And so we have a broad range of subjects.

But oftentimes when I'm in China, and really the audiences in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, there are sort of amazing people. And they'll ask me, Geshe-la, you know, it's very interesting, all of these principles. We love applying them to our normal life, but could you just go deeper?

You know, and we have a joke when we teach in Asia. We say, do you want to go deeper? And then people go, ah!

And so they ask me, could you teach something deeper? Last time I was there. And then sometimes we'll do an all-night teaching.

They'll just say, can we just go to some, you know, some small auditorium and do an all-night teaching on like the Diamond Cutter Sutra or something like that. So when we decided to come to New York this time, we had a cancellation in Dubai. So we had an extra day in our schedule.

The schedule is booked for quite many months, probably a couple of years. And so we had an extra day. So I said, well, let's go to New York and let's repeat some of the meditations we did in Asia for the people who wanted to go deeper in the Jinkanjing, the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

And so, whoa, you didn't turn your phone off. So I, you know, I really enjoy New York. I lived and worked here for many years.

And I thought, you know, a lot of my older students are here. Not old in the sense of age, but experience. So I thought you would enjoy doing these meditations of Kamalashila, okay?

Kamalashila lived in around 750 AD. He was from India. And he's best known for a book called Gomrim Chombo, which is called Bhavana Karma, which is the steps of meditation, stages of meditation.

Those of you who studied meditation through the Three Jewels or ACR courses, there's a beautiful poster. Do you have that one? I don't know.

You can find it. The poster of the... Yeah, good luck.

I told him I'm gonna ask for something he doesn't have. But there's a poster that many of you have studied meditation from at the Three Jewels Center. And it's...

Yeah, this is based on the work of Kamalashila, okay? This comes from Kamalashila. And the poster was done by my...

was carved under the direction of my teacher's teacher. So, all of that information on the nine levels of meditation, and, you know, like a hundred different things to do during meditation, how to watch out during meditation, those are summarized in this poster from the three-volume work by Kamalashila. So, he's best known for that.

But he also wrote a commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra. And that's a very dear sutra to me. There are only two ancient commentaries.

One is by Vasubandhu, who wrote the Abhidharmakosha, and very famous for that. All of the Buddhism in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma is based on that book. But the other author of the commentary was Kamalashila.

And there's a commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra. In Tibetan, it's about 130 pages. It never reached India, because Xuanzang came to India just before that.

So, this teaching didn't reach China. And it was never translated into Chinese. The Sanskrit was lost.

And so, we only have the Tibetan text. And, you know, I like a challenge, so I tried to crack this text. And it took me quite a while.

But it's an amazing... It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful text. So, I thought I would just share some of the teachings from that text in the form of some meditations.

And I do these meditations every day. I took the first quarter of the text and cut out 25 different meditations, okay? And they're summarized in the book you have, the playbill you have.

So, I'm going to just go through them. We were recently in Taiwan. We did this for like eight hours over two days.

And we'd only got halfway through. So, I don't know how much a New Yorker can do in an hour and a half. But we'll try.

We'll try to do this. My plan is, first half, I'll do sort of the meditations which are more thematic about how to bring meaning to your life, how to improve your life. And then we'll take a break for 15 minutes.

When you hear the bell ring, you come back, okay? And then we'll just go deeper into the concept of kong qing, or emptiness, and how you can apply that to your life. How can you use it to be successful in your life?

Because the Diamond Cutter Sutra is perhaps the most important book about emptiness, okay? So, we'll just start. The name Kamalaśīla, I really like it.

Kamala means bedma or lotus flower, like that beautiful pink lotus flower that grows in the water. And śīla can have two meanings. One is morality, and the other is the way that you do something.

It's called maṅgcal, how you do something. So, in this case, Kamalaśīla's name has two different meanings. One is that a person who leads a sweet way of life, a person who's helpful to other people, good to other people, kind to other people, they actually...

There's a tradition in India that they will start to smell like a lotus, okay? Their body will start to smell like a lotus, or like gardenia or something. So, if you have been around these high lamas who are very, you know, their life is very noble, and very proper, clean, pure, then when you kind of walk by...

When they walk by, and the, what do you call, the wind from their body hits you, then you smell this faint, lovely fragrance, like the faint fragrance of a lotus. So, his name of the author, Kamalaśīla, means the scent from the kindness of a high holy person, okay? Like a lotus, okay?

So, I like that. Śīla also means the way of doing something. So, it can mean, in the Buddhist tradition, that a person who wants to help the world, they want to do something good for the world, then they try to seek out the worst places to go, and help people.

So, you know, they avoid the nice places. That's why I don't come to New York so often. You know, we go to rough places.

We've been to some very rough places. You know, we've been teaching a lot of people in Muslim countries recently, in about 10 different countries. That's why I decided not to wear robes.

I can't show the videos of this talk in some of those countries. So, I think it's important for, you know, we want the videos to be available online to different countries where they're not allowed to show videos of somebody in robes, or something like that. And we go to many very poor countries, and we try to help them.

We just came back. We have a project to help the European refugees. So, we just gave talks in Serbia.

We're working in Kosovo. We had programs in Greece, and Romania, Bulgaria, and we're helping the refugees there. So, the idea is that, in Buddhism, that a person who's a good practitioner should get into difficult situations, and go into rough places, and kind of semi-dangerous places, and help people there.

So, that's the idea of kamala. Shila means to act like a lotus, because lotuses like to grow in dirty places. My monastery in India, you get there by, I'm flying to India tomorrow.

You get there by landing in Bangalore, you know, right? The only airport nearby. It's about eight hours from the monastery, by car.

And, I don't know, Bangalore's about five million people, something like that. All the sewage from Bangalore is raw. And it flows out of the city into this wonderful lake.

A lake of raw sewage. And you have to drive right across the shore of the lake to get to the monastery. And it's a long, pleasant experience.

And the first time I saw a lot of lotuses was there. And, you know, I said, stop the car, and there were all these lotuses growing out of the poopoo, you know? And I said, oh, I gotta get one of those.

I got out of the car, and the driver grabbed me, and he said, get in the car. You know, he said, ask one of those kids, you'll give him a rupee to go get you a lotus, you know? And so, lotuses like to grow in the dirtiest places.

They grow very well in poopoo and mud. So, in Buddhism, we say that if you're a good person, you should seek out difficult people to deal with, difficult situations, dangerous situations, situations with a lot of poverty, and then you should focus your efforts on those people. So, Kamalashila also implies acting like a lotus, okay?

Growing like a lotus in the difficult places, okay? So, I'm just gonna go straight through the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and we'll stop every once in a while and do a meditation based on Kamalashila's commentary. So, the very first thing he does is discuss why is the Diamond Cutter Sutra called Diamond Cutter?

Because, why is it strange? They call it Diamond Cutter? Cheeky.

They don't mention a diamond in the whole sutra, okay? There's nothing to do with diamonds in the whole sutra. So, the first thing is Kamalashila has to say, you know, why is this called the Diamond Cutter Sutra?

All right. Those of you who took courses at the Three Jewels over the last 20 years probably forgot course six, but in the course, you know, the true meaning of the name, Diamond Cutter, it means that ultimate reality, which is another name for emptiness, Kongxing, is more powerful than even the most powerful thing in the physical world. So, you know, I was in the diamond business because of the diamond, because of the experience I had with the diamond, but diamond is the closest metaphor in the world for ultimate reality, for emptiness.

So, it's not emptiness. It's a positive thing. Emptiness is an absence of something, but the closest object in this reality to ultimate reality is a diamond, okay?

So, but that metaphor, we were talking this morning, the Taiwan group wanted me to give them a name for their group. They sent me some suggestions, Diamond Shine, Diamond Wisdom, Diamond Mountain. Then I said, no, you know, it should be called Deficient Diamond, or, you know, Insufficient Diamond, or something like that.

The point is that diamond is the highest thing in the physical reality, which is close to ultimate reality, and it's not close at all, okay? It's not close at all. It's the highest thing, but it's not the ultimate thing, okay?

But it's the best metaphor you have in this world. If you have seen emptiness directly, you might want to spend your life touching or being around diamonds, okay? Just to remember what happened here, okay?

Only for that, only for that reason, okay? So, Kamalashila gives another explanation of the word diamond in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and I really like it, and I think you'll like it also. He says the shape of a very common crystal shape So, you know what a diamond is shaped like, right?

If you played cards before, poker, you know, there's this diamond shape, you know, queen of diamonds, right? And then the classical shape of a diamond crystal is octahedron. So, it's eight-sided, beautiful shape like that.

And very commonly, they will grow into a twin octahedron. Do you have a picture of that? Yeah.

So, this is two diamond crystals that kind of got married to each other, you know, a hundred million years ago, under the earth. And this is called a twin diamond crystal. And it's a very common shape for a diamond.

And in fact, this particular shape, because the grains of the diamond grow across each other, this cannot be cut by anything. No substance in the universe can cut a twin diamond. You just throw them away.

In the diamond business, you sell them to an oil well company. They use them in the drills, in the tip of the drills, okay? So, Kamalashila says something cool.

He says the shape of it, the reason they call the cutter, diamond cutter suit to the diamond cutter, is that the shape follows the evolution of a person's spiritual life, okay? So, in Buddhism, we say that every spiritual person's life follows a certain standard evolution. Five different stages in the life of every spiritual person.

It doesn't matter what religion you belong to, what faith you are, you will have five shared experiences as you pass through your life, as you pass through your spiritual evolution. And they follow the shape of the diamond. For Kamalashila, they follow this shape, okay?

Let's talk about it. He says, first it goes to a very, the broadest part of the diamond, if you go left to right, represents the first of the five stages of spiritual evolution. To put it bluntly in English, it's called disaster in your life, okay?

Like, people get religious when there's a disaster in their life, you know? They don't care about religion, then the doctor says you have incurable cancer or something like that. I remember C.S. Lewis, I think, he said the day after World War II ended, like the churches in England were filled every day during the war, and then the day after the war ended, they were empty again, you know? So people get religious when bad things happen to them. And when you have a difficult period in your life, then you turn to spiritual life, because it's the only thing that can help you. In the end, it's only your spiritual life that can help you.

So in Buddhism, we say, you have spent countless lifetimes to the left of this diamond, and then the longest part of your life from top to bottom, the most number of years are the years that you spent in sort of a dull, what do you call it? Just, what do you call it when somebody's on a drug? Like, you're just like spaced out, trying to make money, trying to build, you know, gather possessions, and then something happens to wake you up, okay?

So that's the most years spent is in that kind of dull stupor of materialism or like that. And then suddenly you wake up, because you get cancer, or your mother dies in your arms. In my case, three of the six members of my family died quickly.

My father, my brother, and my mother all died within about a year. And then you get spiritual, okay? Then there's a second stage around here, sort of a median stage, that we say is if you're lucky, you will meet a person who will explain to you why things happen, where things come from, why did the stuff that happened to you in your life happen to you, you know?

Why did you meet the people you met in your life? Who made New York City? Where does all these things come from, okay?

If you're lucky, you'll find someone. During the initial part of your spiritual quest, you will run into somebody who will explain to you where stuff comes from, like death, or New York, or your husband, or your ex-husband, okay? And to save you time, I'm gonna confirm you in the second level in the next five minutes, okay?

You're ready? I cannot give a talk without talking about this, okay? If you hear this talk once, in your life, you reach level two, okay?

I save you millions of years, okay? No, I'm serious, and it took me 25 years to learn it, okay? But I can teach it in about three minutes, okay?

So seriously, if you hear this once in your life, you're on level two. In Buddhism, if you reach a good level two, after you die, you cannot go to a bad place. It's not possible, okay?

It's called a cessation, okay? When you reach a certain level of understanding, a pen, which I'm about to tell to you, after you die, it's not possible to be born as an animal or something like that, okay? You will be born as, at least as a human, okay?

So it's a good deal. It's worth the ticket price of today's admission, okay? And by the way, I'm very sorry you ran out of seats.

We had no idea how many people would like to come, and next time we'll get a bigger place, okay? We just did it at the last minute, and I'm sorry for that. And I'd like to thank Nancy and Miriam and Chunzong.

And can you guys stand up? Where are you? Can you just stand up for a second?

No, they're probably outside working. And Michael, we'd like to thank you for arranging it on such short notice. Woo!

Okay, so a quick pen, okay? Emptiness, kong xin. In the ancient Buddhist system, the teacher asks questions, you answer.

If you answer too slow, you get hit, especially front row. You thought a rosary was for counting prayers. Okay.

I'll ask questions, just answer. Don't think too much, okay? Answer just honestly and quickly, okay?

What's this thing? Yeah, good. If a dog walked down this aisle, came up the steps, and I went like this, and mm-mm, what would the dog do with this thing?

Yeah, a young dog would chew it, okay? Does the young dog see this as a pen? No, mm.

So can we say that the dog sees this as something to chew on, and the human sees it as a pen? Which one is correct? Yeah, you can say both are correct.

Animal rights, okay? No, you can't say, the humans are always saying, don't chew on my pen. But if the dog could talk, he'd say, don't write with my chew toy.

You know, you're wasting a good chew toy. What's wrong with you? You know, so it's equal.

Next question is more deep, okay? If I put this object here on the chair, and all the humans go out of the room, and the room is empty, and all the dogs leave the room, and then the last person goes out and closes the door, then at that time, is this object now a pen or a chew toy? Which one?

You can't say neither, okay? At that time, it's neither. That's the true meaning of emptiness, okay?

And it's no more mystical than that, okay? I'm sorry to destroy so many preconceptions. Okay, that's all.

That's all emptiness means, okay? There are people who teach that it's close your eyes and see everything as black. It's incorrect.

It's grossly incorrect, okay? Why? It doesn't help you.

It can't benefit you to sit there and close your eyes and try to see the back of your eyelids as black. It doesn't do anything for you. There are some people who say, oh, just watch the thoughts go through your mind and let them fade as like clouds in the sky, and this is emptiness.

And that's also not emptiness, okay? It has nothing to do with emptiness. It doesn't do anything for you.

If you practice that for a long time, there is a classic teaching on that in Buddhism. It's called Chi Yong Me. It's a special meditation.

Kamaśīla particularly didn't like this meditation. It's where you try to just watch the thoughts in your mind float away. And if you do that for, you know, five years or something, you become like an absent-minded professor, okay?

That's the result of that meditation. You're like, you know, where I put my car keys? You know, you just get kind of forgetful.

Like, it's not emptiness, okay? There's a very, there's a very kind of evil kind of emptiness which says nothing's good, nothing's bad, everything's an illusion, okay? That's also very wrong, okay?

It's nice to help other people. Peace in the world is a good thing. Suffering is a bad thing.

War is a bad thing. It's not true that everything's an illusion and some things are, nothing's good and nothing's bad. That doesn't help you, okay?

They don't make these religious paintings with, you know, air pollution and dead people and tankas, right? They make them with beautiful gardens and angels and there are good things and there are bad things, okay? So emptiness just means when all the people left the room, then this thing is nothing, yet, okay?

When we say yet, it means if a person walks up, enters the room, leans over here and looks at it, at that moment what does that become? Yeah, it becomes a pen again. That pen which became a pen, now it's a big thing, okay?

Pay attention. You can sleep later. Is that pen which becomes a pen when I walk in the room, is that pen coming from the pen or is that pen somehow coming from me?

Yeah, somehow it's coming from me. Can I, if it's coming from me, can I close my eyes and wish that it was a $100 bill? It didn't work, okay?

Yeah, things are coming from you but you cannot just make them what you want whenever you want, okay? They depend on some other energy which means what you did last week, okay? What you did last week, okay?

How do I see a pen when I reach here and I look at that object on the chair, okay? Why do I see a pen? According to Buddhism, a seed grows in your mind.

A seed opens up in your mind. Out of that seed comes a luminous image of a pen about this being, okay? That's called, that seed's called in Sanskrit, karma, okay?

So the seed opens. I reached here, the seed didn't open yet. Then I took another step and the seed opened in my mind.

A small picture of a pen comes out of my mind. That appears in the front of my mind as though it were a pen on the chair, okay? So that's how all objects, that's where your husband came from, that's where your job came from, that's where your body comes from, okay?

They're all flowing out of seeds in your mind. Who put the seed in your mind? You did, okay?

When? Before, okay? So if you want, no, it's like any other seed.

If you want to see a $100 bill this week, you have to plan it last week, okay? Oh, Scott ran away because he knows I'm gonna ask him for $100. We're not gonna, you have $100?

I'm gonna show you how to plan $1,000, okay? I know you're all spiritual, you don't care about money. And I respect that.

But just for purposes of demonstration. Okay, I'm gonna show you how to plan a karma, okay? How to plant a seed, all right?

So if I want to make $1,000, according to Buddhism, according to Kamalashila, this is how you make $1,000, okay? And if you don't want $1,000, that's okay. We spent $5 million paying the refugees for 29 years to type in their ancient books.

We spent $5 million, okay? And they're free online. We finished all the books in Buddhism from ancient India.

That took 25 years. 4,600 texts are finished. They're free online, okay?

You couldn't do that if you don't have $5 million, okay? So money can be useful. It's not necessarily a bad thing, okay?

So here we go. I want to make $1,000, will you help me? He say yes, he's so kind.

You cannot plant a seed without another person. It's not possible. You cannot plant a karma without another person.

The process of planting a karma requires another person, okay? So I'm happy because I found someone to take my $100, okay? It makes me happy, okay?

So a Buddhist is different from other people. Buddhists, if you go to borrow money from a Buddhist, they get a thrill up their spine, you know? And if you don't, then you don't understand anything, okay?

So he's willing to take my $100. I'm gonna plant a seed. Give me your hand.

Left hand is good luck. Okay, put it up high. Then this is how you plant a karmic seed, okay?

You put it in his hand, okay? He closes his hand. Then I open my hand, okay?

When I open my hand, who sees my hand open? Yeah, I see and he sees. He's happy, I'm also happy.

He made $100, I'm gonna make $1,000. We're both happy. That's the essence of karma, by the way.

It makes both parties happy. Any kind of transaction in the future of an enlightened world should be win-win, by definition, okay? So he's gonna make $100.

Then when I open my hand, that image comes into my eyes and it brushes my mind, okay? It brushes my mind. And if I have a loving intention, if I say, God bless you, I hope you use it, you know, what do you call it, mazal ul-burkha?

I hope you'll use it happily, you know? And then with that intention of love, it makes an impression on my mind, okay? And within a few hours, that impression becomes a seed inside the mind, okay?

Got it? Then next week, something will happen, $1,000 will come to me. By hook or crook, it doesn't matter.

Reality will have to adjust to me. The world will have to adjust to me because I have a seed for $1,000, okay? Understand?

Mazal ul-burkha. Okay, keep it. Okay?

Okay, understand? So, that's the meaning of emptiness, okay? Emptiness means when the pen was on the chair before anyone came in, it wasn't anything yet, okay?

When I got here, a seed opened in my mind because I did what last week? I shared a pen with someone who, I don't know, they're signing an important contract with AST Publishing in Maslow, you know? Then I gave them a pen, okay?

Then that planted 10 pens in my mind, okay? Understand? That's the real meaning of emptiness.

Vajra. Diamond, sorry. So that's here.

If you get that explanation in this lifetime, you have reached level two in your spiritual life, okay? Congratulations. Okay, I'm not kidding, okay?

It's a very important stage in your life, okay? Very few people reach it. Here is the direct perception of emptiness during a state of meditation, okay?

On a retreat or during your daily meditations, you see emptiness directly, okay? And you can, that's very short. This is the narrowest part of the diamond because it only takes 20 minutes, okay?

It takes about 20 minutes. If you see that directly, your body starts to change into light, like an angel, okay? And I don't care if you don't believe me.

If you've seen it, you don't care, okay? I really don't care, but it happens, okay? Your body starts to change.

And that process is, what do you call it? It cannot be stopped. It's a, what do you call it?

Unstoppable. The change is irreversible. The change is, from this point on, the change is irreversible, okay?

You cannot change it. If you say, I don't want to be an angel, it's too late. If you have this experience during deep meditation, okay?

Then for the rest of your life, you use that knowledge and you start to act differently. For example, with money, okay? You start to be like different from other people.

You take great joy in sharing what you have, because you know it's only gonna make things better. He made $100, I made 1,000. Everyone's more happy, okay?

Like your behavior patterns change, and you become totally loving and totally unselfish, okay? Because you know it's best for everybody. It's gonna get him what he wants, and it's gonna get me what I want.

So this stage here is the rest of this life. Finally, the change in your body is finished in mind, and then you go back to countless years of being an enlightened being. That's the five stages in the spiritual evolution of every person.

And Kamalashila says, that's why it's called the diamond cutter. That's why the diamond is in this book. Now I'll show you something interesting.

Wake up, Mr. Leshar, okay? Understand? So the shape of this ritual instrument called a Vajra in Tibetan Buddhism, in Indian Buddhism, comes from that diamond, twin diamond, okay?

And these are the, this is when you have your disaster. The doctor says you have cancer or that your mother died, okay? This is when someone teaches you the pen.

You just got there, okay? This is the 20 minutes that you see it directly. Communion with God, you can call it.

This is when you're using that for the rest of your life. Automatically you become a better person because you're just sharing all the time. You're just giving all the time, okay?

And then the widest part here is, you become an enlightened being on countless worlds, okay? We finish the first of the 25 meditations. Okay, sorry.

In China they said, could you just go all night? And we tried. We went till like 3, 4 a.m. I think. But then we all got too tired, okay. Now, we're gonna do a meditation. Because you can't let go of your cell phone ever, I have developed a meditation in which you hold a cell phone, okay?

And can you put that app up, Scott? There's an app by Insight. It's called Insight Timer.

This is it, okay? During the break, I'd like you to go get it. Don't do it now, because your cell phone's off.

But I'll do it for us. And it's a great little timer, okay? It's a great meditation timer.

It makes religious sounds. It's not working right now. Come on.

Yeah. And what I've found in my own life, I would like to meditate more. And I found a way to trick myself, okay?

And it's that you set the timer. It's almost at the minimum. It's five minute meditation, okay?

So nobody in this room can say you don't have five minutes to do a meditation, okay? You know that. If you're gonna say that to yourself, I can't help you, okay?

Myself either, you know? I have the same problem. I'm very busy.

I don't have time to meditate. Get the app. Set it for five minutes, okay?

And you will find you'll have a revolution in your meditation life, okay? Really, okay? Just get it.

It's free, okay? Sometimes I think they should charge a lot of money so people will respect it, but it's a free app, okay? And we're gonna do a meditation now, five minutes.

When you hear the bell go off, you're supposed to get religious, okay? And everyone gets quiet, and we'll meditate for five minutes. What I'd like you to meditate on is the shape, you have the vajra?

The shape of the diamond and the five stages of a spiritual life, right? Number one? Disaster.

Number two, the pan, okay? Number three, in deep meditation, you see emptiness directly. Number four, you use it for the rest of your life to have a beautiful life, okay?

And then number five, you just become a Buddha, okay? So I'd like you to, we're gonna do a meditation on the shape of a diamond, the five stages of life, and I'd like you to try to pinpoint where you are, okay? Where are you in those five stages, okay?

I'll give you a clue, since most people are probably in two by now. Two has two parts, okay? The first part, the easier part, is that, oh, pans are coming from me, or money is coming from me, or how my husband acts is coming from me, okay?

Because of how I treated people last week, all right? That's easy. But seeds in your mind also create the thoughts you hear in your mind, okay?

You are not the thinker. You are a listener. You are the witness of thought seeds opening in your mind, okay, which means you can't meditate.

You don't have any control over what your mind thinks about, okay? Your mind will throw up to your mind images from how you treated people last week, okay? If you made people sad last week, and since karma is always enhanced by the time it opens, you will be depressed this week, okay?

And you can't do anything about it, okay? That's why we're doing the study in the mental hospital. It's very interesting, okay?

You can't. My teacher, you knew Ken Rinpoche, right? People would come in, Rinpoche, I feel depressed, you know?

They'd say, I need an appointment with Rinpoche. They'd go upstairs, you know? I would translate his English into English, and Rinpoche would say, I'm depressed, Rinpoche.

And he'd say, he'd say, oh, okay. And they'd say, what should I do, Rinpoche? And he'd go, mm, be happy.

And then they'd be like, and I'm waiting. They'd say, okay, you can go down now. I'd say, Rinpoche, you know, depression is not like that.

You can't just tell someone to be happy. What are you talking about? He said, it's too late to not be depressed, okay?

You planted those seeds last week when you made other people sad. So when they open, you're going to hear depressed thoughts in your mind. You can't stop it, it's too late.

Push a tree back into the ground. It's too late, you know? If you don't want to be depressed next week, I can tell you how to do it.

But you're going to be depressed the rest of the week. I'm sorry. Okay?

When you understand that the thoughts in your mind are also ripening from the seeds you planted last week, you're at the advanced stage of level two. That's the one that keeps you being more or less an animal. Okay?

So it's important to remember. Okay? Here we go.

We're going to close our eyes for five minutes. Try to think about where you might be on the five paths. Where are you, you know?

How far did you get? Did you have your big disaster in life yet? Or should you pray for one?

Okay? Here we go. How far along are you?

You have to know because you're going to die. You have to finish before you die. It's a race.

Okay, here we go. That's not the bell. Take three deep breaths.

Three deep breaths before you open your eyes. Three deep breaths. Okay, good.

You can open your eyes. I'm going to skip some of the meditations. I'm going to do two things.

Number one, I'm going to skip some meditations. And number two, I'm not going to give you a break. So you were supposed to have a break, but we started late, okay?

And they're going to kick us out at a certain time. And I'm sorry for that. But that's the custom when you have a decent place to teach.

So, is that all right? We just go straight through? Okay.

There's a beautiful meditation based on why the Buddha is sitting in a garden when he gives this teaching, okay? And I'm going to skip that one, okay? We just don't have time.

I got to get to the meat of things. Then there's a very beautiful meditation about how the Buddha leaves the garden to go ask for food, for his food, and why Buddha only eats so little every day, and why he asks other people for food. And that's a beautiful meditation.

And if you want to learn those, there's a website. Do you have it? Can you put up the knowledge base?

There's a website that has 5,000 hours, 5,000 teachings on it, 25 years of teaching. And it's all free, okay? And you can go check for the Kamalashila.

And you can... It's in several languages, but you can just type in Kamalashila. And if you're interested, you can learn these other meditations, okay?

From the knowledge base, okay? It's a website, and it's free, okay? The next thing that happens in the sutra is that Lord Buddha goes into meditation.

And I'm not going to teach you that one. We'll skip, because we did it this morning or something. We'll skip that one.

Then the next one is that the monks arrive. Two and a half thousand monks arrive in the garden for a teaching. I went to that garden.

I was teaching in Bogaya. I was teaching the diamond cutter under the Buddha tree, under the Bodhi tree, which was pretty awesome. And for the first time it's ever been taught in English.

And we had a cool time. And then that was the millennium, the next day. So I drove like 14 hours to Shravasti, because some people said the world was going to end, because computers couldn't do zero-zero and all the nuclear weapons would go off.

And so I thought, if I'm going to die, I'd like to be sitting where the Buddha taught the diamond cutter. And so I went there. And I sat there at midnight and nothing happened.

But two and a half thousand monks come into the garden to request the teaching of Lord Buddha. They all touch their head to the feet of Lord Buddha. They circle around Lord Buddha three times.

And then one of them, whose name in Sanskrit is Subhuti, stands up and he says, may I ask a question? Before he asks the question, there's a custom in monk ethics. When you request the teaching, you drop your shawl from your left shoulder.

So he drops his shawl from his left shoulder. Then you have to kneel on your right knee. And then you have to hold your hands like this.

In Buddhism, you have to put the thumbs inside. And then you request the teaching. So he requests the teaching.

He says, I have a question. And would Lord Buddha answer my question? Lord Buddha says, yes, go ahead.

And he says, my question has three parts. All right. And Subhuti says, if you're a bodhisattva, if you are someone who is pledged to save the whole world, then how should you live?

And how should you practice? And how should you think? He asks these three questions, okay.

If you are pledged to help the whole world, then he asks us, how should you live? And how should you practice? And how should you think?

And for the rest of the sutra, Lord Buddha answers that question, okay. In brief, he says, the way you should live is that you should live in a state of hope to serve the world and to make the whole world a better place, okay. You should, how you should live is in a state of vision or a dream to serve the whole world.

That's how a bodhisattva should live. Secondly, sorry, how should you practice? You have to understand where the pen is coming from, okay.

You have to understand where things are coming from, okay. And that's it. That's Buddhist practice, okay.

Just understand where things are coming from. Then you can fix the world, okay. If you understand the pen is coming from whether you gave him a pen or not, or you know, you want a partner, then go help a lonely person.

Plan a seat for a lonely person. I had a famous lady in Europe. She's like number one Oprah Winfrey of Europe.

And she came to my talk and she asked, can I talk to you afterwards? I said, yeah, okay. She says, I'm very famous.

I said, I know. And she said, and everybody knows everything about my personal life. And I said, yeah.

And she said, and I don't have a boyfriend. And everybody knows. And it really bothers me, you know.

Is there a way to plan a seat for a boyfriend? So like I taught her this boyfriend planning seat. You gotta be careful with it because if you do it too much, you get three boyfriends.

That's another thing that happened to another person. But she did everything properly. There's four steps.

If reality is coming from my mind, then there are four steps to planning a seat, any kind of seat, okay. So if I want to be financially, I don't want to be wealthy, okay. I don't have any much things.

I don't, I'm smart enough to know if you have a house with 12 rooms, you have to clean 12 rooms, okay. So I have a tiny house. It has tiny rooms and it's comfortable.

It's good for meditation. I tried to live in a cave. It doesn't work, okay.

They have spiders, poisonous snakes and wolves visiting me. And I said, I'm gonna get a little house, you know. So I don't want to be, you know, Warren Buffett.

I just want to have a quiet little house that I don't have any debt. There's no mortgage. I'm financially independent.

I don't want to think about money. I want to be free from money. I don't want to be controlled by money.

I don't want to have to think about my credit card debts. I don't need to be rich, but I want to not think about money. I want to have that much money.

And you can plant it, okay. So we just did it with him, okay. There are four steps.

Shri Sampajwara Tattva, in the Abhidharmakosha, fourth chapter, okay. Lele jiten naso ke, denye semba dande, che semba yukhi le, you know. De che dudha ngakhi le.

Starts like that, okay. Four steps to planting your karma. Number one, you should be writing, if you want anything.

If you don't want anything in your life, you don't have to write, okay. Number one, decide what you want, okay. Like, I would like to have, I would like to be free of money.

I would like to not think about money, okay. Number one. Number two, find another person who has the same goal, okay.

Find another person who shares a similar goal, you know. I would like to be financially independent, okay. I'd like to do what I want, go where I want, buy what I want, and not think about the credit card bill, at all.

Somebody else pays it. Somebody else takes care of it, okay. I asked Scott this morning, I sent him an email, I said, I said, I need some money for India.

And he said, well, why are you writing me? I said, I don't know how to take money out of the bank. Yeah, I haven't done it for like, I don't know, many years, you know.

Somebody else takes care of it, I don't know. Okay, that would be better, right? And then, third step, help them to get what they want once a week for one hour.

Period, that's all. Help them to get what they want once a week for one hour. It's called jorwa.

Do it. Nike, what's it called? Just do it.

Yeah, people, just do it. Okay, one hour a week. If you don't want to be financially independent, don't do it.

If you don't want to have a beautiful relationship, don't do it. If you don't want to have ballet health at 60 something, then don't do it, okay? You can do anything, okay?

You can change your body. I used to have a handicap, I couldn't walk sometimes. And I changed it, I just changed it, okay?

Four steps. It's not like a miracle. If the world is coming from your mind, you just fix stuff, okay?

Got it? You're supposed to say, what's step four, Geshe-la? Step four is very cool.

A normally planted karma under normal conditions may take thousands of years to open, okay? And if you want to wait thousands of years, don't listen to step four, okay? Step four is called tantuka and it means if you have a certain attitude about the seed you planted, because prana rides on the thoughts, because they are tied together, because where you put your mind, prana will also go.

If you focus on the kindnesses you have done to other people, that ripens the seed faster. My Shanghai students call it, they gave me a new name, I don't know the Chinese, okay? They say, oh, you mean mama chicken sitting on the egg.

I said, yeah, that's pretty good, okay? It means if you want to speed the karma up, you have to set aside a certain period of the day. My Lama said, before you go to bed, as you, you know, stretch out, I don't know about you, when I get down on my bed, this thing happens from my mouth, I can't stop it even if I want to, it's like, ah, I'm so happy, like the bed is the best thing in my life.

You know, and I'm just like, ah. It's like involuntary noise comes out of my mouth, you know, and ah. And when you get to that point between then and the time you sleep, think about the good seeds you have planted, okay?

Think about the kindnesses you have done to other people. If you're on a specific program to become financially independent, then tonight, when I go, ah, then what's the next thought? Yeah, I gave the money to that dude whose name I don't even know.

What is your name? What's your name?

[Speaker 2]
Michel.

[Speaker 1]
Michel? Michel. Michel.

Oh, I gave Michel some money today, that was so smart, you know. And it was kind, kind and smart, like that's a Buddhist, perfect Buddhism. Kind and smart, you know.

And, you know, it's just gonna bring me beautiful things and it already brought him beautiful things and it's a win-win. And, you know, when you are, when you take pleasure in your own good deeds, that's Buddhism. That's the essence of Buddhism, okay?

Like, of course you've done a lot of mistakes in your life. We all have, okay? But when you focus on them, you just make them stronger, okay?

So focus on the things you've done nice for other people. There's no expiration date. A karmic seed will stay in your mind indefinitely.

Karmic seeds are more powerful than the body. If the body happens to die by accident before the karmic seed opens, that seed will find another body, okay? All right?

The seed cannot be destroyed, all right? So, focus on it. Make it grow faster.

Those are the four steps, okay? Don't say I didn't tell you. If I see you next year, and you're complaining about your credit card, don't blame me, okay?

And I'm not kidding. The lady in Europe, whose country I can't mention, she did it. She actually did what I asked her to do, which makes her like one out of a million.

And she went to the nursing home. She served, and she... Number one, I want a boyfriend.

Number two, find a lonely person. Number three, go to the nursing home. Take care of...

Adopt an elderly lady who has no family, right? Visit her once a week for one hour. And then, when you get home, just be happy about the nice thing you did, okay?

Like that. You can be happy about two things. Number one, I did a nice thing.

Number two, I'm trying a new system other than nightclubs and online dating, you know? Like, I'm trying a different system. I'm planting the boy.

I'm not looking for the boy. Okay? Got the difference?

Planting is a lot more predictable. All right? You can plant the different qualities you want also, but I don't have time to teach you that.

Come to a DCI event, okay? So she did it. She actually did it.

Then she said she was walking down... What's it called? Vitoshka?

Yeah, if you know Europe, you know which street. She was walking down Vitoshka Street. She ran into a guy physically.

She was looking at a dress in the window, and she smashed into this guy, this big handsome, you know... They got married. She missed my talks last year.

I was kind of irritated. Just because you got the boy, you don't come to see me. She said, no, Geshe-la, I'm sorry.

I was having a baby, you know? I was giving a baby. I said, okay, that's okay, you know?

And she's very happy, okay? You can do stuff like that. I was in Shanghai.

Then a guy said I have to... No, that's a baby. This is a guy who was complaining.

He grabbed me after the talk. He said, you told us last year if we did the stupid four steps, we could have anything we want. I told you I wanted something.

I didn't get it. Then I'm like, I'm sorry. Did you do the four steps?

Yes. Did you do number one? Yes, I wanted...

I decided what I wanted was to make $10 million. Did you do step number two? Yes, I did.

I found another person who wanted to make, you know, like a similar amount of money. Did you do step number three? Yes, I actually went and helped him one hour a week.

Did you do step number four? He looks down. I was in the dining business.

When you're dealing with somebody and they look down, they're about to tell you a lie. And he goes like this. He says, yeah, I did number four.

I said, how many days a week? Well, you know, pretty much. How many days a week?

I'm like, I don't know. Sometimes I did it once a week. I said, I told you I had to do it every evening.

You know, that's why you didn't get what you wanted. He says, I didn't say I didn't get what I wanted. I said, you just told me you didn't get what you wanted.

He said, I didn't get all of what I wanted. I said, well, what happened? He says, I only made $8 million.

You know, I said, then you know what I want to say to Scott is, you know, we should try to do what we talk about. But when you're a teacher, you have to be tough to the people. You know, I said, that's why you lost $2 million.

You know, you have to do step number four. OK, so anyway, you can use it. OK, if reality is coming from you, then you can adjust reality.

Of course, when the money comes to you, you have to do what? You have to reinvest it. You have to give it to some charity.

You pick your own charity. OK, make your own charity. Call it, you know, the Roach Fund or whatever you want.

You can name it after your mom or your dog or something. OK, my dog used to be George. I have a George Fund.

And you make your own charity. And you give it, keep giving. And then it just keeps cycling.

OK, help other people find boyfriends. Take your husband to the nursing home. Don't stop going to the nursing home.

OK, and you'll never get divorced. All right, it's cool. OK, so, to bring it back to Dharmakara Sutra, the Buddha says, how should you live?

You should dream of a perfect world where everyone is just planting the things they want. And everyone gets everything they dream of. OK, number one.

Number two, how should you practice? Think about the pen over and over and over. OK, anytime you want something in your life, anytime you have a challenge in your life, pull out a pen.

That's why I use a pen. Nowadays, I'm using a cell phone a lot. Because the kids don't use pens anymore.

OK, the pen is coming from you. The cell phone is coming from you. OK, so just remember, that's how you should practice, says Lord Buddha.

And then the answer to this, what was the third question? How should I think, Lord Buddha? For the rest of my life, how should I think?

He says, how should you think? Don't forget number two. OK, don't forget number two.

Especially under pressure, OK? Especially under pressure, OK? By the way, that's where the conversation goes to, if you're a real bodhisattva, you should be taking other people to nirvana.

This is your job. That's a job description of a bodhisattva. You should be leading.

This is Lord Buddha speaking in the Diamond Cutter Sutra. You should lead every person to nirvana. But then he says something weird, OK?

Then he says, but when they get there, nobody gets there. OK, when you finally push someone into nirvana, nobody reaches nirvana. Nobody goes to nirvana, OK?

And then Buddha, like, takes a break. And everyone's like, huh? You know, what do you mean there's nobody there?

I'm going to teach you, OK? Here we go. And this is how to think, OK?

This is the answer to the third question, OK? The third question is, how should we think? And Lord Buddha says, don't forget what I told you about the pen.

Even when things get hard, especially when things get hard, pull out the knowledge you have. So you're, you want to work, you know, the new liberated women in the world, especially in China, before you just had to cook and raise the kids. Now you have to make the money and cook and raise the kids.

And the husband is watching videos, OK? And so you're driving home and you're really tired, you know, and you took the kids to the school in the morning and you worked all day. Then, you know, it's a sacred duty of a woman in China to buy the vegetables on the way home.

And you have to spend like 45 minutes picking out the best bai cai. And then you, you know, and then you come home and you're hoping for a hug from your husband, you know? And you open the door and you say, honey, I'm here.

And the husband says, you're so stupid! OK? Did it happen to you?

I don't know. And you say, why? And he says, dinner is late.

I know I had to take the kids, I had to pick the groceries, maybe you could have helped me. You're so stupid! OK?

Then what's the natural reaction to that? Yeah, you respond with the same thing. I'm not stupid, you're stupid.

You're stupid if you think I'm stupid because I had to go to the grocery store and, you know, I've been working all day. Maybe you could have just picked up some vegetables on the way home. Or maybe you could have worked today, you know?

And so the natural reaction is to say the same thing back to your husband, OK? Now, when you say, when you call someone stupid, who hears you? Who hears you?

When you give them money, who sees your hand open? You see, that plants the karma. When you call somebody stupid, who hears it?

You hear it. It plants a seed in your head that when you open the door and the karmic seed opens, somebody says, you're stupid, OK? How did you plant that seed?

Last week, you asked the kids, I go, mommy has to go to work early on Wednesday. Please be ready with your shoes on at eight o'clock to go to school a little bit early, OK? And they say, yes, mommy.

And then you come in at 7.45 and they're jumping on the bed and they don't have their school clothes on and the shoes you don't, nobody knows where the shoes are, you know? And you say, you are some of the stupidest kids in the world, you know? Something like that, OK?

Who hears you? You hear and the kids hear, OK? When you hear those words yourself, it brushes against your mind.

The anger glues it. The anger fixes it. And then it makes an impression on your mind and that becomes a karmic seed, OK?

Then you come home a week later through no fault of your own, right? You are not to blame, right? And your husband goes off and starts calling you stupid, OK?

Are you to blame or not? You're always to blame. You're always to blame, OK?

Got it? In Buddhism, there's no such thing as, it's not my fault, for no reason at all, OK? It's always your fault.

You come in, the seed opens, just like with the pen, OK? The seed opens and the husband says, you're stupid, OK? Now, here's the crux.

What's the stupidest, how can you prove you're stupid at that moment? Yeah, respond to him. Call him stupid, all right?

Then you can prove that he is correct. OK? Why?

Because when you plant the new seed, then you go, next week, you have to go a week earlier to tell the kids that they're going to do something stupid. Because they're also coming from you. Then you'll get mad at them and you'll plant a new seed and then you'll, what's that cycle called?

There are two names. Samsara. There are many samsaras, by the way.

There are stupid, husband's stupid calling samsaras. They just keep repeating over and over, OK? Then there's big ones called life, OK?

Wheel of life, samsara, OK? Why am I talking about this? We're supposed to be answering the question, why, when you guide people to nirvana, does nobody reach nirvana, OK?

What does that mean, OK? To answer that question, you have to understand husband, when you walk in the door and he calls you stupid, OK? At that moment, there's two husbands in the room.

You've got to understand that. Yugyudag megyudag. There's a husband who's there and there's a husband who's missing, OK?

There's two husbands in the room. There's a husband who's there and there's a husband who's missing, all right? There's always two husbands in the room, OK?

Who's the one who's there? The one who came from yelling at the kids last week, OK? That man is there.

That husband is there. He's the one who called you stupid. Who's the husband who's not there?

Nice slides, Scott. Who's the husband who's not there? Not my fault, for no reason at all.

OK, got it? Understand? That husband is there or not?

The one who's not your fault. Is he there? I just told you it's always your fault.

Now, let's say it again. If it's always your fault and there's a husband there who's not your fault, does he exist or not? Yeah, he's not there.

Never was there. Couldn't be there. Isn't there.

Never will be there. Cannot be there. Impossible.

OK? But you, now, now, here's the husband who's your fault because he yelled at the kids last week and you planned out a karmic sin. Here's the husband who's not your fault who doesn't even exist, OK?

Listen. Which one do you get angry at? Which one do you call stupid?

The one that's not exist. Yeah, the one over here doesn't even exist, OK? Every time you ever had a negative emotion in your whole life, you were angry over something that didn't exist.

That's emptiness, kongxin, OK? The second husband who's not your fault, he's not there. He never was there.

But that's the one you're angry at. And that's the one you create yelling kids with. Got it?

It's like a tragedy, OK? No, all sadness, all pain, all suffering in the world is created by phantoms. Being angry at someone who's not even there, OK?

All war, all hunger, all poverty created by someone who's not even there. That's the big, I don't know, irony of life, OK? How can that help you reach nirvana?

What's the definition of nirvana? Can somebody give me the definition of nirvana? If you want to impress people, you can do it in Tibetan.

Nyingyir malaprabhāmbhava sva-suntango. Nyingyir malaprabhāmbhava sva-suntango, which means ending your negative emotions permanently because you understand the husband who's not there. You understand it.

And according to Buddhism, that's the only way to destroy your anger forever, OK? Why? Open the door, husband says, you're stupid.

And then you're like, you're stupid. Yeah, OK. When you run past the husband to the bathroom, you're stupid.

And you're looking in the mirror, right?

[Speaker 2]
You're so stupid.

[Speaker 1]
OK, that's OK. That stupid person is there. OK, understand?

So according to Buddhism, the only way to reach nirvana, and the only way to stop your anger and your jealousy and your desire, is to realize that the people you're angry at, or that you desire, the things you desire, don't exist. They never existed. OK, understand?

Geshe-la, look, I understand what you're saying. But those guys at the airport had two huge boxes of Dunkin' Donuts, and I was really debating whether to go with their re-suggestion to have a green smoothie, or just walk over and say, can I have three of those? Yesterday.

Are you telling me the Dunkin' Donut's not there? Yes. I am saying that I saw it, Geshe-la.

They opened the box, there was chocolate, there was maple, there was a sprinkled one that I was really thinking about. What do you mean it's not there? It wasn't there, OK?

The donut that you think you can get by taking one, is not there, OK? The donut that you can get by sharing one, is always there. OK, got it?

Understand? You cannot have a desire, if you understand where things are coming from, OK? You can't want to take something from someone else, if you understand where it's coming from.

Because the only way to get a donut is to share donuts. Got it? Same with money.

So now I taught you the most important three things in life. Money, partner, and donuts. OK?

It's all the same, OK? So you can't not reach nirvana, unless you understand kong qing, emptiness. It's not possible, OK?

You cannot reach nirvana. When you reach nirvana, you better understand that the person who reached nirvana wasn't there. Then some people misunderstood that, right?

They said, because Buddha said your mind and body disappear. Your mind and body disappear. You reach nirvana and your mind and body disappear.

What did he mean? The mind and body which you cannot mold into whatever you want, disappear. OK?

The mind and body which are going to die, the mind and body which are going to be sad, depressed, unhappy, you destroy them. You cannot be sad anymore. And frankly, your body cannot grow older, if you really share.

Then Buddha said, when you reach nirvana, you lose those two. You lose that body, and you lose that mind. OK?

It doesn't mean you disappear, OK? You get to keep the body that you planted, and you get to keep the mind that you planted. OK?

Clear? All right? It doesn't mean you pop, you know, you disappear and you don't have to pay your taxes this year.

It's not like that. OK? The old body disappears.

All right? And the old mind disappears. OK?

That's nirvana. So, when you reach nirvana, the old person is gone. OK?

Now, let's start the teaching. I want to get to this part, OK? So, Buddha gets kind of wrathful with Subuddhi, which is common for a teacher.

My teacher used to get wrathful with me, like, every five minutes for 25 years. And it's a good... It molds you.

It builds character. So, Subuddhi asked the Lord Buddha questions. Look, I, you know, it sounds mystical and everything.

By the way, put that on your lap. It's good luck. It's not good luck to have your foot on it.

OK, good. Subuddhi says to Lord Buddha, You know, it sounds cool that nobody's there. Nobody reaches nirvana.

The husband I was angry at was never there. You know, that sounds really cool. There's no self, unatman, right?

There's no self. I like it. It sounds very mystical.

You know? But it's a little hard to buy, Lord Buddha. You know?

It doesn't make sense for three reasons. So, we're gonna get... We're gonna go there, OK?

Because we only have like 20 minutes left. It's a little hard to buy, Lord Buddha, when you say there's no Michael. OK?

When you say emptiness means there's no Michael. OK? It's just hard to buy.

And Lord Buddha says, Why? And Subuddhi says, Three reasons. Number one.

By the way, Lord Buddha gets wrathful. He says, Subuddhi, if you think there is a Michael, you're no bodhisattva. I cannot call you a bodhisattva.

You're not a bodhisattva. OK? If you think there is a person who achieves nirvana, then you're not a bodhisattva.

You can't call yourself a bodhisattva. So Subuddhi gets a little irritated. He doesn't call Lord Buddha stupid because he knows about that.

But he says, Three problems, Lord Buddha. Number one. First problem is, so somebody used to not understand the pen.

There was a Michael last year who didn't understand the pen. And then he went to this talk at Lincoln Center. OK?

We don't have... Don't tell people Geshe Michael talked in the smallest auditorium in the back. OK?

Just say he was at Lincoln Center teaching. And... Misabuddhi.

Then... Then... So, there's this person.

I didn't know who was causing me all my pain or who was making the kids bad. And then you talked about the pen. And then I understood the bad kid and the irritating husband were coming from me.

OK? Every irritating person you ever met in your life was coming from you. They are a direct mirror of your own behavior.

OK, I understood that, Lord Buddha. But when I understood it, and I stopped responding to my husband, and that kicked me into nirvana, then was the person who didn't understand it, OK, in the past, who used to yell at the husband, and the person who's now in nirvana, who realizes she didn't yell at her husband, are those two people connected or not? Are they linked or not?

Did one come from the other or not? Was there a tie between the two? Were they somehow connected or not?

Because if there's no Michael, you cannot say they're connected. Then, if that's true, random people should pop into nirvana any old time. And some people should get stuck outside of nirvana forever.

OK? If there's no connection between the person who was yelling at the husband and the person who went to the teaching and then later stopped yelling at the husband, if there's no connection between Michael in December and Michael in March, then how can you say anybody got free? Is that what you're talking about?

How can there be any... How can anybody get to nirvana if there's no money? OK?

That's the first problem, Lord Buddha. Second... OK, ready?

Are you OK? You're god-awful quiet. Lord Buddha, you know, did the husband yell because the lady...

because I yelled at my kids last week. Yes. So, is there a connection between the person who does the karma and the person who gets the result of the karma?

Are they connected or not? Lord Buddha has to say... Yes, of course.

Otherwise, you could do anything. You could hurt people and get good results. OK?

There has to be a connection between the person who did it and the person who got the nice result or the bad result. OK? That connection is called Michael.

The thing that runs from Wednesday morning kids yelling to, you know, next Tuesday evening husband screaming, the person between those two, the person that connects those two events is Michael. You can't say, Lord Buddha, that nobody reaches nirvana. You can't say there's no Michael.

What are you talking about? You want another one? OK, one more.

He's from China. Not really. Third one.

When you... Let's say you didn't see your mother for, I don't know, five years or something. OK?

Let's say you're really busy and you couldn't get back to Moscow or something. You didn't see your mother for five years. OK?

So, when you... When you go to the airport to pick up your mother in Miami or something. OK?

Then you're standing there and you're looking... You're trying to pick your mother out of a crowd. And then suddenly you do, right?

Oh, that's my mom. How do you know? How do you know that's your mom?

You have to say, I recognize her. I remember her. I recognize her face.

She's five years older but it's still pretty similar. You know? That's my mom.

So, are you connected to the person who met her five years ago? There must be a connection. Otherwise you would take everyone in the airport home and make them dinner.

I don't know which one of you is my mom. But I'm just covering my bases here. You know?

OK. Alright? There must be a connection between the person who knew your mother before, who saw her face before, and then five years later the person who picks her out of a crowd in the airport.

Is there a connection or not? There must be. OK?

There must be. And that connection is Michael. Michael over time.

So Lord Buddha, when you say there's no person, when you say nobody reaches nirvana, I don't know what the heck you're talking about. It's just crazy. You know?

Anathman. You know? There's no Swamiji.

You know? It's crazy. I don't understand what you're talking about.

OK? What's the answer to this conundrum? Anybody want to take a shot?

What's Buddha mean when he says there's no person there? Connected to the husband who's yelling. When Buddha said nobody reaches nirvana, or there's no Anton, what does he mean?

Does he mean there's no connection between doing something nice and getting a nice result five years later? Or seeing your mother and recognizing her five years later? Or having been an angry person and now being a completely calm person because you're not mad at nobody anymore?

Is there a connection between those people? Yeah, of course, there's a connection between those people. OK, I'll give you another clue.

Here's the connection between the guy who yelled at the kids and the guy who got yelled at by his wife. OK? Here's the connection between the two.

Is it coming this way or is it coming this way? Now you can answer. What?

Yeah, it's coming from me. It's coming from me. When Lord Buddha says there's no Michael, what does he mean?

There's no Michael coming this way. OK? There's no Michael who's not coming from how you treat other people.

Cool? There's no Michael who's not coming from how you treat other people. And that's emptiness.

That's kong qing. That's the point of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. OK?

It's the big deal about the Diamond Cutter Sutra. A Michael who is not flowing out of the seeds planted by how he behaved last week towards people doesn't exist. OK?

Never existed. There's no Michael who does karma and who experiences the results later. That Michael doesn't exist if you think he just comes from anywhere.

He's also... The connection is also coming from you. What happens if you lose that connection?

What happens if you don't have seeds in your mind to have that connection? It's called Alzheimer's or autism. OK?

You can't connect the present to what happened five minutes ago. You keep asking... I take care of a 90-year-old lady.

Guess why? I took her to... I spent 500 bucks on her two nights ago.

I took her to the Four Seasons restaurant in Scottsdale. Oh my God! It really pushed my credit card over the limit.

But, you know, she kept asking you the same questions. She said, What did you do yesterday? It's good to see you, Mike.

She forgot your name, Nick. I finally won this battle. He and I were competing for her attention.

And she said, Who was that nice boy who came... He's been helping her for like five years. And who's that nice boy who came the other day?

And she doesn't have the seeds to connect the present to what happened five minutes ago. OK? So for her, the lady of five minutes ago doesn't exist.

You understand? OK? It's coming from your own mind.

Your connection to what happened in the past is coming from your own mind. Last thing. Uh...

Kamala Sheila calls it the cocoon. The cocoon. OK?

He calls it the cocoon. I think there's a picture in your reading somewhere. There's a butterfly.

What number is that? Number eight? Sixteen.

Oh, wow. You guys really went a long way. Sixteen is a butterfly.

He says, The Michael who yelled at the children jumping on the bed was the caterpillar. The Michael who came home and got yelled at by his wife is the butterfly. And the cocoon in which the...

that the caterpillar crawled into seven days ago before he came out of the cocoon last night and got yelled at, someone created the cocoon. That cocoon is called Anton or Elizaveta or... You know, you create the cocoon.

You create the thing called you. OK? The cocoon is also created by you.

The cocoon is seven days long. OK? And your life is like that.

That's you. OK? That's you.

So we're gonna do the last meditation, all right? And go on the Knowledge Base and watch this thing, OK? Go on the Knowledge Base and get the whole meditations.

I can't do twenty-five in two hours. I'm sorry. And you also fall asleep.

I've experienced that. OK. All right.

Let's do a meditation. One last meditation, OK? Choose a person in your life with whom you are having some challenge right now in your life.

Maybe it's your boss at work who doesn't understand you. Maybe it's your partner who doesn't appreciate you. Maybe it's your children who don't behave how you would like them to.

Pick any person in your life who's a challenge for you right now. And I'll do the same thing. Now to fix them, I'm going to stop planting seeds in my mind.

I'm going to stop behaving like them. OK? So the person I have in mind, I don't know, they're just kind of irritating and insensitive.

They hurt my feelings sometimes. And so during this meditation for the next five minutes till the ding goes off, we're going to think about how possibly I might be planting that behavior with my own behavior. OK?

So if I could stop, then they would stop. OK? That's how to stop irritating people.

Shooting them is not a clean solution. OK, here we go. Five minutes on how the most irritating person in your life may have been planted and may continue to be planted by me doing the same thing to other people.

OK, here we go. Five minutes. Three deep breaths.

Take three deep breaths. OK, open your eyes. Good.

So you can see from... The text today is the Diamond Cutter Sutra. The essence of the Diamond Cutter Sutra is emptiness.

Don't forget that emptiness means the husband who is not there when someone's yelling at you. The husband who's not there is the one who is not your fault. Got it?

That's emptiness. Does it help you? Will it help you?

If you remember. Which you can't until two hours later. First time, OK?

It gets faster and faster, OK? Yeah, emptiness is supposed to help you, OK? If emptiness is...

If you understand it correctly, it becomes the biggest help in your life. OK, understand? If you don't understand it correctly, you're just gonna lose your keys all the time.

Understand? Just meditate on your breath or something, OK? It's not emptiness, OK?

If you understand what emptiness is, then it can help you your whole life, OK? Things you don't like, you can stop them. Things you want, you can get all of them, OK?

Emptiness makes it possible. So, we couldn't do many of the meditations, I'm sorry. What I would do if I were you, the one or two people in this room who are ambitious, I took a photo of each of the 25 meditations, you know?

Just because I like to meditate with my phone in my hand. Where is the... Yeah, I took pictures of each of the 25 pictures, and I put them in my phone, because it's nice to have your phone in your hand, OK?

So, like that's the butterfly picture, OK? And I get the butterfly picture up, and then I turn on the meditation app, OK? So, since everything is on your phone, you feel comfortable, OK?

It's real, OK? OK? So, I bring up the butterfly picture.

I'm on a plane, you know? I'm busy. I'm always on a plane.

If I'm not teaching, I'm on a plane. I got so many miles. Where are we?

We landed somewhere. They said, we'll take you in a car to the gate. China.

Yeah. And there are like three people from the airline waiting at the gate. They said, we'll take...

At the end of the ramp, they said, step down the stairs to the runway, and we'll take you to the next gate, you know? I said, why? They said, you're like zillion miles, you know?

You're a valued customer. I said, well, how far away is the gate? It's the next gate over.

I said, I think I can walk it, you know? So, you know, I'm busy. But on the plane or waiting for the plane, the plane is late.

I'm so happy when the plane is late. I pull up my butterfly picture. I turn on the app.

The phone is where it's supposed to be in my hot little hand. And I'm meditating, you know, at the gate. And it's powerful.

It's super cool, okay? Get the free app, inside timer. Take photos of the things in the book, okay?

And then see if you can remember what it means, okay? Some of them I didn't teach you. There's your mom that you're going to recognize, okay?

Because you built a cocoon called you, okay? There's the postman. Who's the postman?

That's the guy who delivers letters that you wrote to yourself. Okay? Don't blame your husband for delivering to you the letter which you wrote to yourself when you yelled at the kids last week.

Got it? Don't blame the postman. You're going to open the letter and it's going to say, you're stupid, okay?

Who wrote it? Who wrote it? You did last week, okay?

Don't yell at your husband. He's just a postman, okay? And then there's the guy in jail, okay?

Who's that? Is there a connection between the person who used to yell at her husband and then now the new intelligent person who knows that that's just going to make a worse husband, okay? Because the husband's coming from me.

So go through all those meditations. There's the lady yelling at her husband, okay? I gave you most of them without you knowing it, okay?

And there's the pen coming out of your mind. Okay, got it? And do five minutes each for a couple of weeks and your mind will totally change, okay?

You will be in a different place, okay? You'll be happy. You'll be really, really happy, okay?